Halfhead - Страница 49

Brian grunted. ‘Because the Bitch Queen hates my guts, that’s why. I mean look at this!’ He waved a fat arm at the vast pile of rain-soaked garbage. ‘Why does this need real people? I could’ve grabbed a bunch of halfheads to grub about in the shite, but no! That would be too easy. What we want is some poor Network bastards up to their knees in pish!’

Will stood with his back to the wind, watching a Behemoth from Dis-Com-Lein drift across the leaden skies towards Glasgow Central, and wondering what the cloned publishing executive he’d slept with all those years ago was doing now. Probably not wading through stinking mounds of garbage.

At least here, under the expressway, they got a little shelter from the rain. All they really had to worry about was the dirt, the germs, and the disease-carrying vermin.

Will pointed at the team going through the unofficial landfill site. ‘What’s the story?’

‘Two Bluecoats, missing since Friday.’ Brian dug his hands into his pockets. ‘Station commander didn’t do anythin’ about it till Saturday afternoon. Says he’s no’ got enough manpower to do a proper search. Tosser. He finally gets round to tellin’ us about it and we have to fight him all bloody weekend to get their coffin dodgers turned on. He says they’re only used as a last resort. Like PC Douglas and MacDonald’re out there eatin’ chip butties and skoofin’ Irn-Bru!’ Brian sniffed back a drop hanging on the end of his nose and spat it out into the rubbish heap. ‘Anyway, we broadcast their ident codes first thing this morning and bingo. Both signals are comin’ from this pile of shite under the expressway. So now here we are, diggin’ through it by hand, lookin’ for them.’

Will nodded, looking out over the mound of mouldering debris. ‘How come there aren’t any Bluecoats helping?’

Brian grunted again. ‘Station commander couldn’t spare any. Can you believe it? No’ even to look for his own people! Unbe-fuckin’-lievable.’

Will had to agree.

They walked the perimeter of the rubbish heap, Brian bemoaning his fate and Will making distracted soothing noises, not really listening. He was going over the chewing out he’d got from Director Smith-Hamilton instead. She’d taken what was pretty damning evidence and dismissed it out of hand. It wasn’t like her at all.

And she had the cheek to say he was the one acting irrationally.

‘You know,’ he said, watching a Network trooper in a filthy grey jumpsuit digging through a multicoloured pile of trash. ‘Director Smith-Hamilton thinks I should go get some therapy. Thinks I’ve got “issues”.’

‘There’s a fuckin’ shock. You’ve no’ really been the same since that cow Westfield turned up burnt tae a crisp. I mean I’m no’ surprised: what with her deid and all the shite goin’ on at Sherman House…’

‘Don’t you start.’

‘Look, you’re only babysittin’ me today cos Her Majesty tore a strip off your arse.’ He turned and poked Will in the shoulder. ‘She used to think the sun shone out that very hole. People are beginnin’ to think you’re a born-again bamheid.’

Will laughed. ‘You know something? They might be right.’

Something crackled and sniffed in his ear followed by George’s voice: ‘Will, Brian, is that you? Hello? Hello?’

‘You don’t have to shout George, we can hear you.’

Brian’s response was a bit more to the point: ‘Quiet down ya snotty wee bastard!’

‘Oops, sorry. I’ve got some bad news…and some worse news. The labs have lost the samples I sent them.’

‘Soddin’ hell, that’s just bloody typical.’

‘Never mind,’ said Will, ‘we’ve still got the original bodies right? We can just take more samples and-’

‘That’s the worse news.’ A loud sniff rattled their eardrums. ‘Services came by while I was out at a meeting and picked up the wrong bodies-they were meant to take the two jumpers we scraped up last week-but they took the Sherman House ones instead. They’ve gone to the great barbecue in the sky. I only found out when I went to get another slice of brain to send off.’

‘Tell me we still have the SOC recordings!’

‘Oh…I didn’t check. You want me to?’

‘Please.’

The pathologist’s voice clicked off and Brian shook his head. ‘They’ll be gone too, you know that don’t you?’ He spat another glob of phlegm onto the garbage at his feet. ‘We’re fucked: we’ve got no evidence left.’

‘We’ve got one last bit, but I don’t know how it fits in yet.’

Brian raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh aye?’

‘Peitai wanted me to keep my nose out of the PsychTech files, so I went digging. I’ve got a team going through everything I downloaded, looking for something that implicates the weasely little shite. Something we can use.’ He gave that same bitter laugh again. ‘Not that Her Royal Highness will do anything about it-Governor Clark’s been on the phone again. They’re putting serious pressure on her to bury the whole thing.’

‘Shite…So what we goin’ to do?’

Will looked up at the mountain of rubbish. ‘Keep digging.’

The apartment used to belong to an unmarried man. He said he liked nursery rhymes, so she cut off his tail with a carving knife; other than that she can’t remember much about him. The rooms are tidy and ordered-unlike some of her other places-and a small layer of dust covers the surfaces, but a quick once round with a damp cloth will put that right.

She drops her shopping bags on the couch and lowers herself into an armchair. What a lovely day. She’s managed to max out all three credit cards in the space of an hour and a half. The lovely Kris, her boyfriend Norman, and good old Doctor Bexley have bought her more comfort than she’s known in six years. Kris’s cheap, lacy underwear is gone, replaced by the finest silk, the toilet paper padding replaced with soft pink cashmere. It’s vain and silly, but it makes her feel good to have breasts again, even if they’re only make-believe.

And she has bought herself a little treat. She pulls a small glass jar from one of the bags. It was expensive-even by her standards-but definitely worth it. She twists open the top and breathes in the rich, earthy scent. Savours it. Then dips a finger into the sticky liquid, coating her skin like amber. Real honey from real bees. Like the ones in her head. Rare and exquisite. Decadent. It tastes of summer: sweet, warm, and wide, the flavour almost overpowering after all this time without a mouth.

She allows herself two more dips, then screws the jar shut again and unlaces her brand-new, slender-heeled boots. God…that’s better. For years she’s worn nothing but utility footwear; she deserves to be pampered. Even if it does result in blisters and sore feet. A good soak in the tub will help, but before she can run a bath she has a little matter to attend to.

Stephen’s wife is in the bathroom, surgi-taped into a black plastic body-bag with just her face showing. Dr Westfield leans into the tub and looks at her. She’s almost angelic, up to her prefrontal lobes in sedatives, but the effect is somewhat spoiled by the large chunk of scalp missing from the top of her head-the wound covered in a layer of skinpaint to stop it oozingred everywhere. The nutrient pouches plugged into her arms are almost empty; this evening she’ll start to dehydrate and after that death won’t be far away. After all, she’s pregnant. She’ll be dying for two.

Unless she accidentally gets gutted first.

Dr Westfield unhooks the IV pouches from the shower pod and lets them fall to the bathroom floor. She hauls the body-bag out of the bath, smiling as she hears something nasty sliding about in there. The woman’s bowels have obviously been productive. It’s only to be expected. The poor thing must be terrified. And that turns Dr Westfield’s smile into a grin.

She drags the bag through to the dining area and wrestles it into place on one of the chairs, securing it tightly with more surgi-tape. Mrs Stephen Bexley won’t be going anywhere. Not alive at any rate.

Dr Westfield pulls the intravenous sedative from the woman’s neck and throws the bag in the bin. It will take three or four hours for the drugs to wear off, enough time to have a nice hot bath. Then, when Mrs Bexley is all awake and terrified, they can have a little chat about how Stephen was naughty and how much pain that’s going to mean before his wife finally gets to die.

With a happy smile Dr Westfield pats the woman on the cheek. It’s not her fault she married a weak man, but it’s too late to worry about that now.

‘Sir! Over here, we’ve found one of them!’

Will struggled up the pile of trash to join the knot of jump-suited figures. They stood around a shallow hole in the rubbish, looking down at what used to be a man. The body was tied up in a bundle with orange packing tape: knees against chest, arms against knees, hands curled into stiff claws. The Bluecoat’s head was tilted back onto his left shoulder, sightless eyes staring up at the expressway, mouth hanging open, the skin waxy and yellow like rancid butter.

Brian hunkered down at the edge of the makeshift grave and ran a reader over one of the constable’s fingertips. He waited for the print to come back from Central Records, then read out the results. ‘Stephen Mackay: twenty-five, male. Bluecoat. Rank-’

‘Police Constable.’ It was Jo, standing on the edge of the group, dressed in a yellow suit and scarlet cropped cloat: the kind the horsy set always wore. The hood was up, hiding her eyes and she sounded as if she hadn’t slept in a month. ‘Married. Wife: Louise Mackay. One child: Cheryl, three years old.’