The Blood Road. Stuart MacBride

a stonking job; Phil Patterson and the team at Marjacq Scripts, for keeping my numerous cats in cat food; and let’s not forget Danielle Smith, Kim Fraser (née McLeod), and Andrew McManus, all of whom raised money for some very good causes in order to inspire fictionalised characters in this book.

      Of course, writers, like me, wouldn’t be here without people like you (yes, YOU – the person reading this book), booksellers, and bookshops too. You’re all magnificent!

      And saving the best for last – as always – Fiona and Grendel.

       0

      Duncan’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed the steering wheel, snatching the car away from the edge of the road. The headlights glittered back from the rain-slicked tarmac, sweeping past drystane dykes and hollow trees.

      Don’t fall asleep.

      Don’t pass out.

      LIVE!

      Madre de Dios, it hurt… Fire and ice, spreading deep inside his stomach, burning and freezing its way through his spine, squeezing his chest, making every breath a searing rip of barbed wire on raw flesh.

      The wipers screeched back and forth across the windscreen – marking time with the thumping blood in his ears – the blowers bellowing cold air into his face.

      He switched on the radio, turning it up to drown them out.

      A cheesy voice blared from the speakers: ‘…continues for missing three-year-old Ellie Morton. You’re listening to Late Night Smoothness on Radio Garioch, helping you through the wee small hours on a dreich Friday morning…’

      Duncan blinked. Bared his teeth. Hissed out a breath as the car swerved again. Wrestled it back from the brink. Wiped a hand across his clammy forehead.

      ‘We’ve got Sally’s O.M.G. it’s Early! show coming up at four, but first, let’s slow things down a bit with David Thaw and “Stones”.’

      His left hand glistened – dark and sticky.

      He clenched it over the burning ache in his side again. Pressing it into the damp fabric. Blood dripping from his fingers as he blinked…

      Teresa walks across the town square, brown hair teased out by the warm wind. Little Marco gazes up from her arms, worshipping her for the goddess she is. The sky is blue as a saltire flag, the church golden in the summer sun.

      Duncan wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in for a kiss – warm and smoky from her mother’s estofado de pollo.

      She cups a hand to his cheek and smiles at him. ‘Te quiero mucho, Carlos.’

      He beams back at her. ‘Te quiero mucho, Teresa!’ And he does. He loves her with every beating fibre of his heart.

      The car lurched right, heading for the drystane dyke.

      Duncan dragged it back. Tightened his right hand on the steering wheel. Hissed out a barbed-wire breath. Shook his head. Blinked again…

— mice (and other vermin) —

       1

      Drizzle misted down from a clay sky. It sat like a damp lid over a drab grey field at the base of a drab grey hill. The rising sun slipped between the two, washing a semi-naked oak tree with fire and blood.

      Which was appropriate.

      A brown Ford Focus was wrapped around its trunk, the bonnet crumpled, the windscreen spiderwebbed with cracks. A body slumped forward in the driver’s seat. Still and pale.

      Crime-scene tape twitched and growled in the breeze, yellow-and-black like an angry wasp, as a handful of scene examiners in the full SOC kit picked their way around the wreck. The flurry and flash of photography and fingerprint powder. The smell of diesel and rotting leaves.

      Logan pulled the hood of his own suit into place, the white Tyvek crackling like crumpled paper as he zipped the thing up with squeaky nitrile gloves. He stretched his chin out of the way, keeping his neck clear of the zip’s teeth. ‘Still don’t see what I’m doing here, Doreen.’

      Detective Sergeant Taylor wriggled into her suit with all the grace of someone’s plump aunty doing the slosh at a family wedding. The hood hid her greying bob, the rest of it covering an outfit that could best be described as ‘Cardigan-chic’. If you were feeling generous. She pointed at the crumpled Ford. ‘You’ll find out.’

      Typical – milking every minute of it.

      They slipped on their facemasks then she led the way down the slope to the tape cordon, holding it up for him to duck under.

      Logan did. ‘Only, RTCs aren’t usually a Professional Standards kind of thing.’

      She turned and waved a hand at the hill. ‘Local postie was on his way to work, sees skidmarks on the road up there, looks down the hill and sees the crashed car. Calls one-oh-one.’

      A pair of tyre tracks slithered and writhed their way down the yellowing grass to the Ford Focus’s remains. How the driver had managed to keep the thing from rolling was a mystery.

      ‘See, we’re more of an “investigating complaints made against police officers when they’ve been naughty” deal.’

      ‘Traffic get here at six fifteen, tramp down the hill and discover our driver.’

      Logan peered in through the passenger window.

      The man behind the wheel was big as a bear, hanging forward against his seatbelt, the first rays of morning a dull gleam on his bald head. His broad face, slack and pale – even with the heavy tan. Eyes open. Mouth like a bullet wound in that massive thicket of beard. Definitely dead.

      ‘Still not seeing it, Doreen.’

      She gestured him over to the driver’s side. ‘Course it looks like accidental death, till they open the driver’s door and what do they find?’

      Logan stepped around the driver’s open door… And stopped.

      Blood pooled in the footwell, made deep-red streaks down the upholstery. Following it upwards led to a sagging hole in the driver’s shirt. So dark in there it was almost black.

      ‘Oooh…’ Logan hissed in a breath. ‘Stab wound?’

      ‘Probably. So they call it in and we all scramble out here like good little soldiers. Body’s searched: no ID.’

      ‘Give the hire company a call. They wouldn’t let him have the car without ID.’

      She turned and stared at him. ‘Yes, thank you Brain of Britain, we did actually think of that. Car was booked out by one Carlos Guerrero y Prieto.’

      ‘There you go: mystery solved.’ Logan stuck his hands on his hips. ‘Now, make with the big reveal, Doreen: why – am – I – here?’

      Little creases appeared at the sides of her eyes. She was smiling at him behind her mask. Dragging it out.

      ‘Seriously, I’m going to turn around and walk away if—’

      ‘While we were waiting on Trans-Buchan Automotive Rentals to get their finger out and stop moaning about data protection, someone had the bright idea of taking the deceased’s fingerprints with one of the wee live scan machines. We got a hit from the database. Dramatic pause…’

      The only sounds were the clack-and-whine of crime-scene photography as she waggled her eyebrows at him.

      ‘Were you always