Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

Butler pulled her cap down low over her ears, hunching her shoulders. ‘What now?’

Logan checked his watch — just after four. Still an hour to go before he had to face Finnie. Or he could just avoid it altogether…‘Fancy some overtime?’

He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and crumped through the snow towards FHQ.

‘Alpha Six One, we’ve got a mannie says his neighbour’s killing her husband, Deansloch Crescent, can you attend, over?’

Logan turned down the police radio till it was barely audible over the car’s rumbling diesel engine and the squeal of the windscreen wipers. ‘Still don’t see how you managed this.’

Sitting behind the huge wheel PC Butler grinned. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’

The police Land Rover was kitted out in full mountain rescue livery, with ladders, shovels, flares, bull bars, one of those collapsible stretchers, and a set of spotlights strong enough to give polar bears a tan. But most importantly: four wheel drive.

Quarter past four on a Wednesday afternoon and the city was at a standstill, nose-to-tail traffic stretching ahead of them, all the way down King Street — taillights and headlights making haloes in the driving snow.

Butler leaned over and thumbed a button. Blue and white flickered from the Land Rover’s roof, then the sirens joined in. The cars in front inched over towards the kerb.

‘That’s more like it.’ The constable sent the Land Rover roaring into the growing gap between the two lanes, the traffic parting before them. Twin streams of slush and snow fountained out from the wheel-arches, spattering the cars on either side of the road.

Logan wasn’t exactly certain this was a ‘lights and music’ kind of trip, but what the hell. He was probably going to get suspended anyway, might as well go out in style.

Click.

Richard sprawls across the frozen ground, screaming, arms wrapped around his head.

And then he realizes he’s still alive. The bullet hasn’t ripped through his skull, spattering the pristine white garden with pink and red and grey like an angry Rorschach ink blot.

Feeling rushes back into his body — fingers and toes burning with cold, legs and arms aching with it, his torso raw. He opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a squeak.

Julie grins down at him, then looks off towards the knot of people huddled by the patio doors. ‘Oh come on.’ She waggles the gun at them, then reaches into her pocket and pulls out the magazine clip. Slots it back into place. Racks a round into the chamber. ‘Do you really think I was going to give you a loaded gun? Might’ve hurt yourself.’

Richard shivers his way to his hands and knees, shaking so hard he can barely breathe.

Bruce’s head is down, his skin even paler than before, crying.

‘Tony, Neil, why don’t you take Mr Knox back inside and clean him up a bit?’

The two heavies grab an arm each and drag him back into the house. Richard can’t even stand, his legs aren’t working, all he can do is tremble. Teeth clattering in his head.

Oh God, he’s still alive…

Through the kitchen, down the hall, and into a huge bathroom, all done up in black slate and glistening chrome. They heave him into a big enamel tub, then crank open the taps. Water sputters in, cold at first, then steaming hot. Richard scrabbles back, his pink toes going bright red, the skin throbbing and groaning.

‘Fuckin’ hell.’ Neil grabs the big mixer-showerhead above the shiny taps and thumps his hand down on the chrome button. ‘Don’t be such a bloody poof.’

The showerhead judders, and hot water spurts out. He curls his top lip and holds it over Richard. ‘Stop wriggling! Your own fault for being a filthy little shit, isn’t it?’

Needles, broken glass jammed into his cracking skin…

And slowly the feeling fades, the warm water leaching its heat into his bones. It’s just starting to feel good when Neil twists the taps again, shutting it off. Leaving Richard shivering in the bottom of the tub.

Tony, the quiet one, settles on the toilet lid and stares at Richard’s pink, naked body. ‘We had a deal, Knox.’

Richard doesn’t say anything.

‘We had a deal and you fucked us over.’

‘I didn’t…I wasn’t-’

Neil slaps him, hard across the face. ‘Where’s the money?’

Richard’s mouth tastes of blood, sweet against the bitter tang of vomit. ‘I don’t…I don’t have it. It-’

Another slap.

‘Bad time to get a sense of humour, Knoxy, WHERE’S THE FUCKING MONEY?’

Richard wraps his arms over his head. ‘I don’t have it! Mr Maitland made me split it between his kids before he died…’

This time it’s a punch, right in the stomach. ‘Where’s the money?’

He curls up in the bath, sobbing. ‘I don’t have it, I don’t have it…’

One in the kidneys. ‘Where’s the money?’

‘AAAAGH… Please, I don’t have it!’

Then the door opens. ‘Hey, Sweethearts, how’s it going?’

Tony sighs. ‘Says he hasn’t got the cash any more. Mental Mikey willed it to his kids.’

‘That’s a bit of a pain.’ She squats by the side of the bath and looks into Richard’s tear-filled eyes. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Babe. We bought you all that lovely Rohypnol and you used it a day early to disappear on us. You promised to give us Danby — you didn’t. And now you don’t even have the money…You’re no use to me, Darling.’

She stands.

Neil: ‘What you want us to do with him?’

Not the gun again. Please not the gun again.

Tony: ‘Sell him.’

They all turn to look at the man sitting on the toilet. ‘Sorry, Sweetheart?’

‘Sell him. They’re all scrabbling to claim Mental Mikey’s empire back home, aren’t they? Cunningham, Dawson, that violent prick Smithy…Bet any of them would pay good money to get their hands on Knox. ‘Specially if we don’t tell them he’s not got Mikey’s cash any more.’

Oh God, no…Smithy’ll kill him. And not quickly, Richard knows, because he’s seen it.

Julie smiles. ‘Excellent idea. Might even give us a bit of leverage down south. Can’t do it direct though — too risky — but we could go through an intermediary. Someone local.’

‘What about that little weasel you’ve been getting info off?’

‘Who, Polmont?’ She shakes her head. ‘Silly bugger went and got himself killed, didn’t he, Babe? But I might know a man…’

She pulls out her phone and steps out of the bathroom, leaving him alone with Neil and Tony again.

Richard scrubs his hands across his damp, swollen face. ‘Please, you can’t-’

‘Wouldn’t fuckin’ like to be you.’ Neil throws a towel into the bath. ‘Dry yerself.’

‘I can get more money. I can-’

The slap sends him crashing against the black-and-silver tiles. ‘I said, dry yerself!’

Richard keeps his mouth shut and does what he’s told.

Tony sits there on the bog, watching him. ‘Not the luckiest, are you? No cash, no mates, no one to protect you…Know how long Danby held out, before he told us where you were? Five minutes.’

Neil curls his top lip. ‘Didn’t even have to show him the pliers, like.’

‘Can’t believe you thought he’d get you out of the country. How thick are you?’

Julie comes back in, snapping her phone shut. ‘All sorted. Shall we…?’

They drag him, limping, back through to the kitchen.

He stands there, both hands cupping his balls.

Bruce, Ellen, Matt, and Evans are down the other end, by the fridge, but the only ones who’ll look at him are Ellen and the old man. The other two’s eyes keep slipping away to the floor.