Stuart MacBride - Twelve Days of Winter - Crime at Christmas

The Armagnac was nearly finished, just one or two mouthfuls left and it would be time. One small step for mankind, one giant leap for Lord Peter Forsyth-Leven. It wasn’t just his face that was numb now – his hands were like frozen claws, he couldn’t feel his feet – but that didn’t matter. Soon he wouldn’t be feeling anything ever again.

All of the great things he’d done in his life, the charity work, the glittering political career, and this was going to be what he was remembered for.

Paedophile. Suicide. Murderer.

The first two he could have lived with, no pun intended, but not the last. That was too much to bear on top of everything else.

He drained the bottle, squinted at the empty glass, then threw it out into the void. For a moment it sparkled through the falling snow, turning end over end, fading from sight. He held his breath, straining to hear it smashing against the rocks below . . . but there was nothing. Just the wind and the snow and the night.

Peter clambered all the way up to the top of the battlement wall.

It was time.

The plan is simple: everyone in the ‘club’ chips in five thousand pounds, and that buys them a life. One human life for thirty-five thousand pounds. Not that much really, when you think about it. Five thousand pounds to carry on like nothing had ever happened. Safe to continue with their private little . . . ‘indiscretions’.

Five thousand pounds to have someone killed.

The Man wouldn’t go until Peter gave him everyone’s name, to make sure no one ‘forgot’ to pay, taking The Pear Tree with him. Leaving a shadow behind on the faded wallpaper. So Peter fills in the time pacing back and forth in the lounge. Drinking cups of tea. Marching up and down the stairs to check on Margaret. Sitting at the dining room table, staring at the hole Monet’s painting has left behind.

The call comes at half past nine – it’s Tony, sounding like Christmas has arrived three days early. ‘ Did you see the news? They released the bastard on bail this afternoon. Found his body at eight – hanged in his bedroom. Suicide note, the whole works! He topped himself, we don ’ t have to give your man a bloody penny. It ’ s perfect! ’

Perfect.

Peter sits at the table and looks up at the shadow on the wall. ‘What makes you think The Man didn’t kill him and make it look like suicide?’

‘ Don ’ t be. . . ’ A lengthy pause. ‘ Can he do that? ’

Peter almost laughs. ‘Of course he can, but it doesn’t matter, does it? He has our names. What do you think he’ll do if we don’t pay up?’

Another pause, and then a lot of swearing. ‘ You bastard! You put him onto us! You stupid, fucking, ignorant bas- ’

Peter hangs up, buries his head in his hands, and cries.

He’s betrayed everyone: his family, his friends, his constituents, his city, even his fellow paedophiles. . .

There’s only one more thing he has to do, and then it can all go away. There’s no other choice.

Eighty feet, straight down.

He was too drunk to remember enough secondary school physics to work out how long it would take to hit the ground, or how fast he’d be going when he did.

Paedophile, suicide, murderer. . .

Could he let Margaret find out about the horrible things he’d done? That he’d arranged to have a man killed . No matter what that idiot Tony said, it was obvious The Man had staged James Kirkhill’s suicide. The schoolteacher had died, just so Peter’s secret would be safe. It was all his fault.

So he’d gone upstairs to Margaret’s bedroom, kissed her gently on the forehead, lied to her about how beautiful she looked, then held a pillow over her face until she stopped struggling. She would never know what a monster she’d married.

Peter took off his glasses, closed his eyes and stepped quietly off of the battlements.

Dirty. Fucking. Bastard . Craig sat in the car, scowling out of the windscreen, grinding his teeth. Drinking steadily from a bottle of Highland Park. The whisky burned deep inside, stoking the fires.

The song on the radio dribbled to a halt. ‘‘Ha, ha! You’re listening to Sensational Steve’s Festive Funathon; hope you’ve all been good for Santa!’’

Prick.

Then wailing and screeching erupted from the car’s speakers – the Oldcastle Military Pipe Band murdering ‘Silent Night’.

Craig turned his scowl from the windscreen to the car radio. Then smashed his fist into it. His knuckles creaked and stung: the skin tore across them, oozing blood. He screamed and swore, yanked his seat back as far as it would go and stomped his heel down on the plastic casing. Again and again and again. The music stopped.

One more swig of Highland Park then Craig rammed the cork back in, stuffed the bottle in a pocket of his long Barbour coat, and dragged himself out of the car. He’d made an absolute cock-up of parking the thing, leaving it diagonally across two spaces, but it didn’t matter.

He popped the boot and pulled out the shotgun.

Nothing mattered after today.

He didn’t even pay and display.

‘Ho, Ho, Ho. . .’ Santa beamed, leaning down so he was eye-to-eye with the little girl. Cute wee thing: red hair and freckles, sucking her thumb, and peering round her mummy’s leg. Bet she’d heard stories about Father Christmas all her life, but this was probably the first time she’d ever seen him in the flesh.

‘What’s your name, little girl?’ Making the words all big and cuddly ? not too loud, or the little buggers had a habit of peeing themselves.

She took her thumb out of her mouth. ‘Thara.’ Then plugged up again.

Santa, AKA Stephen Wilson, beamed at her.

It wasn’t that bad a job: once you got past the crappy grotto made of chipboard; the bum-numbing throne; the padded suit that made sweat trickle down the crack of your arse; the beard that itched like a bastard; the never-ending loop of drive-you-psycho Christmas carols; and the snotty-nosed little sods demanding presents. Other than that, six weeks as a department store Santa wasn’t too demanding.

You say ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’; you smile and wink; you don’t sit them on your knee – in case someone thinks you’re a paedo; and you don’t ask for their mum’s phone number, even if she’s a total MILF. Because she’s not going to give it to a fat guy with a beard anyway.

‘And have you been a good little girl, Sarah?’ Bit of chat: say your prayers, brush your teeth, work hard in school, and please accept this crappy plastic toy wrapped up in snowman Christmas paper.

The ginger kid’s mum was definitely a MILF. ‘What do we say to Santa, Sarah?’

‘Thank you, Thanta.’

‘Good girl.’ She took her daughter’s hand, and led her out of the grotto.

Thanta stared at Mummy’s arse ? it was like God had squeezed two perfect grapefruit into a sock. Sigh. . .

And: NEXT!

It was a lot more difficult to hide a shotgun under a long coat than it looked in the movies. The damn thing was nearly impossible to hold like that, especially with his hand all swollen and bleeding – he’d dropped it half a dozen times between the car and the lifts before figuring out a way to make it work. Craig took his left arm out of the sleeve and held the gun upside-down beneath the coat. Should have sawn the barrel off with a hacksaw. And all that whisky wasn’t helping either; the world wouldn’t stay in focus. How he’d got here without crashing the car into something was anyone’s guess.

Craig screwed one eye shut and pressed the button for the lifts. Staggered a couple of steps backwards and one to the side as a woman wheeled a massive pushchair over from the ‘MOTHER AND BABY’ parking spaces.