22 Dead Little Bodies Read Online Free PDF Page A

that was something.
    ‘Get Control to dig up the grandparents. They might know where she is.’
    ‘Will do.’
A pause.
‘Guv, did I ever tell you about what happened last time Snow White—’
    ‘Yes. And
no more
porn in the patrol car.’
    Logan hung up, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
    It wasn’t difficult to find Gordon Taylor, not with all the shouting and swearing going on. He was in a cubicle at the far end –
crash
,
bang
,
wallop
. A nurse squatted outside the curtains, head thrown back, a wad of tissues clamped against her nose stained bright red.
    ‘Hold still, you little sod…’
    ‘Ow!’
    ‘Can someone hold his head so he won’t bite?’
    ‘Ow! Ow, ow, ow … Bloody hell…’
    Logan slipped through the curtains and stared at the human octopus wrestling with itself on the hospital bed. Arms, legs, hands, feet, all struggling to keep the figure on the bottom from getting up.
    One of the nurses yanked her arm into the air. ‘OW! He bit me!’
    ‘Don’t let go of his head!’
    Logan reached into his pocket, pulled out the little canister of CS gas, and walked over to the bed. ‘Let go of him.’
    A doctor turned and glared. ‘Are you off your head?’
    Click
, the safety cover flipped off the top of the gas canister. ‘Then you probably want to cover your nose and mouth.’
    Gordon Taylor’s filthy, blood-caked face rose from between the medics’ arms, teeth snapping.
    Logan jammed the CS gas canister right between his eyes. Raised his voice over the crashing and banging, the grunting and swearing. ‘You’ve been gassed before, right, Gordon? Want to try it again?’
    A blink. Then he froze.
    ‘Good boy. Now you let these nice people examine you, or I’m going to gas you back to the Thatcher era, OK?’
    Gordon Taylor went limp.
    The doctor bowed his head for a moment. ‘Oh thank God…’ Then straightened up. ‘Right, we need blood tests and a sedative. Then get these filthy rags off him.’
    The nurses bustled about with needles and scissors, faces contorted with disgust every time a new layer of clothes came off revealing a new odour.
    Logan kept the CS gas where Taylor could see it. ‘You’re an idiot, you know that, don’t you? Staggering about, blootered, abusing passers-by, falling into the road. Lucky you didn’t kill yourself.’
    Taylor didn’t move. Kept his eyes fixed on the gas canister.
    One of the nurses gagged, holding out a filthy shirt with her fingertips.
    Gordon Taylor’s arms were knots of ropey muscles, stretched taut across too-big bones. No fat on them. But the left one had a Gordon Highlanders tattoo, the ink barely visible beneath the filth. His torso was a mess of bruises – some fresh and red, some middle-aged purple-and-blue, some dying yellow-and-green.
    He jerked his chin up. ‘She broke my bottle.’ The slur had gone from his voice, but his breath was enough to make Logan back off a couple of steps.
    ‘You’re a drunken sodding menace to yourself and others, Gordon. What the hell were you thinking, staggering out into the road? What if a car swerves, trying to avoid your drunken backside, hits someone else and kills them? That what you want?’
    ‘A whole bottle of Bells that was!’ No wonder his breath was minging – his teeth looked like stubbed-out cigarettes.
    ‘I’ve arrested the woman who assaulted you. She’ll—’
    ‘Tell her! Tell her I’ll not press charges if she buys me a new bottle…’ Gordon Taylor’s eyes widened. ‘No,
two
bottles. Aye, and litre bottles, not tiny wee ones.’
    Nothing like getting your priorities straight.
    ‘That’s not how it works, Gordon. She has to—’ Logan’s phone burst into song in his pocket. ‘Sodding hell.’
    The doctor narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re not supposed to have your phone switched on in here.’
    ‘Police business.’ He pulled it out and hit the button, killing the noise. ‘For God’s sake, what
now
?’
    There was a moment of silence, then a deep voice