Стюарт Макбрайд - Now We Are Dead

Then the sound of grinding gears and the hatchback lurched forwards again, just as Tufty reached the kerb, swinging round and— Too close! Too close! He jumped back and the bumper snatched at the leg of his trousers. Missed by about half an inch. Then away, engine and tyres squealing in protest.

Miss Sundress staggered into the road beside him. ‘Come back with my car, you bastard!’ She grabbed up a fallen tin of beans and hurled it after the departing hatchback. But it fell too short, buckling against the tarmac as the car screamed down the road, round the corner, and out of sight.

‘Can you smell that?’ Barrett looked up from his clipboard. ‘For some reason, I’ve got a strange craving for stovies.’

Harmsworth scowled at him. ‘Oh ha, ha. Very funny. Let’s make jokes at poor Owen’s expense.’

The living room was... OK, it was a hovel. Piles of pizza boxes on the floor, heaps of shoplifted clothes in the corner — most with the security tags still on. A carpet that... Aye, well, probably best no’ to think about what made it so sticky . But for all the overwhelming mank they had an impressive collection of kit. A huge TV and just about every games console going. Roberta settled into the leather couch, arms along the back. Probably the only clean thing in the entire house.

Harmsworth dabbed at his face with a towel again, turning more of it scarlet. ‘You’re all horrible to me.’

‘We do our best.’ Barrett noted down the details of another iPad, sealed it into an evidence bag, then placed it into one of his blue plastic evidence crates. Happy as a wee squirrel, gathering nuts for winter.

The boy, Tufty, was on the phone again, standing in the corner with one finger in his ear. Presumably to stop his brain from falling out that side. ‘Yeah.... Yeah, OK, thanks.’ He hung up. Pulled a constipated face. ‘Nothing from the lookout request.’

Roberta shook her head. ‘Motherfunker...’

‘Hmph.’ Harmsworth made a big thing of wiping his eyes. ‘I’m fine , by the way. Thanks for asking.’

Barrett slipped a mobile phone into another bag. ‘Got to be thousands and thousands of quids’ worth here.’

‘Not as if someone tried to blind me or anything.’

Then Lund’s dulcet tones came screeching down from somewhere upstairs. ‘ SARGE? SARGE, YOU BETTER COME SEE THIS! ’

No thanks.

Roberta stretched out a bit. Enjoying the farty squeak of the leather.

‘SARGE, I’M SERIOUS!’

Wonderful.

She hauled herself up from the couch’s leathery embrace and stepped around the soggy pink figure of Harmsworth. ‘Don’t be such a crybaby, Owen. He chucked a jar of beetroot at you, no’ sulphuric acid.’

‘Pickle vinegar really stings!’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’ She slouched out of the manky living room and up the manky stairs to a manky landing decorated with more stick-figure-porn graffiti.

Lund poked her head out of a room at the end. ‘Sarge?’

‘Why can no bugger do anything without me holding their hand?’

But Lund just ducked back inside again.

‘Swear to God...’ Roberta dragged herself down to the end of the landing and into a bedroom that stank of socks and sweat and something a bit sweet and funky smelling. Cannabis hiding beneath the BO.

Five single mattresses were lined up on the floor: some with duvets, some with sleeping bags. All surrounded by drifts of dirty clothes.

A built-in wardrobe with mirrored doors took up nearly the whole wall opposite the curtained windows. Lund was hunkered down in front of it, peering in through a gap between two of the sliding doors.

‘You better no’ be coiling one out there, Veronica. You’re no’ in Elgin now.’

Lund held out a hand to the wardrobe, voice low and gentle. ‘It’s OK. No one’s going to hurt you.’

Roberta frowned, then shuffled around till she could see what Lund was looking at.

Oh...

Two wee boys cowered in the wardrobe, between the coats and things. The pair of them filthy , wearing nothing but grubby T-shirts and grubbier underpants. Five, maybe six years old? Poor wee sods.

She crouched down next to Lund. ‘Hey, guys, are you OK? Want to come see your Aunty Roberta? We’ve come to take you home to your mummies.’

The wee boys didn’t say anything. Then one of them reached out, took hold of the wardrobe door and slid it closed. Leaving Lund and Roberta staring at their own reflections.

Great.

The back garden looked like the kind of place plants went to die. And then get widdled on. Nowhere to sit. So Roberta turned a bucket over and sat on that instead. A modern-day version of Oor Wullie, only much sexier.

She took a long draw on her e-cigarette, dribbling the vapour down her nose as she chased an itchy bit around her left armpit. Mobile phone clamped between her ear and shoulder. ‘No, they’re no’ saying. But the snottery one in the SpongeBob T-shirt’s got a Belfast accent, so maybe no’ even local.’

‘Hmmm...’ DCI Rutherford sounded a bit distracted, as if he had something more important to do. Tosser. ‘You’d think someone would miss a five-year-old boy...’ The clickity sound of a keyboard being fingered rattled out of the earpiece. ‘We’ve got nine missing children in Aberdeen-slash-Aberdeenshire right now: four girls, five boys. Six of them “allegedly” abducted by a parent. Remaining three are early teens.’

‘Social Services are on the way. Maybe if we get them cleaned up and photographed...?’ Roberta rubbed at her eyes as the weight of it all dragged her shoulders down another inch. ‘Wee kids, hiding in a wardrobe.’

‘We just have to do what we can.’

She took the e-cigarette out of her mouth and spat into the yellowy grass. ‘Yeah. Suppose so.’

Didn’t make it feel any better, though.

Steel stopped on the stairs for a scratch. ‘Will you stop whinging?’

Division Headquarters was surprisingly quiet for a change. Peaceful. Probably because everyone else — all the lucky people — had actually managed to go home.

Tufty peered over the stack of evidence bags, shifted the large plastic crate in his arms. Biceps already wobbling with the strain. ‘This weighs a ton!’

‘Whinge, whinge, whinge, whinge, whinge.’ She gave up on the scratch and started up the stairs again. ‘And when you’ve signed that lot in, you can sit down with Lund and get an e-fit done. I want to know who our kidnappy scumbag is.’

He groaned.

Sergeant McRae was right — the woman was a nightmare.

He manoeuvred the heavy evidence crate around the half-landing, puffing. ‘Shift ended two hours ago...’

Steel paused at the top of the flight of stairs. ‘You’re no’ in uniform any more, Dorothy; CID doesn’t go home till the job’s done. And just for that, when you’ve finished the e-fit you can...’ Her eyes bugged, mouth hanging open as she stared at something Tufty couldn’t see.

‘What?’ He struggled up beside her.

She was staring at the double doors that led off to the third floor. Muffled voices came from the other side.

Then one of the doors twitched .

‘Quick!’ Steel grabbed him, bustling them both into a room just off the stairwell.

She stood there, one eyebrow raised as the trough urinal along one wall flushed, fresh water glistening across the suspicious limescale streaks that striped the stainless steel. The sound echoed around the gents’ toilet. A row of cubicles lined the wall opposite the trough, a row of sinks down the middle. That eye-nipping smell of urinal cakes and ancient piddle. ‘Oh.’