Follow the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  As he threw open the door, the red laser spots of his armed colleagues were lost in a mad dance of sweeping laser beams that played in tandem with the pulsating music. Before him was what could only be described as a real clusterfuck – a writhing mass of naked bodies intertwined on a large plastic mat laid down for the purpose. The smell of male sweat and other bodily fluids hit McNab with force. The same sight and scent drove the dog mad and it started to bark. McNab tried to shout his own order but no one indulging in the orgy as yet appeared to notice they had visitors, or simply didn’t care.

  McNab’s hand signals conveyed that someone should cut the sound system and that the dog be let loose. Maybe a German shepherd bounding into their midst could break up the orgy where armed police had failed.

  As the dog plunged into the melee, the music and accompanying laser show abruptly ended to be replaced by stark electric light and a cacophony of shrieks and curses. Now the scene was revealed in all its true and hideous form. At a quick butt count, there were six males and four females. As the men finally realized who had arrived to spoil their fun, there was a mad scramble to flee with the women being thrown roughly aside, and at least one of them trampled underfoot.

  Then McNab spotted his prize. Brodie had apparently been observing the proceedings rather than taking part in them. The only man in the room fully clothed, he was shoving his way through the turmoil, heading, it seemed, for a door in the wall behind the bar. McNab lunged after him, barging his way through the scrabble of naked flesh.

  ‘Stop, police!’ he shouted.

  Brodie ignored him and, easily vaulting the counter, sent glasses flying to shatter on the floor. In moments he was through the open door and had shut it behind him.

  Got you, you bastard.

  There was, as far as McNab was aware, only one other way out of here, and they had that covered.

  Gun at the ready, he cautiously opened the door to discover the real reason for the raid on the club.

  Happy New Year!

  Even as he mouthed this, he heard a crack as a bullet passed his ear. McNab dived for the floor as a second bullet brushed his arm and embedded itself in the wall behind. He heard excited barks as the dog entered, having found its target. A room full of cocaine, packaged and ready for distribution.

  The dog jumped onto the table, scattering the kilo packs which, pierced by the gunshots, now blew up a dust cloud concealing what lay beyond the counter. McNab heard a door being wrenched open, and a blast of cold air found its way into the room to feed the swirling white cloud.

  The bastard’s getting away.

  As he launched himself through the cloud, McNab felt the taste of cocaine on his lips and in his nostrils. He wiped his mouth then spat, aware that with so much coke in the air he’d already ingested it.

  I’ll be high whatever I do.

  Outside, an icy wind whipping down the alley met him straight on. McNab checked both ways, wondering what had happened to the officer he’d stationed round the back. Then he saw a dark shadow to the right which was surely a fallen body in the snow. McNab headed in that direction.

  A quick check for a pulse found one, and steady. Help would be here soon enough and he didn’t want to lose his assailant.

  McNab rose and, quickly exiting the alleyway, searched for his prey among the ebullient Hogmanay partygoers who thronged the inner-city streets. The cocaine, he realized now, had reached his bloodstream and was coursing through it, making his heart pound even faster and spiking the colour in the crowds that surrounded him.

  ‘Hey, mate, are you okay?’

  A hand caught his arm. McNab flung it off and a splatter of blood found the white of the crusted snow by his feet.

  ‘I’m a police officer. Did a man run past you?’

  ‘A big bald bloke?’ the guy said, looking frightened.

  A wave of nausea accompanied McNab’s nod.

  ‘He went in there.’ He pointed at an open door from where came the sound of pounding music, which seemed to match McNab’s own rapid heartbeat.

  McNab leaned a hand on the wall in an attempt to quell his stomach’s reaction to the rush of cocaine, as the entrance to the nightclub pulsated before him.

  Fucking hell.

  The jowelled face of an angry bouncer was shoved in his own.

  ‘No drunks allowed.’

  McNab marshalled himself and retrieved his ID.

  ‘Call 999. Tell them Detective Sergeant McNab told you to. Tell them I’m in pursuit of a suspect. Give them the name of this place.’

  Without waiting for a response, McNab shoved his way past the burly figure to enter a busy lobby. His senses on high alert, he scanned the faces of the males hanging about there, all too young to be his man. Music poured through a set of open doors like a rushing tide. More rapid in beat than at the clusterfuck, but with the same laser light show sweeping over the jerking, but thankfully clothed bodies.

  McNab entered and, ignoring the dancers, began checking out those crowded round a nearby bar, as a female voice shouted something in his ear.

  When he looked down he found a blonde female with a concerned look on her face. Interpreting her mouth movements, he heard, ‘You’re hurt, sir.’

  Her use of the title sir confused him. He took a closer look.

  ‘PC Alison Watt, sir,’ she said in a voice that suggested he would know the name.

  Perplexed by this development, McNab tried to examine her face a bit more closely.

  ‘You don’t recognize me, sir?’ she said.

  McNab didn’t, but decided to pretend he did.

  ‘I can show you my ID?’ she offered.

  McNab shook his head. He didn’t want such an exchange on view, having just spotted his prey taking up a spot behind a pillar.

  The bastard has no idea he was followed in here.

  Which suited McNab very well. Meanwhile, his newly discovered PC was offering her services in whatever he was doing.

  ‘Do you think you could keep an eye on that bald bloke by the pillar?’

  ‘Will do, sir.’ She drew herself up and assumed a determined smile.

  ‘Be careful. He may be armed,’ McNab warned.

  She nodded.

  McNab made for the lobby to find the bouncer deep in conversation with another man who he took to be the manager. As the effects of the cocaine rush began to ebb, McNab suddenly registered the pain in his arm and the fact that his heart was slowing down. Despite this, it seemed his feet still wanted to be on the move. He forced himself to control his desire to pace as the manager said, ‘We don’t want any trouble, officer. We always comply with the police, report drugs on the premises—’

  McNab interrupted his frightened flow. ‘We’ll apprehend the suspect as quietly as we can, and you can continue with the party.’

  Relief flooded the manager’s face, then vanished as two armed police officers from the raid appeared.

  McNab drew them to one side and explained how this would play out. When he mentioned PC Watt, one of the men indicated that he knew her.

  ‘She’ll be fine, sir,’ he added as though reading McNab’s worry.

  There in the lobby, they were attracting less attention from the partygoers than expected. Maybe because it was no longer unusual to see armed police in Glasgow city centre.

  Back in the dance area, McNab checked for his man. The pillar was still there, but Brodie was no longer against it. And where the hell was PC Watt? The officer who’d professed to know her was scanning the crowd, a worried expression on his face.

  Then he saw her coming towards them, pushing her way through the dancers.

  ‘He went to the Gents and hasn’t come back out.’ She pointed in the direction she’d come from.

  McNab headed for the sign. The door opened on a short corridor. Two doors, first Ladies, then Gents. McNab banged on the Gents door, shouted, ‘Police. Stand back,’ and shouldered the door to find two guys at the urinals, scrabbling to put their dicks away, neither of them Brodie. There
were six cubicles, two with closed doors.

  McNab ordered whoever was inside them to come out. One answered crossly that he was taking a dump and wasn’t finished yet. The other door opened and a young blood appeared with a frightened face and big pupils which, McNab suspected, matched his own.

  ‘Now!’ McNab told the other occupant.

  The toilet was flushed and the door opened. It wasn’t Brodie, but the occupant had pissed McNab off. He ordered one of the officers to take down his name and advise him about obstructing an officer in the line of duty.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ the man said.

  ‘And swearing at a police officer.’

  ‘If you’re looking for the big bald bloke, he took the fire exit just as I came in here,’ his antagonist said, looking for a helpful way out of his situation.

  Back in the corridor, McNab located the nearest exit, which looked closed but, on inspection, wasn’t. Pushing the double doors open, he found himself in the ubiquitous back lane, which of course was empty except for snow and bins.

  ‘Fuck.’ McNab took a breath of the cold night air. Reality was back and with it the nagging pain in his arm and an increasingly light-headed feeling. Slowly retracing his steps, he tried to take some pleasure in what had just happened, despite their loss of Brodie. After all, they’d never expected him to be at the club, not on Hogmanay. And not at the same time as a cocaine consignment.

  If only I hadn’t lost the bastard.

  Nailing Brodie had, McNab acknowledged, become his prime obsession since the completion of the Orkney case. The man had been on McNab’s radar far longer than that, but with nothing concrete, it seemed he was the only one who thought that Brodie, identified as a low-key pimp and hard man, might just be the mastermind behind an international import and export business.

  Okay, so I was right, but …

  And they certainly hadn’t anticipated an orgy. A memory of that scene came flooding back and it wasn’t pretty. He imagined all those participants being taken to the station for questioning, hopefully clothed.

  He’d gone there hoping to find cocaine. And from what he had seen, it was a big haul. Maybe even bigger than the half a million’s worth a forensic team had taken a week to unearth in the hold of a foreign-owned tug they’d intercepted in the North Sea and brought into Aberdeen harbour. They had long suspected the east-coast port wasn’t the only entry point and that shipments may have been moved to the western seaboard. With Scotland having the longest coastline in Europe after Norway and Greece, every remote west-coast bay and harbour could provide an ideal drop-off point for smuggled drugs.

  And maybe smuggled humans?

  McNab recalled the females he’d seen in that room. All of them young. He also had a fleeting memory of the words they’d shouted in their fear.

  They weren’t speaking English.

  Back at the alley behind the Delta club, McNab noted that the injured officer had been removed and the area sealed off. Lifting the crime scene tape, he made for the exit he’d used in his pursuit. A white boiler suit met him just inside the door.

  ‘Welcome to the party,’ Chrissy said, her eyes accusing above the mask.

  8

  Accident and Emergency, Glasgow, Hogmanay

  McNab was feeling decidedly groggy. Either blood loss, a cocaine hangover or a mixture of both being to blame, according to the nurse who was currently helping him off with his bulletproof vest, then his shirt. Up to a few seconds ago, he’d forgotten all about his cling-film undergarment which unfortunately was about to be revealed in all its glory.

  Give the nurse her due, she did not make a caustic remark, although had he been in her place, he most certainly would have. McNab had a sudden flash memory of the tattooed penis, which begged the question … did you have to wear cling film on your nether regions as well?

  He registered that the nurse had now spotted the reason for the wrap.

  ‘Nice job,’ she was saying, while stepping back for a better view. ‘Where did you have it done?’

  McNab told her.

  ‘Don’t get many septic ones from there.’

  ‘Septic?’ McNab muttered worriedly.

  ‘The cling film will need to come off, I’m afraid, if I’m to clean and dress the arm wound. You can rewrap yourself once you get home.’

  McNab wasn’t sure when that would be, his plan being to head to the station and check out the participants in the orgy. There had been money involved there, big money he suspected. The provision of such a party wouldn’t come cheap, especially with a plentiful supply of cocaine on the side. Plus he thought he might have recognized at least one of the males taking part. His face, that was. Not the naked torso.

  The nurse’s cleansing of the wound and surrounding area now stood out against the dusting of cocaine that covered the remainder of his exposed skin.

  ‘You’ll need to shower this off,’ the nurse was telling him.

  ‘Think I’ll save it for later,’ McNab said. ‘As an alternative to painkillers.’

  Nurse Debby, according to her name badge, shot him a warning look from a pair of rather attractive hazel eyes.

  ‘Just joking, nurse,’ McNab said, although he wasn’t sure he was.

  Having cleaned the flesh wound, she began taping it. ‘You were lucky. An inch to the right and you would have had another bullet hole.’

  So she’d spotted the first one.

  ‘I won’t need an arm tattoo?’

  ‘No,’ she assured him. ‘Although you might want to balance your back with one on the other side.’

  ‘Are you on commission from the Ink Parlour?’

  She gave him a wicked grin.

  The dressing completed, she indicated he could sit back now. Instead, McNab swung his legs off the bed and stood up, to begin the laborious process of pulling on his shirt. The nurse looked as though she might argue, then helped him instead.

  ‘Did the police bring anyone else here from the raid?’

  ‘An officer with concussion and a young woman. Two cubicles down,’ she said helpfully. ‘There’s an officer sitting outside.’

  If the raid had produced only one casualty from that stampede, they were lucky. Dressed now, he took his leave of Nurse Debby, who handed him a sheet of paper with instructions on how to look after his wound. McNab thanked her and shoved it in his pocket with the one on tattoos.

  A variety of sounds emanated from the various cubicles as medical personnel dealt with the fallout from a snowy and no doubt alcohol-fuelled Hogmanay. As promised, two cubicles along sat a uniformed, bored-looking constable, who immediately jumped to attention when he spotted McNab.

  ‘Constable Munro, sir.’

  When asked if there was anyone with the young woman, he shook his head.

  McNab pulled back the curtain and stepped inside. The face that lay against the pillows was young, ridiculously young it seemed to McNab. She was what his mother would have called ‘a slip of a girl’. The hospital gown dwarfed her shoulders, one of which was bandaged, the matching arm in a sling. Above this, the brown neck and cheek were a mass of bruising in the shape of a footprint.

  McNab was suddenly back in that room full of writhing flesh. The barking dog. The screams of the females ringing in his ears as the men disengaged and trampled over them in a determined effort to escape.

  She must have been on the floor when it happened and some bastard stood on her.

  He was so put out by that image he failed to register that her dark eyes had opened and she was regarding him fearfully. McNab sought to allay this with a reassuring smile. That worked briefly until he displayed his ID and introduced himself, then a spark of recognition suggested she remembered him from the melee that had brought her here. She pulled herself away from him as far as was possible.

  ‘Do you speak English?’

  She shook her head.

  By eye and skin colour alone, she looked more Mediterranean than Eastern European, but McNab attempted the only expression he knew in Polish
. ‘Robi wy mówicie Język polski?’

  She eyed him warily, but said nothing.

  PC Munro drew back the curtain and offered, ‘She might be Norwegian, sir. I heard her say, ‘Han vil drepe meg.’

  ‘And that means?’

  ‘He’ll kill me … I think.’

  ‘You speak Norwegian?’

  The constable shook his head. ‘I watch Norwegian crime drama, sir. I’ve picked up a few words.’

  ‘I thought all Norwegians spoke English, usually better than we do,’ McNab said.

  PC Munro thought about that then agreed. ‘You’re right, sir.’

  McNab had watched the girl out of the corner of his eye during this conversation and was pretty sure she wasn’t following it, which put his theory out of the window.

  McNab pulled out his mobile and brought up a world map. Showing it to the girl, he pointed first to himself, then Scotland, then indicated that she might show him where she was from. She peered at the screen, eventually pointing to a large land mass east of Turkey.

  Fucking Syria?

  When he said, ‘Syria?’ out loud, she nodded.

  McNab brought up the notepad and wrote down a number.

  ‘Me,’ he said, pointing to himself, then at the number on the screen. He handed her the mobile and, understanding his request, she did as asked.

  Jesus Christ.

  ‘She’s thirteen,’ he told PC Munro. ‘She’s only thirteen years old.’

  A seminar he’d attended on human trafficking had indicated that those brought into the UK came principally from Nigeria and the Eastern Bloc. But then only recently he’d read about the unaccompanied refugee children from war-torn Syria disappearing in Europe in their thousands.

  She was eyeing him anxiously. McNab gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

  ‘Michael,’ he said, pointing to his chest. When he asked for her name, she hesitated then said shyly, ‘Amena.’

  But if she was from Syria, how come she spoke Norwegian?

  The girl had turned her face away from him, but McNab noted that the hand that lay on the sheet was trembling. When he made his way round the foot of the bed, he found her eyes closed and the thick black lashes wet with tears.