45% Hangover [A Logan and Steel novella] Read online

  The 45% Hangover

  Stuart MacBride

  Copyright

  Harper

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

  Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2014

  The Missing and the Dead extract © Stuart MacBride 2014

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

  Cover photograph © Jorg Greuel/Getty Images.

  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, 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.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American 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, downloaded, 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.

  Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008123277

  Version: 2014-11-13

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  — Friday 19th September—

  Prologue

  — Thursday 18th September—

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Read on for an extract from the new Logan McRae thriller

  About the Author

  By Stuart MacBride

  About the Publisher

  — Friday 19th September—

  (The Day After)

  Prologue

  ‘GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!’ The scream cut through the world like a rusty chainsaw.

  It reverberated back from the walls, jerking Logan fully awake. Then making him wish he wasn’t. Something large and spiky was loose inside his head, scrabbling at the back of his eyes with long dirty claws. He screwed his eyes shut and lay there, till the echoes faded.

  ‘WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?’

  He gritted his teeth and opened one eye. Then the other one. Wide. Then his mouth.

  Oh dear Jesus, no …

  They were lying in bed. No idea whose bed, but it was definitely a bed – metal framed, with a brass headboard. Floral-print duvet.

  Him and Detective Chief Inspector Steel. In bed. Together.

  Her hair was flat on one side, poking out in all directions on the other, her lined face pulled into a shape of utter disgust. Worse yet, it didn’t look as if she was wearing a top.

  No, no, no, no …

  One arm wouldn’t move, but he used the other one to grab the duvet and pull it up to his chin. ‘Why are we—’

  ‘IF YOU SO MUCH AS—’

  ‘STOP BLOODY SHOUTING!’ He screwed his eyes shut, teeth gritted. Every heartbeat made the spiky thing in his skull throb. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’ll shout if I want to! You try waking up naked, in bed, with a sodding man and see how you like it.’

  ‘Naked?’ Oh no, not this … He raised the edge of the duvet an inch.

  ‘If you so much as peek, I swear to God, Laz, I’ll rip your bits off and give them back to you as a suppository!’ She hit him. ‘Get out.’

  ‘Arm’s gone to sleep.’

  She kicked him under the duvet.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘I can’t.’ His right leg wouldn’t move either. He jerked it to the side, but it barely moved, something was keeping it where it was. Something solid. ‘Oh no.’

  She glared at him. ‘You bloody men are all the same aren’t you? Sex, sex, sex. Well let me tell you something, you randy wee shite, if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, I’m going to …’ The glare turned into a frown. ‘Why can’t I move my arm?’

  Then her head turned. She reached up with her other hand and pulled the pillow to one side.

  Logan’s left hand, and her right, poked between the bars of the headboard, fixed there by a set of police-issue handcuffs.

  When he shifted his other foot, the duvet rode up just enough to show the handcuff holding his right ankle to the bars at the other end.

  Steel slumped back against her pillow. ‘Oh God … Because naked wasn’t bad enough, it had to be kinky!’ She covered her mouth with a hand. ‘I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Thank you very much. How do you think I feel?’ He ran a hand across his forehead, then squeezed at the temples. Maybe, if he squeezed hard enough, the headache would vanish? Or his head would explode. Right now either was preferable to this.

  ‘How much did I drink last night?’

  Good question.

  — Thursday 18th September—

  (Referendum Day)

  1

  The rumpled lump in the wrinkled suit raised an eyebrow, then pulled the fake cigarette from her mouth. ‘What time do you call this?’

  Logan hung his jacket on the hook behind the door, then checked his watch – nine thirty. ‘Half an hour before my shift starts.’ He crossed to the window and lowered the blind, shutting out the darkness. ‘Now get out of my seat.’

  ‘You see the latest polls? We’re going to do it, can feel it in my water.’ Steel wriggled her bum further into his office chair, both feet up on his desk. ‘Tell you, it’s a momentous day, Laz. Mo-sodding-mentous.’ From the look of her hair, she’d celebrated by dragging herself through a hedge, sideways.

  ‘Seat.’ He hoiked a thumb at the door. ‘Some of us have work to do.’

  ‘Course I gave my team a rousing speech when they came on, this afternoon. “Ask not what your country can do for you …”’

  ‘You’re not allowed to campaign on Police Scotland property.’

  A frown. ‘Since when?’

  ‘There’s been like, a dozen memos.’ Logan unlocked the filing cabinet and hauled out the thick manila folder sitting at the front of the top drawer. ‘Now, would you please sod off and let me get on with it?’

  Steel raised her feet from the desk and pushed off, setting the chair spinning with her still in it. Lowered her feet down onto the windowsill instead. ‘This time tomorrow we’ll have risen up to be the nation again …’ Then she launched into a gravelly version of ‘Flower of Scotland’, getting all wobbly on the long notes, and battering out the optional Tourette’s bits.

  No point fighting with her – it’d only make it worse.

  Logan dumped the folder on the desk and sank into one of his visitors’ chairs. Pulled the desk phone over and punched in DC Stone’s number. Listened to it ring.

  A knock on the office door, and Detective Sergeant Rennie poked his head into the room. ‘Sorry, Guv, but any chance you can keep the singing down a bit? Only people are complaining.’

  Steel paused, mid-warble. ‘Un
patriotic sods.’ Then started up again.

  Rennie nodded, setting his floppy blond quiff wobbling. ‘Yeah, but the mortuary says the dead are crawling out the fridge drawers and hacking off their ears.’ A grin. Then he ducked out again just before the stapler battered against the door where he’d been.

  If anything, Steel had got louder.

  On the other end of the phone, Detective Constable Stone picked up. ‘Guv? You forcing bagpipes up a cat’s bum in there?’

  Logan put a finger in his other ear. ‘Stoney: where are we with Chris Browning?’

  ‘Give us a chance, shift hasn’t even started yet. Still waiting for the computer to boot up.’

  ‘Soon as it does, get onto uniform – I want an update on my desk by five past ten. Then we’re doing the briefing. And tell Wheezy Doug he’s on teas.’

  ‘Guv.’

  Steel got to the big finale, and finished with her arms outstretched and head thrown back, as if she’d just finished running a marathon. Making hissing noises to mimic her own applause. ‘Thank you, Aberdeen, I love you.’ Then let her arms fall at her side. Pursed her lips. And had a scratch. ‘Pffff … What do you think, landslide?’

  Logan clicked the handset back into its cradle. ‘Don’t you have a murder or something to solve?’

  ‘Did it yesterday, while you were off. Had a cake to celebrate and everything.’ She creaked his chair left, then right again. ‘Bit quiet today, to be honest. I’ve got a Major Investigation Team with nothing major to investigate. Going to have to drag something out of the cold-case file if we’re not careful.’

  ‘Then go do something about that guy from Edinburgh who got the crap beaten out of him.’

  ‘Not major enough.’ She waved a hand. ‘And the scumbag was a drug dealer. Probably deserved it. If they’d killed him, it’d be a different matter. But as it is? Pfff …’

  ‘So find something else.’ Logan pulled the top four sheets out of the folder and laid them side-by-side on the desk. The first one was the latest missing person poster: a photo of Chris Browning sat beneath the headline, ‘MISSING PERSON ~ APPEAL FOR INFORMATION’. He wasn’t exactly a Hollywood heartthrob – a middle-aged man with pasty skin and a receding hairline, little round glasses and sunken eyes.

  Steel clapped her hands together, then rubbed them. ‘Of course, being referendum day, there’s bound to be frayed tempers and a bit of a barney, right? Might get ourselves a one-punch-murder or two.’

  A knock, and Rennie was back. ‘Sorry, Guv. BBC coverage starts at ten: we’re sending Guthrie out for pizza. You two want anything?’

  She pointed at him. ‘Did you vote like I told you?’

  ‘Guv.’

  ‘Good boy.’ The finger came round to point at Logan. ‘What about you?’

  ‘None of your business.’ The next sheet was a list of the most credible sightings from the last week. Which wasn’t saying much. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a missing person to find.’

  ‘Pfff. No’ really a person, is he? A lawyer, a pervert, a wannabe politician, and a No campaigner? The more of them goes missing the better.’

  ‘Yes, because dehumanizing people who don’t agree with you always turns out well.’

  ‘Don’t care. Sick of his smug, dumpy wee face. Banging away on the telly and the radio and the sodding papers,’ she put on a posh Aberdonian accent, ‘“Scotland’s going to fall apart under independence.”, “We’re not clever enough to run our own affairs without Westminster.”, “You’re all chip-eating, whisky-swigging, heart-attack-having, ginger-haired, tartan-faced, teuchter thickies, and you should be glad the posh boys in London are prepared to look after you.”’ She sniffed. ‘Tosser.’

  ‘You made that last one up.’ Sheet number three held a photocopied article from the Aberdeen Examiner. ‘MISSING CAMPAIGNER “PAID FOR SEX”, CLAIM’. The journalist had got statements from a pair of working girls down on Regent Quay. Logan pulled out a pen, wrote the word ‘NAMES?’ and underlined it twice.

  ‘And who cares what Chris Sodding Browning thinks anyway? Only reason the slimy git’s getting airtime is because he was on that reality TV bollocks. Silver City my sharny arse. You want to make decent telly? Follow police officers about, no’ some ambulance-chasing unionist turdbadger.’

  ‘You finished?’ The last sheet was a photocopy of Browning’s diary for the day he went missing. Every appointment checked, everyone he’d met with interviewed. And still no idea where he was or what had happened to him. ‘Chris Browning’s perfectly entitled to support whatever side he wants. That’s democracy.’

  ‘Oh – my – God.’ Steel took her feet off the windowsill and turned to face him. ‘You’re one of them, aren’t you?’

  ‘Eh?’ Rennie frowned at Logan. ‘Thought you liked girls, Guv? Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but— Ow!’

  Steel hit him again. ‘No’ one of them, you idiot, one of them: a Better Togetherer.’ She shuddered. ‘And to think I let you get my wife up the stick!’

  Logan closed his eyes and folded forward, wrapped his hands around his face. ‘Will you both, please bugger off?’

  Rennie didn’t. Instead he sat down in the other visitor’s chair. ‘Was great though, wasn’t it? You know, that feeling of coming out of the polling station and thinking, “This is it. We could actually do this.” Right? Wasn’t it great?’

  There was silence.

  ‘Guv?’

  Logan peeled one eye open.

  Steel was sitting bolt upright in her seat, mouth hanging open. Then both eyebrows raised like drawbridges. ‘What time is it?’

  Rennie checked. ‘Quarter to ten.’

  She scrabbled to her feet. ‘Get a car, now!’

  2

  The pool car roared its way up Schoolhill – past the closed shops – lights flashing, siren wailing. It still managed to sound better than Steel’s rendition of ‘Flower of Scotland’, though.

  She sat in the passenger seat, hanging onto the grab handle above the door as Rennie floored it.

  Logan had to make do with his seatbelt, clutching it in both hands as the car flashed across the junction outside the Cowdray Hall, its granite lion watching with a silent snarl and a traffic cone on its head. The streetlight gilded it with a pale-yellow glow. He raised his voice over the wailing skirl. ‘HOW COULD YOU FORGET TO VOTE?’

  ‘IT’S NO’ MY FAULT!’

  ‘REALLY?’

  ‘SHUT UP.’

  Logan’s mobile buzzed in his pocket, the ringtone drowned out by the siren. He pulled the phone out and hit the button. ‘McRae.’

  ‘Guv?’ Stoney sounded as if he was standing at the bottom of a well. ‘Hello? Guv? You there?’

  He leaned forward and poked Rennie in the shoulder. ‘TURN THAT BLOODY THING OFF!’

  But when Rennie reached for the controls, Steel slapped his hand away. ‘DON’T YOU DARE!’

  His Majesty’s Theatre streaked by on the right – a chunk of green glass, followed by fancy granite, light blazing from its windows – then a church that looked like a bank, then the library. Granite. Granite. Granite.

  ‘Guv? Hello?’

  ‘I’LL CALL YOU BACK.’ He hung up as the pool car jinked around the corner onto Skene Street, leaving a squeal of brakes behind. The headlights caught two pensioners, frozen on the central reservation, clutching each other as the car flashed by, dentures bared, eyes wide.

  When Logan looked back, they’d recovered enough to make obscene gestures. ‘STILL DON’T SEE WHY I NEED TO BE HERE.’

  Steel waved a hand. ‘IN CASE I NEED SOMEONE ARRESTED.’

  Naked granite gave way to a shield of trees, their leaves dark and glistening in the streetlights.

  Rennie pouted. ‘I CAN ARREST PEOPLE!’

  ‘COURSE YOU CAN. YOU’RE VERY SPECIAL. YES YOU ARE.’ She turned in her seat and mugged at Logan. ‘ISN’T IT SWEET WHEN THEY THINK THEY’RE REAL POLICE OFFICERS?’

  ‘HOY!’

  The pool car swept out and round a Trans
it van, then back in again. Slowed briefly for the junction outside the Grammar School, catching the lights at red, and back to full-speed-ahead, tearing up Carden Place. Granite. Granite. Granite.

  She poked a finger at the windscreen. ‘THERE!’

  St Mary’s Episcopal Church loomed on the left of the road. A vast, grand structure with lanced windows and buttresses. No tower. It occupied the triangular wedge between two roads, with expensive-looking cars parked along its kerbs.

  Rennie slammed on the brakes and wrenched the steering wheel left. The back end kicked out for a moment, then they were lunging through the narrow gap between two spiky granite posts and scrunching to a halt on the gravel beyond. He flashed his watch. ‘You’ve got one minute.’

  Steel scrambled out of the car, sprinting across the gravel and in through the door marked ‘POLLING STATION’.

  ‘Cheeky old bag. I am a real police officer.’

  ‘Sure you are.’ Logan climbed into the warm night. Pulled out his phone and called Stoney back.

  A couple of Yes campaigners stood off to one side, a couple of No on the other. Both sets waving Scottish flags and smiling at him. As if a flash of dodgy teeth and a bit of paper with lies on it was going to make a difference. Both sets marched toward him.

  The Yes lot got there first – a young man with spots and a goatee. ‘Good evening. Can I ask how you’re planning to vote?’

  ‘I’m on the phone.’

  ‘Yes, but it’ll only take a minute, won’t it?’

  His companion stuck her hands in the pockets of her tweed trousers. ‘Going to have to get a shift on.’ She pointed at the door. ‘Polls close at ten.’

  ‘Guv?’

  Mr and Mrs No had appeared. One in a tracksuit, the other in a three-piece suit. Three-Piece turned his smile up an inch. ‘Can we help?’

  ‘I’m – on – the phone.’ Logan turned his back and walked off a couple of paces. ‘Stoney.’

  Tracksuit sniffed. ‘No need to be rude. We’re only trying to help.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been on to the dayshift. Got a couple of sightings, but don’t think they’re up to much. One’s in Torquay, one’s in Nairn, and the other’s in Lanzarote.’