Flesh House. Stuart MacBride

to be there at the end. Now can we just drop it? [end tape]

      INTERIOR: An untidy office in Grampian Police Headquarters.

      CAPTION: Detective Inspector Roberta Steel.

      STEEL: [finishes a cigarette and flicks it out of open office window] Right, where were we?

      VOICEOVER: We’ve done Insch, Rennie and McInnis. That leaves DS Beattie, Doctor MacAlister, Inspector Nairn and DS McRae.

      STEEL: Right, we’ll do McRae next. My hair look OK to you?

      VOICEOVER: Well … it’ll be fine.

      STEEL: Good, got my public to think of … you’ll edit out that bit with me smoking, aye? I’ll no’ hear the end of it otherwise. OK, June 2004, and we’ve got fifteen women in the morgue. The press are calling him the Mastrick Monster – he stabs his victims, then rapes them while they die. Sick bastard. Anyway, the investigation’s going nowhere when up pops Detective Constable Logan McRae. He goes digging and unearths Angus Robertson – turns out Robertson works in a sandwich shop that delivers all over Aberdeen, that’s how he was picking his victims—

       [loud rattling cough – goes on for nearly a minute]

      Ah … fucking hell …

       [presses hand to chest]

      Bastard …

      Anyway, something happens and Robertson finds out he’s a suspect: he goes bonkers, snatches McRae’s girlfriend, and there’s a big showdown on the roof of this tower block. All very dramatic. McRae takes Robertson down, but gets himself stabbed about twenty times in the stomach doing it. Robertson gets thirty to life; McRae gets a year in hospital and promoted to DS.

       [clears throat and spits into wastepaper basket]

      OK, who’s next? Beattie? Useless, fat, beardy arsehole. Next!

       11

      The Press Liaison Officer slammed the incident room door. ‘Bastards!’

      Logan looked up from a pile of search reports and watched her march up to DI Insch and wave a newspaper in his face.

      ‘Have you seen the front page? Have you? They’re eating us alive out there!’ Which was a pretty unfortunate choice of words. This morning’s Aberdeen Examiner had, ‘CANNIBAL HORROR FOR HUNDREDS OF NORTH EAST RESIDENTS!’ plastered all over the front page. Colin Miller strikes again.

      Insch snatched the paper and skimmed the article, face rapidly darkening to a furious scarlet. ‘MCRAE! My office: NOW!’ He stormed out, nearly flattening a constable carrying a big stack of actions from the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System.

      Logan slumped back in his seat, stared at the ceiling, and swore. Then followed in the inspector’s wake.

      Insch’s office wasn’t its usual tidy self: the floor was littered with screwed-up bits of paper and sweetie wrappers. The inspector’s bin lay on its side against the wall, with a dirty big dent in it. He didn’t even wait for Logan to close the door. ‘WHY THE HELL DIDN’T YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS?’

      ‘I thought you knew! It’s not—’

      ‘How did your bloody Weegie friend know people have been eating …’ he narrowed his angry, piggy, eyes. ‘Did you—’

      ‘I never said a word! He—’

      ‘That two-faced cow!’ The inspector’s face got even uglier. He stabbed a button on his phone and demanded to be put through to the mortuary.

      It wasn’t long before Isobel’s voice crackled out of the speakerphone: ‘This had better be important! Do you have any idea—’

      ‘WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?’

      ‘What? I—’

      ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?’

      Isobel’s voice dropped about twenty degrees. ‘If you’ve got something to say to me Inspector, you’d better say it, because I will not have you shouting down the phone at me like some sort of petulant child, do you understand?’

      ‘Your boyfriend. The front page of the Examiner. I expected you to act like a professional—’

      A loud brrrrrrrrrrrrrr came from the speaker: she’d hung up on him.

      Insch stabbed the off button hard enough to make the whole phone creak. ‘You …’ He screwed up his face, grimaced, held two fingers to the side of his throat and tried to breathe slowly. In and out. In and out.

      Logan watched him do his Zen breathing thing, wondering how much mess it was going to make when the inspector’s head finally exploded. ‘Er … do you want me to get you a glass of water, sir?’

      Insch didn’t open his eyes, didn’t stop his slow, shuddering breaths.

      The office door slammed open. ‘How dare you!’ Isobel stormed into the room, still dressed in her white paper SOC suit, green plastic apron, hairnet, and white morgue clogs. She snapped off her surgical gloves and hurled them onto the inspector’s desk. ‘If you ever speak to me like that again—’

      Insch slammed a fat fist down on the newspaper. ‘How did he know? Your “boyfriend”? How did he get sensitive information about an ongoing investigation? One you’re involved in? One—’

      Isobel slapped him, hard, leaving a perfect white handprint on his florid face. She snatched the phone off the desk and dialled. Probably making a complaint to Professional Standards. ‘Hello? … Yes.’ She pressed the button and asked, ‘Can you hear me?’

      Colin Miller’s broad Glaswegian accent blared out into the room, ‘Aye, is this goin’… Am I on a speakerphone? Izzy, you know I’m no’—’

      ‘Colin, did I tell you anything about the Wiseman case?’

      ‘Eh? What’s going—’

      ‘Did I tell you?’

      A small pause, then. ‘What? No, you know you didn’t.’

      Isobel stared at Insch, triumph written all over her face, but the inspector wasn’t finished yet: ‘Do you really expect me to believe he just happened to come up with this all by himself?’

      ‘Who’s that? Is that DI Fatbastard?’

      Insch looked as if he was about to burst. ‘Just answer the bloody question: who told you?’

      ‘I don’t believe this … You lot are down the docks crawlin’ all over a container that’s meant to be goin’ offshore; next thing you’re screamin’ off tae a cash and carry; couple hours later you raid a butcher’s shop. It’s a fuckin’ supply chain isn’t it? What you think people were doin’ with all that meat they bought? Givin’ it a decent burial? Course they’ve been eatin’ the fuckin’ stuff!’

      ‘Are you—’

      ‘It’s no’ exactly rocket science, is it?’

      Isobel folded her arms. ‘Well, Inspector? I think you’ve got something to say, don’t you?’

      Insch did, but not to her: ‘Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused? Printing that? The bloody switchboard’s jammed with people complaining their sausages taste funny! How are we supposed to conduct a murder enquiry when—’

      ‘Aye, right. It’s my fault you can’t catch Wiseman. I told people they were eatin’ deid bodies, because –