Stuart MacBride - 22 Dead Little Bodies

‘The homeless guy — got hit by a car. Someone gave him a kicking.’

Ah, right. That Gordon Taylor. ‘What about him?’

‘He’s bitten two security guards and punched a nurse.’

Wonderful. Another dollop added to the cat litter. ‘I’ll be right down.’ He put his phone away. Took the mug of tea from Claire and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Don’t let Samantha give you any trouble, OK? You know how feisty she gets.’

The elevator juddered to a halt, and Logan stepped out into the familiar, depressing, scuffed green corridors. No paintings on the walls here, no community art projects, or murals, or anything to break the bleak industrial gloom. He followed the coloured lines set into the floor.

Here and there, squares of duct tape held the peeling surface together. And everything smelled of disinfectant and over-boiled cauliflower.

A porter bustled past, pushing a small child in a big bed. Drips and tubes and wires snaking from the little body to various bags and bits of equipment.

Logan pulled out his phone and called Guthrie. ‘Any sign of Mrs Skinner yet?’

‘Sorry, Guv. I’ve checked all the neighbours again, but no one’s heard from her.’

‘OK.’ He stepped around the corner, and stopped outside the doors to Accident and Emergency. ‘Get onto Control and see if you can...’ A frown. ‘Have you been round the house? Peered in all the windows? Just in case.’

‘Yup. Even got her next-door to let me through so I could climb the garden fence and have a squint in the back. She’s not lying dead on the floor anywhere.’

At least that was something.

‘Get Control to dig up the grandparents. They might know where she is.’

‘Will do.’ A pause. ‘Guv, did I ever tell you about what happened last time Snow White—’

‘Yes. And no more porn in the patrol car.’

Logan hung up, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

It wasn’t difficult to find Gordon Taylor, not with all the shouting and swearing going on. He was in a cubicle at the far end — crash, bang, wallop . A nurse squatted outside the curtains, head thrown back, a wad of tissues clamped against her nose stained bright red.

‘Hold still, you little sod...’

‘Ow!’

‘Can someone hold his head so he won’t bite?’

‘Ow! Ow, ow, ow... Bloody hell...’

Logan slipped through the curtains and stared at the human octopus wrestling with itself on the hospital bed. Arms, legs, hands, feet, all struggling to keep the figure on the bottom from getting up.

One of the nurses yanked her arm into the air. ‘OW! He bit me!’

‘Don’t let go of his head!’

Logan reached into his pocket, pulled out the little canister of CS gas, and walked over to the bed. ‘Let go of him.’

A doctor turned and glared. ‘Are you off your head?’

Click , the safety cover flipped off the top of the gas canister. ‘Then you probably want to cover your nose and mouth.’

Gordon Taylor’s filthy, blood-caked face rose from between the medics’ arms, teeth snapping.

Logan jammed the CS gas canister right between his eyes. Raised his voice over the crashing and banging, the grunting and swearing. ‘You’ve been gassed before, right, Gordon? Want to try it again?’

A blink. Then he froze.

‘Good boy. Now you let these nice people examine you, or I’m going to gas you back to the Thatcher era, OK?’

Gordon Taylor went limp.

The doctor bowed his head for a moment. ‘Oh thank God...’ Then straightened up. ‘Right, we need blood tests and a sedative. Then get these filthy rags off him.’

The nurses bustled about with needles and scissors, faces contorted with disgust every time a new layer of clothes came off revealing a new odour.

Logan kept the CS gas where Taylor could see it. ‘You’re an idiot, you know that, don’t you? Staggering about, blootered, abusing passers-by, falling into the road. Lucky you didn’t kill yourself.’

Taylor didn’t move. Kept his eyes fixed on the gas canister.

One of the nurses gagged, holding out a filthy shirt with her fingertips.

Gordon Taylor’s arms were knots of ropey muscles, stretched taut across too-big bones. No fat on them. But the left one had a Gordon Highlanders tattoo, the ink barely visible beneath the filth. His torso was a mess of bruises — some fresh and red, some middle-aged purple-and-blue, some dying yellow-and-green.

He jerked his chin up. ‘She broke my bottle.’ The slur had gone from his voice, but his breath was enough to make Logan back off a couple of steps.

‘You’re a drunken sodding menace to yourself and others, Gordon. What the hell were you thinking, staggering out into the road? What if a car swerves, trying to avoid your drunken backside, hits someone else and kills them? That what you want?’

‘A whole bottle of Bells that was!’ No wonder his breath was minging — his teeth looked like stubbed-out cigarettes.

‘I’ve arrested the woman who assaulted you. She’ll—’

‘Tell her! Tell her I’ll not press charges if she buys me a new bottle...’ Gordon Taylor’s eyes widened. ‘No, two bottles. Aye, and litre bottles, not tiny wee ones.’

Nothing like getting your priorities straight.

‘That’s not how it works, Gordon. She has to—’ Logan’s phone burst into song in his pocket. ‘Sodding hell.’

The doctor narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re not supposed to have your phone switched on in here.’

‘Police business.’ He pulled it out and hit the button, killing the noise. ‘For God’s sake, what now ?’

There was a moment of silence, then a deep voice rumbled out of the speakers. ‘I think you mean, “Good afternoon”, don’t you, Acting Detective Inspector McRae?’

Oh no. Not this. Not now.

Logan closed his eyes. ‘Superintendent Young. Sorry. I’m kind of in the middle of—’

‘I think you and I need to have a chat about a complaint that’s landed on my desk. Why don’t we say, my office? Any time in the next fifteen minutes is good.’

Wonderful.

Superintendent Young was all dressed up in Nosferatu black — black T-shirt with epaulettes, black police-issue trousers, and black shoes. He sat back in his seat and tapped his pen against an A4 pad. Tap. Tap. Tap. ‘Are you denying the allegations?’

The Professional Standards office was tombstone quiet. A wooden clock ticked away to itself on the wall beside Young’s desk. The chair creaked beneath Logan’s bum. A muffled scuffing sound as someone tried to sneak past outside — scared to make a noise in case someone inside heard them and came hunting. And the sinister sods didn’t burst into flame when exposed to sunlight or holy water, so you were never safe.

Trophies made a little gilded plastic parade across the two filing cabinets in the corner, all the figures frozen in the execution of their chosen sport — clay-pigeon shooting, judo, boxing, ten-pin bowling, fly-fishing, curling. A framed print of The Monarch of the Glen above the printer.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Quarter past five. Should be in the pub by now, not sitting here.

Logan dumped the letter of complaint back on Young’s desk. ‘With all due respect to anyone unfortunate enough to suffer from mental illness, Marion Black is a complete and utter sodding nutter.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

Logan shifted in the creaky chair. ‘While I do know a pornographer, he’s never offered me a bribe.’

Young raised an eyebrow. ‘You actually know someone who makes dirty movies?’