Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

Tearaway turns her life around, becomes a loving wife and a devoted mum, Doddy dies in Iraq, Alison gets on

Britain’s Next Big Star to honour his memory, and the rest is history.

More shots of Alison and Jenny at home, then… Logan frowned. The next two pages were stuck together. They came apart with a ripping sound, and there was a photo of Alison at the beach, wearing a yellow bikini, smiling at the camera, one hand behind her head, Jenny building a sandcastle at her feet. There were bits of the opposite page stuck to Alison’s stomach chest and face.

Bob appeared at his shoulder. ‘Someone got a bit excited…’ Logan dumped the magazine in the bin. ‘What the hell’s wrong with people?’

‘Give the kid a break. Like you’ve never entertained a fivefingered shuffle over a photo of some half-naked bird.’

‘There was a wee girl in the pic, Bob.’

He curled his top lip. ‘Aye, I’ll give you that.’

Maybe that’s what he’d been running away from? ‘Sangster leave a note?’

‘Yeah, the usual. I’m sorry, I couldn’t take it any more, I’ve let everyone down…’ Bob shook his head, then settled on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you have any idea how often people write exactly the same thing? Their last words on earth, and they’re sorry they let everyone down. How fucked up is that?’ He ran a hand through his hair, until he got to the bald patch at the back. ‘At least I’m not doing the death notice this time, some poor sod in York can tell Bruce’s parents he couldn’t live up to their expectations… I fucking hate suicides.’

Logan looked around the room. ‘So, come on then — why are you here? We’ve got no suspicious circumstances: why aren’t the GED dealing with it?’

‘They are. I’m not here because Bruce’s dead — apparently Finnie doesn’t care about that. What Finnie does care about is where Bruce got the morphine from. Controlled substance. Must be someone dealing on campus.’ Bob raised his chin. ‘So now I’ve got to go tell all of Bruce’s mates he’s dead, and ask them, “Are you a drug dealer?”’ He pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and passed it over. ‘Got them off his phone and laptop contacts. Don’t fancy helping do you?’

Fat chance.

Logan skimmed the names. ‘Think I did Liam Christie for stealing shop mannequins last year. Silly sod said he was building a plastic army to overthrow our reptilian overlords. Bloody medical students are always the worst…’ He stopped, then pulled a list from his own pocket. Double checked the names and addresses. ‘You’re in luck, Bob — I’m speaking to some of these guys today anyway.’

‘Do us a favour: ask them if they’re doing a bit of dealing to pay their way through university, eh?’

Logan threw Bob’s list back at him. ‘We can sort out what it’s going to cost you later.’

‘It’s just, like, can the world get any worse?’ Another poky little room — this time plastered with Twilight posters and featuring a life-sized cardboard cut-out of the vampire bloke with the greasy hair. Tanya Marsden dabbed at her pink eyes, sniffed, then worried the paper hanky into tiny scraps with bony fingers. ‘I mean, first Alison, and now poor Bruce. It’s like, the whole university’s been placed under some evil curse…’ She stared at Logan from the depths of a dark, floppy fringe.

‘How well did you know Bruce, Miss Marsden?’

‘Please, call me Tiggy. We used to role play together: AD amp;D, a bunch of us, you know, got a group together in first year. Most of them just drifted away… But Bruce hung in till last Christmas — too much studying to do. I like Bruce. He was a good friend, you know?’

‘And did he ever speak to you about drugs?’

‘For real? No way . Bruce is going to be a doctor…’ She looked down at the shredded paper in her hands. ‘ Was going to be a doctor. He was super smart, there’s no way he’d risk getting kicked out of uni.’

‘Did he say anything to you in the last couple of weeks? Anything that might explain why he did it?’

Her shoulders quivered. ‘I should’ve done something. I mean, what’s the point of doing psychology if you can’t even help a friend? He was always working, you know? Always had his head in a textbook, never went to the pub…’ She bit her bottom lip, blinked, then rubbed a hand across her eyes. ‘I’m sorry…’

Logan sat back in the plastic chair and watched her sniff. That was the trouble with psychology students, the little sods were being taught how to manipulate other people. Of course, they didn’t call it that, they called it Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and things like that. The kind of thing Rennie was trying to pull with the sex offenders.

‘So, you knew Alison McGregor, eh? Must’ve been hard for her — single mum, studying, raising a little girl, rehearsing, being on the telly?’

She rolled her eyes and laughed, a short, brittle sound. ‘Oh God, yes. But she was terrific, seriously, like a total inspiration. We were thick as thieves, Alison and me, complete BFFs. Used to crib each other’s lecture notes, if one of us couldn’t make it and that.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Logan wrote the word ‘LIAR’ next to Tanya Marsden’s name in his notebook. Every single student he’d talked to had sworn they were Alison McGregor’s bestest friend. Jumping on the D-lebrity bandwagon and fighting over the seats: look at me, I know the kidnapped woman and her tortured daughter!

‘I can’t believe this happened…’ The tears were back. ‘They’ll let them go, right? Alison and Jenny? I mean, there’s got to be millions in the fund by now — that’s got to be enough.’

‘She was just the best person I’d ever met.’ Jade Shepley sighed. ‘Wow. To just, I mean, imagine what she must be going through.’ She furrowed her brow. Barely nineteen and she was already wearing a twinset-and-pearls, hair cut into a sensible bob, Velma-from-Scooby-Doo glasses.

Her room was decorated with yet another collection of posters: Audrey Hepburn — Breakfast at Tiffany’s ; a kitten in a tree — ‘SOMETIMES MONDAY LASTS ALL WEEK’; and a couple advertising am-dram musical productions.

‘It’s such a horrible thing to happen. Poor Alison…’ Jade lent closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘We were best of friends, you know.’

‘Oh no, I can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt her.’ Phillipa McEwan blinked, bit her bottom lip, stared at her hands. ‘Alison was just the loveliest person in the whole world. She was always popping past to talk about how her day went, or borrow a book or something.’ Posters: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ; Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout ; Einstein sticking his tongue out. ‘There’s not a day I don’t pray for her.’

‘Actually, she was a complete bitch.’ Stephen Clayton sprawled in the room’s only seat, leaving Logan to stand. Posters: Coldplay; Yoda; U2; David Tennant getting his sonic screwdriver out, with the TARDIS in the background — signed; and the classic Jurassic Park logo. A remote-control Dalek sat on the floor, next to a wastepaper basket overflowing with scrunched up empty Cheesy Wotsits packets.

Clayton cracked open a tin of Red Bull and gulped at it. Belched. Skull-and-crossbones earring, T-shirt with cannabis leaf motif, stud in the nose, blond hair down to the middle of his back.

Ooh, look at me, I’m such a rebel. ‘And why was that?’

Clayton curled his top lip. ‘Why do you think? Always swanning about like she was fucking royalty.’ His voice jumped an octave. ‘“Oh, I’m on TV, I’m so special , so much better than the rest of you ordinary little plebs.” Bitch.’ He brushed the hair from his face. ‘Stuck up, holier than thou, lying, two-faced bitch.’