Стюарт Макбрайд - Now We Are Dead

Little Miss Porn Star trotted around to the driver’s side and he buzzed the window down, letting out his horrible Bmmmm-tsh-Bmmmm-tsh-Bmmmm-tsh techno music. She gave him a quick snog, winked, then blew him another kiss, hopped over the wooden barrier and skipped across the road towards the hospital’s main entrance. ‘TOMMY’ watched her all the way. Probably ogling her fifteen-year-old backside, having nasty filthy thoughts about what he’d do to it later.

Roberta marched over, narrowed her eyes, leaned forward and stared into the car.

‘JOSIE’ disappeared through the automatic doors and ‘TOMMY’ faced front again. Saw Roberta staring at him and flinched.

‘The hell you looking at, Granny?’ He gave her the finger, cranked up the tunes, and drove off. BMMMM-TSH-BMMMM-TSH-BMMMM-TSH...

Who the fudgemonkeying motherfunker was he calling ‘Granny’?

She whipped out her phone and took a photo of the Peugeot’s number plate before it disappeared. Little sod was about to find out what happened when you screwed about with the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009.

Roberta thumbed out a quick text to go with the picture:

Gordy: I need you to look up a wee shite

for me

Possible first name “Tommy”

Drives a sharny neon-orange Peugeot GTI

Registration number in the pic

ASAP

The Peugeot BMMMM-TSH ed its way along the road skirting the car park, then zoomed off with a boy-racer roar of oversized exhaust.

Dick.

Her phone launched into Cagney & Lacey .

‘Gordy?’

‘Aye, hold on. System’s running like a one-legged dog the day... OK. Registered owner is Angela Shand, sixteen Oldfold Gardens, Milltimber.’

‘He didn’t look much like an Angela.’

‘Checking insurance details... Here we go: named driver is Thomas Corona Shand, seventeen, resident at the same address.’

‘Seventeen? Insurance must be costing them a sodding fortune.’ Still, if ‘JOSIE’ was fifteen instead of fourteen, Tommy would have a decent chance of getting off when it came before the Procurator Fiscal. A less than two-year difference got him a free pass under Section Thirty-Nine.

Two years and a day got him a stint at Her Majesty’s Pleasure and his very own place on the Sex Offenders’ Register.

Roberta looked back towards the hospital entrance — a dirty-grey cantilever overhanging a clot of smokers in their hospital dressing gowns, at the end of a turning circle marked ‘NO ENTRY’ and ‘BUSES ONLY’.

OK, so ‘JOSIE’ hadn’t exactly looked as if she was being coerced in the photos, but that didn’t mean Tommy Shand hadn’t pressurised her into it. Or that the photography session was the first time. Or that she wasn’t fourteen in real life.

And it’d only take a minute to check.

‘We done?’

‘Aye. Thanks, Gordy.’ She hung up and hurried across the road. Skirted the smoky clot, and stepped in through the automatic doors. No sign of ‘JOSIE’ in the wee shop just inside the main entrance. Roberta peered over the balustrade at the stairs leading down to the lower level. No sign of ‘JOSIE’ there either.

There were rows of plastic chairs, bolted to the floor in front of the reception desk at the far end of the lobby. A half-dozen wheezy-looking men and women peppered the rows... and there she was, sitting on her own, head down so her hair hung forward over her face nearly into her lap. She was fiddling with the ends, knees together, one leg jumping up and down on its own.

Roberta sank into the seat next to her. ‘Aye, aye.’

She flinched upright, eyes wide and startled.

‘It’s OK, I’m a police officer, no’ a pervert.’ Roberta flashed her warrant card. ‘See?’

‘Hello?’ A wee voice, wobbly, nervous. Like the smile.

‘You OK? Cos you look—’

‘Dad’s got cancer.’ The smile slipped a little. One shoulder came up in a lopsided shrug. ‘It’s moved to his lungs and his spine.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’ Roberta cleared her throat. ‘So... you in visiting?’

A nod. ‘Waiting for Mum, Aunty Vicki, and Uncle Pete. Don’t want to go in on my own.’ She shrank a little in her seat, her voice shrinking too. ‘He’s going to die.’

‘That sucks arseholes.’

She nodded. Blinked a couple of times. Ran a hand across her eyes.

‘I’m Roberta, by the way.’

A sniff. Another nod. ‘Josie.’

‘How old are you, Josie?’

‘Fifteen.’ She went back to fiddling with her hair. ‘But I’ll be sixteen in January.’

So Tommy probably wasn’t going on the register. But the randy wee sod was still getting charged. Shagging a fifteen-year-old. There were things you could turn a blind eye to, and things you couldn’t. Plus there was the ‘Granny’ thing. But mostly the underage sex.

Roberta pointed towards the entrance. ‘Your boyfriend drop you off?’

Another nod. ‘We grew up next door to each other.’

‘No’ easy being fifteen, dealing with stuff like this.’ She dug a business card out of her pocket and wrote her mobile number on the back. Held it out. ‘If you’re ever in trouble, I want you to give me a call, OK?’

Voices came from the lobby behind them: ‘No, Pete, I don’t have to agree with you. You know nothing about it.’

‘I’m not fighting with you, Vicki, I’m just saying that if I’d taken Anderson Drive we would’ve got stuck at the roadworks.’

Josie looked over her shoulder. Stood. Pulled on her wobbly smile again. ‘Mum.’

Roberta creaked to her feet and turned.

Two women and a man were bustling towards the seating area.

The women couldn’t have looked more different if they’d tried. One was short, with a shoulder-length tumble of nearly-blonde curls, with half an inch of roots showing. Round cheeks and a slightly piggy nose. Terrible clothes, though, as if she’d bought the entire outfit from Frumps-R-Us. The other woman was tall, with long features and a short brown bob, tweed jacket and jeans. Oh aren’t I so stylish ?

Josie hugged the frumpy one, while Aunty Vicki had another go at Uncle Pete: ‘For goodness’ sake, could you not have put on a tie? Why do you always have to look like a slob?’

Pete sighed. ‘I don’t need to wear a tie to visit my own brother!’ A tie probably wouldn’t have helped, he’d still be a middle-aged man with greying sideburns and a pair of steel-rimmed glasses. High forehead. A little chubby. The kind of person who coached under-fifteens’ football and spent his life ferrying his kids to dance class and chess club. The kind whose neighbours ended up on Crimewatch saying what a nice guy he was and how no one could have guessed that he’d finally snap and bury his dismembered wife under the patio.

Josie’s mum gave one last squeeze and backed away a couple of steps. Put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. ‘Did you have a nice sleepover at Emma’s, sweetheart?’ Then she seemed to notice Roberta, standing right there beside her daughter. ‘I’m sorry, are you...?’

Josie pointed. ‘Mum, this is Roberta, she’s a police officer.’

Her mum paled, reached out a hand and grabbed the back of a seat. ‘Is Dan... Is... Did he...?’

‘Nah, I was just passing and Josie looked a bit worried. Thought I’d see if I could help.’

Aunt Vicki stuck her hands on her hips. ‘If you’re looking for something to do, Officer , I’d suggest tracking down the animal that attacked that poor woman yesterday!’

Cheeky tweed-wearing cow.

Roberta took a step towards her, but Uncle Pete got in the way.