Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

‘Then why does this say he did two hours overtime, day before yesterday?’

There was a pause, and then a voice from the doorway said, ‘Sorry guys, I ran out of tape. Any chance we could do that last bit again?’ It was Alec, standing in the doorway with his HDV camera.

Insch rolled his eyes, sighed, then asked, ‘From where?’

‘Finding the book.’

Faulds looked confused, until Logan introduced the cameraman. ‘He’s from the BBC, they’re doing one of those observational documentaries: Granite City 999. Going out next summer.’

‘Ah...’ Faulds ran a hand through his hair, then snapped on the same smile he’d tried with the pathologist. ‘Chief Constable Mark Faulds, West Midlands Police. Believe it or not I used to be on telly when I was younger. It was a children’s show, sort of William Tell meets The Muppets only more—’

‘Can we get on with this please?’ said Insch.

‘I was only—’

McRae,’ Insch handed the book back to Logan and told him to put it in the filing cabinet and find it again.

Logan groaned. ‘But we’re in the middle of—’

‘Sergeant, this is a key discovery in the case: you’re going to be a hero on national television. Now put the bloody book back and remember to act all surprised when you find it!’

‘You know,’ Faulds said, ‘if you feel uncomfortable faking it, Logan, I’m sure DI Insch, or myself would be happy to do it for you. We—’

‘No. DS McRae found the thing: he should be the one getting the credit for it.’

‘Oh, well, of course... I never meant that we’d take the credit for his hard work, I just thought... if he wasn’t comfortable—’

‘He’s comfortable. Aren’t you, Sergeant.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Yes, sir.’ Logan stuck the overtime ledger back in the filing cabinet, waited for Alec to shout ‘ACTION!’, then did the whole thing again.

‘Terrific!’ The cameraman gave them the thumbs up when they were done. ‘Now all I need is for someone to explain who this Wiseman bloke is and we’ve got a great scene. Just try not to make it too expositiony, OK? I want it to look nice and natural.’

‘Of course you know what this means?’ said Insch, as McFarlane was stuffed into the back of a patrol car with a blanket over his head.

Faulds nodded. ‘We’ve got a chance to do it properly this time.’

Two constables pulled back the barrier and the patrol car drove out into a barrage of flash photography and shouted questions.

‘We did it properly last time .’

‘Then why did it get thrown out on appeal?’

The inspector sighed. ‘Because the jury were idiots. McRae!’

Logan held up a hand, mobile phone clamped to his ear, listening to Alpha Seven Two reporting back on their search of Wiseman’s street. ‘OK, yeah, thanks.’ He hung up. ‘Couple of neighbours think they saw Wiseman going out last night around ten. Not seen him since. They say he stays out pretty regularly.’

Insch swore. ‘I want every uniform out there looking for him. Roadblocks on all major routes out of Aberdeen. Get onto the port, the bus station, railway and the airport. Search his house — I want a recent photo, circulate it. Posters up in all the usual places. Send out a notice to every police force in the UK.’

Logan groaned. ‘But it’s nearly eleven; I’ve been on duty since two yesterday afternoon!’

‘Eleven?’ Insch peered at his watch, frowned, rubbed a fat hand over his face, and swore again. ‘Post mortem starts in three minutes.’ He turned and marched off towards the barricade, peeling off his SOC suit and thrusting it into the arms of a spotty-faced PC.

Faulds watched him go, then placed a hand on Logan’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘You did well there, Sergeant. Good work.’

‘Er... thanks.’ Logan shifted out of range, just in case the Chief Constable went in for a teambuilding hug. ‘How come McFarlane’s so upset about this Wiseman bloke?’

‘“This Wiseman bloke”?’ Faulds shook his head. ‘Didn’t they teach you anything in school? Andrew McFarlane was married to Ken Wiseman’s sister when all this happened first time round. Which is why he’s not too keen on your DI Insch.’

Logan tried to stifle a yawn, but it ripped free anyway. ‘God... Right, search teams...’

Faulds did the shoulder squeezing thing again. ‘Delegate. Pass that lot onto someone else and go get some sleep. You’re no use to Insch, or anyone else if you can’t function.’ He smiled. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll nip along to that PM and take another crack at your lady pathologist friend.’

Logan didn’t have the heart to tell him he was wasting his time.

INTERIOR: a cramped office. Two figures out of focus in the background, one emptying a filing cabinet. Chief Constable Faulds stands centre shot wearing a white SOC suit.

TITLE: Chief Constable Mark Faulds — West Midlands Police

FAULDS:There were corpses all over the country: London, Birmingham, Glasgow, even Dublin. It was like nothing we’d ever seen. He’d break into the victim’s houses and butcher them. And I don’t mean hack them up, I mean he’d take them apart, turn them into joints of meat. And there was never any clues... should that be “there were never any clues”?

VOICEOVER: Whatever you’re comfortable with.

FAULDS:Feels strange doing this without a script.

VOICEOVER: If you’re worried about it, I’m sure DI Insch can—

FAULDS:No, no. Used to do this all the time when I was young. Like riding a bike... OK, let’s take it from “joints of meat”. [gives himself a small shake] Every time he struck the papers would give him a new name: the Birmingham Butcher, the Clydeside Ripper. It wasn’t till they found Ian and Sharon McLaughlin’s remains that he finally got his true name: the Flesher.

[pause]

Does that sound too melodramatic? It does, doesn’t it? Shit... Sorry, I’ll start again.

[clears throat]

There were cases all over the country...

The room smelt of Pot Noodles. It was a small office at the back of FHQ, half-heartedly converted into a makeshift editing suite. Logan stifled a yawn and gazed out of the tiny window. It wasn’t much of a view — just a small square of waterlogged car park and the stairs down to the mortuary. You couldn’t even see the sky from here.

He’d managed to grab a couple of hours sleep back at the flat, all alone in a cold and empty bed. The place just wasn’t the same without Jackie.

There was a strangled vwipping noise as Alec rewound the tape and then Faulds’ voice crackled out of the TV monitor: ‘ Shit... Sorry, I’ll start again.’

Alec hit pause, scribbled something down on his notepad, then shovelled another forkful of rehydrated noodles into his mouth. ‘Mmmph, mmmph, mmm?’

Logan turned away from the window. ‘You’ve got juice all down your chin, and I can’t understand a word.’

Alec chewed, swallowed, then went in for another forkload. ‘I said, “do you want to see the press conference?”’

‘Not really.’

‘No?’ Alec tapped a couple of buttons on his bizarrely coloured editing keyboard and Faulds’ face was replaced by a crowded room full of journalists. DI Insch, one of the media officers, and Aberdeen’s very own Chief Constable were sitting at the front of the room, fielding questions like, ‘ Why was Ken Wiseman ever released?’, ‘How many people has the Flesher killed?’, ‘Why didn’t Grampian Police make a stronger case against Wiseman in 1990?’ and that perennial favourite, ‘Will there be a public enquiry?’