Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

‘I’m just saying it’s... well, not understandable , but you know... it’s amazing Elizabeth Nichol turned out as well as she did. Wonder if her sister...’ he trailed off into silence.

Faulds said something about search warrants and national appeals, but Logan wasn’t listening, he was staring out at the row of derelict houses.

He pulled out his phone and called the station, getting them to put him through to DC Rennie. There was a long pause while someone went to get the constable out of the locker-room showers.

The IB van did a clumsy three point turn and juddered past, the driver waving them a cheery goodbye. The red tail lights glowed like halos of blood as it disappeared down the road, leaving them alone in the dark.

Alec jogged over to the car and clambered in the back with Jackie. His SOC suit had gone a nasty, patchy grey colour, and it dripped filthy water all over the seats as he shrugged out of it.

‘Like a demolition derby in there.’ He coughed, blew his nose, then checked his camera. ‘Didn’t find anything though. Probably stick the footage together as a ten second jump-cut montage. You know: tearing the skirting off, floorboards up, fireplace—’

And then Rennie was on the other end of the phone. ‘ Yo? ’

‘What happened to the children’s homes?’

‘ I didn’t have time to finish —’

‘This is important you know! I didn’t ask you for fun.’

‘ OK, OK, no need to get all snippy. Can I get dressed first, or do you want me to go running upstairs in the altogether? ’

That was a visual image Logan really didn’t need. He hung up.

‘Well,’ said Faulds, ‘going to share with the rest of the class?’

‘I am a carrot. Rennie is a stick. What if—’

‘No wait... hold on...’ Alec got his camera going. ‘Aaaand... Action!’

‘Would you stop doing that?’ Pause. ‘The whole street’s deserted — what if Jimmy just picked one of the other houses? He’s been smart enough to get away with this for over twenty years.’ Logan killed the engine and reached across the Chief Constable for the glove compartment, looking for the torch. It was buried right at the back in a graveyard of empty crisp packets, and by some strange miracle the batteries actually worked. Logan clicked it on and shone it through the clear patch of windscreen at the row of dilapidated houses.

‘You’re joking, right?’ asked Jackie from the back seat. ‘We’re not seriously going to—’

Logan popped open the driver’s door and stepped out into the drizzle. ‘You can stay here if you like. I’m just going for a quick look around.’

‘But we haven’t got a search warrant. You can’t—’

He closed the door before she could start swearing at him.

Five seconds later Alec was out in the rain too, his HDV camera tucked under his jacket to keep it dry. ‘Just in case...’

Logan swung his torch along the row of dilapidated houses. The beam sparkled against the rain-slicked grass and broken windows. He turned his collar up and picked his way between the potholes to the middle house — number three — now festooned with blue-and-white POLICE ribbon, like a shabby, unwanted birthday present.

‘What do you think, Alec — one, two, four, or five?’

‘I’m bloody freezing.’

‘You’re such a girl.’ Logan fought his way up the weed-clogged path to number two, rainwater trickling down the back of his neck. The front door was locked, but the wood was so rotten that a firm push was enough to tear the lock out of the frame. The door creaked open on rusty hinges.

His mobile rang as he stepped into the gloomy hallway — Jackie wanting to know what the hell he was doing.

‘I’m poking about.’

‘ We don’t have a warrant for “poking about” — Faulds says you have to get your arse back in the car .’

‘I’m not going to be long. Just want to take a quick look through the other houses. There’s a police officer’s life at stake, remember?’ She said something rude and he told her it would go much quicker if they got off their bums and helped.

There was some muffled conversation and then Jackie was back with, ‘ OK, fine. Be like that. We’ll all go tromping through the rain so you can satisfy your bloody curiosity .’ So much for being civil.

Logan didn’t rise to it. ‘Thank you. We’ll do numbers two and one, if you and Faulds do four and five—’

‘ Care to tell me what we’re looking for? ’

‘No idea.’

Five minutes later he was back out in the rain again, doing his best to ignore Alec’s revolting monologue on the perils of eating a whole family-sized bag of Fruit-tellas in one sitting. Torchlight spilled out through the broken windows of number five. Jackie and Faulds might not be happy about searching the place, but at least they were giving it a go.

Number one was the last building on the deserted street. It was slightly bigger than the others, with a garage tacked onto the side, but the roof sagged like a mouldy hammock and the front windows gaped black and empty.

God knew who owned these ghost properties, but they wouldn’t be selling them anytime soon.

Logan pushed through the wrought-iron gate — the squeal of metal on metal following them up the path as it swung slowly shut.

A disintegrating sign was fixed to the wall by the front door, ‘THE LAURELS’ picked out in fading black paint on scabby grey wood. Logan’s torch drifted across the wet sandstone and through the remains of a bay window: crumbling plaster and tattered wallpaper, a mantelpiece littered with bits of collapsed ceiling.

The door was locked, and this time giving it a shove wasn’t enough. An old bench sat engulfed in a clump of dead brambles, but when Logan tried to drag it under the bay window it fell to pieces. ‘Damn...’ He looked up at the hollow window frame, then back at the cameraman shivering on the top step. ‘Want to give me a leg up?’

Inside, the lounge stank of damp and mould, the floor sagging alarmingly as Logan landed on the squelchy carpet. Alec’s head peeked over the windowsill. ‘It safe in there?’

‘I’ll let you in the front door.’ He picked his way around the edge of the room, out into the hall, and up to the front door. A big rusty key stuck out of the lock, jammed nearly solid. Logan worked it backward and forward till the seized-up mechanism gave with a squeal, then dragged the door open.

Alec peered inside. ‘Doesn’t look promising, does it?’

‘We’ll start upstairs.’

Heather sat cross legged on the mattress, the plate of liver and onions going cold in her lap. Not that it wasn’t good — everything He cooked for her was good — it was just that she didn’t know what was real anymore.

He was on the other side of the bars, sitting with His back to the rusty red metal wall, His face an expressionless rubber mask.

She took her knife and fork and cut another slice of liver — caramelized on the outside, delicate pink on the inside — put it in her mouth and chewed. Moist and rich and tender. Heather had never eaten policewoman before.

‘Are you...’ She tried to remember the name of Kelley’s brother. ‘Jimmy?’

The Flesher tilted His head to the side — that cat-like gesture He always did, questioning.

‘Is she OK? Kelley? Is she...’ She bit her bottom lip, not wanting to say it: is she dead?

He placed a hand over His heart. Then pointed at her plate of food.

‘Yes, it’s lovely.’ She took another slice, heaping it with mashed potato and fried onions. ‘Can I speak to her?’

Silence.

‘She’s my friend.’

A nod.