Stuart MacBride - Partners in Crime

Logan stared at her. ‘Yes, I think someone might just have noticed a bloody gunfight in the middle of the street, right outside the hotel bar.’

‘Susan’s going to kill me…’

Kevin McGregor hobbled around to the side of the Transit van.

Logan took a deep breath and stepped onto the road. Pulled out his warrant card and walked towards the van. ‘Police! Put your weapon down and keep your hands where I can see them.’

McGregor froze, halfway through hauling the driver’s door open. Then turned. ‘Sling your hook, before you get hurt.’

‘Come on Kevin, it’s over. You know it’s over.’

McGregor slammed his hand on the side of the van. Logan flinched. The seagulls stirred. Probably wondering if they’d get police officer for starters.

‘I came back from the dead for this. It’s not over till I say so.’ He pointed at DI Steel’s little MX-5. ‘That’s your car, right? Saw you sitting in it, watching the hotel.’

‘Kevin McGregor, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murders of James Weasdale, Brigid Riley, and Niamh Riley, you- Oh God!’

McGregor’s gun barked twice and the MX-5’s front tyres exploded in shreds of black rubber. Then he turned and blew out the tyres of the Rileys’ camper van, and the Toyota pick-up parked opposite. The noise was deafening, the smell of fireworks seeping away into the rain.

‘Like I said: it’s not over till I say it is.’ He dragged himself up into the Transit van, heaving his leg over the seat, teeth gritted. Then slammed the door.

Steel appeared at Logan’s shoulder. ‘My car… The… He shot my sodding car!’

Kevin McGregor grinned, gave them a wave, then put the van in gear.

A moment of utter silence. Then it was as if the whole world bellowed. The Transit van bucked, riding a mushroom of boiling orange flame, the cab expanding — a balloon of rusty blue metal and safety glass. And then the noise : it was like being smacked in the chest with a sledgehammer, followed by a blast of hot air that tore the ground from under Logan’s feet and sent him crashing sideways against DI Steel.

The van clattered back to the blackened tarmac, bounced, fell onto its side, the rear doors twenty yards away.

A pall of white dust filled the air above it, drifting in the wind as the seagulls leapt shrieking from the distillery roof. The cloud caught them above the shop. They lurched, swooped, bumped into each other, and the walls, and the slates, then tumbled to the road. Lying on their backs, legs and wings twitching as the Transit van burned. Doped out of their tiny little minds.

Logan rolled onto his front and levered himself to his knees, ears ringing.

Steel coughed, spluttered, groaned. ‘SODDING HELL…’

‘WHAT?’

‘THINK I BROKE MY ARSE…’ She dug a finger into her ear and jiggled it about. ‘CAN YOU HEAR THAT?’

The Transit van’s front bumper clanged back down against the road, lying amongst the stoned seagulls.

Logan clutched at the ancient red telephone box, pulling himself up on wobbly feet. ‘That’s what happens when you mess with a pair of paramilitary nut-jobs who’ve got a thing for explosives.’

‘HELP ME UP.’

He hauled her to her feet. ‘Stop yelling at me.’

‘WHAT?’

Christ. ‘Never mind.’

‘I CAN’T HEAR YOU.’

The door to the hotel bar swung open and a figure in jeans and a hooded top stepped out onto the stone balcony, her caramel-coloured hair pulled back in a ponytail: Susan. She stared at the burning wreckage in the middle of the road, then at the MX-5 with its two blown-out front tyres. Then at DI Steel: standing next to Logan with her legs planted wide apart, one hand holding onto his arm, as if the tarmac was bobbing about on rough seas.

Susan’s eyes narrowed. She stuck her fists on her hips. ‘Roberta Steel, what the bloody hell have you been up to?’