Birthdays for the Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  He swaggered back to the couch. ‘You’d think, but I only got my hands on it eleven years ago. It was my dear old mum’s house, and her dad’s before her. It’s like a family heirloom. Got a team of architects up from Edinburgh to gut the place and completely redesign it to my personal specifications.’ He pointed down. ‘Floor’s Italian marble. They wanted to use slate, but I insisted. Told them: Sensational Steve knows what he wants.’

  What Sensational Steve wanted was dragging outside and being given a stiff kicking.

  ‘Wow.’ Dr McDonald gave a little gasp. ‘You know what would be great: a tour, would you show us round, Sensational Steve, I’d love that.’

  ‘For you, little lady, anything.’

  ‘And that’s big enough for eight people.’ He nodded at the Jacuzzi. ‘I think we’ve seen the lot now.’

  Dr McDonald held up a hand and counted things off on her fingers: ‘Four bedrooms, one recording studio, one study, dining room, kitchen, conservatory, wine cellar, three bathrooms, living room…’ She scrunched her face up like a happy chipmunk. ‘It’s just the best!’

  Yeah, there was nothing better than getting a self-important tosser to show you around his house, boasting about how expensive and exclusive everything was. Great way to spend half an hour. And listening to Dr McDonald fawning over every word made it extra special.

  Could she lay it on any thicker if she tried?

  We followed Steven Wallace through to the front hall – lined with yet more photos of himself.

  He pointed at Dr McDonald. ‘Don’t move a muscle, I’ll be back in a tick.’ And then he was off up the stairs, taking them two at a time. A minute later he returned with one of those teddy bears and a glossy photograph. An eight-by-ten of his own cheesy face signed in chunky black marker. He waggled the bear. ‘I saw you admiring the Cuddle Crew when we were talking earlier. Here, you can hug him all night and think of Sensational Steve.’

  Dear God, I was going to be sick.

  She took the bear and the photo, bouncing on her toes as if she was about to wet herself. ‘Thanks, they’re great, I’ll treasure them forever!’ Then she leapt forwards, kissed him on the cheek, blushed, and ran out of the front door.

  Steven Wallace preened himself, then turned the Colgate grin on me. ‘And if I can be of any further assistance, you let me know, OK? Sensational Steve is always glad to help.’

  I shifted my mobile to the other ear. ‘Yes, I spoke to him. I said I would, didn’t I?’ Gravel crunched beneath my feet as I followed the path between a pair of huge rhododendrons – their seed heads like alien eyes on their dark bodies, leaves glistening sickly yellow in the sodium light.

  On the other end of the phone, Michelle took a deep breath. ‘He won’t be round again? You promise?’

  ‘If he is, it’ll be the last thing he does, and he knows it.’ The path wound through Cameron Park, the edges choked with weeds. One of the SOC tents was up ahead, its walls glowing through a copse of skeletal beech trees.

  ‘I don’t want him anywhere near us, Ash. I… I can’t.’

  ‘He won’t be round again.’

  Dr McDonald scuffed along the path behind me.

  ‘Thanks…’ Michelle cleared her throat, forced a little cheer into her voice. ‘Have you booked somewhere for Katie’s party yet?’

  ‘Did she tell you she wants to go pony-trekking this year?’

  ‘Have you booked somewhere?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve booked somewhere. I told you last time.’ I checked my watch – still time to get something organized. ‘How many of her friends need to go play on the horsies with her? Four? Five? A dozen?’

  ‘Her birthday’s on Monday, Ash: you need to get this sorted.’

  ‘I’ll get it sorted. For God’s…’ I stopped on the path, rubbed at my eyes. ‘How did this go from, “Thank you, Ash, you’re my saviour!” to roasting my knackers over an open flame?’

  Silence from the other end.

  I stared up at the heavy dark-orange sky. ‘OK, OK: I’ll book it for six of them…’

  More silence.

  Then Dr McDonald was right at my shoulder, talking far too loud in a fake Glasgow accent. ‘’Scuse me, Constable Henderson, the guvnor wants to see youse, but.’

  I looked around. There was no one there, just the two of us.

  She mimed hanging up a phone, still clutching that bloody teddy bear.

  ‘Michelle, I’ve got to go. Work.’

  ‘I… I’m sorry. I do appreciate you talking to Ethan. Thank you.’ And then Michelle was gone.

  Dr McDonald grinned. ‘Looked like you needed a get-out-of-jail-free card.’

  I kept walking towards the glowing SOC tent.

  ‘Ash?’

  Still had two days left to organize Katie’s pony-trekking and hire somewhere to corral a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls while they screeched their way through cake and ice cream. Two days and six hundred quid. How hard could it be?

  Dr McDonald popped up at my shoulder again. ‘Are you not speaking to me, I mean, you barely looked at me when we were at that last house interviewing Mrs Goddard, did I do something to—’

  I jumped my voice up an octave. ‘Oh, Sensational Steve, you’re so sensational, I mean really marvellous and lovely, and your house is so special, and you’re special, and I’ll treasure this moment forever!’

  She skipped alongside, scuffing through the gravel. ‘I was pretty convincing, wasn’t I?’

  ‘The key to undercover work is subtlety. Not fannying about the place, overacting like a pantomime dame. It’s a murder enquiry, not a game.’

  ‘Come on, I was perfect: a devotee, a fan, an acolyte, exactly the kind of person someone like Steven Wallace loves to show off to, I mean, did you see his photo collection: there’s not a single one in the entire house that doesn’t feature him, he positively radiates an almost sociopathic selfishness, I mean look at this.’

  She held out the bear with his face on its T-shirt.

  ‘Who has these lying around the house, and he’s got no alibi for the time Megan went missing yesterday, and he’s in the media, so while he’s an odious greasy little man he’s a local celebrity, he’s charming, he’d tell a young girl exactly what she wanted to hear: I’m famous and I can make you famous too. Now get in my funky VW camper van with the curtains on the windows.’

  I stopped. ‘You think he’s the Birthday Boy?’

  The little shite…

  She kept going, still skipping, holding the bear by the arm, swinging it back and forwards. ‘Steven Wallace is a narcissist, no one else matters but him, he’s lived there since he was a little boy so he knows the area and the park, and he’s got the perfect vehicle for transporting unconscious teenaged girls, why do you think I got him to give us a tour of his house?’ Dr McDonald stopped, the bear hanging limp at her side. ‘It’s a shame there wasn’t anything there…’

  We cadged a cup of tea in the marquee-sized SOC tent. A diesel generator droned in the far corner, powering the floodlights that lit the place like a cold summer’s day, meaning the lumpy-nosed woman in the white coverall had to shout. ‘We think we’ve got another body: that’s six.’

  Five more to go.

  Warmth prickled at the back of my head. What if it was Rebecca? What if they’d finally found her… My stomach clenched. There was still time: she wasn’t on the list of victims, it’d take longer to identify her remains.

  Sensational Steve Wallace – it wouldn’t take much to make him talk. A hammer, a pair of pliers, one of those little crème brûlée torches like Ethan had…

  And then what? Torture a confession out of him and the defence would tear us apart. Steven Wallace would walk out of court a free man with a big wad of compensation in his pocket.

  ‘…Guv?’

  I blinked.

  The SEB tech frowned at me, then pointed over her shoulder at a fresh cordon of yellow-and-black tape. ‘I said the ground-penetrating radar’s
acting up – we’ve been giving it a bit of a hammering since we found the first one – so we can’t be sure till we excavate.’

  Something in my throat. ‘Get digging: I’ll square it with Weber.’

  Dr McDonald wrapped her hands around the chipped mug, steam curling out into the tent. ‘Imagine lying here, buried in the cold ground for eight years, alone and afraid…’

  ‘Right…’ The woman took a step back, one eyebrow up, the other down. ‘Well, I suppose these remains aren’t going to dig themselves up.’

  I looked out across the floodlit clumps of yellowy grass. ‘Soil samples back from Aberdeen yet?’

  A shrug. ‘You think anyone would tell us?’ Then she picked up her trowel and stomped away, ducking under the cordon.

  Dr McDonald slurped her tea, watching me out of the corner of her eye. ‘Do we suspect something?’

  ‘Steven Wallace had the whole house remodelled eleven years ago. One year later the Birthday Boy snatches Amber O’Neil. If you wanted to build yourself a hidden room to torture twelve-year-old girls to death in…?’

  A frown. ‘The wine cellar. But we would’ve seen—’

  ‘For all we know, there’s a whole Josef Fritzl Bat Cave hidden behind the merlot.’ I pulled out my phone, called DCI Weber and asked him about the soil samples.

  ‘How would I know? Dickie and his Party Crashers have muscled in, we’re nothing but bloody support staff now. And before you ask: they’re all off at the mortuary, playing doctors and cadavers, so if you want to beg for scraps, you know where to go.’

  ‘Who pissed in your tea?’

  ‘Who do you think: that slimy arselicker DS Smith and his new best friend ACC Drummond.’

  ‘So give Smith something crappy to do and don’t let him dump it on one of the DCs. Tell him he’s the only one you can trust. He’ll love that.’

  ‘Hmm… You want that friend’s number?’

  Seven thousand, one hundred pounds. ‘Maybe. You know anywhere good to hold a kid’s birthday party?’

  Chapter 29

  The mortuary rang with the sound of refrigerated drawers being clunked in and out of the wall. ‘Sorry about this…’ Alf the Anatomical Pathology Technician ran a hand along his ponytail then tried another drawer. ‘I know they’re in here somewhere.’

  A small set of speakers dribbled boy-band blandness into the room – the tiled walls and floor making the noise echo out of phase with itself. It complemented the eye-nipping stench of bleach.

  ‘Where are you…?’ Another drawer. ‘Nightshift did a stocktake yesterday – took everyone out, cleaned the drawers, and put half the buggers back in the wrong place. Ah-ha! Here we go.’

  The drawer was full of paperwork, boxes of pens, and packs of Post-it notes. Two bottles of what looked like vodka clinked at the back. ‘Used to keep it all in the office, but the cleaners kept nicking stuff. Least this way we can lock it up, eh?’ He selected a blue folder from the pile and handed it to me. ‘One forensic report.’

  Dr McDonald stood in the middle of the room, staring at the empty cutting tables, both arms wrapped around herself. ‘What happens to the girls now?’

  ‘Long-term storage; got a deep-freeze facility on this industrial estate in Shortstaine. Can’t release them for burial till there’s a trial – defence’ll want to do their own post mortem.’

  ‘That might be years…’

  A shrug. ‘Kinda depends on how long it takes you lot to catch him.’

  I flicked through the chilled paperwork. A preliminary soil analysis was covered in graphs and tables of numbers. The bit at the back was in actual English. ‘Says here that there’s soil particulates recovered with the body that don’t match the substrate it was buried in.’

  Alf nodded. ‘Means they were killed elsewhere and dumped in the grave.’

  I stared at him. ‘Yeah, because we couldn’t tell that from the photographs on the birthday cards.’

  Pink rushed up his cheeks. ‘Well… I was … ahem. Do you guys want a tea or coffee or something?’

  Dr McDonald walked over to the wall of refrigerated drawers, and put her hand on one of the stainless-steel doors. ‘All that time in the cold ground, and they still can’t go back to their families.’

  Just a little longer, please. Just long enough to get Steve Wallace. After five years, a couple more days wouldn’t make any difference…

  I cleared my throat, stuck the report back in the folder and returned it to Alf. ‘If we can get a soil sample from the murder site they’ll be able to match it. All we need’s a warrant.’ I pulled out my phone. The network icon blinked at me: no signal.

  Alf shoved the drawer back into the wall. ‘It’s all the metal and pipes and fridges and being underground and that: plays hell with the signal. There’s a sweet spot right outside the doors though.’

  Nothing, nothing … then the mortuary doors closed behind me and I had four bars.

  DCI Weber wasn’t picking up, and neither was Rhona, so I tried Sabir instead. ‘Need you to do a PNC and full background on one Steven Wallace, eighty-six McDermid Avenue, Oldcastle, I.C.One male, early to mid forties.’

  ‘PNC me arse, did I not tell youse the internet was where it’s at?’ A rattle of keystrokes in the background. ‘Don’t mean to geg, but who’s this Steven Wallace when he’s at home whackin’ one off?’

  ‘Depends what you find, doesn’t it?’

  ‘…OK. This on the record, or off?’

  ‘Like I said: depends what you find.’

  The door opened behind me, and Dr McDonald slipped through into the gloomy corridor. ‘Do you want to—’

  I held up a finger and pointed at the phone in my other hand. ‘I need enough to go in there and turn his house upside down, drag him into the station, take DNA, full body-cavity search, the lot.’

  ‘Leave it with us. Gonna cost youse a bevvie though, right?’ Sabir hung up.

  I slid the phone back in my pocket. ‘Sorry: business.’

  ‘Do you fancy dinner tonight? I mean a carryout or something, Aunty Jan’s off to Glasgow to see My Chemical Romance, and she’s staying over with friends so I’m going to be on my own and maybe we could talk about the case or something. Or we could watch a film…’ She bit her bottom lip and took a step back, staring over my shoulder.

  I turned. There was someone on their knees in the shadows – big shoulders, grey boilersuit, scuffed trainers. The Rat Catcher. She was stroking something, holding it to her chest. One of the big plastic traps lay empty in front of her.

  Dr McDonald stepped closer, tugging my sleeve. ‘Is that a rat, I mean is she actually cuddling a dead rat?’

  The Rat Catcher must have heard her, because she looked up and stared at us.

  My mobile rang – the harsh noise cutting through the hum of the hospital above.

  Mrs Rat Catcher didn’t move.

  I answered. ‘Michelle, this isn’t really a good—’

  ‘The school just phoned.’

  Something heavy dragged a sigh out of me. ‘What’s she done now?’

  ‘Katie’s been in a fight – they’re keeping her in the office. Someone has to go round there and speak to the headmistress.’

  Silence.

  ‘And?’

  The Miss Jean Brodie voice came out full bore. ‘Well, I can’t do it, can I? I’m stuck in a meeting till seven.’

  ‘Yeah, well you know what: I’m trying to catch a serial killer who kidnaps and tortures young girls. You think your meeting’s more—’

  ‘Oh, don’t give me that. You had plenty of time to sneak off with your reporter whore when you were on duty, didn’t you? Katie’s only ever your daughter when it’s convenient!’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘They’re talking about expelling her, Ash. I’m stuck here till seven. Go be a father for a change.’ And she was gone.

  I closed my eyes, leaned back against the wall and banged my head off it a couple of ti
mes. Thank you, Ash, you’re my saviour.

  A hand on my arm.

  I looked down and Dr McDonald was staring up at me. ‘Are you all right?’

  Boom. The door clattered open and Alf appeared from the mortuary, shoving a big metal gurney in front of him. ‘Beep, beep: mind your backs.’ The door swung shut again. ‘Got a client to collect from Oncology.’ He stopped for a moment, banging one wheel of the trolley up and down on the concrete floor. ‘Bloody thing never goes in a straight line…’ He peered down the corridor. ‘That you, Lisa?’

  The Rat Catcher stared back, clutching the dead rodent against her chest.

  Alf smiled. ‘How you doing? Everything good? Yeah, perfect with me too. Keeping busy, you know?’

  Blink.

  ‘Well, better get back to it, right? No rest for the wicked.’

  She stood, opened the cage mounted into her trolley and placed the rat’s body inside. Her Oldcastle accent was thick and gravelly. ‘Keeping busy.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’

  Lisa the Rat Catcher hunched over her trolley and scuffed away through the on-and-off patchwork of light and shadow.

  Dr McDonald shuffled her feet. ‘She’s very… Erm…’

  ‘Nah.’ Alf gave his gurney’s wheel another couple of dunts. ‘Don’t worry about Lisa, been working here longer than I have. Not the sharpest hamster in the cage, but she’s all right. You OK to see yourselves out?’

  ‘The school day finished a quarter of an hour ago, Mr Henderson.’ The headmistress stood with her back to the room, looking out of the office window at the dirty rectangular blocks that made up Johnston Academy, classroom lights glowing in the darkness. Surveying her domain.

  Her office wasn’t like the ones on the telly – no wooden panelling and large teak desk with matching trophy case. Instead it was crammed with filing cabinets, in-trays and piles of paperwork. Cracked magnolia walls and a scrawl-covered whiteboard, a corkboard littered with pinned-up notes.

  Two chairs sat in front of the desk. A balding man perched in one of them, wearing a corduroy jacket and a frown, hands knotting and unknotting themselves in his lap.