Flesh House (21 page)

'It'd have to be downhill from the house, but close enough to the road so the tanker can get in and drain it.' He started walking round the garden, Steel hot on his heels.

'If you think I'm rummaging through someone else's jobbies in my good work suit, you've got another think coming!'

There was no sign of a septic tank cover anywhere in the front garden. 'OK, the road runs downhill to the right. We just have to see if we can find one there.'

'I'm warning you, Sergeant, if I get shite on my suit--'

But he was already out of the front gate, wandering down the road in the dark, probing the field next to the house with a torch. Mud, grass, mud, sheep ... He switched his attention to the grass verge: more mud, patch of dead nettles, brambles, a roadkill rabbit, yet more mud. A rectangular shape poked out between tufts of grass. Logan squatted down and rapped on it with his knuckles. Solid.

He ran the torch round the edges of the slab. It was overgrown with grass and weeds, bedded in with a thick layer of mud.

Steel stood beside him, staring down at the septic tank lid. 'There you go: no bugger's moved that for ages. No need to go guddling about in crap after all. Oh dear, what a shame.' She consoled herself with one last cigarette. 'Time to call this little disaster to a halt and bugger off to the pub.'

'Yeah, I suppose you're right.' He stood, torch grazing across the lid one last time. There was a faint glimmer of something white ... Logan bent down and peered at it - a scrape in the side of the concrete, pale cream in the torch's yellow glow. It was the only thing not clarted in mud.

'Come on then, I'm parched.'

He took a handful of grass and pulled - it came away from the lid in a slab of spiky green, like a punk toupee. 'It's been peeled off and slapped back on again, so no one would know. Look.'

Steel did. 'So, maybe they had it emptied recently, and ...' She stood there, smoking furiously. 'Ah bugger it, we're going to have to search the bloody thing, aren't we?'

'Yup.'

Mr New's voice was a painful whisper in the darkness:'That's him! Are you ready?'

Heather shrank back against the wall. 'I don't feel well ...'

A rattle and clunk from the door to the prison.

'It's our only chance!' And then Mr New was silent as a shaft of light rushed across the rusty floor. He was lying on his side, arms and legs arranged as if he were still unconscious. As if he weren't dangerous.

Enter the Flesher, carrying a bucket of soapy water; the smell of pine disinfectant cutting through the bitter reek of Mr New's vomit. One step, two steps, three steps ...

She glanced at Mr New who was mouthing,'Now. Scream now!' at her.

Heather moaned. Clutched her stomach.

Mr New glared at her, forming words without sound:'Please!'

She screamed.

The Flesher ran to her, water and foam slopping out of the bucket. Mr New lurched to his feet and charged, lips curled back in a snarl, exposing missing teeth and bloody gums, his face covered in bruises. He slammed into the Flesher's back and they both crashed into the bars. The metal room reverberated with the sound of flesh and bone against metal.

The bucket hit the rusty floor and bounced, end over end, the contents spraying out.

Mr New reeled backwards, and charged again. BOOOOM! The Flesher staggered. Mr New grabbed the back of the rubber Mrs Thatcher mask and rammed the Flesher's head into the bars.

'Grab his hands! Grab the fucker's hands!'

Duncan was right behind her.'
Don't do it, Heather.
'

'I ...'

'GRAB HIS HANDS!'

'
He can't beat him. No one can beat him.
'

Mr New smashed the Flesher's head off the bars again.

'GRAB HIS FUCKING HANDS!'

The Flesher looked up, hollow eyes latching onto Heather's.

He was the Dark and he knew. This was a test.

'No.'

'HEATHER: GRAB HIS FUCKING HANDS!'

'I can't ...'

'
Don't get involved
.'

The Flesher turned and grabbed a handful of Mr New's shirt. Then buried a fist in his face.

Mr New staggered, slipped in the puddle of vomit, and fell back against the wall. BOOOM ... He lay there, groaning, and the Flesher kicked him in the head. Mr New's skull clattered off the metal wall. A spray of blood burst from his lips, spattering down onto the rusty floor.

'
No one can beat Him. He's eternal
.'

The Flesher lurched back a couple of steps, and kicked Mr New again. Then grabbed him by the throat, dragged him upright, and slammed him against the bars. Mr New's arms hung lip at his sides, and then his knees gave way. He slid sideways down the bars, his head bouncing off the floor.

Two minutes later the Flesher was hauling the tin bath into the prison - Heather nearly wet herself. She scrambled back into the far corner, biting her lip, trying not to cry, trying not to draw attention to herself. She'd been good, she'd been good, she'd been good ...

Mr New groaned and tried to get up, arms and legs trembling with the effort. He didn't even make it to his knees: the Flesher reached into the tin bath and pulled out a small plastic rectangle - no bigger than a TV remote control - and clicked a switch. Lightning crackled between the two electrical contacts at the end.
Click-click-click-click-click
...

He rammed the tazer into the small of Mr New's back and the man convulsed - one leg sending the tin bath flying, spilling its contents all over the floor: chains, the wire rod, the lightsaber, knives ... one skittered up against the bars.

And then Mr New was still, lying on the floor groaning - all the fight electrocuted out of him - crying and twitching as the chains were fastened around his ankles.

The Flesher winched him up into the air, cut away his clothes, grabbed his face in one hand. And brought the lightsaber down on the crown of Mr New's shiny head.

CRACK.

Mr New didn't stop twitching until the bright blue rod was rammed into the hole in his skull.

Two quick cuts - clean and deep - and dark red flooded into the tin bath. Mr New's body hung still and silent and pale.

His head came off with a single pass of the blade, sliced from back to front, then tossed unceremoniously onto the floor. It lay on its side, staring open-mouthed at Heather as she cowered in the corner.

The skinning was horrific and fast. The Flesher peeled him with swift, economical movements, then opened him up from stem to stern. The bulging white sack of Mr New's innards came free in one slithery lump ... His body was a hollow shell in less than five minutes.

Then came the axe: hacking down along the spine, splitting the body in half lengthways. With nothing left to hold the two pieces together they swung outwards on the chains around each leg, clanging into the metal wall on one side and the bars on the other.

And just like that, Mr New was a carcass. Nothing more than meat. Just the hands and feet to show that this was once a human being. And his head, staring accusingly up from the floor.

'Do we really have to do this?' The IB technician held the crowbar tight against his chest, eying the septic tank's lid as if it were the trapdoor to hell.

'Aye, DS McRae's got a thing for other people's jobbies, don't you Laz?' Steel took a deep draw on her cigarette and pointed at the concrete slab. 'Just make sure you don't sod up them scrape marks.'

They'd reversed the IB's van down the lane, the little diesel generator in the back chugging away, powering a pair of halogen spotlights. The technician adjusted his breathing mask and tightened his grip on the crowbar.

Steel pointed at the septic tank cover. 'Some time today would be nice.'

'OK, OK, Jesus ...' He slid the end of the crowbar between the lid and the base - his SOC suit glaring in the harsh lights - and heaved. There was a grinding noise as the concrete slab shifted--'Ah,
Jesus
!' He dropped the crowbar and backed off, waving a hand in front of his face.

'Oh for God's sake, Frank.' Steel took the fag out of her mouth,'don't be such a ... fucking hell!' She stuck the cigarette back, puffing, surrounding herself in a little protective cloud of smoke.

A rancid, cloying reek filled the small lane: raw sewage, like a hundred dirty pub toilets all at once. Logan clamped a hand over his mouth and retreated upwind, to the other side of the road.

Frank edged forward, put one blue, plastic overbootie against the concrete slab and pushed till it was fully open.

Logan had expected the smell to drop off when the lid was removed - that the air would get in and disperse the worst of it - but it just got worse.

Frank peered into the foetid darkness. 'I am not going down there.'

Steel inched forwards. 'Well, at least poke about with a stick, or something.'

'Might not even be anything in there ...'

'We're no' going to find out, standing round like a bunch of idiots, are we?'

'Don't see you volunteering.'

'Bloody right you don't. No' my job, Sunshine.'

He said something very rude under his breath, then grabbed a full-face splash guard and a pair of thick, black rubber gloves. Someone handed him a long pole with a hook on the end, and Frank went fishing in the Leith's septic tank. The swearing was bad, but the smell was worse as he swirled his pole through the reeking muck.

And then he froze. 'Found something ...'

Steel didn't look impressed as whatever it was rose slowly from the stinking depths. 'Tenner says it's another mouldy sheep. They chuck them in to get the bacteria going when ... oh bollocks.'

It was a naked human forearm, complete with hand, covered in brown and grey sludge.

31

'Deceased is female, mid thirties. Approximately fifteen stone.' Dr Isobel McAllister picked her way around the post mortem table, voice raised over the howl of the extractor fan.

'You know what,' said DI Steel, tugging at the crotch of her white SOC coveralls,'I'm sick of wearing these bloody things. Who the hell were they designed to fit? Quasimodo? It's bunching right up my--'

Isobel glared. 'Can we
please
have quiet for once!' Then went back to her external examination. Valerie Leith was laid out on the shiny cutting table like a broken Barbie doll: forearms, biceps, head, torso, thighs, legs, all separate. Still covered in a thin grey-brown film of stinking gloop.

'Can you no' hurry up and wash the damn bits off?'

'If you
will
insist on dragging me in here in the evening to perform a post mortem, the least you can do is not interrupt while I'm doing it.'

Steel puffed out her cheeks, readjusted the breathing mask over her face, and hauled at the crotch of her suit again. She lasted a whole two minutes before leaning over and whispering to Logan,'You're a bloody jinx, do you know that? Anyone else finds a body it's usually pretty fresh. You: it's half rotten and marinated in shite.'

'It's not my fault - it was just a hunch, OK?'

'Blind bloody luck, more like.'

'A considerable portion of flesh has been excised from the left thigh. Edges of the wound are deteriorated after prolonged immersion in sewage--'

'I said there was something funny about the Leith crime scene.'

Steel scowled at him. 'What d'you want, a parade?'

'--dismemberment was caused by a knife: single-sided blade, approximately eight inches long--'

'I'm only saying.'

'You have any idea how much trouble this is going to cause?'

'--angle of incisions implies a right-handed suspect--'

'What happened to "good job, Logan, you're a credit to the force"?'

'Oh don't be such a drama queen, we --'

'Inspector, I will not tell you again! This is a post mortem, not a playground.'

Steel actually blushed. 'Sorry, Doc.' And then, when no one was looking, she punched Logan in the arm. 'That was your fault!'

The mortuary clock read eight fifteen before Isobel finally told her assistant to wash off the remains. Eight fifteen and Logan had been on duty since four in the morning. That was ... he was too tired to work out how long.

Isobel's assistant started with the head. Dirty water gurgled down the cutting table drain, and as Valerie Leith's face slowly appeared from its coating of foul-smelling slime, Logan's spirits sank. With the other victims it'd been easy to maintain a sense of detachment. They were just hunks of meat. But this was different, this finally looked like a human being. Valerie Leith: thirty-five, skin all puckered and discoloured, brown hair straggly round her face as Isobel's assistant rinsed the sewage away.

And somehow Logan didn't feel as pleased with himself as he had.

Aberdeen was a sparkling blanket - yellow and white streetlights shining in the deep blue November night outside DCS Bain's office window. The head of CID stood with his back to the room, staring out at the view. Taxis drifted by on the streets below; drunken clots of Aberdonians lurched for the nearest club, chip shop or taxi rank; the sound of sirens in the distance. Nearly midnight.

'Why the hell wasn't that septic tank searched the first time round?'

'Why would they?' Steel didn't bother covering her mouth, just let go a jaw-cracking yawn, followed by a little burp. 'God ... no reason to think this was anything other than what it looked like.'

'Insch should have--'

'Yeah, well, he didn't. And if it was me, I wouldn't have either. And neither would you, Bill.'

The DCS turned and stared at Logan. 'But you did, Sergeant?'

'It was just a hunch ...'

Steel clapped him on the shoulder. 'Don't be so modest! Tell you, Bill, he--'

The DCS cut her off. 'The question is: what are we going to tell the media? How's it going to look when they find out her body lay undiscovered, less than thirty feet from her house for a fortnight? DI Insch--'

'Don't start, Bill, OK? Been a long day and I can't be arsed fighting with you.' Steel stretched out in her chair, making creaking noises. 'Doesn't matter what we tell the press: they'll just make up their own shite anyway.'

'You're not seeing the big picture here, Inspector. We told the world and his bloody dog that Wiseman killed Valerie Leith, didn't we? And if that's not bad enough, it looks like the same person killed the Inglises and Tom and Hazel Stephen. Where was Wiseman at the time? Craiginches!' The DCS sat back behind his desk. 'So now we've got two psychopaths out there, butchering their way through the populace, and our only suspect is looking less and less guilty every day!'

'Actually,' Logan dug in his jacket pocket, pulled out the dog-eared copy of
Smoak With Blood
Steel had given him, and dumped it on the desk,'We do have another suspect.'

'What,' the DCS examined the cover,'Jamie McLaughlin?'

'No, William Leith. I found a copy of that in the master bedroom.'

Steel made a sound like a drowning elephant. 'You remembering he nearly got his head chopped off?'

'They have an alarm system at the croft, but somehow the killer managed to break in without setting it off. Then he dismembers Valerie Leith and dumps her in their septic tank. How did he know where it was? I'll bet if we search the garage again we'll find a crowbar or something that matches the grooves in that septic tank lid.'

'But Leith's head--'

'Wouldn't be the first time someone's injured themselves to shift the blame, would it?'

The DCS swore, grabbed his phone and started dialling. 'Yeah, Pete, it's me. I want William Leith brought in ... No, no I don't. I want him here
now
... Well, I don't care, do I? Just sort it!' He hung up, steepled his fingers, brooded for a minute, then asked Logan,'You still friends with that journalist scumbag?'