Flesh House. Stuart MacBride

suddenly all the colour rushed back into McFarlane’s face. ‘I don’t know! And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.’ The butcher clambered to his feet. ‘I remember you now, you and that bastard … what was it …? Brooks! Ken never did anything, you fitted him up!’

      ‘Where is he?’

      Logan listened to Faulds and Insch playing Bad Cop, Worse Cop for a while, then let his attention wander round the little office. A couple of empty display stands were piled in the corner, next to a stack of dusty wicker picnic hampers; two filing cabinets beneath a barred window – Logan poked through one of them, keeping an ear on the conversation behind him.

      Insch: ‘Tell me where the bastard is.’

      McFarlane: ‘I’ve no idea, I haven’t seen Ken in years.’

      Insch: ‘Bollocks.’

      The filing cabinet was full of accounts, bills, payslips – nothing really jumped out. Logan pulled a ledger marked ‘Overtime’ from the drawer.

      Faulds: ‘You have to see it from our point of view—’

      Insch again: ‘—going to send you down for a long, long—’

      Faulds: ‘Better if you just tell us everything you know—’

      McFarlane: ‘But I don’t know anything!’

      The ledger was nearly indecipherable, page after page of dates, hours, payments, and names in the butcher’s trembling scrawl. Logan skipped to the most recent entries.

      Insch: ‘—people like you in Peterhead Prison, with the—’

      ‘Sir!’ Logan cut across the inspector, and there was an ominous silence as Insch turned to glare at him. Logan held out the ledger. ‘Last page. Third name from the bottom.’

      Insch snatched it from him and read, his brow furrowed, lips slowly twitching into a smile. ‘Well, well, well.’

      Faulds: ‘What?’

      The inspector slammed the book down on the desktop, then tapped the page with a fat finger. ‘Thought you said you’d not seen Ken Wiseman for years.’

      McFarlane wouldn’t look at the book. ‘I … I haven’t.’

      ‘Then why does this say he did two hours overtime, day before yesterday?’

       3

      There was a pause, and then a voice from the doorway said, ‘Sorry guys, I ran out of tape. Any chance we could do that last bit again?’ It was Alec, standing in the doorway with his HDTV camera.

      Insch rolled his eyes, sighed, then asked, ‘From where?’

      ‘Finding the book.’

      Faulds looked confused, until Logan introduced the cameraman. ‘He’s from the BBC, they’re doing one of those observational documentaries: Granite City 999. Going out next summer.’

      ‘Ah …’ Faulds ran a hand through his hair, then snapped on the same smile he’d tried with the pathologist. ‘Chief Constable Mark Faulds, West Midlands Police. Believe it or not I used to be on telly when I was younger. It was a children’s show, sort of William Tell meets The Muppets only more—’

      ‘Can we get on with this please?’ said Insch.

      ‘I was only—’

      ‘McRae,’ Insch handed the book back to Logan and told him to put it in the filing cabinet and find it again.

      Logan groaned. ‘But we’re in the middle of—’

      ‘Sergeant, this is a key discovery in the case: you’re going to be a hero on national television. Now put the bloody book back and remember to act all surprised when you find it!’

      ‘You know,’ Faulds said, ‘if you feel uncomfortable faking it, Logan, I’m sure DI Insch, or myself would be happy to do it for you. We—’

      ‘No. DS McRae found the thing: he should be the one getting the credit for it.’

      ‘Oh, well, of course … I never meant that we’d take the credit for his hard work, I just thought … if he wasn’t comfortable—’

      ‘He’s comfortable. Aren’t you, Sergeant.’ It wasn’t a question.

      ‘Yes, sir.’ Logan stuck the overtime ledger back in the filing cabinet, waited for Alec to shout ‘ACTION!’, then did the whole thing again.

      ‘Terrific!’ The cameraman gave them the thumbs up when they were done. ‘Now all I need is for someone to explain who this Wiseman bloke is and we’ve got a great scene. Just try not to make it too expositiony, OK? I want it to look nice and natural.’

      ‘Of course you know what this means?’ said Insch, as McFarlane was stuffed into the back of a patrol car with a blanket over his head.

      Faulds nodded. ‘We’ve got a chance to do it properly this time.’

      Two constables pulled back the barrier and the patrol car drove out into a barrage of flash photography and shouted questions.

      ‘We did it properly last time.’

      ‘Then why did it get thrown out on appeal?’

      The inspector sighed. ‘Because the jury were idiots. McRae!’

      Logan held up a hand, mobile phone clamped to his ear, listening to Alpha Seven Two reporting back on their search of Wiseman’s street. ‘OK, yeah, thanks.’ He hung up. ‘Couple of neighbours think they saw Wiseman going out last night around ten. Not seen him since. They say he stays out pretty regularly.’

      Insch swore. ‘I want every uniform out there looking for him. Roadblocks on all major routes out of Aberdeen. Get onto the port, the bus station, railway and the airport. Search his house – I want a recent photo, circulate it. Posters up in all the usual places. Send out a notice to every police force in the UK.’

      Logan groaned. ‘But it’s nearly eleven; I’ve been on duty since two yesterday afternoon!’

      ‘Eleven?’ Insch peered at his watch, frowned, rubbed a fat hand over his face, and swore again. ‘Post mortem starts in three minutes.’ He turned and marched off towards the barricade, peeling off his SOC suit and thrusting it into the arms of a spotty-faced PC.

      Faulds watched him go, then placed a hand on Logan’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘You did well there, Sergeant. Good work.’

      ‘Er … thanks.’ Logan shifted out of range, just in case the chief constable went in for a team-building hug. ‘How come McFarlane’s so upset about this Wiseman bloke?’

      ‘“This Wiseman bloke”?’ Faulds shook his head. ‘Didn’t they teach you anything in school? Andrew McFarlane was married to Ken Wiseman’s sister when all this happened first time round. Which is why he’s not too keen on your DI Insch.’

      Logan tried to stifle a yawn, but it ripped free anyway. ‘God … Right, search teams …’

      Faulds did the shoulder squeezing thing again. ‘Delegate. Pass that lot onto someone else and go get some sleep. You’re no use to Insch, or anyone else if you can’t function.’ He smiled. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll nip along to that PM and take another crack at your lady pathologist friend.’

      Logan didn’t have the heart to tell him he was wasting his time.

       4

      INTERIOR: a cramped office. Two figures out