Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

‘Mr Henderson, allow me to introduce Dr Fotheringham. She’ll be taking care of whatever your unspecified medical emergency is.’

‘FORE!’

Crack.

The screaming got louder.

Dr Fotheringham’s hand came up to cover her mouth. ‘I’m... It...’

‘Nothing to worry about.’ Joseph lowered the blinds, shutting out the view. ‘Now, in the interest of doctor-patient confidentiality, I’ll leave you two alone. Should you need anything, I shall be outside assisting my colleague; do not hesitate to call.’ He slipped from the room.

She blinked at me a couple of times, mouth working on something sour. Couldn’t blame her, I probably looked pretty terrible, what with the two black eyes, broken nose, neck wrapped in stripes of dark-purple bruising, blood-caked jacket, and one blue nitrile glove. Then a deep breath and she sat down on one of the office chairs, keeping her eyes away from mine. ‘I’ve... I’ve never done this kind of thing before.’

Not exactly reassuring.

‘So what are you, a vet or something?’

‘What? No, I mean I’ve never,’ deep breath, ‘worked for gangsters before.’

‘Ah.’ I lowered myself into the other chair and stretched out my aching leg. ‘Not here by choice then?’

‘Hardly! That...’ she jabbed a finger at the door, ‘ person dragged me here, soon as my shift was over.’

Oh, for God’s sake. ‘He kidnapped you?’

Her cheeks darkened. ‘Not, kidnapped , kidnapped, I mean I came of my own free will, but it wasn’t as if I had any option, did I?’ She cleared her throat. Brought her chin up. ‘Now, what seems to be the trouble?’

I peeled off my filthy jacket and dumped it on the desk. ‘Why didn’t you have any option?’

‘Have you been stabbed? That’s a lot of blood. If you’ve been stabbed, you need to go to hospital. I can’t treat you if you’ve been stabbed.’

‘He’s got something on you, hasn’t he?’

‘And why are you only wearing one surgical glove?’

‘Must be something pretty serious.’

‘Can we get this over with as quickly as possible, please? I’d like to get home to my husband, child, and Labrador, before anyone finds out I’ve been here.’

Fair enough.

I winced my way out of my shirt, exposing the shallow twisted stab wound in the middle of my chest, then peeled the blue nitrile glove off — biting my top lip as the rubbery skin tugged at what remained of my index finger. It was enough to rip off a chunk of soft yellow scab, setting it bleeding again.

‘Oh my God.’ Fotheringham blinked at my ruined hand. Nodded. ‘Right, we’ll need to clean that up. And...’ Huffed out a breath. ‘Christ.’ She produced a holdall from beneath the desk and rummaged through it, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. Placed a stainless-steel kidney dish on the worktop, lining it up with a half-litre bottle of saline, a couple of vials of something clear, two syringes in sterile packaging, a thing of stitching needles, and some thin twine.

Then removed a scalpel handle from its pack and clicked an individually wrapped blade into place.

Took a couple of deep breaths. ‘In order to stitch the skin together, to make a proper seal, I’m going to have to...’ She swallowed. ‘I’m going to have to shorten the bone.’

Of course she was. Because clearly I hadn’t suffered enough, today.

‘I can give you some antibiotics and a local anaesthetic.’

Thank Christ for that.

‘Are you allergic to Levobupivacaine or Amoxicillin? Hope not, because they’re the only things I could get at short notice.’ One of the syringes got unwrapped and filled from a vial. ‘You may feel a small scratch.’ As she slid the needle into what was left of my index finger. Then did the same thing four more times at various points across the stump and hand. ‘That’ll take a couple of minutes to start working.’

It was like plunging a red-hot sword, fresh from the forge, straight into a trough of icy water. My shoulders sagged as the pain hissed away in clouds of blessed steam. Didn’t even know I’d been holding them in so tight. ‘Thank you.’

Fotheringham soaked a wad of cotton wool with saline and dabbed at the ruined finger. Keeping her eyes on her work. ‘What was it, some sort of gangland punishment? The Yakuza do that, don’t they? When you’ve done something wrong and you need to atone.’

‘It wasn’t the Yakuza. And I’m not a gangster: I was trying to catch a serial killer.’

‘Oh.’

‘It didn’t exactly go well.’

She nodded. ‘Nothing ever does.’ Then picked up the scalpel. ‘You probably want to look away at this point.’

Damn right I did: staring at the nudie calendar instead. An oiled-up woman, infeasibly over-endowed in the breast department, was helping an equally glistening musclebound man to change the carburettor in some sort of sports car. Though if anyone from the Health and Safety Executive had seen them doing it in the nip, they would’ve shut the garage down in a heartbeat. Which almost managed to take my mind off the pulling and pushing happening in my hand as Fotheringham sliced away.

‘You want to know what kind of hold they have on me?’ Sounding brisk and professional as she reached for what looked horribly like a mini-hacksaw. ‘The trouble with having a small gambling problem is that it can sometimes turn into a big one. And apparently I can either “lend medical assistance from time to time” or the one with the ponytail breaks my arms and legs.’

Don’t think about the rocking motion, or the hissing-grate of metal teeth cutting through numb bone.

‘So this is my life, now. At least — hold still, please — until I’ve paid off my debt. There.’ A half-inch lump of something pink clanged into the kidney dish, setting it ringing like a bell. ‘Now I need to flush out the wound and we can get you stitched up. Then we’ll do the wound on your chest, the lump on your head, and, if there’s time after that, I’ll take a look at your nose...’

A huge wodge of white bandage turned my left hand into something out of a Boris Karloff film, but at least it didn’t hurt any more. Not after the anaesthetics and painkillers. And I could breathe properly again, too. Which was a shame, as the stench rising off Albert wasn’t exactly the freshest.

He was curled up on his side, one bloody hand clutched over his ear, knees up to his chest, sobbing. His jacket was gone, revealing a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt turned scarlet around the shoulders with blood. A big damp stain darkened his tatty jeans, the sharp-yellow smell of urine mingling with the deep-brown stink of emptied bowels and bile-green BO.

Joseph clapped his hands together. ‘Mr Henderson! I trust Dr Fotheringham has earned her fee this fine evening? Oh, and I thought, given your current state of... let us describe it as sartorial deficit, you might appreciate a change of coat.’ He whipped out a denim jacket, which looked a lot like the one Albert had been wearing when Francis teed off the first time. ‘I know it’s not up to your usual standard, but I hope it might pass muster until something better, and less tarnished with haemoglobin, comes along.’

The thing stank of weed, but it was better than what I had on. ‘Thanks.’ Bit tight, though. I tucked my gore-soaked jacket under one arm.

‘Excellent.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Now, shall we—’

‘How much for a gun?’

A moment’s silence as Joseph looked at me, head on one side, a faint smile on the edge of his lips. ‘Francis?’

The big man was over by the sinks, washing the head of his golf club. A nod.

‘Would you be so kind as to escort Albert here from the premises? Maybe drop him off somewhere inconvenient so he can find his own way home? Mr Henderson and I have business to discuss that would benefit from the utmost discretion, and I hesitate to burden Albert with a secret he may have difficulty keeping. Especially as I’ll wager he’s quite keen to stay firmly attached to his remaining ear.’