Birthdays for the Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  Dr McDonald padded along beside me. ‘Brrr, it’s cold, isn’t it cold, I’m cold.’

  Cameron Park was a monochrome blur, disappearing into the mist. The SOC tent from last night shone like a lighthouse in the gloom. Dew dripped from jagged trees and drooping bushes. We followed the path, then cut across to the entrance.

  Henry’s ancient Volvo estate was parked on the grass outside – Sheba had curled up in the back next to a suitcase and a couple of file boxes, twitching, her grey muzzle resting on her paws.

  A voice behind me: ‘She’s not well…’

  I turned and there was Henry.

  He nodded at the steaming mug in his hand. ‘Before you ask, it’s just coffee.’

  Dr McDonald stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the stubbled cheek. ‘Thanks for coming, I—’

  ‘We need to talk about the order of victims.’

  She stepped back. Nodded. Then wrapped an arm around herself. ‘Well, it really depends on whether or not the Birthday Boy took a year off, and—’

  ‘He didn’t.’ Henry took a sip of coffee. The mug trembled in his hand. ‘I know for certain there was a victim five years ago, but the parents didn’t come forward.’

  She stared at him, head on one side. ‘How do you know they—’

  ‘The father told me.’ He gazed off into the mist. ‘They don’t want to be involved.’

  ‘That makes Katie number thirteen, she’s the one he’s been building up to.’

  ‘Fuck…’ I sat on the bonnet of Henry’s car. Cold leached through my trousers.

  He smiled at Dr McDonald. ‘You look frozen, Alice. Why don’t you nip in and get yourself a mug of tea? Maybe see if they’ve got a detailed map of the area while you’re there?’

  She backed up a step. Looked from Henry, to me, and back again. Then nodded. ‘OK.’ Her red Hi-tops squeaked through the damp grass as she disappeared into the SOC tent.

  The only sound was the diesel generators powering the spotlights inside.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Henry.’

  ‘You have to tell her.’

  ‘I don’t want—’

  ‘Ash, she needs to know. She’s not playing with a full deck and you won’t let her see all the cards.’

  ‘No.’

  He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I spoke to Dickie – they put you on compassionate leave. It doesn’t matter any more.’

  ‘It matters to me!’

  ‘Why? For God’s sake, Ash, you’re—’

  ‘Because it’s mine. OK? That’s why.’ I pushed away from the car, hands curled into aching fists. ‘It’s been mine for four years. Rebecca’s not public property, she’s my daughter. I’m not having bastards picking her life apart and telling me she’s dead…’

  Henry’s voice was barely audible. ‘I’m sorry, Ash, but Rebecca—’

  ‘She’s not dead. Not until I get that card…’

  A glow spread through the mist, peach and gold and blood red. The sun must have made it up over the hills.

  I stared down at my fists. ‘And yes: I know what that sounds like. I’ve never…’ Deep breath. ‘It’s mine.’

  Dr McDonald emerged from the SOC tent, something tucked under her arm and a steaming mug in both hands. ‘Ash, did you want coffee, because I’ve got you a coffee and there’s doughnuts but they look a bit stale so I didn’t bother, unless you want me to go back…?’ She handed me a mug. ‘Got the map too.’

  Henry spread it out on the Volvo’s bonnet. It was fairly high detail, big enough to take in the park and the surrounding streets. Someone had marked the burial sites – a red ‘X’ for each girl recovered. ‘Right: if he cared about the bodies he’d keep them close.’

  Off in the distance, the sound of a car engine and crunching gravel came through the mist. Getting louder.

  She leaned on the bonnet. ‘But he doesn’t. Given the deposition sites, it looks as if he’s simply throwing them away.’

  ‘Exactly. So he’s not going to want to carry them too far…’ Henry produced a pencil. ‘Have you done any geographical profiling? These days it’s all computers and statistical analysis, but we used to do it with brainpower.’

  A battered Astra pulled up on the other side of the SEB Transit. Dickie clambered out of the driver’s seat, a smile putting extra wrinkles in his cheeks. ‘Henry! Henry Forrester, you old sod, they said you were here, but I didn’t…’ He stared at me. ‘Ash.’

  I stared back. ‘Dickie.’

  Dr McDonald smiled. ‘Isn’t it great: Henry’s agreed to assist the investigation.’

  Dickie didn’t even look at her. ‘Yeah, that’s great. Ash, you can’t be here.’

  ‘She’s my daughter.’

  ‘I know she’s… Look, you’re on compassionate leave: I promise we’ll keep you up to date, but you – can’t – be – here.’

  I took a step towards him. ‘Her birthday’s tomorrow, do you really think I’m—’

  ‘Don’t make me get someone to escort you home, Ash.’ He closed his eyes, rubbed at his forehead. ‘Please.’

  Sun sliced through the clouds, sparkling back from the wet streets as I creaked the Renault onto Rowan Drive. Weber must’ve pulled a few strings, because there was a police cordon cutting off the road a good hundred feet from the house, keeping the journalist scumbags at a reasonable distance. Giving Michelle some privacy.

  I pulled into the kerb, behind a BBC outside broadcast van.

  Should really drive down there and see how she’s coping. Give her some support. Lie to her and pretend this isn’t what happened to Rebecca…

  Maybe Henry was right: maybe it didn’t matter any more. They’d booted me off the investigation anyway, who cared if everyone found out?

  The steering wheel was cold in my hands, the plastic coating creaking as I squeezed.

  I cared.

  Blink.

  Why couldn’t it have been Steven Wallace?

  Blink.

  I screwed my eyes closed and squeezed the steering wheel till my arms trembled.

  My phone rang, the noise too loud in the quiet car. I pulled it out – ‘NUMBER WITHHELD’.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Ash, you old bastardo…’ Andy Inglis, Mrs Kerrigan’s boss. He cleared his throat, then dropped his voice to something less cheery. ‘I heard about your daughter, I’m really sorry.’

  The driver’s window was cool against my forehead. ‘So am I.’

  ‘Look, I was gonnae give you a call, give you the usual “If there’s anything I can do,” bollocks, then I thought: why not lend a hand instead? Put out some feelers for you.’ I could almost hear him grinning. ‘So I did. And guess what: man I know says another girl went missing a couple of months ago: got a card and everything. Her parents said fuck all about it, ’cos her boyfriend’s connected, you know?’

  A couple of months ago: the twelfth victim. The one before Megan Taylor.

  Nothing that would help me find Katie before tomorrow. ‘I … appreciate the effort, but it’s—’

  ‘The boyfriend said he saw the bastard.’

  I sat up straight. ‘He what?’

  ‘Said he was there when she was lifted. Wasn’t meant to be, but he was. Saw everything.’

  ‘And he didn’t tell anyone? How could he not—’

  ‘His dad’s allergic to police officers. Now: you got a pen for the address?’

  I pulled out my notebook. ‘What’s it going to cost?’

  ‘Fuck all. Public-spirited citizen, that’s me. Make sure the bastard gets what’s comin’ to him.’

  Chapter 42

  ‘…and that was … that was Coldplay and “Fix You”.’ A cough rattled out of the car radio. ‘Sorry folks, had a bit of a rough one last night.’ A shuddering sigh. ‘Right, OK: you’re listening to Sensational Steve’s Sunday Morning Lie-In Lovefest and … and now here’s another of Megan Taylor’s favourite songs…’

  The fields and litt
le towns raced by as I hammered down the M74 – accelerator flat to the Renault’s filthy carpet, phone to my ear, swearing as the other end rang and rang and rang. Then put me through to voicemail again.

  ‘Henry, for fuck’s sake: answer your bloody phone!’

  I hung up and tried again, for the fourth time in twenty miles.

  Lockerbie was a blur in the rear-view mirror when I finally gave up on Henry and tried Dr McDonald instead. She picked up first time.

  ‘Ash, are you OK, I mean I know you’re not OK, with everything happening and now you can’t be on the team and I’m … we’re worried about you.’

  ‘When does he kill them?’

  ‘On their birthdays, is there—’

  ‘No: does he kill them in the morning, in the evening, lunchtime, when?’

  ‘I don’t… It’s hard to tell, there’s nothing in the photographs to give us time of day, it’s all indoors under artificial light, so—’

  ‘If you were him, when would you do it?’

  I swung over into the outside lane and roared past a coach full of ugly children.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a healthy thing to focus on, if we—’

  ‘When – does – he – kill – them?’

  A sigh. ‘It’s impossible to tell, I mean I think it’s important to kill them on their actual birthday, and Professor Twining said it took Lauren six or seven hours to die, so he can’t have started later than six o’clock… I think he works, so he can’t start torturing them before he goes off in the morning in case something happens and they die while he’s not there, so it’s after work.’

  ‘That means we’ve got till five o’clock tomorrow.’ I checked my watch. ‘Thirty hours till he… Till Katie.’

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or he might have taken Monday as a holiday so he can spend the whole day on—’

  ‘Don’t, OK? Just … don’t.’ I scowled at the dual carriageway. ‘Is Henry there?’

  ‘He’s with the SEB search team, he worked up probable deposition sites for the other victims from the map, he’s very good, Ash, I mean he’s scarily good.’

  One step closer to them finding Rebecca…

  ‘Call me soon as he gets back.’

  ‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?’

  ‘I hate these things…’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘You’re sure no one can hear us?’

  ‘Henry it stinks in here.’

  ‘Sheba can’t help that. Wind the window down if it bothers you that much.’

  Nearly a quarter-tank of petrol left, still a bit to go before I had to stop. ‘Will you two shut up? There’s another victim.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A couple of months ago, a girl in Bath: the family got a card but they hushed it up.’

  Someone whistled.

  Dr McDonald: ‘You know what this means, it means Katie’s not number thirteen, she’s number fourteen.’

  A pause.

  Henry’s voice was barely audible over the engine’s roar. ‘I was wrong.’ A deep breath. ‘I was wrong, Ash. He’s not been building up to his thirteenth victim. It’s not going to stop…’

  ‘Ash, if Katie’s number fourteen then he’s escalating: one a year for seven years, then two the next year, another two last year, and now three, that means there’s going to be more of them, soon.’

  ‘He’s escalating…’

  ‘How does that help us find Katie?’

  Dr McDonald got even faster than usual. ‘Ash, he can’t keep this up, he’s operating at full stretch, running from victim to victim, and we should issue a statement telling everyone who’s got a daughter coming up to her thirteenth birthday to keep her under lock and key.’

  ‘There’ll be a panic.’

  ‘What else can we do, Henry, he’s one step away from going on a spree, we can’t not tell people, what if it was your daughter?’

  ‘Hrrmph. My daughter can’t wait for me to drop dead so she and her husband can get their hands on my money. Apparently I’m “a selfish old man drinking her inheritance”…’ A sniff. ‘I’m sorry, Ash. I got it wrong.’

  A fluorescent-yellow speed camera wheeched by, the flash going off as I overtook a mini. ‘The victim’s boyfriend said he saw the Birthday Boy.’

  Dr McDonald sounded as if she was bouncing up and down in her seat. ‘Ash, that’s great, we’ll get Dickie onto Avon and Somerset Police, get them to take a description and—’

  ‘No: no police. The boyfriend wouldn’t talk to them anyway. I’m on my way there now.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No police!’ I hung up and jammed the phone back into my pocket.

  One hundred and seventy miles to go.

  I clambered out of the car, groaned, then tried to rub some life back into my spine. Twenty past three. Seven hours from Oldcastle all the way to Bath. Got pulled over outside Carlisle for doing ninety, but once they’d checked my warrant card, that was it: I’m sorry to hear about your daughter. Do you want us to escort you down the road a bit, blues-and-twos all the way?

  They had to give up at junction 37, but at least it was something.

  Of course, I could have flown into Bristol and saved myself three hours, but airport security tended to get a bit twitchy when you tried to take a gun onboard.

  I pulled out my notebook and double-checked the address I’d got from Andy Inglis. This was it: number twenty-six, a third of the way along a narrow street of terraced houses. Green and brown streaks made dirty shadows under the guttering. Dirty, rust-coloured pantiles, small gardens, the pavements solid with down-at-heel Hondas, Fords, and Citroëns.

  Not the fanciest bit of Bath by a long shot.

  I squeezed the Renault in behind a van and climbed out into the afternoon. It was a damn sight warmer down here than back home, and it wasn’t raining either.

  The wooden gate creaked as I pushed through into the garden. Football blared out from a TV somewhere inside: the crowd roaring, the commentator sounding as if he was about to wet himself with excitement.

  I rang the bell.

  A muffled voice: ‘OK, OK, I’m coming… Jesus… Couldn’t wait till half-time, could you.’ A little man with a big nose and curly hair opened the door. He wasn’t smiling. ‘Better not be one of them bloody born-again tossers.’

  I stared at him.

  He fidgeted with the buttons on his polo shirt. ‘What?’

  ‘You didn’t go to the police.’

  He shuffled an inch backwards, licked his lips, started to ease the door shut. ‘I didn’t. I said I wouldn’t and I didn’t…’ He looked down to where my foot was jammed in the door, stopping it going any further. ‘Honestly: we didn’t say anything.’

  I took out my warrant card and held it up for him. ‘Why?’

  His mouth fell open, and then he sniffed. ‘I’m very busy, so if you’ll excuse me…’

  A woman’s voice came from the hall behind him. ‘Ron? Is it Mrs Mahajan? I’ve got her casserole dish.’

  Ron glanced back into the house. ‘I’ll take care of it, you go back to the kitchen.’

  ‘Ron?’

  ‘I said I’d take care of it!’ He squared his shoulders, still peering around the door. ‘You’ve got no right coming round here, harassing us. Nothing happened, I’ve got nothing to say, now go away.’

  ‘The bastard got your daughter, didn’t he: the Birthday Boy?’

  His jaw clenched. ‘Nothing happened, now please—’

  ‘I know how you feel.’

  He slammed a fist into his own chest. ‘You know nothing about how I feel.’

  ‘He took my daughter.’

  ‘Ron? What’s going on?’

  I dug back into my wallet and came out with a photo – Katie dressed in funeral black with a huge smile on her face. Heading off to see Green Day at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. Her first big gig. ‘She w
ent missing Friday night. We got the card on Saturday.’

  He blushed, then lowered his head. Stared at his shoes. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now you have to go.’

  I reached in, took a handful of his shirt, and pulled, banging his forehead off the door. ‘Pin back your lugs, you little shite: he’s got my daughter, her birthday’s tomorrow, and I will tear your fucking head off if I think it’s going to help me find her. Are we crystal clear on that?’

  ‘Ron?’

  ‘They made me promise…’

  We sat in the lounge while Ellie Chadwick poured tea from a red teapot. She was a slight woman in a pair of bright green jeans and a pink fluffy jumper. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, the fringe spirit-level straight; wearing enough makeup to get a job on the counter at Debenhams. Couldn’t have been a day over thirty.

  Ron sat on the other side of the coffee table, scowling at a slice of Battenberg. ‘We promised.’

  She put down the teapot and picked up the photo of Katie. ‘You promised, Ronald Chadwick, not me.’ Ellie traced Katie’s hair with a finger. ‘Your daughter’s pretty.’

  ‘She’s a pain in the arse … but she’s mine.’

  ‘Our Brenda was the same. Always getting into trouble.’ Ellie turned, opened a drawer in the TV unit and pulled out a small photo album. Flipped to a page near the end, then placed it on the table in front of me. A young girl with glasses, and hair like her mum’s, grinned up at me from a funfair somewhere – the carousel horses out of focus behind her. She had one arm around a thin boy with floppy blond hair and a big gap between his front teeth.

  I pointed at the picture. ‘This the boyfriend?’

  ‘Dawson Whitaker. He lives over in Newbridge – it’s probably the poshest bit of Bath, you should see the houses… To start with we thought she’d done really well for herself, his family’s loaded, but—’

  ‘Ellie, that’s enough!’ Ron banged his hand on the table, making the crockery rattle.

  ‘Oh shut it, Ron. Christ… You’re just like my mother.’