Стюарт Макбрайд - Now We Are Dead

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Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel got caught fitting up Jack Wallace — that’s why they demoted her and quashed his sentence. Now he’s back on the streets and women are being attacked again. Wallace has to be responsible, but if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, his lawyers will get her thrown off the force for good.
The Powers That Be won’t listen to her, not after what happened last time. According to them, she’s got more than enough ongoing cases to keep her busy. Perhaps she could try solving a few instead of harassing an innocent man?
Steel knows Wallace is guilty. And the longer he gets away with it, the more women will suffer. The question is: how much is she willing to sacrifice to stop him?

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Steel sucked on her teeth, making them whistle. ‘Oh, Haddie, Haddie, Haddie. No’ again!

‘I... I haven’t done anything wrong, and you don’t have a warrant. Those boxes are from an estate sale. There’s nothing illegal about them.’ A blush breathed a bit of colour into those pale cheeks of his. ‘You’re not allowed to search my premises. If you do, it’s inadmissible in court.’

‘My ugly wee colleague here was just saying the very same thing, Haddie. But you said we were free to browse, remember?’ She slapped a hand down on his shoulder, making him buckle slightly at the knees. ‘And you’re right: I can’t search your Aladdin’s Gloryhole. What I can do is tell Constable Quirrel here to stand guard over those boxes while I nip off and get a warrant organised. That’ll take about an hour and I’ve no’ had any lunch yet, so by the time I get back here I’m going to be very hungry and very, very grumpy.’

Tufty nodded. ‘And she’s in chafing underwear too, so— Ow!’ He rubbed at his arm, squeezing down the burning jagged ache where she’d belted him one.

‘Now, Haddie, my fish-fingered little fiend, you can cooperate right here, right now, and open these boxes of your own free will — or we can do it an hour later when I’m probably going to want to rip your arm off and eat it. Up to you.’

‘But I don’t... This isn’t...’ His eyebrows pinched up in the middle, shoulders drooping. ‘I gave you an urn for free .’

She reached out and plucked the urn from his hands. ‘Thanks for your kind donation, I’m sure Mrs Galloway will be touched.’ She tucked it under one arm. ‘So: friendly cooperative boxes now, or grumpy down-the-station boxes later?’

Haddie made a groany little wheezing noise then nodded. Got out his Stanley knife and slipped the blade through the pristine brown tape on both boxes. Sighed. ‘This is what I get for trying to be nice to people.’ He eased the flaps open on Box Number One, then did the same with Box Number Two.

Tufty peered inside and whistled. Reached in and pulled out a pair of brand-new-still-in-their-boxes iPhones. ‘This must’ve been a very strange estate sale, Mr De Selincourt. As far as I can see, the dearly departed left about three grand’s worth of state-of-the-art mobile technology.’

Steel helped herself to a boxed Samsung, turning it over in her hands. ‘Let me guess: you got them from a thieving wee scroat called Billy Moon? Am I warm?’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Steel, I—’

‘It’s Detective Sergeant now. They demoted me for dangling a fat wee resetter off the roof of his warehouse by the ankles. And dropping him. You want to see if we can make it two in a row?’

‘But I’m cooperating!’ Starting to whine a little now.

‘So you are.’ She tossed the phone to Tufty. ‘Elinsworth Fredrick De Selincourt, I’m detaining you under Section Fourteen of the Criminal Justice, Scotland, Act...’

The woman in the burgundy apron huffed a breath onto the rectangle of thumb-smeared brass and polished it on the hem of her apron. Peering out of the window, down Union Street. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, would you? Two wee tractors, making all that mess .’

Tufty joined her, looking out between a display rack of key fobs and an animatronic plastic man pretending to hammer a nail into a shoe.

Four fire engines blocked the road outside Marks & Spencer — two of them sending out jets of thick white foam, the other two hosing the buildings down with water. The gutters were thick with brown froth.

‘I’m just glad the shop’s upwind.’ She huffed another breath on the plaque. ‘There we go, nice and shiny again.’ She slipped it into a wee paper bag. ‘That’ll be six quid, please.’

IV

‘Come on, stick , you horrible little...’ Tufty shifted his fingers and pushed a bit harder. The brass plaque slithered side to side on the glue then finally got a grip. ‘Right.’

He clambered out of his rusty old Fiat Panda, locked the door, straightened his tie and hurried across the car park. It was crowded: people filing out of the crematorium and into their vehicles.

He nodded at a thin man with red eyes and a trembling bottom lip. Giving the guy a ‘Sorry for your loss’ and a pat on the arm on the way past.

Aberdeen Crematorium looked like a nuclear bunker crossed with an unsuccessful airport terminal building. Only not so charming. A black roof sulked above concrete walls that sloped inward a bit as they rose. Dark glass panels either side of a big dark wooden door.

The last of the mourners were gathering up floral tributes to a backtrack of sombre music. Someone was still sitting down at the front, not moving, just staring up at the red velvety curtains. PC Mackintosh.

Tufty sorry-for-your-loss-ed his way past the mourners and slipped into the seat next to her. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, it’s OK.’

‘Had to go home and change. Didn’t think it’d be right turning up in AFC joggies and a knock-off T-shirt.’

She looked him up and down. The shirt, the black tie, the black suit. ‘I think you look very nice.’

He smiled back. ‘You too. I mean, I know it’s just police uniform, but it suits you and...’ Why was everywhere so hot today? Oh, right, crematorium. Tufty cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I brought you this.’ He held out the urn.

‘Oh, Constable Quirrel, it’s lovely .’

‘There’s a plaque.’

She ran a finger along the shiny brass rectangle. ‘“Pudding the Yorkshire terrier, a dearly loved friend and companion.” That’s very sweet.’

‘I was going to put something about “now chasing the squirrels in heaven”, but I didn’t know if he liked squirrels or not. And...’ He dug into his pocket. ‘Ta-da!’ He held up a Lion Bar and a bag of Skittles.

Mackenzie smiled, then reached out and took the Lion Bar. ‘You remembered.’

‘Of course, Lion Bars don’t actually contain any real lion. And as chocolate’s poisonous to all cats including lions — well, the caffeine and theobromine in chocolate to be pedantic about it — they can’t really endorse it in good conscience, can they? The bar is a lie.’

‘Oh yeah? Well Skittles say, “Taste the rainbow”. Rainbows are an optical illusion caused by sunlight reflecting and refracting through water particles suspended in the atmosphere, relative to the observer, and have no intrinsic flavour. The Skittles are a lie.’

Ooh... Had to admit that was more than a little bit sexy.

Tufty turned to face her. ‘Where do you stand on the topic of loop quantum gravity, because—’

She grabbed him by the tie. It came off in her hand — clip-on — so she grabbed him by the lapel instead and pulled him into a kiss. Her lips tasted of chocolate and coffee and strawberries. Warm and soft and tingly. No tongues.

There was a thump and squeal right behind them, then, ‘I hope you two are no’ Frenching it up — this is a crematorium, no’ a knocking shop!’

Aaargh!

They both flinched back.

PC Mackenzie dropped Pudding’s urn, scrambling to snatch it up again before it hit the carpet.

Tufty lunged at the same time and their heads thunked together as the urn bounced off the floor.

Sitting behind them, Steel went, ‘Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.’

‘Ow!’ Mackenzie rubbed at her forehead.

He scooped up the urn. ‘It’s OK. Not even scratched.’ And the plaque had stayed on too. He handed it back to her. Then turned.

Steel was beaming at him, still wearing her dungarees and floral-print chiffon top. Hair all anyhow. She winked. ‘Ah: young love.’

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