Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers,
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
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Cover image © Niall Bain/Alamy Stock Photo
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
This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organisations 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. The only exceptions to this are a number of characters who have been named after people from A.A. Milne’s life, but, aside from this homage, all behaviour, history, and character traits assigned to their fictional representations have been designed to serve the needs of the narrative and do not necessarily bear any resemblance to the real person.
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Source ISBN: 9780008257088
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2017 ISBN: 9780008257095
Version: 2017-09-21
Dedication
To
Alan Alexander Milne
for writing the book
that made me
a reader
‘Er-h’r’m!’
In the autumn of 2016 I did a Very Foolish Thing: I allowed myself to be talked into appearing on Celebrity Mastermind.
Now that might not sound so Very Foolish to you, because you’re a sophisticated person-about-town type who can remember Important Things, like when the Battle of Hastings was and what you had for breakfast yesterday. I’m not, I’ve no idea, and I think it was an egg (but I can’t be certain). I have a terrible memory and I really don’t like quiz shows, because watching them just makes me feel thick.
But I let myself get talked into it anyway. Tried to back out when I came to my senses. And was talked back into it again. Oh dear.
Then came the Big Question – what would my specialist subject be? I picked ‘The Life and Major Works of A.A. Milne’ because the first book I can ever remember reading is Winnie-the-Pooh. It’s the book of me: the one that sits at the core of my being, way down there in my dark and sticky heart. The first book I loved. The book that made me into a reader. So off I went and studied and crammed and revised and Worked Very Hard not to make a complete and utter goat-squirrelling bumhole of myself on national television.
Now, I am a great believer in recycling and there was no chance in hell I was going to let all that studying go to waste after the horror of sitting in the Big Black Leather Chair had faded (I still get flashbacks), so I decided to channel it all into a book.
It just so happened that there was a story I wanted to tell that I thought would probably fit quite well with this newfound A.A. Milne-flavoured knowledge swirling around in my head.
It’s the story of what happens to Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel after she was caught being Very, Very Naughty in In the Cold Dark Ground. After all, I did rather leave her hanging and she’s been impatient to be getting on with things.
Logan, on the other hand, was adamant that he’d Worked Very Hard in the last two books and he’d really much rather go on holiday somewhere nice and sunny: where no one ever got murdered, beaten with a claw-hammer, threatened by criminals, slapped by their sister, or had to frisk Extremely Smelly People for weapons and/or drugs. So he won’t be appearing in this book (except for a tiny cameo, where he wandered into a chapter or two by mistake {then wandered right out again, when he realised this story isn’t about him [because it’s about Roberta]}).
But don’t worry, she’s got Detective Constable Stewart Quirrel to keep her company and stop her from doing anything we’ll all regret. Or at least he’ll Do His Best, and that’s all we can ask of anyone …
Oh dear: Roberta’s glaring at me and tapping on her watch. She clearly thinks I’ve spent quite enough time on this introduction and I should get my finger out and actually start the book.
She’s probably right.
S. B. MB
are you sitting comfortably?
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
‘Er-h’r’m!’
Halfway Down the Stairs
CHAPTER ONE
in which we are introduced to Roberta Steel
and her Horrible New Job
CHAPTER TWO
in which it is a Braw, Bricht, Moonlicht Nicht
and Tufty Has a Clever – and then a bath
CHAPTER THREE
in which we find out what happens when
you microwave a Small Yorkshire Terrier
CHAPTER FOUR
in which Roberta learns an Important Lesson
About Friendship and we meet a lawyer
CHAPTER FIVE
in which Roberta and Tufty go on An Adventure,
Tufty has another bath,
and Roberta gets her bottom spanked (but not in a Good Way)
CHAPTER SIX
in which it is shown that PC Harmsworth should Never
Get Naked In Public, we find out if rubber willies float,
and Tufty catches someone red-handed
CHAPTER SEVEN
in which we meet a Bad Man
and Roberta does a Very Naughty Thing
CHAPTER EIGHT
in which Tufty goes to the shops, and we find out what happens
when you stand up to a Very Scary Man
CHAPTER NINE
in which some tractors drive down Union Street
and Everyone Has A Bath
CHAPTER TEN
in which Everything Goes Horribly Wrong
and we say goodbye to NE Division
Before We Say Goodbye
Discover more from Stuart MacBride
About the Author
Also by Stuart MacBride
About the Publisher
HALFWAY DOWN THE STAIRS
Jack whistles as he works his way downstairs, one step at a time: the ‘Funeral March’, but the tune falls apart because he can’t – stop – grinning.
OK, so today started out pretty bad, but it’s going to end absolutely perfect. Class one. Grade A. Whoop-de-bloody-doo. Terrific.
It’s a nice house, maybe a bit on the frumpy side, but big. Bet it’s worth a lot of money. No way an honest cop can afford all this. But then she isn’t honest, is she? No, she’s a dirty lying, corrupt, BITCH.
Jack shifts his grip on her ankles and looks back over his shoulder. Keeps hauling her down the stairs, nice and slow so the Bitch’s head bounces off each and every step.
Bump. Bump. Bump.
Could she be dressed more like a dyke if she tried? Dungarees? Honestly, some people have no sense of style at all. She’s even wearing comfortable shoes, for Christ’s sake. What a cliché.
And what’s with the hair? Looks like someone tumble-dried a Scottie Dog then stapled it to a wrinkly chimpanzee. Lesbians in porn films look nothing like that. They’re all lithe and young and pert. Compliant. Willing. Grateful. Completely unlike Detective Sergeant – Oh I’m So Special – Roberta Bloody Steel in her bulldog-dyke dungarees.
Still, she’ll not be wearing them long.
Her eyes flicker open as her head bumps against the next step down. Mouth moving like it’s not been wired up right. ‘Unnnngggghhhh …’
Gwah … The smell coming off her: like someone drowned a tramp in cheap chardonnay and cheaper perfume.
Still, Jack’s prepared to overlook all that, cos he’s a gentleman. And this one’s been a long time coming.
He gives her a smile. ‘Oh, we’re going to have so much fun!’
Bump. Bump. Bump.
CHAPTER ONE
in which we are introduced to Roberta Steel
and her Horrible New Job
I
Tufty lunged, arm outstretched, fingertips just brushing the backpack … then closing on thin air. Too slow.
The wee scroat laughed, shoved his way through a couple of pensioners examining the pay-as-you-go phones, and exploded out through the doors. His mate hurdled the fallen oldies, hooting and cheering. Hit the pavement and ran right, twisting as he went to stick both middle fingers up through the Vodafone shop window.
Tufty sprinted after them. Burst through the doors and out onto Union Street.
Four-storey buildings in light granite lined the four-lane road, their bottom floors a solid ribbon of shops. Buses grumbled by, white vans, taxis, cars.
The foot traffic wasn’t nearly thick enough for the pair of them to disappear into a crowd. They didn’t even try. Running, laughing, hoodies flapping out behind them. A couple of mobile phones clattered to the paving slabs, screens shattering amongst the chewing-gum acne.
Look at them: neither one a day over thirteen, acting like this was the most fun they’d ever had in their lives. Expensive trainers, ripped jeans, one bright-blue hoodie – violent orange hair – one bright-red – dark with frosted tips – both with stupid trendy haircuts. Earrings and piercings sparkling in the morning sunlight.
Tufty picked up the pace. ‘Hoy! You!’
The clacker-clack of Cuban heels hammered the pavement behind him.
He glanced back and there she was: Detective Sergeant Steel, actually giving chase for once. Didn’t think she had it in her. Her dark-grey suit was open, yellow silk shirt shimmering, grey hair sticking out in all directions like a demented ferret. Face set in a grimace. Probably hadn’t done any serious running since she was a kid – trying not to get eaten by dinosaurs.
A man wiped coffee off his jacket. ‘You rotten wee shites! I was drinking that!’
An old woman grabbed at her split bag-for-life, its contents rolling free. Off the kerb and into the road. ‘Come back here and pick this up, or I’ll tan your backsides!’
Up ahead, the one in the blue hoodie barrelled through a knot of people stopped in the middle of the pavement chatting, sending one bouncing off a solicitor’s shop window with a resounding ‘boinnnngggggg’, the others clattering down with their shopping. Another couple of mobile phones, still in their boxes, joined them, spilling out of the open backpack.
Hoodie Red sprinted past the e-cigarette shop where the granite buildings came to an abrupt end. A pause in the street, marked by a short row of black iron railings, a small gap, then a sort of fake two-storey-high neo-classical frontage thing, with a graveyard lurking behind its Corinthian pillars.
A grin and Red jinked right, into the gap and down the stairs.
Tufty gritted his teeth. Come on: faster.
He scrabbled to a halt in front of the railings.
Red was still there, dancing from foot to foot on the stairs, unable to get any further than a quarter of the way down due to the bunch of mothers wrestling pushchairs up.
The stairs descended about fifteen/sixteen feet to a narrow cobbled road that disappeared under Union Street.
Ha! Got you.
Red pulled a face, gave Tufty the finger again, then jumped. Clearing the handrail. Dropping six foot onto the top of a Transit van, parked below. A boom of battered metal. Then he rolled off, landed square on his feet and took off into the tunnel. Still laughing.
The driver leaned out of his window, shaking his fist. ‘Hoy!’
Blue clearly didn’t fancy his chances. Instead he went left, sprinting across the bus lane, hooting away as car horns blared – a taxi and a truck slammed on their brakes, inches away from turning him into five stone of hoodie-wearing pâté.
Blue or Red? Blue or Red?
Steel’s voice cut through the horns. ‘Shift it! Police! Coming through!’
A quick look – she shoved her way through a couple of gawkers and some well-meaning souls helping pick up the old lady’s shopping.
Blue or Red?
The stairs were still jammed with mothers and pushchairs.
Red.
Deep breath. ‘Oh God …’
Tufty stuck one hand on the rail and swung his legs up and over into thin air.
It whistled past him, then, boom onto the Transit’s roof, just as it pulled away. He had time for a tiny scream as the world flipped end-over-end, then the cobbles broke his fall with a lung-emptying thud.
Argh …
They were cold against his back. Little flashing yellow lights pinged around the edges of the bright-blue sky, keeping time with the throbbing high-pitched whine in his ears.
Steel’s face appeared over the railings, scowling down at him. ‘Don’t just lie there, get after the wee sod!’ A shake of the fist, and she disappeared again.
Urgh …
Tufty struggled up to his feet. Shook his head – sending the little yellow lights swirling – and lurched into the tunnel.
Roberta shook her head. Silly sod. Having a wee kip in the middle of the road while the thieving gits got away. Never trust a stick-thin, short-arsed detective constable. Especially the kind with ginger hair – cut so short their whole head looked like a mouldy kiwi fruit – and watery pale-blue eyes the same colour as piddled-on Blu-Tack.
That’s what she got for taking the new boy out on a shout.
Well Tufty had better sodding well catch Hoodie Number Two, because if Tufty didn’t Tufty was in for a shoe-leather suppository.
And in the meantime …
She charged across the pavement and out into mid-morning traffic, one hand up on either side of her eyes to shut out the view. ‘Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me …’ Horns blared. Something HUGE slammed on its brakes – they squealed like pigs, hissed like dragons.
An angry voice: ‘YOU BLOODY IDIOT!’
And pavement! Beautiful, beautiful pavement.
She dropped her hands.
Wasn’t difficult to see which way Hoodie Number One had gone – just follow the trail of swearing people sprawled across the beautiful pavement, leading west along Union Street.
Roberta dragged out her phone, dialling with one hand as she ran past McDonald’s. Jumped over a young woman with a screaming toddler in her arms, sprawled beside the bus shelter.
A bored woman sighed from the mobile’s earpiece, followed by: ‘Control Room.’
‘I need backup to Union Street, now!’
‘Nearest car is two minutes away. How severe is the situation? Do you need a firearms team?’
Roberta threaded her way through a clot of idiots outside Clarks, all staring after Hoodie Number One. ‘Shoplifter: early teens, blue hoodie, orange hair, ripped jeans—’
‘Oh you have got to be kidding me. We’re not scrambling a patrol car for a shoplifter!’
The tunnel under Union Street spat Tufty out between two tall granite buildings. Cold blue-grey in the shadows, the windows at ground level either bricked up or barred. He limp-ran to the end, making little hissing noises
every other step. Like his left sock was sinking its teeth into his ankle.
Oh let’s go after the red-hoodied shoplifter. Let’s jump off a bridge …
That’s what you got for being brave: a whack on the cobblestones and a carnivorous sock.
He burst out from between the buildings and into the Green. Aberdeen Market was a massive Seventies concrete hatbox off to the left, making the stubby end of a blunt triangle – old granite buildings on the other two sides and …
There he was: Red. Jumping up and down behind a line of big council recycling bins. Still laughing. Twirling around on the spot, middle fingers out again. Waiting for him. Taunting him.
Then off, running down the middle of the Green. Getting away.
Not this time.
Tufty put some welly into it. Onward brave Sir Quirrel!
He jumped, hip-sliding across one of the bins marked ‘CARDBOARD ONLY’, Starsky-and-Hutch style. Landed on his bad ankle. Hissed.
Started running again.
Red looked back, grinned at him, barrelling headlong towards a fenced-off eating area outside a wee bar/restaurant full of loved-up couples eating a late breakfast in the sun. Red jumped the barrier, feet clattering on top of the tables, sending plates and glasses flying.
Diners lunged for him.
A man jerked back as his Bloody Mary introduced itself to his lap. ‘Hey! What the hell …?’
A woman bared her teeth. ‘Get your manky feet out of my eggs Benedict!’
Then bang – Red was out the other side.
Tufty pumped his arms and legs harder. Leaned into the sprint as he skirted the dining area. Ignoring the sock eating his ankle. Closing the gap …
Horrible Hoodie Number One did a wee dancy twirl around an old man with a walking stick, showing off, hooting. Then disappeared around the side of Thorntons.
Sodding hell …
Roberta gripped her phone tighter. ‘He’s gone down the steps to the Green.’
Another sigh from the bored woman on the other end. ‘I don’t care if he’s gone down on Nelson Mandela’s ghost, you’re not getting a patrol car.’
The wee sod’s face popped back around the corner again, joined by a double-handed two-fingered salute. He jiggled the V-signs in her direction, then vanished.
Now We Are Dead Page 1
