Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

And just like that, Mr New was a carcass. Nothing more than meat. Just the hands and feet to show that this was once a human being. And his head, staring accusingly up from the floor.

‘Do we really have to do this?’ The IB technician held the crowbar tight against his chest, eying the septic tank’s lid as if it were the trapdoor to hell.

‘Aye, DS McRae’s got a thing for other people’s jobbies, don’t you Laz?’ Steel took a deep draw on her cigarette and pointed at the concrete slab. ‘Just make sure you don’t sod up them scrape marks.’

They’d reversed the IB’s van down the lane, the little diesel generator in the back chugging away, powering a pair of halogen spotlights. The technician adjusted his breathing mask and tightened his grip on the crowbar.

Steel pointed at the septic tank cover. ‘Some time today would be nice.’

‘OK, OK, Jesus...’ He slid the end of the crowbar between the lid and the base — his SOC suit glaring in the harsh lights — and heaved. There was a grinding noise as the concrete slab shifted— ‘Ah, Jesus !’ He dropped the crowbar and backed off, waving a hand in front of his face.

‘Oh for God’s sake, Frank.’ Steel took the fag out of her mouth, ‘don’t be such a... fucking hell!’ She stuck the cigarette back, puffing, surrounding herself in a little protective cloud of smoke.

A rancid, cloying reek filled the small lane: raw sewage, like a hundred dirty pub toilets all at once. Logan clamped a hand over his mouth and retreated upwind, to the other side of the road.

Frank edged forward, put one blue, plastic overbootie against the concrete slab and pushed till it was fully open.

Logan had expected the smell to drop off when the lid was removed — that the air would get in and disperse the worst of it — but it just got worse.

Frank peered into the foetid darkness. ‘I am not going down there.’

Steel inched forwards. ‘Well, at least poke about with a stick, or something.’

‘Might not even be anything in there...’

‘We’re no’ going to find out, standing round like a bunch of idiots, are we?’

‘Don’t see you volunteering.’

‘Bloody right you don’t. No’ my job, Sunshine.’

He said something very rude under his breath, then grabbed a full-face splash guard and a pair of thick, black rubber gloves. Someone handed him a long pole with a hook on the end, and Frank went fishing in the Leith’s septic tank. The swearing was bad, but the smell was worse as he swirled his pole through the reeking muck.

And then he froze. ‘Found something...’

Steel didn’t look impressed as whatever it was rose slowly from the stinking depths. ‘Tenner says it’s another mouldy sheep. They chuck them in to get the bacteria going when... oh bollocks.’

It was a naked human forearm, complete with hand, covered in brown and grey sludge.

‘Deceased is female, mid thirties. Approximately fifteen stone.’ Dr Isobel McAllister picked her way around the post mortem table, voice raised over the howl of the extractor fan.

‘You know what,’ said DI Steel, tugging at the crotch of her white SOC coveralls, ‘I’m sick of wearing these bloody things. Who the hell were they designed to fit? Quasimodo? It’s bunching right up my—’

Isobel glared. ‘Can we please have quiet for once!’ Then went back to her external examination. Valerie Leith was laid out on the shiny cutting table like a broken Barbie doll: forearms, biceps, head, torso, thighs, legs, all separate. Still covered in a thin greybrown film of stinking gloop.

‘Can you no’ hurry up and wash the damn bits off?’

‘If you will insist on dragging me in here in the evening to perform a post mortem, the least you can do is not interrupt while I’m doing it.’

Steel puffed out her cheeks, readjusted the breathing mask over her face, and hauled at the crotch of her suit again. She lasted a whole two minutes before leaning over and whispering to Logan, ‘You’re a bloody jinx, do you know that? Anyone else finds a body it’s usually pretty fresh. You: it’s half rotten and marinated in shite.’

‘It’s not my fault — it was just a hunch, OK?’

‘Blind bloody luck, more like.’

‘A considerable portion of flesh has been excised from the left thigh. Edges of the wound are deteriorated after prolonged immersion in sewage—’

‘I said there was something funny about the Leith crime scene.’

Steel scowled at him. ‘What d’you want, a parade?’

‘—dismemberment was caused by a knife: single-sided blade, approximately eight inches long—’

‘I’m only saying.’

‘You have any idea how much trouble this is going to cause?’

‘—angle of incisions implies a right-handed suspect—’

‘What happened to “good job, Logan, you’re a credit to the force”?’

‘Oh don’t be such a drama queen, we —’

‘Inspector, I will not tell you again! This is a post mortem, not a playground.’

Steel actually blushed. ‘Sorry, Doc.’ And then, when no one was looking, she punched Logan in the arm. ‘That was your fault!’

The mortuary clock read eight fifteen before Isobel finally told her assistant to wash off the remains. Eight fifteen and Logan had been on duty since four in the morning. That was... he was too tired to work out how long.

Isobel’s assistant started with the head. Dirty water gurgled down the cutting table drain, and as Valerie Leith’s face slowly appeared from its coating of foulsmelling slime, Logan’s spirits sank. With the other victims it’d been easy to maintain a sense of detachment. They were just hunks of meat. But this was different, this finally looked like a human being. Valerie Leith: thirty-five, skin all puckered and discoloured, brown hair straggly round her face as Isobel’s assistant rinsed the sewage away.

And somehow Logan didn’t feel as pleased with himself as he had.

Aberdeen was a sparkling blanket — yellow and white streetlights shining in the deep blue November night outside DCS Bain’s office window. The head of CID stood with his back to the room, staring out at the view. Taxis drifted by on the streets below; drunken clots of Aberdonians lurched for the nearest club, chip shop or taxi rank; the sound of sirens in the distance. Nearly midnight.

‘Why the hell wasn’t that septic tank searched the first time round?’

‘Why would they?’ Steel didn’t bother covering her mouth, just let go a jaw-cracking yawn, followed by a little burp. ‘God... no reason to think this was anything other than what it looked like.’

‘Insch should have—’

‘Yeah, well, he didn’t. And if it was me, I wouldn’t have either. And neither would you, Bill.’

The DCS turned and stared at Logan. ‘But you did, Sergeant?’

‘It was just a hunch...’

Steel clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be so modest! Tell you, Bill, he—’

The DCS cut her off. ‘The question is: what are we going to tell the media? How’s it going to look when they find out her body lay undiscovered, less than thirty feet from her house for a fortnight? DI Insch—’

‘Don’t start, Bill, OK? Been a long day and I can’t be arsed fighting with you.’ Steel stretched out in her chair, making creaking noises. ‘Doesn’t matter what we tell the press: they’ll just make up their own shite anyway.’

‘You’re not seeing the big picture here, Inspector. We told the world and his bloody dog that Wiseman killed Valerie Leith, didn’t we? And if that’s not bad enough, it looks like the same person killed the Inglises and Tom and Hazel Stephen. Where was Wiseman at the time? Craiginches!’ The DCS sat back behind his desk. ‘So now we’ve got two psychopaths out there, butchering their way through the populace, and our only suspect is looking less and less guilty every day!’