Flesh House (5 page)

6

The major incident room was too noisy for a meeting, so Insch, Faulds, and the Procurator Fiscal commandeered a small office on the second floor of FHQ, then sent Logan off to get the coffees.

He was halfway up the stairs, making for the canteen, when the voice of doom sounded:'Where the hell have you been?'

Logan froze, swore quietly, then turned to see DI Steel standing behind him, hands on her hips, face pulled into a scowl. God knows what had happened to her hair, but it sat on top of her wrinkly head like an electrocuted badger. 'I,' said the inspector, shaking a nicotine-stained finger at him,'have been waiting for that bloody vandalism report for a week now.'

'Ah,' said Logan,'I've been seconded to this new Flesher investigation. Didn't Insch tell you?'

Steel's scowl got even worse. 'Well that's just sodding perfect. I mean, it's no' like
my
caseload's important is it? No' as long as Fat Boy Insch is happy.' She let loose a string of foul language, then stared at the ceiling for a moment. 'So when,
exactly
, am I going to see my report?'

'They've got me babysitting this Chief Constable from Birmingham, I--'

'I didn't ask for excuses, Sergeant, I asked when you'd have that bloody report finished.'

'This isn't my fault! I'm only--'

'You remembering you're supposed to be in court tomorrow?'

'Of course.' Which was a lie: he'd forgotten all about it. 'I'm probably not even going to get called, though, you know what these indecent exposure cases are--'

'Ten thirty on the dot, Sergeant.' Steel turned and marched off, calling back over her shoulder,'And don't forget that bloody report!'

Logan waited for her to disappear round the corner before sticking two fingers up in her direction.

Steel's voice echoed through the stairwell:'I saw that!' Then the doors to the corridor slammed shut and Logan was on his own again.

By the time he got back to the little office, Insch, Faulds and the PF were gathered round a desk, discussing Justin Inglis's statement - the inspector casually doodling glasses and blacking out teeth on his photo of Margaret Thatcher. 'Of course, it's not conclusive,' he said,'how could it be? The kid's only three, but I'm pretty sure he's telling the truth.' Insch helped himself to one of the mugs on Logan's tray, sniffed it, and wrinkled his nose. 'I asked for a double mochaccino with extra cinnamon and chocolate - what the hell is this?'

'Machine's broken, so everyone's got instant.

''Typical ...'

The PF reached for the vandalized ex-Prime Minister. 'This could still be a copycat.' She held up a hand before Insch could complain. 'Playing Devil's advocate: ever since that damn book came out everyone knows the Flesher wears a butcher's apron and a Margaret Thatcher Halloween mask. On its own it means nothing.'

'It means,' rumbled Insch,'that Wiseman is up to his old tricks again. We found a package of human meat in the Inglises' freezer for God's sake!'

'That's exactly the kind of thinking that scuppered the original investigation - people leapt to conclusions, didn't keep an open mind, didn't follow procedure. Wiseman would still be in jail if the case had been airtight. I agree that it's highly unlikely this is a copycat, but I want every possibility investigated.' She took one of Logan's coffees. 'What do we know about the Inglises?'

'Duncan Inglis works for the Council's Finance Department. He's twenty eight. Got admitted to hospital last year when his wife cracked the toaster off his head. She's twenty five; diagnosed with postnatal depression after the birth of their son, been on medication ever since.'

'Interesting.' The PF took a sip of coffee, shuddered, then put her mug back on the tray. 'So we have a history of violence.'

'We're looking into it.'

'And the butcher, McFarlane?'

'Went up before the Sheriff this morning: remanded in custody, no bail. He's sticking to his story: no idea how all those bits of dead body ended up in his shop, and we're all a bunch of bastards for picking on Wiseman again.'

'My heart bleeds. How many search teams?'

'Three, and roadblocks on all major routes out of Aberdeen. We've got posters up at the train station, harbour, airport, and nearly every bus stop in the city.'

Logan chimed in with a report on the Automatic Number Plate Recognition System:'No sign of any vehicle he's got access to leaving Aberdeen. And we've warned all the rental places.'

The PF nodded. 'CCTV?'

'Nothing. All the cameras down the beach were pointing the wrong way - big fight outside that new nightclub.'

'Right.' She stood, hoisted her handbag over her shoulder, and made for the door. 'Make sure you catch Wiseman, and soon. I don't want anyone else turning up in bite-size chunks.'

Half past eight and Logan was slumped at his desk in the pigsty masquerading as a CID office, trying to work up some enthusiasm for DI Steel's vandalism report. And failing. Somehow it was difficult to care about a bunch of keyed cars and some graffiti in Rosemount when Ken Wiseman was out there turning people into joints of meat.

Stifling a yawn, he printed out all the crime reports and started sticking figures into a spreadsheet. God knew when he'd actually get home tonight. Bloody DI Bloody Steel and her Bloody Report.

'All on your lonesome?'

Logan turned, and there was Doc Fraser looking more like someone's granddad than a pathologist - beige cardigan, glasses, bald head, and hairy ears.

'You want some coffee?'

The pathologist held up a manila folder. 'I won't come in, I've got shingles. Give this to Insch when he gets in tomorrow, will you?'

'Uh-huh.' Logan took the folder and flipped through the contents - sheet after sheet of forms and ID numbers.

'Tell him it's the preliminaries on all those chunks of meat you dug out of the butcher's, cash and carry, and that container.'

'Logan was impressed. 'Already? That's--'

'I wouldn't go getting your hopes up - this is just the indexing. It'll be weeks before we get the proper results in.' The pathologist sighed. 'And don't look at me like that, we've got five hundred and thirty-two individual lumps of meat and they all need to be DNA-tested. Like the bloody EU corpse mountain down there.'

The pathologist reached in under his cardigan and started scratching. 'We're farming out samples to Tayside, Strathclyde, Lothian and Borders, Highlands, you name it. If they've got DNA-testing facilities they're getting bits ...' He trailed off, looking out of the CID window at the bleak, spotlit square of car park. 'We never used to get stuff like this. Back in the good old days it was one or two murders a year, all nice and neat.' Another sigh. 'Anyway ... better get back to it. The Ice Queen may rule the day, but I command the children of the night!' He pulled up one corner of his cardigan, pretending it was a cape, then stalked from the room like a hunched, beige Dracula. Who'd really let himself go.

7

Hot white blobs of light picked their way through the trees in the background, then the camera panned round to an overweight reporter as he told the nation that this was the second night Ken Wiseman remained at large.' ...
increased manpower, combing through woods and industrial units all over Aberdeen. Halloween is traditionally a time for trick or treating
--'

'Guising!' Logan shouted at the television. 'In Scotland we go guising, not trick or treating!' He snatched his second tin of beer off the coffee table and drank deep.

'--
but this year the streets of the city are empty, left to the cold and the mist. Because this year, there really is a monster out there
--'

'Oh for God's sake!' Logan excavated the remote control from the sofa's cushions and stabbed the button, hunting through the channels for something decent to watch and coming up empty.

Nothing to help him ignore the little red light on the answering machine.

Another mouthful of beer and the tin was empty. Logan stifled a belch and got to his feet. Should probably get something to eat ... The little red light blinked at him.

He walked over, and pressed the button.

'M
ESSAGE ONE
:
Hi Logan, it's me
...' Jackie, the words alcohol-slurred and fuzzy.'
I miss you,
OK?
I do. I miss you
...' He could hear raised voices in the background, a jukebox, a bandit pinging and bleeping to itself. 'Just thought you should know.' Beeeeeeep. And the tape rewound itself.

He pressed the button again.

'M
ESSAGE ONE
:
Hi Logan, it's me ... I miss you,
OK? I do.
miss you
...' Pub noises.'
Just thought you should know
.' Beeeeeeep.

RRRRRRRRRRingggggggggggggg - the flat's doorbell.

'M
ESSAGE ONE
:
Hi Logan, it's me ... I miss you,
OK? I--'

RRRRRRRRRRingggggggggggggg.

'Oh ... bloody hell. OK, I'm coming.'

There was a short, stocky Glaswegian waiting outside, clutching a couple of plastic bags as a thin drizzle oozed down out of a dirty orange sky. 'Laz, my man! Trick or treat?'

Logan scowled at him. 'Don't you bloody start.'

'Aye, and a happy Christmas to you too. You look like shite, byraway. C'moan, shift over, curry's no' gettin' any warmer here.'

'Colin, I ...'

But the reporter had already shouldered his way past. Sighing, Logan closed the stairwell door and followed him up. Colin Miller: even dressed casually, the wee man looked like a deranged, muscle-bound clothes model. God alone knew what Isobel saw in him.

'You seen those arseholes on the news, but?' Miller stuck his plastic bags on the kitchen table, then dug into one and tossed a cold bottle of Kingfisher beer in Logan's direction.

Logan caught it just before it hit the kitchen floor. 'Don't you ever ring first?'

'Aye, you're right,' said the wee man, pulling a plastic takeaway container out of the second bag, then stacking another five beside it, topping them off with a bag of poppadoms,'what was I thinkin'? You could'a had a hot date!'

'Very funny.'

'Ah come on, Laz, lighten up. I've got the evenin' off, She Who Must's catching up on her beauty sleep, her mum's got the wain till tomorrow, an' you're all on yer tod. So: boys' night in!' He rummaged in Logan's cutlery drawer and produced the bottle opener, fumbling the top off his beer with stiff, gloved fingers. 'Get blootered, curry-out from the Nazma, watch some footie on the telly, and break wind to our hearts' content.'

Logan popped the top off his Kingfisher, then helped himself to a poppadom. 'You do know I can't talk about the Wiseman case, don't you?'

The reporter froze. 'Wiseman case? Never crossed my mind! I'm no--'

'Oh come off it Colin, you're trying to bribe me into talking about an ongoing investigation with Indian beer from ...' Logan checked the label. 'Kent?'

Miller grinned. 'And curry. Don't forget the curry.'

'Fat chance.'

'Oh come on, man! Throw a freelancer a bone, eh? Those BBC bastards've got exclusive access to everythin'.'

'Thought you were going back on staff.'

The reporter shrugged. 'Nah, freelance pays better. Doing a fair chunk for the
Examiner
though.'

'Bet the
Journals
like that.'

'All's fair in love and journalism. Lime pickle?'

'Cupboard above the kettle. Anyway, it's an observational documentary, not a news programme. Not even going to be out till next year.'

'But--'

'
And
it's a pain in the backside. Everywhere you turn someone's sticking a camera up your nose. You try it for a week, see how you like it.'

'Chicken Jalfrezi, Lamb Biryani, Prawn Rogan Josh, or a bit of everything?'

'Everything.' He watched Miller serving up, the reporter's leather gloves struggling with the clear plastic containers. It would have been much easier to just take the gloves off, but Miller was too vain for that.

Logan scowled into his beer. 'I mean they didn't even ask if I wanted to be in it--'

'I get it. Fuck's sake: enough!' He licked a dob of bright red sauce from his leathered thumb. 'Every time I come over here ...'

'I was only saying--'

'And would it kill you to get some decent cutlery? Izzy carves up deid people with better silverware than this.'

There was a noise in the darkness, like metal scraping on metal. Heather froze, lying on her side on the cold floor.

Count to a hundred.

Silence.

She went back to wriggling along the invisible line of steel bars. It wasn't easy with her hands tied behind her back; the cable-ties round her wrists and ankles dug into the skin as she felt her way to the end wall. There was something square here, a plastic box with a lid ... Heather retreated when she realised what it was: a chemical toilet - its harsh disinfectant reek overlaid with something altogether less pleasant. The bars stretched all the way across the little metal room, dividing the pitch-black prison in two. Her on one side, Duncan on the other.

'Duncan?' She sounded like a frog, her throat dry and sore. 'Duncan, can you hear me?'

There was some shuffling, then Duncan moaned. Coughed. Hissed in pain.

'Duncan, we need to get out of here!'

A grunt, then his voice, sounding thin and weak. 'I ... I'm not ...' Another cough: wet and rattling. 'Ahhh ... Jesus ...' He was moving: she could hear him struggling along the floor on his side, like a dying caterpillar. Making sounds of pain all the way.

'Duncan, are you OK?'

'I'm so tired ...' He coughed again in the darkness, and she heard him spit. Then gurgle. Then swear. And then he was still. Panting in the darkness. Weeping quietly. 'I'm so tired, Heather. I ... I'm ...'

'You're going to be fine! You hear me?' She was sobbing now, the words burning out of her. 'You hear me Duncan Inglis? You're going to be fine. Stay awake!'

'I love you. I just wanted you to know before ...

' More ragged breathing.

'Duncan! DUNCAN, WAKE UP!'

Something brushed her hands. 'Duncan?' It was his hair, matted and sticky. 'Duncan you can't leave me. Please don't leave me!'

'I'm so sorry ...' Sounding far away, even though he was just on the other side of the bars.

'Don't leave me.'

When Miller was gone, and there was nothing left but the smell of old curry and stale beer, Logan stood in the lounge, in the dark.

'M
ESSAGE ONE
:
Hi Logan, it's me ... I miss you, OK? I do. I miss you
...' The swell of background noise as she took another drink. 'Just thought you should know.' Beeeeeeep.

He hit delete and went to bed.