45% Hangover [A Logan and Steel novella]

by Stuart MacBride

  Read on for an extract from the new Logan McRae thriller,

  The Missing and the Dead …

  Run.

  1

  Faster. Sharp leaves whip past her ears, skeletal bushes and shrubs snatch at her ankles as she lurches into the next garden, breath trailing in her wake. Bare feet burning through the crisp, frozen grass.

  He’s getting louder, shouting and crashing and swearing through hedges in the gloom behind her. Getting closer.

  Oh God …

  She scrambles over a tall wooden fence, dislodging a flurry of frost. There’s a sharp ripping sound and the hem of her summer dress leaves a chunk of itself behind. The sandpit rushes up to meet her, knocking the breath from her lungs.

  Please …

  Not like this …

  Not flat on her back in a stranger’s garden.

  Above her, the sky fades from dirty grey to dark, filthy, orange. Tiny winks of light forge across it – a plane on its way south. The sound of a radio wafts out from an open kitchen window somewhere. The smoky smear of a roaring log fire. A small child screaming that it’s not tired yet.

  Up!

  She scrambles to her feet and out onto the slippery crunch of frozen lawn, her shoes lost many gardens back. Tights laddered and torn, painted toenails on grubby feet. Breath searing her lungs, making a wall of fog around her head.

  Run.

  Straight across to the opposite side as the back door opens and a man comes out, cup of tea in one hand. Mouth hanging open. ‘Hoy! What do you think you’re—’

  She doesn’t stop. Bends almost in half and charges into the thick leylandii hedge. The jagged green scrapes at her cheeks. A sharp pain slashes across her calf.

  RUN!

  If He catches her, that’s it. He’ll drag her back to the dark. Lock her away from the sun and the world and the people who love her. Make her suffer.

  She bursts out the other side.

  A woman squats in the middle of the lawn next to a border terrier. She’s wearing a blue plastic bag on her hand like a glove, hovering it over a mound of steaming brown. Her eyes snap wide, eyebrows up. Staring. ‘Oh my God, are you …?’

  His voice bellows out across the twilight. ‘COME BACK HERE!’

  Don’t stop. Never stop. Don’t let him catch up.

  Not now.

  Not after all she’s been through.

  It’s not fair.

  She takes a deep breath and runs.

  ‘God’s sake …’ Logan shoved his way out of a thick wad of hedge into another big garden and staggered to a halt. Spat out bitter shreds of green that tasted like pine disinfectant.

  A woman caught in the act of poop-scooping stared up at him.

  He dragged out his Airwave handset and pointed it at her. ‘Which way?’

  The hand wrapped in the carrier bag came up and trembled towards the neighbour’s fence.

  Brilliant …

  ‘Thanks.’ Logan pressed the button and ran for it. ‘Tell Biohazard Bob to get the car round to Hillview Drive, it’s …’ He scrambled onto the roof of a wee plastic bike-shed thing, shoes skidding on the frosty plastic. From there to the top of a narrow brick wall. Squinted out over a patchwork of darkened gardens and ones bathed in the glow of house lights. ‘It’s the junction with Hillview Terrace.’

  Detective Chief Inspector Steel’s smoky voice rasped out of the handset’s speaker. ‘How have you no’ caught the wee sod yet?’

  ‘Don’t start. It’s … Woah.’ A wobble. Both hands out, windmilling. Then frozen, bent forward over an eight-foot drop into a patch of Brussels sprouts.

  ‘What have I told you about screwing this up?’

  Blah, blah, blah.

  The gardens stretched away in front, behind, and to the right – backing onto the next road over. No sign of her. ‘Where the hell are you?’

  There – forcing her way through a copse of rowan and ash, making for the hedge on the other side. Two more gardens and she’d be out on the road.

  Right.

  Logan hit the send button again. ‘I need you to—’ His left shoe parted company with the wall. ‘AAAAAAAARGH!’ Cracking through dark green spears, sending little green bombs flying, and thumping into the frozen earth below. THUMP. ‘Officer down!’

  ‘Laz? Jesus, what the hell’s …’ Steel’s voice faded for a second. ‘You! I want an armed response unit and an ambulance round to—’

  ‘Gah …’ He scrabbled upright, bits of squashed Brussels sprouts sticking to his dirt-smeared suit. ‘Officer back up again!’

  ‘Are you taking the—’

  The handset went in his pocket again and he sprinted for the fence. Clambered over it as Steel’s foul-mouthed complaints crackled away to themselves.

  Across the next garden in a dozen strides, onto a box hedge then up over another slab of brick.

  She was struggling with a wall of rosebushes, their thorned snaking branches digging into her blue summer dress, slicing ribbons of blood from her arms and legs. Blonde hair caught in the spines.

  ‘YOU! STOP RIGHT THERE!’

  ‘Please no, please no, please no …’

  Logan dropped into the garden.

  She wrenched herself free and disappeared towards the last house on the road, leaving her scalp behind … No, not a scalp – a wig.

  He sprinted. Jumped. Almost cleared the bush. Crashed through the privet on the other side, head first. Tumbled.

  On his feet.

  There!

  He rugby-tackled her by the gate, his shoulder slamming into the small of her back, sending them both crunching onto the gravel. Sharp stones dug into his knees and side. The smell of dust and cat scratched into the air.

  And she SCREAMED. No words, just a high-pitched bellow, face scarlet, spittle flying, eyes like chunks of granite. Stubble visible through the pancake makeup that covered her thorn-torn cheeks. Breath a sour cloud of grey in the cold air. Hands curled into fists, battering against Logan’s chest and arms.

  A fist flashed at Logan’s face and he grabbed it. ‘Cut it out! I’m detaining you under—’

  ‘KILL YOU!’ The other hand wrapped itself around his throat and squeezed. Nails digging into his skin, sharp and stinging.

  Sod that. Logan snapped his head back, then whipped it forward. Crack – right into the bridge of her nose.

  A grunt and she let go, beads of blood spattering against his cheek. Warm and wet.

  He snatched at her wrist, pulled till the hand was folded forward at ninety degrees, and leaned on the joint.

  The struggling stopped, replaced by a sucking hiss of pain. Adam’s apple bobbing. Scarlet dripping across her lips. ‘Let me go, you bastard!’ Not a woman’s voice at all, getting deeper with every word. ‘I didn’t do anything!’

  Logan hauled out his cuffs and snapped them on the twisted wrist, using the whole thing as a lever against the strained joint.

  ‘Where’s Stephen Bisset?’

  ‘HELP! RAPE!’

  More pressure. ‘I’m not asking you again – where is he?’

  ‘Aaaaagh … You’re breaking my wrist! … Please, I don’t—’

  One more push.

  ‘OK! OK! God …’ A deep breath through gritted, blood-stained, teeth. Then a grin. ‘He’s dying. All on his own, in the dark. He’s dying. And there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  2

  The windscreen wipers squealed and groaned their way across the glass, clearing the dusting of tiny white flakes. The council hadn’t taken the Christmas decorations down yet: snowmen, and holly sprigs, and bells, and reindeer, and Santas shone bright against the darkness.

  Ten days ago and the whole place would have been heaving – Hogmanay, like a hundred Friday nights all squished into one – but now it was deserted. Everyone would be huddled up at home, nursing Christmas overdrafts and longing for payday.

  The pool car’s wheels hissed through the slush. No traffic – the only other vehicles were parked at the side of the road, bein
g slowly bleached by the falling snow.

  Logan turned in his seat and scowled into the back of the car as they made the turn onto the North Deeside Road. ‘Last chance, Graham.’

  Graham Stirling sat hunched forwards, hands cuffed in front of him now, dabbing at his blood-crusted nostrils with grubby fingers. Voice thick and flat. ‘You broke my nose …’

  Sitting next to him, Biohazard Bob sniffed. ‘Aye, and you didn’t even say thank you, did you?’ The single thick eyebrow that lurked above his eyes made a hairy V-shape. He leaned in, so close one of his big sticky-out ears brushed Stirling’s forehead. ‘Now answer the question: where’s Stephen Bisset?’

  ‘I need to go to hospital.’

  ‘You need a stiff kicking is what you need.’ Biohazard curled a hand into a hairy fist. ‘Now tell us where Bisset is, or so help me God, I’m going to—’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Marshall! Enough.’ Logan bared his teeth. ‘We don’t assault prisoners in police cars.’

  Biohazard sat back in his seat. Lowered his fist. ‘Aye, it makes a mess of the upholstery. Rennie: find somewhere quiet to park. Somewhere dark.’

  DS Rennie pulled the car to a halt at the pedestrian crossing, tip-tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as a pair of well-dressed men staggered across the road. Arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. Singing an old Rod Stewart tune. Oblivious as the snow got heavier.

  Their suits looked a lot more expensive than Rennie’s. Their haircuts too – his stuck up in a blond mop above his pink-cheeked face, neck disappearing into a shirt collar two sizes too big for it. Like a wee boy playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘You want the court to know you cooperated, don’t you, Graham? That you helped? Might save you a couple of years inside?’

  Silence.

  Stirling picked a clot of blood from the skin beneath his nose and wiped it on the tattered fabric of his dress.

  ‘The DI’s serious, Graham, he’s not going to ask you again. Why not do yourself a favour and tell him what he needs to know?’

  A pause. Then Stirling looked up. Smiled. ‘OK.’

  Biohazard pulled out an Airwave handset. ‘’Bout time. Come on then – address?’

  His pink tongue emerged, slid its way around pale lips. ‘No. You and the boy have to get out. I talk to him,’ pointing at Logan, ‘or we go back to the station and you get me a lawyer.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Stirling, we’re not—’

  ‘No comment.’

  Logan sighed. ‘This is idiotic, it’s—’

  ‘You heard me: no comment. They get out, or you get me a lawyer.’

  Rennie’s face pinched. ‘Guv?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Logan rubbed his eyes. ‘Out. Both of you.’

  ‘Guv, I don’t think that’s—’

  ‘I know. Now: out.’

  Rennie stared at Biohazard.

  Pause.

  Biohazard shrugged. Then climbed out onto the empty pavement.

  A beat later, Rennie killed the engine and followed him. ‘Still think this is a bad idea.’

  Clunk, the door shut, leaving Logan and Graham Stirling alone in the car.

  ‘Talk.’

  ‘The forest on the Slug Road. There’s a track off into the trees, you need a key for the gate. An … an old forestry worker’s shack hidden away in there, miles from anywhere.’ The smile grew hazy, the eyes too, as if he was reliving something. ‘If you’re lucky, Steve might still be alive.’

  Logan took out his handset. ‘Right. We’ll—’

  ‘You’ll never find it without me. It’s not on any maps. Can’t even see it on Google Earth.’ Stirling leaned forward. ‘Search all you like: by the time you find him, Steve Bisset will be long dead.’

  The pool car’s headlights cast long jagged shadows between the trees, its warning strobes glittering blue-and-white against the needles. Catching the thick flakes of snow and making them shine, caught in their slow-motion dance to the forest floor.

  Logan shifted his footing on the frozen, rutted track. Ran his torch along the treeline.

  Middle of nowhere.

  He wiped a drip from the end of his nose. ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? Let him no-comment till Stephen Bisset dies?’

  The track snaked off further into the darkness, bordered on both sides by tussocks of grass, slowly disappearing under the falling snow, glowing in the torchlight.

  On the other end of the phone, Steel groaned. ‘Could you no’ have let the nasty wee sod fall down the stairs a few times? We’re no’ allowed to—’

  ‘You want to tell Stephen’s family we let him freeze to death, all alone, in a shack in the forest, because we were more concerned with following procedure than saving his life?’

  ‘Laz, it’s no’ that simple, we—’

  ‘Because if that’s what you want, tell me now and we’ll head back to HQ. You can help Dr Simms pick out a body-bag. Probably still got some nice Christmas paper knocking about, you could use that. Wrap his corpse up with a bow on top.’

  ‘Will you shut up and—’

  ‘Maybe something with kittens and teddy bears on it, so Bisset’s kids won’t mind so much?’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘All right, all right. But he better be alive. And another thing—’

  He hung up and marched over to the pool car.

  Biohazard leaned against the bonnet, arms folded, shoulders hunched, one cowboy boot up on the bumper. Nose going bright red, the tips of his taxi-door ears too. He spat. Nodded at the ill-fitting suit behind the steering wheel. ‘The wee loon’s right, this is daft.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ve cleared it with the boss, so we’re doing it.’

  A sniff. ‘What if Danny the Drag Queen tries it on when you’re out there?’

  Logan peered around Biohazard’s shoulder.

  Stirling was slumped in the rear seat, blood dried to a black mask that hid the lower half of his face. Bruises already darkening the skin beneath both eyes. The blue sundress all mud-stained and tatty after the chase through the gardens. Shivering.

  ‘Think I’ll risk it.’ Logan pulled out the canister of CS gas from his jacket pocket, ran his thumbnail across the join between the safety cap and the body. ‘But just in case, get his hands cuffed behind him. And I want the pair of you ready to charge in.’

  Logan popped open the back door and leaned into the car. It smelled of sweat and fear and rusting meat. ‘Out.’

  Twigs snapped beneath his feet as they picked their way between the grey-brown branches, following the circle of light cast by Logan’s torch. A tiny dot, adrift on an ocean of darkness.

  Something moved out there. Little scampering feet and claws that skittered away into the night.

  Logan flicked the torch in its direction. ‘How much further?’

  He jerked his chin to the left. ‘That way.’ The words plumed out from his mouth in a glowing cloud, caught in the torchlight. Curling away into the night. Dragon’s breath.

  Down a slope, into a depression lined with brambles and the curled remains of long-dead ferns, already sagging under the weight of snow. More falling from the sickly dark sky.

  Stirling’s feet clumped about in Rennie’s shoes, the scuffed black brogues and white socks looking huge beneath the torn sundress and laddered tights.

  Up the other side, through the ferns – brittle foliage wrapping around Logan’s trousers, leaving cold wet fingerprints. ‘Why him? Why Stephen Bisset?’

  ‘Why?’ A shrug. The torchlight glinted off the handcuffs’ metal bars, secured behind his back, fingers laced together as if they were taking a casual stroll along the beach. ‘Why not?’ A small sigh. ‘Because he was there.’

  Logan checked his watch. Fifteen minutes. Another five, and that was it: call this charade off. Call in a dog team. Get the helicopter up from Strathclyde with a thermal-imaging camera. Assuming Steel could pull enough rank to get them to fly this far north on
a Friday night in January.

  They stumbled on between the silent trees. Fallen pine needles made ochre drifts between the snaking roots, the branches too thick to let the snow through.

  He stopped, pulled up his sleeve – exposing his watch again. ‘Time’s up. I’m not sodding about here any longer.’ He grabbed the plastic bar in the middle of the handcuffs and dragged Stirling to a halt. ‘This is a waste of time, isn’t it? You’re never going to show me where Stephen Bisset is. You want him dead so he can’t testify against you.’

  Stirling turned. Stared at Logan. Face lit from beneath by the torch, like someone telling a campfire horror story. Tilted his head to the left. ‘You see?’

  Logan stepped away. Swung the torch’s beam in an arc across the trees, raking the needle-strewn forest floor with darting shadows …

  A sagging wooden structure lurked between the trunks, in a space that barely counted as a clearing, partially hidden by a wall of skeletal brambles.

  Stirling’s voice dropped to a serrated-edged whisper. ‘He’s in there.’

  Another step. Then stop.

  Logan turned. Shone the torch right in Stirling’s face, making him flinch and shy back, eyes clamped shut. Then took out his handcuff key. ‘On your knees.’

  A thick stainless-steel padlock secured the shack’s door. It had four numerical tumblers built into the base, its hasp connecting a pair of heavy metal plates – one fixed to the door, the other to the surround. Both set up so the screw heads were inaccessible.

  Logan flicked the torch beam towards Stirling. ‘Combination?’

  He was still on his knees, both arms wrapped around the tree trunk, as if he was giving it a hug. Hands cuffed together on the other side. Cheek pressed hard against the bark. ‘One, seven, zero, seven.’

  The dials were stiff, awkward, but they turned after a bit of fiddling. Squeaking against Logan’s blue-nitrile-gloved fingertips. Clicking as they lined up into the right order. The hasp popped open and he slipped the padlock free of the metal plates. Slipped it into an evidence bag.

  Pushed the door.

  Almost as stiff as the padlock wheels, it creaked open and the stench of dirty bodies and blood and piss and shite collapsed over Logan. Making him step back.