Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

‘I bought you a sausage and a go on the carousel!’ But the door closed without an answer.

Mother was staring at me again.

‘What?’

‘I really hope that wasn’t a euphemism...’

I limped over to the crap-jobs list. A bunch of them involved grubbing about in the Oldcastle Police archives, so no thank you. I’d been down there often enough and the entire system was a shambles. Another was chasing up every cast member who’d ever done a pantomime with a set designed by Gordon Smith — which I’m fairly certain was supposed to be DC Watt’s job. Another couple would mean spending the day chasing up other forces and lab results. And last but not least: ‘CHECK ON PETER SMITH’S FARM ~ BLACK ISLE (LEEAZE N DIVISION).’

What on earth did, ‘Leeaze’ mean?

And then it dawned — Watt’s spelling really was atrocious.

I ripped the sheet of paper from its thumbtacks, folded it, and stuck it in my pocket. Then turned to Mother. ‘OK, make-work it is. But I’ll need a pool car.’

It wasn’t a bad car. And at least it was an automatic. But the Misfit Mob’s ancient Ford Mondeo had the same funky smell that all pool cars got after a few years. The upholstery absorbing the kebab, burger, fish-and-chips, KFC, coffee, and BO of so many thousand hours of stakeouts and general wear — the rubbish and discarded wrappers only shovelled out when it officially constituted a public health hazard, or no one could see out the windscreen any more. The carpet mats were stickier than the Monk and Casket’s floorboards.

Alice’s voice crackled out through the car’s speakers. ‘Wait, you’re going where ?’

‘Well, I didn’t have any choice, did I? It was this or sit on the phone all day, talking to morons.’

‘You could’ve stayed at home!’

‘So could you.’

‘Urgh...’

I took the turning for Tomintoul, abandoning the throbbing highway that was the A93 for the even more backwater A939 — according to the road sign, anyway. Scenery wasn’t bad. Nothing special, but there were hills and fields and trees and things, glowing in the morning light. A big green tractor thundered along the road ahead of me, great gobbets of mud flying from its oversized wheels. Might as well live dangerously...

Put my foot down as hard as its bullet hole would allow, and eased out onto the other side of the road.

‘Ash, are you driving? Are you talking to me on your phone and driving?’

‘Relax, bought one of those cheap hands-free kits from Tesco on the way out of town. Got about another two hours to go and the radio’s broken. Only entertainment I have is talking to you and trying to lose my tail.’

Past the tractor, back in again.

Clusters of long-dead ragwort peppered the fields to either side of the road, poisonous dark heads rattling atop poisonous grey stems.

‘You still there? Hello?’

Her voice was up nearly an octave, the words fast and shrill as a dentist’s drill: ‘Who’s following you? Is it them? Is it Joseph and Francis? Oh my God, they’re going to kill you! You have to lose them, Ash, you have to—’

‘Relax: it’s not them. Deep breaths. Calm.’ A quick glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed that the rusty blue Renault was still there, overtaking the tractor now. ‘It’s Helen MacNeil. So even if the pair of them did show up, they’d be the ones needing help.’

‘Oh.’

‘What about you? Anything exciting happening?’

‘Not really. Been speaking to Andrew Brennan’s mum’s social worker. Thought maybe there’d be a connection buried somewhere. Gòrach’s not been in trouble with the police, but he’s got to have had problems in childhood, you don’t wake up one morning and decide you’re going to start strangling small children, that kind of thing takes years, decades to work up to. And he’s got to be local too, otherwise he wouldn’t have seen Andrew playing under the railway line.’

‘So no joy.’

‘Not yet, but I’ve made a list. I’m positive someone knows something, they just don’t know that they know it. But maybe I’ll be able to draw it out of them? And we’ll find Toby Macmillan before Gòrach kills him and everyone will be happy and no one will have to die and I’ll not feel like such a useless failure.’

Not this again. ‘You aren’t a failure! You’ve put loads and loads of monsters behind bars, saved countless lives because of it.’

‘I couldn’t even last two nights sober, Ash.’

True. ‘You had a nasty shock last night, that’s all. Stop bashing yourself in the head with a mallet the whole time.’

The trees on either side of the road were sticks and bones, naked of leaves. More ragwort, standing guard along the banks of a swollen grey river.

Still nothing back from Alice.

‘Have another night off the booze tonight. Maybe see if you can last till Friday?’

‘I... I like the idea of running a hotel on the west coast. With a nice view. We could do writing and painting retreats and cookery courses and wine tasting, well maybe not wine tasting, and I could learn to bake bread and we’d be happy and away from all this... shite.’

There was Helen’s fusty blue Renault in the rear-view mirror again.

‘You’re sure that’s what you want?’

‘It has to be better than this, doesn’t it?’

Two million pounds.

‘OK. If you’re positive . That’s what we’ll do.’

‘We could call it Henry’s Hotel, and the sign would be a Scottie dog that looked exactly like him and we’d let people bring their pets when they visit!’

All I had to do was catch Gordon Smith, and let Helen MacNeil kill him.

A smear of snow coated the hills on either side of the Lecht, not enough to make the ski slopes useable, but Storm Victoria would probably take care of that.

I pulled off the road and onto the gravel parking area. Clambered out into the blustery morning and the whomp-whomp-whomp of the resident wind turbine. Held a hand up as Helen MacNeil’s rusty Renault puttered into view. Don’t think it enjoyed the long twisting slog up the hill as much my manky Mondeo had.

She frowned through the windscreen, then parked next to me. Stepped out, shoulders back, chin up, as if expecting a fight. Old denim jacket on over a Cannibal Death Ray T-shirt. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Nice to see you too.’ Stuck my hands in my pockets. Turned to face the hills, with their lines of pylons marching off into the distance — the chairlift’s hanging seats swaying as the wind howled down the hill. ‘Used to come here when I was a kid. My dad thought everyone should know how to ski.’

‘You’re going north.’

‘There’s this old cine footage of us, in our really horrible brightly coloured ski suit things. Green and orange and white. Must’ve looked like a right bunch of numpties.’

‘Has someone spotted him?’

‘Snowploughing down that teeny Robin run, squealing with excitement.’

Helen narrowed her eyes. ‘Where’s your copper friend, the young black one with the big boobs?’

‘Oh, to be a wee kid again...’

‘Answer the bloody question! What — are — you — doing — here?’

The Mondeo’s roof was cold beneath my shirt sleeves. ‘I’m not allowed to go out and do official police things, today. Apparently I’d scare the natives, what with all the bruises. So I’m off to search Gordon Smith’s brother’s farm.’

‘We should be rattling people’s teeth! Some bastard knows where he is.’

‘Course, N Division have already searched it, but if there’s one thing I learned from all my years on the force: never trust a police officer you can’t look in the eye or kick in the arse.’