"Brookmyre, Christopher - Quite Ugly One Morning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brookmyre Christopher)

Christopher Brookmyre was born in Glasgow in 1968,
and has worked as a journalist in London, Los Angeles
and Edinburgh, contributing to Screen International, the
Scot~man, the Evening News and The Absolute Game. In 1976 he became a St Mirren supporter. He was at the Hammarby game. This may explain a great deal.
Quite Ugly One Morning (1996) was published to popular and critical acclaim, and won the inaugural First Blood Award for the best first crime novel of the year. This success was followed up with Country of the Blind (1997), and the author's latest novel, Not the End of the World (1998). Christopher Brookinyre is now working on his next book One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night which will be published by Abacus in 1999.
Praise for Country of the Blind
'The defining quality of Brookmyre's writing is that it is perpetually in-your-face: sassy, irreverent, stylish' - The Times
'Tartan noir' - The Independent
Praise for Not the End of the World .
'Black humour and snappy, streetwise style, worthy of Carl Hiassen or Elmore Leonard' - The Guardian
'Five star sense of humour and full tank of genuine talent' - The Times
'A hyperintelligent, hip and impassioned apocalyptic romp' - New Scientist Quite Ugly One
Morning
Christopher Brookmyre An Abacus Book
First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Little, Brown and Company
This edition published by Abacus in 1997 Reprinted 1997 (four times), 1998 (twice)
Copyright C Christopher Brookmyre 1996 The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 349 10885 4
Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Polmont, Stirlingshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
Abacus
A Division of
Little, Brown and Company (UK) Brettertham House Lancaster Place London WC~ ~N For M
THANK YOU: Angus Wolfe-Murray, Caroline Dawnay, Billy Franks, lain Ruxton, Piers Hawkins, Patricia Festorazzi, Andrew Torrance, Grant McLennan ('write somethin' funny'), assorted L,B sickos, and especially Mum & Dad, for instilling in me the reverence and gravity evident upon these pages.
G! I ~~Q)\.i\! ~
& ~ ~ (oo~i pgj~2 ~3
_______ 6 ggONE
'Jesus fuck.'
Inspector McGregor wished there was some kind of official crime scenario checklist, just so that he could have a quick glance and confirm that he had seen it all now. He hadn't sworn at a discovery for ages, perfecting instead a resigned, fatigued expression that said, 'Of course. How could I have possibly expected anything less?'
The kids had both moved out now. He was at college in Bristol and she was somewhere between Bombay and Bangkok, with a backpack, a dose of the runs and some nose-ringed English poof of a boyfriend. Amidst the unaccustomed calm and quiet, himself and the wife had remembered that they once actually used to like each other, and work had changed from being somewhere to escape to, to something he hurried home from.
He had done his bit for the force - worked hard, been dutiful, been honest, been dutifully dishonest when it was required of him; he was due his reward and very soon he would be getting it.
Islay. Quiet wee island, quiet wee polis station. No more of the junkie undead, no more teenage jellyhead stabbings, no more pissed-up rugby fans impaling themselves on the Scott Monument, no more tweed riots in Jenners, and, best of all, no more fucking Festival. Nothing more serious to contend with than illicit stills and the odd fight over cheating with someone else's sheep.
Bliss.
Christ. Who was he kidding? He just had~to look at what was before him to realise that the day after he arrived, Islay would declare itself the latest independent state in the new Europe and take over Ulster's mantle as the UK's number one terrorist blackspot.
The varied bouquet of smells was a delightful courtesy detall. From the overture of fresh vomit whiff that greeted you at the foot of the close stairs, through the mustique of barely cold urine on the landing, to the tear-gas, fist-in-face guard-dog of guff that savaged anyone entering the flat, it just told you how much fun this case would be.
McGregor looked grimly down at his shoes and the ends of his trousers. The postman's volurninous spew had covered the wooden floor of the doorway from wall to wail, and extended too far down the hall for him to clear it with a jump. His two-footed splash had streaked his Docs, his ankles and the yellowing skirting board. Another six inches and he'd have made it, but he hadn't been able to get a run at it because of the piss, which had flooded the floor on the close side of the doorway, diked off from the tide of gastric refugees by a draught exciuder.
The postman had noticed that the door was ajar and had knocked on it, then pushed it further open, leaning in to see whether the occupant was all right. Upon seeing what was within he had simultaneously thrown up and wet himself, the upper and lower halves of his body depositing their darnning comments on the situation either side of the aperture.
'Postman must be built like the fuckin' Tardis,' McGregor muttered to himself, leaving vornity footprints on the floor- boards as he trudged reluctantly down the hall. 'How could a skinny wee smout like that hold so much liquid?'
He had a quick look at the lumpy puddle behind him. Onion, rice, the odd cardamom pod. Curry, doubtless preceded by a rnir'imum six pints of heavy. Not quite so appetising second time around.
He turned again to face into the flat, took a couple of short paces, then heard a splash and felt something splat against his calves.
'Sorry, sir. Long jump never was my spedallty. Guess I'll be for the high jump now, eh? Ha ha ha.'
Ah yes, thought McGregor. Only now was it complete. Deep down he had suspected that it wasn't quite cataclysrnically hernsh enough yet, but now Skinner was here, and the final piece was in place. What this situation had needed, what it had been audibly crying out for, was a glaikit, baw-faced, irritating, clumsy, thick, ginger-heided bastard to turn up and start cracking duff jokes, and here was PC Gavin Skinner to answer the call.