Chapter 2.02
Thursday wasn’t much better.
Roberta lay flat on her back, blankets draped over her like a funeral shroud, grimacing up at the ceiling. Not looking at the hyena-headed nurse making notes on the chart at the end of her bed.
The rain had devolved into a miserable drizzle that robbed the outside world of its colour, leaving it gloomy and depressed and feeling very, very sorry for itself – because it couldn’t go home and sleep in its own bed, where it wasn’t surrounded by monsters with human bodies and animal heads.
And didn’t feel like crying all the time . . .
At least she was out of that arse-split hospital gown. Swapped for a pair of pink pyjamas with little piggies on them. Yup: nothing said long-term hospital stay like festive PJs.
A knock on the door, and Tufty poked his head in. ‘You decent?’
Little squit didn’t wait for an answer, just slipped inside and closed the door behind him.
He was wearing the full on-patrol kit: high-vis and stabproof, cluttered utility belt, and peaked cap.
All a bit shiny from the drizzle. Carrying a pair of hessian tote bags.
He flipped the number ‘6’ over, so now the dementia noticeboard said ‘THIS IS DAY: 17’, then pulled the visitor’s chair right up beside her bed.
‘Can’t stop long, but it’s lunchtime, so I does come bearing muchness of treats! ’
Dipping into one of the totes, he produced a quartet of white paper bags, spotted with grease.
‘Ta-daaaaaaaa!’ Popping them onto her cantilevered-table thing.
‘Seems a bit transgressive to be eating butties at lunchtime, but I is a wild and crazy dude. How you feeling?’ Going back in for a clump of napkins and a slithery handful of assorted sauce packets.
She scowled. ‘A lot worse now you’re here.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Opening one of the paper bags and peering inside. ‘Sausage, double egg – on account of the crows and Shaky getting the other one. Does you wants: brown, red, tartare, mustard, or a mystery mélange thereof?’
‘Urgh . . .’
‘I’ll surprise you.’ He shuffled the sauce packets like dominos, then got to work. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll be keeping up with current events, but it’s by-election day. Dan-ta-ta-taaaaa!’
Idiot.
Roberta folded her arms. ‘Why do I care about some stupid by-election?’
‘Cos you did single-handedly manage to swing the result. Potentially.’ Making a tortured-frog face. ‘Unfortunately.’
He unhooked the bed’s control pad and fiddled with the buttons, till she was half sitting up with her knees raised a little.
Plumping her pillows and shifting the table closer.
‘It was that photo, you see? You’ve seen the photo, right?
Of Graeme Anderson being all Gort, “Klaatu barada nikto”?
’ Miming carrying a body. ‘And it did has a being everywhere. Turns out saving a police officer’s life is a real vote winner. ’
‘Didn’t save anything.’ Folding her arms tighter.
Tufty held out the overstuffed butty, little dribbles of sauce-fusion beige oozing from its multiple layers. ‘Mmmmm . . . Munchable.’
Yeah . . .
Normally, she’d have his arm off at the elbow for one of those, but that healthy rapacious appetite for fried delight in a floury bun wasn’t really doing it today.
Still, be rude not to even try.
She accepted the thing and gave it a nibble.
Why did everything taste of dust and gunpowder these days?
Tufty hummed away to himself, saucing up a sausage, egg, and bacon butty, with tomato and English mustard – leaving it looking like a crime scene in a pluke factory, all red and—
A woman ran past, clutching one arm to her chest, blood streaming down her face from a tattered hairline.
Roberta shuddered.
The wee loon munched away, talking with his disgusting mouth full. ‘Nearly forgot: has a present for you.’
She struggled forward on her elbows. ‘Is it my phone? They said I’m no’ allowed screens, but what they don’t know, etcetera . . .’ Sticking one hand out. ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme!’
He reached into the other hessian tote and pulled out an evidence bag. A chunk of pipe sat inside the clear plastic – about twice the size of the squeezy-head thing. Bent in the middle, with sheared metal at one end and a flange at the other. Covered in dried blood.
She dropped her gimme hand. ‘That’s no’ my phone.’
‘Nope: this am what beaned you.’ Clunking it down on her table.
‘Far as they can tell, it either went whoosh upwards, got caught on the sign in front of the building, then fell off – goes clunk. Or it did just go boom: allllllllllll the way up,’ he tilted his head back, ogling at the ceiling, ‘then allllllllllll the way back down again.’
Tufty followed the imaginary trajectory with his eyes, slamming his hand against the table at the appropriate point – making everything there rattle and jiggle.
Nurse Hyena flinched.
So did Roberta.
‘Sorry.’ He poked the metal lump. ‘Apparently you was like completely lucky, cos if it’d been even one inch further forward, it would’ve gone straight through the top of your skull like an sledgehammer through a watermelon.
Spwoooosh . . .’ Munching away, like the happy little monster that he was, with tomato-sauce on his lips.
‘And now, Graeme Anderson’s “UK New Horizons” party’s up twenty-eight points in the polls. ’
‘Urgh . . .’ Pushing her butty away.
‘And if it makes you feel any better, look: I does has one too . . .’ He went rummaging in his pockets, then held up a three-inch metal bolt. ‘Mr The Explosion tried to blast it right through my poor little heart, but I did has my trusty stabproof vest on, so it did not manage in its evil—’
‘Are you telling me I’ve helped elect a right-wing, racist, misogynistic, fucknugget?’
A shrug, and he put his bolt away. ‘Won’t find out till polls close this evening. But yeah, looks like it.’ Munch, munch, munch. ‘If it’s any consolation, that naughty pre-nugget word won’t count towards the swear jar, on account of you being all traumatised in hospital.’
Oh for the name of sod . . .
As if the world wasn’t bad enough without helping pricks like Graeme Anderson make it worse.
Tufty polished off his butty, licked his fingers clean, then opened the remaining two paper bags. ‘For dessert, you can has an custard slice, or a apple turnover?’
She covered her face with her hands and groaned. Sagged. ‘At least tell me we caught whoever stabbed that wee girl.’
‘Ah . . .’ There was some rustling of greasy paper. ‘So: slab O’custard, or apples overboard?’
‘Gaaaaaaahhh!’ Deep breath. Trembling sigh. Because it was pretty obvious where this was going. ‘And the poor cow in the bin?’
Silence.
More silence.
Great.
Why did everything fall apart the minute she took some time off?
Roberta let her arms flop on the blankets. Jaw set. Staring.
Tufty shifted in his seat. Cleared his throat. Licked his lips. ‘So, we’ve started talking about your retirement bash, and it’s—’
‘Have you at least found out who she is?’
He bit his top lip.
Fiddled with the paper bags.
Pulled both shoulders up . . .
‘Tufty, I swear on my puckered bumhole, I will climb out of this bed and beat you to death with a bedpan!’
‘Well . . . you see . . . Acting DCI Beattie—’
‘WHAT?’
The wee loon shrank back in his seat. ‘OK, so he’s maybe a little unorthodox and—’
‘They promoted him? He couldn’t detect flies on shite!’ Blood whumped behind her eyes, innards fizzing. ‘How could they give my cases to that halfwit, incompetent, fart-faced tosser?’ Whump-whump-whump-whump . . .
Beside her bed, the heart monitor let out a bleep as it crossed some pre-programmed threshold, getting louder and faster.
Nurse Hyena’s ears pricked-up and she padded forwards, sniffing the air. Mouth widening in a bone-crushing grin.
Tufty stood. ‘Guv, maybe you should . . . Deeeeeep breaths.’ Putting on a calm, smooth, end-of-the-pier hypnotist voice: ‘Picture a cool, calm lake.’ Stroking her arm like it was a wee dog at risk of peeing on the carpet. ‘See the swans, swimming gently on the rippled surface as— Ow!’
‘Get off me, you idiot!’
Something on the monitor must’ve triggered an alarm, because the door thumped open and in marched a nurse with a human head for a change.
A middle-aged powerhouse of a woman, who had shining Ghanaian skin, exuberant hair, and competition-level bingo wings that quivered with matronly outrage as she stormed over to the bed.
‘What’s all this ruckus?’ Fiddling with the heart monitor as she glared at Tufty. ‘I told you not to get her excited.’
Excited?
Roberta threw back the blankets and hauled one leg over the mattress edge. ‘Get me out of this bed, I’ve got work to do!’
‘Hmmph!’ The nurse shoved the leg straight back in again. ‘You are going nowhere, young lady. They had to weld the back of your skull together with a three-inch metal plate. You’re staying put till Dr Turner says otherwise.’
‘I’m no’—’
‘Do you want to die? Is that what you want?’
Roberta glared at her.
‘Because if it is, I can arrange for the hospital psychologist to visit every single day for the next three weeks to make you talk about your suicidal ideation.’ Nurse Bingo-Wings stuck her nose in the air.
‘Is that what you want? Or maybe you’d rather be sedated again?
’ She stood over the bed, arms crossed – and hoicking up her parcel-shelf bosom.
Heat flushed through Roberta’s neck, blossomed across her cheeks. ‘They gave my murder inquiry to a moron!’
‘Then you’d better concentrate on getting better, so you can get back to work and solve it, hadn’t you.’
Gahhh . . .
Hate it when other people were right.
She sagged back against her mattress.
The heart monitor slowed its angry bleeps, until her pulse slipped beneath whatever level was considered normal enough not to need warning noises anymore.
Nurse Bingo-Wings nodded. ‘Better.’ A regal finger came up to point at Tufty, ‘You:’ then the door, ‘out. And take that filthy thing with you.’