The only sound was the distant drone and rumble of traffic on Great Northern Road. No screams.
They picked their way through the churned-up dirt, skirting a stack of breezeblocks. The front door was poking out of the skip at the kerb, leaving the hallway a gaping black hole.
Logan pulled out his Airwave handset. ‘DS McRae to Control, I need backup to Primrosehill Drive—’
‘You are such a bloody Jessie…’ Steel took another look at the dark hallway. ‘Come on then,’ she said, pushing Logan ahead of her, ‘you go first.’
Logan swore and pulled out his little canister of pepper-spray. According to Control there still weren’t any patrol cars free. They were on their own.
Steel gave him another shove and he stumbled over the threshold.
Gloom.
The builders had ripped everything back to the bare granite, and started again from scratch. Wooden stud-frames had been fixed in place with enormous masonry screws, lining the walls. Stiff ribbons of grey mains wiring were laced through holes in the joists, stretching out in hanging loops across the ceiling.
The chipboard flooring creaked beneath Logan’s feet as he crept inside.
First left: the living room was empty. A green tarpaulin had been stretched over the glassless window, shrouding everything in mouldy shadows. No sign of anyone. Dining room: empty. Downstairs toilet: empty, just the hole where a WC was supposed to go and a couple of plastic pipes poking out through the floor. The kitchen was little more than a storeroom for piles of wood, boxes of tiles, bags of concrete, thick rolls of Rockwool insulation, and sheets of plasterboard.
Logan worked his way back to the stairs and started to climb. If anything it was even darker up here. It looked as if the builders had started their renovating job on this floor: the granite walls were already clad; doors hung; double glazing in; architrave, windowsills and skirting nailed in place. Logan froze on the top step and whispered, ‘Did you hear that?’
‘What…?’ Steel frowned. ‘Why the hell are we creeping about?’ She took a deep breath, ‘POLICE! Come out with your hands up and no one has to get hurt!’
A voice sounded in one of the bedrooms: ‘Kurwa!’
A figure exploded out of the open bedroom door – large, male, it was difficult to tell much more than that in the dark. He had something in his hand. Something long, that glinted in a rogue sliver of light. Crowbar.
He tried to take Logan’s head off with it, swinging the thing like a broadsword.
Logan ducked and it whistled by close enough to ruffle his hair before embedding itself in the plasterboard. Logan slammed his fist into the man’s stomach.
He didn’t collapse and roll about on the floor in agony, he just grunted and yanked the crowbar out of the wall, taking a puffball of Rockwool with it.
Oh God…
Logan flipped the cap off his pepper-spray and gave him a liberal dose in the eyes.
‘Aaaaghh… Matkojebca!’
It was close quarters. Too close. The jet hit and spattered back off the man’s face, a mist of stinging liquid that coated everything within a three-foot radius. Including Logan.
‘Ah, Jesus!’ It was like being sandpapered with dried chillies, his eyes were on fire, he could barely breathe.
The crowbar smashed into the balustrade, bounced, and went spiralling down the stairwell.
Steel swore.
Clang, crash, bang, wallop.
When Logan peeled his eyes open again, the man at the top of the stairs was just a blurry figure: on his knees, swearing and panting.
God that stuff stung…
Steel shoved past Logan shouting, ‘POLICE! Get your arse—’ She smashed backwards into the balusters with a splintering crack.
Logan staggered against the wall, trying to peer through the pain and tears as a second figure loomed at the top of the stairs. Logan dragged up the canister of pepper-spray. ‘You! Face down on the ground!’
The man stepped forwards, right arm whipping out, grabbing Logan’s spraying hand and twisting it back on itself.
Logan swung a left hook, but the man blocked it, took hold of the sleeve and yanked him off balance.
‘Let go you bas—’
A knee slammed into Logan’s stomach, and his world went from bad to worse. The pepper-spray was painful, but this was agony, tearing across his scarred abdomen. His legs gave way.
A hand wrapped itself into his hair, pulling his face up.
Even through pepper-spray blur the silhouette was unmistakeable: a semiautomatic pistol. The man pressed the barrel against Logan’s forehead, cold metal on hot skin.
At this range the bullet would leave a little burnt halo around the entry wound as superheated gas forced the chunk of copper-jacketed lead out of the barrel and into Logan’s skull. The hole would be about the same size as a garden pea on the way in, bigger than a grapefruit on the way out, spreading grey and pink and red all over the nice new plasterboard walls.
Logan closed his stinging eyes.
And then the Airwave handset in his pocket went off, the voice of Control announcing that backup was on its way.
The man let go of Logan’s hair and patted him on the cheek.
‘You are lucky boy today,’ he said in a heavy Eastern European accent. ‘I let you live. You remember this.’
Then he was gone, dragging his fallen friend with him.
Logan knelt on the floor with his forehead resting against the cool chipboard. He was still alive… Oh thank God.
He could hear the gunman and his friend thumping down the stairs; Steel groaning; a magpie cackling somewhere outside; the blood singing in his ears. Fear-induced adrenaline made his whole body tremble.
Maybe now would be a good time to be sick?
A crash sounded from downstairs and Logan struggled to his feet, forcing his wobbly legs to take him to the big window at the far end of the hall. It was double-glazed, the glass covered in blue plastic to keep it clean and scratch free while it was being installed. He twisted the handle and wrenched it open. The world was a blurry haze. Logan wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve and squinted through the tears.
The gunman had made it out of the front door – he was half dragging, half carrying his friend across the dry mud of the drive.
Logan scrubbed at his eyes again, but the two men wouldn’t
