Стюарт Макбрайд: Now We Are Dead

Tufty still hadn’t taken the hint. ‘Our wanky little friend did it last night. And I’ll bet you a fish supper he does it again tonight. We can catch him pink-handed!’

She scowled at him. ‘It’s red-handed, you neep. Red -handed.’

‘Nah, think about what he’ll be holding, Sarge. We’re only going to catch him red-handed if he’s squeezing really hard.’

Idiot.

And why was it suddenly her fault? She wasn’t the one who’d clyped to Professional Standards. She wasn’t the traitorous bastard.

‘Sarge? Are you all right? Only you look like something’s just thrown up in your mouth.’

‘Being a sperm donor doesn’t count.’

He stared at her. ‘O — K...?’

She thumbed out a reply on her phone:

I’ll be late home. Got a pervert to catch.

Then stuck it in her pocket. Sniffed. ‘Go down to the desk and book out a pool car. We’ll see if you owe me a fish supper or no.’

Steel curled her top lip, shifting in the passenger seat, elbows in, hands curled so she wouldn’t touch anything. ‘Could you no’ have picked a cleaner one?’

‘This was all they had. And you’re welcome.’ Though, to be fair, the pool car was a bit of a tip. It rustled with discarded crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, biscuit packets, polystyrene takeaway containers, paper bags from Burger King and McDonald’s, crushed Irn-Bru tins, Coke, Fanta, ginger beer... They littered the footwells and piled up on the back seat. And crumbs — crumbs everywhere .

‘Hmph.’ She crossed her arms and stared at her own reflection in the passenger window. Ungrateful lump.

Woods reared up to the right of the dual carriageway, its greenery burnished with gold and amber as the sun sank its way down to a hazy horizon. A patchwork quilt of fields, stitched together with drystane dykes, blanketed the land. The pointy bits of Bennachie just visible in the distance.

Tufty snuck a look at his sulky passenger. ‘Er, Sarge?’

Grunt.

‘I kinda noticed... you’re avoiding Inspector McRae?’

She crossed her arms even tighter, putting a bit more freckly cleavage on show, and grunted again.

‘Only, I worked with him for what, two and a half years? And he was a good boss. A bit obsessed with his cat, and God knows he could put away the lentil soup, but he stood his hand in the pub. Didn’t play favourites.’ Shrug. ‘He’s a good guy.’

‘Don’t make me wash your mouth out with soap and water, Constable.’

‘He always said nice things about you .’ Sort of. If you didn’t count all the horror stories.

‘Because I will if you don’t shut up.’

Ah. Fair enough.

He cleared his throat. ‘OK, so you want to know how I know the Blackburn Womble-Spanker’s going to spank again tonight?’

She turned and scowled at him. ‘And for your information: Logan Scumbag McRae can away and crap in his hat. Then wear it.’

Roberta sat forward and rubbed a clear patch in the fogged-up passenger window. Scowled out at the identikit houses. No’ one hundred percent identical, but imperfect clones of each other. With grey harled bits, stonework details, grey tiled roofs. New enough for the gardens to still look as if they’d just been planted yesterday.

She sighed. ‘Bored.’

‘I wanted to play I Spy, but noooo, that was too childish.’ Tufty didn’t even look up from his mobile phone. Just sat there like an idiot playing some stupid game — it binged and wibbled to a backdrop of irritating plinky-plonky music. ‘And when I tried to discuss quantum chromodynamics, suddenly quarks and gluons were “stupid and boring”. Do you remember that bit? Because—’

She hit him. ‘Where is he then? The World’s Wiliest Womble Walloper?’

More bings and wibbles. ‘Patience, Grasshopper.’

‘And it’s cold. Cold and boring.’ Roberta thumped back into her seat. Then did it again. Like a petulant teenager. Hamming it up with a big long-suffering sigh.

Should’ve brought a book.

She folded her arms. Unfolded them again.

It killed five or ten seconds.

Gah...

Roberta poked a finger at the dashboard, making a dull thunking sound. ‘You know what? We should go visit every house he’s wanked outside. At least then we could scam a cup of tea and a bit of a warm. Maybe even a biscuit or two?’

Roberta dunked her Jaffa Cake in her tea. Bone china, believe it or no’, the tea poured from a pot, with milk in a wee jug. Biscuits in a porcelain dish. Very swish.

It was a nice wee conservatory. Right at the back of the house, it had a view out over stubble fields, angled just right to catch the setting sun. All reds and yellows. Blue shadows reaching out from the drystane dykes. A comfy set of couches flanked a glass-topped coffee table artfully littered with the kind of magazines normally reserved for dentists’ waiting rooms. A couple of wicker chairs with chintzy cushions.

Mrs Rice sat in one of them, fiddling with the pearls around her throat. Couldn’t have been a day over thirty and she was actually wearing a twinset to go with it. Pastel blue. As if she was ninety. She shifted, making the wicker groan. ‘Honestly, I didn’t know where to look. Standing right there in the back garden... pleasuring himself.’ She pointed out at the manicured lawn and shuddered. ‘We had to throw the garden gnomes out in the end. I couldn’t bear to look at them leering .’

Tufty nodded, making a note in his book. Swot. ‘And he was...’ He stared at Roberta as she licked the chocolate off to get at the orangey bit in the middle. ‘Sorry. And you say he was wearing a superhero mask?’

Mrs Rice pulled a face. ‘About all he was wearing. I ask you, when you’re making spaghetti Bolognaise for four, is that really what you want to see through your kitchen window? Spider-Man playing with himself?’

Another note went in Tufty’s book. ‘And did he...?’ A euphemistic hand gesture. ‘You know?’

‘What?’

Thick as two shorts.

Probably better help the poor thing. Roberta leaned forward and put a chocolaty hand on her knee. ‘Did he arrive? Did he succeed in his endeavour? Did he finish his fun?’ A wink. ‘Did he squirt his filthy man-mayonnaise all over your begonias?’

Mrs Rice stared back, horrified.

Roberta popped the remaining half biscuit in her mouth. ‘Cos if he did, then my constable here can scoop it up and we’ll run some tests. Maybe find out who your saucy wee friend is.’

‘Oh...’ Her face curdled for a moment, then she forced an unconvincing smile and reached for the pot. ‘Oh. Er... More tea?’

The kitchen was minuscule, nearly every flat surface covered in carrier bags and boxes of cereal and plates and pots and pans. More carrier bags on the floor.

Mrs Morden shook her head and poured boiling water into four mugs, sending up the burnt-toast scent of cheap instant coffee. Her tracksuit looked nearly as tired as she did.

Tufty shuffled his feet in one of the few patches of clear linoleum. Pen poised.

‘Urgh...’ She stirred the burnt brown liquid with a fork. ‘Well, it’s not every day you see the Caped Crusader having a batwank in your back garden, is it? The security lights came on and everything.’

The kitchen spotlights glittered back from the polished black granite worktops. Oak units. Slate tiles on the floor.

A man in jeans, a Jeremy-Corbyn-as-Che-Guevara T-shirt, and flip-flops handed Steel a mug of tea. ‘Yeah, he was wearing this Incredible Hulk mask. Only the Incredible Hulk is meant to be big and green. And he was neither.’ A wink. ‘ If you know what I mean.’

Kids’ toys littered the living room: Lego, Night Garden, SpongeBob, Transformers, My Little Ponies, balls, ray guns, teddy bears... Mrs Allsop wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered as Steel helped herself to yet another Penguin biscuit. ‘Oh it was horrible.’