Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Dragged out my phone and called Shifty instead.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

The rain might have stopped, but the drains were still overflowing, the gutters making their own rapids where the water hit logjams of filth and rubbish.

Alice lurched in front of me, walking backwards, trying to make eye contact. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, I know Rebecca’s death must be painful, I was only trying to—’

‘DI Morrow?’

‘Shifty? It’s Ash. I need a lift.’

‘Don’t be like that, I’ll drive you wherever you need to go, it’s not a—’

‘Oh, Christ, what have you done now?’

‘It’s important.’

‘Ash, please! ’

‘You do realise I’m a detective inspector, right? A detective inspector who’s got a murder investigation on the go. I can’t—’

‘Can you give me a lift, or not?’

A long-suffering sigh. ‘All right, all right.’ Some scrunching came down the line, then a muffled, ‘Rhona? I’ve got to go out for a while. Keep an eye on things, and for God’s sake, don’t let the Chief Super put out any more half-arsed statements.’ Then Shifty was back to full volume again. ‘Where are you?’

Alice tried blocking my path. ‘Don’t do this. I said I’m sorry and I meant it.’

I sidestepped her. ‘Heading down Denholm, I’ll be on Montrose Road, going back towards town.’

‘Ash, please !’ Her voice ringing out behind me as I kept going. ‘Ash?’

‘OK, I’ll be there soon as I can...’

‘Ash! Please, we can talk about this!’

Not this time.

‘So, are you going to tell me what this is all about?’ Shifty was probably going for casual and nonchalant, but it wasn’t working.

I kept my face turned to the passenger window as the manky pool car headed back across Calderwell Bridge. The traffic had eased up a lot since rush hour, sunlight sparking off Kings River like shards of hot glass. Windy enough out there to whip up white horses as the tide tried to fight against it.

‘OK.’ He pointed at the windscreen as we made landfall on the other side. ‘Can you at least tell me where we’re going?’

‘Steven Kirk’s been hanging round the church that leads onto the waste ground where Andrew Brennan was killed. Has been for months.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake...’ Shifty’s hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles standing out like ball bearings. ‘Blakey interviewed him! No mention of it.’

‘I cocked up, Shifty.’

He eyed me across the car. ‘Do I want to know? Actually, scrap that — I don’t. Especially with Professional Bloody Standards poking torches up my fundament.’

Tchaikovsky’s ‘Danse des Mirlitons’ burst out of my pocket. That would be Alice calling. Again.

‘You going to get that?’

‘Nope.’

We passed a couple of bookies and a charity shop. Pulled up at the traffic lights outside the boarded-up remains of Oldcastle’s newest multiplex cinema — still advertising a superhero blockbuster from three years ago, the posters’ colours faded away to a yellow-and-black duotone.

‘Still need to know where we’re going, though.’

Good question.

Tchaikovsky faded off into silence as Alice’s call went to voicemail.

Maybe it was time?

Wasn’t as if the day could get any worse, was it?

‘Take a right.’

Soon as the lights changed, he hit the indicators, setting a slew of angry horns honking behind us.

I clicked on the radio, jabbing the buttons till something suitably unhappy groaned out of the car’s speakers. We drifted along Nelson Street to the sound of someone else’s misery.

Then Tchaikovsky joined in again.

This time I didn’t even let it go to voicemail: hit the ‘reject call’ icon instead.

Shifty shook his head. ‘You’re going to have to talk to her eventually.’

Maybe. But not right now.

Grey buildings slid by the car windows, grey people slumping past in front of them. Oldcastle in November. The whole bloody city needed a Valium.

On the radio, the song gloomed its way to a depressing finale, replaced by a gravel-voiced woman sitting far too close to the microphone in an attempt to sound sultry and intimate. ‘Four Mechanical Mice there, and “Dear Dinosaur”. You’re listening to Midmorning Madness with me, Barbara Chapman, standing in for Annette Peterson. It’s half ten and we’ve got the news coming up, but first, here’s a word from our lovely sponsors...’

‘You going back to the flat tonight, or do you need somewhere to crash as well?’

‘Don’t know, yet.’ The way things were going, once Steven Kirk’s lawyer got his hooks into me, I’d probably be sleeping in a cell for the weekend, waiting till they got me up in front of a sheriff on Monday.

‘... ahar mateys, cos at Blisterin’ Barnacles Chip Shop, you landlubbers and salty seadogs can get two fish suppers and a poke of onion rings for the price of one!...’

Tchaikovsky had another go. Didn’t make it past the first bar before I hung up on him.

‘Look, Ash, it’s—’

‘Just... don’t, OK?’

‘Cluckity cluck, cluck, cluck! Mummy, can we have Chicken MacSporrans for tea tonight? They’re new and improved!’

‘Of course you can, Timmy, because I know I can trust ScotiaBrand Tasty Chickens to deliver on nutrition and taste. They’re fan-chicken-tastic!’

I pointed through the grubby windscreen. ‘Right at the roundabout.’

We joined the queue of traffic, Shifty shaking his head. ‘Only, every time you pair fall out it’s me gets stuck in the middle.’

‘... and feel the magic of pantomime as Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of Tutankhamun’s Tomb comes to the King James Theatre, this December! Fun for all the family! Tickets on sale now!’

‘Well, what am I supposed to do? It’s—’

My phone launched into something else for a change: Radiohead’s ‘Creep’, the words ‘DSUPT. JACOBSON’ glowing in the middle of the screen. To be honest, that took longer than expected. Thought he’d be on the phone yelling at me ages ago.

Ah well.

Nice while it lasted.

Shifty took us out and round onto Castle Drive, the multi-building lumps of Castle Hill Infirmary looming over the houses on our left, the twin towers of its incinerators sending out clouds of white steam to be ripped apart by the wind.

I turned down the radio and took the call. ‘Go on then, get it over with.’

‘Ash, Ash, Ash...’ A disappointed noise. Sounding sad, rather than angry. ‘You don’t make things easy for me, do you? Or yourself. You silly bugger.’

‘It’s—’

‘Alice told me what happened and why. And, while I don’t approve of people beating the hairy snot out of suspects, I appreciate it’s not been easy for you. Not today, anyway.’

Great: sympathy. The perfect way to make anyone feel even worse about themselves.

‘But that’s still no excuse, you complete and utter, total arsehole! You’re supposed to be helping us catch Gòrach, not buggering any chance we have of convicting him!’

‘Yeah.’

‘Now I have to spend the next hour pacifying Steven Kirk’s lawyer; do you have any idea how hard it’ll be getting a warrant to search his house after this? The Procurator Fiscal is going to do her nut.’

The road curved around a patch of woods on the right, the sharp blade of granite towering on the left, with the crumbling remains of the Old Castle on top.

‘Well? Have you got anything to say for yourself?’

‘Yes: I resign.’ Might as well, before he fired me.