Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

‘Oh God,’ Green’s voice had jumped an octave, ‘he cut me!’

Logan kept his eyes on the knife. ‘Well what the hell did you expect, charging in here like an idiot?’

‘You have to get me to a hospital!’

‘Drop — the — knife.’

‘No.’ The man in the SOC suit tilted his head to one side. ‘Here’s how it’s going to work: you’re going to take your moron and fuck off. You’re going to clear the road north. You’re going to get me a car and you’re not going to follow it. If you do that Alison and Jenny will live. If you don’t they will die.’

‘I’m bleeding…’

‘It’s over.’ Logan shifted his grip on the gun. ‘The building’s surrounded by armed police. You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Then they’re both going to die.’

‘No they’re not.’

‘Oh God, I need an ambulance…’

‘WILL YOU SHUT UP?’ Logan nodded and Rennie shuffled the other way, MP5 up to his shoulder like a sniper. ‘Now put the knife down and no one else needs to get hurt.’

‘You’re familiar with the concept of IEDs, aren’t you, Sergeant? Well, I’m wearing an improvised explosive device right now, and all it takes is one little twitch and we all end up spread across the fucking walls, ceiling, floor… You get the picture. Now be good little officers and do what you’re told.’

Sergeant : the man in the SOC suit recognized him. He’d been right, it was Peterson.

‘Can’t do that, Craig. Put the knife down.’

‘Ah…’ He stared at the floor for a moment. ‘I’m not “Craig”, my name’s Roger. And if you don’t do what I tell you, every-one’s going to die.’ He rocked the bloody knife back and forth, leaving a red line across Alison’s throat. ‘Starting with Goldilocks here.’

She bared her teeth. ‘He’s lying.’

‘Shut up.’

‘He doesn’t have a bomb.’

Craig/ROGER laughed. ‘Believe me, you can’t trust a single word she says.’

‘Shoot him. He wasn’t going to let us go, he was always going to kill us both!’

‘I really, really need an ambulance…’

‘Guv?’ Rennie shifted right another pace. ‘Got a firing solution.’

‘Come on Craig, give it up. No one has to die.’

The white SOC suit rustled. ‘You spoke to Vicious Vikki, right? She tell you the squirrel story? When she was ten, Alison here made some squirrel traps, caught about six of them in the woods behind her house. Know what she did with them?’

‘Just put the knife down and we can all walk out of here.’

‘She drowned them in a bucket. One by one. Lined the traps up so they could watch their mates dying. That’s the kind of person she is — a complete fucking psycho.’

‘He’s lying.’

‘Think that’s bad? Ask her what happened to Doddy’s parents. They hated her: who wants a gold-digging sociopath marrying their son?’

‘It was an accident!’

‘ Sure it was. Come on, Sergeant, who do you think told David to torch your flat.’

Logan stared at him. ‘ What ?’

‘You heard.’ ROGER tilted his head to one side. ‘Now back — the fuck — up, both of you, and get me that car, or I slit her throat and we go through the whole thing again with the brat.’

He jiggled the knife again and blood seeped down Alison’s neck.

‘Aaagh…’

‘Don’t hurt my mummy!’ Jenny grabbed the hand wrapped in her hair and yanked. Then sank her teeth into ROGER’s leg.

‘Fucking bitch!’

He must have loosened his grip, because Alison twisted to the side, driving her elbow into his stomach. A grunt.

Roger slashed the knife at her, but she was out of reach. Rennie lunged forward, going for Jenny, but ROGER hauled her back — off her feet, the two of them thumping back into the boarded-up window. Now the SOC suited figure was cornered, the knife glinting in a slice of golden sunlight.

Logan pushed Alison behind him, keeping the gun pointing straight at ROGER’s face. ‘On your knees, now .’

Roger cleared his throat, then lowered the blade. ‘It was her idea. All of it. She-’

A loud boom reverberated around the room. Logan flinched. Jenny screamed. Rennie swore.

Red blossomed in the middle of Roger’s chest.

Logan eased the gun out of Alison’s hands. ‘He was going to hurt my little girl…’

Jenny was sitting on the floor by the window, knees drawn up to her chest, bandaged feet scrabbling on the blood-slicked floorboards. Screaming .

Rennie scooped her up, backing off into the middle of the room. ROGER lay crumpled on the floor. The semi-transparent plastic of his mask darkened, speckles of red spraying out around the voice modifier with every breath. His purple-gloved fingers twitched above the hole in his chest. Blood seeped through his SOC suit. ‘Gachhhh…’

‘Rennie, get her out of here.’ Logan glanced down at Green. ‘And take that with you.’ He pulled out his phone as the constable hauled Green to his feet.

‘Mummy!’ Jenny reached out, but Rennie held on tight and carried her out through the door, Green limping and snivelling and moaning along behind him.

‘I need an ambulance here ASAP — kidnapper has gunshot wound to the chest.’

Alison McGregor raised her chin. ‘I did what any mother would’ve done to protect her baby.’

‘Fit aboot Alison and Jenny, they OK?’

‘Just get the bloody ambulance sorted!’ Logan gave him the address then hung up.

Roger twitched and spasmed. ‘Oh fuck…’ The words came out in a gurgle of red. ‘We were … going to stick the money in … in a charity fund… siphon… siphon it off…’

Logan stared at Alison. ‘You told someone to set fire to my flat?’

‘He’s lying.’ She wrapped her arms around her chest. ‘He’d say anything to save himself.’

ROGER’s left foot banged against the wooden floor, beating out a tattoo. ‘Gaaaach…’

Logan knelt beside the trembling man and eased off the plastic mask.

It wasn’t Craig Peterson.

‘Any news?’ Dr Goulding closed the door.

Logan looked over his shoulder, then back out of the window of his makeshift incident room. ‘Still in surgery.’

‘Well, look on the bright side — if he does survive, how long do you think he’ll last in prison?’

Logan just shrugged, watching the crowds outside the front of FHQ. There had to be at least five hundred people out there, all clutching their ‘WE LOVE YOU JENNY!’

‘WE NEVER GAVE UP!’ banners, or just waving their mobile phones about, as if it was some kind of rock concert. The TV people must be loving this.

‘So,’ Goulding patted him on the shoulder, ‘why aren’t you down there, enjoying all the glory and adulation? This is your moment in the sun.’

‘They found Craig Peterson.’

‘Did they now?’

‘Sitting in his Renault; hose from the exhaust in through the driver’s window. Bob said the whole car reeked of whisky. There was a text message in his phone for his mum, telling her he was sorry for letting her down. Never sent it.’

‘Hmm… Did you notice how the deaths are all about being unable to breathe? Bruce Sangster with a plastic bag over his head, Davina Pearce with a belt around her neck, Craig Peterson with the exhaust fumes? I really hope Gordon Maguire survives, it’s going to be fascinating finding out what it means to him.’ A frown. ‘I wonder if it’s a common fantasy for television producers…’

‘He was losing his business, investors waiting for him to go bankrupt so they could buy up the assets.’ Logan rested his head against the window. ‘Maguire said it was all Alison’s idea. That she came up with the whole thing.’