Flesh House (27 page)

40

A muffled scream. The sound of a body hammering against metal. Heather sat up, groggy, blinking in the darkness.

Boom, boom, boom. 'Help me! I don't want to die!' A woman's voice, muffled, coming from somewhere outside the prison.

'Kelley?'

'
How can it be Kelley? She's asleep
.' Duncan was right - Kelley's breathing came soft and rhythmic from the other side of the bars.

'Kelley! Wake up! Can you hear that?'

Boom, boom, boom. 'HELP ME!'

'Mmmph?'

'There's someone out there!' Heather stood and felt her way into the darkness. 'Hello?'

'HELP ME!' Boom, boom, boom.

She put her ear against the prison's metal wall.

Boom, boom, boom.

'Hello?'

'Heather?' Kelley yawned, shifting in the dark. 'Heather? What's going on?'

'There's someone out there ... Hello?' She banged her palm against the wall.

'Help me! He killed my little sister! He killed Sandra! HELP ME!'

'We can't, we're locked in!'

'I DON'T WANT TO DIE!' More screaming, then crying. And eventually silence.

Heather backed away from the wall - her foot caught on the edge of the mattress and she stumbled backwards, arms flailing out for balance as she fell. BANG: the back of her head bounced off the bars.

Muffled noises.

'Heather?'

'
Honey, are you all right?
'

'Heather?'

And the Dark took her.

Rennie stifled a yawn. Stretched. Shivered. Then had a bit of a scratch at his trousers. 'God I'm knackered ... You see the papers this morning?'

Logan looked up from the chest of drawers that lurked in the corner of the little room. 'Did you check under the mattress?' The Turrabrae Guesthouse was the most depressing B&B he'd ever been in: the walls were covered with cheap woodchip wallpaper; water stains on the ceiling; threadbare brown and orange carpet that was probably fashionable back in the seventies and hadn't been changed since; a single bed that wouldn't have looked out of place in a medieval torture chamber.

So far this morning they'd visited two of the three abattoir workers who'd provided Marek Kowalczyk with an alibi for the night Tom and Hazel Stephen were snatched. And Turrabrae Guesthouse was easily the worse. Piotr Nowak - alibi number three - wasn't exactly living in the lap of luxury.

Rennie sniffed. 'You ever thought about getting married?'

Logan pulled out the bottom drawer and carefully picked through the pile of paired-off socks. 'You're not my type.'

'I've been thinking about it a lot. You know, with Laura?'

'Mattress!'

'Eh? Oh, aye ...' The sound of rummaging. 'Course it wouldn't be for a while yet. Have to save up for a house.'

The sock drawer contained nothing but socks. Logan gave the whole thing one last tug - pulling it out of the unit and onto the swirly brown carpet - then peered into the hole. Two magazines, both explicit, but nothing illegal.

He stuck the magazines back where they'd come from and replaced the drawer, then stood at the little window, looking out at the dismal day in all its grey glory. Twenty to eleven on a cold November morning and it was probably warmer outside than in here. He could see DI Steel standing half-way down the garden path, smoking cigarettes and fiddling with her underwear. Logan let the curtain fall back. 'You come all the way from Poland looking for a better life and what do you get? A manky box-room in a crappy little B&B and a job shovelling sheep heads into a skip.'

'Give us a hand ...' Rennie was fighting with the saggy mattress, its stripy fabric stained and fraying round the edges. Logan helped him raise it all the way up, where gravity promptly folded it in half. Swearing, Rennie struggled it to the floor beside the single bed.

It was a divan and the base unit looked just as bad as the fusty mattress.

Logan's phone made strangled metal chicken noises - Control calling to say they couldn't get through to DI Steel, but Logan was to tell her the Polish police had just faxed over details on Kowalczyk and the three abattoir workers who'd alibied him. Only Piotr Nowack had prior, and it wasn't for cannibalism - he was part of a gang who broke into industrial estates and stole anything not nailed down.

Logan hung up as Rennie wrestled the saggy mattress back where came from, grumbling about bedbugs and pee stains.

'Not so fast.'

A pained look slid onto the constable's face. 'What?'

'You didn't check the base unit.'

'Oh bloody hell ...' Rennie heaved the mattress back onto the floor again.

It took both of them to heave the wooden-framed base up onto its side, and when they did they discovered an Aladdin's cave. Assuming Aladdin had fallen on hard times, and instead of gold, jewels and coins he'd taken to hoarding pens, Post-its, staplers, telephones and four-hole punches. The divan was stuffed with office supplies, some still bearing little 'P
ROPERTY
O
F
A
LABA
M
EATS
L
TD
.' stickers. There were even a couple of fax machines and a laptop.

And right at the back: a holdall that looked eerily familiar.

Rennie picked up a packet of Blu Tack. 'Not exactly the great train robbery, is it?'

Logan slipped on a second pair of latex gloves and pulled the holdall from the pile of pilfered stationary. It was identical to the one Marek Kowalczyk was carrying on the abattoir's CCTV tape, only it wasn't full of blood and meat, it was full of whiteboard markers and DL envelopes.

'Oh ... bugger.'

41

Logan stood on the B&B's top step, listening to DI Steel swearing a blue streak. 'You sure?' she said, when the well of profanity had finally run dry,'Post-it notes?'

'Loads of them. Envelopes, paperclips, ring-binders, you name it.'

More swearing. 'The DCS's going to kill me ...' She took an angry drag on her cigarette. 'He thinks we caught the Flesher, not some silly bugger raiding the stationery cupboard.'

'Nowak didn't say anything when you spoke to him?'

'Course he bloody didn't. Just kept bleating for a lawyer.' Puff, puff, puff. 'Look, you're absolutely positive? No wee chunks of meat in there at all?'

'Not a sausage. Looks like Nowak was trying the same scam he ran back home, probably got Kowalczyk, Wisniewski, and Laszenyk to do the actual stealing. I've told Rennie to go round the local pubs, see if anyone remembers being offered a dodgy fax machine and a load of yellow highlighers.'

'Sodding hell.' Steel was quiet for a moment. 'Can you no' concentrate on solving the main crime for once? We almost had the bastard!' She hurled her cigarette butt to the path and ground it out with her boot.

'It wasn't him though, was it?'

'If you don't stop rubbing it in, I'm going to introduce the point of my boot to the hole in your arse.'

'You're welcome.'

DI Steel was right: DSC Bain wasn't happy to hear the news. 'G
RAMPIAN
P
OLICE
C
ATCH
A
BATTOIR
K
ILLER
' had turned into 'M
AN
F
LATTENED
B
Y
V
OLKSWAGEN
G
OLF
F
OR
N
ICKED
P
OST
-I
T
N
OTES
'. Or it would do as soon as the papers found out Marek Kowalczyk wasn't the Flesher after all.

Logan sloped off before anyone found a way to make this all his fault, and went to the canteen for lunch. After all, it was Monday and that could only mean one thing: lasagne and chips, lasagne and chips, lasagne and ... fuck.

He turned from the serving counter, tray in hand, to see DI Insch sitting at a table by the window with Jackie. If that wasn't bad enough, the inspector was staring straight at him. And now Jackie was staring at him too.

The fat man pushed the chair on the other side of the table out with his foot.

Damn ... Logan took his lunch over and sat, trying to act casual as he helped himself to the vinegar. 'Sir, Jackie.'

She didn't even pretend to be on first-name terms anymore:'Sergeant.'

There was an awkward silence.

Logan started in on his lasagne. All he had to do was eat fast and get out of here. Why the hell did Insch have to--

'Soon as you've finished,' said the inspector, scooping the last remnants of custard out of a bowl,'you can get us a pool car. You and I are going to see Andrew McFarlane.'

And there went Logan's appetite. 'Sorry sir, the DCS gave strict--'

'I'm not supposed to interfere in the Flesher case? You'll be happy to know, Sergeant, that we're going to talk to Mr McFarlane about a spate of recent vandalism. Which does fall under my remit.'

Logan looked at Jackie, hoping for some support, but all he got back was a stony silence.

He tried again. 'Sir, don't you think--'

'No I don't. Now eat your bloody lasagne.'

'So,' said Logan, looking up at the butcher's shop,'you were having lunch with Jackie...?' The shop windows were boarded up: huge sheets of plywood, peppered with nightclub flyers and a patina of graffiti:'C
ANNIBAL
B
ASTARD
!''M
URDERER
' 'S
CUM
' and for some reason:'E
NGLISH
O
UT
'

Insch unwrapped a chocolate eclair, stuffing the sweetie in his mouth, and the wrapper in his pocket. He pointed at the blue door next to the butcher's shop. 'You know the drill.'

There was an intercom with McFarlane's name printed on a plastic slip. Logan pressed the button. No reply. So he did it again, and twice more for luck. A scared voice crackled out of the speaker.'
Go away! I'm calling the police!
'

'This is the police, Mr McFarlane. It's DS McRae: we met at the prison? We're here to talk to you about the vandalism.'

'
Oh
...'

A low grinding buzz sounded and Logan pushed the door open. They went through a short hallway and up a brightly painted flight of stairs.

McFarlane was waiting for them at the top. He didn't look much better than the last time Logan had seen him. Yes the bruises were fading, but the butcher had a caved-in look, as if all the stuffing had been knocked out of him, leaving behind an empty shell with a broken nose and missing teeth.

They followed him through into the lounge.

McFarlane's flat wasn't quite what Logan had been expecting. Lone alcoholic living above a shop: it should have been all discarded takeaway containers, empty bottles, peeling wallpaper, and dismal country music on the stereo. Instead it was painted in shades of off-white, spotlessly tidy, watercolour landscapes on the walls, and what sounded suspiciously like Carmen coming out of the speakers.

A line of framed photographs sat on the mantelpiece: McFarlane, McFarlane and a younger woman, the same woman in a graduation cap and gown, the two of them getting married. She'd walked out on him eighteen years ago, and he still had her photos up. That was devotion for you.

The butcher sank into a leather armchair within easy reach of a litre bottle of vodka. He poured himself a juddering tumbler-full. 'I'd offer, but you're both on duty.'

'Not to worry, sir,' Insch stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the photos, the pot plants and the paintings. 'You have a lovely home.'

The butcher shrugged and drained half his glass in one go.

'So ...' Insch smiled at him. 'Still expect us to believe you had nothing to do with the bits of dead people in your shop?'

McFarlane ground his eyes with the heels of his hands. 'Thought you were here about my vandalism.'

'Just between you and me, sir, I think the two things
might
just be connected.'

'They're here every night. Throwing things. You should see the state of the shop ... it was like a bombsite when I got out of ... when I got home.'

'And did you speak to Wiseman when you were inside?'

'I never did anything, and my life's ruined.' Another slug of vodka. 'Who's going to buy meat from my shop now? After all this?
Years
I spent building the business--'

'I'm sure everyone's sorry for your loss. I know I am. With my daughter lying dead in the fucking morgue!'

McFarlane worked another large measure of vodka into his glass, then into himself. 'That's not my fault - I didn't do anything.'

'She was FOUR!'

'Sir, I think we should--'

Insch towered over the hollowed-out butcher. 'She was four and that
bastard
killed her!'

'I ...' McFarlane shuddered, then looked up into the inspector's furious purple face. 'Do you know what it's like to have a killer in your family? Do you? To live with the hate and the lies and the shame? When it's none of your bloody fault?'

'I ought to tear your--'

Logan put a hand on the inspector's arm. 'He wasn't there. He was in prison when Wiseman killed Sophie.'

'He--'

'Why don't you wait for me in the car, sir? I'll finish up in here.'

Insch didn't move.

'Please.'

For a moment it looked as if Insch was about to turn the butcher into fourteen stone of alcoholic mince, but in the end he turned on his heel and stormed out.

The butcher poured himself another shaky drink, the bottle clinking round the mouth of the glass. 'I didn't ...'

'I'm sorry, sir. He's had a lot on his mind.'

'It was
never
me ...' The vodka disappeared.

Logan picked up the wedding photograph from the mantelpiece: it was McFarlane and Wiseman's sister - Logan couldn't remember her name - on the steps of King's College Chapel. Him in a kilt, her in a huge white dress. 'Do you ever hear from her? Your wife?'

McFarlane stared down at the carpet for a beat. 'No.' He picked up the bottle, then put it down again. 'Eighteen years. Eighteen bloody years ...' His saggy pink eyes were beginning to fill with tears.

Logan put the wedding photo back with the others. Eighteen years - he was willing to bet that was when the butcher climbed into a bottle and forgot the way out. 'Well, sir, if you can think of anything--'

'It's not easy losing someone you love.' This time the bottle made it all the way to the glass. 'I've lost everything. Every last bloody thing.' His voice was starting to slur round the edges. 'My whole life is buggered. All because of ... because of Ken Wiseman.' The vodka went down in one. 'But he's family, isn't he? He's family so I had to give him a job. And now look at me: no wife, no business, no friends, prison. What am I going to do? Eh?' He scrubbed a trembling hand across his face, trying to wipe away the tears. 'What am I going to do?'

McFarlane lurched to his feet, grabbed the bottle, and headed for the door. 'Come see ...' He stomped down the stairs, but instead of going out onto the street, the butcher led Logan round to a small internal door. 'Come see ...'

He hit-or-missed a key into the lock and then they were through into the shop. Darkness. The butcher fumbled with a switch and the lights flickered on. The place didn't look anything like it had the last time Logan was here: with the plywood over the windows, it had all the charm of an open grave. Both chiller cabinets had been torn from the wall, then hurled to the floor. The display case was a study in fractured glass. A red fire extinguisher poked out of the deli counter's ruptured sneeze-guard. Gouts of dark red paint covered the walls like arterial blood.

'Twenty years.' McFarlane swigged straight from the bottle. 'Twenty years I've been building this business ... and now look at it.' He threw his arms wide, shouting at the top of his voice,'COME BUY YOUR MEAT FROM THE CANNIBAL BUTCHER!'

The next mouthful finished the vodka. He peered through the empty bottle, twisting it round and round - as if trying to get his old life to come back into focus - then hurled it at the wall above the ruptured till. An explosion of glass.

McFarlane stood in the centre of his ruined life and cried.