Stuart MacBride - 22 Dead Little Bodies

Captain Scruffy stumbled into the path of a large woman wheeling a pushchair along the pavement.

She flinched to a halt, detoured around him. Shuddering as she marched off.

He wobbled in place, plastic bag clutched to his chest, yelling slurred obscenities after her.

‘I demand you arrest that Robson creature!’

‘Mrs Black, this is a civil matter, not a criminal one. You need to get yourself a lawyer and sue him.’

‘Why should I spend all that money on a lawyer, when it’s your job to arrest him? I demand you do your job!’

Captain Scruffy shook his fist at the escaping woman. The motion sent him off again: one step to the right. One to the left. Two to the right. And on his backside in three, two...

‘Are you even listening to me?’

The next stagger took him backwards, off the kerb and into the traffic.

Sodding hell.

A blare of horns. An Audi estate swerved, barely missing him with its front bumper. A Range Rover slammed on its brakes.

Captain Scruffy pirouetted, carrier bag swinging out with the motion.

BANG. A bright-orange Mini caught the bag, right on the bonnet, spinning him around and bouncing him off the windscreen. Sending him clattering to the tarmac like a bag of dirty laundry.

‘Why won’t anyone there take me seriously? I pay my taxes! I have rights! How dare you ignore me!’

Logan clicked off his seatbelt.

‘I have to go.’

‘Don’t you dare hang up on me, I—’

He hung up on her and scrambled out into the warm afternoon.

The Mini was slewed at thirty degrees across both lanes, its driver already out of the car staring at the bonnet. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God...’ She had a hand to her mouth, eyes wide, knees trembling. Didn’t seem to be even vaguely interested in the man lying on his back in the middle of the road behind her.

Then she turned on him. ‘YOU BLOODY IDIOT! WHAT’S MUM GOING TO SAY?’ Two fast steps, then she slammed a trainer into the fallen man’s stomach. ‘SHE’S ONLY HAD IT A WEEK!’ Another kick, this one catching him on the side of the head, sending that stupid little hat flying.

The other drivers stayed where they were, in their cars. No one helped, but a couple dragged out their mobile phones to film it, so that was all right.

Logan ran. Grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. ‘That’s enough!’

She swung a fist at Logan’s head. So he slammed her into the side of her mum’s car, grabbed her wrist and put it into a lock hold. Applying pressure till her legs buckled. ‘AAAAAAAAGH! Get off me! GET OFF ME! RAPE! RAPE! HELP!’

He pulled his cuffs out. ‘I’m detaining you under Section Fourteen of the Criminal Procedure — Scotland — Act 1995, because I suspect you of having committed an offence punishable by imprisonment—’

‘RAPE! HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! RAPE!’

No one got out of their car.

‘You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say—’

‘HELP! HELP!’

Deep breath: ‘WOULD YOU SHUT UP?’

She went limp. Slumped forward until her forehead was resting on the new Mini’s roof. ‘It’s only a week old. She’ll never let me borrow it again.’

Logan clicked the cuffs over her wrists. ‘But anything you do say will be noted down and may be used in evidence.’ Then steered her over to the pool car and stuffed her into the back. ‘Stay there. Don’t make it any worse.’

He got out his phone again and dialled Control. ‘I need an ambulance to Cromwell Road, got an... Hold on.’

Captain Scruffy had levered himself up onto his bum, wobbling there with blood pouring down his filthy face. Eyes bloodshot and blinking out of phase with one another.

Logan squatted down in front of him. ‘Are you OK?’

An aura of rotting vegetables, BO, and baked-on urine spread out like a fog.

It took a bit, but eventually that big hairy head swung around to squint at him. ‘Broke my bottle...’ He clutched the carrier bag to his chest. Bits of broken glass stuck out through the plastic. ‘BROKE MY BOTTLE!’ The bottom lip trembled, then tears sparked up in those pinky-yellow eyes, tumbled down the filthy cheeks. ‘NOOOOOOOO!’

‘You’re a bloody idiot, you know that, don’t you?’ Back to the phone. ‘We’ve got an IC-One male who’s been hit by a car and assaulted.’ Logan nodded at him, trying not to breathe through his nose. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My bottle... My lovely, lovely, bottle.’ He hauled in air, showing off a mouth full of twisted brown teeth. ‘BASTARDS! MY BOTTLE!’

Yeah, it was definitely one of those days.

‘Logan, we don’t normally see you here during the day.’ Claire stuck her book down on the nurses’ station desk and smiled at him, making two dimples in her smooth round cheeks. ‘To what do we owe the honour?’

Logan pointed over his shoulder, back along the corridor. ‘Got a road-rage victim in A-and-E. Thought I’d pop past while they were stitching him up.’

Claire squeezed one eye shut. ‘It’s not a hairy young gentleman with personal hygiene issues, is it? Only Donald from security was just in here moaning about being bitten.’

Yeah, probably. ‘How’s Samantha today?’

‘Getting up to all sorts of hijinks.’ She stood and smoothed out the creases in her nurse’s scrubs. ‘You got time for a cup of tea?’

‘Wouldn’t say no.’

‘Oh, and this came for you this morning.’ Claire reached into a drawer and pulled out a grey envelope. ‘Think it’s from Sunny Glen.’

‘Thanks.’ He took it and wandered down the corridor to Samantha’s room.

The blinds were drawn, shutting out most of the light, but it was still warm enough to make him yawn.

He sank onto the edge of the bed, leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Cold and pale. ‘Hey, you.’

She didn’t answer, but then she never did.

Something about the gloom and her porcelain skin made the tattoos stand out even more than usual. Jagged and dark. Like something trying to crawl its way out of her body.

He brushed a strand of brown hair from her face. ‘Got a reply from Sunny Glen.’ Logan held up the envelope. ‘What do you think?’

No reply.

‘Yeah, me too.’ He ripped it open. ‘“Dear Mr McRae, thank you for the application for specialist residential care on behalf of your girlfriend Samantha Mackie. As you know, our Neurological Care Unit has a worldwide reputation for managing and treating those in long-term comas...” Blah, blah, blah.’ He turned the letter over. ‘Oh sodding hell. “Unfortunately we do not have any spaces available at the current time.” Could they not have said that in the first place?’ He crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and lobbed it across the room at the bin. Missed. Slouched over and put it in properly. ‘Place is probably rubbish anyway. And it’s all the way up on the sodding coast, not exactly convenient, is it? Traipsing all the way up there. You’d have hated it.’

Still felt as if someone had used his soul as cat litter, though.

‘Doesn’t matter. We’ve got another three applications out there. Bound to be one who’ll take a hell-raiser like you.’

Nothing.

A knock on the door, and Claire stuck her head into the room. ‘I even managed to find a couple of biscuits for you. So...’ She frowned as Logan’s phone launched into its anonymous ringtone. ‘How many times do we have to talk about this?’

‘Only be a minute.’ He pulled it out and hit the button. ‘McRae.’

A man’s voice, sounding out of breath. ‘You the joker who brought in Gordon Taylor?’

Who the hell was Gordon Taylor? ‘Sorry?’