Birthdays for the dead

Chapter 8

I pulled the curtain back. Feeling any better?

Dr McDonald perched on the edge of a hospital gurney, her left eye partially closed, a square of white wadding taped to her forehead and cheek. No.

Doctor says it could ve been a lot worse. Just superficial really.

She scowled at me. It s sore.

I offered you painkillers.

I m not taking pills from a man I barely know, I mean they could be anything: roofies, GHB, Rohypnol, Ketamine

Roofies and Rohypnol are the same thing. And trust me: you re not my type.

Her bottom lip protruded a little, then she sniffed and hopped down from the gurney. The body deposition sites were stupid, I don t mean the park: the park isn t stupid, but burying a dead body there is. Only a set number of people have easy access, and what if someone looks out of their window and sees you with your shovel and a big black-plastic bundle. Who s Jennifer?

None of your sodding business, that s who.

I dropped my vending-machine coffee in the bin. Far as we can tell, Cameron Park s been a wilderness for the last twelve years. Council cut the maintenance budget, told the residents it was their responsibility, so it all went feral. The sounds of an afternoon in A amp;E echoed through the corridors muffled swearing, a young man sobbing, some drunken singing. Door-to-doors spoke to an old biddie been living there for sixty years. She says people dump their garden waste in the park all the time.

Well, that s not very public spirited of them Dr McDonald frowned down at the floor. A series of lines were painted on the cracked linoleum: yellow, blue, red, purple, white, and black. She placed one foot on the black line, then the other, both arms held out sideways as if she was walking on a tightrope. Teetering along.

I pointed in the opposite direction. Exit s that way.

She kept going. This goes to the morgue, doesn t it?

No, it goes to the mortuary. You watch too much American TV.

Sounds a lot more genteel, doesn t it: mortuary, a morgue is full of serial-killer victims, a mortuary is somewhere you go to see Great Aunty Morag who s passed away at the ripe old age of ninety-two.

You re still going the wrong way.

Follow the little black line. She grabbed my arm and gave a skip. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

Around the corner and deeper into the hospital. The paintwork was cracked and grubby, the gurney bumpers scuffed and dented, the floor patched with strips of silver duct tape. Paintings broke up the magnolia monotony, landscapes and portraits mostly, all done by school children.

Dr McDonald didn t even look at them. Detective Chief Inspector Veeeber that s German, isn t it, but shouldn t the pronunciation be Veber, or Veyber, I mean I m sure he knows how to pronounce his own name, but

Weber will let Smith get comfortable saying Veeber for a couple of weeks, then change the pronunciation on him. Give him a hard time for getting it wrong, and go right back to the start. I smiled. I ve seen Weber keep it up for months. Be surprised how quickly little things like that can break somebody.

She shrugged. Seems a bit cruel

Serves him right: he s a prick.

We walked along in silence for a while, enjoying the twin reeks of disinfectant and stewed cauliflower.

Dr McDonald stopped. There s something significant about the deposition site not only where it is but the nature of the burials themselves. I mean did you see Lauren Burges s body? He didn t even bother to put her head back in the right place, just wrapped the whole lot up, dragged it out to the middle of the park and dumped it in a shallow grave.

A voice behind us: Beep, beep!

We flattened to the wall, and a hospital bed trundled past, pushed by a balding porter with a squint smile. A pair of chunky nurses brought up the rear, gossiping about some doctor caught taking a female patient s temperature the naughty way. The guy in the bed looked as if he d been hollowed out, leaving waxy skin draped over a framework of brittle bones, wheezing into an oxygen mask.

Don t you think that s strange? As soon as they were past, Dr McDonald hopped back onto the black line. I d expect someone like the Birthday Boy would want to keep them as trophies, Fred and Rosemary West only started burying their victims in the garden when they ran out of room in the house, they wanted to keep them near, but the Birthday Boy dumps them like a wheelbarrow full of lawn clippings.

Well, maybe he s My phone rang. I dug the thing out and checked the display: MICHELLE. Arseholes I grimaced at Dr McDonald. I ll catch up.

She shrugged and wobbled away, through a set of double doors, still following the black line.

I hit the button. Michelle.

Twice in one day.

Lucky me.

I saw you on the news. Her voice was even more clipped than usual. I thought Susanne was a blonde, have you traded her in for someone younger already? Is this one a stripper too?

I told you: Susanne isn t a stripper, she s a dancer.

She dances round a pole: it s the same thing.

Bye, Michelle.

But before I could hang up: We need to talk about Katie.

Oh God. What s she done now?

Why do you always have to think the worst?

Because you only ever call when you want someone to read her the riot act.

A grey-haired woman in a flowery nightie shuffled down the corridor, wheeling a drip-on-a-stand along beside her.

That s not A pause about long enough for someone to count to ten and when Michelle came back, her voice was groaning with forced cheer. So, how are you settling in?

The old dear scuffed past, glowering at me. You re no allowed on your mobile phone!

Police business.

She flipped me the Vs, then wandered off. No supposed to be on your phone in a hospital

Ash? I said how

It s been three years, Michelle: think it s maybe time to stop asking?

I was only

It s a shitty little council house in Kingsmeath: the drains stink; someone keeps flicking dog shit into my back garden, which is a jungle, by the way; and that useless bastard Parker is still crashing on my couch. I m settling in just great.

Silence from the other end of the phone.

Typical. She started it, but I was the one who ended up in trouble. Sorry, it s Didn t mean to snap. I cleared my throat. How s your dad?

I thought we weren t going to do this any more.

I said, I m sorry, OK? Every damn time.

So, Katie: can I speak to her?

It s twenty to four on a Monday afternoon: what do you think?

Don t tell me she s

Yes, she s at school.

Who died?

She wants to go to France for a month.

Frown. What?

I said she wants

How can she go to France for a month? I took two steps across the corridor, turned, and paced back the other way, the phone clenched in my fist. What about school? She s barely there as it is! For God s sake, Michelle, why do I always have to be the bad cop? Why can t

It s the school doing it: an exchange thing staying with a French family in Toulouse. They think it ll be good for her. Help her focus. And the clipped voice was back. I thought you d be more supportive.

They want to pack her off for a month, where we can t keep an eye on her, and you re OK with this?

I A sigh. We ve tried everything else, Ash. You know what she s like.

I ground my fingertips into gritty eyes. It didn t really help. She s not a bad kid, Michelle.

Oh for God s sake: grow up, Ash. She s not your sweet little girl any more. Not since Rebecca abandoned us.

Because that s when everything went wrong.

I pushed through a set of double doors, into a quiet corridor. Dr McDonald stood at the far end, leaning on a radiator and staring out of the window. Outside, two wings of Castle Hill Infirmary formed a six-storey canyon of dirty concrete. The sky was a violent splash of blood and fire, low clouds catching the light of the dying sun. But Dr McDonald wasn t looking up, she was looking down, into the darkness.

She pressed the fingertips of her left hand against the wadding on her face. Did you know that Oldcastle has one of the highest instances of mental health problems in the whole UK, even more than London well, on a percentage basis. Fifteen confirmed serial killers in the last thirty years. Fifteen, and that s just the ones we ve heard of. A lot of people blame inbreeding, but it s probably because of the chlorine factories, I mean inbreeding isn t rampant here, is it?

She d obviously never been to Kingsmeath. I ll introduce you to Shifty Dave Morrow, if you like. He s got webbed toes.

Do you remember anything odd about the books Helen McMillan had in her bedroom?

Harry Potter, vampire love stories, stuff like that? Katie s got Stephen King and Dean Koontz and Clive Barker, so my idea of what s normal for a twelve-year-old might be a bit off.

Kind of ironic, don t you think, I mean there s Oldcastle churning out all that chlorine gas to help with the war effort: everyone thinks they re helping win World War One and all the time the factories are dumping tons of mercury into the environment, guaranteeing generations and generations of mental illness She stood on her tiptoes, cupped her hands against the glass, and stuck her head in the makeshift porthole.

I joined her, peering down into the depths.

A pair of headlights swept the road at the bottom of the concrete canyon, followed by a silver Mercedes van. The words, McCrae And McCrae, Funeral Services were printed along the side. It slowed to a crawl below the window, then disappeared down a ramp into the hospital basement.

Dr McDonald shifted her feet, Hi-Tops squeaking on the linoleum.

Is that her, do you think: Lauren Burges?

I checked my watch. Might be. Assuming Matt got her out of the ground before the forensic archaeologist returned from lunch.

By 1916 Oldcastle was producing more chlorine than anywhere else in Europe, and now there isn t a single factory left. She backed away from the window. When will they do the autopsy?

Post mortem. Not autopsy.

She started to sing: a little girly voice, not much more than a whisper.

I say morgue, you say mor-tu-ary.

You say post mortem, I say au-topsy

She backed away from the window and followed the black line to where it disappeared under the dented metal doors of a lift. A sign next to it was marked, AUTHORISED PERSONNEL

ONLY, NO PATIENTS OR VISITORS.

Tomorrow morning. Professor Twining always starts at nine, on the dot.

Dr McDonald prodded at the wadding on her head again. You know there s probably enough mercury left in the soil around here to keep driving people loopy right into the next millennium?

Look on the bright side, I turned and walked back towards the exit, at least you and I will never be out of a job.

Thanks. Dr McDonald clunked the car door closed, then turned and limped across the gravel driveway to a house that had to be worth millions. Like everything else on Fletcher Road it was a big Victorian home, complete with turrets, set in a large garden and shut off from the outside world behind eight-foot-high walls.

Strings of white lights glowed in the naked branches of ancient oak trees this wasn t the kind of neighbourhood where you put up neon reindeer and inflatable Santas.

I popped open the Renault s hatchback and hauled out her luggage two bright-red suitcases, one huge, one medium-sized. Their wheels dragged and growled through the damp gravel, resisting all the way.

A woman was standing under the portico, mid-to-late-forties, bathed in the light from a pair of carriage lanterns. Her bobbed blonde hair was jelled into spikes on one side, but not on the other; a diamond stud glinted in her nose; ripped blue jeans and a leather waistcoat no shirt. As if she was auditioning for a heavy metal video. She d gone the whole hog and got tattoos to go with the outfit some sort of floral thing poking out over one shoulder; swallow on one foot, anchor on the other.

She flicked the ash off her cigarette and sipped clear liquid from a crystal tumbler full of ice. Didn t sound local, more like something off The Archers: All right, Alice love? She opened her arms and gave Dr McDonald a hug, then stepped back and frowned. Here, what have you done to your head? Is it sore? Looks sore. You come inside and get yourself a drink. Got a nice bottle o Belvedere in the freezer and some tonic.

An elderly Jack Russell wheezed out through the open front door, and Dr McDonald beamed. Where s Uncle Phil?

Taking Ellie and Colin to see that boy band, Mr Bones, in Glasgow. Still no accounting for taste I suppose. She took another puff, stared at me through a cloud of smoke for a moment, then back to Dr McDonald: He the knobber smacked you one? Want me to set the dogs on him?

Don t be silly. Jessie would have his throat out. She smiled down at the geriatric terrier. Wouldn t you, Jessie?

The dog didn t really sit, it was more like its back end collapsed puff, pant, tongue lolling out the side of its mouth.

Dr McDonald swept a hand out towards me, as if she was introducing a magic trick. Aunty Jan, this is Detective Constable Ash Henderson. Aunty Jan s a vet.

Aunty Jan sniffed. You her bit of rough then? Kinda old for our Alice, aren t you?

Cheeky cow.

Dr McDonald s assisting us on a case.

Hmm Another stare, this one accompanied by a swig of whatever was in the glass. Then she stuck out her hand.

Janice Russell. We re getting a Chinese for tea; bet you re partial to a bit of chicken chow mein, big lad like you.

And pass up the chance to get the hell away from Dr McFruitLoop?

I pulled on a pained smile. I d love to, but I ve got a ton of paperwork to catch up on.

And more importantly: an appointment with a lap-dancing bar.