Flesh House. Stuart MacBride

face bruised and bloody, mouth hanging open, dark crusts of red around his lips and nostrils.

      ‘Oh God, Duncan!’ She ran to him, grabbed his shoulders and shook. ‘Duncan, what did you do?’

      His hands were curled in his lap, the wrists held together with cable-ties.

      ‘Duncan? Duncan: where’s Justin? DUNCAN!—’

      Something slammed into the side of her head and she sprawled across the tiled floor. Someone was in the house! Another blow to the ribs. Heather dragged her hands up, covering her head as a boot connected with the small of her back.

      She tried to scream, but no sound came out. Pain stabbed through her head as someone grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her backwards and—

      THUMP – her head battered into the kitchen cupboards. Blood on the handle: she could see it glinting in the spotlights as her head smashed against the cupboard again. The room spun.

      Warm.

      She spiralled backwards, teeth rattling as her head connected with the tiled floor. Justin … Her little boy was upstairs … She’d bought Ready Brek for his breakfast. Justin liked Ready Brek.

      CRACK. And her head was bounced off the floor again.

      Justin … A spark went off in the middle of her head. JUSTIN! She had to save Justin! She had to get up right now and—

      Black.

      —right now. GET UP! She struggled and something heavy landed on her chest. Focus! Get up! Justin needs—

      Hands wrapped round her throat and squeezed. She tried to fight back, to pull the hands away, but they were too strong. They—

      Black.

      —Eyes, go for the eyes! She clawed at her killer’s face, but it was smooth, hard. The eyes just holes into nothingness. The thing had no eyes! The thing—

      Black.

      —NO! Justin needed her! Heather flung a hand out, fumbling across the terracotta tiles. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Tin! A tin of soup! She grabbed it and swung with all her might.

      But her fingers wouldn’t work. The can barely moved.

      It rolled off quietly to lie beside Duncan’s foot.

      The world got darker, and darker, and darker, and—

      Black …

       5

      DI Insch looked like an over-inflated marshmallow in his white SOC oversuit. He pretty much filled the tiny lounge on his own, leaving Faulds to perch on the edge of a creaky sofa, while the Identification Bureau finished up in the kitchen. It was only a tiny house in Fittie, but it was stuffed with police photographers, IB technicians, and fingerprint specialists – turning a crime scene into a disaster area.

      Logan dug out his notebook. ‘Door-to-door turned up nothing – no one saw anyone coming or going from the house last night. Closest we’ve got are the next-door neighbours: they heard the kid, Justin, crying from about three o’clock this morning. When he hadn’t stopped by noon they tried the doorbell. No reply. They’ve got a key in case of emergencies so they let themselves in …’ Logan’s gaze drifted past the inspector’s bulk to the blood-spattered kitchen. ‘No sign of Mr or Mrs Inglis, but Justin was upstairs in his room. He’d barricaded himself in with a rocking chair and his toy box.’

      Faulds picked a silver photo frame off the mantelpiece: mother and child grinning at the camera, the not-so-golden sands of Aberdeen beach stretching away behind them. ‘They didn’t hear anything last night?’

      ‘Neighbours say the Inglises weren’t exactly the most stable of couples. They’d be OK for a couple of months, then they’d go ballistic at one another. Throw things, screaming rows – usually about money – she put him in hospital once with concussion.’

      ‘Hmm … so we could be looking at a domestic here. Fight gets out of hand, someone gets seriously hurt.’

      ‘I’ve been on to the hospital, no one called Inglis admitted.’ Faulds put the photo back where he’d found it. ‘Perhaps she’s killed him this time? She needs to get rid of the body, so—’

      ‘Sorry sir, their car’s parked about a two-minute walk away. The boot’s still full of shopping and there’s no sign of blood.

      ‘Well …’ The Chief Constable thought about it. ‘The harbour’s at the bottom of the road, isn’t it? She could have dragged her husband’s body down there and thrown him in.’

      Insch didn’t quite laugh, but it sounded close. ‘And then vanished into thin air, leaving her three-year-old son trapped in his bedroom with no food, water or access to a toilet? The poor wee sod had to crap in his wardrobe. No, this was Wiseman. He knows we’re on to him and he’s escalating again. Just like last time. The Inglises are already dead.’

      Darkness. Darkness and slow, numbing pain. God, everything hurt! Her skull throbbed, her throat was full of burning sand … cramp rampaged down her left leg and she choked back a scream as the muscle convulsed. Screaming only made her throat feel worse.

      She rode it out, face screwed up in agony, then tried to work some life back into her limbs. It wasn’t easy, not with her ankles strapped together and her wrists bound behind her back. Curled up on a filthy mattress that stank of fear and piss. And meat.

      ‘Duncan?’ it came out as a painful croak. ‘Duncan, you’ve got to stay awake …’

      Duncan didn’t say anything. He hadn’t said anything for at least – what, an hour? Two? It was difficult to tell in the foetid darkness. ‘Duncan, you’ve got a concussion: you have to stay awake!’

      They were going to die. They were going to die in the stink and the black and no one would ever find them … Heather blinked hard. Tears weren’t going to help anyone. She had to get out of here. Had to save Justin. Had to find and save her son. And tears weren’t going to help.

      But she cried anyway.

      INTERIOR: small house in Aberdeen, festooned with ornaments. Two men in the background wearing white SOC coveralls dust for prints.

      TITLE: Chief Constable Mark Faulds – West Midlands Police

      VOICEOVER: So what do you think the chances are of finding them alive?

      FAULDS: Well, obviously we have to hope, but the reality of the situation is that killers like Wiseman … I’m allowed to call him a killer on television, aren’t I?

      VOICEOVER: I think he was acquitted wasn’t he?

      FAULDS: Yes, but that doesn’t really mean anything, does it? Let out on appeal because of a technicality isn’t the same as being found not guilty. And he was given another fifteen years for beating that rapist to death in the prison showers.

      VOICEOVER: Yeah, but probably better safe than sorry. Or we can film two versions: one where you name Wiseman, one where we just say ‘the Flesher’. How about that?

      FAULDS: OK. Ahem. [coughs] The reality of the situation is that serial killers in this kind of situation … hold on, I said situation twice. Can we start over?

      Logan and Insch stood in the kitchen, listening to Faulds making a mess of his third take. The inspector shook his head, saying, ‘Bloody amateurs …’

      The IB had left the place in a mess, as usual. All the surfaces were covered in a thin film of fingerprint powder – black on the kitchen units, white on the granite worktop. Little