Flesh House (34 page)

She put one down in front of PC Munro, and the constable blanched. 'Ah ... actually, I'm a vegetarian, sorry ... Mind you, half the city seems to have gone veggie these days, don't they?' She pulled on a smile. 'But it looks lovely.'

'Oh ...' Elizabeth picked up the plate again. 'I've got some tins of tomato soup? I could--'

'You sit yourself down,' said Faulds,'PC Munro can help herself,' he shot her a look,'can't you?'

Brittle smile. 'Of course, sir.'

Logan balanced the plate on his knee, dug a fork into his mashed potato and swirled it through the mince, coating it with thick brown gravy. Then stared at it.

'It's ...' Elizabeth blushed. 'I know what you're thinking, but it's OK. I got the mince from Dundee. It's not ...' she flapped a hand at a copy of the
Aberdeen Examiner
sitting on her coffee table,'local.'

Thank God for that.

Logan took a bite. 'Mmm, this is excellent.
Much
better than the stuff we get in the canteen.'

She beamed with pride as Logan got stuck in.

'This might sound daft ...' she said to Faulds,'but you seem familiar. Have we met before?'

The Chief Constable gave a little self-deprecating shrug. 'I was in a TV show when I was younger.'

'Oh ... I see.'

'Now, Elizabeth,' said Faulds as she started eating,'I don't want to put you off your lunch, but I need to ask you some questions about last night, OK? The man who came to the Youngs' house, was he taller than me?'

'I ...' She pointed through to the kitchen, and the buzzing drone of a microwave oven. 'I told her everything I can remember.'

Faulds scooted forwards. 'The human mind is a remarkable thing, Elizabeth, sometimes memories don't bubble up to the surface till days, even weeks later. I'm willing to bet that together, you and I can get something on the boil.' Flirty wink.

He teased details out of her over the next ten to fifteen minutes, changing the subject from the Flesher to something innocuous - like the snow globe from Krakow - and back again. Constantly shifting. Getting a little more information every time.

Logan gave a satisfied groan and pushed his empty plate away, glad he'd been the one lumbered with making Elizabeth Nichol feel useful.

'Will you look at the time?' said Faulds, peering theatrically at his watch. 'Going to have to fly or I'll be late.' He stood, motioning for Logan to do the same. 'Thank you for your hospitality, Elizabeth. If you think of anything else, you give me a call, OK?' He dug out a business card and scribbled something on the back, then handed it over. 'Doesn't matter how late or early it is.'

Outside, in the car, Faulds allowed himself a smug smile as Logan drove them back towards town. 'You see, that's what being goal-oriented gets you ... What?'

'Don't you think you were a little hard on Munro?'

The older man nodded. 'That's the thing about leading a team: some people are motivated by the carrot, others by the stick. The trick is telling which is which. You're a carrot, Munro's a stick. Yes, she'll think I'm an utter bastard, but what do you want to bet she's in there right now giving it a hundred and twenty per cent, just to spite me?'

Which sort of made sense.

'Right,' said Faulds,'when we get back I need you to organize two unmarked cars watching the main road. Anyone turns into Nichol's street, I want a PNC check on the number plate. At least one member of each team to be firearms trained.'

'You think he's going to come after her? Not exactly the Flesher's type, is she? Too thin.'

'True, but I'm not prepared to take that risk. Are you?'

PC Munro waited until the pool car disappeared before she started swearing. Faulds was such a patronising wanker. '"That's what worries me." Git.'

She marched through to the kitchen, determined to show that stuck-up Brummy arsehole she was perfectly capable of getting information out of a victim.

Elizabeth Nichol was up to her elbows in the sink, wearing a flowery pinny with ducks on it, washing up after lunch.

Munro grabbed a dishcloth. 'Can I help dry?'

The woman nearly jumped out of her skin.

'Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.' Munro picked a plate from the draining board. 'You never told me about your family. Any brothers or sisters?'

'I ... one of each: Jimmy and Kelley.' She was going bright red. 'We're not close.' She sank her hands back into the bubbles. 'Kelley was always the sensitive one. Jimmy ... well, he was always ... difficult. I haven't spoken to him since we were little. Doubt I'd even recognize him now.'

Finally they were getting somewhere. Munro moved onto Elizabeth's parents and job - trying to do the same bouncing-back-and-forth-between-subjects trick that Faulds had pulled earlier - pushing a little harder than she normally would. No one could say she'd not been thorough
this
time.

Only it didn't work: instead of providing a steady trickle of information, Elizabeth burst into tears and ran off, leaving a trail of soapsuds behind.

Munro stood alone in the kitchen, listening as Elizabeth scurried up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door. Then the sound of sobbing filtered down from above.

'Good one, Yvonne. Very professional ...' She wandered into the lounge and slumped into an armchair. It was all that bastard Faulds' fault: if he thought being a Family Liaison officer was such a piece of piss,
he
should try it sometime. Up to your ears in other people's grief.

She spent a few minutes feeling sorry for herself, then switched on her Airwave handset and made some follow-up calls. Then she brewed a pot of tea and went upstairs to apologize.

After all, it wasn't Elizabeth's fault she'd been attacked by the Flesher, was it? Sometimes people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sometimes that was the difference between life and death.

54

'Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hello? Please! I'm a police officer! Hello?' The new voice was female, muffled and scared, coming from the other side of the cell wall. Heather hoped she wasn't another screamer.

She rolled over onto her side, turning her back on the noise. 'Kelley?' Silence. 'Kelley are you--'

'They'll be looking for me!'

A hand reached through the bars, cool against her cheek. 'How are you feeling, Heather?'

'Bit woozy, not quite plugged in ...'

'I'm a fucking police officer! Understand?'

'Maybe it's the medicine? You took a lot of those pills yesterday.'

'HELLO?'

'So tired ...'

'YOU HEAR ME? THEY'LL COME AFTER YOU! I'M A POLICE OFFICER!'

'Maybe you shouldn't take them any more?'

'WHY WON'T ANYONE ANSWER ME?'

Heather shuffled forwards, till she was lying beside the bars, resting her head on Kelley's hand. 'I don't want him to hurt you.'

'PLEASE!' The shouting had turned to sobbing. 'Please ...'

Heather closed her eyes. 'Do you think she's going to keep shouting?'

'Shhh ... go to sleep.'

'I don't feel well ...'

'Sleep. It'll all be OK soon, you'll see. I promise. You just need to get some rest.'

And Heather drifted off to a lullaby of frightened sobs.

Doc Fraser was in the process of peeling off his green surgical scrubs as Logan walked into the mortuary's sterile area. Ten to five and the post mortem was over - all the bits of body cleared away. Which made a nice change.

'How did it go?'

The old pathologist shrugged, and tossed his waxy trousers into a plastic laundry hamper. Stripped down to his vest and Y-fronts - grey socks slipping down his ankles, a smattering of little red blisters visible on his pasty legs - he pointed at the row of refrigerated drawers. 'You want to look?'

'Not really.' But Logan opened the drawer anyway. It was an old man: long grey beard, drink-swollen nose, skin pale and covered in scabs. All in once piece, except for the ugly raw scar left by the Y-inscision.

'Not that one.' Doc Fraser slid the body back into the fridge. 'Filthy Freddie we used to call him: just another poor homeless bastard. It's the same every year - soon as the weather starts to turn, they get high or drunk, go to sleep in a shop doorway and don't wake up. That's the trouble with care in the community - nobody does.'

The pathologist pulled out another drawer. 'Marcus Young. It's fascinating to see the remains so intact, thought we were going to be stuck with slabs of meat and bags of mince on this one.' He had a brief scratch at the sides of his stomach. 'Fascinating.'

'Care to define "Fascinating"? Faulds wants an update.'

Doc Fraser sighed and slipped his socked feet back into his morgue clogs. 'If he'd bothered turning up for the PM he wouldn't need an update.'

'High-powered lunch.'

'Ah, how the other half live. I had a cheese and pickle sandwich with no bloody pickle in it.' He slid the refrigerated drawer shut, then shuffled out of the cutting room, down the corridor and into the pathologists' office. Logan followed him, making the tea while Doc Fraser climbed into a pair of grey trousers and a stripy shirt, then pulled a V-necked jumper over the top.

'Two and a coo for me,' said the pathologist, settling in behind his desk. 'I'd offer you a garibaldi, but someone's eaten them all.' He picked up a pad of A4 and started scribbling on it. 'Marcus and Vicky Young were almost certainly killed by the same knife: approximately eight inches long, extremely sharp. The husband was beaten unconscious, then his throat was cut vertically from here to here ...' He demonstrated by running a finger from just beneath his chin all the way down to his clavicle. 'And then from side to side, severing pretty much every major vein and artery north of the heart. He'd have bled out in seconds, especially if he was upside down. Head was removed from the back - which is pretty unusual - in a single cut.'

'Here you go,' Logan plonked a mug of tea on the desk,'milk, two sugars.'

'Ooh, lovely. Anyway, we're looking at someone who's had a
lot
of practice. It's a remarkable piece of work, very skilled. The skinning alone ...' He took a sip of tea. 'I'd say our victim probably went from being a living, breathing human being to lumps of meat in about thirty minutes. No hesitation marks around the joints, no false starts, just clean, economical cuts.'

'What about the woman?'

'Hmm? Oh, she's a different kettle of fish. Same knife, but there's no precision: her throat was slashed, not cut. This wasn't the Flesher's best work. Educated guess: our killer was disturbed.'

'Disturbed?' said a voice from the door. 'That's a bit of an understatement, isn't it? Bug-shit crazy's more like it.' Jackie Watson stood on the threshold, the smile slipping from her face as she spotted Logan. 'My guvnor wants an update on the post mortems.'

'See?' Doc Frazer stuck a biro in his tea and gave it a stir. 'No one wants to attend the things any more, they just want the edited highlights. What happened to professional pride?'

Jackie looked long and hard at Logan. 'If you like I can come back later.'

'Don't be silly.' The pathologist pointed at the visitor chairs. 'Sit your bum down and DS McRae will make you a nice cup of tea.'

And so began one of the most awkward half hours Logan had endured for a long time. At one point - while Doc Fraser was going on about blood patterns - Logan's leg accidentally touched Jackie's. She actually flinched.

Then, when it was finally over, and the pathologist had shooed them out of his office, they stood in the corridor, not looking at each other.

Logan:'I was--'

Jackie:'It's not--'

Pause.

She coughed. 'You first.'

'I've been offered a DI's post.'

'Oh aye?' Almost sounding impressed.

'With Faulds in Birmingham.'

'Birmingham.'

'West Midlands Police.'

'I know who looks after bloody Birmingham. Could you have run any farther away?'

'Don't be like that, I--'

'Oh for God's sake! You think I
care
where you go. Fine, bugger off to Birmingham. Abandon everyone.'

'I'm not abandoning anyone!'

'No? What about Insch?' She counted the points on her fingers. 'No wife, no kids, no job--'

'I'm not the one stitching him up in my report! And I'm not the one who disappeared off to bloody Strathclyde for three months.'

'You are such an arsehole!'

Doc Fraser stuck his head out into the corridor. 'Will you two either shut up, or take it outside. This is a mortuary, not a playground ...' Grumbling as he shuffled back to his desk,'Making enough noise to wake the dead.'

'I'M A POLICE OFFICER, THEY'LL BE LOOKING FOR ME!'

'
Jesus
,' said Duncan, settling down on the mattress,'
she doesn't give up, does she?
'

'I'M A POLICE OFFICER!'

'
WE KNOW! SHUT THE HELL UP!
' Duncan shook his head.'
What does she think the Flesher's going to say, "Oops, terribly sorry, didn't know you were a policewoman. Tell you what, I won't make you into burgers after all. You're free to go. Mum's the word?" Pathetic
.'

Heather looked at him. 'Remind me again what I saw in you.'

'
I make you laugh, I'm great in bed, and I do a mean boeuf bourguignon. Oh, and I got you drunk and knocked up
.'

'HELP!'

'I can't sleep.'

'
Not surprised with that bloody racket going on
.'

'PLEASE!' The new woman's voice was beginning to go, cracking from all that shouting.

'
She's got to stop sooner or later
.'

'Duncan,' Heather reached for him, holding his hand in hers,'Duncan I've been thinking ... I want you to move on.'

'
Don't be silly, I--
'

'I mean it. Be with Justin: he needs his father. Look after him.'

'
And leave you alone with the Dark?
'

'I'm not alone, I've got Kelley.' She smiled at him. 'It's OK. I'm not mad anymore.'

Duncan looked down, the light from the hole in his head glowing like a million dying suns.'
I'm scared
.'

'I know, Sweetheart.'

'
If you ... you know, ever need me, for anything--
'

She silenced him with a kiss. And when she opened her eyes he was gone. Heather got the feeling he wouldn't be back.