The Blood Road Read online

  ‘No: colleague. I’m worried about her.’

  ‘Hmph… Well, suppose someone should be. State of her.’ He dumped the photo back down again and jerked his head to the side. ‘Ladies.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Logan had to detour around the slow dancers in front of the jukebox; they didn’t even look up.

  Bill’s voice boomed out after him. ‘And take it from me, the crazy ones might be great in bed, but they’ll screw you over every time! Every – single – time.’

  He had a point.

  Logan pushed through the grey door marked ‘POUR FEMME’ and into something off of a film set. Dark grey slate tiles, a plush red chaise longue against one wall, individual mirrors in heavy gilt frames above the marble sinks.

  A lone figure was hunched over one of the sinks – DS Chalmers. She held her mass of auburn curls back with one hand as she spat something frothy and pink into the marble bowl. Her other hand clutched at her ribs. Holding them in as she washed her face. Grunting and groaning.

  Logan settled onto the chaise longue. ‘Having fun?’

  She flinched, whipping around with a strangled scream, fists up. Ready.

  He held his hands in the air. ‘Whoa. Calm.’

  Chalmers lowered her fists, voice all muffled and lispy. ‘Inspector McRae. Oh joy.’ Either she’d fallen under a bus, or someone had given her a serious going-over. Scrapes darkened her cheeks, chin, and forehead. The first flush of bruises beginning to spread around them. Face damp where she’d washed the blood off. Or most of it anyway.

  Logan pointed. ‘Want to tell me who did that?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘You were out breaking Russell Morton’s alibi, so it was either him or his mates.’

  ‘I said it’s nothing. Leave it.’

  The awkward silence grew. Then Chalmers turned her back on him and splashed another handful of water on her battered face. Winced. Prodded at her gums.

  A tooth clattered into the marble sink.

  ‘You’ve been married, what, three years? If it wasn’t Russell Morton…?’

  She froze. ‘Leave Brian out of this.’

  ‘There are people out there you can talk to. Domestic abuse isn’t—’

  ‘Christ, you don’t listen, do you? It wasn’t Brian. It wasn’t anyone.’

  ‘Ah…’ Logan nodded. ‘The first rule of Fight Club.’

  More silence.

  Chalmers dabbed at the scrape beneath her right eye. ‘And you shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Huge Gay Bill’s? Bill and I go way back. One of his ex-boyfriends broke into his mum’s house while she was in hospital and cleaned her out. Bill got his hands on him. Was going to rip the guy’s arms and legs off, till I talked him down. He’s always had terrible taste in men.’

  She limped over to the driers and patted at her face, ignoring him as they roared at her.

  Logan stretched out on the chaise longue, making himself comfortable. ‘You’ve been avoiding me.’

  She tucked in her torn shirt. ‘Are they firing me?’

  ‘I’m not your enemy, Lorna.’

  ‘Could’ve fooled me.’

  ‘I’m here to help. We can—’

  ‘Then keep them off my back, OK?’ She limped back to the mirror and took out a small make-up kit. ‘Tell them everything’s fine. I’ve apologised and promise to be a good little girl from now on.’

  Logan sighed. ‘It doesn’t work like that. You’ve been disappearing when you’re meant to be on the job. Ducking assignments. Not doing what DI Fraser tells you.’

  ‘DI Fraser’s an idiot.’

  ‘No she isn’t. And you know what? Even if she was, right now she’s your superior idiot and if she tells you to go interview someone you actually have to go interview them.’

  A wodge of foundation got slathered on, covering up the scrapes and bruises. Wincing as she did her best to blend it in. You could still tell, though.

  Eventually she stood back and stared at the result. Grimaced. ‘It’ll do.’ Her make-up clattered into the bag again. ‘Russell Morton’s alibi’s sound. He was where he said he was, when he said he was. I spoke to the guy who delivered one fourteen-inch four seasons with extra anchovies, one mushroom feast, a spicy American, two garlic breads, and three six-packs of Peroni.’

  ‘A lot of food.’

  ‘Morton paid him from a big roll of cash. Ten-quid tip, too.’

  ‘Flashy.’

  ‘Especially for someone on the dole.’ She examined herself in the mirror again. ‘So you can tell DI Kim Fraser I’ve been doing my job. Did it yesterday before she even asked. Just because I’m not grubbing around her feet, begging for titbits like those idiot sidekicks of hers, doesn’t mean I’m slacking.’

  ‘No one’s asking you to grub about, Lorna, but this is the police. You have to follow procedure. The chain of command’s there for a reason!’

  She stared at him from the mirror, face blank. ‘Are we done, Inspector?’

  ‘Have you forgotten what happened with the Agnes Garfield case? You could’ve died. You very nearly got me and PC Sim killed! All because you couldn’t stand the thought of sharing the glory.’ Logan stood. ‘Police Scotland doesn’t need lone wolves, Lorna. That’s not how this works!’

  Nothing back. Not even a flicker.

  Then, ‘If it’s all right with you, I’d like to have a wee now. Or do you want to follow me in there as well?’ She turned and barged into one of the cubicles. Slammed the door. Clacked the latch.

  Logan knocked on the cubicle door. ‘They’re going to suspend you. Is that what you want?’

  The sound of piddling hissed out from inside. Accompanied by what might have been muffled sobs…

  Great. That went well.

  Bill shook his head. ‘…so Shoogly Dave says, “Wasnae me, it was like that when I found it.” And he’s staggering about the stock room surrounded by two thousand…’ Bill pointed over Logan’s shoulder. ‘Your friend’s back.’

  Logan turned and there was Chalmers, coming out of the ladies. Grimacing as she saw them.

  He went back to his cappuccino, watching her in the mirror behind the bar as she marched over.

  She stopped right behind him. Put on what was probably meant to be a reasonable voice. ‘You can’t let them take this away from me. Do you have any idea what I’ve sacrificed for this job? Not just the hours: I barely see Brian. I’ve put everything on hold for this. Everything.’

  ‘We all make sacrifices, it’s part of—’

  ‘Oh that’s easy for you to say, isn’t it? You didn’t even have to have your own kids, did you? You farmed them out to someone else!’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘If you really want to help, keep Fraser off my back for a couple of days.’ A frown. ‘Better make it three.’

  Funny.

  He took a sip of warm milky coffee. ‘Twenty-four hours.’

  She gave him a pained smile in the mirror. ‘No, it has to be seventy-two. I need—’

  ‘It’s not an offer, it’s the cliché.’ Putting on an American accent for, ‘“Ya gotta give me twenty-four hours to crack the case, Lieutenant.”’ Then back to normal again. ‘And no. If you’ve got information that might save Ellie Morton, you tell me or you tell DI Fraser. You do not keep it secret so you can grab the glory. A wee girl’s life is at stake!’

  ‘I know what’s at stake!’

  Logan thumped his mug down. ‘Then grow up and stop playing Sam Sodding Spade!’

  She glared at his reflection in the mirror. Turned. And marched out the front door.

  Logan shouted after her. ‘I mean it, Lorna, this isn’t a game!’

  The door slammed shut.

  Bill stared at it. ‘Told you – great in the sack, but they’ll screw you over every time.’

  5

  Patronising, holier-than-thou, big-eared, wanker. Lorna stared through the windscreen at Huge Gay Bill’s Bar and Grill, teeth bared. Blood fizzing in her ears as the rain battered down and—


  A boot thuds against the small of her back, another one into her shoulder. Lorna curls up tighter, arms wrapped around her head as the pair of bastards lay into her. First it was shoving. Then fists. Now boots.

  Two against one.

  ‘Aaaargh!’ She bites it down. Don’t scream. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

  More kicks, on her arms and legs. One to the kidneys that erupts around her torso like it’s full of angry wasps. Another to the hand covering her face and the world tastes of rust and hot batteries.

  Lorna coughs and splutters out a spattering of bright scarlet.

  And the beating stops.

  She can hear them backing away. Panting.

  Then Danners leans in close, her breath warm on Lorna’s skin. ‘Take a telling, you two-faced bitch. Next time we won’t be so polite.’

  There’s the scuffing of feet on tarmac and she flinches, waiting for the blows to start again… But they don’t. Instead the sound of a Portakabin door slamming booms out into the rain.

  She risks a look.

  They’ve gone.

  They’ve gone. She almost laughs, but her ribs hurt too much. So instead she struggles up to her knees, setting the wasps off again, then to her feet. Lurching across the car park to her little Fiat. Fumbling her keys from her pocket with fingers that are already starting to swell and stiffen. Unlocks the door and does her best not to fall inside.

  Rows and rows of Northfield tenements drone by the car window, bricks and harling stained by the downpour. Everything aches.

  Lorna’s mobile phone buzzes in her pocket, then launches into Radiohead’s ‘The Bends’. She pulls it out with one aching hand and squints at the screen: ‘BRIAN’.

  Sod off, Brian.

  She hits ‘IGNORE’ and keeps on driving.

  Should get him a ringtone of his own. Something good. Then at least she can enjoy ignoring his calls.

  The car park’s nearly empty as she pulls up outside Huge Gay Bill’s Bar And Grill. Turns the engine off. Sniffs. Blinks. Wipes a sore hand across her damp eyes.

  Sits there and cries for a while.

  Her phone goes into ‘The Bends’ again, the word ‘BRIAN’ filling the screen like a corpse. She hits ‘IGNORE’ again. Sags. Then grits her teeth and winces her way out of the car.

  Locks it and lurches across the rain-puddled tarmac and in through the front door. Straight across the revolting carpet.

  Huge Gay Bill looks up from stacking the fridge with alcopops and stares at her. ‘Dear God, are you OK? Do you need me to call a—’

  ‘NO!’ Storming right past him and into the ladies.

  It’s all very fancy and fashionable in here, but the only thing that matters are the mirrors and the sinks. She grips the marble with blood-smeared swollen fingers and stares at the animal in the glass. Her left eye’s beginning to puff up – a thin purple line underneath it promising to blossom into a full-on shiner over the next couple of days. More scrapes and lumps on her cheek and forehead. A swollen bottom lip.

  Her jacket’s torn at the shoulder and scraped through at the elbow – straight through the shirt too, all the way down to a raw patch of skin flecked with grit that starts stinging as soon as she sees it.

  She turns on the taps and fills the sink with warm water. Splashes it on her face. Working her tongue along her bottom jaw. Flinching as it finds a rough bit of gum and a tooth that won’t sit still when she touches it.

  How could it all go wrong? She’s been doing so well, and now this?

  It isn’t fair…

  The woman in the mirror blurs. Lorna drags in a serrated breath that tastes of blood. What does it matter if she cries in here? Isn’t as if there’s anyone to see it. Why shouldn’t she cry if she wants to?

  She splashes her face with water again.

  It’s a setback, that’s all. Nothing she can’t handle.

  Bright red drips into the water, turning it pink.

  Nothing she can’t handle.

  Just breathe deep and calm down.

  Stop shaking.

  She folds forward and tries. And tries. And tries.

  Then the door clunks behind her. And when she looks up – there, in the mirror, is Inspector Logan Bloody McRae. Because today isn’t enough of a crapfest.

  Lorna glowered up at the neon sign above Huge Gay Bill’s, closed her eyes, and dragged in a deep breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAA‌AAAAAAAAAA‌AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’

  Turned the key in the ignition, wrenched the car into gear, hauled the steering wheel around, and drove for the exit.

  ‘The Bends’ jarred out of her phone and when she checked the screen, there it was: ‘BRIAN’. Again.

  ‘LEAVE ME ALONE!’

  Lorna stabbed ‘IGNORE’ and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

  It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and do something about it.

  Lorna pulled up at the kerb opposite the house and frowned. There was a car in the driveway – a new-looking Mini Cooper, parked on her driveway. Brian’s precious midlife-crisis Alfa Romeo was right outside the house, two wheels up on the pavement.

  Thought he was meant to be at work today?

  She winced her way out of the car and limped across the road. Ignoring the rain.

  The Mini had to be new – the number plate was that year’s. Metallic red, with a white roof. A child seat in the back, about the right size for a toddler.

  Why park here? Why not park in front of someone else’s nasty little matchbox house on the nasty little matchbox street with its nasty little matchbox people? Bland three-up two-downs with built-in garages that no one ever parked their car in, because they were too small. Putting fake stonework around the windows and edges, didn’t make it any less like an undiscovered circle of Dante’s Inferno. Where dreams went to be punished.

  She huddled under the porch, pulled out her keys, and unlocked her front door.

  Stepped inside.

  The sound of a kids’ TV show jangled out of the open living room door, cheerful idiots singing a stupid song:

  ‘Now Doris had a friend called Morris, he was a tyrannosaurus,

  He had teeny tiny arms and couldn’t brush his teeth,’

  A new coat had joined the fleeces and waterproofs behind the front door: pale pink, checked, feminine and fitted. Not hers. The material was soft between her fingers, and it smelled of … sandalwood and roses?

  ‘His breath was vile, he had no style, his cavities: an awful trial,

  So Doris asked a stegosaurus how they could fix his smile,’

  Lorna looked around the open living room door.

  A toddler was imprisoned in front of the TV in a collapsible travel-playpen thing. Jiggling and gurgling in time with the song, beaming up at a bunch of really crap puppets, and a pair of morons dressed in overalls.

  ‘And he said,

  We haven’t invented soap, so that’s why we’re all smelly,

  There’s no toothpaste, it’s a disgrace, that’s why we can’t eat jelly,’

  Lorna eased the door closed and limped down the short hall to the kitchen – small, cluttered, but no one there. Maybe…

  A creak came from somewhere overhead.

  She stood at the bottom of the stairs. Listening.

  The only noise was the muffled song in the living room.

  She climbed up to the landing.

  Stopped with one hand on the bannister as all the air hissed out of her lungs. Staring.

  Brian’s bedroom door was ajar.

  Oh God…

  A mousey blonde lay spreadeagled on the double bed, naked, one arm thrown over her eyes, nipples brown and swollen like Ferrero Rocher. Biting her bottom lip and moaning, because Brian – Brian who was supposed to be in meetings all day – was on his knees at the foot of the bed, going down on her. Chubby little Brian, with his hairy arse and bald bit at the back of his head. And this … woman had her hand hooked behind his ear. Guiding him as she squirmed and moaned.

  Lorna turned and walk
ed downstairs. Across the hall and through the door to the tiny garage that they’d lined with cheap metal modular shelving units, because neither of their cars would fit in here. Packing the place with all the things that wouldn’t fit in the kitchen or any of the other rooms. Bleach, scouring pads, boxes of lightbulbs and oatmeal and dishwasher tablets. The food processor and the bread machine they never used, the skis for the skiing holidays they never went on, old sporting equipment from her university days – back when she used to have dreams! Before she buried them away, out here in suburbia, with the domestic detritus of a marriage that had died years ago, leaving nothing but this rotting corpse behind.

  She hauled a hockey stick from the rack of sports kit. Old and dusty and solid. Perfect.

  Lorna marched to the garage door and twisted the mechanism, pulling the whole thing up-and-over. The springs and hinges squealed – probably the first time it’d been opened since they moved in. She kept going, down the driveway and across the road to her manky little Fiat. No midlife-crisis sports car for her. No baby for her. No promotion for her.

  Nothing – but – crap.

  She yanked open the back door and hurled the hockey stick into the footwell.

  Stood there, staring at it.

  Then Danners leans in close, her breath warm on Lorna’s skin. ‘Take a telling, you two-faced bitch. Next time we won’t be so polite.’

  Not any more.

  Lorna grabbed the hockey stick again, turned, and stomped back across the road to the brand-new Mini Cooper, with its shiny red body and its jaunty white roof. She swung the stick like a sledgehammer, right into the windscreen, sending cracks spidering out from the centre as the impact juddered up her arm and the car alarm screeched. Hazard lights flashing as she battered the hockey stick into the glass again. One more go and the whole windscreen sagged inwards.

  Good enough.

  Lorna went back to her Fiat, tossed the stick inside. Slammed the door. Got in the front and drove off.

  Grinding her teeth, gums aching, the taste of blood in her mouth, hands tight on the steering wheel.

  ‘Take a telling, you two-faced bitch. Next time we won’t be so polite.’

  Yes, well: two could play at that game.

  ‘Ready or not, here I come!’