Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Shifty got there first, huge round shoulders turned against the storm, water running off his big bald head. He grabbed the two nearest sections of fence and pulled at them — the padlocked chain held them too close to get through.

OK, so Gordon and Leah wouldn’t have cut the chain somewhere obvious, like here, they would’ve done it somewhere out of the way, somewhere less easily spotted.

I worked my way left, along the line, testing as I went. Through the gap between the two houses — caught in a sudden and blissful stillness as they acted as a windbreak — still nothing. Then along the waist-high wall separating their back gardens. Curling forwards into the wind again.

The cut section was at the far end, where the gardens of Helen’s street butted onto those of the next street over. Just as dark and deserted. Which explained how they’d got in without anyone noticing. Have to hope they hadn’t got out the same way.

We slipped between the unchained sections, over the boundary wall, and into the back garden of the house next to Helen’s. Sticking as close to the building as possible for shelter. One more short wall and we were on Helen’s property.

The wind was stronger here, punching into my chest, trying to steal my legs out from underneath me. And oh, how the sea roared .

A huge chunk of the garden had already surrendered to the waves, leaving the far edge of the house sticking out into the void. Only by three or four foot, but still... Wouldn’t take much for the entire thing to go crashing over the edge.

Yeah, this was a really stupid idea.

Maybe we should keep an eye on the place instead? Hang back and wait to see if Gordon and Leah came out? Jump on them then?

And give up the cover of night, the element of surprise, and any chance of killing the pair of them. There’d be a police presence back here by seven, doubt whoever got the early shift would look the other way while we did what needed to be done.

So it was this, or nothing.

And with any luck, the house would stay in one piece till we’d got out of there.

Shifty pointed at the kitchen door, and I nodded.

He took Helen’s car keys, then worked his way through the bunch till one slid home into the lock and turned. We crept inside. Closed the door, nice and gentle, behind us.

Stood there, dripping on the linoleum. Trying not to breathe too loudly.

The outline of work surfaces and kitchen units lurked in the gloom, not enough light filtering in through the window to make out any detail. Breath a dark grey fog, cold biting at my wet skin.

All around us the house creaked and groaned in the wind. That sizzling hiss of rain smashing itself against the kitchen window.

I slipped the gun from my pocket, gloved fingertips exploring the metal above the handle, till the safety catch clicked off. Keeping my voice barely audible. ‘OK. We search each room, slow and careful.’

Shifty’s reply was equally quiet: ‘Why are they lurking in the dark if this isn’t a trap?’

Now that was a very good question.

‘Well... it’s what, half two in the morning? Maybe they’re asleep.’ In a house that could fall into the North Sea at any minute? Not exactly likely. ‘Look, just be careful, OK?’

I crept out of the kitchen into the hallway. It was even darker — not so much as a sliver of natural light to chisel shapes out of the blackness. Inching forwards, using the walking stick to find the edges of obstacles before I barged into them.

The first door opened on a smallish room with tiled walls, going by the way my scuffing feet echoed back at me. A rectangle of dark grey against the black was probably a bathroom window...

This was stupid. How were we supposed to search the place if we couldn’t see anything? ‘Shifty, where are you?’

His voice was a whisper at my back. ‘Here.’

‘Can you turn the torch down on your phone, or is it full pelt or nothing?’

‘Don’t know...’ Some fumbling noises, then a hard white light lanced out, pulling a circle of detail from Helen’s bathroom. Black and white tiles, a shower curtain with cartoon characters on it, a neat array of shampoo and conditioner bottles along the edge of a salmon-pink bathroom suite. Then the beam faded to a soft yellowish glow, and darkness reclaimed most of the room.

We tried the next door: a faded bedroom, the double bed rumpled and unmade. No sign of personal items or touches in here. Helen’s prison cell was probably more homely than this.

The room next to that was another, smaller, bedroom. But where Helen’s was bare, this one was festooned with posters — boybands and popstars I’d never heard of, for the most part, with the occasional kitten-and-inspirational-quote to break up the monotony. A row of kids’ and YA books. A wicker hamper overflowing with mildewed dirty washing. A single bed with a unicorn bedspread, the sheets cold and damp to the touch. Didn’t look as if anyone had stayed here for months.

So much for catching Gordon Smith and Leah MacNeil asleep.

That left the lounge.

I crept after Shifty, following the thin waxy beam of torchlight.

The multigym’s stainless-steel framework glinted in the dark, still huge and taking up a third of the room. The same ratty furniture lurking around it. The only thing different was the living room rug. It’d been draped over the top of Helen’s coffee table, exposing the edges of a trapdoor.

Bet all the houses round here had one. Oh, some homes might be bigger than others, some might be semidetached, some might have an attic conversion, but in the end they all shared the same DNA. And that DNA included genes for a basement...

Shifty whispered out a cloudy breath. ‘Sod.’ He pulled his shoulders in. ‘We gotta go down there, don’t we?’

‘Yeah. We do.’

He turned on the spot, sweeping the torch’s beam around the room again. ‘Be the perfect place for an ambush. Soon as we’re in the basement, the trapdoor’s nailed shut and we’re stuck there while the whole place collapses.’

Right on cue, the roof growled above our heads, followed by the rattling clatter of what was probably a roof tile coming loose and being swept away.

‘OK.’ I tightened my grip on the gun, took a deep breath, and nodded.

‘Off our bloody heads...’ Shifty bent down, grabbed the ring set into the trapdoor, and pulled. The thing hinged open with a Hammer-House-of-Horror creak. He pointed the torch beam, illuminating a steep flight of wooden steps. ‘Try and not get me killed, OK?’

‘Do my best.’ The steps moaned beneath my feet as I edged my way down into the darkness.

The musty scent of a long-abandoned room mingled with sour dampness and something sharp and metallic. The air tasted of it too.

Impossible to see anything in here, but swinging my walking stick from side to side drew a hollow thunk from something on either side. Cardboard boxes?

Could really do with a light down here.

Sod.

One barely functioning hand for the walking stick, one hand for the gun. How was I supposed to work the torch on Alice’s phone at the same time?

Unless...

I unzipped my jacket, put the .22 away, then started up the torch app on Alice’s phone. Slipped it into the top pocket of my blood-stained shirt. A good inch protruded from the top, letting LED light spill out onto stacks and stacks of sagging boxes. The gun came out to play again, my breath steaming out around my head, caught in the harsh white glow.

Everything the torch beam touched jumped into focus, but everything else was completely and utterly swallowed by the dark. Inky black and impenetrable. Where the light was bright enough to see by, the beam was no wider than a beachball, but anything more than six feet away stubbornly refused to emerge from the gloom.