Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Sullivan stiffened. ‘That’s not—’

‘Yes it is, and keep your gob shut.’ I grabbed my walking stick. ‘We hold off till morning, this place will be swarming with soggy journalists, wanting to know what it’s like living next door to a serial killer. Won’t take much for her to put two and two together.’ Turned my collar up, and climbed out into the storm. Let the wind slam the car door shut for me. Then banged my hand down on the roof three or four times, raising my voice over the wind. ‘DI MALCOLMSON, ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?’

Her door opened and she joined me on the pavement, face a sour sagging scowl. ‘This is what I get for answering my phone after midnight. I never learn...’ Hunching herself up, lumbering after me as we shouldered our way through the gusts to Helen MacNeil’s front door and the relative shelter of her grubby caravan. She rang the doorbell, then tucked her hands deep in her pockets. ‘And how come I’m “DI Malcolmson” now, you always used to call me Mother.’

I frowned at her. ‘You’ve been calling me “Mr Henderson” ever since I turned up.’

‘I thought you were upset with me for some reason.’ She took a hand out again and patted me on the back with it. ‘Ash.’

Ah, why not: ‘Mother.’

Still no sign of life from the house, so I leaned on the bell again, keeping my thumb there as it drinnnnnnnnged . Ringing on and on and on and on and—

‘WHAT?’ The door was yanked open, and there stood Helen MacNeil, wrapped up in a tatty old blue dressing gown, bare legs and feet poking out the bottom. Glaring at us with puffy eyes. Short grey hair flat on one side. Fists ready.

Mother looked at me. Raised her eyebrows.

Coward.

I stepped forwards. ‘Helen, can we come in, please? I’m... afraid we have some bad news.’

She sat there, staring at me.

I shifted on the couch. ‘Are there any questions you’d like to ask?’

Helen MacNeil looked down at my phone again, clutched in her trembling hands. At the image filling the screen: a smiling young woman in an ugly orange-and-brown one-piece swimming costume, face covered in freckles, mousy-blonde hair tucked behind an ear, rolling sand dunes behind her.

PC Sullivan emerged through the living room door, carrying two mugs in each hand, steam rising off them in the chill air. He put the lot on the rickety coffee table, then held one out to Helen. ‘Milk and three sugars.’

She blinked. Shook her head. Voice hollow and distant. ‘This has to be a mistake...’

And again, Sullivan had the common sense to keep his gob shut.

Mother helped herself to a mug and did the same.

Typical.

‘Do you recognise the photograph, Helen?’

‘Gordon wouldn’t hurt Sophie. He wouldn’t. He’s been like family to us, ever since I was a wee girl. This is bollocks!’

‘It’s definitely her, though, in the picture?’

‘I... It’s...’ She placed a fingertip on the screen. Then placed my phone on the coffee table, stood, and marched out of the room.

‘Pffff...’ Mother looked at me over the rim of her mug. ‘You have to feel for her.’

‘And are you planning on chipping in at any point, or do I have to do everything now?’

A smile, then Mother leaned forward and patted me on the knee. ‘But you’re doing so well .’

‘You can stuff your patronising—’

Helen marched back in, holding out a Polaroid. ‘Look.’

It was almost identical to the one we’d found hanging up in next door’s basement. Taken either just before, or just after it. The main difference being that in this version, the woman in the bathing suit was holding a beaming toddler in a pink sundress, floppy white hat on its head. Pinholes speckled the white plastic edges of the photo and its colours were more faded too. A slight grey patina to the whole thing.

‘Gordon and Caroline took them for a bank holiday weekend in Aberdeen, when Leah was eighteen months. I was three years into my sentence...’

I turned the Polaroid over: ‘BALMEDIE BEACH’ printed on the back in neat black felt pen.

‘Had it pinned above my bed, in my cell. And every time I saw it, I’d think about them,’ Helen narrowed her eyes at me, ‘and what I’d do to you when I got out.’

The Polaroid clicked down against the coffee table. ‘I’m sorry.’

Her chin came up. ‘So what if Gordon had a photo of Sophie in his house? He was like a grandfather to—’

‘There’s another photo. It’s...’ What good would it do, telling her what he’d done to her daughter? No parent should have to know that. ‘Sophie didn’t end her own life. She was murdered.’

‘If there’s another photograph, I want to see it!’

All that blood and pain and horror, captured in one horrible three-inch by three-inch square.

‘No.’ I stood. Put my phone back in my pocket. ‘Trust me, you really don’t.’

‘... statement that the Justice Secretary, Mark Stalker, has the First Minister’s complete support.’

And we all knew what that meant.

‘Thank you, Janet.’ On the TV screen, a greasy wee man in a too-tight suit pulled on his serious face for the camera. ‘Police Scotland are expected to confirm, later today, that remains of a small boy, found in woods to the south of Oldcastle, are those of missing four-year-old, Lewis Talbot. Our crime correspondent Hugh Brimmond is live at the scene for us now. Hugh?’

Outside, it was still dark, the city’s lights twinkling in the inky black, as I scooped up another spoonful of porridge. With salt, not sugar. Washed down with a sip of decaf tea.

Rock and roll.

A broad-shouldered rugby type appeared on screen, standing in the dark with some trees behind him, lit up by the headlights of passing cars, rain thrumming down on a red-and-white golf brolly. ‘That’s right, Bob. We’re here in a large stretch of woodland known locally as “The Murders”, a name from the sixteenth century that’s been horribly prescient...’

‘Urgh...’ Alice slumped her way in from the kitchen, clanked a big mug of coffee down on the dining table, and collapsed into a chair. Folded over forwards and rested her forehead against the cool glass surface as I finished off the last of my breakfast.

‘... bringing the tragic death toll to three young boys, all under the age of six.’

‘Morning.’

‘I said, “Urrrrrrgh!”’ Not looking up.

The greasy guy in the suit was back. ‘Sport now, and Inverurie Loco Works are looking to make it a hat-trick today as they go up against favourites, Buckie Thistle...’

‘Well, whose fault is that, then?’ Downed the last dregs of tea, picked up my bowl and stood. ‘Briefing’s at quarter to, so better get your bumhole in gear.’

‘URGH!’

‘Don’t “Urgh” me. You know what Jacobson’s like when people are late.’ Putting on a fairly decent impersonation of the man, even if I say so myself: ‘“I’d like to remind everyone that LIRU also stands for ‘Late Is Really Unprofessional’.”’ Back to normal. ‘Hairy wee tosspot that he is.’

A tad harsh, maybe, but what did you expect at quarter past seven on a Saturday morning?

Alice folded her hands over her head. ‘Urgh...’

‘Don’t care. Go get ready.’ The flat’s kitchen wasn’t bad: enough space to throw together a decent meal, if you actually had the time. The clunk-scuff of my limping echoed back from slate tiles and shiny white flat-panel kitchen units.

‘... opening games of the new season. And now here’s Valerie with the weather.’