Heavy metal boomed out of the speakers, loud enough to drown out any screams.
He popped it on the ground, creaked the van’s doors shut again. It pulled forward four feet.
Urquhart turned, tugged his green forelock, stepped outside and hauled the roller door shut. Now it was just Logan, Shuggie, and Metallica.
Shuggie stopped wriggling, just lay there on his back, staring up at him.
Of course the right thing to do would be to look on all this as an object lesson. To accept that Shuggie Webster was just a screwed up little man who got in with the wrong people when he was young. Whose life had been blighted by drug use and a second-rate education. That he was a human being, as flawed and redeemable as anyone.
Logan slid the little plastic zip open and pulled out the latex gloves.
Revenge wasn’t going to solve anything. It wasn’t going to make Samantha’s spleen and left kidney grow back. Make the swelling in her brain go down. Fix her busted ribs, broken shoulder, shattered left knee, or dislocated hip. Make her wake up.
It wasn’t going to do a fucking thing.
He snapped one set of latex gloves on, then struggled the leather pair over the top. Give Shuggie a good scare, then haul him back to the station, hand him over to the authorities, and make sure he goes down for eight-to-twelve years. Which means six-to-eight before he gets out on parole. Four-to-six with good behaviour. Less time-served while waiting for the case to come to court.
Logan pulled the last pair of latex gloves on over the leather.
Barely worth arresting him at all. Might as well give the little fuck a slap on the wrists and send him on his way with a stern talking to.
Save everyone a lot of bother.
‘On your feet.’
Shuggie just stared at him.
‘I said, “ON YOUR FUCKING FEET!”’ Logan slammed a kick into his thigh.
Shuggie hissed behind the gag, then struggled to roll over onto his side. The bandage covering his right hand was almost black with dried blood and dirt. Logan grabbed his shoulders and hauled him up onto his knees.
‘You wanted “consequences”, Shuggie? Fine.’ Logan grabbed the cable tie holding the big man’s wrists together, and pulled. ‘You’re going to get your fucking “consequences”.’
A muffled scream, but Shuggie got to his feet, socks slipping on the plastic.
Just a bit of a scare …
Logan slammed a fist into the big man’s kidneys – he collapsed to his knees again.
‘She’s in a coma.’ Logan took a step back and kicked Shuggie in the kidney again.
‘MMMMMMMPHHHHH!’
Shuggie narrowed his eyes above the duct tape gag, a growling hiss coming from his throat.
‘A fucking coma!’ Logan rammed his forearm into Shuggie’s face, using the solid strip of bone just before the elbow to crack him right across the nose. Barely felt it. But Shuggie went sprawling back across the plastic, moaning and whinging like a baby.
A swift boot in the nuts and he was folded over again, blood pouring from his ruined nose, jerking back and forward.
Logan stamped on his left ankle.
‘Say you’re sorry!’ He kicked the big man over onto his back, then sat down hard on his chest. Rammed another elbow into his face. Shuggie’s head bounced off the plastic sheeting with a dull thunk. Logan hauled the duct tape gag off and Shuggie dragged in a huge breath.
Logan hit him again, not bothering with the elbow, using his fist. ‘Say—’ punch, ‘—you’re—’ punch, ‘—fucking—’ punch, ‘—SORRY!’ Then sat back, breathing hard.
Shuggie’s face was already beginning to swell up, one eye closing over, the other well on its way – the pupil adrift in a sea of bright red. Nose flattened, lips split. Probably a broken cheekbone.
‘Urgh …’ Bubbles of blood popped at the side of his battered mouth.
‘Everything we do, all the shit we put up with, to keep bastards like you from hurting people. Stealing from them. Dealing drugs to their kids and ruining their fucking lives …’ Logan hauled himself to his feet, flexed his right hand, feeling the layers of glove tight across his skin. He kicked him again, catching Shuggie on the side of the knee, where it would do the most damage.
The big man screamed.
‘Say you’re sorry.’
Shuggie just lay there, gurgling blood and crying.
‘SAY IT.’
‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry …’ His voice was wet, strangled with sobs. ‘Whatever … whatever I did – oh God – I’m sorry.’
Logan stared at him. ‘“Whatever you did”?’ Piece of shit. He stamped on Shuggie’s stomach, folding him up again.
‘Aaaaaa! Please, I’m sorry!’
‘YOU SET FIRE TO MY FLAT, YOU FUCKING WANKER!’
‘I’m so … I’m so sorry …’
‘You stuck a condom through my letterbox, filled it with petrol, and set fire to the fucking thing!’ Another kick in the stomach. ‘What, were you too stoned to remember? Samantha’s in a fucking coma because of you!’ One more for luck.
‘Aaaaaaaaagh!’ Shuggie lay there, trembling and panting. ‘I didn’t do it, please, I didn’t set fire to anything!’
Logan backed off a couple of steps. ‘How stupid do you think I am?’
The song on the stereo ended, replaced by another round of thumping drums and squealing guitars.
‘I can’t … My hand. How could … could I pour fuck-all through … through anything?’ Shuggie curled up into a ball, battered forehead resting on his one good knee. ‘Look at it. LOOK AT IT!’
Logan walked around to the other side and stared down at the filthy bandage completely covering Shuggie’s right hand. ‘Doesn’t mean you can’t still use it.’
‘They skinned my … my fingers.’ He coughed, spraying blood and chunks of tooth all over his jeans.
Logan knelt down behind him and yanked Shuggie’s arms back. A safety pin held the tatty bandage end in place. Logan fumbled with it, the three layers of gloves making it nearly impossible. And then he got it, pulled the rust-flecked pin out, and unwound the bandage.
Shuggie screamed – the grubby fabric tugging at the raw flesh, coming away like strawberry jam, stinking of rancid meat.
‘Jesus …’ Only the thumb and forefinger were visible, but they were a stomach-lurching mess of purple, red and black, the tendons just visible as grey strips. Logan backed away to the edge of the plastic sheeting. ‘Why didn’t you go to the hospital?’
‘Every … every day I … I couldn’t pay them back … they took … took another one …’ Breath hissing out through bloody lips.
God almighty.
‘I didn’t … I didn’t set fire … to anything.’ He made a sound that almost sounded like a laugh. ‘How could I?’
Logan’s stomach lurched. Head full of burning coals, mouth full of saliva. He staggered back against the shelving.
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Shuggie.
He swallowed, forced down the bitter taste of bile. Even if Shuggie didn’t pour the petrol, it was still his fault. There had to be consequences.
‘Where are they? Jacob and Robert – your Yardie mates? Did you tell them I wouldn’t give you your fucking drugs back? Did you set those bastards on me?’
Logan’s eyes stung, his vision blurring.
Blink. Swallow.
‘Where the fuck are they?’
Lying, sobbing on the warehouse floor, Shuggie told him.
‘Oh …’ Jonny Urquhart stood looking down at Shuggie Webster’s battered body. ‘Cos it’s no problem if you want me to … you know.’ He made a gun with his thumb and forefinger.
‘No.’ Logan cleared his throat. ‘He’s under arrest.’
‘You sure? Cos you’ve really kinda fucked him up. What’s going to happen when he’s served his time, eh? You want some junkie scroat bag coming after you?’
Silence.
That’s what had ca
used this whole mess in the first place.
‘Tell you what.’ Urquhart hunkered down next to Shuggie. ‘Listen up, fuckwit, and listen really good, ’cos if I have to repeat myself, you’re screwed. You do anything to this nice police officer and we’re gonna find you. You’re gonna give yourself up, and you’re gonna cough to whatever he says, and you’re gonna to go to prison and do your time like a good little boy. You so much as whisper “police brutality” and I’ll get some huge bastard to rape your arse ragged, then cut your fucking throat. We clear?’
Shuggie coughed up a mouthful of dark red.
‘I said, are we fucking clear?’
‘Yeth …’ It was little more than a whisper, borne on a bubble of blood.
Urquhart ran a hand through his green hair. ‘Course he’s a junkie, and you know what their word’s worth. Sure you don’t want me to—’
‘No. Just …’ What? Drop him off at the station looking as if he’s been run over by a combine harvester? Take him to the hospital? Anything that ended up with Wee Hamish being connected to Shuggie Webster was eventually going to lead right back to him.
And maybe Logan deserved it.
He peeled off his three layers of gloves. His hands stank of elastic bands, the knuckles tainted deep pink, the skin puffy and tender. ‘I’ll deal with it.’
‘OK.’ Urquhart nudged Shuggie’s crying body with the toe of his boot. ‘You’re a lucky fuck, Shugs. See if you’d set my house on fire?’ A smile. ‘You just remember what I said: one step out of line and …’ he drew a finger across his throat.
41
Logan hauled on the handbrake outside Accident and Emergency, pulse rushing and booming in his ears. ‘This is all your own fault. You should’ve turned yourself in when I gave you the sodding chance. You’d still have your fingers, and Samantha wouldn’t …’ He gritted his teeth. Then opened the car door and climbed out into the warm afternoon. ‘Stay here.’
Shuggie sat in the passenger seat, cradling his skinned hand, his lace a bubbling mass of raw meat. Tears making clean tracks on his bloody cheeks.
Past the small knot of smokers and in through the automatic doors to A&E. There was a herd of wheelchairs just inside – not proper ones, just brown vinyl seats with four little wheels at the end of their legs. Logan grabbed one and performed a seven point turn with the thing, fighting to get it lacing the right way.
‘Worse than a wobbly shopping trolley, eh?’ It was the guy from last night: Mop Dude, pushing a buggy loaded with newspapers, crisps, bars of chocolate, and assorted sweeties. There was a little stack of the Evening Express next to the Curlywurlies, ‘SICK COUPLE TRY TO CASH IN ON KIDNAP TRAGEDY’. He nodded. ‘Unbelievable, isn’t it? Got to wonder what’s wrong with some people, you know?’
He flicked a strand of long brown hair away from his face and grinned, the piercing in his nose sparkling in the hospital’s dismal fluorescent lighting. ‘How’s your girlfriend? She doing better?’
Logan looked away. ‘No change.’
‘Aw, man, sorry to hear it. You got some sleep though, yeah?’
‘A bit.’
‘Yeah, those pills are the mutt’s.’ He stared at Logan for a bit, then shook his head. ‘You’re looking kinda pale, man.’
‘Been a tough day.’
A laugh. ‘Tell me about it. Doing double shifts so I can afford T in the Park … Mind you, maybe I should stick it all in that fund for Alison and Jenny. One day to go. Nightmare, eh?’
One of the uniformed officers stationed at the hospital marched out from the reception area, pulling his peaked cap on over his bald patch. ‘Hoi, you with the chair!’ He pointed out through the doors. ‘That your car? You can’t park in an ambulance bay …’
Officer Baldpatch went pink and lowered his hand. ‘Sorry, Sarge; didn’t know it was you.’
Logan gave the wheelie chair a nudge and sent it trundling off towards the car park. ‘Shuggie Webster’s in the passenger seat. He needs a doctor.’
‘Yes, Sarge.’ The constable hurried out after the chair.
Mop Dude cleared his throat. ‘You’re a cop?’
After today, that was debatable.
‘Look … man … about those pills—’
‘Pills? What pills?’ Logan dug a handful of change from his pocket. Karma. ‘Now how much for an Evening Express and a packet of Skittles?’
‘Where’ve you been?’ DI Steel settled onto the end of Logan’s desk, her face creased into a scowl. ‘Ten to six, should be home by now.’
Logan pulled the next sheet of paper from his in-tray and gave it a skim before dumping it in the bin. ‘Hospital.’
‘Aye, I heard. How the hell did you get your hands on Shuggie Webster?’
The next three sheets were e-fits, printed off from the identikit software with no indication of who it was meant to be, who’d done them, or who the witness was. They were part of a little stack of unlawful removal forms and other assorted random gubbins, as if someone had grabbed the lot off the printer without bothering to check what they’d picked up. All of it anonymous. ‘I got a tip-off.’
‘And you thought you’d go after him on your own?’
‘Yup.’ Logan stuck the printouts on his desk – they didn’t even have case numbers. That was the trouble with people nowadays: no pride in their work, and no clue how to do it properly either. Not that he was in a position to hand out lectures on professionalism any more.
‘Laz, you daft sod, you had a bloody firearms team trying to track Shuggie down yesterday. You’re lucky he didn’t beat the shite out of you.’
Yeah … Lucky.
‘I got a tip-off, he came quietly. It was fine.’ Next down were the results of the GSM trace on Shuggie’s mobile phone. Apparently he was in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Logan stuffed the next three reports in the bin. ‘You know anything about a pair of Yardies calling themselves Jacob and Robert?’
‘We had a deal, Laz. Five o’clock – you come home with me and let Susan spoil you.’ Steel picked up the Evening Express he’d bought at the hospital and flicked through it. She sucked on her top lip for a minute, then dumped the open newspaper back on his desk. ‘POLICE HERO IN HOUSE FIRE TRAGEDY.’
She tapped the story with a scarlet-painted nail. ‘Susan’s worried about you.’
Logan chucked a memo from Superintendent Napier in on top of the discarded reports. ‘I’m fine.’
‘No you’re no’.’ The inspector stood. ‘Did you see Samantha?’
Fifteen minutes of sitting at her bedside. Just sitting here, holding her hand and listening to the machinery breathing for her. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to tell her what he’d done to Shuggie because of her.
She probably wouldn’t have been impressed.
‘… to Planet Laz, come in Planet Laz?’
He blinked. ‘Sorry. Didn’t get much sleep. Finnie about?’
Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘Did you no’ hear a single word I said?’
‘Just got to get something sorted before we go.’ Logan made for the door, but she was blocking the way.
‘Laz, look, I understand it’s—’
‘You do?’ He stared down at her. ‘You understand?’
Sigh. ‘Fuck’s sake, we’ve all—’
‘I just … just need to speak to Finnie’
‘… and all I’m saying is that we can’t put anything in place until we know what the terms and location for handover are going to be.’ Superintendent Green was leaning back against the windowsill in Finnie’s office. He looked up as Logan entered, then back to the head of CID again. ‘Any plans we make now will be irrelevant as soon as they get in touch.’
‘And I say there are contingencies we should be planning for now.’ Finnie swivelled his chair around and frowned at Logan. Then his face softened. ‘I understand you brought Shuggie Webster in. Well done.’
‘Thank you, sir, but I wanted to talk to you about—’
/> ‘The only things you can realistically do at this stage of a kidnapping are put the hospital on alert, get a duty doctor on call, and get the force helicopter on standby.’ Green folded his arms. ‘It’s irrelevant in any case – we should be concentrating on finding Frank Baker. We do that and he’ll lead us straight to the McGregors.’
Finnie didn’t even look around. ‘This isn’t Miami Vice, Superintendent; Aberdeen doesn’t have a helicopter.’ He paused for a moment, then took a deep breath, eyes closed, letting it out slowly. ‘Now, what can we do for you, Logan?’
‘I need another firearms team. Two Yardies going by the names Jacob and Robert, it’s possible they’re the ones who’ve abducted Trisha Brown. They skinned most of Shuggie Webster’s right hand when he couldn’t pay off his drug debt.’
Green sniffed. ‘I think we’ve got more important things to worry about than a couple of two-bit drug dealers, Sergeant.’
‘Really, sir?’ Logan pulled on an ill-fitting smile. ‘Oh … Well, in that case, would you like me to nip back up the hospital and tell Trisha Brown’s mother her little girl isn’t as important as Alison and Jenny McGregor, because she’s not on the television?’
Pink rushed up the superintendent’s cheeks. ‘That’s not what I meant. By all means go pick up your little drug dealers, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that the kidnappers have already killed one little girl and time’s running out for Alison and Jenny!’ He squared his shoulders. ‘Frank Baker’s the key.’
‘Frank Baker isn’t—’
‘You just can’t admit when you’re wrong, can you Sergeant? You’re wrong and I was right. Baker’s guilty – that’s why he ran. The guilty ones always run. That’s why I exerted so much pressure on him, not because I think I’m,’ Green raised his fingers and made finger-quotes, ‘“something off The Sweeney.”’
Logan clenched his fist, feeling the skin pull tight over his swollen knuckles. ‘Frank Baker ran because you threatened to tell the people he worked with he was a paedophile.’
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 7 and 8 Page 30