Birthdays for the dead

Chapter 47

One second, I ll check for you. Hold music warbled out of my phone.

The back end of Drummond s BMW crept into his garage, reversing light glowing. I held up a hand and the car rocked to a halt.

Alice clambered out from behind the wheel and popped the boot lid.

Anything?

They re looking.

Hello, Assistant Chief Constable? Yes, Mr McKenzie isn t in today, he s putting his mother s house in storage poor dear has to go into a home. Dementia. I can take a message if you like?

I didn t. I called Rhona instead and asked her to do a PNC check on Frank McKenzie and his parents.

Is Is everything OK, Guv? Only Well, you didn t come home last night and I made curry and

Please, Rhona. I need those details soon as you can.

Oh OK.

Call me back. I hung up, stuck the phone in my pocket. You ready, Alice?

A nod.

Together we heaved ACC Drummond into the boot of his BMW: arms cuffed behind his back, face a mass of bruises and seeping red cuts. A knotted shirt acting as a gag. Alice dumped the laptop and tower unit in beside him, then went back through the door to the house for the CDs.

I reached in and slapped the filthy little bastard.

He blinked up at me with puffy, bloodshot eyes.

Listen up, Drummond if anything happens to Katie, I m parking this car in the middle of Moncuir Woods and setting fire to it. With you in the boot. The lid made a satisfying clunk when I slammed it shut.

And then Rhona phoned back. She read me Frank McKenzie s criminal record it was pretty much identical to the version Shifty Dave had reeled off outside Megan Taylor s house the other night then gave me an address in Cowskillin.

What about the mother?

Couple of complaints from the neighbours a few years ago: playing loud music in the wee small hours, standing in the back garden in her nightie screaming at the seagulls, that kind of thing. You want the address?

Christ s sake Please.

Mrs Dorothy McKenzie, thirty-two McDermid Avenue, OC15 3JQ.

I waved Alice towards the car. Rhona, I owe you a big one.

What s this all about, Guv? Do

I hung up and clambered into the passenger side of Drummond s BMW, jammed the walking stick into the footwell.

Drive.

The clouds were fringed with violent pink and orange as the light faded. Twenty past four on a Monday afternoon and McDermid Avenue was virtually empty. No sign of a removal lorry.

I climbed out, stuck the gun in my waistband, and hobbled across the road. Alice scurried along behind me. Number thirty-two looked like all the other buildings on the sandstone terrace three storeys high, bay window on one side of the panelled door.

No wonder the little bastard was always lurking about when we were here.

I leaned on the bell, but nothing happened it was dead. So I pounded on the door instead. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

The room with the bay window was stripped bare, nothing left but dusty rectangles where pictures once hung.

Alice stood so close she was pressed against me. Shouldn t we call Dickie and the team? I mean we know it s him, we should get a SWAT team down here or something

You any idea how long it ll take to get a firearms team authorized and organized? I hammered on the door again. He s been in there all day, with Katie BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

Well, I could phone anyway and they can back us up and

The door opened a crack and a single eye peered out. Frank McKenzie, face shiny with sweat, breathless as if he d been running. Go away. Go away, or I ll call the police.

Open the door.

I ve got nothing to say to you. This is harassment.

OK, OK. I held my hand up, backed away a step And lunged. My shoulder slammed into the wood and the door crashed open. I couldn t stop: my right foot wouldn t take my weight, bloody thing gave way and I thumped full-length on the hall carpet, sending up a cloud of dust. It was empty like the front room the only light coming from the open front door, making everything dark and grey.

McKenzie was flat on his back, hairy arms covering his head, legs flailing.

I hauled myself up. It wasn t Mrs Kerrigan, was it? You wrecked my house looking for this

He stared at the SD card in my hand. It I Scrambled to his feet. And he was off, running down the hall.

I limped after him, the cane thumping against the dusty carpet, the gun cold and heavy in my hand.

Alice barged past, going at full tilt, black hair streaming out behind her, red Hi-tops flashing in the gloom. Come back here!

McKenzie battered through the door at the end of the hall a glimpse of an old-fashioned kitchen and then out the back into the garden with Alice closing the gap.

Halfway down the hall I froze

Muffled screams came from behind one of the doors.

Katie.

It opened on a windowless corridor, the bare floorboards disappearing into darkness. A cord, hung from the ceiling I pulled it and an overhead strip-light blinked and flickered into life. The corridor took a right turn about four or five feet in, heading towards the back of the house. I limped up to the corner: another short length of corridor with a door at the far end.

Locked.

More screaming.

I braced myself against the wall, taking as much weight as I could on the walking stick, and kicked out with my left. Twice. Three times. On the fourth go the lock ripped its way free of the surround, and the door jerked open. The stench of rancid meat slithered out into the corridor.

Six stone steps led down to a large dirt-floored room, the walls covered with pink rockwool insulation. Not a basement at all, some sort of outbuilding. It was divided into small rooms by plasterboard-and-stud partitions that didn t go all the way up to the ceiling like the set of some twisted horror film. It was colder in here than outside; my breath fogged in front of my face.

I shoved my way into the middle room: where the screaming was coming from.

Megan Taylor froze. She was strapped into a wooden chair, legs fastened at the ankle with cable-ties, arms behind her back. Her eyes went wide, then the screaming got even louder.

It s OK: police. I m the police. I stuck the gun back in my waistband and limped over. Then stopped, turned, and looked back towards the door I d just come through. Oh shite

Megan wasn t the only one in here. A digital camera sat on a tripod, but behind that was another girl, tied to another chair. Blood covered every inch of skin where there was skin. Naked, head shaved, throat open in a thick dark slash.

My stomach churned.

It wasn t Katie. It was the girl in the photographs the ones on the SD card. What looked like an old kitchen table was against the other wall, its wooden surface laid out with knives and hammers and chunks of flesh.

Jesus

I backed up, knocked over the tripod. The camera crashed to the ground.

She d been here at least a week.

Behind me, Megan kept on screaming.

Alice. Shit Alice was chasing him on her own. I turned and yanked at the cable-ties holding Megan to the chair. Solid. I took one of the serrated knives from the table and hacked through the plastic. Dropped the knife at my feet. You re OK, it s over.

Megan tipped out of the chair and fell to the dirt floor, grabbed the knife, and scrambled back into the corner, holding the blade in both trembling hands, pointing it at my face.

I m not going to For fuck s sake, I don t have time for this shite! I backed out of the room, tried the one next door empty, except for the stains on the floor. The third one was the same.

Listen to me, Megan: I have to go. Someone s going to come for you, OK? I backed up the stairs and into the corridor. Try not to kill them.

I shoved through the back door into the garden. The pale looping bones of a giant honeysuckle loomed in the growing darkness. The garden wall was eight feet tall, red brick, with a gate at the bottom. A private entrance into Cameron Park. It hung open.

The wet grass grabbed at the walking stick as I lurched through into the park. Everything was jagged shadows and indistinct shapes in the gloom. I stopped No idea which way to go.

Shouts came from somewhere to the left. Hoy, you: come back here!

I limped past a copse of trees and there was one of the SOC marquees, glowing like a carnival, a cluster of white-suited techs standing around the entrance, a couple running off deeper into the park bobbing white shapes against the dark.

By the time I reached the tent, the crowd had thinned a bit

Alice was sitting on the grass, holding a hand to her head, someone on their knees beside her, stroking her back.

Where is he?

Alice looked up at me. One of her eyes was already starting to swell, the side of her mouth too a line of blood trickling down from a split bottom lip. I tried

The Scenes Examination Branch tech helped her to her feet, then ripped off his facemask revealing a huge moustache. Who the hell was that?

I pointed back the way I d come. House over there: gate s open. Megan Taylor s inside

The SEB tech stared at me.

Why are you still here? Go take care of her, you idiot! Call an ambulance, backup, preserve the scene. And watch out: she s got a knife. I hauled Alice to her feet.

Come on.

I turned to hobble after the two SEB techs chasing Frank McKenzie, but she wrenched her hand free and sprinted towards a mud-spattered SOC Transit van instead. Pulled open the driver s door and climbed in behind the wheel. The headlights snapped on, then the engine roared into life, the front wheels spinning. Mud and grass spattered up the sides of the cab. The wheels caught and the van slithered forwards onto the path, pulled up beside me and stopped. The window buzzed open. Get in.

I clambered into the passenger seat and she put her foot down.

The Transit van surged forwards, then lurched off the path onto the grass again, bucking and slithering through the bumps.

Up ahead, one of the SEB tripped and went sprawling, but the other one kept going, his SOC suit glowing in the van s headlights.

We crashed through a knot of brambles and out the other side.

The park s boundary wall loomed into view. In the middle distance, the twin chimneys for Castle Hill Infirmary s incinerator reached towards the heavy sky, warning lights twinkled at their tips turning the billowing steam to boiling blood.

The SEB figure slowed to a trot, then a walk, then stopped bent double with his hands on his knees, back heaving as we roared past. The headlights caught someone up ahead, running, hairy arms pumping. Frank McKenzie.

He ducked through one of the park s arched entrances, and Alice swung the van after him. Closer. Closer.

Oh, shite We were never going to fit. Not in a Transit van. I clutched at the grab handle above the door.

She didn t slow down. The brick arch exploded above my head as we smashed through. BANG, and the windscreen was an opaque mass of cracks. The van s bodywork squealed, sparks flying in the gloom.

Alice stamped on the brakes and the Transit screeched to a halt in the middle of the road. Bastard!

I tore off my seatbelt, dragged my left leg up, and kicked. The shattered windscreen buckled. Another two kicks and it was clear, crashing down onto the road. Only one of the headlights was still working, peering myopically into the darkness.

Alice jabbed a finger through the hole where the windscreen used to be. There!

A screech of tyres and we jerked forwards. I fumbled my seatbelt back into its buckle.

McKenzie was heading for the hospital.

Run the bastard down!

Alice almost had him, but he leapt over a short retaining wall and legged it across the grass towards the west wing of Castle Hill Infirmary. She swung the van around at the junction, taking the road marked MATERNITY WARD, EYE HOSPITAL, OUT PATIENTS, RADIOLOGY. Only halfway down she swung right, mounted the kerb and bounced onto the grass, making a straight line for McKenzie s back as he shoulder-charged his way through an emergency exit into the building.