The wind had picked up, making the oak trees groan as their bony fingers scratched at the clouds. Fairy lights twinkling. Quarter to five – plenty of time.
She pulled the woolly hat tight over her head and clambered out, scurrying across the gravel drive, the tails of her duffle coat billowing out behind her.
I waited until she was inside before digging out my phone and turning it back on again. It bleeped and chirped at me: text messages, missed calls, voicemail – all from Mrs Kerrigan. All wanting to know why I hadn’t turned up with three grand to save my kneecaps.
And I could have walked off with thirty-two thousand pounds’ worth of books …
Fuck.
I scrolled through the contacts list, looking for Henry Forrester’s number.
Thirty-two grand. What kind of man steals books from a dead girl?
Found it, pressed the button, and sat back listening to the phone ring.
Well, it wasn’t as if she was going to miss them, was it?
Not as much as I was going to miss my legs.
Click. ‘I’m sorry: I’m not answering the phone at the moment, but if you want to leave a message … well, it’s up to you.’
‘Henry? It’s Ash: Ash Henderson. Look, I wanted to tell you I’m going to be up in Shetland tomorrow, so do you fancy getting a drink or something? Been too long …’ I hung up.
Dr McDonald struggled her massive red suitcase out of the house and across the gravel – her rock-chick aunty following with the two smaller ones. I got out and popped the hatchback.
‘Are you sure we’ve got time to—’
‘I’ll only be a minute.’ I hauled the Renault up to the kerb and killed the engine. ‘We’ll be fine.’
She picked at the dashboard, staring out through the windscreen at Kingsmeath in all its grey, boxy, housing-estate glory. That prick from number fourteen had let his Alsatian loose to wander the streets again, its ribs clearly visible through its fur as it stopped beneath a streetlight to eat something from the gutter.
Dr McDonald licked her lips. ‘I don’t have to come in, do I? Only I don’t do so well with—’
‘Unfamiliar enclosed spaces: I know. Stay here. Lock the doors if you like.’ I climbed out into the cold. Soon as I closed the driver’s door she reached across and pressed down on the little locking nipple, then did the same on her side.
The Alsatian raised its head from the gutter and growled.
I stared at it. ‘Fuck – off.’
It went quiet, dropped its head, then slunk away into the darkness.
The front garden was a rectangle of paving slabs, yellowing weeds poking up through the joins, bordered by a knee-high concrete wall. I checked my watch again on the way to the front door: five to five. Fifteen minutes to pack, hour, hour and a half to Aberdeen – depending on traffic …
Going to be tight. The ferry sailed at seven whether you were on it or not.
I let myself in, snapped on the light, shut the door behind me, then stuck my head into the lounge. No sign of Parker, for once. Maybe the shiftless bastard had finally buggered off and got a job?
As if I could be that lucky.
Upstairs.
A wheelie case sat on top of the wardrobe. I took it down and chucked a few pairs of socks inside, some pants, the washing kit from the bathroom, a pair of jeans from the pile in the corner, all the Naproxen, Diclofenac, and Tramadol from the bedside cabinet, and a random dust-furred paperback from the windowsill.
Anything else? Shetland in November: jumpers. There was that cable-knit monstrosity Michelle’s mum gave me for Christmas.
It wasn’t in the chest of drawers. Where the hell did I—
A noise behind me. I froze.
‘Goin’ somewhere, like?’ A man’s voice: low-pitched, coming from the little landing at the top of the stairs.
I pulled the zip on the wheelie case, shutting everything inside. ‘Your mum never teach you to knock?’
‘’Cos it looks to me like yer plannin’ on doin’ a runner there.’
I turned, nice and slow, keeping my hands in plain sight. ‘You got a name?’
The man on the landing smiled, showing off a set of yellowed teeth. His face was lopsided, angular, lumpy and twisted; covered with pockmarks and scar tissue. He was bloody huge too. ‘Ye can call us, “Mr Pain”.’
Seriously? Mr Pain?
The corners of my mouth twitched, but I got them under control. ‘So tell me, Mr Pain, this a social call, or an antisocial one?’
He took one hand from behind his back. There was a two-foot length of metal pipe in it, the end swollen with washers – nuts and bolts stuck out at random angles. The modern equivalent of hammering a couple of nails into a baseball bat: a plumber’s mace.
Definitely not a social call.
‘Been a naughty boy, haven’t ye? Missed another payment.’
‘You’re wasting your time.’ I shifted my weight, moving closer to the bed. ‘Going to take me a while to get the money together.’
‘No’ my problem, is it?’ The length of pipe flashed through the air, spines quivering.
I dropped one knee, pitching sideways. Something tugged at my left shoulder, then the bedside lamp exploded into ceramic shrapnel. I snapped my foot out, but Mr Pain wasn’t there.
I hit the bed and kept going, rolling right over it as the mace whomped down on the mattress, making the springs sing. I dropped onto the floor on the other side, looked up—
The pipe whistled towards my face.
I flinched, the back of my head slamming into the wall as the mace swept past, its spines ripping the air less than an inch in front of my nose.
Jesus, the bastard was fast.
A backhand swing. Splinters flew from the windowsill – the mace carved straight through the wood and into the plaster where my head would’ve been if I hadn’t moved.
Fast and strong.
Another swing and the collection of paperback books burst into flight, paper wings fluttering as they spiralled to the floor.
I dived left, grabbed a handful of clothes from the pile of dirty washing in the corner and hurled it at Mr Pain. Socks and pants, a T-shirt, not exactly deadly weapons, but if they distracted the big bastard even for a couple of seconds …
The T-shirt snagged on the mace’s spines, the fabric crackling like a fire as the thing smashed down on the bed frame.
I was on my feet like a sprinter, charging straight into Mr Pain’s stomach, sending him battering back into the wardrobe. The pipe would be useless at this distance. Ha, not so clever now, was he? Dancing about at arm’s length from the bastard was going to get my head caved in, but up close? Different matter.
That was where experience trumped a big dod of metal.
I grabbed Mr Pain by the throat and slammed him back into the cracked MDF again. He stank of garlic and raw onions, breath like curdled shite. Left fist – uppercut to the floating ribs, putting my shoulder into it, driving hard, ignoring the broken-glass scream of my swollen knuckles. Once, twice, three times. The satisfying soggy-feeling as his ribs cracked and bucked. With any luck a sharp end would puncture the bastard’s lung.
A knee slammed into my thigh – probably going for the balls, but this wasn’t exactly my first bare-knuckle fight.
Mr Pain jerked his head back,