Close to the Bone (51 page)

Reuben grabbed one corner of the gag and ripped it off, taking the stud in Dan Fisher’s bottom lip with it.

‘Aaaaagh. . . Bastard. . .’ Blood dribbled down his chin.

Dan Fisher. Friend of Anthony Chung. Anthony who always had the best cannabis.

At least now it was obvious where he’d got it from.

Reuben hammered another fist into Fisher’s stomach. Then stood back and waited until he’d stopped retching. ‘Your starter for ten is: who’s stealing weed from the McLeod brothers? ’

A long string of spittle wobbled from his bleeding bottom lip. ‘Oh God. . .’

Reuben sucked in a breath, then shook his head. ‘Wrong answer.’ A Stanley knife blade clicked out, then snicked through the cable-ties holding Dan Fisher’s ankles together. Then he dragged one foot out until it was just hanging over the Transit’s rear bumper.

‘PLEASE! I DON’T—’

The van rocked as Reuben slammed all his weight down on Fisher’s ankle. A muffled pop. And Fisher’s foot didn’t face the front any more.

Two seconds later the screaming started. Reuben gave him a count of three, then shut him up with another fist to the guts.

Logan grabbed his arm – it was solid, like a telegraph pole. ‘That’s
enough
.’

‘Nah, we’re just getting started.’ He grabbed Fisher’s other foot. ‘Try that again, shall we? Same question.’

Fisher moaned and sobbed, snot shining on his top lip. ‘Please. . . I just sell it on, I don’t know who—’

The van rocked again and the other ankle made the same muffled popping noise.

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH. . .’

Reuben wiped his hands down the front of his boilersuit, then smiled at Logan. ‘Not very bright, is he? ’

‘God sake. . .’ Logan pushed past him and climbed up into the back of the van.

Fisher was back on his side, folding his knees up to his chest then out again – like a broken accordion. Mouth open in a silent scream.

Logan took hold of his shoulders and pinned him to the plastic sheeting, holding him still. Then leaned in until his mouth was an inch from Fisher’s collection of earrings, and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Listen up, you daft bastard: they’re not kidding. This isn’t the TV, there’s no last-minute rescue coming. They’re going to kill you if you don’t tell them who’s stealing their drugs.’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. . .’ A massive shuddering breath.

‘You’re going to
die
, do you get that? And it won’t be quick. This’ll be a happy memory for you by the time they’ve finished!’

‘Please. . . It
hurts
. . .’

‘That was just the warm-up, wait till he gets into his stride. Now who’s stealing their bloody cannabis? ’

Fisher’s bottom lip trembled. ‘It . . . Ton. It was Ton. Anthony Chung.’

Of course it was.

‘You were Anthony Chung’s best friend: everyone knows he always had loads of cannabis. You were selling it for him, weren’t you? Passing it out through the bar. Even after he beat the crap out of you? ’

‘It was. . . I didn’t have any choice.’ Sweat sparkled on Fisher’s face. ‘Please, please, you’ve got to help me. . .’

‘Who was he working with? ’

Reuben’s voice boomed out from the loading dock behind them. ‘If you’re gonnae bum him, get on with it so I can start on his kneecaps.’

‘Will you shut up for two minutes? ’ Then back to Fisher. ‘Who was Anthony working with, Dan? Who’s in charge now he’s dead? ’

‘I don’t know, I don’t—’

Logan took hold of Fisher’s pierced ear and twisted.

‘Aaaaaagh!’

‘Do you
want
to end up carved into little pieces? ’

The words came out riding on a wave of jagged sobs. ‘I only dealt with Ton! He said . . . he said he knew someone who worked for these cannabis farms, and he could find out where they were, and all I did was sell it on, I never stole it, I swear on my mother’s grave, I don’t know. . .’

Reuben slammed the Transit van’s back doors closed, shutting out the sound of Dan Fisher’s sobs.

Simon McLeod slipped the wraparound sunglasses back over the holes where his eyes used to be. ‘Come on then: who is it, and where do I find him? ’ A little smile escaped, then was quickly killed again. ‘So I can meet up with him and sort this out nice and peaceful, like Wee Hamish wants.’

Aye, right.

Logan stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘He’s in the mortuary. He screwed his girlfriend over once too often and she staked him out on a kitchen floor, stabbed him three hundred and sixty-five times, then strangled him.’

Simon McLeod’s eyebrows lowered a fraction of an inch. ‘Hmm. . .’

‘What? ’

A sniff. ‘Sounds like my kind of girl. But I still want the bastard’s name.’

‘So you can go after his family? No chance. They had nothing to do with this. The guy who stole your cannabis got himself tortured to death, and you didn’t have to lift a finger.’ Logan stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘Wee Hamish wants you to stop the beatings. Not like they’re doing you any good, is it? All that and you still didn’t find out who was stealing from you.’

Simon shrugged. ‘That’s what happens when you ask the wrong people the right question. Hypothetically speaking.’

‘No more beatings.’

A cloud of pale-blue exhaust growled out of the Transit’s exhaust.

‘Imagine there’s a businessman who’s invested a large sum of money to set up a number of indoor growing facilities and bringing over the specialists to manage them. Now imagine someone else comes along and steals from those farms. And that some of the businessman’s key . . . horticultural staff are missing. If you were that businessman, wouldn’t you think the gardeners were involved? Wouldn’t you encourage them to keep their farms more secure? ’

The Transit lurched forward a couple of feet, then stopped, engine still running.

‘You weren’t crippling the opposition, you were punishing your own people for being
stolen
from? ’

‘Call it a claw-hammer incentive scheme. Like the one your wee friend in there’s going to join soon as he gets out of hospital. Well, unless Reuben feeds him to the pigs first.’

Logan turned. ‘No one’s getting fed to the pigs! And they’re not getting their kneecaps pulped either. Fisher’s done: his only contact was the guy who got killed, he doesn’t know anything else. He gets a free pass.’

‘
No one
steals from me.’

‘He gets – a free – pass.’

The Transit van’s horn blared.

‘I’m serious, Simon. I find out something’s happened to him, or the dead guy’s family, and I come after you and your brother. And I ask Wee Hamish to do the same.’

A large hand thumped down on Logan’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Trust me when I say: if you
ever
threaten me or mine again, I’ll have you skinned alive. Understand? For Wee Hamish’s sake, I’ll leave the boy. But see if I get to the man in charge before you do? All bets are off.’

The Transit van rocked as Reuben ground his way through the gears. He pinned his mobile between his little round ear and his huge rounded shoulder. ‘Yeah. . . No, don’t think so. . . Hold on.’ He held the phone out to Logan. ‘Mr Mowat wants a word.’

‘Hello? ’

‘
Logan, I hear it went well. Did you sort everything out with the McLeods?
’

‘Simon says he wants to make peace, but you know what will happen if he gets his hands on whoever’s running the rival operation.’

‘
They’re primitive people, Logan. They believe in Old Testament vengeance. But Reuben tells me you know who’s stealing the McLeods’ cannabis?
’

‘I know who
was
stealing it. He’s dead.’

Reuben stuck his foot down and the Transit lumbered across the lights on Westburn Drive. ‘Lucky. Means Creepy can’t get hold of him.’

‘He was tortured to death by his girlfriend.’

‘
Really? Now that
is
fascinating. And you’re sure it was his girlfriend?
’

The lumpy concrete bulk of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary loomed above the surrounding buildings.

‘Who else would it be? ’

‘
Ask Reuben
.’ A pause. ‘
Now, would you do me a favour and put me on speakerphone?
’

Logan frowned at the mobile’s shiny interface, then pressed the bit on the screen that looked like a loudhailer.

Wee Hamish’s voice crackled out of the speaker, only just audible over the Transit’s diesel drone. ‘
You know, it does my old heart proud to see the pair of you working together. Logan and Reuben: a team, looking after my city. It gives me a lot of comfort to know it’ll be in good hands when I’m gone. Thank you both
.’ Then Wee Hamish hung up.

Logan passed the phone back. ‘He said to ask you who else would’ve tortured Anthony Chung to death.’

‘Did he now. . .’ Reuben took them right onto Westburn Road – next stop Accident and Emergency.

‘What happened to making Wee Hamish proud? ’

A grunt. ‘Think you’re getting off that lightly? You and me: we’re not finished by a long shot.’

Brilliant. So much for bonding over a job well done. Well, half done. Kind of.

Maybe Samantha was right? Maybe the only way Reuben was ever going to go away and leave him alone was at the bottom of a shallow grave? Or banged up for a twenty stint in Barlinnie? Slightly more difficult to arrange, but at least no one would have to die. Who hadn’t died already. . .

‘Who tortured Anthony Chung? ’

A smile twisted its way through Reuben’s scars. ‘Word is, the new kids on the block got themselves an enforcer who’s a card-carrying psycho. Gets off on maximum pain.’

‘You’re saying he was done by
his own
enforcer? What kind of—’

‘Think it’d be the first time one partner got greedy and the other one didn’t like it? ’

Fair point. But there was no way Agnes Garfield didn’t kill Anthony Chung. Not with the magic circle on the floor, and the pricking knife she used on him,
and
the one she stabbed Dildo with. . .

It
had
to be her.

Didn’t it?

Rowan huddles in the undergrowth on the wrong side of a chainlink fence. Don’t breathe. Don’t move.

The Raptor is gone, pootling away in his little Peugeot, his happy grandchildren in the back eating prawn cocktail crisps.

Why? Why would a Raptor punish witches like that? And not even ask any questions, just beat and pound away to an old song from the sixties. He hammered the Witch’s knees until they looked like bone-flecked mince, then had a sausage in a bun and a cup of tea, laughing with Betty and chatting about going to the Algarve for the school holidays.

And all the while, the Witch lies twitching on the ground behind the Burger and Baps van, bleeding into the dirt.

He barely moves when the ambulance arrives. Not even when the paramedics stand over him in their green jumpsuits, staring and swearing at the mess where his knees should be.

Betty stands to one side, sipping on a mug of something, lying to a police officer. No, she didn’t see anything. No, the man didn’t order anything from her. The first time she knew anything was wrong was when she went to check the gas bottles, and found him lying there. She’s round and small, too small for that deep rumbling voice, malevolent pulses of green and black oozing out of her like sound waves.

Rowan chews the skin around her left pinkie until the salty-copper tang of blood sparks at the end of her tongue.

It was her job to find and save the Witch, and instead he’s forever out of her reach. His soul is forfeit.

She’s failed.

The Transit van growled away, trailing a cloud of diesel exhaust behind it. Logan hauled Dan Fisher off the pavement and into one of the low-tech porters’ chairs reserved for hospital use. Just an oversized dining-room chair with four slightly wonky wheels bolted onto the legs.

Fisher moaned behind the gag, beneath the stained pillowcase.

Logan removed them both.

Underneath, Fisher’s face was pale and greasy. Shock.

A gentle slap on the cheek made him blink, his voice wet and creaky. ‘Please, I don’t know. . .’

‘You’re at A&E. Dan? Dan, can you hear me? ’

The automatic doors into the hospital creaked open, and one of the two uniforms stationed at ARI stuck his head out. ‘Guv? That you? You OK? ’

‘I don’t know anything. . .’

Logan hunkered down beside the chair. ‘Where is he, Dan? Anthony Chung’s partner? Where do they keep the stuff? Where do you pick it up from? ’

Fisher blinked at him, both pupils contracted to tiny pinholes in the watery blue iris. ‘It hurts. . .’

‘I know it does, Dan, but I need you to tell me how to find whoever’s running Anthony Chung’s operation.’

‘I don’t—’

Logan grabbed him by the collar. ‘I saved your life, you little prick! If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working your way through a pig’s digestive system right now. So tell me where I can find him!’

‘Guv? ’ The uniform put a hand on Logan’s shoulder. ‘Is everything OK? ’

Fisher rocked his head to the side, until he was staring at the PC. ‘I don’t know, I. . . I just pick the stuff up when I get a text message. Different place every time.’

Logan pulled his face back around. ‘But the same mobile number? ’ They could do a GSM trace, find out—

‘No: codeword. “Moderator”. . . Same codeword, different mobile.’

So much for that.

Logan stood. ‘Better get him inside.’

‘Yes, Guv.’ The uniform grabbed the chair’s handles and wrestled the wheelie-chair through the automatic doors and into A&E.

The doors hissed shut again, leaving Logan’s reflection staring back at him from the glass. Would’ve been nice to head back to FHQ with enough information to break a drug ring. . . It might have distracted them from the complete cock-up at Ma Stewart’s that morning.

43

Logan peered through the window to the intensive therapy unit. Dildo lay on a hospital bed, flat on his back, face hidden behind an oxygen mask plumbed into the wall.

A uniformed PC sat in a plastic chair outside the ward, head buried in a thick textbook, lips moving as he frowned his way down the page. Overhead lighting sparkled back from a fist-sized bald patch.