LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

      Wattie looked more surprised than scared. ‘Me?’

      ‘Aye, you,’ said Murray. ‘You’re a big bugger. Flatten him.’

      Wattie nodded at them, tried to look alert and ready for any eventuality. Some hope.

      Room 214 was halfway down the corridor. It was only when they stopped outside the door that McCoy realised he’d been walking on his tiptoes. He looked at Murray, who looked at him and pointed at the door. He sighed, knocked it hard. Here we go.

      ‘Mr Connolly! Police! Need you to open the door.’

      Nothing.

      He looked back at Murray, who nodded at the door impatiently. He knocked it again.

      ‘Mr Connolly. Glasgow Police. Need you to open up now!’

      Nothing again.

      ‘Maybe he’s gone out one of the other doors. Uniforms might have got him already?’ said McCoy hopefully.

      ‘Pan it in,’ said Murray.

      ‘What? You sure that’s a good idea?’

      ‘You heard,’ said Murray. ‘Knock the door in.’

      McCoy looked around, walked back up the corridor and pulled a large red fire extinguisher off the wall. Weighed a ton. He stood at the door with it. ‘You sure?’

      Murray nodded so he stepped back, took it in both hands and launched it at the lock. The door cracked and splintered but held. He swore under his breath and swung it again. This time the door gave way, swung into the room, leaving a handle surrounded by splintered wood still attached to the lock.

      ‘Mr Connolly? You there?’ he shouted.

      The room was gloomy, just a sliver of weak morning light seeping in through the net curtains. McCoy stepped in, immediately recoiled at the smell. Was like rotten food and something like blocked drains. He turned round to look for the light switch and that’s when the chair hit him.

      It just missed his head and caught him on the shoulder but he went down all the same. Had a brief glimpse of Connolly’s bald head above him before he brought it down again. One of the chair legs went right into his chest, hurt like fuck. He cried out, tried to roll away. Looked up just as Connolly jumped over him and rammed the chair legs into Murray’s chest, pushing him back, pinning him against the corridor wall. One of the legs digging into his chest, the other digging into his windpipe. Connolly rammed the chair forward and Murray let out a horrible gurgling as the leg burst through the skin and dug further into his neck.

      McCoy got himself up onto his knees but that was as far as he got before Connolly turned and whacked him across the side of the head. He didn’t know what it was he’d hit him with but it was hard and heavy, got him right on the temple, knocking him back against the bedroom wall and that was that.

      He could only have been out for a minute or so. He came to, head spinning, seeing tiny flashes of light. He looked up. Connolly was gone and Wattie was crouched down over Murray.

      ‘He okay?’ McCoy managed to get out.

      Murray struggled up, pushed Wattie off to the side. ‘Of course I’m bloody okay! Get after him!’ he bellowed at Wattie. ‘Move!’

      Wattie scrabbled up and started running down the corridor towards the stairs.

      McCoy sat up and rubbed at his head, could feel a lump there already. Looked down, two squares of blood were coming through his shirt. ‘What happened?’

      Murray was pressing buttons on his radio, shouting into it. All he was getting was static; he chucked it at the wall, shouted, ‘Fucking thing!’ Then rounded on McCoy.

      ‘I’ll tell you what bloody happened. He got past me and you, brushed Wattie aside like a bloody fly and he was off like the clappers.’

      ‘Uniforms’ll get him then,’ said McCoy, holding out his shirt and looking down into it. Blood was running down his chest.

      ‘Some bloody chance of that. Fucking useless, the lot of them!’

      An unlucky uniform appeared at the top of the stairs and got both barrels. Murray shouting orders at him about covering exits, watching the car park. Seemed like a waste of time to McCoy but it was probably making Murray feel better.

      He crawled towards the bed and pulled himself up on it. Eased his jacket and shirt off, looked at himself in the dresser mirror and winced. The square dent from the chair leg on his chest was bleeding badly, raised red welt. Had a horrible feeling he’d a couple of broken ribs.

      He leant in for a closer look and that was when he noticed them. Behind him, reflected in the mirror. Twenty or so old milk bottles lined up against the wall, each of them full of different levels of dark yellow piss. He looked away and groaned, the smell thick in the back of his throat.

      He pushed the bathroom door open, looking for a drink from the tap, and suddenly the smell got even worse. He pulled a worn towel off the rail over his mouth and tried to breathe through that. Couldn’t believe what he was looking at. The bath was full of paper bags stuffed full of shit, flies buzzing and crawling over them. Each of them complete with a weight written on them in ballpoint pen: 4oz, 5oz. Realised they were grouped together by similar weight. He groaned, spat the taste out his mouth into the sink, wiped his mouth with a wad of toilet paper. There was an open paperback on top of the cistern.

      Sven Hassel. Assignment Gestapo.

      Big burning tank on the front. Shaving kit was on the shelf, navy blue wash bag with a drawstring. He pulled it open. A bottle of Brut aftershave, facecloth, nailbrush and a bottle of pills. He took the bottle out, gagging again at the stink. No chemist label on it. Two different kinds of pills, black bombers and Mandies by the look of it. He slipped the bottle into his trouser pocket, put the wash bag back.

      Back in the bedroom he pulled the curtains wide and opened the window as far as it would go, tried to avoid the stink of the piss, breathe in the fresh air. Realised the bottles were marked too; amount in each one written in chinagraph pencil on the side.

      He opened the dresser drawers. Nothing much, a couple of shirts. Nothing much in the wardrobe either. Just some dirty Y-fronts and a pair of trousers on a hanger. Connolly certainly did travel light. He started feeling a bit dizzy again so he sat back down on the bed, started breathing deeply. It hurt each time he breathed in, ribs must be fucked right enough.

      Realised there was a picture pinned to the wall right in front of him. It was the picture that he’d seen in the paper. Charlie Jackson and his fiancée Elaine Scobie at the Provost’s Ball. Charlie looking young in a dinner suit, Elaine in a long dress, hair pinned up with a flower in it. Charlie’s head had gone in an angry scribble of blue ballpoint pen. Beneath it there was something written on the flowery wallpaper in pencil, hard to make out. McCoy leant to the side, let what light there was from the window hit the wall.

       BYE BYE CHARLIE

       Everything tastes the same.

       My soul sometimes leaves my body.

      He sat back, uttered a quiet ‘fuck me’ under his breath.

      ‘You all right?’ asked Murray, stepping into the room.

      ‘I’ll live,’ he said. ‘You?’

      Murray nodded, rubbing at the welt on his neck with a bloodstained hanky. ‘What’s the bloody smell?’

      McCoy gestured at the bottles. ‘Don’t go in the bathroom, it’s even worse. The sick bastard’s been keeping all his piss and shit and measuring it.’

      ‘He’s been what?’ Murray was staring at the bottles in disbelief. ‘Jesus Christ.’

      McCoy pointed at the writing on the wall.

      Murray read it, shook his head. ‘Fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘No

Скачать книгу