Birthdays for the Dead (36 page)

Eugene pressed the gun into my hand, forcing my fingers around the handgrip. ‘This little lever’s the safety catch.’ A click. ‘And you’re good to go.’

Fine I’ll blow your head off you big hairy… My whole arm trembled with the effort, but he wouldn’t let go. He shoved the barrel of the gun over my right foot, forcing the end against my shoe.

Terri raised her arms. ‘It’s time to atone, Detective Constable Henderson.’

Fuck that.

‘Pull the trigger.’

No way in hell was I pulling the trigger.

‘Either the bullet goes in your foot, or it goes in your head. Your choice.’

Ed’s spit flecked the back of my neck. ‘DO IT!’

Eugene’s spattered against my cheek. ‘FUCKIN’ DO IT!’

‘Your time’s running out, Detective Constable.’

‘DO IT!’

‘PULL THE TRIGGER, HAGGIS!’

‘You’ve only got the gun for another eight minutes.’

‘PULL THE FUCKIN’ TRIGGER!’

‘One way or another you’re taking that bullet with you.’

‘DO IT!’

‘PULL THE TRIGGER, OR I’M GONNA SHOOT YOU IN THE FUCKIN’ HEAD!’

‘Not much of a choice really, is it?’

Did they really think I was going to shoot myself in the foot? Like I was a bloody idiot?

Get stuffed.

Eugene shook his head. ‘He don’t believe us. Haggis here thinks we’re kiddin’ about.’

‘Hmm…’ Terri picked up the grey dust sheet and draped it over Virginia’s battered body again. ‘What can we do about that, Eugene? What can we do to convince Constable Henderson?’

Eugene tore the gun out of my hand, stood, aimed, and pulled the trigger. A sharp crack boomed around the room, reverberating off the stone walls. Virginia’s head jerked back under the dustsheet, the fabric billowing out behind her. Red spread like a field of poppies, seeping into the dusty material.

Jesus… Right there, in front of me…

‘Thank you, Eugene, that’ll do nicely.’ Terri took two more tens out of my wallet. ‘But now Detective Constable Henderson needs another bullet.’

He killed her, right there…

Terri sighed. ‘Oh don’t look so shocked: as if I was going to let the lying bitch live after what she did to my Kenneth.’

Eugene loaded the magazine, then pressed the gun back into my hand and forced the soot-streaked barrel against the top of my shoe again. ‘Last chance, Haggis.’

‘Your rental time’s running out, Constable Henderson.’

‘PULL THE FUCKIN’ TRIGGER!’

‘It goes in your foot, or it goes in your head.’

What choice did I have?

‘DO IT!’

I squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 44

The harsh crack reverberated around the room, deafeningly loud.

Nothing – no pain. The bastards were winding me up, using blanks. It was all a big…

FUCK.

Fire ripped up my leg, radiating out from my right foot like an earthquake of molten metal. AAARGH, fucking FUCK… I jerked in the chair, trying to get away, but the pain was still there, following me. Screaming into Ed’s huge callused hand.

Eugene took the gun from me and dropped it back in its zip-lock bag.

Fuckers…

Ed let go and I grabbed the seat, my whole body rigid. ‘FUCKING … SHIT! AAAAAAAARGH! BASTARD.’ I slumped forwards, clutching my right foot. ‘AAAAAAGH, BASTARDING FUCK!’ The hole in the top of the shoe was tiny – ringed around with flecks of grey, like a dark sunburst. ‘JESUS!’ The underside was wet, covered in grit from the floor. Bright red dripped through my fingers, pattering onto the dirt. ‘AAAAAAAAAARGH…’

‘All right, that’s enough self-pity.’

‘Self-pity? You fucking bastards! You fucking shit-eating
wankers
!’

‘Now, now, Detective Constable.’ Terri held up my wallet again, gave me a dazzling smile. ‘You’ve got more than enough money here; would you like to buy another bullet?’

NO!

I shook my head, clenched my teeth, hissed the breath in and out, in and out.

Oh dear Jesus that
hurt
…

‘Would you like something for the pain?’

‘Yes.’ Forcing the word out like a gallstone.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…

‘Ed, would you be so kind as to fix Constable Henderson up?’

‘Pleasure.’ He grabbed my arm, held it out and twisted clockwise, so the elbow was locked, palm up. Ed dug his thumb into my skin, making a vein stand out, then pulled the safety cap off a syringe with his teeth.

‘I don’t want—’

‘Shhh, it’ll make everything all better.’

‘No, it…’

The needle slid in. A small sting as he pressed the plunger.

‘There we go.’ Terri counted more money from my wallet onto the table. ‘That should be enough to cover our heroin starter kit. Don’t worry – it’s rat-poison free.’ She smiled. ‘Now, why don’t we give you a lift out of town?’

Warmth sizzled through my body, radiating out from my heart. Making the walls pulse. As if the room was breathing…

Terri’s mouth was moving, but the words didn’t make any sense, making far-off muzzy noises in the gloom.

Foot didn’t hurt any more.

‘Right, Haggis, you got everythin’?’ Eugene stuck his hands under my armpits and levered me out of the Range Rover. Got me upright. Let go … then grabbed me again as the ground wobbled beneath my feet. ‘Whoa there, still not got your sea legs, eh?’ He leaned me back against the side of a wheelie bin.

It was a lay-by, somewhere in the darkness outside Bath. Not even on the main road – traffic thundered somewhere off in the distance, just audible over the hissing in my ears.

‘Mmm’OK.’ Mouth wasn’t working properly. Numb, like the rest of me.

‘Right, I’m lettin’ go…’

This time I stayed upright.

‘Good stuff. Open your hand.’

I squinted at him, but he wouldn’t stay in focus. ‘Nnnn… Gnn shoot me gen.’

‘Don’t be daft.’ Eugene dragged my hand up then tipped two little shiny things into my palm. Bullets. He squeezed my fingers around the gleaming brass casings, then took the bullets back and dropped them into a clear plastic freezer bag. Zip-locked it shut. ‘There you go. we get these, and you get this.’ He slid a plastic pencil case into my jacket pocket, then slapped me gently on the cheek. ‘Catch you later, Haggis.’

Eugene peeled off his blue nitrile gloves, disappeared behind the car and climbed back in behind the wheel.

Terri buzzed the passenger window down. She’d changed out of the dress into a yellow shirt, black denim jacket, and baseball cap. ‘Well, it’s been fun, but in case you’re thinking of hopping off to the nearest police station to file a grievance: please remember, yours are the only fingerprints on the gun.’

I stared at her. Blinked in slow motion.

‘We have a dead slut with your bullet in her. And who
knows
where the gun will turn up next: armed robbery, dead cop, series of murdered prostitutes…?’ A wink. ‘You take care of that foot.’

The Range Rover growled away from the lay-by, taillights glowing like the eyes of an evil cat. Shrinking. Then gone.

All alone.

All alone in the dark.

Got to get back to Bath: find the car. Go
home
…

My right foot dragged across the tarmac. Pins-and-needles wrapped in silver duct tape, wrapped in a towel, wrapped in more duct tape, wrapped in a heavy-duty bin-bag. Step, scuff… Step, scuff… Step, scuff, stumble. The ground rushed up to catch me. THUMP.

Fuck.

I lay on the road, in the dark and the cold, panting. Swearing.

Katie…

Crying.

A thin frigid drizzle settled onto my face.

‘BASTARDS!’

Deep in my pocket, my mobile rang. Took me three goes to drag it out. ‘D
R
M
C
F
RUITLOOP
’ flickered on the screen, then disappeared. Gone to voicemail.

My legs wouldn’t work.

I fumbled with the buttons for a while, and finally her recorded message crackled out of the speaker. ‘
Ash? Hello, it’s Alice, Alice McDonald? OK: so Henry was right about everything – the Scenes Examination Branch have dug up all the spots he marked on the map and they’ve found the other bodies. All of them.
’ A pause. Somewhere in the distance, a fox shrieked. ‘
We’ve got eleven sets of remains in total – so there really
was
another victim five years ago. I wanted… I thought you’d like to know. Call me back when you get this… Please?
’

‘
End of message. To delete this message, press three.
’

They’d found Rebecca.

I covered my face with my hands and sobbed. All these years, and my little girl was finally dead. Rain soaked through my hair, into my clothes, cold and damp on my numb skin.

Katie and Rebecca…

No.

Get up: still got till five o’clock tomorrow.

Get up.

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!’

Up. NOW.

I hauled myself onto my knees, then up onto my jittery feet. Step, scuff… Step, scuff… Step, scuff…

Find him and kill him… Step, scuff… Step, scuff… Wrap my aching fingers around his throat and squeeze… Step, scuff… Step, scuff… Tie him to a chair in the basement… Step, scuff… Step, scuff… Carve shapes into his skin, listen to him scream… Step, scuff… Step, scuff…

Headlights glittered in the darkness, getting closer.

Step, scuff… Step, scuff…

The car slowed, then rolled to a halt, right in front of me.

Step, scuff… Step, scuff…

The driver’s door opened, and a light came on inside. ‘Are you all right?’

I blinked, rubbed a hand across my eyes.

It was a kid: skinny, blond floppy hair, big gap between his front teeth. Dawson Whitaker, Terri’s son.

I screwed up my face till the car came into focus too. A shitty Renault with dents down the side. My car. ‘That’s my car.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He opened the passenger door, hurried over and took hold of my elbow.

Step, scuff… Step, scuff…

‘Watch your head.’

I collapsed into the seat. ‘Want to go home…’

Dawson licked his lips, fidgeted for a moment. Then got back in the car.

‘It wasn’t my fault.’ The kid changed down, drifting into the outside lane to overtake a motor home. ‘I knew something was up – Mum won’t let me go to rugby practice without protection, not after what happened to Dad… But it’s usually just Eugene, or Ed, or Derek, never all three…’

A motorway sign loomed out of the darkness: South Wales M4; Bristol (West), South West, Midlands (M5); Bristol M32.

Dawson drove past the junction. ‘Can’t take you into Bristol – Mum does all her business there, if we show up at A&E she’ll know in fifteen minutes. We’re going to Gloucester.’

I sagged further back into my seat. ‘No hospitals…’

‘You should settle down. Try to sleep or something.’

Fat chance. ‘How did you find me?’

He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. ‘What happened to your foot?’

‘An act of atonement.’ I made a gun from my fingers and pointed it at him. ‘Bang.’

‘Mum always dumps them on the way to work. I thought… Well, if you were still alive…’ Streetlights sparkled in the distance. We overtook a scabby Transit van. ‘Did the Birthday Boy really take your daughter?’

‘You drive pretty good for a wee boy.’

‘I’m
thirteen
. I’m not a child.’

‘Right.’

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, twisting his hands as if he was trying to wring its neck. All he needed was arthritis, a dead daughter, and a hole in his foot.

The steering column’s plastic casing was cracked open like a big grey pistachio nut. Wires stuck out, their shiny copper ends twisted together. ‘You hotwired my car…’

Dawson took a deep breath. Then the words came out in a rush, like a shaken can of Coke. ‘The Birthday Boy didn’t kill Brenda.’

I sighed. Let my head fall against the cool glass of the passenger window. ‘It was your mum, wasn’t it? She didn’t approve.’

‘Thought she was a gold-digger, but Mum’s
wrong
.’

‘So she killed Brenda.’

Silence.

‘No. Because I got there first.’

The street was quiet and dark as Dawson pulled the Renault off the road and onto the square of gravel behind a bland concrete building: three storeys tall, lights glowing in the windows.

I blinked. Arms were like lead, legs too. Probably lost a fair bit of blood.

He half helped, half dragged me out of the car. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Isn’t… Yeah.’ Step, scuff… Step, scuff…

He lifted my arm and hooked it over his shoulder. ‘Not much further.’

The back door opened with a Yale key and we hobbled along a narrow corridor to a flight of stairs, going down. Bloody hell, why did it have to be stairs?

Step, thunk… Step, thunk… Using my heel to take the weight.

A blue door lay at the bottom with a letterbox in it. Dawson took out his keys again, fiddled with the locks, and we were through into a little basement flat filled with the sticky warm smell of baking.

He closed the door and locked it again – three heavy deadbolts, and a metal rod that hooked into a big steel plate on the door and an eyelet in the floorboards.

We had cannabis farms back home with weaker security.

Dawson took off his coat and hung it on a hook. ‘Bren? Bren, it’s me.’

A voice from down the hall. ‘How was practice?’

He led me through into a little kitchen, painted a cheery shade of yellow. A young girl stood in front of an electric cooker, stirring something in a pot. ‘Fish fingers and apple crumble, if you’re…’ She turned – long blonde hair, with a razor-sharp fringe like her mum.

The smile on Brenda Chadwick’s face disappeared. She dropped her wooden spoon and cupped her swollen belly with both hands. ‘Who’s this?’

Dawson held up his hands. ‘It’s OK, I can explain.’

‘You’d better!’

A cup of hot milky tea and a plate of fish fingers, mash potato, and spaghetti hoops sat on the table in front of me. Congealing while Dawson and Brenda wolfed down their dinner.

Brenda scooped up the last of her hoops, then sat back – stroking the top of her bulge. ‘So you see, we couldn’t stay. If Dawson’s mum found out I was pregnant she’d kill our baby.
And
me.’

‘Could’ve run away.’

Dawson shook his head, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘You don’t know Mum. She’d find us, wherever we went.’

Brilliant. I pushed my plate away. ‘But not if she thought Brenda was already dead.’

‘That’s why I said I saw Bren getting grabbed.’ He stared down at his hands. ‘Mum didn’t used to be like this, it’s only since they crippled Dad…’

Just a working mother looking after the family business.

Brenda stared at me. ‘It was my idea. They printed that Inverness girl’s card in the papers, and we made our photo look like that.’

‘You faked the abduction, you faked the card, and you got a flat in Gloucester to hide in.’

Dawson nodded. ‘A man takes care of his family.’

A pair of thirteen-year-olds playing house. Yeah,
that
was going to last.

Brenda smiled up at him. ‘I know it’s not much, but it’s ours. Dawson skims a little from his mum every week: enough to pay the rent and buy things for the baby.’

‘I’m saving up for a deposit. We’ll have a real home soon.’

My phone rang. Dawson and Brenda flinched. I let it go through to voicemail. ‘What about your mum and dad?’

She lowered her head. ‘This way, she won’t hurt them either.’

After dinner, Dawson helped me through into the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the toilet while Brenda cut away the scuffed black-plastic bag, then the duct tape underneath. The towel was stained dark red – it splatched down into the yellow bathtub, sending little droplets of blood up the sides.

‘Oh dear…’ She licked her lips, rubbed the fingertips of her Marigold gloves together. Stared at the dripping mass of duct tape and leather. ‘Do you want me to pull the shoe off, or should I, you know: cut it?’

Now the bathroom smelled of fireworks and black pudding.

‘Cut it. It’s ruined anyway.’

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. Bits of shoe clattered into the tub.

A clunk. A hiss. Then warmth spread across my foot.

I peeked.

Brenda played the shower head back and forth, washing off thick slugs of congealed blood. She puffed out her cheeks, brows creased. ‘Come on, Bren, you can do this…’

Pink appeared through the red and black, then pale flesh. The whole thing was swollen and distended, like a massive wasp sting, centred around a dark circle – not much bigger than a garden pea – an inch from where the foot became toes. The starburst of black that had marked the shoe was there around the bullet hole too. Little black flecks of powder tattooed into the skin. Tiny slivers of cream poked out of the swollen mess. Bone.