Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

McHale nodded — not easy with his face in the vice of Shifty’s grip, but he did it.

‘And see if you think you’ll get any help from the police about our wee visit tonight?’ Shifty reached his free hand into his jacket and produced his warrant card. Shoved it against McHale’s eye. ‘I am the police. And we’re gonna be watching you.’

‘Got you a present.’ Shifty tossed a black leather jacket at me as we marched out the main door and back onto the street. ‘Chris McHale decided he didn’t need it any more.’

Bit old-fashioned, but had to admit: it smelled a lot better than Albert’s stinky denim job.

I transferred the contents of my pockets and climbed back into the pool car. Clicked the seatbelt on as Helen’s phone ding-buzz ed at me.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

Salutations, Mr Henderson. I am pleased

to confirm that your appointment has been

arranged for 23:00 at Rushworth House, in

Camburn Woods.

Damn it.

According to my watch, that was only ten minutes from now, and while it wasn’t impossible to make it all the way across the river and through town to Camburn Woods in time, we’d need lights and music on to do it. Which wasn’t exactly low-profile when it came to buying a black-market handgun.

Shifty started the engine. ‘Where to?’

And I still hadn’t got my hands on Joseph’s thousand pounds.

‘How much cash have you got on you?’

‘Dunno.’ He pulled out his wallet and checked. ‘Sixty-two quid and some smush. Why?’

Mine held the twenty I’d taken off Helen’s body, three ten-pound notes of my own, and that fifteen-quid gift voucher from Winslow’s. Doubt Joseph would accept it, though.

‘We need to stop at the nearest cash machine.’

Shifty did a three-point turn, then took a right at the roundabout — up over the bridge that crossed the railway line, Saint Damon of the Green Wood lurking in the darkness below. ‘What are we buying?’

‘Gun.’

‘Ah...’ Silence as we headed up Banks Road. ‘Only — and don’t take this the wrong way — your luck with guns is not great.’

‘If I take the maximum cash out on my debit card, and you do the same, and we use Alice’s too, plus all the cash we’ve got on us, that’ll cover it.’

‘You sure we wouldn’t be better off with something like a machete, or a baseball bat? Something cheaper and less... disastrous?’

‘I’ve got three people to kill, Shifty. Maybe four.’ Because Wee Free McFee wasn’t likely to stand back and let me go rummaging through his scrapyard, looking for a buried security van full of stolen jewellery and artwork.

‘OK. Four people?’ Shifty puffed out his cheeks. ‘That’s a lot of people.’

The streets of Kingsmeath drifted by the car windows. Dark and miserable.

I picked out a reply to Joseph:

Change of plans. I need you to meet me

at the Burgh Library. Make it quarter past.

I have business here I can’t put off.

SEND.

They probably wouldn’t like that, but tough.

The phone went back in my new jacket’s inside pocket. ‘Where’s her notebook? McHale said she was making notes and looking back at them. It wasn’t with her things at the hospital.’

‘You sure these four people have to die? We couldn’t, you know, rough them up instead?’

‘One of them’s the bastard who put Alice in Intensive Care.’

‘Assuming we can catch him.’ Shifty parked outside the Post Office on Greenhorn Place. ‘Cash machine.’

I sat there, looking out of the passenger window, but barely registering the small row of rundown shops. ‘McHale said Alice told him she had to walk Henry. On her way to the library, she sees that chunk of parkland on Glensheilth Crescent, pulls in, gets out of the car, and this Gòrach bastard runs her over. Which means he was following her.’

Wind scrabbled at my back as I climbed out of the car, stuffed Albert’s stinking denim jacket into the nearest bin, then limped over to the cash machine. Took out the maximum daily allowance, then did the same with Alice’s card — easy enough as she used the same pin number on everything, including the TV’s parental lock at home: 3825, which, apparently, spelled a very rude word in predictive text on the old flip phones.

‘Bloody freezing out here.’ Shifty shuffled past as I stepped away to count my cash. Then he swore, nearly dropping his debit card as his phone launched into the Mastermind theme again. Pinning the thing between his ear and shoulder as he slipped the card into the machine and punched in his pin. ‘Rhona?... Uh-huh... Uh-huh... They did? Where?’ Turning to me. ‘They’ve found Alice’s jeep.’ Then back to the phone. ‘Yeah... OK... Uh-huh... OK, look, is the dog there?... Damn it.’

No Henry.

‘Where’s the car?’

He took his banknotes from the machine and handed them over. ‘Halfway through the front window of that Cash Converters on Brokemere Street. Pair of wee scroats used it as a battering ram. Made off with a bunch of crap jewellery and some electric guitars. Last seen legging it down McLaren Avenue, heading for Camburn Woods.’

‘Get them to search the car for Alice’s notebook. See if we can figure out what she saw that tipped her off.’

‘Rhona? I want that vehicle searched. We’re looking for a notebook... Uh-huh... Uh-huh...’

Shifty’s cash went on the pile, bringing our grand total to one thousand and ten pounds.

‘Well get them to look again!... Uh-huh... You’re sure?... Bugger... No, if it’s not there, it’s not there... Yeah, thanks, Rhona.’ Shifty put his phone away. ‘Take it you got the gist?’

‘If it’s not on her, and it’s not in the car, then he took it.’

‘Doesn’t help us any, though, does it?’

We got back in the car. Sat there with the engine running and the blowers roaring.

‘So we look at who she’d already seen. One of the people Alice interviewed said something important about Gòrach.’

‘Yeah.’ Shifty bit his top lip and frowned. ‘Ash, you know I’m your best friend, right? And I’d go through... have gone through some pretty rough shit because you needed me.’ A finger came up and pointed at his eyepatch. ‘But tonight you’re talking about killing four people. I’m not going through everyone Alice saw today and torturing the living hell out of them. Chris McHale was different, he’s definitely dodgy...’ Shifty pulled his shoulders in and looked out the driver’s window. ‘I gotta live and work in this town, afterwards.’

‘How about—’

‘And these people you want to kill: I get the bastard who hurt Alice deserves everything he’s got coming, but who are the other three? Why am I making myself complicit in their murder?’

‘They’re...’ Deep breath. ‘I made a promise to Helen MacNeil.’ Pulled down my collar and showed off the necklace of bruises. ‘Gordon Smith killed her. Then he strangled me, dumped me in a pit, and left me for dead.’ I held up what was left of my butchered hand. ‘Leah MacNeil hacked my finger off with a cutthroat razor. She’s been in on it all along.’

He stared at me. ‘So they’re the ones who gave you the black eyes.’

‘No, that was... someone else.’ No point naming names. Joseph and Francis were kind of a sore spot where Shifty was concerned. ‘Jennifer Prentice paid a couple of thugs to jump me. Didn’t go well for them.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Shifty sagged in his seat. ‘So, let me guess: she’s the fourth person who needs murdering?’

‘No. I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do there.’

‘Who’s number four, then?’

‘If it helps, there’s a cut of six million in it for you, when this is all over.’