Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

PC Ferguson sidled up. ‘Don’t get any brighter, do they?’

‘Hoy! Shuggie!’

The man froze, still dangling upside down.

‘Cut it out. You’ve been caught.’

The dog stopped its patrolling and turned to bark and snarl up at them.

The constable with the mobile phone appeared at Logan’s shoulder. ‘Bugger me… That’s a big dog.’

The stick-thin woman shoulder-charged Archie, hands still cuffed behind her back, sending him stumbling into Ferguson. Both officers went crashing to the bedroom floor in a tangle of limbs and swearing.

She shoved past Logan to the open window. ‘Shuggie! Pull the thing out the ground, you daft fuck!’

Logan grabbed her, tried to haul her back, but she lashed out with a knee.

Boiling oil flared out from his groin, curdling in the pit of his stomach, making his knees buckle. He steadied himself against the tatty wallpaper. Oh Christ that hurt.

‘Shuggie! PULL THE FUCKING WHIRLY OUT THE GROUND!’

Outside, Shuggie finally seemed to understand. He squatted down as far as he could with one wrist cuffed to the articulated joint, wrapped his other hand around the pole, and hauled the whole thing out of the ground. He teetered for a moment, turned through a hundred and eighty degrees, then fell on his bum, tangled in the yellow plastic washing line again.

‘GET UP YOU DAFT CUNT!’

Logan cleared his throat, gritted his teeth, grabbed the skeletal woman again and threw her onto the bed — she bounced off the mattress and went spinning over the other side, disappearing from view with a thud.

The little boy wailed, tears and snot running down his puffy pink face.

PC Ferguson was back on his feet, leaning out of the window. ‘COME BACK HERE YOU WEE SHITE: YOU’RE STILL UNDER ARREST!’

‘Fucking police bastards!’ The woman crawled upright, eyes thin slits, graveyard teeth bared, a smear of blood from her cracked lips. Then she charged, head down, like a greasy battering ram.

Logan lurched out of the way … or tried to.

She slammed into his stomach. Pain ripped across his scars, digging deep into his guts, tearing all the breath from his throat as they thudded into the bedroom wall, then down to the carpet. All he could do was curl up around the fire and try not to throw up. Barely feeling the harsh nip of her teeth sinking into his arm through his suit jacket. The dull thunk of her forehead battering into his right ear.

And then she was gone. Screaming. ‘Let me go you bastard! Let me fucking go! RAPE! Fucking … RAPE!’

Logan peeled open one watering eye to see her a foot-anda-half off the ground, legs flailing about. Archie was standing behind her, arms wrapped around her waist, holding her up.

‘Calm down!’

‘RAPE! RAPE!’

And all the way through it, the kid kept on screaming.

‘How’s the balls?’ PC Ferguson handed Logan another packet of frozen chips from the gurgling freezer. The kitchen reeked of cannabis and stale fat, the extractor hood above the cooker covered in a dark-brown greasy film.

Leaning back against the working surface, Logan pressed the bag of frozen chips against his aching stomach. ‘You found him yet?’

‘We should maybe take you to the hospital?’

‘Greg: have — you — found — him?’

The constable pinched his face into a painful chicken’s bum. ‘Well, there’s a funny story, and-’

‘You let him get away, didn’t you?’

‘It wasn’t-’

‘Why the hell didn’t you have anyone watching the back? I told you to get someone watching the back!’

‘But it-’

‘For God’s sake, Greg, did you sleep through the bloody risk assessment and planning meeting? Two out front, two out back to catch any runaways!’

PC Greg Ferguson stared at his shoes. ‘Sorry, Guv. It all kinda got away from me. A bit…’

‘A bit ? He was handcuffed to a bloody whirly!’

‘It’s just … I’ve been having a tough time at home, with wee Georgie ill and Liz on the tablets, and her mum moving in … and I can’t…’ He ran a finger around the collar of his black fleecy top. ‘I can’t go up in front of the rubber-heelers again. Bain’s thinking about making us up to sergeant, and we could really do with the extra dosh…’

Logan slumped back, stared up at a strange brown stain on the ceiling. ‘Way I see it we’ve got three options. One: I dob you in.’

‘Please, Sarge, you-’

‘Two: I take the heat and let Professional Standards tear me a new one.’

Ferguson broke out a thin smile. ‘Would you really do that for-’

‘No I bloody wouldn’t. Three: we come up with some sort of cover story…’ Logan straightened.

Ellen, the officer who’d given everyone a leg-up through the lounge window, lurched into the kitchen, face all pink and glistening. She puffed and panted her way across to the sink, set the cold tap running, and stuck her head under the stream of water. ‘Bloody hell…’

Ferguson licked his teeth. ‘Did you…?’

She turned, dripping all over the kitchen floor. ‘They should rope … rope him in … for the 2012 Olympics. If the bugger can … can run that fast handcuffed … to a rotary drier … he’ll walk the five hundred metres…’ She stuck her head back under the tap again. ‘Swear I watched him hurdle a … six foot fence like it … like it wasn’t even there.’

‘Oh God…’ Ferguson covered his face with a hand. ‘I’m screwed.’

‘Ellen?’ Logan fidgeted with the bag of frozen chips. ‘I think Greg here wants to ask you a favour.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Just make sure the pair of you’ve got your stories straight for Professional Standards, OK?’

A knock at the kitchen door.

It was Guthrie, clutching an assortment of white paper bags, most of them turned peek-a-boo with grease. ‘Wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find an all-night bakers in Kincorth.’ He handed a bag to Logan.

‘Bacon?’

‘Fried egg. Us veggies got to stick together, right?’

Logan took a bite out of the soft, floury roll, getting a little dribble of yolk on his chin. ‘What about the ambulance?’

‘Out front. Got Billy Dawson in the back already, they say the other bloke just needs a couple of stitches.’ Guthrie helped himself to a flaky-pastry-log thing. Speaking with his mouth full, getting little chips of pale brown all down the front of his black uniform. ‘Social worker’s here too, Guv. Wants a word.’

The social worker was in the lounge, poking through a twirly CD tower unit, her black hair streaked with grey: tweedy trousers, yellow shirt, red waistcoat straining over her belly … like something out of Wind in the Willows . She turned and sniffed at Logan. Then held out a clipboard. ‘I need you to sign.’

He scanned the form, then scrawled his signature in the box with a cross marked beside it. ‘It’s a-’

‘Ooh, I’ve got this one.’ She pulled a copy of Annie Lennox’s Diva from the stand. ‘You ever meet her?’

‘Er, no. We-’

‘I was born in Torry, just like her. Even went to the same school: Harlaw Academy.’ The social worker turned the album over, frowning at the back. ‘Is Trisha still here, or have you carted her off?’

‘Trisha?’

‘Trisha Brown? The mother? Addict? Has a little boy about so high?’ She held a hand level with her own swollen belly.

‘Upstairs.’

A nod. ‘I remember thinking, “When I grow up, I’m going to be that famous. Going to be on Top of the Pops and MTV and in all the papers.” Sang in a couple of bands, nearly got a record deal.’ She stuck the album back in the tower. ‘Then my dad died, my mum fell apart, and I had to get a job in Asda. Here endeth the pop star’s dream.’