Birthdays for the dead

Chapter 29

The mortuary rang with the sound of refrigerated drawers being clunked in and out of the wall. Sorry about this Alf the Anatomical Pathology Technician ran a hand along his ponytail then tried another drawer. I know they re in here somewhere.

A small set of speakers dribbled boy-band blandness into the room the tiled walls and floor making the noise echo out of phase with itself. It complemented the eye-nipping stench of bleach.

Where are you? Another drawer. Nightshift did a stocktake yesterday took everyone out, cleaned the drawers, and put half the buggers back in the wrong place. Ah-ha! Here we go.

The drawer was full of paperwork, boxes of pens, and packs of Post-it notes. Two bottles of what looked like vodka clinked at the back. Used to keep it all in the office, but the cleaners kept nicking stuff. Least this way we can lock it up, eh? He selected a blue folder from the pile and handed it to me. One forensic report.

Dr McDonald stood in the middle of the room, staring at the empty cutting tables, both arms wrapped around herself. What happens to the girls now?

Long-term storage; got a deep-freeze facility on this industrial estate in Shortstaine. Can t release them for burial till there s a trial defence ll want to do their own post mortem.

That might be years

A shrug. Kinda depends on how long it takes you lot to catch him.

I flicked through the chilled paperwork. A preliminary soil analysis was covered in graphs and tables of numbers. The bit at the back was in actual English. Says here that there s soil particulates recovered with the body that don t match the substrate it was buried in.

Alf nodded. Means they were killed elsewhere and dumped in the grave.

I stared at him. Yeah, because we couldn t tell that from the photographs on the birthday cards.

Pink rushed up his cheeks. Well I was ahem. Do you guys want a tea or coffee or something?

Dr McDonald walked over to the wall of refrigerated drawers, and put her hand on one of the stainless-steel doors. All that time in the cold ground, and they still can t go back to their families.

Just a little longer, please. Just long enough to get Steve Wallace. After five years, a couple more days wouldn t make any difference

I cleared my throat, stuck the report back in the folder and returned it to Alf. If we can get a soil sample from the murder site they ll be able to match it. All we need s a warrant. I pulled out my phone. The network icon blinked at me: no signal.

Alf shoved the drawer back into the wall. It s all the metal and pipes and fridges and being underground and that: plays hell with the signal. There s a sweet spot right outside the doors though.

Nothing, nothing then the mortuary doors closed behind me and I had four bars.

DCI Weber wasn t picking up, and neither was Rhona, so I tried Sabir instead. Need you to do a PNC and full background on one Steven Wallace, eighty-six McDermid Avenue, Oldcastle, I.C. One male, early to mid forties.

PNC me arse, did I not tell youse the internet was where it s at? A rattle of keystrokes in the background.

Don t mean to geg, but who s this Steven Wallace when he s at home whackin one off?

Depends what you find, doesn t it?

OK. This on the record, or off?

Like I said: depends what you find.

The door opened behind me, and Dr McDonald slipped through into the gloomy corridor. Do you want to

I held up a finger and pointed at the phone in my other hand.

I need enough to go in there and turn his house upside down, drag him into the station, take DNA, full body-cavity search, the lot.

Leave it with us. Gonna cost youse a bevvie though, right? Sabir hung up.

I slid the phone back in my pocket. Sorry: business.

Do you fancy dinner tonight? I mean a carryout or something, Aunty Jan s off to Glasgow to see My Chemical Romance, and she s staying over with friends so I m going to be on my own and maybe we could talk about the case or something. Or we could watch a film She bit her bottom lip and took a step back, staring over my shoulder.

I turned. There was someone on their knees in the shadows big shoulders, grey boilersuit, scuffed trainers. The Rat Catcher. She was stroking something, holding it to her chest. One of the big plastic traps lay empty in front of her.

Dr McDonald stepped closer, tugging my sleeve. Is that a rat, I mean is she actually cuddling a dead rat?

The Rat Catcher must have heard her, because she looked up and stared at us.

My mobile rang the harsh noise cutting through the hum of the hospital above.

Mrs Rat Catcher didn t move.

I answered. Michelle, this isn t really a good

The school just phoned.

Something heavy dragged a sigh out of me. What s she done now?

Katie s been in a fight they re keeping her in the office. Someone has to go round there and speak to the headmistress.

Silence.

And?

The Miss Jean Brodie voice came out full bore. Well, I can t do it, can I? I m stuck in a meeting till seven.

Yeah, well you know what: I m trying to catch a serial killer who kidnaps and tortures young girls. You think your meeting s more

Oh, don t give me that. You had plenty of time to sneak off with your reporter whore when you were on duty, didn t you? Katie s only ever your daughter when it s convenient!

That s not

They re talking about expelling her, Ash. I m stuck here till seven. Go be a father for a change. And she was gone.

I closed my eyes, leaned back against the wall and banged my head off it a couple of times. Thank you, Ash, you re my saviour.

A hand on my arm.

I looked down and Dr McDonald was staring up at me. Are you all right?

Boom. The door clattered open and Alf appeared from the mortuary, shoving a big metal gurney in front of him. Beep, beep: mind your backs. The door swung shut again. Got a client to collect from Oncology. He stopped for a moment, banging one wheel of the trolley up and down on the concrete floor. Bloody thing never goes in a straight line He peered down the corridor. That you, Lisa?

The Rat Catcher stared back, clutching the dead rodent against her chest.

Alf smiled. How you doing? Everything good? Yeah, perfect with me too. Keeping busy, you know?

Blink.

Well, better get back to it, right? No rest for the wicked.

She stood, opened the cage mounted into her trolley and placed the rat s body inside. Her Oldcastle accent was thick and gravelly. Keeping busy.

That s the spirit.

Lisa the Rat Catcher hunched over her trolley and scuffed away through the on-and-off patchwork of light and shadow.

Dr McDonald shuffled her feet. She s very Erm

Nah. Alf gave his gurney s wheel another couple of dunts. Don t worry about Lisa, been working here longer than I have. Not the sharpest hamster in the cage, but she s all right. You OK to see yourselves out?

The school day finished a quarter of an hour ago, Mr Henderson. The headmistress stood with her back to the room, looking out of the office window at the dirty rectangular blocks that made up Johnston Academy, classroom lights glowing in the darkness. Surveying her domain.

Her office wasn t like the ones on the telly no wooden panelling and large teak desk with matching trophy case. Instead it was crammed with filing cabinets, in-trays and piles of paperwork. Cracked magnolia walls and a scrawl-covered whiteboard, a corkboard littered with pinned-up notes.

Two chairs sat in front of the desk. A balding man perched in one of them, wearing a corduroy jacket and a frown, hands knotting and unknotting themselves in his lap.

I sank into the other seat. No point waiting to be asked: headmasters were like detective chief inspectors you couldn t let them get above themselves. You do understand what I do for a living, don t you, Mrs There was a wooden plinth in the middle of the cluttered desk with a brass nameplate on it. Elrick. We are rather busy trying to catch a killer.

Her back stiffened. I see. Yes well. We need to talk about Katie.

Captain Corduroy shifted in his chair, hands working overtime.

Yes, we definitely do, it s simply not acceptable.

Your daughter is a disruptive influence, Mr Henderson. I m afraid I have no option but to request that you make alternative arrangements for Katie s education.

It s simply not acceptable

I stared at him and he closed his mouth with an audible click.

She s a bright kid: she s bored having to go at the slower kids pace, if you lot

Please, Mr Henderson, spare us the delusional parental ramble

She s a bright kid.

No, she isn t: that s the problem. A long sigh. Mr Henderson, your daughter isn t acting out because she s not being challenged intellectually. The headmistress shook her head still staring out of the window with her back to me, as if she couldn t be arsed going through the motions again. Sometimes that s the case, but Katie s academic track record simply doesn t support that. She underperforms in nearly every subject. Perhaps you should look on this as an opportunity to move her somewhere she can get more individual attention.

Corduroy nodded. And it s not as if we haven t tried: we ve been incredibly patient with her behaviour, given her family situation, but it s simply not

What family situation?

He flinched. It coming from a broken home, her sister going missing, you being a police officer.

That was it, I was going to knock the wee shite s teeth down his throat. You listen up, you jumped-up

Mr Henderson, we re not talking about a little backtalk, or running in the corridors. In the last six weeks Katie has been in my office twenty times. And given her attendance is appalling, that s something of a record. Quite frankly

So she s a little high-spirited

The headmistress kept staring out of the bloody window, as if I was a badly behaved child.

I stood. Are you actually going to have the common courtesy to look at me when I m talking to you?

Mrs Elrick turned around. She was older than she d seemed from the back: a used-looking face lined with creases, a long nose, her hair thinning at the front. A bruise stretched its way across her left cheekbone, half an inch higher and it would ve been a black eye. Scratches marred her neck four parallel lines, red against the pale skin. For the last three years we have put up with your daughter s lying, and cheating, and coming in reeking of alcohol when she bothers to come in at all the fighting and the stealing, because we know she s been struggling to cope with her sister s disappearance and your divorce. But today I found out she s been bullying the other children. Not just her peer group: the first years too.

That isn t true, the other kids are lying. Katie wouldn t

When I tracked her down she was forcing a girl half her size to eat a handful of mud. The headmistress raised her chin, showing off the scratch marks. This is what happened when I tried to stop her.

Captain Corduroy nodded like a dashboard ornament. It s simply not acceptable.

I grabbed the arms of his chair. SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!

He jerked back, hands covering his face.

The headmistress folded her arms. Well, now we can see where she gets it from.

It s not true, Daddy, they re lying! Katie clutched her schoolbag to her chest like a dead rat. She d dyed her hair again jet black and straight, tucked behind her ears, her big blue eyes puffy and pink, a metal crucifix around her neck. Her white shirt was rumpled and stained, the green-and-yellow school tie at half-mast.

Get in the car. I wrenched open the passenger door.

How can you take their word over mine?

Get in the bloody car, Katie.

Dr McDonald peered out from the back seat. Is everything OK?

Katie slumped into the passenger seat, then turned her smile on the psychologist. Stuck her hand out. Hi, I m Katie, Ash s daughter, really nice to meet you, I love your hair, it s great.

Thanks, I like yours too, it s very goth.

You wouldn t believe what s happened the teachers never liked me in that place, it s a factory for churning out brain-dead drones it s like a complete misunderstanding.

I thumped myself in behind the wheel and slammed the door. Stabbed the key in the ignition. Seatbelt. The headlights cut through the darkness.

Honestly, Daddy, I didn t do anything, it s all

You beat up a girl two years younger than you. Seatbelt!

It wasn t like

I stamped my foot on the accelerator and jerked the Renault out onto the road. Is that what we taught you? To pick on people smaller than yourself? Is it?

I didn t Deep breath. OK, yes, I got into a fight, but you should ve heard her, she was going on about how all the police are fascists and racists and corrupt and why can t you catch proper criminals instead of victimizing real people. And I know for a fact it s because her dad got done for drink driving last week. I was only sticking up for you.

You made her eat dirt.

Round the roundabout, leaning on the horn to shift a flat-cap-wearing corpse in his bloody Volvo.

Katie was staring at me, I could feel it.

What?

You made Uncle Ethan eat dirt. You dragged him out into the back garden and you made him eat dirt till he was sick, then rubbed his face in it.

That was different.

You broke his nose and his arm.

You know that was different! Houses flashed past the car windows as I took the rat-run through Barnsley Street.

And he s not your bloody uncle. Don t call him that.

Mummy called him that. Arms folded, bottom lip sticking out.

Actually, Dr McDonald s voice was a high-pitched squeak from the back seat, could we slow down? I mean it s a twenty zone and we re doing about forty and I really don t want to die in a car crash, so could we please

Does your mother know what you ve been doing? The drinking, the bullying, the fighting? Your teacher showed me letters from the local shops you re barred for shoplifting! My own daughter s a thief!

I didn t

I ve been standing up for you all this time, and you I believed you.

They re lying. They re all lying!

Look out for the bus!

I jerked the wheel to the right as some moron bus driver pulled out without looking. Roared past him. The bastard had the cheek to flash his lights at me. Lying, stealing, drinking what s next: drugs? Or are you already

You can talk! You ve been on drugs most of my life!

Fuck s sake. It s medical, it s different!

It s always different when it s you, isn t it? It s different. It s different. I HATE YOU! She thumped back into her seat: legs crossed; arms crossed; staring out of the passenger window; muscles bulging in her jaw; lips moving as if there was something bitter trapped behind them, trying to escape. A tear ran down her cheek, she didn t try to wipe it away.

Right onto Craighill Drive with its tall sandstone buildings and line of boutique shops.

Ungrateful little brat.

All this time. Playing me for a bloody idiot.

Dr McDonald cleared her throat. I know this seems pretty irreconcilable at the moment, but if you d both just talk about how you really feel, I mean openly and honestly, I m sure we could resolve it?

Katie kept her quivering mouth shut. I didn t say anything either.

I know you don t really hate your father, Katie, you re hurt because

Shut up, OK? Shut up. You don t know me. Nobody knows me.

And that was it. Dr McDonald tried poking her nose in a couple more times, but she was pissing into the wind all on her own.