"Dying light" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacBride Stuart)

I

Grampian Police wouldn't find out until the body turned up.

Then there would be hell to pay. Logan scowled at the darkened alleys leading off the road, picturing the headlines:

Local Woman Snatched While Police Look On!, or Serial Killer Strikes Under Police Noses!, or even just DS McRae Screws Up Again!!! 'It was my plan,' said disgraced former Police Hero, Logan (Lazarus) McRae. 'It was a sack ofs, but I made them go through with it anyway. All we had to do was watch the streets, and we couldn 't even manage that. He snatched her and we couldn't do a b thing.' Grampian Police gave notice today of DS McRae's immediate suspension…

He turned left off Commerce Street, just shy of a tiny corporation car park – little more than a triangle of tarmac with a pay-and-display machine – empty now but for an unmarked Transit Van full of policemen. He resisted the urge to give them a wave. The wind was beginning to get up, freezing cold gusts that leached the feeling from his cheeks and made his ears sting. He wandered past the tile shop and the mini business park, peering down the side streets as he went. There weren't many girls left on the game tonight.

Either frightened off by the cold or the huge police presence. Maybe the killer would be too? Maybe he couldn't get it up if there was an army of constables and CID watching. Or maybe his dick shrivelled up in the cold and no amount of pounding some poor cow's skull in with a rock would help.

Whatever it was, Logan got the feeling their man wasn't going to show tonight. This had all been one huge waste of time. » She's been standing on this street corner for ages, and it's bloody freezing. Shifting from foot to foot, trying to get some sort of circulation going, she cups her hands to her mouth and blows. Breath comes out in a fog, momentarily warming her fingertips, but even that small relief is soon whipped awaj in the icy wind. 'Fuckit,' she says to herself under her breath. If she didn't need the money so much… By all rights she should be at home tonight, curled up in front of the fire with a bottle of vodka and something nice on the telly. But that would be asking for too much, wouldn't it? God forbid Joe should get off his arse and go to work for a change. No: much better he should raid the fucking housekeeping and bugger off with the money for the electric. What the hell were they supposed to do with no bloody electricity? The sodding card meter was already down to its last flicker. So Joe goes out on the piss and she has to go out on the game.

In the freezing cold. Just so they can have enough fucking electricity to see by. 'Selfish fuckhead.' He hadn't even left her enough for a packet of fags. She'd had to beg some off Joanna. She scrunched up her face and scowled at the deserted street. Enough was enough. The lazy bastard had to go. It wasn't as if he was even good to her. No, it was always demands and complaints and… A car. She pulled herself upright and tried for a smile as it slowed down. It was a nice car, one of those new ones they were advertising on the telly. Whoever it was, they weren't short of a bob or two. She wriggled her bra down, getting as much cleavage on show as possible.

Maybe tonight wouldn't be such a let down after all.