Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

‘I told him, but he wouldn’t listen.’ She grabbed Logan’s arm again. ‘Reuben!’

A crackle of feet on gravel, puffing and heeching, and then Reuben’s voice growled up from the garden. ‘Bloody hell you doing here? ’

‘Hamish, I mean it.’

Thump — a steel-toecapped boot on the bottom step. ‘Did you not learn your lesson last time? ’

Logan turned, shoulders back, chin out. ‘You want to try again, Fat Boy? ’

Reuben’s scarred face creased around dark slitted eyes. ‘You’re bloody dead .’

‘Come on then; won’t be the first time I’ve battered the living crap out of you, will it? ’

Wee Hamish gave a dry rattling laugh, that ended in a wheeze. ‘Children, children. Behave or you’ll not get any ice cream.’

Logan stared straight ahead. ‘This fat piece of shite ambushed me on my doorstep Sunday morning. And your nurse gave him a fake alibi.’

‘I see. .’ A cough. A sigh. ‘Reuben, did you ambush Detective Inspector McRae? ’

‘Course I didn’t.’

‘Chloe, was Reuben with you at the time of this alleged assault? ’

‘Yes, Mr Mowat.’

Wee Hamish nodded. ‘There we are then, you must’ve been mistaken, Logan.’

‘ Mistaken ? I WAS THERE!’

A cold smile didn’t go anywhere near the old man’s eyes. ‘Reuben has an alibi. He tells me he didn’t attack you, and I believe him. That’s an end to it.’

‘Is it hell!’ Logan wrenched his arms free from Nurse Slessor’s grip and took a step towards Reuben.

The big man grinned, showing off gaps in his teeth. ‘Anytime you’re ready, sunshine.’

Another leathery sigh from the wheelchair. ‘Chloe, why don’t you go make us a nice pot of tea. Reuben, I’m sure you’ve still got plenty to be getting on with.’

Reuben shrugged one shoulder, licked his lips. ‘No skin off my nose.’ Then he turned and swaggered off, hands in his pockets, whistling the theme tune to The Great Escape .

Nurse Slessor sniffed, wiped her trainers on the decking floor — as if she was a bull about to charge — then nodded and walked inside, head held high.

Wee Hamish dangled the oxygen mask from a hook built into the side of the electric wheelchair. ‘There: everyone’s friends again.’

Unbelievable. ‘Reuben was waiting for me, on my doorstep , at six in the morning! How can you take that vicious bastard’s-’

‘Loyalty goes both ways, Logan. I can’t expect my people to be loyal to me if I don’t reciprocate.’ He fumbled with the joystick for a moment, then the wheelchair whined forward and left, right at the edge of the decking. Off in the middle distance, Reuben was climbing back onboard a ride-on lawnmower.

Wee Hamish pointed with a shaky finger, twisted with arthritis. ‘Reuben sees himself as an alpha male. And when I go. . When I go he expects to take over the pack. You’re a challenge to his ascension, so he does the only thing that makes sense to him: he lashes out. You just have to be the bigger man, accept that, and move on.’

Just accept being ambushed and punched in the face?

Logan scowled out as the lawnmower puttered into life. ‘What if he’s got a gun next time? ’

A pair of fat magpies strutted up and down on the grass, white breasts like little waistcoats, as if they were barristers debating some obscure point of law in a murder trial.

The china cup shook in Wee Hamish’s hand, tea sloshing from one side to the other. ‘The real worry comes after I’m gone.’

Logan settled back in the folding wooden chair. ‘You’re not-’

‘Oh, don’t worry: they gave me six months three years ago. I’m going nowhere without a fight.’

Reaching into his pocket, Logan pulled out the two envelopes and placed them on the little round table. ‘We need to talk about these.’

‘I looked into your necklacing victim, by the way. We had a couple of. . meetings about it last night. No one’s admitting anything.’

‘They wouldn’t, would they.’

Wee Hamish smiled. ‘Logan, when you do something high-profile like that, it says, “Look at me, look what I do to people who cross me!” You have to take ownership of it, or it’s worthless as a warning.’

‘It’s not drugs-related.’ It never was.

‘Of course, I should never have abdicated responsibility for that part of my portfolio. Letting Reuben have his head was a weakness on my part. A good captain knows every inch of his ship.’

Logan topped up his tea. ‘You need to tell Reuben to back off.’

‘One thing I discovered this morning, is that we’ve got a drugs war going on. Nothing big, just a little one: a skirmish between some of our local entrepreneurs and a group of businessmen from the Far East.’

‘If he threatens me, or mine, I’m going to come for him.’

‘Yes.’ Wee Hamish chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, eyes creased up. ‘I’ve been thinking about that too. When he finds out I’ve made you executor, he may become somewhat. . vociferous.’

‘I mean it.’

‘He’s a simple soul, Logan, not suited to the role of commanding the ship. He won’t chart a course around the icebergs, he’ll call for ramming speed and head right for them.’ Wee Hamish stared out into the garden. ‘The sensible thing would be to cut his lifeboat loose. . But I’m too soft-hearted, that’s my problem.’

Soft-hearted? Aye, right.

Wee Hamish nodded. ‘I think your wisest course of action would be to take care of that as soon as you hear the news, before he moves against you.’

‘I don’t want. .’ A sigh. ‘I can’t be executor. What am I supposed to do, hand out bits of your empire to the rival factions, sit back and hope they don’t kill each other and everyone in their path? I’m a police officer.’

‘The alternative is that Aberdeen goes full-steam ahead into the iceberg.’

‘I can’t do it.’

Wee Hamish smiled at him. ‘Look at this skirmish between the local lads and our Oriental friends: fighting over cannabis farms. A small thing, but it’ll get out of hand without someone sensible at the helm. People will always want drugs, Logan. And as long as people want them, someone will supply them. Supply and demand. Controlling it as a central entity means continuity, cuts down on conflict, keeps everyone safe and in their place.’

‘So what am I supposed to do, swap my warrant card for a claw-hammer? ’

He reached across and laid a twitching hand on top of Logan’s. The skin was papery; hot as if something deep inside was burning.

‘You should do whatever you think best.’

Like run a bloody mile.

Logan parked the crumbling Fiat next to DCI Steel’s MX5, successfully lowering the tone of the whole rear podium. Then leaned forward until his head rested against the steering wheel and stifled a yawn, mobile phone still clamped to his ear. ‘He basically told me I had to kill Reuben.’

Samantha made a sooking noise, like she was a car mechanic about to deliver very bad news. ‘ Maybe he’s right? ’

‘I can’t kill-’

‘ What if he came after me, would you kill him then? Because if not you’re in trouble, buster! ’

‘Well, yes, but that’s-’

‘ What if he hurt Jasmine? Or your brother? Or your mum?. . Well, maybe not your mum, but the others? ’

‘I’m a police officer.’

‘ You’re a wimp, more like. Remember the talk we had about growing a pair? ’

Someone knocked on the passenger window, and Logan flinched. He turned his head and looked across the car. DCI Steel peered in at him, mouthing something and pointing at her watch.

Back to the phone, voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I don’t want to kill anyone.’