Flesh House. Stuart MacBride

it’ll take at least two weeks.’

      Logan groaned. ‘He’s not going to like that.’

      ‘That’s not my problem, Sergeant.’

      Oh, when she wanted someone to babysit her kid, or suffer through her endless digital camera slideshows of the sticky-fingered, dribbly little monster, he was ‘Logan’, but when she was pissed off at work he was ‘Sergeant.’

      ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s not my fault Insch had a go at you, OK? You think he’s bad tonight? I get him all bloody day—’ Clunk. Logan froze, eyes sweeping the shelves of frozen goods, hoping it wasn’t Alec with his camera. Things were bad enough without being caught complaining about Insch on national television. ‘Hello?’

      ‘Sergeant McRae?’ Mr Thompson peered around a stack of boxes marked ‘FISH FINGERS’. ‘I’ve found the dockets …’ he trailed off and stared at the pile of meat as Isobel added another chunk to the crate, the frozen pieces clattering against one another like ceramic tiles. ‘Is … is that all …?’

      ‘We won’t know till we test it.’ Logan held out his hand, and the rumpled man looked puzzled for a moment, then tried to shake it. ‘No,’ Logan took a step back, leaving him hanging, ‘the dockets?’

      ‘Oh, right. Right. Of course.’ He handed over a crumpled sheet of yellow A4, covered with biro scribbles. ‘Sorry.’

      Thompson fidgeted nervously as Logan read.

      ‘What’s going to happen? I mean if that …’ He swallowed. ‘What am I going to tell my customers?’

      Logan pulled out his mobile phone and scrolled through the contacts list. ‘We’re going to need names and addresses for everyone who has access to this freezer. I want staff records, customers, suppliers, the lot.’ An electronic voice on the other end of the line told him the number he was dialling was busy, please try again later.

      The man in the crumpled suit shivered, wrapped his arms around himself and looked as if he was about to cry. ‘We’re a family firm, been here thirty years …’

      ‘Yes, well,’ Logan tried for a reassuring smile, ‘you never know: the tests might come up negative.’

      ‘I wouldn’t go getting Mr Thompson’s hopes up,’ said Isobel. She sat back on her haunches, breath a cloud of white around her head as she lifted something out of the box at her feet. From where Logan was standing it looked just like another chunk of pork, and he said so.

      ‘That’s true …’ she turned the joint of meat over, ‘but pigs don’t usually have tattoos of unicorns on their backsides.’

       2

      Insch was in the sweetie section, surrounded by catering-sized packs of Crunchies, Rolos, Sports Mixture, and fizzy flying saucers – eyeing them up as he spoke on the phone, ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’ The inspector listened for a moment, chewing on the side of his thumb, ‘No … no … if the bastard sets foot outside his house I want him picked up … What? … I don’t care what you arrest him for, just bloody arrest him!… No, I don’t have a warrant …’

      Insch’s face was starting its all too familiar slide from florid pink to angry scarlet. ‘Because I bloody well told you to, that’s why!’ He snapped his phone shut and glowered at it.

      Logan cleared his throat, and the glower turned his way. ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but Iso … Dr MacAlister’s found at least one piece of human remains in the freezer. And about another forty possibles.’

      The inspector’s face lit up. ‘About time.’

      ‘Only trouble is, some of those are catering packs of diced meat. She says they’ll have to defrost and DNA-test every chunk, otherwise there’s no way of telling if a pack’s got bits of one, two or a dozen people in it.’ Deep breath. ‘It’s going to take at least a fortnight.’

      And Insch went straight from angry scarlet to furious purple. ‘WHAT?’

      ‘She … it’s what she said, OK?’ Logan backed off, hands up.

      Insch gritted his teeth and seethed for a moment. Then, ‘You tell her I want those remains analysed and I want them analysed now. I don’t care how many favours she has to call in, this takes top priority.’

      ‘Ah … maybe that’d sound better coming from you, sir? I—’ The look on Insch’s face was enough to stop Logan right there. ‘Fine, I’ll tell her.’ Isobel was going to kill him. If the inspector didn’t do it first. The big man looked like an unexploded bomb.

      Logan had a bash at defusing him. ‘According to the cash and carry’s records the meat in the container came from a butcher’s shop in Holburn Street: McFarlane’s.’

      ‘McFarlane’s?’ A nasty smile twisted Insch’s face.

      Logan pulled out the docket. ‘Two sirloins, half a dozen sides of bacon, a pack of veal …’

      But the inspector was already marching towards the exit, uniformed constables and IB technicians scurrying to get out of his way. ‘I want a search warrant for that butcher’s shop. Get everyone over there soon as it’s organized.’

      ‘What? But we haven’t finished here yet.’

      ‘The remains came from McFarlane’s.’

      ‘But we don’t know that. This place isn’t exactly difficult to get into. Anyone could have—’

      ‘And I want an arrest warrant for Kenneth Wiseman.’

      ‘Who the hell is—’

      ‘And tell the press office to get their backsides in gear: briefing at ten am sharp.’

      An hour and a half later Logan and Insch were sitting in a pool car outside McFarlane’s butcher’s shop, ‘GOOD EATS GOOD MEATS’ according to the sign above the big dark window.

      Holburn Street was virtually deserted, lonely traffic lights changing from red to green and back again with no one to watch them but a couple of unmarked CID Vauxhalls, a police van full of search-trained officers, a once-white Transit van belonging to the Identification Bureau, and two patrol cars. All waiting for the Procurator Fiscal to turn up with the search and arrest warrants.

      Insch scowled at his watch. ‘What the hell is taking so long?’

      Logan watched him fight his way into a small jar of pills – thick, sausage-like fingers struggling with the child-proof lid – then throw a couple of the small white tablets down. ‘Are you OK, sir?’

      Insch grimaced and swallowed. ‘How long’s it going to take you to get to the airport from here?’

      ‘Depends if the Drive’s busy: hour, hour and a half?’

      ‘There’s a Chief Constable Faulds coming in on the BMI red-eye. I want you to pick him up and bring him back here.’

      ‘Can we not just send one of the uniforms? I’m—’

      ‘No, I want you to do it.’

      ‘I should be helping organize the search, not playing taxi driver!’

      ‘I said NO!’ Insch turned on him, voice loud enough to make the car windows rattle. ‘Faulds is a slimy tosser – a two-faced, backstabbing bastard – but he’s a Chief Constable, so everyone scurries round after him like he’s the bloody Messiah. I do not want some idiot PC in the car with him telling tales out of school.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘No. No buts. You go pick him up and you don’t tell him any more than he needs to know. And with any luck we’ll have this whole thing wrapped up before he even gets here.’

      Anderson