Lund, on her right, stood immobile and splattered, eyes wide as the dung thudded into the crowd opposite.
Then Steel shook out her hands and roared. Wiped her face. Looked around. And ran towards Tufty, boots slithery-slipping on the wet paving slabs. She grabbed him and pointed down Union Street, towards the rear end of the spraying slurry tank. ‘You take that one. Arrest the dirty bastard. NOW!’
She let go and sprint-skated for the muck spreader.
Tufty stared at the back of the slurry tank. The guy driving still hadn’t turned off the jets and the stinking plume was wide enough to paint both sides of Union Street at the same time. Oh bumholeing motherfunker: to get to the tractor he’d have to run right through the spray.
Deep breath.
Yeah, probably shouldn’t have done that, the air tasted horrible.
He ran.
Right at the edge of the crowd, a large woman in a duotone tweed jacket and skirt — grey at the back, brown and slimy all up the front — sat on the pavement making little squealing noises. She was still clutching her placard: a big one with ‘SUCK IT UP, LIBTARD SNOWFLAKES ~ YOU LOST!!!’ printed in big red letters.
He snatched the placard out of her hands on the way past, holding it up like a riot shield. Here we go: event horizon in three, two, one...
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
Right through to the other side.
Oh God, it was everywhere...
He threw the placard away and pounded along the pavement, past the slurry tank and up level with the tractor’s cab. Waved at the driver. ‘HOY, YOU! STOP RIGHT THERE! HOY! POLICE!’
But the bulb-nosed, overall-wearing, baldy-headed scumbag just stuck two fingers up and kept the whole thing chugging along at two or three miles an hour.
Right.
Tufty veered closer, till he was four foot from the steps up into the cab. ‘POLICE! SHUT THIS DAMN THING DOWN, NOW!’
Farmer Stinky had a swig of whisky and put his foot down till the tractor chugged along at a steady jogging pace.
Nothing for it then — he’d have to get into the cab and shut it down himself.
Easy as pie, beans and chips.
Get a bit closer, jump onto the step, grab the metal bar holding the wing mirror on, climb up, and open the door. No problems. As long as he didn’t miss. Or slip. Or fall. Because if he did any of those things he’d end up right under that massive back wheel, which would then grind him into the tarmac of Union Street like fourteen stone of mince in a stabproof vest and itchy trousers.
Urgh...
Come on, Tufty, save the day!
He went for it. Jumping at the last minute and scrabbling for the wing-mirror support, hauling himself up onto the step.
Not dead yet!
From up here there was a great view down Union Street to the council buildings and the Castlegate beyond. All closed to traffic with a line of metal barriers. The only other cars in sight were the patrol car parked at the junction with Broad Street and a shiny black Bentley with little flags flying from sticks either side of the bonnet and a swanky private number plate.
Which was a shame. Would’ve been nice if someone had been around to witness his historic leap. Oh Tufty, you’re such an action hero! A kind of sexier Bruce Willis, only with more hair and not in a vest. And covered in shite.
Tufty took hold of the tractor door handle, pressing the button to open it... Nothing. The rotten sod had locked himself in.
Farmer Stinky grinned through the window and glugged back another mouthful of Sporran Rot McTurpentine’s finest.
‘Suit yourself.’ Tufty whipped out his extendable baton and clacked it out to full length. Then battered it down, shattering the window, sending thousands of little cubes of glass flying.
He stuffed the baton back in its holder, reached through the gaping frame and grabbed Farmer Stinky, raising his voice over the engine’s diesel roar. ‘YOU’RE WELL AND TRULY NICKED!’
Farmer Stinky laughed at him, enveloping him in a barrage of whisky fumes. ‘You’re too late!’ He slapped at Tufty’s hand.
Tufty slapped back.
Another slap. Then it was on! Chins pulled in, heads stretched back out of the way as they went at it, two handed, like schoolkids in the playground. Leaving the steering wheel to its own devices.
The tractor drifted to the left, lurching as the front tyre bumped up onto the pavement.
Then a squealing crunch.
Tufty risked a glance: the tractor’s front loader shoved its way into the wall of a bus shelter, deforming the metal supports and ripping them out of the concrete. The Perspex walls snapped and pinged out of their frames as the massive green and yellow monster crashed through the thing at a walking pace.
The structure peeled apart, buckling and crumpling its way along the bonnet, a blade of Perspex scraping at the paintwork. Getting closer to where Tufty clung on.
Eek!
It was going to scrape him right off the side of the tractor and under the back wheel. Mince. Squish. Pop goes the police officer.
He wrapped both arms around the wing-mirror stand as the Perspex tried to shove its way through him. Head down. Pressing himself in against the cab. Holding on tight as it grabbed at his stabproof and twisted him around...
‘Aaaaaaargh!’
Then poing! And it was past.
A tortured squeal tore through the engine noise as what was left of the shelter got crushed beneath the back wheel.
The tractor lurched again, back down onto the road.
Farmer Stinky was laughing. Steering with one hand and swigging whisky with the other. ‘Hike up my council tax, will you?’
What?
Tufty looked in the direction they were going: straight for the liveried Bentley.
Yeah... that looked expensive.
The tractor’s front loader whirred up on its pneumatic rams, the scoop big and black against the blue sky. Then it crashed down on the Bentley’s bonnet, crushing bodywork and flags alike. Farmer Stinky didn’t slam on the brakes, though — he just kept going. Up went the front loader again. Down again — shattering the windscreen and flattening half the roof. The tractor’s front end reared up as it mounted the ruined car.
Tufty grabbed the shattered tractor window frame and dragged his top half into the cab as the tractor climbed the Bentley, getting higher and higher and—
Something must’ve given way in the car beneath them, because the tractor’s front end crunched down again.
Farmer Stinky dropped his whisky bottle.
Tufty wriggled his way across the guy’s lap to the other side of the steering column. A set of keys poked out of the ignition. He grabbed them, twisted them left, then hauled them out.
The tractor lurched to a halt.
Silence.
Then the spattering slop of a lot of liquid hitting concrete and tarmac from a great height.
Then nothing but the pings and groans of the dying Bentley.
Tufty pulled his cuffs out. Urgh... He gave them a little shake to dislodge a blob of slurry. ‘Let’s try this again, shall we? You’re comprehensively nicked!’
Oh God...
Everything. Was. Ruined.
Her Nobel peace prize. Her interview with the Dalai Lama. Her series of bestselling children’s books. Dancing the tango with a perma-tanned man wearing too many sequins.
RUINED!
All around her, Aberdeen was straight out of a zombie movie — everyone shuffling around, groaning and filthy. Or huddled against the walls crying. Or just being violently and copiously sick in the background of the shot.