‘FOR GOD’S SAKE, LUND, GET THEM OFF ME!’
Lund moved, but Barrett grabbed her arm.
‘Actually we’re not supposed to have any physical contact with the kids.’
She smiled. ‘You know, I think you’re right.’
‘AAAAAAAAARGH!!!’
Steel escalated the poking war. ‘Well, come on, then: how did Wallace know?’
‘It... I...’ Yeah, she had a point. ‘Look, I’ve no idea. Maybe he is involved, somehow, but we still can’t do anything about it. It’s DI Vine’s case, we have to let it go.’
‘And what happens when another woman gets raped?’
‘AAAAAAAAAARGH! STOP BITING ME! LUND! LUND, HELP! BARRETT!’
Barrett shrugged. Grinned. ‘Sorry, we’d love to, but it’s the rules.’
‘GET OFF ME! HELP! HELP!’
A suit-jacket sleeve went flying, fluttering to the ground like a wounded bird. It was followed by a chunk of trousers. Then more scraps of clothing — bits of shirt, a vest, another sleeve, more trousers.
Steel shook her head. ‘It has to be him.’
‘It isn’t! Didn’t you learn anything from last time? Just because you want Jack Wallace to be guilty, that doesn’t magically make it happen!’
‘NO! DON’T YOU DARE, YOU WEE SHITE! AAAAAAAAARGH!’
Tufty jabbed a hand at the far wall, indicating the entirety of Aberdeen. ‘I want to be something, OK? I want to catch killers. I want to make a difference! You are not dragging me down with you!’
Steel turned. Teeth bared. Snarling like a police Alsatian.
‘HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME FOR GOD’S SAKE!’
He backed away a step. ‘You know when I first wanted to be a policeman? Five years old. Dad ran off with a traffic warden to Paisley and Mum climbed up on the roof of our tower block.’ Tufty wrapped his arms around himself. ‘This policeman came and talked her down and I thought: that was it. That was what I wanted to do with my life. Make people better. Help people.’
Steel’s face softened. ‘Five?’
‘Please don’t make them fire me.’
‘NO! NOT THE PANTS! NOT THE PANTS!’
A wee boy dressed as Elsa appeared from the depths of the piley-on, holding a pair of Y-fronts above his head, triumphant grin on his freckled face. They weren’t the newest or whitest; Harmsworth’s underwear had the perished-elastic sag that marked them out as antiques.
‘GIVE ME BACK MY PANTS!’
‘NEVER!’ Elsa ran off, Harmsworth’s Y-fronts held high like a captured enemy flag. The rest of the Disney Princess Posse hammered out after him — all squealing and giggling — clutching various torn bits of Harmsworth’s clothing.
They banged through the door to the playground, disappearing outside.
Tufty, Steel, and Lund stared.
There, left all alone, lying on the gym floor between the lines for netball and tennis, was a stark-naked Harmsworth. His uncooked-cookie-dough skin was covered in little red bite marks. Both hands clamped over his intimate masculine area. Eyes screwed shut. A high-pitched keening noise coming out of his mouth.
He had a hairier back than expected. Hairier bum too.
A smile broke across Steel’s face. She snorted. Sniggered. Then creased up, hands on her knees, hooting it out. Lund guffawed, pointing at Harmsworth’s poor furry backside.
Tufty tried not to laugh, he really did.
Didn’t help, though.
‘You’re all a bunch of bastards!’ Harmsworth struggled to his feet, one hand still clutching his original sin, bottom lip trembling. His head snapped left and right, eyes raking the school gymnasium, then he scurried across the wooden floor, his other hand shielding his furry bottom as he ran for a stack of gym equipment. He dived behind a pile of blue floor mats, hauling them over himself.
Then a pasty, hairy arm poked out from beneath the makeshift fort, pointing at the doors to the playground. ‘Don’t just stand there, go get my pants back!’
Steel hammed-up a massive grin at Lund, Barrett and Tufty and they all rushed over to the window — noses pressed against the safety glass.
The princesses paraded around the swings, marching like the soldiers of a strangely-dressed sparkly-sequinned army. Once round the roundabout, across the hopscotch squares, and back around the swings again. Following Elsa and his triumphant trophy — held aloft on the tip of a magic wand, the grey fabric flapping in the breeze as they chanted their victory cry in unison: ‘PANTS! PANTS! PANTS! PANTS! PANTS!’
Lund wiped a tear from her eye. ‘Some days, I love my job.’
II
Everyone sat facing the front in the police van. No one making eye contact with anyone else. Because every time they did...
Barrett sniggered. Coughed. Cleared his throat.
Lund bit her bottom lip and blinked a few times, shoulders quivering.
Steel let out a shuddery breath.
Tufty glanced in the rear-view mirror.
And there was Harmsworth, all crunched down into himself on the very back row of seats, a hairy grey blanket pulled tight around his hairy bare shoulders. A foul scowl on his face. ‘I bloody hate the lot of you!’
And that just set them all off again.
Roberta leaned back against the metalwork and munched her way through a cold sausage roll. The bridge wasn’t huge, only big enough for three people to stand side by side on the wooden decking, but it thumped straight out through the trees and across the River Don. The water crawled by underneath, sparkly and blue.
Metal crossbeams made three-foot-high asterisks above the handrail, leaving just enough space between them to squeeze your head and shoulders. No’ the prettiest of bridges in the world, but it was nice and quiet, and lovely and warm in the sun.
Tufty dipped into the Tesco carrier bag and came out with two tins. ‘You want Irn-Bru, or Coke?’
She polished off the sausage roll and held out greasy pastry-flecked fingers. ‘Bru. And a gentleman would open it for a lady.’
He looked skyward for a moment, shook his head a little, then did the business and handed over the Irn-Bru.
‘Why thank you, kind sir.’ She knocked back a scoof of fruity fizz. Belched. ‘You know what? Seeing Owen diving for cover, wee wrinkled willy flapping in the breeze, kinda makes life feel worthwhile again.’
Tufty dipped back into the bag again. ‘Samosa, or mini pork pie?’
‘Pie me.’
He did.
‘We should make a tradition out of it. Every time we have a crappy day, Harmsworth has to run around naked.’
‘Yeah,’ the word was mumbled through a mouthful of samosa — no manners at all, ‘maybe not. I never want to see that ever again. Can you believe how hairy he was? Like a bar of prison soap.’ A shudder.
‘Don’t be such a killjoy.’ She ripped a bite out of her pie, all savoury and crumbling pastry and jellified pork bits. Chewing through the words, ‘Did your dad really sod off when you were five years old, or was that just a cunning lie to—’ Her phone blared out its theme tune. ‘Oh, what fresh hell is this?’ She took another bite of pie and answered it. ‘What do you want?’
‘That what passes for manners in your house?’ Big Gary.
‘Make it quick, Gary, I’ve got a pie on the go.’
‘You wanted to know when someone came in to pick up a stolen mobile phone.’
‘I did?’ Frown. Mobile phone. Mobile phone... Aha: Tommy Shand’s phone. The one with the dirty photos of Josie Stephenson on it. The one that was going to get him sent down for three or four years as a sex offender. ‘So I did.’ Another bite of pie.