Clunk, clatter.
Pulled on the rope again …
And there was the stick again, falling into the pit.
Again. And again. And again. With exactly the same result every time.
I was going to die in this bloody pit and all because Alice wouldn’t ANSWER HER BLOODY PHONE.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Kicking a tub of supplement, sending it bouncing off the bricks to BOOM and splinter.
Slumped back against the wall.
This was impossible.
So call 999 while you’ve still got some battery left, you idiot. Or are you actually planning on dying from sheer pig-headed obstinacy.
Eight years in prison.
Damned if you do, dead if you don’t …
One more go.
Maybe if I could get the stick to catch across the corner of the pit?
It’d break. The plastic webbing might be strong enough to take my weight, but I doubt a wooden walking stick would. Needed something a bit more solid …
I risked another chunk of the phone’s battery, turning the torch on again as I dug through the rubbish Gordon and Leah had dumped in on top of us. They’d chucked Helen’s rusty sledgehammer-thing into the pit too – I’d definitely seen it when I was searching for her phone.
There you go: it was under a pile of slithery bin bags.
The thing was solid and heavy in my hand. OK, so trying to batter my way out wasn’t going to work, but that thick wooden shaft would hold my weight.
It got lashed to the end of the rope, at right angles to my walking stick. A clawless grappling hook.
Four percent battery left. Turning the torch off plunged the pit into darkness so thick you could almost taste it.
Last chance, Ash. Don’t cock this one up.
I hurled the grappling end up and over the lip, where two of the walls met. Pulled back on the rope, slow and steady.
Come on, come on …
Oh, thank Christ – the sledgehammer wedged into the corner. Probably wasn’t very stable, but it was this or admit defeat, call the cops, and wave goodbye to seeing the outside world again before my sixtieth birthday.
Deep breath.
I reached up as far as I could and took hold with my good hand. Wrapped the injured one around the rope below it – only gripping with the thumb and bottom two fingers – and pulled myself up, bent my knees, clamped my feet together above one of the many, many knots, and used my legs to push. Inching closer to the lip. The sledgehammer shifted a couple of inches, but not too much. Pull, push. Pull, push.
Closer and closer.
Please let this work.
Pull, push. Pull, push.
Come on.
Sweat trickling into my eyes, more between my shoulder blades.
Pull, push. Pull, push.
Nearly there …
Come on, come on, come on …
And finally I got my left arm over the lip of the pit, three working fingers scrabbling at the dusty concrete barn floor.
DO NOT FALL!
One more push with my legs and both arms were out, the sledgehammer’s shaft pressing against my chest as I did my best to push it further into the corner.
Oh God, it was slipping.
The bloody thing was slipping sideways as I struggled to get out. Any minute now one end was going over the lip and I’d be right back where I started.
No, no, no, no, no …
39
A final push, clambering over the sledgehammer, legs kicking out over empty air as it spiralled away into the darkness below, crashing into the brick walls, then the whooooomph of it hitting part-filled bin bags.
I heaved … and at last my top half was out on the concrete. Far enough that I could swing my left leg up and roll onto the surface.
Lay there, on my back, blinking up at the vast expanse of corrugated roofing as it faded to black. Breath heaving in and out in huge broken-glass lungfuls. Sweat cooling on my face, clammy on my back and chest.
Free …
Oh, thank God.
Pfff …
Took a while, but finally my heart stopped doing its belt-fed mortar impersonation, the breaths less like I was being suffocated. Throat still ached like a bastard, though. That throbbing razor-wire feeling pulsing up and down my left arm.
But I was out and I was alive. Which was one step closer to getting my now imperfect hands on Gordon Smith and his vile protégée.
The floor lurched as I struggled to my feet, so I moved away from the inspection pit – wouldn’t do to go plummeting down there again – and pulled out Helen’s phone.
Still nothing from Alice.
I called her anyway. Listened to it ring through to voicemail.
‘Alice, it’s Ash. Call me back!’
END.
So much for that.
Took a while, what with my walking stick being at the bottom of the pit, tied to the sledgehammer, but I limped out of the barn and into the courtyard.
Darkness filled the hollow, turning the mist into an almost solid thing, but up above, the sky was fading to a rich deep purple, fringed with neon-pink clouds, a crescent moon hanging low in the sky – tainted, yellow, and septic.
No sign of my pool car. The bastards had taken it.
So all that effort and I was still stuck.
Somewhere off in the distance, a fox screamed.
Could take Helen’s rusty blue Renault, I suppose, but I’d have to get back to the Lecht first …
Oh, bloody hell.
Curled up, good hand clasped to my face. Muffling the scream.
Her car keys were back in the pit with her body.
‘BASTARD!’ Bellowing it out didn’t help any, all it achieved was making my throat hurt even more.
Well, what were you going to do, leave her down there to rot? Sooner or later someone would come back here and find the corpse, with my DNA and fingerprints all over it. Ash Henderson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering Helen MacNeil …
And how was I supposed to get about without my walking stick? Plus, I needed those car keys.
Fine.
I limped back to the cattle byre and through into the pigeon-smeared feed room. Took that long, shit-speckled ladder off the wall, and hobbled back to the barn. It clanged and rattled into the pit and I winced my way down into the dark again. Doing my best to keep the severed stump of my missing finger away from the bird crap as I climbed.
The phone’s torch was barely bright enough to make Helen out by. Battery: three percent.
I grabbed my improvised grappling hook and hurled it out of the pit.
Then bent and took hold of her jacket. Heaved her up into a sitting position, hunkered down and wrestled her over my left shoulder in a half-arsed fireman’s lift. Struggled upright again, hissing breaths out between gritted teeth.
‘Why’d you have to be so damn … heavy?’
The ladder’s rungs creaked beneath my trainers as I wobbled my way out of there.
OK, decision time: put her down, untie my walking stick, and get her back over my shoulder; or keep going. Should’ve got that bloody wheelbarrow when I took the ladder. Even a knackered wheelbarrow would be better than no wheelbarrow at all.
Too late for that now, though.
Keep going it was, because, honestly, if I put Helen down, no way I’d be able to pick her up again. Out into the cold night air, hobbling towards the farmhouse. Getting slower and slower. Every other step sending frozen needles slamming through my right foot. Breathing like the little train who couldn’t.
This was a stupid idea.
Shut up.
Should’ve left her at the bottom of that bloody pit.
No.
I shouldered the farmhouse door open and paused on the threshold – letting the doorframe take some of Helen’s weight while I huffed and puffed and my foot and hand screamed at me.
Come on. Nearly there.
At least the stairs had a handrail I could lean on.
Up into the gloom.
Ducking to get her through the doorway and into one of the bedrooms. Dumped her on the ancient bed, sending up a huge whumph of dust, the springs and mildewed mattress sagging under her. Some people looked peaceful in death – that cliché about ‘not dead, only sleeping’ existed for a reason – but Helen MacNeil wasn’t one of them. She looked like what she was: a woman in her mid-fifties who’d been stabbed to death.
I untied my jacket from her middle – no point leaving it there, wasn’t doing her any good now – then went through her pockets again. Car keys and sugar-free chewing gum; the wallet had twenty quid and some credit cards in it; a lighter tucked into the half-empty crumpled pack of Embassy Regals; and there, in her back pocket, the business card with ‘J&F ~ FREELANCE CONSULTANTS’ on it. That dark smear of dried blood had been joined by fresh red.
Stood there, staring at it for a bit.
Then unfolded my jacket. It crackled, shedding flakes of brown-black as I hauled it on, gathered up Helen’s things and stuffed them into my jacket pockets. Got her straightened up, hands crossed over her chest again.
Should probably say something, but what was the point? Dead was dead. Flowery words weren’t going to change that.
Besides, she knew Jennifer Prentice had hired Francis and Joseph to beat the crap out of me. Helen should count herself lucky I wasn’t leaving her for the rats.
Someone had painted the window shut, but the bedside cabinet smashed through the single glazing easily enough. It landed with a splintering crump in the front garden.
Good enough.
The bed’s legs squealed across the lino floor as I dragged the thing as close to the door as I could get. One last look at the hollow body lying on the bed. And it was time to get a move on.
Back downstairs I gathered all the furniture that I could and heaped it up in the living room, directly under Helen’s final resting place, like the pile in Gordon Smith’s house. Tore down the mildewed curtains – bit damp, but they probably had enough polyester in them to counteract that. I heaped them onto the crumpled remains of the bedside cabinet I’d thrown through the window, and tucked both under the dining room table, arranging the splintered chipboard into a rough pyramid. Then pulled out Helen’s lighter and turned the cigarettes and their packet into a fire starter. Coaxing the flame as it licked its way across the chipboard to reach the mouldy curtains.
One minute it looked as if the damned thing was going out, but the next the curtains let loose a muffled fwoom, and blue light burst into the room, black smoke curling up to stain the yellowed ceiling.
I backed out of there as steam rose from the dining table, the ancient varnish blistering. Then one side of it burst into flames, catching the chairs I’d piled on top of it. Didn’t take long before they were ablaze too and it was getting difficult to breathe.
No way my bonfire was putting itself out anytime soon.
Down the hall and out into the front garden – leaving the door open for a good through draught. Flickering yellow light spilled out of the uncurtained lounge window as the flames grew.
Maybe a neighbour would wonder about the strange glow coming from the abandoned farm next door, and call the fire brigade, but it wasn’t likely. Helen’s funeral pyre would burn till there was nothing left of her but ash and a few tiny fragments of blackened bone. No DNA, no fingerprints, no dental records.
A Viking funeral.
Of sorts.
I pulled out her phone: two percent battery, complete with a warning that all unsaved data would be lost. Might as well give Alice another go.
Voicemail.
Didn’t bother leaving a message.
Why could no bastard answer their bloody phone?
There was one other option …
I pulled out the business card for J&F ~ Freelance Consultants. The mobile number was almost invisible in the firelight, but twisting it made the black ink shine against the bloodstains. Not exactly ideal, but what else was I supposed to do?
Joseph picked up on the third ring. ‘Salutations, caller, you have reached the offices of J-and-F—’
‘Joseph, it’s me: Ash Henderson.’ Hurpling my way to the barn as the farmhouse crackled and popped behind me, heat washing against my back. ‘Hello? You still there?’
‘Ah, my apologies, Mr Henderson, your call took me aback somewhat. On account of our last meeting coming to a … less than optimal conclusion for all parties concerned.’
‘You said it was only business. That true?’
‘Of course it’s true, I know I speak for my associate and myself when I say that we have nothing but respect and admiration for you, despite our occasionally adversarial encounters at the instigation of embittered third parties.’
The sledgehammer-grappling-hook lay where I’d chucked it. ‘I need a lift, no questions asked. And I need it now.’
‘Intriguing … Very well. Let me know where from and where to, and I shall see to it that you are conveyed from the former to the latter with all possible alacrity.’
Good enough.
I fumbled at the knotted baler netting with my good hand.
No point hanging around here – it might be unlikely that the next-door farm would call the fire brigade, but it was by no means impossible. And it would probably be a bad idea to still be standing here, basking in the heat of the burning building, when they arrived.
‘Mr Henderson?’
‘Going to the Lecht. Coming from Wester Brae of Kinbeachie on the Black Isle, or as far down the road as I can limp away from it.’ My walking stick came free and the sledgehammer clattered down to the concrete again. My fingerprints would be all over it, and the baler netting too. They’d need to go in the fire. Should’ve worn gloves …
Cock.
There was a packet of blue nitrile gloves in my pocket. Could’ve pulled them on over my ruined hand to keep the stump clean. Bloody idiot. Probably too late now.
I dug the pack out anyway, ripped it open with my teeth. ‘And I’ll need a doctor when I get back to Oldcastle. Stitches, antibiotics, probably a tetanus booster too.’
‘I’m sure we can facilitate such a thing. In pursuance of which, I believe it would be efficacious to text you an address where—’
Silence.
‘Hello?’ When I checked the screen it was black. The thing had finally died.
I struggled my left hand into the glove, hissing and wincing and swearing, until the bloody stump was safely cocooned in blue nitrile. Then chucked the sledgehammer and my baler-netting-rope in through the farmhouse window, one arm shielding my face from the scorching heat. Then did the same with that long stepladder. It wouldn’t burn, but hopefully, by the time they dug it out of the rubble, any forensic trace evidence would be so deteriorated it’d be sod-all use to anyone.
Course, there’d be all the bin bags and bits of plastic in the inspection pit …
I hobbled back into the barn. A wide patch of darkness marred the concrete where Helen had been stabbed. Yeah, forensics were definitely going to search this place. Maybe the bin bags would catch? I dragged a couple off the big pile at the end of the barn and ran Helen’s lighter beneath them. Took a while, but finally one caught, dripping burning tears of melted plastic as whatever it was inside burst into flame. I pitched it into the pit, then set fire to the other bag and stuck that one against the bottom of the heap where it’d come from.
Didn’t take long before the inspection pit was popping and crackling, spewing out noxious stinking clouds of grey smoke, lit from below. Two minutes later the big pile was doing the same.
Back outside, into the clean damp air.
Looked as if Peter Smith had got his wish. He’d said the place needed burning down. Writhing orange light spilled out of the barn, and the farmhouse was well on its way – now the upper floor was ablaze, flames crackling out through the broken bedroom window.
Bye, Helen.
Then I turned around and limped away into the mist.
Th
at septic moon was a faint rancid sliver on the horizon as I hobbled along the road, in the dark, and the frigid wind. Sweat trickling between my shoulder blades. Ears like two stinging lumps of ice. Moving with an awkward rolling gait, to the constant thunk scuff, thunk scuff, thunk scuff, of my walking stick’s rubber end hitting the tarmac.
Would be easier if I could hold the bloody thing in my left hand, as usual, but no way I was risking it. Not with the whole hand throbbing like I’d battered half a dozen nails into it, then stuck it in the microwave. So instead the stick hit the ground on the same side as my bad foot.
Half an hour of this and my back was joining the chorus of aches and pains.
The sky above was awash with stars, gleaming and indifferent in the ink-black sky. The landscape rendered in shades of dark, dark grey. The yellowy lights of cottages and farmhouses in the distance.
Thunk scuff, thunk scuff, thunk scuff …
Keep moving.
Imagine all the horrible things you’re going to do to Gordon Smith when you catch him. How many different ways you can make him—
Light bloomed in the darkness ahead, getting closer, bringing with it the growl of a diesel engine as the greeny-yellow grass verges glowed in the approaching headlights. I hobbled off the road, but the big four-by-four didn’t drive on past. Instead it pulled to a halt when I was level with the passenger window.
A proper teuchtermobile: one of those flatbed trucks with mud streaked up from the wheel arches, tree rash turning the dark-blue paint matt along the sides. The passenger window buzzed down and a man scowled across the car at me – overweight and balding; one eye narrowed, the other all puffy and bruised; a line of sticking plaster across the bridge of his nose; two of the fingers on his right hand taped together. The thick Highlands accent wasn’t helped by the nasal twang. ‘You Henderson?’
‘Might be.’
‘You look like shit.’ He pointed. ‘Get in.’
Inside, the cab was covered in a layer of dust, the rubber floor mats nearly invisible under all the dried mud and wee stones. Probably stank as well, going by the mangy collie sitting on the back seat, but with my nose packed with cotton wool, I’d just have to imagine the smell.
My driver didn’t wait for me to fasten my seatbelt before grinding the truck into gear again and lurching off down the road.
The Coffinmaker's Garden Page 37