The Drowning Tide (Blair Dubh Trilogy #2) by Heather Atkinson

sliding glass door to reveal a set of steps at the bottom of which was a living area complete with bench seats, a table and a small kitchenette. Leading off this room were two more doors, one into a bedroom with two single beds and a bathroom complete with shower.
    “It’s bigger than I thought,” she said approvingly. It was immaculate, everything shiny and new. “But we’ll never conceive if we’re in single beds.”
    “That’s just the spare room. This will be our room,” he said, taking her hand and leading her back through the living area to another door. He pushed it open to reveal a second bedroom in the nose of the boat. The room was a semicircle, the mattress fitted to contour to the shape of the room. It was so big it took up all the floor space, except for a tiny wardrobe just behind the door. The ceiling was low but not as low as she’d expected.
    “Now that’s more like it,” she said.
    “You like it?”
    “I do and I can’t feel the rocking as much down here.”
    “That’s odd, it’s normally better when you’re on deck and you can see around you.”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, that’s how it is. We’ll be really cosy down here.”
    “Yes we will,” he said, pulling her against him. “So, do you fancy going for that cruise?”
    Freya knew they both needed to relax and have some fun after how fraught everything had been lately. “Let’s do it.”
    “Great,” he grinned. “We leave tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 6
     
    Docherty jumped awake, dazed and confused, wondering why he was staring at the clear blue sky. Then it came back to him. He was out of prison and, overcome with fatigue, he’d laid down for a nap behind some foliage in a park.
    He pushed himself upright, running a shaky hand down his face. He hadn’t had a dream like that for a long time, they’d stopped after he’d been put away. Sally’s murder must have brought them back. The screams still echoed in his head, only this time they were his own.
    His ribs ached from lying on the hard dry ground, just as they had regularly when he was a teenager. PC Murphy had been the local bobby in the Glasgow suburb he’d grown up in, patrolling the streets when he was a kid. Docherty had come to his attention because he fell in with a gang that enjoyed hanging around the streets vandalising things, nicking cars, shoplifting and being a general pain in the arse of the local community. They’d even named themselves The Skull Gang because they’d thought it sounded cool and had skulls inked on their backsides - where their parents wouldn’t see them - as part of the initiation ceremony.
    Rather than go to the trouble of arresting them Murphy had just beat the crap out of them instead. It worked too. They became so scared of him that they toned down their behaviour until all they did was hang about on park benches chatting, whistling at the girls and enjoying the occasional game of football.
    Murphy hadn’t been a big man, he was quite tall but slender with it. Upright, military bearing, small blue eyes, stern almost expressionless face that would only show emotion when he was kicking the shit out of him or his friends. That look had never left Docherty. Those small eyes would be wide and bright with pleasure. His mouth would hang open, often a string of drool hanging from his lower lip, a feral grunt sounding in the back of his throat with each punch or kick. He’d been a wiry man but his strength was phenomenal, one hit enough to put the strongest of lads on their back. Once he’d set about a friend of Docherty’s for vandalising a bus shelter. Docherty and another of their little gang attempted to intervene when it seemed this time the beating wasn’t going to stop. Murphy had taken all of them down, three strong lads who were no strangers to street fights.
    Murphy had been a hero to the local community, putting the out-of-control youths in their place, but it had been a different time back then, before