Stuart MacBride: Ash Henderson 2-book Crime Thriller Collection. Stuart MacBride

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      ‘You can’t expect her to draw up an accurate profile when she doesn’t have all the information, you know that. She’ll make assumptions based on what she has, and it isn’t going to—’

      ‘Then steer her in the right direction. Prod her. Guide her. Make her get it right.’ The pan thumped back down on the cooker. ‘If I tell her, she’ll tell Dickie and they’ll kick me off the case. Compassionate leave, grief counselling; I’ll have to sit at home and watch them fuck everything up while the Birthday Boy keeps on going.’

      ‘Perhaps grief counselling wouldn’t be a bad—’

      ‘I’m not telling her, Henry, and neither are you. Understand?’ I switched off the gas. ‘Now go get her before it’s ruined.’

      Snow drifted down outside my hotel-room window, shining as it passed through the streetlights. Henry’s dent-covered Volvo estate sat by the kerb, the word ‘WANKER’ scratched in big letters along the side, engine running, exhaust curling out into the darkness. I wrapped Rebecca’s cigar box in two T-shirts and that ugly jumper Michelle’s mum gave me, wedging socks and pants and jeans in around it. Keeping it safe. Then went through to the en-suite for my toilet bag.

      My mobile rang, echoing back from the pristine tiles: Dickie again.

      I jammed the thing between my ear and shoulder. ‘Let me guess, she’s not answering her phone.’ Gathered up my things: toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, shaving foam …

      ‘Sometimes it’s better to talk to the monkey than the organ grinder.’

      ‘Cheeky bastard.’ Pills, pills, more pills …

      ‘We’ve got a confession out of the bookshop owner.’

      I stopped. Stared in the mirror, pulse thumping in my ears. After all this time … ‘He’s the Birthday Boy.’

      ‘No, he’s not. I couldn’t be that bloody lucky. But he does have a collection of explicit videos of him sexually abusing Helen McMillan. She was only twelve …’ Dickie made a sort of rubbery flapping sound with his lips, like an underwater sigh. ‘Apparently they had an arrangement – she’d do whatever he wanted, on camera, as long as he paid her in signed first editions. Told him she was going to sell them when she was eighteen so she could afford to go to Edinburgh University. Study law.’

      I closed my eyes, leant on the sink, breathed again. It wasn’t him … The Birthday Boy was still out there. I stuffed the Naproxen in the toilet bag.

      ‘That’s very … pragmatic for a twelve-year-old.’ I nicked the complimentary soap, shower cap, cotton buds, then the little bottles of body lotion and conditioner. Zipped the toilet bag shut.

      ‘When I was twelve I got a paper round. What the hell happened to Scotland?’

      ‘Same thing that happened everywhere else.’

      A car horn blared outside. I peered through the window. Dr McDonald was in the passenger seat of Henry’s Volvo, staring up at me, pointing at her watch and grimacing, even though we still had a whole hour to catch the ferry.

      I dumped the bag in the suitcase and took one last tour through the chest of drawers, wardrobe, and bedside cabinet: making sure I hadn’t missed anything.

      ‘You remember when this used to be a good job? Something you could be proud of?’

      ‘No.’ The only thing left was the Gideon Bible, and let’s face it: it was far too late for that. I zipped the wheelie case shut and hauled it off the bed onto the floor.

      ‘Me neither.’ Another rubbery sigh. ‘Right, I’d better go – have to inform Helen McMillan’s parents that she was being sexually abused for two years. Two years getting molested by a greasy old man, then the Birthday Boy grabs her … What sort of a life is that?’

      Snow battered down from a dark sky, a billowing curtain of white and grey that hid half of Lerwick as we stood in the forward bar of the MV Hjaltland.

      The deck beneath my feet throbbed and purred, the streetlights sliding past as we headed out towards the harbour exit.

      Dr McDonald appeared beside me, holding a glass of something that fizzed and frothed. She knocked it back, shuddered, then topped the glass up with bottled water. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘Introducing me to Henry, I mean he’s a committed alcoholic, and he’s got some very hidebound ideas about psychological indicators, but he really cares, even after all this time.’ She swirled the liquid in the glass, making a vortex of little white flecks, then swigged the lot down. ‘But if I never have to look another whisky in the eye I’ll be very, very happy.’

      ‘Can you catch him?’

      She tilted her head to one side, eyes fixed on the ferry’s starboard windows. Lerwick was a little knot of yellow and white lights, twinkling through the snow, getting smaller all the time. ‘Do you want to hear the profile?’

      ‘Thought you called it “behavioural evidence analysis” these days.’

      ‘He’s a white male, mid to late forties – which is pretty unusual, normally they’re in their early twenties – he lives on his own or with an elderly relative, someone housebound who can’t see what he’s up to, he drives a large car or van, something he can transport his victims in, and he probably works in the media.’ Another mouthful of water. ‘Nothing that high-profile, just enough to make him look showbiz to a twelve-year-old girl. Make her think he can take her places, make her famous …’ A shrug. ‘Or he might be a bricklayer from Falkirk: it’s not an exact science.’

      Lerwick disappeared into the blizzard as the ferry began to pitch and yaw. ‘Should narrow the field.’

      ‘I’ll put it into proper, woolly, percentage-based, science-speak before I present it. We can’t say outright “this what you’re looking for”, because … well … you know.’

      My phone vibrated in my pocket – another text message. I pulled it out and pressed the button. Unknown number:

       We’re coming to get you.

      Join the queue.

Friday 18th November

       24

      ‘… for the next couple of days as that cold front sweeps down across the north-east of Scotland, bringing snow and sleet with it. Steve?’

      ‘Thanks, Davie. You’re listening to Sensational Steve’s Breakfast Drive-Time Bonanza, and we’ll be back with another bonkers wind-up call right after these words from our sponsors.’ Grating honk, cheesy trombone noise, and then the adverts.

      ‘Have you had an accident in the last five years, and it wasn’t your fault? …’

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