Birthdays for the Dead. Stuart MacBride

the Met would’ve beaten the Scouse out of you by now.’

      ‘You kidding? Like a stick of Blackpool rock me: cut us in half and it’s “Sabir loves Merseyside” all the way down.’ He pointed a chunky finger at my face. ‘What’s the other bloke look like?’

      ‘Almost as ugly as you.’

      A smile. ‘Well your mam never complains when I’m givin’ her one.’

      ‘To be fair, she’s got a lot less fussy since she died.’ I locked the car, rain pattering on the shoulders of my leather jacket. ‘The McMillans here?’

      ‘Nah: home. We’re keepin’ our end low key, didn’t think they’d want a Crown Office task force camped out on their doorstep, like.’ Sabir turned and lumbered towards the hotel entrance, wide hips rolling from side to side, feet out at ten-to-two, like a duck. ‘The father’s just about holdin’ it together, but the mother’s in pieces. How ’bout your lot?’

      I followed him through the automatic doors into a bland lobby. The receptionist was slumped over her phone, doodling on a day planner. ‘I know … Yeah … Well, it’s only ’cos she’s jealous …’

      Sabir led the way to the lifts and mashed the button with his thumb. ‘We’re on the fifth floor. Great view: Tesco car park on one side, dual carriageway on the other. Like Venice in spring, that.’ The numbers counted their way down from nine. ‘So: you here on a social, or you after a favour?’

      I handed him a photograph. The doors slid open, but Sabir didn’t move. He stared at the picture, mouth hanging open.

      A snort from the reception desk. ‘No … I swear I never … No … Told you: she’s jealous.’

      The doors slid shut again.

      Sabir breathed out. ‘Holy crap …’

       3

      The bitter smell of percolating coffee filled the fifth-floor conference room. One wall was solid glass – patio doors at the far end opening out onto a balcony – the others festooned with scribble-covered flip charts and whiteboards.

      Sabir unfurled the top of his Burger King bag and pulled out a handful of fries as he lumbered across the beige carpet. I followed him.

      Two men and two women were clustered at the far end of the room, perching on the edge of tables, gathered around a stocky man with salt-and-ginger hair and a face gouged deep with creases and wrinkles. Detective Chief Superintendent Dickie. He hooked a thumb at the nearest whiteboard. ‘Aye, and make sure you pull all the CCTV footage they’ve got, this time, Maggie. Don’t let the buggers fob you off; should all still be on file.’

      One of the women nodded – no-nonsense pageboy haircut bobbing around her long, thin face. ‘Yes, Chief.’ She scribbled something down in a notebook.

      DCS Dickie settled back in his seat and smiled at a lump of muscle with no chin. ‘Byron?’

      ‘Yes, right …’ The huge sergeant straightened his wire-rimmed glasses. ‘When Helen went missing last year, Tayside Police talked to all of her friends, classmates, and everyone at the hairdressers she worked in on Saturdays. No one saw anything. Stable enough home life, wanted to go to university to study law. No boyfriend. Liked gerbils, Lady Gaga, and reading.’ He turned and pointed at a corkboard covered in about thirty head-and-shoulder shots of young girls, all reported missing within the last twelve months: just before their thirteenth birthday.

      Rebecca’s photograph used to be up there …

      One of the pictures had a red border around it – ribbon held in place with brass thumbtacks. That would be Helen McMillan: hair like polished copper, grinning, wearing a white shirt and what looked like a school tie.

      A frown crossed Byron’s face. ‘According to Bremner, she was only a twenty-five percent match with the victim profile.’

      Sitting on the other side of the group, DS Gillis ran a hand down his chest-length Viking beard, long blond curls tied in a ponytail at the back of his head. When he spoke, it was in a Morningside-sixty-Benson-&-Hedges-a-day growl. ‘Far as we know, Helen’s never kept a diary, so we’ve no idea if she was planning to meet anyone the day she was abducted. Told her mother she was going window shopping after the hairdressers shut on Saturday – wanted a new phone for her birthday. Last sighting we have is her leaving the Vodaphone shop in the Overgate Centre at five thirty-seven. After that: nothing.’

      Dickie made a note on the whiteboard. ‘Our boy seems to have a thing for shopping centres. What about social networking?’

      Sabir cleared his throat. ‘Goin’ through everything again: got this new pattern-recognition software that spiders her friends too. So far it’s all about who’s gorra crush on who, and aren’t Five Star Six dreeeemy.’ He clapped a hand down on my shoulder. It smelled of chips. ‘In other news.’

      Everyone looked, and nodded – well, except for that hairy tosser, DS Gillis – a couple even waved.

      A smile deepened the wrinkles around the chief superintendent’s mouth. ‘Detective Constable Ash Henderson, as I live and wheeze. To what do we owe …’ Then quickly faded. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’

      ‘At two thirty yesterday afternoon, a team of council workers were repairing a sewage main in Castleview.’ I pulled out the photograph I’d shown Sabir and handed it to Dickie. It was an eight-by-ten big glossy blow-up of a trench. The earth was dark, almost black, in sharp contrast to the bright yellow council digger in the background. A tattered fringe of black plastic surrounded a scattered mess of pale bone, ribs and femurs and tibia all scraped into a jumble by the digger’s back hoe. The skull lay on its side, the right temple crushed and gouged. ‘We got a match on the dental records last night. It’s Hannah Kelly.’

      ‘Holy crap …’ DS Gillis tugged at his Viking beard, grinning. ‘We got one! We finally got one.’

      ‘Bloody brilliant.’ Dickie stood and grabbed my hand, pumping it up and down. ‘Finally some forensic evidence. Real, proper, physical evidence. Not half-remembered interviews, or grainy security camera footage showing sod all: actual evidence.’ He let go of my hand and for a moment it looked as if he was moving in for a hug.

      I backed up a step. ‘We found another body at three this morning. Same area.’

      Sabir flipped a laptop open with one hand, the other clutching a half-eaten burger. ‘Where?’ The fingers of his left hand danced across the keyboard and a ceiling-mounted projector whirred into life, turning the wall by the door into one big screen: Google Earth booting up.

      I settled on the edge of a desk. ‘McDermid Avenue.’

      ‘McDermid Avenue …’ A rattle of keys and the map swooped in on the north-east of Scotland, then Oldcastle: the glittering curl of the Kings River cutting it in half. Then closer, until Castle Hill covered the whole wall – the twisted cobbled streets surrounding the castle, the green expanse of King’s Park, the rectangular Sixties bulk of the hospital. Closer – streets lined with trees, terraced sandstone houses with slate roofs and long back gardens. McDermid Avenue appeared dead centre, growing until it was big enough to make out individual cars. The houses backed onto a rectangle of scrub, bushes, and trees – an overgrown park criss-crossed with paths.

      DCS Dickie walked over, until he was close enough to throw a shadow across the projected street. ‘Where’s the burial site?’ He shifted from foot to foot, rubbing his fingertips together.

      Probably thought this was it: all we needed to do was ID the house where the bodies were buried, find out who lived there nine years ago, arrest them, and everyone could go home. Poor sod.

      I nudged Sabir to the side, brushed sesame seeds off the laptop’s keyboard, then swirled the mouse pointer over the parkland behind