Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

Insch didn’t open his eyes, didn’t stop his slow, shuddering breaths.

The office door slammed open. ‘How dare you!’ Isobel stormed into the room, still dressed in her white paper SOC suit, green plastic apron, hairnet, and white morgue clogs. She snapped off her surgical gloves and hurled them onto the inspector’s desk. ‘If you ever speak to me like that again—’

Insch slammed a fat fist down on the newspaper. ‘How did he know? Your “boyfriend”? How did he get sensitive information about an ongoing investigation? One you’r e involved in? One—’

Isobel slapped him, hard, leaving a perfect white handprint on his florid face. She snatched the phone off the desk and dialled. Probably making a complaint to Professional Standards. ‘Hello?... Yes.’ She pressed the button and asked, ‘Can you hear me?’

Colin Miller’s broad Glaswegian accent blared out into the room, ‘ Aye, is this goin’... Am I on a speakerphone? Izzy, you know I’m no’ —’

‘Colin, did I tell you anything about the Wiseman case?’

‘Eh? What’s going—’

‘Did I tell you?’

A small pause, then. ‘What? No, you know you didn’t.’

Isobel stared at Insch, triumph written all over her face, but the inspector wasn’t finished yet: ‘Do you really expect me to believe he just happened to come up with this all by himself?’

‘Who’s that? Is that DI Fatbastard?’

Insch looked as if he was about to burst. ‘Just answer the bloody question: who told you?’

‘I don’t believe this... You lot are down the docks crawlin’ all over a container that’s meant to be goin’ offshore; next thing you’re screamin’ off tae a cash and carry; couple hours later you raid a butcher’s shop. It’s a fuckin’ supply chain isn’t it? What you think people were doin’ with all that meat they bought? Givin’ it a decent burial? Course they’ve been eatin’ the fuckin’ stuff!’

‘Are you—’

‘It’s no’ exactly rocket science, is it?’

Isobel folded her arms. ‘Well, inspector? I think you’ve got something to say, don’t you?’

Insch did, but not to her: ‘Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused? Printing that? The bloody switchboard’s jammed with people complaining their sausages taste funny! How are we supposed to conduct a murder enquiry when—’

‘Aye, right. It’s my fault you can’t catch Wiseman. I told people they were eatin’ deid bodies, because — it’s — the — truth.’ Stead of blamin’ me, you should be out there doin’ somethin’ about it. And if you ever talk to Izzy like that again, I’m gonnae come down there and punch your fat fuckin’ lights out!’ And he was gone.

Richard Davidson wasn’t the sort of person you’d leave your children with. Not unless you really, really didn’t like them. Five foot eleven of tattooed resentment, he wore the standard institution-grey ‘HMP ABERDEEN’ T-shirt, stripy shirt and blue jeans with all the panache of a grumpy rottweiler. He scowled at Logan and Faulds from the other side of the tiny table in the prison interview room.

The Chief Constable tried his disarming smile. ‘Do you remember me, Richard? I was—’

‘I know who you was. OK? Answer’s still fuck off.’

‘Richard, I’m sorry it’s all worked out like this for you, but—’

‘Aye, well that’s just great. Makes everythin’ all better that does. You’re sorry. Jamie’s mum and dad get kilt and he goes to live with his Nan. Goes to university. Writes a fuckin’ book. What do I get? A father who drinks himself to death; foster parents who’re bastards; and a criminal record.’ He stabbed himself in the chest with a thumb. ‘Where’s my fuckin’ publishin’ deal?’

‘Richard, I—’

‘And his books are shite.’

Logan watched the pair of them staring at each other. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘we just want to ask you a couple of questions about what happened twenty years ago. OK? Nothing else.’

Richard Davidson scowled. ‘I didn’t do nothin’ else. Whatever they told you, it’s a fuckin’ lie.’

‘Fine. Don’t care. We just want to know what happened in 1987.’

‘Nothin’ else?’

‘Nothing else.’

Davidson shifted in his seat, then stared at the camera bolted high in the corner of the room. ‘We’re walkin’ Jamie home, in the dark, me and Mum. And we get to the jungle — just this wee bit of park, couple of trees and some shitey bushes, but Jamie and me played Japs and British there the whole time.’ He looked down at his hands, flexing them open and closed, open and closed, like a heartbeat, the knuckles bruised between the DIY prison tattoos. ‘Jamie and me run off into the jungle... Mum tries to call us back, only we don’t listen. Jamie’s got some crappy fancy-dress party to go to for his dad’s work and Jamie don’t want to go,’ cos his dad’s a dick.’

He sighed. ‘After a while we get bored bein’ soldiers, but we can’t find Mum anywhere. We shout, look all over the place...’ Davidson bit his bottom lip. ‘Can’t find her. Nowhere... She’s gone.’ He rubbed a hand across his eyes. Deep breath. ‘And then he turns up: Wiseman, in his fuckin’ butcher’s costume. And he takes our hands and... and we walk back to Jamie’s house... Never saw my mum again.’

Logan let the silence go on for nearly a minute. ‘What happened at the house?’

‘Stupid, isn’t it? All this time and I still miss her...’ Davidson shook his head and wiped his eyes again. ‘Jamie’s dickhead father was on the phone, shouting at my dad, then he shouted at us and we ran upstairs and... and Jamie put on this stupid Viking costume and we sat there. We could hear more shouting and we didn’t want to go downstairs in case we got into even more trouble — Jamie’s dad was one of those wankers didn’t worry about clobbering other people’s kids. So we just sit there for ages, waiting for him to come get us. Only he doesn’t...’

Davidson shuddered. ‘Eventually we give in and go downstairs. The kitchen was clarted in blood... and Wiseman... Wiseman made us sit in the lounge while he cooked tea...’ He looked up at them, his eyes rimmed with red. ‘Jamie’s book says Crispy Pancakes, but it was liver. His dad couldn’t stand the stuff, wouldn’t have liver in the house. So where do you think Wiseman got it from?’ There was another long pause. Then Richard Davidson stood and wrapped his arms around himself. ‘I’d like to go back to my cell now.’

‘So,’ said Logan, when a prison officer had taken Davidson away, ‘what do you want to do now?’

Faulds checked his watch. ‘Nearly ten. While we’re here, how about we take a crack at the butcher — McFarlane?’

‘Ah...’

‘What?’

‘Maybe not the best of ideas, sir. DI Insch can be a bit—’

The Chief Constable waved him down. ‘Nonsense. We’re just going to have a little chat with the man, where’s the harm in that?’

‘But—’

‘Good, then it’s settled. You get someone to bring him up from the cells and I’ll sort us out a nice cup of tea.’

Five minutes later Logan had held up his end of the bargain, which was more than Faulds had done. Whatever was in the three Styrofoam cups he’d turned up with could only be described as ‘nice’ if you were a lying bastard. It was barely tea — just a watery brown substance with suspicious-looking froth round the edges.

But it wasn’t the least attractive thing in the room: that honour went to Andrew McFarlane. The butcher was like one of the damned. Sweat beaded on his balding forehead, his baggy face swollen in places, bruises beginning to spread across his pale skin. His big, bloodshot nose had developed a list to the left, a sticking plaster crossing the bridge from one blackened eye to the other. And he stank. BO and desperation mingling with the sour tang of TCP.