Stuart MacBride - Twelve Days of Winter - Crime at Christmas

‘Well?’ Mr McNulty shifts his chair closer to the embalming table as Mr Unwin pushes back through into the preparation room. ‘They gone?’ He runs a thick-fingered hand across his shiny scalp, stroking the liver spots.

‘Yes, Duncan, they’ve gone.’ Mr Unwin takes off his black jacket and hangs it up, then dons the heavy rubber apron again. ‘I’m sorry it took so long, but Mrs Riley was quite distraught.’

Mr McNulty shrugs, then takes another swig from his bottle of Glenfiddich, ‘They say it?’

‘“Very peaceful”? Yes, they said it.’ They always say it.

‘You going to make her look “very peaceful”?’ He points at the large, doughy, naked woman on the embalming table. ‘You going to. . .’ Another drink. ‘You going to. . .’

Mr Unwin folds his hands, stands still as a headstone. ‘Are you sure you want to be here while I prepare her?’

But Mr McNulty doesn’t reply, just stares at the pale, yellowy body.

‘Duncan, please, I’ll take good care of her, I promise. Go home and get some rest.’

‘No. No I want to be with her. To help. It’s the least I can do. . .’ He wipes his nose on his sleeve. ‘I. . . Oh God. . .’ And with that Mr McNulty dissolves into tears.

Mr Unwin waits until he has cried himself out, before escorting him to the back door. ‘Don’t worry, she’s in good hands.’

Mr McNulty nods, wipes his eyes, then slouches back up the stairs.

Mr Unwin closes and locks the back door. Then turns and smiles at the woman lying in the preparation room waiting for him to work his magic.

Mrs McNulty was, and still is, a big woman: eighteen stone of flesh, bone and fat. All those years she and Mr McNulty have lived in the small flat above the funeral home – ‘UNWIN AND MCNULTY, UNDERTAKERS EST. 1965’ – and this is the first time Mr Unwin has ever seen her naked.

He pats her pale belly. The skin is cold and greasy, like chicken taken from the refrigerator. But Mrs McNulty is no spring chicken. Then again, Mr McNulty isn’t much of a catch either: short, chubby, bald and dour. But a good man for all that. . .

There is a particular smell that comes with embalming people. A mixture of raw meat and disinfectant, with a faint underlying taint of decay. It’s an acquired taste, but Mr Unwin has had years to get used to it. Now it smells like home. Like a job well done. A chance to use his talents. To do what he was born to do. To make the dearly departed look peaceful.

And then, when Mrs McNulty’s body fluids have been swapped out for preservative, and all her personal orifices bunged up with gauze pads to make sure she doesn’t leak in her casket, he pulls over his special toolkit and stares at her face. Studying the lines and wrinkles, the thread-veins in her cheeks, the mole on her chin with one long hair poking out, the freckles on her forehead. Then sets to work on her face.

It’s a delicate job, one Mr Unwin has been doing since he was a small boy in his father’s funeral home. He has the gift: layers and layers of flesh-pink, blended beautifully to a soft sheen on her sallow skin; a subtle red lipstick painted on glued-together lips; eye shadow and blusher; her grey hair carefully styled. When he’s finished she looks better than she has for years.

Death suits Mrs McNulty. She should have died years ago.

Mr McNulty has provided his wife’s favourite ensemble for her final journey – a blue, knee-length dress, a pair of thick brown tights, black pumps, and a large leather handbag. It takes a while to dress the deceased, but Mr Unwin has had plenty of practice putting clothes on dead bodies. At last she’s ready for her final journey.

It isn’t easy, hefting his partner’s wife into her coffin – walnut and maple with a pale-blue silk lining and genuine brass handles – but he manages. There’s a reason people call it ‘dead weight’. And Mrs McNulty has lots of it.

She looks so peaceful lying there, and Mr Unwin takes a moment to give thanks for her life, before wheeling her into the chapel of rest, where she’ll spend the night with Mrs Riley’s mother. A pair of old ladies, comfortable together in eternal sleep.

Now only one thing remains to be done.

Mr Unwin takes Mrs McNulty’s hands and arranges them across her chest, right over left, gluing them together to make sure they stay in place. Sometimes the dearly departed move in transit, or the change in temperature from the funeral home, to the hearse, to a cold and draughty church makes their tendons contract. It can be very distressing for the family, and contact adhesive covers up a multitude of sins.

Back in the front office Mr Unwin settles behind his desk and looks out over the darkened rooftops of Old-castle. Eight days to Christmas and there’s not a single decoration or card up in the funeral home. This is not a place for celebration; it is a place for quiet respect and mourning.

There’s a bottle of Highland Park in his desk and he pours himself a modest dram, adding a splash of cold water to loosen the whisky’s aroma. He raises his glass to the sleeping city. ‘To Mrs McNulty, may you have all the peace in death you denied your husband in life.’ Which was why Mr McNulty had pushed her down the stairs, fracturing her skull and breaking her neck.

With a faint smile, Mr Unwin unlocks the drawer in his desk and pulls out a long wooden box. It opens with a small golden key – click – and its contents sparkle in the dim light. Wedding rings, large and small, new and old, all cut or pulled from the fingers of the dearly departed. He places Mrs McNulty’s ring on the pile, admiring the way it fits so neatly with the others. All those lives. All that love. All that grief.

He has a separate box to keep the severed fingers in.

Contact adhesive covers a multitude of sins.

Kathy Geddes didn’t look in any fit state to do a runner ? shuffling along, trying not to aggravate her piles and stitches ? but that didn’t mean she was free to wander round Castle Hill Infirmary unsupervised.

Val Macintyre dawdled along beside her, hands in the pockets of her uniform trousers. Of course she could have worn plain clothes, treated it as an undercover operation, but that was just asking for trouble. No, a prison officer wore a uniform for a reason – so everyone knew who was who. And besides, it wouldn’t feel right: escorting a prisoner out of uniform. Not having that comforting bundle of keys jangling against her leg.

Geddes winced her way down the stairs, across the corridor and out into a small, bleak courtyard, lined on four sides with dirty brick and lichen-speckled concrete. The hospital had put up a bus shelter, smack bang in the middle, so patients could have a cigarette without setting off every smoke detector in the place.

A wheezy old man huddled in the smoking hut, drip stand in one hand and a ratty-looking roll-up in the other.

Val waited for him to finish and hobble off before crossing her arms and squinting at Geddes. ‘You shouldn’t be smoking.’

‘Bite me.’ She took a deep drag on her cigarette and oozed smoke towards the ceiling.

‘You’re supposed to be breastfeeding!’

‘Bugger that: little bastard’s chewed me nipples raw. They’re like half a pound of mince. He can go on the bottle.’

‘Don’t call him that.’

‘What, “bastard”? Why not? That’s what he is, isn’t he? Haven’t got a clue who his dad is.’

‘I don’t like it.’ Val turned her back and stared out of the rain-flecked glass. At least they didn’t have long to go. Thank God .

Behind her, Geddes was humming something vaguely recognizable as a Christmas carol. Not that there was much sign of the festive season in the smoking hut, just a big poster reminding everyone that ‘SMOKING KILLS!’