He let go of her and covered his face with both hands.
She kept spraying, emptying the can.
It cloinged off the carpet.
Tufty squinted out through sticky eyelashes as she shouldered her way out through the emergency exit.
No!
He launched himself at her — a rugby tackle leap — wrapping his arms around her upper legs, sending them both crashing down on the paving slabs outside.
‘GET OFF ME!’
Nope.
He crawled his way up her body — she slapped and punched at his shoulders and back.
Didn’t stop him, though.
Tufty snatched out his handcuffs and grabbed one of her wrists. Click. A bit of a twist so her hand was facing the wrong direction, a teeny bit of pressure, and...
‘AAAAAAAAAAAARGH! YOU’RE BREAKING MY WRIST! YOU’RE BREAKING MY WRIST!’
‘THEN STOP HITTING ME!’
She went limp and he forced her other arm into place and finished snapping the cuffs on. Dragged her to her feet.
She was covered in smudgy red handprints.
Steel appeared, hands in her pockets. Grinning at him. ‘You look like a baboon’s bumhole.’
Tufty just glowered back, face all sticky and tight and stinking of paint.
The wee sod was still whinging by the time they got back to Division Headquarters. Muttering and moaning. Glowering and grumping as he manhandled their prisoner across the Rear Podium. Poor thing.
‘Bloody paint, clarty everywhere, all over my poor little car...’
Wah, wah, wah, I’m all covered in paint, wah, wah, wah.
Roberta held the door open for him and he bundled their graffiti artist into the custody block. Just to cheer him up, she launched into a jaunty whistled rendition of ‘Lady in Red’.
That got her a scarlet scowl. ‘Oh you’re so motherfunking funny, aren’t you?’
Their prisoner snatched a frown over her shoulder at him. ‘I need to go to the bathroom.’
‘Oh... shut up.’ He shoved her towards the custody desk.
Sergeant Downie was on shout tonight, in all his fishbelly-pale, chinless glory. An albino worm in full Police Scotland uniform. Downie looked up from whatever it was he was reading and waved Roberta over.
Tufty thumped the woman’s rucksack onto the desk. ‘Assault. Malicious mischief. Housebreaking and vandalism by opening lockfast place. Going equipped. Resisting arrest. Failing to provide—’
‘Now,’ Downie held up a finger, ‘just one moment, Constable, the grown-ups need to talk first.’
Tufty gave a wee snarl. Difficult to tell if he was going red in the face, because of the paint.
‘My dear DS Steel, Big Gary said you were being obstreperous about someone picking up their stolen Nokia smartphone?’
She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t being obstreperous, Jeff, I was being pissed off.’
‘Well, be pissed off no longer. I managed to track said phone down in the Productions Store, so you don’t have to worry any more.’ He placed a hand over his heart. ‘No, don’t thank me! It took forever and was a vast pain in my posterior, but at least he’s got it back now.’
She stared at him.
He...
Tommy Shand’s phone?
With all the underage porn on it.
How could anyone be so...
Roberta forced out the words like little burning lumps of cat poo. ‘You let him have the phone?’ Without the phone there was no evidence to take to the Procurator Fiscal. And it wasn’t as if Josie Stephenson was going to clype on her boyfriend, was it? The whole thing was a complete goat-buggering disaster.
‘He had all the correct paperwork.’
‘Oh for...’ Her head was going to explode. It was. Any second now: bang, pop, splatter! ‘AAAAARGH!’ She leaned forward and thunked it off the custody desk.
‘If you didn’t want the phone returned, why didn’t you say something? There was no note or anything.’
‘Arrrgh...’
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
‘... aaargh, horrible, funkbiscuiting, awful...’ Half an hour in the gents’ toilet with a dirty big stack of paper towels and a bottle of turps and Tufty was still tomato coloured.
He stuck another towel over the open bottle and tipped it up, turning the paper a darker shade of green. Dabbed away at a scarlet cheek.
‘Bloody, scumbagging, motherfunking, felchrabbit—’
The door banged open and Steel danced in. ‘All hail the conquering heroine!’
‘Rotten, badger-spanking—’
‘You’ll be happy to know that our guest has admitted everything.’ She hopped up, plonking her backside down on the edge of the next sink over. ‘Turns out Mrs Brockwell disqualified her Victoria sponge for having strawberry jam in it.’
He turpsed up another paper towel. ‘I am absolutely sodding clarted!’
‘Who would’ve thought passions ran so high in the WRI?’
Blearrrrg... A rancid petrol taste filled his mouth as he wiped at his lips. He scrubbed hard, then spat. ‘Suit’s ruined. And did you see the state of my car?’
A shrug. ‘Well, we couldn’t transport a prisoner back to the station in my MX-5, could we? Doesn’t have a back seat.’ She handed him another paper towel. ‘And you think you got it bad? What about me? Was supposed to take Susan out for a nosh-up at that new French place. She’ll no’ be happy I stood her up.’
‘Oh boo-hoo!’ He turned on her. ‘I got covered in paint!’
‘That you most certainly did.’ She winked at him. ‘Come on Tufters: look on the bright side... at least I found it funny.’
He just scowled at her.
Roberta hitched up her trousers and leaned back against the windowsill. Smiled.
The ward was dark and quiet, all eight of the hospital beds occupied by a wee kid. Most were fast asleep, but a little girl’s face halfway down was caught in the blue-green glow of a handheld games console. The only other light in the place was the Anglepoise lamp above Harrison Gray’s bed. Harrison. What kind of monster called their kid ‘Harrison’? Shouldn’t be allowed.
He had his knees drawn up to his chest, the bags under his eyes darker and deeper in the harsh overhead light. Snot shining on his top lip.
She took out a hankie, spat on it, and wiped the bogies away. Kept her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘There you go, much more handsome now.’
He stared at her with big black eyes. Not so much as a peep.
‘The doctors say you’re going to be in here for a couple of days, till they get those sores of yours sorted out. Then you can go live with a proper family. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’
Nothing.
‘Proper family with proper food. No more “chicken and liver meaty chunks in jelly for a healthy coat and strong bones”.’
He blinked.
‘There’s more to life than dog food, you know. There’s pizza; and fish and chips; and soup; and steak pie and chips; and curry; and sushi; and sausages, baked beans, and chips; and egg and chips; and macaroni cheese and chips...’ Roberta licked her lips, stomach growling. ‘Pretty much anything you put with chips is good.’
Still nothing.
‘I know you’ve seen terrible things, and having a horrible name like “Harrison” isn’t going to help, but life gets better. It really, really does.’ She gave his snotty nose another spit and polish. ‘You just have to let it. OK?’
A shape appeared from the gloom. A little nurse with big hair, a squint smile, surgical gloves, and a tub of something. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s time to put some ointment on Harrison’s sores. You like that, don’t you Harrison? All nice and soothing?’