Logan grabbed the remote and killed the TV.
Of course, what he reallyshoulddo is wake them up. Send them both off to do their teeth and go to bed. But they looked so peaceful.
Plus, if they were awake, they’d lay siege to his chips.
And as the great Greek philosopher Aristotle said in his fourth-century-BC treatise,Nicomachean Ethics: sod that.
Because blood might be thicker than water, but chips were thicker than both.
Twelve
Bastard.
Andrew dumped another chunk of bush into the incinerator – leaves crackling and hissing as the flames took hold. It was just one of those cheapies Asda sold from time to time: a galvanised bin with wee feet on it and holes drilled along the sides. But it did the job.
And the garden looked a lot better than it had when he’d woken up this morning. Seething.
Fucking DSFuckingDavis.
Who the hell did he think he was, making Andrew wet himself? Like he was a wee boy, back in primary six, and the bullies pinned him to the playground wall...
Bastard was lucky Andrew didn’t Release The Beast and pound the living crap out of him, right there in the kid’s bedroom. Cop or not.
Yeah...
He could’ve totally taken Davis.
Wouldn’t even have been close.
Another branch met the fire.
It was only a wee garden, round the back of their wee house, in a wee forgotten corner of Dyce, but it’d turned into a jungle these last couple of years. Well overdue a good clear-out.
At least now you could see the view – what there was of it, at this time of night – a smear of grey field with the lightsof Bucksburn twinkling in the middle distance, through the trees. And up above, a sea of deep, deep indigo blue, speckled with cold indifferent stars.
The moon glared out, from just above the horizon. Septic and angry. Swollen and mocking. Because DS Davis made him piss himself.
Andrew snarled another chunk of garden into the incinerator, jamming it down, making angry orange sparks swarm into the air. Spiralling off into the night.
One caught the back of his hand, landing on the raw patch where he’d skinned his knuckles hacking branches off that stupid hedge. Stinging like a burning wasp.
‘Fucking...fuck!’ Sticking the knuckle in his mouth and sucking on the broken skin. Tasting hot iron and bitter smoke.
Should call the cops on the bastard,that’swhat. Dial one of those anonymous tip-off lines and tell them all about what DS Davis did to thatpoorwoman.
Yeah, but Daviswasthe cops, remember?
Who were they going to believe – their detective-sergeant buddy, or Andrew: a normal, decent, hardworking bloke?
Course they wouldn’t believe him.
They’d fit him up, just like every other poor—
‘Andy?’
He forced his face into a smile, and turned. ‘Hey, Mum.’
She shuffled out of the kitchen door, carrying a steaming mug of something. Wearing baggy jeans and a cheery-pink sweatshirt with ‘ARBROATH THIRTEEN TWENTY’ embroidered across it. Her thinning hair kept in an unflattering bob, even though he’dbeggedher to let him cut it properly. Because itwasn’ttoo much trouble. And he reallydidknow what he was doing.
