Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

‘OK!’ Jackie sounded excited to be doing something for a change. ‘Buckle up, people!’

Logan stopped her before she could turn the key. ‘We can’t. What about Chib?’

‘What about him? The Gimp is on the go, his mate isn’t. We have to get cracking or we’ll lose him!’

‘OK, OK...’ Logan screwed his face up, running the different scenarios quickly through his head. ‘You take Rennie and follow him, Steve and I stay behind and keep an eye on the house.’

It was Jackie’s turn to frown. ‘How come I get Rennie? Why can’t I take Steve?’

‘Because Rennie and I’ve been drinking, remember? Can’t drive.’

‘Then you come with me.’

‘And leave these two in charge of the house? I’d kinda like at least one sensible person in each team, if it’s OK with you.’

PC Steve’s face fell. ‘Hey, I heard that!’

‘No offence.’ Logan eased his door open and slipped out into the night. ‘Now get your arse in gear.’ Ten seconds later they were huddled in the shadows watching Jackie drive away in pursuit of Chib’s pet Gimp, with Rennie rolling about blearily in the back seat.

‘Er... sir, do you really think they should be going after the child molester on their own?’ asked Steve as they sneaked back to his car.

‘Relax, he’s probably just off for a wank in a playground or something. Anyway,’ Logan pointed at the house, where a shadow moved behind the upstairs window, ‘it’s the bastard up there you’ve got to worry about.’ According to Colin Miller anyway.

The night was dark and quiet, just the way he liked it. Tonight was going to be a special night, one to put in the diary, a red-letter day. Giggling softly, he crossed over the road, picking up the pace as he nipped around the playing fields, enjoying the feeling of light and shadow between the lampposts. Airyhall Avenue was lined with attractive family homes: mother, father, two point four children. Happy, happy families, all snug in bed, dreaming their happy family dreams and waiting for another beautiful family day to dawn. Despite the chill his armpits were already beginning to feel sticky with sweat, and he shifted the heavy holdall from one hand to the other. Tonight was going to be fun; mixing business with pleasure always was. And this time Brendan wouldn’t be angry with him. No more black eyes. Anyway, they were going to be leaving Aberdeen soon, heading back home to Edinburgh. He smiled at the thought. The weather up here was too unpredictable: one minute it was blazing sunshine, the next it was hammering with rain, sometimes both at the same time.

At the bottom of the Avenue he stopped to get his bearings, his heart quickening as he saw the sign on the other side of the road: AIRYHALL CHILDREN’S HOME. He’d come too far, shouldn’t have come down this road. Should have stuck to the road he was on... the home was smaller than the one he’d gone to, where THE MAN had been, the man Brendan had stabbed for him, but that didn’t make it any less frightening.

Shivering slightly, he turned and walked the other way, heading back towards the city centre, getting as far away from the place as possible. Only once did he look back over his shoulder at the bulky home and its slumbering, silent inhabitants.

It took ten minutes to walk up past the cemetery on Springfield Road — whistling the Simpsons theme tune from the moment he saw the sign — right, onto Seafield Road, and all the way along to the roundabout on Anderson Drive. He stopped beneath a streetlight, setting the holdall down on the grass verge. Why did he have to pack so much stuff? He dug out Brendan’s directions — a little map, with a smiley stick figure following the arrows towards a big skull and crossbones surrounded by flames. The house they’d trashed because the old lady wasn’t in. Tonight she wouldn’t be so lucky.

A siren’s wail broke through the quiet rumble of midnight traffic and his heart stopped. A white patrol car roared past, blue lights flashing, taking the roundabout without slowing down and speeding off into the night. Not looking for him.

With a broad smile he picked up the holdall and, looking both ways, crossed the road and hurried towards the centre of town.

‘So,’ said Rennie, scrambling over from the back seat, nearly standing on Jackie’s broken arm twice as she fought with the gear stick. ‘You think he’s up to something?’

‘Get your arse out of my face and sit down!’ Jackie snapped. ‘Jesus, I would have stopped the car, OK? You just had to ask.’

‘Didn’t want you to lose him.’

‘How the hell am I going to lose him? He’s on foot — what’s he going to do, outrun us?’

‘OK, OK, bloody hell, I’m sorry.’ He snapped his seatbelt on and scowled out the windscreen at the figure two hundred yards ahead of them, struggling along the pavement with a heavy-looking holdall over one shoulder. ‘You know, ever since you broke your arm, you’ve been a right cow.’

‘ I didn’t break my arm, OK? Someone else broke it.’

‘Same thing: you’ve still been fucking horrible.’

She opened her mouth, closed it again, sniffed and shrugged. To be brutally honest, he was probably right. ‘Anyway,’ she said at last, ‘of course he’s up to something. We wouldn’t be following him if he wasn’t up to something.’ She drifted the car to a halt at the side of the road and killed the lights, letting their man get a little distance between them.

‘So what d’you think he’s up to then? Dressed in black, holdall: think he’s off on the blag?’

‘Nah — the bag’s too heavy for that, wouldn’t be able to cart anything away afterwards. Making some sort of drugs run? Dropping the stuff off at his resellers?’ When she thought that Chib’s mate was far enough down the road to not notice the car following him, Jackie turned the headlights back on and pulled out into the quiet road, driving slowly past the playing fields and across the roundabout into Union Grove.

‘You know,’ said Rennie, ‘they did an old lady down here today. She was using little kids as runners. PCP and cannabis and crack and all sorts.’

‘Yeah? Well, maybe our boy’s looking to take up where she left off.’

Rennie grinned. ‘Extra, extra, read all about it: Off-Duty Police Foil Edinburgh Drugs Baron!’

Jackie smiled back at him. ‘I can live with that.’

The Gimp stopped halfway down Union Grove outside a grubby-looking tenement and scanned the street, making sure no one was watching him. Jackie turned the radio on, cranking up the volume until it was nearly painful — some late-night DJ on Radio One pounding out dance music into the early morning hours, making the car throb — and drove straight past, eyes forward, not paying any attention to the man with the bag full of drugs. It seemed to work: Rennie twisted and slouched, keeping an eye on the Gimp in the passenger-side wing mirror as the man pulled a key out of his pocket and let himself into the building. Rennie slapped the dashboard. ‘He’s in!’

‘Good.’ Jackie killed the radio and swung the car around, driving slowly back towards the tenement, settling for a parking space a couple of doors down. They sat in the dark, watching the front of the building.

‘Now what?’

‘Now we wait.’ Silence settled on the car, punctuated by Rennie humming the theme tune to Emmerdale . ‘Er... Jackie,’ he said, when he’d finished. ‘Should we not be catching him with the stuff on him? I mean, if he’s not got the drugs, how do we arrest him for it?’

Jackie scrunched up her face and swore. Rennie was right. She opened her door and stepped out into the quiet, night-shrouded street, looking very conspicuous in her Grampian Police uniform. ‘Well, come on then: what you waiting for?’