Shatter the Bones lm-7

by Stuart MacBride

  FUCK.

  A huge black dog launched itself at him, gaping mouth snapping and snarling. It crashed against the chain-link; the fence buckled outwards…

  Logan backed away a couple of paces.

  Jesus that was a big dog. ‘Uzi, fuckin’ cool it.’ The guy holding its lead gave a yank, and the massive Rottweiler stood for a second glaring at Logan, then settled onto its haunches. ‘Sorry ’bout that. He’s only a puppy. Gets excited.’ The man sniffed, wiped a bandaged hand across his squint nose, two fingers and a thumb poking out from the filthy fabric. His eyes were hidden in the shadow of a NYY baseball cap worn under a grey hoodie. A leather jacket on over the top, glistening in the rain.

  ‘Shuggie?’ Logan took a step forward, and Uzi growled. Might be a better idea to just stay exactly where he was. He dug his aching hand into his pocket. ‘Shuggie Webster?’

  ‘You gonna give us them drugs back, or what?’

  ‘Pin back your ears and listen: I’m — not — giving — you — any — drugs. OK? No drugs.’

  The big man hung his head, chewed on the ragged tip of a finger. A pair of handcuffs dangled from his wrist, the metal shiny against the grubby bandage. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘What do you expect; I’m a police officer.’

  ‘You’ve got to. They’re gonna hurt Trisha again. They beat the shite out her mum, trashed the house… And what if they go after her kid?’

  ‘Come on, Shuggie: it’s over. You’re still under arrest from Thursday. Come down the station, make a statement, and we’ll get whoever’s threatening you off the streets.’

  He raised his chin, and Logan finally got a look at his face: a black eye, a crust of blood around both nostrils, a beige sticking plaster across the bridge of his squint nose. ‘I’m no’ fuckin’ daft, OK? What’s gonna happen when you bang me up, eh? Fuckin’ eight-inch chib in the guts. No thank you.’ Shuggie Webster straightened up. ‘How’d you like it: some cunt comes round your crib, threatens your missus? Would you hand yourself in?’

  ‘Well, I’d-’

  ‘Would you fuck.’ He turned away from the fence. ‘Come on, Uzi.’

  ‘You’re still under arrest, Shuggie!’

  He stuck up a pair of fingers. There was blood seeping through the bandage.

  ‘Shuggie!’ Logan pulled out his pepper-spray and yanked the lid off. There was a hole in the fence, less than a dozen feet away. All he had to do was nip through and make the arrest.

  Pepper-spray worked on dogs … didn’t it?

  He watched the muscles bunch and roll beneath the Rottweiler’s shiny black hide.

  Swallowed.

  OK, it was all about appearing confident and in control of the situation.

  Logan marched through the soggy grass to the hole in the fence, ducked through, and hurried after Shuggie. ‘I’m not telling you again: you’re under arrest.’

  Confident and in control.

  Shuggie stopped where he was. Turned. ‘Get fucked. Told you: I’m no’ goin’ nowhere.’

  ‘I’m serious, Shuggie. You’re coming with me.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ He smiled, showing a gap where a tooth used to be. Then he let go of the lead. ‘Uzi — BACON!’

  The dog looked up at him, then followed the line of the pointing finger to Logan. Bared his teeth.

  ‘Oh … bugger…’ Pepper-spray. He had the pepper-spray! Perfectly safe. Confident and in control. Confident and-

  The dog lurched forward.

  Sod ‘confident and in control’, Logan turned and ran. Barking behind him, snarling, the sound of huge paws splashing through puddles.

  Closer.

  Make for the fence, get back through the hole and… No way in hell he could outrun a Rottweiler. He glanced over his shoulder.

  Right behind him, mouth open, red and slavering, like the jaws of hell…

  FUCK!

  Logan jinked right, and Uzi flashed past, tried to turn — powerful back legs skidding across the waterlogged grass, sending up a wall of spray.

  Jesus, the bloody thing was the size of a bear.

  Tree! Logan jumped for the nearest one, wrapped his arms around a branch, hauled himself up. Or tried to. A sudden jerk back, knives slashing across his ankle, then a ripping sound as his trouser leg gave way. ‘AAAAAghhh…’

  The ground slammed into his back, ripping the breath from his lungs; and then the huge dog was on top of him, teeth flashing inches from Logan’s face.

  Fuck — he’d dropped the pepper-spray.

  Shuggie’s voice cut through the snarls. ‘UZI — hold!’

  A low growl.

  The dog’s weight pushed Logan into the sodden grass, soaking through his jacket and shirt, cold and wet and oh God he was going to die…

  Thunder boomed out across the slate-grey sky, but the Rottweiler didn’t even flinch, just stood there with his front paws on Logan’s chest, snarling, teeth bared. Its breath stank of rotting meat and bitter onion, drool spattering against Logan’s cheeks and forehead, slimy and warm compared to the rain.

  A shape loomed in his peripheral vision. Shuggie, standing over the snarling dog, cradling the bandaged hand against his chest. ‘Hold real fuckin’ still, or he’ll rip your throat out.’

  Logan flicked his eyes to the side and back again. The dog barked, teeth glinting, speckling his face with drool. ‘Gah… Call him off!’

  ‘Gonnae give us my drugs back now? Before them Yardie bastards hack my hands off with a machete?’

  ‘I’m… I can’t. I’m a police officer… I can’t. Now call the dog off!’

  Sniff. ‘Nah, he can have you.’

  Uzi barked again.

  A drop of spittle landed in Logan’s eye. He flinched, blinked. ‘Fuck’s sake, Shuggie — I can’t!’ Voice high pitched and trembling.

  The only sound was the rain, drumming down all around them.

  ‘Give us your car keys.’

  ‘I’m not-’

  ‘Uzi…’

  Another roar of thunder, closer, almost overhead. The massive Rottweiler roared back. Teeth flashing in the thickening rain.

  Oh Christing fuck…

  Logan squealed. ‘Now give us your keys.’

  He dug his fingers into his pocket and pulled the Vauxhall’s keys out. ‘Take them!’

  Shuggie snatched them out of his hand. ‘Now call the bloody dog off!’

  Shuggie turned and limped back towards the fence.

  Logan tore his eyes away from the dog’s teeth, and watched him squeeze through the hole in the chainlink. He crossed the rutted track, climbed the grass verge, and onto Fairview Street.

  The dog tilted its head to the side, nose all creased and wrinkled, black rubbery lips pulled back from those butcher-knife teeth.

  Logan blinked the rain out of his eyes. ‘Please…’

  The Vauxhall’s headlights snapped through the gloom, the roar of the engine audible for a second, before another peal of thunder drowned it out.

  Another bark, front paws digging into Logan’s chest. Hailstones battered down, stinging his hands and face, knocking blossom from the tree above, showering them with slow-motion pink.

  Then the sound of a car door creaking open. ‘UZI! UZI!’

  The huge dog froze, head swinging around to face the car, both ears pricked.

  ‘UZI! GET OVER HERE YOU DAFT BASTARD!’

  It had one last snarl at Logan, then scraped its back paws through the muddy grass, before loping off.

  Oh thank God…

  Logan lay flat on his back, arms covering his head as he heard the Vauxhall’s door clunk shut again, then the engine faded away into the downpour as Shuggie drove off in Logan’s pool car.

  How the hell was he going to explain this one?

  Chapter 24

  ‘About bloody time.’ Logan thumped his mug of coffee down as DC Rennie ambled in through the pub’s front door, paused just inside, looked around, then waved.

  Idiot.

  Logan pressed send on his phone — ‘SHUG
GIE, I’M FUCKING WARNING YOU: BRING MY BLOODY CAR BACK!’

  ‘Morning, Sarge. Been swimming?’ Rennie’s pearl-white grin flashed out from his fake tan.

  Logan stuffed his phone back in his pocket. ‘Are you really that desperate for a boot up the arse?’

  ‘OK… Not in a great mood then.’ He pointed over his shoulder. ‘Got the car out front. You want a lift back to the station, or-’

  ‘Where is it?’

  Frown. ‘Er… Out front. By the disabled spaces.’

  Logan scrunched his eyes shut. Gritted his teeth. ‘Not your car, my bastarding car!’

  A shuffle of feet. ‘You weren’t serious about that, were you?’

  A young woman appeared at the table, clutching a pot of coffee. She smiled a train-track smile, light sparkling off her braces. ‘Would you like some more ice? Or a refill or something?’

  Logan forced a smile. ‘No, I’m fine, just on our way.’ He reached down and unwrapped the soggy tea-towel from his left ankle. A few chunks of half-melted ice fell to the carpet. The skin was angry pink and swollen, four parallel dark-red lines burning and stinging where Uzi’s teeth had ripped through his trouser leg and slashed across the ankle. At least it wasn’t bleeding any more.

  He handed the towel over. ‘Thanks.’

  Rennie watched until she disappeared through the door marked, ‘STAFF ONLY’. He ran a hand through his spiky blond hair. ‘Nice arse.’

  ‘I told you to run a bloody GPS trace!’

  ‘I thought you were joking. I mean, you know, why would you want a trace on your own car? How can you not know where your car is?’

  ‘Surrounded by idiots…’ Logan limped out of the front door, shoes squelching with every step, Rennie scurrying along behind.

  ‘What happened to your leg?’

  It wasn’t difficult to spot the constable’s CID pool car outside the pub — it was the manky Vauxhall with the dashboard overflowing with burger wrappers and empty crisp packets. Hailstones battered off the dirty paintwork, making a little drift of white across the windscreen wipers.

  Inside it smelled much the same as every other CID vehicle — that mix of stale sweat, cigarette smoke, and something going mouldy under one of the seats.

  Rennie got in behind the wheel. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Make the sodding call.’

  There was a brief pause, then the constable pulled out his Airwave handset and punched in the number for Control. ‘Yeah, Jimmy, I need a GPS trace on Charlie Delta Seven? … Er … no. He’s not answering his mobile… Or his Airwave.’ Rennie glanced over at Logan, clocked the glower, and faced front again. ‘Look just do us a GPS trace, OK? … What?’ The constable sat up straight in his seat. ‘No: Jimmy, don’t you bloody dare put him-’ A cough. ‘Chief Inspector Finnie, yeah, I was just… DS McRae? Er…’ Rennie stared at Logan, eyes bugging, mouth making a squiggly line across his face.

  Logan mouthed, ‘No!’ waved both hands, palm out, shaking his head.

  ‘Hold on…’ Rennie held the handset out. ‘It’s for you.’ Bastard.

  Logan took the Airwave. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Tell me, Detective Sergeant, did I accidentally give you the day off and forget all about it?’

  ‘Well, no, but-’

  ‘Then perhaps you’d like to explain why you’re not currently interviewing Frank Baker like I told you?’

  Logan peered out through the hail-flecked windscreen. How the hell did Finnie know he wasn’t-

  ‘Superintendent Green tells me he’s been waiting for you to appear for the last fi fteen minutes.’

  ‘He’s what? Look it’s bad enough we’ve-’

  ‘It would be nice, Sergeant, if for once I thought I could actually depend on a member of my team to act like a professional. I don’t care if you think it’s a waste of time or not — get round there, interview Baker, and try not to behave like a petulant bloody child!’

  And then there was silence.

  Logan held out the handset and read the little grey-and-black LCD screen: ‘CALL TERMINATED’

  Perfect.

  Just. Bloody. Perfect.

  Logan rapped his knuckles on the car’s passenger window.

  Superintendent Green looked up from the laptop he was poking away at, and stared at Logan for a moment, then a smile crawled across the lower half of his face, going nowhere near his eyes. Bzzzzzz — the window slid down a couple of inches. ‘Been on our holidays, have we, Sergeant?’

  Warm air curled out into the cold morning. The hail had died off, replaced by a frigid drizzle.

  Logan forced a smile of his own. ‘Pursuing other avenues of enquiry, sir.’

  ‘Yes…’ Green turned to the uniformed constable sitting in the driver’s seat. ‘Wait for me.’ He snapped the laptop closed and slipped it into an oversized leather satchel. Stepped out into the horrible morning. Looked Logan up and down. Raised an eyebrow. ‘Is your suit meant to look like that?’

  Logan glanced at his left trouser leg. The fabric was torn and tattered, stained dark-grey with blood, rain, and dirt. Muddy paw prints on his chest. ‘I thought you were in a hurry?’

  ‘After you.’

  The fabrication yard where Frank Baker worked was a small industrial unit bolted onto a large warehouse, cut off from the road by a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. As if anyone was going to break in and make off with a two tonne chunk of drilling pipe. They lay stacked up around the building, held in place with wooden chucks and ratchet straps.

  Green marched towards the door marked, ‘ALL VISITORS MUST REPORT TO RECEPTION!’

  ‘Punctuality is the sign of an effective police officer, Sergeant.’

  Tosser. How could Logan be late for an unscheduled meeting?

  ‘Really, sir? I always thought it was catching criminals and preventing crimes.’

  Green paused for a moment, then pushed through into a small room that smelled of industrial grease and coffee. A large woman with a bowl haircut looked up from a stack of forms and stared at them over the top of her glasses. No, ‘Hello?’ No, ‘Can I help you?’

  The superintendent glanced around the room — Health and Safety posters, framed photo of an oil rig, calendar with kittens on it, shelves groaning with lever-arch files. ‘I want to speak to Frank Baker.’

  She puckered her lips. ‘He’s working.’

  Green thrust his warrant card under her nose. ‘Now.’

  Inside, the warehouse was vast: filled with machinery, forklift trucks, and more pipes. A radio boomed out something poppy, competing with the bangs, clangs, and thrum of heavy equipment. The machine-gun pops of welding.

  Frank Baker didn’t look the same without his nice clean suit. Instead he was wearing a pair of grubby orange overalls with a padded green jacket on top, the chest and shoulders covered with pinhole burns. Big leather gloves, steel toecap boots. A thick red line across his forehead from the welding mask he’d just thumped down on a length of rust-flecked pipe. ‘I don’t appreciate you bastards coming here every day.’

  ‘Then answer the bloody question!’ Green crossed his arms, legs shoulder-width apart, chin up.

  Baker scowled at Logan. ‘I’ve been through all this: with you, with the wrinkly old woman, so-’

  ‘It’s just a couple of follow-up-’

  ‘And you’re going to go through it all again for us.’ Green stepped closer and Baker flinched.

  ‘I have to work here.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ The superintendent winked. ‘They don’t know you’re a pervert. That you like to interfere with little boys-’

  ‘Keep your voice down!’

  ‘A filthy kiddie-fiddling paedophile, who-’

  ‘SHUT UP! SHUT YOUR DIRTY MOUTH!’ Baker grabbed the handle of his arc welder.

  Green leaned in close. ‘Or what, Frank?’

  Tears sparked in the corner of Baker’s eyes.

  A huge man in filthy overalls wandered over, a baseball cap turned the wrong way around on his massive head, face cr
eased with dirt around a clear patch where his safety goggles must have sat. ‘Everything OK, Frankie?’

  Baker bit his lip. ‘Yeah… Thanks, Spike.’

  Spike stared at them for a bit. ‘Any trouble, give us a shout.’ Then he turned and lumbered away.

  Baker waited till he was well out of earshot. ‘I told them: I volunteer at a vet’s in town every Saturday. It’s not illegal, OK? It’s not against my SOPPO. I’ve not done anything wrong. So go away and leave me alone!’

  ‘No, no, no, Frank — that’s not how it works.’ Green smiled. ‘You tell me everything I want to know, or I’ll make sure every sweaty-arsed bastard in this place knows your grubby little secret.’

  ‘Sir?’ Logan cleared his throat. ‘That’s not really-’

  ‘You want that, Frank? You want them all to find out what you do to little boys?’

  ‘This isn’t fair!’

  ‘You think what’s happening to Alison and Jenny is fair?’ Baker closed his eyes and sagged. ‘Please, I just want to be left alone…’

  Chapter 25

  Green leaned on the roof of Rennie’s pool car. Staring off into the middle distance, chin up. Posing. Again. ‘Well, that was … interesting.’

  Logan hauled open the door and threw his notebook onto the driver’s seat. ‘That is not the way we do things.’

  It had stopped raining, though from the look of the deep-grey layer of cloud blanketing the city that probably wouldn’t last. Still freezing as well.

  Superintendent Green curled his top lip. ‘Really? What a shock: something else Grampian Police doesn’t do. Tell me, Sergeant, what do you do?’

  ‘Frank Baker is a registered sex offender — do you have any idea what’ll happen to him if his workmates find out?’

  ‘That’s hardly my-’

  ‘They’ll beat the shit out of him; he’ll get fired; and he’ll disappear! How are we supposed to manage him if we don’t know where he is?’

  Green’s eyes narrowed. ‘Sergeant McRae, are you always this resistant to the chain of command?’

  ‘You had no business storming in there like something off the bloody Sweeney!’