Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

‘Ow!’

‘Oh don’t be such a baby.’ She wiped a disinfectant-soaked pad across the dark-red teeth-marks again, rubbing away the scabs. Setting them bleeding again. ‘When was your last tetanus shot?’

‘No idea.’

‘You’re a silly sod. Lucky we don’t get a lot of rabies in Scotland — the needles are massive.’

Sharp, stinging pain tore up his leg. He gritted his teeth, tried not to flinch.

‘If you don’t hold still, you’re going to get gangrene and your foot’ll fall off. Is that what you want?’ She rubbed more disinfectant into the wounds.

‘Did you do a check-up on Ricky Brown?’

‘Pass me the pack of gauze.’ She tore the plastic packet open with her teeth. ‘He wasn’t exactly the most cooperative of patients.’

Dr Delaney laid a square of gauze across the huge gouges in Logan’s ankle. ‘Barely a scratch, I don’t know why you’re being such a whinge about it.’

‘He going to be OK?’

‘Nothing a decent meal and a bath wouldn’t sort out. Hospital did an excellent job on his stitches. I’ve got suits with worse needlework in them.’ She wrapped a bandage around the ankle, securing it with a claw-toothed metal thing on the end of a bit of elastic. ‘And I bet he made a lot less fuss than you did.’

‘Thanks Doc.’ Logan hopped down from the desk, then picked up his bloodstained sock and soggy shoe.

‘One more thing.’ She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I’m recommending they take him into permanent care. A family full of drug users is bad enough, but if his mum and … this Shuggie person are involved with Yardies…’

Logan limped back to his desk, popped open the top drawer and stuck his newly-washed coffee mug and teaspoon inside, then locked them away. That was the trouble with working in a police station — all the thieving bastards.

Biohazard Bob swivelled his seat around until he was facing the middle of the room. ‘Beer o’clock?’

‘Can’t.’ Doreen stayed hunched over her desk. ‘Superintendent Green wants details on every kidnapping in the area, going back five years.’

‘Logie the Bogie?’

Logan switched off his computer. ‘Green needs taking out and shot. He’s got me digging out the same info for the last ten . I’ve got Rennie doing it now.’

Doreen hunched her shoulders, grinding out the words, ‘Why — didn’t — you — say — that — three — hours — ago?’

Biohazard poked the power button on his computer. ‘Well, another day spent hunting the elusive Stinky Tam has left me gasping for a pint.’ He picked up the slew of paperwork covering his desk, ruffled it into something approaching order, and jammed it in his pending-tray. ‘Anyone seen my stapler?’

He hauled open his top desk drawer. ‘The hell’s this?’ Bob pulled out the pair of knickers Logan had stuffed in there last week — the ones he’d found clothespegged to his lamp along with all the socks.

Bob turned them back and forth, flashing the brown streaks that covered the gusset. ‘Aye, aye, someone’s been a bittie manky.’

Doreen straightened her back, pink rushing up her cheeks. ‘Well, don’t look at me!’

The door banged open and DI Steel grumbled into the Wee Hoose. ‘Sergeant Marshall, why aren’t…’ She frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

He twirled the skidmarked panties around his finger. ‘Just discussing personal hygiene with DS Taylor, here. Superintendent Green’s never going to want to jump in her pants if she’s left filthy bumscrapes-’

Doreen hit him. ‘Detective Sergeant Robert Marshall, I’m warning you!’

‘Behave, the pair of you.’ Steel chucked a manila folder at Bob. ‘General Enquiry Division just turned up a body on Gairn Terrace.’

‘Yeah?’ He pulled out the paperwork, flipped through it. ‘I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow, Guv, it’ll…’ A sigh. ‘Shite.’ He held up a photograph — a man’s face: nose bloated like a pockmarked golf ball, scraggly beard full of bits, unkempt hair, dirty red Aberdeen Football Club bobble hat. ‘Stinky Tam.’

‘Aye, so get your filthy panty-whirling arse out there and bring the poor bastard in.’

Bob went pink. ‘Yes, Guv.’ He hurried out the door, taking the folder with him.

‘And as for you,’ she turned and poked Logan with a finger, ‘what the hell were you thinking?’

Doreen stood. ‘Well, I guess I should really be off-’

‘No’ so fast.’ Steel slammed her hand into the doorframe, blocking the way. ‘You tell your new boyfriend Green, I don’t need somebody running around checking my work like I’m a bloody probationer. And if I catch him spreading shite around about anyone on my team again, I’m going to jam my fist so far up his arse I’ll be working him like a fucking Muppet. Understand?’

Doreen nodded. Steel lowered her hand and the DS crept out.

Steel closed the door, slowly and quietly. Now it was just her and Logan.

‘If you’re planning on shouting at me, don’t bother.’ Logan picked his jacket off the back of his seat and pulled it on. ‘I got enough of that from Napier and Finnie. I thought I could get the car back before anyone found out.’

She poked him again. ‘If you’d bloody well called it in we could’ve tracked the car and grabbed Shuggie Webster before the Yardies got him! Probably hacked into a million pieces by now!’

‘It’s not like I handed him the keys to the bloody car and said, “Nah, you go ahead and borrow it, mate; I’ll just lie here in the pissing rain!” His dog nearly ripped my face off.’

‘See, you’ve got to keep your eye on wee shites like Shuggie.

Got to keep them under control. Can’t bury your head in the clouds and expect them to behave themselves. That’s just common sense.’ She picked up her mug again, took a slurp. ‘You try a GSM trace?’

‘Of course I did. He’s only turning his mobile on for a couple of minutes at a time, then moving.’

‘No’ as daft as he looks.’ She sucked at her teeth for a bit, staring off into the middle distance. ‘Get a car organized.’

‘But the shift finished-’

‘We’re going to sort out your cock-up before it gets any worse.’

Logan hauled on the handbrake. ‘How many more?’

‘Till we find him. And don’t be so sodding ungrateful.’ Logan groaned. ‘Shift finished two and a half hours ago, and I’ve not had a day off in weeks. What happened to the Working Time Directive?’

‘Pfff, Working Time Directive’s for poofs.’ Steel crumpled up the map and stuffed it into the already overflowing glove compartment. ‘Don’t see me complaining, do you?’ She climbed out into the evening light. Fiddled with her fake cigarette. ‘Anyway, you think Jenny and Alison McGregor don’t want a day off?’

‘Thought you said Susan was up for sex again — how come you’re not off-’

Steel scowled. ‘Don’t be so fucking personal.’ She turned and stomped towards the building.

It was a tenement in Hayton, a long row of four-storey apartment blocks: bland, grey-frontage with a stripe of red or blue paintwork marking out the stairwells. As if that was going to make the place look any better. A handful of tower blocks loomed over the buildings, rusty-oatmeal monoliths with balconies and satellite-dish acne. Someone was having a party in the nearest block, the music thumping out from an upper floor. A red balloon drifting away into the misty drizzle.

Typical: when he was in with Napier, or getting a bollocking from Finnie, it was blazing sunshine, but the minute he stepped outside FHQ — sodding raining again.

‘You just going to stand there looking gormless?’ She pushed through the brown front door. ‘Chop bloody chop.’