Free Dying Light by Stuart MacBride Page B

small room with only one exit and a bar full of people who’d love to see a policeman with his brains leaking out onto the dirty floor? Might as well smash himself in the face with a claw hammer, save everyone the bother. But no one said anything as he sat the young girl down in a booth and bought her a bottle of Bud. If she was oldenough to be selling her body on the streets, she was old enough for a beer.
    ‘So,’ he said, ‘who was your friend?’
    She scowled and hurled another barrage of incomprehensible abuse at her absent protector. When Logan asked what language she was swearing in she told him: ‘Lithuanian.’ Her name was Kylie Smith – likely bloody story thought Logan – and she’d been in Scotland for almost eight months now. First Edinburgh then Aberdeen. She preferred Edinburgh, but what could she do? She had to go where she was sent. And no she wasn’t sixteen, she was nineteen. Logan didn’t buy that one either. The pub’s lighting was murky, but it was still better than the flickering yellow streetlights in Shore Lane. She was fourteen if she was a day. Like it or not, she’d have to go to the station after this. There was no way he could turn a child that age back out onto the streets. She should still be in school!
    Her ‘friend’ had told her to call him Steve, but Logan wasn’t to cause trouble for him, because she had to stay with him, and he’d beat her. Logan just made noncommittal noises and asked Kylie where she’d been Monday night.
    ‘I go with man in suit, he want I do dirty thing, but he pay good. Then I go with other man, smell very bad of chips, skin is all grease. I go with—’
    ‘Sorry, that’s not what I meant.’ Logan tried not to think of oily fingers pawing away at the schoolgirl. ‘What I meant was: where were you getting picked up from?’
    ‘Oh, I understand. Same place today. All night. I make good money.’ She nodded. ‘Steve bring me breakfast, I do so good. Happy Meal.’
    Last of the big spenders. ‘Did you know a girl was attacked?’
    She nodded again. ‘I know.’
    ‘Did you see anything?’
    Kylie shook her head. ‘She stand there all night, only one man come make fuck with her.’
    ‘What did he look like?’
    ‘It very dark…’ A frown and then, ‘White hair all spike?’ She stuck her hands to the side of her head, fingers pointing upwards. ‘You know? And beard.’ More hand gestures: this time the left, fingers bunched, right on the point of her chin. ‘He smell of chips too.’
    Logan sat back and smiled. That would be Jamie McKinnon, no doubt fresh from robbing another late-night fast-food joint. Goodbye alibi.
    ‘Did you hear anything they said?’
    She shook her head and finished her bottle of beer. ‘I go with other man.’
    Logan sat back in his seat and looked at her. ‘You know someone killed her?’
    Kylie sighed, her face suddenly much older than its years. She knew. People got hurt all the time. People died. It was the way the world worked.
    ‘Would you come with me to the station? Lookat some photographs? Make a statement? Just what you’ve told me?’
    She shook her head. ‘Steve angry if I not making money.’ She rolled up the sleeve of her low-cut blouse, showing him the cluster of cigarette burns in the crook of her elbow. There were needle tracks in amongst the circular scars, just enough to get addiction underway. To make her dependent on ‘Steve’.
    ‘What if I told you I could make sure Steve never hurt you ever again?’
    Kylie just laughed. That was crazy talk. She wasn’t going to come with him, she wasn’t going to police station, she wasn’t going to cause no trouble for Steve. Thank you for beer and goodbye. Logan insisted, but Kylie was having none of it. She jumped to her feet and made a run for the door.
    Logan leapt up to follow, and that was when things started to go wrong. A large man with a tattoo the size of a Rottweiler blocked the exit, just after Kylie charged through the door. He was