Стюарт Макбрайд - Now We Are Dead

Roberta glanced around the room. Upturned tables, broken bottles, spilled pints, smashed chairs, the mirror behind the bar all cracked and broken — reflecting back a jagged patchwork version of the wreckage. ‘Get the feeling we’re probably barred?’

‘Urgh...’

She picked up a bar stool, brushed off the dust, and set it next to Tufty’s. Slumped herself onto it. ‘Susan’ll kill me when she sees the state of this suit. Look at it.’ She held up an arm — the thing was rumpled and stained with beer. The shirt beneath it hung down over her fingertips, torn and dirty. Ah well. She still looked a hell of a lot better than Tufty. Roberta patted him on the back. ‘The world stopped spinning yet?’

He poked at the inside of his mouth with his tongue. ‘Think I chipped a tooth.’

‘You’re supposed to arrest people, no’ bite them.’ She peeled the tea towel from his grip and he blinked back at her, one eye no’ quite in time with the other. So she flipped him the Vs. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Three?’

‘Yeah, you’re going to hospital.’

He weebled round on his stool, till he was squinting into the corner where Philip Innes used to sit. ‘What happened to the dog-murdering fudgemonkey?’

Her teeth clenched, but she forced a smile. ‘Come on, let’s get you into the car. And if you’re really lucky, a nice nurse will take your temperature the naughty way...’

The doctor eased the ward door shut, then turned and gave Roberta a little smile. ‘Sorry about that.’ Tall and wide, with freckles and big hands — a traditional Northeast farmer’s quine. The kind of daughter you could trust with the lambing, hurling bales of hay, or lifting a whole tractor by herself. She led the way down the corridor to the nurses’ station where she flicked through a set of notes. ‘OK, well, he’s definitely got concussion, and I think he’s probably in for a lovely black eye, but other than that he’ll be fine.’

Roberta nodded at the ward, with its array of auld mannies laid out beneath their itchy blankets. Tufty was in the far corner, one eye screwed shut, the other staring at a wee individual carton of fruit juice. ‘Fine enough to go back on duty?’

They watched him for a minute, trying to get the straw in through the little circle of foil in the top. And failing.

The doctor sucked a breath in through her teeth. ‘Yeah... I think we’d better keep him in overnight. Unless you’re going to stay up with him in case something happens?’

‘Aye, that’ll be shining. I’ll pick him up tomorrow.’ Roberta sniffed. Looked away. ‘Take care of him, OK? He’s an annoying wee spud, but he’s ours.’

That got her a warm smile and a squeeze on the arm from one of those massive hands. ‘We’ll do our best.’

The same weedy PC was on guard outside Beatrice Edwards’ room. Which didn’t pose much of a challenge in itself, but that tosser DI Vine was there with one of his Eighties-reject sidekicks too. Honestly, the ugly lump was two rolled-up jacket sleeves away from being in a Miami Vice cover band.

So maybe best no’ to pay a visit.

Roberta backtracked down the corridor to the lifts, then up a couple of floors, along a squeaky corridor lined with questionable art, and left into another ward. The nurses on station were all sitting drinking tea and reading dirty novels.

She rapped on the desk and a thin birdy one looked up from Fifty Shades of Anti-Feminist Smut . ‘Aye?’

‘Kenny Milne.’ Roberta flashed her warrant card.’

A larger nurse put down The Story of O . ‘He’s sedated. Strictly no visitors. It’s disgraceful how much police brutality that poor man’s suffered. Violence solves nothing!’

‘Says the woman getting all hot and bothered reading about BDSM.’

Her nose came up. ‘It’s called a book club, thank you very much! Some people are interested in literature.’

‘Dirty nurses!’ Roberta wagged a finger at them, then turned, sauntering from the room, singing:

‘Whips and chains excite me,

They make my love life spicy,

We spank both hard and lightly,

And dream of Aphrodite,

Spreading jam on Keira Knightley...’

Roberta frowned at the form on her computer screen. Who the hell came up with this rubbish? Just because one little officer had been bashed on the head and hospitalised for the night, suddenly three tons of sodding paperwork needed filling out.

□ Did you do a risk assessment?

□ Did you appraise the chain of command before commencing operations?

□ Did everyone present sign the appropriate warrants before it/they were executed?

Presumably they were talking about the warrants there, no’ the people.

□ Did you enter all command decisions into your Decision Log?

And of course they were all yes/no tick boxes so you couldn’t even type ‘SOD OFF!’ into them.

Bloody Tufty and his delicate useless head.

Bet he did it on purpose, just to make more work for her.

See when she got her hands on him tomorrow—

Someone knocked on the door.

Pause. One. Two. Three. Four...

For God’s sake.

Roberta took a deep breath and bellowed it out, ‘WELL? DON’T JUST STAND THERE LIKE A NEEP, COME IN!’

The door opened and a rather sexy young hottie stepped into the CID office. Pert. Fresh. Browny-blonde hair all the way down to the perky swell of her gorgeous breasts. Naughty-librarian glasses, and I’ve-been-a-bad-girl-spank-me smile. Dressed in a PC’s black T-shirt and standard-issue itchy black trousers.

Come in, my precious, let me relieve you of those nasty itchy things.

The delicious perky wee constable blinked at her. ‘Sorry, did you say something?’

‘No’ out loud, I hope.’ Roberta slid her keyboard to one side. ‘Now, what can I do to you?’

She checked her notebook. ‘I was looking for Detective Constable Quirrel?’

‘Oh, were you now.’ Disappointing. ‘And what do you want our wee Tufty for? He’s no’ got you in the family way, has he? He’s a scamp that one.’

Was that a blush? It was .

Roberta settled back in her seat. ‘Of course it’s my fault really: kept meaning to have him fixed, but you know what they’re like at that age.’ A shrug. ‘We’d definitely have to make him wear the Cone of Shame, though. He’d have his stitches out otherwise.’

‘No! No. I mean... no, it was...’ She took a couple of breaths to compose herself. It made exciting things happen underneath her T-shirt. ‘He came past earlier with a Yorkshire terrier’s remains. Wanted to know if there was some way to get Pudding a proper burial...’ Frowning just made her sexier. ‘What? Why are you smiling at me?’

Roberta shrugged. ‘He asked you that?’

‘He said the old lady who owned Pudding couldn’t afford a funeral.’

OK, so Tufty was a pain in the backside, an idiot, and a total waste of skin, but organising a burial for Mrs Galloway’s poor wee dog? Right now Roberta could’ve kissed him. She held a hand out. ‘Detective Sergeant Roberta Steel. You’ll have heard rumours of my sexual prowess.’ A wink. ‘Tufty’s no’ here right now, but you can leave a message after the beep.’

‘Right. Well. Detective Sergeant Steel.’ The blush deepened a couple of shades. ‘When Constable Quirrel gets back, can you tell him that PC Mackintosh came past about Pudding? I’m the Wildlife Crime Officer.’

Roberta grinned at her. ‘And does the lovely PC Mackintosh have a first name?’

The blush went nuclear. ‘Kate.’

‘Don’t worry, Kate, I shall make sure Constable Quirrel gets your message first thing tomorrow.’