The Coffinmaker’s Garden

34

‘... afraid you’re right, Jane. We’ve barely caught our breath from Storm Trevor and here comes Storm Victoria...’

‘Gah!’ Fumbling for the alarm-clock radio, mashing the button to make the idiots shut the hell up.

‘... have to batten down the hatches for the next three, maybe four days as this area of low pressure—’

Blessed silence.

And then the real pressure kicked in — as if someone had jammed a bicycle pump into my sinuses and was ramming the piston home with every beat of my heart. Mouth, sandpaper dry. That’s what happened when you couldn’t breathe through your nose.

Probably didn’t help that I’d packed it full of cotton wool to stop the bleeding.

And still the world stank of burning bees.

Getting back to sleep wasn’t going to be an option, was it? At least not without a shedload of painkillers and a big glass of water.

I struggled out of bed, ribs screaming like a slaughterhouse, grimaced and winced my way into the tartan dressing gown hanging on the back of the door, and hobbled into the corridor.

Clicking the lights on sent frozen daggers stabbing through my retinas, so I switched them off again. Limped through the gloom.

No sign of Henry in the living room. Probably curled up at the foot of Alice’s bed.

Which was good, because no way in hell could I face any sort of enthusiasm this early in the morning. 06:25 according to the microwave clock.

Two amitriptyline got washed down with a glug of water, followed by a tramadol for good measure.

Getting old, Ash. Used to be a time you’d shake something like this off, and be up and doing the next day ready for anything. But now?

Two punches and a head-butt, and it was as if I’d been run over by a tank.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city was a shroud of faded streetlights, draped over the valley’s corpse. But the glass was cool against my forehead.

Question was, what was I going to do about it?

How about arranging a small accident for Jennifer Prentice? The kind that ended up with her missing a limb or two... Or was that OTT? Didn’t feel like it, going by the rusty sawblades hacking their way through my head and ribs, right now. Something had to happen, though: she wasn’t getting away with it.

And she wasn’t the only one.

No prizes for guessing how Joseph and Francis had found me — that would be PC MacAskill / McAllister. Sitting there fiddling with his phone. Texting them to say I was in the Tartan Bunnet Café. ‘COME GET HIM! LOL! XXX!’ And probably some sort of thumbs-up emoji. Hanging about in the café, till they turned up to take over.

And if he was taking money from ‘J&F ~ FREELANCE CONSULTANTS’ chances were he was doing favours for other scumbags too. Have to add him to the list.

My phone was where I’d left it: plugged into the wall, recharging. When I picked the thing up, the screen came to life, displaying the icon that meant a text message had come in while I’d been asleep / unconscious.

More than one message, as it turned out.

LEAH MACNEIL:

LEAH MACNEIL:

LEAH MACNEIL:

LEAH MACNEIL:

The texts had been sent over the space of fifteen minutes, at around three o’clock this morning. Should’ve been plenty of time for RoboSabir to track down where Leah’s texts were coming from. So why wasn’t there a single message from the damn thing giving me coordinates?

Well, don’t see why I should be the only one awake and worrying about it.

I called Sabir.

He answered on the second ring. ‘Not youse again! I’m werking on it, OK? Jesus. Hold on.’ Then the clickity rattle of a keyboard getting punished. ‘There.’

My phone ding-buzzed in my hand. An email, from Sabir, with three names and locations in it:

‘What the hell is this?’

‘What do you think it is? It’s three of yer unknown victims, all right? Thank you, Sabir, well done you true and trusty IT demigod. Have you got any idea how much digging I had to do to get them for ye?’

‘OK, OK. Thank you, Sabir. Now, can you please tell me why your stupid half-arsed phone trace thing doesn’t work any more? Leah MacNeil sent me a bunch of texts at three this morning and I’ve had no notifications about her location at all!’

‘Oh, for the love of Anfield... Hold on.’ More keyboard noises. ‘According to this, her phone’s sitting in your bloody Divisional Headquarters.’

Her phone was what?

I scrunched my eyes shut, making the stabbing pain behind them even worse. ‘That’s her old phone. It’s supposed to be tracing her new one!’

‘Well, how am I meant to know that? You buncha knobs never tell us anything, I’m not Fox Mulder here, Ash, you do have to actually tell us stuff!’

The window boinged as I thumped my forehead off it. ‘DC Watt got a new warrant.’

‘Good for DC Watt. But I’m still not feckin’ psychic.’

‘All right, all right, sorry. I’ll text you the number.’

‘Jesus, it’s like amateur hour at the clown college.’

‘Thanks, Sabir, I really...’ Silence from the other end: he’d hung up. ‘Appreciate it.’

At least the tramadol had started to kick in, that nice warm feeling dampening down the burning ache. Enough to try going back to bed, anyway.

The phone’s anonymous ringtone dragged me from one of those bad dreams that wasn’t so much scary as crushingly depressing. Any last wisps of it were battered into oblivion as the thumping headache started up again.

I fumbled my phone from the bedside table. Lay back with the other hand cupped over my throbbing eyes. ‘What?’

‘Ash? It’s Rosalind. I’m downstairs. Are we going to morning prayers or not?’

Oh, for God’s sake...

‘Thought we agreed on a lie-in?’

‘Are you OK? You sound all bunged up.’

Suppose there was no point fighting it.

‘Give me ten minutes.’

‘Rough night?’ The smile was loud and clear in her voice.

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

By the time I’d made it into some clothes, an old pair of trainers, and through to the living room, Alice was sitting on the couch, knees up to her chest, staring at the TV, thick black bags under her eyes.

‘... continues for missing five-year-old, Toby Macmillan. DI David Morrow says it’s too early to give up hope yet.’ And the screen cut to Shifty, in his best suit, standing in front of DHQ, caught in the flickering light of what had to be at least two dozen camera flashguns. Eyepatch giving him a slightly rakish air.

Putting on his serious voice: ‘We know Toby Macmillan is out there, and we will find him.’

Sooner or later.

And we knew from the first three victims what ‘later’ would look like.

I kissed Alice on top of the head, which was a stupid idea, because bending forward made my brain inflate like a balloon — slamming against the inside of my skull. ‘Ow...’

She looked up at me, grimaced. ‘You look terrible!’

Staying perfectly still till the room stopped lurching. ‘I have to go, Franklin’s outside.’

‘... vitally important anyone with information that might lead to us finding Toby Macmillan comes forward as soon as possible...’

‘You should be in bed.’ Rising up from the couch. ‘Don’t go. Call in sick. You are sick!’ Pointing at our reflections in the windows. ‘Look at yourself.’

‘No.’ Didn’t need to — I’d seen it in the bathroom mirror: the lines of sticking plaster across my nose, the cotton wadding jammed up both nostrils to keep it from setting even squinter than it already was. The map of blues, greens, and purples that covered my face from eyebrows to cheeks like a mask. Never mind that my ribs were one big bruise, all down the right-hand side. I winced my way into my jacket. ‘What are you up to today?’

‘Ash, please.’

‘Look, I’m going to morning prayers, and I’m going to try catching Gordon Smith before he kills Leah MacNeil. Poor cow’s convinced she’s already dead. How do I turn my back on that?’

Alice sagged. ‘Fine. I’m... I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go talk to some of the people Bear thinks aren’t worth interviewing. Maybe I’ll...’ A thin trembling groan wobbled its way out between her lips, then she curled forward, cradling her forehead. ‘Ash, I can’t stop thinking of what they did to Shifty. Every time I close my eyes, I see it...’

The man himself disappeared from the screen, replaced by the newsreader again.

‘Sport now, and the Scottish Premier League doping scandal has claimed another three clubs—’

I killed the TV. ‘Look, I’m sorry about last night. You shouldn’t have had to... I’m going to take care of it. I promise.’ Gave her a hug. ‘Still thinking about retiring?’

‘Actually,’ she let her head fall onto my shoulder, ‘I’ve been thinking about Gordon Smith.’

‘Because maybe going off and doing something else wouldn’t be a bad idea?’

‘The boy he killed in Stirling. I think he left the body in that warehouse because he didn’t have access to his usual disposal methods. Couldn’t bury him somewhere private. Somewhere... intimate. Couldn’t start a new collection.’

‘We could get ourselves a wee hotel on the west coast, with a cosy bar and a view of the sea.’ Or we could if I took Helen MacNeil’s two million.

‘What worries me is that he couldn’t wait. If he’d waited till he was somewhere he could safely kill and dispose of the body, we’d never have found out, would we? Everyone would’ve thought David Quinn had disappeared.’

‘Would you like that? Just you, me, and Henry? No more murderers and thugs and dead bodies.’

Alice gave my ribs a squeeze, sending icy knives slicing through the muscles. But the tramadol blunted their blades a bit. ‘I’d like that very, very, very much indeed.’ She huffed out a breath, then rested her head against my shoulder. ‘Gordon Smith’s been murdering people without a single slip-up for fifty-six years — we only discovered what he’s been up to because his garden fell into the sea. He knows he doesn’t have to hide it any more. Time’s running out, we’ll catch him eventually, so why not go out with a bang?’

God, that was comforting. ‘Maybe you’re the one who should stay home? Get some proper sleep instead of passing out after too much booze?’

‘He’s escalating.’

‘I know.’ I kissed her on the head again. And this time my brain didn’t quite feel as if it was about to burst out through my shattered skull. ‘Stay here. Keep Henry company.’

‘You’ve got Leah MacNeil to save, I’ve got Toby Macmillan.’ Another deep breath. ‘Anyway: better get going, that pretty DS will be waiting for you.’

‘Ten minutes, my arse. I’ve been waiting here for...’ Franklin stared, mouth hanging open, as I grimaced my way into the passenger seat. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

The streetlight’s jaundiced glow probably wasn’t helping any. ‘Henry’s spending the day with Alice.’

‘No, seriously, you look like someone threw you off the top of a tower block!’

Felt like it too.

‘Are we going or not?’

She shook her head. ‘What kind of person beats up an old man with a walking stick?’

An old man? I slumped back in my seat. Oh, today had got off to a flying start. ‘Just... drive.’

35

Mother stared at me in much the same way Franklin had. ‘No.’

‘What do you mean—’

‘I mean no! “N”, “O”, spells “no”.’ She pulled her chin up and in, eyebrows raised. ‘Bad enough you look more like a violent criminal than a police officer at the best of times, but now? There’s not a chance in hell I’m letting you loose on the public like that.’

The front room she’d commandeered to run the investigation had earned itself five or six more desks since Sunday morning, complete with cheap office chairs. The mildewed wallpaper almost completely hidden behind a plethora of printouts, maps, and actions. Including a brand-new section devoted to what was left of David Quinn. It was a safe bet that the team had grown too, but right now, it was only the three of us in here: Mother, Franklin, and me. So at least someone was out there getting on with catching Gordon Smith.

‘We’re supposed to be—’

‘How many different ways do I have to say this? No. Nein. Not in this life or the next.’ She folded her arms beneath her bosom and hiked it up about six inches. ‘And Rosalind, what were you thinking? You were meant to be in charge!’

Franklin shrugged. ‘Not my fault. He was like that when I picked him up this morning.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. This is—’

‘Well you should’ve thought of that before you did whatever it was you did to end up looking like Mr Blobby’s punchbag. And you’re hereby banned from taking a public-facing role till you stop looking like it. End — of — argument.’ She pointed at a subset of actions, pinned up on their own as if they’d got something infectious. ‘You can pick a task off the background-work list, and like it.’

Bloody hell.

‘Sorry.’ Franklin shrugged. ‘I’d fight your corner, but you don’t have Henry with you, so...’ And with that she swept out of the room.

‘I bought you a sausage and a go on the carousel!’ But the door closed without an answer.

Mother was staring at me again.

‘What?’

‘I really hope that wasn’t a euphemism...’

I limped over to the crap-jobs list. A bunch of them involved grubbing about in the Oldcastle Police archives, so no thank you. I’d been down there often enough and the entire system was a shambles. Another was chasing up every cast member who’d ever done a pantomime with a set designed by Gordon Smith — which I’m fairly certain was supposed to be DC Watt’s job. Another couple would mean spending the day chasing up other forces and lab results. And last but not least: ‘CHECK ON PETER SMITH’S FARM ~ BLACK ISLE (LEEAZE N DIVISION).’

What on earth did, ‘Leeaze’ mean?

And then it dawned — Watt’s spelling really was atrocious.

I ripped the sheet of paper from its thumbtacks, folded it, and stuck it in my pocket. Then turned to Mother. ‘OK, make-work it is. But I’ll need a pool car.’

It wasn’t a bad car. And at least it was an automatic. But the Misfit Mob’s ancient Ford Mondeo had the same funky smell that all pool cars got after a few years. The upholstery absorbing the kebab, burger, fish-and-chips, KFC, coffee, and BO of so many thousand hours of stakeouts and general wear — the rubbish and discarded wrappers only shovelled out when it officially constituted a public health hazard, or no one could see out the windscreen any more. The carpet mats were stickier than the Monk and Casket’s floorboards.

Alice’s voice crackled out through the car’s speakers. ‘Wait, you’re going where?’

‘Well, I didn’t have any choice, did I? It was this or sit on the phone all day, talking to morons.’

‘You could’ve stayed at home!’

‘So could you.’

‘Urgh...’

I took the turning for Tomintoul, abandoning the throbbing highway that was the A93 for the even more backwater A939 — according to the road sign, anyway. Scenery wasn’t bad. Nothing special, but there were hills and fields and trees and things, glowing in the morning light. A big green tractor thundered along the road ahead of me, great gobbets of mud flying from its oversized wheels. Might as well live dangerously...

Put my foot down as hard as its bullet hole would allow, and eased out onto the other side of the road.

‘Ash, are you driving? Are you talking to me on your phone and driving?’

‘Relax, bought one of those cheap hands-free kits from Tesco on the way out of town. Got about another two hours to go and the radio’s broken. Only entertainment I have is talking to you and trying to lose my tail.’

Past the tractor, back in again.

Clusters of long-dead ragwort peppered the fields to either side of the road, poisonous dark heads rattling atop poisonous grey stems.

‘You still there? Hello?’

Her voice was up nearly an octave, the words fast and shrill as a dentist’s drill: ‘Who’s following you? Is it them? Is it Joseph and Francis? Oh my God, they’re going to kill you! You have to lose them, Ash, you have to—’

‘Relax: it’s not them. Deep breaths. Calm.’ A quick glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed that the rusty blue Renault was still there, overtaking the tractor now. ‘It’s Helen MacNeil. So even if the pair of them did show up, they’d be the ones needing help.’

‘Oh.’

‘What about you? Anything exciting happening?’

‘Not really. Been speaking to Andrew Brennan’s mum’s social worker. Thought maybe there’d be a connection buried somewhere. Gòrach’s not been in trouble with the police, but he’s got to have had problems in childhood, you don’t wake up one morning and decide you’re going to start strangling small children, that kind of thing takes years, decades to work up to. And he’s got to be local too, otherwise he wouldn’t have seen Andrew playing under the railway line.’

‘So no joy.’

‘Not yet, but I’ve made a list. I’m positive someone knows something, they just don’t know that they know it. But maybe I’ll be able to draw it out of them? And we’ll find Toby Macmillan before Gòrach kills him and everyone will be happy and no one will have to die and I’ll not feel like such a useless failure.’

Not this again. ‘You aren’t a failure! You’ve put loads and loads of monsters behind bars, saved countless lives because of it.’

‘I couldn’t even last two nights sober, Ash.’

True. ‘You had a nasty shock last night, that’s all. Stop bashing yourself in the head with a mallet the whole time.’

The trees on either side of the road were sticks and bones, naked of leaves. More ragwort, standing guard along the banks of a swollen grey river.

Still nothing back from Alice.

‘Have another night off the booze tonight. Maybe see if you can last till Friday?’

‘I... I like the idea of running a hotel on the west coast. With a nice view. We could do writing and painting retreats and cookery courses and wine tasting, well maybe not wine tasting, and I could learn to bake bread and we’d be happy and away from all this... shite.’

There was Helen’s fusty blue Renault in the rear-view mirror again.

‘You’re sure that’s what you want?’

‘It has to be better than this, doesn’t it?’

Two million pounds.

‘OK. If you’re positive. That’s what we’ll do.’

‘We could call it Henry’s Hotel, and the sign would be a Scottie dog that looked exactly like him and we’d let people bring their pets when they visit!’

All I had to do was catch Gordon Smith, and let Helen MacNeil kill him.

A smear of snow coated the hills on either side of the Lecht, not enough to make the ski slopes useable, but Storm Victoria would probably take care of that.

I pulled off the road and onto the gravel parking area. Clambered out into the blustery morning and the whomp-whomp-whomp of the resident wind turbine. Held a hand up as Helen MacNeil’s rusty Renault puttered into view. Don’t think it enjoyed the long twisting slog up the hill as much my manky Mondeo had.

She frowned through the windscreen, then parked next to me. Stepped out, shoulders back, chin up, as if expecting a fight. Old denim jacket on over a Cannibal Death Ray T-shirt. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Nice to see you too.’ Stuck my hands in my pockets. Turned to face the hills, with their lines of pylons marching off into the distance — the chairlift’s hanging seats swaying as the wind howled down the hill. ‘Used to come here when I was a kid. My dad thought everyone should know how to ski.’

‘You’re going north.’

‘There’s this old cine footage of us, in our really horrible brightly coloured ski suit things. Green and orange and white. Must’ve looked like a right bunch of numpties.’

‘Has someone spotted him?’

‘Snowploughing down that teeny Robin run, squealing with excitement.’

Helen narrowed her eyes. ‘Where’s your copper friend, the young black one with the big boobs?’

‘Oh, to be a wee kid again...’

‘Answer the bloody question! What — are — you — doing — here?’

The Mondeo’s roof was cold beneath my shirt sleeves. ‘I’m not allowed to go out and do official police things, today. Apparently I’d scare the natives, what with all the bruises. So I’m off to search Gordon Smith’s brother’s farm.’

‘We should be rattling people’s teeth! Some bastard knows where he is.’

‘Course, N Division have already searched it, but if there’s one thing I learned from all my years on the force: never trust a police officer you can’t look in the eye or kick in the arse.’

She banged her fist down on the car’s roof. ‘You’re not helping!’

A pair of ravens scudded sideways across the car park, wings shuddering with the effort of holding on. A minibus grumbled up to the ski resort lodge, a gaggle of schoolgirls avalanching out of the doors soon as it came to a halt. Shouts and laughter whipped away by the wind.

‘This security van full of cash, art, and jewellery: how easy is it to get to? Assuming someone had to make themselves scarce before the police started sniffing around. Hypothetically speaking.’

Helen turned and leaned back against the Mondeo. ‘So you are interested.’

‘Let’s pretend I am. How easy is this stuff going to be to shift?’

‘The thing about prison is you get to meet a lot of people who’re up to their ears in dodgy stuff. And it’s quality stuff.’

The squealing horde battered into the lodge, out of the wind, leaving a ragged man in a corduroy jacket to lock up and follow them in. Leather patches on his elbows, so I’m guessing geography teacher.

‘Cash has to be clean. Nothing sketchy or traceable.’

‘Do I look like an amateur to you?’

‘And in case you’re in any way unclear on this: I’m not the forgiving kind when it comes to being screwed over.’

She leaned in closer. ‘Neither am I.’

Fair enough.

Helen plipped the locks on her Renault, then marched around the Mondeo and got into the passenger seat.

I opened the driver’s door and stuck my head in. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She hauled on her seatbelt. ‘Why follow you all the way to the Black Isle, in my own car, when Police Scotland’s paying for your petrol?’

Great. A passenger.

I climbed in behind the wheel. ‘Radio doesn’t work.’

Helen reached into her jacket and pulled out a business card. ‘Got you a souvenir from last night.’

‘J&F ~ FREELANCE CONSULTANTS.’ The bottom half of the card was stained with dark brown smears. Could’ve been Francis’s blood, but it was probably mine.

‘Why the hell would I want that.’ Tossing it back to her.

She dipped into her jacket again, only this time it was Joseph’s cutthroat razor that appeared. ‘Thought you might want to give that mobile number a call.’ A flick of the wrist and the blade clacked out of the handle, shining and sharp. ‘You could set up a meeting. And make sure neither of them survives it.’

Can’t say it wasn’t tempting...

Sunshine washed across the patchwork of grey and brown on both sides of the single-track road, a sliver of the Cromarty Firth sparkling between the fields and the next set of hills. Land rising on the right of the car, speckled with more dead ragwort, and falling away on the left. Small jagged flashes of white marking the end gables of tiny farmhouses.

Sky the colour of wet slate.

Helen curled her top lip. ‘Why are we stopping?’

‘Because N Division should have someone watching the place, in case Gordon Smith decides to use it as a bolthole. And I kinda think whoever’s on guard duty will want to ask a load of questions about why I’ve got one of the victims’ mothers in my car.’

She turned and scowled at the back seat and the drifts of litter in the footwell. ‘How big’s the boot?’

Big enough.

We both got out and she clambered into the Mondeo’s boot, lying on her side — knees drawn up to her chest.

‘Make yourself comfy, might be in there for a while.’

‘This better be worth it.’

‘Hey, you could’ve stayed at the Lecht, or headed back to Oldcastle. Cadging a lift was your idea, remember?’ I clunked the boot shut again, before she could say anything. Got back behind the wheel.

Half a mile further on, a sign sat at the side of the road, the post knocked squint, the paint peeling, but the name was still visible: ‘WESTER BRAE OF KINBEACHIE FARM’ pointing to a rutted track with grass growing up the middle.

Don’t know what Peter Smith had been complaining about: the fields on either side looked solid and well drained, without the usual bouquets of weeds and rushes. And then I got to the brow of the hill.

Only it wasn’t really the top. The hill continued on up, but between here and there was a depression — like some vast rusty spoon had scooped out a hollow that stretched from left to right, leaving a smear of mist lying in the dip. It cast a veil over water-puddled fields thick with the pale-beige spines of dead reeds. A huge clump of gorse spread out from the edge of what looked like forestry commission pines. But while the pines were up on the lip of the crater, the heavy dark-green gorse reached way down into it, covering a good five or six acres. And right in the middle, where the sun probably never shone, sulked a farmhouse that would’ve fit right into a low-budget horror story. The corrugated roof was corroded and saggy, one wall bulging out around a cracked windowsill. It might have been white once, but now what little paint remained was flaking off, the colour of ancient bones. One storey of misery, with two dormer windows that made angry eyes on its miserable face. It sat, surrounded by a collection of farm buildings, some of which still had functional roofs. Just about.

And no sign of a patrol car.

Because, hey, we’re only trying to catch someone who’s been murdering people for fifty-six years, right? Why expend any bloody effort at all?

I followed the track down into the mist, potholes making the Mondeo lurch no matter how hard I tried to steer around the damn things. Which wouldn’t be doing Helen many favours, stuck in the boot.

A flat area sat at the track’s end — grass and weeds flattened in ragged circles that expanded and spawned tangents off to the house and every outbuilding. That would be the N Division search team, then.

Going by the tracks they’d trampled, they’d been pretty thorough, but that was still no excuse for leaving the place unwatched. Unless they had someone lurking in one of the outbuildings?

I pulled on the handbrake. ‘Stay here, and keep quiet. I’m going to check.’

Nothing back from Helen.

Good.

Nice to know someone could do as they were told.

I climbed out into the gloom.

36

Up on the ridge, those forestry commission pines shuddered in the wind, but down here it was still as a shallow grave. The bushes and trees undisturbed. My breath added to the fog, drifting away into the pale grey air. It was thicker down here that it’d looked coming down the hill, softening the edges and draining the colour out of everything.

God it was bleak. No wonder Peter Smith abandoned the place.

‘Hello? Anyone here?’

Silence. Not even an echo.

‘HELLO? POLICE!’

Took out my phone and called Mother as I followed the track over to the miserable farmhouse. ‘I’m at Peter Smith’s farm — drove right in, not so much as a tape cordon. Highlands and Islands have left the place completely unprotected.’

‘Oh, in the name of...’ A pause. ‘Are you sure?’

‘No patrol car. And no answer when I shout, either.’

‘Hold on.’ Her voice went all muffled. ‘John?... John! Get in touch with N Division and ask, politely, why the hell they don’t have anyone watching Peter Smith’s farm.’

All the way around the farmhouse, peering in through the windows. Looked as if no one had lived there in years — everything was covered in grime and mould. The door wasn’t even locked. It swung open with a push.

Couldn’t smell anything, what with the wadding stuffed up my nostrils, but the air in here was ripe with the gritty bitter taste of mildew and mice.

Unlike Gordon Smith’s house, the furniture hadn’t been gathered together into one big unlit bonfire. Instead it’d been abandoned to rot.

Kitchen: empty. Living room: empty. Bathroom: empty. Storage room: empty.

The stairs creaked and groaned as I climbed up to the narrow landing. Bookshelves lined the small recess opposite, the paperbacks all bloated and speckled.

‘Ash, you still there?’

‘Maybe.’ Door number one opened on a small grubby bedroom barely tall enough to stand up in: empty.

‘N Division say they haven’t got the resources to mount a twenty-four-hour watch on Peter Smith’s farm. Only they used slightly more colourful language than that and implied if we’d wanted such a thing we should’ve said so and paid for it.’

The joys of modern policing.

‘Well, don’t look at me. Sooner I’m out of this hellhole the better.’

Door number two opened on the mirror image of door number one: empty.

So much for that.

Back downstairs and out into the mist again. ‘Don’t think anyone’s been here since Peter Smith got done for murder.’

‘Well, have a look round then come back. We’ll find you something else to do, where no one’s going to see your battered face and run screaming for the hills.’

‘As my dear departed granny used to say: awa an’ boil yer heid.’ I hung up, went back to the Mondeo and popped the boot. ‘Might as well stretch your legs, there’s no one here.’

Helen climbed out and turned on the spot, grimacing at the dilapidated buildings and crappy fields lurking in the mist. ‘Gordon used to tell me stories about coming up here as a wee boy. Summers spent digging ditches and fixing fences. Couldn’t stand the place.’

No wonder, if his uncle was abusing him.

I headed over to the nearest outbuilding — a cattle byre, going by the concrete floor and barred central walkway. Half the roof was crumpled on the ground, water dripping from the twisted sheeting.

‘So where’s this security van hidden?’

She didn’t even look at me, just stepped through an open doorway, voice echoing against concrete walls. ‘Somewhere no one’s going to find it.’

Ah well, it’d been worth a go.

I followed her through into what looked as if it might have been a feed room at some point. The roof was all in one piece, though the metal rafters must’ve been used by generations of pigeons as a roosting spot, the floor beneath them streaked and spattered with mounds of droppings. Another load of guano speckling a long metal ladder, mounted sideways on hooks. Yet more crusting the upturned corpse of a long-dead wheelbarrow. ‘Did Gordon Smith ever mention anywhere else he went as a kid? Anywhere he might’ve felt safe?’

‘Caravan park near Oban. B-and-B in Carlisle. Some sort of old hotel near Pitlochry? Hated the lot of them.’

Across a courtyard littered with rusting hulks of farm machinery. In through the open double doors to a steading with no roof left at all, and a big pile of broken sheets that may or not have been asbestos. ‘But the security van’s in Oldcastle?’

‘You’ll find out when I get my hands on the bastard who killed my Sophie.’

‘Because I’ve only got your word that you know where it is.’

‘Trust is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?’

Back out into the mist — getting even thicker now, oozing around the grey buildings’ edges. As if it was searching for us.

A big metal shed, three sides open to the gloomy air. Two ancient tractors that would probably be worth a few quid if they weren’t nearly solid rust, sagged on deflated crumbling tyres. Black plastic covered a crumpled pyramid of haylage that probably hadn’t seen the light of day for a decade.

Three more buildings to go.

The first one was a huge chicken shed, still full of the eye-watering spikey ammonia reek of hen piss, strong enough to stab its way through the packing in my nose. But now the shed was home to stacks and stacks of rubbish — bin bags, baling plastic, feed bags, plastic tubs... As if someone had found a nice safe place to fly-tip their commercial waste without having to pay any landfill charges.

My phone did its buzz-ding thing. I left it in my pocket.

‘Is there anywhere else you can think of? Anywhere Gordon Smith might be hiding?’

She stared at me. ‘If there was, why would I need you?’ She spat a gobbet of phlegm out onto one of the few clear patches of floor. Then stepped outside again. ‘And if you expect a cut of my six million, you’d—’

A scream cut through the mist, high-pitched, young, and female. Coming from somewhere close.

Helen’s eyes widened. She spun around. ‘LEAH? LEAH!’ Then charged off towards the biggest of the two remaining buildings: a barn with crumbling walls. ‘GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER, YOU BASTARD!’

I lumbered after her.

The barn was breeze-blocks for the bottom eight feet, above that it was all corrugated concrete panels topped by rusted metal roofing. The only door, on this side anyway, was one of those oversized metal sliding jobs — big enough to drive a tractor and bogey through.

Helen grabbed the handle and hauled, grunting with the effort.

I thumped my shoulder into the edge and shoved.

Between the pair of us, we got the ancient runners squealing, the door juddering open inch by inch, until the gap was big enough to squeeze through: Helen first, then me.

Inside, two thirds of the space was taken up with more fly-tipped agricultural rubbish, bags and baling plastic mounded nearly to the rafters. A chunk of the roof sheets had caved in, lying in a crumpled metal heap on the filthy concrete floor. Sickly yellow-green weeds growing up through the cracks. What looked like an inspection pit off to one side.

And there, in the corner — between a smaller, human-sized door and a dilapidated tractor bogey — was a young woman. The bastard had tied her to a set of metal bars that poked out of the breeze-blocks, spreadeagled like a hunting trophy waiting to be skinned. Sobbing and thrashing against the dirty-brown rope that held her wrists and ankles. Grubby jeans, a stained hoodie open over a once-white T-shirt. The bright-violet hair had turned into out-of-a-bottle blonde, but it was definitely her.

‘LEAH!’ Helen sprinted.

‘GRANNY!’ Tears streaked her face, cheeks and nose hot pink. Every inch of her trembling. ‘OH GOD, GRANNY, HELP ME! HELP ME!’ Jagged, shrill, terrified.

Helen skidded to a halt in front of her. ‘Where is he? Where’s the dead man that did this to you?’

‘YOU HAVE TO GET ME OUT OF HERE!’

‘Where — is — he?’

Leah glanced towards the smaller door. ‘He... He didn’t... I’m so scared, Granny, I can’t—’

‘Shhh... It’s OK, baby, I swear. It’ll all be OK.’ She turned as I hobbled the last few yards. ‘You: get her out of here.’ Helen pulled the cutthroat razor from her pocket and tossed it to me. ‘I’m going after him.’ Then she kissed Leah on the cheek. ‘It’s OK, Ash is a friend. He’ll look after you.’ Then she was off, battering through the door and out into the mist again.

Right.

I pulled out the blade and grabbed the rope holding Leah’s left wrist to the nearest bar. The blocks’ pitted surfaces were stained with brown-black splotches and smears, lots more on the concrete floor at her feet. ‘Told you we’d find you.’

Joseph’s cutthroat razor hissed through the old rope in four or five slices. Say this for the ugly, psychotic little git, he kept his weapons sharp.

‘Ash? Ash Henderson?’ Leah blinked at me, as if finally recognising me from the Edinburgh Christmas Market, then curled her now free hand against her chest. ‘I’ve been so scared...’

‘I know, but it’s over now.’ The rope holding her right wrist parted even easier. ‘You’re going home. He can’t hurt you any more.’

‘There was so much blood...’

My knees creaked as I winced my way down to tackle the rope around her right ankle. ‘We’re going to get you into—’

‘LOOK OUT!’

A noise behind me, like a careful footstep on the gritty dusty floor.

Sod.

Before I could turn something thin and white flashed downwards in front of my eyes, then pulled tight around my throat, digging into the skin, burning, crushing. ‘Ulk...’

Heat rushed up my neck and face, bringing with it the stings of a thousand angry wasps, pressure building behind my eyes. Fingers scrabbling at the plastic cable where it dug into my flesh.

No air. No air. Can’t...

I tried a reverse head-butt, but Gordon Smith’s face wasn’t there to slam into, and the cable buried itself deeper into my neck.

He’d used Leah as bait, and I’d taken it.

Stupid. Bloody. Idiot.

Slammed my left heel backwards, but all I got was a grunt in return. Glancing blow. Not hard enough to break his shin.

The barn went dim and dark at the edges, the middle filling with starbursts.

A trap. And you fell for it.

Darker.

The razor.

USE THE RAZOR!

I brought it up, blade shining like neon — leaving a swirling trail behind it as it cut through the air — but fire seared through my wrist and the cutthroat disappeared from my numb fingers. Clatter, thump, scrape.

Barely even felt the concrete floor cracking into my knees as my legs gave way.

So much pressure, my skull was going to burst.

Arms hanging limp now.

No fight left.

Let everyone down.

I’m sorry...

Darkness.

‘AAAARGH!’ My eyes snapped open, then the pain hit, as if someone had stuffed my throat with scalding gravel, making every breath a stinging struggle.

Gordon Smith lowered the bucket, filthy water dripping from it. A smile pulling at his Santa Claus beard. ‘Hello. I don’t think we’ve met. I’d shake hands, but as you can see, mine are full and yours are tied.’ He tossed the bucket away to bing and whoom against the concrete floor.

He had his other arm around Leah’s throat, pinning her to his chest. Her eyes wide as she stared at me. Then he dipped his free hand into a pocket and came out with a four-inch kitchen knife. Pressed it against her throat. ‘Isn’t this fun, boys and girls?’

I let my head fall forward, tried to drag in something deeper than a thin tortured wheeze. More filthy water cascaded from my hair, running down my face, pooling at my feet as I hung there, rough rope around my wrists, more around my ankles, fixed to the same bars set into the breeze-blocks.

So much pain and struggling and all I’d managed to achieve was swapping places with Leah MacNeil. And that was hardly an improvement, was it?

What a bloody idiot.

Franklin was right, I was an old man. A stupid, useless, old man.

Who was about to die. Probably in screaming agony, going by what Gordon Smith had done to David Quinn in that Stirling warehouse.

Unless I could get him mad enough to lose control and make it quick. Or the cavalry arrived in the nick of time?

Now would be good.

Any minute now.

Please.

Smith raised his big bushy eyebrows and beamed, as if he was performing for a crowd of small children. ‘I understand from my dear friend, Leah, that you’re a police officer. Isn’t that interesting? Now, I wonder how we can turn that to our—’

‘GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU FUCKING PRICK!’ Helen.

Oh thank God.

She’d squeezed herself through the gap between the big door and the wall again. Standing there, holding a dirty-big dod of wood with a lump of rusted metal on the end. Not quite a pickaxe handle, but it’d been something similar before the years had got to it. Sledgehammer? Splitting maul? Whatever it was, in her hands it looked deadly.

Smith backed away a couple of paces, turning so he was facing Helen and me at the same time. Still with that kids’ TV presenter smile. Which turned into a pantomime frown. ‘Now, now, we shouldn’t use naughty language like that. Have to set a good example for the younger generation, don’t we?’ Tightening his arm around Leah’s throat.

‘Let her go, Gordon. Let her go and you and me can talk about this like adults.’

‘Oh no. Why would I abandon lovely Leah? She’s been such a good girl, haven’t you, Leah?’

‘I swear to God, Gordon, if you don’t let her go I’ll—’

‘Threats don’t help anything, do they, Leah?’

She made a high-pitched yelping noise as the knife twisted against her throat and a thin line of blood trickled its way down into her T-shirt where it spread like a poppy blooming.

‘All right! All right.’ Helen lowered her weapon. ‘Let her go. Take me, and let her go.’

‘Well, that doesn’t sound very—’ Smith’s face creased and his head drooped. A deep breath, hissed out between pursed lips. ‘I know, Caroline, but I’m dealing with it... Because I’m dealing with it! You can see me dealing with it!’ He raised his eyes to the corrugated roofing. ‘I know! Please, for once in your bloody life, can you—’ A pause, then Smith’s shoulders curled inwards. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right, you’re right: there’s no need for that kind of language.’ He glanced towards the corner of the barn. ‘I apologise.’

There was something there — lurking in the gap between the tractor bogey and the wall. Like a granite thermos flask with silver handles fixed to it. That’s what Gordon Smith was talking to. And apparently, it was answering back.

Helen stared at him, mouth hanging open. ‘What the hell are you on?’

Talking to his long-dead wife, presumably, because this whole situation wasn’t buggered up enough as it was.

‘Now, if you don’t mind, Caroline, I’m trying to—... Yes... I know... I know! For goodness’ sake, woman, can you not let me—’ A longsuffering sigh. ‘Fine. But for the record I think this is a terrible idea for everyone concerned, OK? But if you think you know best, we’ll do it your way, shall we? As usual.’

He lowered the knife and took his arm from around Leah’s throat. ‘Go on, then. Off you go and be with your granny.’

Surely it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

Now all we had to do was get Smith’s dead wife to put in a good word for me and we could all go home.

After Helen had bashed his brains in, of course...

37

Leah ran into her grandmother’s arms, burying herself in a fierce hug. Voice a muffled sob. ‘It’s all been so horrible!’

‘I know, sweetheart, but it’s over now.’ Stroking Leah’s hair. ‘Shhh... Shhh... It’ll be OK, I promise.’ Then Helen stepped back, breaking the embrace. ‘I need you to go wait outside for me.’ Kissing her forehead. ‘Granny has something she has to take care of.’

Leah scrubbed a hand across her eyes. ‘You’re going to hurt Grandad.’

‘He’s not your grandad. He never was.’ She raised the rusted sledgehammer / splitting maul again. ‘Now go wait outside.’

‘No.’ Leah retreated towards us, feet scuffing through the dust. ‘You can’t hurt him.’

‘Please, sweetheart, you don’t—’

‘He’s my grandad!’

‘HE KILLED YOUR MOTHER!’ Helen’s eyes shone in the dim light, face darkening as she followed Leah further into the barn. ‘He tied her to the wall in his basement and he tortured her to death!’

Still backing away. ‘That isn’t—’

‘HE TOOK PHOTOGRAPHS! I’ve seen them.’ A sniff and Helen shook her head. Pulled out her phone and held it up. ‘I’ve seen what he did to her.’

‘What he did to her? How about what you did to her? You never loved her!’

‘Of course I loved her!’ Tears glistening on Helen’s cheeks now. ‘She was my baby, and—’

‘Then why were you never there for her?’ Voice sharp and cruel, circling Helen, spitting it out. ‘If you loved Mum you wouldn’t have spent half her life in prison! And even when you weren’t, Caroline told me all about the drinking and the drugs and your dodgy criminal mates coming to the house at all hours. Police kicking down the door every other day.’

Gordon Smith stepped towards them.

But when I opened my mouth to warn Helen, all that came out was a barbed-wire wheeze.

‘Leah, that’s not... I made some mistakes, but—’

‘Mum hated you. You poison everything you touch. She was better off dead than being with you.’

Helen wiped the tears away, but more spilled down her cheeks. ‘I didn’t—’

‘Granny and Grandad looked after me, because you weren’t there! You weren’t there for Mum and you weren’t there for me, because you’re a selfish cow!

‘Leah, it’s not—’

‘I HATE YOU!’ Leah’s hand flashed out, the slap ringing in the barn’s cold air.

Helen’s phone flew, bounced once off the concrete floor, then skittered over the edge of the pit and disappeared. She turned back to face Leah, a scarlet weal already starting to swell up on her cheek. Muscles cording in her neck like guy ropes. Empty hand clenched tight into a fist. Body trembling.

Deep breath. Force it out. Warn her. A barely audible, ‘Look out!’ crackled from my ruined throat. Ropes biting into my wrists and ankles as I thrashed against the restraints. Getting nowhere.

And Helen didn’t move. She stood there staring at Leah’s twisted flushed face.

Gordon was behind Helen now, the kitchen knife clutched in his right hand as he snatched his left arm around her throat, just like he had Leah. Helen stiffened, but the blade was already streaking down towards her stomach.

A thunk, a grunt, then another and another and another, the knife punching its way into Helen’s T-shirt, over and over. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk...

The rusty splitting maul / sledgehammer clattered to the barn floor and Helen’s knees gave way. Then Gordon Smith let go and she slumped beside it. Dark red spreading out into the grey concrete.

He stepped back, arms outstretched, standing perfectly still for a moment. ‘And: scene.’ He gave Leah a deep bow. Turned and did the same to me.

Leah bit her lips together. Then wiped a hand across her tear-stained cheeks. Shuddered out a breath. Raised her eyes from her murdered grandmother, to Smith. Voice small and hesitant. ‘Did I... Did I do it right?’

‘You did it perfectly, Pickle Pudding Pie!’ He swept her up in a hug, lifting her off the ground and spinning around a couple of times, before depositing her back on her feet again. ‘You’re the best granddaughter an old man could ever have. Yes you are.’ Booping her on the nose. ‘I’m proud of you.’

Oh, for God’s sake...

Looked as if we knew what happened when a couple-that-kills loses one half. It recruits another.

‘You pair of bastards.’ A sandpaper whisper, that probably didn’t travel more than a couple of feet.

Leah skipped over, grinning. ‘I can’t believe you fell for all that text nonsense. “Oh, I’m so scared!”, “I don’t know where I am!”, “Please come rescue me, because I’m a weak and feeble woman and you’re a big strong man!”’ A mocking pout. ‘Bit of a sexist bastard, aren’t you?’

‘Language!’ Smith glowered at her. ‘We’ve talked about this, Leah.’

‘Sorry, Grandad.’ She lowered her eyes, all scrunched up with deference. Then reached for my jacket. ‘And speaking of phones.’ Going through my pockets till she pulled mine free.

Leah gave it a quick once-over, then turned and handed it to Gordon Smith. ‘Here you go.’

‘Thank you kindly.’ He flipped the case open and poked at the screen. ‘What’s the passcode?’

Wasn’t easy, with my throat like scorched gravel, but I managed to force it out: ‘Go fuck yourself.’

‘What did I say about bad language? Leah?’

She curled a hand into a fist and slammed it into my stomach. Only she wasn’t used to punching people, and I was far too used to being punched. She’d telegraphed it badly enough I had plenty of time to clench all the muscles and be ready for it.

‘Now, Mr...?’ he looked at Leah, eyebrows raised.

She smiled back. ‘Henderson.’

‘Ah yes, Mr Henderson, don’t you think it’d be fun if we sent your “guvnor” a series of texts saying you’ve searched the family farm and moved on to greener pastures? Maybe you’re having a long dark night of the soul? After all, there’s lots of places a poor depressed policeman can throw himself off the cliffs and into the sea around here.’

‘It won’t work.’ Starting to get a hint of my old voice back.

‘It did with Leah’s mum, Sophie. I was particularly proud of that suicide note; six pages of tortured angst, and they believed every single word. Took sixteen years for you to come sniffing about like Dixon of Dock Green. Now can I please have the passcode for your phone, or would you rather play Spanish Inquisition? I have lots of lovely toys in the car: all sharp and spikey and so full of screams.’

‘You can’t trust him, Leah. You were right — sooner or later he’s going to turn on you.’

‘No, he won’t.’ She took his hand. ‘Grandad’s been there for me my entire life. We’re family.’

‘He’s insane! He’s talking to his dead wife, Leah! You can’t trust...’

Wait a minute.

Her grin was huge, eyebrows up. ‘That was my idea. We rehearsed it all the way up in the car.’

‘Isn’t she clever?’ Smith pursed his lips together, nodding as if he was accepting an award. ‘People like a compelling narrative, Mr Henderson. The dotty old man talking to his dead wife. It’s a standard enough trope — so far, so pedestrian — but what if she answers back? Oooh, he must be dangerous and deranged! A wild and crazy man!’

‘And you fell for that too.’ Leah gazed up at him. ‘Grandad won’t hurt me, because he loves me and I love him.’

Time to start on plan B.

I stared at Smith. ‘You’re shagging her? What, your real wife dies of bowel cancer and you take up with the girl who thinks you’re her grandfather?’

The smile slipped from his face. ‘You watch your mouth.’

‘Moved her right into the bedroom and let her take your dead wife’s place, didn’t you?’

‘I’m warning you, Mr Henderson.’ Teeth bared, knife clutched in his blood-dripping hand.

‘Did you bother waiting till she was sixteen, or did you come back from the funeral and screw her on the kitchen counter? What was she, fourteen? Because we know you like them young, don’t we?’

‘YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH!’ Moving fast, knife flashing upwards.

‘No!’ Leah got in between us, arms out, blocking the way. ‘He’s doing it on purpose, Grandad! Trying to get you mad. Shh... It’s OK. Shh...’ Sounding exactly like her grandmother. ‘He wants you to kill him quickly. And we want access to his phone, right?’

Gordon Smith lowered the knife. ‘You’re right, you’re right.’ And the smile was back. ‘You’re a good girl, Leah.’ He placed the blade’s tip against my chest, Helen MacNeil’s blood seeping into my shirt. ‘I don’t know what sort of perversions you get up to in your family, Mr Henderson, but Leah is my granddaughter. We don’t do that sort of thing.’ He put a bit of pressure on the knife.

It was like being scalded, waves of burning heat radiating out across my chest. Breath hissing out between my clenched teeth. Fresh scarlet joining Helen’s blood on my shirt.

‘Now, I’m going to ask you very nicely for the passcode to your phone, and you’re going to give it to me, or we won’t be friends any more. And you really won’t like that.’

‘Go — to — Hell.’

‘Think this is bad?’ Twisting the knife, sending a fresh wave searing through the skin. ‘Not even gone in a half-inch, yet. Now, give me the passcode.’

‘Actually,’ Leah put a hand on his arm, ‘there might be a better way. Can I have his phone back?’

‘Of course you can, sweetie.’

She turned the thing over. Held it up so he could see the back. ‘See this round thing here? It’s a fingerprint reader, so you don’t have to keep putting your code in to unlock the phone.’ Leah reached up and grabbed my left wrist. ‘Open your hand.’

‘Get stuffed.’

Smith twisted the knife again. ‘Let’s not be rude to the young lady.’

‘ARRRRGH!’ Couldn’t help it. My fingers uncurled on their own, going from a fist to a claw as a fresh wave blistered out.

She grabbed the middle finger — yanked it back hard enough to make a dull pop sound deep inside my hand and red-hot glass exploded all the way up my arm.

‘Jesus...’

Leah pressed my dislocated finger’s tip to the phone’s sensor. ‘This little piggy isn’t working.’

Arthritis screamed through the twisted joint. Then she grabbed my index finger and hauled that one back too. More broken glass, lancing deep into the flesh.

The phone buzzed in her hands as she stuck the finger against the sensor. ‘And we’re in!’ Leaning back against the tractor bogey. ‘Now, texts, texts, text, texts...’ Poking at the screen while my hand burned. ‘Here we go. Oh, look, you’ve got a new one from someone called “Dr McFruitLoop”. Let’s see... “Ash, Mother has shown me some of Leah’s messages. They worry me. Something about them seems staged. As if she’s faking speaking like someone else.”’ Leah nodded. ‘You see, men aren’t bright enough to spot that kind of thing. Do you have any idea how much of a hassle it is to jump from the text keyboard to the numerical one and back again to write “into” with a number two instead of “T.O.”? Anyway, let’s see... What shall we say, Grandad?’

Smith pulled the knifepoint out of my chest. ‘How about we text whoever’s in charge first?’

‘Erm...’ Creases bloomed between her eyebrows as she prodded the screen. ‘We’ve got a DI Malcolmson and a DCI Jacobson. Ha! Henderson, Malcolmson, Jacobson — looks like Oldcastle Police hire a lot of wannabe Vikings, doesn’t it?’ More prodding. ‘He’s got lots more recent texts from the Malcolmson number.’

‘Then let’s start there. “I have searched the farm and there is no one there. No signs of habitation at all.”’

‘Good. Then, how about... “I don’t know what to do next. I’m sorry. I’ve failed you all.” Send.’

‘Do another one: “I am going to drive down the coast and try to think. There has to be a way I can make it up to everyone. I do not think I can live with myself if there is not.”

‘Hold on.’ Head down over the phone, fingers going. ‘Have to trim nine characters off, so it’ll fit... And: send.’ A grin. ‘This is fun.’

Gordon Smith turned to me. ‘Aren’t you going to say, “You’ll never get away with this?”’

‘You’re going to kill Leah, and she knows it. Sooner or later, whatever the hell is wrong with your twisted bastard brain will snap, and you’ll carve her up into little pieces.’

‘Dear, oh dear, your language really is atrocious. And you’re missing your cue.’ He stuck his feet together, arms outstretched, chin up, like a circus ringmaster about to announce the next act. ‘This is the part of the pantomime when Evil Uncle Abanazar explains his wicked plan to poor hapless Aladdin. You’re a police officer, surely you’re dying to know what my motivation is? When did Caroline and I start killing people and why? How did we ensnare darling Leah in our web of depravity? What we’re going to do next?’ Smith gave a lopsided shrug. ‘To be honest, I never really like those Bond villain moments. Always seem rather staged, don’t they? Best to leave some things to the audience’s imagination.’

Shoulders back, Ash. Chin up. ‘The police are on their way. I called them before we came in here.’

‘Good job we’re not doing Pinocchio, or your nose would be three-foot long.’ He pulled a length of white electrical cable from his pocket. ‘Did you like being garrotted? I’ve never tried it before, but it was all over the papers this weekend, wasn’t it? “The Oldcastle Child-Strangler strikes again”, and I do so like to be “down with the cool kids”.’ That indulgent Santa smile spread across his face. ‘Apparently it’s all the rage.’

Don’t flinch. Don’t move at all.

‘Now, normally I’d take my time — get to know you better over the next three or four hours — but while I’m sure you’re lying about calling the cops, it would be silly to take the risk.’ He held up the electrical cable again. ‘Still, sometimes the important thing is to do your best and hope it’ll all turn out OK, don’t you think?’ He looped the cable over my head, wrapped the ends around his hands. Pulled till it bit into my neck again, not hard enough to choke off the air or blood. Not yet.

Deep breaths.

Stay calm.

Stay still.

This was a better, quicker end than his torture toys.

Be a man.

Don’t beg.

Don’t cry.

Don’t scream.

Don’t give the bastard the satisfaction.

‘Hold on a minute, Grandad.’ Leah frowned at my phone’s screen. ‘It’s locked itself again.’ A tut. ‘Going to keep doing that, I suppose.’ She wandered across to where the cutthroat razor had fallen and picked it up. ‘Still, as long as we’ve got his fingerprint, we don’t really need the rest of him, do we?’ Her grin was even more unhinged than Smith’s was as she twisted the blade, making it glitter. ‘We should take the whole finger, though. Better safe than sorry.’

Oh Christ.

So much for not screaming...

38

Cold. Cold and dark. And numb...

I hauled in a gritty breath, throat like a tombola full of razor blades.

Everything else, though: numb.

Then pins and needles.

Then the world burst into full-strength agony.

Clenched my teeth together. Hissing those razor-blade breaths in and out.

Something pressing down on my back.

I forced myself over and whatever it was shifted. Not heavy, but everywhere. A blanket of rustling plastic that slithered and clunked. Bin bags?

Shoving them aside revealed a square of grey corrugated roofing, far, far overhead, surrounded by a tunnel of black that narrowed away from me.

Still alive.

Then a coughing fit grabbed hold, slashing through my throat and battering my ribs, each convulsion like being stamped on by a horse.

And then the real pain set in. Someone had dipped my left hand in a bucket of petrol and set fire to it — flames searing the flesh all the way up to my elbow. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’

Squeezing my scalded hand in the other one didn’t make things any better.

It was too dark down here to pick out any details, but when I held my aching hand up it made an imperfect silhouette against that grey patch of roof. One thumb, three fingers — one poking out at an unnatural angle — and a ragged stump marking the first joint past the knuckle where my index finger used to be.

Closed my eyes and tried not to see the cutthroat razor hacking through the skin and cartilage. Block out the sound of snapping tendons. Bile rising...

God knows how, but I shoved it all down. Then wriggled backwards, till I bumped into the wall, worked my way up so I was sitting with my back against it. Legs splayed out in front. Breath hard and ragged, throat like I’d gargled boiling drain cleaner.

OK, she dislocated your middle finger. You’re going to have to reset it. You can do that, right?

What choice did I have?

Deep breath.

I wrapped my right hand around the thing and pulled — out and down, making the joint crackle and scream — and let go. My finger popped back into place. Teeth gritted, air hissing in and out through them, trying to keep everything inside. This time, when I held the hand up, the silhouette looked more hand-shaped, but the relocated knuckle was the size of a squash ball.

Another coughing fit left me slumped against the wall, blinking the tears from my eyes.

Still alive.

That was something, right?

Still alive.

Bit by bit, details emerged from the darkness. I was surrounded — no, part-buried under more of that agricultural waste: feedbags and tubs of supplement, the huge tough cobwebs that big round bales of haylage and the like got wrapped in before the plastic went on top.

They must’ve dumped me in the barn’s inspection pit. Only from down here it was clearly a lot deeper than you’d need to get underneath and fix a tractor.

Come on, Ash: up.

Clutching my ruined hand to my chest, I hauled myself upright with the other, the pit’s brick walls rough against my fingertips. But at least I still had all of them on that side.

Still alive and with most of my fingers.

No doubt about it, I was a lucky, lucky man.

Jesus...

The inspection pit’s lip was a good dozen feet above my head.

Thrown into my own private oubliette and left for dead.

Wait a minute...

A noise coming from deeper into the darkness: scrabbling. Scratching.

Rats?

Oh, getting luckier by the bastarding minute.

And then what might have been a gasp.

My voice sounded as if I’d stolen it off a very old man: ‘Helen?’

Swallowing to try again felt like gulping down a deep-fried hedgehog, spines-first. ‘Helen, is that you?’ Wasn’t much of an improvement, to be honest.

I grabbed the nearest chunk of rubbish and hurled it behind me, did the same with the next one. ‘Helen! Where the hell are you?’

She was over in the opposite corner, on her side, knees curled up, arms wrapped around her stomach. Skin pale as moonlight against the black-plastic bale wrapping. Breath coming in shallow huffing breaths. ‘Mr... Mr... Henderson...’

‘It’s going to be OK.’ I half knelt, half collapsed beside her, trying to inject some sort of jollity into my broken-gravel voice. ‘Going to take more than this to stop Hardcase Helen MacNeil.’

No reply.

‘I’m going to look through your pockets. You’ll be fine.’ I searched her denim jacket: wallet, some chewing gum, a pack of cigarettes, and her car keys. Where was her phone?

Oh, bloody hell...

When Leah slapped her — she dropped the damn thing and it ended up in the pit.

‘Bastard.’ OK, this wasn’t impossible. Her phone was down here somewhere. All I had to do was rummage through the four billion tons of crap till I found it.

How hard could it be?

‘About bloody time!’ A small Samsung, with a cracked screen, tucked in next to the inspection pit’s wall, buried under a mound of festering black-plastic bin bags. With any luck they’d broken its fall, and Christ knew I was overdue some luck.

My fingers fumbled around the rim, searching for the power button. The time glowed across the middle of the black screen. ‘14:10’

Damn thing was locked, though.

I scrambled back through the bin bags to Helen. ‘What’s your passcode?’

It took three goes to get the words out of her. ‘Two... zero... zero... two.’

The screen bloomed in the darkness. The backdrop was that photo of Leah as a toddler, held in her mother’s arms, at Balmedie Beach — Helen had arranged all her app icons so they framed, rather than obscured the pair of them.

‘I’m going to disable your lock screen...’ Only took a handful of pokes and swipes. ‘Then let’s get the torch up and see what we’re dealing with.’ All happy, nothing to worry about at all.

Cold white LED light slashed out from the phone’s flash, pulling bin bags and rubbish into sharp relief.

I peeled Helen’s arms away from her stomach — getting a sticky skreltching noise as the T-shirt stretched up with them, then tore free of the skin. When I lifted the tattered fabric, everything underneath was dark and slick, individual stab wounds still visible through the caked blood. Had to be a dozen of them. Probably more. Only a couple were still oozing.

Yeah, this wasn’t good.

Wriggling out of my jacket brought a fresh round of missing-finger agony, but I managed. Folded the thing into a rectangle of wadding with an arm sticking out both sides. Then slipped it around her middle and tied it tight. Or as tight as I could with my left hand screaming at me.

Helen didn’t make a single sound. She lay there, panting out thin shallow breaths.

‘I’m going to call nine-nine-nine.’

‘D... Don’t.’

‘Helen, you’re—’

‘I’m... I’m already... dead.’

Time to force that jolly tone again: ‘Don’t be a moron, it’s—’

‘I’m... sorry.’

‘This wasn’t your fault, it’s—’

‘I was... I was in... the car... when the... Prentice bitch called... them. I knew...’ A small pained smile. The blood-smeared lips dark against her ghost-pale face. ‘Thought I... could... rescue you... and you’d... you’d have to... help me.’

Oh well, that was sodding great. ‘You could’ve told me they were going to have a go! I would’ve still—’

‘Shut up... and... listen... The security... security van... is buried... under a pile... of washing... machines... in Wee Free... McFee’s... scrapyard... he... he doesn’t... know... it’s there.’

Wee Free McFee?

Might as well stick my head in that car crusher of his and save everyone the bother.

‘You... you can... have... the lot.’

‘Thanks, but he’ll—’

‘If you... promise...’ Helen’s head fell back against the plastic. ‘Promise... you’ll kill... Gordon... Smith for... for me.’

‘I’ll kill the bloody pair of them.’

‘It’s not... It’s not... Leah’s... fault... She’s weak... Gordon... Gordon twisted... her.’ Helen’s hand trembled its way into mine. ‘Make... make the... bastard... suffer... Make him...’ One last breath wheezed out between her bloodied lips, and that was it. She was gone.

I sat back on my haunches.

Nothing to stop me calling 999 now, was there?

But what good would that do?

They’d get me out of this sodding pit, for a start.

And then what? They cart Helen off to the mortuary; open an investigation; have some meetings; argue about budgets and resource allocations; draw up a list of actions; and achieve sod all.

Yes, but—

Wasn’t as if we didn’t know who killed her, was it? Or who helped.

But the pit—

Helen didn’t want Gordon Smith arrested and prosecuted, did she: she wanted him dead.

And so did I.

Besides, what was I supposed to do: call 999 and explain how I’d ended up stuck in an inspection pit, in the middle of nowhere, with the dead body of a civilian. A civilian I really shouldn’t have smuggled into a potential crime scene. Suppose I could claim she’d been here when I arrived, but they’d know that was a lie, soon as they questioned Gordon Smith or Leah MacNeil. Or found her car, parked at the Lecht, seventy miles away. At which point I’d be looking at a charge of perverting the course of justice, reckless endangerment, and anything else they could throw at me. Which meant at least eight years back in Glenochil Prison.

Sod that.

So no: no 999.

Time to call Shifty. He’d help. The keypad buttons glowed beneath my grubby fingertip: ‘Zero, seven, eight, four...?’ What the hell was the rest of his mobile number?

Well, it wasn’t as if I had it memorised, was it? I always pulled it up on my contacts list, same as everyone else.

Bastard.

Could always call control — had the station number off by heart — get them to put me through to him... And then there’d be an official record of the call. It’d be on tape. They’d know the number I’d been calling from, they could triangulate it via the base stations. And I’d be screwed again.

Couldn’t even call Alice. No idea what her mobile...

Wait a minute.

I fumbled in my pocket and dug out one of the business cards I’d liberated from Alice’s handbag.

You wee beauty!

All her contact details were there. I punched in her number and listened to it ring and ring and ring, then finally go through to voicemail. ‘Alice? It’s Ash. I need you to call me back on this number ASAP, OK? It’s really, really important!’ And in case she didn’t bother listening to her voice mail:

SEND.

Oh for... She’d have no idea who sent it, would she.

SEND.

Now all I had to do was sit here and wait till she got back to me. Which could take minutes, or hours, knowing Alice. Hours sat here, in the cold and dark, like a useless lump of skin. Because it wasn’t as if the stump where my finger used to be was going to get infected or anything, surrounded by all the crap that’d been dumped in here.

God’s sake.

OK, so all I had to do was get myself out of an eighteen-foot-deep brick-lined pit with no ladder and a buggered hand.

Yeah... Alice was right: I should’ve stayed at home.

The last chunk of agricultural rubbish went on the pile in the corner. That was pretty much all of it, leaving the inspection pit’s dirt floor bare. Had to be nearly seven feet between the top of the heap and the barn floor above. Reaching distance.

Assuming my ruined hand held out. The fire had settled to a dull throbbing ache, but knowing my luck, the slightest knock would set it alight again. But it was too late to worry about that now.

I backed off to the opposite corner.

Helen lay flat on her back, arms crossed over her chest, eyes pulled closed. And yes, I know it didn’t make any difference to her — she was dead. Still...

I turned off the phone’s torch again.

Up above, that rectangle of concrete roofing had darkened a couple of shades. The sun wouldn’t have to sink very far to plunge Wester Brae of Kinbeachie’s ninety-three awful acres into darkness. And there was only so long a mobile phone’s battery would last.

Right.

Let’s do this.

Took off at a lumbering run, across the narrow space, and leapt, my bad foot scrunching into the pile, pushing off, left foot sinking, push off again, right foot—

The entire thing collapsed, bags and tubs and folded sheets of binding and wrapping slithering off each other in a dusty avalanche. Stumbling. Falling. Arms and legs flailing. Then BANG, smashing into the dirt floor as crap tumbled over me, left hand bouncing off the—

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’

Like someone was holding a lit blowtorch to it, the skin blackening and curling, smoke rising from the hacked stump where my first finger used to be, spreading through my hand and up my arm until the world roared and crackled and...

Darkness.

My eyes flickered open, and there was that patch of roofing again, every inch as far above me as it’d been the first time. Only now it was the colour of ancient tarmac. Digging Helen’s phone from my pocket explained why — five minutes to three. I’d been out for about half an hour.

Just enough time for that bastarding missing finger to settle into pulsing waves of heat and pressure. Each one breaking against my forearm. Probably infected.

Still no reply from Alice.

SEND.

A shiver rattled its way through me. Lying down here, in the cold and damp — it’d seeped its way deep into my bones. Wonder if it was bad enough to cause hypothermia? Maybe not now, but by about three in the morning? In November. In the wilds of Scotland?

Wonderful.

I switched on the torch app again. This time the light was slightly less bright than before — the battery showing twenty percent as I drifted the beam around the pit. Brick walls, streaked with mould and glistening with moisture. Patches of greasy white fungus, growing out of the mortar.

Why the hell wasn’t there a ladder?

There should’ve been a bloody ladder...

But there wasn’t, so no point moaning about it, was there? Think.

OK, so piling the crap up didn’t work.

What else?

I shoved a chunk of that spider’s web stuff off my legs and sat up. Then frowned at it. There was a good chunk of it down here — thin plastic netting. Thin, but tough. Robust enough to wind around a four-foot bale of hay to keep it all in place while it got shifted about by tractors and forklifts. Maybe even robust enough to take my weight?

One way to find out.

Twenty-two past three, according to Helen’s phone, and the corrugated roofing was nothing but a patch of slightly lighter black overhead.

Still nothing from Alice.

I wrapped the end of my makeshift rope around the middle of my walking stick and tied it off with a couple of clove hitches. Mostly by touch — which wasn’t easy with frozen numb fingers — because the mobile’s battery was down to five percent. Half a dozen chunks of webbing, all twisted and tied into a lumpen cord with big knots every twelve inches or so. Seemed solid enough.

Hopefully...

Now all I had to do was chuck the walking stick up into the barn above, and it’d catch on something and I’d haul myself out. Easy. Nothing to worry about.

I rested my forehead against the damp brick wall.

It was about time my luck turned, right?

Please.

I wrapped the loose end of the netting rope around my right wrist, then javelined the walking stick up over the lip of the pit — hard as I could. Clunks and clatters as it bounced off the concrete floor. Then silence.

OK.

I pulled on the rope, reeling it back in.

Come on, come on, catch on something you rotten...

‘Bastard!’

The stick came rattling back over the edge and thumped down into the pit again.

Another go — trying a different side this time.

Clunk, clatter.

Pulled on the rope again...

And there was the stick again, falling into the pit.

Again. And again. And again. With exactly the same result every time.

I was going to die in this bloody pit and all because Alice wouldn’t ANSWER HER BLOODY PHONE.

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Kicking a tub of supplement, sending it bouncing off the bricks to BOOM and splinter.

Slumped back against the wall.

This was impossible.

So call 999 while you’ve still got some battery left, you idiot. Or are you actually planning on dying from sheer pig-headed obstinacy.

Eight years in prison.

Damned if you do, dead if you don’t...

One more go.

Maybe if I could get the stick to catch across the corner of the pit?

It’d break. The plastic webbing might be strong enough to take my weight, but I doubt a wooden walking stick would. Needed something a bit more solid...

I risked another chunk of the phone’s battery, turning the torch on again as I dug through the rubbish Gordon and Leah had dumped in on top of us. They’d chucked Helen’s rusty sledgehammer-thing into the pit too — I’d definitely seen it when I was searching for her phone.

There you go: it was under a pile of slithery bin bags.

The thing was solid and heavy in my hand. OK, so trying to batter my way out wasn’t going to work, but that thick wooden shaft would hold my weight.

It got lashed to the end of the rope, at right angles to my walking stick. A clawless grappling hook.

Four percent battery left. Turning the torch off plunged the pit into darkness so thick you could almost taste it.

Last chance, Ash. Don’t cock this one up.

I hurled the grappling end up and over the lip, where two of the walls met. Pulled back on the rope, slow and steady.

Come on, come on...

Oh, thank Christ — the sledgehammer wedged into the corner. Probably wasn’t very stable, but it was this or admit defeat, call the cops, and wave goodbye to seeing the outside world again before my sixtieth birthday.

Deep breath.

I reached up as far as I could and took hold with my good hand. Wrapped the injured one around the rope below it — only gripping with the thumb and bottom two fingers — and pulled myself up, bent my knees, clamped my feet together above one of the many, many knots, and used my legs to push. Inching closer to the lip. The sledgehammer shifted a couple of inches, but not too much. Pull, push. Pull, push.

Closer and closer.

Please let this work.

Pull, push. Pull, push.

Come on.

Sweat trickling into my eyes, more between my shoulder blades.

Pull, push. Pull, push.

Nearly there...

Come on, come on, come on...

And finally I got my left arm over the lip of the pit, three working fingers scrabbling at the dusty concrete barn floor.

DO NOT FALL!

One more push with my legs and both arms were out, the sledgehammer’s shaft pressing against my chest as I did my best to push it further into the corner.

Oh God, it was slipping.

The bloody thing was slipping sideways as I struggled to get out. Any minute now one end was going over the lip and I’d be right back where I started.

No, no, no, no, no...

39

A final push, clambering over the sledgehammer, legs kicking out over empty air as it spiralled away into the darkness below, crashing into the brick walls, then the whooooomph of it hitting part-filled bin bags.

I heaved... and at last my top half was out on the concrete. Far enough that I could swing my left leg up and roll onto the surface.

Lay there, on my back, blinking up at the vast expanse of corrugated roofing as it faded to black. Breath heaving in and out in huge broken-glass lungfuls. Sweat cooling on my face, clammy on my back and chest.

Free...

Oh, thank God.

Pfff...

Took a while, but finally my heart stopped doing its belt-fed mortar impersonation, the breaths less like I was being suffocated. Throat still ached like a bastard, though. That throbbing razor-wire feeling pulsing up and down my left arm.

But I was out and I was alive. Which was one step closer to getting my now imperfect hands on Gordon Smith and his vile protégée.

The floor lurched as I struggled to my feet, so I moved away from the inspection pit — wouldn’t do to go plummeting down there again — and pulled out Helen’s phone.

Still nothing from Alice.

I called her anyway. Listened to it ring through to voicemail.

‘Alice, it’s Ash. Call me back!’

END.

So much for that.

Took a while, what with my walking stick being at the bottom of the pit, tied to the sledgehammer, but I limped out of the barn and into the courtyard.

Darkness filled the hollow, turning the mist into an almost solid thing, but up above, the sky was fading to a rich deep purple, fringed with neon-pink clouds, a crescent moon hanging low in the sky — tainted, yellow, and septic.

No sign of my pool car. The bastards had taken it.

So all that effort and I was still stuck.

Somewhere off in the distance, a fox screamed.

Could take Helen’s rusty blue Renault, I suppose, but I’d have to get back to the Lecht first...

Oh, bloody hell.

Curled up, good hand clasped to my face. Muffling the scream.

Her car keys were back in the pit with her body.

‘BASTARD!’ Bellowing it out didn’t help any, all it achieved was making my throat hurt even more.

Well, what were you going to do, leave her down there to rot? Sooner or later someone would come back here and find the corpse, with my DNA and fingerprints all over it. Ash Henderson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering Helen MacNeil...

And how was I supposed to get about without my walking stick? Plus, I needed those car keys.

Fine.

I limped back to the cattle byre and through into the pigeon-smeared feed room. Took that long, shit-speckled ladder off the wall, and hobbled back to the barn. It clanged and rattled into the pit and I winced my way down into the dark again. Doing my best to keep the severed stump of my missing finger away from the bird crap as I climbed.

The phone’s torch was barely bright enough to make Helen out by. Battery: three percent.

I grabbed my improvised grappling hook and hurled it out of the pit.

Then bent and took hold of her jacket. Heaved her up into a sitting position, hunkered down and wrestled her over my left shoulder in a half-arsed fireman’s lift. Struggled upright again, hissing breaths out between gritted teeth.

‘Why’d you have to be so damn... heavy?’

The ladder’s rungs creaked beneath my trainers as I wobbled my way out of there.

OK, decision time: put her down, untie my walking stick, and get her back over my shoulder; or keep going. Should’ve got that bloody wheelbarrow when I took the ladder. Even a knackered wheelbarrow would be better than no wheelbarrow at all.

Too late for that now, though.

Keep going it was, because, honestly, if I put Helen down, no way I’d be able to pick her up again. Out into the cold night air, hobbling towards the farmhouse. Getting slower and slower. Every other step sending frozen needles slamming through my right foot. Breathing like the little train who couldn’t.

This was a stupid idea.

Shut up.

Should’ve left her at the bottom of that bloody pit.

No.

I shouldered the farmhouse door open and paused on the threshold — letting the doorframe take some of Helen’s weight while I huffed and puffed and my foot and hand screamed at me.

Come on. Nearly there.

At least the stairs had a handrail I could lean on.

Up into the gloom.

Ducking to get her through the doorway and into one of the bedrooms. Dumped her on the ancient bed, sending up a huge whumph of dust, the springs and mildewed mattress sagging under her. Some people looked peaceful in death — that cliché about ‘not dead, only sleeping’ existed for a reason — but Helen MacNeil wasn’t one of them. She looked like what she was: a woman in her mid-fifties who’d been stabbed to death.

I untied my jacket from her middle — no point leaving it there, wasn’t doing her any good now — then went through her pockets again. Car keys and sugar-free chewing gum; the wallet had twenty quid and some credit cards in it; a lighter tucked into the half-empty crumpled pack of Embassy Regals; and there, in her back pocket, the business card with ‘J&F ~ FREELANCE CONSULTANTS’ on it. That dark smear of dried blood had been joined by fresh red.

Stood there, staring at it for a bit.

Then unfolded my jacket. It crackled, shedding flakes of brown-black as I hauled it on, gathered up Helen’s things and stuffed them into my jacket pockets. Got her straightened up, hands crossed over her chest again.

Should probably say something, but what was the point? Dead was dead. Flowery words weren’t going to change that.

Besides, she knew Jennifer Prentice had hired Francis and Joseph to beat the crap out of me. Helen should count herself lucky I wasn’t leaving her for the rats.

Someone had painted the window shut, but the bedside cabinet smashed through the single glazing easily enough. It landed with a splintering crump in the front garden.

Good enough.

The bed’s legs squealed across the lino floor as I dragged the thing as close to the door as I could get. One last look at the hollow body lying on the bed. And it was time to get a move on.

Back downstairs I gathered all the furniture that I could and heaped it up in the living room, directly under Helen’s final resting place, like the pile in Gordon Smith’s house. Tore down the mildewed curtains — bit damp, but they probably had enough polyester in them to counteract that. I heaped them onto the crumpled remains of the bedside cabinet I’d thrown through the window, and tucked both under the dining room table, arranging the splintered chipboard into a rough pyramid. Then pulled out Helen’s lighter and turned the cigarettes and their packet into a fire starter. Coaxing the flame as it licked its way across the chipboard to reach the mouldy curtains.

One minute it looked as if the damned thing was going out, but the next the curtains let loose a muffled fwoom, and blue light burst into the room, black smoke curling up to stain the yellowed ceiling.

I backed out of there as steam rose from the dining table, the ancient varnish blistering. Then one side of it burst into flames, catching the chairs I’d piled on top of it. Didn’t take long before they were ablaze too and it was getting difficult to breathe.

No way my bonfire was putting itself out anytime soon.

Down the hall and out into the front garden — leaving the door open for a good through draught. Flickering yellow light spilled out of the uncurtained lounge window as the flames grew.

Maybe a neighbour would wonder about the strange glow coming from the abandoned farm next door, and call the fire brigade, but it wasn’t likely. Helen’s funeral pyre would burn till there was nothing left of her but ash and a few tiny fragments of blackened bone. No DNA, no fingerprints, no dental records.

A Viking funeral.

Of sorts.

I pulled out her phone: two percent battery, complete with a warning that all unsaved data would be lost. Might as well give Alice another go.

Voicemail.

Didn’t bother leaving a message.

Why could no bastard answer their bloody phone?

There was one other option...

I pulled out the business card for J&F ~ Freelance Consultants. The mobile number was almost invisible in the firelight, but twisting it made the black ink shine against the bloodstains. Not exactly ideal, but what else was I supposed to do?

Joseph picked up on the third ring. ‘Salutations, caller, you have reached the offices of J-and-F—’

‘Joseph, it’s me: Ash Henderson.’ Hurpling my way to the barn as the farmhouse crackled and popped behind me, heat washing against my back. ‘Hello? You still there?’

‘Ah, my apologies, Mr Henderson, your call took me aback somewhat. On account of our last meeting coming to a... less than optimal conclusion for all parties concerned.’

‘You said it was only business. That true?’

‘Of course it’s true, I know I speak for my associate and myself when I say that we have nothing but respect and admiration for you, despite our occasionally adversarial encounters at the instigation of embittered third parties.’

The sledgehammer-grappling-hook lay where I’d chucked it. ‘I need a lift, no questions asked. And I need it now.’

‘Intriguing... Very well. Let me know where from and where to, and I shall see to it that you are conveyed from the former to the latter with all possible alacrity.’

Good enough.

I fumbled at the knotted baler netting with my good hand.

No point hanging around here — it might be unlikely that the next-door farm would call the fire brigade, but it was by no means impossible. And it would probably be a bad idea to still be standing here, basking in the heat of the burning building, when they arrived.

‘Mr Henderson?’

‘Going to the Lecht. Coming from Wester Brae of Kinbeachie on the Black Isle, or as far down the road as I can limp away from it.’ My walking stick came free and the sledgehammer clattered down to the concrete again. My fingerprints would be all over it, and the baler netting too. They’d need to go in the fire. Should’ve worn gloves...

Cock.

There was a packet of blue nitrile gloves in my pocket. Could’ve pulled them on over my ruined hand to keep the stump clean. Bloody idiot. Probably too late now.

I dug the pack out anyway, ripped it open with my teeth. ‘And I’ll need a doctor when I get back to Oldcastle. Stitches, antibiotics, probably a tetanus booster too.’

‘I’m sure we can facilitate such a thing. In pursuance of which, I believe it would be efficacious to text you an address where—’

Silence.

‘Hello?’ When I checked the screen it was black. The thing had finally died.

I struggled my left hand into the glove, hissing and wincing and swearing, until the bloody stump was safely cocooned in blue nitrile. Then chucked the sledgehammer and my baler-netting-rope in through the farmhouse window, one arm shielding my face from the scorching heat. Then did the same with that long stepladder. It wouldn’t burn, but hopefully, by the time they dug it out of the rubble, any forensic trace evidence would be so deteriorated it’d be sod-all use to anyone.

Course, there’d be all the bin bags and bits of plastic in the inspection pit...

I hobbled back into the barn. A wide patch of darkness marred the concrete where Helen had been stabbed. Yeah, forensics were definitely going to search this place. Maybe the bin bags would catch? I dragged a couple off the big pile at the end of the barn and ran Helen’s lighter beneath them. Took a while, but finally one caught, dripping burning tears of melted plastic as whatever it was inside burst into flame. I pitched it into the pit, then set fire to the other bag and stuck that one against the bottom of the heap where it’d come from.

Didn’t take long before the inspection pit was popping and crackling, spewing out noxious stinking clouds of grey smoke, lit from below. Two minutes later the big pile was doing the same.

Back outside, into the clean damp air.

Looked as if Peter Smith had got his wish. He’d said the place needed burning down. Writhing orange light spilled out of the barn, and the farmhouse was well on its way — now the upper floor was ablaze, flames crackling out through the broken bedroom window.

Bye, Helen.

Then I turned around and limped away into the mist.

That septic moon was a faint rancid sliver on the horizon as I hobbled along the road, in the dark, and the frigid wind. Sweat trickling between my shoulder blades. Ears like two stinging lumps of ice. Moving with an awkward rolling gait, to the constant thunk scuff, thunk scuff, thunk scuff, of my walking stick’s rubber end hitting the tarmac.

Would be easier if I could hold the bloody thing in my left hand, as usual, but no way I was risking it. Not with the whole hand throbbing like I’d battered half a dozen nails into it, then stuck it in the microwave. So instead the stick hit the ground on the same side as my bad foot.

Half an hour of this and my back was joining the chorus of aches and pains.

The sky above was awash with stars, gleaming and indifferent in the ink-black sky. The landscape rendered in shades of dark, dark grey. The yellowy lights of cottages and farmhouses in the distance.

Thunk scuff, thunk scuff, thunk scuff...

Keep moving.

Imagine all the horrible things you’re going to do to Gordon Smith when you catch him. How many different ways you can make him—

Light bloomed in the darkness ahead, getting closer, bringing with it the growl of a diesel engine as the greeny-yellow grass verges glowed in the approaching headlights. I hobbled off the road, but the big four-by-four didn’t drive on past. Instead it pulled to a halt when I was level with the passenger window.

A proper teuchtermobile: one of those flatbed trucks with mud streaked up from the wheel arches, tree rash turning the dark-blue paint matt along the sides. The passenger window buzzed down and a man scowled across the car at me — overweight and balding; one eye narrowed, the other all puffy and bruised; a line of sticking plaster across the bridge of his nose; two of the fingers on his right hand taped together. The thick Highlands accent wasn’t helped by the nasal twang. ‘You Henderson?’

‘Might be.’

‘You look like shit.’ He pointed. ‘Get in.’

Inside, the cab was covered in a layer of dust, the rubber floor mats nearly invisible under all the dried mud and wee stones. Probably stank as well, going by the mangy collie sitting on the back seat, but with my nose packed with cotton wool, I’d just have to imagine the smell.

My driver didn’t wait for me to fasten my seatbelt before grinding the truck into gear again and lurching off down the road.

I stretched my gammy leg out in the footwell. ‘You got a name?’

‘No.’ Then he clicked on the radio and that was it as far as conversation went for the next hour and a half.

Some sort of crappy country and western drivelled away as we pulled off the tarmac onto the gravel car park. The ski lodge sat in darkness, not a soul to be seen as my driver came to a halt beside Helen MacNeil’s mouldy old Renault.

My driver hauled on the handbrake. ‘Out.’ Bringing the total number of words he’d spoken to ten.

‘Thanks, it’s been a real pleasure.’

Another my-dang-dawg-done-died-and-my-cheatin’-wife-done-left-me lament started up in a blizzard of banjos and wailing. I climbed out and watched him swing his truck around and back onto the road. Heading north again, red tail-lights disappearing into the darkness.

Tosser.

Sweat chilled on my forehead.

Probably got a touch of a fever. That would be the infection spreading. The wind turbine’s whoomp, whoomp, whoomp, marking time with my pulse. Mouth dry as cornflour.

I unlocked Helen’s car and collapsed in behind the wheel.

Slipped the key into the ignition and turned it, getting a low guttering chud-chud-chud in return. ‘Come on you rusty piece of shite...’ Chud-chud-chud — then finally it caught and a rattling gurgle burst free from the engine.

A cable poked out of the cigarette lighter, and a minute’s fiddling plugged it into the bottom of Helen’s phone. The light came on — charging. First piece of luck I’d had all sodding day. Which didn’t even vaguely make up for the Renault being a manual.

My blue-nitriled left hand squeaked against the gearstick, missing finger radiating snarls of heat all the way up my arm as I put the thing in first and hauled the wheel around, making a wide circle in the car park until the Renault was pointing the right way. Bumping up onto the tarmac.

An hour and forty minutes back to Oldcastle.

At least I wouldn’t have to listen to any more country and bloody western: I could drive south in silence. Plotting my revenge.

40

I checked the phone again:

It was a manky cluster of corrugated lockups and warehouses, lurking behind barbed wire and chain-link, the signage faded. The road more pothole than tarmac. I parked in front of Unit Six — painted an unappealing shade of khaki, washed in the sodium glow of a lonely streetlight — next to the shiny black Transit van that sat outside it.

Killed the engine.

Curled forward until my forehead rested against the steering wheel’s rough plastic.

Let the breath trickle out of me.

Hand: on fire. Bullet-hole foot: ablaze. Back: made of roasted gravel. Head: thumping like a drum solo.

Come on, Ash. Up.

What if it’s a trap?

Then Joseph and Francis kill you. Which, to be honest, would be an improvement right now.

OK.

Out into the night, letting the wind slam the car door for me.

Unit Six was locked, but I leaned on the bell with my gloved thumb anyway. If this really was the headquarters of J&F ~ Freelance Consultants, probably best not to leave any fingerprints.

Two minutes later, the door swung open, and there was Joseph. A large wad of cotton padding made a lopsided hat, secured to the crown of his scarred head by strips of white tape. Left arm encased in a fibreglass cast from elbow to palm — pale stubby fingers poking out of the end. Big smile. Which slipped as he looked me up and down. No doubt taking in all the bloodstains and dirt. Then the smile was back again. ‘Ah, Mr Henderson, you appear to have made excellent time. Do come in, do come in.’ Stepping backwards and ushering me through into a large-ish open space, big enough to fit a two-up two-down semi. Workbenches ran along the back, with a pair of big stainless-steel sinks set into them. A small office area was walled off on one side, its flat roof covered with stacks of cardboard boxes. But what really drew the eye lay in the middle of the concrete floor. Literally.

A young man, couldn’t have been much over twenty-five, lay on his front, his thin face turned towards us — streaked with tears and dust and snot. Denim jacket, stone-washed jeans. Wrists fastened behind his back with cable ties. Ankles held together the same way. Francis stood over him, one booted foot between the guy’s shoulder blades, leaning on a golf club. Sand wedge, going by the steeply angled head.

‘Francis, look who’s joined us, it’s Mr Henderson.’

He nodded in my direction. ‘’Spector.’ His face was a swollen mess of puffy purple-and-blue skin, fading to yellow at the edges. He sported a wad of cotton too, only his was taped to the side of his forehead, above a thick black eye.

The three of us must’ve looked a proper sight.

Francis pulled a golf ball from his pocket and placed it into the cup of the young man’s ear.

When I looked at Joseph, he shrugged.

‘I’m sorry to say that Albert here has breached his employer’s terms and conditions regarding the organisation’s sales and accounting practices. To wit: skimming ten percent off both the merchandise and monies received. Luckily, Francis is fully qualified to supply a remedial training course on retail ethics.’

A high-pitched, ‘Please! Please, I won’t do it again, I swear!’ burst out of Albert’s mouth.

‘Do you like golf, Mr Henderson?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, that is a shame. What could be finer than a good-natured sporting contest, with hearty companions, out in the glory of nature’s bounty?’

Pretty much anything.

Francis lined up the sand wedge, tapping it against the back of Albert’s skull. ‘Better hold real still.’

‘Please! I didn’t mean it! I’ll give it all back!’

‘This way, Mr Henderson.’ Joseph walked past as Francis teed up, and I followed him into the small office. He turned and shut the door behind us, as a bellowed, ‘FORE!’ belted out, followed by a crack.

Then the screaming started.

Inside, the office didn’t really look like the kind of place a pair of gangland thugs would operate out of. It was far too... ordinary, with a whiteboard, shift rota, and nudie calendar on the walls. Two filing cabinets; two desks; a pair of office chairs; and a woman in her mid-thirties, staring wide-eyed at the window through to the big room. Mouth hanging open. One of those sensible mumsy haircuts, framing an oval Asian face. Trouser suit. Floral blouse.

‘Mr Henderson, allow me to introduce Dr Fotheringham. She’ll be taking care of whatever your unspecified medical emergency is.’

‘FORE!’

Crack.

The screaming got louder.

Dr Fotheringham’s hand came up to cover her mouth. ‘I’m... It...’

‘Nothing to worry about.’ Joseph lowered the blinds, shutting out the view. ‘Now, in the interest of doctor-patient confidentiality, I’ll leave you two alone. Should you need anything, I shall be outside assisting my colleague; do not hesitate to call.’ He slipped from the room.

She blinked at me a couple of times, mouth working on something sour. Couldn’t blame her, I probably looked pretty terrible, what with the two black eyes, broken nose, neck wrapped in stripes of dark-purple bruising, blood-caked jacket, and one blue nitrile glove. Then a deep breath and she sat down on one of the office chairs, keeping her eyes away from mine. ‘I’ve... I’ve never done this kind of thing before.’

Not exactly reassuring.

‘So what are you, a vet or something?’

‘What? No, I mean I’ve never,’ deep breath, ‘worked for gangsters before.’

‘Ah.’ I lowered myself into the other chair and stretched out my aching leg. ‘Not here by choice then?’

‘Hardly! That...’ she jabbed a finger at the door, ‘person dragged me here, soon as my shift was over.’

Oh, for God’s sake. ‘He kidnapped you?’

Her cheeks darkened. ‘Not, kidnapped, kidnapped, I mean I came of my own free will, but it wasn’t as if I had any option, did I?’ She cleared her throat. Brought her chin up. ‘Now, what seems to be the trouble?’

I peeled off my filthy jacket and dumped it on the desk. ‘Why didn’t you have any option?’

‘Have you been stabbed? That’s a lot of blood. If you’ve been stabbed, you need to go to hospital. I can’t treat you if you’ve been stabbed.’

‘He’s got something on you, hasn’t he?’

‘And why are you only wearing one surgical glove?’

‘Must be something pretty serious.’

‘Can we get this over with as quickly as possible, please? I’d like to get home to my husband, child, and Labrador, before anyone finds out I’ve been here.’

Fair enough.

I winced my way out of my shirt, exposing the shallow twisted stab wound in the middle of my chest, then peeled the blue nitrile glove off — biting my top lip as the rubbery skin tugged at what remained of my index finger. It was enough to rip off a chunk of soft yellow scab, setting it bleeding again.

‘Oh my God.’ Fotheringham blinked at my ruined hand. Nodded. ‘Right, we’ll need to clean that up. And...’ Huffed out a breath. ‘Christ.’ She produced a holdall from beneath the desk and rummaged through it, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. Placed a stainless-steel kidney dish on the worktop, lining it up with a half-litre bottle of saline, a couple of vials of something clear, two syringes in sterile packaging, a thing of stitching needles, and some thin twine.

Then removed a scalpel handle from its pack and clicked an individually wrapped blade into place.

Took a couple of deep breaths. ‘In order to stitch the skin together, to make a proper seal, I’m going to have to...’ She swallowed. ‘I’m going to have to shorten the bone.’

Of course she was. Because clearly I hadn’t suffered enough, today.

‘I can give you some antibiotics and a local anaesthetic.’

Thank Christ for that.

‘Are you allergic to Levobupivacaine or Amoxicillin? Hope not, because they’re the only things I could get at short notice.’ One of the syringes got unwrapped and filled from a vial. ‘You may feel a small scratch.’ As she slid the needle into what was left of my index finger. Then did the same thing four more times at various points across the stump and hand. ‘That’ll take a couple of minutes to start working.’

It was like plunging a red-hot sword, fresh from the forge, straight into a trough of icy water. My shoulders sagged as the pain hissed away in clouds of blessed steam. Didn’t even know I’d been holding them in so tight. ‘Thank you.’

Fotheringham soaked a wad of cotton wool with saline and dabbed at the ruined finger. Keeping her eyes on her work. ‘What was it, some sort of gangland punishment? The Yakuza do that, don’t they? When you’ve done something wrong and you need to atone.’

‘It wasn’t the Yakuza. And I’m not a gangster: I was trying to catch a serial killer.’

‘Oh.’

‘It didn’t exactly go well.’

She nodded. ‘Nothing ever does.’ Then picked up the scalpel. ‘You probably want to look away at this point.’

Damn right I did: staring at the nudie calendar instead. An oiled-up woman, infeasibly over-endowed in the breast department, was helping an equally glistening musclebound man to change the carburettor in some sort of sports car. Though if anyone from the Health and Safety Executive had seen them doing it in the nip, they would’ve shut the garage down in a heartbeat. Which almost managed to take my mind off the pulling and pushing happening in my hand as Fotheringham sliced away.

‘You want to know what kind of hold they have on me?’ Sounding brisk and professional as she reached for what looked horribly like a mini-hacksaw. ‘The trouble with having a small gambling problem is that it can sometimes turn into a big one. And apparently I can either “lend medical assistance from time to time” or the one with the ponytail breaks my arms and legs.’

Don’t think about the rocking motion, or the hissing-grate of metal teeth cutting through numb bone.

‘So this is my life, now. At least — hold still, please — until I’ve paid off my debt. There.’ A half-inch lump of something pink clanged into the kidney dish, setting it ringing like a bell. ‘Now I need to flush out the wound and we can get you stitched up. Then we’ll do the wound on your chest, the lump on your head, and, if there’s time after that, I’ll take a look at your nose...’

A huge wodge of white bandage turned my left hand into something out of a Boris Karloff film, but at least it didn’t hurt any more. Not after the anaesthetics and painkillers. And I could breathe properly again, too. Which was a shame, as the stench rising off Albert wasn’t exactly the freshest.

He was curled up on his side, one bloody hand clutched over his ear, knees up to his chest, sobbing. His jacket was gone, revealing a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt turned scarlet around the shoulders with blood. A big damp stain darkened his tatty jeans, the sharp-yellow smell of urine mingling with the deep-brown stink of emptied bowels and bile-green BO.

Joseph clapped his hands together. ‘Mr Henderson! I trust Dr Fotheringham has earned her fee this fine evening? Oh, and I thought, given your current state of... let us describe it as sartorial deficit, you might appreciate a change of coat.’ He whipped out a denim jacket, which looked a lot like the one Albert had been wearing when Francis teed off the first time. ‘I know it’s not up to your usual standard, but I hope it might pass muster until something better, and less tarnished with haemoglobin, comes along.’

The thing stank of weed, but it was better than what I had on. ‘Thanks.’ Bit tight, though. I tucked my gore-soaked jacket under one arm.

‘Excellent.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Now, shall we—’

‘How much for a gun?’

A moment’s silence as Joseph looked at me, head on one side, a faint smile on the edge of his lips. ‘Francis?’

The big man was over by the sinks, washing the head of his golf club. A nod.

‘Would you be so kind as to escort Albert here from the premises? Maybe drop him off somewhere inconvenient so he can find his own way home? Mr Henderson and I have business to discuss that would benefit from the utmost discretion, and I hesitate to burden Albert with a secret he may have difficulty keeping. Especially as I’ll wager he’s quite keen to stay firmly attached to his remaining ear.’

A nod, then Francis limped across the concrete floor, grabbed Albert by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him out through the unit’s door, into the night.

Joseph’s expression softened. ‘Poor Francis. I know it might seem difficult to tell the difference, what with his taciturn nature, but your friend’s knee did him a significant damage last night. There’s talk of a surgical intervention being required.’

Good.

‘Gun: how much?’

‘May one enquire to what employment you propose to deploy this firearm? Only, these days being what they are, it behoves the responsible businessman to ensure that such an item does not contribute to unnecessary scrutiny or offences of a terrorist nature.’

‘I’m going to kill someone with it. Slowly.’

‘Ah, in that case I would recommend staying away from the larger end of the munitions spectrum, lest the trauma of a single usage prove too deleterious to the recipient’s continued survival. A shotgun, or a forty-five, for example. No, I think what might suit your purpose best is a point two-two, and, by cheery happenstance, I do happen to have such an item available.’

‘When?’

‘Normally we like three to five business days, but as I sense an urgency to your request, shall we call it...’ he checked his watch, ‘eleven tonight? And, as a conciliatory gesture, I shall offer you a substantial discount on your medical attention, transportation, and firearm. Shall we say, a thousand pounds for all three?’

A grand. The price of black-market guns had gone up since last time I’d bought one. ‘Deal.’

‘Wonderful. Then I shall see you this evening at eleven. Please do ensure you have sufficient funds with you at the handover, the rate of interest on overdue accounts can be quite...’ he glanced back towards the office, where Dr Fotheringham was framed in the window, watching us, ‘crippling’.

Outside, the shiny black Transit had gone, leaving Helen’s mouldy Renault alone in the car park. Well, my mouldy Renault now, I suppose. My phone too.

I pulled it out and checked, but there was still nothing from Alice.

Where the hell was she?

One more go.

But when I called Alice, it rang through to voicemail. Again. ‘Alice, it’s Ash. Call — me — back!’

Probably lying face down on a conference-room table somewhere, surrounded by empty vodka bottles. Oh, I can’t possibly profile sober.

Which meant she’d be sod-all use. And as I still hadn’t got a clue what Shifty’s number was, I’d have to track him down the old-fashioned way. After all, it was only about ten minutes from here to Divisional Headquarters and I had two hours to kill before guntime.

I got in the car.

No sign of Shifty, but I tracked Rhona down in the DHQ canteen, wrapping herself around what looked like a chip-and-sausage butty, tomato sauce dribbling down her chin. She’d had her hair done in a Fleabag bob, exposing a pale swathe of neck at the back and a pale swathe of forehead at the front. Which didn’t do much to distract attention from the saggy purple bags under her eyes, or the off-yellow circles of ancient sweat staining her shirt’s armpits.

She looked up as I thumped down in the plastic chair opposite and helped myself to her coffee. Which had too many sugars in it.

Her eyes widened, staring at me with her mouth hanging open, showing off those grey tombstone teeth of hers. ‘Ash? We thought you were dead! How did... What happened?’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘And what is that horrible smell?’

‘Shifty about?’

‘You sent all those texts to Mother: how you were really depressed and going to end it all!’ Then Rhona stood and thumped her fist into my shoulder. ‘You worried the living shit out of us!’

‘Ow!’ Had to give it to her, she could punch with the best of them. ‘Someone stole my phone.’

‘And you look like you’ve been run over by a combine harvester!’ Pink flushed her milk-bottle cheeks. ‘Sorry. Poor choice of words. I mean...’ An embarrassed cough. ‘You know, in the circumstances.’

Nope, no idea.

‘You didn’t answer the question: where’s Shifty?’

‘What?’ Tiny creases lined up between her plucked-and-drawn-in eyebrows. ‘No, yeah, he’s up the hospital?’

‘You’re not making any sense, Rhona. And you need to stop taking sugar in your coffee, this is bogging.’

She put her butty down. ‘Ash, he’s at the hospital waiting for word on Dr McDonald.’

‘Alice? Why would he—’

‘Someone hit her with a car. She’s in intensive care.’

Jesus...

41

The double doors banged against the wall as I lurched through into the High Dependency Ward. Posters covered its institution-green walls, rows of machinery lined up on their wheelie trolleys. Outside, in the corridor, the strip lighting pinged and flickered, but in here it was turned down to a twilight glow.

A small round woman in green hospital scrubs with a black cardigan pulled on over the top emerged from the nurses’ station. Frowning as she sniffed the Albert-scented air. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Alice McDonald.’

‘And are you family?’

‘Is she OK?’ Stepping closer. Please let her be OK. Please.

‘They operated for four hours, but she’s stable now.’

‘Where...?’

‘Come on.’ The nurse turned and lumbered away down a corridor lined with shared rooms, their inhabitants barely visible in the gloom — lying still as the dead. ‘You look like you need to see a doctor, yourself.’

‘What happened?’

We turned a corner into a row of private rooms.

‘Here we go.’ She pointed.

‘Ash?’ Shifty jumped to his feet, sending the plastic chair he’d been sitting on bashing into the wall. His one remaining eye was bloodshot and watery. ‘What the hell happened? We thought you’d topped yourself! You sent all those—’

‘Who was it?’ I lumbered over to the observation window.

Alice lay pale and broken, like a dropped china doll, flat on her back with wires and tubes going in and out of her — connected to a bank of monitoring equipment and drips. Winking red and green lights in the darkness. Bandages covered half her face, the first stains of bruising leeching out from underneath.

Something tied a ragged knot in my chest.

The nurse picked a clipboard from the rack by the room’s door. ‘They managed to put her left leg back together, and she’ll probably lose some function in her right arm, but the big thing was the ruptured spleen and liver damage. We’ll have to wait till she wakes up to find out if the fractured skull has caused any... complications.’ She patted my arm. ‘Alice is getting the best possible care, I promise.’

‘Thank you.’ It came out strangled.

‘Give me a shout if you need anything, OK?’ And with that she was gone.

Shifty joined me at the window, hissing it out: ‘Where the buggering wank have you been?’

‘Who did it?’

‘We thought you were dead: they fished your car out the Cromarty Firth!’

‘Shifty, I swear to God, either you tell me who hit her, or I’ll—’

‘We don’t know, OK? An auld wifie found her lying at the side of Glensheilth Crescent in Kingsmeath and called it in.’ He rested his forehead against the glass. ‘I’ve got people going through every piece of CCTV footage in the area, but there’s no cameras where it happened.’

‘Why the hell did you let her go out there on her own?’

‘I didn’t “let her” anything! She’s on your LIRU, team; you think I’d have let this happen if I was in charge?’

No. This was Superintendent Jacobson’s fault.

Kingsmeath. She was knocked down in Kingsmeath — where she’d said the child murderer, Gòrach, came from. Where he felt comfortable. And she was off interviewing possible witnesses that Jacobson had either ignored or discounted. What if one of them was Gòrach? What if he’d run her over, because she’d got too close?

‘Ash, are you OK? Only you look—’

‘Where are her things?’

It took some doing, Shifty’s warrant card, and a couple of threats, but finally the hospital handed over the big plastic bag containing everything Alice had on her when she arrived.

The scent of sandalwood and disinfectant mingled with the flat, slightly plasticy taint of recycled hospital air.

They’d cut her clothes off, most of them stained almost black with blood. Those little red trainers of hers torn along one side. I went through her pockets, slow and careful, like I’d done with Helen. Car keys; wallet; the Danger Mouse watch I’d given her for Christmas two years ago; a crumpled bunch of receipts, the print almost impossible to read in the low light; three pounds seventy-five in change, a wodged-up paper hanky; a small packet of dog treats; lipstick, mascara, and a tube of foundation; and last, but not least — her official LIRU-issue mobile phone.

Same kind that I’d been given.

Meaning that unlocking it was as easy as holding her cold pale index finger to the sensor on the back.

It buzzed and let me in.

Alice’s app management wasn’t nearly as tidy as Helen’s — about two dozen filled the screen, almost totally obscuring the backdrop. Alice and Henry and me, at the Sands of Forvie, all three of us grinning away at the camera, as if nothing bad ever happened and no one had to die...

I swiped through to the security settings and added my right index fingerprint to the authorised list. Tapping the sensor till the light went green.

A knock at the window.

It was the nurse who’d shown me where Alice was, pointing at her watch and mouthing ‘Time!’ at me through the glass.

The phone went in my pocket. Then I leant forward, brushed a stray lock of hair from the unbandaged half of Alice’s forehead, and placed a kiss on her brow — soft and gentle, the skin so cold and clammy against my lips. The lingering taste of iodine and salt. ‘I’ll find who did this to you, I promise. I’ll find them, and I’ll make them wish they’d never slithered down their mother’s leg.’ One more kiss, and I stood. Nodded. Turned. And hobbled from the room.

The nurse closed the door, soon as I was outside. ‘We’ll be in touch if there’s any change.’

‘Thank you.’ I thrust the plastic bag into Shifty’s arms. ‘Get the car. We’ve got work to do.’

Shifty steered with his left shoulder up, head tilted to the side, pinning his mobile to his ear as he drove the pool car along Kings Drive, heading for the Calderwell Bridge. ‘Uh-huh. Soon as you can... Yup.’

Outside, the traffic puttered along, cars and buses, taxis and lorries, people staggering by in the ten o’clock haze of an evening’s alcohol. Happy and ignorant.

‘Yeah... Think so... OK, I’ll tell him... OK, thanks, bye... Bye.’ Shifty straightened his head, left hand disengaging from the gearstick and popping back in time to catch the phone before it hit his lap. Slick and practised. ‘Voodoo’s going through all the ANPR footage for Kingsmeath, including all routes in and out. Maybe we’ll get the bastard coming or going?’ He nodded to himself. ‘And I’ve stuck a lookout request on Alice’s wee jeep. Mind you, if it’s been parked in Kingsmeath since lunchtime, might’ve been nicked and broken down for parts by now. Or joyridden and torched.’ He loosened his tie another couple of inches. ‘So, are you going to tell me what happened to you, or not?’

‘Long story.’

‘And does it explain why you’re wearing that denim-jacket abomination and smell like a hippy’s squat on bong night?’

We passed a man being taken for a drag by an Alsatian nearly twice as big as he was.

Oh no...

‘Where’s Henry?’ Can’t believe I’d forgotten all about the little lad. ‘Is he OK? Who’s got him?’

‘Can we not worry about your bloody dog right now? We need—’

‘What if he got run down too? If Alice wakes up and he’s dead, it’ll break her heart.’

‘Well... maybe he’s back at the flat? Maybe she didn’t take him with her, today?’

Not likely. Worth checking, though. ‘Can you send someone round?’

Shifty’s mouth clamped shut. Hopefully to stop him saying something stupid that would get his jaw broken. Then a sigh. ‘I’ll give Rhona a call.’ Scrolling through his contacts as we wheeched through a pedestrian crossing.

Not exactly safe driving for a man with only one eye.

He did the shoulder-ear pinning thing again. ‘Rhona? It’s me... No, no change. Listen, I need a favour — you know the flat on Shand Street, Ash and Alice are staying in?... Yeah... Shut up for a minute, OK? I need you to get the keys from whoever’s got them, go round and check if Henry’s there... Yes, Henry the dog... Just do it, Rhona. Please... Thank you.’ He dropped the phone from his shoulder, caught it, and slipped it back into his jacket. ‘You happy now?’

‘Not even vaguely.’ I scrolled through the calendar on Alice’s mobile. ‘She’s got a bunch of appointments down for today. When did the call come in?’

‘Now you’re asking.’ Shifty pouted, frowning. ‘Half past one, twenty to two, maybe? Have to check my notes to be sure.’ Up ahead, the 142 to Blackwall Hill pulled out without indicating and Shifty slammed on the brakes, leaning on the horn — long and hard. ‘ARSEHOLE!’

Half one. So while I was lying at the bottom of that bloody pit, garrotted and left for dead...

The bus driver stuck his hand out the window in what started as a cheery wave, and ended with nothing but the middle finger extended.

‘Cheeky bastard.’ Shifty followed the bus through a pedestrian crossing. ‘Got a good mind to stick on the lights and music. Pull him over. See how he likes that.’

There were four appointments in Alice’s calendar before noon. Half a dozen after it.

No point looking at anything after two o’clock.

Pretty certain that ‘TM’S SOCWOK’ stood for ‘Toby Macmillan’s Social Worker’. There wasn’t a phone number attached to the diary entry, but it’d be easy enough to find. I called the Council’s out-of-hours switchboard, pulled rank, and demanded to be put through. Two minutes of hideous hold music later, and Lydia McNaught was on the line.

‘Is this a joke? Have you any idea what time it is? It’s after ten! I’m at home! Can’t this wait till—’

‘Police. You had an appointment with Dr Alice McDonald this afternoon.’

‘Dr McDonald?’ A revolted snorting noise. ‘In that case you can sod right off, too. I wasted my whole lunch hour hanging around the library café waiting for her. You can tell that rude bitch: I don’t care how busy she is, common courtesy would’ve been a phone call to cancel and apologise! I’ve got too much on my plate as it is, without some ignorant—’

I hung up on Lydia McNaught. Prodded Shifty’s shoulder as he took us over the Calderwell Bridge, the Kings River a slab of black marble below. ‘Any idea what “C.A.M.” stands for?’

‘Do I look like a sodding...’ A frown. ‘Actually, now you mention it: Court-Appointed Mentor. They do it for toerags who won’t pay any attention to their social worker. Think of it like a big brother who gets paid to give you a hard time.’

OK, well at least that gave me somewhere to start. If Chris McHale was court appointed, his phone number would be on file. I gave Sabir a ring.

It barely rang before his voice boomed in my ear: ‘Alice? Are you OK?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘Bastard... Ash? That you? Where the hell you been? Bear’s at DEFCON One, what with all them creepy texts you been sending about doin’ yerself in.’

Not me: Leah MacNeil.

On the other side of the bridge, Shifty threw the car right at the roundabout. Into Kingsmeath.

‘Sabir, can you access Alice’s calendar?’

‘Two seconds.’ Some clacking. ‘In. What do you need?’

‘Can you text me phone numbers for everyone she had an appointment with today? But send them to her mobile, not mine.’

‘See if you catch the tosser what done it? Fuckin’ do him, right?’

‘Thanks, Sabir.’

That’s exactly what I was going to do.

A patch of what was probably supposed to be parkland broke up one side of Glensheilth Crescent. Clearly no one had bothered looking after it for years, leaving the place overgrown and thick with gorse, brambles, and dead nettles. The trees drooping and twisted. At one point, there would have been winding paths and play areas, now the only sign left was the line of concrete lampposts, all of them broken, leaving the place shrouded in darkness.

The seven tower blocks that wrapped around this side of the huge Blackburgh Roundabout hulked in the middle distance, welcoming as tombstones. Somehow all the lights being on made them look even less friendly, while Glensheilth Crescent itself had all the charm of a council estate that’d been designed to make sure the working classes knew their place. Boxy grey-and-brown terraces next to boxy grey-and-brown semis and a boxy grey-and-brown community centre with boarded-up windows.

A square of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape sat at the edge of the ‘park’, the colour leeched from it by the guttering sodium glow of a nearby streetlight. Shifty parked next to it. ‘That’s where they found her.’

I climbed out into the wind. Turned, frowning at the curving line of neglected houses. ‘No witnesses?’

Shifty lumbered after me. ‘None that’ll talk to the police. You know what Kingsmeath is like.’

Should do: lived here long enough.

If it wasn’t for the tape cordon, that square of rough ground probably would’ve blended into the rest of the park. Yes, the overgrown grass had been flattened, but it wasn’t until I played my... Alice’s phone’s torch over it that a big patch glistened a stomach-clenching shade of burgundy.

Shifty’s hand thumped against my shoulder and squeezed. ‘I know.’

Took some doing, but I nodded. Huffed out a breath. Cleared the knotted barbed wire out of my throat. ‘You search the street for her car?’

‘No sign.’

Sod. ‘So what was she doing here, then?’

The phone ding-buzzed. A text from Sabir with names, addresses, and numbers for everyone Alice had in her calendar today.

I tried the one for Chris McHale, the Court-Appointed Mentor. Listened to it ring and ring. ‘What about the surrounding streets?’

Shifty shrugged.

‘OK, we’ll start there, then.’ Limping across the road to Glensheilth Place, a short street with only a handful of terraced houses on either side.

Then, at last, ‘If this is a marketing call, you can shove your—’

‘Mr McHale. Police.’

A groan. ‘Let me guess, Tracy Fordyce has tried burning the school down, again? That wee horror needs locking up, she’s got “future serial killer” written all over her. Tenner says—’

‘You had a meeting with Dr Alice McDonald this afternoon.’

No sign of Alice’s Suzuki Jimny on Glensheilth Place, so I kept going, round onto Forbes Drive, where the houses were slightly more upmarket, but not by much.

‘You cheapskate bastards should be paying me a lot more to mentor horrible shites like Tracy Flipping Fordyce! I tell you, it’s—’

‘Mr McHale!’ Putting some menace behind it: ‘Did you meet with Dr McDonald, or not?’

‘Weird bint: curly hair and verbal diarrhoea? Wanted to talk about Toby Macmillan? Yeah, I met her.’

I checked my watch. Quarter past ten. Forty-five minutes to guntime. ‘Can you come past the station tomorrow and give a statement about what happened to Toby?’

‘What, another one? You better be paying me for this. I’m not running a charity here, you want my time you have to pay for it.’

‘Yes, of course. We’ll sort all that out when you come in tomorrow morning.’

‘Should think so too.’ He hung up.

Prick.

Shifty was staring at me. ‘What was that all about?’

‘Chris McHale was the last person to see Alice. Ten minutes after meeting him, she’s found by the side of the road. You think that’s a coincidence?’

‘Then why did you tell him to come into the station tomorrow—’

‘Because I don’t want him spooked and buggering off before we go over there and break his legs.’ I turned and headed back towards the car. ‘You coming?’

‘Hell yeah.’

42

Ten minutes later we were parked outside 16 Greenview Drive, which didn’t have a single scrap of green in sight. It was a four-storey grey-brick tenement that stretched the length of the road, mean little windows scowling out over the rutted tarmac to an ugly boxy building that looked more like a Victorian prison than a synagogue. They’d mounted a handful of fixed security cameras high up on the walls, but that hadn’t stopped some moron spraying anti-Semitic graffiti across the front door. Because why live-and-let-live when you could make a bigoted wanker of yourself?

None of the cameras were turned in our direction. Which meant we couldn’t use them to catch Chris McHale following Alice from here to where he ran her over. But it also meant no one could prove Shifty and I had paid him an extremely painful off-the-books visit.

I held up Alice’s phone in my bandaged hand, screen filled with the map of Kingsmeath. ‘Way I see it, she could go two ways to her appointment at Burgh Library,’ pointing at the massive roundabout it sat in the middle of, ‘one: you go down to Montrose Road, back to the bridge, then up King’s Drive. Two: you cut through Kingsmeath. Banks Road, straight through to McNamara Row, then left onto Glensheilth Crescent.’

Shifty pulled a face. ‘What about Denmuir Gardens?’

‘They’ve dug it all up in front of the primary school, after that sewage-pipe leak.’

‘Still doesn’t explain where her car is. She’d—’ His phone launched into the theme tune from Mastermind, and he pulled it out. Checked the caller ID. Answered it. ‘Rhona?... Uh-huh... Uh-huh... OK... No, thanks anyway... Yeah, I will. Thanks. Bye... OK, bye.’ Puffing out a breath as he slid the phone back in his pocket. ‘Henry’s not at your flat.’

Maybe he was still in the car? Because the alternative didn’t really bear thinking about.

But one thing was certain, Chris McHale was about to have a very bad evening.

I struggled my right hand into a nitrile glove — not easy with the left all clarted in bandages, climbed out of the car, and limped over to number sixteen. No names on the intercom. The services button had been taped over, so I tried ‘FLAT ONE’ instead, leaning on the buzzer until an irritated voice crackled out of the speaker.

‘What? Jesus. I was on the bog!’

‘Got a chicken vindaloo, lamb biryani, steamed rice—’

‘I didn’t order a curry. You’ve got the wrong flat, muppet.’

‘Yeah, but the guy’s buzzer isn’t working, and if I don’t deliver his meal they’re going to take it out my wages. Come on, be a mensch.’

‘Gah... Fine.’ A grumbling metal noise, then click, the door was unlocked.

Worked every time. Well, almost.

I pushed inside, Shifty following me up the dark winding stairs to the first floor.

Flat Four had a bicycle chained up outside it, seat and handlebars removed. A small plastic plaque on the scuffed brown door: ‘C MCHALE ESQ’ so an even bigger prick than he’d sounded on the phone.

Shifty pulled on his own pair of nitrile gloves. ‘What if he’s got someone living with him, or a visitor?’

‘Then they get to have a horrible evening too.’

‘Fair enough.’ Shifty put one fat thumb over the spyhole and knocked with his other hand. Raised his voice for, ‘Deliveroo!’ Knocked again. ‘I wasn’t kidding, by the way, that jacket’s hideous and it stinks of weed.’

‘My own coat’s covered in blood, OK? It was this or looking like something off the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’

Shifty gave the door another knock, louder and harder this time. ‘Not sure it’s much of an improvement.’ Deep breath, another thumping knock. ‘DELIVEROO!’

A thin metallic rattling noise, then the door popped open a crack and a sliver of puffy face glowered out at us. ‘You’ve got the wrong—’

Shifty rammed his shoulder into the door, ripping the security chain from its moorings, as he lumbered in over the threshold.

The man stumbled back, one hand clutching his face. A short bloke, pale and overweight, hair swept up at the front into a greying quiff, wearing tartan lounging trousers and a faded ‘STEAMPUNK SEX TOY ~ WORLD TOUR 2013!’ T-shirt. ‘You can’t—’

A right hook to the uncovered side of his head sent him crashing against the wall, then slithering down till he was slumped against the skirting board. Shifty stood over him, flexing that big fist.

‘Chris McHale?’

He wobbled where he sat. No reply.

‘Fine.’ Shifty grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him upright. ‘Let’s find your bathroom, shall we? See if you float.’ Opening doors at random, then shoving McHale inside.

While the sound of water splashing into the bath echoed out into the hall, I checked the rest of the flat. It had the clinical tidiness of a neat-freak who lived alone and didn’t get out much. A big collection of vinyl records, all in alphabetically labelled shelving. The same with DVDs. Widescreen TV and a turntable. Bedroom was every bit as neat, and so was the kitchen. A selection of coats and jackets on hangers in a hallway alcove, shoes and boots lined up in pairs beneath them. Which only left the bathroom.

Not quite so tidy in here. Not with Chris McHale cowering next to the toilet, while Shifty filled the bath.

I leaned against the doorframe. ‘You’ve been a naughty boy, haven’t you, Chris?’

‘You can’t... I didn’t...’ Deep breath. ‘Please! This isn’t—’

‘Going to give you one chance, then it’s face down in the bath you go.’

‘Please! I don’t know what she’s told you, but I never touched her, I swear! She’s a lying bitch, you know that. All she ever does is lie!’

‘You greasy bastard.’ A nearly-full bottle of Alberto Balsam Sunkissed Raspberry shampoo didn’t weigh all that much, but if you hurled it with enough force, at someone’s face...

McHale shrieked, flinching back against the cistern, hand coming up to cover his left eye. ‘I didn’t touch her! She was playing on the swings and she fell off and I helped her up, that’s all! I didn’t mean to see her knickers.’

Ah. So he wasn’t talking about Alice, then?

The matching raspberry conditioner felt as if it had a bit more heft to it. ‘Dr McDonald. She interviewed you this morning: one o’clock.’

‘Doctor...? This isn’t about Tracy Fordyce?’ A small laugh. ‘It’s not about her. I didn’t—’

The conditioner battered into his forehead, hard enough to split the plastic and send a gush of sweet-smelling pink out across his chest and the wall behind.

‘Aaaaaaaargh!’

‘You followed Alice after she left here, didn’t you, Chris?’

‘Please, please I don’t—’

‘You followed her and somehow you got her out of her car, and then you ran her over.’

‘That’s not—’

‘She’s in Intensive Care, you little shite!’

Shifty turned off the taps and hauled Chris McHale from his hiding place. ‘Time for swimming.’ Then whacked him against the side of the bath and shoved his head under the steaming water.

Arms and legs thrashing, or at least until Shifty knelt one leg across the guy’s calves.

‘Think that’s enough?’

I held out my good hand, fingers counting down to a clenched fist.

McHale surfaced, bringing an arc of raspberry-scented water with him. Coughing and spluttering between the sobs.

‘What did you do with her car, Chris?’

‘I... I didn’t... didn’t do... anything... to her! I... I swear! On... my mother’s... grave... I never... touched her.’

‘Under you go.’ Shifty put his weight behind it this time, grinding McHale’s face into the bottom of the tub. ‘What if the wee shite’s telling the truth?’

‘Alice said there might be a paedophile ring operating in Kingsmeath. Can you think of a better cover than being a Court-Appointed Mentor? Your charges come pre-messed-up, who’s going to notice them going slightly further off the deep end, because you’re fiddling with them too?’

‘And he’s seen this Tracy girl’s knickers.’ A frown. ‘That’s probably enough.’ Shifty hauled him back above the waterline.

‘AAAAAARGH!’ More coughing, followed by a lot of retching.

‘Quiet!’ Shifty slapped him, hard. ‘Want me to give you something to scream about?’

‘Please!... I swear... she... she came and... and asked her... questions... and wrote it all down... then... then she left!’

I picked up a pumice stone — that would do a fair chunk of damage at high velocity. ‘What did she ask you?’

‘I don’t... I think it was... mostly stuff about Toby Macmillan and did... did he have any friends and... what was his family really like... Because they all pretend they love him when the cameras are on, don’t they? But his stepdad liked to... to use the top of his head as an... ashtray, didn’t he? And they broke... broke his arm when... when he was three. And... and his mum’s... doing eighteen months... for neglect.’

Poor wee sod.

‘What else?’

McHale blinked at me, tears and snot mingling with the water running from his flattened quiff. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Time for another dunk?’ Shifty tightened his grip. ‘In you—’

‘No! I...’ Biting his lip. ‘I don’t... She went really weird and quiet... towards the end. Kept flipping back through her notes and staring at something. Underlining bits.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know! Please, I promise you, I don’t. I was telling her about Toby’s mum appealing against her sentence, and that’s when she stopped paying attention. Said she had to go walk her dog. Then she left. I swear that’s all that happened!’

Shifty raised the eyebrow above his eyepatch. ‘Once more for luck?’

Shook my head. ‘No. I think he’s telling the truth.’

‘Oh, thank God...’ It was as if all the bones had been removed from McHale’s body, leaving nothing but a soggy limp slough of skin behind. ‘I never touched her.’

‘Now then,’ Shifty’s massive paw wrapped itself around McHale’s face, thumb and fingers digging into the cheeks, forcing the lips out into a chicken’s-bum pout, ‘just so we’re clear, I ever hear that you’ve been looking funny at a wee girl you’re supposed to be mentoring? I’m going to come back here and they’re going to find what’s left of you floating in this bathtub. Am I clear?’

McHale nodded — not easy with his face in the vice of Shifty’s grip, but he did it.

‘And see if you think you’ll get any help from the police about our wee visit tonight?’ Shifty reached his free hand into his jacket and produced his warrant card. Shoved it against McHale’s eye. ‘I am the police. And we’re gonna be watching you.’

‘Got you a present.’ Shifty tossed a black leather jacket at me as we marched out the main door and back onto the street. ‘Chris McHale decided he didn’t need it any more.’

Bit old-fashioned, but had to admit: it smelled a lot better than Albert’s stinky denim job.

I transferred the contents of my pockets and climbed back into the pool car. Clicked the seatbelt on as Helen’s phone ding-buzzed at me.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

Damn it.

According to my watch, that was only ten minutes from now, and while it wasn’t impossible to make it all the way across the river and through town to Camburn Woods in time, we’d need lights and music on to do it. Which wasn’t exactly low-profile when it came to buying a black-market handgun.

Shifty started the engine. ‘Where to?’

And I still hadn’t got my hands on Joseph’s thousand pounds.

‘How much cash have you got on you?’

‘Dunno.’ He pulled out his wallet and checked. ‘Sixty-two quid and some smush. Why?’

Mine held the twenty I’d taken off Helen’s body, three ten-pound notes of my own, and that fifteen-quid gift voucher from Winslow’s. Doubt Joseph would accept it, though.

‘We need to stop at the nearest cash machine.’

Shifty did a three-point turn, then took a right at the roundabout — up over the bridge that crossed the railway line, Saint Damon of the Green Wood lurking in the darkness below. ‘What are we buying?’

‘Gun.’

‘Ah...’ Silence as we headed up Banks Road. ‘Only — and don’t take this the wrong way — your luck with guns is not great.’

‘If I take the maximum cash out on my debit card, and you do the same, and we use Alice’s too, plus all the cash we’ve got on us, that’ll cover it.’

‘You sure we wouldn’t be better off with something like a machete, or a baseball bat? Something cheaper and less... disastrous?’

‘I’ve got three people to kill, Shifty. Maybe four.’ Because Wee Free McFee wasn’t likely to stand back and let me go rummaging through his scrapyard, looking for a buried security van full of stolen jewellery and artwork.

‘OK. Four people?’ Shifty puffed out his cheeks. ‘That’s a lot of people.’

The streets of Kingsmeath drifted by the car windows. Dark and miserable.

I picked out a reply to Joseph:

SEND.

They probably wouldn’t like that, but tough.

The phone went back in my new jacket’s inside pocket. ‘Where’s her notebook? McHale said she was making notes and looking back at them. It wasn’t with her things at the hospital.’

‘You sure these four people have to die? We couldn’t, you know, rough them up instead?’

‘One of them’s the bastard who put Alice in Intensive Care.’

‘Assuming we can catch him.’ Shifty parked outside the Post Office on Greenhorn Place. ‘Cash machine.’

I sat there, looking out of the passenger window, but barely registering the small row of rundown shops. ‘McHale said Alice told him she had to walk Henry. On her way to the library, she sees that chunk of parkland on Glensheilth Crescent, pulls in, gets out of the car, and this Gòrach bastard runs her over. Which means he was following her.’

Wind scrabbled at my back as I climbed out of the car, stuffed Albert’s stinking denim jacket into the nearest bin, then limped over to the cash machine. Took out the maximum daily allowance, then did the same with Alice’s card — easy enough as she used the same pin number on everything, including the TV’s parental lock at home: 3825, which, apparently, spelled a very rude word in predictive text on the old flip phones.

‘Bloody freezing out here.’ Shifty shuffled past as I stepped away to count my cash. Then he swore, nearly dropping his debit card as his phone launched into the Mastermind theme again. Pinning the thing between his ear and shoulder as he slipped the card into the machine and punched in his pin. ‘Rhona?... Uh-huh... Uh-huh... They did? Where?’ Turning to me. ‘They’ve found Alice’s jeep.’ Then back to the phone. ‘Yeah... OK... Uh-huh... OK, look, is the dog there?... Damn it.’

No Henry.

‘Where’s the car?’

He took his banknotes from the machine and handed them over. ‘Halfway through the front window of that Cash Converters on Brokemere Street. Pair of wee scroats used it as a battering ram. Made off with a bunch of crap jewellery and some electric guitars. Last seen legging it down McLaren Avenue, heading for Camburn Woods.’

‘Get them to search the car for Alice’s notebook. See if we can figure out what she saw that tipped her off.’

‘Rhona? I want that vehicle searched. We’re looking for a notebook... Uh-huh... Uh-huh...’

Shifty’s cash went on the pile, bringing our grand total to one thousand and ten pounds.

‘Well get them to look again!... Uh-huh... You’re sure?... Bugger... No, if it’s not there, it’s not there... Yeah, thanks, Rhona.’ Shifty put his phone away. ‘Take it you got the gist?’

‘If it’s not on her, and it’s not in the car, then he took it.’

‘Doesn’t help us any, though, does it?’

We got back in the car. Sat there with the engine running and the blowers roaring.

‘So we look at who she’d already seen. One of the people Alice interviewed said something important about Gòrach.’

‘Yeah.’ Shifty bit his top lip and frowned. ‘Ash, you know I’m your best friend, right? And I’d go through... have gone through some pretty rough shit because you needed me.’ A finger came up and pointed at his eyepatch. ‘But tonight you’re talking about killing four people. I’m not going through everyone Alice saw today and torturing the living hell out of them. Chris McHale was different, he’s definitely dodgy...’ Shifty pulled his shoulders in and looked out the driver’s window. ‘I gotta live and work in this town, afterwards.’

‘How about—’

‘And these people you want to kill: I get the bastard who hurt Alice deserves everything he’s got coming, but who are the other three? Why am I making myself complicit in their murder?’

‘They’re...’ Deep breath. ‘I made a promise to Helen MacNeil.’ Pulled down my collar and showed off the necklace of bruises. ‘Gordon Smith killed her. Then he strangled me, dumped me in a pit, and left me for dead.’ I held up what was left of my butchered hand. ‘Leah MacNeil hacked my finger off with a cutthroat razor. She’s been in on it all along.’

He stared at me. ‘So they’re the ones who gave you the black eyes.’

‘No, that was... someone else.’ No point naming names. Joseph and Francis were kind of a sore spot where Shifty was concerned. ‘Jennifer Prentice paid a couple of thugs to jump me. Didn’t go well for them.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Shifty sagged in his seat. ‘So, let me guess: she’s the fourth person who needs murdering?’

‘No. I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do there.’

‘Who’s number four, then?’

‘If it helps, there’s a cut of six million in it for you, when this is all over.’

That got his attention. ‘Six million?’

‘Security van, stolen from Steve Jericho. Remember him? Owned Hallelujah Bingo? Twenty K in cash, the rest in half-inched artwork and jewellery. It’s buried under a stack of washing machines at Wee Free McFee’s place.’

‘Wee Free McFee?’ Shifty covered his face with his hands. ‘No...’

‘I’m going to buy a family hotel out on the west coast, and Alice is going to run retreats and things.’

‘Yeah, but Wee Free McFee!’

‘He’s the possible fourth person.’

An old woman clumped past the car, dragging a big fat Yorkshire terrier behind her. Pausing only to make ‘wanking’ gestures through the windscreen at us.

Off in the distance, a small motorbike revved and revved and revved its engine.

The streetlight we were parked under flickered off and on.

Shifty’s hands fell from his face. ‘You do know this plan is totally insane, don’t you?’

‘How about we don’t torture the people on Alice’s list, then? How about we interview them, like Alice did. Would that make you feel any better?’

‘You want to break into Wee Free McFee’s scrapyard and steal six million quid’s worth of swag from right under his nose, but you think not torturing people’s going to make me feel better?’ He stared up at the car’s roof. ‘I must be off my bloody head.’ But he put the car into gear anyway. ‘Where next?’

43

Meathmill House and Meathmill Park stood sentry on either side of the road, eighteen-storey tower blocks, with lights glittering in nearly every window. Monolithic and ugly, even in the darkness. The pool car slipped down the ramp between them, disappearing into the curved embankment and an underpass that was almost solid graffiti. Not the artistic kind, either — the concrete walls were caked in decades of tags and swearing and claims that X loves / shags / ‘takes it up the arse’ from Z, Y, and their own dad. Had to be a foot thick in places.

We emerged out the other side and there was the huge architectural monstrosity masquerading as Burgh Library, perched on top of its dumpy hill. All curved concrete walls and ceramic tiles and weird rooflines that dipped and rose like a sales graph. Far too much glass on show, and not enough taste. Most of the lights were off, leaving nothing but a faint orange glow on the ground floor.

Shifty pulled into the car park, and I pointed towards the far corner, where the CCTV cameras dangled from their mounts like rabbits hanging in a butcher’s shop window. That was the joy of the Kingsmeath side of things, anything designed to help law enforcement didn’t usually last long.

I undid my seatbelt. ‘Stay in the car.’

‘Humph.’ Shifty killed the engine. ‘That’ll be shining.’

‘And before you get all stroppy it’s for your own good.’

A small laugh. ‘Ash, there’s no way—’

‘I’m serious. In — the — car.’ The wind wasn’t bad down here, but the roar of traffic, wheeching its way around the top of the steep embankment, was pretty much constant. That’s what happened when you built your library right in the middle of a massive great roundabout. ‘And stay here till I get back.’

I thunked the door closed and hobbled off to stand with my back against a sign advertising upcoming author events and computer classes for the over-sixties. My breath plumed in the sharp peppery air.

Hand was starting to throb. That would be the local anaesthetic wearing off.

Come on, Joseph, finger out.

At least he had all of his.

Good job I’d scored a blister pack of Naproxen from Dr Fotheringham when she’d finished stitching me up. Two got forced down, dry. Could’ve gone for something stronger, but being semi-stoned was probably not the best idea for tonight.

Not given what I had planned for whoever put Alice in Intensive Care.

Her phone buzzed as I unlocked it: bang on quarter past eleven, according to the screen.

No text from Joseph or Francis, saying they’d be late.

You’d think gun-peddling-thugs-for-hire would have better manners than that.

There, nestled amongst the rows of apps that covered Alice’s screen, was one with a bullseye target and a big arrow pointing at the middle. It sat above Henry’s left ear, the wee lad grinning, tongue dangling out the side of his mouth like a big pink sock. Couldn’t remember what the app was called, probably something spelled with ‘Z’s instead of ‘S’s and a couple of numbers or unnecessary asterisks replacing random letters. The tracker app she’d installed on my phone.

Meaning there was no need to sod about with official channels to find Leah MacNeil and Gordon Smith. Assuming they hadn’t ditched my mobile somewhere.

My finger hovered over the icon.

Of course, what I really should do is call Mother. Find out where the app said my phone was and let her send in the heavy mob. An end to Gordon Smith’s fifty-six-year reign of horror. Picture in all the papers, commendation from the top brass. Closure for Smith’s victims’ families. And he’d spend the rest of his life in a padded cell with no hope of ever seeing the outside world again.

Yeah, but you promised Helen, didn’t you? As she died.

You promised her.

What about Leah? She’d probably get off on a diminished-responsibility plea: eight years, tops. Bet she’d be out in four. If that. And if I brought her in, she’d tell everyone what I’d done to Gordon Smith. And that would be me screwed, because there was no way I could let him live. He had to die, which meant she did too.

I’d made a promise.

And soon as I’d sorted out whoever it was that’d hurt Alice, I’d keep that promise.

Because what was the point of a man if he didn’t keep his—

Here we go.

A shiny black Range Rover growled its way up the ramp from the Blackwall Hill side, headlights sweeping the car park as it turned. I stepped out into the glow of a lamppost and raised a hand. The Range Rover swung towards me. Came to a halt, when I was level with the passenger window.

It buzzed down and Joseph smiled out, that lump of cotton wadding looking more than a bit ridiculous, perched at a jaunty angle on top of his scarred head, as he leaned on the sill. ‘Mr Henderson, while your choice of location is perhaps a touch less suitable for clandestine exchanges than the one proposed, I have to express my approbation for choosing a library. Bravo.’

Francis leaned over from the driver’s seat and gave me a nod. ‘’Spector.’

The thousand pounds made a disappointingly thin slab of slithery plastic and paper as I handed it over. ‘Count it.’

‘Oh, I trust you, Mr Henderson.’ Joseph slipped it into an inside pocket. ‘After all, we’re both gentlemen, are we not? Our word has value beyond the mere pursuit of Mammon’s favours. And in exchange, I give you this.’ He held out a small yellow-and-blue backpack, done up to look like a Minion, complete with one 3D eye-goggle and a big cheesy grin. ‘In case you’re interested in the details of such things, it contains a Walther P-Twenty-Two Q.D. renowned for its tactical styling, exquisite trigger, and second-strike capability. Holds ten rounds in the magazine, one in the breach, and the slide is textured — making it easier for someone with restricted hand mobility to “rack in a round” as our American cousins would say.’

Wouldn’t be surprised if he was sporting an erection at this point, going by the expression on his face.

‘I have furnished you with twenty-five rounds, which I believe should be sufficient for all but the most prolonged gun battles. Somehow I think you’re more inclined to precision than the “spray and pray” approach, but if you require an additional stock, please don’t hesitate to get in touch as our customer loyalty scheme is most generous.’

I lowered the rucksack. ‘Is it clean?’

‘As a nun’s conscience, Mr Henderson.’ He gave me a wave, then faced front again. ‘Francis, it’s time we were away. I believe Mr Henderson is most eager to be about whatever business instigated his purchase from us this blustery night.’

Another nod from Frances. ‘’Spector.’

‘Oh, one more thing.’ Joseph held out a crisp white business card. ‘If the occasion arises, Mr Henderson, when you feel you might benefit from the assistance of two very capable gentlemen who possess those most admirable of traits: determination, dedication, and a somewhat laissez-faire attitude to other people’s physical wellbeing, I do hope you’ll think of us.’

Well, you never knew. I accepted the card and tucked it away.

‘Excellent. Oh, and I like your new jacket.’ Then the window buzzed up, the Range Rover swung around and disappeared off down the ramp to the Blackwall Hill side of Blackburgh Roundabout again.

Twenty-five rounds would be plenty for what I had in mind.

I took my new Minion back to the pool car.

Shifty glowered at me, from behind the wheel. ‘Tell me that wasn’t who I think it was!’

‘Who we going to interview first?’

‘Ash, I’m serious — that better not’ve been Joseph and bloody Francis!’

My seatbelt clicked into place. ‘Why do you think I made you wait in the car?’

‘OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’ Battering a fist off the steering wheel. ‘How could... Have you forgotten what they did? To me?’ Pointing at his eyepatch again. ‘HOW COULD YOU?’

I sat there in silence and let him seethe at me while I struggled my right hand into another nitrile glove.

Then unzipped the Minion’s head and pulled out a clear-plastic Ziploc bag with the gun in it. Stubby and black, almost invisible in the gloom. Didn’t weigh much, probably not even half a kilo, but that was without the magazine or bullets, of course.

‘You want to know how I could?’ The gun swung in the bottom of the bag as I held it up. ‘This is how.’

Shifty’s shoulders curled inwards as his scowl turned away from me and out of the windscreen instead. ‘I hate those guys.’

‘You don’t have to go through with this, Shifty. You can drop me back at the hospital and walk away. I’ll take care of it.’ I dipped into the rucksack again. Two more Ziploc bags: one with the empty magazine in it, the other containing a drift of small brass-cased bullets with grey tips. Like tiny metallic lipsticks, not much bigger than a finger bone. Assuming you still had all of yours. ‘But if you are walking away, I need another favour before you go.’

He didn’t look at me. ‘What?’

‘Can you load the bullets into the magazine for me? My hands don’t work properly any more.’

‘Should never have let you talk me into this.’ Shifty pulled up at the kerb, outside a classic seventies bungalow on Muchan Road. Grey harling and brown pantiles. A second-hand Audi in the driveway and a well-manicured garden out front, turned monochrome in the pale-yellow glow of the lamppost two houses down.

‘I told you, you didn’t have to come.’ The Minion joined me from the rear footwell. ‘I can do this on my own.’

‘Bloody reverse psychology.’ But he undid his seatbelt and climbed out of the car anyway.

I joined him, and we hobbled up to the front door. Leaned on the doorbell.

‘But we’re only questioning them, OK?’ Shifty jerked his chin out. ‘No violence, or shooting anyone.’ Pointing at my Minion. ‘Not unless we’re one hundred percent positive they’re the one who tried to kill Alice.’

Deep inside the house, the ringing went on and on and on and on.

‘I said that, didn’t I? God, you don’t half whinge.’ Nudging him with my shoulder and smiling to let him know I didn’t really mean it. In that manly, non-communicative way.

And still the bell rang.

‘Maybe this Dr Lochridge’s not in?’

Beginning to look like it. But of all the addresses Sabir texted me, this was the one closest to the library. Alice’s eleven o’clock appointment — Oscar Harris’s school therapist.

‘OK, who’s next on the—’

A clunk and the door swung open, revealing a middle-aged woman in a silk kimono, eyes bloodshot and unfocused, not exactly steady on her pins. Bottle-blonde hair frizzy and down past her shoulders. Orange dust on her fingertips. She licked her lips a couple of times. Sounding as if she was trying to keep the Aberdonian twang out of her slurry voice. ‘Hello? Can I... help?’ The words rode out on the sweaty-armpit stink of fresh weed, tempered with tangy cheese.

‘Dr Lochridge?’ Shifty showed her his warrant card. ‘Police. Can we come in, please?’

Her bloodshot eyes drooped a little and so did her shoulders, then she turned around and scuffed away down the hall.

We followed her in, down a tidy corridor lined with framed children’s drawings, and into a living room dominated by a saggy leather couch, covered in throws and cat hair. A big ginger tabby, sat on the coffee table, paused in the middle of cleaning itself to glare at us.

Dr Lochridge collapsed into the couch and helped herself to a fresh bag of Wotsits. Eyes drifting to the half-smoked joint perched on the edge of a handmade ashtray. ‘It’s only for personal use. And I never do anything around the children.’

Couldn’t care less.

I took the matching saggy leather armchair. ‘You met with Dr Alice McDonald earlier today.’

‘Did I?’ A frown. ‘Suppose I did. She talks... a lot. And really quickly. How does she manage it? It’s like she never even breathes.’

‘What did you talk about?’

A loose-limbed shrug. ‘Oscar Harris, I think. How was he, did he seem upset or troubled by anything before he went missing?’ More Wotsits disappeared. ‘Course he was. Between you, me, and Sigmund, I think someone was abusing him. Only he was too scared to admit it, even to me. People think that kind of thing doesn’t happen to kids who attend a good school, but it does.’ She chewed, face sagging. ‘Poor tiny soul.’

I looked at Shifty.

He grimaced. Sucked air in through his teeth. ‘Yeah, we got a distinctly greasy vibe off... someone we interviewed, but they had an alibi for when Oscar went missing. Even so, they clammed up and set their lawyer on us.’ Not like Shifty to be so careful about not giving out any hints.

‘So did Alice say anything before she left?’

Dr Lochridge squinted at her cat for a while. Then nodded. ‘She said she liked Sigmund. Which is good, because he’s the loveliest cat in the world.’

Ann Tweedale blinked at us with bleary eyes, voice a clipped whisper. ‘No. Of course I don’t.’ Soon as we’d appeared on her doorstep, she’d hissed us to silence and escorted us into the kitchen of her tiny mid-terrace house, on Blackwall Hill, right next to the railway line. It ran on a cutting along the end of her back garden, twelve feet higher than the ground her home was built on. Be amazed if much natural light ever made its way in through the windows.

Tweedale was a sporty type, with bags under her eyes and an oversized ‘DONALD TRUMP EST UN BRANLEUR MASSIF!’ T-shirt that hung down to the knees of her penguin pyjama bottoms. Furry slippers on her feet. Curly hair yanked back in a messy comet-tail.

Shifty leaned against the worktop and folded his arms. ‘And there was nothing else?’

‘Shhhh!’ Tweedale pointed up towards the ceiling. ‘You wake Charlene up, I’ll bloody throttle you.’ She gave him a good glower. ‘Your doctor woman turned up, asked a load of questions about Lewis Talbot — all of which I’d already answered for your idiot police mates, by the way — then went away again. I helped all I could, but I was his social worker, not his mother. Lewis had a shitty life, his mum battered the hell out of him, his grandad abused her, and so on and so forth, yeah unto the tenth generation. Then some bastard throttles Lewis to death.’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘And I know I shouldn’t, but sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t for the best.’

She must’ve clocked the expression on my face because she rolled her eyes, arms hanging loose at her sides. ‘I said “sometimes”, OK? You don’t know what it’s like down in the trenches. You police kick in their doors, seize their property, and cart off their relatives — it’s us poor sods that have to try and stitch them back together. You know what Lewis had to look forward to? Poverty and abuse and no opportunities.’ Voice getting louder and more bitter with every word. ‘They wouldn’t let me put him into care because apparently there’s bugger all left in the budget this financial year. Who’d be a bloody social worker?’

The wail of a small child boomed out through the ceiling above.

Ann Tweedale glared at me, voice back to a harsh whisper again. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’

‘So what do you think?’ Shifty took us back under the railway bridge. ‘We any nearer to catching this bastard?’

‘Don’t know.’ I checked the list again. ‘What’s closest: Ditchburn Road, or Corriemuir Place?’

‘From here?’ His top lip curled. ‘Six of one.’ He reached out and clicked on the radio, landing us halfway through a song where some popstar tosser moaned about how unfair life was.

Take a number, mate, and get to the back of the queue.

‘Your choice, then.’ I pulled out Alice’s phone and called the hospital as Shifty headed east, back towards Kingsmeath, rather than Castleview. ‘Hello? I’m calling about Alice McDonald.’

The switchboard put me through to a woman with a lisp and a Geordie accent. ‘There’s no change at the moment, pet, but it’s early days. We’ll give you a call if anything happens, and you’ve got me word on that.’

‘Thanks.’

A glance from Shifty when I put my phone away. ‘No change?’

‘No change.’ My head fell back against the rest. For some reason, there were footprints on the inside of the pool car’s roof. Not shoeprints — bare feet. ‘Tell me about this “greasy vibe” you got, when you were interviewing someone about Oscar Harris?’

‘Hmmph. His uncle’s a DJ, does club nights at Bang-dot-Bang-dot-Cheese and the House of Ultimate Ding. Bloody places these days, whatever happened to sensible names? He’s one of those... neckbeard types, you know? The ones who don’t grow a moustache to go with it.’

‘Doesn’t make him a paedo.’

We drifted down Hillside Drive, past all the peaceful side streets with their trees and working streetlights.

‘Never trust anyone who doesn’t grow a moustache to go with their beard — man or woman. It’s a sign something’s very badly wrong in their heads. And you didn’t hear the way he talked about Oscar. Like the kid was a family pet.’ Shifty put on a faux-posh Oldcastle accent, stressing the vowels in all the wrong places. ‘“Such a clever boy.”, “He’s a good boy, yes he is. Very good.” And, like I said, soon as he trotted out his alibi he lawyered up. That says “dodgy bastard” to me.’ A small smile. ‘Even if his lawyer was a total shag.’

But then Shifty always did have terrible taste in men.

Left at the roundabout, onto Blackwall Avenue, heading back towards the library.

‘Think we should put some lost-dog posters up around Glensheilth Crescent? If Alice stopped to let the wee man have a pee, he might’ve run off.’

Shifty raised one big rounded shoulder. ‘Suppose it wouldn’t hurt.’

And then we sat in silence, all the way up Blackburgh Road, over the railway bridge. Nothing but the radio to cut through the disinterested growl of the pool car’s engine. One miserable song following another.

The DJ faded down the latest parade of whining as we pulled across the central reservation, turning right across the dual carriageway and into Kingsmeath again.

‘There we go, The Mighty Beetroot and “The Day My Heart Stopped Beating”, taking us up to the news and weather. It’s twenty past midnight and you’re listening to The Witching Hour with me, Lucy Robotham, on Castlewave FM.’

I cleared my throat. ‘You know, you could come with us, if you like? When we open this hotel. Get away from...’ indicating the rows of small houses on either side of the road, ‘all this.’

‘... seventy-year-old man has died as Storm Victoria works its way up through Great Yarmouth, creating havoc with high winds and heavy rain...’

Shifty’s voice was flat as an ironing board. ‘What, and throw away my stellar career with Police Scotland?’

‘... seen up to ten centimetres of rain in the space of two hours, and now severe weather warnings are in place for northeast England, the Central Belt, and eastern Scotland...’

‘You could take people shooting? Or do murder mystery weekends, ABBA tribute nights, Eurovision parties — you like that kind of thing, don’t you?’

‘What, because I’m gay?’

‘... hit Oldcastle at some point this morning. Bob Eason has had a setback in his bid to resurrect the Warriors, as council safety officers refuse him permission to reopen City Stadium for a charity concert. Local rap star Donny “Sick Dawg” McRoberts was rumoured to be headlining...’

I stared at him. ‘No, because you’ve got terrible taste. And it’s not just in men, you like all sorts of stuff that’s either crap or not good for you.’

‘... later this year. Police are appealing for witnesses, following a hit-and-run on Glensheilth Crescent earlier today. The victim, said to be—’ I switched off the radio.

Shifty nodded. ‘Alice is going to be OK, you know that, don’t you? She’ll pull through.’ His hand left the steering wheel to clamp down on my shoulder, voice going for cheery optimism and not exactly making it: ‘Besides, after all that booze, bet she’s pickled enough inside to last for generations.’ A sad smile. ‘You and me will be a thousand years dead, in our graves, and she’ll still be bumbling about, annoying everyone.’

Yeah...

Then why did I have this gaping hollow in the middle of my chest, that kept filling with scalding concrete?