Flesh House (11 page)

'I'll look after you.'

Heather smiled, blinked, wiped her nose on the back of her hand, enjoying the warmth of Duncan's body. 'Is this what going mad feels like?'

There was a moment's silence, then Duncan said,
'Yes, you're finally turning into your mother.'

'You're such an arsehole.'

'Don't you know it's bad luck to speak ill of the dead?'
But he kissed her head again.

'You're still an arsehole.' She closed her eyes and snuggled into Duncan's shoulder. He smelt of Old Spice and fresh blood. 'Did it hurt? Dying?'

'Shhhh ... go to sleep.'

And she did.

Insch leant on the horn again. 'Get out the bloody way!' Up ahead the tractor took no notice, just continued to trundle down the A90 at thirty miles an hour, huge globs of mud flying from its rear wheels.

Logan turned up the volume on his mobile phone and stuck a finger in his other ear, trying to hear the voice of Control as Insch launched into another bout of horn blowing.

BREEEEEEEEEEP!

'--three cars and--'

BREEEEEEEEEEP!

'What?'

'Shift it! POLICE!'

'--no one there when--'

BREEEEEP BREEEEEEEEEEP!

Logan slapped a hand over the mouthpiece. 'Will you lay off it for five minutes? I can't hear a bloody word!'

The inspector's face took on its familiar about-to-explode tinge, but at least he was quiet in the run-up to detonation. Logan asked Control to go back to the start, then gave Insch the edited version:'They've got two cars at the address Robertson gave us.'

'And?'

'The bastard lied to us. Wiseman's not there.'

The inspector swore. 'Tell them I want the place watched - twenty-four-seven. At least two teams, low profile.' BREEEEEEEEEEP!'Move that bloody tractor!'

Logan passed on the instructions and hung up as the tractor finally indicated and pulled into a rutted, muddy track, the farmer giving them the one-fingered-salute as they roared past.

'You really think Wiseman's still got keys to the place?'

Insch shrugged and put his foot down. 'He better, it's the only bloody lead we've got.' The inspector's trousers started singing at them. Insch dragged his mobile phone out, and handed it over. It was all warm. 'Don't just sit there: answer it!'

Logan hit the button. 'DI Insch's phone.'

A man's voice, old, rough round the edges.
'Who's this?'

'DS McRae. Who's this?'

'Put David on.'

'He's driving.'

'Oh for goodness sake: half the country uses their mobile phone while driving!'

Now that they weren't stuck behind four tons of farm machinery the Range Rover was tearing down the road.

'Well?' said Insch,'Who is it?'

'No idea.'

'Tell him it's Garry Brooks.'

'It's a Garry Brooks?'

The inspector groaned. 'What does he want?'

'I want to know what he's doing to catch that bastard Wiseman. Tell him no one down the station'll talk to me!'

Logan did as he was told. And Insch swore quietly. 'Tell him we're working on a couple of leads. I'll give him a shout when we have something more concrete.'

'He says--'

'I heard him! I'm retired, not deaf. Tell him: tonight. Redgarth. Half seven. He's buying.'
And then the crotchety old man was gone. Logan shut the inspector's phone and handed it back.

'He says you've got to buy him a pint tonight.'

Insch's fat hands tightened on the steering wheel. 'Why didn't you tell him I couldn't make it? We're going to be watching Wiseman's bolthole! You knew that!'

'I didn't get the chance! The old git hung up on me.'

'That "old git" was policing Aberdeen before you were born!'

Alec scooted forward again. 'Brooks? Not DCI Brooks? The guy who--'

'I'm not going to tell you to sit back again, I'm going to slam on the brakes and send you flying through the bloody window!'

'Come on, you've got to meet with him! The continuity's great - Brooks heads up the investigation in 1987 and now he hands over the torch to his protege, twenty years later. We get Logan there too and we've got three generations of policemen, all dedicated to catching the Flesher, discussing the case over a pint ...'

'No.'

'Please?'

'No!'

'Oh Christ,' said Rennie, hiding behind a stack of missing persons reports,'don't look now: it's Grumpy and Grumpier.'

DI Insch and DI Steel were at it again, arguing in front of the big map of Aberdeen that dominated one wall of the main Flesher incident room. From the sound of things Steel wanted to go into the address they'd got from Robertson with all guns blazing. Insch wanted to keep it under surveillance. And while the two of them fought, Alec filmed the whole thing from less than three feet away.

Finally Steel threw her hands in the air and marched out, banging the door behind her.

Insch stood for a moment, like a gathering storm, then marched out after her, with Alec hot on his heels.

'Bugger ...' Logan got the nasty feeling he was about to win his bet.

He watched the door swing shut, and then Rennie elbowed him in the ribs.

'Ow, what was that--'

'Aren't you going to do something?'

'Are you
crazy?
He'd kill me.'

'But you're supposed to be--'

'Fine! OK,
I'll
go.' Logan hauled himself to his feet and out the door, muttering under his breath the whole way.

There was no sign of Insch in the corridor outside, but Logan could hear the stairwell doors battering back and forth on their hinges. He broke into a jog as raised voices echoed down from the floor above.

Insch:'You're being ridiculous, we--'

Steel:'God's sake, I'm just saying, OK? He could still be in there!'

Logan took the stairs two at a time.

Insch:'If we tear the place apart, he'll know. This discussion is over - we're not going in ... Will you get that bloody camera out of my face!'

Alec:'I'm just doing my job ... hey ... where are--' Logan pushed through the stairwell doors just in time to see Steel march into the gents' toilet, shouting,'Don't you walk away from me! We're not finished.'

Logan hurried in after her. The toilets were a depressing shade of green: three walls painted a nasty institutional spearmint; the fourth - where the long, trough urinal was - done in the same speckled green terrazzo as the floor. But unlike the floor, years of police officer's piddle had bleached white streaks into the surface, looking disturbingly like dried milk. Or sperm.

Steel stood by the line of cubicles, arms outstretched, preventing DI Insch from disappearing inside. 'No - we are going to talk about this like adults!'

'Get out of my bloody way.'

Alec shifted to get a better angle and Insch turned on him:'WHAT DID I BLOODY TELL YOU?'

'I'm just--'

Insch stuck a hand against Alec's chest and shoved - sending the cameraman clattering back into the urinal trough.

'Aaaah! Fucking hell--'

Steel stared. 'Have you gone
mental?
'

Snarl. 'GET OUT!'

'You can't just--

''Jesus ... I'm covered in piss!'

Insch turned, grabbed Steel by the lapel and shoved her back against a cubicle door. 'Listen up and listen good, you foulsmelling--'

Logan stepped forwards. 'Excuse me, sir!'

'I'm
busy,
Sergeant.'

'The Assistant Chief Constable wants to see you in his office.'

'Tell him I'll be there in a--'

'Get your fat hands off me!'

'He did say it was urgent, sir.'

Silence.

'Fine.' The inspector stepped back and let go of Steel. 'I'm finished here anyway.'

She straightened her jacket. 'You ever grab me like that again and you will be - I'll tear your fucking balls off!'

Alec was back on his feet, face a picture of disgust as he shook one foot and then the other, sending little droplets flying onto the grubby, green floor. 'Fucking piss everywhere! I was only trying to do my job!'

He picked up his camera and wiped it on his sleeve. 'You any idea how much these bloody things cost? I'm making an official complaint, you can't treat me like I'm some sort of--'

'Oh God ...' Logan saw the punch coming long before anyone else: Insch curled one huge hand into a fist and swung.

Alec didn't stand a chance. So Logan lunged forwards, shoving him out of the way. The cameraman went sprawling, right back into the urinal again - and that was when Logan realized he'd not thought this through properly.

Insch's fist whistled through the gap where Alec used to be and clattered into Logan's face.

15

Everything smelt of burning copper. Logan sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair with his head thrown back and a clump of soggy paper towels clamped to his nose.

'Still bleeding?' Chief Inspector Napier - head of Professional Standards - was probably doing his best to sound concerned, but it wasn't working. Hook-nosed ginger bastard.

His office was crowded and noisy. Big Gary - huge, uniformed and covered in biscuit crumbs - sat in the corner, next to Napier's colleague, taking notes while Steel and Insch lied about what had happened in the toilets. Everyone doing their best not to get too close to Alec, who was starting to smell.

Logan pulled the compress away and dabbed at his nostrils with a finger. It came away covered in blood. He tipped his head back again and applied a fresh wodge of paper towels.

'As I see it,' said Napier, treating them all to his fish-like gaze,'no one is denying DI Insch hit DS McRae in the toilets. Correct?'

No one said anything.

'I see ...' Napier picked up a silver pen from his neat-freak desk and pointed it at Alec, as if it were a magic wand and by some miracle of prestidigitation he could make the cameraman not stink of piss. 'And did you manage to film this "assault"?'

Alec looked at Insch and Steel, then blushed and stared at the carpet instead. 'My ... my camera wasn't working because it fell in the urinal ... when I ... tripped.'

'Really?' The chief inspector pulled a notebook from his drawer and read aloud. 'He attacked me - he shoved me into the urinal. He tried to--'

Alec went even redder. 'I was wrong. I slipped and fell.'

'You slipped and fell.'

'I slipped and fell.'

'I see ...' Napier put the notebook back in the drawer. 'And this sudden change of opinion wouldn't have anything to do with being threatened by DI Insch?'

The inspector lumbered to his feet. 'Are you suggesting I tampered with a witness? Because if you are--'

Napier didn't even look at him. 'Spare me the indignant act, you're in enough trouble as it is. Half the station heard you and DI Steel screaming at one another.'

'Friendly disagreement,' said Steel.

'Quite.' Napier turned a reptilian smile on Logan. 'I'd like to hear what DS McRae has to say for himself.'

Logan blanched. 'Whad? I did'n do adythig! It wasn't--'

'You must have done something for the Inspector to punch you.'

'He ...' Logan snuck a glance at the pair of them - Insch and Steel, sitting there as if butter wouldn't melt. 'I slibbed and fell against the cubigle door.'

Napier took off his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose. 'Do I look stupid, Sergeant?'

Logan didn't want to answer that one.

'Very well,' said Napier at last,'McRae, Steel, you may go. And take ... that,' he pointed at the smelly cameraman,'with you. DI Insch and I have some things to discuss.'

Without Faulds and Rennie making the place look untidy, the Flesher history room was nice and quiet, giving Logan peace to groan and dab at his blood-encrusted nostrils. The whole front of his head felt like a bouncy castle full of rats.

Technically he should have gone home after being dismissed from Chief Inspector Napier's Lair of Doom, but he wanted to know what Professional Standards had in store for Insch. Unable to decide if he wanted the fat git suspended or not. Loyalty to your superior officer was all well and good, until they punched you on the nose.

A knock at the door and one of the station's Family Liaison officers stuck her head into the room. 'Rennie says ...' she trailed off, staring at Logan's puffy face. 'Damn, I had a tenner on Wednesday.' She held up a small sheaf of paperwork. 'Are you in charge till Insch ... you know?'

Logan sighed and stuck out a hand. It was the initial victimology report on the Leith attack, trying to build up a picture of Valerie Leith's life before Wiseman put an end to it. It wasn't easy to concentrate with both nostrils stuffed full of tissue paper, but he did his best.

The FLO couldn't stop staring at Logan's nose. 'Haven't got any ibuprofen have you? Six hours in a hospital visitor's chair and my back's sodding killing me.'

Logan pointed at a desk in the far corner. 'Tob left drawer, helb yourself.' He'd already had four.

According to the FLO's report, Valerie Leith was a creature of habit: shopped at Sainsbury's every Saturday, Debenhams every Tuesday; worked in a solicitor's office doing house sales; had no close friends, but did have a number of people she spoke to on a regular basis. It would take a while, but the Family Liaison officers would interview each and every one of them.

Logan pulled out the rough family tree they'd managed to piece together - other than the husband: William, there was a brother in Canada and an aunt in Methyl. Not much help there.

So he flicked through the day-to-day stuff, trying to figure out what Wiseman had seen in Valerie Leith that made him want to chop her into little pieces. Ten years they'd had Wiseman in Peterhead Prison, and still no one had been able to figure out what made him do it. What made him pick one person over another.

'I think he's still in shock, by the way.'

'Who?' It took Logan a second to realize who the FLO was talking about. 'Oh, the husband. Not surprisig.'

'Poor bastard. Physically he's doing OK, doctors say it looks worse than it is, but emotionally ...' She swallowed a couple of pills. 'We've been up to our sodding ears trying to keep the press away. Can you believe they offered some nurse two thousand pounds to sneak a video camera in and film him talking about his wife? How sick is that?'

'What aboud the timbline?'

'Still working on it. No pre-cursor incidents that we can see so far. Loving couple, married for fifteen years, and then bang: Wiseman.' She stretched, puffed out her cheeks, sagged ... 'Better get back to it I suppose. Don't want to leave Norman up there on his own for too long with all them pretty nurses. You know what he's like.'

Logan didn't, but he nodded anyway and stuck the FLO's report away with the ones on the Fittie family. One for each victim.

The way things were going there would be a lot more of these before they finally caught Ken Wiseman.

'Six hundred twenty, six hundred thirty, six hundred forty,' Rennie counted out the ten pound notes into Logan's outstretched hand,'six fifty, and one more makes it six sixty. And I still say you cheated.'

Logan ran his fingers through the stack of cash. 'Don't be such a bad loser.'

'Getting him to punch you on your day in the sweepie. Should be ashamed of yourself.' The constable scrunched up the brown envelope the money had been in, then lobbed it at the bin. 'Goal!' He stood there, looking pointedly at the pile of ten pound notes in Logan's hand. 'So, your round tonight then?'

'No chance. My head feels like a brick in a cement mixer.' He reached up and delicately teased one of the tissue paper plugs from his nostril. At least the bleeding had stopped. 'Home, bath, bed.'

'Ah, well, I've got a hot date tonight anyway: Laura again. Going to take her out for a pizza and then back to my place for a night of hot monkey love!' He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. 'Going to get some of that chocolate body paint from Ann Summers after work. We're going to--'

'You're a pervert, do you know that?'

'You're just jealous,'cos I'm having wild passionate sex with a foxy babe and you're stuck on your tod till Christmas.' Rennie turned, flopping a theatrical hand across his brow. 'It's sad really.' Then he flounced off, to the sound of Logan calling him an utter, utter bastard.

'Hoy, Laz, where you think you're going?'

Logan finished signing out, then turned to see DI Steel standing at the back door in all her wrinkled glory - packet of cigarettes in one hand, cup of coffee in the other. She nodded her head in the direction of the rear podium car park. 'Come on, you can hold the brolly while I have a fag.'

'I'd really like to just go home. Nose is killing me.'

'Aye, well, that's what happens when you get yourself punched in the face. Come on, you can spare five minutes for your new Senior Investigating Officer.'

Trying not to groan, Logan joined her out in the rain, holding the umbrella so the inspector could smoke and drink her coffee at the same time.

'So,' she took a sip and a puff,'you hear about Insch? Two days suspension and a slap on the wrist. No bad going when you think about it. Two days for lamping a Detective Sergeant ... Tempted to try it myself - Beattie's been getting on my tits.' She grinned at him through a plume of cigarette smoke. 'Oh, cheer up, you grumpy old bugger. Here - got a present for you ...'

She stuck the fag in her mouth and pulled out a battered paperback from the pocket of her jacket. 'Fusty Faulds said to give it to you when I'd finished.'

It was a well-thumbed copy of Jamie McLaughlin's book. Logan turned it over and read the blurb on the back.

'It's no' bad, bit longwinded, but what do you expect from a beardy weirdo?'

'"Follow James McLaughlin as he comes to terms with the loss of his parents and the hunt for their killer ... " Sounds like a bag of laughs.'

'Aye, wait till you get to the photographs.' She took a deep drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out into the rain. 'Tell you, Laz, this is a golden opportunity. Wiseman turns up at that address you got from the Mastrick Monster, we catch him, cover ourselves in glory, and dance the dance of a thousand pints.' She took another slug of coffee. 'Speaking of being covered in stuff, where's Wee Fat Alec?'

'Last I heard he was off home to shower and chuck his clothes in the washing machine. Why?'

'Because when Wiseman turns up I want Mr Stinks-of-Piss filming as you and me arrest him.'

Logan sighed. 'It's supposed to be a low-key operation. Flood the place with parked cars full of CID and BBC cameramen, Wiseman'll run a mile.'

She wrinkled her face at him. 'You're no fun.'

'I'm knackered: haven't had a day off in weeks.'

'Oh?' Steel sooked the last gasp from her cigarette and pinged it out into the rain. 'Well, tell you what, why don't you take a couple of days at home. Put your feet up. Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing.'

'Sarcasm. Nice. It was my day off today, and where was I?'

'I'm sure that wee boy they found barricaded in his room in Fittie is over the moon you're prepared to put your social life on hold for two minutes while we try find the man who butchered his bloody parents.'

Logan handed her the brolly. 'Good night, Inspector.' And marched off into the night.

She shouted after him:'Seven - sharp! And it's your turn to get the bacon butties!'

Jamie McLaughlin's book wasn't anywhere near as bad as Logan had expected. OK, so Jamie had a tendency to use three words where one would do, but other than that it was pretty good. Logan sat in the lounge, with the radiator and electric fire going full pelt, a cup of tea balanced on the arm of the settee, and a packet of Jaffa Cakes on the coffee table, reading about the hunt for Ken Wiseman, AKA: the Flesher.

Every now and then he'd come across a few pages of photographs, usually of the investigative team. Some were lifted from newspaper cuttings, but others were more candid: a uniformed officer standing outside the McLaughlin house while an SOC team shuffled by in the out-of-focus background; Jamie's bedroom; the pathologist having a sneaky cigarette in the back garden; a thin man with thick, dark hair deep in conversation with a statuesque redhead; a clunky looking, old-fashioned patrol car with ... Logan flipped back a page. According to the caption it was 'DC D
AVID
I
NSCH
(G
RAMPIAN
)A
ND
DS J
ANIS
M
C
K
AY
(S
TRATHCLYDE
)D
ISCUSSING
THE

CASE'.

'Bloody hell ...' Logan had never seen the inspector with hair before. And he didn't look like an angry, pink dirigible either, he was actually smiling!

There was a sight you didn't see every day.

Logan flipped to the index and went looking for more about Detective Constable David Insch.

He was in the kitchen, making another cup of tea when the doorbell rang. Logan thought about ignoring it - probably kids dressed up in black bin-bags and cheap plastic masks. Halloween was four days ago and the little bastards were still shouting 'Trick or treat?'

RRRRRRRRRRingggggggggggggg

Logan stuck the milk back in the fridge.

RRRRRRRRRRingggggggggggggg

He went through to the lounge and peered out of the window at the street below. There was a darkish Volvo estate illegally parked on the other side of the road, it's hazard lights flashing orange in the rain, the BBC Scotland logo stencilled on the driver's door.