Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

Closed my eyes and tried not to see the cutthroat razor hacking through the skin and cartilage. Block out the sound of snapping tendons. Bile rising...

God knows how, but I shoved it all down. Then wriggled backwards, till I bumped into the wall, worked my way up so I was sitting with my back against it. Legs splayed out in front. Breath hard and ragged, throat like I’d gargled boiling drain cleaner.

OK, she dislocated your middle finger. You’re going to have to reset it. You can do that, right?

What choice did I have?

Deep breath.

I wrapped my right hand around the thing and pulled — out and down, making the joint crackle and scream — and let go. My finger popped back into place. Teeth gritted, air hissing in and out through them, trying to keep everything inside. This time, when I held the hand up, the silhouette looked more hand-shaped, but the relocated knuckle was the size of a squash ball.

Another coughing fit left me slumped against the wall, blinking the tears from my eyes.

Still alive.

That was something, right?

Still alive.

Bit by bit, details emerged from the darkness. I was surrounded — no, part-buried under more of that agricultural waste: feedbags and tubs of supplement, the huge tough cobwebs that big round bales of haylage and the like got wrapped in before the plastic went on top.

They must’ve dumped me in the barn’s inspection pit. Only from down here it was clearly a lot deeper than you’d need to get underneath and fix a tractor.

Come on, Ash: up.

Clutching my ruined hand to my chest, I hauled myself upright with the other, the pit’s brick walls rough against my fingertips. But at least I still had all of them on that side.

Still alive and with most of my fingers.

No doubt about it, I was a lucky, lucky man.

Jesus...

The inspection pit’s lip was a good dozen feet above my head.

Thrown into my own private oubliette and left for dead.

Wait a minute...

A noise coming from deeper into the darkness: scrabbling. Scratching.

Rats?

Oh, getting luckier by the bastarding minute.

And then what might have been a gasp.

My voice sounded as if I’d stolen it off a very old man: ‘Helen?’

Swallowing to try again felt like gulping down a deep-fried hedgehog, spines-first. ‘Helen, is that you?’ Wasn’t much of an improvement, to be honest.

I grabbed the nearest chunk of rubbish and hurled it behind me, did the same with the next one. ‘Helen! Where the hell are you?’

She was over in the opposite corner, on her side, knees curled up, arms wrapped around her stomach. Skin pale as moonlight against the black-plastic bale wrapping. Breath coming in shallow huffing breaths. ‘Mr... Mr... Henderson...’

‘It’s going to be OK.’ I half knelt, half collapsed beside her, trying to inject some sort of jollity into my broken-gravel voice. ‘Going to take more than this to stop Hardcase Helen MacNeil.’

No reply.

‘I’m going to look through your pockets. You’ll be fine.’ I searched her denim jacket: wallet, some chewing gum, a pack of cigarettes, and her car keys. Where was her phone?

Oh, bloody hell...

When Leah slapped her — she dropped the damn thing and it ended up in the pit.

‘Bastard.’ OK, this wasn’t impossible. Her phone was down here somewhere. All I had to do was rummage through the four billion tons of crap till I found it.

How hard could it be?

‘About bloody time!’ A small Samsung, with a cracked screen, tucked in next to the inspection pit’s wall, buried under a mound of festering black-plastic bin bags. With any luck they’d broken its fall, and Christ knew I was overdue some luck.

My fingers fumbled around the rim, searching for the power button. The time glowed across the middle of the black screen. ‘14:10’

Damn thing was locked, though.

I scrambled back through the bin bags to Helen. ‘What’s your passcode?’

It took three goes to get the words out of her. ‘Two... zero... zero... two.’

The screen bloomed in the darkness. The backdrop was that photo of Leah as a toddler, held in her mother’s arms, at Balmedie Beach — Helen had arranged all her app icons so they framed, rather than obscured the pair of them.

‘I’m going to disable your lock screen...’ Only took a handful of pokes and swipes. ‘Then let’s get the torch up and see what we’re dealing with.’ All happy, nothing to worry about at all.

Cold white LED light slashed out from the phone’s flash, pulling bin bags and rubbish into sharp relief.

I peeled Helen’s arms away from her stomach — getting a sticky skreltch ing noise as the T-shirt stretched up with them, then tore free of the skin. When I lifted the tattered fabric, everything underneath was dark and slick, individual stab wounds still visible through the caked blood. Had to be a dozen of them. Probably more. Only a couple were still oozing.

Yeah, this wasn’t good.

Wriggling out of my jacket brought a fresh round of missing-finger agony, but I managed. Folded the thing into a rectangle of wadding with an arm sticking out both sides. Then slipped it around her middle and tied it tight. Or as tight as I could with my left hand screaming at me.

Helen didn’t make a single sound. She lay there, panting out thin shallow breaths.

‘I’m going to call nine-nine-nine.’

‘D... Don’t.’

‘Helen, you’re—’

‘I’m... I’m already... dead.’

Time to force that jolly tone again: ‘Don’t be a moron, it’s—’

‘I’m... sorry.’

‘This wasn’t your fault, it’s—’

‘I was... I was in... the car... when the... Prentice bitch called... them. I knew...’ A small pained smile. The blood-smeared lips dark against her ghost-pale face. ‘Thought I... could... rescue you... and you’d... you’d have to... help me.’

Oh well, that was sodding great . ‘You could’ve told me they were going to have a go! I would’ve still—’

‘Shut up... and... listen ... The security... security van... is buried... under a pile... of washing... machines... in Wee Free... McFee’s... scrapyard... he... he doesn’t... know... it’s there.’

Wee Free McFee?

Might as well stick my head in that car crusher of his and save everyone the bother.

‘You... you can... have... the lot.’

‘Thanks, but he’ll—’

‘ If you... promise...’ Helen’s head fell back against the plastic. ‘Promise... you’ll kill... Gordon... Smith for... for me.’

‘I’ll kill the bloody pair of them.’

‘It’s not... It’s not... Leah’s... fault... She’s weak... Gordon... Gordon twisted... her.’ Helen’s hand trembled its way into mine. ‘Make... make the... bastard... suffer ... Make him...’ One last breath wheezed out between her bloodied lips, and that was it. She was gone.

I sat back on my haunches.

Nothing to stop me calling 999 now, was there?

But what good would that do?

They’d get me out of this sodding pit, for a start.

And then what? They cart Helen off to the mortuary; open an investigation; have some meetings; argue about budgets and resource allocations; draw up a list of actions; and achieve sod all.

Yes, but—

Wasn’t as if we didn’t know who killed her, was it? Or who helped.

But the pit—

Helen didn’t want Gordon Smith arrested and prosecuted, did she: she wanted him dead.

And so did I.

Besides, what was I supposed to do: call 999 and explain how I’d ended up stuck in an inspection pit, in the middle of nowhere, with the dead body of a civilian. A civilian I really shouldn’t have smuggled into a potential crime scene. Suppose I could claim she’d been here when I arrived, but they’d know that was a lie, soon as they questioned Gordon Smith or Leah MacNeil. Or found her car, parked at the Lecht, seventy miles away. At which point I’d be looking at a charge of perverting the course of justice, reckless endangerment, and anything else they could throw at me. Which meant at least eight years back in Glenochil Prison.