Logan McRae Crime Series Books 4-6: Flesh House, Blind Eye, Dark Blood. Stuart MacBride

turn up. At the pub. Wiseman had him …’ Insch’s face had gone beyond its normal angry red, into a previously undiscovered shade of trembling purple. Breath hissing out between clenched teeth. ‘Get the IB round to his house. I don’t care if they have to tear it apart, I want—’

      The DCS placed a hand on the inspector’s arm. ‘David, I need you to go home. Let us handle this.’

      Insch got as far as. ‘Don’t you—’

      ‘Before you say it: I know. I worked with Brooks too. We’ll get the bastard responsible, but you need to go home. If Professional Standards find out you’ve ignored your suspension they’ll go ballistic.’

      Insch was on his feet. ‘You can’t send me—’

      ‘I can, and I am. Go home, David. Have a pint for Brooks. Come in tomorrow and we’ll discuss your caseload.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘That’s an order, Inspector.’

      Drizzle. It drifted down from a battleship-grey sky, slowly seeping its way into everything, making the IB team miserable as they searched Ex-DCI Brooks’ back garden. Logan stood at the conservatory door, watching them get wet.

      On the other side of the high back wall, a development of nasty yellow-clad houses sat cheek-by-jowl with one another. Brand new and ugly in comparison to the stately granite buildings they’d been thrown up behind. McLennan Homes strikes again.

      If he stood on his tiptoes, Logan could just make out pairs of uniformed officers going door-to-door in the vague hope that someone might have seen something.

      A grumpy figure in a mud-smeared SOC suit trudged up to the conservatory, snapped off her latex gloves, dragged out a scabby handkerchief, and made horrible snottery noises. ‘Bugger all,’ she said when she’d finished. ‘No hair, no fibres, no prints. We know he came over the back wall – got two goodsized indentations in the flowerbed, but nothing we can get a decent cast from. Best guess is he had plastic bags on over his shoes – that’d explain why there’s no muddy footprints in the house.’

      The hanky came out for another performance.

      ‘OK, finish it up and I’ll get Rennie to stick the kettle on.’

      She sniffed. ‘Looks like a professional job.’

      ‘Get your team in out of the wet. We can—’

      ‘Sir?’ A panicked shout from the front of the house. ‘Sergeant McRae?’

      Logan knew it had been too good to last. The only surprise was that it’d taken the Insch this long … He turned and marched through the spotless conservatory; the bombsite lounge with its overturned furniture, smashed ornaments, and bloodstains; then out into the hall, where DC Rennie was trying to stop DI Insch from storming into the house.

      ‘It’s OK,’ Logan tapped the constable on the shoulder. ‘Why don’t you go see to the teas?’ He let Rennie squeeze past, then stepped forwards to block the entrance. ‘Inspector?’

      ‘I was out walking Lucy, and I spotted the IB van.’ Insch gestured at the grubby transit parked in Brooks’ drive with ‘ALSO AVAILABLE IN WHITE’ finger-painted in the filth. Behind him, his ancient Springer Spaniel sat on the wet grass, legs akimbo, slowly absorbing the drizzle.

      ‘What can we do for you?’

      The huge man glowered at him from the threshold. ‘You can let me in for a bloody start.’

      ‘Sorry, sir, this is an active crime scene.’

      Insch rested a fat finger in the middle of Logan’s chest. ‘Remember I’m going to be back in charge again tomorrow, Sergeant. You might not want to go pissing me off right now. Step aside.’

      ‘I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.’

      Insch’s finger withdrew two inches, then rammed forward into Logan’s chest. ‘Suspended or not, I am your superior officer. And I swear to God, if you don’t get out of my bloody way—’

      ‘What, you’ll punch me in the face? Again?’ Logan looked down at the cast-iron digit, then up at the inspector. ‘Sir, I know he was your friend. And I know you want to catch whoever did it. But do you think you could try fucking trusting me for five minutes and let me do my job?’

      Insch actually backed off a step.

      ‘Look, we’ll be finished here soon. An hour tops. We’ll have to leave someone outside till we can get the back door boarded up. But if you’re a friend of the family you’ll have a key. You can let yourself in.’

      The inspector turned away, watching as his decrepit spaniel embarked on a vigorous ear-scratching campaign. There was a pause, then, ‘I don’t have a key.’

      ‘Wait here.’ Logan ducked back into the hall and picked a likely candidate from the pegboard above the telephone, then tried it in the Yale lock. Perfect fit. He held it out to Insch. ‘Brooks must have given it to you a while ago, just in case he had to go away. So you could water the plants.’

      The inspector stuck out a vast paw, and Logan dropped the key in it. Insch turned without a word and marched away down the garden path, taking his stinky, soggy old dog with him.

       21

      It was half past four before the joiner turned up to board up Brooks’ back door. Logan watched him nailing the huge sheet of plywood into place, doing his best to ignore the man’s rambling moan about all these Eastern Europeans coming over here and undercutting honest tradesmen like him. Then asked if Logan needed any jobs doing on the QT for cash …?

      Logan did one last circuit of the house, making sure the IB hadn’t left anything behind, then stepped out into the rainy night and locked the front door.

      A lone rocket screeched into the dark orange sky, exploding in a tiny puff of golden sparks. Not exactly spectacular.

      He climbed behind the wheel of his pool car and sat there, listening to the rain tapping on the roof, looking out at Brooks’ house. Maybe he should go round and tell Insch the place was all his? Not that it’d do the inspector any good – there was nothing there to link Wiseman with Brooks’ death. The Butcher was too clever for that.

      Logan turned the key in the ignition and set the windscreen wipers going. They’d emptied Brooks’ freezer, just in case it contained any human remains, but he doubted they’d find any. The man who’d led the Flesher investigation back in 1987 hadn’t been turned into meat, he’d been turned into pavement pâté.

      Logan took the scenic route to Insch’s house, driving through the old town centre. A clot of schoolchildren lurked in the bus shelter: some smoking cigarettes, some ‘Oh-my-God’ing into mobile phones, one or two making abstract patterns in the air with hot white sparklers.

      A scream.

      Logan snapped upright in his seat – a young girl, no more than six years old, was being chased by a little boy in a Margaret Thatcher fright mask.

      ‘Jesus …’ In his day they’d played cowboys and Indians, not serial killer and victims. He pulled out into the town square, past the weird sandstone statue of a sailor, and onto South Road.

      Insch’s home, ‘Dunpromptin’, was a large granite box set back off the road, shielded by a high wall and mature trees, the leaves amber and russet, like frozen fireworks. Logan creaked the gate open and headed up the path. Another rocket exploded in the distance, this one slightly more impressive than the last anaemic attempt.

      He leaned on the bell, watching the green sparkles fade away.

      He counted to sixty, then tried again. A deep ding-donggggggg sounded somewhere inside the house. Still no answer.

      Maybe