Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

A farmyard lunged up on the left — a huge eighteen-wheeler was in the process of pulling on to the road, the driver’s eyes going wide as he spotted them, his lorry juddering to a halt, air brakes squealing.

Logan jerked the Audi around it.

‘Car. Car! CAR!’ King scrunched his eyes shut and had a wee scream to himself.

He jinked the Audi back onto their own side of the road, about six foot away from ploughing straight through the Range Rover coming the other way.

A deep, shuddering sigh from the passenger seat. ‘OK, leave the siren on.’

‘We need to do a risk assessment. And see if DS Gallacher can get us a canine unit, OSU, firearms team: the works.’

‘There isn’t time for that!’ A frown. ‘Do you think there’s time for that?’

‘No, but we need to ask for all that stuff so at least we can say we tried if everything goes horribly wrong.’

‘Sodding hell...’ King switched his phone to the other ear. ‘Heather? I need you to see about backup: Dogs, Thugs, Guns, and anything else you can think of... Uh-huh... Uh-huh... Hold on.’ He stuck it against his chest again. ‘How sure are we?’

Cows stopped doing cow things to stare at the car as it howled past.

‘Eighty percent. Maybe seventy.’

Yeah, King didn’t look convinced by that.

Have another go: ‘OK, fifty / fifty?’

Another conflagration of gorse, the flowers a searing shade of molten gold.

King nodded, then stuck the phone to his ear again. ‘Call it forty / sixty, H. But it’s the best lead we’ve got... Yes, I know it’s the only lead we’ve got. Heather, get it done, OK?... Thanks.’ He hung up and bared his teeth in a pained wince as they wheeched through an avenue of trees. ‘It’s more like thirty / seventy, isn’t it?’

‘Better than nothing.’

A short row of bungalows on the left as they flew into Belhelvie — Logan standing on the brakes to take them down to a more sedate forty. In case someone’s cat had a death wish. Or child. Or grandparent.

Another T-junction, this one marked with a set of signposts. Left: ‘POTTERTON’, right: ‘BALMEDIE B977 1½’, a huge green and white CLAAS tractor rumbled across in front of them, hauling a trailer behind it. Soon as it’d passed, Logan nipped out, overtook it, then put his foot down again. ‘Maybe twenty / eighty.’

The A90 should’ve been quicker: after all, it was nowhere near as twisty-turny as the wee side roads, but there were a hell of a lot more vehicles on it. Some of which were clearly being driven by morons WHO WOULDN’T GET OUT OF THE BLOODY WAY!

Like the one right in front of them. And it wasn’t as if Logan could overtake them, not with all the traffic coming the other way.

He stuck his hand on the horn and held it there — blaring away in addition to the siren — until the moron in question finally took the hint and pulled their manky BMW over to the side of the road.

King took a deep breath as Logan hammered the speed up again. ‘OK, so what’s the plan?’

‘We get there, we wait for backup.’

‘And what if Professor Wilson, or Matt Lansdale, or Scotty Meyrick dies while we’re sitting on our thumbs?’

Good question.

Logan overtook a removal van. ‘Yes, but what if we barge in there, getting them and ourselves killed?’

‘Suppose.’ King looked over his shoulder, at the back seat. ‘What kit have you got in the car?’

‘What do you mean, “kit”?’

‘Taser, stabproof vests, extendable baton, pepper spray?’

‘It’s my car , not the Batmobile!’ Using the opposite lane to leapfrog a Citroën, a Kia, a Vauxhall, and a Transit with ‘EAT MAIR FISH!’ on the side.

‘You’ve got blues-and-twos.’

‘A couple of LED lights and a siren don’t make this an assault vehicle. And they only fitted them because it was cheaper than buying another pool car for Professional Standards.’ He roared past a filthy Toyota Hilux. ‘I’ve got a couple of high-viz vests, if that helps?’

‘What are we going to do, Health-and-Safety Mhari and Haiden to death?’ He scrunched his face up. ‘Come on, Frank: think .’ A pause as they slowed for another bout of traffic coming the other way. ‘OK. OK. No equipment. What about... a crowbar: something we could lever a door open or hit people with?’

‘Probably a wheel brace in the boot.’

‘OK, so that’s—’ His phone launched into something upbeat. He pulled it out and answered it. ‘Heather! Talk to me, H, what’s—’ A wince. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ He turned to Logan. ‘Firearms team are stuck at the Bridge of Don — eighteen-wheeler from Peterhead hit a builder’s truck. Smoked haddock and scaffolding pipe all over the bridge. Fire Brigade and Air Ambulance on the way. Our Guns are backtracking round to Gordon Brae.’

‘What about our Operational Support Unit?’

‘H: what about our Thugs?’ He sagged a good three inches. ‘Couldn’t get any. Or Dogs. They’re all busy dunting in a dealer’s door outside Stonehaven.’

Of course they were.

‘Remember that risk assessment we should’ve done?’

‘Well it’s too late now, isn’t it?’ King turned away and focussed on his phone. ‘Where are the rest of you?... Uh-huh... Uh-huh...’ A sigh. ‘Well, do your best, OK?’ He hung up and slumped in his seat. ‘You want the bad news, or the worse?’

‘Gah...’

‘The only ones that made it across the bridge before the crash were Steel and Tufty. And they’re about as much use as a Plasticine bicycle.’

The traffic thinned out a bit and the speedometer needle crept up to ninety again.

Right, no way they could do this without backup. They’d have to find bodies from somewhere else and hope they’d be enough.

Logan poked at the dashboard’s console — bringing up the address book from his phone. ‘Scroll through that lot till you get to “Stubby”.’

King did, then poked the call button.

Ringing belted out through the speakers, competing with the siren’s din.

Until, finally: ‘Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.’

‘Stubby? It’s Logan.’

‘I know who it is: the name “Sinister Bastard” came up on my—’

‘I need backup, ASAP. My firearms team is stuck in Bridge of Don behind twenty tons of smoked haddock and a mangled builder’s truck.’

‘Firearms? Can’t give you Guns, but I can give you Thugs. Where and when?’

Logan hauled the brakes on, slithering to a halt at a junction marked ‘BRIDGEND ¼ ~ CRUDEN BAY 2’. More morons on the other side of the road, heading south, completely ignorant of the fact that flashing lights and a bloody siren meant GET OUT OF THE WAY.

He looked at King. ‘How do you pronounce the cottage?’

‘“Kee-ow-nn-tri-ey.” Ceann is “head” in Gaelic, and tràigh is “sand”, or “beach”. So Beachhead, give or take.’ King checked his phone. ‘GPS is showing three point one miles.’

‘You get that, Stubby? Ceanntràigh Cottage, south end of Cruden Bay. ASAFBCWP!’

Finally, a minibus coming the other way slammed on its brakes and flashed its lights. Logan held up a hand in thanks and roared across the junction, picking up speed.

‘FB and CW? Wow. OK, we’re on our way.’

‘Thanks, Stubby!’

‘Glen: grab Ted and the wee loon, we’re—’ She hung up.

The Audi shot past not so much a village as a tiny collection of houses, then out through the limits into open countryside. Yellowy grass in parched fields, miserable sheep lolling about in the morning sun. All very flat and open.

Logan overtook a fat man on a scooter. ‘Peterhead station’s about... fifteen minutes north? Ten if they really go for it.’