Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

They found DI Insch in the cold store through the back, with a pair of IB technicians and Isobel, examining yet more chunks of meat.

Faulds took one look at the inspector in his bulging SOC outfit and said, ‘Good God, David, you’re huge!’ He stuck out his hand to shake, but Insch just looked at it. ‘Yes, well...’ Faulds reached up and adjusted his suit’s hood, as if that was what he’d meant to do in the first place. ‘Have you picked up Wiseman yet?’

Insch scowled. ‘Kicked his door down at seven forty-five this morning. He wasn’t there.’

‘You let him escape? ’

‘No I bloody didn’t: I had an unmarked car sitting outside his house from the moment we found the remains down the docks. He never went home, OK?’

‘Oh God...’ Faulds closed his eyes and swore quietly. ‘OK, right, fair enough, too late to worry about that now.’ Sigh. ‘So what are we looking at here?’

‘That.’ Insch pointed at the far corner of the cold store, where Isobel was examining a cut of meat hanging from a hook. It was about two foot long, seven inches wide: the flesh a dark rose colour, the fat a golden yellow, the surface punctuated by pale bones. No skin.

‘Loin of pork?’ asked Faulds, inching forwards.

‘Close: long pig.’ Isobel stood, rubbing her latex-gloved hands down the front of her coveralls. ‘The meat’s darker than pork, more like veal — definitely human. The ribs have been severed halfway down their length, but the shape’s unmistakable.’

The Chief Constable thought about it for a moment, then asked, ‘Care to hazard a time of death?’

Isobel stared at him. ‘And you are?’

Faulds turned the full power of his smile on her. ‘Mark Faulds, West Midlands Police. DI Insch asked me to come up and take a look at the case.’

Which sounded incredibly unlikely to Logan: Insch wouldn’t ask for help if his crotch was on fire. From the look on her face, Isobel didn’t believe it either.

‘I don’t know what kind of pathologists you’re used to dealing with down there, Mr Faulds, but in Aberdeen we don’t rush to conclusions before we’ve carried out the post mortem.’ She went back to her slab of meat, muttering, ‘God save us from bloody policemen, think we’re all clairvoyant...’

‘I see.’ Faulds winked at Logan, whispering, ‘I love a challenge.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Actually it’s “Chief Constable”, not “mister”.’ If he expected that to impress Isobel, he was in for a disappointment. She didn’t even pause, just unhooked the chunk of meat and slipped it into a large evidence bag.

‘Right,’ she handed it to one of the IB technicians, ‘I want every piece of meat in here taken down to the mortuary. Mince, sausages, everything.’ She snapped off her gloves then nodded at Insch. ‘Inspector, a word please.’

Faulds watched them march out of the cold room. ‘Is she usually that welcoming?’

Logan smiled. ‘No, sir. She must like you: normally she’s a lot worse.’

The shop’s owner — the eponymous Mr McFarlane — lived in a large flat directly above the butcher’s, so it hadn’t exactly taken Operation Cleaver long to track him down. He was a chunky blob with a worried expression, thinning hair, a red-veined nose, and bags under his eyes. He’d clarted himself in aftershave, but it still wasn’t enough to cover the smell of stale sweat and last night’s alcohol.

McFarlane sat behind the desk in a little office at the back of the shop, watching as an IB technician dismantled a yellow-grey computer and stuck it in an evidence crate.

‘I... I don’t understand,’ McFarlane said, looking around with watery pink eyes, ‘we’re supposed to be open at nine...’

Insch leaned over the desk, looming over the butcher. ‘Do you have any idea what they do to people like you in prison?’

McFarlane flinched as if he’d been slapped. ‘I... But I’ve not done anything!’

‘Then why have you got a slab of human flesh HANGING IN YOUR FRIDGE?’

‘I didn’t know! I didn’t! It wasn’t me! I never did anything, I’ve not even had a parking ticket, I’m law-abiding citizen, I do barbeques for charity, I don’t even overcharge people! I’ve not—’

‘You sold human remains to Thompson’s Cash And Carry. They sold it on to catering companies.’

‘Oh God...’ McFarlane had gone a deathly shade of white. ‘But—’

‘PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EATING IT!’

‘David,’ Faulds laid a hand on Insch’s arm. ‘It might help if you let the poor man complete a sentence.’

The Chief Constable perched himself on the edge of the desk, SOC oversuit rustling as he moved. ‘You see, Mr McFarlane, you own a butcher’s shop that sells chunks of dead bodies. Can you see why we might have a bit of a problem with that?’

‘I didn’t know!’

‘Uh-huh... Mr McFarlane, you’re a professional butcher, yes?’

The man nodded, setting his jowls wobbling, and Faulds gave him an encouraging smile. ‘And you expect us to believe you can’t tell the difference between pork and people?’

‘I... I... I don’t do a lot of the actual butchery anymore...’ He held up his trembling hands. ‘Can’t hold a knife still.’

‘I see.’

Insch placed a massive paw on the desk. ‘You don’t remember me, do you, Mr McFarlane?’

‘What?’ He frowned. ‘No. What are you—’

‘Twenty years ago. Three people hacked up and fed—’

‘Oh, no!’ McFarlane clamped one of his quivering hands over his mouth. ‘Not... I’m not! I never did anything! I...’ His frantic eyes locked onto Faulds. ‘I never! It’s not me! Tell him it’s not me!’

‘Where’s Ken Wiseman?’

‘Oh God, this isn’t happening, not again...’

‘WHERE — IS — HE?’

And suddenly all the colour rushed back into McFarlane’s face. ‘I don’t know! And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.’ The butcher clambered to his feet. ‘I remember you now, you and that bastard... what was it...? Brooks! Ken never did anything, you fitted him up!’

‘Where is he?’

Logan listened to Faulds and Insch playing Bad Cop, Worse Cop for a while, then let his attention wander round the little office. A couple of empty display stands were piled in the corner, next to a stack of dusty wicker picnic hampers; two filing cabinets beneath a barred window — Logan poked through one of them, keeping an ear on the conversation behind him.

Insch: ‘Tell me where the bastard is.’

McFarlane: ‘I’ve no idea, I haven’t seen Ken in years.’

Insch: ‘Bollocks.’

The filing cabinet was full of accounts, bills, payslips — nothing really jumped out. Logan pulled a ledger marked ‘OVERTIME’ from the drawer.

Faulds: ‘You have to see it from our point of view—’

Insch again: ‘—going to send you down for a long, long—’

Faulds: ‘Better if you just tell us everything you know—’

McFarlane: ‘But I don’t know anything!’

The ledger was nearly indecipherable, page after page of dates, hours, payments, and names in the butcher’s trembling scrawl. Logan skipped to the most recent entries.

Insch: ‘—people like you in Peterhead Prison, with the—’

‘Sir!’ Logan cut across the inspector, and there was an ominous silence as Insch turned to glare at him. Logan held out the ledger. ‘Last page. Third name from the bottom.’

Insch snatched it off him and read, his brow furrowed, lips slowly twitching into a smile. ‘Well, well, well.’

Faulds: ‘What?’

The inspector slammed the book down on the desktop, then tapped the page with a fat finger. ‘Thought you said you’d not seen Ken Wiseman for years.’

McFarlane wouldn’t look at the book. ‘I... I haven’t.’