Stuart MacBride: Ash Henderson 2-book Crime Thriller Collection. Stuart MacBride
you drink, or don’t you?’
She swallowed. ‘Sometimes … it helps loosen things up.’
He nodded, then tipped half the remaining Bells into her mug. ‘This isn’t a social visit: you’re here about a case. And as you’re here with DI Henderson, I’m going to assume it’s the Birthday Boy. We worked a couple of rapes together, but … I think they both died in prison?’
Heat leached through my mug into my aching fingers. ‘Crouch got shanked in Barlinnie, Chambers drank a whole thing of bleach.’
‘So it’s the Birthday Boy.’ Another slurp, and this time when the whisky bottle went back on the breakfast bar it was empty. ‘Can’t help you.’
A knock at the door and Royce stuck his head in from the hall. ‘I’ve photoed and fingerprinted everything, so you can clean up if you like. Watch yourself though, there’s glass and dog shit all over the place …’ He grinned at me. ‘Any chance of a coffee? I’m freezing.’
Henry’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘Lucky me.’ He clapped his hands against his legs. ‘Sheba? Sheeeeeee-ba?’
I handed the last mug to Royce. Frowned. ‘You said: “Burges has been at it again.” Not, Arnold Burges?’
‘Yeah, that’s him: tall, fat, bald, big beard like he’s eating a badger? Works one of the fish farms out by Calders Lea, he’s been—’
‘Constable Clark,’ Henry pointed at a door in the corner of the room, ‘if you want to make yourself useful there’s a dustpan and brush in the cupboard. Some bin-bags too. And no more bloody whistling!’
A wobbly dog shuffled into the kitchen, moving one leg at a time, its claws clicking and clacking on the floor. It bumped its head against Henry’s leg and he reached down to rub a greying ear. The dog groaned.
‘Sheba, what did I tell you about crapping in the house?’
More groans; one back leg twitched.
‘Crap in the kitchen, it’s easier to clean up …’ He stopped rubbing and looked at me. ‘Well, she’s old, what do you expect?’
Dr McDonald sniffed her coffee, as if there was something sinister lurking at the bottom. ‘Fluvoxamine’s an antidepressant. Mixing it with alcohol can cause … problems.’
Henry shrugged. ‘Still better than Paroxetine: side effects include diarrhoea and erectile dysfunction. Talk about putting the kybosh on your sex life. And don’t get me started on Escitalopram.’
Royce slouched out of the room, taking the dustpan and brush, bin-bags, and his coffee with him. Muttering.
She tilted her head to one side, and stared at Henry. ‘If you’re depressed, it might help to talk to someone, I mean, you’re dressed in funereal black, you’re mixing your medication with whisky, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of: we all have times when it feels like we can’t cope, and I’m—’
‘You remember Detective Inspector Pearson, Ash?’
‘Strathclyde, wasn’t it? Retired to Aviemore; lives with his granddaughter.’
‘Not any more.’ Henry dug something out of his jacket pocket and handed it over.
It was an order of service, folded in half lengthways: ‘IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALBERT PEARSON’ in gothic script above a photograph of a beady-eyed grey-haired man in full dress uniform.
‘Buried him Monday in Clydebank. Nice service, very upbeat. Horrible sausage rolls at the reception.’ Henry tugged at the lapels of his black suit. ‘Hence the …?’
Dr McDonald fidgeted with the newspapers covering the breakfast bar. ‘You weren’t trying to kill yourself?’
‘Oh, I’ve thought about it. After Ellie passed I thought about little else. But maybe not quite yet.’ He gave the ancient dog’s ears another rub. ‘Sheba would miss me, wouldn’t you, girl? Couldn’t do that to her, she’s all I’ve got left.’
Sheba’s back end lowered to the floor, and she sat there with her chin on his knee, gazing up at him with milky eyes, dribbling onto his trousers.
Henry swished a mouthful of coffee back and forwards through his false teeth. Swallowed. ‘Albert and I used to meet up a couple of times a year and chew over the cases we never managed to solve, trying to work out what we missed. A six-year-old girl strangled and dumped at the side of the road when her parents couldn’t pay the ransom. The accountant who died in the Royal after someone cut off his hands. The family of four on holiday in Dingwall, battered to death in their caravan. The eighteen-year-old receptionist strung up by her ankles in Knapdale Forest and gutted …’ He sighed, then threw back the rest of his coffee. ‘Licking old wounds, then rubbing salt into them.’
I laid the order of service on the worktop. ‘The Party Crashers’ last psychologist screwed up all the notes, then topped himself.’
‘All of them?’ Henry raised an eyebrow. ‘How did he—’
‘Buggered the server too: nine years’ worth of interviews, assessments, profiles, the whole lot. There’s nothing left.’
A nod. Then Henry reached into the nearest kitchen cupboard and pulled out a fresh bottle. Grouse this time. ‘Then you’re in luck, Dr McDonald, you get to start with a clean slate. None of that legacy thinking from useless old farts like me to get in your way.’ He twisted the top off and threw it over his shoulder. ‘You’re not drinking your coffee.’
Silly old bugger. ‘Is this about Denis Chakrabarti?’
‘I don’t do profiling any more. I retired.’ Henry pointed at the draining board, where half a dozen cut-glass tumblers were lined up on the stainless steel. ‘Pass me three of those, will you?’
I placed three glasses on the breakfast bar. ‘Denis Chakrabarti wasn’t your fault.’
‘Yes he was. You know it, I know it, and the six little boys he raped and dismembered know it. Philip Skinner’s widow knows it too.’ Henry slugged a generous measure into each tumbler, then held one up. ‘A toast: to new beginnings. May Dr McDonald not make the same mistakes I did.’
She stared at the glass in front of her. ‘It’s not even eight o’clock yet, I mean it’s a lovely offer, but I don’t know if—’
‘If you’re going to climb inside the mind of the monster, you should really go prepared, don’t you think?’ A smile pulled at his cheeks; the glass trembled in his hand.
I put a hand on his shoulder, it was hard and knobbly beneath the jacket. Just bones and whisky in a funeral suit. ‘Look … talk it over with Dr McDonald, OK? Be a sounding board – you don’t have to do anything.’
‘I don’t—’
‘We need your help, Henry. If you’re still blaming yourself for Chakrabarti, maybe this is your chance to redeem yourself.’
‘He doesn’t want to help, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with the case, what am I supposed to do, I mean I can’t—’
‘Talk to him. Work whatever freaky mojo you did on the ferry crew.’ Outside, through the shattered lounge window, Scalloway harbour glittered in the sunshine – a bright-red fishing boat chugged out to sea, stalked by a cloud of whirling seagulls. ‘Look, we don’t have time to dick about up here, OK? Flirt with him, flatter him, dazzle him with your brilliance, I don’t care: get him to help.’
‘But he doesn’t want to—’
‘Top of your class, remember?’ I pulled on my jacket. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’
She sagged, stripy arms hanging by her sides. ‘But, Ash—’
‘God’s sake: you’re worse than Katie, and she’s