Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

He fumbled with something, grunted, swore, then tried again. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!’ More fumbling, then what sounded like a man’s belt being unfastened and removed. ‘Go on you bastard...’ Clicking noises, and then a rusty creak. ‘Come on, come on...’ Another creak. ‘Yes, yes, come on...’

CLANG. More swearing.

And then a loud metallic groan. ‘You fucking beauty!’

A thin shaft of light streaked into the darkness. Heather could just make out Mr New’s face — he was grinning.

Duncan placed a hand on Heather’s shoulder. ‘This isn’t a good idea. ’

She grabbed the bars. ‘Get me out! Don’t you dare leave me in here!’

Mr New looked back at her. ‘It’s padlocked, OK? The bars are padlocked. I’ll get help. I’ll bring them back.’

‘ Seriously: this is a really, really bad idea !’

‘Don’t leave me!’

‘I’ll be back...’ He put one hand against the door and pushed. Outside, there was nothing but a dirt-walled corridor lit by a flickering fluorescent tube. And for the first time, Heather got a look at her cellmate: he wasn’t a tall man, but he looked... friendly , with his bald head and little white beard. He stepped over the threshold. ‘I promise. I’ll be back.’

And Mr New was gone.

Duncan wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.

‘ Shhhh. It’s OK. He’ll be back soon. You’ll see. He’ll be back soon, then everything will be all night again. ’

The sunlight was already beginning to go as the search team worked its way across the large back garden. ‘You know what, Sherlock,’ said Steel, cigarette firmly clamped between her lips, smoke curling away into the pale blue sky, ‘this wasn’t one of your better ideas.’

Logan leant on the decking rail and watched one of the dog handlers trying to persuade his Alsatian not to crap in the flower beds. ‘There’s got to be something here.’

‘I’m giving this ten more minutes then we’re sodding off back to the station.’ Steel flicked her cigarette butt away to join the little pile she’d made in the last couple of hours. ‘But first — you can go put the kettle on.’

Logan opened the patio doors and they stepped back into the kitchen, just as one of the IB techs was shovelling a dessert spoon of ice-cream into his gob. He froze as he caught sight of them. ‘Whad?’ mouth full, ‘Id was onry goig to wasde...’

Steel snatched the spoon from his hands. ‘This is supposed to be a crime scene!’

The tech swallowed, blushed and stuck the carton back on the work surface. ‘I was only—’

‘Don’t give me that bollocks.’ She pointed back towards the rest of the house. ‘Now get out there and find me some forensics: you’re supposed to be a bloody professional, for God’s sake!’ She waited until the kitchen door closed behind the tech’s embarrassed backside before asking Logan, ‘Well — what is it?’

‘Mackie’s, vanilla.’

‘Ooh, cool. Get us a clean spoon, eh?’

Logan rummaged one out of the kitchen drawer and passed it over.

‘Ta... You heard from Insch?’

‘Wife gets out of hospital today. She wasn’t well enough for the memorial service.’

Steel was silent for a long time. ‘Poor sods.’ She dug her spoon into the tub and extracted a heap of vanilla. ‘We’re up to about two hundred pound in the kitty, going to get one of those benches in Duthie Park. Somewhere nice, you know: with a view of the ducks or something? In memory of Sophie Insch, 2003 to 2007. Sorely missed. That kind of thing.’

‘He’d like that.’

‘Aye, well...’ The ice-cream disappeared. ‘Best present we can give Insch is to put that cock-weasel Wiseman away for the rest of his sodding life.’ She stood there with a thoughtful look on her face, as if she was on the verge of some portentous announcement. ‘See if you can find some chocolate syrup.’

Duncan was right, Mr New did come back: unconscious and thrown over the Flesher’s shoulder like a side of meat. He was dumped on the metal floor in a puddle of his own vomit.

The Flesher stared down at Mr New for a minute, then turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him. Leaving Heather in darkness again.

She shuffled forwards. ‘Mr New?’

‘ See: told you it was a bad idea. ’

‘Mr New, are you dead?’

She strained her ears, just able to make out a wet breathing sound. But she couldn’t tell if it was Mr New, or the Dark. Heather waved Duncan over. ‘Is he dead?’

‘ Not yet. Soon. ’

She unfastened the top of her water bottle and reached through the bars, groping her way along the rusty floor with her fingers: metal, metal, cold sick — ‘Urgh’ — metal, hair. She dragged his face round, and poured water over it.

Coughing. Spluttering. Groaning. And then tears. ‘Oh Jesus...’

She heard him struggle to his knees, breathing in painful hisses. Then there was a clang as he fell back against the bars. He stank of puke and fear and blood.

‘He’s...’ Mr New spat. ‘Ow... It’s like a rabbit warren out there... underground... dirt... I found her. I found Hazel...’ He was sobbing now, the words getting harder and harder to make out. ‘He’s got a butchery with... with bits of... She was my wife...’

BANG — something thumped into the bars. ‘SHE WAS MY WIFE!’ Then Mr New’s sour breath washed across Heather’s face. ‘He’s going to kill us. I’ve seen it — bits of body hanging from hooks in the ceiling. I won’t be a victim. I won’t!’ He was whispering now, as if that would make any difference to the Dark. ‘When he comes back, I’ll pretend to be dead and... and then you start screaming, and he goes over to see what’s wrong and I... I’ll ram his head into the bars. Keep doing it till the bastard’s dead. You grab his hands! You grab his hands and pull, so he can’t get away!’

‘I don’t—’

‘You have to! You have to or we’ll both die in this shit-hole! Is that what you want?’

Duncan stood behind him, staring at the closed door. ‘ Maybe he’s got a point? If you don’t do it, you’ll end up dead like me. ’

‘But I can’t—’

‘Yes you can!’

Heather shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

‘We have to work together, Heather. We have to, or we’ll die in here.’ Mr New took a deep breath. ‘He comes in, you scream, I charge. It’ll all be over in a couple of minutes and we’ll be free. OK? We’ll be free...’

‘Well,’ said Steel, watching as the IB packed their kit back into the filthy Transit van, ‘that was a waste of time and money.’ It was cold and dark outside, just a sliver of moon poking out between the clouds as everyone locked up and got ready to go home.

The lead tech peeled off his SOC suit. ‘Nothing left to find — the whole place’s been bleached to buggery and back, half the carpet’s missing, any evidence is so compromised it’s not funny.’

Steel turned and poked Logan in the shoulder. ‘Well, Poirot, you figured out how you’re going to explain this one to the ACC?’

‘But it’s a copycat, it has to be.’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’

A loud bleeping noise came from inside the house, closely followed by the wailing alarm and a uniformed Pc’s head. ‘It’s not working properly!’

Logan rolled his eyes. ‘Did you enter the alarm code?’

‘Course I entered the alarm code:1993.’

‘Five. One, nine, nine, five .’

The PC disappeared back into the house muttering, ‘Bloody handwriting’s appalling...’

Logan turned back to the IB team-leader. ‘Is there anything we didn’t search?’

‘House, garden, garage, cars — we did the lot.’