Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

A woman’s voice, high-pitched and trembling. ‘I’m on the toilet!’ Was that Leah? It sounded too old to be her, though. And the accent wasn’t right, either.

‘BEDROOM ONE: CLEAR!’

Whoomph, whoomph, whoomph ...

Crashing. Something heavy hitting the floor.

‘YOU: DON’T MOVE! MOVE AND I WILL SHOOT YOU!’

A man’s voice. ‘I don’t understand, why are you—’

‘HANDS ON YOUR HEAD! KNEEL! KNEEL ON THE BLOODY FLOOR, NOW!’

They’d got him.

Then Mother’s voice, loud and clear. ‘Let me through, come on, Dougie, move your bottom, there’s a good boy.’

‘Please, I don’t know why you’re—’

‘SHUT UP! I SAID HANDS ON YOUR HEAD, BEFORE I BLOW IT OFF!’

‘All right, Keith, you can stop...’ The silence seemed to stretch for a week. Then, ‘Keith?’

‘Yes, Mother?’

‘Who the hell is this?’

Oh, for the love of Christ. I slapped my free hand over my eyes. They’d raided the wrong house.

Chaos on the other end of the phone. Lots of banging and crashing and swearing. Most of which seemed to be coming from Mother.

I left Franklin telling DS Marland how we’d entered the warehouse, and wandered away through the door to the prop store.

Along ‘JACK AND THE BEANSTALK’, past the office where Louis Williamson was scrunched up in a swivel chair, elbows on his knees, bald head in his hands, that tuft of bright-orange hair poking out between his clenched fingers.

The expensive prototype head-in-a-jar was on the desk behind him, still singing away to itself:

I stepped into the darkening afternoon. Only half three, but already the sun was nearly at the horizon, painting the clouds that hunkered there in shades of violent pink and eggshell blue. Our manky pool car had been joined by half a dozen others, and a trio of patrol cars too — their reflective livery glowing in the fading light. And a surprisingly clean Transit van, with SOC techs humping blue plastic crates from the back doors and into the warehouse.

No sign of the national press yet, but that would change soon enough.

Pop-ding .

Another text cut through the tinny shouting coming out of my phone’s speaker.

LEAH MACNEIL:

I didn’t want the boy 2 die I didn’t want

grandad 2 kill him

But I didn’t no how 2 stop him I wish

I did I really really wish I did

Henry was on his hind legs in the back of our dirty Ford Focus, nose making pale snotty smears across the glass. Happy barking as I got closer.

Mother’s voice came down the line. ‘Well this is an unmitigated cocking shambles, isn’t it?’

Then someone else — might have been DC Watt, it was certainly whiny enough. ‘It’s not my fault! This is the address the phone coordinates pointed at. Look!’

‘Have you tried next door?’

‘Give me a minute, Ash, I have to provide a modicum of encouragement and guidance to my team member here.’ She cleared her throat. ‘HOW THE HELL DID WE MANAGE TO COCK THIS UP SO BADLY?’

‘It wasn’t me!’

My thumbs poked at the screen:

The boy’s name was David Quinn, he was

only 16. He had parents and friends and a

family who loved him.

I need you to tell me where Gordon

abducted him from.

SEND.

‘Maybe... maybe, I don’t know, but... maybe they were here, but they’ve gone now?... Or something?’

‘AAAAAAAAAARGH!’

LEAH MACNEIL:

Grandad drove 2 a graveyard up by the

castle & I’m so so sorry I didn’t want

nothing 2 happen 2 David & I just want 2

die

‘Or maybe the guy’s lying and he knows Gordon Smith? Maybe he’s... an accomplice!’

‘John, you know I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you should really shut up now, before I do something you’ll regret!’

‘No, look: I’ll call her mobile. Hold on...’

The sound of some boy band burst into life in the background, getting louder.

‘It’s coming from downstairs!’

And they were off and running again.

Mother called me back, ten minutes later. ‘You still there, Ash?’

I hobbled on a couple of paces, Henry’s lead and my walking stick in one hand, phone in the other. ‘Just about.’ The sun was a fierce yellow smear on the horizon, the sky above turning to ink. Stars struggling to shine through as the cloud thickened and the wind picked up again.

‘We found Leah MacNeil’s mobile. It was in the householder’s jacket pocket.’

‘So Watt was right for a change. They were co-conspirators?’

‘Householder swears he doesn’t know Gordon Smith, he’s never met Gordon Smith, and he wouldn’t recognise Gordon Smith if he got in the bath with him.’ A pause. ‘Which struck me as a rather strange metaphor, but there you go.’

‘And you believe him?’

‘Says he was in Stirling for work, stopped at the petrol station this morning to fill up, and that was all he knew till we smashed his door down and caught his wife on the toilet. We checked with his work — he installs and maintains poles for pole dancing — he was at a pole-dancing-for-fitness-and-wellbeing place, which is apparently a thing now. Our hypothesis is that Smith must’ve slipped it into his pocket while he wasn’t looking.’

‘And let me guess, he bought petrol from the Sainsbury’s supermarket.’

‘Kept the receipt so he could claim it back on expenses.’

‘Can you email me a photo? Well, two photos: one of the guy and one of the receipt?’

I’d got to the edge of the police cordon, where a bored PC in a fluorescent-yellow padded jacket stood, huffing warm breath into his hands and stomping his feet, behind the line of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape.

And there was Helen MacNeil, standing at the open hatch to ‘FIONA’S FANTASTIC FRIED-FOOD EMPORIUM!’ clutching a polystyrene cup of something and a thing in a roll. Staring at me. No sign of her horrible companion, so I gave her a small wave and a tight smile. Then went back to the phone.

‘I’m starting to think things might not be as straightforward as they seemed.’

A moment’s silence. Followed by, ‘Straightforward? Have you been working on a different case, because the one I’m investigating has been a great big bucket of slithering venomous snakes since the start!’

‘No, I meant...’ Yeah. ‘Look, I’ve got to go: Helen MacNeil’s here.’

‘Have you told her about her granddaughter?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘No.’ And with that, Mother hung up.

I thumbed out a reply to Leah’s latest text.

Where are you? How can you be texting

me, when the police have got your phone?

SEND.

Helen MacNeil stomped over to the cordon, chewing on her butty. ‘You found something.’

I nodded towards the manky yellow Golf. Couldn’t tell if anyone was inside, the industrial estate’s lights sucked the colour out of everything and the rusty hatchback’s windscreen was opaque in the gloom. ‘You didn’t ditch Jennifer, then.’

‘Is it Leah? Is she in there? Did he kill her?’

‘She’s using you, Helen. And once she’s done, she’ll dump you and move on to the next sucker.’