Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

The clock radio cast a green glow across the bedroom: 05:58 — seventeen minutes before the alarm was due to go off. Logan yawned, rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. A DI in Birmingham. Detective Inspector Logan McRae... It had a nice ring to it, like something off the television. It wasn’t as if he had anything keeping him here, not even—

An arm wrapped itself around his chest and Logan nearly screamed.

There was someone on the other side of the bed, asleep, her dark curly hair rumpled across the pillow like an explosion in a mattress factory. And then it all came back: the trip to the pub; drinks; Jackie turning up with that Janis McKay woman from Glasgow; him refusing to chicken out and leave, still stinging from Jackie’s ‘running away’ rant; more drinks; bumping into each other on the way to the toilets; the long, tipsy heart-to-heart...

There was a muffled snork, a huge yawn, and Jackie was staring blearily at him. And then she hid her face in her hands. ‘Please tell me we didn’t— Oh, God, we did, didn’t we.’

He slipped out of bed and grabbed a towel off the back of the chair, wrapping it round himself before clicking on the light. ‘Jackie, I—’

‘Don’t, OK? You don’t get to say it this time, I do.’ She sat up, hauling the duvet with her, making sure everything was covered. ‘Last night was a one-off. Drunken break-up sex, nothing more. It doesn’t mean anything.’

Logan nodded.

‘Now,’ Jackie glanced around the bedroom, probably looking for her industrial underwear, ‘if you don’t mind leaving the room, I’d like to get dressed.’

‘Bloody hell...’ Logan stood in Elizabeth Nichol’s lounge and surveyed the damage. It was as if someone had gone wild with a cricket bat — the walls discoloured with snow-globe water and little flakes of glitter, the floor covered in curved shards of glass and broken plastic. The TV was battered to smithereens, the sofa shredded, the standard lamp a very non-standard shape. A bloodstain marked the wall by the kitchen door, the plasterboard buckled and cracked around it.

‘As far as I can tell,’ said the IB’s pet Goth, her face as pale as her white SOC suit, ‘this was where someone’s head was rammed into the wall.’ She knelt on the carpet and demonstrated in slow-motion. The dent was just the right size and shape. ‘No idea if the blood’s the householder’s or PC Munro’s though. We’ve called for the mobile DNA unit.’

It wasn’t the only bloodstain in the place. There were smears on the balustrade, as if someone had staggered downstairs, trying to keep themselves upright. A spatter of red infected the kitchen floor like chickenpox. Drops of scarlet on the landing.

Every single room had been trashed.

Faulds stood in the kitchen doorway, SOC suited and booted: hood up, latex gloves, blue plastic shoe-covers, worried look on his face. He waved Logan over, leading him though the train-wreck kitchen to the patio doors — where no one would hear them. ‘I didn’t know this was going to happen! It was a long shot, a safety precaution. Elizabeth Nichol wasn’t even his type...’

‘They might still be alive. The floor’s not soaked in blood; he’s got to keep them somewhere: a basement, disused industrial unit, somewhere...’

Faulds turned his back on the ruined room. ‘The bloody media are going to love this.’

‘We should think about setting up roadblocks.’

‘How the hell did he get past the officers watching the place? They were supposed to monitor everyone going in or out! What sort of useless, halfwit, haggis-munching bastards—’

‘This isn’t helping.’ Logan glanced out the window: still dark, just a hint of pre-dawn light staining the horizon. ‘Sun’ll be up in half an hour: we need to get a fingertip search organized. Find out how the Flesher got in here.’

Faulds looked at him. ‘You’re right. We have to focus, lay out a game-plan, strategize...’ He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingertips into his temples. ‘We’ll need a press release: appeal for witnesses, photos of Nichol and PC Munro. We’ll tell them that... that Munro volunteered to look after a vulnerable witness who’d refused protection.’

‘Volunteered?’

‘I didn’t know this was going to happen, OK? Asking Munro to stay was the right decision at the time — given the circumstances. Yes, in hindsight we should have taken Elizabeth Nichol into protective custody whether she liked it or not, but it’s too late for that now. We have to stay focused on how we get them both back. Alive . We can play the blame game later.’

The media briefing was a disaster. As soon as the Chief Constable finished reading out the prepared statement the questions started flying: How could Grampian Police let one of their own be abducted by the Flesher? Why wasn’t Elizabeth Nichol given proper protection? Who was responsible? Was there going to be a public enquiry?

‘Jesus,’ said Steel, standing next to Logan — as far away from the cameras as possible, ‘straight to the finger-pointing. Tell you Laz, we don’t get Munro back in one piece we’re screwed.’ She pointed at Faulds, sitting up there on the podium next to his Aberdeen counterpart. ‘You think they’ll throw that Brummie cock-weasel to the wolves? Will they hell, it’ll be one of us.’

‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault; Nichol wouldn’t take protection—’

‘She shouldn’t have been given the bloody choice! And we’d no’ve lost a police officer.’

Logan frowned at her. ‘Not helping.’

‘Aye, well... tough.’ The inspector dug out her cigarettes. ‘I’ve had enough of this crap, give us a shout when the dust settles.’

Half an hour later they were all upstairs in the boardroom, getting snarled at by Chief Constable Baldy Brian. ‘How exactly did the Flesher get both of them out past two unmarked police cars?’

DS Beattie might have been blushing, it was difficult to tell under all that beard. ‘We clocked every vehicle going in and out of the street, and the two streets either side. PNC checked the lot: all residents.’

‘I want them hauled in here and questioned.’ The Chief Constable must have caught the expression on DI Steel’s face because he rounded on her. ‘You have something to say, Inspector?’

She shrugged. ‘Just think it’s a bit of a coincidence, don’t you? Suddenly the Flesher lives four doors down from the Nichol place?’

‘ Actually ,’ Doctor Goulding, Faulds’ pet psychologist, straightened his horrible tie and waited for their undivided attention, ‘it’s not that unusual. Some serial killers start close to home, then spread their wings. Others select victims from the people they see around them every day — they stay close. And others are building up to something. There was a chap in the States who decapitated older women — only stopped when he finally got round to cutting off his mother’s head. He’d been working up the courage.’

Goulding smiled, as if that somehow made his anecdote more palatable. ‘Given the level of destruction in the Nichol house, I think it’s fair to say that our killer’s finally lost control. Twenty years he’s been operating with impunity, but since Halloween he’s been under a lot of pressure. Thursday night he almost got caught; one victim escaped; he had to kill a second and hide her body in a bush; abandon the partially-butchered remains of a third. He’s not in control anymore, and that’s never happened to him before. So he goes out for revenge, even though he knows it’s high risk.’ The psychologist nodded, agreeing with himself. ‘It’s taken twenty years, but the man you call “the Flesher” is finally escalating.’

‘Aye,’ said Steel, ‘it’s a comforting thought all right. Sure it’ll make Munro’s husband and kids feel all warm and fuzzy inside.’