Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Muscles rippled along Franklin’s jaw. ‘Prentice says you’re helping her write a book about Gordon Smith: “The Coffinmaker ~ hunting the world’s most dangerous serial killer”.’

‘Hmmph.’ She’d changed the title then.

The car thrummed as the ferry’s engines changed tone — a loud growl you could feel in your chest.

Franklin’s voice rose over it, spitting out the words as she bashed a hand off the steering wheel. ‘What the hell were you thinking? We’re in the middle of an investigation and you’re passing info to a journalist ?’

‘Of course I’m not.’

A grating siren blared out, orange lights flashing as we bumped to a halt.

Franklin started the engine. Glared at me. ‘You’ve got a bloody cheek, writing about a case we’re still working on! You two-faced—’

‘I’m not writing anything! I want sod all to do with Jennifer... Pain-In-The-Arse Prentice, and I told her that. But she won’t take no for a bloody answer.’

‘Then why did she tell me—’

‘Because she’s a liar!’ My hands ached into tight fists. ‘I told you that already. You really think I’m going to slip her information? After what she did?’

Franklin’s mouth opened. Then closed again. ‘What did she do?’

‘None of your sodding business.’

The sirens got louder as a flap in the stern hinged down, a fat bloke in high-viz and a hardhat directing the cars and lorries out through it into the cold grey light of the afternoon.

Two minutes later we were rattling off the ferry and up onto dry land again, in a fug of angry silence.

Rothesay curved around the water, a marina full of yachts sitting between the ferry terminal and a line of old brown brick buildings. A three-sided town square straight ahead. And more bland buildings to the right. Someone had painted the last lot in faded shades of pastel yellow, pink and blue, presumably in an effort to distract tourists from their uninspired façades.

But in front of them sat the flat green carpet of a putting course. Three couples slowly whacking their way around it in jumpers and woolly hats.

Franklin jerked her chin at them, forcing a hint of jolly into her voice, as if that would make everything all right. ‘Looks like we found our photo location.’ Turned right, onto the main road. ‘God’s sake, is there nowhere to park?’

A weird end-of-the-pier-style building sat alongside the putting green — a big domed middle, fronted by a pair of red-roofed pagodas. Then another putting course on the other side. Another group of idiots out braving the wind.

I pointed. ‘Pull in there.’

‘It’s a bus stop.’

‘You’re a police officer. We’re hunting a serial killer!’

‘It’s still a bus stop.’

‘I’ve got a blue badge. Stop the damn car.’

‘Right!’ She slammed on the brakes, getting an angry fusillade of horn blasts from the Transit van behind us. ‘Out. You get out here and I’ll go find somewhere to park.’

And just like that, we were back at war again.

‘Fine.’ I clipped on Henry’s lead as the Transit launched into another barrage. ‘Come on, wee man.’

He followed me out onto the road, and as soon as I’d closed the door, Franklin roared off.

God save us from unreasonable detective bloody sergeants.

Henry and I crossed over to the other side, stomping along the pavement that skirted the putting course. Then took the tarmac path into it and did a lap of an ornamental fountain — its sprays of water jerking and twisting away in the wind. Definitely a lot colder than it’d been back home.

We followed a line of blue railings, up a long ramp, and out onto the promenade.

Had to admit, the view wasn’t half bad. Green-and-grey hills, buffeted by fast-moving clouds, light and shadow moving across the concrete-coloured sea. Probably was quite something in summer.

In November, it was freezing, though.

Henry sniffed at pretty much everything we passed, widdling on half of it as we hunched our way along the waterfront. Seals bobbing in the troubled water. Herring gulls scrawking as they scudded past, sideways.

Might not be a bad place to retire, this.

‘There you are.’ Franklin, hands on her hips, padded jacket zipped up to her neck. She cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you and this Prentice woman had a history. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

Like I was a sulky toddler.

A sigh rattled out to be whipped away by the wind.

Maybe I was? Barging about, whingeing and moaning...

Yeah.

I nodded. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Good. Thank you.’ Franklin stomped her feet on the tarmac. ‘Now we’re all friends again, can we get this over with, please? Losing all feeling in my toes here.’

Might as well.

I pulled out the photo of Peter Smith and the unidentified young woman, the paper crumpling in my hand as the wind tried to whip it from my grasp. ‘Over there?’

We went back down the ramp, out onto the putting course.

According to the flag, this was hole number seventeen, looking back towards the sea and the hills beyond, a palm tree off to one side.

‘Waste of time, of course.’

‘What is?’ Franklin dug her hands into her padded pockets, shoulders curled up around her ears.

‘All... this. Pointless. We should be out there hunting Gordon Smith, not faffing about here.’

‘You really are a ray of sunshine today, aren’t you?’ But she was smiling. ‘What about the victims’ families? Don’t they deserve to know what happened to their loved ones?’

‘Of course they do, but that’s not as important as catching the scumbag who killed them.’

Franklin gave me a half nod, half shrug. ‘Tell you what, how about I get us a couple of putters and we can play a round? Might cheer you up a bit. You can pretend it’s like a go on the “wooden horsies”.’

‘No thanks.’ I turned and hobbled across the grass, making for the road again.

‘Oh come on, Ash, I’m trying to apologise here!’ Hurrying after us. ‘What’s wrong with putting?’

‘Once upon a time, there was a man called Adam Robinson. He found out his wife was having an affair with someone at her golf club, so do you know what he did?’

‘Talk to her about it, like a rational grown-up?’

We’d reached the pavement. Stood there, waiting for a break in the traffic.

‘He started saving up his urine.’

‘OK, not so rational, then.’

A taxi drifted by and I hurpled across the road behind it, making the other side as an open-topped bus rumbled past. Kept going down a narrow street between one of the few branches Royal Bank of Scotland hadn’t shut and a carpet shop.

‘Adam collected it in two-litre bottles, you know, like Diet Coke, that kind of thing. Then once a week, he’d take the most mature samples and go up the golf course in the dead of night. Filled each and every hole, from the first to the eighteenth with his rancid piss.’

‘Why on earth would he—’

‘So that every time someone sunk a putt, they’d have to stick their hand in the hole to fish out their ball.’

Franklin’s mouth opened wide, tongue sticking out, eyes creased almost shut. ‘Oh... Yuck!’

We crossed another road, and entered another tiny street, passed yet another carpet shop.

‘He kept that up for six months, then decided the only thing left to do was march into the clubhouse with a shotgun and blow holes in every male over the age of fifteen.’

We emerged from the tiny street into a big open space, with a moat and a partially collapsed castle in the middle of it. A saltire flag snapping and crackling in the wind above.

‘Killed three people, crippled six, injured about a dozen.’ I shook my head. ‘Genuinely a terrible shot.’