Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

‘Back at the hotel, tucking into a tin of own-brand meaty chunks in gravy and filling the room with wet-dog stench.’ I called up the map on my phone and placed it on the table between us. ‘According to Leah’s mobile provider, Gordon Smith is heading north.’

Franklin frowned at it. ‘Going back to his brother’s farm on the Black Isle?’

‘That’s Mother’s guess.’

She picked up the menu and frowned at that instead. ‘He’d be an idiot, though. Surely he knows we’d be waiting for him?’

‘And you don’t get away with killing people for fifty-six years by being an idiot.’

‘Szechuan ribs, crispy seaweed, Kung Pao chicken, egg fried rice.’ Franklin turned and waved at the waitress. ‘You want to split a thing of noodles?’

‘I’m getting some anyway; we can share, if you like.’ I wheeched a couple of fingers across the phone’s screen, scrolling up the A9, past Perth and on to Inverness. ‘He knows we’re after him, but he doesn’t know we can track Leah’s phone... Assuming she switches it on again.’

The waitress wandered over and Franklin ordered, then thrust the menu at me.

‘Can I have the spring rolls, salt-and-pepper king prawns, and... mushroom chow mein?’

‘Oh, and a thing of prawn crackers!’

Soon as the waitress was gone, I zoomed out the map. ‘There’s a lot of Scotland you can get to from Stirling.’

‘Yes, but most of it’s easier from the M90. If you’re heading north from Edinburgh, why not go straight up to Perth? Why the detour?’

Good question.

One thing sprung to mind: ‘Think he’s got property there?’

‘Not according to the Land Registry. The place in Clachmara was it.’

‘What about his brother, or his wife?’

Franklin raised an eyebrow. ‘Now that’s worth chasing up.’ She looked up as the waitress returned with a heaped bowl of prawn crackers. Had to be enough there for at least six people. ‘Perfect, thanks.’ Franklin scooped up three or four of the curled white discs and stuffed them into her mouth, one after the other. Eyes closed. Making happy humming noises as she crunched.

I bit the edge off one — still hot from the deep fat. ‘Unless Smith’s going the long way round on purpose? Tootling along in his ugly old Mercedes, staying off the main road so we don’t catch him on the ANPR cameras. Thinks he can sneak up to the Black Isle without anyone noticing.’

She stuffed in another prawn cracker. ‘He’d still have to be an idiot.’

The map on my phone shifted under a grease-free finger till the Black Isle filled the screen. That knobbly peninsula, just across the water from Inverness. Not really big enough to lose yourself in, if you didn’t want to be found. Assuming anyone was looking, of course.

‘Highlands and Islands have got the farm staked out, don’t they?’

Franklin paused, cracker half-in half-out of her mouth. ‘Yeah. Bound to.’ But she didn’t sound convinced.

Still... Wouldn’t hurt to check tomorrow: make sure someone was actually watching the place. But at least that was N Division’s problem, not mine.

‘OK,’ I pocketed my phone again, ‘so we hit Stirling tomorrow. How long do you need to finish up here?’

‘Could probably palm most of it off on sleazy Sergeant Campbell. I’ve got all the important bits done anyway. Even he couldn’t cock up the rest.’

‘Good. If we get the nine o’clock ferry, we can be in Stirling by eleven-ish?’

‘Doable.’ She rubbed her hands together as the starters arrived, diving straight into the ribs. And that was it as far as sensible conversation was concerned.

Too busy eating.

‘So, is your room nice?’ Alice, doing her best to sound upbeat and cheery, and not getting anywhere close.

‘You’d love it. Great view out over the sea and all the mountains in the background.’ Or at least there probably was, if you had a room at the front of the Hotel Sokoloff. I cleared a porthole in the steamed-up window, looking out over a car park and a building site. A nearly-full skip overflowing in the rain.

‘How’s Henry?’

The wee lad was curled up at the foot of the bed, making snuffling snores, paws twitching as he dreamed. His dirty-grey wet-dog stench filled every corner of the room, like a coat of horrible paint.

‘You asked me that already, remember?’

‘Yes. Right.’ A heavy breath.

‘Is everything OK?’ I pulled the curtains shut and sat down on the bed. ‘You sound all... squirrely.’

‘You didn’t see the Sunday papers? The tabloids found out that Gòrach garrottes his victims, so now they’re calling him the “Oldcastle Child-Strangler” and it’s all over the front pages and everyone on the team’s looking at me as if it’s my fault we can’t catch him and—’

‘It’s not your fault!’

‘ Bear says we have to interview all the sex offenders again, but that won’t help, I mean, the profile clearly shows that Gòrach hasn’t been in trouble with the law before, or if he has it’s been for petty things like shoplifting or setting fire to the bins outside a takeaway or something minor like that, but he’s not going to be on the Sex Offenders’ Register, because this, what he’s doing, it’s been a journey for him trying to work out what his sexuality really is and how it works, and Bear’s going in the wrong direction and Toby Macmillan is going to turn up dead and strangled and it’ll all be my fault for not catching Gòrach and everyone will hate me and I’m horrible and useless at my job and why aren’t you here to help?’

Never ceased to amaze that she could do all of that in what sounded like one breath.

‘I can’t always be there, Alice. I wish I could be, but I can’t.’

Just like I wasn’t there for Rebecca. Or Katie...

The duvet whoomphed beneath me as I slumped onto it, lying flat on my back, one hand covering my face. ‘And it’s not all on you, OK? Jacobson’s the one in charge, if everything goes tits-up it’s his fault, not yours. Do what you can.’

‘Urgh...’

‘So the question is: what are you going to do?’

She made a noise like a deflating beach ball. ‘I don’t know. I want to rework the profile, but I genuinely can’t face anything stronger than Lucozade and Irn-Bru. Everything else bounces.’

‘So try doing it sober for a change. To hell with what Henry Forrester said, you’re not his minion any more, you’re a highly respected forensic psychologist who’s caught dozens of sick bastards and saved countless lives.’

‘Then why do I still feel like a total—’

‘Beating yourself up isn’t helping, OK?’

Silence.

Henry stirred at the foot of the bed, let out a huge pink yawn, then curled up and went back to snoring again.

‘Alice?’

‘You were right: what you said to Bear. I really won’t work without you. Going by the way I’m stumbling about, achieving sod all, I’m starting to think I can’t . Come back to Oldcastle. Please!’

‘You don’t need me to function, Alice, and you don’t need Henry Bloody Forrester. It’s time to drag your arse out from his shadow, stand on your own two little red trainers, and do it your way.’

She let out a long rusty whine. Then, ‘You’re right, you’re right.’

‘Of course I am.’

Twice in one day.

First time for everything.

‘... unprecedented scenes in Holyrood as naked protestors stormed the Debating Chamber on Sunday...’