Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

‘On no, you’re not getting away with it that easily. I need you off the Gòrach investigation till this blows over, but if you think I’m giving you gardening leave, you’ve got another think coming. I’m not paying you to sit about doing sod all: you can go be a massive pain in someone else’s backside for a change. I’m sure DI Malcolmson would be delighted to have you muck up her caseload for a change.’

No...

That dragged my shoulders down. ‘In that case, I’m definitely resigning.’

‘Have fun in Mother’s Misfit Mob, Ash. Try not to cock anything else up, eh?’ And with that, Jacobson was gone.

Wonderful. Just. Sodding. Wonderful.

When I opened my eyes, Shifty was squinting at me.

‘You look like someone’s slapped a cold jobbie in your Pot Noodle.’

To be honest, that would’ve been an improvement.

Never liked Tarbeth Park.

Saint Bartholomew’s Episcopal Cathedral dominated the semi-manicured grassland, rearing up in all its jagged granite glory, the copper-coated spire scratching at the sky in shades of greeny-brown. All buttresses and lancet windows. Like Saint Damon’s on steroids, only out in the sunlight, rather than down in a dank rainswept hollow. God knew what kind of sins Oldcastle had to atone for in the sixteenth century, but going by the size of Saint Bartholomew’s, they were many and heinous.

Shifty stuck the pool car in one of the parking spots reserved for emergency vehicles. Cleared his throat. ‘Want me to come with you?’

‘Not really.’

He nodded, but clambered out after me, anyway. Scuffing along at my side as I limp-hobbled my way past the retractable metal bollards and onto the slick cobbled road that jinked in towards the cathedral’s nave end. Gusts of frigid air shoved us along, making our coattails flap out in front of us as we followed the road, heading for the biggest graveyard in the city. Well, if you didn’t count the plague pits in Shortstaine.

Shifty stuck his hands deep in his pockets, good eye narrowed as he squinted out into the sunshine. Raised his voice over the howling wind. ‘Least it’s stopped raining.’

From here, the view stretched down, across the park, to the river’s glittering grey ribbon, then across to Cowskillin — with its rows of pre-war terraced houses and the abandoned hulk of City Stadium. Lots of browns and greys, because who wouldn’t want to live somewhere completely devoid of charm or life?

Maybe the idea was that the ranks of the dead wouldn’t see anything to make them jealous?

Saint Bartholomew’s Graveyard sat a good ten-minute limp from the cathedral, as if distancing itself from the wages of all that sin, encircled by a four-foot-high stone wall. Guarded by a large wrought-iron gate, ‘MORS IN NOBIS PONERE DEBEMUS CONFIDUNT IN DEUM’ inscribed in metalwork above the entrance. As if that meant anything to anyone.

Shifty, thankfully, kept his mouth shut and followed me inside.

The part nearest the gate was filled with the oldest headstones: short, blunt, ugly things where most of the carving had been eaten away by weather and lichen, leaving nothing but the ghost of memorials behind. The wind badgered us through the Victorian part, where being buried became all about outdoing your dead neighbours. Seeing who could have the swankiest granite mausoleums, or fanciest marble statues of weeping angels and cherubs. Celtic crosses big enough to crucify someone on. The Georgians were even worse. But the further back from the main path they got, the humbler the graves became.

And then we reached the far side and the modern burial plots, where shiny black headstones with gold lettering sprouted in ordered rows. Photos of loved ones engraved into their surfaces. Wilting flowers and rotting teddy bears slumped against the cold dead stone. Where the grief was still fresh enough to hurt.

Lines and lines and lines of them, with a chunk of woodland rising in the background — branches writhing, the last of their leaves torn away to soar free in the gale.

‘Erm, not meaning to be funny, or anything,’ Shifty did a slow three-sixty, ‘but do you know where she is?’

‘Yeah.’ Never been here in my life, but I knew. ‘Thanks, but maybe I’d better do this bit on my own.’

I left him there and headed down a gravel path fringed with weeds, to a section by the back wall. A pair of plain grey stones, each with a fresh bunch of carnations in front of them. That would’ve been Michelle. Because she’d always been the more responsible parent.

My little girl.

Girls , Ash. Look at the other headstone.

No.

For God’s sake, it’s been nine years.

Deep breath.

But when I tried... it...

My eyes slid off the shiny grey marble, like it’d been greased. Hauled down by the weight of guilt. My fault. My fault she was dead.

Wire and dead leaves filled my chest, pushing their way up to knot in the middle of my throat, not letting the breath in.

I stepped back, focused on Rebecca’s final resting place again. Because at least I wasn’t responsible for that one.

Huffed out a rattling lungful of bitter air.

They were only graves.

Then why was every beat of my shrivelled-up heart like being kicked in the chest?

The carved golden letters swam out of focus and no amount of blinking would get them to snap back again. Standing there, amongst the dead, as the wind whipped at my back. As it howled and screeched through the headstones. As it raged .

I closed my eyes.

Aberdeen beach, when Rebecca was three, the sun hot on my bare back and legs. A picnic in the golden sands, looking out at the supply vessels waiting to come into harbour. Rebecca: testing her courage against the North Sea, chasing the waves as they retreated down the sand, turning around to squeal her way back to us as they doubled back on her.

Only Rebecca’s face... is a blur. Her face isn’t the only thing that wouldn’t come into focus: the bright-red swimming suit, the sturdy little legs and arms, her curly hair.

Why can’t I see her? Why can’t I—

Rebecca: tied to a chair in a dank basement, her pale skin smeared with scarlet, slashed and burned and bruised. Eyes wide. Screaming behind a duct-tape gag. The number ‘5’ scratched into the corner of the bloodstained Polaroid picture, mounted on a homemade birthday card.

No.

I snapped my eyes open again, but that image was burned forever on the back of my retinas.

All these years. All these years and I still couldn’t—

‘Ash?’ A woman’s voice, behind me, sounding pleased and amused. ‘Ash Henderson, it is you. Well, well, well...’

I closed my eyes.

Apparently today could get worse after all.

She settled onto the bench next to me, hands in the pockets of her burgundy overcoat, shoulders hunched. Auburn hair escaping from beneath a shapeless woolly hat that was probably meant to look chic, but came off more like a stolen tea-cosy. Jennifer Prentice. She’d lost a chunk of weight, grown hard about the eyes and mouth. Forehead suspiciously smooth and immobile.

Wind whipped at the grass around us, thrashing the bushes, making trees creak like a galleon under full sail. It was billed as an ‘area of quiet contemplation and peace’, but the reality was four rusty park benches, arranged around a ‘fountain of remembrance’. Which turned out to be a sludge-filled concrete roundel with weeds growing out of the rusting pipe where water probably hadn’t sprayed for years.