Close to the Bone. Stuart MacBride

      Hoodie Number One landed another punch. ‘Gerroffus!’

      Logan gave the wrist one final twist… And something inside went ‘pop’.

      A moment’s stillness, then he exploded, screaming, legs thrashing.

      His mate leapt over them and out through the door into the sunlight. Chalmers wasn’t quite so lucky. A flailing leg caught her mid-leap and she went crashing to the ground, face first. Hoodie Number Two didn’t look back, didn’t slow down, just kept on running.

      Chalmers lay where she was, groaning.

      ‘Gerroffus, gerroffus, gerroffus.’ The wee sod was losing a bit of energy and volume now. The words punctuated by little sobs.

      Logan dragged the cuffs from his pocket and forced one end on over the hoodie’s misshapen wrist. Got a squeal for his troubles. Did the same with the other one, fastening both hands behind the guy’s back.

      Then Logan struggled to his feet, reached down, and helped Chalmers stand. ‘Nice swan dive.’

      She glowered at him. ‘I would’ve got him, if you hadn’t tripped me!’ Fresh dots of red welled up on her skinned chin.

      He hauled the crying hoodie upright. ‘Blame Laughing Boy here.’

      She turned her head and spat a frothy blob of red on the rubber matting. ‘Bit my tongue…’

      DS Chalmers limped in, clutching an icepack to her chin. ‘How’d you get there before us anyway?’

      The ward was broken up into rooms of four beds a piece. Clunky screen things on flexible arms sat above the headboards, flickering adverts at them promising a glorious world of entertainment for any patient willing to pay for it.

      Guy Ferguson had the bed by the window, propped up on a cliff-face of pillows, blinking slowly in the sunlight. His arms disappeared into what looked like shoe boxes covered in gauze bandages. Shiny metallic ‘GET WELL SOON’ balloons were anchored to the rail at the foot of the bed, glittering in the sunshine, trailing coils of ribbon like poisonous jellyfish. Grapes, lads’ mags, and bottles of Lucozade cluttered the bedside cabinet.

      His acne had cleared up since the mugshot, leaving his cheeks and forehead a moonscape of pockmarks. The eyebrows were even thicker, but the bumfluff moustache hadn’t improved any.

      Logan sat back in his padded seat, and pointed Chalmers at the empty plastic chair on the other side of the bed. ‘One of the benefits of spending a lot of time in hospital: you get to know all the shortcuts.’

      ‘Oh.’ She sank into the chair, winced, then slumped slightly. ‘I’ve put in a lookout request for our missing hoodie; the other two are on their way back to the station.’

      A pair of handcuffs fixed Guy’s ankle to the bed, by the balloons. As if there was a risk of him floating away. Which, given the amount of morphine he was apparently on, probably wasn’t a bad idea.

      ‘So,’ Logan helped himself to a grape, ‘do you want to come clean and save everyone a load of trouble?’

      ‘Trouble?’ He squinted one eye, then did the same with the other, as if Logan was bobbing in and out of focus. Both eyes were red-veined and puffy, the pupils dilated, tears glittering along the bottom lid. A little laugh. ‘Trouble…’

      Stoned out of his tiny mind.

      ‘Your mates, the hoodies: who are they?’

      ‘Trouble. They’re trouble … that’s what mum always says…’

      ‘What about the man you killed, was he trouble too? Did he try to screw you out of your share of the jewellery, that it? What was he, the inside man?’

      ‘Doctors came round…’ Guy held up the boxy things hiding his hands. ‘They’re going to cut off my fingers… All … all the ones on the left, and … and two on the right… My fingers…’

      Chalmers poked a finger into the bedclothes. ‘That’s what you get for necklacing someone, isn’t it? Serves you right.’

      ‘All burned… Can’t save them.’ A deep breath. Then he screwed his eyes tight shut and bit his bottom lip. ‘Going to cut them off today…’ Tears rolled down his cheeks, glinting. As if that was going to make them feel sorry for the murdering little bastard.

      He’d burned his hands so badly they’d have to amputate more than half his fingers: maybe Isobel was right? Maybe Guy Ferguson was stupid enough to strangle someone on fire? ‘You did it, didn’t you?’

      ‘I… I can’t—’

      ‘You killed him. You chained him to a stake, stuck a tyre over his head and set fire to it.’

      ‘It wasn’t—’

      ‘Twenty minutes, that’s how long it takes someone to burn to death like that. Twenty minutes.’

      Guy’s mouth fell open, bottom lip sticking out, tears spilling down his cheeks. ‘I… I don’t—’

      ‘Guy Ferguson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering an unknown male yesterday afternoon. You do not have to say anything—’

      ‘I did it…’ He sniffed, then blinked in slow motion. ‘I killed him…’ Guy wiped his eyes on his forearm, tears darkened the white bandage. ‘What else could I do? He was screaming and burning and I couldn’t get the tyre off and it’s all over my hands and they’re on fire and it’s horrible and it hurts and I had a … I had the knife.’ A deep, rattling breath. ‘So I stabbed him. And stabbed him, and stabbed him, and my hands are on fire and it hurts so much and … I couldn’t just leave him like that!’

      Ah… Logan sat back in his seat. ‘He wasn’t part of your crew for the heist?’

      ‘His face … you should have seen his face … screaming.’

      ‘He was burning when you got there?’

      A nod. ‘We … we ditched the car, divvied up the watches and rings and necklaces and stuff, and … and there he was.’ Guy held up the boxes where his hands should have been. ‘They’re going to cut off my fingers, because I tried to help someone…’

       7

      A woman’s voice blared in the corridor outside the hospital room. ‘I don’t bloody care – you let me in to see my son right now!’ Mrs Ferguson.

      DS Chalmers sniffed. ‘You think he’s telling the truth?’

      ‘Well…’ Logan leaned against the room’s little sink, staring down at the bed.

      Guy was curled over, boxed hands against his chest, great heaving sobs rocking him back and forward.

      ‘Guv?’

      ‘Necklacing, it’s … it’s a big-city gangland organized-crime thing. Not something I can see a bunch of teenage wannabes doing. So … maybe. Probably.’

      ‘He did it so the victim wouldn’t suffer any more.’ She puffed out her cheeks, hissing out a breath. ‘Did the right thing, and it’s going to cost him his fingers.’

      ‘When everyone’s calmed down a bit we’ll interview his mates. See if they corroborate.’

      That voice again. ‘I DEMAND TO SEE MY SON!’

      Here we go…

      Logan pointed at Chalmers. ‘Tell him to let them in.’

      As soon as she stuck her head around the door, Mrs Ferguson barged her way past the uniform on guard, into the room. ‘Guy?’

      Mr Ferguson scurried in behind her, crying. ‘They told us you were dead.’

      Guy’s