Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

They followed him through into the lounge.

McFarlane’s flat wasn’t quite what Logan had been expecting. Lone alcoholic living above a shop: it should have been all discarded takeaway containers, empty bottles, peeling wallpaper, and dismal country music on the stereo. Instead it was painted in shades of off-white, spotlessly tidy, watercolour landscapes on the walls, and what sounded suspiciously like Carmen coming out of the speakers.

A line of framed photographs sat on the mantelpiece: McFarlane, McFarlane and a younger woman, the same woman in a graduation cap and gown, the two of them getting married. She’d walked out on him eighteen years ago, and he still had her photos up. That was devotion for you.

The butcher sank into a leather armchair within easy reach of a litre bottle of vodka. He poured himself a juddering tumbler-full. ‘I’d offer, but you’re both on duty.’

‘Not to worry, sir,’ Insch stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the photos, the pot plants and the paintings. ‘You have a lovely home.’

The butcher shrugged and drained half his glass in one go.

‘So...’ Insch smiled at him. ‘Still expect us to believe you had nothing to do with the bits of dead people in your shop?’

McFarlane ground his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘Thought you were here about my vandalism.’

‘Just between you and me, sir, I think the two things might just be connected.’

‘They’re here every night. Throwing things. You should see the state of the shop... it was like a bombsite when I got out of... when I got home.’

‘And did you speak to Wiseman when you were inside?’

‘I never did anything, and my life’s ruined.’ Another slug of vodka. ‘Who’s going to buy meat from my shop now? After all this? Years I spent building the business—’

‘I’m sure everyone’s sorry for your loss. I know I am. With my daughter lying dead in the fucking morgue!’

McFarlane worked another large measure of vodka into his glass, then into himself. ‘That’s not my fault — I didn’t do anything.’

‘She was FOUR!’

‘Sir, I think we should—’

Insch towered over the hollowed-out butcher. ‘She was four and that bastard killed her!’

‘I...’ McFarlane shuddered, then looked up into the inspector’s furious purple face. ‘Do you know what it’s like to have a killer in your family? Do you? To live with the hate and the lies and the shame? When it’s none of your bloody fault?’

‘I ought to tear your—’

Logan put a hand on the inspector’s arm. ‘He wasn’t there. He was in prison when Wiseman killed Sophie.’

‘He—’

‘Why don’t you wait for me in the car, sir? I’ll finish up in here.’

Insch didn’t move.

‘Please.’

For a moment it looked as if Insch was about to turn the butcher into fourteen stone of alcoholic mince, but in the end he turned on his heel and stormed out.

The butcher poured himself another shaky drink, the bottle clinking round the mouth of the glass. ‘I didn’t...’

‘I’m sorry, sir. He’s had a lot on his mind.’

‘It was never me...’ The vodka disappeared.

Logan picked up the wedding photograph from the mantelpiece: it was McFarlane and Wiseman’s sister — Logan couldn’t remember her name — on the steps of King’s College Chapel. Him in a kilt, her in a huge white dress. ‘Do you ever hear from her? Your wife?’

McFarlane stared down at the carpet for a beat. ‘No.’ He picked up the bottle, then put it down again. ‘Eighteen years. Eighteen bloody years...’ His saggy pink eyes were beginning to fill with tears.

Logan put the wedding photo back with the others. Eighteen years — he was willing to bet that was when the butcher climbed into a bottle and forgot the way out. ‘Well, sir, if you can think of anything—’

‘It’s not easy losing someone you love.’ This time the bottle made it all the way to the glass. ‘I’ve lost everything. Every last bloody thing.’ His voice was starting to slur round the edges. ‘My whole life is buggered. All because of... because of Ken Wiseman.’ The vodka went down in one. ‘But he’s family, isn’t he? He’s family so I had to give him a job. And now look at me: no wife, no business, no friends, prison. What am I going to do? Eh?’ He scrubbed a trembling hand across his face, trying to wipe away the tears. ‘What am I going to do?’

McFarlane lurched to his feet, grabbed the bottle, and headed for the door. ‘Come see...’ He stomped down the stairs, but instead of going out onto the street, the butcher led Logan round to a small internal door. ‘Come see...’

He hit-or-missed a key into the lock and then they were through into the shop. Darkness. The butcher fumbled with a switch and the lights flickered on. The place didn’t look anything like it had the last time Logan was here: with the plywood over the windows, it had all the charm of an open grave. Both chiller cabinets had been torn from the wall, then hurled to the floor. The display case was a study in fractured glass. A red fire extinguisher poked out of the deli counter’s ruptured sneeze-guard. Gouts of dark red paint covered the walls like arterial blood.

‘Twenty years.’ McFarlane swigged straight from the bottle. ‘Twenty years I’ve been building this business... and now look at it.’ He threw his arms wide, shouting at the top of his voice, ‘COME BUY YOUR MEAT FROM THE CANNIBAL BUTCHER!’

The next mouthful finished the vodka. He peered through the empty bottle, twisting it round and round — as if trying to get his old life to come back into focus — then hurled it at the wall above the ruptured till. An explosion of glass.

McFarlane stood in the centre of his ruined life and cried.

DI Insch was back in the passenger seat of Logan’s pool car, the tips of two fingers pressed against the side of his throat. Teeth gritted. Face still purple. Eyes screwed shut. There was no way Logan was getting in there with him till the inspector calmed down, so he wandered down the road to a little newsagents’ and spent a couple of minutes browsing the magazines, then the selection of sweeties — buying a big bag of jelly babies and another of fizzy cola bottles. And a lottery ticket, just in case. Was it ethical to still use Jackie’s birthday as two of the numbers?

By the time he got back to the car, Insch seemed to have settled down a bit. Logan climbed in behind the steering wheel and passed over the jelly babies, holding the cola bottles in reserve. Just in case.

The inspector dug his way into the packet, then ripped the head off some jelly mummy’s pride and joy.

‘Sir,’ Logan started the car, ‘I think you need to go home, OK?’

More jelly babies were sacrificed, but it didn’t seem to be appeasing the volcano. ‘McFarlane was in it with Wiseman. The two of them together. Killing and butchering.’

Logan pulled out into traffic. ‘We’ve got nothing on him. And before you go off on one: I know, OK? But look at him: all Andrew McFarlane wants to do is pickle himself in vodka. It’s all he’s been doing since his wife disappeared eighteen years ago. Half the time he wouldn’t be sober enough to know what day of the week it was; Wiseman could butcher half of Torry downstairs and McFarlane wouldn’t notice.’

‘Sergeant...’ Insch’s voice had taken on that ominous rumble, like a twenty-eight-stone, angry rottweiler.

‘I’m just saying.’

‘Well don’t. Sophie’s dead because—’

‘You shouldn’t be here. You should be at home, with your family.’

Insch slammed his fist into the dashboard. ‘I DOn’t HAVE A FAMILY!’ Trembling with rage. ‘That bastard took them. He took everything! ’