Flesh House. Stuart MacBride

traffic beneath the yellow streetlight. Muttered swearing came from the back seat; Alec checking the messages on his mobile phone. ‘Bloody hell, why can no one get anything right?… Delete … Don’t care … Delete … Holy shit!’ The cameraman scooted forward, sticking his head between the front seats. ‘You’re not going to believe this—’

      Fauld’s mobile phone started playing Phil Collins: ‘In The Air Tonight’. ‘Hello?’

      ‘I’ve just got a call from the BBC News Department—’

      ‘Hello?’ The Chief Constable stuck one finger in his ear, ‘Yes … No, we’ll be right there!’

      ‘—Wiseman’s been on the phone.’

      Logan took his eyes off the road for a second, then had to slam on the breaks to avoid rear-ending a Porsche. ‘You’re kidding!’

      ‘Wants to set up an interview, like that Ipswich guy.’

      Faulds hung up. ‘Any chance you can put your foot down? We’ve got a briefing to get to. Wiseman’s—’

      ‘Been on the phone to the BBC. Yes, sir, Alec was just telling me about it.’

      Faulds frowned. ‘No. He’s grabbed someone else.’

       10

      ‘Right, settle down.’ There was a sudden stillness in the briefing room. The place was packed with uniformed officers, support staff, and CID. Alec and his mate with the very big camera had set up so one of them could film the crowd while the other one focused on DI Insch, standing at the front of the room, telling everyone about the latest disappearance.

      ‘Valerie Leith.’ Click and a woman’s face filled the projection screen: mid-thirties, slightly overweight, brown hair cut in an unflattering bob, pretty green eyes. ‘Approximately half past seven yesterday evening Valerie and William Leith return home. They’re attacked and William Leith suffers a severe trauma to the head. By the time he regains consciousness, his wife is missing and the kitchen’s covered in blood.’

      Click – the cover of James McLaughlin’s book appeared, Smoak With Blood written in white on a lurid red cover featuring the photo of someone dressed as the Flesher. ‘This is who Leith says attacked him.’ Insch went for a big dramatic pause. ‘This makes William Leith the first person ever to survive a confrontation with Wiseman.’

      DC Rennie leant over and whispered in Logan’s ear: ‘What the hell does “smoak” mean when it’s at home?’

      ‘No idea. Shut up.’

      ‘Only asking …’

      Click – and a battered man’s face filled the screen, half his head hidden behind a swathe of bandages. ‘Thirty-four stitches,’ said Insch, ‘three units of blood. Leith’s now under protective custody at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary – I have no intention of Wiseman coming back and finishing the job.’

      Click – Ken Wiseman scowled out from the projection screen. Time and HM Prison Peterhead hadn’t been kind: what little hair he had left was close cropped and greying, his goatee more salt than pepper. Big ears, big hands, big all over; overweight, but still powerful with it. A long scar ran from the top left of his forehead, through his right eyebrow and down to the middle of his cheek, pulling the eyelid out of shape. Not a pretty face.

      ‘He’s been on the run since Tuesday morning. but this afternoon he called the BBC.’ Insch gave the nod and a uniformed PC set the tape running.

      A woman’s voice, friendly: ‘Hello, BBC Scotland, can I help you?’

      Some crackling. A pause. Then a man’s voice, deep, with just enough Aberdonian in it to be noticeable: ‘I want to speak to someone about the Flesher.’

      ‘Just a moment and I’ll see if anyone’s free…’ the line went silent for a moment, then hold music, then another woman’s voice:

      ‘News desk – can I help you?’

      ‘Do you know who I am?’

      Another pause, probably filled with rolling eyes and theatrical sighs. ‘Are you calling about anything in—’

      ‘Ken Wiseman. They’re looking for me. They’re lying about me.’

      Some frantic scrabbling and the woman’s voice suddenly got a lot more interested. ‘I see. And you want to set the record straight? Let people hear your side of the story?’

      ‘They did it before – they’re not doing it again. They’re not sending me back to that fucking prison!’

      It went on, Wiseman ranting about what a bunch of bastards Grampian Police were, while the briefing room listened in silence. Then Insch told the PC to pause the tape. ‘Right,’ he said, rummaging absentmindedly through his pockets on the never-ending quest for sweeties that weren’t there, ‘we’ve played this to his social worker and two people from his work: it’s definitely Wiseman’s voice. Call came from a public phone box in Tillydrone, so we know he’s still in the city. But this is the interesting bit …’

      The tape started up again. There was more ranting, and then the woman asked, ‘Would you like to put your case in person? A televised interview? Tell the whole country?’

      This time the pause was so long, Logan began to think Wiseman had hung up. But finally that dark voice came back on the line. ‘The whole country?’

      ‘We could do it today! Is today good? You could come into the studio: we’re on Beechgrove Terrace and—’

      ‘You think I’m stupid? I say when and where. Understand?’

      ‘OK! OK, whatever you say. You tell me where, and we’ll come to you. Not a problem. You’re the boss. I didn’t mean to—’

      ‘I’ll be in touch.’ Then the soft burr of a dead line.

      ‘Hello? Hello? Holy shit … Steve! Steve, you’ll never guess who I just—’ Clunk. And the recording ended.

      ‘Right,’ said Insch, ‘any questions?’

      ‘Good God.’ Faulds stopped dead in the middle of the Leiths’ kitchen and did a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn. ‘It’s like Reservoir Dogs in here …’ The little metal walkway the IB had put down to stop people trampling through the evidence creaked under his feet as he picked his way across to the sink.

      There was blood everywhere: all over the floor, up the units, smears on the work surfaces, splashes on the walls, spatters on the ceiling. Someone had decorated the place in eight pints of Valerie Leith.

      The chief constable looked down at the sticky tiles. ‘First impressions?’

      Logan stared at a stalactite of congealed haemoglobin hanging from the cooker hood. ‘There’s a lot more blood than last time.’

      Faulds nodded. ‘We found the same pattern twenty years ago. Sometimes Wiseman butchers them on site, sometimes he takes them away and kills them elsewhere. Anything else?’

      ‘Well … They’re obviously not short of a bob or two.’ William and Valerie Leith had a Porsche 911 in the garage and a huge Lexus four-by-four parked outside the house. It was one of those converted steadings on the outskirts of Aberdeen that always cost a bloody fortune: ramshackle farm buildings, snatched up by some developer and turned into ‘luxury country homes for the discerning executive’ – as exclusive as they were expensive.

      Faulds leant an absent-minded hand on the black granite work surface, grimaced, and pulled it away again, his latex glove making a sticky screeching sound as it parted with the tacky blood. ‘Damn …’ He wiped it down the