Get gone,
Cos this old world’s all made of bones …’
She grinned at him. ‘Come on, Tufty, all you’ve got to do is sing “get gone” a dozen or so times till the end. Ready? Here we go …’
He mumbled along, face getting hotter and hotter with every repetition. Till finally the DJ faded the bloody song out.
‘An oldie but a goodie! Catnip Jane there, with “Three Times Gone”.’
Tufty slumped back in his seat. ‘Thank God for that.’
‘Don’t forget, Call-in Karaoke’s coming up at eight, and we’ve got a special guest, talking about the protest this Saturday by the Northeast Farmers Union. But first here’s some messages from—’
She killed the engine. ‘You got a girlfriend, Tufty? Or boyfriend? Or favourite sheep?’
He took a look out of the passenger window – a big grey roller door, then a gap and the edge of a Portakabin kinda building. A tree-shaded path, a wee shed, and the back of a housing estate. The gap between the library’s brick wall and the recycling bins looked out on the little car park. No sign of any cars, well, except for the manky brown van abandoned in the corner with two flat tyres, a crumpled bonnet, and a ‘POLICE AWARE’ sticker on the cracked windscreen.
Tufty sat back again. ‘Jack Wallace isn’t going to suddenly appear looking to return a copy of Wind in the Willows or something, is he?’
‘Everyone should have someone to love. Someone they can trust. Someone who doesn’t need shearing twice a year.’
‘I am not shagging a sheep.’
‘Takes all sorts.’ She fiddled with the controls down the side of her seat, reclining it a bit. ‘Now, then: I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with “L”.’
Tufty pursed his lips and nodded. ‘… then I went out with Rebecca. She was nice. Sang in a country and western covers band.’
‘No accounting for taste. You give up yet?’
‘But she went off to university in Manchester, so that was that. “Bread Van”?’
‘Nope.’
‘Then there was Siobhan. Don’t know why we ended up going out; she never seemed to like me very much …’ A sigh. Didn’t matter what he did, it was always wrong. And she snored. ‘“Big Vehicle?”’
‘What about that perky Wildlife Crime Officer with the lovely breasts?’
‘What about her?’
Steel leered at him. ‘Are you shagging her yet?’
‘God, you’ve got a one-track mind, haven’t you?’ He shifted in his seat. ‘Anyway, I barely know the woman. “Brown Van”?’
‘Well what are you hanging about for – go see her! You were meant to sort out that poor wee dog’s funeral, you lazy sod.’
‘When? I’ve been running about after you all day!’ Honestly. ‘Wait, is it “Battered Van”? The one over there that looks like they dropped it off a building?’
‘About time you got that.’ She gave her fake cigarette a couple of puffs. ‘Your turn.’
‘… but then I got home from work one morning and Lisa had broken every mug in the house, stabbed the fridge with an eight-inch carving knife, and ran off with my whole CD collection.’
‘Pfff …’ Steel slumped a bit further. ‘Wish I hadn’t asked now. Your love life’s rubbish.’
Tufty turned in his seat. ‘We could talk about something else then. How about black holes?’
‘That a kinky euphemism?’
‘No, listen: particles and antiparticles pop out of the quantum foam from time to time, right? Say it’s an electron and a positron – normally they annihilate each other, but Stephen Hawking says—’
‘Tufty, you—’
‘—if it happens near a black hole’s event horizon and the electron escapes, but the positron falls in, then—’
‘Tufty!’
‘—the positron’s negative mass actually gobbles up a teeny bit of the black hole so it’ll eventually evaporate. Course that depends on no other matter falling into— Ow!’
Then she hit him again. Right in the arm. And not a soft tap either: a full-on thump.
‘Ow!’ He rubbed at the stingy patch. ‘Stop it!’
‘I changed my mind. No physics. Go back to blethering on about your sodding love life. Only try to put a bit of spice into it, eh? I want at least a few vicarious thrills before you bore me to death.’
‘… sick all down her front. She didn’t want to speak to me after that.’ He shrugged. ‘And then I went out with Hannah for three weeks. Now she was naughty.’
Very, very naughty.
In all the right places.
And once on the top deck of a night-bus to Glasgow.
A warm smile spread across his face.
Steel poked him. ‘Hoy!’
‘Sorry. “Bendy Bus”?’
‘You’re supposed to be sharing the dirty bits. And no.’
‘But her dad got done for drink-driving and suddenly every police officer was a “fascist bast”—’
She hit him. Again. Hard.
‘Cut it out!’
‘Shut up, you idiot.’ She pointed through the windscreen.
A shadowy figure, all dressed in black with a rucksack on its back, crept out from behind the recycling bins. Ninja style. Assuming the ninja had a cold head, going by the massive black woolly hat she was wearing.
Ninja Rucksack Woman took a quick look left and right, but either Steel’s car was parked in exactly the right place to be invisible or the Ninja was an idiot, because she crept across to the low wall separating the back of the library from the community centre. Hopped over it and did some more creeping to a red-painted door.
Another quick check, then she pulled a small crowbar out of her rucksack. A sharp thump at the lock and she slipped inside, closing the door behind her.
Steel fiddled her seat upright again. ‘Well, I was hoping for something a bit more drug-dealerish, but it’ll do.’
She climbed out of the car and closed the door without a sound. Looked in at Tufty with a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh …’ Then tiptoed to the wall, clambered over it and flattened herself against the bricks beside the jemmied door. Like something off of Scooby-Doo.
Woman was insane.
Ah well. Might as well.
He got out and wandered over. Swung his legs over the handrail and stood beside her, hands in his pockets. ‘So far we’ve got “malicious mischief”, “housebreaking with intent to steal”, and violation of the Civic Government – Scotland – Act 1982: Section Fifty-Eight, Part One, AKA: “going equipped”.’
‘Shhh!’ Steel stuck a finger to her lips again, whispering out, ‘Will you shut up?’
She eased the jemmied door open and sneaked inside.
He scuffed in after her into a narrow corridor with raw breeze-block walls. A stack of cleaning supplies made it narrower still.
Another door at the end opened on a much fancier corridor, one with carpet on the floor and proper walls with framed posters and things. ‘YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO YOUR COMMUNITY!’, ‘MUMS’ BUMS & TUMS CLASSES AVAILABLE NOW!!!’, ‘TOGETHER, WE CAN DO ANYTHING!’ Doors on either side.
Steel pointed.
Down at the far end, one of them swung shut on its slow closing arm thing, cutting off rubbery scraping sounds. Like a MASSIVE cat was sharpening its claws inside.
They crept over and peered through the glass panel into some sort of coffee lounge full of plastic chairs and little tables. A couple of highchairs. And a serving hatch off to one side with a teeny kitchen behind the counter. Notice boards covered in kids’ drawings.
Ninja Rucksack Woman had dragged a stack of chairs away from the wall, which explained the scraping noises, and now she stood in front of it – rucksack at her feet – spray-painting words across the breeze-blocks in big drippy red letters: ‘MRS BROCKWELL IS A FAT STUPID COW!’
Poor Mrs Brockwell.
Tufty eased into the room.
The Ninja graffiti artist stood back to examine her work. Then added an extra excl
amation mark and underlined ‘COW’ three times.
Steel made a loud, ‘Er-h’r’m!’ noise. ‘No’ exactly Van Gogh, is it?’
Ninja Rucksack Woman froze.
‘Yoo-hoo!’ Steel waved. ‘You do know we can see you?’
A whispered word floated through the silence. ‘Shite …’ Then she was off: snatching up her rucksack and sprinting for the only other exit, still holding the can of red spray paint.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ And Tufty was after her.
She leapt a row of tables with a parkour-style flip. Landed and pulled the rucksack onto her back as part of the same fluid movement. Not so much as a pause for breath.
Very cool.
Tufty hurdled the tables, sending a couple of plastic chairs clattering. She battered out through the exit, but he was right behind her, shoving into a big room with rows and rows of plastic seats arranged facing a projector screen.
She went charging through them, cutting diagonally across the room, heading straight for the curtains that made up one corner. The wake she left behind was right out of a medieval battle film – overturned plastic chairs with their metal legs pointing out in all directions like spears, waiting to skewer an unsuspecting Tufty.
Yeah, not risking that.
He went round the outside instead. Further to go, but a lot less chance of being impaled.
She yanked back one of the curtains, exposing an emergency exit. Grabbed the metal bar just as Tufty snatched a handful of rucksack.
‘You’re going nowhere!’
The door must’ve opened far enough to trip the circuit, because a shrill wailing alarm blared out of hidden speakers somewhere. Loud enough to melt bone.
‘GET OFF ME!’ Ninja Rucksack Woman swung around.
Up close, from the front, she didn’t really look like a parkour kind of person. She looked like someone’s mum: middle-aged, glasses, her hair escaping from beneath that black woolly hat in bouncy brown curls. Teeth bared. ‘GRRRRRRAH!’ She whipped the spray can in her hand up and pressed the button.
A hissing mist of bright red exploded in Tufty’s face. ‘AAAAAAAARGH!’ Got his eyes clenched shut in time, but not his mouth. Now everything tasted of chemicals and turpentine.
He let go of her and covered his face with both hands.
She kept spraying, emptying the can.
It cloinged off the carpet.
Tufty squinted out through sticky eyelashes as she shouldered her way out through the emergency exit.
No!
He launched himself at her – a rugby tackle leap – wrapping his arms around her upper legs, sending them both crashing down on the paving slabs outside.
‘GET OFF ME!’
Nope.
He crawled his way up her body – she slapped and punched at his shoulders and back.
Didn’t stop him, though.
Tufty snatched out his handcuffs and grabbed one of her wrists. Click. A bit of a twist so her hand was facing the wrong direction, a teeny bit of pressure, and …
‘AAAAAAAAAAAARGH! YOU’RE BREAKING MY WRIST! YOU’RE BREAKING MY WRIST!’
‘THEN STOP HITTING ME!’
She went limp and he forced her other arm into place and finished snapping the cuffs on. Dragged her to her feet.
She was covered in smudgy red handprints.
Steel appeared, hands in her pockets. Grinning at him. ‘You look like a baboon’s bumhole.’
Tufty just glowered back, face all sticky and tight and stinking of paint.
The wee sod was still whinging by the time they got back to Division Headquarters. Muttering and moaning. Glowering and grumping as he manhandled their prisoner across the Rear Podium. Poor thing.
‘Bloody paint, clarty everywhere, all over my poor little car …’
Wah, wah, wah, I’m all covered in paint, wah, wah, wah.
Roberta held the door open for him and he bundled their graffiti artist into the custody block. Just to cheer him up, she launched into a jaunty whistled rendition of ‘Lady in Red’.
That got her a scarlet scowl. ‘Oh you’re so motherfunking funny, aren’t you?’
Their prisoner snatched a frown over her shoulder at him. ‘I need to go to the bathroom.’
‘Oh … shut up.’ He shoved her towards the custody desk.
Sergeant Downie was on shout tonight, in all his fishbelly-pale, chinless glory. An albino worm in full Police Scotland uniform. Downie looked up from whatever it was he was reading and waved Roberta over.
Tufty thumped the woman’s rucksack onto the desk. ‘Assault. Malicious mischief. Housebreaking and vandalism by opening lockfast place. Going equipped. Resisting arrest. Failing to provide—’
‘Now,’ Downie held up a finger, ‘just one moment, Constable, the grown-ups need to talk first.’
Tufty gave a wee snarl. Difficult to tell if he was going red in the face, because of the paint.
‘My dear DS Steel, Big Gary said you were being obstreperous about someone picking up their stolen Nokia smartphone?’
She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t being obstreperous, Jeff, I was being pissed off.’
‘Well, be pissed off no longer. I managed to track said phone down in the Productions Store, so you don’t have to worry any more.’ He placed a hand over his heart. ‘No, don’t thank me! It took forever and was a vast pain in my posterior, but at least he’s got it back now.’
She stared at him.
He …
Tommy Shand’s phone?
With all the underage porn on it.
How could anyone be so …
Roberta forced out the words like little burning lumps of cat poo. ‘You let him have the phone?’ Without the phone there was no evidence to take to the Procurator Fiscal. And it wasn’t as if Josie Stephenson was going to clype on her boyfriend, was it? The whole thing was a complete goat-buggering disaster.
‘He had all the correct paperwork.’
‘Oh for …’ Her head was going to explode. It was. Any second now: bang, pop, splatter! ‘AAAAARGH!’ She leaned forward and thunked it off the custody desk.
‘If you didn’t want the phone returned, why didn’t you say something? There was no note or anything.’
‘Arrrgh …’
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
‘… aaargh, horrible, funkbiscuiting, awful …’ Half an hour in the gents’ toilet with a dirty big stack of paper towels and a bottle of turps and Tufty was still tomato coloured.
He stuck another towel over the open bottle and tipped it up, turning the paper a darker shade of green. Dabbed away at a scarlet cheek.
‘Bloody, scumbagging, motherfunking, felchrabbit—’
The door banged open and Steel danced in. ‘All hail the conquering heroine!’
‘Rotten, badger-spanking—’
‘You’ll be happy to know that our guest has admitted everything.’ She hopped up, plonking her backside down on the edge of the next sink over. ‘Turns out Mrs Brockwell disqualified her Victoria sponge for having strawberry jam in it.’
He turpsed up another paper towel. ‘I am absolutely sodding clarted!’
‘Who would’ve thought passions ran so high in the WRI?’
Blearrrrg … A rancid petrol taste filled his mouth as he wiped at his lips. He scrubbed hard, then spat. ‘Suit’s ruined. And did you see the state of my car?’
A shrug. ‘Well, we couldn’t transport a prisoner back to the station in my MX-5, could we? Doesn’t have a back seat.’ She handed him another paper towel. ‘And you think you got it bad? What about me? Was supposed to take Susan out for a nosh-up at that new French place. She’ll no’ be happy I stood her up.’
‘Oh boo-hoo!’ He turned on her. ‘I got covered in paint!’
‘That you most certainly did.’ She winked at him. ‘Come on Tufters: look on the bright side … at least I found it funny.’
He just scowled at her.
Roberta hitched up her trousers and leaned back against the windowsill. Smiled.
> The ward was dark and quiet, all eight of the hospital beds occupied by a wee kid. Most were fast asleep, but a little girl’s face halfway down was caught in the blue-green glow of a handheld games console. The only other light in the place was the Anglepoise lamp above Harrison Gray’s bed. Harrison. What kind of monster called their kid ‘Harrison’? Shouldn’t be allowed.
He had his knees drawn up to his chest, the bags under his eyes darker and deeper in the harsh overhead light. Snot shining on his top lip.
She took out a hankie, spat on it, and wiped the bogies away. Kept her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘There you go, much more handsome now.’
He stared at her with big black eyes. Not so much as a peep.
‘The doctors say you’re going to be in here for a couple of days, till they get those sores of yours sorted out. Then you can go live with a proper family. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’
Nothing.
‘Proper family with proper food. No more “chicken and liver meaty chunks in jelly for a healthy coat and strong bones”.’
He blinked.
‘There’s more to life than dog food, you know. There’s pizza; and fish and chips; and soup; and steak pie and chips; and curry; and sushi; and sausages, baked beans, and chips; and egg and chips; and macaroni cheese and chips …’ Roberta licked her lips, stomach growling. ‘Pretty much anything you put with chips is good.’
Still nothing.
‘I know you’ve seen terrible things, and having a horrible name like “Harrison” isn’t going to help, but life gets better. It really, really does.’ She gave his snotty nose another spit and polish. ‘You just have to let it. OK?’
A shape appeared from the gloom. A little nurse with big hair, a squint smile, surgical gloves, and a tub of something. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s time to put some ointment on Harrison’s sores. You like that, don’t you Harrison? All nice and soothing?’
He just stared at her too.
‘That’s right.’ As if he’d agreed with her. She turned her squint smile on Roberta. ‘Don’t worry, he’s in safe hands now.’
‘Aye, well I was just leaving anyway.’ Roberta ruffled his hair. ‘You behave yourself.’ And off into the night.
Roberta rang the doorbell to her own house. Stood there with one hand behind her back. Waited for a count of ten, then rang the bell again.
Now We Are Dead Page 18