The Bug - Episode 1 Read online

  “Shit, shit, shit!”

  Tugging at his thinning hair, Alan paced back and forth. “Barbara!” he tried again, not expecting an answer but trying anyway. “Barbara, I don't know what to do!”

  And then, in a flash, he did. His eyes fell on the bathroom lock. A groove the width of a coin had been cut into a circle of moveable metal. Alan dug in his pocket and pulled out a handful of Euros and cents.

  There was no fumbling this time. He slid a coin into the groove. It turned, clunked. He pushed down the handle and eased the door ajar.

  “Barbara?” he said, and his voice came out as a thin whisper in the gloom.

  He nudged the door open further, expecting resistance but meeting none. Glass splintered beneath his shoe as he stepped inside. The cord for the light gave a clunk as he yanked on it, but the room remained in darkness.

  The shower curtain was pulled over, blocking the view of the limescale-stained bathtub. Alan hesitated, his fingers still tight on the door handle. The bathroom was filled with the faint rasp of unsteady breathing. He closed his mouth, tightened his lungs, but the breathing continued, hissing in and out, in and out, in and out.

  “Barbara? You alright?”

  The broken bulb crunched as he stepped further into the room. The sound triggered an explosion of movement and noise.

  With a crash the flimsy rail ripped away from the wall as a figure erupted through the curtain, all hands and fingers and gnashing yellow teeth.

  Alan stumbled, slipped, fell and his wife was suddenly on him, fingers clawing and ripping as she screamed and screamed and screamed.

  “B-Barbara?” Alan yelped, then her fingers crawled like spiders through his hair and his head was yanked back and – BANG! – pain fractured across the back of his skull.

  He twisted, kicked, tried to shove her away, but her arms were everywhere and the pain in his head made his limbs go heavy and the floor turn to sand beneath him.

  His head smashed back again, again, again, the smooth edge of the toilet bowl shatteringly solid against the base of his head.

  “S-stop!” he hissed, the word slurring between his lips. He lashed out, finally shoving her off him. Barbara tumbled sideways, caught the shower curtain and brought it and what was left of the rail down on top of her.

  She squealed and screeched like a trapped animal, thrashing against the crinkly white plastic, struggling to get free.

  Alan rolled onto his belly. He tried to stand, but the ground was too soft and his limbs were too numb and the pain in his head roared at him to stay the fuck down. He crawled forwards, the glass ripping at his forearms, slicking the tiles with his blood.

  The bedroom floor was easier. His splayed fingertips gripped the carpet and he dragged himself out of the bathroom and into the faint glow of the moonlight. The bedroom door loomed up ahead. He crawled for it, inch by painful inch.

  But then she was on him again, pinning him from the back, her knees sharp and sudden in his ribs and spine. She caught his hair and yanked sharply. He howled as a strip of scalp ripped free in her hand.

  She caught him again, twisting his head sideways until her face was all he could see. Her lips looked black as they drew back over her teeth. In the shimmering glow of the moonlight he saw her eyes, and for the first time since they’d met he didn't recognize them.

  Her free hand moved. Alan caught a glimpse of metal there, a few jagged slivers of glass still attached. He heard the ripping of his throat before the pain hit in a rush of angry crimson.

  As he gargled his dying breath Alan felt his wife's thumbs press against his eyeballs. The last thing he heard was her triumphant shriek as she shoved them back in their sockets with a schlop.

  MARTIN MARSHALL'S FLAT, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

  24th MAY, 11:51 PM

  It wasn't until Martin Marshall was back in his flat, two-thirds of the way through a shower, a shit and a shave, that his hands started to shake. It started as a quivering at first; a light tremble that rose quickly to a full-scale shudder.

  He didn't remember lying down on the bathroom floor, or curling up in a ball with the knees of his tartan pajamas pulled right up to his chest. He didn't remember crying, either. Crying like he hadn't done in years, not since Gary Tavish had kicked him in the goolies and nicked his playpiece back in Primary Five.

  But he remembered Lacey Crane. He knew he would always remember Lacey Crane, no matter how hard he tried to forget.

  Christ, if he closed his eyes, he could still see her. Two halves, each one scooped clean of everything that should’ve been inside. Just two pale-skinned hollows with not a spot of blood or a trace of innards to be found.

  He'd taken Hoon over to the sheets and the paper suits had lifted first one, then the other. Hoon had stared for a while, as if trying to figure out what he was looking at. Then he'd turned to Marshall, clapped him on the shoulder, and told him to call it a night. It was, Marshall reckoned, the first act of compassion he'd ever seen the DCI make, and he could almost have kissed the ugly big bastard for it.

  Marshall got up off the floor and brushed himself down. He decided not to shave, in case he found a way to split his wrists with the safety blade. It was that sort of night.

  He caught sight of himself in the mirror, all red-eyed and pasty-faced. “Aye, looking good Martin,” he muttered, before returning to the living room, where he'd left every one of the lights blazing.

  As he flopped down onto the couch, he knew something was different. Something had subtly changed in the room. He couldn't see what it was, but he could feel it niggling away at him. Something different. Something wrong.

  The coffee table? No, it was as he'd left it, the mug, half-full of cold tea, still nestled in a bed of biscuit crumbs.

  The couch? No, still stacked with washing waiting to be ironed. It'd be waiting a long time if past evidence was anything to go by.

  The TV was off, the lights were on. It looked just as he'd left it before going through to the bathroom. And yet…

  His eyes fell on the curtains. Closed. Did he draw them when he came in? He couldn't remember. The flat was on the fourth floor, so sometimes he didn't bother shutting them, but tonight…? He couldn't remember.

  He stood up. His eyes went to the door as he contemplated doing a runner, but he forced his gaze back to the window. He was a Detective Inspector in the all-new amalgamated Police Scotland. Running away from his own curtains wasn’t something he could allow himself to entertain, no matter how tempting it may be.

  He crept towards the window and the floorboards gave a sudden creak. Marshall gasped. Bastards. They hadn’t creaked before, had they? They’d picked a fine bloody night to start.

  The curtains were thick and heavy, designed to keep out the cold and the sound of the city below. Marshall steeled himself, then gave one a quick kick. He found himself making a sound – a sort of angry yelp designed to drive off invaders, but which came out sounding like a strangled sob.

  The curtain billowed briefly back and forth, then settled to a stop. Marshall drew them both carefully back and peeked in behind. He jumped back in fright at the sight of the wild-eyed figure hiding there, before realising it was his own reflection in the glass.

  “Christ Almighty,” he whispered, the relief coming out as a half-laugh. He let the curtains fall back. Just before they closed, a shape plunged from the top of the window to the bottom.

  Marshall blinked.

  Had that happened? It had looked like… no. Surely not.

  He swished the curtains apart and stepped in closer to the glass, trying to look down at the distant ground below. Whatever had fallen had landed too close to the building for him to see it.

  The latch squeaked in protest as he turned it and pushed the window outwards. It opened to about forty-five degrees before the safety locks caught hold and prevented it going any wider.

  Marshall leaned out. He had only glimpsed it for a second, but the thing that had fallen had looked like a man. The window looked out over the back
of the flats, where there was nothing in the way of street lighting. He stared into the shadowy blackness that hugged the ground and tried to make out what—

  A sound like thunder shattered the window above his head, spraying him with shards of broken glass. Marshall fell back into the flat, hands held in front of his face, blood already seeping down the back of his neck.

  He looked up at the window, the frame now twisted out of shape. A man’s arm and head dangled limply through the smashed pane, eyes open, skull caved in on one side. Two bare legs hung down at an impossible angle behind them, like the force of the impact had snapped the poor bastard all the way in half.

  As Marshall watched, gravity grabbed at the corpse. The legs pulled down, showing a glimpse of bare arse. The head vanished upwards through the mangled frame. The arm went last, flopping to and fro as if waving goodbye, then the whole bloody mess slipped off the window and tumbled out of sight.

  DCI ROBERT HOON'S OFFICE, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

  24th MAY, 11:58 PM

  Hoon dropped into his chair, spun away from his cluttered desk and gazed out over the city.

  What the Hell was happening out there tonight?

  The sky over Govan glowed an angry shade of orange. He could see the flashing blues of the fire engines heading out that way, although they could just as easily be the lights of his own guys, rushing off to deal with whatever new blister of madness had just burst open somewhere.

  Twelve murders so far, and the night was still young. Five women, four men, three kids. Babies, practically. Some of them…

  Hoon squeezed the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes. He hadn't seen anything like them since that spate of 'devil dog' attacks back on his beat days. Poor bastards.

  And then there was Lacey Crane. He wasn't even counting her in with the rest of the murders yet. He wasn't sure what that was.

  There was a soft knock and his door creaked open.

  “Press again, sir,” said a worried voice. “They want to—?”

  “Tell them to away and get fucked!”

  There was a moment of hesitation, then the door clicked closed again. Hoon took out his mobile and redialed the last number. It rang and rang until the voicemail eventually kicked in. Hoon drummed his fingers on the desktop impatiently, listening to the message drone on.

  “Marshall!” he barked, the moment he heard the beep. “Where the fuck are you? I told you to go home, not vanish off the face of the Earth. Phone me back.”

  He hung up and slammed the phone down on the desk with more force than he meant to, scattering a tower of paperwork that had been in danger of toppling over ever since he'd set foot in the room.

  He gathered the files up, shuffling them roughly into a lop-sided stack. Assault, arson, rioting, rape – the top few files alone read like a psychopath's Bucket List. Only they'd caught some of the people in the act, and they weren't psychos. They had no priors, no history of trouble. They were just normal folk.

  At least, they had been. Something had happened to them. Something that had turned normal folk off the street into the mindless animals that were banged up in the cells downstairs.

  He looked at the pile of paperwork, then back out the window. The orange glow was brighter now. Tiny flames licked the night sky on the horizon. The fire was spreading.

  But that was someone else's problem. Thank Christ. He had his own stuff to sort out. He called Marshall for the umpteenth time, waited as long as the voicemail, then hung up without leaving a message.

  The door opened again. “I said to tell them to fuck off,” Hoon boomed.

  “Told them sir. They didn't. But it's not that.”

  Hoon squinted at the woman in uniform. Alessi or something. She was new. Not to the force, but new to him. She looked about twelve, which made him feel about ten times that. It was right enough what they said, they were getting younger.

  “What now?”

  “They've found another one, sir.”

  “Another body?”

  “Another Lacey Crane. Two of them, actually.”

  Hoon stood up. “How d'you mean? Cut in half?”

  Alessi nodded. “Top to bottom.”

  Hoon sat down. “Fuck,” he said, then he stood up again. “Fuck! A serial killer.”

  “Actually, no. Don't think so, sir,” said the constable. She handed him a sheet of paper. “Not unless he can fly.”

  Hoon stared down at the page. It was a printout from the BBC News website with a photo of some uniformed types all gathered around a couple of white sheets. He tried to read the article, but one word kept rearing up at him.

  “Egypt?”

  “And there's this one,” Alessi continued. She passed him another printout. He read it in silence.

  “I can't even pronounce that,” he said at last. “Where is it? Wales?”

  “Thailand, sir.”

  Hoon lowered himself onto his desk. The stack of paperwork slid off it and onto the floor.

  “Same as Lacey Crane, sir. Sliced top to toe, organs missing, the works,” Alessi said. She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, then changed her mind again all in the space of a second. “What do you think it is?”

  Hoon carefully folded the sheets and slipped them into his inside pocket. “Bad fucking news, constable,” he said. “Get on the phone, will you? Get Marshall in here.”

  “I'll try, sir. Phone's playing up,” Alessi said. She headed for the door.

  “And don't tell anyone about this.”

  Alessi paused in the doorway. “Apart from the readers of the BBC website, you mean, sir?”

  Hoon twitched. “Fuck. Aye. Apart from them.”

  The door closed. Hoon was halfway through gathering up the tower of paperwork when it opened again. He straightened up, knocking the back of his head on the underside of the desk.

  “Ow! Christ. What now?”

  “The super's on the phone, sir,” said another kid in uniform. A man this time, although his voice had barely broken and he still had a face full of plooks. “And the press really want to talk to you.”

  “Tell the press to get fucked. And tell the super…” Hoon thought for a moment. “Tell her to get fucked an' all.”

  The kid nodded. “Right, sir.” He moved to go.

  “Don't actually tell her that,” Hoon said. “Tell her I'll phone her back.”

  “Right,” said the kid. He looked agitated and unsure. No wonder with the world crumbling around them. “And the press?”

  “Actually tell them to get fucked,” Hoon said. “Literally say those words.”

  “Right, sir. Will do, sir.”

  The kid had barely shuffled off when another face appeared. This time it was one he knew.

  “Sergeant. Thank fuck. Someone out of nappies.”

  “We’ve got him, boss,” said the sergeant, cutting the DCI short.

  Hoon nudged the toppled tower of papers with his boot. “Which one?”

  “Lacey Crane. The bastard that did it. We've got him downstairs.”

  “You sure it's him?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Oh it's him. He's confessed. In writing.”

  “In writing?”

  “Aye, boss.” The sergeant shifted uncomfortably in his polished shoes. “More or less.”

  MARTIN MARSHALL'S FLAT, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

  25th MAY, 12:01 AM

  Marshall lay there. For a long time he just lay there on the carpet, the wind whistling through the broken window, his blood staining the neck of his pajamas.

  There was a numbness in his chest, like the aftermath of an electric shock. His heart was no longer in there, it was up around his ears, surging the blood through his veins with a whump-whump-whump.

  A breeze billowed the curtains towards him and he scrambled back, jolting from his daze. He leapt to his feet and frantically looked around. The phone. Where was the—

  Aha! He pounced on the handset like a tiger, snatching it up and stabbing three nines. He listened to the faint his
s of static as lines clicked together in an exchange somewhere.

  “Come on,” he muttered, his eyes fixed on the window frame. “Come on.”

  There was a click from down the line, followed by a series of short rising beeps.

  “Sorry,” chimed a polite female voice in his ear. “The number you have dialed has not been recognized. Please replace the handset and try again. You have not been charged for this call.”

  Marshall pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the display. Three LED number nines stood shoulder to shoulder on the screen.

  He hit the button to hang up and dialed again. This time there was no delay before the beeps.

  “Sorry. The number you have dialed has not been recognized…”

  “Fucking thing!” Marshall yelped. He hung up and dialed the station. He shifted anxiously from foot to foot while he waited for the ringing.

  It never came. There were no beeps or recorded messages this time, just a hiss and a click and a continuous flat tone.

  “Fuck!”

  Marshall tossed the phone onto the couch and glared at it with contempt. He hurried through to the bedroom where he'd abandoned his clothes in a pile and fumbled through his trouser pockets until he found his mobile.

  He pressed the top button and tapped his pin number on the screen. The phone unlocked and a message flashed up telling him he had missed calls.

  Twenty-seven of them.

  Marshall's stomach knotted as he swiped through the list. Hoon, Hoon, the station, Hoon. There were a few others, too. His mother (twice). His sister in Edinburgh (four times). Two random numbers he didn't recognize and a Caller Withheld. Mostly, though the screen was flooded with DCI Hoon.

  With a few taps he called the number back. He held his breath and waited. The cold breeze from the living room swirled into the bedroom and Marshall shivered in his thin pajamas.

  There was no sound from the phone. He checked the screen, which still claimed to be Dialing Number. It was taking it's time about it.

  Keeping the phone to his ear, Marshall slipped off his pajama bottoms and pulled on the discarded trousers. He'd tossed his boxers in the washing basket and the others were piled up with the other clothes on the couch. He'd have to go commando for now. It was, he reckoned, the least of his problems.