Birthdays for the Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  I placed three glasses on the breakfast bar. ‘Denis Chakrabarti wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Yes he was. You know it, I know it, and the six little boys he raped and dismembered know it. Philip Skinner’s widow knows it too.’ Henry slugged a generous measure into each tumbler, then held one up. ‘A toast: to new beginnings. May Dr McDonald not make the same mistakes I did.’

  She stared at the glass in front of her. ‘It’s not even eight o’clock yet, I mean it’s a lovely offer, but I don’t know if—’

  ‘If you’re going to climb inside the mind of the monster, you should really go prepared, don’t you think?’ A smile pulled at his cheeks; the glass trembled in his hand.

  I put a hand on his shoulder, it was hard and knobbly beneath the jacket. Just bones and whisky in a funeral suit. ‘Look … talk it over with Dr McDonald, OK? Be a sounding board – you don’t have to do anything.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘We need your help, Henry. If you’re still blaming yourself for Chakrabarti, maybe this is your chance to redeem yourself.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to help, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with the case, what am I supposed to do, I mean I can’t—’

  ‘Talk to him. Work whatever freaky mojo you did on the ferry crew.’ Outside, through the shattered lounge window, Scalloway harbour glittered in the sunshine – a bright-red fishing boat chugged out to sea, stalked by a cloud of whirling seagulls. ‘Look, we don’t have time to dick about up here, OK? Flirt with him, flatter him, dazzle him with your brilliance, I don’t care: get him to help.’

  ‘But he doesn’t want to—’

  ‘Top of your class, remember?’ I pulled on my jacket. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

  She sagged, stripy arms hanging by her sides. ‘But, Ash—’

  ‘God’s sake: you’re worse than Katie, and she’s twelve.’ I grabbed Dr McDonald’s shoulders and spun her around, so she was facing the kitchen. Gave her a push. ‘Now go.’

  She scuffed her Hi-tops across the carpet.

  When she’d closed the door behind her, I headed outside. Royce was waiting in the patrol car with the engine running. I squeezed into the passenger seat – at least it was nice and warm in here. ‘Tell me about Arnold Burges.’

  The constable pursed his lips, leaned forward, voice turned down to a whisper. ‘Came up here from London four years ago: been hassling Dr Forrester ever since. We’ve got him … God, what, about twenty, thirty times for public nuisance and destruction of private property. But the Doc never wants to press charges. Daft, eh? I think he feels sorry for him, you know, after what happened to his daughter.’

  I pulled on my seatbelt. ‘Drive.’

  Chapter 18

  ‘…and the time before that, he took a sledgehammer to Dr Forrester’s wife’s headstone. Smashed it to bits… Here we go.’ Royce pulled the Fiesta into the side of the road. Mountains surrounded a slash of water, glowing green and blue in the early morning sun. A handful of white cottages dotted the landscape, looking out across the sea loch to the village of Calders Lea. ‘That’s the cages there.’ He pointed at a collection of three wide, wheel-like things lying in the middle of the water, made from a framework of black pipes. Some sort of large floating shed was moored between them.

  ‘You sure Burges is there?’

  A shrug. ‘It’s Wednesday, so he should be… Less he’s got a day off, or something.’

  Royce drove on another couple of hundred yards, then took a narrow road on the left, down the hill towards a collection of bus-shelter-sized offshore containers in various shades of rust-flecked blue with a logo painted in white on the side – three salmon swimming in a circle around the words ‘CALDERS LEA AQUACULTURE LTD ∼ DA FASH FOR DU!’

  A wooden hut sat next to a concrete slipway that disappeared into the water. Royce parked alongside it. ‘How’s your sea legs?’

  ‘He going to have friends?’

  ‘Depends how drunk Benny got last night.’ Royce squinted, held a hand over his eyes – shading out the morning sun. ‘Talk of the devil…’

  A wide boat with a small wheelhouse was brrrrring its way through the sapphire blue water, making for the slipway. Two minutes later it bumped against the concrete and a stick-figure of a man in blue overalls and black wellington boots hopped out, holding one end of a thick rope. His eyes were sunken and pink, underlined with heavy purple bags, a threadbare woollen hat perched on top of his head. Long arms, short legs, big ears and a wild mess of ginger hair.

  Royce held up a hand. ‘Benny.’

  ‘Constable Clark!’ A lopsided grin and an almost impenetrable Shetland accent. ‘Whatever it was, me darlin’, I didn’t do it. Was home all night with ma sister.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet. You busy?’

  ‘Never aff o’ da go, you know?’

  ‘Arnold about?’

  ‘On da barge.’ He tilted his head to one side, contorted his eyebrows. ‘He do it again?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sigh. ‘Less an dule… Give us a minute to load some feed, and I’ll give du a hurl.’ He clomped over to one of the containers and unlocked the padlock, then creaked the door open. It was stacked full of paper sacks – like the ones tatties came in. A smell, like cat biscuits, wafted out of the container.

  Benny hefted a bag onto his shoulder and shuffled back to the boat, hauling up the droopy backside of his overalls. ‘Du can lend a hand if du want.’

  The boat clunked against the floating platform. It was about the size of a boxing ring with a big wooden shed taking up almost all of the available surface area, barely enough room around the edge for a walkway and handrail.

  Benny switched off the engine, then threw a line around a cleat in front of the shed doors, wrapping it tight. ‘I lichtit til him: leave the poor auld fart alone, but dis he listen til me? Course he doesn’t.’ Benny dragged a sack of feed from the bottom of the boat and thumped it down on the walkway. ‘Arnie? ARNIE, DU GOT VISITORS!’ Benny hefted another sack. ‘ARNIE?’

  Nothing.

  It was still and silent out here in the middle of the sea loch; sunlight glinted off the water all around us.

  I clambered up onto the walkway. The shed door was lying wide open. A metal hopper took up nearly half of the building, attached to some sort of engine and a length of pipe that disappeared out through the wall. A small table and a couple of folding chairs. A wee diesel generator, portable TV, kettle, mugs, microwave, and other assorted bits and bobs. Not exactly luxurious. Half the shed was empty, the area fenced off with chicken wire and wooden slats, a couple of bags of fish feed stacked against the wall. The smell of cat biscuits was nearly overpowering. No sign of Burges. ‘Thought you said he was out here.’

  ‘He is.’ Benny dumped another sack on the walkway.

  ‘What, he’s invisible?’

  A shrug.

  I squinted out at the shining water. ‘Maybe he saw the patrol car and ran for it?’

  ‘Swum for it, du means.’ Another sack. ‘We’ve only got the one boat.’

  The diesel generator spluttered into silence. Royce appeared at my shoulder carrying two mugs. He held one out. ‘No biscuits. But if you’re hungry there’s plenty of fish food?’

  ‘Arnold Burges going to be long?’

  ‘Depends.’ I took a sip: it was coffee, but only just.

  Something broke the surface of the water – over by the furthest of the three cages. It was a bald head, the shiny pink crown surrounded by a fringe of soggy black hair. Big diving goggles, breathing apparatus for an aqualung. And then it was gone again.

  I leaned against the handrail, following the trail of bubbles. ‘When Burges gets here, make yourself scarce. You and the little orang-utan.’

  ‘How?’ Royce pursed his lips and looked around. ‘Not exactly a lot of places to—’

  ‘Get in the boat, go fishing, I don’t care.’

  ‘Hmmm…’ A sip of coffee. ‘You
’re kinda … pushy for a detective constable.’

  Cheeky bastard. ‘I’m only asking for ten minutes. Fifteen tops.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you remember I’m the one who’s got to keep the peace here after you’ve buggered off back to the real world… Here we go.’

  The bald head resurfaced a good twenty feet closer, making for the barge. Something bobbed along behind it: looked like a fluorescent orange buoy. Two minutes later, a huge man hauled himself out of the water and up onto the platform.

  He’d been squeezed into a tatty old drysuit. The arms, legs and neck looked as if they’d been black once, the chest and stomach ancient yellow. Water dribbled from a bushy brown beard.

  Arnold Burges.

  He pulled off the diving goggles and narrowed his eyes at Royce. ‘The old bastard’s lying. I was here all night with Benny. After that frigging seal.’ He turned his back, squatted at the edge of the walkway, and reached into the water.

  Royce sighed. ‘Benny’s already told us he was round his sister’s all night. How many times do we have to go over this? You’ve got to stay away from Dr Forrester.’

  The big man flexed his shoulders and hauled on a length of blue plastic rope – the buoy cut through the water until it was close enough for him to grab. ‘Another seven hundred fish last night. Seven hundred.’ He looped the rope around a metal contraption, then cranked the handle.

  ‘I mean it, Arnold: leave him alone.’

  A foot of black net rose from the loch, the rest of it still submerged. Silver shapes glistened inside. Burges pulled one of them out. It was a salmon, nearly as long as his arm, scales glistening pink, silver and grey, its distinctive jutting jaw hanging open. A single, ragged-edged chunk was missing from its belly. ‘See that?’

  ‘Arnold—’

  ‘One bite. Sticks his nose through the net, tears out the liver and leaves them to die. Seven hundred frigging fish in one night.’ Burges curled his top lip, then tossed the salmon into a plastic barrel, sending water splashing up the side of the shed. ‘Been picking dead fish out the cages all week.’

  ‘Arnold, this is Detective Constable Henderson, he wants a word.’

  Burges went back to the winch, lifting more net out of the water. ‘Benny? You get that feed?’

  Benny nodded towards the pile in the barge. ‘Twenty bags.’

  ‘That’s no bloody good, how’s twenty bags going to last us—’

  ‘Don’t draa doon der broos at me, Arnie Burges. A’m hed me some passengers, didn’t I?’

  Draa doon der…? What the hell was that supposed to mean? It was as if he was making up words.

  Benny hopped back in the boat. ‘Wis just aff to get the balance.’

  I stared at Royce, jerked my head towards the shore.

  A pause, then the constable nodded. Not as daft as he looked. ‘Yes, right, well, why don’t I give you a hand, Benny? Less of a job for two. This pair can stay here and … have that word.’

  The boat’s engine faded to a grumble, then a whisper, then nothing.

  I leaned back against the rusty metal handrail. ‘Stay the hell away from Henry Forrester.’

  Burges hurled another dead fish into the barrel. ‘Fertilizer. That’s all these are good for now.’

  ‘It’s not his fault.’

  ‘Waste of good fish.’

  ‘Look, Mr Burges, I know you’ve been through a lot, but—’

  ‘You know what I’ve been through?’ THUMP. The next salmon didn’t go in the barrel, it battered into the wooden platform at my feet. ‘You fucking know?’

  Yes, I fucking did.

  ‘It isn’t—’

  ‘My Lauren’s dead, Constable Henderson. Oh yeah, I know who you are. I remember you from the frigging press conferences. Calling yourself the “Party Crashers”: like this was some sort of game. Tell you what, how about we all throw a party, because some twisted bastard killed my Lauren?’

  ‘Henry Forrester did his best to—’

  ‘We’ll all have jelly and ice cream, because someone pulled out her teeth, cut her, tore out her fingernails, hacked off her head, and gutted her like a fish? Yeah, let’s have a frigging party!’ The big man’s face was getting darker, red spreading across his round cheeks. The veins in his neck throbbed where the skin met the drysuit’s rubber collar.

  I stared out across the water. Took a deep, slow breath. At least he knew; he wasn’t waiting for the next card to turn up to find out what the bastard had done. Lauren was dead, the Birthday Boy couldn’t hurt her any more. But Rebecca…

  There was something in my throat. ‘You’re not the only one who lost a daughter.’

  ‘She wasn’t even thirteen!’ Spittle flew from his lips, sparkling in the sunshine.

  ‘Then take it out on the Birthday Boy, not the poor old bastard who—’

  ‘If you useless wankers had done your jobs and caught him, Lauren would still be here!’ He squared his shoulders, bearded chin jutting out. ‘Two years. TWO FUCKING YEARS you had before he took her!’ Burges took a step forwards.

  Here we go.

  I pushed myself off the handrail, coiling my aching hands into fists. ‘You need to calm down, before you get hurt.’

  ‘You got any idea what it’s like? The waiting? Every birthday, waiting for the next card, waiting to see what he’s done to her?’

  All the time.

  I closed my eyes, counted to five. Had another go: ‘Henry Forrester tried to help you.’

  Burges threw his arms wide, the drysuit creaking as it stretched. A balding bear in a rubber romper suit, beard jutting out like wire wool. ‘Why should he get to forget? Eh? Why should he get to put it all behind him? Every year we get another card. Every frigging year. We moved up here and he still found us! He’s out there with his camera and his knives and other people’s daughters, because you FUCKERS can’t do your—’

  ‘What the hell are we supposed to do: magic the bastard up out of thin air?’ Getting louder. ‘You think this is easy? You think you’re the only one fucking suffering? At least we’ve found Lauren’s body, at least you get to…’

  Burges’s eyes went wide, mouth hanging open, face drained to a pale grey.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  He took a step back, then thump, he was sitting on the platform’s wooden surface. Staring up at me.

  ‘Mr Burges?’ Shite, he was having a heart attack. ‘Mr Burges?’

  ‘You…’ He blinked, rubbed a huge hand across his face. Then looked out across the water, eyes glistening. ‘You found my Lauren…?’

  ‘No one told you?’ For fuck’s sake – surely someone should have told him. One of Dickie’s team, or Weber, or—

  ‘You little bastard…’ He scrambled to his feet, neoprene drysuit squeaking and groaning. Backed up to the open doorway. ‘You’re fucking for it now!’

  Great. If I’d known I was going to be delivering the sodding death message I wouldn’t have opened with, ‘Stay the hell away from Henry Forrester.’

  Idiots. How could they not tell him? How could they be so bloody…

  Burges was back on the walkway, clutching a rifle. Big wooden stock, black metal barrel – a two-twenty-two, more than capable of blowing a massive hole in anyone daft enough to stand in front of it.

  Oh. Shit.

  The big man racked the bolt up and back, then forward again. Putting a bullet in the breech.

  SHIT.

  Where the hell was Royce? I glanced over my shoulder – the little boat was still tied up on the shore by the containers. They’d hear the shot … but by then I’d be dead.

  Then do something. Rush him. Grab the gun. Move.

  Burges raised the rifle to his shoulder, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

  Too late.

  Chapter 19

  Missed. The bastard missed! Everything was crystal clear, each detail rendered in glowing HD Technicolor, with Dolby surround: the slap of the water against the platform,
the grain of the wood on the walkway, the flecks of rust on the handrail, the golden flash as the brass cartridge spun through the air, the ping as it bounced off the shed wall.

  MOVE!

  I rushed the fat bastard, head down like a battering ram.

  Nothing hurt any more. Like being reborn.

  I slammed into Burges’s swollen stomach, sending him crashing back into the door frame. He wasn’t just big, he was solid too – it was like rugby-tackling a sofa. The two-twenty-two went flying, clattered against the wooden platform.

  ‘Get off me!’

  I did: coiled a fist back, ready for the fat bastard’s face, but he was faster than he looked – barging past, making for the railing where I’d been standing, feet thumping on the walkway, making it judder.

  I grabbed the rifle, hauled it up and round until it was pointing right in the middle of Burges’s huge back.

  He stood there, at the railing, staring out at the water.

  Why didn’t he go after the gun?

  I racked another bullet into the chamber.

  Burges jabbed a finger at the loch. ‘There! Got you, you little shit!’

  A grey shape floated past, about eight-foot from the barge – skin like freckled neoprene, a ragged scarlet hole in its side. The body rolled and twitched, one flipper making eddies in the bloody water. The thing had to be at least five feet long. Jesus…

  Burges turned and grinned at me, like a crack-head with a chainsaw. ‘The boathook – give me the boathook. Quickly!’

  ‘On your knees. Hands behind your head.’

  The boat puttered towards the platform, PC Clark in the prow – holding a coil of rope at the ready – while Benny peered out through the wheelhouse window.

  The constable’s mouth worked up and down, but no sound came out, his eyes wide, staring at the thick smear of blood that went from the open shed doors to the edge of the walkway. Then he stared at me instead: sitting there on a folding chair in the sunshine, the rifle across my knees.

  Finally Royce found his voice again. ‘Oh God…’

  The boat bumped against the platform and he fumbled the rope around the cleat. ‘We heard a shot; where’s Arnold Burges?’ The constable scrambled onto the walkway, one hand over his mouth, staring down at the blood. ‘What did you do? I told you! What am I going… How am I supposed to explain this?’