Logan changed down, aiming the Vauxhall at a rust-red speed bump. Catch it dead centre and the wheels would go either side of the four-foot-wide lump. No problem… The car lurched into the air, and battered back down against the potholed tarmac.
‘Are you tryingto kill us?’ Rennie checked his watch again. ‘One minute thirty.’
The constable was right: they weren’t going to make it. Logan took the next speed hump without slowing down.
‘Aaaagh! One minute ten.’
Couldn’t even seethe phone box yet.
‘Come on!’
The car slithered around the next corner, wheels kicking up a spray of grit as they fishtailed towards Hazlehead Park. No way in hell they were going to make it.
‘Thirty-nine, thirty-eight, thirty-seven, thirty-six…’ Rennie braced himself against the dashboard. ‘Maybe they’ll wait?’
Logan stuck his foot hard to the floor, rocking back and forth in his seat. ‘Come on you piece of shit.’ Left hand throbbing where it was wrapped around the wheel. Bushes flickered past the window, a drystane dyke little more than a grey knobbly blur. Sixty-five miles an hour. Sixty-six. Sixty-seven…
‘Five, four, three, two, one.’ Rennie cleared his throat. ‘Twenty past.’
The police radio crackled. ‘Control to Charlie Delta Fourteen, is she—’
Rennie snatched up the handset. ‘Still en route.’
‘Still en… ? It’s twenty past—’
‘We bloody know!’ Logan took another speed bump at seventy, the car jerking as it leapt into the air. This time when it hit the tarmac there was a loud metallic banging noise followed by a deafening growl. Then the whole car juddered, a scraping sound, and the rear wheels bounced over something.
Logan glanced in the rearview mirror. The exhaust was lying dented and battered in the middle of the road. ‘Tell them to get roadblocks up all round the park – every exit!’
One more corner, the engine roaring like an angry bear, and there it was. A British Telecom phone box – its Perspex skin covered with spray-paint tattoos – sitting outside the grubby concrete rectangle of a public toilet. No sign of anyone. No parked cars. No passersby.
The Vauxhall skidded to a halt in a cloud of pale dust. Logan hauled on the handbrake, tore off his seatbelt, jumped out, and sprinted for the phone box.
Silence, just the crunch of his feet on the gravel.
He yanked the box’s door open and was engulfed in the eye-watering reek of stale urine. The phone was sitting in the cradle, the shiny metal cord still in place. It was about the only thing in there that hadn’t been vandalized.
But it wasn’t ringing.
‘Time?’
Rennie staggered to a halt beside him, sunburnt face an even deeper shade of pink than usual. Panting. ‘Two minutes late.’ He twirled around on the spot. ‘Maybe they haven’t called yet? Maybe they’ve been held up? Or something…’ He stared at the padded brown envelope sitting on the shelf where a telephone directory should have been.
Logan dug a pair of blue nitrile gloves out of his pocket and hauled them on. He picked up the envelope. It was addressed to ‘T HEC OPS’.
Rennie wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘You think it’s for—’
‘Of course it is.’ The flap wasn’t sealed. Logan levered it open and peered inside. ‘Jesus.’
‘What? What did they…’
He reached inside and pulled out a crumpled ball of white paper, stained red in the centre. He eased the bundle open.
A little pale tube of flesh lay in the middle – a pink-varnished nail at one end, a bloody stump at the other. A little girl’s toe.
The wrapping paper was covered in congealed blood, but Logan could still make out the laser-printed message: ‘M AYBEN EXTT IMEY OUW ON’TB EL ATE’.
Read on for an exclusive preview of the bloody brilliant new novel
1
Flash. It’s like an explosion going off in her head, knives in her eyes, broken glass in her brain. Then darkness. She rocks back in the seat; the wood creaks under her.
Blink. Blink. A hot blue-and-orange glow painted across the inside of her eyelids. Tears rolling down her dirty cheeks.
Please…
She drags a shuddering breath through her nose, wet with snot. The smell of dirt and bitter-onion sweat, dust, and something pissy – like when that mouse got trapped behind the cooker. A little furry body hidden in darkness, going rancid with mould, stinking of rotting sausages, roasting every time they turned the oven on.
Please… Her mouth makes the word behind the gag of sticky tape, but all that comes out is a muffled moan. Her shoulders ache, both arms twisted behind her back, wrists and ankles stinging from the cable-ties that hold her to the hard wooden chair.
She throws her head back and blinks at the ceiling. The room fades back in: bare wooden joists stained almost black; spider webs; a neon strip-light, buzzing like a wasp trapped in a glass. Walls smeared with filth. A huge camera mounted on a tripod.
Then the noise. He’s singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’, the words coming out all broken and hesitant, like he’s scared to get them wrong.
This is fucked up. Completely fucking fucked up. It’s not even her birthday yet: not for four more days…
Another shuddering breath.
It can’t be happening. It’s a mistake.
She blinks the tears from her eyes and stares into the corner. He’s getting to the big finale, head down as he mumbles out the words. Only it’s not her name he sings, it’s someone else: Andrea.
Oh thank God.
He’ll get it, right? That it’s a mistake? She’s not supposed to be here: Andrea’ssupposed to be here. Andrea’s supposed to be the one tied to a chair in a manky little room full of dirt and spiders and the smell of dying mice. He’ll understand.
She tries to tell him, but the gag turns everything into grunts and nonsense.
She’s not Andrea.
She shouldn’t be here.
He stands behind the camera again, clears his throat a couple of times, takes a deep breath, licks his lips. His voice sounds like one of them kids’ TV presenters: ‘Say “cheese”!’ Another flash, filling her eyes with burning white dots.
It’s a mistake. He has to seethat – he’s got the wrong girl, he has to let her go.
She blinks. Please. This isn’t fair.
He comes out from behind the camera and rubs a hand across his eyes. Stares at his shoes for a bit. Another deep breath. ‘Presents for the Birthday Girl!’ He thumps a battered old toolkit down onto the creaky wooden table next to her chair. The table’s spattered with brown stains. Like someone spilled their Ribena years ago.
It’s not Ribena.
Her mouth tightens behind the gag, tears make the room blur. Air catches in her throat turning everything into short, jagged, trembling sobs.
She’s not Andrea. It’s all a mistake.
‘I got…’ A pause while he shuffles his feet. ‘I’ve got something special… just for you, Andrea.’ He opens the toolkit and takes out a pair of pliers. Their rusty metal teeth shine in the gloom.
He doesn’t look at her, hunches his shoulders, puffs out his cheeks like he’s going to puke, scrubs a hand across his mouth. Tries for that barely there smile again. ‘You ready?’
About the Author
Stuart MacBride is the bestselling author of the DS Logan McRae series, the most recent of which, Shatter the Bones, was a Sunday TimesNo. 1 bestseller.
His novels have won him the CWA Dagger in the Library, the Barry Award for Best Debut Novel, and Best Breakthrough Author at the ITV3 crime thriller awards.
Stuart’s other works include Halfhead, a near-future thriller, Sawbones, a novella aimed at adult emergent readers, and several short stories.
He lives in the north-east of Scotland with his wife, Fiona, and cat, Grendel.
For more information visit StuartMacBride.com
Other Works
By Stuart MacBride
&nbs
p; The Logan McRae Novels
Cold Granite
Dying Light
Broken Skin
Flesh House
Blind Eye
Dark Blood
Shatter the Bones
Other Works
Sawbones
Birthdays for the Dead
Writing as Stuart B. MacBride
Halfhead
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollins Publishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollins Publishers2011
Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2011
Stuart MacBride asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
EPub Edition © December ISBN: 978 0 00 744711 4
All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
About the Publisher
Australia
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
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