The traffic policeman was a woman. She rapped on the driver’s window and Milne fumbled with the electric button thing until it slid down. She recoiled back, one hand covering her mouth, gagging. ‘Holy Christ!’ Her whole face curdled. ‘What the hell is that stink?’

Milne shrugged. After two days in the tank he couldn’t smell himself anymore. ‘I fell in some shite.’ Sit perfectly still. Don’t twitch, or shiver, or sound like a junky tosspot off of his face on stolen drugs.

‘You OK sir?’ She shone her torch into the car, spotlighting him in all his manky glory. ‘You look ill.’

Milne nodded. She had him there, he could see himself in the rear-view mirror: pale grey, sweaty, dark purple bags under his eyes, threads of fiery red spreading through his skin. ‘I fell in some shite.’

She turned and waved at the traffic car: ‘Norm! Get an ambulance up here sharpish!’ then knelt down, breathing through her mouth, like she didn’t want to smell him anymore. ‘You’re going to be OK, we’re going to get you to the hospital.’

He opened his mouth to tell her he just wanted to go home, but couldn’t. All that came out was, ‘I fell in some shite …’ Sitting there, watching the policewoman fading away until there was nothing left but darkness and—

Headache. Killer, bastard headache. Like a chisel driven between the ears. Milne cracked open an eye to see a pretty nurse hovering over him with a syringe.

‘Where am I?’ was what he tried to say, but all that came out was a dry croaking sound. The nurse didn’t smile at him, just held a squeezy bottle to his lips and let him take a small sip. ‘Thank you …’ weak, but almost sounding human again.

The nurse nodded. Brisk, matter of fact. Nose creased like he still stank of shite. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’ She beckoned over a uniformed constable and a big, fat bald bloke with a tight suit and a constipated expression.

‘Mr Milne.’ The fat bloke loomed over the bed. ‘We’d like to talk to you about the car you were driving when you were brought here.’

Milne frowned. ‘I …’ Shite – they’d found the drugs. All of McRichie’s lovely drugs and he’d barely had a chance to sample any of them.

‘Specifically, we’d like to talk to you about the car’s original owner. And how his dead body wound up in the boot covered in your fingerprints.’

And that was it: Duncan ‘Manky’ Milne was up to his neck in shite again.

By Stuart MacBride

By Stuart MacBride

The Logan McRae Novels

Cold Granite

Dying Light

Broken Skin

Flesh House

Blind Eye

Dark Blood

Shatter the Bones

Other Works

Birthdays for the Dead

Sawbones – a novella

12 Days of Winter (short stories)

Writing as Stuart B. MacBride

Halfhead

About the Author

About the Author