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

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СКАЧАТЬ and we’ll all be drawing our old-age-pensions by then. If she’s in Weight Watchers there’ll be evidence up at the crime scene. Low-fat Sellotape, membership forms, before-and-after trousers, that kind of thing.’ Steel undid the zip on her SOC outfit. ‘Well, come on then – romper suits off, we’ve got a house to ransack.’

      ‘It’s … it’s important not to panic …’ The new person’s voice came through from the other side of the bars, where Duncan died. Where the Dark was the strongest. ‘You hear me? We have to stay calm …’

      At least he’d stopped screaming.

      Heather picked another escalope from the tinfoil parcel, biting through the herb crust. Very tasty.

      ‘He’s a bit of a whinge, isn’t he?’

      ‘Leave him alone, he’s just scared.’

      She could hear Mr New scrabbling forwards in the darkness, grabbing hold of the bars. ‘Who are you talking to? Why won’t you tell me who you’re talking to? What’s happening? What’s—’

      Heather cut off the rising tide of panic before he drowned them both. ‘I’m talking to my husband.’

      ‘Is he … hello? Why don’t—’

      ‘He won’t talk to you. Because he’s dead.’

      ‘Oh Jesus … I’m locked up with a lunatic.’

      Heather nodded, even though the new man couldn’t see her. ‘I’ve gone mad.’

      There was a long pause … and then Mr New said, ‘What’s your name?’

      Heather chewed, swallowed, then told him.

      ‘You’re Heather Inglis? The Heather Inglis? I read about you … oh Jesus …’ He started to cry. ‘Oh fucking Jesus … it … it was him, wasn’t it? The Flesher … oh Jesus Fucking Christ …’

      ‘Who’s the—’

      ‘I didn’t see him! I was … from the back garden and … oh God, Hazel … What happened to Hazel? Where is she? WHERE’S MY WIFE? HAZEL?’ He was screaming again. ‘HAZEL?’

      ‘Well, this is going to get old really fast.’ Duncan plonked himself down on the mattress and sniffed at the tinfoil parcel in Heather’s hands.‘That smells nice.’

      ‘You want some?’

      ‘HAZEL!’

      ‘Can’t: dead, remember?’

      ‘HAZEL!’ The screams gave way to sobbing. ‘Hazel …’

      Heather took pity on him. ‘Are you hungry, Mr New? Do you want something to eat?’ She held one of the escalopes out between the bars. ‘It’s good.’

      ‘Hazel …’

      ‘You need to keep your strength up.’

      ‘Heather, I don’t think you should get too attached to this guy.’

      The sobbing went on for a while, but eventually Mr New accepted a drink of water and one of the escalopes. She could hear him sniffing it, then the crunch as he bit through the crust, mumbling, ‘What is it?’ as he chewed.

      ‘Veal, I think … or pork. Difficult to tell in the dark. Maybe—’

      Mr New was spitting, gagging, retching.

      ‘Are you OK?’

      ‘Aaaaaaaaagh, Jesus …’ A wet splattering noise as he vomited onto the cold metal floor – the stomach-churning reek filled the stale air.

      ‘It’s not that bad.’

      He was crying again. ‘It’s people! Oh Jesus … Don’t you get it? It was on the news: the Flesher kills people and cuts them up for meat! We’re eating people …’

      Duncan nodded.‘He’s right, you know.’

      Heather felt her stomach lurch. ‘But I’ve been eating it for ages …’

      ‘You didn’t have a choice, though, did you? It was that or starve.’

      Heather stared at Duncan, remembering what the Butcher – the Flesher – did to him. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? All this time … it was you.’

      He nodded.

      ‘Oh Duncan.’

      Her dead husband smiled.‘Hey, at least I was tasty.’ He pointed at the tinfoil parcel in her hands.‘Don’t let it go to waste.’

      ‘But it’s people …’

      ‘It’s just meat, Honey. In the end we’re all just meat.’

      Heather picked up another slice from the parcel … ‘I can’t.’

      ‘Yes you can.’

      Duncan was right.

       29

      Alec fired up his camera, pointing it through the windscreen at the darkened house. ‘We looking for anything in particular?’

      Logan waited for Steel to say something, but she was already clambering out of the car, a freshly lit cigarette between her teeth. Blue-and-white POLICE tape flapped in the wind, a wriggling snake of it caught in the bramble bushes that grew along the drystone dyke opposite the Leiths’ converted steading. Other than that, there was no sign that this place had witnessed a sudden, violent death.

      He dug the key out of his pocket – courtesy of a brief stop past FHQ – unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. A high-pitched bleep, bleep, bleep came from a small plastic box on the wall, lights flashing, showing an intruder in ‘ZONE ONE’. The keypad was in the cupboard under the stairs and Logan punched in the code he’d got from the FLO. ‘One, nine, nine, five…’ the year the Leiths got married. Alarm disarmed.

      The Environmental Health team had pretty much wrecked the place getting rid of anything contaminated with body fluids. They’d cut large chunks out of the carpet, removing it and the underlay beneath, exposing pale patches of bleached chipboard. The smell of chlorine in the kitchen was almost overpowering, but the blood was gone. God knew how many canisters of trichloroethylene they’d had to use to get rid of it all, but the walls were blotchy where the super-strength bleach had eaten away the colour. Logan threw the kitchen window open, then did the same with the back door, trying to get rid of the swimming pool stink.

      And then he went through the kitchen units, looking for anything from Weight Watchers that might suggest Valerie Leith had been a member. There were a couple of cartons of Slim Fast in the cupboards, a packet of Ryvita, but no official products.

      Steel was in the back СКАЧАТЬ