The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  Worth a go.

  Till then, probably better make myself useful.

  25

  Thick, muggy air followed me out into the cold and wind. Lingering for a second as the pub door shut behind me, before the wind snatched it away.

  Streetlights gleamed against the raven darkness, illuminating the curling seafront, headlights sweeping their way along the road as the occasional figure hurried somewhere warmer.

  Henry cocked his leg against a downpipe, then we headed off along the pavement, following the map on my phone to the next location. Past shuttered cafés and antique shops.

  The scent of hot fat and sharp vinegar drifted after us – the siren call of an empty chippy – as my phone launched into its default ringtone, the words, ‘DS FRANKLIN’ replacing the map. ‘Hello?’

  ‘This is an absolute nightmare. There’s a huge stack of boxes left, and we’ve only got as far as 1970!’

  ‘You’re having fun then?’

  She sounded muffled and distant, as if she had the phone on the table and her head in her hands. ‘Only upside is Sergeant Campbell clocked off at five, on the dot, so I don’t have to put up with his sleazy gitbaggery any more.’

  ‘Mother wants to know if you’ll be done in time for us to catch the nine o’clock ferry from Rhubodach.’

  ‘Nine tonight? Not a chance in hell.’

  Bed-and-breakfast in sunny Rothesay for us, then.

  ‘I’m going to be stuck here for hours.’ A groan rumbled down the phone. ‘And while I’m slogging my way through three tons of missing person reports, what are you—’

  ‘Pub crawl. Well, technically it’s a “pub limp”, but you get the picture.’

  Franklin’s voice got a lot louder. ‘Oh for God’s—’

  ‘Teetotal, remember? Pills. I’m showing that photo of Peter Smith and the girl to anyone old enough to remember shell suits being a thing. Every bar and hotel I can find. And failing that, there’s a book club meets in one of the bars at half seven. Meant to be full of oldies.’

  ‘Worth a try, I suppose.’

  Henry and I kept going.

  ‘You were right in the first place: when we were on the putting course. This is a complete waste of time.’

  ‘Yup.’ I paused outside a little place advertising Karaoke and Tennent’s Lager. The muffled sound of someone slaughtering a country-and-western tune oozed out through the pub windows, rising to a horrible blare as the door banged open and a couple of middle-aged women scurried out in a fit of the shrieking giggles. They huddled in the lee of a parked Transit van and lit a couple of cigarettes, eyeing me as they smoked – like I was a piece of meat, found at the back of the fridge, with a dodgy sell-by date.

  ‘You know what we should’ve done? We should’ve gone back to HMP Edinburgh and shoved that photo in Peter Smith’s face. Demanded to know who she was.’

  ‘Yeah. But he’d just sit there and deny everything, wouldn’t he? All we’d achieve is giving him something else to wank about after lights out.’

  ‘Thanks for that image.’

  ‘Give me a shout when you’re ready to pack it in for the night.’ I put the phone away and pushed through into yet another noisy crowded bar.

  It would’ve been classified as a ‘light drizzle’, if it hadn’t been jabbed in like needles on a howling wind, as Henry and I struggled our way back along Argyle Street. The warmth of tea and a Jaffa Cake at the Robertson Hotel a swiftly fading memory.

  Which meant we’d tried every hotel on the seafront, every bed-and-breakfast, and every bar. Except one.

  The gale slammed itself against my chest, stabbing its needles deeper into my face, making the streetlights sway in the darkness. Misty shadows dancing around them. Henry more out for a drag than a walk, whimpering on the end of his leash like a petulant wee hairy anchor.

  Past old stone buildings with bay windows, their lights on, showing off warm domestic scenes as the sensible people stayed inside, out of the horrible night. Jammy bastards.

  On the other side of the road, waves smashed themselves against the seawall, white spray curling over the metal railings to spatter down against the pavement.

  Should’ve made Franklin hand over the keys to the pool car, sore foot or not. Couldn’t hurt more than it did right now, anyway. It was as if someone was taking a cordless drill to the bloody thing, screeching hole after ragged hole into the bones every time my right foot hit the paving slabs. If I’d been driving, it’d still hurt, but at least I’d be dry.

  I dug the hand with Henry’s lead deeper into my pocket, the one clutching my walking stick aching and numb all at the same time.

  So much for retiring to sunny Rothesay. They could—

  Oh, for God’s sake.

  My phone, doing its basic ringtone again.

  I limped across the road, into a car park outside what looked like a cross between an art deco swimming pool and a car showroom, all concrete and glass, lights blazing in its windows, kept going till I was under the overhanging portico and out of the wind and rain. Hauled out my mobile and stabbed the button. ‘What?’

  The sound of a band rehearsing boomed out from the floor above.

  ‘Not the friendliest of welcomes I’ve had, Ash.’ Mother. ‘I was calling to say I’ve got you and Rosalind rooms at the Hotel Sokoloff, but maybe you’d rather sleep in the car instead?’

  ‘It’s blowing a gale, I’m cold, I’m soaked through, and my foot’s killing me because I’ve been hobbling all over Rothesay for the last four and a half hours, trying to ID your murder victim!’ Adding an extra scoop of sarcasm to my voice. ‘So excuse me if I’m not in the most sociable of bloody moods.’

  The band launched into a grating cover of an old Foo Fighters song, even though the drummer really wasn’t up to it.

  They’d staggered their way to the chorus before Mother came back on the line. ‘And has your sore foot discovered anything?’

  ‘Yes. That it hates sodding about in the buggering wind and rain.’ I leaned back against the steel pillar holding up the concrete portico. Huffed out a breath. ‘No one knows who she is. Got one place left to try.’

  ‘Dotty and Amanda have IDed our graduating student. According to Aberdeen University, he’s Alex Yates. Got a two-one in Law, 1978. Parents reported him missing three days after the ceremony.’

  ‘Anyone told them yet?’

  ‘The Chief Super still doesn’t want any of this getting out till we’ve got Gordon Smith in custody. And before you say anything: no, I don’t think it’s fair either.’ Mother’s voice sagged. ‘Dotty couldn’t get an ID for the girl on the horse in Fochabers, or the young man in the Inverness beer garden. And we’re still no nearer to laying our hands on Smith.’

  Thirty / forty years was a long time. People moved away. They died.

  ‘Then we’ve got no choice: hit the media with Gordon Smith’s “before” Polaroids. Someone has to know who they are.’

  Upstairs, the half-arsed rendition of ‘All My Life’ sputtered to a halt. Then started again from the beginning. And the drummer was still terrible.

  ‘Chief Superintendent McEwan won’t like that.’

  ‘Tough. You’re thinking of retiring anyway: cruises, golf, gardening, and grandchildren, remember?’

  ‘Don’t you start. Get enough of that from my Jack.’

  Henry whined on the end of his leash, wee sides shivering, tail between his legs, fur all slicked down and dripping.

  ‘And I thought your IT guru was supposed to get us IDs: what happened to those eight hours I paid him for?’

  Good question.

  The Black Bull’s monochrome frontage was sandwiched between an angling shop and a café, its olde-worlde mock-Dickensian windows looking out over the marina to the ferry terminal. As Henry and I limped over the threshold, a wall of warm air wrapped its welcoming arms around us, bringing with it the sound of laughter.

  Busy in here.

  Henry and I worked our way through the crowd to the small bar, wh
ere a young woman with far too many piercings and a lopsided haircut was pulling pints of Belhaven. ‘What can I get you, love?’ As if she was a Glasgow granny.

  ‘Looking for the book club.’

  She pointed off to her left, through a narrow passageway. ‘Down there, take a right. Drink?’

  ‘Pot of tea. Decaf, if you’ve got it?’ Talk about painting the town beige …

  ‘Aye, I’ll get someone to take it through to you.’

  I handed over the cash and then Henry and I squeezed through the gap at the end of the bar; past another, longer bar; and turned right, into a large-ish nook, with a tartan-carpeted floor, red bench seating, and a bunch of old folks – most of them women – sitting around seven wooden tables. The eighth was empty, so we commandeered it: me collapsing into the padded seating, Henry collapsing under the table. The pair of us looking as if we’d swum here.

  Everyone else had a paperback in front of them: black cover, moody shot of a crumbly warehouse, author’s name in big yellow lettering. That would be a crime novel, then.

  I stretched my right leg out, teeth gritted as the ankle moaned and clicked and complained at the top of its voice.

  A large woman, going bald on top, leaned over from the next table. ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’

  ‘Actually, I’m not—’

  ‘Here you go.’ A wee tray with a small metal pot of tea, mug, bowl of sugar sachets, and a thing of milk clicked down in front of me. Packet of shortbread on the side. Then the spotty youth who’d delivered it turned and hurried from the room before anyone could order anything from him.

  She leaned in again. ‘Where were we? Yes, so, you’re new and—’

  ‘All right, everyone, we all here?’ A smiling woman in a floaty grey top, body warmer, and council lanyard stood at the head of the room, holding the book in her hand. Blonde hair with a half-inch of grey roots on show. ‘Welcome, everyone, to the Rothesay Library Criminally Good Book Club! Who’d like to start?’

  A flurry of hands.

  ‘Maureen?’

  The woman next to me lowered her hand. ‘I don’t understand why it had to be so gory! I mean, a man who collects dead animals in a steading, it’s horrible.’

  Someone else nodded. ‘It was offensive, if you ask me. Sickeningly, cynically, offensive.’

  I unwrapped the two tiny shortbread biscuits and fed one to Henry under the table.

  ‘What about the characters? Anyone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Another woman, this one done up in a trouser suit with lacquered hair. ‘That lesbian police officer. She was so revolting! Always talking and swearing and scratching and digging at her underwear. I didn’t like her at all: she ruined the whole book.’

  Someone else nodded. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with female lesbians in crime fiction.’

  ‘Well, of course not, but there is when it’s nothing but an excuse for blasphemy and crude so-called “humour”.’

  I poured my tea.

  ‘Can we please have a proper crime novel, next time? Like one of those nice Ann Cleeves ones.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do like her books. She was lovely when she came to the crime-writing festival, too.’

  And on, and on, and on they went, as I drank my decaf tea and finished the remaining biscuit.

  Soon as I was done, I dug out the printout and levered myself to my foot – keeping the right one off the tartan carpet, so it wouldn’t sting so much. ‘Speaking of murder investigations,’ I flashed my expired warrant card at them, ‘do any of you recognise the people in this picture?’

  The woman with the lacquered hair pursed her lips and glared at me, clearly not happy at being interrupted mid-rant about how terrible it was that anyone could enjoy a book where children got murdered.

  Tough.

  Welcome to the real world.

  I passed the picture to Maureen. ‘Take your time, this would have been in the 1980s.’ Gave the rest of the room a bit of serious eye contact. ‘Anyone remember a young woman going missing back then?’

  The librarian fiddled with her lanyard. ‘My cousin ran off with an American tourist. And there was Sheila Fraser – everyone thought her dad did her in and got rid of the body. Or Effie Parsons?’

  One of the auld mannies shook his head, setting his combover bouncing. ‘Naw, that was in the seventies – having an affair with that Glaswegian artist bloke who used to come here and paint nudie women all the time.’

  ‘Sorry, never seen her before.’ Maureen handed the printout to the next table.

  They all huddled over it, muttering away to each other.

  ‘All right, not Effie Parsons then.’ The librarian creased up her forehead. ‘What about Georgina Kerr? The police searched every house, bothy, shed, and outbuilding on the island, looking for her.’

  The picture had nearly made it all the way around the book club.

  Still, it’d been worth a try.

  My phone ding-buzzed, deep in my damp pocket. When I pulled it out the screen was misted up. Had to wipe the condensation off with my shirt.

  UNKNOWN NUMBER:

  I have 2 hide my phone! If he finds it I

  don’t no what he’ll do

  Please save me!!! I want 2 go home!!!

  Damn.

  I nodded at the book club. ‘Excuse me a minute.’

  Slipped from the tartan nook, then out the back door. Into that narrow street that the waitress from lunch had pointed to. Into the drizzle too.

  Quick hobble across the road, to shelter in a shop doorway. Somewhere nice and secluded to poke out a reply.

  Leave your phone on, Leah – we need to

  latch onto the mobile signal so we can find

  out where you are and come get you.

  Be brave!

  SEND.

  Ding-buzz.

  UNKNOWN NUMBER:

  I’ll try!!! But don’t no how much charge

  I’ve got left

  Time to give Mother a kick up the backside.

  She answered on the third ring. ‘Ash? Have you—’

  ‘What’s happening with that warrant?’

  ‘Were you always this rude, because—’

  ‘Leah’s been in touch again: she’s going to leave her phone on so we can trace it. Now where’s that warrant?’

  ‘John’s trying to serve it now.’ Mother sounded as if she was deflating. ‘Of course, at this time on a Sunday evening, chances are her mobile provider won’t be—’

  ‘You’ve got till Leah’s phone runs out of battery to find her. Gordon Smith’s not going to let her recharge the damn thing – we’ve got one chance and that’s it!’

  ‘I know, I know … We’re pushing as hard as we can, Ash, we really are.’

  ‘Then push harder.’ I hung up. Stuffed the phone back in my pocket. Slumped against the shop’s doors, staring up at the black wooden ceiling.

  Smith hadn’t hurt Leah yet, but that couldn’t last. It wasn’t as if he’d had any qualms butchering her mum, and he’d been like a grandfather to her too.

  ‘Erm, excuse me?’ Woman’s voice.

  When I looked down, there was one of the Rothesay Library crime book club’s members. One who’d sat quietly through most of it, nursing a large glass of white wine.

  ‘Sorry. Erm, hi, I’m Aileen. Aileen McCaskill?’ She tried on a pained smile. Her wrinkled waterproof and creased forehead made it look as if she’d shrunk into herself over the years, thin jowly neck protruding from the cowl of a thick orange jumper like a turtle. Watery blue eyes blinking up at me in the gloom of the shop doorway. ‘Told everyone I was off for a cigarette.’ She pulled out a pack, fingers covering the graphic warning image as she opened the top and offered me one.

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t.’

  ‘Quite right too. Filthy habit.’ But she lit one anyway, sucking on it with her eyes closed, setting the tip glowing a hot orange. Then letting out a lungful of smoke in a juddery breath. Another couple of puffs. ‘I …’ She cleared her throat. Looked away
, down the street, towards the square. ‘That woman in the picture. With the man? I think it might be my sister.’

  She huffed out a breath, smoke-free this time. ‘Linda was … could be difficult. Oh God, could she ever.’ Aileen bit her lips together. Shook her head. Stubbed her cigarette out, even though she’d barely touched it. ‘Drinking, boys, staying out late, failing all her O levels. Broke …’ Deep breath. ‘Broke my mum’s heart when Linda left: up and walked out one morning, didn’t even say goodbye. At least, that’s what we thought.’ Aileen dug into her waterproof and produced a tatty leather wallet. Clutching it in trembling fingers. ‘Was my dad’s.’ She flipped the thing open and held it up to the greasy streetlight, revealing a faded photograph of two teenaged girls: one in pastel-green trousers; the other, pastel yellow; matching baggy grey-and-blue jumpers with the popped collars of their shirts sticking out the neckholes. Big hair.

  When I looked up from the photo, Aileen was staring at me, her eyes a lot waterier than before, a lot more needy, the tip of her nose pinkening.

  She pointed at the girl in green trousers. ‘That’s Linda. You see?’ She reached out and took hold of my sleeve. ‘It’s her, isn’t it? The girl in your photo, with the ugly man in the shell suit? It’s my sister …’

  Had to admit, it looked a lot like the woman in the photo with a young Peter Smith.

  ‘When did she go missing?’

  ‘June twelfth, 1985. It was my seventeenth birthday …’ A small, sour laugh. ‘Always thought she’d picked the date just to spite me. It’s not my fault I was a year older, is it? That I got new stuff and she had to make do with my hand-me-downs. God, how she hated that.’ Aileen let go of my arm and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘But she … she didn’t, did she?’ The words coming quicker and quicker. ‘She didn’t run away. If she’d run away, you wouldn’t be here, showing her photo round. It was him, wasn’t it? The man in the picture did something to her.’