Stuart MacBride - 45% Hangover

‘He’s waking up.’

Steel sooked a breath through her teeth. ‘You hit him this time. My hand hurts.’

Logan rolled him into the middle of the bed, getting scarlet smears on the duvet cover, and stuck his free leg out. Reaching with his toes for the dropped chain. Holding his breath and stretching for it. The handcuff dug into his other ankle. ‘Got it.’

He wrapped his toes around the cold metal and pulled it, clinking back to the bed. Reached down and grabbed the end.

Steel looked over his chest at the floor. ‘What about the padlock?’

‘Give us a chance...’ His foot reached, and reached, and reached. Logan’s tongue poked out the side of his mouth.

But there was no way he could even come close.

‘You need to push the bed closer so I can reach.’

‘For goodness sake. Do I have to do everything?’

‘Yes. You have to do everything. I’m contributing absolutely nothing here.’

‘You’re such a whinge. Close—’

‘I know. Close my eyes.’ He shuddered. ‘Trust me, some sights I never want to see again.’

‘Oh: ha, ha.’ She slipped out and the bed groaned and creaked and gouged its way across the floorboards. ‘This... was... easier... when... there was... just... your fat... arse on... there.’ The bed came to a halt and Steel climbed beneath the duvet again. ‘Right, you can open your eyes.’

He grabbed the padlock with his toes and together they chained Alec’s hands behind his back. Then wrapped the rest of it around his ankles, before pulling it tight and padlocking the two ends together. Leaving him trussed up like a turkey.

Steel put her foot on his shoulder and shoved him over the edge of the bed.

Alec tumbled to the floor with a thump and a groan.

‘Serves you right.’ She wriggled down into the bed and scowled up at the ceiling.

‘What now?

‘Still need a pee.’

‘Wardrobe?’

A sigh. ‘Wardrobe.’

‘What do you mean there’s no clothes in there?’

Steel’s voice came out muffled. ‘I mean, there’s hundreds of clothes. Millions of them. It’s like a branch of Markies in here. What do you think I mean?’

‘Wonderful.’

‘Hey, I’m not enjoying it much either...’ A pause. ‘Urgh. I’ve got pee on my feet!’

‘I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with “B”.’

Lying next to him, Steel sniffed. ‘Better no’ be “boobs”. You promised no’ to peek!’

‘It’s not “Boobs”. And one glimpse was enough to scar me for life, thanks.’

‘Blinds?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t stop!’ Steel gripped his hand, the cuffs digging into his wrist as the bed moaned and creaked beneath them. ‘Harder!’

Logan grunted and put his hips into it as the whole frame swayed and clanged.

‘Come on, come on, come on...’

‘Argh...’ He slumped back against the mattress, sweat prickling between his shoulder blades. ‘It’s no good.’

‘We can do this!’

‘No we can’t. The frame’s not going to fall apart. Doesn’t matter how much we shoogle it.’

‘Sodding hell.’

‘Because I’m thirsty, OK?’ Logan wriggled as far as to the left as the cuffs around his wrist and ankle would let him, right hand groping at the floorboards. ‘Little more...’

‘Sodding hell.’ Steel grunted and groaned, and the bed gouged its way across the floorboards again.

‘Come to Logan...’ The bottle of water Alec dropped was just out of reach.

More grunts and groans.

‘Got you!’

‘OK...’ Steel frowned at the ceiling. ‘Shoot Gordon Brown, shag Nick Clegg, marry David Cameron.’

Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘You’d marry a Tory?’

‘He’s worth millions, isn’t he? Soon as we’re married, there’s going to be an unfortunate accident and I’ll inherit the lot.’ A grin. ‘An unfortunate accident with a wood chipper. Hello Daveyboy, I’ve made you a lovely cup of tea. Come out into the garden and drink it next to this dirty big chunk of machinery. Whoops! Shove. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrind!’

‘Urgh.’ She curled her top lip. ‘Your hand’s all sweaty.’

‘So stop holding it, then.’

‘Can’t. Every time I let go you shoogle about and I get a chafed wrist. You’re like a ferret in a carrier bag. A sweaty ferret. That can’t hold still for two minutes.’

‘This is hell, isn’t it? I’ve died and I’ve gone to hell...’

‘I’m bursting, OK?’ Logan crossed his legs. Didn’t help though, was still like a spaniel dancing on his bladder.

Steel pulled a face. ‘Serves you right for drinking all that water.’

‘I was thirsty.’

‘So go pee in the wardrobe.’

‘How?’ He levelled his voice, weighed out each word as if talking to a very small, very stupid child. ‘My ankle’s handcuffed to the bed . I can’t get off the bed like you can. If I could we wouldn’t be in this sodding mess.’

‘You’re a dick, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Going to have to pee off the edge of the bed.’

‘Oh great. So I widdle in the wardrobe like a civilised human being, and you just pish all over the floor like some sort of animal. And then we get to lie here marinating in the stench.’

He turned and stared at her. ‘You don’t exactly piddle rosewater yourself.’ Then he jerked his head at the corner of the room. ‘Shove the bed over there and I’ll pee in the corner. Well, corner-ish.’

‘Oh God, I can hear it splashing!’

‘Will you shut up? This isn’t exactly a precision instrument at the best of times.’

‘Urgh...’

‘Something beginning with “D”?’ Logan glanced around the room. ‘Door?’

‘Nope.’

‘Dresser.’

‘Nope.’

Hmm... Ah, of course — dangling from the side of the blinds. ‘Drawstring.’

‘Nah. Give up? It’s him on the floor: “Dickhead”.’

The little creases deepened between Steel’s eyebrows. ‘It’s just, sometimes, I really miss my dad, you know? He’d have loved Jasmine.’

‘He OK with the whole gay thing?’

‘Course he was. What’s not to like?’

‘Fair enough.’ Logan frowned up at the ceiling, making patterns from the light and shadow. ‘Never really knew my father.’

‘Oh aye, Mum put it about a bit, did she?’

A laugh barked out of Logan, setting the mattress vibrating. ‘Can you imagine?’ Then a shudder. ‘Actually, better not. No, he was in the Job. Constable Charles McRae. Went to pick up a bloke on a warrant for aggravated burglary in Stonehaven. Only the guy had a sawn-off shotgun and wasn’t cool with going back to prison again. I was five.’

Steel reached across the duvet with her spare hand and gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘Sorry.’

‘Why do you think I joined the force? Couldn’t think of anything that would hack my mother off more.’

‘Pfff... Curtains?’

Logan shook his head. ‘Nope.’

‘Carpet?’

‘That’s not a carpet, it’s a rug.’

‘Oh.’ She chewed at her top lip. ‘Cushions?’

‘Give up?’ He pointed at the window. ‘Clouds.’

‘What? It has to be inside the room, you idiot. Who taught you how to play?’

‘Oh-ho, Chuckles is on the move.’

Logan peered over the edge of the bed. Steel was right: Alec Hadden was twitching. Then a groan. Then a cough that left a smear of red-flecked sputum on the floorboards.

Steel raised her eyebrows. ‘Thought I’d killed him for a bit there.’

A tremble ran through Alec, wrists and ankles still firmly chained and padlocked behind his back. ‘Gnnnnnnngh...’ And then he went limp again.

‘Serves you right, you wee shite. That’s what you get for abducting police officers.’