Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Alice draped herself over the trolley’s handles, one red-shod foot flat on the floor, the other twisting back and forth on its toes, while she fiddled about on her phone. Face all pinched with concentration.

Why did every bloody mobile manufacturer have to use a different cable?

I picked one that should fit, then dumped it in with the Tunnock’s Teacakes, Quality Street tin, and multipack of pickled onion Monster Munch.

She straightened up, eyes still glued to her phone, bumping the trolley forward with her hips. It wobbled away a couple of feet, then took an unprompted hard left into the memory cards.

At least it gave me something to lean on while we hobbled around to the drinks aisle.

‘You still haven’t answered the question.’ Scuffing along beside me, like a teenager, using radar to avoid hitting anything while she concentrated on that little screen.

‘There’s Pizzageddon on Clay Road, and that new place by the station’s meant to be pretty good.’

She had the teenager’s sigh down pat too. ‘No, not dinner — tomorrow.’

This again.

‘Alice, can we please not—’

‘Apart from anything else, it’s our crime-fighting anniversary, isn’t it? Nine years to the day since we first teamed up to catch bad guys. We should do something to celebrate, that’s all.’

‘Ah...’ Forgotten about that. ‘Suppose it is.’

She plucked a box of orange Matchmakers from the shelf as we passed, apparently without even looking at it. ‘See?’

‘Thought you were the one banging on about not eating properly?’

‘Don’t change the subject.’ A packet of jelly babies joined the rest of her five-a-day. ‘And then there’s Rebecca.’

Sodding hell. ‘I told you I didn’t want to—’

‘You’ve never even visited her grave.’

‘That’s not—’

‘It’s been nine years , Ash.’ A shrug. ‘And I know the first two weren’t your fault, because of... well, what happened with Mrs Kerrigan being a vindictive cow, but it’s not healthy to continually avoid the subject.’

I steered the trolley into the drinks aisle, beer and cider forming two walls of a boozy canyon on either side. ‘I’m not avoiding—’

‘Because sooner or later it’s going to come back and bite you, right on the—’ The phone in her hand launched into something jaunty and she gave out a small startled squeal, before poking at the screen and putting it to her ear. ‘Hello, Bear, how are you getting—... Yes, I know Lewis Talbot’s post mortem is happening now, but—... No, it isn’t, but—... Yes, but you don’t really need us, do you, Bear, I mean we can’t add anything to—... Yes, Bear.’ Her shoulders slumping more with every passing second. ‘No, I am happy being part of LIRU, honest—’

I poked her in the arm and held out my hand. ‘Give.’

She did what she was told.

Detective Superintendent Jacobson’s voice rattled in my ear, wanging on about teambuilding. ‘... vitally important every member of the team is—’

‘What do you want?’

A pause.

‘Ash? Why aren’t you answering your phone?’

‘Stupid thing’s run out of battery. And before you ask: no, we won’t be attending the post mortem. We almost died an hour ago, thanks to you, so you’ll understand if we’re not in the mood to watch someone fillet a wee boy who’s been dead for a month.’

The visuals would be bad enough, but the smell? On top of everything else we’d been through, tonight? No thanks.

Alice pointed at the shelves, pulled a constipated-frog face, then loped away towards the hard spirits.

‘Almost died? Helen MacNeil got violent, did she? Well, you’re supposed to be good at handling things like that, it’s—’

‘We found a kill room in her next-door neighbour’s basement. Whole place nearly got washed out to sea with us in it.’

‘A kill room? Now, that is interesting... Multiple victims?’ Difficult to describe the tone that’d come into Jacobson’s voice, but it was a cross between cunning and avarice. ‘I take it they’ll need our help interpreting the scene? After all, the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit is uniquely positioned to—’

‘There’s no one going anywhere near the scene. I wasn’t kidding about the place washing out to sea — the headland’s crumbling away underneath the property. Doubt it’ll last the night.’

‘That’s a shame. We’ll probably wrap up this child-killer case soon, and it’d be nice to have something high-profile to move on to. Still, can’t be helped.’

Alice reappeared with a litre of supermarket vodka and a bottle of red wine clutched in her left hand, a twelve-pack of tonic and a bargain-basement brandy cradled in her right arm like a rectangular yellow baby and its alcoholic cuddly toy.

‘Now, about this post mortem—’

‘No.’ I turned the trolley when Alice had finished loading the booze, and pushed for the checkouts. ‘In addition to almost dying — I did mention that, didn’t I? In addition to that, we’re both soaked to the skin. And if you think we’re going to spend the next four to six hours standing in a freezing cold mortuary, catching our deaths, you can shove LIRU where, as Bernard would say, “the light from our nearest star is permanently occluded”.’

‘Ash, that’s not exactly—’

‘AKA: sideways up your hole!’

Silence.

The two old ladies in front of us tremored their way through emptying their trolley onto the checkout conveyor belt: supermarket whisky, white bread, cheese, bacon, cucumber, baby oil, and a jumbo-sized thing of toilet paper. Must’ve been planning one hell of a party.

‘Ash, please remind me: why exactly do I put up with you on my team?’

I stuck the ‘NEXT CUSTOMER PLEASE’ plastic Toblerone down, at the end of the oldies’ shopping. ‘You want the official reason, or the real one?’

‘Ah... Perhaps we should—’

‘Officially: it’s because my twenty years policing the serial-killer capital of Europe looks good on your stupid brochures. Unofficially: it’s because you know sometimes corners have to be cut, rules broken, and heads smashed in, but you don’t want to get your hands dirty. You want plausible deniability so none of it blows back on you. And, more importantly, Alice won’t work without me.’

She grimaced, then unloaded the vodka, tonic, wine, and brandy onto the conveyor belt, bottles and cans clinking and rattling.

‘Have we finished having our sulky tantrum? Because if we have , we might hear me say, “Take the rest of the evening off, Ash. You and Alice have deserved a rest, Ash. Come in fresh tomorrow, Ash.”’

Should bloody well think so too.

The last of the shopping went on the belt, to be bleeped through the till by a short man who’d never see seventy again, with a satsuma-orange fake tan and startled-Weetabix hair. The liver spots on his tiny hands trembling as he tried to get the Monster Munch to scan.

‘Had to promise Helen MacNeil I’d look into her granddaughter going missing.’

‘Unfortunate, but I suppose it won’t take up too much of your time.’

Alice reached for her cards, but I waved her away.

‘I’ll get this lot. Call it an anniversary present.’

‘You’re getting me a present?’

‘Was talking to Alice.’ I pinned the phone between my shoulder and ear and went rummaging for my wallet. ‘And how long it takes depends on whether or not Leah MacNeil’s one of the bodies getting washed out to sea right now. If it is: not so straightforward.’