The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  But then Shifty always did have terrible taste in men.

  Left at the roundabout, onto Blackwall Avenue, heading back towards the library.

  ‘Think we should put some lost-dog posters up around Glensheilth Crescent? If Alice stopped to let the wee man have a pee, he might’ve run off.’

  Shifty raised one big rounded shoulder. ‘Suppose it wouldn’t hurt.’

  And then we sat in silence, all the way up Blackburgh Road, over the railway bridge. Nothing but the radio to cut through the disinterested growl of the pool car’s engine. One miserable song following another.

  The DJ faded down the latest parade of whining as we pulled across the central reservation, turning right across the dual carriageway and into Kingsmeath again.

  ‘There we go, The Mighty Beetroot and “The Day My Heart Stopped Beating”, taking us up to the news and weather. It’s twenty past midnight and you’re listening to The Witching Hour with me, Lucy Robotham, on Castlewave FM.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘You know, you could come with us, if you like? When we open this hotel. Get away from …’ indicating the rows of small houses on either side of the road, ‘all this.’

  ‘… seventy-year-old man has died as Storm Victoria works its way up through Great Yarmouth, creating havoc with high winds and heavy rain …’

  Shifty’s voice was flat as an ironing board. ‘What, and throw away my stellar career with Police Scotland?’

  ‘… seen up to ten centimetres of rain in the space of two hours, and now severe weather warnings are in place for northeast England, the Central Belt, and eastern Scotland …’

  ‘You could take people shooting? Or do murder mystery weekends, ABBA tribute nights, Eurovision parties – you like that kind of thing, don’t you?’

  ‘What, because I’m gay?’

  ‘… hit Oldcastle at some point this morning. Bob Eason has had a setback in his bid to resurrect the Warriors, as council safety officers refuse him permission to reopen City Stadium for a charity concert. Local rap star Donny “Sick Dawg” McRoberts was rumoured to be headlining …’

  I stared at him. ‘No, because you’ve got terrible taste. And it’s not just in men, you like all sorts of stuff that’s either crap or not good for you.’

  ‘… later this year. Police are appealing for witnesses, following a hit-and-run on Glensheilth Crescent earlier today. The victim, said to be—’ I switched off the radio.

  Shifty nodded. ‘Alice is going to be OK, you know that, don’t you? She’ll pull through.’ His hand left the steering wheel to clamp down on my shoulder, voice going for cheery optimism and not exactly making it: ‘Besides, after all that booze, bet she’s pickled enough inside to last for generations.’ A sad smile. ‘You and me will be a thousand years dead, in our graves, and she’ll still be bumbling about, annoying everyone.’

  Yeah …

  Then why did I have this gaping hollow in the middle of my chest, that kept filling with scalding concrete?

  — in the darkness, bleeding … —

  44

  Shifty took a right, onto a street with loads of tiny roads leading off both sides of it – each one only big enough for a dozen tiny houses and their tiny gardens. He pulled up about two thirds of the way along. ‘Number fifty-four.’

  It wasn’t much to look at: a modest semi, the mirror image of the house it was attached to. No garage, just an empty off-road parking bay. Two windows downstairs, three up. Wooden cladding on the upper storey, as if someone had tried to make this part of the street look less depressing. And failed.

  We climbed out.

  He gave my shoulder another thump. ‘She’ll be OK.’

  I pulled out Alice’s phone and checked her calendar again: ‘K DEWAR – TMM’S LAW’ which had to mean ‘Toby Macmillan’s Mother’s lawyer.’ The mother who broke her wee boy’s arm, invited an abusive stepdad into his life, and was currently appealing against her conviction for neglect.

  And Ann Tweedale thought we didn’t know what it was like down in the trenches, as if we didn’t wade through them every single day.

  Shifty sniffed as we made our way up to the front door of number fifty-four. ‘Any chance we can grab a bite to eat after this one? Haven’t had anything since lunchtime.’

  Right on cue, my stomach growled like an angry bear. Had I eaten since breakfast? Don’t think so. And that was a long time ago. ‘Who’s still serving, after midnight?’

  He leaned on the bell. ‘That chippy on Shand Street will be open. Or the Kebab shops down Holland Street.’ No sign of life from inside, so Shifty had another go on the bell. ‘Shawarma-Llama-Ding-Dong’s meant to be good and they don’t shut till the clubs turf out at three.’ The bell rang again. ‘Or we could get something from the big Winslow’s and take it back to—’

  The door opened and a blurry figure stood there, blinking out at us. Oily coils of whisky oozed out with him, leaving one of his knees locked and the other one wobbly. Wrapped in a towelling dressing gown, brawny arms poking out of the short sleeves. ‘What?’ Voice all slurred. ‘I was … was in the bath …’

  Broad shoulders. Thinning hair, swept back from a tanned scalp. Strong jaw and muscular neck. But it was the eyes that gave it away: bright sapphire, with a dark border.

  He was the solicitor I’d met at HMP Oldcastle: the one having a weep, round the side, by the bins; the one who said we could probably buy Steven Kirk off with eight to ten grand, so he wouldn’t press charges.

  Shifty gave him a goooood long look up and down. A half smile. ‘Kenny.’

  Kenneth Dewar’s bottom lip wobbled for a moment, then tears spilled out of those wolf’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I banged the tip of my cane on the door. ‘Much though I hate to break the sexual tension, you had an appointment with Dr Alice McDonald at noon.’

  He nodded. Palmed the tears from his eyes. ‘I heard on the news. I’m so, so sorry.’

  Shifty rubbed his hands together. ‘Look, can we come in? It’s Baltic out here.’

  Another nod, then he turned and led the way into a living room festooned with old magazines and empty takeaway containers. Many of which harboured things well on the evolutionary route to sentience. The whole place smelled like a bin bag that’d been left in the sun.

  So much for ‘completely shaggable’ – Kenneth Dewar was a slob.

  He scooped armfuls of yellowed newspapers off a cheap couch and waved us to sit. Wiped away the tears again. ‘How can I help?’ Sounding slightly more sober now.

  When he dumped his hoarded newspapers behind the couch there was a Father Jack clatter of empty bottles.

  A quick peek over the back revealed that most of them were supermarket own-brand whisky. So not just a slob, a functioning-alcoholic slob.

  Given the state of the place, it was probably more hygienic to stay standing. ‘We need to know what you and Alice talked about.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Dewar gave a deep, shuddering breath, looking at the floor beneath his wet feet – drips of soapy water soaking into newsprint, turning it a darker shade of grey. ‘She was lovely. She really was. Wanted to know all about Oscar and Lewis and Toby and Andrew. And … she was so easy to talk to, you know?’ Dewar folded his thick arms around himself, muscles rippling beneath the hairy skin. ‘I’ve never met anyone so sympathetic to other people’s problems.’

  ‘And what problems were those, Mr Dewar?’

  His shoulders came up. ‘Sheriff, Gerrard, and Butler do mostly corporate work, but the partners think it’s important to have a presence in the courts as well. And I’m always the one who ends up lumbered with the scumbag defendants – the wife beaters and the sex offenders.’

  Sounded familiar. ‘Because there are enough fascist states in the world without us being one of them?’

  Another nod. ‘You think it’s easy? Walking into those interview rooms, knowing your client is a rancid piece of shit who ruins everything, every life, they touch? Dr McDonald understood.’ Dewar bit his botto
m lip, those wolf’s eyes spilling tears down his cheeks. ‘She gave me her card, for … She said I might benefit from therapy. And now …’

  That was Alice, always trying to help the broken and the lonely.

  Shifty pulled a face, raising his eyebrows as Dewar stood there and sobbed.

  Well what the hell was I supposed to do about it?

  I cleared my throat. ‘Do you need us to call someone?’

  Dewar scrubbed at his face again. ‘Sorry. You don’t need to see this.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  Another shuddering breath, then what was probably meant to be a smile. ‘Sorry. I’d better get dressed. Standing here like an idiot. Please,’ pointing at the tip he lived in, ‘make yourselves at home. I’ll only be a minute.’

  Then he turned and slumped from the room, one hand over his face, shoulders trembling. Then the heavy damp slap-slap-slap of his feet, climbing the stairs.

  ‘Jesus.’ Shifty puffed out his cheeks. ‘What a mess.’

  Difficult to tell if he was talking about the house or the man.

  ‘Think you dodged a bullet, there.’

  ‘Yeah, probably.’

  Upstairs, a door clunked shut.

  I leaned back against the wall – it was the only clean surface in the room. ‘So Alice comes here, she asks Dewar about all the victims, offers him therapy, then heads off to her next appointment: Chris McHale.’

  Shifty checked his watch. ‘Maybe we should’ve tried Ditchburn Road, instead?’

  Outside, the first spots of rain clicked against the living room window.

  A big tabby cat slunk its way through the front garden, across the empty parking bay, then up the waist-height brick wall and down into next door’s.

  Empty parking bay.

  Surely someone working for a hotshot corporate law firm would have a car? So where was it? And back at the prison, he’d said he was working on an appeal by a prisoner who’d beaten up the mother of his child, and now wanted access to the kid. Bet that kid was Andrew Brennan’s baby brother.

  Alice said there was a paedophile ring operating in Kingsmeath, but what if it wasn’t a ring? What if it was one man?

  ‘Shifty?’

  He puffed his cheeks out at me. ‘I think we should go eat before we interview anyone else.’

  ‘Oscar Harris’s uncle, the DJ with the neckbeard – you said he gave you an alibi then got his lawyer involved. Who was the lawyer?’

  Shifty’s finger came up to point to the ceiling above our heads. ‘Like he said, he has to represent all the dodgy scumbags, so …’ Shifty’s eyes widened.

  I followed his gaze to the light fitting. Water oozed out around where the thing fixed to the plasterboard, trickled down the plastic cable and dripped off the lightbulb. Pattering down on the already wet newspapers where Dewar had been standing.

  ‘Move!’

  Out the living room door, lumbering up the stairs, Shifty hard on my heels.

  The landing handrail was festooned with clothes, the carpet sticky as I lurched past an open bedroom door – another tip – to the closed bathroom. The handle rattled as I gripped and twisted, but didn’t open.

  Locked.

  ‘Shifty!’

  He barged past and slammed his shoulder into the door. It boomed and rattled. So he did it again, only this time the thing smashed inwards, the lock ripping from the doorframe, bottom hinges giving way so the door sagged like a twisted sail.

  Water covered the bathroom floor, spilling out over the sides of an overfilled bath.

  And there was Kenneth Dewar, lying naked in it, both arms stretched out in front of him, slashed from elbow to wrist the flesh inside dark – pulsing deep-red swirls out into the tub. A serene smile on his face. ‘I’m sorry …’ as his head fell back to thunk against the mould-blackened tiles.

  ‘Bastard!’ I grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved his head under the water.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Shifty tugged at my arms. ‘Get off him!’

  I let go with my bad hand and threw an elbow backwards. It thumped into something solid, but Shifty didn’t let go.

  ‘It was him! He hit Alice with his car – that’s why it’s not parked outside! Hiding the evidence. He’s Gòrach.’

  ‘If he’s Gòrach, he’s the only one who knows where Toby Macmillan is, you idiot!’

  Oh for …

  Shifty was right.

  I hauled Dewar out of the bath and onto the bathroom floor, bringing a tidal wave of pink-tinged water with him. ‘We need tourniquets!’

  ‘On it.’ Shifty lurched out to the landing and returned seconds later with a T-shirt from the railing and a pair of jeans. He twisted the T-shirt into a thick cord and tied it around Dewar’s upper arm, as close to the elbow as possible, tendons straining in his neck as he pulled it tight enough to make the stitches creak. ‘Come on, come on, come on. Stop bleeding, you wanker …’

  It was the jeans next: twisting one leg then tying it around Dewar’s other arm.

  Sat back on his haunches. ‘Not great, but it’ll have to do.’

  I curled a hand into a fist. ‘Only needs to last till he tells us where Toby Macmillan is. Then he dies.’

  Shifty shook his head. ‘Are you off your head? If he dies now, he dies pissed on whisky – anaesthetised, feeling no pain, and by his own hand. Thought you wanted to make him suffer?’

  My mouth opened, then closed again.

  Had to admit it: Shifty had a point.

  He took hold of Dewar’s ankles and dragged him out onto the landing, making for the stairs. ‘This bastard’s going to hospital, and when he gets better, he’s going to prison, where we’ll make sure every single day is like the Marquis de Sade’s worst nightmare.’ Shifty paused, frowning down at the pale naked body – the lolling head, open mouth, and closed eyes. ‘Well, as long as he doesn’t die on the way to A-and-E.’

  ‘We need to question him before we call an ambulance.’ Not that he looked in any fit state to be interviewed. Better get his attention first – wake him up a bit. I limped forward onto my bullet-holed right foot, took the weight, then smashed my left heel down on the bastard’s balls.

  He sat upright, howling, elbows coming in towards his groin – the arms and hands dangling from them already going a blueish grey.

  I squatted down beside him. Slapped him hard enough to shut him up.

  He blinked back at me, mouth a trembling wet line. ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You killed Andrew Brennan and Oscar Harris and Lewis Talbot and Toby Macmillan. It wasn’t a paedophile ring, it was you. You had access to every one of those little boys, because you represented their abusers, didn’t you?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘But Alice was on to you, wasn’t she? So you tried to kill her.’ I grabbed a handful of that thinning hair and yanked his head back, glared down into his bloodshot eyes. ‘Two questions. One: where’s Toby Macmillan? And two: WHERE’S MY FUCKING DOG?’

  The paramedic hissed out a breath, shook her head, then tutted. Clunked the ambulance’s back door shut. ‘He’s made a right mess of himself, hasn’t he?’ A nod set bright ginger curls bobbing. ‘Still, he was lucky you were here! Be dead otherwise.’

  We stood back as the ambulance pulled away, lights flickering blue-and-white, siren rising in harsh electronic pulses that faded into the distance.

  Two patrol cars sat outside the house, parked half on the kerb.

  Our backup.

  One pair of PCs, in the full high-viz kit, were out setting up a cordon of ‘POLICE’ tape big enough to take in Kenneth Dewar’s semi and the house next door too. Struggling as the wind tried to snatch the tape from their hands, setting it burrrring and whirring.

  The second pair of uniforms were on the other side of the road, getting stuck into the door-to-doors, dragging people out of bed at quarter to one in the morning.

  Wouldn’t be long before some concerned householder got in touch with the media and the str
eet would be swarming with outside broadcast vans and cameras and microphones and reporters. Doing bits to camera. Asking the neighbours what Kenneth Dewar was like, and had they any idea he was a child-murdering bastard? Oh no, he was always so quiet and polite, kept himself to himself. Same thing everyone said when they lived next to a monster, because if they admitted knowing he was a wrong-un all along, that made them guilty of keeping quiet about it and letting four little boys die.

  Shifty stepped back into the doorway, out of the wind and rain. ‘Absolutely starving.’

  ‘Not much we can do about that now.’

  His big round shoulders drooped. ‘Probably not.’

  A boxy Range Rover growled its way along Corriemuir Place, parking outside the cordon. Wouldn’t have thought journalists would’ve got here so fast … But it wasn’t a journalist who climbed out of the big ugly car, it was Detective Superintendent Jacobson, wearing his trademark brown leather jacket and pelt-like hair. Holding a hand above his eyes, like the bill on a baseball cap, to keep the rain off his glasses.

  He flashed his ID at one of the uniforms and ducked under the cordon. Marched over to us, trying to look stern and serious, while the corners of his mouth twitched. ‘DI Morrow, Ash, you got him?’

  Shifty pointed at me. ‘Figured it out.’

  All pretence at hiding the smile vanished and Jacobson play-punched me on the arm. ‘Knew there was a reason I keep you on the books! You look like crap, by the way.’ Beaming as he stared up at Dewar’s house. ‘What about Toby—’

  ‘He buried Toby Macmillan in Camburn Woods, round the back of those abandoned World War Two barracks.’ I tucked my throbbing left hand into my pocket before Jacobson could see it and start asking awkward questions. ‘Doesn’t know exactly which one, but won’t be hard to find with a dog unit.’

  ‘Oh …’ Jacobson’s smile disappeared, a pained expression blossoming like a gunshot wound. ‘Poor wee sod. Thought we might actually manage to save this one.’ A nod, trying to sound upbeat again: ‘Still, at least we got the guy, right? He won’t be hurting anyone else.’

  Shifty jerked his chin up, setting his jowls wobbling. ‘He’s the one who tried to kill Alice.’