Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

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Logan stuck the milk back in the fridge.

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He went through to the lounge and peered out of the window at the street below. There was a darkish Volvo estate illegally parked on the other side of the road, it’s hazard lights flashing orange in the rain, the BBC Scotland logo stencilled on the driver’s door.

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‘OK, OK, I’m coming.’ Logan hurried down the communal stairs and opened the building’s front door.

It was Alec, standing on the top step. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, sticking his hands in his pockets, ‘you ready to go?’

‘Where?’

Alec looked puzzled. ‘We’re going for a pint with ex-DSI Brooks, remember? You and me; Oldmeldrum? Meeting Insch and Brooks? Remember?’

‘Oh for God’s... You still want to go, after everything—’

‘I’m a professional: the Ob Doc comes first.’ He frowned at Logan. ‘Don’t tell me you’re bailing!’

‘Well—’

‘You can’t! You promised!’

‘No I didn’t. And in case you didn’t notice, I got clobbered in the face today.’

‘I got pushed in pish. Twice!’

‘That’s not my fault—’

‘You bloody did it the second time.’

‘Saving your arse.’

The cameraman frowned, obviously trying to think up his comeback. ‘Yeah? Well... I lied for you.’

‘No, you lied for Insch.’

‘Fuck...’ He tried on a winsome smile. ‘I promise I won’t let them make a tit out of you when we do the voiceover for the series.’

There was a stunned silence. ‘What?’

‘When they do the voiceover, they usually want someone to come across... well... you know what can happen when people start editing stuff. Amazing how you can make one thing look like another.’

‘This blackmail?’

Alec grinned. ‘Coercion. Maybe. At a push... please?’

Logan closed his eyes, swore, then went inside and fetched his coat.

Ken Wiseman was not a happy man. Hadn’t been for many, many years. It wasn’t his fault: life conspired to fuck him over at every available opportunity. Good things would happen to other people, but nothing good ever happened to him. Because life was a bastard and it hated him.

Some days it was all he could do to fuck it right back.

Everything had been OK for a while. Calm. Back to normal... and then it all started to unravel again. Just like it had last time. Taking a human being apart... the chunks of meat... the spiral into darkness.

He tightened his grip on the holdall. It was a lot heavier than it looked, knives and saws were funny like that. They looked so pretty, and sparkly, but the legacy of blood weighed them down. Made them deceptive. Made them lie...

Wiseman paused for a moment, looking up and down the quiet forecourt, making sure no one was watching, then opened the door and stepped inside.

It was time to fuck with life again.

The rain started to peter out somewhere after Newmacher, and by the time Alec was parking outside the Redgarth Inn it had stopped altogether. The view from the pub car park would have been perfect for Halloween: looking out across Oldmeldrum’s ever-expanding waistline, lights glittering yellow, orange and white; past fields as dark as coal; the faint glow of Inverurie eight miles away; and beyond that the asymmetric anvil of Bennachie reaching up into the night sky. There was even a gibbous moon, casting a waxy grey light that made greasy shadows between the muck-encrusted four-by-fours. Logan almost expected to see a witch on a broomstick, cackling her way across the moon’s pitted face. But his mother was probably miles away.

Inside it was fairly busy, the happy murmur of Saturdaynight conversation competing with vintage Rolling Stones on the stereo. Logan squeezed through to the bar and waved down a gangly man with white hair and a smile that made him look as if he was eating a coat hanger sideways. Logan smiled back. ‘You haven’t seen...’ it felt weird using the inspector’s first name: ‘David Insch around, have you? About six-three, this wide, bald—’

The man pointed at an empty barstool and an unattended pint of Guinness. ‘Aye, he’s sitting there. You gentlemen wanting something to eat? Or is it just a drink this evening?’

Logan thought about the Marks and Spencer ready meal sitting at home in the fridge, and asked to see the menu. They’d ordered by the time Insch appeared, stomping in from the cold night, wrapped up in a huge padded overcoat, muttering under his breath.

‘No luck?’ asked the barman.

Insch unbuttoned his coat. ‘No answer, no lights on, no car in the drive.’ He stopped when he saw Logan and Alec standing drinking at the bar. ‘You’re late.’

Logan was tempted to tell the grumpy fat sod he was lucky they were there at all. Punching someone in the face, or shoving them into a urinal, wasn’t exactly motivational.

Insch levered himself up on his stool, his massive buttocks enveloping the seat, and took a big bite out of his Guinness.

‘Well,’ the barman poured a couple of pints for a hovering waitress, ‘maybe he forgot. You know what he’s like these days. Grandson’s over from Canada, isn’t he?’

Insch grumbled and threw back the last of his stout. ‘That was last week.’ He held up the empty glass. ‘Same again, Stuart.’ Then he looked at Logan and Alec. ‘And whatever they’re having.’ Which was probably about as close as they were going to get to an apology.

They took a table in one of the large bay windows, overlooking the post-witching night. Alec collapsed into his seat. ‘I can’t believe he didn’t show! It was going to be a great piece too...’

The hovering waitress arrived with placemats and cutlery. Insch waited till she’d gone before asking, ‘Who’ve they put in charge of—’

‘DI Steel.’ Logan sipped at his pint. ‘Just till you’re back.’

‘Wonderful . So when Wiseman turns up she’ll take all the credit.’

‘Maybe Wiseman will lie low till you’re back on duty? It’s not as if he’s in any hurry, is it?’

‘Yes, and maybe he’ll kill a couple more people while he waits. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

Logan blushed. ‘I was only saying.’

Alec pulled a brand-new HDV camera from its carry case and set it on the table so he could hook up the receivers for a pair of radio mikes. ‘Just because Brooks hasn’t turned up, doesn’t mean the night’s a washout.’ He unpacked two small clip-on microphones and handed one each to Logan and Insch. ‘Noise levels aren’t bad in here: the pair of you can go over developments in the case.’ He switched the camera on, fiddled with the settings, then pointed it at them. ‘And, action!’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘That means you have to start doing something.’

Logan groaned. ‘Bugger off, Alec, eh?’

The cameraman stared at them. ‘After all that shite this afternoon, you two owe me.’

‘It wasn’t shite,’ said Insch with the faintest trace of a smile, ‘it was pish.’ Then he cleared his throat and asked Logan what was happening at the address they’d got from Angus Robertson.

‘Nothing.’

Alec made ‘more detail’ hand gestures until Logan, reluctantly, started talking again. ‘The building’s pretty much derelict. Used to be a halfway house in the seventies, but there was a scandal... look we already know all this.’

‘Yes,’ said Alec, never taking the camera off them, ‘but the viewers don’t.’

Sigh. ‘There was a scandal: two of the “guests” took turns raping their social worker. The investigation turned up some questionable practices, financial irregularities, unsanitary conditions and dodgy wiring. So they shut it down... Aren’t people going to notice I’ve been bashed in the face?’