Anne blinked into the dead black eye of the camera.
Chris was just standing there, horrible brown stuff dripping off his bobble hat, filming.
That’s because he’s a professional, Anne, like you’re supposed to be!
She wiped the slurry from her face, cleared her throat, and raised the microphone again — making sure the logo faced the camera. Gave the nation her approachable-but-serious face. ‘Back to you in the studio, Bill.’
III
Big Gary crossed his arms, blocking the doorway, keeping them all trapped in the car park. ‘No.’
The hatred flowing in his direction was almost as strong as the stench. Twenty-five police officers, all in their Police Scotland slurry-splattered uniforms. More than enough to get a decent lynch mob going. Even if they would need an extra-strong rope and an extra-strong tree to string the fat lump up.
Roberta shoved her way through the stinky crowd to the front. ‘Don’t be such a dick, Gary! Let us in: we need those showers!’
Voices raised behind her: ‘Yeah!’, ‘Out the way!’, ‘Shift it, fat boy!’, ‘I’m all covered in shite!’
Big Gary didn’t move. ‘You are not getting into my nice clean police station like that. No way. No, sir. No how.’
Roberta flicked a lump of dried-on dung off the back of her hand. ‘Well, what the bloody hell are we supposed to do?’
Oooh, that was better. You know what? It was quite pleasant, standing there, round the back of the mortuary in a shaft of sunlight. All warm and tingly. A gentle breeze wafting its way across her naked flesh.
Well, mostly naked.
Roberta towelled her back off.
A double rainbow glittered in the spray as the pathologist and her anatomical pathology technician — dressed in plastic aprons, white wellington boots, green scrubs, purple nitrile gloves, and protective full-face masks — hosed down the next pair of candidates.
Harmsworth coughed and spluttered, both hands up covering his face as the water found him. ‘Aaaagh, that’s cold!’
Roberta moved on to drying her bum, patting the pale wobbly skin around her bright-red pants. Mind you, if she’d known she’d be stripping in front of half the dayshift, she’d have put on a bra that matched. ‘Come on, Owen, you weren’t this shy on Thursday morning. Gerremoff!’ She gave him a wolf whistle. ‘Or do we need to fetch a bunch of wee kids to help you undress?’
‘Oh that’s right, make off-colour remarks at poor Owen. He didn’t bother you, did he? No, Owen was a gentleman, but does anyone care?’ He undid his utility belt, holding it in the hose’s glare till the water ran clear. He undid the Velcro on his stabproof vest, grimacing behind it, hiding from the tea-coloured backsplash.
Tufty was on his hands and knees, in his ThunderCats pants, dipping a sponge into a bucket of soapy water and scrubbing away at himself with it. ‘Gah... Stinky, stinky, stinky, stinky, stinky...’
Harmsworth ditched his T-shirt and struggled out of his police-issue trousers till he had nothing on but his soggy underwear, cringing away from the stream of water. All those bite marks had turned into wee circular bruises, like he was wearing a pasty leopard-print onesie covered in wiry black hair.
‘Hoy, Doc!’ Roberta draped the towel around her shoulders and pointed. ‘You missed a bit.’
The pathologist nodded and shifted the hose — water sprayed into Harmsworth’s furry chest again.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAGH!’
‘There you go, much better.’
Roberta grinned.
Sometimes, when life gave you slurry, you just had to make lemonade.
‘Urgh... I can still smell it.’ Barrett sniffed at his naked arm and shuddered. ‘One going-over with a hose, one scrub in a bucket, and a shower with carbolic soap and I can still smell it!’
Roberta adjusted herself and sank behind her desk. Amazing how quick you got chafed from a damp bra.
Harmsworth scowled away, slumped in his chair in his socks and pants, what was left of his hair sticking out in damp tufts. ‘I’m never eating oxtail soup ever again.’
Lund shuddered, setting everything wobbling in a very interesting way. Either she was off on the pull later, or she was unbelievably organised: her bra actually matched her pants. And neither of them were denture-grey or looked as if they’d fall apart with one more washing. She caught Roberta looking and covered her chest with her arms. ‘You’re staring again.’
‘Hey, I’m married, no’ dead.’
The door thumped open and in backed Tufty, carrying a large cardboard box. He’d hidden his ThunderCats underwear beneath a pair of Aberdeen Football Club joggie bottoms. Top half covered with a Frightened Rabbit tour T-shirt, only the word ‘Frightened’ was spelled wrong.
He dumped the box on his desk. ‘Roll up, roll up, get yer luverly knock-off clobber ’ere.’ Then dug out a pair of dungarees and tossed them to Roberta. ‘Faux Givenchy — with the compliments of those lovely loons and quines at Trading Standards. They had some fake Louis Vuitton, but the MIT got there first.’ He dug into the box. ‘You want a counterfeit Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt or a fake Calvin Klein polo?’
‘With dungers? Has to be Gucci.’
He went a-rummaging, tossed her a red floral-printed chiffon thing with frilly bits. Roberta pulled it, and the dungarees, on over her moist underwear.
Another rummage. ‘What do you fancy, Veronica: not quite Armani or not quite Fendi?’
‘Armani.’
Harmsworth scowled. ‘Oh that’s right, let DC Lund choose first, don’t worry about Owen, he’s only been here four years longer than she has.’
Tufty tossed her a pair of jeans and a shimmery blue shirt. ‘Manners, Owen. Ladies first. And you should be used to sitting about in the scud by now.’ A grin. ‘How about you, Davey?’
‘Don’t really care as long as Harmsworth gets something to wear sharpish. Was bad enough the other day: all that pasty grey hairy flesh. Urgh. It’s enough to put you off sausages for life.’
‘Hey!’
Roberta fiddled with the dungarees’ shoulder straps. ‘What do you think, both on, or one hanging off a bit flirty like?’
A knock on the door and DCI Rutherford marched in without waiting for an answer. Rotten sod looked every bit as clean and shiny as he had at the morning briefing. The joys of no’ being showered in slurry. He came to rest in the middle of the room, all stiff and erect, and looked down his nose at her. ‘The Lord Provost is very upset about his car. And the bus shelter. Those things don’t grow on trees, you know.’
She thumped back into her seat, scowling. ‘Aye, well, the Lord Provost can pucker up and kiss my recently sharny arse.’
Rutherford grinned. ‘I, on the other hand, haven’t laughed so much in ages.’
‘Hoy!’ Harmsworth had another pout. ‘That’s not fair. I got plastered in fermented pig manure!’
Tufty chucked him a pair of cargo shorts and a Batman T-shirt. ‘Oh, boohoo. I had to run through it, so I got plastered twice.’
‘And that, Constable Quirrel, is why I’m recommending you for a commendation. You too, Roberta — disabling that muck spreader saved a lot of people from a dung-based battering.’ Rutherford clapped his hands. ‘Best of all, the predicted riot never materialised! Apparently neither side was up for a fight after being liberally showered in slurry. We should recommend it to G Division next time there’s an Old Firm game.’
Barrett rustled up a polite laugh. Crawly wee jobbie that he was.