The Coffinmaker's Garden Read online

  He had a face full of acne and teeth, a single solid eyebrow wriggling its way across his brow. A big digital camera slung around his neck. Knees bent, hands raised as if to ward off blows. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’

  ‘YOU COULD’VE DIED, YOU IDIOT! WHAT WOULD YOUR POOR MUM THINK IF YOU GOT CRUSHED TO DEATH AND WASHED OUT TO SEA?’

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘BECAUSE I’D BE THE ONE WHO’D HAVE TO TELL HER, HER LITTLE BOY HAD STUPIDED HIMSELF TO DEATH!’

  ‘I’m sorry!’

  ‘GO ON, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT.’ She stabbed a finger westward, away from the cliffs. ‘AND DON’T YOU EVER LET ME CATCH YOU DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN!’

  The wee loon scuttled off, jacket snapping about him as the wind tore at his back.

  ‘Were you trying to make him cry?’

  Mother turned. ‘Ah, Ash. Any luck with your IT guru?’

  ‘Going to take a look for us, but we’ll probably have to give him a cost code to write his time against.’

  She sagged, turned, and leaned her thick white fists on the garden wall. ‘Everyone always wants money, these days. Whatever happened to going out and catching crooks? Now it’s all cost centres and codes and balance sheets and budget forecasts.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ I pointed across the road, ‘you’ll save a fortune, not having to pay for a search team, or the scene examination lot.’

  A deep dark rumbling noise juddered its way through the gale as another chunk of Gordon Smith’s garden disappeared into the North Sea, taking a four-foot segment of wall and roof with it. The TV crews all swung their cameras around to capture the excitement. No doubt that would get featured on the lunchtime news.

  She shook her head. ‘Going to be almost impossible to get a sound conviction on this one.’ Raised a hand towards the crumbling bungalow with its tumbledown roof. ‘No physical evidence, no bodies, no forensics tying Smith to the crimes … Be lucky if we can even prove there’ve been crimes. Any semi-conscious defence solicitor will tear us a fresh bumhole.’

  No wonder the top brass had lumbered Mother and her Misfit Mob with the case. Every Superintendent, DCI, and DI in O Division would be running full speed in the opposite direction to this career-killing crapfest.

  The camera crews stayed where they were, obviously hoping for a repeat performance.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time someone got sent down for murder with no body.’

  ‘Jack thinks I should pack it all in. Give up the glamorous life of a police officer and go on cruises instead. Play golf. Do the garden. Spend more time with the grandchildren.’

  ‘Sounds exciting.’

  ‘You haven’t met my grandkids.’ She frowned for a moment, then sniffed. ‘Tell your IT guru he can have eight hours and not a penny more. In the meantime, what are you going to do?’

  Good question.

  ‘Think I’ll go see a man about a croft.’

  ‘When DS Franklin gets back, you can take her with you. She’s driving everyone else round the bend, don’t see why you should be the exception, just because you’re new.’

  Oh joy.

  ‘What?’

  Sitting in the driver’s seat, Detective Sergeant Franklin tightened her jaw, eyes fixed straight ahead as the dual carriageway climbed Friarton Bridge, arching over the River Tay. Hands tight around the wheel, knuckles paling her skin. She’d hung the black suit jacket up in the back, her white shirt fitted and a touch more revealing than was strictly necessary. Some would call her handsome, striking, maybe even beautiful – as long as they hadn’t had to share a crappy Police Scotland pool car with her.

  ‘Come on, out with it: you’ve been shooting daggers at me since before Dundee.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Not my fault you got assigned to this job, is it? That was your guvnor.’

  She bared perfect white teeth. ‘It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is, the sulking?’

  Franklin put her foot down, the needle creeping up closer to eighty as she swung the ancient Ford Focus out into the other lane to overtake a Megabus. ‘I’m a detective sergeant, you’re not even a police officer!’

  ‘And that’s a problem, because …?’

  ‘I am not a bloody chauffeur! You should be driving me, not the other way round.’

  She snapped the car back into the inside lane, getting an angry flash of headlights and a variety of rude hand gestures from a fat woman in a people carrier.

  ‘Are you always like this?’

  ‘I’m not like anything.’

  ‘God, it’s no wonder Mother wanted shot of you for the day.’ I stretched out my right leg, rotating the ankle, setting it clicking. Easing out the burning. ‘And the reason you’re driving me, Detective Sergeant, is one: I used to be a DI, and two: you don’t have a bullet hole in your foot. Which makes driving anything a massive pain in the … foot.’ Tried for a smile. ‘Much like yourself.’

  Not so much as a twinkle.

  ‘So, shall we get on with the obligatory bonding getting-to-know-each-other bollocks, or are you planning on seething all the way to Edinburgh?’

  She tightened her jaw again.

  ‘Fair enough.’ I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. ‘You can wake me up when we get there.’

  Something sharp poked me in the shoulder. ‘We’re nearly there.’

  I sat up, blinked. Didn’t bother stifling a yawn.

  We were on a residential street that could’ve been anywhere in Scotland: short rows of small terraced houses; the occasional bungalow; two-storey blocks of flats arranged around a central stairwell; grey harling, pink harling, bus lanes and speed cameras. Wouldn’t think Saughton was lurking just out of sight.

  Franklin pulled up at the junction, sitting there with the indicators clicking, waiting for two taxis and a removals van to pass. ‘You snore.’

  ‘And you have all the interpersonal charm of a post mortem. But you don’t hear me going on about it, do you?’

  She took the corner, up the small hill, and round into the car park.

  Suppose one of us should try being a grown-up.

  ‘Look, we’re going to have to work together for a couple of days, so maybe we could try and keep the mutual loathing down to a gentle simmer? Or we could even have a bash at starting over?’ I held out my hand as she killed the ignition. ‘Ash Henderson, former Detective Inspector. Of course, that was back when it was still Oldcastle Police, before Police Scotland ruined everything and we all went to rat shit in a handcart.’

  She looked down at my proffered hand, then up at me. Curled her top lip. And climbed out of the car. Grabbed her jacket from the back and marched off towards the ugly Lego-brick lump of a building lurking behind a weird green-roofed visitor centre. They’d stuck the words ‘HMP EDINBURGH’ on the prison’s façade, above a three-storey wall of tinted glass, framed with beige cladding, but it was like putting stockings-and-suspenders on a pig and hoping no one would notice it wasn’t a glamour model.

  Franklin stopped by the line of bollards, turned, and threw her arms out. ‘ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?’

  Oh yeah, she was definitely a charmer.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting …’ An ingratiating smile pulled at the man’s face. He’d slicked his hair into a greasy side parting that didn’t really go with the pink polo shirt – stretched tight across a chest and arms that clearly spent a lot of time in the gym. Thick black-rimmed glasses perched on a horsey nose. iPad clutched under one arm. ‘If you’d like to follow me?’

  We abandoned the small waiting room, Franklin simmering away behind me, glowering at everything and everyone as we followed the bloke down grey concrete corridors that stank of fresh paint.

  ‘We’re having a spruce up: going for something a bit more cheery.’ A hand came out to wave at the bland walls. ‘This’ll all be bright primary colours when it’s done. I wanted a mural, but there wasn’t the budget.’ A combination of ID card and pincodes got us through a serie
s of thick doors with safety-glass inserts, opening and closing to a running commentary on what colour what wall was going to end up.

  Not sure if he was nervous, or really liked the sound of his own voice.

  ‘And this is us, here.’ He ushered us through into a small meeting room.

  No windows. Instead, a watercolour painting of Edinburgh Castle – as imagined by a six-year-old with no artistic skill whatsoever – took pride of place on the far wall. A lone pot plant sagged in the corner, its plastic leaves drooping. One manky coffee table, and four uncomfortable-looking chairs upholstered in vile patterned fabric.

  Two occupants: a prison officer, every bit as over-muscled as our guide, leaning with her back against the wall, off-blonde hair pulled into a saggy ponytail; and a man in his late sixties, early seventies. He looked up from a plastic cup of something brown, ran his deep-set eyes across me, then did the same with Franklin.

  Leered.

  ‘Hello, darling. You’re a vision to warm a man’s heart, aren’t you?’ He had a sharp face, not helped by the pointy goatee dangling off the end of his chin. He’d swept his grey hair forward, probably thought it covered that bald shiny crown, but it gave him a look of Nero’s pervier uncle. Prison sweatshirt and jogging bottoms. A pair of white trainers that had never seen the outside world. And never would. ‘Tell you, this place is full of poofs and wankers, so it does a body good to see a real woman for a change. Instead of these muscly dykes.’ He turned his smile on the prison officer. ‘No offence, Shona.’

  Shona narrowed her eyes, but didn’t say anything. Not while there were witnesses present, anyway.

  There was a pause as Franklin’s cheeks darkened. Winding herself up to a proper explosion.

  OK. Time to be the grown-up again.

  ‘Mr Smith.’ I settled into one of the other chairs. ‘You know why we’re here?’

  ‘Oh aye: saw it on the lunchtime news. My wee brother’s been a naughty boy, has he?’

  ‘Runs in the family.’ A smile. ‘Detective Sergeant, would you care to refresh everyone’s memory?’

  Franklin pulled a printout from her suit pocket. ‘Peter Smith, currently serving sixteen years in Saughton—’

  ‘Actually,’ our guide raised a hand, ‘the official name is HMP Edinburgh, so if you don’t mind …?’

  Her back stiffened. ‘Fine.’ That one word making it clear it really wasn’t. ‘Serving sixteen years in “HMP Edinburgh” for murdering a GP. According to the file, you stabbed her thirty-two times.’

  Smith shrugged. ‘Tempers became heated.’

  ‘Then there’s the three years you did in Oldcastle for aggravated assault, the stint for attempted abduction, and a four-year stay at Peterhead Prison for sexually assaulting a pregnant schoolteacher.’

  A wistful look slid its way across his face. ‘I’ve led quite the colourful life, haven’t I?’

  ‘Not to mention the four allegations of rape.’

  Another shrug.

  I hooked my walking stick over the back of the chair next to mine. ‘Tell us about your brother, Peter. What’s Gordon like?’

  ‘Now you’re asking.’ He sat back, knees spread far apart, crotch pointing in Franklin’s direction. ‘You heard about the coffins, yes? Making them for the kids if their pets died? Aye, that’s not new, Gordy’s been doing that all his life. Turned out a lovely one to bury the neighbour’s Dachshund in, painted it like a racing car and everything.’ Smith shook his head. ‘Course the dog wasn’t dead. At least, not when it went into the coffin. Could hear it whining as Gordy shovelled the soil in on top. Ashes to ashes, and all that.’

  No one said anything.

  ‘Always thought it was a bit of a cliché, myself, but that was Gordy for you. And he learned to hide it well, had to give him that. By his eighth birthday, you’d never have known how screwed up he was inside. Always smiling, singing happy tunes to himself. Course I knew about the humane traps he used on the mice in the basement.’ Smith winked at Franklin. ‘Oh yes, the traps were humane, but what he did to those wee mice when everyone went to sleep? That wasn’t humane at all …’

  Our guide cleared his throat. The prison officer, Shona, shifted against the wall, fidgeting with her keys. The central heating pinged and gurgled.

  ‘Poor wee Gordy never was … robust like me. He let it get to him. So Dad used to batter the living hell out of us, so what? Even the sexual stuff, you don’t have to let that define you, do you? Bet there’s millions of people out there been interfered with and never killed anyone.’

  I sat forward. ‘You killed someone.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing at all: Dr Griffiths had it coming. If she’d been any sort of real doctor, she would’ve caught Caroline’s cancer before it was too late to do anything about it, wouldn’t she?’ He poked his cheek out with his tongue, head wobbling in faux-modesty. ‘When you think about it, I did the NHS a favour, taking that useless cow out of the gene pool.’

  Now that was interesting …

  I threw Franklin a glance to see if she’d spotted it, but she was still busy with her scowling.

  ‘Anyway,’ Smith waved away the notion, ‘that stuff with the animals: Gordy’s way of coping, wasn’t it? I’m sure he had nothing to do with all those alleged dead bodies you say you found, but can’t produce. Because “the nasty storm’s eaten them all”.’ Smith wasn’t making a very good job of hiding his smile. ‘Allegedly. If they ever existed in the first place.’

  Sometimes, all you needed to do was leave a long enough gap in an interview, and the suspect would scramble to fill it with something incriminating. But when I gave it a go, Peter Smith settled back in his seat, hands behind his head, legs out, ankles crossed.

  OK.

  ‘Tell me about your croft …?’ I raised my eyebrows at Franklin.

  She checked her notes. ‘Wester Brae of Kinbeachie.’

  ‘Not much to tell. Ninety-three acres, most of it bog and reeds. Loads of gorse. And it’s a farm, not a croft.’ He sniffed, pursed his lips. ‘Inherited it off an uncle. He was “hands on” with wee boys too. Suppose it must’ve run in the family …’ Smith frowned down at his hands. The fingers seemed to have worked themselves into a knot. He unlaced them, one by one. ‘To be honest, it’s amazing Gordon and me turned out as well as we did.’

  Talk about setting a low bar.

  ‘And who’s looking after this “farm” while you’re in here?’

  ‘Nah,’ he waved that away, ‘nothing worth looking after. Animals all died years ago. Nothing left but weeds and mud and a farmhouse you wouldn’t keep dogs in. Whole place needs burning to the ground.’ A smile. ‘No point salting the earth, though, sod all grows there anyway.’

  Franklin pulled her chin up. ‘And where do you think your brother is now?’

  That leer returned. ‘He’d like you.’

  ‘He’s not at your so-called farm, we checked. So where is he?’

  ‘See, we share a taste in women, Gordon and me.’ Peter sat forward. ‘Young and tight. Bet you know how to treat a man, don’t you? With your low-cut top and pert firm breasts.’

  That imminent-explosion look was back on Franklin’s face again.

  OK, time to get this back on track. I cut in before she could open her mouth. ‘Let me get this straight, Mr Smith: you murdered a woman because she didn’t diagnose your sister-in-law’s bowel cancer early enough? Does that sound reasonable to you?’

  The smile slipped from his face. ‘Think you lot have had enough of my time.’ He stood, gave Franklin another once-over. ‘Don’t fancy coming back to my cell with me, do you, sweet-cheeks? Sure I can show you some moves that’ll get your knickers dripping. No?’

  Franklin bared her teeth, fists curled. ‘No.’

  ‘Ah well, just have to use my imagination, won’t I?’ He gave the front of his joggy bots a squeeze. ‘Be thinking about you, later.’

  She didn’t stop swearing till we were back in the car.

  15

  I ope
ned my mouth, but Franklin got there first:

  ‘Don’t, OK? Don’t say a bloody word. That misogynistic, sexist, slimy old … Gah!’ She stuck her foot down as the lights changed, wheeching out onto the roundabout. Following the road markings for A71 WEST ~ THE NORTH. Slamming on the brakes again as the next set of lights turned red before we could cross them. Bashing the flat of her palm against the steering wheel. ‘Damn it!’

  ‘Come on, he can’t be the first creepy weirdo who perved on you to mess with your head.’

  ‘He did not mess with my—’

  ‘Difficult to focus on what someone’s saying if you’re standing there dreaming about battering his face off the floor six or seven times.’

  She scowled across the car at me. ‘I was focused!’

  ‘Green.’

  ‘What?’

  Pointing through the windscreen. ‘The light’s gone green.’

  ‘Bloody hell …’ She nearly stalled it, but got the pool car kangarooing around to the exit.

  ‘OK, well if you were so focused and non-distracted, what did you make of the sister-in-law thing?’

  Down the slip road. ‘What sister-in-law thing?’

  ‘See?’ God save us from detective sergeants with a chip on their shoulder. ‘Peter Smith says he murdered Dr Griffiths because she cocked up Caroline Smith’s cancer diagnosis. He killed for his sister-in-law. Not his sister, not his wife, his sister-in-law.’

  ‘So what? Maybe they’re a close family.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about. It’s—’

  My phone launched into its bland generic ringtone, and when I pulled it out, there was ‘DI MALCOLMSON’ in the middle of the screen. Ah well, might as well. It was that or talk to smiler, here. I hit the button. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ash, it’s Mother. How are you and Rosalind getting on?’

  ‘Like a house on fire.’ People running, screaming, dying …

  ‘That’s nice. Listen, you don’t fancy doing a teensy favour for me, do you? We put an appeal out on the lunchtime news, did you hear it? Anyway, people have been calling with sightings.’

  ‘And let me guess: some timewasting loony thinks they’ve seen Gordon Smith in Edinburgh.’