Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

Many people helped (intentionally or otherwise) with the writing of this book by answering questions, asking them, or just saying bizarre things that sounded interesting within earshot.

I have to thank (because they’ll arrest me if I don’t) Grampian Police for all the help they’ve given me, not just with this book, but all the previous ones. A special nod goes to Chief Inspector Jim Bilsland, for pointers and some stories of what it was like in the force back in the 1980s — none of which I can repeat here — and Linda Cottriall for putting me straight about what a Family Liaison officer actually does.

That doyenne of the mortuary, Ishbel Gall, was once more unbelievably helpful, especially when it came to some of the more... cannibalistic aspects of the story. If she wasn’t so nice, she’d be scary.

Any procedural stuff that I’ve got right is down to the input of these people. The bits I’ve got wrong are all my own work.

I want to thank Frank Clark and Bruce Fraser of McIntosh Donald for showing me how a proper abattoir works, and Keir Allen and Duncan Oswald for talking them into it. Thanks guys, it was an eye-opener.

More thanks are due to Danny Stroud for the fascinating tour of Aberdeen Harbour; Szymon Krygiel for the lesson in Polish swearing; Christopher Croly for some interesting historical facts; everyone at Trinity Hall; and let’s not forget Val McDermid, Tammy Jones, Mark Billingham, Bernard Cornwell, John ‘Spanky’ Rickards, Allan Guthrie, Stuart Singer of the Redgarth, and the late great R.D. Wingfield (who’ll be sorely missed). Inspiration, beer, and abuse in equal measure.

Yet more thanks go to: Philip Patterson — not just a great agent, but a friend and top-notch monkey impersonator — Luke, Isabella, Jacquie, and everyone else at Marjacq scripts. HarperCollins: especially the brilliant Jane Johnson and dazzling Sarah Hodgson; the superb Amanda; Fiona, Louisa and the Publicity crew; Lucy, Airlie and the Rights gang; Clive, Wendy and the UK Sales team; Sylvia, Damon and the Export Sales guys; Leisa and the Marketing maestros; and Andrew and Dom for design interior and exterior. Kelley Ragland at St. Martin’s Press. And James Oswald for his unusually bearded insight.

I also want to thank Tom and Hazel Stephen who donated a large sum of money to Books Abroad, so that they could appear as victims in this book — brave choice!

In order to make the newspaper clippings look as real as possible I had to twist some family members’ arms to let me photograph them: my brother, Christopher appears as Ken Wiseman; my sister-in-law, Catherine plays Catherine Davidson; and a strange lady from Fife pretended to be Valerie Leith. (All the businesses and locations in the book were faked up using Adobe Photoshop.)

Lastly, but not leastly, I have to say thanks to my naughty wife, Fiona for random cups of tea and putting up with a succession of bizarre, rambling questions; and my little girl, Grendel for all the half-chewed bits of mice.

And now a message for the Aberdeen Tourist Board: I promise to set the next one in Summer, OK?

‘No, you listen to me: if my six year old son isn’t back here in ten minutes I’m going to come round there and rip you a new arsehole, are we clear?’ Ian McLaughlin slapped a hand over the mouthpiece and shouted at his wife to turn that bloody racket down. Then he went back to the idiot on the other end of the phone: ‘Where the hell’s Jamie?’

‘When I got back from the pub they were gone, OK? Catherine’s not here either... maybe she took the boys for a walk?’

‘A walk? It’s pissing down, pitch black, freezing cold—’

‘What? What’s wrong?’ Sharon stood at the door to the living room, wearing the witch costume she’d bought from Woolworths. The one that hid her pregnant bulge and made her breasts look enormous.

Ian grunted, not bothering to cover the phone this time. ‘It’s that moron Davidson: he’s lost Jamie.’

‘Jamie’s missing?’ Sharon clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling the shriek. Always overreacting, just like her bloody mother.

‘I never said that! I didn’t say he was lost, I just—’

‘If we’re late for this bloody party, I’m personally going to see to it that—’

The doorbell: loud and insistent.

‘—your life is going to be—’

The doorbell again.

‘For God’s sake, Sharon, answer the bloody door! I’m on the phone...’

There was a clunk and a rattle as Sharon finally did what she was told, and then she shrieked again. ‘Jamie! Oh Jamie, we were so worried! ’

Ian stopped mid-rant, staring at the soggy tableau on the top step: Jamie and his best friend Richard Davidson, holding hands with some idiot in a Halloween costume. ‘About bloody time,’ said Ian, slamming the phone down. ‘I told you to be home by five!’ The two small boys looked wide eyed and frightened. And so they bloody should be. ‘Where the hell have you two been?’

No reply. Typical. And look at the time... ‘Jamie!’ Ian hooked his thumb in the direction of the stairs. ‘Get your backside up there and get changed. If you’re not a Viking in three minutes you’re going to the party as a kid in his vest and pants.’

Jamie cast a worried look at his partner in crime, then up at the stranger on the doorstep — the one wearing the bloodstained butcher’s apron and Margaret Thatcher fright mask — before slinking up to his room, taking Richard with him.

Great, now they’d have to drop the little brat off at his parents’ house.

Today was turning into a complete nightmare.

Detective Sergeant Logan McRae winced his way across the dark quayside trying not to scald his fingers, making for a scarred offshore container pinned in the harsh glow of police spotlights. The thing was about the size of a domestic bathroom — dented and battered from years of being shipped out to oilrigs in the middle of the North Sea and back again — its blue paint pockmarked with orange rust. A pool of dark red glittered in the Investigation Bureau’s lights: blood mingling with oily puddles on the cold concrete, while figures in white oversuits buggered about with cameras and sticky tape and evidence bags.

Four o’clock in the morning, what a great start to the day. The refrigerated container was little more than a metal box, lined with insulating material. Three wooden pallets took up most of the floor, piled high with boxes of frozen vegetables, fish, chicken bits and other assorted chunks of meat, the brown-grey cardboard sagging as the contents slowly defrosted.

Logan ducked under the cordon of blue-and-white POLICE tape.

It was impossible to miss Detective Inspector Insch: the man was huge, his SOC coveralls strained to nearly bursting. He had the suit’s hood thrown back, exposing a big bald head that glinted in the spotlights. But even he was dwarfed by the looming bulk of the Brae Explorer , a massive orange offshore supply vessel parked alongside the quay, all its lights blazing in the purple-black night.

Logan handed one of the Styrofoam cups of tea to Insch. ‘They were out of sugar.’ That got him some rumbled swearing. He ignored it. ‘Sky News have turned up. That makes three television crews, four newspapers and a handful of gawkers.