Stuart MacBride - Birthdays for the dead

Silence.

I brushed a bit of fluff from the box s silk lining.

Do you remember the morning we got engaged?

What if she doesn t come back?

You d been throwing up in the toilets at that Wetherspoons on Beech Street, so we went to Boots and got that pregnancy test

What if she disappears like Rebecca and we never see her again?

We were happy, weren t we? I stood, went over to the sink. It all went to shit, but we were happy.

A smear of red was mixed in amongst the shards of broken mug. Blood dripped from the end of Michelle s middle finger.

I don t think I can go through all this again.

I put the open box on the work surface.

She stared down at it for a bit. Then picked the ring out of the box. My engagement ring! Granny gave me this it was her mum s. I thought I d lost it

Found it when I was clearing my stuff out of Kingsmeath. In one of the boxes. Thought you d want it back.

After all, what was one more lie?

Dr McDonald flinched when I knocked on Katie s bedroom door. She shut the book in her hands and placed it on the bed beside her. Stood. Sorry, I always feel guilty reading someone else s diary

The room was a tip, same as always: the carpet barely visible between the discarded socks and pants and jeans and T-shirts and hooded tops. A stack of Kerrang! magazines teetered by the bed, a couple of books poking out from underneath the dirty washing. Posters on the wall of emo, goth and death-metal bands, a Disney s Little Mermaid given the Tim Burton treatment with biro scars, sunken eyes, and gaping ribcage.

A couple of drawers on the bedside cabinet were pulled out. Stripy socks and pants with little skull-and-crossbones on them. A single training bra.

I stayed where I was. She left her diary.

Well, it means she s not really planning on being gone long, I mean she wouldn t leave that behind if she was going to run away really, and it doesn t look like she s taken much in the way of underwear, and there s a toilet bag still in the wardrobe, I m sure she ll be back soon Ash?

Oh God.

Not again.

I picked my way through the debris and sank down on the edge of the bed. Stared at Disney s Little Zombie. What about the note?

A bit confused, like she s making it up as she goes along, spontaneous rather than something she s planned and worked on, she s sorry for being such a disappointment, it s not her fault, ever since her sister disappeared it s all gone wrong for her, and nobody understands, and she hates everyone, but she loves them too, and why won t anyone listen to her side of things any more?

Maybe Dr McDonald was right.

Rebecca never left a note

Maybe Katie hadn t really run away; she hadn t been snatched; she wasn t tied to a chair, in a basement, waiting to die. She was off sulking somewhere trying to prove a point. She d be back any minute.

Dr McDonald sat down next to me. That was a nice engagement ring.

From downstairs came the rattle-clack-rustle of the mail hitting the front mat.

What I cleared my throat. What about the diary?

She put her hand on the book s cover. Keeping it shut.

The usual teenage stuff.

Katie lied to me: said she was staying at her friend Ashley s house on Wednesday night, but Ashley s dad told me she d not been there for months.

Ah Dr McDonald picked up the diary and held it against her chest. It s never a good idea to

I need to know. I looked down at my fists.

Does she talk about Steven Wallace?

A pause.

Steven Wallace? No, no there s no mention of Steven Wallace, or Sensational Steve, or anything like that, why would she talk about Steven Wallace?

Then who the hell was she staying with?

I scooped all the post up from the mat, flicking through the envelopes. Two bills, a couple of circulars for hearing aids and stair-lifts, and a handful of birthday cards, all addressed to Katie.

Dr McDonald peered around my shoulder. Are you OK?

None of them looked like the ones that wound up in my PO box once a year, but I tore them open anyway.

HAPPY 13 TODAY! IT S HORMONE-CITY FROM HERE ON IN! I HEAR YOU RE GETTING OLDER! Every one of them was shop-bought: kittens, teddy bears, grinning cartoon characters, all scribbled inside with best wishes from friends and family. A five-pound note in the one from Michelle s mother.

No homemade card with a photo of her tied to a chair, eyes wide with terror.

He didn t have her. It wasn t the same as last time. Katie really had run away.

Oh thank Christ

I rested my head against the front door, blood thumped in my forehead. Deep breath.

He didn t have her. She d run off to stay with the prick she was sleeping with. My little girl. Twelve years old.

Ash? Ash, are you OK?

Now all I had to do was find the boyfriend, get Katie back, and then batter the living shite out of him.

I dumped the cards on the little table by the stairs and pushed outside into the hammering rain.

It took four of Katie s friends before we found someone who knew where the little bastard lived.

Millbank Park towered eighteen storeys above the surrounding council estate. A set of three square high-rise blocks, strung together with walkways, paths, and corridors. Some public-spirited arsehole in the Housing Department had decided that what three big hulking lumps of concrete needed was a bright paint job. Most of the colour had worn off over the years, leaving nothing but various dirty shades of brown and grey.

A chain-link fence surrounded the car park, buckled and full of holes. A couple of battered Transit vans were abandoned over by the exit, a Fiesta up on bricks, a pair of matching VW Polos with more rust than paint.

I parked next to the Transit vans, then chucked the keys across to Dr McDonald. Lock the doors. Anything happens, put your foot down: don t look back, don t get involved. Anyone asks, I made you come.

But that s not

I made you come. Wind tried to tear the door from my hand as I climbed out. Rain crackled against my back.

Jesus it was cold. I clumped across the car park, through the broken gate, across a glass-strewn concrete path, and under one of the walkways linking Millbank East and North.

The double doors to Millbank North were propped open, one pane of glass spiderwebbed through with cracks, criss-crossed with duct tape. I walked into the eye-stinging reek of bleach and disinfectant, the tiles wet beneath my feet. Graffiti tags covered the walls. A drift of soggy takeaway leaflets slumped in one corner, dumped by some delivery boy that couldn t be arsed delivering them. Probably no point trying the lift, but I did anyway.

Waited.

A groaning creak, a clunk, then the lift doors squealed open. A baking urinal stench slumped out into the hallway.

Screw that.

I took the stairs.

According to Katie s friends, Noah McCarthy was seventeen and lived on the fourteenth floor with his mum, a nurse at Castle Hill Infirmary. That was lucky, because her little darling would need some medical intervention by the time I d finished with him.

Katie wasn t even thirteen till Monday, and the bastard was seventeen.

I took the stairs. They opened out onto a featureless concrete balcony on each floor, cold morning air diluting the stench of stale piss. I kept going. Climbing higher, lungs burning in my chest.

When I reached the fourteenth floor I stepped out onto the balcony. Wind whipped along the concrete walkway, turning the rain into shotgun pellets that raked the flats front doors.

I counted my way along the row: Fourteen-Ten, Fourteen-Eleven, Fourteen-Twelve, Fourteen-Thirteen, then around the corner. The wind died down, blocked by the building s bulk. Fourteen-Sixteen was almost dead centre, looking out over the concrete quadrangle between Millbank East, North, and West. Rain hammered the walkways below.