Flesh House. Stuart MacBride

actor? Unbelievable.’ Insch shut the door as Faulds launched into yet another take. ‘What’s he been saying about the case?’

      Logan shrugged. ‘Not much. We spent the morning in the morgue watching them poke little chunks of meat. And then we dug out the Flesher files from the archives. There’s bloody heaps of—’

      ‘What about me?’

      ‘You? … er … nothing.’

      Insch scowled at the ruined kitchen, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Logan could almost hear the Machiavellian wheels turning inside that huge pink head.

      ‘I don’t get it.’ said Logan. ‘if you can’t stand Faulds, why did you ask him up here in the first place?’

      ‘Because that was the deal. If you get a Flesher case, you call in the old investigating team – doesn’t matter if you want their “help” or not, the useless sods turn up anyway. And lucky old me: Chief Constable Faulds had nothing better to do.’ The inspector brooded for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘Call Control: get someone going through the CCTV footage. Whoever took the victims used a car, or a truck, or a van. Find it. And you’d better get the press office to set up a conference. Circulate the Inglises’ photos. See if anyone saw anything.’ He stopped for a moment, staring at a child’s drawing of a ghost surrounded by happy skeletons, pinned to the refrigerator … ‘Poor wee sod … We’ll need to talk to the kid. Find out if he saw—Bloody hell.’

      His phone was screeching out ‘The Lord High Executioner’ from The Mikado. Insch pulled the thing out, groaned, then hit the button. ‘Hello, Gary … Yes … Yes I know you did, but—Because it’s an ongoing investigation, that’s why … No …’ he rolled his eyes and stomped out of the kitchen, barging past Faulds and the cameraman on his way to the front door.

      He slammed it behind him.

      Faulds sighed. ‘I see his temper’s not improved much.’

      ‘Yes … well, he’s under a lot of pressure, sir.’

      ‘He a good governor?’

      Logan thought about it. ‘He puts a lot of criminals behind bars.’

      ‘Which is a diplomatic way of saying, “utter bastard”.’

      He couldn’t argue with that.

      The press conference was not a happy place. As soon as the prepared statement had been read the savaging began: Wiseman was on the loose, people were dying and apparently it was all Grampian Police’s fault. The Chief Constable went straight into damage limitation mode, but it didn’t take a genius to tell what tomorrow’s headlines were going to be like.

      When the briefing was finally over, Logan told Insch the good news: ‘Social says we’re OK to speak to the Inglis kid, but we need to keep it brief.’

      ‘Good. You can—’ Insch’s phone was ringing again. ‘Bloody hell, leave me alone!’ He pulled it out and took the call. ‘Insch … Yes, Gary, we’re sure it’s him … no, we – No. I can’t. You know I can’t, we went over this!… But … I don’t see what that could—’ The fat man sighed. ‘Yes, yes I’ll try … I said I’ll try, Gary. OK.’ He hung up and swore.

      Logan waited for Insch to explain, but the inspector just stuffed the phone back in his pocket and lumbered off towards the lifts.

      It was meant to be a non-threatening environment: the walls painted a cheerful shade of yellow; Monet prints; two comfy sofas; a coffee table; a standard lamp; a widescreen television; and a box of battered plastic toys. But it still managed to be bloody depressing.

      Back in the early days people would sneak down here in their breaks to sit on the sofa, drink their coffee, and watch reruns of Columbo on the telly. Then one by one they stopped coming, preferring the scarred Formica of the canteen to the soft furnishings. There was something about listening to someone sobbing as they tried to tell you about the man who raped them, or the grown-up who made them do dirty things, that really took the ‘happy’ off a room.

      A small boy in pirate-print pyjamas was sitting in the middle of a bright green rug, holding onto a tatty stuffed dog as if his life depended on it, and sneaking glances at the video camera in the corner. A child psychologist slumped on one of the couches, half-heartedly trying to build a house out of Lego. She didn’t stop when Logan and Insch entered.

      The kid froze.

      ‘Hello,’ said Insch, easing his massive bulk down till he was sitting cross-legged on the rug, ‘my name’s David. What’s yours?’

      Nothing.

      So Insch tried again, ‘I’m a policeman.’ He pulled a handful of bricks and a little blue Lego man from the box, clicking them together surprisingly quickly for someone with such huge fingers. ‘Do you like boats? I’ll bet you do, living down in Fittie. Bet you see lots of boats.’

      Justin looked up at the dead-fish eye of the camera, then back at Insch and nodded.

      ‘Good,’ the inspector smiled, ‘I like boats too.’ He grabbed another lot of little plastic bricks, a passable fishing trawler taking shape in his hands. ‘So, do you want to tell me your name, or shall we call you …’ Insch thought for a moment. ‘Logan? Would you like that?’

      The wee boy shook his head.

      ‘Quite right too, it’s a poopy name,’ said Insch, ignoring the mutters of protest behind him. ‘I bet your name’s much cooler.’

      ‘Justin.’ Barely a whisper. But at least the kid was talking.

      And slowly the inspector teased the story out of him: how his Daddy had picked him up from day-care, because his Mummy was out shopping. They’d had fish fingers and beans and mashed potatoes for tea and done the washing up, then Daddy was going to cook something for Mummy called ‘beef burnt onions’. Then the doorbell went and Daddy answered it and someone came in and Daddy fell over and hit his head on the coffee table. Then the someone gave Justin a whole packet of Maltesers and sent him to bed. Then the bad thing happened and Justin had to hide in his wardrobe till it got stinky, because his doggie did number twos in there. He held the stuffed dog up so Insch could see how naughty it had been.

      ‘And what did the someone look like?’ Insch asked, after telling the dog it shouldn’t poop in people’s wardrobes.

      ‘He looked like a stripy man with a scary face.’

      The inspector produced a sheet of paper, unfolding it to reveal a picture of ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. ‘Is this—’

      Justin screamed and hid behind his naughty dog.

      ‘Yeah,’ Insch put the picture back in his pocket, ‘she has that effect on a lot of people.’

       6

      The major incident room was too noisy for a meeting, so Insch, Faulds, and the Procurator Fiscal commandeered a small office on the second floor of FHQ, then sent Logan off to get the coffees.

      He was halfway up the stairs, making for the canteen, when the voice of doom sounded: ‘Where the hell have you been?’

      Logan froze, swore quietly, then turned to see DI Steel standing behind him, hands on her hips, face pulled into a scowl. God knows what had happened to her hair, but it sat on top of her wrinkly head like an electrocuted badger. ‘I,’ said the inspector, shaking a nicotine-stained finger at him, ‘have been waiting for that bloody vandalism report for a week now.’

      ‘Ah,’ said Logan, ‘I’ve been seconded to this new Flesher investigation. Didn’t Insch tell you?’

      Steel’s scowl got even worse. ‘Well that’s just sodding perfect. I mean, it’s no’ like my caseload’s important is it? No’