Birthdays for the Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  The cellar was a good size – probably bigger than the whole ground floor of my ruined house – lined with wooden shelves, piled high with wine.

  ‘Where is she, Steve?’

  He wriggled, but the cable-ties didn’t budge – holding him tight to the wooden dining chair, rumpling his silk pyjamas. The bruise on his cheek was beginning to darken.

  I turned, ran my hands across the rack of bottles. ‘It’s here, isn’t it? Your secret torture chamber? Hidden away…’ I hauled at the shelving and bottles crashed to the flagstone floor, red white and rosé shattering, soaking Steve’s slippers.

  A muffled shriek. Then nervous giggling.

  ‘Oh, you think this is funny, do you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Where is she?’

  More mumbling.

  I yanked another set of shelves off the wall. Still no sign of a hidden door.

  ‘WHERE IS SHE?’

  He closed his eyes and trembled. I slapped him.

  ‘Look at me, you little shite!’

  He turned his head away, so I slapped him again.

  ‘LOOK AT ME!’

  He did what he was told. ‘Mmmmmmphnph…’

  ‘You see what I’m wearing, Steve? The mask, the goggles, the outfit? They’re not so you won’t recognize me: they’re so I don’t leave any forensic evidence behind when I carve you into little fucking bits.’

  I pulled a birthday card from my pocket – Rebecca, the number five scratched into the top-left corner – and held it under Steven Wallace’s nose. Let him drink it in. ‘Look familiar? Helpless, tied to a chair in a basement, gagged, terrified?’

  I cleared a shelf of Rioja with a sweep of one hand, then reached into the B&Q carrier-bag.

  ‘You’re already dead, Steve.’ I pulled a pair of pliers out and placed them on the shelf, then a claw-hammer, braddle, Stanley knife, heavy-duty scissors, and a little blowtorch. ‘Tell me where she is and I’ll make it relatively quick.’

  ‘Mmmmph… MMMPHNPH!’

  I smiled at him. ‘What, you think I’m going to use these to make you talk?’ The pliers felt nice and solid in my hand – I snapped the jaws half an inch from his left eye. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Mmmmmmph! Mnnnphnmmph!’

  ‘WHERE IS SHE?’ A shelf full of burgundy exploded on the flagstones.

  ‘MMMNNNPH!’ The sharp tang of fresh urine joined the heady tannin stench of red wine.

  ‘She’s near, isn’t she? When you had this place renovated, you got them to put in a secret room, didn’t you? Somewhere you could take people’s daughters. Where is she?’

  ‘Mmmnphnnnmmmnnn…’

  I grabbed a corner of the duct tape and pulled.

  ‘Aaaaaargh… God… I don’t … I don’t know. I don’t, I swear.’

  I put the pliers back on the shelf. ‘Wrong answer.’

  ‘HELP ME! SOMEONE! PLEASE DEAR GOD HELP ME! HELP—’

  I slammed my elbow into the murdering bastard’s face, catching him above the left eye. A nice solid smack. His head snapped back, thumping into the wine rack behind him, making the bottles clatter against each other. Got to hand it to Andy Inglis: when it came to beating the shit out of people, he knew his stuff.

  ‘Where is she?’

  Steven Wallace blinked a couple of times, I grabbed his hair and forced the bastard’s head back, staring into his eyes. Dilated pupils.

  ‘I didn’t do it… I don’t know anything…’

  ‘What are you on: amphetamines, ecstasy, cocaine? Smoke a few joints before bedtime?’ The skin above his eye was already starting to swell up. ‘Nah, it’s coke, isn’t it? Nothing else is showbiz enough for a prick like you.’

  I dragged him and his chair into the middle of the room. Put a foot on his chest and pushed. The chair tipped over, crashed to the floor amongst the broken bottles, pinning his arms underneath him.

  A grunt.

  ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

  I was back two minutes later with a couple of hand towels.

  Only took three kicks to get the cellar door off its hinges. I carried it over to one of the wine racks and propped the top end up on the second shelf from the bottom, then hauled Wallace and his chair on top of the door – still flat on his back, feet up, head down.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘You can’t do this to me, I know people!’

  ‘Pliers and blowtorches are for amateurs, Steve. The field of torture has come on leaps and bounds since the Spanish Inquisition.’

  I pulled one of the bottles from the rack. An ’84 Bordeaux. No idea if it was any good or not. Didn’t really matter. I smashed the neck against the wall: red splashed across the bare stone.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘They’re gonna find you and they’re gonna pay you a visit.’

  ‘Grow up.’

  ‘Gonna cut your cock off and make you eat it!’

  ‘You’ve got nice towels in that spare bathroom. Very soft and fluffy. Very absorbent.’ I draped one over his mouth, then upended the wine into the towel, saturating it. Then another bottle. I put my foot on his forehead, pressing down hard enough to stop him moving his head. Poured more Bordeaux over his mouth and up his nose, filling his sinuses. He shuddered in the chair, knees and shoulders jerking, making muffled screams through the sodden fabric.

  I pulled the towel off his face. He spluttered and retched.

  Dirty murdering little fuck.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Gahhh… Jesus… SOMEBODY HELP ME!’ Eyes blinking, red wine running down his face and onto the tilted door. ‘HELP ME!’

  Pliers were old hat, but waterboarding was a different matter. Thank you ACC Drummond for the suggestion.

  ‘Basement wine cellar, remember? No one can hear you. But that’s why you had it built, isn’t it?’

  I flipped the wet towel back over his mouth, picked a ’96 pinot noir, and stood on his forehead again. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Mmmmphmmnnnnphpnnnn!’

  ‘Glug, glug, glug.’ I emptied the contents over his face.

  More struggling, more screaming.

  Someone once told me that the CIA’s best covert operatives – the ones specially trained to resist torture – can put up with this for about fourteen seconds. The trachea, larynx, sinuses, and throat all fill up with liquid and the body goes apeshit. The brain’s not in control any more. Panic, gag reflex, terror. Of course the lungs are above the high-tide mark, but the body doesn’t care. Help me, I’m drowning, I’m dying.

  I dropped the empty bottle.

  Wallace’s eyes were wide open, tinged with pink and wet with red wine. His whole body shook as if he was having a fit, the wet towel sagging into his open mouth as he gasped for air that wasn’t there.

  Bet no one in Guantanamo Bay got waterboarded with a ’96 Pinot Noir.

  I flipped the towel away.

  He kept shaking, jerking against his restraints. I tipped the chair over onto its side.

  Red wine gushed out of him, a deep sucking breath, then a spray of vomit onto the broken glass. I let him heave until there was nothing left but bile.

  ‘You having fun yet, Sensational Steve? Cause you’ve got what … two, three thousand bottles down here? We can do this all night.’

  ‘I don’t… I don’t know where she is. I swear! If I did, I’d tell you! I don’t know: I never touched her… Please…’ He closed his eyes, banged his head against the wet door. ‘Please, I didn’t touch her…’

  ‘Don’t believe you.’

  ‘I didn’t touch her, I didn’t!’

  ‘Prove it: where were you Friday night?’

  ‘Dundee. I was in Dundee… I was in Dundee doing a leukaemia thing…’

  I shoved him over onto his back again and pulled another bottle from the shelves. ‘How does a Lengs & Cooter reserve shiraz sound to you – 2001’s a good vintage to drown in, isn’t it?’ The glass neck sha
ttered against the wall and Wallace screamed.

  ‘God, please… I was with my boyfriend! I was with my boyfriend! I was in Dundee with my boyfriend…’ Wallace screwed his eyes tight shut. ‘He’s married. I didn’t touch your daughter, I swear!’

  I stuck the towel back over his mouth and rested my boot on his head. ‘Let’s double check that, shall we?’

  Cue muffled screaming.

  I pulled out Steven Wallace’s mobile phone, found his boyfriend’s name in the list, and pushed the button with my gloved finger.

  It rang. And rang. And rang. And then a man’s voice, throaty and muzzy. ‘What… Hello? Steve? God…’ Rustling. The clunk of a door being shut. ‘Jesus, Steve, it’s two in the morning: Julia was right there in bed with me… Steve? Hello?’

  I put on an English accent, hamming up the Mockney: asked him where he was last night. Told him I’d send photos to his wife if he didn’t tell the truth.

  Then swore and hung up.

  Looked down at Steven Wallace’s shivering sobbing body.

  Ah…

  I rolled up the overalls and dropped them into the flames. Held my hands out and absorbed the heat. Oldcastle Industrial Estate was a bit of a shithole, but at quarter to three on a Sunday morning it was perfect for a little tidying up. Boxy warehouses were locked away behind chain-link fences, streetlights standing guard over deserted cul-de-sacs.

  The old Belbin’s cash-and-carry was boarded up, its car park littered with plastic bags, leaves, and assorted crap: the charred skeletal remains of a burnt-out Ford Fiesta; a trailer with a broken axle – the wheels sticking out at sixty degrees to the vertical; a little pile of buckled shopping trolleys, mattresses, and bin-bags.

  And an oil-drum brazier.

  I tossed the hammer and screwdriver in with the overalls, then dropped the woolly hat and shower cap on top. Pulled out Steven Wallace’s mobile phone and dumped that into the flames too. Watched the whole lot burn.

  Katie…

  No going back now.

  Sunday 20th November

  Chapter 41

  ‘And then she threw up all over Sergeant Roberts’ back, right there in the briefing room.’ Charlie wiggled his hips, twisted his shoulders from side to side, and lowered his head. ‘And it’s this for a birdie…’

  Plink. The golf ball trundled across the carpet tiles, then up into the little horseshoe-shaped thing with a hole in it, sitting on the floor by the far wall. He held the putter above his head and made fake crowd noises. ‘And it’s in! The young officer from Oldcastle is romping home at Gleneagles today.’

  He handed me the club, then settled into his office chair and ran a hand across his head, making sure the dyed brown comb-over was still in place. A splodge of what looked like brown sauce stained the breast pocket of his white shirt, black uniform jacket hanging over the back of his seat, its superintendent’s epaulettes in need of a good clean.

  The horseshoe thing spat the ball out again.

  Charlie stuck out a finger and traced an invisible path around the cluttered office. ‘It’s a par three with a dogleg around the wastepaper basket.’ Another mouthful of bacon buttie.

  Outside the tiny office window, the station car park was nearly empty. The occasional sweep of headlights broke the gloom, illuminating a high brick wall topped with razor wire. Twenty past seven: the sun wouldn’t be up for nearly an hour yet.

  I rolled the ball onto the tee – a Tennent’s Lager beer mat – and lined up the shot. Nice and casual. Nothing out of the ordinary here… ‘Well, Rhona did get a bit bladdered last night.’

  ‘You know I’m supposed to give you a kicking, don’t you?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Plink. The ball rolled under the desk and bounced off the skirting board.

  ‘Oh, good shot. Can we take the bollocking as read, then? I really can’t be arsed, and you’re not going to give a toss anyway.’

  ‘Yup.’ I lined up the next shot. ‘Any progress on the door-to-doors?’

  ‘But come on, Ash: the Assistant Chief Constable? Could you not have picked a bigger toss-pot to accuse of being the Birthday Boy?’

  Plink… The ball clanged into the wastepaper basket.

  ‘And telling our beloved MSP to bugger off? Really?’

  ‘Lucky I didn’t knee the greasy little bastard in the balls. So: door-to-doors?’

  ‘They not talking to you, eh? Join the club – no one tells us poor sods in Professional Standards anything. I have to guess what the soup is most days.’

  ‘No one likes a clype.’

  Charlie checked his comb-over again. ‘Ash, I’m really sorry about Katie.’

  ‘I need to be in on the investigation.’

  ‘It’s such a horrible thing…’ Sigh.

  ‘I need to know what’s happening.’

  ‘This isn’t the movies, Ash: you can’t get twenty-four hours to crack the case – not with the media camped out on our doorstep. You should be at home with Michelle… Everyone’s doing their best.’

  Plink. Bloody ball went wide, ended up in the gap between the filing cabinets and the visitor’s chair.

  I tightened my grip on the club, knuckles going white. ‘So I’m out.’ Not exactly a surprise, but still… ‘He’s got my daughter.’

  ‘I know, Ash, I know.’ Charlie pulled a sheet of paper from his pending-tray and held it out. ‘I’m sorry. The ACC wants you taken off active duty for the duration of the investigation, and the Chief Constable agrees.’

  ‘Suspended.’

  ‘With pay.’

  As if that bloody mattered.

  He looked down at the makeshift office golf course, the piles of paperwork on his desk, the remains of his bacon buttie – everywhere but at me. ‘I’m truly sorry, Ash. But we don’t have any choice.’

  The CID office printer groaned and creaked in the corner churning out reams of reports. The only other noise was the clink and thump of me hurling the contents of my desk drawers into a cardboard box.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Dr McDonald sidled in from the corridor outside. Her hair was different: flatter, and darker too. The usually stripy grey top had been replaced with a black long-sleeved one with a red and black striped T-shirt over the top. A cross hung around her neck on what looked like a string of rosary beads. Black jeans. But the shoes were still bright-red Converse Hi-tops, the toecaps unnaturally white. What, did she put on a new pair every morning?

  I dumped a stapler and a two-hole punch in with the assorted crap. ‘Everyone fucked off soon as I produced the cardboard box.’

  ‘More honour among thieves than police officers?’

  ‘Suspended till the investigation’s over. Eight years and they’ve got nowhere. Eight years…’ I jammed the desk tidy in on top of all the half-used pads of Post-it notes. ‘Her birthday’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Maybe we don’t need a warrant to question Steven Wallace, maybe we could—’

  ‘I told you last night: it’s not Steven Wallace.’ A knot of black cables, attached to a variety of plugs, lurked at the back of the bottom drawer – rechargers for phones I hadn’t had for years. I packed them anyway. ‘He’s got an alibi.’

  She perched herself on the edge of a desk, little red shoes dangling two feet above the carpet tiles. ‘We need to work out why he’s targeted Katie, I mean perhaps Henry was wrong and the Birthday Boy didn’t take someone else before Megan Taylor, perhaps Katie’s number thirteen… Unless he really did take a year off, which would make her number twelve…’ A crease formed between her eyebrows. She stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. ‘I’m sorry, I’m trying to help, but I know I can be a bit—’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to talk about her like she was just another victim, she’s your daughter and—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ I rammed a handful of old notebooks in on top of the cables. ‘Anything that helps get her back.’

  ‘OK.’ A nod. ‘Hen
ry’s ferry got in half an hour ago – he wants to meet us at the burial … at Cameron Park.’

  I stared into the box. All that time, and what did I have to show for it? No house, a shitty little Renault, and a cardboard box full of crap. ‘I’m not on the case any more.’

  ‘Are you going to let that stop you?’

  Was I hell.

  A queasy groan came from the door. ‘Never, ever again…’ Rhona – pale as a mealie pudding, with the skin texture to match. She leaned against the door frame. ‘I’m dying…’

  ‘Then go home and lie down.’ I dumped the last of my stuff in the box.

  ‘No chance. Katie’s birthday’s tomorrow – I’m not going anywhere till we find her.’ Rhona slumped into the nearest chair, covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh God…’

  ‘Anyway,’ Dr McDonald swung her little red feet, ‘we should probably get going, Henry won’t be—’

  ‘Hold on a minute, Princess.’ Rhona surfaced from behind her fingers. ‘What’s with the new look?’

  ‘Do you like it, I had a bit of an accident in the shower this morning: grabbed Aunty Jan’s hair-product stuff and it went all straight, but I think it—’

  ‘Yeah, and the clothes – they an accident too? You really think you can replace Katie by dying your hair and nicking her clothes?’ Rhona curled her top lip. ‘You’re fucking sick.’

  I blinked. Frowned. Stared at Dr McDonald. The hair, the clothes, she did look—

  ‘I’m not replacing her: I’m trying to get into her head, I mean when I saw what had happened to my hair, I thought, OK, let’s go for it, sometimes it helps me piece together connections and points of contact, and don’t you think we should be doing everything we can to—’

  ‘God, enough!’ Rhona buried her head in her hands again. ‘Do you never stop talking?’

  I picked up my box and headed for the door.

  Dr McDonald hopped down from the desk and pattered out ahead of me. ‘I think your friend might be a little hungover.’

  No wonder she came top of her class.

  I slammed the CID office door behind me.

  I parked the Renault on McDermid Avenue – opposite the alleyway I’d used last night to get into Cameron Park – clambered out into the gloomy twilight and marched over. Ducked under the ‘police’ tape. You found my DNA, Officer? Well, of course I was there: five to eight on Sunday morning, with Dr Alice McDonald. Saturday night? No, you must be thinking of someone else…