Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Franklin drove us into the compact warren of streets and buildings, hunched over the steering wheel and gazing up at the signage as we drifted deeper and deeper inside. ‘What’s it called?’

I checked Sabir’s text. ‘“Williamson and Norris Theatrical Logistics Limited”. Bit of a mouthful.’

We turned another corner, and there it was, lurking at the end of the road. A long double-width warehouse with twin rust-red roofs and grey harled walls — bearing a very understated sign with the company name on it. Bars in all the windows. Shuttered loading bay that looked big enough to take an articulated lorry.

Had to admit, it didn’t exactly reek of pantomime magic.

Franklin parked in the empty row of spaces in front of the small office. ‘No lights on. Think anyone’s in?’

‘One way to find out.’

The air was sharp, but seasoned with the deep-mahogany scent of onions fried in burger fat, coming from a bright red food van with ‘FIONA’S FANTASTIC FRIED-FOOD EMPORIUM!’ in gold lettering down the side, parked outside a shuttered unit. A line of blokes in oily overalls queueing in front of the open hatch.

Nick James’s fusty Volkswagen Golf pulled up on the far side of it, Helen and Jennifer sitting there, watching as we locked the pool car and tried the warehouse’s main door.

The handle rattled when Franklin jiggled it up and down, but that was it. She cupped her hands against one of the office windows and peered inside. ‘Can’t see anyone.’

‘OK.’ Back to Sabir’s email. In addition to the company name, address, and for some unknown reason its VAT registration, he’d included a phone number with an Edinburgh dialling code. ‘We give them a call...’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless you want to boot in the door? I would, but,’ pointing at my foot with the walking stick, ‘bullet hole.’

‘Without a warrant?’ She pulled her chin in. ‘Might be how they did things back when you were in the job, but we don’t pull that crap any more. Can you imagine Gordon Smith getting away with everything because we screwed up on a technicality?’

Think the body we dragged out of his garden in a holdall might carry the day on that front, but what the hell. ‘Fine. You call the company, then we go grab lunch.’

‘So much for a nice big salad.’ Franklin ripped another bite out of her bacon-and-cheese haggis-burger, chewing as she rested her bum against the pool car’s bonnet. Face upturned to the sun.

‘It’s got salad in it, doesn’t it?’ I scooped a sporkful of glistening grey-and-brown stovies from my squeaky polystyrene tray. Not bad. Needed pepper, though. And pickled beetroot.

‘Two slices of tomato and some iceberg don’t count.’

‘Surely chips count.’

‘Only in Glasgow.’ But that didn’t stop Franklin munching her way through them all, then polishing off her burger while Henry sat at her feet, gazing up at her as if he was in love. Especially when she dropped him the occasional scrap of burger, bun, or bacon.

She wiped her mouth and hands clean on a napkin, then popped her wrist out from its starched white cuff and peered at her watch. ‘One forty-two. Shouldn’t be long now.’

Helen and Jennifer still hadn’t moved. Still sitting there, in a dead journalist’s car. Still scowling through the windscreen. Watching us.

To be honest, given Helen’s reputation, it was amazing she had this much patience. Jennifer, on the other hand, would probably be using the time to plot her revenge.

Well, tough. She deserved all she’d got.

I scooped up the last mouthful of mystery meat and potatoes. ‘Wonder why Smith took Leah here, to the warehouse.’ Sooked the memory of stovies off my plastic spork. ‘Collecting something? Dropping something off? Or checking something was still where he’d left it?’

‘You know what I’ve been wondering?’ Franklin pulled a small container of hand sanitiser from her jacket and pumped a couple of squirts onto a palm. Had a good scrub with it. ‘Why did Gordon Smith leave his Polaroid photos behind? Why not take them with him?’

‘Hmph. Alice asked the same thing.’

‘Well, they’re not hard to transport, are they? You could pop the lot in your pocket and no one would even know they’re there.’

As was evidenced at the Winslow’s supermarket checkout on Friday night.

She folded her arms. ‘I’ve read the profile your Dr McDonald wrote: Gordon Smith’s meant to be a “collector”. So why leave his collection behind?’ A frown. ‘Or maybe it was only the old Polaroids he left behind? Maybe he took the newer ones with him?’

‘What age are you?’

Franklin stared at me. ‘Why?’

‘Because back in the bad old day, before your time, if you wanted to take photographs you had three choices: build your own darkroom, develop and print them yourself; take the film down to Boots and get them to do it for you; or buy a Polaroid camera. Gordon Smith wants a photo to remember his victims by: option one’s a pain in the backside, number two will get him arrested, but number three’s nice and easy.’

‘Come on then, Methuselah, out with it.’

‘Fast forward ten, maybe fifteen years and domestic video cameras are affordable. You don’t need static images any more.’

‘You can film everything you’re doing and watch it back to your dirty little heart’s content.’ She nodded. ‘Makes sense. Then, before you know it, you’ve got a smartphone and everyone’s a documentary filmmaker. You can carry your entire collection of homemade torture porn in your pocket.’

‘He left the Polaroids behind, because he’s got copies on his phone.’ Only he didn’t have to do it, in a rush, in the pitch-dark, while the bloody house crumbled into the North Sea.

‘Maybe we can...’ She stared over my shoulder.

A grey two-seater sports car had turned into our dead-end street, top thrown back, a grinning man in a flat cap behind the wheel. It growled into the parking space two down from our manky Ford Focus, as if it was worried about catching something.

He gave us a wave with his tan-leather driving gloves and buzzed the roof up again, before getting out and marching around. Not the tallest — barely scraping five feet, if that — the slightly bandy legs probably didn’t help. His yellowy-tartan hoodie was unzipped, showing off a T-shirt with ‘HE’S BEHIND YOU!’ on it, and when he whipped off his bunnet a shock of bright-orange hair stuck up at the front of a bald head so shiny it looked as if it’d been polished. He performed an elaborate bow for Franklin, snatching up her hand to kiss it. ‘My dear Officer Franklin, you’re even more delightful in person than you sounded on the phone.’

And before she could say anything, or punch him, he skipped away and grabbed my hand for shaking instead.

‘Louis Williamson, Panto McHaggis Productions! Delighted, etc.’ Pumping my arm up and down. ‘I understand you’d like a wee tour of our prop-and-set store?’ He pulled a knot of keys from his pocket and jangled them all the way to the door. Unlocked it. Then turned, arms out, blocking the way. ‘Lemme see your warrant, coppers!’

Franklin blinked at him, then at me, then back at him again.

OK, I’ll bite: ‘Do we need a warrant, Mr Williamson?’

‘Not really, I just love it when they say that on the telly. Ooh, and: “you’ll never take me alive, you doity rats!”’ He turned and skip-hopped over the threshold. ‘Shall we?’

Strip lights pinged and flickered into life as I stepped inside — revealing rows and rows and rows of metal shelving towering over us. Each unit packed with labelled boxes and crates.

Signs dangled from the rafters, dividing the place up like the aisles of a supermarket, each one marked with the name of a show: ‘CINDERELLA’, ‘ALADDIN’, ‘MOTHER GOOSE’...