Where the Bodies are Buried by Christopher Brookmyre, Brookmyre Read Free Book Online Page A

girlish keenness was at odds with her dress,
     too, which seemed sober to the point of austere. Catherine couldn’t decide whether she seemed like a young girl dressing primly
     to look older or some wild child trying too hard to rein in her natural instincts.
    ‘Heart-starter that call in the dark, eh?’ Laura stated. ‘You never get used to it.’
    ‘I was awake anyway. Fraser had a bad dream, and of course as soon as I appeared, Duncan woke up as well. They were giving
     me a grilling, so I was saved by the bell. I hate it when they ask me about my job. The other night Duncan wanted to know
     where gangland was. I think he’d seen it on a newsagent’s billboard. I had to stop myself telling him it was a theme park,
     just to see the look on his face. “Aye, they’ve got the nuttercoaster and the joyriding dodgems, but watch yourself on the
     shooting gallery, because they shoot back.”’
    ‘I always thought it sounded like a shop,’ said Laura, accelerating through a set of lights as they turned amber. ‘You know,
     Gangland: your one-stop for all your criminal needs. What did you tell him?’
    ‘I told him he couldn’t find it on a map.’
    ‘Can find it on my sat nav tonight, though. Capletburn Drive, Gallowhaugh. Think it’s a light industrial estate. Appropriate.
     Nobody lives in gangland: they just work there.’
    ‘No,’ Catherine disagreed. ‘Plenty of people have to live in gangland. Just none of the gangsters.’
    They drove along the dual carriageway, heading east through Shawburn, grim tenements and post-war mid-rises on either side.
     It all seemed so placid, so still, and at such times Catherine couldn’t help but wonder about the lives that were led behind
     all those closed curtains.
    Laura was glancing left and right with eager curiosity at what flanked her route. She had not long transferred from Lothian
     and Borders, her command of both the local geography and local colour still in its rudimentary stages.
    ‘You been to Gallowhaugh before?’ Catherine asked her.
    ‘No. What’s it like?’
    ‘You ever come across a place that looks really depressing and run down, then you hear people say it’s a real shame what’s
     happened to it, because it used to be so much better?’
    ‘Aye. I grew up in one.’
    ‘Well, nobody says that about Gallowhaugh. It was always rough as a crab’s arse. Apache territory for decades.’
    Laura had programmed the address into her sat nav, but there was no need for precision navigation to isolate the locus. Never
     mind GPS systems, there was so much illumination around the spot that it was probably visible to the naked eye from space.
     The place was lit up like Blackpool, the oscillations of blue lights on the tops of police cars sparkling amidst the white
     glow of portable floods. The crappy weesixties-built parade of shops must never have looked so interesting, especially from the rear, where the action appeared to
     be. The floodlights were set up in a lane running parallel to the parade, backing on to a quadrant of converted garages that
     constituted the light industrial estate Laura had referred to.
    The lane was wide enough for a single vehicle, even if, as was probable, that single vehicle happened to be a bin lorry. A
     brick wall separated it from the industrial units, while to the south, on the Shawburn Road side, the shops’ back doors opened
     directly on to the thoroughfare. It ran roughly east–west for a hundred and fifty yards, exits either end, no direct access
     to the converted garages unless you had a ladder.
    Laura parked across the road from the Capletburn Drive end of the lane, having carefully steered her vehicle around the two
     squad cars that were blocking access from the main road through Gallowhaugh. There were two uniformed officers further securing
     the entrance, albeit crowd control was not going to be a problem up a back alley in the early hours of the morning. There
     was one male and one female officer.