Birthdays for the Dead. Stuart MacBride

new girl, Tina, fell off again.’

      ‘Oooooh …’ He pursed his lips, pulling in a whistling breath. ‘How many times?’

      ‘Twice.’

      A nod. ‘Well, at least it’s an improvement on last night.’ He unbuttoned his suit jacket, showing off a straining blue shirt and a spatter-stained tie. ‘Any chance of a drink here, I’m parched.’

      Right on cue, Steve the barman reappeared with an ice bucket. An open bottle of Mo‘t & Chandon stuck out of the top.

      Oldest trick in the book. Management buys one case of the stuff, drinks it, then fills the empty bottles with the cheapest supermarket sparkling wine they can find. All the girls are told: some punter wants to buy you a drink? Got to be champagne. So the punter buys the ‘champagne’. Then the staff collect the empties, fill them with Asda’s discount cava, and round we go again. The Happy Hedgehog in Cowskillin doesn’t even bother with the cheap fizzy – they get a crate of bargain-basement Liebfraumilch and stick it through a SodaStream.

      Shifty watched Mr Champagne hand over a credit card. ‘Look at this tosser.’ Not bothering to keep his voice down. ‘Buying fizzy plonk ’cos he thinks it’ll impress the halfwits he works with if he can clamber inside some stripper’s G-string. Like that’s ever going to happen.’ A little louder: ‘You’re fucking dreaming!’

      The wee man in the rumpled grey suit took his bottle of expensive cava and marched back to his booth, head held high. Noble in the face of rudeness. With someone else’s skidmarks on his trousers.

      I took another sip of sparkling water. ‘Any idea where I can get somewhere to hold a kid’s birthday party?’

      Shifty licked his lips as Steve pulled a pint of Tennent’s. ‘Could do it here? There’s that function suite upstairs. Sure Dillon would give you a decent rate.’

      Up on stage, a woman with space-hopper breasts twirled herself around a shiny pole, dark hair trailing behind her like a banner.

      Yeah, maybe not.

      Steve plonked the pint down in front of Shifty. ‘Don’t pick on the punters – it screws up my tips.’

      ‘Cheers, Steve.’ Shifty didn’t even bother pretending to get his wallet out any more. On the house was on the house. He resurfaced after downing half the glass in one. ‘Ahhhh …’ A small belch. ‘Shitter of a day, Ash, complete shitter. You’d think that wanker Smith was the Chief Bloody Constable, way he’s ordering everyone about. Only a DS, for Christ’s sake.’

      ‘Word is he’s PSD from Aberdeen.’

      Shifty’s whole face pinched in around his bared teeth. ‘Rubber-heeling little bastard.’ The rest of his pint disappeared, then he held out the glass. ‘Put another one in there, Steve.’

      Steve did as he was told, then wandered off to serve someone else.

      This time Shifty savoured it. ‘You really fighting again? Seriously, with your hands?’

      ‘I’m not – it’s all bollocks.’ I went back to my water. ‘You get anything from the door-to-doors?’

      ‘Early days yet. Got a team pulling an all-nighter down the Land Registry, finding out who owned what house when the poor cows went missing. No point interviewing buggers who only moved in a couple years ago, is it?’

      I shrugged. Up on the glittering stage, Naughty Nikita ground her way along the floor.

      ‘How far back you going?’

      ‘Nine years: when Amber O’Neil got snatched …’ He frowned at me. ‘What’s that look for?’

      ‘Did you know Oldcastle produced more chlorine gas for World War One than anywhere else in the UK?’

      ‘Come on – surely nine years is enough.’

      ‘Apparently the ground’s all contaminated with mercury, that’s why we get so many nutters.’

      ‘We’re talking about three hundred houses here.’

      ‘That prick Forbes sacks the place, the wanker Montrose burns it down, and the arch fucker Huntly—’

      ‘Salts the earth, “so nane croppes shall growe on the accursd haven of evill and wicked Covenanters”, yeah: went to school, I know. So come on: Land Registry.’

      I hunkered down over my glass, resting my aching knuckles against its cool surface. ‘Remember that guy we caught three years ago: Martin Floyd? Where did he dump those prostitutes’ bodies?’

      ‘Can we not stick to the one topic for five minutes?’

      ‘He strangled them, raped them, then dumped them in Moncuir Wood. Why?’

      ‘Because he was a fucking nut-job, that’s why. Now can—’

      ‘He dumped them there, because when he was a wee boy he used to go camping in Moncuir Wood with the scouts. He knew the area.’

      ‘That thump in the head must’ve loosened your …’ Shifty stood there with his mouth hanging open.

      I took another sip of fizzy water. ‘Penny just dropped, has it?’

      ‘Eight o’clock.’

      I looked into the mirror. The place was getting busy, the after-work suits joined by stag nights and leaving dos: blokes up for a night on the batter with a little gratuitous nudity thrown in. Kicking off an evening that’d end with kebab vomit all down their front and a bollocking from the wife.

      ‘Come on, gents, let’s hear it for Naughty Nikita! Yeah, OK, whoo!’ No one joined in with the idiot on the PA system. ‘Now, the girls are going to take a little break, but we’ll be back in five minutes with the one, the only, the wonderful Kayleigh! Yeah!’

      Eight o’clock … I scanned the crowd’s reflection. Suits; stag night; that tosser ‘Sensational Steve’ off the morning drive-time show, plus hangers on; one of the council’s last remaining Liberal Democrats, sitting all on his own; a couple of local hoods sharing a joint. But no sign of anything … Fuck.

      Fuck!

      The man standing by the club’s entrance had barn-door ears, a sloping forehead, jutting chin, and a haircut so short you could see every inch of scar tissue criss-crossing his misshapen head. He couldn’t have been an inch over five-three. He ran a hand across his open mouth as he scanned the crowd. A DIY swallow tattoo perched on his wrist, blue ink spidering out into the surrounding skin.

      I hunched my shoulders up to my ears and slouched down, making myself as small as possible.

      Fuck.

      Shifty groaned. ‘Are you hiding from—’

      ‘I’m not hiding, I’m—’

      ‘Oh, you stupid prick. I told you to steer clear of—’

      ‘Shut up, OK?’ I glanced in the mirror again. ‘What’s he doing?’

      ‘Looking for someone.’

      See, that’s what happens when you have a local: people can find you. I downed the last of my water in one. The bubbles made my stomach churn. The bubbles. Nothing else.

      And then a voice came from right behind me, high-pitched and breathy. ‘Well, well, well, Detective Constable Ash Henderson, how fortuitous.’

      Too late to do a runner.

      I swivelled around on my seat, still holding the empty glass. Not the most elegant of weapons, but it would make one hell of a mess. ‘Joseph.’ I had a quick look behind him. ‘Where’s your boyfriend?’

      ‘Homophobia, Constable Henderson? I expected more from a man of your standing in the community.’ A small shake of the head. ‘If you must know, Francis is parking