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‘And I’m serious: go wait in the car.’
Alice shook her head. ‘If it’s safe enough for you, it’s safe enough for me.’ Then raised her fist. ‘Smash the patriarchy.’ And followed Mother out into the hall again.
Why did every single woman in my life have to be a card-carrying nutjob?
Ah well, can’t say I didn’t try.
My walking stick made hollow thunking noises as we did a quick sweep of the house.
Bathroom: empty, a darker square of wallpaper where that medicine cabinet had sat above the avocado-coloured toilet. Master bedroom: nothing left but the carpet. Spare bedroom: same again. Dining room: more nothing. Kitchen: empty, all the doors hanging open on the units, exposing bare shelves. A small utility room led off it: either the washing machine and chest freezer were too heavy to shift, or Gordon Smith didn’t think they’d be flammable enough for his bonfire that never got lit.
I levered the lid up on the freezer: better safe than sorry …
Nothing but a thin layer of rancid greasy water. No dead bodies in sight.
Mother pointed her torch down the far end of the dog-legged corridor. ‘You want to try that one?’
Alice crept over, turned the handle – the howling wind got a lot louder. She stuck her head and her phone arm in through the gap for a moment, then shoved the door shut again. ‘Garage. Nothing in there, either.’
‘Hmph.’
So, that was all the doors taken care of, but there had to be an attic, right?
My phone’s torch wasn’t half as good as Alice’s but I played it around the hall ceiling anyway. ‘There we go.’ A hatch, set into the plasterboard, about six foot in from the front door. ‘Alice, can you grab a chair from the living room?’
‘Urgh … You know the only thing that’ll be up there is spiders, don’t you? Spiders and dust and fibreglass insulation, all itchy and sneezy and creepy-crawly, so bags I don’t have to be the one who goes up there.’
‘What, you expect the man with a walking stick and buggered foot to do it?’
Mother shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me: they never make these hatches big enough for normal-sized people.’
Alice slumped. Groaned. Then scuffed her way into the lounge and sulked back out again dragging one of the wooden dining-room chairs behind her. Thumped it down beneath the hatch. ‘It’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it?’
‘Up you go, Monkey Girl.’
‘Should’ve gone and waited in the car.’ She clambered up onto the seat, wobbled a bit, then shoved at the hatch, forcing it up on squealing hinges. ‘If I get spiders in my hair, I’m suing Police Scotland for mental cruelty, PTSD, and punitive damages.’
‘Stop milking it.’
Another slump, then Alice grabbed the edges of the hatch and pulled herself up into the attic. Sat there, black jeans and red shoes dangling in the mildewed air over our heads.
‘Anything?’
Her muffled voice filtered down from above. ‘Filthy up here. And cold! And … Aaaahhh … Aaaaaahhh …’ A high-pitched squeaky sneeze. ‘Dusty! Horribly dusty.’
‘What about boxes, or suitcases, anything like that?’
‘No, it’s all dust and fibreglass insulation and SPIDERS! OH GOD, THEY’RE SODDING HUGE!’ Her legs kicked and squirmed, then she dropped from the hatch, arms at full stretch, hands clinging to the edges, feet swinging as the chair clattered over onto its back. ‘AAAARGH!’ Alice let go and crashed to the hall carpet in a tangle of limbs and chair legs. Then lay there, making spitting noises as she wiped at her face.
‘Well, that was dignified.’
‘I hate you both.’
Mother’s face soured. ‘That’s that, then. No further forward than we were half an hour ago.’
Alice accepted my hand, scrambling to her feet and scowling. ‘Honestly, they were this big!’ Holding her hands about a foot apart. ‘Now can we get out of this spider-infested horror show before the house falls down?’
Might as well.
‘Come on then.’ I chucked the chair back into the living room where it bounced off the pile, setting loose a little mahogany avalanche of furniture. That medicine cabinet crashed into the floor, the doors flying open as the mirrors shattered; a wardrobe keeled over, jammed against the double bed; and a coat stand timbered down, the curled crown snapping off as it battered into the rug. BOOOM …
Henry jumped about two feet in the air, scuttling away from the living room, hackles up. Barking at the pile of furniture.
The echoes faded away, but the pall of dust – kicked up by the falling pieces – lingered in the cold dark air.
Hmm …
Mother wafted a hand in front of her face, spluttering the dust away. ‘We’ll get a lookout request sorted, see if N Division can find the brother’s croft and get Gordon Smith picked up.’ She opened the front door and a scream of wind shoved its way into the house, bringing with it the hissing roar of the sea as it gnawed on the headland only thirty or forty feet away.
Alice followed her out, muttering about spiders and lawsuits.
Leaving Henry and me alone in the darkness, with nothing but the weakening light from my phone for company.
I raised the rubber tip of my walking stick and jabbed it down again, into the hall carpet. It made the same hollow thumping noise it had when we’d searched the place. Henry barked at that too.
Might be nothing, but still …
The hallway was completely carpeted, as were both bedrooms and dining room. Linoleum down in the bathroom, kitchen, and utility room. Which left two options.
Down to the end of the corridor – shouldering open the door through to the garage. A row of empty shelves ran along the rear wall, a pegboard opposite the door, with black marker outlines where tools were meant to be. Spattered spray paint making a crime-scene outline of a workbench that wasn’t there any more. A concrete floor, littered with leaves blown in through the sagging up-and-over door. With the front door open, the wind whipped straight through the house, sparking the fallen leaves up into an angry ballet of whirling greys.
Hard not to picture the waves crashing against the cliff, less than a dozen feet away. Eating them.
Henry looked up at me, a whine rattling at the back of his throat.
Yeah. Good point.
I got out of there fast and shoved the door shut again, killing the wind tunnel.
One place left.
By the time I’d returned to the living room, Alice was standing in the hall, arms folded, crease between her eyebrows, mouth turned down. ‘Can we please go now? Before the house falls into the sea?’
‘Give me a minute.’
She took the proffered lead and frowned down at the wee man. ‘Your dad’s got a death wish.’
The daft hairy sod sat on his bum, tail wagging as he gazed at her with his gob hanging open.
‘See, I’ve been wondering: why pile all the furniture up like this? There’s only two reasons I can think of.’ I clunked my walking stick down on the windowsill and grabbed the wardrobe that had nearly fallen over. Helped it all the way. ‘One: you’re planning to burn the place down and maybe claim on the insurance. Assuming you can insure a house somewhere like this.’ The double bed’s legs juddered across the carpet as I dragged it into the corner. The armchair went on top of it.
‘What’s reason number two?’
Foot was beginning to ache now. Every step sending another burning needle slicing all the way through to the sole.
The broken medicine cabinet got picked up and tossed onto the bed.
‘Ash?’
I did the same with a pair of dining room chairs. ‘Who do you think our victim is?’
Then a bedside cabinet joined them.
‘What’s the second reason?’
‘Someone he knew, or a complete stranger?’ A standard lamp got javelined into the corner. ‘And how long does it take for a body to rot down to a skeleton? Twenty years?’
‘Eight to twelve. Assuming it’s not been embalmed, and you’ve not buried it in a coffin, or sand, or peat.’ The light from her phone cast shadows on the wall as I heaved another wardrobe off the pile. ‘I’d really like to go now, so if you can stop messing about, we—’
‘That means we’re looking for someone who went missing between eight and … how long did Helen MacNeil say Gordon Smith lived here? Fifty-six years, wasn’t it?’ The kitchen table thumped into the bed with the sound of cracking wood, as one of the legs gave way. ‘So our victim went into the ground sometime between then and eight years ago.’
‘If they weren’t already here when the Smiths moved in.’
‘True. Which makes it at least forty-eight years’ worth of missing persons to troll through. Assuming anyone missed them enough to report it.’ The sideboard was a sod to shift, but it hit the wardrobe with a satisfying crash. ‘And, given the storm’s currently busy washing the remains out to sea, we’ll probably never find out who they were.’ Welsh dresser next. Thing weighed a ton. ‘Unless Gordon Smith coughs to it, when we catch him, of course.’
And there was sod-all chance of that happening.
The shirt stuck to my back, steam rising from the shoulders of my damp coat. Breathing heavy.
Used to be a lot more fit than this.
Another couple of dining room chairs went flying. ‘Mind you, see if I was him? I’d “no comment” everything. No way anyone’s going out there, on a crumbling clifftop, to dig up what’s left of the bones. Health and Safety would have a prolapse.’ The sofa groaned and squealed as I pushed it back, off the rug. ‘So Gordon Smith can sit there, smug and quiet, while the North Sea destroys every last bit of evidence, and get away with murder.’
‘This is all fascinating, but can we please get out of here now?’
I stepped back, one hand rubbing at the dull ache throbbing its way up my spine, puffing and wheezing. Definitely used to be fitter than this. Condensation from the window made the walking cane’s handle slick against my palm. Cold. Like the dead. ‘You want to know what reason number two is?’
‘Only if it means we can leave before this horrible old house falls into the sea.’
‘Reason number two.’ I slid the head of my walking stick under the edge of the living room rug and flipped it up. The wodge of dusty fabric hinged back, flopping over the corpse of a three-bar electric fire. ‘Abracadabra!’
Alice crept forwards. Frowned down at the floorboards as she swept her phone’s torch across them. ‘I bet Penn and Teller are bricking themselves.’
‘Sod …’ That wasn’t right. ‘Maybe I cleared the wrong bit?’
‘You could get a six-month residency at a swanky Vegas hotel with an act like that.’
The electric fire joined the new pile, as did another bedside cabinet, another mahogany wardrobe, and a bookcase. This time, when I flipped the carpet back, it revealed a trapdoor, with a flush brass handle.
‘Oooh …’ Alice shuffled forward, Henry trotting along at her side. Then her expression soured. ‘Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.’
‘One way to find out.’ I grabbed the handle and pulled.
4
The wooden steps creaked and groaned as I inched my way down into the blackness. It was dark enough on the ground floor, but here in the basement? My phone’s torch barely made a dent in it. The ancient musty smell of dust and mould thickened the air, along with something rancid and sweaty.
Brick walls on either side of the narrow stairs, the mortar furred and whitened as salt leached out.
Alice’s voice worried down from the living room. ‘Ash, you really, genuinely shouldn’t be doing that. What if something happens? You can’t—’
‘This would go much faster if you helped, you know?’
At the bottom of the stairs, the basement opened out. Hard to tell how big the space was, given the anaemic beam from my phone, but the sound of my voice echoed back to me. So not exactly tiny.
Mounds of dirt and dust littered the small circle of concrete floor currently visible in the torch app’s glow.
I scuffed through them, following the pale light till it pulled another brick wall out of the dark. Inched my way along.
‘Ash? I’m serious, Ash, it’s too dangerous!’
Since when had that ever stopped us?
More salt-furred bricks. Then a screw poked out of the wall at chest height, the head all rusted and swollen. Someone had wrapped string around the thing, tying it off in a lumpy knot, the rest stretching away into the gloom, like a washing line.
‘Ash? Don’t make me get DI Malcolmson to arrest you …’
Five or six feet along was another screw, the string looped around it, another length on the other side.
‘Ash?’
Hmm …
An ancient Polaroid photo was clipped to the string, with one of those tiny clothes pegs people displayed their Christmas cards with in the seventies. It captured a young woman, seventeen or eighteen, all blonde hair and cheesy grin, standing on one leg in a park somewhere, a bandstand in the background. The colours tainted with orange and brown. Another one hung next to it: a different young woman, her short brown hair spiky, dressed in T-shirt and shorts, the curving line of a beach visible behind her. Next: a young man, early twenties, maybe, doing a terrible job of trying to grow a moustache as he posed with a pint of lager in what looked like a beer garden. Then a girl – couldn’t have been much over seventeen – all hunched in as an older man wrapped his arm around her shoulders, the pair of them posed and uncomfortable, in ugly retro sportswear, on a putting course somewhere, with water and hills in the background.
Not exactly your usual basement decorations.
‘Ash? I’m not kidding!’
Next Polaroid along showed a laughing man, head thrown back, beard thick and red, eyes shining, arms thrown wide, in front of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh. Then another young woman, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with Tony Blair’s face on it, grinning as she sat astride a bicycle on a hedgerow-lined lane somewhere …
There were more, making a strange collection of holiday snaps that never had the same person in them twice. The only common thread was they’d all been taken with a Polaroid camera – that familiar square picture in a white rectangular frame. Tainted with mildew.
‘Ash?’
My phone buzzed against a fingertip as I used the sensor on the back to unlock it. Called up the camera, and set it to video. Which instantly killed the torch app, plunging the basement back into blackness.
Damn.
‘ASH, ARE YOU OK? IT’S ALL GONE DARK DOWN THERE …’
‘GET YOUR BACKSIDE DOWN HERE – I NEED HELP.’
‘IT’S NOT SAFE AND—’
‘ALICE!’
‘All right, all right …’
I fiddled with my phone till the torch flickered into barely-there life again. Couldn’t be much battery left by now.
A bright circle of light bloomed at the bottom of the stairs, followed by the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of Converse trainers on wooden steps as Alice finally grumped her way down, Henry’s claws clickity-clacking behind her. ‘I want it on the record that I said this is a terrible idea. If we all die, it’s your fault. And what is that horrible smell?’
‘Thank you. Now shine your torch over here.’
She did, making the wall glow, casting rectangular Polaroid-shaped shadows on the bricks. ‘Ash, why does Gordon Smith have other people’s holiday photographs hanging up in his basement?’
‘Go along the line so I can video it.’ The camera killed my torch again, but at least this time I could film as Alice shuffled her way from one Polaroid to the next, illuminating each in turn. ‘Good, now the other side.’
She turned, sweeping the light across another brick wall to … ah.
Henry let loose a whine.
‘Ash?’
There were shackles fixed to the bricks opposite, the chains furry with rust. A mattress on the floor, filthy with brown stains. Heavy-duty stainless-steel hooks, screwed into the beams of the floor above. More brown stains on the concrete floor beneath them.
Another line of Polaroids hung on either side of the shackles. Only in these ones, the people weren’t smiling. In these ones the colours were mostly reds and blacks.
Alice crept forwards, pulling a reluctant Henry with her. ‘What the hell is this place?’
I cleared my throat.
Wasn’t easy.
All those small square photographs in their rectangular white ‘frames’, the greying plastic stained with the dark swirls of bloody fingerprints.
Just like the ones that used to turn up on those birthday cards for Rebecca …
‘Ash?’
I swallowed something bitter. ‘It’s a kill room.’
She inched forwards and stared at one of the photos. ‘Oh God. Ash, they’re—’
A long, low rumble sounded from somewhere far too close. Henry scrabbled round, barking at the end wall, hackles up. Dust drifted down from the joists and floorboards above our heads.
Alice and I turned and stared.
No way that was a good sign.
Then my phone launched into its bland generic ringtone. Vibrating hard against my fingertips. Nearly dropped the damn thing instead of answering it. ‘Hello?’
Mother’s voice, barely audible over the howling wind: ‘GET OUT OF THERE NOW! THE HEADLAND’S GOING!’
Oh crap.
I took a handful of Alice’s coat and shoved her towards the stairs. ‘Quick! Outside!’
‘No, no, no, no, no …’ She stumbled, nearly tripped, righted herself, then ran. Taking Henry and the light with her, leaving me in the pitch-dark.
God’s sake …
I limped after them, fumbling with my phone, trying to get the bloody torch app to work as darkness overtook the basement again and Mother’s voice crackled out of the tiny speaker:
‘ASH, DID YOU HEAR ME? GET OUT OF THERE!’
Finally, a pale glow shone out of the thing and …
Wait a minute: photographs. I dropped my walking stick and grabbed at the nearest loop of string, the twine cold and damp as I yanked at it, snapping it free of the rusty screws, Polaroids streaming out from my fist like gory bunting as I hobbled across the concrete floor. Another deep rumble thrummed through the basement, trying to pull my feet from under me. Staggering. Half lurching, half falling up the wooden steps. Bursting out into the living room, just in time for one of those horrible tombstone wardrobes on the pile to keel over, sending me scrabbling backwards out of its way as it crashed down, sealing the trapdoor to the basement.
Jesus.
If I’d been two seconds slower, I would’ve been stuck down there. Entombed.
Hands snatched at my jacket, hauling me up, into the corridor, and out through the front door. Alice on one side, Mother on the other, Henry running barking circles around us while they bustled me towards the line of temporary fencing. Rain crackled against my shoulders, slashing at any exposed skin as I stuffed the string of Polaroids in my jacket pocket, where they’d be relatively safe. Wind scrabbling at my back, pushing and shoving, screaming out its rage as we barged through the gap in the fence.
Then a fist thumped into my chest, Mother glaring at me with wide eyes and a hard, pinched mouth. ‘ARE YOU BLOODY INSANE?’
Alice lunged into a bearhug, pinning my arms to my sides, head buried against my shoulder. ‘I thought we’d lost you!’
Gordon Smith’s house no longer sat a dozen feet back from the edge of the cliff. The storm had seen to that. The garage had gone, taking about another six foot of headland with it. Now the basement jutted out into the void. That concrete floor was probably the only thing keeping it, and the house above, in one precarious piece.
Yeah. No way in hell we were ever going back in there.
Mother turned, face sour as she stared at the house and its eighteen-foot-shorter garden. ‘Well, that’s our human remains gone, then. So much for that.’
Helen MacNeil’s bolt cutters still lay where we’d abandoned them after snipping through the chain that’d held two sections of fencing panel together, and soon as Alice let go of me, I picked the things up, using them as a makeshift walking stick as I limped away from the devouring sea. ‘Don’t worry, DI Malcolmson, Gordon Smith’s got a lot more bodies out there.’
Tears of condensation rolled down the small kitchen’s windows as we huddled around the table – the air muggy with the heady scent of mince and the steam rising off one soggy police officer and two soggy civilians. All three of us dripping our own personal lakes onto the cracked linoleum floor. The house’s owner away seeing to her wee boy and his nightmares.
Warmth seeped into my bones from the mug of hot milky tea clutched in both hands.
Alice had hers pressed against her chest, jacket draped over the back of her chair, frizzy curls plastered to her head.
Mother grimacing as she swallowed another mouthful, phone clamped to her ear. ‘No, I understand that, sir, but we need— … Yes, sir, I know, but— … Uh-huh …’ She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Uh-huh …’
A shiver ran its way through Alice, setting her teeth chattering again.
‘Are you OK?’
She shook her head. ‘We could’ve died in there.’
‘Yes, but we didn’t. Now drink your tea.’
A knock on the kitchen door and DC Watt stuck his misshapen head in from the hall. ‘Guv?’
Mother looked up. ‘Can you give me a minute, sir? Something’s come up.’ She pinned the phone against her plus-sized bosom. ‘What is it, John?’
‘I asked DC Elliot to run a PNC check on Gordon Smith: no convictions, but he was picked up in 1968 and prosecuted for assaulting a sex worker in Glasgow. Found “not proven”. She’s got them digging up the paperwork.’ Watt scratched at that bald scarred patch on the back of his head. ‘Well, Elliot is, not the sex worker.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘Nothing we can find. Yet. Oh, and I’ve got an address for the brother’s croft on the Black Isle. Only he won’t be in, because he’s doing a sixteen stretch in HMP Edinburgh. Stabbed a GP to death. I’ve sent the details to N Division; they’ll pop up and see if Gordon’s there.’
A smile. ‘Good boy.’ Mother dug her spare hand into her pocket, pulled out a small paper bag, and tossed it over to him. ‘Help yourself.’ Then back to the phone. ‘Sorry about that, sir, getting an update from my team. Now, about that arrest warrant …?’
Alice shuddered, coiling in, shoulders hunched and forward. ‘What are we going to do now?’
I stood. ‘Don’t know about you, but I’m heading back to the flat and changing into something that doesn’t squelch when I move. You coming?’
‘Can we stop by an off-licence?’
‘Don’t see why not.’ The bolt cutters weren’t an ideal walking-stick substitute, but they’d do for now.
Watt blocked the doorway, frowning down at the contents of his tiny paper bag, poking a finger in. ‘All glued together …’ He plucked out a small, pale-yellow lozenge that made sticky screlching noises as it left its mates. Popped it in his mouth. Gave me the kind of smile that begged for a fist to be smashed right into the middle of it. ‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ Sooked his fingertips, then held out his hand, saliva still glistening on the pink skin. ‘You’ve got something of ours.’
‘If it’s a punch in the gob, you can have it here, or we can take it outside.’
The smile slipped away. ‘Mother says you filmed evidence in Smith’s basement, so I’m commandeering your phone. You can—’
‘Not if you want to keep your teeth, you’re not.’
A tug at my sleeve. Alice. ‘Ash, maybe we should—’
‘You are aware that threatening a police officer is an offence, Mr Henderson?’
Alice wriggled past, putting herself between me and the greasy prick with a death wish, same as she’d done with Mother and Helen MacNeil. ‘DC Watt, I know this is all very exciting, but it’s been a long day and we nearly died in that basement, so maybe we should all take a deep breath and de-escalate this situation before it turns into something contrary to the smooth running of the investigation?’
