Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

We’d almost made it to the garden wall when Helen’s house gave one final groan of pain, then thundered in on itself as the storm ate it whole.

The doctor stepped back to admire her handiwork. ‘Not bad. You’ll have a scar, but it could’ve been worse.’

I turned my elbow out ninety degrees. A neat line of small black stitches ran along a dark puckered ridge of skin halfway up my bicep — stained dark orange with antiseptic. That ‘punch’ had been the cutthroat razor. Good job Gordon Smith hadn’t kept it sharp or the thing would’ve chopped its way right down to the bone. ‘Thanks.’

A blush darkened her cheeks. ‘Twice in one day. We must stop meeting like this.’ Dr Fotheringham put the forceps and needle holder back on the tray. ‘If anyone asks, I gave you amoxicillin.’ Pocketing a couple of small boxes. ‘Obviously I’m not going to really give you more antibiotics, because, well, you know.’

‘Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.’

Outside the curtained cubicle, the sounds of Castle Hill Infirmary A-and-E thrummed and bustled all around us. Moaning, crying, someone singing a sectarian song while someone else screamed at them to shut their orange-bastard mouth.

Fotheringham wrapped the wound in gauze, then cotton wool, then crisp white bandages. Pulling them tight and tying them off. She didn’t look me in the eye once. ‘Well, that’s us all done. You’ll need to get those stitches out in about a fortnight: better safe than sorry.’

The sound of someone being copiously sick echoed through from the next-door cubicle, but Fotheringham didn’t even flinch. ‘Can I ask,’ she pointed at my arm, ‘was this the same “serial killer”?’

I pulled my bloodstained shirt back on and hopped off the trolley. ‘Not any more.’

Fotheringham wrestled me into a bulky black padded sling, adjusting the straps and Velcro till the entire arm was immobile. Then helped me drape my ‘borrowed’ leather jacket over my shoulders. ‘It’ll take a while to heal, so make sure you rest it.’

‘Want to take a little advice from someone who’s been where you are? Once people like Joseph and Francis get their hooks in you, it’s not so easy to wriggle free. Stop the gambling, get help, or you’ll be gutted and filleted by the time they’re done.’

She gave me a small sad smile. ‘Oh, how I wish it was that easy...’

They’d moved Kenneth Dewar out of the High Dependency ward into a private room on the sixth floor, with a uniformed PC sitting guard outside, reading a Hamish Macbeth novel: Death of a Crime Writer . She looked up as I hobbled over on a borrowed NHS walking stick. ‘Guv.’

So, one of the old guard, before my demotion.

I nodded at the observation window. ‘He say anything yet?’

‘Came round about two hours ago. Since then it’s been mostly sobbing and sleeping. Think they’ve got him on some pretty strong meds.’ She put a marker in her book. ‘Mother... I mean, DI Malcolmson’s been looking for you. Says you’re not answering your phone.’

Maybe because I hadn’t actually worked out what, or how much, to tell her yet.

‘Any chance...?’ I pointed at the door.

The PC raised an eyebrow. ‘On your own? Sod all, Guv. Orders from the Chief Super, in triplicate: Dewar goes to trial, dirty wee child-murdering bastard that he is.’

‘Wouldn’t have it any other way.’ After all, we needed him to get all better so he could enjoy his daily torture. I opened the door and stepped into the familiar disinfectant-and-misery-scented air.

They’d hooked him up to a drip and a heart monitor, but other than that, he was machinery-free. Lying there, on his back, with his mouth hanging open, chest rising and falling in time to a deep rumbling snore.

Probably loud enough to disturb the other patients. That wasn’t fair, was it? Someone should do something about that.

So I pinched his nose shut, the palm of my hand covering his mouth.

‘Guv!’

Dewar spluttered his way into consciousness, a small scream muffled by my hand.

I let go and gave the PC a smile. ‘Oh look, he’s awake.’

Dewar blinked at me, then around at the room — as if taking it in for the first time. ‘How...?’

The chair’s rubber feet squealed across the green-terrazzo floor as I pulled it closer to the bed. Thumped down in it. ‘Not going to kid you, Kenny, I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’ve had a bastard of a day.’ Pointing at the PC. ‘She’s here to make sure I don’t strangle you, like you strangled Andrew Brennan, Oscar Harris, Lewis Talbot, and Toby Macmillan.’

He closed his eyes and nodded, mouth a tight squirming line as tears squeezed out. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So you keep saying.’ I leaned forward. ‘You thought you’d fooled everyone, didn’t you? But you didn’t fool Alice.’

‘She... she’d been so nice to me... and then... then she called and said... and said she wanted to talk to me again.’ Big fat tears plopped onto the sheet, turning the fabric the colour of spoiled milk. ‘And I knew she’d... she’d worked it out.’

‘So you tried to kill her.’

‘I didn’t want... I need you to understand... understand why—’

‘Kenny, Kenny, Kenny: I don’t care.’ I tilted my head back and winked at our uniformed friend. ‘You might want to cover your ears for this part: plausible deniability.’

She shifted her feet, hands opening and closing. ‘You’re not going to hurt him, are you?’

‘Me? Hurt him ? Why on earth would I do that? Now Simon says: cover your ears.’

She did.

‘Remember when you said I should find the bastard who killed all those little boys, and make him pay ?’ I leaned in. ‘This is for Andrew, Oscar, Lewis, and Toby. But it’s especially for what you did to Alice.’ Had to be quick, before the PC could stop me — standing and slamming my right fist into his face. Putting some weight behind it. Driving his head back into the pillows.

‘GUV!’ She lunged, but I backed away from the bed, hand up.

‘All finished.’ Arthritis howled its way through my knuckles, but it was worth it.

‘What the hell have you done?’ Staring at Dewar as scarlet gushed out of his newly squint nose.

‘I didn’t do anything, Constable. Kenneth Dewar became distressed — probably the guilt of strangling four wee boys — and tried to injure himself. I saw you rush to his aid and save the day. You should get some sort of commendation for that.’

She licked her lips. Looked from Dewar’s sobbing, blood-dripping face, to me, then back again. ‘I saved the day?’

‘Like a pro. Very proud of you.’

A nod. ‘Cool.’

Kenneth Dewar: welcome to the rest of your life.

Shifty threw back his blankets and sat bolt upright in his hospital bed. ‘Come on, time to go home.’

I put a hand against his chest and pushed him back into the crinkled sheets. ‘You’ve got concussion, you silly bugger.’ Pulled the blankets over him again. ‘You’re going nowhere.’

Someone had removed his eyepatch, so instead of a jaunty-big-fat-bald-pirate, he looked more like a confused hairless middle-aged man with a weight problem and a clenched fist of scar tissue where his right eye should have been. He squinted the other one at me. ‘What happened in the basement?’

A voice behind me: ‘Yes, Ash, what did happen in that basement?’

Ah...

‘Mother, I hear you’ve been looking for me?’

When I turned, she was standing in the doorway, a bit on the rumpled side, heavy bags under her eyes, thick brown overcoat flapped open to reveal a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt with a grinning cat on it. Not quite ‘I got dressed in the dark’, but close enough.