A Heart in the Right Place Read online

  Shaun was snivelling and blubbing. His face was variously wet with blood, vodka, tears and spit. “What do you want?”

  Finn gave him a tired smile. “We want to know where Oz Bingley is.”

  “He’s in Birmingham, man.”

  “You said he had gone to the shops,” said Adam.

  “You’re going to tell us where he is,” Finn said gently.

  “He’s in Birmingham.”

  Finn plugged in the toaster, using a socket on the wall behind Shaun. “He could be anywhere. He could be in Manchester. He could be in Leeds.”

  “He’s in Birmingham!”

  “You will tell us eventually.” She took a plastic tank down from the shelf. “This is a tarantula, right?”

  Shaun nodded miserably. “Don’t hurt her. Don’t throw her out the—” He stared at his hand, jammed into a toaster. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Where’s Oz?”

  “Birmingham, man! I told you. Birmingham!”

  “You can’t hold out on us.”

  “He said Birmingham,” said Adam.

  “Yes!” shouted Shaun. “Birmingham! He’s visiting his mam. She’s sick. Birmingham!”

  Finn sighed and glanced at Adam. “He’ll tell us eventually.”

  She put the tank on Shaun’s lap. “You’re going to eat the tarantula.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s say, two legs.”

  “What?”

  “Bite off and eat two of the tarantula’s legs, see if it can still walk. As a special favour, I’ll let you choose which legs.”

  He stared at her, his mouth unable to form a response. His eyes darted to a movement behind: Adam had returned to the kitchenette and was focused on making two cups of tea. He hadn’t found any tea bags, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He didn’t want to watch? Fine, thought Finn.

  She slid down the toaster’s release button. The spring inside went sproing. Shaun whined.

  “So, it’s on dark brown,” she said. “That’s normally about three or four minutes by my reckoning. Eat two legs, I’ll let your hand out, and you tell me where Oz is.”

  “Birmingham!”

  “You’ll tell me.”

  The man keened loudly and turned to the tank, sobbing Birmingham over and over. He knocked off the lid one-handed and lifted out the spider, gentle fingers under its fat belly. He looked at the creature. His hand in the toaster twitched.

  “Please,” he mouthed.

  “Two legs,” Finn said. “Your choice.”

  He thrust the big spider to his mouth and ripped at it with his teeth. The animal spasmed like a hand caught in a car door. Finn had never heard someone scream with a mouth full of spider before.

  “No. You spat that one out!” she said. “Doesn’t count. You need to do two more. Quickly.”

  The next scream was more animal than human, more machine than animal. He threw the spider down, stamped on it and mashed it with his toaster hand before grabbing two twitching legs and stuffing them in his mouth.

  “There! There!” he yelled, a hairy joint still poking out between his lips. “Birmingham! He’s gone to his mam in Birmingham!”

  “His mom does live in Birmingham,” called Adam from the kitchenette. “Mr Argyll covers her care bills.”

  “Oh,” said Finn. “You should have said.”

  Shaun was making a noise which was off the chart: a weird feedback loop, high and horrible. The smell of cooking meat was fighting its way through the flat’s general stink.

  “Off to Birmingham, then,” Finn said. She gripped the corkscrew between second and third finger and rammed it into Shaun’s carotid artery. Yanking it out smartly, she danced to one side. Shaun bled out rapidly against the wall, screaming all the while.

  “Classic arterial spurt pattern,” she said. “Adam, look. Do you see how you can pick out the rhythm of the heart just before it stops? Look, at the pattern on the wall, like a wave form.”

  She looked around: Adam was already on his way out of the door. Finn went to the kitchen, rinsed her hands under the tap. She stopped in the lounge on her way out, looking at the smashed and ripped remains of the tarantula.

  “Fucking savages some people,” she said, and followed Adam down to the street.

  He was standing beside the ruin of her Volkswagen.

  “Well, this is a nuisance,” she said.

  “You think?” He looked at his watch.

  The car no longer had its alloy wheels. In fact it no longer had any wheels at all, and rested on piles of bricks. It also had something like paint poured over the roof: running down the windscreen and onto the bonnet.

  “This is logistics, right?” Finn said to Adam. “You can fix this.”

  He was already making a phone call.

  She looked around for the perpetrator, but there was nobody. Just a ginger cat on the wall, curled up tightly. It watched her.

  6

  Nick flipped over the SORRY WE MISSED YOU card from the postman and tapped in the reference number as directed by the excruciating automated system. Precious minutes ticked by as he established who he was, what he wanted and answered a number of security questions which seemed to serve no purpose at all.

  “Hello?” he said, when finally connected with a person. “I haven’t received my delivery.”

  “I can see it was delivered yesterday, sir,” came the melodious reply. Nick groaned inwardly. It was a Geordie accent; he was a sucker for women with a Geordie accent. He steeled himself to be assertive.

  “It wasn’t delivered to me. I still haven’t got it.”

  “It was delivered to a neighbour. Would you like the details?”

  “I have the details, but they aren’t there.”

  “They aren’t there?”

  “I’ve been round to the house on eighteen separate occasions, and the person just isn’t home.” Nick could hear a peevish note creeping into his voice.

  “You must be very frustrated, sir,” came the voice.

  “Yes. Yes I am,” said Nick. “There’s a lot riding on this delivery, a hell of a lot. It’s for a special weekend I’ve organised with my dad.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Do you know why it’s special?” It was a churlish and offensive question. Of course she didn’t know.

  “Do tell me sir.”

  “It’s special because my dad’s got cancer. Throat cancer, yeah? This weekend might be the last chance I get to…”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “I just want it to be special.”

  “I see, sir. It sounds as if this is very important to you.”

  “It is!” Nick agreed. “It’s a bottle of thirty year old Talisker. That’s whisky. Single malt. It’s supposed to be part of the magic, part of the special moment. Can you picture it? A view over the loch, a whisky in hand, maybe a fire roaring in the open grate.”

  Nick could have gone on. He could have said, My dad had this amazing picture on an old tobacco tin when I was a kid. It had a grand old guy sitting there: whisky, fire, loch, full Moon rising, dog at his side, a shotgun broken over his arm. The man looked as if he was the king of the world. I always associate my dad with that picture, always carried in his coat pocket. I don’t know what he kept in the tobacco tin but it’s the one thing I really associate with him and the one thing I know I’ll have of him when he’s gone. He could have said it but didn’t; his voice was cracking with emotion as it was. What he did say was, “I owe my dad the best weekend I can possibly give to him and this package is part of that. He said he always liked Talisker and if I don’t have it before we leave for our weekend together then I’m finished. Do you understand now how important this is?”

  “I understand you are upset about this, sir. Can I suggest you continue to try the house? If you are denied access for seven days then you can make a claim for the cost of the package. We will, of course understand if you choose to buy a replacement in the meantime.”

  The gentle Geordi
e accent made this sound so very reasonable Nick was almost lulled into agreement. Almost.

  “Where on earth am I going to buy a replacement from?” he shrieked. “I can’t just go down to the offy and buy a bottle of Bells. It has to be perfect! Like the tobacco tin.”

  “Of course, I can raise an internal investigation for you. Would you like me to do that?”

  “What? Why would I do that? Will it get me my dad’s bottle of whisky?” he demanded. “I paid for next day delivery, does that mean nothing?”

  “An internal investigation might help if you feel the courier has behaved improperly and wish to raise a claim to recover—”

  Nick slammed the phone down. He was wasting valuable time. Was there another way? He called up a map of Scotland on his phone. Their destination was a cottage near Inverness. The whisky distillery was on the Isle of Skye. Was there any chance at all it was on their route, or somewhere they could detour to? He checked the internet. Inverness was on the east coast of Scotland. Skye was off the west coast. Scotland was a thin country but not that thin. There was a lot of wibbly-wobbly, uppy-downy bits in the middle, and his Cadillac, beautiful though it was, didn’t like wibbly-wobbly, uppy-downy bits very much.

  It would be a seven hour diversion at best. Seven hours of extra car travel on a weekend of long car journeys. Seven hours of sitting side by side with his father’s silent disappointment.

  Nick grunted with frustration. He could handle all sorts of problems, in fact he excelled at solving them, but there was one thing he absolutely couldn’t face, and that was his father’s disappointment.

  7

  Finn watched Adam chatting to the girl at the car rental. Specifically, she watched his hands. He was half-clicking his fingers, flicking one fingertip with the nail of another, as though trying to dislodge a speck of dirt.

  Things were not going to plan; not his anyway. Adam backed away from the desk and pulled out his phone.

  “Just need to make a call. There’s been a mix up with the vehicles. I have a man who can get the right one out to us in thirty minutes.” He suddenly looked ill. “Thirty minutes. Doreen Bingley is in the Avebury nursing home in Stechford, Birmingham. That’s still a two hour drive.”

  “There are cars outside,” said Finn. “Why can’t we take one?”

  “All pre-booked.”

  Adam walked across to a small seating area to make his call. Finn went to the door and looked outside at the parked cars, then she walked back to the counter. The woman – her lapel badge said Megan – was fiddling with her phone.

  “We need a car,” said Finn.

  Megan didn’t look up from her phone as she spoke. “I explained to your boyfriend. We don’t have any cars at the moment.”

  Finn stared at the top of the woman’s head. “Is that one of the new iPhones?”

  Megan held it out casually. “No. Old model. Just had the screen replaced.”

  Finn plucked it from her hands and stepped back. “Never had an iPhone.” She swiped through Megan’s social media feed. “Looking at your horoscope, huh?”

  “Could I have it—”

  “Taurus. With Pluto moving through Capricorn, expect upheaval in your career.” Finn made a show of looking round, making it clear she couldn’t imagine much of a career in a dockside car rental place, never mind an upheaval.

  “Can I have my phone, please?”

  Finn nodded, returning to the counter. Before Megan knew what had happened, Finn had the woman’s hand flat on the counter, an opened up staple gun pressed gently into it. Megan stared, her mouth working like a goldfish.

  “Scream if you want,” said Finn with a shrug. “Who’s this?” She held up the phone to show a picture.

  “My husband,” gasped Megan, as though air was suddenly in short supply.

  “He looks like he works out. What’s his name?”

  “Kai.”

  Finn flipped to the phone’s contacts and scrolled through the call log. “Kai,” she repeated, and read out his number.

  “Yes,” said Megan. “Please. My hand…”

  “Have you got any Volkswagens out front?”

  “No. None.”

  Finn bore down a little on the stapler, wondering if the prongs were beginning to pierce Megan’s skin. She held it a half centimetre away from punching out a staple.

  “We’ve got a BMW,” whispered Megan, the words tripping over each other. “Very sporty.”

  “And we can take it?”

  “I’ll sort something,” said Megan, her voice reduced to a squeak.

  Finn let go of the stapler and tossed the phone back to Megan. “Adam!”

  “What?” His own phone was still attached to his ear.

  “She’s got a car for us.” Smiling at the pale Megan she repeated her husband’s phone number, just in case the woman thought she’d forgotten it.

  8

  Nick rushed home.

  He had spent the afternoon staring. He’d stared at a Google map of Scotland. He’d stared at options for buying Talisker. He’d stared at the visual car crash which was the Kirkwood photos.

  While he stared, Inverness and Skye didn’t move any closer together. Bottles of whisky didn’t suddenly become available for delivery in the next few hours. The pictures didn’t mystically become any less horrific.

  No inspiration had been forthcoming on any front. He’d been so preoccupied with the whisky problem – a mere dozen yards from his house and wholly inaccessible – he’d been unable to put any thought into resolving the Kirkwood job.

  Perhaps some calming downtime with his dad would stimulate the killer concept he needed to get back in the sausage peoples’ good books. So, as he returned to Birmingham’s suburbs, he decided the way to fix all problems was to fix the weekend.

  Get the whisky.

  Meet up with his dad.

  Have a once-in-a-lifetime fairy-tale father-son weekend in the Highlands with his old man.

  Make those magical memories.

  Fix everything.

  As soon as he was back in Langollen Drive, he went straight over to Oz’s house and banged loudly on the knocker. The dog barked again. If anything it sounded even more frenzied than before. If it had been left alone the whole time it was hardly surprising. It must be hungry. How often did dogs need feeding? It was animal cruelty, wasn’t it?

  He looked up a number on his phone and made a call. “Council dog warden? Hello, I’d like to report a neighbour’s dog that’s barking a lot.”

  “You’d like to make a complaint of animal nuisance?” came a woman’s voice.

  “No, it’s not causing a nuisance,” said Nick. “More like it’s been unattended for the last two days, as far as I can tell.”

  “You’d like to report possible animal cruelty then?” she asked.

  “Yes. Yes, I would,” said Nick, hoping the dog warden would break in to rescue the dog. If he could just tag along then maybe—

  “The best organisation to deal with cruelty complaints is the RSPCA,” said the woman. “If you give me the address, I can get one of our wardens to call by and assess the situation. How would that be?”

  Nick gave her the address and hung up gloomily. He had expected a little bit more from the council dog warden: maybe not SWAT teams and helicopters, but at least something with flashing blue lights and the power to break down doors.

  His phone pinged with a text from his mom confirming his dad was packing his things and would be round in the morning at eight o’clock. It was a simple message, barely a dozen words long but the subtext was deeper than decades: You haven’t forgotten your dad is coming over tomorrow and you’re taking him away for the weekend? Please don’t mess it up as I suspect you will.

  He sent her a reply that simply read, YES. LOOKING FORWARD TO IT, which he hoped said nothing more.

  He flicked to the Brandwood End Facebook forum.

  There were a number of replies from people saying no, they didn’t know who lived there. Nick wondered why peop
le felt the need to provide such redundant information, but was soon distracted when he saw a fuller answer.

  I BELIEVE HE WORKS IN SALES OR SOMETHING. HIS GIRLFRIEND DUMPED HIM A MONTH OR SO AGO AND HE’S ON HIS OWN NOW. A BIT OF A NUTTER. I’VE HEARD HIM SINGING SHOW TUNES WHILE HE WASHES THAT RIDICULOUS LIMOUSINE OF HIS. NAME’S MICK OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

  Unbelievable. Nick was momentarily stunned. He banged out a reply:

  ACTUALLY THAT’S NUMBER 37. HOW DO I KNOW? BECAUSE IT’S ME YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, DUMBASS. AND IT’S NOT SHOW TUNES I SING, IT’S THE CLASSICS FROM THE RAT PACK. AND IT’S A CADILLAC FLEETWOOD SIXTY SPECIAL, NOT A LIMOUSINE. AND I WASN’T DUMPED. IT WAS *MUTUAL*!

  He deleted his words, suspecting the insult would get him thrown out of the group, and he wanted to read the rest of the replies. He scrolled down and found a reply from a user called AshleysNan.

  I LIVE NEXT DOOR. A LADY CALLED DOREEN USED TO LIVE THERE BUT SHE’S GONE. I SEE HER SON LOOK IN FROM TIME TO TIME TO SORT OUT MOLLY. CAR IS ON DRIVE WHICH NORMALLY MEANS HE IS THERE.

  Nick’s hopes rose. A car was on the driveway; it had been there all day. Maybe Oz had been at home all the time. Maybe he had been in the garden, or was profoundly deaf.

  There’d be no harm in taking a peek through some windows.

  The windows around the front door were frosted glass, he could see nothing through them. There was a bay window at the front with net curtains up. Nick pressed his face against the glass to see whether he might be able to see through. Only vague shapes were visible through the fabric. There were the vertical struts of metal bars just inside the window. The owner clearly took their security seriously. Beyond that, Nick saw something tall like a bookcase, and an easy chair. Certainly no movement. He banged on the glass to check.

  He walked around the side of the house. There was a gate to the rear access. He tried the latch but the gate wouldn’t open: bolted from the other side.

  “Hello? Oz?” he called over the gate. There was no reply.

  He tested the top of the gate. Nick was no acrobat. He had never stepped beyond the bottom rungs of climbing frames as a child and was a complete stranger to chin ups and other favourites of the gymnasium narcissists. He would never normally contemplate vaulting over a six foot fence; but a bottle of thirty-year-old Talisker, his dad’s happiness and his entire future was hanging in the balance.