The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

by Maxim Jakubowski

  It was a medium urn, because her husband had been a medium man. His remains would have looked short-changed in a large urn, and buying a small one would have meant leaving bits of him at the crematorium. And you never knew which bits they’d be, would you? The last thing she wanted was to get up to heaven and find that Bill was missing a leg, or a hand. Or his gentleman bits. He wouldn’t like that. She picked the urn off the shelf and squirted it with furniture polish, buffing it up with a yellow duster until it . . . the lid was loose. With trembling hands she unscrewed it all the way.

  Daphne had never felt more like a drink in her life. Not even when Bill died. Sitting at the kitchen table she poured herself a stiff sweet sherry, threw it back and poured another one. “Oh, Bill!” His urn sat on the tabletop in front of her. A big scoop of his ashes were missing. Someone had stolen bits of her husband . . . Wee Doug padded back and forth under the table, his claws clickity-clacking on the linoleum, whimpering. He knew his mummy was upset.

  Biting her bottom lip, Daphne screwed the top back on the bottle. Wallowing in self-pity wasn’t going to do Bill any good. If she wanted justice, she was going to have to get off her backside and do something about it. It was what Bill would have wanted.

  Rain clattered against the cobbled street, shining like beads of amber in the yellow streetlight as Daphne trudged along Shand Street, heading back up Castle Hill to the teashop, pulling her tartan shopping trolley behind her. Wee Doug’s nose poked out through a tiny opening in the top, sniffing the cold night air for a moment, before sensibly ducking back down again, out of the rain. The teashop would be closed, just like all the other shops she passed on her way up the hill, their windows glowing, but lifeless. Like the empty streets. “That’s because everyone with an ounce of sense is indoors!” she told herself, stopping for a moment to rest. It was hard going and her hip was beginning to complain. Dampness seeped in through the seams of her old raincoat, her left boot squished as she walked, and her glasses were all fogged up. Sighing, she leant on her walking stick and thought about turning round and going—

  A noise.

  She froze, struggling to locate the sound over the rain drumming off her plastic headscarf. Nothing. She tried all the settings on her hearing aid, but it didn’t make any difference. Probably just her imagination playing tricks . . . And then she heard it again, someone singing and swearing softly to themselves.

  Slowly Daphne crept up the road, pulling the trolley with her, scanning the empty shop doorways on either side. A wee cobbled close disappeared off between the knitwear place and the kilt shop, the little alleyway roofed off by a hairdresser’s on the first floor. It stretched away into the darkness, a link between the towering sandstone buildings on Shand Street and the dour brick of Mercantile Road. Gloomy and forbidding. That was where the noise was coming from.

  Plucking up all her courage, Daphne stepped into the alley. It was dark in here, the streetlights on Shand Street barely making a dent in the shadows, but she could just make out a figure, huddled in a doorway, a grubby pink blanket pulled round his shoulders, sitting on a pile of flattened cardboard boxes. The flare of a match and she saw his face as he lit a scrawny, hand-rolled cigarette – bearded, dirty. Not the man who’d been trying to sell the Big Issue; but, as Agnes said, they were all drug addicts. He was probably doing drugs right now, chasing the rabbit, or whatever it was called. Straightening her shoulders she marched right up and said, “Excuse me?”

  The man didn’t answer, just kept on swearing away, so she poked him with her walking stick.

  “I said, excuse me.”

  He squealed and scurried backwards into the wall, jittering and twitching, watching her suspiciously. “What you want?” His eyes glittered in the dim light like a snake.

  “I’m looking for a woman.”

  The man leered. “You wanna them big fat lesbians?” She poked him with her stick again. Hard. “Ow! Cut it out!”

  “This particular woman was in my shed last night, with a young man. She took someone . . . something of mine and I want it back!”

  There was a silence as the man stared at Daphne – probably undressing her with his eyes. These drug addicts were all alike. Sex mad. “So . . .” he said, leaving his doorway, the filthy pink blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, smelling of urine and Marmite. “You gonnae make it worth my while, like?”

  Daphne blushed. Sex mad – she knew it. Quickly, she rummaged in the damp pockets of her raincoat and came out with a half-empty bag of mint imperials. “Would you like a sweetie?”

  He reached out and snatched the bag. “Got any money?”

  “Manners!” Daphne bristled. “What would your mother say if she—?” He shoved her aside and she slipped, clattering down onto the cold, wet cobbles, grunting in pain. Oh, God – what if she’d broken her hip?

  “Where’s your purse?” He loomed over her, digging through the pockets of her raincoat, sniffing anything he found, before hurling it away into the rain. Handkerchief, lipsalve, hairgrips, the tatty old tennis ball Wee Doug liked to chase in King’s Park. Then her house keys. Grinning, he held them up to the light. “Brilliant.” He stuffed them in his pocket. “Now where’s your bloody purse?”

  Daphne raised a shaking hand and pointed at the tartan shopping trolley. The junkie rubbed his hands and unzipped the top compartment. A grumpy growl rumbled out and the filthy smile fell from his face: “What the hell’s this?” Swearing, he kicked the trolley’s wheels out from under it, sending it flying, spilling Wee Doug out into the gutter. Ignoring the Westie’s indignant barks, he rummaged inside the trolley. Mr Bunny was hurled out into the night, closely followed by a plastic bag full of rolled-up plastic bags and a spiral-bound notebook covered in shopping lists. Wee Doug scurried off after his squeaky toy as the man grunted, “Ya beauty . . .” and settled back on his haunches to rifle through her handbag.

  Gritting her false teeth, Daphne pulled herself to her knees, laddering her support stockings on the rough alley floor as she struggled upright, trembling with rage. Her walking stick was lying in the gutter; she grabbed it. “Did your parents never teach you any MANNERS?” It was a good sturdy walking stick: a shaft of tempered oak and a thick handle carved from a Stag’s antlers. It made a satisfyingly wet thunking sound as she battered it off the man’s head.

  He yowled and she hit him a second time. Harder. He tried to say something, but she swung the handle into his face – something went crack and teeth flew, so she did it again. His cheekbone cracked. And again: his left eye spurted blood. And again: he got his hands up in time to shield his face and she heard finger bones snap. Again, and again and again . . .

  Daphne leant back against the wall, puffing and panting, one hand clutching her aching chest, wondering if she was about to have a heart attack. The man lay on his side, curled into the foetal position, not moving. Wee Doug sniffed the back of the drug addict’s head, then cocked his leg and peed on it. When he was all done he picked up Mr Bunny, trotted over and sat in front of Daphne, little tail wagging away sixteen to the dozen, happy as could be.

  It took her a while to calm down, but eventually the pain in her chest subsided and her breathing returned to normal. She wasn’t going to join Bill just yet.

  She jabbed the horrible man with her stick, forcing him over onto his back. His face was all swollen and puffy, misshapen, covered with blood, a flap of skin hanging loose on his forehead. Leaking out onto the cobbles. He gave a little cough and a small plume of red sparkled in the dim light. She prodded him in the chest and he groaned. “I asked you a question, young man: who was the naked woman?”

  He said something quite rude and Daphne battered the head of her walking stick off his knee. It wasn’t quite a scream, wasn’t quite a moan, but it sounded painful. “Who was she?”

  He was crying now, tears and snot mixing with the blood and dirt. “I don’t . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “You’re lying.” She hit him again, right on the ankle joint.

&nbs
p; “Oh, God, no! Please! I don’t know!” Sobbing, rocking back and forth on the ground, covering his head with his arms. “Please . . .”

  Daphne scowled and counted to ten. So much for plan A. “If you don’t know: who does?”

  “I don’t . . . Aaagh!” It was the elbow this time “Please! I don’t . . .” Ankle again. “Aaagh! Colin! Colin’ll know! He sells stuff. He’ll know!”

  She smiled. “And just how do I find this ‘Colin’?”

  Daphne had never been in a public bar on her own before – it wasn’t the sort of thing a respectable lady did – but she owed it to Bill. Screwing up her courage, she marched through the doors of the Monk and Casket, a seedy-looking place at the bottom of Jamesmuir Road. It was mock Tudor on the outside, but inside it was all flashing gambling machines, vinyl upholstery and sticky floors. It wasn’t a busy pub, just a handful of men and women looking somewhat the worse for drink at half eleven on a Wednesday night.

  Stiffening her courage she hobbled up to the bar, taking her shopping trolley with her, and ordered a port and lemon. And a medicinal brandy – her hip was still sore and she was soaked through after walking all the way here from Castle View.

  The bartender was a big hairy man with earrings and a missing front tooth. He leant forward and whispered, “We’ve actually called last orders, so I can’t legally serve you,” then slid her drinks across the bar. “If you’d like to make a donation of two pounds fifty to the lifeboat fund, that would be OK by me.” Wink, wink. Blushing, Daphne thanked him and slid the money into the orange plastic lifeboat sitting on the bar.

  “I’m looking for a man,” she said.

  The barman smiled. “Sorry, darling, I’m married.”

  “No, a man called ‘Colin’. Do you know him? Someone told me he’d be here.”

  Silence from the hairy barman, and then, “Are you sure you’re looking for Colin? Colin McKeever? Crazy Colin?”

  Daphne nodded, looking around the bar, trying to see if anyone looked like a “Crazy Colin”. It wasn’t a big place: just a handful of tables; some framed photos of the local football team; the pinging, chattering fruit machines; and a single door leading off the room marked Toilets, Telephone And Function Suite. The customers were as seedy as the pub. A pair of over-made-up women cackled away in the corner with their alcopops, a fat man with a beard hunched over a pint of stout, two suspicious-looking types in black leather by the dartboard . . . “Is he the one in the hat?” She pointed at an unusual, weaselly looking man with long black hair and a baseball cap, sitting on his own.

  “No, that’s Weird Justin. Crazy Colin’s upstairs with Stacy. Now, why don’t you finish up your drink and I’ll call you a taxi, OK? A nice little old lady like you doesn’t want to have anything to do with the likes of Colin McKeever.”

  A small flutter of excitement – he was upstairs with a woman! Maybe it was the one from the shed? “Of course, of course.” She downed her brandy in a single gulp, then did the same with the port and lemon. “I’ll just nip off to the loo . . .”

  Grabbing the shopping trolley’s handle, she pushed through the door and into a stinky corridor. A door on either side said Gents and Ladies, but right at the far end was a set of stairs with a small plaque hanging over it: To Function Suite. Daphne took a deep breath, and started hauling the shopping trolley up the stairs.

  One floor up and the sticky linoleum gave way to sticky carpet, with just enough room at the top of the stairs for Daphne to catch her breath. Unrecognizable “music” thumped through from the other side of a battered wooden door. Why did no one know what a tune was any more? When this was all over, she was going to go home, put on some Barry Manilow and get herself a nice cup of tea.

  She fiddled with her hearing aid – trying to tune down the horrible music – and opened the door to the function suite. It was about the same size as the bar downstairs, but more neglected. Ancient chairs lined the walls, fold-away tables piled in one corner, a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling, glittering over the small wooden dance floor in the middle. A man and woman rocked slowly back and forth, shambling round to the “music”. She had her arms wrapped around his shoulders, he had his hands on her buttocks. Kneading away as if he was making bread.

  The current song bludgeoned its way to a halt and then another one, equally dreadful, started. There was one of those “boom-box” things sitting at the side of the dance floor, so Daphne marched straight over and turned the horrible machine off. Blessed silence. The man stopped rearranging his girlfriend’s underwear and scowled. He wasn’t the most attractive of men – thin and short, with a scabby little beard thing, spiky hair and glasses. But he looked like a Colin.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” He let go of his partner, but she continued to dance, shuffling round and round in the absence of music, on her own.

  Daphne squared her shoulders. “I want my Bill!”

  “I’ve not sold you anything.”

  “Don’t you play games with me, young man. Your hussy broke into my shed and she stole my Bill! I want him back.”

  Crazy Colin looked back over his shoulder at the dancing woman. “You saying Stacy’s kidnapped someone?” He laughed as Stacy tripped over her own feet and tumbled to the floor. She made an abortive attempt to get back up then gave up, sprawled on her back in the middle of the dance floor, like a dead starfish. “You’ve got to be kidding – she couldn’t tie her shoelaces unsupervised. You got the wrong girl, Grandma.”

  “I said I want him back!”

  “Nothing to do with me, Grandma. You got a problem with Stacy, you take it up with her . . .” He grinned. “After I’ve finished, like.” He started to take off his shirt. “You wanna watch? No charge.”

  Oh . . . my . . . God . . . He was getting undressed! She didn’t want to see some strange man’s private parts! She hadn’t even liked looking at her husband’s. “I don’t want any trouble; I just want my Bill back.”

  “Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill.” He turned his back on her, unfastening his belt.

  Daphne hurried back to her shopping trolley and unzipped the top, lifting out Wee Doug. He yawned and looked around the room, then sat down and had a bit of a scratch. Daphne pulled herself up to her full five foot two inches and pointed an imperious finger at Crazy Colin as he unbuttoned his fly. “Go on, Wee Doug, KILL!”

  Wee Doug looked up at her, then at the end of her finger.

  Daphne tried again. “Kill!”

  Still nothing.

  She grabbed Mr Bunny from the shopping trolley and hurled it at the undressing man. The toy rabbit landed right in the crotch of Colin’s trousers as he tried to get them down over his shoes. Wee Doug growled, his little feet scrabbling on the wooden floor, not going anywhere fast . . . until suddenly his claws got purchase and he was away, tearing across the dance floor like a dog half his age. Barking.

  The man spun round at the noise, eyes wide. He grabbed the waistband of his trousers and hauled them up, which was a mistake as Mr Bunny was still trapped in there – his two ragged ears sticking out of the man’s fly at groin level. With a final happy bark Wee Doug leapt and clamped his jaws onto Crazy Colin’s crotch. There was a high pitched scream.

  Daphne took a firm grip of her walking stick and went to shut him up.

  Shaking, Daphne washed the blood off her hands and face with cold water and bitter-smelling hand soap in the ladies’ lavatory. Wee Doug was happily sitting up in the shopping trolley – the reclaimed Mr Bunny looking none the worst for his adventure in a strange man’s trousers – watching as she stuck the head of her walking stick under the tap, the water turning pink as Crazy Colin McKeever’s blood slowly rinsed away.

  “No one knows . . .” she told herself. “No one knows Not even the girl – she was comatose the whole time. Couldn’t have seen anything. Couldn’t have – A knock on the toilet door and she almost shrieked.

  “Hello?” It was the bartender, sounding concerned. “Are you in there?”

  Oh, God, h
e’s found the body! “I . . . I . . .”

  “You OK? You’ve been in here for ages.”

  “I . . . I’m fine.” She looked at herself in the mirror. He doesn’t know. No one knows. “Just a gyppy tummy.”

  “That’s your taxi.”

  She nodded at her reflection and plastered on a smile, then opened the bathroom door, taking Wee Doug and the tartan shopping trolley with her. “Thank you,” she said, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice as he helped her out through the front door and into the cab.

  “You take care now.” He stood in the street, waving as they drove away.

  It was a rumpled Daphne McAndrews who slouched into the Castlehill Snook at quarter to eleven the next day. She’d slept badly, even with a quarter bottle of sweet sherry inside her, knowing that they’d put her in prison for the rest of her natural life. The police would find Colin McKeever’s body and do all that scientific stuff you saw on the telly. And they’d know it was her. Provided the nasty man who’d tried to steal her purse in the alley hadn’t already reported her for thrashing him. She couldn’t bring herself to use the walking stick today, not now it was a murder weapon, and her hip ached.

  Daphne collapsed into the chair opposite Agnes and looked sadly out of the window at the Castle car park. Determined not to cry.

  “You feelin’ OK, Daphne?”

  She just shrugged and ordered a fruit scone and a big mug of coffee. When the waitress was gone, Agnes leaned forward and asked, in her best stage whisper, “Did you hear about the murder?” Daphne blanched, but Agnes didn’t seem to notice, “Beaten to death,” she said, “a drug-dealer – in a pub! Can you believe it?”

  Daphne bit her lip and stared at the liver spots on the back of her hands. “Did . . . Do they know who did it?”

  “Probably one of them gangland execution things. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Oldcastle’s getting more like that Los Angeles every day. I tell you . . .” She launched in to a long story about someone her Gerald used to go to school with, but Daphne wasn’t listening. She was wondering when the police were going to come for her.