Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Alice raised a hand, and gave her a thumbs-up.

‘No offence, but he sounds like an idiot.’

I cleared my throat and Franklin turned. Blushed again.

‘Mr Henderson. Are you ready?’

‘When you are.’ Pulling on my coat. ‘Alice, you looking after Henry today, or are you too hungover?’

‘I’m dying ...’

‘Fair enough. I’m taking some of your business cards, OK? Chucked the last of mine at Leah MacNeil yesterday.’ I dug a dozen or so out of her satchel, stuck them in my pocket, then grabbed the wee man’s lead from the shelving unit. ‘Franklin, you don’t mind if he joins us today?’

And her face lit up, like it had on the carousel. Then she hauled on a blanket of studied nonchalance. ‘Suppose so. Why not?’

‘Good.’ Alice got a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Shower. You smell like a dead person.’ Henry came running soon as I jangled his lead. ‘Come on, teeny monster, we’re off to catch some bad guys.’

Hopefully.

The darkened countryside streaked past the pool car’s windows, twinkling lights of distant farmhouses drifting by in slower motion.

Hands wrapped around the wheel, Franklin glanced across the car at me. Probably thought she was being subtle.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Henry poked his head through from the back seat, panting away, looking up at me then at Franklin, as if trying to figure out if either of us had any sausages.

Franklin did it again. ‘Only, you and Dr McDonald... they’re OK with you two working together? I mean, I know LIRU isn’t strictly speaking Police Scotland, and you’re both civilians, but still.’

‘Why wouldn’t they be OK with us working together?’

‘You know, if you’re,’ she pulled her mouth out and down, jerking her chin up a couple of times, ‘at it?’

Eh?

‘At what?’

‘It. You know, sex. In a relationship. Shagging.’

I stared back across the car. ‘Are you insane?’

‘You’re not—’

‘She’s young enough to be my daughter!’

‘Yes, but you middle-aged men like—’

‘I am not sleeping with Alice! We’re... I don’t know, family?’

Franklin stuck her eyes on the road again. ‘None of my business anyway.’

‘Christ knows what would happen if I wasn’t there to look after— Oh, for God’s sake.’ My phone blared out ‘I Am the Walrus’. Which could only mean one person. I pulled it free and pressed the button. ‘Sabir? Not like you to surface before noon.’

‘Not gone to bed yet, been too busy shagging yer ma.’

‘She’s still dead, Sabir.’

‘I’m not that fussy, these days. You seen yer email yet? Sent yez a list of them locations in the photos. And youse should be wershipping the ground I walk on for that. You got any idea how hard it is to write an algorithm that does a reverse image lookup, with wildcarding, for backgrounds across all of Google Maps and every image posted to Facebook in the last six years? See if I wasn’t a total IT god, you wouldn’t have a—’

‘Are you planning on getting to the point at all, here?’

‘How come no bugger appreciates a proper banging genius in their lifetime? Anyway, I got youse all them locations and...?’

‘If you’re waiting for a thank you, you’re going to be there a while.’

‘God, you’ve gorra right cob on, this morning, haven’t ya? The “and”, at the end there, refers to the fact that I know who one of yer victims is.’

My phone dinged and buzzed in my hand. Incoming text message.

Sabir4TehPool:

Keith Whatley AKA: Simpson Kinkaid (stage

name)

Was in B&TB panto in Edinburgh

Went missing 32 years ago

The message came with a professional headshot — it was the laughing man from Princes Street Gardens, the one in front of the Scott Monument. Same beard, but doing a smoulder for the camera this time.

Another ding-buzz. This time it was a bunch of web links, including one for Simpson Kinkaid’s Wikipedia page.

‘Ye got all that?’

‘What’s B-and-TB, when it’s at home?’

‘ Beauty and the Beast , you cultureless div. Don’t youse never go to the theatre?’

‘And let me guess, Gordon Smith did the set for them?’

‘No idea, crap like that’s way below me paygrade. Get yer bizzie mates to find out. Till then, I’m gonna roll back on top of yer ma and see if I can’t hump her back to life. Laters.’ He hung up.

One down.

I called up the footage I’d shot in Smith’s basement, pausing it at the Polaroid in question. Spooled it forward till it got to the matching one from the other side of the room. The one after Gordon Smith and his wife had been at him. The one with all the blood and frozen screaming.

Franklin was looking at me again. ‘Something important?’

‘Got an ID on the bearded guy.’ Slid my finger across the progress bar, restoring him to life again. Went a bit too far. Ended up with the young woman on the beach, T-shirt and shorts. Then the young man trying to grow a moustache. Then the young woman and older man, in ugly sportswear, on a putting course. And back to Keith Whatley, AKA: Simpson Kinkaid, again.

It was... weird. Risky. Abducting and murdering someone you’d worked with: that would leave a trail. Why would Gordon Smith take that chance? Or did he feel invincible thirty-two years ago? He’d got away with it so many times before, why would anyone make the connection?

Still, it was worth a look.

I thumbed out a reply to Sabir’s last text:

See if you can get a cast list for all the

productions Gordon Smith did sets for and

run them against the misper database.

Might find this wasn’t the only actor he

took a fancy to.

SEND.

Took barely a minute for the reply to come winging back.

Sabir4TehPool:

Do one.

UR 8 hours is up.

No pay — no play.

Ah well, it’d been worth a try.

Ooh, on the other hand, this would be the perfect thing to lumber Detective Constable John Watt with.

‘Erm... Mr Henderson? What’s with the evil smile?’

Watt indeed?

A thin line of pale blue ran along the horizon as we climbed out of the manky old Ford Focus. No wind. No rain. No thundering waves pounding at the headland. Instead it was actually kind of pleasant. And surprisingly warm for mid-November.

The small handful of working streetlights cast their cheery yellow glow into the pre-dawn gloom, someone’s cockerel crowing out its morning greeting. And, blessing of blessings, no sign of any outside broadcast vans or journalists. Not yet, anyway.

Franklin frowned at me. ‘You’re doing that smile again.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, and it’s creepy, so please stop.’

I clunked my door shut and she locked the car.

Henry danced a couple of circles on the end of his lead, letting loose a ripple of small happy barks. Before sniffing one of the front tyres and widdling on it. Scraping his back paws on the pitted tarmac.

The curtains twitched on Helen MacNeil’s caravan.

Great.

Thirty seconds later she was out, hurrying across the road and following the three of us up the path to Mother’s commandeered basecamp. ‘Are they searching for my Leah?’

‘Mrs MacNeil.’ I stopped. Turned. ‘E Division have a lookout request on the go for her, but she’s—’

‘You have to find her!’ Hard strong hands grabbing at my lapels. ‘You have to bring her back.’

Down by my ankles, Henry growled.