Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

‘Eighteen’s old enough to make her own decisions.’

‘Leah wouldn’t run away! She wouldn’t do that to me. Not after her mother...’ A deep breath. Silence settled into the room as Helen wiped the tea towel across her eyes again. ‘She wouldn’t.’

That was the thing about missing people, though — no one they left behind ever believed their loved one was unhappy enough to disappear without a word.

‘OK.’ Trying to sound like I actually cared. ‘You give me her details and I’ll see what I can do.’

Alice sat forward. ‘You should get a tracker app on Leah’s phone. For peace of mind. I’ve got one on Ash’s, haven’t I, Ash?’

‘Can we not do this, right now?’ I turned back to Helen. ‘I promise I’ll chase up whoever’s looking for your granddaughter, OK?’

A nod. Another breath. ‘Gordon Smith was the best neighbour you could ever have. Him and his wife, Caroline, were like grandparents to my Sophie. Then when she... After that, they looked after Leah for me, while I was inside.’ Helen picked at the holes in her tea towel. ‘Broke her heart when Caroline died. Bowel cancer, four years ago. Took eighteen months.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘Gordon? End of September, the council come round and condemn his house. Poor old sod’s been living there for fifty-six years and some spotty Herbert with a clipboard tells him he’s got three weeks to get out. Oh, and not only does he get bugger-all compensation, he’s got to pay for their contractors to tear down his home and ship it off to landfill somewhere? How’s that fair?’

‘Yes, but where is he?’

She draped the tea towel over the pull-up bar. ‘Gordon wouldn’t hurt a fly. Everybody loved him and Caroline. And how do you know your dead body wasn’t there when they moved in? Got nothing to do with him.’

‘Indulge me, Helen: where’s your sainted next-door neighbour?’

A pause as she frowned at me.

‘And before you try “no comment” again, I’m tired, I’m soaked through, and I’m in no mood to fanny about. Where — is — he?’

‘His brother’s got a croft on the Black Isle. Gordon said something about staying there till he figured out what to do.’

‘There we go, that wasn’t difficult, was it?’ I stood. Nodded at Mother. ‘And that concludes our hand-holding duties. You can take it from here.’

‘Actually,’ Alice put her hand up, ‘if he had to pay the council to tear his house down, why is it still...?’ Pointing at the wall nearest next door.

‘He told them to stuff their landfill charge. Sixteen grand? They try getting sixteen grand out of me, I’ll break every bone in their bodies.’

Another grimace, then Mother levered herself to her feet. ‘Helen, if Gordon Smith was like a grandad to your girls, any chance you’ve still got the keys to his house?’ Frown. ‘And you wouldn’t happen to have a pair of bolt cutters, would you?’

‘Are we certain this is a good idea?’ Alice turned on the spot, breath making a trail of white that glowed in the light of her phone’s torch app. ‘I mean a hundred percent, definitely, shaky-boots, cast-iron certain, because it feels like a really risky thing to be inside a condemned house on the edge of a crumbling cliff during a massive storm...’

Mother’s real torch drifted across the pile of furniture heaped up in the living room. Didn’t look as if Gordon Smith had bothered taking any of his stuff with him. When he left, he heaved it all in here and left it in a big mound of sofas, sideboards, a double bed, a Welsh dresser, dining table and chairs, medicine cabinet, spare bed, wardrobes, what looked like a wicker laundry basket. All piled up, higgledy-piggledy, as if he’d been planning an indoor bonfire but forgotten to set fire to it.

Rain crackled against the window, no sign of anything through the dirty glass but blackness. As dark outside as it was in.

‘What if the house falls down while we’re here?’ Alice huddled closer as wind screeched across the roof. ‘Or the whole thing ends up in the sea?’

‘You’re right. Here,’ I held out Henry’s lead, ‘take the wee lad and go wait in the car.’

That got me a pout. ‘Bit sexist. Just because I’m a woman, I have to go wait in the car?’

‘It’s not because you’re a woman, it’s because you’re a whinge . And DI Malcolmson’s a woman, aren’t you, DI Malcolmson?’

‘Last time I checked...’ She opened one of the wardrobes — a heavy mahogany job that lay at forty-five degrees, propped up on the back of a dusty floral sofa — and peered inside. ‘Women’s clothes. The dead wife’s?’

‘And I’m serious: go wait in the car.’

Alice shook her head. ‘If it’s safe enough for you, it’s safe enough for me.’ Then raised her fist. ‘Smash the patriarchy.’ And followed Mother out into the hall again.

Why did every single woman in my life have to be a card-carrying nutjob?

Ah well, can’t say I didn’t try.

My walking stick made hollow thunking noises as we did a quick sweep of the house.

Bathroom: empty, a darker square of wallpaper where that medicine cabinet had sat above the avocado-coloured toilet. Master bedroom: nothing left but the carpet. Spare bedroom: same again. Dining room: more nothing. Kitchen: empty, all the doors hanging open on the units, exposing bare shelves. A small utility room led off it: either the washing machine and chest freezer were too heavy to shift, or Gordon Smith didn’t think they’d be flammable enough for his bonfire that never got lit.

I levered the lid up on the freezer: better safe than sorry...

Nothing but a thin layer of rancid greasy water. No dead bodies in sight.

Mother pointed her torch down the far end of the dog-legged corridor. ‘You want to try that one?’

Alice crept over, turned the handle — the howling wind got a lot louder. She stuck her head and her phone arm in through the gap for a moment, then shoved the door shut again. ‘Garage. Nothing in there, either.’

‘Hmph.’

So, that was all the doors taken care of, but there had to be an attic, right?

My phone’s torch wasn’t half as good as Alice’s but I played it around the hall ceiling anyway. ‘There we go.’ A hatch, set into the plasterboard, about six foot in from the front door. ‘Alice, can you grab a chair from the living room?’

‘Urgh... You know the only thing that’ll be up there is spiders, don’t you? Spiders and dust and fibreglass insulation, all itchy and sneezy and creepy-crawly, so bags I don’t have to be the one who goes up there.’

‘What, you expect the man with a walking stick and buggered foot to do it?’

Mother shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me: they never make these hatches big enough for normal-sized people.’

Alice slumped. Groaned. Then scuffed her way into the lounge and sulked back out again dragging one of the wooden dining-room chairs behind her. Thumped it down beneath the hatch. ‘It’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it?’

‘Up you go, Monkey Girl.’

‘Should’ve gone and waited in the car.’ She clambered up onto the seat, wobbled a bit, then shoved at the hatch, forcing it up on squealing hinges. ‘If I get spiders in my hair, I’m suing Police Scotland for mental cruelty, PTSD, and punitive damages.’

‘Stop milking it.’

Another slump, then Alice grabbed the edges of the hatch and pulled herself up into the attic. Sat there, black jeans and red shoes dangling in the mildewed air over our heads.

‘Anything?’

Her muffled voice filtered down from above. ‘Filthy up here. And cold! And... Aaaahhh... Aaaaaahhh...’ A high-pitched squeaky sneeze. ‘Dusty! Horribly dusty.’