Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

A swift boot in the nuts and he was folded over again, blood pouring from his ruined nose, jerking back and forward.

Logan stamped on his left ankle. ‘Say you’re sorry!’ He kicked the big man over onto his back, then sat down hard on his chest. Rammed another elbow into his face. Shuggie’s head bounced off the plastic sheeting with a dull thunk . Logan hauled the duct tape gag off and Shuggie dragged in a huge breath.

Logan hit him again, not bothering with the elbow, using his fist. ‘Say-’ punch, ‘-you’re-’ punch, ‘-fucking-’ punch, ‘-SORRY!’ Then sat back, breathing hard.

Shuggie’s face was already beginning to swell up, one eye closing over, the other well on its way — the pupil adrift in a sea of bright red. Nose flattened, lips split. Probably a broken cheekbone.

‘Urgh…’ Bubbles of blood popped at the side of his battered mouth.

‘Everything we do, all the shit we put up with, to keep bastards like you from hurting people. Stealing from them. Dealing drugs to their kids and ruining their fucking lives…’ Logan hauled himself to his feet, flexed his right hand, feeling the layers of glove tight across his skin. He kicked him again, catching Shuggie on the side of the knee, where it would do the most damage.

The big man screamed. ‘Say you’re sorry.’

Shuggie just lay there, gurgling blood and crying. ‘SAY IT.’

‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry…’ His voice was wet, strangled with sobs. ‘Whatever … whatever I did — oh God — I’m sorry.’

Logan stared at him. ‘“Whatever you did” ?’ Piece of shit. He stamped on Shuggie’s stomach, folding him up again.

‘Aaaaaa! Please, I’m sorry!’

‘YOU SET FIRE TO MY FLAT, YOU FUCKING WANKER!’

‘I’m so … I’m so sorry…’

‘You stuck a condom through my letterbox, filled it with petrol, and set fire to the fucking thing!’ Another kick in the stomach. ‘What, were you too stoned to remember? Samantha’s in a fucking coma because of you!’ One more for luck.

‘Aaaaaaaaagh!’ Shuggie lay there, trembling and panting. ‘I didn’t do it, please, I didn’t set fire to anything!’

Logan backed off a couple of steps. ‘How stupid do you think I am?’

The song on the stereo ended, replaced by another round of thumping drums and squealing guitars.

‘I can’t… My hand. How could … could I pour fuck-all through … through anything?’ Shuggie curled up into a ball, battered forehead resting on his one good knee. ‘Look at it. LOOK AT IT!’

Logan walked around to the other side and stared down at the filthy bandage completely covering Shuggie’s right hand. ‘Doesn’t mean you can’t still use it.’

‘They skinned my … my fingers.’ He coughed, spraying blood and chunks of tooth all over his jeans.

Logan knelt down behind him and yanked Shuggie’s arms back. A safety pin held the tatty bandage end in place. Logan fumbled with it, the three layers of gloves making it nearly impossible. And then he got it, pulled the rust-flecked pin out, and unwound the bandage.

Shuggie screamed — the grubby fabric tugging at the raw flesh, coming away like strawberry jam, stinking of rancid meat.

‘Jesus…’ Only the thumb and forefinger were visible, but they were a stomach-lurching mess of purple, red and black, the tendons just visible as grey strips. Logan backed away to the edge of the plastic sheeting. ‘Why didn’t you go to the hospital?’

‘Every … every day I … I couldn’t pay them back … they took … took another one…’ Breath hissing out through bloody lips.

God almighty. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t set fire … to anything.’ He made a sound that almost sounded like a laugh. ‘How could I?’

Logan’s stomach lurched. Head full of burning coals, mouth full of saliva. He staggered back against the shelving.

It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Shuggie.

He swallowed, forced down the bitter taste of bile. Even if Shuggie didn’t pour the petrol, it was still his fault. There had to be consequences .

‘Where are they? Jacob and Robert — your Yardie mates? Did you tell them I wouldn’t give you your fucking drugs back? Did you set those bastards on me?’

Logan’s eyes stung, his vision blurring.

Blink. Swallow. ‘Where the fuck are they?’

Lying, sobbing on the warehouse floor, Shuggie told him.

‘Oh…’ Jonny Urquhart stood looking down at Shuggie Webster’s battered body. ‘Cos it’s no problem if you want me to … you know.’ He made a gun with his thumb and forefinger.

‘No.’ Logan cleared his throat. ‘He’s under arrest.’

‘You sure? Cos you’ve really kinda fucked him up. What’s going to happen when he’s served his time, eh? You want some junkie scroat bag coming after you?’

Silence.

That’s what had caused this whole mess in the first place. ‘Tell you what.’ Urquhart hunkered down next to Shuggie. ‘Listen up, fuckwit, and listen really good, ’cos if I have to repeat myself, you’re screwed. You do anything to this nice police officer and we’re gonna find you. You’re gonna give yourself up, and you’re gonna cough to whatever he says, and you’re gonna to go to prison and do your time like a good little boy. You so much as whisper “police brutality” and I’ll get some huge bastard to rape your arse ragged, then cut your fucking throat. We clear?’

Shuggie coughed up a mouthful of dark red. ‘I said, are we fucking clear?’

‘Yeth…’ It was little more than a whisper, borne on a bubble of blood.

Urquhart ran a hand through his green hair. ‘Course he’s a junkie, and you know what their word’s worth. Sure you don’t want me to-’

‘No. Just…’ What? Drop him off at the station looking as if he’s been run over by a combine harvester? Take him to the hospital? Anything that ended up with Wee Hamish being connected to Shuggie Webster was eventually going to lead right back to him.

And maybe Logan deserved it.

He peeled off his three layers of gloves. His hands stank of elastic bands, the knuckles tainted deep pink, the skin puffy and tender. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

‘OK.’ Urquhart nudged Shuggie’s crying body with the toe of his boot. ‘You’re a lucky fuck, Shugs. See if you’d set my house on fire?’ A smile. ‘You just remember what I said: one step out of line and…’ he drew a finger across his throat.

Logan hauled on the handbrake outside Accident and Emergency, pulse rushing and booming in his ears. ‘This is all your own fault. You should’ve turned yourself in when I gave you the sodding chance. You’d still have your fingers, and Samantha wouldn’t…’ He gritted his teeth. Then opened the car door and climbed out into the warm afternoon. ‘Stay here.’

Shuggie sat in the passenger seat, cradling his skinned hand, his face a bubbling mass of raw meat. Tears making clean tracks on his bloody cheeks.

Past the small knot of smokers and in through the automatic doors to A amp;E. There was a herd of wheelchairs just inside — not proper ones, just brown vinyl seats with four little wheels at the end of their legs. Logan grabbed one and performed a seven point turn with the thing, fighting to get it facing the right way.

‘Worse than a wobbly shopping trolley, eh?’ It was the guy from last night: Mop Dude, pushing a buggy loaded with newspapers, crisps, bars of chocolate, and assorted sweeties. There was a little stack of the Evening Express next to the Curlywurlies, ‘SICK COUPLE TRY TO CASH IN ON KIDNAP TRAGEDY’. He nodded. ‘Unbelievable, isn’t it? Got to wonder what’s wrong with some people, you know?’

He flicked a strand of long brown hair away from his face and grinned, the piercing in his nose sparkling in the hospital’s dismal fluorescent lighting. ‘How’s your girlfriend? She doing better?’