Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

‘She was four years old!’

‘Hurts, does it?’ Wiseman struggled to his feet. ‘Come on then, Fatty. You show me how much it fucking hurts.’

‘Sir, you have to leave. If you lay one finger on him in custody—’

The butcher took a deep sniff, howched, then spat. A yellowgreen glob spattered across Insch’s cheek. And the inspector lunged.

Rennie squealed, but Logan was already moving, dropping his shoulder into the fat man’s side and heaving — sending them both crashing into the side wall. They landed in a tangle of limbs, pain flaring across Logan’s stomach as the inspector’s elbow landed right in the middle of the scar tissue.

Then Rennie piled in, dragging the inspector up and off while Wiseman laughed and laughed and laughed.

Luck was on Logan’s side for once: he actually managed to find a parking space within walking distance of the hospital entrance. He manoeuvred the pool car into it and switched off the engine. They sat there in silence.

He snuck a glance at his passenger. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

Insch didn’t look up, just sat there in the passenger seat, staring at his hands. At least he’d stopped crying.

‘Sir?’

The fat man curled his fingers into fists the size of sledgehammers. But his voice was tiny: ‘It’s my fault.’

‘You shouldn’t—’

‘We were convinced he had her somewhere. Brooks... Brooks thought we could save her if we could get Wiseman to talk.’ He sniffed. ‘If we could make him tell us where Samantha Harper was. I’m not proud of what I did... Two broken fingers. Three teeth. Black eye. Bruised ribs. Dislocated shoulder. And Wiseman still wouldn’t tell us...’ A tear rolled down the inspector’s cheek. ‘Turned out she wasn’t missing after all. She’d run off with a carpet fitter from Lanarkshire. Her husband had made the whole Flesher thing up because he didn’t want anyone to know.’

Logan sat in uncomfortable silence, watching the seagulls wheeling above Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Not wanting to believe what he was hearing.

‘We were so sure it was Wiseman...’ Insch wiped the tear away, but another one welled up in its place. ‘And seventeen years later, he comes back and takes my daughter. All because I,’ the inspector raised a huge fist and bounced it off the dashboard, hitting it harder and harder with every word, making the plastic creak ‘did — what — Brooks — wanted!’ The whole car rocked as Insch hammered his massive fist down, cracking the dashboard, then dug his fingers into the hole and yanked back and forth, tearing the car apart.

‘Jesus, calm down!’ It was like being trapped in a wardrobe with an angry bear.

Outside, a nurse paused on her way past, then hurried off. Probably to call the police.

CRACK and a slab of black plastic came off in Insch’s bleeding hands.

‘CUT IT OUT!’ Logan slapped him. And instantly regretted it as the inspector turned his purple, furious face in Logan’s direction. He was actually foaming at the mouth, a thin trickle of blood running from one nostril.

Insch raised a massive, torn fist—

Logan closed his eyes and waited for everything to go painful...

But nothing happened.

Silence.

When Logan opened his eyes again, the inspector was slumped in the passenger seat, shuddering silently, tears running down his face.

Heather sat with her back to the metal wall, feeling its cold seeping deep into her shoulders as she started into the Dark. Duncan was right — the Dark was more than just an absence of light, it was a living, breathing thing.

When Duncan left her on her own it whispered to her. Whispered terrible, terrible things.

She pushed her hands over her ears and sang to drown it out, one of those stupid kids’ songs off the telly that Justin likes... liked ... so much.

Singing and crying and trying no to listen to the Dark.

Where the hell was Duncan? Abandoning her — he knew, he knew, he knew, he knew, he—

‘ Heather, come on, Honey, calm down .’

She looked up at him, standing there with his blood halo glowing red like a burning building. ‘You left me!’

‘ I was only away for a minute .’

‘You left me...’

He squatted down next to her. ‘ No I didn’t .’

‘You died.’

‘ But I’m here now .’

She squinted through the bars — just visible in the faint glow from Duncan’s head. The Dark was silent again. ‘It scares me...’

‘ Shhhh ...’ He kissed her forehead, then got up and walked over to the tinfoil parcel of sliced meat. ‘ You know, this is starting to smell a little funky .’

‘Don’t leave me alone in the dark.’

‘ Probably be OK for another couple of days though. Sell-by dates are just a load of old bollocks anyway .’

‘Duncan.’

‘ I promise, OK? I’ll never leave you again .’

On the other side of the bars the Dark was silent.

Biding its time.

Knowing that sooner or later Duncan would let her down.

And then Heather Inglis would belong to the Dark.

The Identification Bureau lab looked like a school science department on the caretaker’s day off. Every available surface was covered in plastic evidence bags and reports. There were more bags in the cardboard boxes stacked by the door, another mound of samples piled up by the freezer.

A little radio sat on top of the superglue cabinet, filling the air with dreadful syrupy music.

Four days since DI Insch had tried to rip Wiseman’s head off in Interview Room Number Two, and the investigation was going nowhere.

Logan picked a report from the top of the pile and flicked through the results. ‘Nothing at all?’

The lab technician peeled off her facemask and scowled at him — there was a perfect outline of clean skin where the mask had been, but the rest of her face was stained with a thin layer of black fingerprint powder. ‘You not think I would have said if there was? That I might actually be professional enough to recognize a bloody clue when I found one and tell someone?’

‘Who rattled your cage this morning?’

‘Don’t start.’ She pulled an empty whisky bottle from its evidence bag and slammed it down on the vacuum table. ‘There’s no one else in today: I’ve got a whole department’s work to do, hundreds of sodding samples, and now they want us to DNA-type everyone who’s been reported missing for the last four months! You have any idea how much paperwork that is?’ She stood and fumed silently for a moment. ‘And the bloody stereo’s stuck on Radio Two: I’ve spent the last hour and a half listening to show tunes! Sunday my arse.’

‘Feel better now?’

‘How come it’s never like this on CSI? Never see them drowning in paperwork, forced to listen to Elaine Paige.’ She clicked on the power and the vacuum table whined into life, sucking away the excess aluminium powder as she dusted the bottle.

Logan flipped to the last page of the report. ‘So... not even fingerprints?’

‘Which part of “nothing” are you having difficulty with? Believe it or not, some criminals actually wear gloves these days.’

Something from Kiss Me Kate warbled to a close and the news came on: ‘The headlines at four thirty: Oil-workers strike in cannibal-meat protests; Government minister apologizes for affair; Interest rates set to rise; and memorial service for Inspector’s daughter —’

‘We did get some fibres, but unless you get me something to match them to, they’re bugger all use.’

‘— four-year-old Sophie Insch was killed on Tuesday during a high-speed pursuit by Grampian Police to capture Kenneth Wiseman. Mourners gathered today at Oldmeldrum Episcopal Church to pay tribute —’