Stuart MacBride: Ash Henderson 2-book Crime Thriller Collection. Stuart MacBride
closed the door behind her, I headed outside. Royce was waiting in the patrol car with the engine running. I squeezed into the passenger seat – at least it was nice and warm in here. ‘Tell me about Arnold Burges.’
The constable pursed his lips, leaned forward, voice turned down to a whisper. ‘Came up here from London four years ago: been hassling Dr Forrester ever since. We’ve got him … God, what, about twenty, thirty times for public nuisance and destruction of private property. But the Doc never wants to press charges. Daft, eh? I think he feels sorry for him, you know, after what happened to his daughter.’
I pulled on my seatbelt. ‘Drive.’
‘… and the time before that, he took a sledgehammer to Dr Forrester’s wife’s headstone. Smashed it to bits … Here we go.’ Royce pulled the Fiesta into the side of the road. Mountains surrounded a slash of water, glowing green and blue in the early morning sun. A handful of white cottages dotted the landscape, looking out across the sea loch to the village of Calders Lea. ‘That’s the cages there.’ He pointed at a collection of three wide, wheel-like things lying in the middle of the water, made from a framework of black pipes. Some sort of large floating shed was moored between them.
‘You sure Burges is there?’
A shrug. ‘It’s Wednesday, so he should be … Less he’s got a day off, or something.’
Royce drove on another couple of hundred yards, then took a narrow road on the left, down the hill towards a collection of bus-shelter-sized offshore containers in various shades of rust-flecked blue with a logo painted in white on the side – three salmon swimming in a circle around the words ‘CALDERS LEA AQUACULTURE LTD ~ DA FISH FOR DEE!’
A wooden hut sat next to a concrete slipway that disappeared into the water. Royce parked alongside it. ‘How’s your sea legs?’
‘He going to have friends?’
‘Depends how drunk Benny got last night.’ Royce squinted, held a hand over his eyes – shading out the morning sun. ‘Talk of the devil …’
A wide boat with a small wheelhouse was brrrrr-ing its way through the sapphire blue water, making for the slipway. Two minutes later it bumped against the concrete and a stick-figure of a man in blue overalls and black wellington boots hopped out, holding one end of a thick rope. His eyes were sunken and pink, underlined with heavy purple bags, a threadbare woollen hat perched on top of his head. Long arms, short legs, big ears and a wild mess of ginger hair.
Royce held up a hand. ‘Benny.’
‘Constable Clark!’ A lopsided grin and an almost impenetrable Shetland accent. ‘Whatever it was, me darlin’, I didn’t do it. Was home all night with ma sister.’
‘Yeah, I bet. You busy?’
‘Never aff o’ da go, you know?’
‘Arnold about?’
‘On da barge.’ He tilted his head to one side, contorted his eyebrows. ‘He do it again?’
‘Yeah.’
Sigh. ‘Less an dule … Give us a minute to load some feed, and I’ll gie dee a hurl.’ He clomped over to one of the containers and unlocked the padlock, then creaked the door open. It was stacked full of paper sacks – like the ones tatties came in. A smell, like cat biscuits, wafted out of the container.
Benny hefted a bag onto his shoulder and shuffled back to the boat, hauling up the droopy backside of his overalls. ‘Du can lend a hand if du wants.’
The boat clunked against the floating platform. It was about the size of a boxing ring with a big wooden shed taking up almost all of the available surface area, barely enough room around the edge for a walkway and handrail.
Benny switched off the engine, then threw a line around a cleat in front of the shed doors, wrapping it tight. ‘I lichtit til him: leave the poor auld fart alone, but dis he listen til me? Course he doesn’t.’ Benny dragged a sack of feed from the bottom of the boat and thumped it down on the walkway. ‘Arnie? ARNIE, DU’s GOT VISITORS!’ Benny hefted another sack. ‘ARNIE?’
Nothing.
It was still and silent out here in the middle of the sea loch; sunlight glinted off the water all around us.
I clambered up onto the walkway. The shed door was lying wide open. A metal hopper took up nearly half of the building, attached to some sort of engine and a length of pipe that disappeared out through the wall. A small table and a couple of folding chairs. A wee diesel generator, portable TV, kettle, mugs, microwave, and other assorted bits and bobs. Not exactly luxurious. Half the shed was empty, the area fenced off with chicken wire and wooden slats, a couple of bags of fish feed stacked against the wall. The smell of cat biscuits was nearly overpowering. No sign of Burges. ‘Thought you said he was out here.’
‘He is.’ Benny dumped another sack on the walkway.
‘What, he’s invisible?’
A shrug.
I squinted out at the shining water. ‘Maybe he saw the patrol car and ran for it?’
‘Swam for it, du means.’ Another sack. ‘We only hae da one boat.’
The diesel generator spluttered into silence. Royce appeared at my shoulder carrying two mugs. He held one out. ‘No biscuits. But if you’re hungry there’s plenty of fish food?’
‘Arnold Burges going to be long?’
‘Depends.’ I took a sip: it was coffee, but only just.
Something broke the surface of the water – over by the furthest of the three cages. It was a bald head, the shiny pink crown surrounded by a fringe of soggy black hair. Big diving goggles, breathing apparatus for an aqualung. And then it was gone again.
I leaned against the handrail, following the trail of bubbles. ‘When Burges gets here, make yourself scarce. You and the little orang-utan.’
‘How?’ Royce pursed his lips and looked around. ‘Not exactly a lot of places to—’
‘Get in the boat, go fishing, I don’t care.’
‘Hmmm …’ A sip of coffee. ‘You’re kinda … pushy for a detective constable.’
Cheeky bastard. ‘I’m only asking for ten minutes. Fifteen tops.’
‘Yeah, well, you remember I’m the one who’s got to keep the peace here after you’ve buggered off back to the real world … Here we go.’
The bald head resurfaced a good twenty feet closer, making for the barge. Something bobbed along behind it: looked like a fluorescent orange buoy. Two minutes later, a huge man hauled himself out of the water and up onto the platform.
He’d been squeezed into a tatty old drysuit. The arms, legs and neck looked as if they’d been black once, the chest and stomach ancient yellow. Water dribbled from a bushy brown beard.
Arnold Burges.
He pulled off the diving goggles and narrowed his eyes at Royce. ‘The old bastard’s lying. I was here all night with Benny. After that frigging seal.’ He turned his back, squatted at the edge of the walkway, and reached into the water.
Royce sighed. ‘Benny’s already told us he was round his sister’s all night. How many times do we have to go over this? You’ve got to stay away from Dr Forrester.’
The big man flexed his shoulders and hauled on a length of blue plastic rope – the buoy cut through the water until it was close enough for him to grab. ‘Another seven hundred fish last night. Seven hundred.’ He looped the rope around a metal contraption, then cranked the handle.
‘I