clambered out of the window and onto the little walkway of boards outside. They bounced beneath his feet as he staggered to the outer edge, yanking back a green tarpaulin sheet. Logan took a deep breath and yelled: ‘STOP POLICE!’
They didn’t even turn around. The two blurry figures hurried along the pavement towards the CID pool car: the one with Rory Simpson handcuffed in the back.
For a brief moment Logan caught sight of a pale blob – Rory’s face, peering up from the gap between the front and back seats – and then the gunman and his friend were past.
They disappeared from view, and the sound of a car starting echoed up from the street below. The engine roared, the wheels spun, and it accelerated away: getting out of there before the sound of distant sirens got any closer.
They were gone.
Logan staggered back to the landing, where Steel was lying slouched against the cracked woodwork of the banisters, head lolling, making incoherent mumbling noises.
‘Inspector? Are you OK?’
‘Nnnffff … can’t find my hat … mphhhh…’
Logan dug out his Airwave handset and called Control, telling them to get an ambulance over here ASAP. He slumped back against the banisters next to Steel, listening to the background chatter of the control room as it got everything organized.
His stomach ached, the initial biting pain settling down to a dull throb. His face wasn’t much better. No doubt about it – they came, they saw, and they got their arses kicked.
Logan stared through the open doorway into the darkness of the bedroom the gunman had burst out of. There was something lying on the floor.
He grunted his way to his feet and wobbled into the room.
It was a large bedroom, complete with ensuite shower, he could just make out the tiles glittering in the gloom. The whole place smelled of scorched meat.
The something lying on the floor was a man, smoke curling up from the holes where his eyes used to be.
He was large, heavily built, muscle just starting to turn to fat. Half of his left ear was missing. Simon McLeod.
Logan didn’t think it was possible, but today had just got even worse.
The ambulance sat on the road beside the skip, flanked by a pair of patrol cars. Half a dozen uniformed officers were already going door-to-door. Logan watched their fuzzy, out-of-focus figures from the tailgate of the ambulance, while a paramedic rummaged about in the back.
‘Right,’ said the man, dressed in a wrinkly green jumpsuit, ‘head back and we’ll wash that crap out your eyes.’
Logan did as he was told, and instantly regretted it. The stinging pain had been easing off a little, but now it was back at full strength. ‘Ahh, Jesus!’
‘Hold still…’
And gradually it began to subside. He could actually see by the time they were walking DI Steel out of the house. They helped her into one of the ambulance beds. She sat there swaying back and forth as they checked Simon McLeod was securely strapped into the other bed. Unconscious and hooked up to a heart monitor.
‘OK,’ said the paramedic who’d washed out Logan’s eyes, ‘we’ve got to get going.’ He shouted through to the driver. ‘Lights and music, Charlie!’
Logan hopped down off the tailgate, said, ‘I’ll follow you up there,’ then marched over to the CID pool car. Trying to pretend he wasn’t still in pain. He climbed in behind the wheel, starting the engine as the ambulance pulled away – lights and sirens blazing in the sunny afternoon.
Rory’s voice sounded from the back, ‘What happened?’ He was still handcuffed to the seat support.
‘You saw them, didn’t you? You must have been looking right at them when they passed.’ Logan stuck the car in gear, accelerating after the ambulance as it turned right onto Leslie Road.
‘I… What did they do? We—’
‘I want a description.’
The speedometer hit fifty as they screamed through the roundabout and onto Westburn Drive.
‘Aaaagh! Slow down! I haven’t got a seatbelt on!’
‘Did you see them or not?’
Right again, onto Cornhill Road, the grey and brown concrete mass of the old children’s hospital whipping past as they made for Accident and Emergency.
‘Slow down!’
‘Hold on tight – speed bump.’
‘AAAAAAAGH! OK, OK: I saw them, I saw them!’
Logan pulled the car into the closest A&E parking spot and jumped out.
Rory shouted from the back, ‘Wait! You can’t leave me like this!’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Logan opened the door and uncuffed one of Rory’s hands.
‘Ow…’ Rory creaked upright, groaning, rubbing at the small of his back. ‘That wasn’t funny.’
There was a uniformed PC standing by the automatic doors; Logan called him over. The officer looked as if he was about twelve, his badge number marking him out as one of the newest batch of recruits – probably only been on the force for a couple of months. Logan steered him towards the pool car.
‘Keep an eye on Captain Cardigan, here. And if he offers you any sweeties, don’t take them.’
As the young constable got into the back, Rory Simpson smiled, patted him on the knee, and asked him if he liked puppies.
Accident and Emergency looked as depressing as it always did. This wasn’t a place people came to have fun, it was where they went when something had gone spectacularly wrong, and after all these years a little bit of that suffering had seeped into the room’s magnolia walls and green lino floor. A couple of women sat at opposite ends of the grimy seating area, one of them breastfeeding a small child and swearing quietly to herself. The other was sitting next to a little boy who kept screaming, ‘Mummy, it hurts! It hurts!’
‘Well you shouldn’t have fallen down the bloody stairs, should you?’
Logan flashed his warrant card at the desk and asked what had happened to DI Steel and Simon McLeod. One of the admin staff looked up from her computer, sighed, then said, ‘Are you a relative? Because—’
A cry of, ‘HELP!’ came from the direction of the examination rooms, then, ‘LIE STILL, DAMN IT!’
Someone screamed.
Logan lurched into a run, following the sounds down the corridor, towards a row of cubicles. He burst through the curtain: a nurse and a female doctor were struggling with Simon McLeod, trying to keep him on the examination table. A second doctor was crunched up against the far wall, clutching his groin and moaning.
The nurse glared at Logan. ‘Don’t just bloody stand there!’
