Birthdays for the Dead

Dedication

 

For Jane

Contents

Without Whom

As usual I’m indebted to many people for their assistance, information, and patience while I’ve been writing this book. People like Ishbel Gall, whose knowledge of the dead knows no bounds; Dr Lorna Dawson and Margaret McKeen – soil science gurus; Professor Dave Barclay – physical evidence superstar; and pathology legend, Dr James Grieve.

A big cheer goes out to Matt Wright for all his fishy help; Sergeant Gordon Fowler; Donald Anderson for the hospitality, and the song; and everyone at Shetland Arts. And another for Jennifer, Sue, and Caroline at Talking Issues, for their help and the tour of Bath.

The excellent team at HarperCollins all deserve a medal for their patience and encouragement: Sarah Hodgson, Jane Johnson, Julia Wisdom, Alice Moss, Amy Neilson, Laura Mell, Damon Greeney, Oliver Malcolm, Laura Fletcher, Roger Cazalet, Kate Elton, Lucy Upton, Sam Hancock, Emad Akhtar, Anne O’Brien, Marie Goldie and the DC Bishopbriggs posse. More medals to Phil Patterson, Isabella Floris, Luke Speed, and everyone at Marjacq Scripts.

Many hats off to Dave & Maureen Goulding, Molly Massie, Michelle Bruce, Alex Clark, my little brother Christopher, and Roseanna Massie; Jim Duncan and Carl Wright for all their help; Allan, Donna and Edward Buchan; Andy and Sheena Inglis; and Mark McHardy.

A number of people have helped raise a lot of money for charity by bidding to have a character named after them in this book, so many thanks to the winners: Royce Clark, Janice Russell, Julie Wilson, and Sheila Caldwell for donating so much.

And saving the best for last – as always – Fiona and Grendel.

please…

sometimes it’s better not to know

Chapter 1

Flash. It’s like an explosion going off in her head, knives in her eyes, broken glass in her brain. Then darkness. She rocks back in the seat; the wood creaks under her.

Blink. Blink. A hot blue-and-orange glow painted across the inside of her eyelids. Tears rolling down her dirty cheeks.

Please…

She drags a shuddering breath through her nose, wet with snot. The smell of dirt and bitter-onion sweat, dust, and something pissy – like when that mouse got trapped behind the cooker. A little furry body hidden in darkness, going rancid with mould, stinking of rotting sausages, roasting every time they turned the oven on.

Please… Her mouth makes the word behind the gag of sticky tape, but all that comes out is a muffled moan. Her shoulders ache, both arms twisted behind her back, wrists and ankles stinging from the cable-ties that hold her to the hard wooden chair.

She throws her head back and blinks at the ceiling. The room fades back in: bare wooden joists stained almost black; spider webs; a neon strip-light, buzzing like a wasp trapped in a glass. Walls smeared with filth. A huge camera mounted on a tripod.

Then the noise. He’s singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’, the words coming out all broken and hesitant, like he’s scared to get them wrong.

This is fucked up. Completely fucking fucked up. It’s not even her birthday yet: not for four more days…

Another shuddering breath.

It can’t be happening. It’s a mistake.

She blinks the tears from her eyes and stares into the corner. He’s getting to the big finale, head down as he mumbles out the words. Only it’s not her name he sings, it’s someone else: Andrea.

Oh thank God.

He’ll get it, right? That it’s a mistake? She’s not supposed to be here:
Andrea’s
supposed to be here. Andrea’s supposed to be the one tied to a chair in a manky little room full of dirt and spiders and the smell of dying mice. He’ll understand.

She tries to tell him, but the gag turns everything into grunts and nonsense.

She’s not Andrea.

She shouldn’t be here.

He stands behind the camera again, clears his throat a couple of times, takes a deep breath, licks his lips. His voice sounds like one of them kids’ TV presenters: ‘Say “cheese”!’ Another flash, filling her eyes with burning white dots.

It’s a mistake. He has to
see
that – he’s got the wrong girl, he has to let her go.

She blinks. Please. This isn’t
fair
.

He comes out from behind the camera and rubs a hand across his eyes. Stares at his shoes for a bit. Another deep breath. ‘Presents for the Birthday Girl!’ He thumps a battered old toolkit down onto the creaky wooden table next to her chair. The table’s spattered with brown stains. Like someone spilled their Ribena years ago.

It’s not Ribena.

Her mouth tightens behind the gag, tears make the room blur. Air catches in her throat turning everything into short, jagged, trembling sobs.

She’s not Andrea. It’s all a mistake.

‘I got…’ A pause while he shuffles his feet. ‘I’ve got something
special
… just for you, Andrea.’ He opens the toolkit and takes out a pair of pliers. Their rusty metal teeth shine in the gloom.

He doesn’t look at her, hunches his shoulders, puffs out his cheeks like he’s going to puke, scrubs a hand across his mouth. Tries for that barely there smile again. ‘You ready?’

Monday 14th November

Chapter 2

Oldcastle FM droned out of the radio on the kitchen work surface.

‘
…wasn’t that groooooooooovy? It’s eight twenty-five and you’re listening to
Sensational Steve’s Breakfast Drive-Time Bonanza!
’
A grating honk, like an old-fashioned car horn.

I counted out thirty-five quid in tens and fives onto the reminder notice from the Post Office, then dug in my pocket and made up the balance in change. Forty pounds eighty-five pence. Enough to keep Rebecca’s mail being redirected into my PO Box for another year.

This week’s haul was a Next catalogue, three charity begging letters, and the Royal Bank trying to flog her a credit card. I dumped the lot in the bin. Everything except for the birthday card.

A plain white envelope with a second-class stamp and a stick-on address label:

It’d been done on a typewriter, not a laser printer, the words hammered into the paper, the letter ‘e’ a little out of line with everything else. Just like all the others.

The kettle rattled to a boil, filling the air with steam.

I took a tea towel to the window, making a gap in the condensation, sending droplets running down the glass to pool on the mould-blackened wooden frame.

Outside, the back garden was a tangle of jagged silhouettes – the sun a smear of fire on the horizon, painting Kingsmeath with gold and shadows. Grey-harled council houses, pantiles jaundiced with lichen; the glistening slate roofs of the tenements; a primary school surrounded by chain-link fencing – squat and dour, its windows glowing.

‘
Haha! Right, it’s Straitjacket Sweepstakes time and Christine Murphy thinks the answer is “Acute Polymorphic Psychotic Disorder”.’
An electronic quack. ‘
Looks like the voices in your head got it wrong, Christine: better luck next time.’

The cigar box was rough beneath my fingertips. A little bit bigger than an old-fashioned VHS case, decorated by someone only just old enough to be trusted with round-nosed scissors and glue. Most of the sequins had fallen off years ago, and the glitter looked more like grit than anything else, but it was the thought that counted. The perfect size for storing homemade birthday cards.

I opened the lid. The woody smell of old cigars fought against the kitchen’s mildew fug and whatever the hell was wrong with the drains.

Last year’s card sat on top of the little pile: ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!’ scrawled above a Polaroid photograph – a square picture set into a white plastic rectangle. Thing was virtually an antique, Polaroid didn’t even make the film-stock any more. The number ‘4’ was scratched into the top-left corner.

I picked up the latest envelope, eased a kitchen knife under the flap, and tore straight along the fold, then pulled out the contents. A flurry of dark flakes fell onto the work surface – that was new. They smelled of rust. Some hit the edge of the tea towel, making tiny red blooms as they soaked into the damp fabric.

Oh God…

This year’s photo was mounted on plain white card. My little girl. Rebecca. Tied to a chair in a basement somewhere. She was… He’d taken her clothes.

I closed my eyes for a moment, knuckles aching, teeth clamped hard enough to make my ears ring. Bastard. Fucking, bloody
bastard
.

‘
Stick with us folks ’cos we’ve got another
heeee-larious
wind-up call after the news, but first it’s a golden oldie: Tammy Wynette and her crash-helmet hairdo, with “Stand by Your Man”. Good advice there, ladies.’
Another comedy horn noise.

Rebecca’s pale skin was smeared with blood, slashed and burned and bruised, eyes wide, screaming behind a duct-tape gag. ‘5’ scratched into the corner of the picture.

Five years since she disappeared. Five years since the bastard tortured her to death and took photos to prove it. Five birthday cards, each one worse than the last.

The toast popped up, filling the kitchen with the smell of burnt bread.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I lowered card number five into the box, on top of all the others. Closed the lid.

Bastard…

She would’ve been eighteen today.

I scraped the blackened toast over the sink as Tammy got into her stride. The butter turned yellow-grey as I spread it with the same knife. Two slices of plastic cheese from the fridge, washed down with milky tea and a couple of anti-inflammatories. Chewing. Trying to avoid the two loose teeth on the top left, the skin tight across my cheek – swollen and bruised. Scowling out through the window’s new clean patch.

Light flashed off the King’s River as the sun finally made it up over the hills, turning Oldcastle into a patchwork of blues and orange. In the middle distance, Castle Hill loomed over the city – a thick blade of granite with a sheer cliff on one side, steep winding cobbled streets on the other. Victorian sandstone buildings stained the colour of dried blood. The castle’s crumbling fortifications looked like broken teeth, perched right at the top.

That was the thing about living here – you could get up every morning and look out across the crumbling concrete boxes of your crappy council estate, at all the pretty parts of Oldcastle. Have it ground in your face every day: that no matter how long you spent staring out at the nice bits, you were still stuck in bloody Kingsmeath.

She would’ve been eighteen.

I spread the tea towel out on the work surface, then pulled the plastic ice-cube tray out from the fridge’s freezer compartment. Gritted my teeth, and twisted. The ice cracked and groaned, a better soundtrack to my aching fingers than Tammy Bloody Wynette.

Ice cubes tumbled into the middle of the tea towel. I folded it up into a cosh, then battered it off the worktop a few times. Fished a used teabag out of the sink and made a fresh cup in a clean mug – laced it with four sugars and a splash of milk – tucked the cigar box under my arm, then took everything through to the living room.

The figure on the couch was huddled beneath an unzipped sleeping bag. I hauled the curtains open.

‘Come on you lazy wee shite: up.’

Parker groaned. His face was a mess: eyes swollen and purple; a nose that would never be straight again; split lips; a huge bruise on his cheek. He’d bled during the night, staining the sleeping bag. ‘Mmmmnnnffff…’

One eye opened. What should have been white was vivid red, the pupil dilated. ‘Mmmnnnfff?’ His mouth barely moved.

I held out the tea towel. ‘How’s the head?’

‘Fmmmmmnnndfff…’

‘Serves you right.’ I stuck the icepack against Parker’s cheek until he took hold of it himself. ‘What did I tell you about Big Johnny Simpson’s sister? You never bloody—’ My mobile rang – a hard-edged rendition of an old-fashioned telephone. ‘God’s sake…’

I put the mug on the floor by Parker’s head, pulled a blister pack of pills from my pocket and handed them over. ‘Tramadol. And I want you gone by the time I get back: Susanne’s coming round.’

‘Nnnng … fnnn brrkn…’

‘And would it kill you to tidy up now and then? Place is a shitehole.’ I grabbed my car keys and leather jacket. Dug the phone from my pocket. The name, ‘
Michelle
’, sat in the middle of the screen.

Great.

Because today wasn’t screwed up enough.

I hit the green button. ‘Michelle.’

Her Highlands-and-Islands accent was clipped and pointed. ‘
Put that down!’

‘You phoned me!’

‘
What? No, not you: Katie.
’ A muffled pause. ‘
I don’t care, put it down. You’ll be late!
’ Then back to me. ‘
Ash, will you
please
tell your daughter to stop acting like a spoiled little brat?
’

‘
Hi, Daddy.
’ Katie: putting on her butter-wouldn’t-melt little-girl voice.

I blinked. Shifted my grip on the cigar box. Tried to force a smile.

‘Be nice to your mother. It’s not her fault she’s a bitch in the mornings. And
don’t
tell her I said that!’

‘
Bye, Daddy.
’

And Michelle was back. ‘
Now get in that car, or I swear to God…
’ The sound of the door clunking shut. ‘
It’s Katie’s birthday next week.
’

‘It’s Rebecca’s birthday today.’

‘
No.
’

‘Michelle, she’s—’

‘
I’m not talking about this, Ash. You promised to sort out the venue and—
’

‘Five years.’

‘
She didn’t even leave a note! What kind of ungrateful little…’
A pause, the sound of breath hissing between gritted teeth. ‘
Why do we have to do this every single year? Rebecca doesn’t care, Ash: five years and not so much as a phone call. Now, have you got a venue for Katie’s party or haven’t you?’

‘It’s in hand, OK? All booked and paid for.’ Well, almost…

‘
Monday, Ash: her birthday’s on
Monday
. A week today.
’

‘I said it’s
booked
.’ I checked my watch. ‘You’re going to be late.’

‘
Monday.’
She hung up without saying goodbye.

I slipped the phone back in my pocket.

Would it really be so bad to just
talk
about Rebecca? Remember what she was like before… Before the birthday cards started.

Upstairs, I slipped the cigar box back in its hiding place – under a loose floorboard in the bedroom – then clumped down to the lounge and nudged the useless lump of gristle lying on the couch. ‘Two Tramadol every four hours,
maximum
. I come home and find your overdosed corpse mouldering on my sofa, I’ll bloody kill you.’

‘
…sources close to the investigation confirm that Oldcastle Police have uncovered the body of a second young woman. Local news now, and Tayside Police are refusing to comment on claims that parents of missing teenager Helen McMillan have received a card from a serial killer known as “The Birthday Boy”…
’

‘What? No, you’ll have to speak up.’ I pinned the phone between my ear and shoulder, and coaxed the ancient Renault around the roundabout. Dundee was a mass of grey, scowling beneath a clay-coloured sky. Rain spattered the windscreen, rising in twin streams of spray from the Audi in front. ‘Hello?’

‘
Hello?
’ DCI Weber was barely audible over the engine, squealing windscreen wipers, and crackly radio. ‘
I said, how long?
’

‘
…where Assistant Chief Constable Eric Montgomery issued the following statement.
’

Dundee’s ACC sounded as if he had both thumbs wedged in his nostrils. ‘
We want anyone who remembers seeing Helen, when she went missing in November last year, to get in touch with their nearest police station…
’

I turned the radio down to a dull buzz. ‘How should I know?’ The dual carriageway was a ribbon of red taillights, stretching all the way to the Kingsway junction. An illuminated sign flashed, ‘
Roadworks ∼ Expect Delays
’. No shit. I hit the brakes. Drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Could take weeks.’

‘
Oh for… What am I going to tell the Chief?
’

‘The usual: we’re pursuing several lines of enquiry, and—’

‘
Do I look like I floated up the Kings River on a mealie pudding? We need a suspect, we need a result, and we need it
now
. I’ve got half of Scotland’s media camped out in reception wanting a comment, and the other half laying siege to McDermid Avenue—
’

Traffic was barely moving, crawling along, then stopping, then crawling again. Why could no bastard drive any more?

‘
—are you even listening to me?
’

‘What?’ I blinked. ‘Yeah … not a lot we can do about it, though, is there?’ A hole opened up in the other lane, and I put my foot down, but the rusty old Renault barely noticed. Should have held out for one of the pool cars. ‘Come on you little sod…’

A Tesco eighteen-wheeler thundered past into the gap, dirty spray turning the Renault’s windscreen opaque until the wipers scraped it into twin khaki-coloured rainbows. ‘Bastard!’

‘
Where are you?
’

‘Just coming into Dundee – by the Toyota garage. Traffic’s awful.’

‘
Right, let’s try this again: remember I told you to play nice with Sergeant Smith? Well, it’s not a request any more, it’s an order. Turns out the slimy tosser was PSD in Grampian before we got him.
’

Professional Standards? Sodding hell…

Actually, that made sense – DS Smith looked the type who’d clype on his colleagues, then get a hard-on while he stitched them up.