Flesh House (30 page)

'I only wanted to--'

'Seriously, you'll live longer if you shut up right now.'

There was a brief, petulant silence. 'You're going to come to the pub though, yeah?'

'Will Jackie be there?'

'No.'

'Then I'll think about it.'

Rennie nodded. 'You can bring your English overlord if you like?'

'You're kidding, right? He sodded off hours ago.'

'Come on, while the cat's away, the mice can sod off to the pub and get blootered.' Rennie jumped to his feet. 'Couple of pints, get you out of this shitehole, spend some time with the living for a change.'

The world twisted and throbbed around Heather's head. In and out, in and out. Sounds came and went in the darkness: the pounding of her heart, her mother's disembodied voice:'
You're just feeling a little under the weather, Darling. You'll be fine. You will.
' A cold, papery hand on her forehead.

She'd been asleep, but now she was awake. Or still asleep, and dreaming she was awake. Feeling drunk and tired and sick. 'I want to see my Justin ...'

'
I know, darling, I know. You'll see him one day. When you die. But that's not going to happen for a long, long time. The Flesher will look after you. You'll see. The medicine will make you all better.
'

'Kelley? Kelley?'

'
Shhh ... Kelley's asleep, Darling. You should be too. You'll feel much better in the morning.
'

The screaming outside had started again: Maureen bellowing at the top of her lungs that she was scared and wanted someone to let her out ... Only the words were different. Panicked. 'Please! I'll do anything you want! Please!' More screaming. 'Please! I won't tell anyone: PLEASE!'

Her mother kissed Heather on the forehead. One soft hand cradling her cheek.

'Please! Please don't--'
Crack
. And then there was no more screaming.

The silence was beautiful and rich and dark. Like chocolate.

Heather didn't even mind when the hacking started.

The bar was full of off-duty police officers and students, both sets here for the cheap beer. Logan sat at DI Steel's normal table - in the corner beneath the television - polishing off his first pint of the night and enjoying every mouthful.

'I mean, think about it,' said Rennie, dressed for some unfathomable reason in a dog collar and priestly black,'how come whenever the Flesher strikes, our so-called Chief Constable Faulds is nowhere to be seen?'

Logan consigned his empty pint glass to the drinker's graveyard that covered the table. 'You're not still on about this, are you?'

'Where is he tonight, then?'

'How should I know?'

'Exactly!' Rennie finished off his Stella and plonked it down with the others.

Logan shook his head. 'I don't know where Steel is either, but that doesn't make her Jack the bloody Ripper.' He pointed at the collection of empties. 'Your round.'

The constable stood, pulled on an ecclesiastical expression, and marched off to the bar. Blessing random strangers on the way, leaving his girlfriend behind.

Rennie wasn't kidding about Laura's kinky schoolgirl outfit - she was dressed in an exact replica of the Albyn School uniform, only she had her shirt-tails tied beneath her breasts, hoiking them up to create a vertiginous cleavage and exposing her stomach at the same time. The skirt was so short there was a flash of white knickers every time she moved her stockinged legs. She'd even put her long, blonde hair in pigtails and painted freckles on her cheeks.

Logan had never really got the whole schoolgirl fantasy thing himself - it always seemed a bit paedophilic - but the other men at the table were falling over themselves to laugh at her jokes and ogle her breasts.

Logan barely heard his phone when it went off. 'Hello?' With all the laughing, jiggling and rampant testosterone, he couldn't make out a word. 'Hold on, I'll have to go outside ...'

The front door to Archibald Simpson was sheltered by a granite portico, held up by huge ionic columns, a perfect little haven for all the banished smokers to light up in. He waded through the cigarette smog to the outer edge, looking into the cold, rainy night as Colin Miller said,'
You in the pub again? Christ knows how your liver copes ... Listen, I did a search on all the victims, right? No' just the Aberdeen ones: every bugger. They all had a wee thing in the papers three or four weeks before they died. It's like clockwork, but.
'

'You sure?'

'
Every last one of them. Gonna be all over the front page tomorrow: "Headlines Spell Death for Flesher Victims!" Continued page seven, eight and nine.
'

'Can you email me all the references you found?'

'
What am I, your secretary?
'

'Oh come on, you wouldn't have a story at all if--'

'
Aye, aye. Bloody prima donna.
' But he promised to send them straight over.'
You up for that curry you owe us this week then?
'

'Khyber Pass, or Light of Bengal?' They were still debating the relative merits of sit-in versus takeaway, when someone poked Logan in the shoulder and said,'Shift over for God's sake. I'm bloody drowning out here.'

DI Steel squeezed in beside him, then dragged her hands through her sodden hair, shaking the water off all over Logan's trousers as he hung up.

'Hey, watch it!'

'Oh, grow up, you're no' going to melt.' She gave her hair one last pass - leaving it remarkably tidy-looking for a change - then produced a packet of cigarettes from her sodden jacket and lit up. 'How come you're looking so happy? Someone polish your truncheon for you?'

'I've found a connection.'

'Four hours I waited in that bloody doctor's surgery.' The inspector hauled up her trousers. 'You any idea how many buggers are getting themselves tested for HIV and Hepatitis C right now? Thousands. National Health Service my sharny arse!'

'Should've gone to the duty doc.'

'I'm no' letting that bastard anywhere near me with a needle.' She smoked her way into a scowl. 'I liked Doc Wilson better. Might've been a miserable cancer-ridden bastard, but at least he could take a joke.'

Probably not the epitaph the ex-duty doctor had been hoping for. 'Besides,' she said,'I ... hold on a minute - what connection?'

Logan told her about the newspaper clippings.

'Bloody hell ...' She took the cigarette out of her mouth, grabbed his shoulders, and planted a big, smoky kiss on his lips. 'Laz, I love you! Call the station and let them know, then I'm going to buy you a bloody
huge drink!
'

He phoned Control, and by the time he'd finished Steel was waiting for him inside with a double Highland Park. 'Well?' She handed him the glass. 'What did ...' she drifted to a halt, staring at Rennie's girlfriend as the constable reached the punchline of whatever joke he was telling. Laura threw back her head and laughed, exposing the smooth skin from her throat all the way down into her cleavage. Setting everything jiggling.

'Oooooh,' said Steel,'that
can't
be legal.' She drifted off into a little reverie ...'Yes, anyway, come on. Can't spend all night staring at nubile young women's chests: there's drinking to be done.'

45

'All right, all right, settle down.' Detective Chief Superintendent Bain stuck his mug on the desk at the front of the briefing room and waited for quiet. Logan sat with DI Steel, two rows back, marinating in the aftermath of a well-deserved hangover.

Nearly everyone in the team had wanted to buy him a drink when Steel told them about the newspaper connection, and Logan had let them.

'You'll have heard,' said Bain,'that we finally know how the Flesher is selecting his victims.' He held up a copy of that morning's
Aberdeen Examiner
, with Colin Miller's exclusive splashed all over the front page. A ragged cheer went up and Logan blushed.

DCS Bain held up a hand. 'Before anyone breaks out the champagne, think about it: each of the Flesher's victims were featured in a newspaper article before their deaths.
Press and Journal, Evening Express, Dundee Courier, Glasgow Herald, Daily Mail, Scotsman, Sunday Post
... Do you have any idea how many people read those papers?'

And suddenly Logan's glow didn't feel so rosy.

'Exactly. Millions. This tells us how the Flesher picks his victims, but it's a long way from getting us his name and address.

Steel nudged Logan in the ribs. 'Told you.' Which was a lie.

'But,' said Bain cutting through the groans,'it might give us an insight into the mind of the bastard. Which brings me to item two on the agenda: Doctor Goulding.' He pointed and a man in a sharp grey suit stood and joined him at the front.

'Hi, call me Dave, OK?' Liverpool accent, hooked nose, hair like animal pelt, and a lurid tie that looked as if someone had eaten a whole range of fluorescent paint and then thrown up on it.

'Chief Constable Faulds asked me to come in and present a profile on the Flesher. I've worked with sexually motivated violent offenders for fifteen years, attended training courses with the FBI at their Quantico headquarters, worked as a profiler for the Metropolitan Police ...'

Steel leant over and whispered in Logan's ear,'Lived in an octopus's garden, dressed up in women's clothing, had sex with a vacuum cleaner, am in love with the sound of my own sodding voice ...'

'I was asked to concentrate on three scenarios. A: Ken Wiseman is the Flesher and is working with an accomplice. B: Ken Wiseman was the Flesher, but the current spate of killings are down to a copycat. And C: it's been somebody else all along.' He looked at Bain. 'Can we get the first slide up? ... Thanks.' He turned and checked the screen - a shot of Thomas Stephen's surreal post mortem. 'When dealing with sexual predators, or "serial killers", it's important to start with the effect and work back towards the cause ...'

Steel got comfortable in her chair. 'Give us a nudge if I start to snore, OK?'

There then followed a long explanation of how the Flesher was killing people in order to introduce human meat into the food chain. According to Goulding, this was part of some deranged messiah complex. The longer the psychologist went on, the more coughing, shuffling and yawning he got from the audience. By the time he was going through the first profile, Steel was nodding off, her head dipping lower and lower each time, till her chin came to rest against her chest and she was gone.

Logan didn't blame her: he was having difficulty staying awake himself. Doctor Call-Me-Dave Goulding obviously thought he was 'one of the lads', but he just kept going on and on and on and on ...

'Of course,' he said,'what concerns me about scenario "C" is the lack of escalation. Twenty years is far too long for a single individual to be operating. The sexual thrill should become more and more difficult to sustain as time goes on; the buzz he gets from killing and dismembering is over quicker, so he has to go out and kill again, till he's either stopped, or goes on a spree.'

Logan stuck up his hand. 'What if it's not sexual?'

The psychologist pointed at the screen behind him: chunks of meat on a mortuary table. 'It's always sexual. Sometimes it doesn't look like it, but it is. He kills, dismembers, eats: uses it to fuel the fantasy.' He frowned. 'Probably masturbatory. There was no sign Tom Stephen was penetrated pre or post mortem, and no semen recovered from the head.'

Which was a lovely image.

'But what if sex isn't the important bit?'

Goulding smiled. 'Sex is always the important bit. The Flesher is a classic necrophiliac.'

'But you said he doesn't have sex with the bodies, how--'

'Many necrophiliacs are sexually aroused by the image of death. The Flesher kills to produce a dead body he can have absolute power over. The act of murder is a means to and end, it's incidental for him. He doesn't sexually abuse the corpse, because that's not what fuels his fantasy. The Flesher practices necrophagy - the mutilation and eating of dead bodies. It's quite a fascinating subcategory of necrophilia.'

'But--'

DCS Bain glowered at him. 'If you have any more questions, Sergeant, I suggest you take them up with Doctor Goulding after the briefing. Now: moving on.'

'Sorry about that,' said Faulds, when they were back in the history room,'didn't think he'd be so ...'

'Boring?' Steel sat back in Logan's chair, hands wrapped around a coffee.

'I was going to say, "thorough", but "boring" works too.'

Logan tore the wrapper off his Tunnock's tea cake. 'How about "condescending"? Or "toss-pot"?'

'Anyway, I think it's a reasonable profile. We should go through our list of possible suspects and see how they stack up.'

Which led to three hours of sodding about on the whiteboard.

Logan:'How about Catherine Davidson? Maybe they never found her remains, because she was the one doing the killing?'

Steel:'What a
great
suggestion! Let's see how she fits the profile: oh, wait a minute, she's no' a man. Next!'

Faulds:'What about Jamie McLaughlin? His friend is screwed up so badly he ends up in prison, but Jamie ends up writing children's books. He's a creative guy. Lives alone. Did a lot of research into the first round of killings. What's to say he's not re-enacting the death of his parents over and over again?'

Logan:'How does he get into the abattoir to dump the remains?'

That was how they spent the rest of the morning - coming up with alternatives then picking them apart.

Finally, Faulds pushed his chair back, stretched, groaned and said,'Lunch?'

'Wednesday's haddock and chips in the canteen.'

'Oh God, not more chips. You people never heard of salad?'

Steel bristled. 'And what the hell's wrong with chips?'

'How about sushi then?' Logan grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and slung it over his shoulder. 'There's a little place down the market that's pretty good.'

'It's not deep-fried is it?' Faulds stood. 'Because ... DI Insch - David - I was sorry to hear about your loss.'

The inspector was standing in the doorway, a huge, tent-like overcoat draped over his dark blue suit. 'I need to borrow Sergeant McRae for a couple of hours if that's OK, sir.'

'Actually' said Faulds,'we're just on our way out for some sushi. Care to join us?'

'I'd love to sir, but I'm on a tight schedule. I've got an arsonist being transferred to Barlinnie this afternoon - Sergeant McRae was part of the initial investigation, so I'd like him there when I talk to the little sod.'

'I see ...' Faulds turned to Logan. 'Well, I think we've done a good morning's work here anyway, so if you want to accompany the Inspector, I'm sure we can cover for you.'

Logan looked from the Chief Constable to Insch and back again. Watching any hope of lunch disappearing into the sunset. 'Of course, sir.'

Craiginches: the inspector hunched over the battered table in one of the prison's interview rooms, methodically chewing his way through a family-sized bag of Liquorice Allsorts. Logan stood against the wall, listening to the noises of a prison at lunchtime echoing down the corridor outside, as they waited for someone to bring Ray Williams from the canteen.

'You know,' said Insch,'I used to really love being a policeman. Thought I was doing some good. And now look at us ...' He pulled a coconut wheel from the bag and turned it over in his thick fingers, then stuck it in his mouth. 'Miriam wants a divorce. Going to emigrate to Canada and take the kids with her ...'

'I'm sorry.'

'And all because I didn't catch Wiseman soon enough.'

Ray Williams - when he finally turned up - was five foot ten of shifty looks and acne scars, who wouldn't know the truth if it got up and gave him an enema. He sat on the other side of the interview table, fidgeting as Insch asked him about the night a disused factory unit in Dyce spontaneously combusted. The inspector was making a decent show of it, but Logan could tell his heart wasn't in it.

Halfway through the interview, Insch checked his watch and excused himself, returning five minutes later with three polystyrene cups of something that might have been coffee in a former life. It wasn't like the inspector to get the drinks in, but Logan wasn't complaining.

Then Williams did some more lying. No, he had no idea how that can of petrol ended up with his prints all over it. Rags soaked in accelerant, Officer? Me? Must be thinking of someone else.

There was a knock on the interview room door and a prison officer stuck her head in to tell them their one o'clock appointment was waiting next door. Logan didn't have a clue what she was on about, but Insch nodded, thanked her, and said someone would be through in about five minutes, then pointed at Williams. 'You can take this thing back to the cells if you like, I'm sick of looking at his ugly face.'

'Will do. OK, Sunshine, let's go.

'I am not ugly!'

She pulled Williams to his feet and shuffled him out of the door. 'You ever look in a mirror?'

'He's not allowed to call me ugly, is he?'

'Right,' said Insch as the voices faded down the corridor,'let's get this over with.' He stood, and patted down the pockets of his huge overcoat. 'We should ... oh bugger. I've left the case file in the car.' The inspector glanced at Logan. 'Well: run along then. It's on the back seat and there should be a packet of Jelly Tots in there as well.'

Logan picked himself off the wall and tried not to look too pissed-off at being used as an errand boy. 'Yes, sir.'

The file was on the back seat, but there was no sign of any confectionary. Logan stuck the manila folder under his arm and wandered back into the prison. By the time he'd signed back in and made his way through to the small suite of interview rooms, his stomach was growling. Why couldn't Insch have waited till after lunch?

He could hear two men shouting at each other, the sound muffled behind a closed door at the far end of the corridor. One of them yelled,'Bastard!' then there was a loud crash - furniture smashing into a wall. 'I'LL KILL YOU!'

Oh Christ, that was Insch.

Logan dropped the case file. It hit the ground and spilled its contents all over the corridor at his feet, only it wasn't full of statements and reports, it was full of brochures from a funeral parlour:'SEEING YOUR CHILD SAFELY INTO THE NEXT WORLD.'

'Oh you stupid ...'

He ran for the interview room, grabbed the handle and twisted.

Locked.

The whole door shook as something slammed into it from the other side. Logan aimed a kick at the lock, shouting,'I NEED BACK-UP HERE NOW!' The door didn't give. He tried again and this time it exploded inwards.

The interview table had been ripped from the floor - the bolts that were meant to hold it down sheared off half way. It lay on its side surrounded by smashed audiovisual equipment. A huge pink fist rose behind the tabletop, then plunged down again.

Logan scrambled through the wreckage.

Insch was on the other side of the table, straddling Wiseman's chest, pinning his arms to his sides; he had one hand around the butcher's throat, throttling the life out of him. Another punch. Wiseman's head bounced back off the terrazzo flooring, bright red spurting from his nose.

Insch punched him again. More blood.

He raised his fist for another go, but Logan got there first, grabbing the inspector and hauling him backwards. They crashed into the wall just as a pair of prison officers burst through the broken door.

Wiseman coughed, sending a spume of blood into the air. It spattered down around his face in little neon droplets. He raised his hands to his face - wrists still cuffed together - and retched.

Insch struggled, arms and legs lashing out, but Logan was wrapped around him like an octopus.

'Calm down!'

'I'LL KILL HIM!' A foot went soaring past Wiseman's head. 'KILL HIM!'

The prison officers charged, and between the three of them they managed to haul Insch into the corner, forced him over onto his face and twisted his hands up behind his back.