The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Urgh …’ Alice scuffed past and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Franklin pointed down the hall. ‘I can wait in the car?’

  ‘I’ll only be a minute. Have a seat.’

  When I got back from brushing my teeth, Franklin was still standing where I’d left her. Shifting from foot to foot as Alice slouched over a large steaming mug of hot chocolate – going by the smell.

  Neither of them seemed to realise I was there.

  The bags under Alice’s eyes had darkened, a puffiness to both them and her cheeks, the beginnings of creases forming on either side of her chin. Looking more mid-forties than early-thirties. She rubbed a hand across her shiny forehead. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I might be a teensy bit hungover.’

  Franklin nodded. Looking even more stiff and uncomfortable. ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘When I started out, I had a mentor who claimed alcohol was the key to “forging non-linear connections in behavioural evidence analysis by dampening down areas of modal control in the brain, allowing the forensic psychologist to experience a heightened state of detached-consciousness processing” the only problem being that you end up drunk thirty percent of the day, operating normally for twenty percent, and hungover the rest of the time.’ All this, whoomped out in a non-stop rattle. ‘Sorry, I’m babbling, I babble when I’m nervous, and how long does it have to take for paracetamol and ibuprofen to kick in?’ Almost sobbing at the end there.

  ‘Well … maybe your mentor …?’

  Alice folded forwards, forehead on the table. ‘Henry.’

  ‘Henry?’ Franklin pulled her chin in and stared at the hairy black face gazing up at her with his tail wagging. ‘He’s your mentor?’ Backing off a pace from the clearly crazy lady.

  ‘Dr Henry Forrester, he’s dead now. We named our dog after him.’

  ‘OK. So, basically, your mentor, Henry, who isn’t the dog, told you to get drunk a lot and that’ll help you think like serial killers?’

  Alice raised a hand, and gave her a thumbs-up.

  ‘No offence, but he sounds like an idiot.’

  I cleared my throat and Franklin turned. Blushed again.

  ‘Mr Henderson. Are you ready?’

  ‘When you are.’ Pulling on my coat. ‘Alice, you looking after Henry today, or are you too hungover?’

  ‘I’m dying …’

  ‘Fair enough. I’m taking some of your business cards, OK? Chucked the last of mine at Leah MacNeil yesterday.’ I dug a dozen or so out of her satchel, stuck them in my pocket, then grabbed the wee man’s lead from the shelving unit. ‘Franklin, you don’t mind if he joins us today?’

  And her face lit up, like it had on the carousel. Then she hauled on a blanket of studied nonchalance. ‘Suppose so. Why not?’

  ‘Good.’ Alice got a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Shower. You smell like a dead person.’ Henry came running soon as I jangled his lead. ‘Come on, teeny monster, we’re off to catch some bad guys.’

  Hopefully.

  The darkened countryside streaked past the pool car’s windows, twinkling lights of distant farmhouses drifting by in slower motion.

  Hands wrapped around the wheel, Franklin glanced across the car at me. Probably thought she was being subtle.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Henry poked his head through from the back seat, panting away, looking up at me then at Franklin, as if trying to figure out if either of us had any sausages.

  Franklin did it again. ‘Only, you and Dr McDonald … they’re OK with you two working together? I mean, I know LIRU isn’t strictly speaking Police Scotland, and you’re both civilians, but still.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they be OK with us working together?’

  ‘You know, if you’re,’ she pulled her mouth out and down, jerking her chin up a couple of times, ‘at it?’

  Eh?

  ‘At what?’

  ‘It. You know, sex. In a relationship. Shagging.’

  I stared back across the car. ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘You’re not—’

  ‘She’s young enough to be my daughter!’

  ‘Yes, but you middle-aged men like—’

  ‘I am not sleeping with Alice! We’re … I don’t know, family?’

  Franklin stuck her eyes on the road again. ‘None of my business anyway.’

  ‘Christ knows what would happen if I wasn’t there to look after— Oh, for God’s sake.’ My phone blared out ‘I Am the Walrus’. Which could only mean one person. I pulled it free and pressed the button. ‘Sabir? Not like you to surface before noon.’

  ‘Not gone to bed yet, been too busy shagging yer ma.’

  ‘She’s still dead, Sabir.’

  ‘I’m not that fussy, these days. You seen yer email yet? Sent yez a list of them locations in the photos. And youse should be wershipping the ground I walk on for that. You got any idea how hard it is to write an algorithm that does a reverse image lookup, with wildcarding, for backgrounds across all of Google Maps and every image posted to Facebook in the last six years? See if I wasn’t a total IT god, you wouldn’t have a—’

  ‘Are you planning on getting to the point at all, here?’

  ‘How come no bugger appreciates a proper banging genius in their lifetime? Anyway, I got youse all them locations and …?’

  ‘If you’re waiting for a thank you, you’re going to be there a while.’

  ‘God, you’ve gorra right cob on, this morning, haven’t ya? The “and”, at the end there, refers to the fact that I know who one of yer victims is.’

  My phone dinged and buzzed in my hand. Incoming text message.

  SABIR4TEHPOOL:

  Keith Whatley AKA: Simpson Kinkaid (stage

  name)

  Was in B&TB panto in Edinburgh

  Went missing 32 years ago

  The message came with a professional headshot – it was the laughing man from Princes Street Gardens, the one in front of the Scott Monument. Same beard, but doing a smoulder for the camera this time.

  Another ding-buzz. This time it was a bunch of web links, including one for Simpson Kinkaid’s Wikipedia page.

  ‘Ye got all that?’

  ‘What’s B-and-TB, when it’s at home?’

  ‘Beauty and the Beast, you cultureless div. Don’t youse never go to the theatre?’

  ‘And let me guess, Gordon Smith did the set for them?’

  ‘No idea, crap like that’s way below me paygrade. Get yer bizzie mates to find out. Till then, I’m gonna roll back on top of yer ma and see if I can’t hump her back to life. Laters.’ He hung up.

  One down.

  I called up the footage I’d shot in Smith’s basement, pausing it at the Polaroid in question. Spooled it forward till it got to the matching one from the other side of the room. The one after Gordon Smith and his wife had been at him. The one with all the blood and frozen screaming.

  Franklin was looking at me again. ‘Something important?’

  ‘Got an ID on the bearded guy.’ Slid my finger across the progress bar, restoring him to life again. Went a bit too far. Ended up with the young woman on the beach, T-shirt and shorts. Then the young man trying to grow a moustache. Then the young woman and older man, in ugly sportswear, on a putting course. And back to Keith Whatley, AKA: Simpson Kinkaid, again.

  It was … weird. Risky. Abducting and murdering someone you’d worked with: that would leave a trail. Why would Gordon Smith take that chance? Or did he feel invincible thirty-two years ago? He’d got away with it so many times before, why would anyone make the connection?

  Still, it was worth a look.

  I thumbed out a reply to Sabir’s last text:

  See if you can get a cast list for all the

  productions Gordon Smith did sets for and

  run them against the misper database.

  Might find this wasn’t the only actor he

  took a fancy to.

  SEND.

  Took barely a minute for the
reply to come winging back.

  SABIR4TEHPOOL:

  Do one.

  UR 8 hours is up.

  No pay – no play.

  Ah well, it’d been worth a try.

  Ooh, on the other hand, this would be the perfect thing to lumber Detective Constable John Watt with.

  ‘Erm … Mr Henderson? What’s with the evil smile?’

  Watt indeed?

  A thin line of pale blue ran along the horizon as we climbed out of the manky old Ford Focus. No wind. No rain. No thundering waves pounding at the headland. Instead it was actually kind of pleasant. And surprisingly warm for mid-November.

  The small handful of working streetlights cast their cheery yellow glow into the pre-dawn gloom, someone’s cockerel crowing out its morning greeting. And, blessing of blessings, no sign of any outside broadcast vans or journalists. Not yet, anyway.

  Franklin frowned at me. ‘You’re doing that smile again.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes, and it’s creepy, so please stop.’

  I clunked my door shut and she locked the car.

  Henry danced a couple of circles on the end of his lead, letting loose a ripple of small happy barks. Before sniffing one of the front tyres and widdling on it. Scraping his back paws on the pitted tarmac.

  The curtains twitched on Helen MacNeil’s caravan.

  Great.

  Thirty seconds later she was out, hurrying across the road and following the three of us up the path to Mother’s commandeered basecamp. ‘Are they searching for my Leah?’

  ‘Mrs MacNeil.’ I stopped. Turned. ‘E Division have a lookout request on the go for her, but she’s—’

  ‘You have to find her!’ Hard strong hands grabbing at my lapels. ‘You have to bring her back.’

  Down by my ankles, Henry growled.

  ‘It’s …’ I went for that reassuring-police-officer voice again: ‘I’ve asked for a warrant to track her phone.’ Which was true. Helen didn’t need to know that Mother had turned me down flat.

  ‘Your weird girl was right: I should’ve put a tracking app on Leah’s mobile when I had the chance. But it’s too late for that. I need you to find her!’

  ‘We’re doing everything we can.’ Trying to sound sincere and convincing. ‘But you know what police budgets are like. Maybe you could try getting a private detective? Johnston and Gench, in Shortstaine are good. Or there’s McLean and McNee, in Logansferry?’

  She let go and stepped back. ‘You’re not going to help me, are you?’

  I raised my eyebrows at Franklin, but she just stood there. Then seemed to twig, because she made a great show of looking at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs MacNeil, but Mr Henderson and I are late for our morning briefing. We’ve got a killer to catch.’

  ‘I’ll chase up the lookout request and make sure Edinburgh are still on it. I promise.’

  Franklin took hold of my sleeve. ‘We really do have to go.’

  Helen glowered at me. ‘Leah’s all I’ve got left.’

  ‘I know. But in the meantime, I’m going to try catching the bastard who murdered your daughter.’

  20

  ‘Any questions?’ Mother folded her thick arms and leaned back against the windowsill. Behind her, that line of pale blue had reached up the sky, a smear of red replacing it on the horizon. The outside broadcast vans had arrived at last, bringing with them a flotilla of hatchbacks and four-by-fours. All ready for the media circus to kick off once more.

  Especially now one of their own had died.

  The team was gathered in their cheap and nasty plastic chairs, Henry curled up at my feet – making tiny whimpery noises as his paws twitched. Chasing something in his dreams.

  DC Elliot put her hand up. ‘Simpson Kinkaid: are we going public with that? And if we are, has anyone delivered the death message to his next of kin? Or are we holding off telling them?’

  ‘Official line from on high is: we’re holding off for now.’ She pointed. ‘You look like you’ve got one, John.’

  He arched an eyebrow and tilted his head towards the window. ‘Who’s handling the press?’

  Mother stretched out her jaw, as if she was having difficulty swallowing something. ‘Our beloved leader will be addressing the nation this morning. And, in the absence of any real bones to throw them, and after what happened last night, I expect we’ll get a bit of a kicking.’

  ‘Speaking of bones,’ Elliot again, ‘what about the post mortem?’

  ‘Nine sharp. Anyone want to volunteer and join me? Anyone? Hello?’

  No one made eye contact.

  ‘Of course you don’t, because you all want to sod off on a jolly, don’t you?’ She chewed on her lip for a moment. ‘Bunch of ingrates.’ Pointed at me. ‘Ash?’

  I produced the printout of Sabir’s locations. ‘The only place we can’t ID is the bicycle-and-hedgerow picture. Other twelve range from Tiree to Malaga.’

  Mother folded her arms. ‘And before anyone asks: no. You can’t go to Malaga.’

  ‘Awww …’ Dotty slouched in her wheelchair.

  ‘Pick up your assignments from Rosalind on the way out. And don’t—’

  The living room door creaked open and in strode a large man in the full Police Scotland black, peaked cap tucked under one bulky arm. Face like a slab of granite that’d been carved by a sadist. Inspector’s pips. ‘As you were.’

  Henry scrabbled to his feet, claws clicking on the bare wooden floorboards as he turned to face the newcomer.

  Mother tried for a smile, but it wasn’t very convincing. ‘Inspector Samson, to what do we owe this—’

  ‘The Chief Superintendent would like a word.’ Making it sound like a death sentence.

  ‘I see.’ She dusted herself down. ‘Right, well, let me tidy up here and—’

  ‘With all of you.’

  Right on cue, in stalked Chief Superintendent McEwan. Ducking slightly to get through the doorway without banging his head. Military moustache drawn in a hard sharp line above a hard sharp mouth. He removed his peaked cap – revealing a shiny pate surrounded by close-cropped grey hair – and handed it to Samson.

  The pair of them were bookends, more like bouncers than police officers.

  McEwan took his time to glare at everyone in the ensuing silence. Then turned to Mother, voice a deep rumbling baritone, calm and flat, as if nothing at all was wrong in the world. ‘Detective Inspector Malcolmson, would you be so kind as to explain to me why I’ve got half the world’s press CRAWLING UP MY ARSEHOLE WITH HOBNAIL BOOTS ON?’

  Henry scrabbled around behind me, peering out past my legs. Tail down.

  Give Mother her due, she didn’t even flinch. ‘Perhaps this isn’t the—’

  ‘I know we don’t expect much of your team. But Divisional Investigative Support is supposed to do precisely what its name suggests: support investigations, NOT GET JOURNALISTS KILLED!’ Going redder and redder.

  ‘Now that’s not fair, we—’

  ‘Have you any idea how difficult you’ve made my job? You.’ Jabbing his finger at her. ‘All of you! YOU’RE A BLOODY DISGRACE!’

  Mother pulled her chin in, shoulders back. ‘My team has done nothing wrong. You can criticise me all you like, but—’

  ‘Nothing wrong? Your team does nothing but wrong! If they were capable of anything else, they wouldn’t be in your team!’ He was actually trembling now, flecks of spittle glowing in the light of that one bare bulb. ‘You’re an unprofessional—’

  I thumped my walking stick down on the desk, making the collection of paperwork dance. ‘Shut up, you bloviating, half-arsed, jumped-up, overbearing PRICK!’ Because he wasn’t the only one who could do the shouting thing.

  A pause, then Henry found his courage again, popping out from behind me to growl at McEwan.

  The head of Oldcastle police stared at me. Eyes growing wider. Mouth curdling. ‘How dare you talk to me like—’

  ‘Oh, fuck off. You were an arsehole when I was in the Job and you’re an even bigger
arsehole now.’ Closing the gap between us to poking distance. Jabbing a finger in his pompous chest. ‘DC Watt, DS Franklin, and DI Malcolmson risked their lives last night, trying to save a moron journalist who wouldn’t take a telling and stay away from the cliffs!’

  ‘The media have been very clear that—’

  ‘So what if the press are crawling up your backside? So what if they’re screaming for scapegoats?’

  ‘This isn’t—’

  ‘Your job isn’t to help them, your job is to stand behind your bloody officers! No, you know what: it’s to stand in front of your officers and take the flack so they can keep on DOING THEIR BLOODY JOBS!’ Another poke, hard enough to send him flinching back a step. ‘SO GROW A PAIR OF BALLS, GO OUT THERE, AND DO YOURS!’

  His eyes bulged, white teeth bared, moustache twitching.

  Then Inspector Samson cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, sir, but we’re live on the BBC in two minutes.’

  Some more twitching and glowering.

  Henry barked at him.

  ‘Sir?’

  McEwan’s nostrils flared as he stuck his nose in the air, then he turned and marched from the room, snatching his hat out of Samson’s hands as he went.

  The inspector shook his head. Hissed out a long slow breath. ‘Between you and me? That probably wasn’t a great idea.’

  I gave him the benefit of a cold shark smile. ‘You can tell your boss: he briefs against the Misfit Mob, I’ll go straight to the press and tell them all about Deborah Stalker.’

  That got a frown from Samson. ‘Who’s—’

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow, when it’s all over the front pages.’

  ‘Right. Well. Yes.’ He backed from the room. ‘I’d better …’ Samson turned and hurried away down the corridor. ‘Sir? Chief Superintendent? Sir, I need to talk to you!’

  The front door clunked shut and silence settled into the gloomy mildewed house.

  Dotty blew out a long, hard breath. ‘Bloody hell. Ash Henderson, you absolute monster!’ Clapping her hands and mugging at me. It built into a slightly embarrassed round of applause from the team that ended with a wee hug from Mother.

  Nice to be appreciated for a change.