Chapter 35
Logan jammed his phone back in his pocket. ‘I have to go. Sorry.’
‘But Da-ad!’
He hunkered down, so they were eye to eye. ‘Who does Daddy love most in the whole wide world?’
Elizabeth didn’t even have to think about it: ‘Cthulhu.’
‘True.’ He gave her tummy a prod. ‘But who does Daddy love almost as much as Cthulhu?’
‘Mummy.’
‘Nah, she’s a poo-head.’
Tara walloped him one. ‘Hey!’
A big grin from the Lizzasaurus Rex. ‘Is it Elizabeth Tobermory Strachan-McRae?’
So he gave her a wee kiss on the head. ‘Darn tootin’.’ Then stood and shot Tara a grimace.
‘Go.’
Logan marched for the door, already dialling.
‘But remember what I said about spanking!’
He thumped out into the playground, where the air was hot and claggy and smelled of freedom. Phone to his ear, waiting for the halfwit Tufty to—
Logan stumbled to a halt, inches away from falling over a little girl.
Well, not little, little. Maybe twelve years old?
Dressed in black jeans, black biker boots, black leather wrist things, and a black T-shirt with Marceline from Adventure Time on it.
She’d even dyed her hair jet-black, like Undertaker Barbie.
She glowered up at him, from a ghost-white face with coal-coloured lipstick.
‘Hey, watch where you’re . . .’ Then her eyes widened in their smoked shadows.
‘Ooh, it’s you! It really is you. They said it was, but then you didn’t show yesterday, so I thought maybe they were lying, but it’s you, and .
. .’ Then she must’ve remembered that babbling Goths weren’t cool, so bobbed one shoulder and sniffed instead. ‘Yeah. I mean, . . . ’sup?’
‘Sorry.’ He pointed at the gate through to the teachers’ bunker. ‘I’ve got to—’
‘You don’t remember me?’ Bottom lip trembling.
Not even vaguely.
‘Erm . . . Yes?’
The Ghost Goth Girl looked away, chin jutting out like a chalk cliff. Shoulders back. ‘We rescued those kids from the Livestock Mart. You know, from those tits in masks?’
What?
Logan stared at her.
Nah.
Couldn’t be.
‘Rebecca? But you were, like,’ he held a hand out, as if patting a weenie kid on the head, ‘and didn’t you have big red hair?’
A gigantic smile crashed through her teenage cool. ‘You do remember!’ And Rebecca launched herself at Logan, wrapping him up in a hug, even though she only came about halfway up his chest.
OK.
Weird.
. . .
Actually, given what they’d been through together, pretty sodding understandable.
Logan hugged her back.
In the happy silence, a tiny tinny voice squawked out of his phone: ‘Sarge? Hello?’
He looked down at those dyed black roots, and the Darth Vader outfit. ‘Are you OK?’
She let go and stepped back, wiping her nose on the back of one hand. ‘So, it’s true – your daughter goes here, right?’ Rebecca’s pale chin came up again. ‘Want you to know: anyone messes with her, they mess with me. And I will fuck their shit up.’
‘That’s . . . very kind of you.’
‘Hello, Sarge? Can you hear me?’
God’s sake.
Logan groaned. ‘I’m really sorry – I’ve got to run.’
Rebecca nodded. ‘You got tits to arrest.’
‘But it’s been great seeing you again!’ He pointed at her, smiling as he backed towards the gate. ‘Don’t do drugs; stay in school; and so on and so forth.’
‘Sarge? Knock once for yes, twice for no . . .’
She waved at him.
He waved back.
Then turned and hoofed it, phone pressed against his ear. ‘Start the car – we need to move. Now.’
‘The game’s afoot!’
But not in a good way.
Logan hung up and shoved through the gate, jogged his way around the teachers’ Portakabin of Mystery, and out into the crappy car park. Pausing for a moment to check the photo Ralph sent, one last time, just to make sure.
The fourth person sitting at the table – turned in his seat to speak to someone just out of the picture: sharing a joke, going by the rosy cheeks and shining eyes – was wearing a backwards baseball cap and a wife-beater vest with ‘COLONEL MICHIGAN’S GYM’ printed across the chest above a little silhouette of a boxer.
Mr Muscles.
The poor bastard who’d got himself smeared halfway across Holburn Street only three-and-a-bit hours ago.
Sodding hell indeed . . .