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

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СКАЧАТЬ God …’ Logan peered into the lounge: it was a disaster area. The settee and armchairs upturned, stuffing ripped out, wooden frames buckled, coffee table a heap of twisted metal and broken glass. The dining room was just as bad: chairs broken, table on its side – a perfect circle of scorched varnish just visible in the gloom.

      Insch must have run out of steam by the time he’d reached the kitchen. Logan backed out into the hall and crept up the stairs.

      He found the inspector sitting on the floor in the corner of a small bedroom, surrounded by stuffed animals. The faint orange glow of a plug-in nightlight glittered back from dozens of black plastic eyes. A hand-painted sign on the door said, ‘SOPHIE’S SECRET PALACE – BEWARE OF THE DRAGON!!!’

      Logan stopped at the threshold. ‘How’s Miriam?’

      Insch sniffed, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, then picked up a fluffy unicorn. His voice was small and ragged: ‘She was going to be a doctor. Or a ballerina. Or an astronaut. Depended on what day it was …’ He hadn’t showered or shaved in a couple of days; his jowls covered in dark-blue stubble, heavy black bags under his eyes, clothes rumpled and stained. The smell of stale alcohol oozed out of him.

      Logan picked his way through the furry minefield of bears and dinosaurs and pigs and dragons, then sank down with his back to the unmade bed. ‘Everyone at the station’s asking for you. They’re getting up a collection. Going to get a park bench dedicated to Sophie.’ It had sounded so appropriate when Steel had told him about it yesterday, now it just sounded hollow and crass.‘… I’m sorry.’

      ‘She left me. Miriam. She got out the hospital, took the girls and went to her mother’s.’ Another sniff. ‘Said she couldn’t bear to look at me anymore. That it was my fault.’

      ‘Sir, I—’

      ‘Wiseman was after me, and they paid for it.’ He wrapped his huge arms around the little unicorn, buried his face in its fur.

      Logan closed his eyes and stepped off the cliff: ‘I wasn’t your fault, it was mine. If I hadn’t chased Wiseman—’

      ‘He was going to sell her to a paedophile. Right now, she’d be …’ The huge man shuddered. When he looked up his eyes sparkled with tears. ‘How do you explain to a child’s mother that her little girl’s better off dead?’

      ‘I’m so sorry…’ Logan pulled open the carrier bag, and dragged out four tins of Guinness. ‘Got them at that wee supermarket in Newmachar. Still cold.’ He held one out.

      Insch took the tin, clicked the ring pull and drank deep.

      ‘Here,’ Logan went back into the bag for a family-sized packet of jelly babies and a box of Terry’s All Gold, ‘The chocolates were for Miriam.’

      The inspector stared at the bag of little pink, red, green, purple, and yellow figures. ‘I can’t eat those. Borderline diabetic as it is …’ Then he snatched the bag from Logan’s hand and tore it open, stuffing baby after baby into his mouth. Chewing on automatic. Washing them down with more Guinness.

      Logan pulled the tab on his own tin and raised it. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

      ‘No.’ Insch shook his head, clutching the little furry unicorn to his chest. ‘No it’s not. It’s never going to be OK again.’

      The kitchen light seemed harsh and artificial after the soft glow of Sophie’s bedroom. They sat at the kitchen table, Insch hunched over a glass of whisky and a mug of sweet, milky coffee, the steam curling up around his bald head. Logan slid the opened box of All Gold back across the tabletop.

      Insch didn’t look up. ‘Has he confessed?’

      ‘Denying everything: says I beat him up. You imagine that? He’d have me for sodding breakfast. Besides Alec got the whole thing on camera.’

      Insch took a Caramel Nectar and stuck it in his mouth, followed by a sip of whisky. ‘Did he … is Sophie on it?’

      Logan didn’t want to answer that one, but he didn’t see that he had any choice. ‘Yes.’

      The inspector nodded. And helped himself to another chocolate. ‘I want you to do something for me.’ His voice was a dark rumble, colder than the November night howling against the kitchen window. ‘I want you to go to Craiginches and you tell Wiseman that I’m sorry.’

      Logan nearly choked. ‘Did you say—’

      ‘I should never have assaulted him. I was a policeman, he was a prisoner, I had no right.’ Insch downed half his whisky in one go. ‘I looked up to Brooks. He was everything I wanted to be: he got the job done. Put people behind bars. He bent the rules, but it … it took me a long time to realize he was wrong. The ends didn’t justify pounding the crap out of suspects. Made us no better than they were.’ The last of the whisky disappeared. ‘You’ll tell him?’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      The inspector held the cut crystal glass in his huge hand, twisting it so that little diamonds of light sparkled on the tabletop. ‘And then you tell that piece of shit I’m going to be waiting for him.’

      ‘Sir, you can’t do that. He’s—’

      ‘I don’t care how long it takes: I’m going to rip his balls off with my bare hands and feed them to him.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘No bastard is ever going to find his body.’

      ‘It’s over. Even if we can’t pin the Flesher killings on him, after what he did to you and Miriam and Sophie, they’ll never let him out. He’s going to die in Peterhead Prison.’

      Insch looked up, his eyes dangerous and black. ‘I know. And I’m going to be there when he does, with my hands round his throat.’

       33

      Thursday morning lashed against the tiny window of the Flesher history room, the wind and rain playing counterpart to the ping and groan of the solitary anaemic radiator. Logan stuck his finger in his ear and tried again, shouting into the phone: ‘No, not McKay, McRae: Mike, Charlie, Romeo, Alpha, Echo.’

      Static. A high-pitched buzzing noise.

      ‘Is this Detective Superintendent Danby? Hello? You left a message about the Flesher’s Newcastle victims?’

      More buzzing, and then: ‘… know what I’m sayin?’ The DSI’s voice was like a Geordie foghorn.

      ‘Sorry, I can barely hear you.’

      ‘Look, I went through the files, right? There’s nothin’ in there about them bein’ in Weight Watchers.’

      DI Steel slouched into the room, but Logan got his hand up before she could open her mouth. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a copy ofthe investigation reports here. But did anybody ask the families? I mean, if there wasn’t any reason—’

      ‘So what СКАЧАТЬ