Logan McRae Crime Series Books 7 and 8: Shatter the Bones, Close to the Bone. Stuart MacBrideЧитать онлайн книгу.
Another huge cheer.
The reporter glanced at his photographer – still snapping away – and back. ‘I put it to you, that you’re a heartless—’
‘NOTHING MATTERS MORE TO ME THAN JENNY AND ALISON’S SAFETY!’
Cheer.
Someone reached out and shoved Michael Larson, sending him lurching to the other side of the walkway, knocking over a traffic cone, where someone else shoved him back.
‘Get off me!’
Gordon Maguire stuck a hand in the middle of the reporter’s chest and pushed past. ‘WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR SLEAZY JOURNALISTS, DO WE?’
A resounding ‘NO!’ echoed back from the headstones.
Logan shifted his feet, feeling for the little canister of pepper-spray in his pocket. ‘Inspector?’
‘Meh, not like Larson needs all his teeth anyway. A wee spanking might do the boy some good.’
The reporter was shoved again, this time hard enough to make him clatter to the ground. Then a grunt, as someone’s boot thumping into his ribs. Then another. Then a blister of people burst out onto the path, buckling the line of tape, hauling the reporter back between the graves, punches raining down onto his head and chest.
‘BASTARD!’
‘PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME SICK!’
‘FUCKIN’ HIT HIM!’
Steel sighed, then twisted the filter on her e-cigarette. ‘Suppose we better go do something.’ Stuck her hands in her pockets. Stared up at the clouds.
‘Fine …’ Logan dragged out his pepper-spray and shoved his way through the crowd. ‘POLICE! MOVE IT!’
By the time he’d fought his way to the path, Gordon Maguire was on his way again, smiling and waving at the crowd.
Logan pushed into the crowd on the other side. ‘BREAK IT UP!’
Feet thumped down on the reporter’s chest and head. He was curled on his side, arms covering his face, shrieking. ‘HELP ME!’
‘I SAID BREAK IT UP!’ People parted in front of Logan. Black suits, jeans, skirts, cargo-pants, forming a little ring around the groaning, bloody figure on the ground. Blood trickled from Larson’s ear, poured from his nose. His face was already beginning to swell.
‘Bunch of bastards …’ Logan squatted over the reporter. ‘You OK?’
A groan. A cough. A spatter of blood on trampled grass, a tooth glistening pink in a puddle of dark red.
That would be a no then.
‘You’re all under arrest …’ He looked up, but the faces around him had changed. They’d melted away into the crowd, blending in with everyone else dressed in funereal black. ‘All right, who did this?’ Logan stared at the wall of people surrounding Michael Larson. They stared at the ground, or the big display screens. Shuffled their feet. Not one of them looking at him or the battered reporter.
A clatter of heavy boots on paving stones and a uniformed officer appeared at Logan’s shoulder. ‘Jesus, he all right?’
‘Don’t just stand there – call a bloody ambulance.’
‘Oh my GOD!’ An oversized woman in a black miniskirt, clutched her chest. ‘Is that Ewan McGregor? EWAN! WE LOVE YOU!’ Jumping up and down like an ecstatic Labrador, while a man lay bleeding at her Doc-Martined feet.
By the time Larson was wheeled away on a stretcher the service was well underway.
The organizers had set up four huge screens in the St Nicholas Kirkyard, each one showing the action inside: a nondescript man in full Church of Scotland regalia, going on about peace and understanding, when all anyone outside seemed interested in was ogling the celebrity guests.
Logan elbowed his way through the crowds, back to the monument where he’d left DI Steel. She was leaning against the lichened granite, smoking her fake cigarette.
‘Aye, aye, save the day did you?’
Logan looked back over his shoulder. ‘Paramedics say he’ll probably be OK: concussion, fractured jaw, broken ribs. Maybe a dislocated shoulder.’
‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.’ She blew a little puff of vapour towards the heavens where grey clouds were spreading across the sky, like ink dropped on wet paper.
‘Where’s Rennie?’
She waved a hand in the general direction of the church. ‘Off worshipping at the altar of whatsherface from Girls Aloud.’
‘Skiving little—’
‘Oh, lighten up.’ She turned to face the nearest screen, where the minister was giving up the stage. ‘How often you get this in Aberdeen, eh?’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Robbie Williams, and Ms Katie Melua are going to sing for us …’
The speakers crackled and the church organ rang out through the speakers: the opening bars to Wind Beneath My Wings.
‘Oh Christ, not again!’
Close-up on Mr Williams and Ms Melua, microphones in hand.
Everyone in the graveyard was silent. The crowd seemed to be holding its breath for the first two verses, but as soon as the chorus started, they joined in.
Logan watched the woman who’d bellowed her love to Ewan McGregor, hands clutched over her massive bosom in full opera singer pose, warbling along with tears streaming down her cheeks. She wasn’t the only one. Half the crowd seemed to be wetting itself with emotion.
Then someone started in on the alternative lyrics and it spread like a cancer through the throng.
‘Can you believe …’ Logan turned to Steel, but she was singing along too.
What the hell was wrong with everyone?
When the service was over, Steel shoved her way to the front, warrant card out. ‘Come on, shift it: police business.’
As soon as Gordon Maguire appeared from the church, she dug Logan in the ribs. ‘Heads up.’
The producer was swaggering down the path, arms up over his head, giving everyone the victory Vs. Like a bald Richard Nixon. ‘YEAH! COME ON ABERDEEN!’
Cheers.
Logan pulled up the ‘POLICE’ tape and Steel ducked under, right in front of Maguire. He raised his hands. ‘Sorry, love, I can’t—’
‘We’d like a word.’ She stuck her warrant card under his nose.
‘Ah, right …’ He backed off a couple of paces. ‘Can it wait? I’m kinda in the middle of—’
‘Now, Mr Maguire.’
‘But I’ve got a plane to catch, it—’
‘Shall we?’ Logan took hold of Maguire’s elbow and steered him back inside, commandeering a small room just off the main entrance, lined with dark wood. It smelled of old wax and older cigarettes, light coming from a bare strip-light in the ceiling. Cardboard boxes were stacked in one corner, a display cabinet full of spider webs and dusty silver things opposite the door.
‘Look, is this going to take long? Only, like I said, I’ve got a plane—’
‘You’re no’ going anywhere till I say you are.’ Steel smiled at him. ‘You must be raking it in: all this publicity?’
Maguire shrugged. ‘I do OK.’
‘Aye, I’ll bet you do. What’s the fund up to now?’
He pulled out a packet of Silk Cut. ‘I don’t see how—’
‘No