Logan McRae Crime Series Books 4-6: Flesh House, Blind Eye, Dark Blood. Stuart MacBride

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      ‘Only with lots and lots of condoms.’

      The discussion at the incident board was getting heated, DI Insch heading his usual shade of beetroot.

      ‘What’s the book at?’ asked Logan, as Insch placed a huge finger in the middle of Faulds’s chest and poked.

      ‘Six hundred for lamping someone, three hundred for a heart attack.’

      ‘You’re taking bets on when Insch’ll have a heart attack now? What the hell is wrong with you people?’ Logan shook his head. Then put ten quid on the inspector punching someone before the week was out. From the look of things, it was probably going to be Chief Constable Mark Faulds.

      Insch turned and stormed out of the room, followed a beat later by DI Steel and an angry-looking Faulds. Maybe the end of the week was a little conservative: Logan doubted Insch would last till the end of the day.

      ‘Three cups of tea, two rowies and an Eccles cake.’ DC Rennie stuck the tray on top of a mound of dusty archive boxes, then helped himself to one of the cowpat-shaped discs of flour, lard, butter and salt, chewing as he handed out the mugs.

      Faulds accepted his with an exasperated smile – still on the phone with his Deputy Chief Constable. ‘I know it is, Arthur, but it’s the same every year …’ He grabbed the other rowie, lumbering Logan with the Eccles cake.

      The room looked even smaller than it had when Faulds had claimed it for his own yesterday, marking his territory with a laminated sheet of A4 taped to the door: ‘FLESHER HISTORY ROOM’. Someone kept sticking Post-it notes on it with, ‘ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE’ scrawled on them – it looked like DI Steel’s handwriting. The walls were lined with stacks of file boxes going back twenty-five years, each one representing another Flesher victim. Newcastle, Glasgow, London, Dublin, Manchester, Birmingham: they’d all sent up everything they had, and now Logan, Faulds and Rennie were sifting through the lot, looking for anything that might help catch Ken Wiseman.

      Rennie parked his backside on one of the three desks squeezed in between the case histories, and munched his way through his rowie, staring at the death board as Logan pinned up another victim in chronological order.

      ‘So,’ said the constable, pausing to suck his fingers clean of grease, ‘Wiseman’s a chubby chaser then?’

      Logan pulled out the crime scene photo that went with the face – another kitchen splattered with blood – and stuck it on the board. ‘What?’

      Rennie pointed at the photos. ‘All the women: chunky. Most of the blokes too. Not wanting to speak ill of the dead and that, but the whole lot look like they could have done with a few less pies.’

      Logan opened a box file from Northumbria Police and dug about for the next victim. ‘If he’s killing them for meat, he’ll want a reasonable covering of flesh, won’t he?’

      Rennie shook his head. ‘Fat people got the same amount of muscle as thin ones, it’s just buried under lots of lard. I saw a programme on it. Mind you, my mum always says that when you’re cooking stuff, fat’s where all the flavour is.’

      ‘Thank you for that startling insight.’

      Logan looked at the Chief Constable, but he was still on the phone, laying on the calm and reasonable with a trowel: ‘Arthur, you’re perfectly capable of making the decision on your own … No … Arthur, if I didn’t think you were the best man for the job I wouldn’t have picked you …’

      ‘Do you think he roasts or fries them?’

      ‘You’re supposed to be going through the door-to-doors.’

      ‘Yeah, but it’s all twenty years out of date.’

      ‘Don’t whinge.’

      ‘But I’m bored.’ Rennie struck a pose. ‘Shouldn’t be in here, pawing through ancient history, I should be out there: fighting crime! I’m a lean, mean, detecting machine!’

      ‘You’re an idiot.’ Logan went back to the box and pulled out the coroner’s report. A small stack of glossy eight-by-tens slithered out, scattering across the grubby carpet tiles. Logan swore and started picking them up – each one showed a joint of meat, photographed from various angles as it defrosted.

      The victim’s picture was paper-clipped onto the scene of crime report. Logan put it up on the board with the others. Rennie was right – twice in one day, something of a record – every one of Wiseman’s victims was overweight. Not obese, but not skinny either.

      He worked his way through all the case files until the wall of death was complete. A collage of blood and pain that stretched all the way from a Glasgow shopkeeper in 1983 to Valerie Leith yesterday. All overweight. Other than that, Wiseman’s victims had nothing in common. They weren’t all blonde or brunette, nearly fifty per cent were men, some were Asian, one couple in Newcastle were from Trinidad, and yet something had brought them all into contact with Ken Wiseman. Something that meant the difference between a long and happy life, and a chunk of flesh in a morgue photograph.

      The crime scenes were a lot more regular – soaked bright red, or just signs of a struggle. A joint of meat left in the freezer as a parting gift.

      Logan stopped at the photo of the Leiths’ kitchen, remembering the hot copper smell. How could one person contain so much blood?

      ‘Bloody hell …’ Faulds flipped his mobile phone shut and stuck it back in his pocket. ‘Never become a chief constable, Logan. Yes, it sounds like a bundle of laughs: fancy uniform, people saluting, dancing girls, but it’s a royal pain in the backside.’ He covered his face with his hands and slumped back in his chair. ‘I have to go back to Birmingham. Tonight.’

      ‘But Wiseman’s—’

      ‘I know, I know: he’s going to call the BBC back and set up that interview, and we’ll come down on him like a ton of bricks. And I won’t be there, because no one wants to be responsible for policing bonfire night.’ He pulled his hands away, swore, and put them back again. ‘I am a lily, floating on a cool pond …’ Faulds sat up. ‘It’s no good; I’m going to have to go. The buck stops here, after all. Can you get someone to run me over to the airport?’

      Rennie nearly exploded out of his seat. ‘I’ll take you!’ Anything to get out of going through mounds of dusty paperwork.

      Logan went back to his post mortem report.

      The incident room door nearly banged off its hinges as DI Insch barged into the room. Glaring. ‘Where the hell’s that useless bastard Rennie?’

      Logan closed his eyes and counted to three, but Insch was still there when he opened them again. So much for wishful thinking. ‘He’s taking Faulds to the airport.’

      ‘He’s supposed to be reviewing case files!’

      ‘The Chief Constable pulled rank.’ Not strictly true, but it might save Rennie an ear-bashing when he got back. ‘You want me to pass on a message?’

      ‘Tell him I’m running this investigation, not Faulds. Remind him that I’ll rip his balls off and stuff them down his throat СКАЧАТЬ