He sat on an examination table, a knackered-looking doctor with a name Logan couldn’t remember tapping his chest and back. ‘Well, you’ve probably inhaled enough smoke to do you for the next five years, but other than that…’
‘How is she?’
A sigh. A shrug. A stifled yawn. ‘It’s going to be a while. You should go home. Try to get some rest.’
Go home — how the hell was he supposed to do that?
Logan glanced up from the creaky plastic seat as a nurse hurried by. The soles of her trainers made little screams with every step, breaking the humming stillness of the hospital. ‘Is there anyone-’
‘Sorry, I really don’t know.’ She didn’t even slow down. ‘But-’
‘Sorry.’ And she was gone.
Logan blinked. Shook himself. The corridor was empty, just the purr of the air conditioning and the distant sound of someone coughing.
It was the middle of the night, but you couldn’t tell from the lighting. It was the same twenty-four hours a day, that horrible institutional twilight that went with the sickly-green walls and the cracked terrazzo floor. A gloomy fluorescent-lit world that never let you go. You were born here, you got ill here, you died here.
Bears. Rubble. Suicide. Fire-
‘Dude, you still here?’
Logan shivered. Shifted in his plastic prison. ‘Sorry…’
‘Dude, you should, you know, sleep or something.’ He didn’t look a day over twenty: long hair, piercings in his nose, ears, eyebrow, and lip, a grey overall with a name-badge. He pulled one white earbud out and leant on the handle of the big, scissor-shaped-mop-brush-thing he’d been pushing across the floor. ‘I know it’s a hospital and all, but there’s no
Logan didn’t bother hiding the yawn. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half-five. Seriously: go home, get some sleep.’
Yeah, right. ‘I can’t.’
‘They give you sleeping pills?’
Logan sat back. ‘What? No…’
‘Cutbacks are a bitch.’ He glanced up and down the corridor, then lowered his voice. ‘Dude, if you’re worried about nightmares and that, I’ve got the perfect thing for you.’ He dug into an inside pocket of his overalls, and came out with a little foil blister-pack of pills. Held them out. ‘I’ve got a mate who’s a medical student, fixes me up now and then. Two of these and you’ll be out like a light.’
‘I can’t take-’
‘Nah, seriously, no charge. Call it a karmic down-payment. Doesn’t hurt to help a fellow human being now and then, know what I’m saying?’
‘Laz?’
The world rocked forward and backwards a couple of times. ‘Laz? You in there?’
Frown. Logan screwed up his face, then mashed his fists into his eye sockets. ‘How is she?’
‘You look like a bowl of shite soup. With crap croutons.’ Steel creaked her way into the seat next to him, making it groan. Her hair stuck out in random directions on one side, flat as a pancake on the other. Wearing a turtleneck jumper and a pair of jeans. She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. ‘You OK?’
‘Samantha…’
A sigh. ‘Aye, I know. Look, you’re no’ doing her any good hanging about here like a bad smell…’ Steel sniffed. ‘And that’s no’ a euphemism, you
‘Staying here.’
‘No, you’re no’.’ She stood. ‘Come on, Susan’s making up the spare bed.’
‘I’m not-’
‘Don’t make me drag your blackened arse out of here. Be undignified. Home. Shower. A decent sleep. I’ll give you a bell soon as we hear anything. OK?’
Logan looked up the corridor, towards the intensive care unit. ‘I didn’t…’ What didn’t he? Mean for it to happen? Keep Samantha safe? Want to panic? Behave like a man?
‘Aye, I know. I know.’ Steel gave his shoulder another squeeze. ‘Come on. We’ll crack open that bottle of Isle of Jura I got for my birthday. Give it a wee seeing-to. Finnie can manage the morning briefing without me.’
He hauled himself out of the plastic chair, it seemed to take forever. ‘Can you give me a lift?’
‘’Course. I’m driving home anyway, so-’
‘No. Somewhere else.’
Steel licked her lips, glanced up and down the corridor, swallowed. ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’
Chapter 38
‘You’re off your sodding head. This
Twenty past six and the sun was well on its way up a pale-blue sky. The trees were filled with birds, singing and chirping and crawing, as if everything was hunky-fucking-dory. As if this was just a day the same as any other.
‘Come on, still no’ too late to change your mind. Back to mine, couple of drams and…’
‘I’m fine.’ Didn’t feel fine. Felt like someone had hollowed out his body, leaving a brittle shell behind. Logan clambered out of Steel’s little sports car. ‘Give me a call if you hear anything.’ He closed the door, then stood there watching as she shook her head, put the MX-5 in gear, and drove off into the early morning.
As soon as she was gone, he let his face sag. Samantha’s static caravan was part of a little park on the bank of the River Don, opposite the sewage treatment works. That wasn’t the smell that pervaded everything though, it was the fatty, slightly sickening odour that came from the Grampian Country Chickens factory.
He lurched over to the door. Two gnomes, one on either side — one with horns and a forky tail, the other with halo and wings. Logan picked the devil up, flipped it over, and shook. A metallic rattling sound. He tipped the key into his palm.
Sometimes people were more predictable than they thought.
He unlocked the front door and stepped inside. Locked himself in. The skylight in the hall was a mass of green algae and clumps of moss, filtering out most of the oblivious sunshine, leaving the place shrouded in gloom. The door to the living room was open, light seeping in through the closed curtains. He could smell her. Her scent was imprinted on the place, in the carpet and furniture. He could smell it even through the acrid stench of smoke that stuck to his clothes, hair and skin.
When was the last time they’d spent a night here? Or even a couple of hours? At least five months. Probably more.
He reached out and flicked on the hall light. It blinked and buzzed, then bloomed into cold fluorescent life. So at least the power was still on.
Logan shuffled through into the small kitchen and peeled off his stinking clothes, emptied the pockets of his jeans, then stuffed everything into the washer-dryer. Found some washing powder under the sink. Set the thing going to wash and tumble dry, then sank back against the fridge and cried.
Where the hell was… Logan frowned into the gloom. The bedroom had shrunk, and the duvet smelled of mildew. He blinked. Not home. Samantha’s caravan. His mobile phone was ringing.
It took two goes to grab it off the stack of books acting as a bedside cabinet. ‘McRae.’
Logan sat bolt upright. ‘Is she OK?’
Please let her be OK, please let her be OK.
