by Preston, Ken
Contents
Joe Coffin
Season Four
EPISODE THIRTEEN
scores to settle
the goldfish
naughty girl
waste my time on facebook
where's lover boy?
there is no key
a cool two million
that horse-faced bitch
chelsea and madison
a woman and a duck walk into a bar
drunk
EPISODE FOURTEEN
let go, baby
cats
shithole
an empty grave
put some clothes on
pumper-upped
julie
you a monster
gilligan
blue sky
EPISODE FIFTEEN
jeremy
wizztinkling his knickaloons
pot kettle black
you can't hurry art
that's my girl
girl's got no styleee
bats
a long queue
fuzzy warm feeling
twerky
shit eater
batty
why do you always have to spoil it, joe?
swallowed up by darkness
EPISODE SIXTEEN
archer and choudhry
you look fine
an octopus
tsung ti lee
emma
joe
darkness falls
Acknowledgements
More Books
Joe Coffin
Season Four
Content copyright © Ken Preston, 2018. All rights reserved
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is forbidden.
Cover Design: Ken Preston
EPISODE THIRTEEN
scores to settle
Mary clutched the handles of the shopping bags crowded around her feet. She was sitting about halfway down the length of the empty bus, looking out of the window as the bus crawled around the sharp bend in the road. Low cloud covered the mountain tops, the grey rock merging with the grey cloud forming an oppressive roof over the valley. The weather never changed here, always cloud and rain and then more rain.
The bus began picking up speed as the driver finished navigating the steep bend. To Mary’s right there was a drop of several hundred feet down to fields dotted with sheep, a river cutting through the landscape before the hills rose behind it. To her left the bus windows were filled with slate grey rock, piled on one another and rising up and up.
Mary clutched the plastic handles tight, her fingernails digging into her palms. Bloody stupid, bringing all this shopping with her. It had slowed her down getting to the bus stop and it would slow her down again when she got off the bus and made her way down to the cottage. She could have travelled faster if she had left the shopping behind, just dropped it where she stood and left it there for some lucky bastard to find and take home. But she couldn’t do that. Her mother, that’s what that was, teaching her frugality and responsibility from the earliest age.
Shopping or no shopping, the bus wouldn’t go any faster than it was now. Maybe when she arrived, when she clambered off the bus, she would leave the shopping at the top of the lane. She would be free to run down to the farmhouse. And then she could come back, once she knew he was all right, she could come back and pick up the shopping. It would still be there.
Out here, out of town and in the arse end of nowhere, there was nobody to steal it anyway.
Mary running. Well, that would be something to see, wouldn’t it? Mary doubted she had run anywhere in the last ten years or more. And it showed in her shape and size. Mary wasn’t built for running, wasn’t built for anything but going getting the shopping, cleaning the farmhouse, cooking the meals. She wasn’t made for anything else.
The note of the engine changed as the driver shifted down a gear and the bus began crawling up the incline as it grew even steeper. Apart from Mary and a couple of Japanese tourists sat in the back seats, giggling and talking rapidly in Japanese, the bus was empty. And yet still the engine would groan and rumble as it pulled them ever higher.
Mary unclenched her hands from around the shopping bag handles and wiped her clammy palms on her trouser legs. She had to hold back from screaming at the driver to get a move on, to force this old bus to go faster. There was no point, he probably had his foot to the floor anyway. What gear would they be in? Second? First even?
Mary closed her hands around the plastic shopping bag handles once more, gripping them hard.
It had been Niall who had told her they were coming. Niall with his white, greasy skin and the permanent shakes. Said he’d heard it on the ‘radio’, which for Niall meant whatever means of communication he had that were underground, on the sly. Said they were coming today, maybe they were here already.
You stupid bastard, Mary had said. Didn’t you think to let us know sooner?
Niall had shrugged, said, I only just found out mesel’, told you right away is what I did, but the smirk on his face told Mary otherwise. Niall had always hated Mary, ever since they were children. She never knew why, could never fathom it. And she had always just ignored him, ignored his veiled insults and his attitude. He was a watcher, a listener, not a doer. He lived on the sidelines of life, too scared to actually commit to a decision of any kind.
But today he had found a way of sticking the knife in without actually having to do anything. Mary knew he would have had that information for a day or two at least. But by withholding it until today, until the last moment when it might be too late, and to be there and see her face when he told her the news. That was something Niall would have enjoyed.
The bus driver shifted down again, crunching the gears. The bus shuddered for a moment as it fought to keep its upward momentum.
Now they were in first gear.
The Japanese pair giggled some more. A boy and a girl, obviously in love from what Mary had seen. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other. What on earth had brought them out here, to the outer edges of the British Isles, Mary had no idea. Surely there were better places to go on holiday? Yes, the hills and the valleys were beautiful in their own, rugged way, but couldn’t they have found somewhere dry and warm where the sun occasionally shone, rather than here where it was damp and cold and if the sun did manage to show its face everyone scurried inside for fear of getting sunburnt?
But then none of that was her business. And Mary prided herself on keeping her own business and not minding others’.
If only Niall had felt the same way.
Slowly, laboriously, the bus crawled to the brow of the hill where, just a few hundred yards further, was Mary’s bus stop. She reached up and pushed the button for the bell. Not that she needed to have bothered. Lachlann Stewart had been driving this bus route for the last twenty years or more and knew exactly where Mary got off. But she rang the bell anyway.
The bus slowed to a halt and Lachlann opened the doors. Mary got to her feet and picked up her shopping bags. She walked down the aisle, past all the empty seats.
‘Thank you, Lachlann,’ she said, and took the steps carefully down onto the tarmac surface of the road.
The doors hissed shut, and the bus juddered into motion and drove away.
There in front of Mary, on the other side of the road, was the lane, wide enough for one vehicle, leading down to their cottage. The twin tracks, deep grooves in the ground separated by a mound of dirt with grass sprouting from it, revealed how often the lane was used by thei
r jeep. If only the jeep hadn’t been out of action, then Mary would have used that to do the shopping and could have returned home that much quicker. If only the mobile signal wasn’t so weak around these parts, she could have phoned ahead and warned Brianan.
But no, this was the life they had chosen. One of seclusion, of being cut off from the rest of the world, as much as was possible these days anyway.
Mary looked at their cottage, down in the valley at the end of the track. Wisps of white smoke trailed from the stone chimney. There was no sign of any other vehicles down there.
All looked quiet as it should be.
Mary hefted the shopping bags, forgetting that she had intended leaving them by the roadside until she was sure all was safe, and began making her way down towards the family cottage.
The shopping bags banged against her legs as she walked. Tomorrow they would be covered in bruises.
If I’m still alive tomorrow, she thought.
When she reached the bottom of the lane, she hurried across the yard, past the jeep with its bonnet open and its engine exposed to the elements, and up to their front door.
‘Brianan!’ she shouted, dropping one of the bags and opening the door. It hadn’t been locked, was that a good sign or a bad one?
She picked up the shopping bag and went inside the house. ‘Brianan!’
A large, mountain of a man appeared in the tiny doorway leading to the kitchen.
‘What’s all the shouting about, now?’
‘He found you. He’s on his way here now.’
Brianan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then we’ll be ready for him, won’t we?’
‘Ma? What’s happening?’
Brianan moved to one side, revealing a boy standing in the shadows. He was in pyjamas and clutching a teddy bear.
‘Nothing, love,’ Mary said, pushing her way past Brianan and into the kitchen. ‘Come on, let’s get you back upstairs and in bed.’
Placing her hands on the boy’s shoulders she turned him to face the stairs and started ushering him on. She glanced back at Brianan, his mouth set in a grim line.
‘Don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘He’s come for me, not you and the boy.’
‘I don’t want to lose you,’ Mary said.
‘Don’t worry, you won’t,’ Brianan said. ‘That bastard’s getting nowhere near me.’
* * *
He handed the binoculars over and, pointing, said, ‘Over there on the rocks, there’s a sandpiper.’
‘A what?’ he said, raising the glasses to his eyes, unfamiliar with their use.
‘A sandpiper, it’s a bird.’
He fiddled with the controls, the image blurred and wobbly through the binoculars. Caught a flash of grey water amongst the green grass and grey sky. Couldn’t focus on anything, it was all too close, too large. He couldn’t get the bigger picture.
‘Can you see it?’
‘No.’ He handed the binoculars back. ‘Never figured you for a bird watcher.’
‘Used to be, when I was a lad.’ He had the binoculars up, scanning the lake of cold, grey water at the foot of the mountainside. ‘Not anymore, not for years now. But then I saw we had these, and I thought, while we were here, I might as well have a look.’
Joe Coffin turned his back on the lake. What had Gilligan told him it was called? Loch Muick. Stupid bloody name.
Coffin watched the Stig struggling to keep the pages of the road atlas laid flat on the bonnet of the black Range Rover. A cold breeze was picking up.
Shaw was sat in the back of the Range Rover. He’d refused to get out, said he didn’t want to stand around in the cold wind while the Stig tried to work out where the hell they were.
‘You know where we went wrong yet?’ Coffin said.
‘We should have stayed on the A93, just like I told you,’ the Stig said. ‘It’s that fucking Gilligan, took us down a dead end.’
‘Fuck you, Stig,’ Gilligan said, not bothering to lower the binoculars and turn to face the others. ‘If you didn’t drive like a fucking maniac all the time I’d have been able to pay more attention to the map book.’
‘Cut the crap, you two,’ Coffin said. ‘Do you know where we’re going now?’
The Stig massaged his beard thoughtfully while he peered at the markings on the page. ‘Yeah, we just need to turn round and go back about a mile.’ He closed the road atlas and looked up at the grey cloud hanging above them. ‘Bloody hell, it’s a good job we brought the map book. It’s murder trying to get a signal up here.’
Coffin pulled his mobile from his back pocket. No bars. Felt like they were cut off from the rest of the world, and he didn’t like it. It was bad enough being out of Birmingham, but to come up here, the middle of Scottish Fucking Nowhere? Coffin slipped the mobile phone back in his pocket.
‘Let’s get going,’ he said.
Coffin climbed into the car, the front passenger seat. He’d ratcheted the seat all the way back. There was plenty of room inside and the elevated position was good. But he still felt hemmed in, trapped and uncomfortable. He had no room to move his legs, and his head was constantly brushing the roof. It had been a hell of a long journey and once they had crossed the border Coffin had done his best to stay out of sight inside the Range Rover, behind the tinted glass.
The Stig climbed in the driver’s seat and Gilligan sat in the back, still holding onto the binoculars.
Coffin gazed out of the windscreen at the lake, at the cold grey water, at the ripples across its surface from the stiff breeze. A good place to hide a body in there. A suitable grave for those that deserved it.
The Stig swung the car round in reverse, the wheels skidding on the ground’s loose surface. He shoved the gears into first and gunned the engine. The wheels skidded again before they shot forward and they were back on the tarmac road, winding through the hills.
‘Can’t you just drive normal?’ Gilligan said. ‘Do you always have to act like you’re on timed laps on a fucking racetrack?’
The Stig had his sunglasses on again, but Coffin was pretty sure he saw him looking in the rear-view mirror, probably holding Gilligan’s gaze in a stupid, pissy staring contest, when Gilligan couldn’t see his eyes anyway. Coffin just wished he would concentrate on the driving.
‘Why don’t you leave the driving to me?’ the Stig said. ‘And you concentrate on what you’re good at, although I’ve yet to see any evidence that you’re good at anything apart from whingeing.’
‘Hey, didn’t I tell you two to cut it out?’ Coffin said. ‘I feel like I’m your fucking mother. Now just shut the fuck up before you give me a headache.’
The Stig spun the steering wheel as he took the curves in the road too fast. Rocky ground rose beside them on their right, making it difficult to see what might be around the next bend. On their left the ground dropped away and sometimes Coffin could see the road cutting its way through the valley. It appeared they were the only vehicle out today, the road deserted apart from a bus in the distance making its way towards them.
‘I’m hungry,’ Shaw said, from the back. ‘You think they’ve got a McDonald’s around here?’
The Stig laughed. ‘Are you kidding? They probably haven’t even heard of fast food in these parts. Besides, you’re in the Highlands now. You can eat haggis like the rest of them.’
‘I’m not eating any of that shit, now I’m not,’ Gilligan said, before Shaw had a chance to reply. ‘I saw something on TV once about what they put in there, sheep’s heart and brains and shit like that. Sounds to me like the sweepings off the abattoir floor after they’ve finished carving off all the good parts for the butcher. And you know it’s all shoved inside a sheep’s intestine, don’t you? Fucking barbarians, that’s what they are round here.’
‘The trouble with you Gilligan is you’ve got no sense of adventure,’ the Stig said. ‘But then I suppose that’s what’ll happen to a man when you grow up eating nothing but potatoes.’
‘When we’re done here today, Mr Stig, I’m going to gi
ve you an education in Irish history, that I am,’ Gilligan said.
Shaw laughed and looked out of his window.
The bus passed them, going in the opposite direction. It looked empty although Coffin thought he might have seen a couple sat in the back.
‘Keep your eyes peeled,’ Coffin said. ‘We don’t want to miss the turn off again.’
The Stig took another bend in the road and then slowed as they came to the brow of the hill. He parked up on the side of the road.
‘I think this might be what we’re looking for,’ he said.
They all looked at the farm track leading downhill. At the end of the lane they could see a cottage, wisps of smoke curling from the chimney.
Coffin heard the electric window sliding down in the back. He twisted in his seat, saw Gilligan peering through the binoculars.
‘See anything?’ Coffin said.
‘Apart from fucking sandpipers,’ the Stig said.
‘Nothing, it all looks quiet down there,’ Gilligan said.
Coffin pressed the button on the car door and his window slid down with an electronic hum.
‘Hand them over, let me see.’
Gilligan passed him the black binoculars. Again he struggled to focus the view through the lenses. They felt too small in his large hands, too delicate. He turned the focusing wheel one way and then the other, trying to hold the binoculars steady enough that he could keep the image from bouncing around.
‘Prop your elbows on the edge of the door,’ Gilligan said.
Coffin tried it, and immediately the image settled down. He twisted the focusing knob again and this time the view came into startling, vivid focus. He was looking into the branches of a tree, so close he felt he could reach out and pluck the leaves from it. Slowly, so as not to disturb the view too much, he tracked the binoculars right and then left.
The cottage suddenly came into view. A thin wisp of smoke still curling from the stone chimney. The windows dark against the grey stone of the cottage walls. No vehicles visible in the front yard. No sign of life.
Except that trail of smoke from the chimney. As though someone had just extinguished a fire?
