Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

She threw Margaret Thatcher’s face into the hopper. Logan watched it bounce off the far side, then slide down into the rotating metal teeth; they tore it apart like a slice of wet bread.

‘Come on, Elizabeth, you don’t really want to do this, do you?’

There was a long pause, and then, ‘No.’

Heather turned and looked at her, letting go of the handrail with one hand to touch Elizabeth’s cheek. ‘But I do, Kelley. For you.’

Logan crept another step closer. ‘Heather, come on, don’t do anything stupid. You’ve survived too much to throw it all away.’

Elizabeth leant forward and kissed her on the cheek. And then Heather jumped.

‘FUCK!’ The hell with inching — Logan leapt, snatching a handful of her pyjamas as she hopped off the railing and into thin air. He was off balance, dragged forwards by her weight as she fell. His stomach slammed into the guardrail. Pain, sudden and immediate, tore across his scarred stomach. He opened his mouth to shout, but all that came out was an agonized wheeze.

No strength in his fingers.

Logan tried to grab her with his left hand — his shoulder screamed at him as something inside gave way.

She was slipping.

Their eyes locked. Heather looked strangely peaceful as she fell the dozen or so feet into the hopper. Her feet hit the sloping wall and slid out from underneath her. CLANG: backwards onto the grimy metal. Her left foot jerked into the air. And then fell into the rotating teeth.

The only noise was the rumble of the metal driveshaft.

Foot. Ankle. Shin. Then Heather started to scream, pushing against the wall with her remaining foot, pyjamas drenched with fresh blood, hands scrabbling for purchase on the sloping sides.

The door through to the protein processing unit burst open: Jackie, her hands curled against her chest. She stopped, rooted to the spot, staring open-mouthed at the stuttering bits of leg falling into the lower hopper.

Logan forced himself upright and staggered across to the cutoff switch, slamming his palm down on the red button. The grinding noise whined to a halt.

He clambered over the rail and dropped down beside Heather, shouting at the top of his lungs: ‘GET A BLOODY AMBULANCE!’

The Flesher was gone.

Heather dries her hands on a kitchen towel and limps over to the fridge. Twenty-eight weeks and they still haven’t managed to get her a prosthetic that fits properly, but that’s being ungrateful, isn’t it? If it wasn’t for Aberdeen Royal Infirmary she’d have lost the whole leg.

According to the clock on the microwave it’s half past five. An afternoon in May — probably blazing sunshine, but in her little Fittie house it’s black as the grave. The neighbours might not like that she’s boarded up all the windows, but they don’t say anything on account of her ‘ordeal’. Dead husband, one leg, not right in the head...

Stockholm syndrome — that’s what Mr New called it. That’s what the hospital’s psychologists said as well. None of them understand.

Heather drops a chunk of lard in the pot and adds the sliced onions.

All this time and they still don’t know where He is. But she does. Sometimes Kelley sends her a postcard from somewhere exotic like Prague. Heather keeps them in a secret box where the police will never find them.

‘ Dinner going to be long then? ’ asks Duncan, his little blood halo glowing in the darkness.

‘Hours and hours.’ She says, ‘You can open a bottle of wine if you like.’

Three tablespoons of paprika when the onions are soft and translucent.

He wraps his arms around her and leans in close, smelling her hair. ‘ Mmmmm. Gorgeous. ’ He kisses her neck and she giggles.

‘I know what you’re thinking, and you’ll have to wait till I’ve peeled the potatoes.’

‘ Damn potatoes. ’ He steps back, leaning against the working surface, head on one side, questioning. A little physical tic he’s picked up from the Flesher. ‘ Do you still miss Justin? ’

‘Yes.’ Into the other pan go the chunks of offal: heart and kidneys, browning on a high heat. For some reason she couldn’t cope with Justin being alive — it just didn’t seem right for him to be walking about when she knew he was dead. ‘But I’m sure Mother’s looking after him.’

The browned meat goes in with the onions, followed by a tin of chopped tomatoes, some white wine and garlic.

‘ You never cooked this well when I was alive. ’

‘That’s because you were always so bloody precious about your boeuf bourguignon. I thought if I did anything fancier than fish fingers you’d be telling me I wasn’t doing it right.’ She grinds a few twists of pepper into the pan, adds a dash of salt, then sticks the lid on and puts it in the oven. One hundred and twenty degrees Celsius for two hours. And by that time she’s drunk half a bottle of wine and the whole house smells wonderfully meaty and rich.

Heather changes into her good frock, does her hair, lipstick, and eye shadow. It’s not every day she has someone for dinner.

She doesn’t bother with the table anymore. Just puts their plates down on the carpet in the lounge, next to the mattress from the bedroom. It’s the only piece of furniture in the place, except for one of the dining room chairs — for her guest — and a single candle that flickers on the mantelpiece.

It hadn’t been easy, tracking down James Souter. He was so small and frail in his tatty little dressing gown, sitting in his room in the hospice. Shivering and terrified.

Hard to believe he was the man who’d done all those terrible things to Kelley.

And now look at him, all nice and quiet, tied to his chair, skin pale as bone china. Chest hollow and empty. The stump of his missing arm all shiny in the candlelight.

Heather digs her fork into the paprikash and pulls out a chunk of meltingly tender meat. Yes, James Souter was a nasty bastard, but his heart’s in the right place.

And very tasty it is too.