Стюарт Макбрайд: Now We Are Dead

He was sitting on the other side of the long oval meeting table, feet up on one of the big blotter-sized notepads, peering at a copy of the Aberdeen Examiner like someone who’d forgotten his glasses. Chubby wee sod that he was, with his receding hairline and a face that looked as if it’d never smiled in its life. A miserable balding bloodhound in a rumpled brown suit. Picking his nose when he thought no one was looking.

Oh she got all the ‘special’ ones on her team, didn’t she?

Roberta’s phone ding-ding ed at her. Incoming text:

I beat Lizzy Horsens by eight strokes! She’s

moaning about it like a whiny little bitch!

It’ll kill her when I win the trophy again!

I’m a golfing NINJA!!!:)

She smiled and thumbed out a reply:

Golfing ninja Susan!

So I take it we’re celebrating tonight? You

wear a sexy nightie and I’ll pretend I’m

there to fix the washing machine.

Send.

Harmsworth was digging away in his nose again. Well if he was searching for a brain he was excavating the wrong end of his body.

Ding-ding :

Don’t be naughty. Logan’s coming over to

see the kids tonight, remember? I’m doing

chicken casserole, so don’t be late.

Sit down and break bread with Logan Traitorous Scumbag McRae? Rather break the casserole dish over his sodding head.

Then make him eat all the jagged broken bits...

Oh for goodness’ sake: Harmsworth was still at it.

He glanced up and caught her looking. Popped his finger out. Sighed. Then droned on in that depressing Marvin-the-Paranoid-Android voice of his, ‘Listen to this:’ he ruffled his newspaper, ‘“Blackburn residents live in fear of sex pest pervert. ‘I can’t even cook dinner with the blinds open,’ said Janice Wilkinson, brackets, thirty-one. ‘What if one of the children look out of the window and see him?’”’ Another sigh. ‘You’d have to be a bit funny in the head, wouldn’t you?’

Roberta grimaced back at him. ‘ I used to be the one catching murderers. And now look at me. Stuck here with you pair of neeps.’

Tufty laughed. ‘I know... Yeah. Probably.’

‘I mean, who wakes up one morning and thinks, “You know what I fancy? Sticking on a superhero mask and having a wank outside someone’s kitchen window while they’re doing the dishes.”’

The boy idiot put a hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. ‘Sarge? That’s our boy ready to interview.’

‘Oh joy.’ She let her head fall back again, then blew a big wet raspberry. ‘Urgh...’ A drizzle of cold spittle drifted back down across her face. She sat up and wiped it off.

Tufty went back to his phone. ‘Yeah, we’ll be right down.’

Harmsworth gave his paper another theatrical ruffle. ‘Speaking of wankers, did you see this?’ He turned it around, showing off a two-page spread. A photo of a skinny wee nyaff sat beneath the headline ‘“POLICE CORRUPTION BLIGHTS ABERDEEN” CLAIMS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE VICTIM’. Jack Sodding Wallace, wearing his going-to-court suit, standing outside the council offices on Broad Street. He was holding a sheet of paper up, as if that meant anything, looking all serious and concerned at it. Raping wee shite.

Harmsworth sniffed. ‘Jack Wallace says we’re all a bunch of useless dodgy bastards.’

‘Jack Wallace can roll himself up sideways and shove it up a llama’s bumhole!’

‘Says all we do is fit up innocent people and take bribes.’

She stabbed a finger in Harmsworth’s direction. ‘I’m no’ telling you again, Constable.’

A huff and he went back to his newspaper. ‘Don’t know why I bother. No one ever appreciates it.’

Tufty put his phone away and pointed at the door. ‘Sarge?’

Harmsworth was still groaning on. ‘I should just go jump under a bus. Give you all a laugh. Oh look at Owen, he’s all squished and dead. Isn’t that funny? Ha, ha, ha.’

‘Well, we can all dream.’ Roberta stood. Twinged a bit, then had a dig at her treasonous left underwire. Whoever designed bras to have sharp pokey bits of metal in them needed a stiff kick up the bumhole. ‘Meantime: get your backside in gear. Two teas, interview room...?’ She looked at Tufty.

‘Three.’

‘And see if you can scare up some biscuits too.’

A groan, then Harmsworth made a big show of folding his paper and stood. Smeared a martyred expression across his miserable face. ‘Oh, just order Owen about, why not? Not as if he contributes anything to the team, is it? No. Make the tea, Owen. Find some biscuits, Owen...’ He slouched from the room, leaving the door to swing closed behind him.

Idiots. Morons. Whingers. And tosspots. Why couldn’t she get dynamic go-getting sex bunnies in her team? How was that fair?

She glowered at the ceiling. ‘I swear on the sainted grave of Jasmine’s gerbil, Agamemnon...’

The door opened again.

For God’s sake!

Roberta turned the glower into a glare. ‘Two sodding teas and a couple of biscuits! How difficult can it—’ But it wasn’t DC Moanier-Than-Thou Harmsworth, it was a lump of uniformed officers all clutching notebooks and clipboards.

The guy at the front had inspector’s pips on his broad shoulders. He looked over the top of his little round glasses at his watch. Oh, I’m so important ! ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘Inspector Evans. It’s been yonks, hasn’t it? How’s your piles these days?’

He stiffened. ‘I’ve got this meeting room booked till five.’

‘Just keeping it warm for you.’ She stood and hooked a thumb at Tufty, then at the door. ‘We’re leaving anyway.’

Tufty followed her out into the corridor, and as the door swung shut Inspector Evans’s voice went up an octave. ‘Oh for goodness’ sake! Who keeps drawing willies on all the whiteboards?’

‘No comment.’ Charles Roberts shoogled in his seat, setting his white Tyvec suit rustling. Even the extra small was way too big for him, the sleeves and legs rolled up about six inches so they didn’t flop about. Cleaned up and out of his shoplifting gear, he looked even younger. Nine years old, maybe ten at a push?

Interview Room Three had more stains than carpet on the floor. A weird wet patch in the corner by the window that looked a bit like Joseph Merrick if you squinted. A radiator that gurgled, pinged, and whistled away to itself.

Roberts was on the naughty side of the chipped Formica table, his appointed solicitor sitting next to him in an ill-fitting suit. She looked about as bored as it was possible to be and not die from it. Apparently being a middle-aged lawyer doing Legal Aid wasn’t the non-stop party bus it was cracked up to be.

A sad older man in a baggy grey cardigan was squeezed in at the end of the table in a chair nicked from the office across the hall. Grey cardigan. Grey hair. Grey moustache. Grey face.

Steel dunked a chocolate Hobnob into her tea and sooked the molten brown off.

She was braver than Tufty. No way he was risking a sip of the suspiciously milky beverage DC Harmsworth had banged down on the table with a sinister mutter about how nobody ever appreciated him. Five people. Two teas.

Tufty picked up an evidence bag from the blue plastic crate at his feet. Held it out. ‘I am now showing Mr Roberts Exhibit Nine.’ One of the brand new iPhones, still in its box and cellophane wrapper. ‘What about this one, Charles, do you recognise it?’

A rustly shrug. ‘Never seen it in me life before.’

‘You stole it this morning, didn’t you?’

Rustle. ‘No comment, yeah?’

Steel finished her Hobnob and sooked her fingers clean. Shifted in her seat. Yawned. Didn’t say a word.