Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

‘Here, watch where you’re going!’ An old lady stooped on the landing, a squeegee mop making dark wet streaks on the concrete. ‘I just cleaned that!’

Rennie pulled the black scarf down away from his mouth. ‘Sorry.’

‘So you bloody should be! Do you think I’ve got nothing better to do than clean up after your size nine jackboots?’

‘Sorry, sorry…’ He crept past on tiptoes, then ran up the next flight of stairs.

Behind him, Logan shrugged. ‘We’ll try to be quick, but maybe you should go get yourself a cup of tea or something?’

She shook the mop at him, sending droplets of pine-scented water spattering over his bulletproof vest. ‘Don’t you tell me what to do, you bloody fascist! I’m eighty-three… You come back here!’

Logan hurried up the stairs after Rennie, hearing a procession of ‘Sorry,’ and ‘Excuse me,’ and ‘You’re doing a lovely job,’ behind him.

Third floor. Rennie was flattened against the wall outside a blue door with a brass number five on it. The constable shifted his submachine gun into position. ‘Big Red Door Key?’

‘It’s a third floor flat, where’s he going to go?’ Logan reached out and pressed the doorbell.

A dull buzz came from inside.

A minute later, someone shouted, ‘Hold on, I’m naked…’ Finally the door clunked open and man stood in the gloomy hallway, a short, threadbare green dressing gown clutched about his middle. He ran a hand over the stubble covering his lopsided head, looked Logan up and down, then stuck his head out into the corridor. Saw the rest of the firearms team. Grunted. ‘Suppose you’d better come in then.’

Zack Aitken slumped back in his seat, knees twitching open and closed, as if he was working a set of bellows between them. The room had the unmistakable funky-sweat odour of cannabis and dirty bong water.

PC Caldwell grimaced. ‘Any chance you can sit with your knees together or something? Or at least put on some underwear. It’s like watching two mangy hamsters fighting over a cocktail sausage.’

‘All right, enough.’ Logan unfastened his helmet and dropped it on the couch. ‘Where is he, Zack?’

‘Who?’

‘You know who — Shuggie Webster. We tracked his mobile here.’

‘Wee bastard…’ A pained smile. ‘Well, you see, he kinda asked if he could borrow my phone to make a call, and I thought, yeah, why not — what are friends for, right?’

‘Where is it?’

‘Wh-’

‘If you say “what” I swear to God I’m going to drag you down the station and get a doctor with the biggest hands I can find to give you a full body cavity search.’

‘Aye, OK. On top of the telly. And before you ask, I got the receipt somewhere.’

Rennie picked it up and threw it across. Logan went through the menus till he got to the call log. And there it was — a two-minute call made at two forty-five that morning to Logan’s mobile.

‘Where is he?’

A huge shrug, his arms coming level with his shoulders which made his dressing gown ride up even further. ‘No idea. Shuggie wanted to borrow a phone and a bit of folding, you know? I didn’t ask any questions.’ Aitkin’s smile was full of squint little teeth. ‘Like I said, I’m a good mate.’

Logan peeled off his gloves and dumped them in the upturned helmet. ‘You know he’s screwed, don’t you?’

The smile narrowed. ‘He’s got some problems, yeah.’

‘Witness says Trisha Brown was snatched off the streets Saturday evening. Someone beat the crap out of her. Blue saloon car.’

The smile disappeared completely. ‘Fuck.’

‘Yes, “fuck”. Fuck is exactly right. Shuggie Webster is well and truly fucked. Now, if you’re really such a “good mate” you’ll help me help him .’

‘Seriously, I have no sodding idea. He turned up at my door last night, looking like shite and wanting a place to crash. Made a couple of phone calls, got stoned, ate all the Coco Pops, fell asleep, woke up, ate all the bread, left with five hundred quid in his pocket.’

Logan stared at him. ‘That it?’

‘That, and I know he seriously hates the shite out of you.’ Shock, horror.

PC Ferguson knocked on the doorframe. ‘Sorry, Sarge: been through the whole place, no sign of Shuggie. Even took the front panel off the bath like you said.’

‘Attic?’

‘Communal; access off the next floor up — nothing but cardboard boxes, some wine-making kit, and spiders.’

‘Well, sorry I couldn’t be more help, officers, but I really need to jump in the shower.’ Zack gave PC Caldwell a wink. ‘You want to stay and shampoo my back? I like a big girl when she’s all soapy.’

‘You manky little-‘

Rennie and Ferguson grabbed Caldwell and dragged her away before she could kill him.

Logan picked his helmet off the couch. ‘One more thing. These dealers he’s in trouble with?’

‘Ah … yeah. Robert and Jacob. Yardies. Now normally I’ve got no trouble with our proud Jamaican brothers, but these two are a right pair of cunts. You see what they did to Shuggie’s hand?’ A shudder. ‘He was fucking mental to get involved with that pair. And you know what?’ Zack pointed towards the front door. ‘I’m not going to make the same mistake.’

‘Pub?’ Rennie waggled his hand in the universal sign-language for pint.

Caldwell nodded. ‘Pub.’

Ferguson: ‘Pub.’

Then everyone was at it, all seven members of the firearms team: ‘Pub.’

‘ After you’ve written up your incident reports.’ Logan smiled. ‘And as no one got shot, it’s my round.’

It was like watching small children discover there was a Father Christmas after all.

‘Right,’ Caldwell sniffed her own armpit, ‘quick shower, then Archies?’

‘Not again !’

‘Last time I was in, so were three blokes I did for nicking cars. Kept spitting in my pint when I wasn’t looking.’

‘How about the Athenaeum?’

‘Illicit Still?’

That was the thing about Aberdeen — you were never more than five minutes from at least half a dozen pubs.

Logan pushed through the door to the locker room. ‘What about Blackfriars? We could…’

Sergeant Big Gary McCormack was standing right in front of him, blocking most of the room. Mug of coffee in one hand, Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer in the other. ‘The sainted Sergeant McRae, as I live and breathe. How gracious of you to bless us with your exalted presence. Where’s my pool car?’

‘It’s evidence, you can have it back when the IB are finished with it.’ Logan pushed past him. ‘We’re off to the pub in about half an hour, if you’re-’

‘Oh, no, no, no!’ Big Gary jammed the last chunk of chocolate into his mouth and masticated it to death. ‘You’re not going anywhere. You have guests .’

Logan opened his mouth, but the huge sergeant held up a hand.

‘Reception: soon as you’re ready.’

‘Hmm…’ Dr ‘Call me Dave’ Goulding peered at the little TV monitor in the Downstream Observation Suite. On the screen, a young woman — little more than a girl, really — was sitting at the interview room table, in the chair that was bolted to the floor. Both hands clasped in front of her, thumbnails worrying at the skin on her right forefinger.

‘I can’t say I remember her at all.’ The psychologist frowned. ‘But then, I only lecture final year students, so…’ He flipped through the file Logan had given him — all the interview transcripts, the university’s comments, the stuff from the PNC. ‘Hmm… A history of stalking, and a shrine in her room to Alison and Jenny McGregor-’