Flesh House. Stuart MacBride

mind me, just got a couple of calls to make, we – Fiona? … Fiona, it’s Mark: Mark Faulds … course I do, darling …’

      They abandoned the pool car down a little side road and hurried out into the drizzle.

      ‘You know,’ said Faulds as they crossed at the traffic lights outside Country Ways, collars up and heads down, ‘I’ve been to Aberdeen about a dozen times, and it’s always sodding raining.’

      ‘We do our best.’

      ‘You buggers must be born with webbed feet.’

      ‘Only the ones from Ellon, sir.’

      Holburn Street had been brought to a virtual standstill – two uniformed officers pretending to be traffic lights as they funnelled the backed-up traffic down one side of the road. The butcher’s shop had been hidden behind a cordon of eight-foot-high white plastic screens that reached out into the middle of the street.

      A BBC outside broadcast van was parked on the double yellow lines just down from the scene, a woman with a ponytail, an umbrella, and a strange orange tan trying to convince a traffic warden not to give the van a ticket. There was a strobe-light flicker of flash photography and shouted questions as Logan and Faulds ducked under the blue-and-white Police tape, then they were through and behind the wall of plastic sheeting.

      The IB’s filthy Transit van was parked inside the cordon, its back doors open while someone rummaged about inside for SOC suits for Logan and the Chief Constable.

      Inside, the shop walls were peppered with recipe cards hung at jaunty angles: goulash, rib roast, minty lamb kebabs … A deli section and a mini greengrocer’s sat opposite an empty glass-fronted counter festooned with colourful stickers. The place was full of people in white paper oversuits and the smell of meat.

      They found DI Insch in the cold store through the back, with a pair of IB technicians and Isobel, examining yet more chunks of meat.

      Faulds took one look at the inspector in his bulging SOC outfit and said, ‘Good God, David, you’re huge!’ He stuck out his hand to shake, but Insch just looked at it. ‘Yes, well …’ Faulds reached up and adjusted his suit’s hood, as if that was what he’d meant to do in the first place. ‘Have you picked up Wiseman yet?’

      Insch scowled. ‘Kicked his door down at seven forty-five this morning. He wasn’t there.’

      ‘You let him escape?’

      ‘No I bloody didn’t: I had an unmarked car sitting outside his house from the moment we found the remains down the docks. He never went home, OK?’

      ‘Oh God …’ Faulds closed his eyes and swore quietly. ‘OK, right, fair enough, too late to worry about that now.’ Sigh. ‘So what are we looking at here?’

      ‘That.’ Insch pointed at the far corner of the cold store, where Isobel was examining a cut of meat hanging from a hook. It was about two foot long, seven inches wide: the flesh a dark rose colour, the fat a golden yellow, the surface punctuated by pale bones. No skin.

      ‘Loin of pork?’ asked Faulds, inching forwards.

      ‘Close: long pig.’ Isobel stood, rubbing her latex-gloved hands down the front of her coveralls. ‘The meat’s darker than pork, more like veal – definitely human. The ribs have been severed halfway down their length, but the shape’s unmistakable.’

      The Chief Constable thought about it for a moment, then asked, ‘Care to hazard a time of death?’

      Isobel stared at him. ‘And you are?’

      Faulds turned the full power of his smile on her. ‘Mark Faulds, West Midlands Police. DI Insch asked me to come up and take a look at the case.’

      Which sounded incredibly unlikely to Logan: Insch wouldn’t ask for help if his crotch was on fire. From the look on her face, Isobel didn’t believe it either.

      ‘I don’t know what kind of pathologists you’re used to dealing with down there, Mr Faulds, but in Aberdeen we don’t rush to conclusions before we’ve carried out the post mortem.’ She went back to her slab of meat, muttering, ‘God save us from bloody policemen, think we’re all clairvoyant …’

      ‘I see.’ Faulds winked at Logan, whispering, ‘I love a challenge.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Actually it’s “Chief Constable”, not “mister”.’ If he expected that to impress Isobel, he was in for a disappointment. She didn’t even pause, just unhooked the chunk of meat and slipped it into a large evidence bag.

      ‘Right – ’ she handed it to one of the IB technicians – ‘I want every piece of meat in here taken down to the mortuary. Mince, sausages, everything.’ She snapped off her gloves then nodded at Insch. ‘Inspector, a word please.’

      Faulds watched them march out of the cold room. ‘Is she usually that welcoming?’

      Logan smiled. ‘No, sir. She must like you: normally she’s a lot worse.’

      The shop’s owner – the eponymous Mr McFarlane – lived in a large flat directly above the butcher’s, so it hadn’t exactly taken Operation Cleaver long to track him down. He was a chunky blob with a worried expression, thinning hair, a red-veined nose, and bags under his eyes. He’d clarted himself in aftershave, but it still wasn’t enough to cover the smell of stale sweat and last night’s alcohol.

      McFarlane sat behind the desk in a little office at the back of the shop, watching as an IB technician dismantled a yellow-grey computer and stuck it in an evidence crate.

      ‘I … I don’t understand,’ McFarlane said, looking around with watery pink eyes, ‘we’re supposed to be open at nine …’

      Insch leaned over the desk, looming over the butcher. ‘Do you have any idea what they do to people like you in prison?’

      McFarlane flinched as if he’d been slapped. ‘I … But I’ve not done anything!’

      ‘Then why have you got a slab of human flesh HANGING IN YOUR FRIDGE?’

      ‘I didn’t know! I didn’t! It wasn’t me! I never did anything, I’ve not even had a parking ticket, I’m law-abiding citizen, I do barbeques for charity, I don’t even overcharge people! I’ve not—’

      ‘You sold human remains to Thompson’s Cash And Carry. They sold it on to catering companies.’

      ‘Oh God …’ McFarlane had gone a deathly shade of white. ‘But—’

      ‘PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EATING IT!’

      ‘David,’ Faulds laid a hand on Insch’s arm. ‘It might help if you let the poor man complete a sentence.’

      The Chief Constable perched himself on the edge of the desk, SOC oversuit rustling as he moved. ‘You see, Mr McFarlane, you own a butcher’s shop that sells chunks of dead bodies. Can you see why we might have a bit of a problem with that?’

      ‘I didn’t know!’

      ‘Uh-huh … Mr McFarlane, you’re a professional butcher, yes?’

      The man nodded, setting his jowls wobbling, and Faulds gave him an encouraging smile. ‘And you expect us to believe you can’t tell the difference between pork and people?’

      ‘I … I … I don’t do a lot of the actual butchery anymore …’ He held up his trembling hands. ‘Can’t hold a knife still.’

      ‘I see.’

      Insch placed a massive paw on the desk. ‘You don’t remember me, do you, Mr McFarlane?’

      ‘What?’ He frowned. ‘No. What are you—’

      ‘Twenty years ago. Three people hacked up and fed—’

      ‘Oh, no!’ McFarlane clamped one of his quivering hands over his mouth. ‘Not … I’m not! I never did anything! I …’