The Coffinmaker's Garden Page 7

  Great. Well done, Ash. That wasn’t depressing at all, was it?

  Alice wasn’t the only silly sod in the place.

  I closed the door to her room. Took my mug of tea back through to the lounge.

  Had to hand it to Jacobson, he’d actually got us a nice place to stay, instead of the usual manky B-and-Bs. And on Shand Street – very swanky. High up, too: a fourth-floor, self-catering, two-bedroom flat in a new six-storey development, perched on the blade of granite that pierced the heart of Castle Hill. The panoramic windows looked out over the jagged remains of the Old Castle, its tumbledown walls and stone stumps lit up in shades of yellow and red, and beyond that the land dipped away in a tangled ribbon of streetlights. The wide black expanse of Kings River separated them from the regimented roads and houses of Blackwall Hill on the right and Castleview on the left – with the Wynd rising up behind it.

  It was almost pretty.

  But then Oldcastle always did look better in the dark.

  Especially if you couldn’t see Kingsmeath.

  Sitting on the floor, by its charger, my phone let out the ding-buzzzz that announced an incoming text.

  The number wasn’t recognised, but the message made it clear enough:

  Mr Henderson you promised John you

  wood email that footageage to me!!! Don’t

  make me regret thrusting you.

  Autocorrect strikes again.

  Might as well get it over with.

  Mother’s business card had gone limp from its stint in my damp pocket, but I dug it out anyway and sent her everything we’d filmed in Gordon Smith’s basement, even the duff bits. Then unplugged my phone and settled into the squeaky leather couch.

  Pressed play.

  Footage was shaky, but the camera lingered long enough on each Polaroid to capture most of the details. The young blonde woman on one leg, in a park. The brunette on a beach. The young guy in a beer garden. The old man and younger woman, looking awkward on a putting green … Then more. And more. All those people, smiling and alive. Then all those people in life-ending agony.

  By my count there were sixteen people in the ‘before’ pictures, and twenty-two in the ‘after’ ones. Couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if most of the first lot were in the second. Not all of them, though. And there were definitely people getting tortured who didn’t have ‘before’ shots.

  I went back to the start and pressed play again.

  Park; beach; beer garden; putting green; then a man in his mid-twenties and swimming shorts, reclining on a sunlounger, chest and shoulders a painful shade of scarlet, raising a half-coconut with a wee paper umbrella and straw sticking out the top. Two young women, wrapped around each other – one red-haired, the other blonde – caught in the act of laughing, bent nearly double in front of one of those coin-operated binocular things you got at seaside piers. A happy couple, slightly blurred, waving at the camera as the carousel horses they were sitting on galloped past. A teenaged boy wearing a Manchester United top, grinning out of the photo, hot dog in one hand, can of Coke in the other, bunting in the background. A young woman, sat astride a bay pony, crash helmet on, polo shirt and jodhpurs, knee-high riding boots, beaming like this was the best ever day of her life. Rather than the start of the last one.

  Clearly, Gordon Smith liked his victims young. The only person over twenty-five was the old guy on the putting green. But then he probably wasn’t the target. The young woman he’d been caught so awkwardly cuddling was.

  Next: a smiling young woman in an ugly orange-and-brown one-piece swimming costume, face covered in freckles, mousy-blonde hair tucked behind an ear, rolling sand dunes behind her. Then a young man dressed in a smart suit and academic gown, mortarboard on his head as he posed on the steps outside a pillared portico, what had to be a degree clutched in his …

  Hold on a minute.

  I rewound the footage, back to the ugly swimming costume, and hit pause.

  She looked … familiar.

  Well, familiar-ish.

  Broad forehead, wide mouth with lots of teeth, long straight nose sitting on a heart-shaped face. A touch overweight. Not conventionally pretty – not someone people would stop to stare at in the street if she walked past – just a normal person, whose luck ran out the moment this photograph was taken.

  Maybe she was one of the faces from the other set of Polaroids? The ‘after’ pictures, with their bruises and slashes and blood and screaming. Maybe that’s where I’d seen her?

  I called them up and flicked through … yup. There she was.

  A hard cold lump turned deep inside my stomach.

  How could anyone do that to someone? How could that get your rocks off?

  But there was still something else.

  Damn.

  My jacket lay draped over one of the dining chairs, parked right in front of the radiator, in an attempt to dry the soggy thing out. The framed photo Helen MacNeil had given me still lurked in the side pocket.

  The glass was misted with condensation, but a tea towel took care of that.

  Two women in the photo: one was Helen MacNeil, smiling for once in her life, a large muscled arm draped across the shoulders of her teenaged granddaughter. It was clearly taken in a photographer’s studio – the mottled backdrop and professional lighting was evidence of that – but while her gran had put in a bit of effort, Leah MacNeil had opted for ripped jeans, a black denim jacket speckled with patches and badges, and a T-shirt for a band I’d never heard of. Wearing so much makeup it looked as if she’d been decorated.

  But she had the same heart-shaped face as her grandmother. The same long sharp nose. The same broad forehead. Her hair was dyed a rich purply-blue, but the mousy-blonde roots were clearly visible.

  She wasn’t the young woman in the Polaroids, but the family resemblance was obvious.

  Damn it. God, sodding, damn it.

  ‘You were supposed to have killed yourself …’

  Maybe it was a coincidence? Someone who looked like her?

  I scrolled through to Rhona’s number and pressed the button. Listened to it ring as I placed the photo frame on the coffee table, facing me.

  Then, ‘Guv? If you called up hoping to hear me eating again, all I’ve got’s a—’

  ‘Sophie MacNeil. Where’s her body?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Her body, Rhona, if she killed herself, where is it?’

  ‘Guv, is something wrong?’

  ‘Yes.’ Finding it difficult to keep my voice calm and reasonable. ‘Now where’s her bloody body?’

  ‘Hold on.’ Some rustling. ‘Is it something I’ve done? Because if it’s … OK, here we go. Procurator Fiscal’s judgement was that Sophie MacNeil’s remains were washed out to sea. Never recovered. But the suicide note was enough to—’

  ‘Buggering hell.’

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘Sorry, Rhona, got to go. There’s a call I need to make.’

  Rain lashed at the patrol car as we left the bright lights of Logansferry behind and headed out the Strathmuir road. Blue-and-whites flickering, turning the downpour into sapphires and diamonds as they rattled against the bonnet and windscreen.

  Mother slumped in the passenger seat, face sagging, scrubbing at her eyes. ‘Why me? Why does crap like this always have to happen to me?’

  ‘Yes, because this is all about you.’ I shifted in the back seat, sat behind the driver because I wasn’t an idiot. ‘How do you think Helen MacNeil’s going to feel?’

  The driver, a spotty-faced lump of gristle in the full Police Scotland black with matching accessories, sniffed. ‘Might be a comfort for her: finding out her wee girl didn’t commit suicide.’

  My hand tightened around the head of my old walking stick. ‘Is that what you think?’ Knuckles aching as I squeezed the polished wood.

  Mother groaned. ‘Come on, Mr Henderson, he didn’t mean anything by that.’

  ‘You think it’s comforting to find out your daughter was tortured and murdered by a seri
al killer?’ Getting louder with every word. ‘You think that’ll be an excuse for a party, maybe? Get out the karaoke machine and HAVE A BASTARDING SINGSONG?’

  The moron behind the wheel went pink, lips pinched tight together in silence.

  ‘He doesn’t know, Mr Henderson. He’s young. And a bit thick. Come on, deep breaths.’

  I thumped back in my seat. ‘Don’t see why you needed me on this anyway.’

  ‘Because you’ve got some sort of weird rapport with Helen MacNeil. And things are hard enough as it is.’ Mother seemed to deflate a couple of sizes as darkened fields flashed by the windows. ‘We had to do a risk assessment and now the SEB are refusing to search the basement. They won’t even go into the house. If this was any normal deposition and crime scene, we’d have big plastic marquees up by now, spotlights, generators; there’d be a specialist team digging the garden up and another one going through that kill room with an electron microscope.’ A shudder. ‘But it’s not a normal crime scene, is it? No, of course it isn’t, because if it was, some DCI would’ve waltzed in and wheeched it off me by now. It’s an utter crapfest, so no one else will touch it with a six-foot cattle prod!’

  She had a point.

  ‘What am I supposed to do, Mr Henderson? If I put people in harm’s way and something happens, I’m screwed. If I don’t put them in harm’s way, I’m not doing my job, and screwed. Either way: screwed.’ She slapped both hands over her face again and smothered a small scream.

  ‘You finished?’

  A small bitter laugh jiggled out of her. ‘Probably. Top brass have been trying to get shot of me for six years now, well, this’ll be the perfect opportunity.’ She turned in her seat and scowled at the driver. ‘You want some career advice, Constable Sullivan? Never have a heart attack on O Division’s dime, because if you do the bastards will treat you like a soiled nappy full of radioactive poop!’

  PC Sullivan, quite sensibly, kept his mouth shut.

  There was hope for the boy yet.

  A small village flashed past, the streets empty, the trees thrashing in the wind, overflowing gutters spilling small lakes across the square.

  ‘You hear anything back from N Division?’

  Mother sagged even further. ‘They sent three patrol cars to Smith’s brother’s croft. No one there.’ Her mouth turned down, lips puckered, like she was sucking on something bitter. ‘Said it looked like no one had been there for years. All abandoned and manky. No Gordon Smith. Wherever he’s disappeared to, it isn’t there.’

  A Mobile Incident Unit sat in the middle of the potholed road, about two houses back from the warning fence, lights blazing out in the darkness. It wasn’t one of the swanky new ones, either – little more than a grubby shipping container done up in Police Scotland livery with a mobile generator chuntering away behind it.

  Mother undid her seatbelt as PC Sullivan parked alongside. Sat there, staring out through the rain-strafed window at Helen MacNeil’s house. ‘Maybe we should wait till morning?’

  ‘You know what Oldcastle’s like: entire police force leaks information like a colander.’

  Sullivan stiffened. ‘That’s not—’

  ‘Yes it is, and keep your gob shut.’ I grabbed my walking stick. ‘We hold off till morning, this place will be swarming with soggy journalists, wanting to know what it’s like living next door to a serial killer. Won’t take much for her to put two and two together.’ Turned my collar up, and climbed out into the storm. Let the wind slam the car door shut for me. Then banged my hand down on the roof three or four times, raising my voice over the wind. ‘DI MALCOLMSON, ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?’

  Her door opened and she joined me on the pavement, face a sour sagging scowl. ‘This is what I get for answering my phone after midnight. I never learn …’ Hunching herself up, lumbering after me as we shouldered our way through the gusts to Helen MacNeil’s front door and the relative shelter of her grubby caravan. She rang the doorbell, then tucked her hands deep in her pockets. ‘And how come I’m “DI Malcolmson” now, you always used to call me Mother.’

  I frowned at her. ‘You’ve been calling me “Mr Henderson” ever since I turned up.’

  ‘I thought you were upset with me for some reason.’ She took a hand out again and patted me on the back with it. ‘Ash.’

  Ah, why not: ‘Mother.’

  Still no sign of life from the house, so I leaned on the bell again, keeping my thumb there as it drinnnnnnnnged. Ringing on and on and on and on and—

  ‘WHAT?’ The door was yanked open, and there stood Helen MacNeil, wrapped up in a tatty old blue dressing gown, bare legs and feet poking out the bottom. Glaring at us with puffy eyes. Short grey hair flat on one side. Fists ready.

  Mother looked at me. Raised her eyebrows.

  Coward.

  I stepped forwards. ‘Helen, can we come in, please? I’m … afraid we have some bad news.’

  She sat there, staring at me.

  I shifted on the couch. ‘Are there any questions you’d like to ask?’

  Helen MacNeil looked down at my phone again, clutched in her trembling hands. At the image filling the screen: a smiling young woman in an ugly orange-and-brown one-piece swimming costume, face covered in freckles, mousy-blonde hair tucked behind an ear, rolling sand dunes behind her.

  PC Sullivan emerged through the living room door, carrying two mugs in each hand, steam rising off them in the chill air. He put the lot on the rickety coffee table, then held one out to Helen. ‘Milk and three sugars.’

  She blinked. Shook her head. Voice hollow and distant. ‘This has to be a mistake …’

  And again, Sullivan had the common sense to keep his gob shut.

  Mother helped herself to a mug and did the same.

  Typical.

  ‘Do you recognise the photograph, Helen?’

  ‘Gordon wouldn’t hurt Sophie. He wouldn’t. He’s been like family to us, ever since I was a wee girl. This is bollocks!’

  ‘It’s definitely her, though, in the picture?’

  ‘I … It’s …’ She placed a fingertip on the screen. Then placed my phone on the coffee table, stood, and marched out of the room.

  ‘Pffff …’ Mother looked at me over the rim of her mug. ‘You have to feel for her.’

  ‘And are you planning on chipping in at any point, or do I have to do everything now?’

  A smile, then Mother leaned forward and patted me on the knee. ‘But you’re doing so well.’

  ‘You can stuff your patronising—’

  Helen marched back in, holding out a Polaroid. ‘Look.’

  It was almost identical to the one we’d found hanging up in next door’s basement. Taken either just before, or just after it. The main difference being that in this version, the woman in the bathing suit was holding a beaming toddler in a pink sundress, floppy white hat on its head. Pinholes speckled the white plastic edges of the photo and its colours were more faded too. A slight grey patina to the whole thing.

  ‘Gordon and Caroline took them for a bank holiday weekend in Aberdeen, when Leah was eighteen months. I was three years into my sentence …’

  I turned the Polaroid over: ‘BALMEDIE BEACH’ printed on the back in neat black felt pen.

  ‘Had it pinned above my bed, in my cell. And every time I saw it, I’d think about them,’ Helen narrowed her eyes at me, ‘and what I’d do to you when I got out.’

  The Polaroid clicked down against the coffee table. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Her chin came up. ‘So what if Gordon had a photo of Sophie in his house? He was like a grandfather to—’

  ‘There’s another photo. It’s …’ What good would it do, telling her what he’d done to her daughter? No parent should have to know that. ‘Sophie didn’t end her own life. She was murdered.’

  ‘If there’s another photograph, I want to see it!’

  All that blood and pain and horror, captured in one horrible three-inch by three-inch square.

  ‘No.’ I stood. Put my phone back in
my pocket. ‘Trust me, you really don’t.’

  — happy deathday to you —

  8

  ‘… statement that the Justice Secretary, Mark Stalker, has the First Minister’s complete support.’

  And we all knew what that meant.

  ‘Thank you, Janet.’ On the TV screen, a greasy wee man in a too-tight suit pulled on his serious face for the camera. ‘Police Scotland are expected to confirm, later today, that remains of a small boy, found in woods to the south of Oldcastle, are those of missing four-year-old, Lewis Talbot. Our crime correspondent Hugh Brimmond is live at the scene for us now. Hugh?’

  Outside, it was still dark, the city’s lights twinkling in the inky black, as I scooped up another spoonful of porridge. With salt, not sugar. Washed down with a sip of decaf tea.

  Rock and roll.

  A broad-shouldered rugby type appeared on screen, standing in the dark with some trees behind him, lit up by the headlights of passing cars, rain thrumming down on a red-and-white golf brolly. ‘That’s right, Bob. We’re here in a large stretch of woodland known locally as “The Murders”, a name from the sixteenth century that’s been horribly prescient …’

  ‘Urgh …’ Alice slumped her way in from the kitchen, clanked a big mug of coffee down on the dining table, and collapsed into a chair. Folded over forwards and rested her forehead against the cool glass surface as I finished off the last of my breakfast.

  ‘… bringing the tragic death toll to three young boys, all under the age of six.’

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘I said, “Urrrrrrgh!”’ Not looking up.

  The greasy guy in the suit was back. ‘Sport now, and Inverurie Loco Works are looking to make it a hat-trick today as they go up against favourites, Buckie Thistle …’

  ‘Well, whose fault is that, then?’ Downed the last dregs of tea, picked up my bowl and stood. ‘Briefing’s at quarter to, so better get your bumhole in gear.’

  ‘URGH!’

  ‘Don’t “Urgh” me. You know what Jacobson’s like when people are late.’ Putting on a fairly decent impersonation of the man, even if I say so myself: ‘“I’d like to remind everyone that LIRU also stands for ‘Late Is Really Unprofessional’.”’ Back to normal. ‘Hairy wee tosspot that he is.’