The Blood Road

Welcome to our regular feature showcasing the talents of the nation’s best writers.

Duncan’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed the steering wheel, snatching the car away from the edge of the road. The headlights glittered back from the rain-slicked tarmac, sweeping past drystane dykes and hollow trees. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t pass out. LIVE!

Madre de Dios, it hurt… Fire and ice, spreading deep inside his stomach, burning and freezing its way through his spine, squeezing his chest, making every breath a searing rip of barbed wire on raw flesh.

The wipers screeched back and forth across the windscreen – marking time with the thumping blood in his ears – the blowers bellowing cold air into his face.

He switched on the radio, turning it up to drown them out.

A cheesy voice blared from the speakers: “…continues for missing three-year-old Ellie Morton. You’re listening to Late Night Smoothness on Radio Garioch, helping you through the wee small hours on a dreich Friday morning…”

Duncan blinked. Bared his teeth. Hissed out a breath as the car swerved again. Wrestled it back from the brink. Wiped a hand across his clammy forehead.

“We’ve got Sally’s O.M.G. it’s Early! show coming up at four, but first, let’s slow things down a bit with David Thaw and ‘Stones’.”

His left hand glistened – dark and sticky.

He clenched it over the burning ache in his side again. Pressing it into the damp fabric.

Blood dripping from his fingers as he blinked…

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About the author

Stuart Macbride was born in Dumbarton but grew up in Aberdeen. He is the bestelling author of several novels featuring DS Logan Mcrae. He has twice been shortlisted for the Theakstons’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and in 2007 he won the CWA Dagger in the Library, awarded for a body of work. The Blood Road is published by Harper Collins on 14 June, £16.99