Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

‘What, you’ll punch me in the face? Again?’ Logan looked down at the cast-iron digit, then up at the inspector. ‘Sir, I know he was your friend. And I know you want to catch whoever did it. But do you think you could try fucking trusting me for five minutes and let me do my job?’

Insch actually backed off a step.

‘Look, we’ll be finished here soon. An hour tops. We’ll have to leave someone outside till we can get the back door boarded up. But if you’re a friend of the family you’ll have a key. You can let yourself in.’

The inspector turned away, watching as his decrepit spaniel embarked on a vigorous ear-scratching campaign. There was a pause, then, ‘I don’t have a key.’

‘Wait here.’ Logan ducked back into the hall and picked a likely candidate from the pegboard above the telephone, then tried it in the Yale lock. Perfect fit. He held it out to Insch. ‘Brooks must have given it to you a while ago, just in case he had to go away. So you could water the plants.’

The inspector stuck out a vast paw, and Logan dropped the key in it. Insch turned without a word and marched away down the garden path, taking his stinky, soggy old dog with him.

It was half past four before the joiner turned up to board up Brooks’ back door. Logan watched him nailing the huge sheet of plywood into place, doing his best to ignore the man’s rambling moan about all these Eastern Europeans coming over here and undercutting honest tradesmen like him. Then asked if Logan needed any jobs doing on the QT for cash...?

Logan did one last circuit of the house, making sure the IB hadn’t left anything behind, then stepped out into the rainy night and locked the front door.

A lone rocket screeched into the dark orange sky, exploding in a tiny puff of golden sparks. Not exactly spectacular.

He climbed behind the wheel of his pool car and sat there, listening to the rain tapping on the roof, looking out at Brooks’ house. Maybe he should go round and tell Insch the place was all his? Not that it’d do the inspector any good — there was nothing there to link Wiseman with Brooks’ death. The Butcher was too clever for that.

Logan turned the key in the ignition and set the windscreen wipers going. They’d emptied Brooks’ freezer, just in case it contained any human remains, but he doubted they’d find any. The man who’d led the Flesher investigation back in 1987 hadn’t been turned into meat, he’d been turned into pavement pate.

Logan took the scenic route to Insch’s house, driving through the old town centre. A clot of schoolchildren lurked in the bus shelter: some smoking cigarettes, some ‘Oh-myGod’ing into mobile phones, one or two making abstract patterns in the air with hot white sparklers.

A scream.

Logan snapped upright in his seat — a young girl, no more than six years old, was being chased by a little boy in a Margaret Thatcher fright mask.

‘Jesus...’ In his day they’d played cowboys and Indians, not serial killer and victims. He pulled out into the town square, past the weird sandstone statue of a sailor, and onto South Road.

Insch’s home, ‘DUNPROMPTIN’, was a large granite box set back off the road, shielded by a high wall and mature trees, the leaves amber and russet, like frozen fireworks. Logan creaked the gate open and headed up the path. Another rocket exploded in the distance, this one slightly more impressive than the last anaemic attempt.

He leaned on the bell, watching the green sparkles fade away.

He counted to sixty, then tried again. A deep ding-donggggggg sounded somewhere inside the house. Still no answer.

Maybe they’d gone out?

So much for Insch being desperate to see round his dead friend’s house. Bloody man was like mercury these days: I want this, I want that, I want something completely different. A vast, bad-tempered child.

Logan tried one last time, then headed back to the car.

‘Shhhhhh...’ Wiseman held a finger to his lips as the last peal of the doorbell faded into silence. Then waited five minutes, just to be sure whoever it was had fucked off. Then took his hand off the bitch’s mouth.

She was a good girl, didn’t scream this time. Learned her lesson. She wasn’t much to look at — let herself go a bit after the kids — but then, given the fat git she’d married... No accounting for taste.

He pulled out a couple of cableties and fastened the bitch’s wrists behind her back, then wrapped another set around her ankles. Just like her darling husband and the three little girls upstairs. One big happy family.

Wiseman smiled at her. ‘Now then, where were we?’

The fat bastard lay flat on his face in the middle of the carpet — spread out like a beached whale, bright red oozing from the back of his bald head.

‘He ever tell you about me?’

She whimpered and shook her head.

‘No? That’s not polite, is it, Insch?’ Wiseman heaved the fat man over onto his back and slapped a strip of duct-tape over his mouth. ‘How could you not tell your lovely wife that you fucked my life over?’ Wiseman sat on Insch’s barrel chest, spat in his face. Then slammed a fist into it. The whale’s blubber shuddered, and two dark, piggy eyes cracked open.

‘The kraken awakes! Hey, Fat Boy: miss me?’

Insch struggled, breath hissing through his nose as he tried to break his bonds.

‘No point, Lard Arse. Most people can’t snap one cable tie, never mind six. You’re going nowhere.’ He patted Insch’s chubby cheek. ‘I can’t believe you never told her how you beat a fucking confession out of me! Eh? How you told the court I fell...’ Wiseman slammed his fist into Insch’s face, ‘down...’ punch, ‘the...’ punch, ‘fucking...’ punch, ‘stairs!’

He sat back and flexed his hand. ‘See, your law-abiding, police officer husband liked beating up suspects, didn’t you, Fatty?’ He stood, took two steps back and slammed a foot into Insch’s ribs.

The bitch whimpered. ‘We... we’ve got money! You can have it! Just let us go!’

Wiseman pretended to think about it for a minute. ‘No.’

‘But... but they’ll come looking for us! You can’t—’

‘Oh, shut up.’ He tore off another strip of duct-tape and sealed her cakehole. ‘What’ve I got to lose, eh? These bastards catch me they’re going to screw me over. Just like last time. I’ve seen the papers: what is it, five, six murders? You think two more are going to make any difference?’

She mumbled something behind her gag, eyes wide, terrified.

‘Shhhh...’ He dropped down in front of her, stroked her hair, cupped her podgy face in his hand; smiling as Fatty thrashed about on the floor, making angry, impotent noises. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for ages. Believe me, there are worse things than dying. There’s being banged up with fucking sickos and kiddy-fiddlers for fifteen years. There’s getting raped in the showers. Now why don’t you settle back and enjoy the show? It’s going to be a lonnnnng night...’

Heather sat, knees drawn up to her chest, ears straining at the darkness.

‘I don’t understand, what—’

‘Shhh!’

Duncan pulled on his hard-done-by face. ‘I was only asking.’

‘Can you hear it? I can hear it...’

‘Maybe you should eat something?’

‘I can hear it breathing.’

‘Heather—’

‘Something’s out there.’ She pointed out into the darkness, where the bars were, and Duncan shuddered.

‘Don’t think about it.’

‘You know what it is, don’t you?’

‘There’s still plenty of pork left. Or is it veal? I can’t tell.’

‘Duncan — tell me!’

‘Where do you think he’s gone? I mean, he left enough food—’