Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

There wasn’t much of Gordon Smith’s house left: eighteen, maybe nineteen feet? Which meant the kill room had already gone, taking any forensic evidence with it. The living room, with its avalanche of ancient furniture, had gone too. And nearly all of the roof — what was left, clinging to the joists still fixed to its gable end. But nothing would...

Hold on, what was that?

‘ASH?’

‘SHUT UP A MINUTE!’ Head on one side. ‘CAN YOU HEAR THAT?’

It was hard to make anything out, over the crashing waves and bellowing wind, but there was definitely something there.

I inched closer. Then closer still.

Franklin grabbed my hand and stepped behind me. Acting as an anchor. ‘JUST IN CASE!’

Another torch snaked across the ravaged grass — till its tiny white spotlight found us. Then Mother’s voice: ‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU IDIOTS PLAYING AT? GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!’

OK, only a couple of yards till the garden came to a sudden and deadly stop.

Closer...

Closer...

‘I’M NOT KIDDING: YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!’

One yard. What was that, three feet?

Three feet to the roaring maw of the North Sea.

Oh God...

I dropped to my knees. ‘GRAB MY FOOT!’

Franklin let go of my hand and wrapped her fingers around my left ankle. ‘THIS IS STUPID!’

‘I KNOW!’ Edging closer to the edge.

Two feet.

One foot.

And then there was nothing between me and Norway but a cold violent death.

‘ANYTHING?’

‘HOLD ON!’ I poked my torch over the edge, running along the tattered cliff edge beneath me. Dark soil, crumbling, making little avalanches that were torn away by the wind. A couple of pipes, poking out into nothingness. Some wires...

Oh. Shit .

The harsh white circle of light slid up the body of a young man, hanging there, still as the dead, a high-pitched moan rattling out of his throat. A young man in a soil-smeared, ill-fitting suit, with a face full of acne and a monobrow. Mouth open and twitching, showing off all those uneven teeth. A big digital camera hanging around his neck. The idiot Mother had shouted at. The one she’d told not to go anywhere near the headland again.

Well, that had worked, hadn’t it?

He had both arms up above his head, hands clenched tight around a loop of flat fabric. Dark. Like, maybe the handle of a duffel bag, or a rucksack strap? It disappeared into the cliff. Something buried in Gordon Smith’s back garden.

I ran the torch downwards. Nothing beneath him to stand on, or break his fall, it was straight down to the angry sea. Grooves in the crumbling muddy cliff face where his feet had scrabbled at it.

Dark waves smashed themselves against the headland, thirty or forty feet below, sending up massive gouts of spray. Each blow like a sledgehammer, BOOOOOM ing out, and hissing in. Like the ragged breath of some huge malevolent beast.

OK, so as long as whatever it was he’d caught hold of stayed where it was, and he didn’t let go, we could do this. ‘WE’RE GOING TO GET YOU OUT OF THERE!’

He stared back at me and the moan got louder.

Back, over my shoulder: ‘WE NEED A ROPE!’

Franklin tightened her grip on my ankle, turned. ‘WE NEED A ROPE!’

Mother’s voice cut through the screaming wind. ‘DON’T STAND THERE LIKE A LEMON, JOHN, GET SOME ROPE!’

I wriggled over a couple of feet to the right, until I was directly above the hanging man. ‘YOU’RE A BLOODY IDIOT, YOU KNOW THAT, DON’T YOU?’

Tears sparked in the torchlight. His mouth moved, but whatever he’d said it wasn’t loud enough to make out over the storm.

‘WHAT?’

‘I DON’T... I DON’T WANT... TO DIE! PLEASE DON’T LET ME DIE!’

What the bloody hell did he think I was trying to do, here?

‘IT’S OK, WE...’

Another rumble, and off to the left a piece of cliff tumbled into the crashing waves. Like an enormous hand had scooped a chunk of it away, leaving an overhang behind. Moments later the rumbling got louder as the overhang crumbled, tearing a slab of Gordon Smith’s back garden with it.

The young man screamed .

And the falling earth filled the air with that mouldy-brown-bread scent of broken soil.

I twisted my head around to Franklin. ‘WHERE’S THAT BLOODY ROPE?’

‘I DON’T KNOW!’ Over her shoulder again. ‘MOTHER! WE NEED THAT ROPE, NOW!’

‘GET OUT OF THERE!’

I reached down with my right hand. Fingers straining. About a foot and a half too short. ‘CAN YOU PULL YOURSELF UP?’

He stared at me, then bit his bottom lip, tears streaking the mud on his face. Shoulders bunching as he hauled on the strap, feet scrambling at the dirt. Still not close enough to grab. ‘I CAN’T !’ Then sagged back again, sobbing.

My torch beam ripped across the grass till Franklin was caught in the light. ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE: WHAT’S KEEPING THEM?’

A large shape loomed out of the darkness behind her: Mother. She crouched down by Franklin’s feet and tossed something forwards.

It landed with a clanking slither, level with my chest. A length of chain — the one that was meant to be holding those two fencing panels together, with the padlock still firmly shut on the last two links.

Better than nothing.

The padlock fitted into my palm, chain hanging down between my fingers as I clenched it in my fist, then flipped the end over the cliff edge. ‘GRAB HOLD!’

It dangled about three inches above his hands.

He stared back at me, arms trembling. ‘I CAN’T!’

A wave smashed into the cliff beneath him, tearing loose a chunk of dirt and rocks.

‘GRAB THE BLOODY THING, YOU MORON!’

His left hand twitched, then let go of the strap, fingers stretching up for the chain’s end.

‘COME ON, YOU CAN DO IT!’

Feet digging into the mud, trembling with the effort, straining, reaching...

Another wave battered in, sending up a wall of spray, hiding his flailing legs for a moment.

Then the ground beneath my chest slumped, dropping a good six inches. ‘Shit!’

‘ASH!’ Franklin’s hands tightened around my ankle as a semicircle the size of a couch cracked all around me.

His eyes went even wider. Screaming. The thing he was holding onto slid towards him, pulling away from the crumbling cliff face, slipping free.

It was a big holdall, the red fabric stained almost black by its time in the earth.

I dropped the chain and lunged, fingers curling around the buckle where the strap fixed to the bag. Muscles straining across my shoulders. Joints yanked taut by the sudden weight. Knuckles full of burning rubble. Teeth gritted. But holding on...

‘ASH, GET OUT OF THERE!’

‘PULL ME BACK! PULL ME BACK, NOW!’ Staring down at him. ‘DON’T YOU BLOODY DARE LET GO! WE’RE GOING TO—’

The ground to either side gave way, clattering down, battering into his face and chest, muffling his screams as the weight on the other end of the strap disappeared. Arms pinwheeling as he fell.

‘NO!’

I careened forwards — nothing supporting my chest any more, the torch tumbling end-over-end until the next wave smashed into the cliff and swallowed it.

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’

A second set of hands wrapped around my other ankle, stopping me from falling any further forward, then a third pair snatched at my trouser leg. All of them hauling me backwards, onto semi-solid ground again.

Wet grass against my grateful cheeks and forehead.

Oh Christ , that had been close.

The hands let go and I rolled over. Let the cool drizzle slam down on me. Breath rattling in my chest. Alive .

Then the hands returned, pulling me to my feet.