Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

She went to close the door, but Logan got his foot into the gap before it could shut.

‘You’re not in any trouble, I promise.’

‘Please, I have to go.’ On the verge of tears. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

Steel elbowed Logan and King out of the way. ‘Shift it, you pair of turdhats.’ Then shrugged at Mhari Powell. ‘Never mind them, they’re men. And men are morons.’ She turned and made shooing motions. ‘Bit of privacy while we girls have a chat?’ And when they didn’t move, ‘Go. Away. Sod in the direction of off.’

As if she was somehow the saviour in the cock-up she’d created.

Logan sighed, shook his head. Then walked down the path to the pavement.

It took a couple of beats before King did the same.

Steel leaned in close to Mhari Powell for a muttered conversation that was too quiet to make out from the roadside, nothing but the vague tones of consolation, resignation, and wheedling.

King kept going, across the road to the other side, out of earshot. Stood there, gesturing until Logan joined him. Kept his voice down and nodded towards the house. ‘Did you see those bruises?’

‘Maybe Haiden’s a hands-on kind of boyfriend?’

‘She definitely knows something she’s not telling us. Along with everyone else.’ King pulled out his phone and poked at it. ‘Heather? It’s Frank. Get someone to look into Haiden Lochhead’s known associates... Uh-huh...’ He wandered off, feet scuffing along the kerb. ‘How about Milky, is she still sulk—... Thought she might be... I apologised!... Uh-huh...’ Voice fading as he disappeared behind the skip.

Logan turned and looked across the road, where Steel was still huddling with Mhari Powell and puffed out a breath. ‘“A nice easy case,” she said. “Something to ease you back into work,” she said. Aye, right.’ He pulled out his phone and checked for text messages, scrolling through the usual barrage of rubbish from Tufty, Rennie, and—

A crash sounded somewhere behind Mhari Powell’s house, wooden and splintery, with lots of swearing in a hard-core Ellon accent.

King poked his head out from behind the skip, stared at Mhari’s house, then at Logan. Then he was stuffing his phone into his pocket as he sprinted across the road.

Logan limped after King, a small knot in his stomach hissing at him with every step. That was the great thing about stab wounds — the gift that kept on giving. He gritted his teeth and limped faster. Broke into a run.

King disappeared around the side of the bungalow and Mhari pushed past Steel, waving her hands at them. ‘Where are you going? No! You can’t go in there! You can’t!’

Tough.

Logan pushed harder, squeezing the hissing knot down, bursting into the back garden just in time to see the last boards of what used to be a shed collapsing onto the grass.

Three paces and King launched himself at the fence. Scrambled up it. Looked left and right. Deep breath. ‘STOP! POLICE!’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘It’s him!’ Then King wriggled over the top and dropped down the other side, disappearing from view. ‘I SAID STOP!’

No way Logan was assault-coursing over an eight-foot fence.

He stopped at the remains of the shed: spade, rake, hoe, an open bag of potting compost, tiny orange Flymo... Ah, there!

Logan dug the stepladder out of the wreckage and clacked it open. Rammed the feet into a flowerbed and clambered up, one hand on the aluminium and the other on the fence. Paused at the top.

A weedy overgrown path ran along behind the gardens, between the line of fencing and a drystane dyke that marked the edge of a thin band of woodland with more barley on the other side. No sign of Haiden, but King was just visible — fading into the distance.

No ladder for the other side, so the only choice was...

Logan hopped over the top and dropped onto the path. That knot went from hissing to bellowing, coils of frozen wire jabbing all the way through to his spine. Yeah, let’s not do that again.

Pulling out his phone, he run-hobbled after King. Breathing hard. Thumbing through the on-screen menus till he got to the contact entry stored as ‘HORRIBLE Steel!’ Poked the call icon. Ran past a slimy drift of grass clippings someone had dumped over their fence.

And finally she picked up. ‘What the hell was—’

‘It’s Haiden! Get your backside in the car and see if you can cut him off!’

‘Sodding...’ A scrunch - whurch - scrunch noise, which was probably her hurrying away from Mhari’s house. ‘Which way?’

‘Right, towards the main road.’ The motion was doing his scar tissue a bit of good, loosening it up. That or it was the adrenaline.

The path turned, following the woods as it skirted the houses of the next street over. ‘First left you can take!’

‘OK, I’m at the car...’

Logan dodged another impromptu compost heap of rotten grass clippings and bits of hedge. A hard right as the path turned again. Every laboured breath tasted of dust. ‘He’s making for the... for the main road!... I think... If you hurry... you can still catch him!’

‘Where’s the sodding car keys?’

‘Oh you have got... to be kidding me!’ They were in his pocket. Of course they sodding were.

‘You want me to break a window and hotwire it?’

‘Don’t you dare!’

Around another corner and—

Brakes! Brakes! Brakes!

Logan skidded to a halt, inches away from crashing into King. Silly sod was just standing there, panting, looking left and right along the line of painted fencing, where the path split in two, one side following the woods and drystane dyke, the other curving its way between two sets of rear gardens, disappearing into the overhanging darkness of spreading trees.

King grabbed his knees, hauling in breaths. ‘I don’t... don’t know... which... which way.’

‘You go left, I’ll go right.’

A sweaty-faced nod and King puffed away, along the side of the woods.

Logan limp-hobbled down the other path, into the shadows cast by those backyard branches.

Steel’s voice crackled out of the phone. ‘Aye, wee word of advice?’

As if he had enough breath for a sodding lecture. ‘Can we not—’

‘ See if you do catch up with Haiden Lochhead? Let Kingy do the tackling, fighting, and arresting, eh? Haiden’s liable to be violent and I’d rather no’ lose my resident babysitter. ’

This time, getting up any speed was a struggle. His legs were full of burning sand, feet full of concrete, lungs full of boiling mud. ‘I’ll... do my... do my... best...’

The path opened up and Logan burst out between the fences and onto a strip of short dying grass, then a path, then the main road. He stopped, both hands on his stomach, dragging in claggy evening air as he turned on the spot.

Nothing.

No cars, no people, and no Haiden Lochhead, just blue sky and sticky tarmac.

They’d lost him.

Logan limped down the road. Long shadows reached out from the houses on either side, the light growing gold and orange as the sun sank towards the horizon.

King joined him at the junction with Mhari Powell’s street, hobbling along, one hand clutching his side, face all pink and sweaty where it wasn’t smeared with dark brown and green. More on his shirt. He’d torn his trouser leg too. Breathing hard. ‘Remind me why we thought it was a good idea to join the police?’

‘Are you sure it was him?’

‘Positive. Well, not positive. But... kind of. I didn’t see his face, but who else could it be?’

Logan wiped a hand across his forehead, it came away dripping.