Стюарт Макбрайд - The Blood Road

Tufty kept hammering.

The same voice again: getting louder. ‘ALL RIGHT, I’M GETTING IT... I SAID I’M GETTING IT, YOU STUPID COW!’

Then the door flew open and Russell Morton blinked out at them, both eyelids working independently of one another. Pupils big and black in a sea of pink. The thick sweaty reek of marijuana rolled off him like fog, accompanied by stale beer and whisky.

He grabbed onto the door frame and wobbled a bit, squinting as the music thump, thump, thump ed out behind him. ‘The hell do you want?’

Roberta gave him a big happy smile. ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t my old pal Russell Morton.’ She clapped her hands, as if she was encouraging Naomi to go potty. ‘Guess what, Russy-boy: you’re nicked .’

The magic words seemed to cut through the fog of booze and dope, because those big black eyes went wide and Morton turned to run off into the house.

Tufty leapt inside, grabbed the lanky wee scumbag and wrestled him to the hall carpet. ‘Hold still! HOLD STILL!’ Struggling the cuffs into place.

Roberta pulled out her e-cigarette, inhaled a big cloud of black cherry and puffed it out in a satisfied sigh. ‘Ahh... I enjoyed that.’

‘You still no’ up and about?’ Steel plonked herself down in his high-backed visitor’s chair and swung her feet up onto the bedclothes. ‘Five days slobbing about in bed: that’s malingering, that is.’ Today, her hair looked as if she’d had a fight with a tumble drier. And lost. ‘You’re a proper sight, by the way. Can you no’ have a shave or something?’

Logan shifted beneath his crinkly sheet, voice barely a whisper. ‘Thirsty...’

She tossed a folded newspaper onto his bed. ‘Present for you.’

His hands trembled a bit as he picked it up, the IV line jiggling about on the end of its cannula. ‘TRIBUTES PAID TO DEAD HOMELESS MAN’ sat above a picture of a young bloke with a long brown beard and sunken eyes, singing away outside the Greggs on Union Street — one hand on his chest, the other in the air. ‘Oh no... Sammy Show-Tunes died?’

‘No’ that, you idiot, other side.’

Ah.

Logan turned the paper over. It was that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner , with the headline, ‘EVIL STEPDAD SOLD ELLIE TO PAEDOPHILE RING’ stretched across its front page. A nice big photo of Russell Morton being bundled away in handcuffs.

Aw, diddums. He looked very upset.

A smile pulled at Logan’s cheeks, making the layers of stubble itch.

Steel dug a hand into her armpit and had a good scratch. ‘Don’t say I never do anything nice for you.’

‘Do you want to make it two nice things?’

She pulled in her chin. ‘It’s no’ a bed bath, is it? Cos there’s limits.’

God, there was an image.

‘No: my mobile phone’s got photos on it. One of the paedophiles from the Mart — I got his face and number plate.’

‘Now you’re talking!’ She stuck out her hand. ‘Well, where is it?’

Ah...

‘Look! Look!’ Stephen MacGuire stood on his tiptoes and placed a big squashed box of chocolates on the bed. ‘We got you chocolates, but Ellie sat on them.’

Ellie stuck out her bottom lip. ‘Did not!’

‘Did too!’

The five of them surrounded his hospital bed: Stephen, Ellie, Rebecca, Vernon, and little Lucy Hawkins in her pink dungarees — hugging Rebecca’s teddy bear, with one thumb wedged firmly in her mouth. The only kid not staring at him like he was a two-headed goat in a petting zoo was Vernon. He stood in the corner not making eye contact, a long-sleeve top pulled down over his fingertips to hide the small circular scars that covered his arms. All the kids from the Livestock Mart, except for Aiden MacAuley.

Their parents stood out in the hallway, looking in through the observation window, every one of them teary and smiling.

Good job he’d taken Steel’s advice yesterday and had a shave.

Ellie stomped her foot. ‘Did not!’

‘Did too!’

Rebecca scowled at the pair of them. ‘Shut up, or I’ll arrest you both.’ She pulled out a big folded sheet of paper and slapped it down on top of the chocolates, still wearing her serious face as she frowned at Logan. ‘I drew you a picture.’

‘Thank you.’ He leaned closer to her, dropped his voice to a whisper, and nodded towards Lucy. The teddy bear in her arms was about three hundred percent tattier than it had been out at Boodiehill Farm, one of the ears barely hanging on. ‘What happened to Onion-log? Organ-log?’

‘Orgalorg.’ Rebecca shrugged, matching his whisper. ‘He’s looking after her cos she’s only little and she gets horrid dreams about the Grey Man catching her and feeding her to a big pig monster.’ A wistful look crept across Rebecca’s face as she looked at her tatty bear. ‘She needs him more.’

Logan ruffled Rebecca’s hair. ‘You’re a very brave girl, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Get off me.’ She pushed his hand away. ‘Not a puppy.’

‘Right: let’s see this lovely picture.’ He unfolded the sheet of paper to reveal a felt-pen drawing of two lumpy figures — one bigger than the other — shooting about a dozen bad guys. And it was obvious they were bad guys, because she’d written ‘BAD GUYS!!!’ above them in green with a bunch of arrows pointing at their lumpy pink heads. Many of which had bright red felt-tip gushing out of them. ‘OK...’ Well, that wasn’t disturbing at all.

She stuck one foot on the bedframe, so she could lever herself up — pointing at the felt-pen bloodbath. ‘That’s you and that’s me. They’re all tits.’

He tried for a smile. ‘Thank you, that’s very... nice.’

And, for the first time ever, she smiled back.

Logan shuffled along the institution-green corridor, in his pyjamas and hospital slippers, one hand on the wall, the other wheeling his IV drip on a stand. It was like moving in slow motion — other patients, staff, and visitors wheeching past him at about nine times the speed.

Still, at least it gave him plenty of time to enjoy the paintings, collages, needlework, and murals that adorned the walls. Even if some of them were pretty terrible.

He paused for a breather in front of a series of screen prints: puffins and seagulls in muted shades. His own face reflected back at him: bags under the eyes, hollow cheeks covered with two days’ stubble. Looking bent and broken and about ten years older than he had a week and a bit ago.

Yay...

He shuffled on, past the puffins, past a sort of Fuzzy-Felt-meets-Freddy-Krueger thing, past a huge oil painting of a tattooed woman’s face, and over to the lifts. A walk of about two minutes that had taken quarter of an hour.

Still, at least it was a change of scene.

He pressed the up button and waited. And waited. And waited.

Ding . The lift doors slid open revealing a gloomy metal box, with duct tape holding sections of the floor-covering down. An old man stood in the corner, his back to the lift, one hand over his eyes, a bouquet of flowers dangling from the fingers of the other as he cried.

Logan stepped inside. Selected the floor number from the list of wards printed onto strips of masking tape with permanent marker. Stood there in silence as the lift juddered and groaned its way up through the building.

Ding.

He wheeled his drip stand into another off-green corridor lined with variable artwork.

Better view out the windows though. Looking across the rest of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, down Westburn Road, and off to the North Sea. All of it shining in the afternoon sun.

He shuffled his way to a set of double doors, next to a green button, beneath a sign marked ‘SECURE WARD ~ RING FOR ENTRANCE’. So he did.