Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

A nod, then Francis limped across the concrete floor, grabbed Albert by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him out through the unit’s door, into the night.

Joseph’s expression softened. ‘Poor Francis. I know it might seem difficult to tell the difference, what with his taciturn nature, but your friend’s knee did him a significant damage last night. There’s talk of a surgical intervention being required.’

Good.

‘Gun: how much?’

‘May one enquire to what employment you propose to deploy this firearm? Only, these days being what they are, it behoves the responsible businessman to ensure that such an item does not contribute to unnecessary scrutiny or offences of a terrorist nature.’

‘I’m going to kill someone with it. Slowly .’

‘Ah, in that case I would recommend staying away from the larger end of the munitions spectrum, lest the trauma of a single usage prove too deleterious to the recipient’s continued survival. A shotgun, or a forty-five, for example. No, I think what might suit your purpose best is a point two-two, and, by cheery happenstance, I do happen to have such an item available.’

‘When?’

‘Normally we like three to five business days, but as I sense an urgency to your request, shall we call it...’ he checked his watch, ‘eleven tonight? And, as a conciliatory gesture, I shall offer you a substantial discount on your medical attention, transportation, and firearm. Shall we say, a thousand pounds for all three?’

A grand. The price of black-market guns had gone up since last time I’d bought one. ‘Deal.’

‘Wonderful. Then I shall see you this evening at eleven. Please do ensure you have sufficient funds with you at the handover, the rate of interest on overdue accounts can be quite...’ he glanced back towards the office, where Dr Fotheringham was framed in the window, watching us, ‘crippling’.

Outside, the shiny black Transit had gone, leaving Helen’s mouldy Renault alone in the car park. Well, my mouldy Renault now, I suppose. My phone too.

I pulled it out and checked, but there was still nothing from Alice.

Where the hell was she?

One more go.

But when I called Alice, it rang through to voicemail. Again. ‘Alice, it’s Ash. Call — me — back!’

Probably lying face down on a conference-room table somewhere, surrounded by empty vodka bottles. Oh, I can’t possibly profile sober.

Which meant she’d be sod-all use. And as I still hadn’t got a clue what Shifty’s number was, I’d have to track him down the old-fashioned way. After all, it was only about ten minutes from here to Divisional Headquarters and I had two hours to kill before guntime.

I got in the car.

No sign of Shifty, but I tracked Rhona down in the DHQ canteen, wrapping herself around what looked like a chip-and-sausage butty, tomato sauce dribbling down her chin. She’d had her hair done in a Fleabag bob, exposing a pale swathe of neck at the back and a pale swathe of forehead at the front. Which didn’t do much to distract attention from the saggy purple bags under her eyes, or the off-yellow circles of ancient sweat staining her shirt’s armpits.

She looked up as I thumped down in the plastic chair opposite and helped myself to her coffee. Which had too many sugars in it.

Her eyes widened, staring at me with her mouth hanging open, showing off those grey tombstone teeth of hers. ‘Ash? We thought you were dead! How did... What happened?’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘And what is that horrible smell?’

‘Shifty about?’

‘You sent all those texts to Mother: how you were really depressed and going to end it all!’ Then Rhona stood and thumped her fist into my shoulder. ‘You worried the living shit out of us!’

‘Ow!’ Had to give it to her, she could punch with the best of them. ‘Someone stole my phone.’

‘And you look like you’ve been run over by a combine harvester!’ Pink flushed her milk-bottle cheeks. ‘Sorry. Poor choice of words. I mean...’ An embarrassed cough. ‘You know, in the circumstances.’

Nope, no idea.

‘You didn’t answer the question: where’s Shifty?’

‘What?’ Tiny creases lined up between her plucked-and-drawn-in eyebrows. ‘No, yeah, he’s up the hospital?’

‘You’re not making any sense, Rhona. And you need to stop taking sugar in your coffee, this is bogging.’

She put her butty down. ‘Ash, he’s at the hospital waiting for word on Dr McDonald.’

‘Alice? Why would he—’

‘Someone hit her with a car. She’s in intensive care.’

Jesus...

The double doors banged against the wall as I lurched through into the High Dependency Ward. Posters covered its institution-green walls, rows of machinery lined up on their wheelie trolleys. Outside, in the corridor, the strip lighting pinged and flickered, but in here it was turned down to a twilight glow.

A small round woman in green hospital scrubs with a black cardigan pulled on over the top emerged from the nurses’ station. Frowning as she sniffed the Albert-scented air. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Alice McDonald.’

‘And are you family?’

‘Is she OK?’ Stepping closer. Please let her be OK. Please .

‘They operated for four hours, but she’s stable now.’

‘Where...?’

‘Come on.’ The nurse turned and lumbered away down a corridor lined with shared rooms, their inhabitants barely visible in the gloom — lying still as the dead. ‘You look like you need to see a doctor, yourself.’

‘What happened?’

We turned a corner into a row of private rooms.

‘Here we go.’ She pointed.

‘Ash?’ Shifty jumped to his feet, sending the plastic chair he’d been sitting on bashing into the wall. His one remaining eye was bloodshot and watery. ‘What the hell happened? We thought you’d topped yourself! You sent all those—’

‘Who was it?’ I lumbered over to the observation window.

Alice lay pale and broken, like a dropped china doll, flat on her back with wires and tubes going in and out of her — connected to a bank of monitoring equipment and drips. Winking red and green lights in the darkness. Bandages covered half her face, the first stains of bruising leeching out from underneath.

Something tied a ragged knot in my chest.

The nurse picked a clipboard from the rack by the room’s door. ‘They managed to put her left leg back together, and she’ll probably lose some function in her right arm, but the big thing was the ruptured spleen and liver damage. We’ll have to wait till she wakes up to find out if the fractured skull has caused any... complications.’ She patted my arm. ‘Alice is getting the best possible care, I promise.’

‘Thank you.’ It came out strangled.

‘Give me a shout if you need anything, OK?’ And with that she was gone.

Shifty joined me at the window, hissing it out: ‘Where the buggering wank have you been?’

‘Who did it?’

‘We thought you were dead: they fished your car out the Cromarty Firth!’

‘Shifty, I swear to God, either you tell me who hit her, or I’ll—’

‘We don’t know, OK? An auld wifie found her lying at the side of Glensheilth Crescent in Kingsmeath and called it in.’ He rested his forehead against the glass. ‘I’ve got people going through every piece of CCTV footage in the area, but there’s no cameras where it happened.’

‘Why the hell did you let her go out there on her own?’

‘I didn’t “let her” anything! She’s on your LIRU, team; you think I’d have let this happen if I was in charge?’

No. This was Superintendent Jacobson’s fault.