22 Dead Little Bodies and Other Stories. Stuart MacBride
Scruffy had levered himself up onto his bum, wobbling there with blood pouring down his filthy face. Eyes bloodshot and blinking out of phase with one another.
Logan squatted down in front of him. ‘Are you OK?’
An aura of rotting vegetables, BO, and baked-on urine spread out like a fog.
It took a bit, but eventually that big hairy head swung around to squint at him. ‘Broke my bottle …’ He clutched the carrier bag to his chest. Bits of broken glass stuck out through the plastic. ‘BROKE MY BOTTLE!’ The bottom lip trembled, then tears sparked up in those pinky-yellow eyes, tumbled down the filthy cheeks. ‘NOOOOOOOO!’
‘You’re a bloody idiot, you know that, don’t you?’ Back to the phone. ‘We’ve got an IC-One male who’s been hit by a car and assaulted.’ Logan nodded at him, trying not to breathe through his nose. ‘What’s your name?’
‘My bottle … My lovely, lovely, bottle.’ He hauled in air, showing off a mouth full of twisted brown teeth. ‘BASTARDS! MY BOTTLE!’
Yeah, it was definitely one of those days.
‘Logan, we don’t normally see you here during the day.’ Claire stuck her book down on the nurses’ station desk and smiled at him, making two dimples in her smooth round cheeks. ‘To what do we owe the honour?’
Logan pointed over his shoulder, back along the corridor. ‘Got a road-rage victim in A-and-E. Thought I’d pop past while they were stitching him up.’
Claire squeezed one eye shut. ‘It’s not a hairy young gentleman with personal hygiene issues, is it? Only Donald from security was just in here moaning about being bitten.’
Yeah, probably. ‘How’s Samantha today?’
‘Getting up to all sorts of hijinks.’ She stood and smoothed out the creases in her nurse’s scrubs. ‘You got time for a cup of tea?’
‘Wouldn’t say no.’
‘Oh, and this came for you this morning.’ Claire reached into a drawer and pulled out a grey envelope. ‘Think it’s from Sunny Glen.’
‘Thanks.’ He took it and wandered down the corridor to Samantha’s room.
The blinds were drawn, shutting out most of the light, but it was still warm enough to make him yawn.
He sank onto the edge of the bed, leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Cold and pale. ‘Hey, you.’
She didn’t answer, but then she never did.
Something about the gloom and her porcelain skin made the tattoos stand out even more than usual. Jagged and dark. Like something trying to crawl its way out of her body.
He brushed a strand of brown hair from her face. ‘Got a reply from Sunny Glen.’ Logan held up the envelope. ‘What do you think?’
No reply.
‘Yeah, me too.’ He ripped it open. ‘“Dear Mr McRae, thank you for the application for specialist residential care on behalf of your girlfriend Samantha Mackie. As you know, our Neurological Care Unit has a worldwide reputation for managing and treating those in long-term comas …” Blah, blah, blah.’ He turned the letter over. ‘Oh sodding hell. “Unfortunately we do not have any spaces available at the current time.” Could they not have said that in the first place?’ He crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and lobbed it across the room at the bin. Missed. Slouched over and put it in properly. ‘Place is probably rubbish anyway. And it’s all the way up on the sodding coast, not exactly convenient, is it? Traipsing all the way up there. You’d have hated it.’
Still felt as if someone had used his soul as cat litter, though.
‘Doesn’t matter. We’ve got another three applications out there. Bound to be one who’ll take a hell-raiser like you.’
Nothing.
A knock on the door, and Claire stuck her head into the room. ‘I even managed to find a couple of biscuits for you. So …’ She frowned as Logan’s phone launched into its anonymous ringtone. ‘How many times do we have to talk about this?’
‘Only be a minute.’ He pulled it out and hit the button. ‘McRae.’
A man’s voice, sounding out of breath. ‘You the joker who brought in Gordon Taylor?’
Who the hell was Gordon Taylor? ‘Sorry?’
‘The homeless guy – got hit by a car. Someone gave him a kicking.’
Ah, right. That Gordon Taylor. ‘What about him?’
‘He’s bitten two security guards and punched a nurse.’
Wonderful. Another dollop added to the cat litter. ‘I’ll be right down.’ He put his phone away. Took the mug of tea from Claire and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Don’t let Samantha give you any trouble, OK? You know how feisty she gets.’
The elevator juddered to a halt, and Logan stepped out into the familiar, depressing, scuffed green corridors. No paintings on the walls here, no community art projects, or murals, or anything to break the bleak industrial gloom. He followed the coloured lines set into the floor.
Here and there, squares of duct tape held the peeling surface together. And everything smelled of disinfectant and over-boiled cauliflower.
A porter bustled past, pushing a small child in a big bed. Drips and tubes and wires snaking from the little body to various bags and bits of equipment.
Logan pulled out his phone and called Guthrie. ‘Any sign of Mrs Skinner yet?’
‘Sorry, Guv. I’ve checked all the neighbours again, but no one’s heard from her.’
‘OK.’ He stepped around the corner, and stopped outside the doors to Accident and Emergency. ‘Get onto Control and see if you can …’ A frown. ‘Have you been round the house? Peered in all the windows? Just in case.’
‘Yup. Even got her next-door to let me through so I could climb the garden fence and have a squint in the back. She’s not lying dead on the floor anywhere.’
At least that was something.
‘Get Control to dig up the grandparents. They might know where she is.’
‘Will do.’ A pause. ‘Guv, did I ever tell you about what happened last time Snow White—’
‘Yes. And no more porn in the patrol car.’
Logan hung up, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
It wasn’t difficult to find Gordon Taylor, not with all the shouting and swearing going on. He was in a cubicle at the far end – crash, bang, wallop. A nurse squatted outside the curtains, head thrown back, a wad of tissues clamped against her nose stained bright red.
‘Hold still, you little sod …’
‘Ow!’
‘Can someone hold his head so he won’t bite?’
‘Ow! Ow, ow, ow … Bloody hell …’
Logan slipped through the curtains and stared at the human octopus wrestling with itself on the hospital bed. Arms, legs, hands, feet, all struggling to keep the figure on the bottom from getting up.
One of the nurses yanked her arm into the air. ‘OW! He bit me!’
‘Don’t let go of his head!’
Logan reached into his pocket, pulled out the little canister