Flesh House (38 page)

'You don't have to--'

'Shhhhh ... did you hear that?'

A woman's voice. Muffled somewhere on the other side of the curtain.

Bloody hell.

And then a scream for help.

Oh shit ... Logan pulled out his little cannister of pepper spray and charged through the curtain into a low room: chest freezers on one side and--

He didn't even see the blow coming.

I
NTERIOR
:
A low-ceilinged room lit by three flickering fluorescent lights. The walls are panelled with rough wood. Camera pans hard left, jiggling, the lights leaving hot yellow streaks as the autofocus catches on: DS McRae is slumped back against a chest freezer, blood on one side of his head. A man crouches over him, dressed in a butcher's outfit and wearing a rubber mask of ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The man has a knife in his hand pressed against DS McRae's throat
.

V
OICEOVER
: Oh God ...

[the Flesher stares at DS McRae for a moment, head on one side, then lowers the knife]

V
OICEOVER
: Oh God, oh God, oh God ...

[the Flesher stands and turns to face the camera]

V
OICEOVER
: Oh God ...

[picture shakes as the cameraman backs up, then turns and runs]

V
OICEOVER
:
[panting and swearing - the sound of fabric rubbing against the microphone]

Alec ran for it, too scared to feel guilty about leaving Logan behind. Back through the curtain, puffing already - why did he have to be such a fat bastard?

'Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God ...' Shut up! Shut the fuck up and RUN!

He could hear the Flesher coming after him, closing the gap.

OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod ...

Alec burst through the door back into the basement and slammed into a box of crappy romance novels. He went sprawling - the camera flying out of his hands, clattering against a pile of mating bicycles. The light blinked out, leaving him in darkness.

OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod ...

He scrabbled to his knees, fumbling forward, trying to find the stairs, trying to find the way out before--

The door under the stairs opened, spilling pale yellow light into the crowded basement. The Flesher was here ...

Alec bit his lip and tried not to cry.

Keep low. Don't make a sound.

A creak, the sound of a foot scuffing the floor: the Flesher moving between the stacks of boxes and mouldy debris.

Quiet. Not a sound. Don't even breathe.

Something brushed his leg and Alec flinched, staring terrified into the gloom. Oh God, please don't let it be ...

A pair of black eyes glittered back at him - teeth, claws, naked pink tail.

RAT!

Alec screamed.

He scrambled backwards, kicking out. Fucking rats! Jesus fucking ... There was someone behind him.

OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod ...

Alec looked up into that lifeless rubber face. 'Please ...'

The Flesher grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, kicking and screaming, back through the door and into the darkness.

61

'Unnnnnnnnngh ...' Logan rolled over onto his side and threw up on the hard dirt floor.

'Are you OK?' Faulds stood back, nose wrinkled against the smell.

Logan coughed, spat out a bitter mouthful and struggled to his knees; Jackie dragged him to his feet then held him upright, her body warm against his. 'What the hell were you thinking, charging in here on your own like something out of bloody
Die Hard?
'

His head was swimming. 'She was screaming for help. What was I supposed to do?'

'My God ...' Faulds had opened one of the chest freezers. 'It's full of
meat
...' He pulled out a chunk of frozen breast, the areola pale purple in its clear plastic vacuum pack.

Jackie let go and wandered over to the far wall. 'There's some sort of grave in the corner ... "Here lie the mortal remains of Catherine Davidson, beloved companion. Died 14th September 2001." What the hell's that supposed to mean?'

Logan closed his eyes for a moment, then peered out at the low room. The whole place had been lined with chipboard - the wood swollen and peppered with mildew. A large stainless steel butcher's table sat against the opposite wall, a set of knives displayed above it on a pair of magnetic strips. The curtained-off entrance Logan had rushed through lay open, showing the dirt tunnel back towards the house. Another pair of curtains partially hid an opening beside the butcher's table, and a third pair hung at the far end of the row of freezers. 'Where's Alec?'

They found him behind curtain number two. It was a kitchen - the walls covered with the same grimy wood, the floor with chunks of faded carpet. A pair of red Calor Gas bottles sat in the corner, hooked up to a spotless gas hob and oven. 1970s-style work surfaces and cupboards lined the room in shades of dirty cream and faded mahogany.

The whole room reeked of blood and garlic.

Alec was hanging upside down in the middle of the room over a tin bath full of dark red, his skin so pale it was nearly translucent. He was still warm.

Faulds swore, then turned on Logan. 'Why the hell did you bring him down here? He was a civilian!'

'I didn't know ...'

'Do you have any idea what the BBC are going to do to us? It's going to be a PR disaster!'

'Alec, you silly, silly bastard ...'

A circular hole sat in the top of Alec's head, dripping pink and grey gloop into the bathtub full of blood.

'How could you let this happen?'

'I didn't
let
anything--'

'No? Well you managed to save your own--'

'I ate her mince, OK? That's why.'

'What?' Disgust pulled at Faulds' face. 'Whose mince? What the--'

'There is no Jimmy Souter - he doesn't exist. It's Elizabeth, it's
always
been Elizabeth. She fed those kids human flesh and they got to live.' Logan turned his back on the cameraman's dangling corpse. 'When she made lunch yesterday, I ate the mince ...'

He pushed through the curtain and back into the butchery, feeling sick again.

The third curtain - the one beside the chest freezers - was all roses and birdies, faded to a greasy, mottled gray. Logan took a handful and ripped it down.

It was another tunnel, stretching away beyond the soulless light of another fluorescent strip. Less than six feet down, two sets of metal doors were sunk into the wall, as if someone had buried a pair of offshore containers. One blue, one red: the paintwork pockmarked with rust.

Logan hauled the red doors open on groaning hinges.

Definitely a container. The metal box was about the same size as Logan's bathroom, with a set of rusty bars running down the middle, empty except for a mattress, a duvet, a chemical toilet, and a set of pulleys bolted to the ceiling.

The blue container was a different story - instead of the pulleys it had an A-frame made up of scaffolding poles. The floor was spattered with dark red droplets that glittered in the gloom. A pile of black clothes were thrown in the corner. The red container smelled of disinfectant, but this one stank of fear and blood.

Jackie stepped carefully inside, her black shoes making sticky noises as she worked her way across the floor and picked up a chunk of fabric. 'It's a police uniform.' She went hunting through the trouser pockets, coming out with a small leather warrant card holder. She flipped it open and swore.

Logan stood in the doorway. 'It's Munro, isn't it? She was a vegetarian ...'

'Fucking hell!' Jackie kicked the container wall - BOOM - the echo was swallowed by the dirt corridor. 'Fucking, bastarding hell!' Another kick.

'OK, OK. Enough.' He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out into the tunnel. 'How long did it take you to get here? When Alec called? Ten minutes? Fifteen?'

'Something like that. We had to break down the front door.'

'And you didn't see anyone leaving the house?'

'Of course we bloody didn't. Don't you think we would have said something?'

Logan nodded, went back into the butchery and picked up his torch. Dead. He shook it a couple of times and a thin light flickered on. Good enough.

If the Flesher didn't go out through the house there was only one way she
could
have gone. Logan lurched past the containers and on into the darkness.

62

It seemed to go on forever - dark and oppressive, smelling of earth and decay, with an undercurrent of meat. The tunnel took a sudden right - an old wooden door blocking the way. Logan stopped with one hand against it, trying to tell if there was someone waiting for him on the other side.

He had no intention of finding out the hard way.

'This is a complete and utter cocking disaster.' It was Faulds, muttering his way down the corridor, following Jackie and her torch.

She stopped when she got to the door and ran the beam over Logan's face. The light was blinding, making him feel sick all over again.

'Argh, Jesus ...' He held a hand up over his eyes.

'You're bleeding. And you look like shite.'

'Ow!' Logan flinched away as she prodded the side of his head. 'Thanks, I love you too.'

She stared at him. 'No you don't. That was the problem, remember?'

Faulds pushed his way to the front. 'We shouldn't leave all that evidence unguarded.'

'Tell you what then,' said Jackie,'why don't
you
stay behind, in the dark, on your own, in the Flesher's lair, while we go looking for the bastard? I'm sure you'll still be alive when we get back.'

'Are you ...' Faulds looked as if he were about to pull rank, but Jackie was right: there were only three of them, splitting up wasn't an option.

Logan grabbed the old Bakelite handle and pulled the door open ... exposing a blank, white wall.

'Oh, that's just brilliant,' said Faulds. 'Dead end. And while we're arseing about here, the Flesher's getting away.' He turned. 'Watson, I want you--'

'Hold on ...' Logan gave his torch another shake and ran the jaundiced beam around the blank, featureless surface. A couple of small hinges ran down the left-hand side. 'It's a door.'

It took a bit of fiddling, but eventually Logan got the thing to open. There was a store room on the other side, full of shelves and cleaning products. Jackie pulled out her extendable baton and clacked it to full length. Then inched into the room. 'Clear.'

They followed her past racks of bleach, disinfectant, and tubs of antibacterial hand-wash. The door at the far end was more traditional. Jackie turned the handle and stepped out into a corridor: white walls; suspended ceiling with fluorescent lighting; stainless-steel flooring - the kind with raised diamond patterns to stop people from slipping; the distant rumble and squeak of machinery; a radio playing something innocuous; the almost overpowering smell of lamb.

Logan looked up and down the corridor. 'Left or right?'

'Left. If there's a radio there's people.' Faulds set off towards the noise with Jackie hot on his heels, leaving Logan to trail along behind. Every step making his head swim. The smell, the noise and the bright white walls weren't helping. Probably a concussion and--

His phone blared into life, adding to the waves of nausea. He fumbled it out, still marching after Faulds and Jackie. 'What?'

It was Rennie, talking so fast it was nearly gibberish:'
I did it! It was a right pain in the arse, but I did it! Every time Elizabeth Nichol was driving her truck on the continent there's at least one hit from the INTERPOL files. She's the Flesher!
'

'Get a firearms team out to the abattoir now. And an ambulance.' Logan stopped for a second, eyes squeezed shut, leaning against the wall to stay upright. Mouth suddenly full of saliva. Not going to be sick, not going to be sick.

'
That's why we've not had any bodies for eighteen years: she's been killing her way round Eastern Europe. Bain says
--'

'Shut up. Fuck's sake ... Roadblocks - every route out of Turriff ...' Maybe it would be better to throw up now and get it over with?

'You OK?'

'No.' Logan hung up, pushed off the wall, took a deep breath, and hurried after Faulds and Jackie, the mingled sounds of Northsound Radio 2 and heavy machinery getting louder with every step.

He limped around the corner into a steamy room that reeked of lamb. A pair of mechanized belts ran along the ceiling. Sheep carcasses creaked and swayed their way down one side - fully wooled at one end, skinned and gutted at the other. The opposite belt carried stainless-steel poles, each with a little basket on the end; severed sheep heads staring out of them, looking mildly surprised by death, their innards draped over a spike underneath. All going round to the tune of Blur's 'Parklife', like some macabre merry-go-round.

Faulds and Jackie were in here, the Chief Constable trying to get a man in a bloodstained overall to understand English by shouting at him. Finally the man seemed to get it and pointed at a doorway next to a plastic bin full of lungs.

Logan pushed his way through the crowd of abattoir workers just as Faulds stepped into the corridor. 'Armed backup is on its way.'

Faulds stopped and turned. 'I want this place evacuated. We're not putting any more civilians--'

He didn't get to finish the sentence.

The Flesher appeared in the doorway behind the Chief Constable, knife in hand. There wasn't even time to shout. The Flesher wrapped her arms around Faulds in a lover's embrace - a knife blade flashed in the overhead lighting. It disappeared into Faulds' side, just below the bottom rib.

He looked down at the arm wrapped around his stomach and the bloody hand holding the knife. 'P ... please ...' His face went white.

The Flesher yanked it straight across Faulds' belly and out the other side. Less than a second start to finish.

Bright-scarlet oxygenated blood pulsed out into the room. Someone screamed, but all Faulds could do was open and shut his mouth. He fell to his knees - innards bulging out, still held together with connective tissue - the stink of punctured bowels and severed intestines barely noticeable, just another slaughterhouse smell.

The workforce ran: shouting, swearing, getting as far away from the blood and guts as they could. The Flesher disappeared into the crowd.

'NO!' Logan scrambled over to Faulds. The man was in shock. His face pale and glassy, hands shivering over the hole in his belly, not touching anything ...

'Come on, you're going to be OK, You're going to be OK!'

No he wasn't - there was blood everywhere, she'd nearly cut him in half.

Jackie shouted over the sounds of panicking abattoir workers:'YOU! STOP RIGHT THERE!'

Logan scanned the room; she was over by the line of skinned and gutted sheep, facing off against the Flesher. The knife flashed out, but Jackie slashed her baton across it, sending the blade clattering to the metal floor.

The Flesher lunged, shoving a hollowed-out carcass into Jackie. She staggered back against the wall, slipped on the bloody floor and went down hard.

A small pause and the Flesher pulled out what looked like a lightsaber, twisting it apart and slipping in a small green cartridge as Jackie struggled to get up.

Logan yelled,'IT'S A BOLT GUN!'

Snap and the thing was back together again.

He tried to get up, but Faulds had a death grip on his jacket, mouth moving soundlessly, eyes wide, gasping for breath.

The Flesher swung the bolt gun at Jackie's head.

Everything seemed to go into slow motion: the gun cylinder arced down; the song on the radio changed to Tom Jones,'It's Not Unusual'; Jackie threw her hands in the path of the bolt gun, trying to protect her forehead.

The end of the barrel hit her right palm, forcing it back against the left, and CRACK! The bolt fired. Jackie screamed. Bright red spattered across her face.

The metal rod had gone straight through both palms.

The Flesher stood for a moment, then tried to pull the bolt gun out. Jackie's hands went with it. 'AAAGH FUCK!'

Twist to the left, then the right. More screaming. 'FUCKING HELP ME!'

Logan struggled out of Faulds' grip and scrambled to his feet.

'FUCKING HELP!'

The Flesher gave one last tug and the bolt slid free, just as Logan barrelled into her back. They hit the wall with a crash and the bolt gun went flying. For once Logan came out on top: he balled up a fist and slammed it into Margaret Thatcher's rubbery face. And again. And--

Jackie shouted,'Look out!'

Something solid battered across Logan's shoulders, sending him sprawling across the gutter that ran down the centre of the room. There was a woman in pink-piggy pyjamas standing over him, clutching a metal pole.

She looked incredibly pale: grey circles around her eyes; hair all matted and greasy ... But Logan knew he'd seen her somewhere before.

She raised the pole again, and he curled up into a ball, arms wrapped over his head, teeth gritted against the blow ... only it never came.

The woman in the PJs dropped the pole and helped the Flesher to stand.

Logan rolled over and tried to push himself upright. His left arm gave way, fire screaming across his shoulder. He fell back against the blood-slicked floor. Groaning.

Up. GET UP.

He tried again, hauling himself up using the eviscerated carcass of a sheep ... it was still warm.

The woman threw her arm around the Flesher, and together they hobbled away. Logan took two steps after them, then stopped, turned back and looked at Jackie. She had her hands cupped in her lap, head thrown back, teeth gritted. Her whole face was painted scarlet, tears washing little pink trails through the blood. He sank down beside her, using the wall for support. His whole left arm was burning now, throbbing in time with his head.

'You OK?'

She glared at him. 'Do I fucking look OK? I've got holes in my hands!' Grimace. 'Ah Jesus it hurts!'

'I'll get an ambulance.'

'No you don't - you go and you catch that bastard!'

'But Faulds--'

'He's already dead.'

Logan glanced over at the Chief Constable's body. The man's eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, his chest still, his blood-soaked hands limp at his sides, his stomach a gaping hole ...

Jackie tried to grab hold of Logan's filthy suit jacket, but her fingers weren't working. 'You let that bastard escape, I'll bloody kill you.'