The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  I stretched my gammy leg out in the footwell. ‘You got a name?’

  ‘No.’ Then he clicked on the radio and that was it as far as conversation went for the next hour and a half.

  Some sort of crappy country and western drivelled away as we pulled off the tarmac onto the gravel car park. The ski lodge sat in darkness, not a soul to be seen as my driver came to a halt beside Helen MacNeil’s mouldy old Renault.

  My driver hauled on the handbrake. ‘Out.’ Bringing the total number of words he’d spoken to ten.

  ‘Thanks, it’s been a real pleasure.’

  Another my-dang-dawg-done-died-and-my-cheatin’-wife-done-left-me lament started up in a blizzard of banjos and wailing. I climbed out and watched him swing his truck around and back onto the road. Heading north again, red tail-lights disappearing into the darkness.

  Tosser.

  Sweat chilled on my forehead.

  Probably got a touch of a fever. That would be the infection spreading. The wind turbine’s whoomp, whoomp, whoomp, marking time with my pulse. Mouth dry as cornflour.

  I unlocked Helen’s car and collapsed in behind the wheel.

  Slipped the key into the ignition and turned it, getting a low guttering chud-chud-chud in return. ‘Come on you rusty piece of shite …’ Chud-chud-chud – then finally it caught and a rattling gurgle burst free from the engine.

  A cable poked out of the cigarette lighter, and a minute’s fiddling plugged it into the bottom of Helen’s phone. The light came on – charging. First piece of luck I’d had all sodding day. Which didn’t even vaguely make up for the Renault being a manual.

  My blue-nitriled left hand squeaked against the gearstick, missing finger radiating snarls of heat all the way up my arm as I put the thing in first and hauled the wheel around, making a wide circle in the car park until the Renault was pointing the right way. Bumping up onto the tarmac.

  An hour and forty minutes back to Oldcastle.

  At least I wouldn’t have to listen to any more country and bloody western: I could drive south in silence. Plotting my revenge.

  40

  I checked the phone again:

  Unit 6,

  Haversham Industrial Estate,

  Shortstaine,

  OC19 3FG

  It was a manky cluster of corrugated lockups and warehouses, lurking behind barbed wire and chain-link, the signage faded. The road more pothole than tarmac. I parked in front of Unit Six – painted an unappealing shade of khaki, washed in the sodium glow of a lonely streetlight – next to the shiny black Transit van that sat outside it.

  Killed the engine.

  Curled forward until my forehead rested against the steering wheel’s rough plastic.

  Let the breath trickle out of me.

  Hand: on fire. Bullet-hole foot: ablaze. Back: made of roasted gravel. Head: thumping like a drum solo.

  Come on, Ash. Up.

  What if it’s a trap?

  Then Joseph and Francis kill you. Which, to be honest, would be an improvement right now.

  OK.

  Out into the night, letting the wind slam the car door for me.

  Unit Six was locked, but I leaned on the bell with my gloved thumb anyway. If this really was the headquarters of J&F ~ Freelance Consultants, probably best not to leave any fingerprints.

  Two minutes later, the door swung open, and there was Joseph. A large wad of cotton padding made a lopsided hat, secured to the crown of his scarred head by strips of white tape. Left arm encased in a fibreglass cast from elbow to palm – pale stubby fingers poking out of the end. Big smile. Which slipped as he looked me up and down. No doubt taking in all the bloodstains and dirt. Then the smile was back again. ‘Ah, Mr Henderson, you appear to have made excellent time. Do come in, do come in.’ Stepping backwards and ushering me through into a large-ish open space, big enough to fit a two-up two-down semi. Workbenches ran along the back, with a pair of big stainless-steel sinks set into them. A small office area was walled off on one side, its flat roof covered with stacks of cardboard boxes. But what really drew the eye lay in the middle of the concrete floor. Literally.

  A young man, couldn’t have been much over twenty-five, lay on his front, his thin face turned towards us – streaked with tears and dust and snot. Denim jacket, stone-washed jeans. Wrists fastened behind his back with cable ties. Ankles held together the same way. Francis stood over him, one booted foot between the guy’s shoulder blades, leaning on a golf club. Sand wedge, going by the steeply angled head.

  ‘Francis, look who’s joined us, it’s Mr Henderson.’

  He nodded in my direction. ‘’Spector.’ His face was a swollen mess of puffy purple-and-blue skin, fading to yellow at the edges. He sported a wad of cotton too, only his was taped to the side of his forehead, above a thick black eye.

  The three of us must’ve looked a proper sight.

  Francis pulled a golf ball from his pocket and placed it into the cup of the young man’s ear.

  When I looked at Joseph, he shrugged.

  ‘I’m sorry to say that Albert here has breached his employer’s terms and conditions regarding the organisation’s sales and accounting practices. To wit: skimming ten percent off both the merchandise and monies received. Luckily, Francis is fully qualified to supply a remedial training course on retail ethics.’

  A high-pitched, ‘Please! Please, I won’t do it again, I swear!’ burst out of Albert’s mouth.

  ‘Do you like golf, Mr Henderson?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, that is a shame. What could be finer than a good-natured sporting contest, with hearty companions, out in the glory of nature’s bounty?’

  Pretty much anything.

  Francis lined up the sand wedge, tapping it against the back of Albert’s skull. ‘Better hold real still.’

  ‘Please! I didn’t mean it! I’ll give it all back!’

  ‘This way, Mr Henderson.’ Joseph walked past as Francis teed up, and I followed him into the small office. He turned and shut the door behind us, as a bellowed, ‘FORE!’ belted out, followed by a crack.

  Then the screaming started.

  Inside, the office didn’t really look like the kind of place a pair of gangland thugs would operate out of. It was far too … ordinary, with a whiteboard, shift rota, and nudie calendar on the walls. Two filing cabinets; two desks; a pair of office chairs; and a woman in her mid-thirties, staring wide-eyed at the window through to the big room. Mouth hanging open. One of those sensible mumsy haircuts, framing an oval Asian face. Trouser suit. Floral blouse.

  ‘Mr Henderson, allow me to introduce Dr Fotheringham. She’ll be taking care of whatever your unspecified medical emergency is.’

  ‘FORE!’

  Crack.

  The screaming got louder.

  Dr Fotheringham’s hand came up to cover her mouth. ‘I’m … It …’

  ‘Nothing to worry about.’ Joseph lowered the blinds, shutting out the view. ‘Now, in the interest of doctor-patient confidentiality, I’ll leave you two alone. Should you need anything, I shall be outside assisting my colleague; do not hesitate to call.’ He slipped from the room.

  She blinked at me a couple of times, mouth working on something sour. Couldn’t blame her, I probably looked pretty terrible, what with the two black eyes, broken nose, neck wrapped in stripes of dark-purple bruising, blood-caked jacket, and one blue nitrile glove. Then a deep breath and she sat down on one of the office chairs, keeping her eyes away from mine. ‘I’ve … I’ve never done this kind of thing before.’

  Not exactly reassuring.

  ‘So what are you, a vet or something?’

  ‘What? No, I mean I’ve never,’ deep breath, ‘worked for gangsters before.’

  ‘Ah.’ I lowered myself into the other chair and stretched out my aching leg. ‘Not here by choice then?’

  ‘Hardly! That …’ she jabbed a finger at the door, ‘person dragged me here, soon as my shift was over.’

  Oh, for God’s sake. ‘He kid
napped you?’

  Her cheeks darkened. ‘Not, kidnapped, kidnapped, I mean I came of my own free will, but it wasn’t as if I had any option, did I?’ She cleared her throat. Brought her chin up. ‘Now, what seems to be the trouble?’

  I peeled off my filthy jacket and dumped it on the desk. ‘Why didn’t you have any option?’

  ‘Have you been stabbed? That’s a lot of blood. If you’ve been stabbed, you need to go to hospital. I can’t treat you if you’ve been stabbed.’

  ‘He’s got something on you, hasn’t he?’

  ‘And why are you only wearing one surgical glove?’

  ‘Must be something pretty serious.’

  ‘Can we get this over with as quickly as possible, please? I’d like to get home to my husband, child, and Labrador, before anyone finds out I’ve been here.’

  Fair enough.

  I winced my way out of my shirt, exposing the shallow twisted stab wound in the middle of my chest, then peeled the blue nitrile glove off – biting my top lip as the rubbery skin tugged at what remained of my index finger. It was enough to rip off a chunk of soft yellow scab, setting it bleeding again.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Fotheringham blinked at my ruined hand. Nodded. ‘Right, we’ll need to clean that up. And …’ Huffed out a breath. ‘Christ.’ She produced a holdall from beneath the desk and rummaged through it, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. Placed a stainless-steel kidney dish on the worktop, lining it up with a half-litre bottle of saline, a couple of vials of something clear, two syringes in sterile packaging, a thing of stitching needles, and some thin twine.

  Then removed a scalpel handle from its pack and clicked an individually wrapped blade into place.

  Took a couple of deep breaths. ‘In order to stitch the skin together, to make a proper seal, I’m going to have to …’ She swallowed. ‘I’m going to have to shorten the bone.’

  Of course she was. Because clearly I hadn’t suffered enough, today.

  ‘I can give you some antibiotics and a local anaesthetic.’

  Thank Christ for that.

  ‘Are you allergic to Levobupivacaine or Amoxicillin? Hope not, because they’re the only things I could get at short notice.’ One of the syringes got unwrapped and filled from a vial. ‘You may feel a small scratch.’ As she slid the needle into what was left of my index finger. Then did the same thing four more times at various points across the stump and hand. ‘That’ll take a couple of minutes to start working.’

  It was like plunging a red-hot sword, fresh from the forge, straight into a trough of icy water. My shoulders sagged as the pain hissed away in clouds of blessed steam. Didn’t even know I’d been holding them in so tight. ‘Thank you.’

  Fotheringham soaked a wad of cotton wool with saline and dabbed at the ruined finger. Keeping her eyes on her work. ‘What was it, some sort of gangland punishment? The Yakuza do that, don’t they? When you’ve done something wrong and you need to atone.’

  ‘It wasn’t the Yakuza. And I’m not a gangster: I was trying to catch a serial killer.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It didn’t exactly go well.’

  She nodded. ‘Nothing ever does.’ Then picked up the scalpel. ‘You probably want to look away at this point.’

  Damn right I did: staring at the nudie calendar instead. An oiled-up woman, infeasibly over-endowed in the breast department, was helping an equally glistening musclebound man to change the carburettor in some sort of sports car. Though if anyone from the Health and Safety Executive had seen them doing it in the nip, they would’ve shut the garage down in a heartbeat. Which almost managed to take my mind off the pulling and pushing happening in my hand as Fotheringham sliced away.

  ‘You want to know what kind of hold they have on me?’ Sounding brisk and professional as she reached for what looked horribly like a mini-hacksaw. ‘The trouble with having a small gambling problem is that it can sometimes turn into a big one. And apparently I can either “lend medical assistance from time to time” or the one with the ponytail breaks my arms and legs.’

  Don’t think about the rocking motion, or the hissing-grate of metal teeth cutting through numb bone.

  ‘So this is my life, now. At least – hold still, please – until I’ve paid off my debt. There.’ A half-inch lump of something pink clanged into the kidney dish, setting it ringing like a bell. ‘Now I need to flush out the wound and we can get you stitched up. Then we’ll do the wound on your chest, the lump on your head, and, if there’s time after that, I’ll take a look at your nose …’

  A huge wodge of white bandage turned my left hand into something out of a Boris Karloff film, but at least it didn’t hurt any more. Not after the anaesthetics and painkillers. And I could breathe properly again, too. Which was a shame, as the stench rising off Albert wasn’t exactly the freshest.

  He was curled up on his side, one bloody hand clutched over his ear, knees up to his chest, sobbing. His jacket was gone, revealing a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt turned scarlet around the shoulders with blood. A big damp stain darkened his tatty jeans, the sharp-yellow smell of urine mingling with the deep-brown stink of emptied bowels and bile-green BO.

  Joseph clapped his hands together. ‘Mr Henderson! I trust Dr Fotheringham has earned her fee this fine evening? Oh, and I thought, given your current state of … let us describe it as sartorial deficit, you might appreciate a change of coat.’ He whipped out a denim jacket, which looked a lot like the one Albert had been wearing when Francis teed off the first time. ‘I know it’s not up to your usual standard, but I hope it might pass muster until something better, and less tarnished with haemoglobin, comes along.’

  The thing stank of weed, but it was better than what I had on. ‘Thanks.’ Bit tight, though. I tucked my gore-soaked jacket under one arm.

  ‘Excellent.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Now, shall we—’

  ‘How much for a gun?’

  A moment’s silence as Joseph looked at me, head on one side, a faint smile on the edge of his lips. ‘Francis?’

  The big man was over by the sinks, washing the head of his golf club. A nod.

  ‘Would you be so kind as to escort Albert here from the premises? Maybe drop him off somewhere inconvenient so he can find his own way home? Mr Henderson and I have business to discuss that would benefit from the utmost discretion, and I hesitate to burden Albert with a secret he may have difficulty keeping. Especially as I’ll wager he’s quite keen to stay firmly attached to his remaining ear.’

  A nod, then Francis limped across the concrete floor, grabbed Albert by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him out through the unit’s door, into the night.

  Joseph’s expression softened. ‘Poor Francis. I know it might seem difficult to tell the difference, what with his taciturn nature, but your friend’s knee did him a significant damage last night. There’s talk of a surgical intervention being required.’

  Good.

  ‘Gun: how much?’

  ‘May one enquire to what employment you propose to deploy this firearm? Only, these days being what they are, it behoves the responsible businessman to ensure that such an item does not contribute to unnecessary scrutiny or offences of a terrorist nature.’

  ‘I’m going to kill someone with it. Slowly.’

  ‘Ah, in that case I would recommend staying away from the larger end of the munitions spectrum, lest the trauma of a single usage prove too deleterious to the recipient’s continued survival. A shotgun, or a forty-five, for example. No, I think what might suit your purpose best is a point two-two, and, by cheery happenstance, I do happen to have such an item available.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Normally we like three to five business days, but as I sense an urgency to your request, shall we call it …’ he checked his watch, ‘eleven tonight? And, as a conciliatory gesture, I shall offer you a substantial discount on your medical attention, transportation, and firearm. Shall we say, a thousand pounds for all three?’

  A grand. The price of black-
market guns had gone up since last time I’d bought one. ‘Deal.’

  ‘Wonderful. Then I shall see you this evening at eleven. Please do ensure you have sufficient funds with you at the handover, the rate of interest on overdue accounts can be quite …’ he glanced back towards the office, where Dr Fotheringham was framed in the window, watching us, ‘crippling’.

  Outside, the shiny black Transit had gone, leaving Helen’s mouldy Renault alone in the car park. Well, my mouldy Renault now, I suppose. My phone too.

  I pulled it out and checked, but there was still nothing from Alice.

  Where the hell was she?

  One more go.

  But when I called Alice, it rang through to voicemail. Again. ‘Alice, it’s Ash. Call – me – back!’

  Probably lying face down on a conference-room table somewhere, surrounded by empty vodka bottles. Oh, I can’t possibly profile sober.

  Which meant she’d be sod-all use. And as I still hadn’t got a clue what Shifty’s number was, I’d have to track him down the old-fashioned way. After all, it was only about ten minutes from here to Divisional Headquarters and I had two hours to kill before guntime.

  I got in the car.

  No sign of Shifty, but I tracked Rhona down in the DHQ canteen, wrapping herself around what looked like a chip-and-sausage butty, tomato sauce dribbling down her chin. She’d had her hair done in a Fleabag bob, exposing a pale swathe of neck at the back and a pale swathe of forehead at the front. Which didn’t do much to distract attention from the saggy purple bags under her eyes, or the off-yellow circles of ancient sweat staining her shirt’s armpits.

  She looked up as I thumped down in the plastic chair opposite and helped myself to her coffee. Which had too many sugars in it.

  Her eyes widened, staring at me with her mouth hanging open, showing off those grey tombstone teeth of hers. ‘Ash? We thought you were dead! How did … What happened?’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘And what is that horrible smell?’

  ‘Shifty about?’

  ‘You sent all those texts to Mother: how you were really depressed and going to end it all!’ Then Rhona stood and thumped her fist into my shoulder. ‘You worried the living shit out of us!’