Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

Steel turned to look at him. ‘Pigs don’t lay eggs. Chickens do.’

Logan pointed off down the street at someone stomping their way home in the dark. ‘There! Is that him?’

The inspector dragged her binoculars out of the glove compartment... ‘No.’

‘Damn.’ Logan went back to his crossword.

Garioch View Guesthouse, Turriff — Sunday 21:04

‘So how come,’ said Logan keeping one eye on the deserted street, ‘in A Muppet Christmas Carol , Kermit and Miss Piggy—’

Steel: ‘You mean Mrs The Frog, they were married in that one.’

‘How come they had two piglet daughters and one little frog boy?’

Alec: ‘Maybe they adopted.’

Steel: ‘She was screwing around behind Kermit’s back. Can’t say I blame her: he’s no’ got a penis, remember?’

Alec: ‘Artificial insemination. My cousin Peter and his wife had that.’

‘Ah,’ Logan boinked a finger off the steering wheel, ‘then why didn’t they have some sort of freakish half-pig-half-frog hybrid child?’

There was a thoughtful pause. ‘Maybe that’s why Tiny Tim was dying: he wasn’t genetically viable.’

Garioch View Guesthouse, Turriff — Sunday 21:17

‘Christ I’m bored! ’ Steel slumped back in her seat and put her hands over her face, muffling a scream. ‘Aaaaaaaaaaargh!’

Logan checked the dashboard clock: they’d been here nearly three hours. ‘He’s got to come home some time — all his stuff’s still in his room.’

‘Aye, well I’ve had enough. I’m no’ spending all night with you and Captain Sniffles here, talking about the reproductive habits of fucking Muppets!’

Alec stuck his head between the two front seats. ‘But this is going to be the final showdown! Grampian Police catch the Flesher! You want to be here for that, don’t you?’

‘What I want is a huge glass of Chardonnay, a jar of marmalade, and Keira Knightley in a thong. How about you, Laz?’

‘Shhh!’ Logan dug about in his jacket pocket, looking for the photo they’d got from the abattoir’s personnel files.

‘Don’t you bloody shoosh me. I’m no’ the one banging on about Kermit the Frog’s sex life.’

‘I think it’s him!’

The figure weaving along the road towards them paused for a moment to swig from a litre bottle of supermarket vodka. Thick moustache, little round glasses, cleft chin. ‘It’s Kowalczyk.’

‘Right.’ Steel hauled her shoes back on. ‘Here’s what we do: when he gets level with the car, we jump him.’

‘We’re supposed to let him go into the B&B, and take him there, remember? Rennie and Bain—’

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ She smacked Logan on the shoulder. ‘Carpe fucking diem!’

‘What if he does a runner?’

Steel chewed on the inside of her cheek. Kowalczyk was getting closer. ‘If we lose him, we’re up shite creek without a snorkel...’ She scowled. ‘OK, OK, we’ll stick to the plan. You happy?’

Kowalczyk took one more swig, threw his arms wide, and started singing. ‘ Sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje, zyje nam! ’ He lurched into a little dance. ‘ Sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje, zyje nam! ’

Steel pulled out her mobile and started dialling. ‘Come on, come on... Yeah, Bill, it’s Koalasick— I don’t care if that’s not how you bloody pronounce it: he’s outside. Heading up the drive... now.’

He was really getting in to the swing of things, bellowing out, ‘ Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz, niech zyje, zyje nam! ’ He nearly collapsed into a knot of scabby rosebushes, then gave it laldy for the finale: ‘NIECH ZYJE NAM!’

Fumble for key... two... three... four... key in the lock. Stagger inside. Steel was back on the phone again, ‘He’s in. We’re on our way.’ She clambered out into the cold night and marched across the road, Alec trailing along behind her, filming everything.

Logan was just locking the car when a loud crash sounded inside the B&B... then a television smashed through the lounge window in a shower of glittering glass.

Someone shouted, ‘Come back here!’

‘ Odpierdol sie! ’ Marek Kowalczyk followed the television set, leaping out through the shattered window, landing in the rosebushes. ‘ Kurwa! ’ Then he was scrabbling out the other side and away, sprinting back down the street, arms and legs pumping like mad.

Logan leapt back in the car, cranked the key, and roared out onto the street. ‘Shit!’ He slammed on the brakes and the Vauxhall screeched to a halt again, two feet short of flattening DI Steel as she ran out into the middle of the road, waving her arms. She wrenched open the passenger door and threw herself inside.

‘Don’t just sit there! Get after the bastard!’

Logan put his foot down.

They were just in time to see Kowalczyk take a left onto Main Street. The pool car skittered into the turn, leaving a screech of tyres behind. Logan slapped the siren button, and the distinctive Weeeeeeeeeeeooooooow blared out, blue lights flashing behind the front grille.

Kowalczyk glanced back over his shoulder and put on a fresh burst of speed.

Which was why he didn’t see the Volkswagen Golf coming the other way.

Marek Kowalczyk had time for one last ’ Kurwa! ’ before it hit him.

A screech of brakes. The THUMP of flesh meeting metal clearly audible over the pounding music. Pinwheeling limbs. The wet crunch of a body slamming down onto the tarmac.

And then someone screamed.

A muffled scream. The sound of a body hammering against metal. Heather sat up, groggy, blinking in the darkness.

Boom, boom, boom. ‘Help me! I don’t want to die!’ A woman’s voice, muffled, coming from somewhere outside the prison.

‘Kelley?’

‘ How can it be Kelley? She’s asleep .’ Duncan was right — Kelley’s breathing came soft and rhythmic from the other side of the bars.

‘Kelley! Wake up! Can you hear that?’

Boom, boom, boom. ‘HELP ME!’

‘Mmmph?’

‘There’s someone out there!’ Heather stood and felt her way into the darkness. ‘Hello?’

‘HELP ME!’ Boom, boom, boom.

She put her ear against the prison’s metal wall.

Boom, boom, boom.

‘Hello?’

‘Heather?’ Kelley yawned, shifting in the dark. ‘Heather? What’s going on?’

‘There’s someone out there... Hello?’ She banged her palm against the wall.

‘Help me! He killed my little sister! He killed Sandra! HELP ME!’

‘We can’t, we’re locked in!’

‘I DOn’t WANT TO DIE!’ More screaming, then crying. And eventually silence.

Heather backed away from the wall — her foot caught on the edge of the mattress and she stumbled backwards, arms flailing out for balance as she fell. BANG: the back of her head bounced off the bars.

Muffled noises.

‘Heather?’

‘ Honey, are you all right? ’

‘Heather?’

And the Dark took her.

Rennie stifled a yawn. Stretched. Shivered. Then had a bit of a scratch at his trousers. ‘God I’m knackered... You see the papers this morning?’

Logan looked up from the chest of drawers that lurked in the corner of the little room. ‘Did you check under the mattress?’ The Turrabrae Guesthouse was the most depressing B&B he’d ever been in: the walls were covered with cheap woodchip wallpaper; water stains on the ceiling; threadbare brown and orange carpet that was probably fashionable back in the seventies and hadn’t been changed since; a single bed that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a medieval torture chamber.

So far this morning they’d visited two of the three abattoir workers who’d provided Marek Kowalczyk with an alibi for the night Tom and Hazel Stephen were snatched. And Turrabrae Guesthouse was easily the worse. Piotr Nowak — alibi number three — wasn’t exactly living in the lap of luxury.