Chapter 12
Twelve
Bastard.
Andrew dumped another chunk of bush into the incinerator – leaves crackling and hissing as the flames took hold. It was just one of those cheapies Asda sold from time to time: a galvanised bin with wee feet on it and holes drilled along the sides. But it did the job.
And the garden looked a lot better than it had when he’d woken up this morning. Seething.
Fucking DS Fucking Davis.
Who the hell did he think he was, making Andrew wet himself? Like he was a wee boy, back in primary six, and the bullies pinned him to the playground wall . . .
Bastard was lucky Andrew didn’t Release The Beast and pound the living crap out of him, right there in the kid’s bedroom. Cop or not.
Yeah . . .
He could’ve totally taken Davis.
Wouldn’t even have been close.
Another branch met the fire.
It was only a wee garden, round the back of their wee house, in a wee forgotten corner of Dyce, but it’d turned into a jungle these last couple of years. Well overdue a good clear-out.
At least now you could see the view – what there was of it, at this time of night – a smear of grey field with the lights of Bucksburn twinkling in the middle distance, through the trees. And up above, a sea of deep, deep indigo blue, speckled with cold indifferent stars.
The moon glared out, from just above the horizon. Septic and angry. Swollen and mocking. Because DS Davis made him piss himself.
Andrew snarled another chunk of garden into the incinerator, jamming it down, making angry orange sparks swarm into the air. Spiralling off into the night.
One caught the back of his hand, landing on the raw patch where he’d skinned his knuckles hacking branches off that stupid hedge. Stinging like a burning wasp.
‘Fucking . . . fuck!’ Sticking the knuckle in his mouth and sucking on the broken skin. Tasting hot iron and bitter smoke.
Should call the cops on the bastard, that’s what. Dial one of those anonymous tip-off lines and tell them all about what DS Davis did to that poor woman.
Yeah, but Davis was the cops, remember?
Who were they going to believe – their detective-sergeant buddy, or Andrew: a normal, decent, hardworking bloke?
Course they wouldn’t believe him.
They’d fit him up, just like every other poor—
‘Andy?’
He forced his face into a smile, and turned. ‘Hey, Mum.’
She shuffled out of the kitchen door, carrying a steaming mug of something.
Wearing baggy jeans and a cheery-pink sweatshirt with ‘ARbrOATH THIRTEEN TWENTY’ embroidered across it.
Her thinning hair kept in an unflattering bob, even though he’d begged her to let him cut it properly.
Because it wasn’t too much trouble. And he really did know what he was doing.
Wouldn’t let him sneak a few vials of Botox from the salon for her either. But why should a woman her age look thirty years older than she really was?
Mum handed him the mug, then beamed out at the garden. ‘Ooh, it’s lovely, Andy.’
‘It’s a start, anyway.’
‘Don’t be much longer, though. Can’t have you catching your death out here.’
On a night as hot and clammy as a tramp’s armpit?
‘It’s OK. Got the fire to keep me toasty, the smoke to keep the midges away, and you to keep me topped up with tea.’ He took a sip. ‘Mmmm, delicious. Lovely, thanks.’
‘Oh, really . . .’ Mum frowned at him, brushing a couple of leaves off his Mr McPork T-shirt. ‘What are you wearing that scruffy old thing for?’
He looked down at the pig mascot, with its butcher’s cleaver and ‘I’VE GOT SOME MEAT FOR YOU, BABY’ – the print all cracked and faded. ‘I’m only gardening.’
‘It’s full of holes.’ She gazed up into his eyes, like he was the most precious thing in the whole stinking world. ‘Maybe I should get you a sweater?’
Christ no.
‘Won’t be long, Mum. Promise. Just want to get this all tidied away, and maybe we can have breakfast on the patio tomorrow? I can make pancakes, if you like. Pretend we’re on holiday?’
She stood on her tippytoes and kissed him on the cheek. ‘You’re a good boy, looking after your old mum.’
Yeah, he was.
And that’s when the KL919 decided to spoil the mood – lighting up the sky as it came in to land at Aberdeen Airport.
Its flight path didn’t take it right over the house, but the big Embraer ERJ-190 twin-jet roared over the field on the other side of the garden wall.
Getting lower and lower, wheels down, ready to land. A huge blue-and-white carrion crow.
Mum’s face darkened, shooting her fist into the air with the first two fingers extended. Bellowing it out against the engines’ whine: ‘FUCK OFF BACK TO AMSTERDAM, YOU HERRING-MUNCHING DUTCH BASTARDS!’
But the pilot didn’t – they never did – he just carried on with his final descent, over the airport fence, and onto the runway.
As soon as the plane was gone, the thunder faded from Mum’s eyes. She reached up and patted Andrew’s cheek. ‘Don’t be too late.’ Then off she shuffled. A fifty-year-old woman in an eighty-year-old’s body.
How was that fair?
He waited till she was safely inside, with the door shut, before grabbing the old metal pole and ramming it into the fire.
Yanking it round and round, stirring the burning sticks, sending a swarm of sparks leaping into the tacky air.
Going round and round. Whipping it up. Heat building and building.
Till the whole world blazed around him . . .
Then he fetched the bin-bag from under the patio table.
Opened it and pulled out a copy of that morning’s Press and Journal, Aberdeen Examiner, and the latest Evening Express as well. All three papers rumpled and creased where he’d been through them twice – reading and rereading every article, just to be sure.
Not one of them even mentioned Natasha Agapova.
Andrew tossed them into the incinerator, feeding the flames.
Then dipped back into the bin-bag for the two pairs of fancy panties and the lacy bra. They went into the fire, then the dirty stocking.
Quick look left and right to make sure no one was watching, and the pants from Natasha’s washing basket got one last sniff for luck before the blaze took them.
What a waste.
Next to burn was every single thing he’d been wearing last night – from the black cargo pants and hoodie, right down to his socks and pants. Fizzling and smoking, then whoomp, they finally caught – polyester turning the smoke oily black.
Then the wee rucksack.
Only two more things in the bag.
The Knife wouldn’t burn, but a thorough spraying with bleach and it would get chucked in the river tomorrow.
Which left the most damning bit of evidence.
Andrew pulled his night-vision goggles from the bag.
Only they were, like, nearly three hundred quid.
Maybe a good going over with antibacterial wipes would do it? But there was one thing he absolutely could not keep.
He popped open the small rectangular cover on the goggles’ housing, and ejected the micro SD card hidden inside.
Because even thick bastards like DS Davis’s mates might find a recording of Andrew breaking into the victim’s home a little suspicious.
He clutched the fingernail-sized card in his fist.
What if dumping it in the incinerator wasn’t enough? Police IT guys could recover all sorts of things these days. You saw them do it on the telly all the time.
Have to record over everything a few times, first . . . Or download one of those file shredders off the internet.
Yeah, but the card had some of his favourite creeps on it.
That didn’t sodding matter.
The choice was ‘getting away with this’ or ‘ending up in prison for the rest of his life’.
Besides, it wasn’t like this was the end of Andrew’s creeping career, was it? Could make a new video tomorrow, if he wanted . . .
Yeah, but maybe one last look for old-times’ sake? Before he destroyed everything.
Andrew’s bedroom was at the back of the house, meaning he had a perfect view of the garden incinerator, smouldering away, giving off an evil orange glow.
Sitting at his childhood desk, he reached out and lowered the blinds, shutting the outside world away.
Because even though it was highly sodding unlikely someone would march across the field, climb the garden wall, and scramble through the hacked-back bushes, to peer in through his bedroom window and watch him sitting here in the nip, having a wank – better safe than sorry.
It wasn’t a big bedroom, but then it wasn’t a big house.
Which is why, even though he had black satin sheets, his bed was a single. Posters for the films he’d loved growing up, lined the walls: Nanny McPhee and Kung Fu Panda rubbing shoulders with The Dark Knight and Reservoir Dogs.
To start with, he’d put Post-its over their eyes, so they couldn’t see him sitting there, all naked, bashing away, but they were used to it now.
Quick check to make sure the bedroom door was locked, and Andrew fired up the laptop he’d nicked from that woman in Danestone – the one who’d stayed out all night, instead of coming home while he hid in her wardrobe.
One of his non-good-night creeps.
But then he’d needed a new computer anyway, and you’d have to be an idiot to steal something like that from a woman you’d just given a ‘treat’.
Too much risk of being tied back to the event.
So: the blinds were down, the door locked, his clothes neatly folded and put away. He had his hand lotion and his box of tissues ready. Headphones on.
But before he gave himself a ‘treat’ – probably best to check the footage from last night. Yes, it would ruin the mood, but better to get it out of the way now, rather than leaving it hanging over him.
Deep breath.
Then Andrew clicked play.
A fancy-looking garden filled the laptop’s screen.
Much bigger than the one here. Better-kept as well, because rich wankers like this always had little men to do the gardening for them, didn’t they.
The scene was from above, looking down at trees and bushes and the back of the house, all rendered in a sickly shade of night-vision green.