Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

‘Investigating.’ Logan held up a hand, blocking the glare from his screen. ‘Or at least I’m trying to.’

‘I know that, you idiot; investigating what?’

‘People’s Army for Scottish Liberation. Apparently they had ties to the Scottish People’s Liberation Army, the Scottish Freedom Fighters’ Resistance Front, End of Empire, and Arbroath Thirteen Twenty. AKA nutters so extreme that even Settler Watch didn’t want anything to do with them.’

Another cloud of fruity smelling fog. ‘It’s Womble-funting dick-muppets like that who give good old-fashioned Scottish Nationalists a bad name.’

‘The whole lot were supposed to get together in the eighties and launch a coordinated attack — you know, tear down that big Duke of Sutherland statue, burn out English-run guest houses, blow up HM Customs and Excise offices so as to “cripple the revenue gathering apparatus of the imperialist oppressor” — but it led to so much infighting they couldn’t organise a pervert in a scout hut.’

‘You sure you don’t want to babysit?’

Logan tapped the top printout on his pile. ‘So the People’s Army for Scottish Liberation decided to go their own way: did a big bullion job and walked off with two point six million pounds. Word is they were raising money for an armed insurgency. Their leader nips over to Belfast, looking to buy a whole shedload of machineguns from dissident republicans, only he gets picked up by the local plod. Kerb crawling for rent boys.’

She rested her bum against the windowsill. ‘I could drop Naomi and Jasmine off at yours. You wouldn’t even have to feed them.’

‘Turned out he had thirty-two thousand quid’s worth of heroin in the boot to pay for the guns.’

‘Make sure they do their teeth, then pop them off to bed. You’ll barely even know they’re there.’

‘If he hadn’t fancied a knee-trembler in the back of a Vauxhall Astra we could’ve had our very own version of the Troubles.’

Steel sent another cloud of watermelon in Logan’s direction. ‘Or are you worried it’ll interfere with whatever heterosexual filth you and Ginger McHotpants get up to on a Tuesday evening?’

‘Kind of makes you ashamed to be Scottish...’ He frowned at her. ‘And stop calling Tara “Ginger McHotpants”!’

A grin. ‘How about Kinky McSpankypants instead?’

He turned his frown into a scowl.

Steel shrugged, pocketed her e-cigarette, shut the window, then bumped his chair with her hip. Voice soft and kind, ‘Come on, time for home. No point wearing yourself out on the first day back, is there?’

Pfff... She was probably right.

Logan powered down the computer. ‘Suppose not.’ He gathered up his printouts as the machine whirred and beeped itself to sleep.

‘There you go.’ She wrapped an arm around his shoulders as he stepped out from behind the desk. Gave him a squeeze. ‘Now, about that babysitting...’

Ah, so that explained the ‘nice’ act.

‘Not a chance in hell. I’m going home to a handful of painkillers, a soak in the tub, and barbecue some sausages for tomorrow.’ He poked a finger at her. ‘I am not babysitting!’

‘DIE! DIE AND BE DEAD!’ Jasmine thundered across the patio, shooting her little sister with a sci-fi blaster. She’d spiked her brown hair up with far too much gel for an eleven-year-old. Ribena stains splotched down the front of her horsey T-shirt, grass stains on her jodhpurs. Definitely took after Steel, that one.

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’ Naomi tore after her, lumbering a bit from side to side on her tiny little legs, big grin on her face, scuffs on her bare knees, pink and green stripes in her dirty blonde hair. She had Captain Bogies clasped to her chest with one hand, the octopus’s legs flopping about as she shot at her sister with the other. ‘PEW! PEW! BOOOOM!’

Not exactly restful.

Logan took a swig of IPA from the bottle and turned over a couple of sausages, the warm comforting scent of charcoal and charring fat wafting out into the garden. It’d taken most of the year, but it was looking pretty damn good, thank you very much — a riot of colour and textures, flowers, bushes, trees, and a lawn. An actual lawn, not a collection of dandelions, moss, and other assorted weeds. OK, so the rickety old shed probably wouldn’t survive another winter, and the greenhouse needed cleaning, but other than that? Domestic bliss.

He popped his beer back on the wrought-iron table, wiped his fingers on his apron, and poked the chicken thighs.

Turned some more sausages.

Naomi and Jasmine screeched their way past again.

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’

‘You two monsters: go wash your hands for dinner.’

‘DIE, SPACE FIEND!’

And they were gone again.

Typical.

A voice behind him: ‘Sure you’ve got enough sausages? Think the supermarket might still have a couple left.’ Tara stepped out through the patio doors, carrying a bowl of salad and four plates. The cowboy boots made her even taller — a clean white T-shirt and spotless blue jeans rounding off the cowboy-who’s-never-been-near-a-horse-in-his-life look. Her wolf-blue eyes narrowed in the sunlight, making tiny wrinkles on her heart-shaped face. Her long mahogany hair glowing like— ‘Is there something wrong?’

Logan blinked. ‘Wrong?’

‘Only you’re staring at me like I’ve got a bogey hanging out of my nose.’

‘Oh. Right. No.’ A smile. ‘The only bogies here are the octopussy kind.’

She popped the salad and plates on the table as the kids battered past again.

‘PEW! PEW!’

‘You heard your dad: wash up, horrors!’

They didn’t listen to her, either.

Tara helped herself to a swig of his beer. ‘I swear to God, those kids take more after Steel than they do Susan. They’re like drunken wolverines with ADHD and no volume control.’

Yup.

He grabbed a pork-and-apple sausage with his tongs, and held it up. ‘You want yours fruity, spicy, or Cumberlandy?’

She stepped up behind him and slipped her hands into the pockets of his apron. Gave him a very suggestive smile. ‘I do like a spicy sausage!’ And then her hands went a-wandering.

‘Arrgh!’ Logan danced away a couple of steps, clacking his tongs at her in self-defence. ‘Hands off the cook’s sausage, you pervert. This is a food preparation area!’

She polished off his beer. ‘You hear about this missing constitutional scholar? Professor Watson?’

‘Wilson.’

‘Met him at an Aberdeen University do last year. I know we’re not supposed to talk ill of the dead, but by God that man was a dick.’

Logan shifted some of the more cooked sausages off onto a plate and opened another packet of Cumberlands. ‘Was?’

‘Well, you know, what with him being dead and all.’

The thick pink tubes sizzled as they hit the hot grill. ‘Don’t believe everything you read on social media. There’s no proof he’s dead, just a bunch of Alt-Nat trolls out flapping their gums.’

‘Alt-Nat, Brit-Nat, Unionistas, Independunces, Remoaners, Brexshiteers...’ She toasted him with the empty bottle. ‘Got to love civilised discourse in the modern age.’

‘Well, there’s always—’

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’

Naomi and Jasmine battered across the garden, once around the patio furniture, and disappeared into the house again. Squealing and screaming and laughing.

Logan sighed. ‘Think it’s too late to call animal control and have them taken away?’

‘Probably.’

Cthulhu burst out through the patio doors, only slowing when she realised she was being watched and it might not look cool for a big stripy cat to be running away from an eleven-year-old girl and her three-and-a-bit-year-old sister. Cthulhu popped up onto the table and settled down for a wash, licking her big furry white paws, massive plumey tail held out at a jaunty angle.