Стюарт Макбрайд - 22 Dead Little Bodies and Other Stories

‘And another thing — how come you’ve no’ filled out the overtime returns yet? You got any idea—’

‘I’m busy .’ He thumbed the off button and stuck the phone back in his pocket. ‘Come on, John, put the knife down. It’ll be OK.’

‘No.’ John shook his head, wiped a hand across his glistening eyes, leaving a thick streak of scarlet behind, like warpaint. ‘No it won’t.’ He held the knife out and dropped it.

The blade tumbled through the air then clattered against the cobbled street below.

A uniformed PC turned up, pushing the crowd back, widening the semicircle, looking up over her shoulder and talking into her airwave handset. With any luck there’d be a trained suicide negotiator on scene in a couple of minutes. And maybe the fire brigade with one of those big inflatable mattress things in case the negotiator didn’t work. And this would all be someone else’s problem.

‘It’ll never be OK again.’ John let go of the railing. ‘How could it?’

‘Don’t do anything you’ll—’

‘I’m sorry.’ He crouched, leaned backwards... then jumped, springing out from the roof. Eyes closed.

‘NO!’ Logan lunged, hand grasping the air where John Skinner wasn’t any more.

Someone down there screamed.

John Skinner’s suit jacket snapped and fluttered in the wind, arms windmilling, legs thrashing all the way down. Getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and THUMP .

A wet crunch. A spray of blood.

Body all twisted and broken, bright red seeping out onto the dark grey cobblestones. More screaming.

Logan crumpled back against the railing, holding on tight, and peered over the edge.

The ring of bystanders had flinched away as John Skinner hit, but now they were creeping closer again, phones held high to get a decent view over the heads of their fellow ghouls.

The wailing siren got closer, then a patrol car skidded to a halt and four officers clambered out. Pushed their way through the amateur film crew. Then stood there staring at what was left of John Skinner.

Logan’s mobile burst into the Imperial March again. Steel calling with the PNC check on their victim. He pulled the phone out. Pressed the button. ‘You’re too late.’

‘Aye, see when I said, “Get your bumhole back here”, I meant now. No’ tomorrow, no’ in a fortnight: now . Sodding starving here.’

‘Where the hell have you been?’ DCI Steel had commandeered his seat, slouching there with both feet up on his desk. A wrinkled wreck in a wrinkled suit, with a napkin tucked into the collar of her blue silk shirt. Tomato sauce smeared on either side of her mouth; the smoky scent of bacon thick in the air. She took another bite of the buttie in her hand, talking and chewing at the same time. ‘Could’ve starved to death waiting for you.’

She’d made some sort of effort with her hair today — possibly with a garden strimmer. It stuck out at random angles, grey showing through in a thick line at the roots.

Logan dumped his coat on the hook beside the door. ‘Feel free to sod off soon as you like.’

She swallowed. Pointed. ‘You owe me a smoked-ham-and-mustard sandwich and a bottle of Coke. And change from a fiver.’

‘They didn’t have ham, so I got you prawn instead.’ He scrubbed a hand over his face, then dug in his pockets. Dumped a couple of pound coins on the desk. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any point asking you to get out of my seat?’

‘Nope. Come on: make with the lunch.’

He settled into the visitor’s chair, and slumped back, arms dangling loose at his sides. Frowning up at the ceiling. ‘He’s dead, by the way. In case you cared.’

‘I’m still no’ seeing any sandwiches here, Laz.’

‘Ambulance crew say it’d be pretty much instantaneous. Flattened his skull like stamping on a cardboard box.’

‘What about crisps?’

‘Got you salt-and-vinegar. I slipped on the rooftop, almost went over myself. Lunch hit the deck instead of me. You can fight the seagulls for it.’ He closed his eyes. ‘They’re probably busy eating leftover bits of John Skinner anyway.’

She sighed. ‘See when they call it “talking a jumper down”, they mean by the stairs, no’ the quick way.’

‘Funny.’ He put both hands over his face. ‘That’s really, really funny.’

‘Laz, you know I love you like a retarded wee brother, but it’s time to pull up your frilly man-panties and get over it.’ Steel’s voice softened. ‘People jump off things. They go splat. It happens. Nothing personal. Wasn’t your fault.’

Raised voices thundered past in the corridor outside, something about football and beer.

‘So...’ A click, then a sooking noise. ‘You got anything exciting on?’

He let his hands fall away. ‘It’s CID. There’s never anything exciting on.’

Steel made a figure of eight with the e-cigarette in her hand. ‘What did Aunty Roberta tell you?’

‘Don’t, OK? I’m not—’

‘“Come join the MIT,” I said. “These new specialist teams will hoover up all the interesting cases,” I said. “All you’ll be left with is the GED crap no one else wants to do,” I said. “It won’t be like it was when we were Grampian Police,” I said. But would you listen?’

A rap on the door, then Constable Guthrie stuck his head in. With his pale eyebrows, blond hair, and pink eyes he looked like a slightly startled rabbit. ‘Sorry, Guv, but I need a word. Inspector?’

Steel popped the fake cigarette between her teeth. ‘What?’

‘Er, not you, Guv — DI McRae.’

She sniffed. ‘No’ good enough for you, am I?’

‘It... I...’ He pulled his mouth into a dead-fish pout. Then held out a sheet of A4 towards Logan. ‘Did that PNC check you wanted: John Skinner, fourteen Buchanan Street, Kincorth. Married, two kids. Conviction for speeding eighteen months ago. Drives a dark blue BMW M5, registration number X—’

‘Who cares what he drives?’ Logan slumped further in his seat. ‘We’re not setting up a lookout request, Constable. We know fine well where he is.’

Pink bloomed on Guthrie’s cheeks. ‘Sorry, Guv.’ He shuffled his feet a bit. ‘Anyway, couple of people at the scene got the whole thing on their phones, you want to see the footage?’

‘I caught the live show, I really don’t need to see the action replay.’

‘Oh...’

Steel polished off the last of her buttie, then sooked the sauce and flour off her fingers. ‘Well, if you minions of CID will forgive me, I’ve got to go do some proper grown-up police work. Got a serial rapist on the books.’ She stood and stretched, arms up, exposing a semicircle of pale stomach. Then slumped a bit. Had a scratch at one boob. ‘Still hungry though.’

Guthrie pointed at his own cheek. ‘You’ve got tomato sauce, right here.’

‘Thanks.’ She wiped it off with a thumb. ‘And as a reward, you can get your pasty backside over to Buchanan Street, let the Merry Widow know her bloke’s died of cobblestone poisoning. Offer her a shoulder to cry on — perchance a quickie, or kneetrembler up against the tumble drier — then wheech her down the mortuary to ID the body.’

Logan gritted his teeth. ‘Do you have to be so bloody—’

‘Oh come off it, Laz — the boy Skinner topped himself , no one made him do it. He jumped, leaving a wife and two wee kiddies to cope with the sticky aftermath. What kind of selfish scumbag does that?’ Steel hoiked up her trousers. ‘It’s always some poor cow that’s left picking up the pieces.’

And that’s exactly what the Scenes Examination Branch had to do. Pick up the pieces before the seagulls got their beaks into what was left spread across the cobbles of Exchequer Row.