Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

‘Ow…’

One of the less useless team members stuck their back to the wall, hunkered down and cupped their hands together, giving everyone else a leg up as they barrelled inside. Then she looked at Logan. Nodded towards her gloved hands.

‘Sarge?’

‘Thanks, but I’ll wait for the all-clear.’

‘Suit yourself.’ She turned and scrambled in through the broken window.

There was no point heading back to the car, so Logan perched himself on the bonnet of the BMW and fidgeted through his pockets for the packet of cigarettes that wasn’t there any more. Four weeks, two days and… what time was it now? Just after half three in the morning… Eight hours. Not bad going.

He stifled a yawn.

The sound of a toilet flushing came from upstairs, just audible between the shouts, screams, barking, and the high-pitched wail of a young child. Brilliant — more paperwork. At this rate he’d be lucky to get home before lunchtime. Which was going to be cutting it a bit fine…

Bloody PC Bloody Guthrie. Can’t you have a quick word, Sarge?

Speak of the devil.

Guthrie kicked his way through the grass until he was standing beside Logan, looking up at the house. ‘We going to be much longer, Sarge? Only I’ve got-’

‘Unless the next words out of your mouth are “I’ve got to go buy everyone a bacon buttie” I wouldn’t risk it. Understand?’

Guthrie’s chubby cheeks went a fetching shade of pink. ‘Er … yeah, that was what I was going to say. Bacon butties. You back on the meat then?’

‘Get onto Social Services — we’ll need someone to take care of the kid.’

The words, ‘PUT THAT BLOODY THING DOWN!’ boomed out from inside. Then a portable television burst through an upstairs window in a halo of glass. The TV crashed into the garden three foot from where they stood, cathode ray tube giving an angry pop as it burst.

Logan smacked a hand against Guthrie’s arm. ‘Might want to stand back a bit.’

A full-grown man barrelled out of the upstairs window. He seemed to hang in the air for a moment, caught in the light from the bedroom. And then he slammed into the garden at their feet with a sickening thud and crack.

Pause.

No movement. Just some groaning and muffled swearing. ‘Jesus…’ Guthrie hunkered down beside the crumpled figure. ‘Are you all right? Don’t move!’

One of the forced entry team peered out over the window-sill. ‘Everyone OK down there?’

‘More or less.’ Logan stood and dusted his hands together. ‘Billy Dawson, you silly sod. When are you going to learn that drug-dealing toerags can’t fly?’

‘Urgh…’ Billy’s face was a mass of beard and gritted teeth, his eyes wide, the pupils huge and dark. ‘Think my leg’s broke…’

‘Lucky it wasn’t your neck. So, come on then: how much gear have you got in the house?’

‘How… I … don’t know what you’re on about.’

‘We’re going to find it anyway. Might as well save everyone the bother.’

‘Aaaaargh, my leg… Ahem. You know?’

Logan hit Guthrie again. ‘When you’ve finished speaking to Social Services, call for an ambulance.’

The constable upstairs waved again. ‘Better make it two.’

Logan walked towards the house, stepping over the groaning body. ‘And keep an eye on Billy here, don’t want him doing a runner and injuring himself.’

‘They tried flushing most of it, but the whole bathroom’s clarted with the stuff.’ PC Ferguson waved a hand at the once-blue suite, now layered with a dusting of dirty-brown powder. A small pile of torn plastic and parcel-tape lay between the cistern and the bath; more, unopened, packages on the grubby lino floor.

The room smelled of peppery ammonia, dirty toilet, and floral air freshener … with a dark, fizzy undertone that was making Logan’s teeth itch. Probably better not to stand about breathing it in. He backed out of the room, hauling Ferguson after him, and closed the door. ‘Leave it for Forensics.’

Ferguson peeled the black scarf from around his face, showing off an amateur moustache kit. ‘Look, about earlier-’

‘What, when you forgot the hoolie bar?’

‘Er … yeah. Look, we don’t have to mention that, do we? I mean-’

‘So what am I supposed to say when Finnie asks why it took us so long to force entry the suspects had time to flush three bricks of heroin?’

The constable stared at his boots. ‘Operational difficulties?’

‘Greg, you’re a disaster, you know that, don’t you?’

He grinned. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’

‘Must be bloody mad.’ Logan turned and looked down over the balustrade.

The flocked wallpaper was torn and baggy, a patchy coat of magnolia doing little to make it look any classier. Scuffed carpet dotted with brown stains and clumps of animal hair. Bare light bulbs. A bedroom door with a deep gouge out of the wood, showing off the hollow interior.

The familiar bitter-sweet-sweaty taint of cannabis hung in the warm, stale air. Which explained the size of Billy’s pupils.

‘Where’s the rest of them?’

Ferguson pointed at the bedroom with the dented door. ‘Got two in there; one in the kitchen — fell over and split his head open on the worktop, stoned out his tits; one in the other bedroom… Well, two if you count the kid; and-’

‘One flat on his face in the middle of the front garden?’

‘I was going to say, one handcuffed out back.’

Logan made for the nearest bedroom. ‘Well bring him in then.’

‘Ah…’

He stopped, one hand on the doorknob. ‘Greg: what did you do?’

‘It wasn’t me! It was just … well we caught him trying to do a runner over the back fence, and Ellen was handcuffing him, when the biggest dog you’ve ever seen in your life comes tearing out of the bushes. And we kinda had to leg it. Barely got back inside with the arse still in our trousers. Left him cuffed to the whirly washing line thing.’

‘In the name of…’ Logan closed his eyes. Counted to ten.

‘Sarge?’

‘Whirlies aren’t fixed to the ground, Greg: the metal pole goes into a little hole. All he has to do is lift the thing up and he’ll be off!’ Logan wrenched the bedroom door open.

A woman crouched in the corner wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of ripped jeans. Stick thin, all elbows and ribs, sunken eyes glittering like polished coal. Hands cuffed behind her back. Chapped and faded lips, pulled back over yellowing teeth. ‘We didn’t do nothing!’

A small child — couldn’t have been more than three-years-old — was perched in her lap, wearing a filthy pair of Ben 10 pyjamas. Snot silvered the wee boy’s top lip, something brown smeared around his mouth.

One of the forced entry team was standing over them, fiddling with a mobile phone.

Logan brushed past, making for the window. ‘You better not be updating your bloody Twitter account, Archie.’

The pudding-faced constable blushed and stuck the phone in his pocket.

Logan stared into the back garden. There was a man in the middle of the wilderness, fighting with a rotary washing line while a black dog patrolled the knee-high grass around him. Shuggie Webster.

At least Ellen had been bright enough to cuff him to the complicated lever joint that attached the four arms to the pole.

He was getting a bit enthusiastic … Hauling, tugging, swearing, trying to break either the handcuffs or the whirly, getting tangled up in dirty yellow washing line. A big ugly fly caught in a plastic spider’s web. He turned himself upside down, both feet planted against the whirly’s arms, straining.

Logan opened the bedroom window. ‘He’s going to dislocate his wrist if he isn’t careful.’