TWELVE DAYS OF WINTER
Stuart MacBride
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers,
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London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2011
Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2011
Stuart MacBride asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © December 2011 ISBN: 9780007450282
Version: 2020-09-24
Dedication
For Al, Donna, and Ed
Contents
1: A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Billy Partridge wasn’t really cut out to be a cat burglar, but Dillon hadn’t really given him any option. It was either do the job, or come up with thirteen grand by Thursday . . . or have both legs shattered. And the leg thing didn’t even write-off what they owed Dillon, just deferred the interest. Come the 15th of January, there’d still be thirteen thousand to pay.
Grunting, Billy hoisted himself further up the tree, his XXL designer jeans smeared with moss and dirt. That’s what he got for trusting Twitch to bring the sodding stepladder.
Of course Twitch didn’t need a stepladder. He’d clambered over the outside wall like a bloody monkey, so the old oak tree growing close to the manor house hadn’t been much of a challenge. Even if it was strung all over with heavy-duty Christmas lights. But then Twitch looked like a collection of manky coat hangers – dressed up in drainpipe trousers, baseball cap and camouflage hoodie – not a single ounce of spare flesh on him, while Billy had to haul twenty-one stone of asthmatic underachiever from branch to branch, wheezing like his lungs were about to explode.
He struggled up to the same branch as Twitch, right outside a darkened window. Billy hugged the trunk, stuck his head against the bark, puffing and panting. ‘Ah. . . Ah, Jesus . . . Jesus Christ. . .’
‘Thought you was gonnae peg out on me, like.’ Twitch tried for a wink. Not easy with a pair of panda-black eyes and a freshly broken nose: Dillon ‘reminding’ them not to screw this one up.
‘You could have bloody helped!’
Twitch grinned, his teeth manky brown in the shadow of his baseball cap and hooded top. ‘Looked like you needed the fuckin’ exercise.’
Billy didn’t need the exercise. Billy needed a joint and a packet of Jaffa Cakes. But not till they’d got in, got the painting, and got the hell out before anyone called the police, or ‘released the hounds’. It was that kind of place.
From up here, in the tree, Billy had a perfect view all the way down Fletcher Road: big Victorian sandstone piles with huge gardens, festooned with discreetly shimmering white lights. None of your inflatable Santas and flashing snowmen here – nah, this was where Oldcastle’s old money lived. With a fine view of the Bellows and the Kings River, Castle Hill was not for the likes of Fat Billy Partridge and Andy ‘Twitch’ McKay.
‘Well?’ said Billy. ‘We going to do this or not?’
‘Aye, aye, hud yer horses.’ Twitch pulled out a knife, leaned across the gap between the branch and the building, and wheegled the blade in between the top part of the sash window and the bottom, keeping the sound of splintering wood to a minimum. How come rich bastards couldn’t stretch to double glazing? Billy and his mum might be living in a crappy council semi by the North Station tracks, but at least