Last Orders (a Gus Dury crime thriller) Read Online Free PDF

staff-parking bays and stationed
myself under the overhang of the roof. I was sparking up a Silkie when the door
to the practice wheezed open. It was an Asian woman, heavily-gone, and a doting
husband holding the door for her. I couldn't halt the smile I had for them. Did
I still want some of what they had? I didn't doubt it, but I knew that boat had
sailed without me on it a long time ago.
    I was on my fourth or fifth Silkie when the sound of
comfortable shoes squelching on wet tarmac came towards me. It was a squat woman,
not exactly heavy but not exactly doing the Dukan Diet either. She had that
hard-won look, the one that gets some women tagged as pushy , or as we
were prone to say in this neighbourhood, not backwards at coming forwards .
    I watched her wrestle a bag into the passenger seat of
her car and start to make her way round to the driver's door. She was opening
up as I leaned over the roof.
    'Hello, Janice is it?'
    She thinned eyes. 'Yes.'
    I tried a smile, for all the good it would do me. 'I was
wondering if I might have a word with you.'
    The aperture of her eyes returned to normal. She pulled
her chin back into her neck, 'Do I know you?'
    'No. I don't think so ...' I looked up to the heavens,
tried to inveigh that familiar Scots expression of disgust for the weather. 'Looks
like rain.'
    I knew she'd caught me indicating the interior of the
car, that's probably why she flicked the central-locking and walked round to my
side of the vehicle.
    'I'm not carrying any drugs, if that's what you're after.'
Her tone was sharp, the look in her eyes nothing short of fierce. I pitied the
poor junkie that would try jumping her.
    I tried to laugh off the inference, even if it had been
a particularly low blow to take. 'You have me all wrong; look, I really do need
to have a talk with you ... about one of your patients.'
    She looked perplexed now. The tight bun her hair was
tied in seemed to grip her features into a more angular slant. 'What on earth
are you on about?'
    'Caroline Urquhart ...' I let the name hang between us
like gunshot.
    'Caroline ... Are you a relation?'
    I'd tried and failed with that tack before. 'No. I'm
employed by her father.'
    'Her father ... she never mentioned any family.'
    I could see I had her interest now; I waved a hand
towards the car, held it out. 'That's a spit of rain ...'
    I sensed cogs turning behind those steel-grey eyes of
hers. She looked at me, then quickly back to the door of the practice she'd come
out of. I could sense some concern for Caroline but I could also sense a huge
dose of uncertainty for what the hell I was all about.
    I stepped towards her, ramped it up. 'Look, I don't care
what you think of me, but that girl and her baby need help; now either you're
going to be the one to help her or we're relying on someone else out there
being a very good Samaritan.'
    She fiddled with the keys in her hand. She looked at me,
in the eye, then averted her gaze towards the ground. A sigh, 'I haven't seen
her in weeks.'
    'How many?'
    'Two, three ... maybe a bit longer. She just vanished
... I was very worried because she was in a bit of an emotional state.'
    'How do you mean?'
    'She was alone, apart from that boy, and she said she
didn't plan to keep the child. She'd asked me about adoption straight away.'
    'She had a boyfriend?'
    The nurse's top lip twitched, she looked out to the
medical practice again. 'I don't know, just a young lad. He didn't have a job,
anyway. I think he was wary of Caroline coming to the hospital for some reason.
The officialdom, the forms and so on ... they were both terrified of them.'
    'And that worried you?'
    The midwife tightened her brows and drew a deep breath, 'Yes,
of course. She's due any day now, you realise.'
    ' What ?'
    'Yes. Very soon. I have to admit, I've been beyond
worried for her ... what did you say your name was?'
    I steered her back on course. 'Does it matter? ... Look,
you must have an address for her?'
    'A place down in the flats. I went there