The Coffinmaker's Garden by Stuart MacBride

Author:Stuart MacBride [MacBride, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-11-11T17:00:00+00:00

26

I closed the taxi door and Aileen blinked up at me from the back seat, face all puffy and streaked with mascara. Then turned to face front as the old Ford puttered away down the narrow lane, took a right at the junction, and disappeared.

Jesus.

I sagged back against the empty shop doorway, pulled out my phone, and called Franklin.

‘For God’s sake, what now? I’m going as fast as I can, but there’s three tonnes of—’

‘Our girl’s Linda McCaskill: sixteen, went missing twelfth of June, 1985.’

Silence from the other end.

Then, ‘How did you—’

‘Old-fashioned legwork. See if there’s a misper report.’

More silence.

‘McCaskill, McCaskill, McCaskill … Here we go. Linda McCaskill.’ Some rustling, then a groan. ‘If it isn’t her, it looks a hell of a lot like her. But without a body?’

‘Yup.’ I checked my watch. ‘Five past eight. We got time to finish up and make the last ferry at nine?’

‘You are kidding, aren’t you? Have you forgotten how much paperwork it takes to turn a missing person into a murder victim? Be lucky if I’m out of here before midnight!’

True.

‘Then wrap it up; you can finish in the morning.’

‘But—’

‘We’ll have to spend the night in Rothesay anyway, so there’s no point busting your hump. Might as well grab dinner.’

But you know whose hump was worth busting?

Sabir’s.

Soon as I’d hung up, I gave the useless wee sod a call.

The sound of explosions and machineguns rattled in the background. ‘This better be important, like, I’m savin’ the werld from Nazi zombies, here.’

‘Where are my IDs?’

‘Hello, Sabir. How are you, Sabir. You’re my favourite, you are, Sabir.’

‘Oh, sorry, let me try that again. Hello, Sabir, where – are – my – sodding – IDs – you – lazy – tosser?’

‘A guy could go off you.’ The sounds of war came to an abrupt halt. ‘I’ve got web crawlers going through every Friends Reunited and LinkedIn profile on the net. Every missing persons’ database too, including a few I’m not meant to have access to an’ all. Cough, cough, GCHQ, cough, cough.’ A slurping noise. ‘See, your trouble is you know bugger all about information technology. You watch one episode of Dr Who and think you’re an expert, but I can’t search for stuff that’s never seen a computer in its puff!’

‘I thought you were meant to be—’

‘You wanna better result? Try looking for people who didn’t fall off the globe thirty years ago, you utter divvy! I’m doing me best here.’

Yeah …

‘Fair enough.’ I limped across the road again to the Black Bull’s back door. ‘Do me a favour, though?’

‘What, another one?’

‘DS Watt’s got a warrant for locating Leah MacNeil’s mobile phone. He’s an idiot.’

‘And you think calling us a “lazy tosser” is going to make me want to help youse?’

I leaned my walking stick against the pub wall, closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose with my free hand, and did my best not to swear. ‘I’m sorry, Sabir. You’re a tech guru, and DS Watt’s an idiot, and I want to find Leah MacNeil before Gordon Smith tortures her to death.

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