Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

McFarlane was dressed up in his butcher’s outfit — white coat, blue stripy apron, little white porkpie hat, sloshing petrol from a green plastic can all over the shattered deli counter. He gave a sudden lurch to the left, legs stiff beneath him as he tried to stay upright, getting petrol all down his trousers, and then he was stable again.

‘Let me guess,’ said Logan, stepping into the devastation, ‘you’re having a going-out-of-business barbecue?’

McFarlane spun round, petrol and legs going everywhere as he slipped and crashed down on his backside. ‘We...’ For a second he looked as if he was about to be sick. ‘We’re shut.’ And then he was — all over himself.

The butcher’s flat was oppressively warm, which only made the smell worse. McFarlane sat on the immaculate couch, in his immaculate lounge, wearing an apron stained with petrol and vomit. He cradled a silver photo frame against his chest, ignoring the cup of strong black coffee on the table in front of him as Logan introduced PC Munro.

Throwing up seemed to have done McFarlane the world of good. If it wasn’t for the stink and the bloodshot eyes he could almost have passed for sober. ‘I’m... I’m sorry...’ He blinked back a tear. ‘I didn’t know what else to do... twenty years I spent, building up the business... I thought if no one got hurt... I mean it’s not as if the insurance company haven’t had their pound of flesh from me over the years, is it?... Place was ruined anyway...’

‘I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news, Andrew.’

The butcher didn’t look up. ‘I didn’t have any choice...’

‘It’s about your wife, Kirsty. We retested the carpet from Ken Wiseman’s car boot — the human blood wasn’t his, it was Kirsty’s.’

McFarlane screwed his face into a knot, clutching the photo tighter. ‘She was everything to me. Everything...’

‘PC Munro is a Family Liaison officer, she’ll—’

‘He killed her.’

‘We think so. He told the guy in the next cell—’

‘I watched him... I watched him cut her up...’ He buried his head in his hands and sobbed.

Logan looked from the vomit-soaked butcher to PC Munro and back again. Trying not to grin. They had a witness — after all these years, they finally had something on Wiseman.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Big Gary grabbed Logan as soon as he got back to FHQ. Quarter past seven and the place had that calm-before-the-storm feeling to it. As if something nasty was lurking just around the corner with a baseball bat.

‘The Chief Constable’s going ballistic.’ Big Gary thrust a copy of that morning’s News of the World into Logan’s hands: ‘DI BEATS HANDCUFFED SUSPECT’. ‘As your Federation Rep I need to see your statement about what happened before you hand it in to Professional Standards.’

‘Too late, I did it yesterday.’

‘You...?’ The huge sergeant grimaced. ‘What the hell did you do that for? Thought you were supposed to be his friend!’

‘That’s why I’m trying to save the daft bastard from himself.’ Logan skimmed through the article. ‘Where’s Steel?’

‘Where do you think?’

He started for the door. ‘Get someone to pick Wiseman up and stick him in an interview room.’

‘No. Hoy — paper!’ Big Gary stuck out his hand.

‘What do you mean, “no”?’

‘One: I’m not your bloody secretary, and two: he’s in court first thing — they’re thinking about letting the murdering bastard go, remember?’

‘Bloody hell... When?’

‘Eight.’

Logan dragged out his phone and started dialling.

Aberdeen Sheriff Court was an imposing granite building at the bottom end of Union Street, sandwiched between the Council chambers and the Tollbooth Museum. They’d convened Wiseman’s hearing in one of the small courts — a converted jury room tucked away down a side corridor — and it was a closed session, so Logan was forced to wait outside, nodding at the lawyers he knew, the police officers he worked with, and the shoplifters he’d arrested.

It was nearly twenty to ten when the doors finally opened and someone from the Procurator Fiscal’s office stormed out, muttering darkly. Which wasn’t exactly a good sign. Next it was a couple of clerks, the Sheriff, and finally Ken Wiseman, flanked by two prison officers.

His lawyer had shovelled him into a grey suit, the formal attire not really going with the collection of bruises and swellings. The butcher’s face looked like a mouldy pumpkin, bisected by that white line of old scar tissue.

Logan stepped up. ‘Kenneth Wiseman—’

A balding woman stepped in front of him. ‘It’s OK, Ken, you don’t have to talk to him.’

Wiseman pulled his swollen face into something that might have been a smile. ‘They fired that fat fuck yet?’

The butcher’s lawyer placed her hand against her client’s chest. ‘Please, let me deal with this.’ She looked back at Logan. ‘Mr Wiseman has nothing to say to you.’

‘No? Well I’ve got something to say to him—’

‘Threatening my client will—’

‘They had fuck all on me in 1990, and they’ve got fuck all on me now.’ Wiseman stepped forwards, but the prison officers took hold of his arms. ‘That bastard Brooks fitted me up and I—’

‘Kenneth, I must insist—’

‘For what it’s worth,’ said Logan, ‘I believe you. Brooks screwed up the original investigation. You’re not the Flesher, you never were.’

The butcher opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again, a puzzled look oozing out between the bruises. ‘I... yeah, the appeal—’

‘But you’re still a killer. Kenneth Wiseman, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Kirsty McFarlane, also known as Kirsty Wiseman, in February 1990. You do not have to say anything—’

‘But... but you can’t... I was...’ He grabbed his lawyer’s sleeve as Logan read him his rights. ‘They can’t prosecute me for the same thing twice. Double jeopardy. Tell him!’

And it was Logan’s turn to smile. ‘You were tried for the murders of Ian and Sharon McLaughlin, not Kirsty McFarlane. So—’

The lawyer stepped in again. ‘I insist you let me speak to my client in private, we—’

‘You can have him back when I’ve finished with him.’ Logan turned to the two prison officers. ‘How do you fancy escorting Mr Wiseman round to the station?’

The butcher was too shocked to struggle.

Interview Room Number Three was like a sauna — as usual — a thin film of condensation furring the double glazed window, while Ken Wiseman sat and sweated. ‘I... I didn’t do anything...’

It was as if someone had pulled the plug, letting all the cocky bastard drain away, leaving a scarred, scared, middle-aged, balding bloke.

Steel stretched out in her plastic seat. ‘That, Ken, is what we in the business call a “fucking lie”.’

The butcher ran a hand across his battered face, wrists still handcuffed together. ‘It wasn’t me...’

Logan slapped a small stack of paper down on the table — Andrew McFarlane’s statement. ‘Your brother-in-law says you were drunk. Got into an argument with your sister.’

‘That’s not—’

Logan read it out loud: “Kirsty slapped him and he went mental. He wouldn’t stop hitting her. I—”

‘That’s not how it happened!’

‘—tried to stop him, but he was too strong.’

‘No!’

‘I wanted to call the police, but he wouldn’t let me.’

‘He’s lying!’ Wiseman battered his fist off the tabletop, hard enough to crack the fibreglass cast. ‘He’s lying...’

‘He dragged her body into the butchery and—’

‘That’s not what happened!’ He stared at the dent he’d made in the Formica, chewing on his split bottom lip. ‘We’d... we’d been out on the piss. All three of us, up the Malt Mill on a Friday night. Kirsty was hammered — they were supposed to be celebrating their anniversary. She started saying stuff... When we got back to the flat, she tore into Andrew: he was a useless tosser; crap lay; had a tiny dick; she was having an affair...’