sound of retching echoed out of the bathroom, amplified by the toilet bowl.
Shifty twitched a couple of times, then let out a long, low groan. Followed by a pause. A snuffle.
I draped another towel over him then picked up the two empty champagne bottles and what was left of the supermarket whisky. Took them through to the kitchen and ditched them next to the kettle. Grabbed the washing-up bowl from the sink.
By the time I got back to the living room he was flat on his back, snoring hard enough to make the air vibrate. His towel-blankets were all rucked up on one side, exposing a hairy expanse of pale belly. The rumbling drone stopped for a couple of beats … Then he grunted something that sounded like a name, and went back to snoring again.
‘Silly sod.’ I tugged the towels into place. ‘Try not to choke on your own vomit in the middle of the night, OK?’ I turned out the light. Closed the door. Left him to it.
The toilet flushed. Then gargling. Spitting. And finally Alice lurched out into the hall.
She’d done her tartan pyjamas up wrong, the left side one button out of synch with the right. Hair sticking out in a tangled mess. ‘Urgh …’
‘Come on: bed.’
She clasped a hand to one side of her face. ‘Don’t feel so good …’
‘Well, whose fault is that?’
Her bedroom door opened on a small room with a single bed, a flat-packed wardrobe, and a small bedside table. A Monet poster dominated the room, all greens and blues and purples.
She clambered into bed, hauled the duvet up around her chin. ‘Urrgh …’
‘Did you drink a pint of water?’ I put the washing-up bowl on the floor by her head. With any luck there wouldn’t be sick all over the floor in the morning.
‘Ash …’ She smacked her mouth a couple of times, like she was tasting something bitter. ‘Tell me a story.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘I want a story.’
‘You’re a grown woman, I am not reading—’
‘Pleeeeeease?’
Seriously?
She blinked up at me, grey bags under her bloodshot eyes.
Sigh. ‘Fine.’ I settled onto the edge of the bed, taking the weight off my right foot. ‘Once upon a time, there was a serial killer called the Inside Man, and he liked to stitch dolls into nurses’ stomachs. But what he didn’t know was that a brave policeman was after him.’
She smiled. ‘Was the policeman’s name, Ash? It was, wasn’t it?’
‘Who’s telling this story, you or me?’
I hit the door hard, battering it open. Dodged a crowd of old fogies in their dressing gowns and slippers, surrounded by their own personal fog-bank of cigarette smoke.
Where the hell did he …
There – on the other side of the low wall that separated Castle Hill Infirmary from the car park. A pregnant woman screaming abuse, banging on the window of an ancient-looking Ford Fiesta as it roared away from the kerb.
More swearing erupted behind me as PC O’Neil staggered through the OAP smokers, his face flushed, sweat glistening on his cheeks. ‘Did you get him?’
‘Do I bloody look like I got him? Get the car. NOW!’
‘Oh God…’ He lumbered over the low wall – making for our rusty Vauxhall, parked on the double yellows.
The pregnant woman stood in the middle of the road, sticking two fingers up at the back of the Fiesta as it fishtailed out through the hospital gates and onto Nelson Street. ‘I HOPE YOU CATCH AIDS AND DIE, YOU THIEVING BASTARD!’
I staggered to a halt beside her. ‘Did you get a good look at his face?’
‘He stole my bloody car! Did you see that?’
‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’
‘My dog’s in the boot!’ She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘COME BACK HERE, YOU WANKER!’
The pool car screeched out from the kerb, coming to a stop in a squeal of brakes on the wrong side of the road, opposite us. O’Neil buzzed the window down. ‘He’s getting away.’
I pointed the woman at the hospital. ‘You don’t go anywhere till someone’s taken your statement, understand?’ Then I ran around to the passenger side and clambered in. Slammed the door. Slapped O’Neil on the shoulder. ‘Put your foot down!’
He did, and the Vauxhall surged forward in a squeal of tyre smoke.
Left onto Nelson Street, just missing a Mini, the driver leaning on his horn, eyes wide, mouth stretched in horror.
O’Neil got the slide under control, both hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, teeth biting down on his bottom lip as the car raced up the hill. Newsagents, carpet shops, and hairdressers streaked past the windows.
I scrambled into my seatbelt, then flicked the switch for the blues and twos.
The pool car’s siren wailed above the engine’s bellow, forging a path through the lunchtime traffic.
We screeched up the hill while I pulled out my Airwave handset and called it in. ‘Charlie Hotel Seven to Control, we are in pursuit of the Inside Man. Eastbound on Nelson Street. Get someone out there blocking the road. He’s in a brown Ford Fiesta.’
A pause, then a hard Dundee accent came on the line. ‘You been drinking?’
‘Get backup out there now!’
The Vauxhall cleared the brow of the hill, flew for at least ten feet, then slammed back down onto the tarmac. O’Neil had his shoulders curled forwards, arms locked straight ahead, as if pushing the steering wheel would actually make the car go faster.
‘There he is!’ I jabbed a finger at the windscreen.
The Fiesta disappeared into the underpass.
We were there less than thirty seconds later, the dual carriageway rumbling above us as O’Neil kept his foot to the floor. The siren echoed back from the concrete. Out into the daylight again. ‘Almost there …’
Couldn’t have been more than four seconds between us now.
The Fiesta jumped the lights where Nelson Road cuts across Canard Street, narrowly missing a woman on a bicycle, and right into the path of a bendy bus. It ploughed straight into the Fiesta, grabbing the front passenger-side and wrenching it three feet into the air, spinning the whole thing around and into a streetlight.
‘Shite!’ O’Neil stamped on the brakes. Hauled the wheel left, sending the back end squealing out across the cobbles. And everything slipped into slow motion. All the colours and shapes bright and sharp in the thin December light. A woman with a pushchair, mouth hanging open; a man up a ladder outside Waterstones, painting over graffiti; a little girl coming out of Greggs, frozen mid-pasty. A Transit van, the driver leaning on his horn as we slammed into him.
The bang was like a shotgun going off – cubes of safety glass exploded across the Vauxhall’s interior. The car kicked up on my side, hurling me into the seatbelt as the airbags detonated. Filling the world with white and the stench of fireworks. Then down again, bouncing, safety glass pattering against my skin like rain. Nostrils filled with the smell of dust and spent airbag and petrol.
Everything clicked back to normal speed.
O’Neil hung forward against his