Dying Light

41

Brendan ‘Chib’ Sutherland’s driving became a lot less erratic when he hit Union Grove. The silver Mercedes slowed until it was well below the speed limit, almost as if the driver was looking for something. PC Steve slowed down as well, keeping the distance between the two cars constant. A siren was sounding from somewhere up ahead. Then they saw the orange glow in the sky. Something was burning.

The Mercedes jerked to a halt in the middle of the road and a figure lurched out from the pavement, bent over, limping, a sagging holdall in his hands. He clambered into the car, there was a short pause, and then Chib drove off. ‘Damn...’ Logan dug out his mobile and dialled Jackie’s number. Worried. She’d been following the Gimp and now there he was, looking as if he’d been in a fight, and there was no sign of either Jackie or Rennie. ‘Come on, pick up the bloody phone!’ Twelve rings later it cut to voicemail and he cursed, hung up and hit redial.

Steve was still on Chib’s tail, following him up Union Grove towards the junction with Holburn Street. ‘Holy shite!’ He stared agog out of the windscreen: up ahead flames leapt from a tenement rooftop, neon-yellow sparks spiralling into the night, a pall of thick, black smoke spreading like a bruise across the sky — the top two floors were ablaze. Chib drove calmly past.

Logan swore again as Jackie’s recorded message told him she was just too damn special to come to the phone right now, so leave a message. Hang up. Redial. He grabbed the radio off PC Steve’s shoulder, clicked it on and demanded to be put through to WPC Watson, only to be told to wait his turn: she’d called in from a serious fire and wasn’t answering her radio any more. Logan shouted, ‘Stop the car!’ and PC Steve slammed on the brakes. Logan wrenched open the door and sprinted towards the burning building, shouting for Jackie at the top of his lungs. The howl of sirens was getting stronger.

A small knot of people were gathered around a fallen figure on the pavement, one of them performing CPR, while others cried and moaned.

‘JACKIE?’

A grubby, soot-stained face looked up at him. It was DC Rennie; he was the one doing the mouth-to-mouth. The victim was a middle-aged woman in an oversize Aberdeen University T-shirt, the fabric riding up to show off a pair of grey pants and a mealie-pudding stomach. ‘Over there,’ he said, pointing to a figure hunched by the front of the building, while embers fell from the sky like incandescent snow.

‘Jackie?’

She was bent over the still body of a golden retriever lying on its side with a pool of something dark oozing slowly out of its head, gently stroking its fur. A spark drifted down, landing on the dog’s flank, producing the bitter smell of burning hair. Logan dropped down beside her, gently touching her arm. ‘Jackie? Are you OK?’ Her face was filthy, and so was her once-white uniform shirt. She didn’t look up at him, just brushed the smouldering ember away.

‘He wriggled when Rennie was lowering him out of the window,’ was all she said. A newish-looking double mattress lay on the ground less than two feet away.

‘Come on,’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘It’s not safe.’

She gazed back at the dog as he led her out to the pavement, only snapping back to earth when Alpha Three Six screeched to a halt right in front of her. A huge neon-orange fire engine was next, disgorging its occupants and reams of equipment out into the road, the braying honk of another engine not far behind. ‘He got away!’ she shouted over the din. ‘It was Chib’s mate. He covered the whole place in petrol!’ A fireman charged past, spooling out a length of hose behind him. ‘He got away!’

‘I know: Chib picked him up. We were following him and—’

‘You can’t let him get away! The bastards’ll do a runner!’ She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him towards PC Steve’s fusty old Fiat, abandoning Rennie to deal with the fire scene. ‘You,’ she shouted, jumping in beside Steve while Logan clambered into the back. ‘Drive!’

Steve put his foot down and the car raced to the end of the street, passing an ambulance going just as fast the other way. ‘Left or right?’ Logan had no idea and said so. ‘OK,’ said Steve, squinting in concentration. ‘Right...’ He raced out into the box junction, heading down Holburn Street. A pair of red tail-lights glowed in the distance; no sign of any other vehicle. Steve put his foot down. The Mercedes was almost at the Garthdee roundabout, doing a sensible thirty miles an hour, when they caught up with it. Steve sped past on the wrong side of the road — the Fiat’s ancient engine sounding like an angry hairdryer — and slammed on the brakes. The car squealed round in a fairground pirouette, stopping sideways-on as the Mercedes screeched and juddered to a halt, its ABS kicking in, leaving Morse-code trails of rubber behind. Jackie was first out of the car, with Logan and Steve close behind. She swung her truncheon like a baseball bat at the windscreen, shattering a vast spider’s web into the glass. She was reaching back for another swing when the passenger door exploded open and the Gimp leapt out. There was something in his hands — Logan got as far as shouting, ‘GUN!’ before a harsh crack rang out and PC Steve went down like he’d been hit by a bus. Screaming.

Logan and Jackie hit the deck. Another shot dug a hole out of the tarmac by Logan’s leg and he scrabbled backwards, getting the tiny Fiat between him and the shooter. Another shot clanged into the bonnet and a fourth into the bodywork, all punctuated by PC Steve’s high-pitched wailing. A squeal of rubber and the Merc shot backwards, paused and roared forwards, sending up a cloud of grey smoke, nearly flattening Jackie on the way past. A final bark from the gun, forcing Logan to scramble out of the way, and the car was gone. Its brake lights flashed hard on and it slithered sideways into the Garthdee roundabout, rear alloy wheels bouncing off the barrier in a flurry of sparks, before the Mercedes fishtailed out onto the Bridge of Dee and raced away into the night.

PC Steve was lying on his back in the middle of the road, already white as a sheet, a huge dark stain spreading out from the right side of his chest, blood bubbles popping and frothing from between his lips. Jackie ran over to him, peered at the hole in his chest, swore silently, then leaned on it hard: trying to staunch the bleeding. Logan called for an ambulance. If they were lucky he’d still be alive by the time it got here.

Jackie looked up from Steve’s pale face. ‘What the fuck just happened?’ The constable’s screaming had died away to shallow, gasping pants, each one bringing up more blood to spill down his chin.

Logan knelt down next to Jackie. ‘How is he?’

She stared at him, dark red soaking its way up her sleeve. ‘How the hell do you think he is?’ Steve moaned and a cascade of blood rolled down the sides of his face. She tried to wipe the worst of it off, but more kept coming.

‘Come on, Steve: don’t you dare fucking die on me! If you leave me stuck with that bastard Simon Rennie, I’ll kill you!’

‘Did you...’ Logan drifted to a halt then swore.

‘What?’

‘I just figured it out. All of this: it’s a turf war. Malk the Knife making his play for Aberdeen. He sends Chib up here to break into the local market — they find out Karl Pearson’s a dealer so they grab him and torture the poor bastard until he gives up his mates. Then the Gimp burns them alive. Same with Kennedy’s Grandmother.’ He pointed up Holborn Street where the sky glowed a fiery orange. ‘They try to scare her off, but it doesn’t work, so she’s next. Christ knows where the second house fits in — maybe they’re in on the deal, so they get burnt too. Chib and his mate have been getting rid of the competition.’ He pulled out his mobile and called Control, telling them to get a couple of patrol cars down here pronto.

Jackie shifted her grip on Steve’s heaving chest, trying to find purchase on the blood-slicked fabric. ‘Where the hell’s that ambulance?’

‘They’ll be here soon. Everything will be OK,’ he lied, trying to sound confident — this whole thing was a complete fucking disaster.

‘How’s he doing?’

‘You’re doing great, aren’t you, Steve?’ The jollity was as forced as the smile. Steve just shuddered and bled.

The wailing cry of an ambulance made Logan’s head snap round. ‘About bloody time!’ He grabbed one of Steve’s cold, blood-soaked, trembling hands. ‘Come on, not long now: you’ll be fine.’ But Steve’s eyes were unfocused and his breathing was becoming more laboured and painful. The bloody froth wasn’t just coming out of his mouth any more: it was bubbling out between Jackie’s fingers.