Stuart MacBride - 22 Dead Little Bodies

Agh...

Think .

There had to be a way out of this.

OK, so he couldn’t break the contract. At least there was a chance of proving that he’d tried to. Get Marjory from Willkie and Oxford up on the stand and question her under oath. ‘Yes, Mr McRae tried to weasel his way out of the contract.’ That would help, wouldn’t it?

Might cut a year or two off his sentence...

Oh God.

Why did it have to be Reuben ?

He was completely and utterly screwed.

A woman’s voice: ‘Are you OK?’

Deep breath.

Logan blinked a couple of times. Straightened up. ‘Sorry. Having a bit of a day.’

She was tiny, with long red hair and round freckled cheeks. According to the name badge pinned to her bright-orange apron, this was Stacey. Stacey smiled at him. ‘Anything I can help you with?’

He sighed. Pulled out the envelope he’d jotted everything down on and frowned at it. ‘Mildew, damp stuff, paint, mice, and something to clean grout with.’ He held the list out.

‘Right, OK. Well, we can cross out “paint”. Is your damp coming through a wall, or is it condensation?’

‘Condensation. Probably. Maybe.’

‘Right, follow me then!’ She led the way, down to the end of the aisles, then over another two.

Maybe he should take Wee Hamish up on his offer after all? If Reuben was face down in a shallow grave, he couldn’t tell anyone, could he? Or better yet — fed to the pigs. They wouldn’t care how ugly he was, they’d chomp through flesh and bone, leaving nothing but Reuben’s teeth behind.

Stacey came to a halt, and swept a hand up. ‘Here we go.’ The shelves were filled with bottles, jars, sprays, and tubs, beneath a sign marked ‘DAMP, MOULD, AND MILDEW CONTROL’.

She scanned the rows of products. ‘You’re going to need some of this...’ She hefted a ten-litre pot of anti-mould paint into the trolley. Added a second one. ‘Just in case. Nothing worse than getting halfway through a job and having to come back.’

Mind you, might be a better idea to go DIY with Reuben too. The more people who knew, the more chance of getting caught. Wee Hamish wasn’t going to kill his right-hand man himself, was he? In the old days, maybe. But now? Lying on his back, wired up to drips and monitors, being devoured by cancer? He’d have to farm it out.

Stacey grabbed half a dozen plastic tubs containing silica gel that promised to suck moisture out of the atmosphere. ‘You want to keep these in the cupboards where the mildew is.’ She checked the list again. ‘Right: grout cleaner.’

Maybe he should head back and pick up a crowbar of his own? Or a lump hammer. Something to crack Reuben’s head open with. Too risky trying to get his hands on a gun...

Who was he trying to kid?

He couldn’t kill Reuben. Couldn’t.

That hollowed him out, left him standing there in the middle of B&Q, with a hole in his chest the size of a watermelon.

He was going to prison...

Oh God.

Stacey teetered down the aisle a bit and plucked a spray bottle from a shelf. ‘That should help. So I think that leaves “mice”, right? You want to keep them as pets, or get rid of them?’

‘Rid.’ Then again, why bother? Why do up a manky static caravan, when he was going to spend the next eight years in a cell anyway?

‘Follow me.’

Two aisles along she stopped and pointed. ‘We’ve got humane traps, normal traps, and in humane traps.’ She picked up a couple of plastic things that looked as if they could take a finger off. ‘These are pretty much instant death, so the mouse won’t suffer much.’

Lucky mice. A quick and painless death...

Might not be a bad idea. He could jump off something tall, like John Skinner. Ten storeys, straight down. Goodbye cruel world. Splat.

‘These are the humane ones.’ She held up what looked like a small, bent, rectangular telescope. ‘They get stuck inside, and can’t get out. Then you drive at least four miles away and release them into the wild.’ Her mouth turned down at the ends. ‘Or you could go inhumane and poison them.’ She poked a box marked ‘BAIT STATION BRAVO!’ with a finger.

Sitting next to it was a tub with a red lid and a warning sticker across the top and ‘BROMADIOLONE-TREATED WHOLE WHEAT’ down the side.

Rat poison.

Logan picked it off the shelf. Turned it over in his hands. The contents hissed against the plastic innards.

‘My bet? Gordy fell out with one of his mates and they poisoned him.’

No chance. What, someone living on the streets marched into B&Q, bought themselves a thirty-quid tub of this stuff, then a litre of whisky, mixed them together and let them sit till the poison was all leached out, put it back in the bottle, and gave it to Gordy Taylor as a gift? Why not drink the whisky yourself and batter his head in with the empty bottle? Why go to all that trouble?

‘Rennie’s latest theory is we’ve got a serial killer stalking the streets, knocking off tramps.’

Yeah, but Rennie was an idiot.

But there was something a lot more likely. What if—

‘Hello? Excuse me?’ Stacey was tugging at his sleeve.

Logan blinked at her. ‘Sorry, miles away.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve got a cat, haven’t you? I can tell by the hairs all over your jeans.’ Stacey looked up at him, still holding on to his arm. ‘If it was me, if I had a cat, I wouldn’t want poisoned mice staggering around the house looking to get caught and eaten. Would you?’

‘Ah...’ He slid the tub back onto the shelf. ‘No.’

Then stopped, fingertips just touching the label.

Poisoned mice staggering around.

All you have to do is put the stuff where they can find it. They eat it, because it’s in their nature to eat whatever they can get their paws on. It’s what mice do. Make the poison tasty enough and they’ll do all the hard work for you...

Stacey tugged at his sleeve again. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

Logan grabbed four of the finger-snappers. ‘Thanks for your help: gotta go.’ Then marched the trolley away to the tills.

‘Guv?’ Wheezy paused for a cough. ‘Thought you were having a day off.’

The Clio crawled along the Parkway, around the back of Danestone in the rain. Fields on one side, identikit houses on the other, with a long slow-moving clot of rush-hour traffic in-between.

It was only four thirty-five. All these sods should still have been at work instead of clogging up the bloody roads.

Logan switched the phone to his other ear and put the car in gear again. Easing forward another six feet as the windscreen wipers groaned across the glass. ‘When we did the door-to-doors on Harlaw Road, did you check everyone’s alibis?’

‘Guv?’

‘When Gordy Taylor died. We questioned all the residents — did someone chase up the alibis? Was everyone where they said they were?’ A gap had opened up in front of the Nissan he was grinding along behind — had to be at least three car-lengths and the silly sod in front still hadn’t moved. Logan leaned on the horn. ‘COME ON, GRANDAD!’

‘But...’

‘Not you, Wheezy, this pillock in front.’

‘It wasn’t a murder when we were in charge, it was a sudden death. There wasn’t any reason to check. Then the MIT took it over.’

The Nissan finally got its bum in gear and they all inched forward a bit.

‘What about Steel’s team then, did they check alibis?’

‘Er, hold on.’ There was some clunking and rattling. The cars drifted forward another two lengths. Rustling. A thump. Then the sound of fingers punishing a keyboard, and Wheezy was back. ‘Right. According to the system, pretty much everyone was home that night. A couple families were at the cinema, two went to the theatre, and one guy was on a works night out. Looks like the MIT followed up and everything checked out. Why?’