Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

Logan knocked on the doorframe. ‘Shop?’

Louise looked up from a clipboard. Smiled. ‘Logan. Isn’t it a lovely day?’ Her pixie-cut was about twenty years too young for her, bleached blonde, the fringe gelled into a jagged curl above a pair of heavy dark eyebrows. White linen shirt, boot-cut jeans, black trainers. She picked up a large manila envelope from her desk, then pointed over his shoulder. ‘Shall we grab a cuppa?’

Louise picked her way out onto the balcony, clipboard tucked under her arm, carrying a tray in both hands. One teapot, one cafetiere, two cups, and a plate of tiny triangular sandwiches. She lowered the tray onto the table. ‘Sorry that took so long.’

Sunny Glen was living up to its name. The timber walls shone in the sunshine, the glass-and-chrome balustrade glinting. Logan had picked the table on the upper terrace, in the shade, with a view down the valley and out to sea. A neon-orange supply vessel ploughed its way towards the horizon, leaving a wake of shimmering white.

And, more importantly, the upper terrace overlooked the lower one.

Down there, a handful of wheelchairs were arrayed across the tiled floor. Some of the residents wearing hats, others baseball caps, a couple bare-headed.

Louise poured tea into Logan’s cup. Nodded at the manila envelope. ‘All signed and sealed?’

He pushed the thing across the small table towards her. ‘Now what?’

‘Now we give it to the lawyers, they give it to the Sheriff, he declares Samantha incapable, and you’re appointed her financial and welfare guardian. Should only take a couple of weeks.’

Logan shifted in his seat. ‘She’s not incapable, she’s ill, it’s not the same thing.’

‘I know, but it has to be done. She hasn’t got anyone else. If her mum and dad were still alive …’ A shrug. Then Louise smiled. Nodded towards the lower terrace. ‘She’s looking well, isn’t she?’

Samantha’s wheelchair sat over by the railing, her back turned to them. Her hair was almost solid brown now, just a tiny fringe of its former colour holding on at the tips. Red, faded to a dirty pinky-grey. Arms curled against her chest. Knees together. Head tilted on one side. As if some great fist had taken hold of her and squeezed till she was twisted out of shape. Far enough away that she couldn’t hear them talking about her.

‘So, about this chest infection …?’

A shrug. ‘You know what it’s like. She’s less susceptible to them now she’s sitting up more of the time. But it’s always the same with brain injuries. Chest infections, urinary infections. At least her temperature control’s a lot better: she hasn’t had a storm in months.’

The tea was hot but underbrewed. Thin and anaemic. A pale shadow of what it should have been.

Louise pressed the plunger on her cafetiere. ‘Samantha’s made remarkable progress since she got here. In fact, if she keeps this up, I think we should aim for a cranioplasty in August or September. Get them to patch the hole in her skull with a metal plate.’

‘A metal plate.’

‘Well, assuming the intracranial pressure remains within safe limits … But there’s no reason to suppose it won’t. And she’ll look a lot more like her normal self without that big dip in her head.’ Louise poured the coffee. Sipped. ‘She smiled yesterday.’

He sat up straight. ‘What?’

A grin. ‘Isn’t that great? First time she’s reacted to anything. I tried calling you. Didn’t you get my message?’

Don’t get your hopes up. Small steps. Remember what the neurosurgeon said.

‘What was it? What made her smile?’

Logan hunkered down on his haunches next to the wheelchair. Looked up into Samantha’s face. Frowned. Took out his handkerchief and wiped a line of dribble from the side of her mouth. ‘I hear you’ve been smiling at the guy who rubs your feet. You hussy.’

No reaction. But then there never was.

Two thick Velcro straps held her upright in the chair, wrapped around the metal frame, then across her chest. Stopped her slumping over, or falling out.

‘Louise says you’re now officially a ten on the Glasgow Coma Scale. How cool is that?’

Nothing.

‘And we’re having you declared incapable, that’s nice, isn’t it?’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Held them off for as long as I could, but apparently I haven’t got a choice any more. I’m going to be your guardian. Like Bruce Wayne and Thingy the Boy Wonder. Only you don’t have to wear a stupid yellow cape and big green pants over your tights.’

Still nothing.

He wiped away another line of dribble.

‘Anyway, they’re talking about putting a metal plate in your head. Maybe September, if you keep going the way you are. That’ll be fun, won’t it?’ He brushed a strand of long brown hair from her face. Doing his best not to touch the big dent over her left ear where they removed a chunk of skull to relieve the pressure on her brain. ‘You could wear hats again. Or maybe we could stick fridge magnets on it …’

He settled his back against the glass balustrade. ‘We caught a dead wee girl, Monday night. Down by the swimming pool. Steel’s up with the MIT. Susan’s tests came back and there’s only a one in five hundred chance of the baby having Down’s. That’s good, isn’t it?’

Samantha didn’t move, staring straight through him as usual.

He cleared his throat. Turned his head. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

The supply boat was smaller now, churning away across the slab of navy blue.

‘I screwed up. Graham Stirling’s going to get away with what he did to Stephen Bisset. He’s going to beat the charges and walk … because of me.’

A herring gull flapped to the ground on the other side of the glass railing. Strutted up and down, glaring at him with its yellow eyes.

‘Should be spending the rest of his life in prison, and instead: they’re going to let him go …’

The gull cocked its head and crawked at him. Pacing. Demanding. Shouting. Like a miniature DCI Steel.

‘Hissing Sid’s trying to make out that I fitted Stirling up. Can you imagine that? Me?’ A small laugh that tasted as bitter as the spittle he’d left in the toilet bowl. ‘Never fitted anyone up in my life.’

It raised its wings and screamed at him, high-pitched and grating. Digging into his brain with sharp little claws.

‘Spent half my life trying to put bastards like him behind bars, and the courts let them go. If I’d been fitting him up, I’d have made damn sure he couldn’t wriggle out of it …’ Logan scowled at the seagull. It glared back at him. ‘Tell you what I should do: I should go round to Stirling’s house, middle of the night, and batter his head in with a crowbar.’

A sigh.

‘Well, we can always dream, can’t we?’ Logan stood. Brushed the dust off his jeans. ‘You don’t want to hear about this crap, do you? Course you don’t. It’s just me being a whinge.’ He clapped his hands, fetched a chair from the nearest table and set it down next to Samantha. ‘Now, how about we watch the ships and the seagulls for a bit?’

‘Yeah, hold on …’ Logan pinned the phone between his ear and his shoulder, shifted the heavy shopping bags to his other hand, then dug his keys out of his pocket. ‘Sorry, what?’

On the other end, Biohazard sounded as if he was chewing bits of broken glass. ‘Could’ve bloody swung for him. I swear to God, right there in the middle of the court. Homophobic? Me?’

‘So we’re screwed then.’

‘Said, and I quote, “How long have Police Scotland been operating a vendetta against Aberdeen’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities?” And you know why? Because Stirling was in that dress when we caught him, and I called him Danny the Drag Queen!’