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

control – and clicked a switch. Lightning crackled between the two electrical contacts at the end. Click-click-click-click-click…

      He rammed the tazer into the small of Mr New’s back and the man convulsed – one leg sending the tin bath flying, spilling its contents all over the floor: chains, the wire rod, the lightsaber, knives … one skittered up against the bars.

      And then Mr New was still, lying on the floor groaning – all the fight electrocuted out of him – crying and twitching as the chains were fastened around his ankles.

      The Flesher winched him up into the air, cut away his clothes, grabbed his face in one hand. And brought the lightsaber down on the crown of Mr New’s shiny head.

      CRACK.

      Mr New didn’t stop twitching until the bright blue rod was rammed into the hole in his skull.

      Two quick cuts – clean and deep – and dark red flooded into the tin bath. Mr New’s body hung still and silent and pale.

      His head came off with a single pass of the blade, sliced from back to front, then tossed unceremoniously onto the floor. It lay on its side, staring open-mouthed at Heather as she cowered in the corner.

      The skinning was horrific and fast. The Flesher peeled him with swift, economical movements, then opened him up from stem to stern. The bulging white sack of Mr New’s innards came free in one slithery lump… His body was a hollow shell in less than five minutes.

      Then came the axe: hacking down along the spine, splitting the body in half lengthways. With nothing left to hold the two pieces together they swung outwards on the chains around each leg, clanging into the metal wall on one side and the bars on the other.

      And just like that, Mr New was a carcass. Nothing more than meat. Just the hands and feet to show that this was once a human being. And his head, staring accusingly up from the floor.

      ‘Do we really have to do this?’ The IB technician held the crowbar tight against his chest, eying the septic tank’s lid as if it were the trapdoor to hell.

      ‘Aye, DS McRae’s got a thing for other people’s jobbies, don’t you Laz?’ Steel took a deep draw on her cigarette and pointed at the concrete slab. ‘Just make sure you don’t sod up them scrape marks.’

      They’d reversed the IB’s van down the lane, the little diesel generator in the back chugging away, powering a pair of halogen spotlights. The technician adjusted his breathing mask and tightened his grip on the crowbar.

      Steel pointed at the septic tank cover. ‘Some time today would be nice.’

      ‘OK, OK, Jesus …’ He slid the end of the crowbar between the lid and the base – his SOC suit glaring in the harsh lights – and heaved. There was a grinding noise as the concrete slab shifted—‘Ah, Jesus!’ He dropped the crowbar and backed off, waving a hand in front of his face.

      ‘Oh for God’s sake, Frank.’ Steel took the fag out of her mouth, ‘don’t be such a … fucking hell!’ She stuck the cigarette back, puffing, surrounding herself in a little protective cloud of smoke.

      A rancid, cloying reek filled the small lane: raw sewage, like a hundred dirty pub toilets all at once. Logan clamped a hand over his mouth and retreated upwind, to the other side of the road.

      Frank edged forward, put one blue, plastic overbootee against the concrete slab and pushed till it was fully open.

      Logan had expected the smell to drop off when the lid was removed – that the air would get in and disperse the worst of it – but it just got worse.

      Frank peered into the foetid darkness. ‘I am not going down there.’

      Steel inched forwards. ‘Well, at least poke about with a stick, or something.’

      ‘Might not even be anything in there …’

      ‘We’re no’ going to find out, standing round like a bunch of idiots, are we?’

      ‘Don’t see you volunteering.’

      ‘Bloody right you don’t. No’ my job, Sunshine.’

      He said something very rude under his breath, then grabbed a full-face splash guard and a pair of thick, black rubber gloves. Someone handed him a long pole with a hook on the end, and Frank went fishing in the Leiths’ septic tank. The swearing was bad, but the smell was worse as he swirled his pole through the reeking muck.

      And then he froze. ‘Found something …’

      Steel didn’t look impressed as whatever it was rose slowly from the stinking depths. ‘Tenner says it’s another mouldy sheep. They chuck them in to get the bacteria going when … oh bollocks.’

      It was a naked human forearm, complete with hand, covered in brown and grey sludge.

       31

      ‘Deceased is female, mid-thirties. Approximately fifteen stone.’ Dr Isobel MacAlister picked her way around the post mortem table, voice raised over the howl of the extractor fan.

      ‘You know what,’ said DI Steel, tugging at the crotch of her white SOC coveralls, ‘I’m sick of wearing these bloody things. Who the hell were they designed to fit? Quasimodo? It’s bunching right up my—’

      Isobel glared. ‘Can we please have quiet for once!’ Then went back to her external examination. Valerie Leith was laid out on the shiny cutting table like a broken Barbie doll: forearms, biceps, head, torso, thighs, legs, all separate. Still covered in a thin grey-brown film of stinking gloop.

      ‘Can you no’ hurry up and wash the damn bits off?’

      ‘If you will insist on dragging me in here in the evening to perform a post mortem, the least you can do is not interrupt while I’m doing it.’

      Steel puffed out her cheeks, readjusted the breathing mask over her face, and hauled at the crotch of her suit again. She lasted a whole two minutes before leaning over and whispering to Logan, ‘You’re a bloody jinx, do you know that? Anyone else finds a body it’s usually pretty fresh. You: it’s half rotten and marinated in shite.’

      ‘It’s not my fault – it was just a hunch, OK?’

      ‘Blind bloody luck, more like.’

      ‘A considerable portion of flesh has been excised from the left thigh. Edges of the wound are deteriorated after prolonged immersion in sewage—’

      ‘I said there was something funny about the Leith crime scene.’

      Steel scowled at him. ‘What d’you want, a parade?’

      ‘—dismemberment was caused by a knife: single-sided blade, approximately eight inches long—’

      ‘I’m only saying.’

      ‘You have any idea how much trouble this is going to cause?’

      ‘—angle of incisions implies a right-handed suspect—’

      ‘What happened to “good job, Logan, you’re a credit to the force”?’

      ‘Oh don’t be such a drama queen, we—’

      ‘Inspector, I will not tell you again! This is a post mortem, not a playground.’

      Steel actually blushed. ‘Sorry, Doc.’ And then, when no one was looking, she punched Logan in the arm. ‘That was your fault!’

      The mortuary clock read eight fifteen before Isobel finally told her assistant to wash off the remains. Eight fifteen and Logan had been on duty since four in the morning. That was … he was too tired to work out how long.

      Isobel’s assistant started with the head. Dirty water gurgled down the cutting table drain, and as Valerie Leith’s