Chapter 2.09 #2
The northeast of Scotland had a whole smorg?sbord of criminal activities, and Davey could be tucking in to any of them.
Roberta crammed her ruined trousers, pants, socks, vape, and that crusty hankie, back into the bin-bag and retied the top. Leaving her Doc Martens and epaulettes on the draining board for cleaning later. Then headed through the house, dressed only in bunny slippers and Marigold gloves.
She stuffed the black plastic bag in the kitchen bin. Then snapped off her rubber gloves, perched her naked bum at the breakfast bar, and called up her texts.
Clicked on the thread titled ‘UNKNOWN NUMBER’ and scrolled through Davey’s messages.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
Much though I hate to nag?!?
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
Hello? Is everything OK? I’m still outside if it helps?
Hadn’t seen the most recent one before, but going by the timestamp he’d sent it eight weeks ago, just before the explosion:
You didn’t have to run away like a weird little kid! We worked together for years! Thought we were friends!?!
I covered your arse heaps of times!
The least you could do is talk to me!!!
She wriggled her uncovered arse in her seat, frowning at that last message.
He was definitely up to something, but what?
Only one way to find out.
She thumbed out a reply on the cracked screen:
I survived the blast, thanks for asking.
What did you want those number plates for?
Should really get dressed; this wasn’t Ibiza. Couldn’t just paint your exciting bits happy colours and go dancing on Aberdeen beach. Get frostbite, apart from anything else . . .
Besides, the Idiot Child would be here to pick her up soon. And she was far too much woman for a wee squit like him to see in the nip. He’d die from excitement, and—
Her phone launched into ‘Take Your Mama’ again.
And there it was, glowing in the middle of the screen: ‘UNKNOWN NUMBER’.
Of course, it could be anyone.
But kind of guessing it wasn’t.
Roberta let the call ring through to voicemail, then went upstairs to change.
The patrol car took a left, between the blood transfusion centre and what looked like a clandestine incinerator.
Taking the long way around, because going straight up Foresterhill Road was verboten for anything other than buses and bicycles.
Which just gave Tufty extra time to bore Roberta to death before she reached the hospital.
‘. . . and then you roll a D-twenty to determine your Wisdom – which is different from your Intelligence, of course – and that gets a modifier too, based on the base roll and the corresponding value in the table in the player handbook . . .’
He was wearing the full Police Scotland outfit again, which was nowhere near as stylish as Roberta’s purple-‘LESBIAN MAFFIA’-T-shirt-and-blue-hoodie combo.
Didn’t matter how many times she yawned at him, he just kept droning on. And on. And on.
The drizzle had thickened to a light rain, pattering down from an ashen sky as they crawled around the staff car park at the mandatory twenty-miles-per-hour.
Roberta checked her phone.
The ‘UNKNOWN NUMBER’ call she hadn’t answered came from 0770 090 0382. The same mobile as Davey’s texts. Which meant he must’ve rung seconds after getting her message.
Talk about keen.
And suspicious.
His voicemail sat there un-listened-to, because Tufty had turned up – honking his horn and waving like a moron.
‘. . . so: you’ve rolled for Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, and now we get to feed those scores into the rest of your character . . .’
On and on and on and on.
She saved the ‘unknown’ number in her phone, creating a new contact called ‘SKETCHY DAVEY’, because at least this way she’d be forewarned when he called.
A big, brutalist, metallic fishing creel loomed up ahead. The multistorey car park.
Tufty slowed even further, indicating right, to take the turning. ‘. . . cos your Saving Throws are determined by adding your Ability and Proficiency modifiers together, so— OW!’
‘No. No multistorey. Drop me off: front of the hospital.’
He stared at her, mouth hanging open. ‘But . . . is ambulances and buses only!’
‘You’re a patrol car, for snudge’s sake. It’s raining. And I’m practically disabled. Got a traumatic head wound, here!’ Jiggling her walking stick at him. ‘Might no’ be able to walk far, but I can still batter wee farts unconscious with this!’
‘Eeek . . .’ His eyes darted from hers, to the stick, to the multistorey, and back again. Then he switched off the indicator and drove past the car park in silence. Slightly shrunken into his stabproof vest like the cowed little turtle that he was.
Good.
She put her phone away. ‘Where did you get with ID’ing our bin body?’
‘I told you: I’m not allowed to—’
‘Hey!’ Mr Stick raised his vengeful head again. ‘You want a traumatic head wound of your very own?’
‘Encore la eeek!’ He slowed for the junction, turning right, down the hill towards ARI proper. ‘We’ve got no idea who she is. Was.’
‘Oh for . . . How can Beattie still no’ have—’
‘She’d been in that bin for maybe a month and a half, which is bad enough, but it’d been baking-hot for weeks, and the bin’s black so it just sooked up the heat.
Like a big . . . wheelie . . . slow cooker.
’ Tufty shrugged. ‘Everything inside, basically, casseroled. Right down to the bone marrow. TLDR? The DNA’s borked.
If we’d found some teeth, then maybe it would be different, but we didn’t so it’s the same. ’
He winced as the patrol car violated the box junction outside the hospital’s main entrance.
Grimaced at the no-left-turn ‘EXCEPT BUSES’ sign.
Cringed as he defied it and did indeed turn left, crawling between twin no-entry signs.
Squirming on the short drive to the entrance proper, cheeks going nuclear-scarlet, little wisps of metaphorical steam fizzing out the top of his beetroot ears.
‘So we’ve got spudge-all DNA, no dental, no fingerprints, nothing obvious on the bones – no old breaks that’ve healed we can match against doctors’ records – or implanted medical devices with nice traceable serial numbers, and all the hot sludge stewed her hair to a grey fibrous moosh.
’ He parked outside the double doors. ‘Even Sherlock Holmes couldn’t identify her, never mind Beardy Beattie. ’
Maybe the wee loon had a point?
Didn’t stop Beattie being an idiot, though.
Tufty fidgeted in his seat. ‘No offence, Guv, but any chance you could get out of the car? I has the major squeams sitting here, and I’d like to go park somewhere that does not has an “Against the Rules!”’
Hmph . . .
Roberta struggled her way out of the passenger seat and into the rain. Turned to glare at him through the open door. ‘You better be waiting here when I get out.’
Then clunked it shut, and hobbled towards the entrance.
The patrol car was off before she’d taken more than a couple of steps. Coward.
She limped past a knot of soggy smokers and into an entrance that should’ve been impressive, given how massive Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was, but somehow managed to look more like the side exit from a failing shopping centre in some Teuchter hick backwater town.
Past the wee Markies, a café, and a couple of shops.
The reception area was a bustling open space, with visitors in their rain-dripping jackets; patients in their gowns, jammies and scuffing slippers; porters, doctors, nurses, and support staff in their scrubs and uniforms . . .
Roberta kept going, ignoring the information kiosk and making for the glazed walkway through to the Pink Zone.
Which was going to take a while at this speed.
Might as well entertain herself on the way.
So she dug out her phone, scrolling as she lumbered across the scuffed Terrazzo floor, bringing up her voicemail and poking Davey’s message. Setting it playing:
‘Hello? Hi.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I was . . . I saw what happened on the TV. Wow. Quite something, eh?’
Bit of a sodding understatement.
She stepped into the glass-walled corridor, leaving the Yellow Zone behind. It was toasty-hot last time, in the blazing sunshine, but now it was drab and cold, rain streaking down the glass, rippling the grey world beyond.
‘Here: do you mind Martin Lynch? PC, hairy, had that thing on his bum? Two of Wee Hamish Mowat’s goons ran him over in a hearse. Mind him?’ Sounding all nostalgic. ‘What were their names . . . Kenny Something. And Big Steve McHugh?’
Did Davey really think she’d fall for this?
Oh, yeah, it was dressed up as a harmless wee shamble down memory lane, but he was just trying to establish a rapport. Look at this anecdote from our shared past: aren’t we the best of friends! You want to help your friends, don’t you?
Manipulative tosspot.
‘You’d think, if you were nicking a vehicle to go ram-raiding, you’d want something sportier than a hearse, but Kenny aye had something loose up-top.’ A laugh. ‘Back of the hearse is full of stolen VHS recorders, and there’s Mikey, trying to flag the buggers down – and bang! Goes flying.’
Roberta limped off the walkway and into a gloomy corridor with magnolia walls and a padded grey bumper strip. No windows. No natural light. Only doors.
They’d painted a hot-pink bar along the top of the wall, and put all the signage in fuchsia, but it didn’t help. The corridor still looked like a well, and everyone who stepped into it was falling . . .
‘Broke both his legs and three ribs, cracked two vertebrae, then the buggers reversed over him, trying to finish the job. Twice. Was in traction for months.’
She turned the corner to where the lifts lurked. Each one boasting hot-pink doors with a big white ‘2’ on them. Even though she’d just come straight through from the ground floor.
Roberta picked the nearest and pressed the call button.
‘Rumour has it, Wee Hamish had Marty picked up from the hospital, day before he was discharged, and whisked him off to a farm out Loch of Skene way.’
Ding.
An unconvincing voice scratched out of the lift’s speakers: ‘DOORS OPENING.’
She stepped inside.
No need to consult the magenta-backed list of wards and offices, she’d been here long enough. The only other splashes of colour were the strips of blue duct tape, holding the peeling grey floor together.
‘Plonked him down in an armchair, gave him a beer, and let him watch as Reuben battered the living shite out of Kenny and Steve. Then treated him to a fish supper on the way back to the hospital.’
Roberta poked the button for the third floor, then did it again, poke-poke-poke-poke. Because a harassed-looking mother, with two snottery kids in tow, was rapidly approaching.
Come on, come on . . .
Davey sighed. ‘Wonder what happened to him . . .’
Poke-poke-poke-poke!
‘DOORS CLOSING.’
And they did, just in time to make sure Mummy Dearest and her disgusting mucus-dripping children would have to spread their germs all over the next one.
There was silence from the phone as the lift juddered upwards.
Then: ‘Yeah. Sorry. The good old days, eh? Anyway: I’m glad you didn’t die.
’ This time the pause had a sleekit edge to it.
Here came the big sell. ‘Erm . . .’ Another throat clearance, every phlegm must go.
‘Look, I don’t suppose you’ve – I mean, if you’re back at work, after the explosion – cos .
. . those number plates would still be a huge help.
’ Followed by a hopeful, ‘If you’ve got them? ’
Ding.
‘DOORS OPENING.’
Roberta stepped out into the old, familiar, claustrophobic half-light of Neurology & Neurosurgery. With that unrelenting background hum, and the paintings she’d limped past hundreds and hundreds of times before.
‘DOORS CLOSING.’
Making her way along the well-trodden corridors.
‘Right, well, you’ve got my number.’ Deep breath. ‘I’m sorry you got hurt. . . . Anyway, bye.’
Followed by a harsh electronic voice: ‘END OF MESSAGES. TO REPLAY THIS MESSAGE, PRESS—’
Roberta hung up.
Then flattened herself against the corridor wall to let a porter trundle someone past in one of those chairs that looked like a cross between an instrument of torture and a mobile toilet.
The porter gave her a cheery wave on his way past, but the teenaged girl in his chair just sagged there, all the hair missing on one side of her head, a puckered scar making an ‘S’ shape across the pale-grey skin.
Stitches poking out of it, as if a score of spiders were trying to escape from her skull.
Roberta stood there, watching her disappear down the corridor. Sighed.
Poor wee thing . . .
Still, no point moping about it.
Got an appointment to keep.