Стюарт Макбрайд - Now We Are Dead

‘Ooh, no wonder he wanted his phone back!’

Steel widened her eyes, eyebrows raised all the way up to her disastrous hairline. ‘Bobby? I’m going to have to call you later.’ She snatched the mobile from Tufty’s hand and leered at the screen. ‘I may need some alone time...’

Duncan sat on the park bench, rubbing at his forehead while Ellie banged on and on and on and on...

Didn’t matter what day it was, she always had something to bitch and whinge about.

Little children squealed and roared and laughed and giggled as they chased each other around the playground. Hung upside down from the swings. Scooted down the slide on their backsides. Twirled and yelled and screamed on the spinning roundabout.

Look at me, Mummy! Look at me, Daddy!

Oh to be five again. When the only things you had to worry about was how many marbles you could fit up your nose and how dinosaurs brushed their teeth with those stubby wee arms of theirs. When the scariest thing in the world was running out of chocolate biscuits and the monster that lived under your bed.

Well you know what? The monster that lived under his bed had nothing on Ellie.

God knew how something as lovely and warm and wonderful as Lucy came out of that frozen, frigid monster’s fanny.

She was still at it. ‘... you should’ve known better. For Christ’s sake, Duncan!’

‘How is this my fault, Ellie? You’re the one who—’

‘And if you think you’re getting her for the holidays, you can bloody well whistle.’

‘No. No, that’s not fair and you know it!’

Lucy roared past, both arms held out, making aeroplane noises, curly blonde hair bouncing out behind her. ‘Look at me, Daddy! Look at me!’

‘Yes, Daddy can see you, darling.’ Back to the phone. ‘You’re being completely unreasonable, Ellie.’

‘Don’t you take that tone with me, Duncan Nicol. She’s my daughter and if I say she’s coming with us to France, she’s coming with us to France.’

Lucy made another pass, strafing the dog-poo bin. ‘Rrrrrrraaaaaawww... Dugga-dugga-dugga-dugga! Neeeeewwww... BOOOM !’

‘It’s called “joint custody”, Ellie. Joint!’

‘Are you watching, Daddy?’ Lucy was looking back at him, eyes so big and bright, smile so wide. Not paying any attention to where she was running. ‘Are you watching—’ She crashed into the bushes and went headlong, disappearing into the greenery with a squeal.

Duncan jumped to his feet. ‘Lucy? Lucy!’

‘What’s happening? Has something happened?’ Ellie’s voice got even shriller as he ran over to the bushes. ‘Duncan, what have you done to our baby?’

‘Lucy! Lucy, are you... Oh thank God.’

She crawled out of the bushes on her hands and knees, little bits of rhododendron poking out of her curls.

He swept her up. Kissing her on the forehead and cheeks. ‘You silly sausage. Are you OK?’

She nodded at him, eyebrows down, mouth clamped into a line — her serious face. ‘I fell down.’ Then she glanced over her shoulder at the undergrowth and back again. ‘Daddy? There’s a lady in the bushes and she’s all crying and sticky .’

Lucy held up her hands. They were clarted with blood.

Oh no. No. Oh no...

She almost slipped out of his arms. The phone bounced off the grass at his feet, Ellie’s voice barely audible.

‘Duncan? Duncan! I demand you tell me what’s happened this instant!’

The bushes.

A woman.

Blood.

Duncan swallowed. Then inched his way forward, one hand on the back of Lucy’s head, keeping her face snuggled in against his neck so she couldn’t see anything. He peered in through the leaves.

Oh Christ. Oh dear, bloody Christ.

The woman lay on the dirt, between the rhododendron branches and roots, twisted, crying. Most of her clothes were gone, bits, like the cuffs of her shirt, still attached — the fabric tattered and frayed where the rest had been torn off. Blood oozed down her arms and legs, deep red gashes carved into pale skin.

She looked up, right at him. Reached out with a filthy hand. ‘Help... help me...’

Duncan screamed.

Dirty, rotten, useless, halfwit bastards .

Roberta stormed down the corridor, uniforms flattening themselves against the walls, getting the hell out of her way. Good. Tufty scuffled along behind her, trying to play the voice of reason. Aye, good luck with that.

Time for reason was past.

‘Come on, Sarge. Maybe if you had a cuppa or something? Calmed down a bit before you...’

She barged through the door to DCI Rutherford’s office, letting go of the handle so the thing banged off one of the filing cabinets. The git himself was behind his ‘look how important I am’ desk, DI Vine taking up one of the visitors’ chairs, one of Vine’s sidekicks over by the whiteboard. Case notes and photos spread out across the desk.

Everyone stared at her.

Tufty grabbed her arm, hissing in her ear. ‘ Really don’t think this is a good—’

She shook him off. ‘It’s Wallace, isn’t it? He attacked that woman.’

Vine looked down his nose at her. ‘We’re in a meeting, Sergeant .’

‘Victoria Park, same place he attacked Claudia Boroditsky—’

‘You’ve got a bloody cheek bursting in here!’

‘—in the bushes with a sodding knife. Do I have to draw you a diagram before you’ll get it through your thick skulls?’

Vine stood. ‘That is ENOUGH!’

He was right, it was. Time to rearrange some teeth.

She stepped forwards, fists curling, but Tufty grabbed her again with a little eek ing noise.

From the safety of his desk, DCI Rutherford held up a hand. ‘Now, now, let’s all just take a deep calming breath before we do or say something we can’t take back.’

No one moved.

‘Good.’ Rutherford pointed at the chairs. ‘Sit down, John. And Roberta, I know you mean well, but you need to walk away from this one.’

‘He raped that—’

‘We don’t know that yet. We can’t prove it.’ He lowered his hand. ‘But I can assure you DI Vine will liaise with the Divisional Rape Investigation Unit and we will find the man responsible.’

Oh yes, that was such a comfort. ‘Jack Wallace is a vicious, raping, scheming little—’

‘And given your history with the man, I would hope you’re bright enough to never get involved with him again!’ Rutherford screwed his face up for a moment. Took a deep breath. Spread his hands out on his desk. ‘Look, Roberta, it almost cost you your career last time. Leave this one to DI Vine. Walk away. That’s an order .’

It was like swallowing broken glass.

But she bared her teeth and did it anyway. ‘Yes, Boss.’

The hospital room had that throat-catching disinfectant stink: slightly smoky, laced with iodine and Jeyes Fluid. They had the blinds down, shutting out the harsh morning sun, leaving the place cloaked in gloom. The only light, other than what seeped through the blinds, came from the array of machinery hooked up to every one of the four patients in here.

The starchy sheets crackled as Roberta shifted her bum along the edge of the bed. A little whiteboard was fixed to the metal frame at the head end, just big enough to have ‘BEATRICE EDWARDS AB RHD —’ on it, a laminated sheet of paper Blu-Tacked up beneath with: ‘NIL BY MOUTH’ in thick laser-printed letters.

Roberta squeezed Beatrice’s hand, the skin cool and clammy like the recently deceased. Bandages wrapped around Beatrice’s wrists, reaching all the way up to her elbows — yellow and red stains leached out into the fabric. Defensive wounds. She’d fought back.