Against the Clock by John Carson (best mobile ebook reader TXT) 📕

the last bus coming in. I knew it was that knob Mann driving it.’

Stewart put a hand up. ‘Wait. He’s a teacher, I thought?’

‘This was on a Saturday. He drives at the weekend.’ Dixon paused, looking at Stewart.

‘Right, carry on, son,’ Stewart said.

‘Aye, well, there’s a door leading into the office area where we leave our time boards and the like, and there’s a door with a window in it. I could see right out into the yard where dafty had stopped his bus. Now, it wasn’t full dark and he had his interior lights off inside the bus, but the yard lights were on and I could see inside. He had a lassie there. She was helping him, I assumed, walking up and down the bus as if she was checking for lost property. Then I saw her stop and Mann grabbed hold of her and they started kissing.’

‘Did you see who it was?’

‘Aye. When he’d stopped putting his hands all over her, he opened the garage door and she got off with him and I could see her clearly. I didn’t know her name, but I’d seen her talking to him at the Gyle Centre one day during the week. She had a school uniform on. I don’t know what school it was, but she looked to be fifteen or sixteen.’

‘How come she was on his bus on a Saturday evening?’ Lillian asked. ‘I mean, how would she be on the bus at the yard?’

‘He would drop his passengers off at the Gyle on his last run and then she would stay on. He’d bring her along to the yard, and they’d do whatever it was they were going to do.’

‘Did he see you?’ Harry asked.

‘No. I waited until he was pulling his bus in and she was back on it with him, then I slipped out the door. I don’t know if he heard me start my car up or not, but he didn’t say anything the next night. I mean, how could he? He’s not exactly going to say, “Did you see me shagging that lassie last night?”, is he?’

‘Is that why you quit your job?’ Stewart asked.

‘What? No, of course not.’ Dixon paused. ‘It was because of the monster.’

‘Monster?’ Stewart said, starting to furrow his brow. This was sometimes a precursor to an explosion of expletives if he thought someone was being an arse.

‘Aye. The monster who lives in the garage.’

Twenty-Seven

Calvin Stewart thought Dougal Dixon was on meth. Or taking the piss. Either one would earn the man a swift kick in the goolies.

‘Explain,’ Stewart simply said, in a tone that left no doubt what the repercussions would be if Dixon turned out to be some nutcase.

‘The monster. Oh aye, I bet Morton didn’t tell you about that, did he?’

The three detectives waited for him to elaborate.

‘You might think there’s something wrong with me,’ Dixon said.

‘You think?’ Stewart said, eyeing the coffee mug, glad he hadn’t touched it. They might all end up in a basement somewhere, tied up and being experimented on by aliens, if this bampot was anything to go by.

Dixon looked off into space for a moment before suddenly getting to his feet. Stewart stood up, his adrenaline kicking in. Fight or flight, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Right, that’s enough of your shite,’ he said. ‘You seem to be the only fucking weirdo working at that bus company. I think we need to take you back to Edinburgh and have a wee word.’

Dixon snapped back to the here and now. ‘No, no!’ he said in a panic. ‘Please, sit down and I’ll explain. I was trying to get my thoughts together.’ Then he looked at Stewart with a puzzled look on his face. ‘What do you mean, weirdo?’

‘Have you ever tried walking with an extendable baton rammed up your fucking jacksie?’

‘Hypothetically?’

‘Try me.’

‘Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking,’ Dixon said as he sat back down. ‘But I swear to God, this is true. I had to go into the small workshop that’s off to one side of the main garage, and it was dark. I flicked the light switch, but nothing came on. I had to use my phone, and while I was shining the wee light about, I shone it on a shelf where the cleaning supplies were kept, and there was this face looking back at me. It was hideous, like something out of a horror film. I nearly shat myself.

‘Mind, that wasn’t the first time either. Sometimes when I’d been driving on the back shift, bringing the bus back in at midnight, I thought I saw somebody creeping about that old house near the main gate. Looking out the window. She was wearing a nightie or some kind of gown. I thought it was a ghost or something at first, but that face in the workshop was real. I’m telling you, there’s somebody living in that house!’

Dixon was on the verge of babbling.

‘Right, take it easy, son,’ Stewart said, sitting back down but not taking his eyes off Dixon. ‘Where do you think this person is coming from?’

Dixon looked down at his feet for a moment, as if the answer lay in the carpet. ‘I don’t know. I thought the first time that she was a passenger hanging about or something, but then, in the workshop, she turned round and it was as if she was half human, half monster. Her face was gone.’

‘What do you mean, gone?’ Lillian asked.

‘Gone.’ He looked at her as if this should require no further explanation, like somebody might want to know all about electrics when you’ve told them that in order to turn off a light, you flick the switch.

‘It was pitch black in there. There are lights outside the garage of course, but she was in the shadows. Then she turned to me and it seemed like she didn’t have half a face.’

‘Did you tell anybody?’ Harry asked.

Dixon tilted his head back and took a deep breath before looking at