Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

And just like that, the weight was gone.

‘Sodding... fuck !’ He sat up, one hand clasping his left ear — the fingers slippery and sticky all at the same time.

Captain Filthy was on his tiptoes, hauled back off balance by Franklin’s baton as she worked it in around his arm — pulling him into a hammer lock. Blood made a thin red line down one side of her face. ‘CALM DOWN!’

Worth a try, but it didn’t work.

His mouth opened in a roar and he jackknifed forward, sending Franklin tumbling over his back and crashing into the overturned bed. Then he was off, one foot catching Callum on the way past and thumping him back against the carpet again.

Sodding hell...

He coughed, rolled over. Struggled to his knees. His left hand: bright red and dripping. ‘Franklin!’

A little chunk of bloody gristle — about the size of a Wotsit — lay on the bedroom floor in front of him. Complete with the little dimple where an earring used to go.

‘Franklin!’

A rattling clatter and she tumbled off the ruined bedframe. ‘Bastard...’

His poor ear.

Callum snatched the bit up, clenching it in his fist. Lurched to his feet as Franklin did the same. Bared his teeth. ‘He is not getting away!’

Out the back door.

The dirty little scumbag was halfway over the fence, leaving bloody footprints as he scrambled up and over the wooden panelling.

Callum tucked the chunk of his ear in his pocket and charged after Captain Filthy. Leapt up. Swung his legs over and dropped down the other side.

It wasn’t another garden, it was a path, running straight downhill. Just the thing for little kids to break their necks skateboarding/cycling/rollerblading/sledging down. And Captain Filthy was well on his way, the dirty soles of his feet flapping as he ran.

Franklin cleared the fence and landed on the path, just ahead of Callum. ‘Why didn’t you pepper-spray him?’

‘I did!’

Downhill.

It didn’t take much to get going, arms and legs pumping faster and faster as gravity took hold. How the hell did they get planning permission to put a near vertical path down a steep hill? How was this possibly safe?

He leaned back, still getting faster.

Oh sodding hell, this was going to hurt when the inevitable happened and his feet went out from under him and he went tumbling over and over down the tarmac path battering into the garden fences on either side and why did the inside of his head sound like Dr Alice McDonald now?

‘Aaargh!’ Franklin passed him on the path, leaning back like he was, arms stretched out on either side as if she was about to take flight.

The path levelled out just for long enough to cross another residential street, houses flashing past on either side, and they were on the path again, running.

Captain Filthy was lengthening the gap.

Cannibalistic little sod was probably used to the thing, especially if he grew up here.

Bdumph .

Another residential street. More bungalows. More path. Then a set of bollards.

Oh. No...

No wonder there were bollards: that was Branton Street at the bottom of the path. Not a quiet cul-de-sac full of family homes, but a main road lined with shops.

Which meant all three of them were now hurtling full pelt towards the traffic.

A Transit van whizzed past the gap between buildings at the end of the path.

Callum hauled in a breath. ‘DON’T BE AN IDIOT!’

But Captain Filthy wasn’t listening. He shot between the bollards, still going strong.

There was a squeal of brakes, then a terrible metallic crunch. A horn wailed, accompanied by a car alarm. More screeching tyres.

Callum shifted his weight forward, leaning into it, gathering up a little extra speed, then snatched at the back of Franklin’s jacket and skittered and slid on his feet about a dozen yards.

‘Get the hell off me!’

They lurched out between the bollards and onto the pavement, still going fast enough to carry them out onto the road. A tricked-out hatchback slammed on its brakes, slithering sideways, just missing Franklin as they stumbled to a halt six feet out from the pavement.

‘Wow...’

A ScotiaBrand Chickens van was parked halfway inside an Audi estate, its grille cracked and steaming in the Audi’s crumpled interior. Curls of black were scrawled across the tarmac, ending in a Peugeot facing the wrong way with its rear wheels up on the pavement.

And right in the middle of the road was Captain Filthy. Just standing there. Arms dangling at his sides. Head tilted. Staring at the front end of a number 18 bus, stopped about six inches from his nose.

The bus driver still had both hands wrapped around the wheel, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open, shaking.

Franklin shook off Callum’s hand.

The hatchback’s driver’s door opened and a young man clambered out — all spots and sideburns. His car’s spoiler was bigger than he was. ‘Hoy, you stupid bitch ! What the fffff...’ He pursed his lips into a perfect little bow as Franklin shoved her warrant card in his face.

Callum pulled out his cuffs, marched over to Captain Filthy, slammed him face-first into the bus and snapped the cuffs on. ‘Go on: resist arrest. I dare you.’

Callum washed two paracetamol down with a swig of tepid water from a plastic cup. Shuddered. Slumped.

The treatment area wasn’t huge — just big enough for an examination table covered in a white paper strip, a plastic chair, and a short section of work surface with cupboards above and below it. A little sink with advice on how to wash your hands, complete with diagrams!

Oh the sodding joy.

A pair of nasty green plastic curtains separated the treatment area from the waiting area. Well, they called it a waiting area, it was really just a line of seven plastic chairs, up against the corridor wall, underneath a sign saying, ‘NON-EMERGENCY TREATMENT ZONE’ and one of a mobile handset with a line drawn through it.

The curtains hadn’t been closed properly, so it was all on show. Including Franklin, sitting right in the middle as if laying claim to the whole thing. Exerting her dominance by ignoring the ‘PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR MOBILE PHONE!’ sign.

Callum sniffed. Curled his top lip.

Why did disinfectant have to smell so bad? And why did it have to sting so much.

The whole left side of his face throbbed, bleeding into the sharp stabbing grating pulses from what was left of his ear.

Bloody Captain Filthy.

Franklin stuck the phone against her chest and stood. Wandered over to his intimate cubicle of doom and stepped inside. The blood on her face had gone, instead a wad of white gauze, about the size of a Post-it Note, was taped to her forehead above her right eye. ‘What happened to the doctor?’

‘You tell me. Little git slathered me in Dettol and iodine, said something about consulting someone, sodded off with the chunk of my ear, and I’ve not seen him since.’ Callum shifted on the examination table, making it creak. ‘How’s the head?’

She pointed at the phone. ‘I’ve got DS McAdams on, Custody Sergeant took one look at our boy and refused to take him into the cells till the hospital say he’s not going to die from the drugs or choking on his own vomit.’

‘We should be so lucky.’

‘So they took him up to A&E, where they stripped him to do a full medical, and guess what?’

‘He’s off his nipples on cocaine.’

‘Nope: they found a tattoo, from here,’ she tapped her shoulder with her other hand, ‘to here.’ Then did the same to her wrist. ‘Some sort of kids’ cartoon characters. Clangers? Whatever they are.’

‘You don’t know who the Clangers are?’ Some people had no appreciation of the classics. ‘When Peanut gets born, he’s being raised on a diet of Bagpuss, the Clangers, and Danger Mouse...’ Callum scrunched his face up. Sod. Of course it was. ‘The tattoo — it’s Brett Millar, isn’t it? He was breaking into his own house.’