Chapter 3.15
The howling wind yanked and tugged at Roberta’s shoulders as she limped towards the spot where Harmsworth and Chef Chunky had disappeared.
‘STOP! POLICE!’ The two idiots in the crash helmets and MOE gear hammered past, waving their truncheons. Wheeching over the embankment’s edge.
Roberta hobbled off the promenade and onto the grass. Peering after them, squinting into the rain.
Yeah . . .
Good job they were wearing crash helmets, because it looked as if the steep slope had caught them by surprise, and now the MOE Twins were sprawled across the walkway below in a twisted heap.
Between them and the beach lay a metal handrail, the breakwater – like cubes from a packet of concrete jelly – then the anaemic sands of Aberdeen beach. Beaten by the relentless waves.
The scarpering chef was legging it along the high-tide mark, while Harmsworth hurple-jogged after her – falling behind.
Roberta waved her walking stick at the tumbled officers and offered some words of encouragement and support: ‘GET AFTER HER, YOU USELESS JOBBIES!’
No idea if they heard that over the wind, but they struggled to their feet anyway, and chased after the escaping cook.
Lund appeared at Roberta’s shoulder – all bundled up to play the part of Customer Number One. Voice raised in competition with the storm. ‘What the hell happened?’
And Roberta raised her stick to indicate the scene below.
The Chuckle Brothers were sprinting down the walkway, pausing only to vault the handrail – mountain-goating across the lumpy breakwater, and out onto the beach. Where the going was much softer, cutting their speed.
But at least Harmsworth had backup now.
Just as well, cos the lazy sod was getting slower and slower and slower . . .
A voice, just audible through the tempest: ‘COME BACK HERE!’ as the Crash Helmets closed the gap.
The pair of them were almost in place to cut the cantering caterer off, when she did an abrupt about-face – probably thought her chances were better with Harmsworth. Who had staggered to a halt, like the useless lump he was.
Crash Helmet Number One tried a sudden course correction of his own, and ended up skiteing flat on his back in the wet sand. Where an incoming wave promptly crashed right over him. Leaving him flailing and spluttering.
Lund covered her face. ‘Oh . . . for buggering . . . wank!’
Crash Helmet Number Two nearly ended up the same way, but righted himself at the last moment. Arms and legs pumping as he hammered after the chef.
Roberta hooked her walking stick over one arm and made a loudhailer with her hands. ‘DON’T JUST STAND THERE, YOU HOPELESS TOSSER: GET HER!’
The idiot Harmsworth did his overweight-goalie routine again. Blocking the cook’s way. Because that had worked so well last time.
Seeing him, she swerved back the way she’d just come. Only Crash Helmet Number Two was much closer this time.
The chef jinked into an even tighter U-turn, only to run slam-bang right into Harmsworth’s open arms.
Crash, and they both hit the sand. Legs waving in the air, grappling with each other. Wrestling for supremacy.
Harmsworth’s cry flittered up from the beach, tattered by the wind: ‘OW! NO BITING! NO BITING!’
Then Crash Helmet Number Two dived on top of them – joining the fray.
Down at the water’s edge, Number One struggled to his squelchy feet and stood there, arms out like a droopy scarecrow, water pouring off him as waves crashed around his ankles.
‘Aye . . .’ Roberta sniffed. ‘Police Scotland’s really gone downhill since I retired.’
Lund pulled her shoulders up. ‘Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad.’
Even with Harmsworth and Crash Helmet Number Two pinning her to the sand, somehow the chef managed to break free. Springing upright with a set of handcuffs dangling from one wrist.
She leapt away, making another bid for freedom, but Harmsworth’s arm snapped out and grabbed her ankle.
So down she went again.
And the mini-scrum rolled over her.
Struggle. Struggle. Struggle. Struggle.
‘OW! OW! STOP IT! I SAID, “NO BITING!”’
Roberta looked at Lund. Then sighed and shook her head. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah . . .’ A cough, a blush, and a shuffle. ‘Maybe not our finest hour.’
Not by a long bloody way.
Roberta heaved the Volvo’s passenger door open and thumped down into her seat, bringing two paper bags of tasty treats with her. Letting the howling wind slam the door.
They’d moved about a mile down the beach – opposite the cluster of shops, restaurants, and cafes, a nightclub, cinema, and funfair. Because who didn’t love a thing of candyfloss to go with their frostbite?
Harmsworth had the engine running, blowers cranked up full, but the windows remained opaque and misty. And the air was ripe with the unmistakable funky fug of wet constable.
Probably best not to mention that, though, because he had enough of a gob on as it was: being soaked through and crusted in sand. Sitting there with his arms crossed and his forehead creased up like dreels of tatties. Time for Roberta to work her motivational magic.
Removing a wax-paper mug from one of her bags, Roberta handed it across the car.
‘Fly cup and a fancy piece from the Inversnecky. Never say I don’t spoil you.
’ Dipping in again, she produced a rectangle of millionaire’s shortbread, thick with chocolate and sticky caramel.
She popped it on the dashboard. ‘You’re no’ still sulking, are you? ’
‘I want to go home.’ Raising his arms then dropping them again. With a squelch. ‘I’m cold. I’m wet. I’ve got sand in my . . . areas. And bite-marks on everything else!’
‘That’s your own fault for being so tasty.
’ She emptied out her other bag: tea and a slab of lemon drizzle.
Slurping the former, and getting crumbs all down herself as she munched on the latter.
‘Look on the bright side – last time I went on a dunt, someone got smeared along a mile of railway track.’ Good cake.
Nice and sharp. ‘You got off with a bit of light nibbling.’
He indulged in some performative sighing, then shrugged one shoulder and tried his fancy piece. ‘Still want to go home.’
‘Come on, Owen, you’re my Go-To-Guy, remember?’ Giving him a nudge. ‘We’ve only got a couple more people to interrogate, then you can go hoover Aberdeen beach out your Y-fronts.’
That got her a scowl.
‘And look what we achieved! Drug dealer off the streets, lovely curry for lunch, and Lund says she’ll give you cover for being there and a bit of the credit too.’
Probably.
Or she would once Roberta had a go at her.
Another nudge. ‘We made a good team, didn’t we? Just like old times.’
He munched, then huffed out a big long biscuity breath. A smug expression spread across his saggy-satchel face. ‘I suppose I am the lynchpin.’
Talk about gullible . . .
Grey terraced buildings turned this bit of George Street into a granite canyon.
Some were two-storeys tall with attic conversions, others: three.
All with dormers poking out of their slate roofs.
The ground floor of nearly every building was given over to shops.
Big shops, small shops, colourful shops, dull shops, takeaways and betting shops, off-licences and nail salons, tanning parlours and solicitors’ . . .
‘MOCHIE HOUSE’ was a three-floor job: nine flats sitting above a Turkish takeaway, a pawn shop, and a tattoo studio.
A scuffed door was wedged in at the far end, with an intercom that had a button for every upstairs flat, but no numbers, and all the nameplates were faded and illegible.
Which meant Harmsworth was spoiled for choice.
Ringing them one after the other, then sighing every time nobody answered.
Which was really starting to grate, because nobody ever bloody did.
Roberta frowned up at the place, with its weedy guttering and flaking window frames. ‘This no’ seem a bit . . . downmarket for Graeme Anderson’s right-hand man?’
Harmsworth poked his way through the buttons again, setting the intercom gurgling. Hauling his damp trousers out of his undercarriage. ‘Maybe this is some sort of lying-low, man-of-the-people thing?’
‘Even that lazy-eyed wee snodge in Bridge of Don had a house. And he’s barely out of nappies.’
‘True.’ Another trip to Button Town, another dig at the crotch. ‘But maybe—’
‘What?’ A voice crackled out of the intercom’s speaker. ‘What you want? What?’
Harmsworth leaned in. ‘Is Mr Lewis Kelman in?’
‘What about him? Why? . . . Know what: don’t care.’ The speaker cracked and fizzled. ‘He at work. Go away.’
‘Where’s he working?’
A bus growled by.
Then a hatchback, with the windows vibrating to the dmmm-tsssh-dmmm-tsssh-dmmm-tsssh of bloody awful music.
A seagull got into a swearing match with one of its neighbours . . .
And then, finally: ‘Back of building.’
An angry-wasp buzz sounded, then the door lock clicked.
‘Tell him we out of milk!’
Harmsworth took his finger off the button and pushed through into a manky narrow hallway.
Roberta limped in after him.
Gloomy in here, with cracked plaster on the walls.
They’d probably been painted an exciting shade of magnolia once, back in the LongAgo, but it had faded over the years to tooth-enamel grey.
Stone stairs wound up to the first and second floors, letting the unmistakable twin scents of cannabis and frying garlic waft down from above.
The space between the stairs and the wall was barely wide enough to accommodate Harmsworth’s shoulders as he squelched towards the back door, following the long, ragged gouge marks that ran all the way down the hall.
A mechanical screeeech rattled around the tight space, getting louder the closer they got to the featureless door at the end.
Roberta gave the nod and Harmsworth opened it.
The screech turned into a howl.
She stepped out into a murky well at the back of the building, lined on all four sides with granite walls – three-storeys high. Dank and dark and claustrophobic. Creepy too, with all those grubby windows looking down at her.