Flesh House Read online

  STUART MACBRIDE

  Flesh House

  For my mother and father

  Stuart and Sheena MacBride

  Table of Contents

  Without Whom …

  The World Is Shaped By Fear

  30 October 1987

  20 Years Later

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Four Days Later

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Smoak with Blood

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Six Months Later

  By Stuart MacBride

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Without Whom …

  Many people helped (intentionally or otherwise) with the writing of this book by answering questions, asking them, or just saying bizarre things that sounded interesting within earshot.

  I have to thank (because they’ll arrest me if I don’t) Grampian Police for all the help they’ve given me, not just with this book, but all the previous ones. A special nod goes to Chief Inspector Jim Bilsland, for pointers and some stories of what it was like in the force back in the 1980s – none of which I can repeat here – and Linda Cottriall for putting me straight about what a Family Liaison officer actually does.

  That doyenne of the mortuary, Ishbel Gall, was once more unbelievably helpful, especially when it came to some of the more … cannibalistic aspects of the story. If she wasn’t so nice, she’d be scary.

  Any procedural stuff that I’ve got right is down to the input of these people. The bits I’ve got wrong are all my own work.

  I want to thank Frank Clark and Bruce Fraser of McIntosh Donald for showing me how a proper abattoir works, and Keir Allen and Duncan Oswald for talking them into it. Thanks guys, it was an eye-opener.

  More thanks are due to Danny Stroud for the fascinating tour of Aberdeen Harbour; Szymon Krygiel for the lesson in Polish swearing; Christopher Croly for some interesting historical facts; everyone at Trinity Hall; and let’s not forget Val McDermid, Tammy Jones, Mark Billingham, Bernard Cornwell, John ‘Spanky’ Rickards, Allan Guthrie, Stuart Singer of the Redgarth, and the late great R.D. Wingfield (who’ll be sorely missed). Inspiration, beer, and abuse in equal measure.

  Yet more thanks go to: Philip Patterson – not just a great agent, but a friend and top-notch monkey impersonator – Luke, Isabella, Jacquie, and everyone else at Marjacq scripts. HarperCollins: especially the brilliant Jane Johnson and dazzling Sarah Hodgson; the superb Amanda; Fiona, Louisa and the Publicity crew; Lucy, Airlie and the Rights gang; Clive, Wendy and the UK Sales team; Sylvia, Damon and the Export Sales guys; Leisa and the Marketing maestros; and Andrew and Dom for design interior and exterior. Kelley Ragland at St. Martin’s Press. And James Oswald for his unusually bearded insight.

  I also want to thank Tom and Hazel Stephen who donated a large sum of money to Books Abroad, so that they could appear as victims in this book – brave choice!

  In order to make the newspaper clippings look as real as possible I had to twist some family members’ arms to let me photograph them: my brother, Christopher appears as Ken Wiseman; my sister-in-law, Catherine plays Catherine Davidson; and a strange lady from Fife pretended to be Valerie Leith. (All the businesses and locations in the book were faked up using Adobe Photoshop.)

  Lastly, but not leastly, I have to say thanks to my naughty wife, Fiona for random cups of tea and putting up with a succession of bizarre, rambling questions; and my little girl, Grendel for all the half-chewed bits of mice.

  And now a message for the Aberdeen Tourist Board: I promise to set the next one in Summer, OK?

  The World Is Shaped By Fear

  30 October 1987

  ‘No, you listen to me: if my six year old son isn’t back here in ten minutes I’m going to come round there and rip you a new arsehole, are we clear?’ Ian McLaughlin slapped a hand over the mouthpiece and shouted at his wife to turn that bloody racket down. Then he went back to the idiot on the other end of the phone: ‘Where the hell’s Jamie?’

  ‘When I got back from the pub they were gone, OK? Catherine’s not here either … maybe she took the boys for a walk?’

  ‘A walk? It’s pissing down, pitch black, freezing cold—’

  ‘What? What’s wrong?’ Sharon stood at the door to the living room, wearing the witch costume she’d bought from Woolworths. The one that hid her pregnant bulge and made her breasts look enormous.

  Ian grunted, not bothering to cover the phone this time. ‘It’s that moron Davidson: he’s lost Jamie.’

  ‘Jamie’s missing?’ Sharon clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling the shriek. Always overreacting, just like her bloody mother.

  ‘I never said that! I didn’t say he was lost, I just—’

  ‘If we’re late for this bloody party, I’m personally going to see to it that—’

  The doorbell: loud and insistent.

  ‘—your life is going to be—’

  The doorbell again.

  ‘For God’s sake, Sharon, answer the bloody door! I’m on the phone…’

  There was a clunk and a rattle as Sharon finally did what she was told, and then she shrieked again. ‘Jamie! Oh Jamie, we were so worried!’

  Ian stopped mid-rant, staring at the soggy tableau on the top step: Jamie and his best friend Richard Davidson, holding hands with some idiot in a Halloween costume. ‘About bloody time,’ said Ian, slamming the phone down. ‘I told you to be home by five!’ The two small boys looked wide eyed and frightened. And so they bloody should be. ‘Where the hell have you two been?’

  No reply. Typical. And look at the time … ‘Jamie!’ Ian hooked his thumb in the direction of the stairs. ‘Get your backside up there and get changed. If you’re not a Viking in three minutes you’re going to the party as a kid in his vest and pants.’

  Jamie cast a worried look at his partner in crime, then up at the stranger on the doorstep – the one wearing the bloodstained butcher’s apron and Margaret Thatcher fright mask – before slinking up to his room, taking Richard with him.

  Great, now they’d have to drop the little brat off at his parents’ house.

  Today was turning into a complete nightmare.

  20 Years Later

  1
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  Detective Sergeant Logan McRae winced his way across the dark quayside trying not to scald his fingers, making for a scarred offshore container pinned in the harsh glow of police spotlights. The thing was about the size of a domestic bathroom – dented and battered from years of being shipped out to oilrigs in the middle of the North Sea and back again – its blue paint pockmarked with orange rust. A pool of dark red glittered in the Investigation Bureau’s lights: blood mingling with oily puddles on the cold concrete, while figures in white oversuits buggered about with cameras and sticky tape and evidence bags.

  Four o’clock in the morning, what a great start to the day. The refrigerated container was little more than a metal box, lined with insulating material. Three wooden pallets took up most of the floor, piled high with boxes of frozen vegetables, fish, chicken bits and other assorted chunks of meat, the brown-grey cardboard sagging as the contents slowly defrosted.

  Logan ducked under the cordon of blue-and-white POLICE tape.

  It was impossible to miss Detective Inspector Insch: the man was huge, his SOC coveralls strained to nearly bursting. He had the suit’s hood thrown back, exposing a big bald head that glinted in the spotlights. But even he was dwarfed by the looming bulk of the Brae Explorer, a massive orange offshore supply vessel parked alongside the quay, all its lights blazing in the purple-black night.

  Logan handed one of the Styrofoam cups of tea to Insch. ‘They were out of sugar.’ That got him some rumbled swearing. He ignored it. ‘Sky News have turned up. That makes three television crews, four newspapers and a handful of gawkers.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Insch’s voice was a dark rumble,‘that’s all we need.’ He pointed up at the Brae Explorer. ‘Those idiots found anything yet?’

  ‘Search team’s nearly finished. Other than some incredibly dodgy pornography it’s clean. Ship’s Captain says the container was only onboard for a couple of hours; someone noticed it was leaking all over the deck, so they got onto the cash and carry it came from. Shut. Apparently the rigs throw a fit if they don’t get their containers on time, so the Captain got someone to try fixing the thing’s refrigerator motor.’

  Logan took a sip of his scalding hot tea. ‘That’s when they found the bits. Mechanic had to shift a couple of boxes of defrosting meat to get at the wiring. Soggy cardboard gave way on one of them, and the contents went everywhere.’ He pointed at a small pile of clear plastic evidence pouches, each one containing a chunk of red. ‘Soon as he saw what was in there, he called us.’

  Insch nodded. ‘What about the cash and carry?’

  ‘Firm called Thompson’s in Altens: they supply a couple of offshore catering companies. Frozen meat, veg, toilet paper, tins of beans … the usual. They don’t open till seven am, so it’ll be a while before—’

  The large man turned a baleful eye in Logan’s direction. ‘No it won’t. Find out who’s in charge over there and get the bastard out of his bed. I want a search team up there now.—’

  ‘But it—’

  ‘NOW, Sergeant!’‘Yes, sir.’ Arguing with Insch wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Logan pulled out his mobile phone and wandered off to call Control, getting a search team and warrant organized between mouthfuls of tea. Doing his best to ignore the cameraman circling him like a short, balding shark.

  Logan finished the call, then scrunched up his polystyrene cup and … there was nowhere to get rid of the thing, unless he just chucked it down on the dockside, or over into the water. Neither was going to look good on the television. Embarrassed, he hid it behind his back.

  The shark lowered its HDV television camera – no bigger than a shoebox, with the BBC Scotland logo stencilled on the side – and grinned. ‘Perfect. Thought the sound was going to be a bit ropey there, but it’s not bad. This is dynamite stuff! Dismembered bodies, boats, tension, mystery. Ooh,’ he pointed at the crumpled-up cup in Logan’s hand,‘where’d you get the tea: I’m gasping.’

  ‘Thought you were meant to be a fly on the wall, Alec, not a pain in the arse.’

  ‘Aye, well, we all have our—’

  Insch’s voice bellowed out from the far side of the quay:‘SERGEANT!’

  Swear. Count to ten. Sigh. ‘If this programme’s a success, can I come work for you guys at the BBC instead?’

  ‘See what I can do.’ And Alec was off, hurrying to get a good angle on whatever bollocking the inspector was about to dish out.

  Logan followed on behind, wishing he’d been assigned to a different DI tonight, especially as the news from Control wasn’t exactly good. These days, talking to Insch was like trying to do an eightsome reel in a minefield. Blindfolded. Still, might as well get it over with,‘Sorry, sir, they don’t have any bodies spare – everyone’s down here and—’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ The fat man ran a hand over his big, pink face. ‘Why can no one do what they’re told?’

  ‘Another hour or so and we can free up some of the team here and—’

  ‘I told you, I want it done now. Not in an hour: now.’

  ‘But it’s going to take that long to get a search warrant. Surely we should be concentrating on doing a thorough job here—’

  The inspector loomed over him: six foot three of angry fat. ‘Don’t make me tell you twice, Sergeant.’

  Logan tried to sound reasonable. ‘Even if we pull every uniform off the boat and the docks, they’re going to have to sit twiddling their thumbs till the search warrant comes through.’

  Insch got as far as ‘We don’t have time to bugger about with—’ before he was tapped on the shoulder by someone dressed in a white SOC oversuit. Someone who didn’t look particularly happy.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you for fifteen minutes!’ Dr Isobel McAllister, Aberdeen’s chief pathologist, wearing an expression that would freeze the balls off a brass gorilla at twenty paces. ‘You might not have anything better to do, but I can assure you that I have. Now are you going to listen to my preliminary findings, or shall I just go home and leave you to whatever it is you feel is more important?’

  Logan groaned. That was all they needed, Isobel winding Insch up even further. As if the grumpy fat sod wasn’t bad enough already. The inspector turned on her, his face flushing angry-scarlet in the IB spotlights. ‘Thank you so much for waiting for me, Doctor, I’m sorry if my organizing a murder inquiry has inconvenienced you. I’ll try not to let something as trivial get in the way again.’

  They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then Isobel pulled on a cold, unfriendly smile. ‘Remains are human: male. Dismemberment looks as if it occurred some time after death with a long, sharp blade and a hacksaw, but I won’t be able to confirm that until I’ve performed the post mortem.’ She checked her watch. ‘Which will take place at eleven am precisely.’

  Insch bristled. ‘Oh no it won’t! I need those remains analysed now—’

  ‘They’re frozen, Inspector. They – need – to – defrost.’ Emphasizing each word as if she were talking to a naughty child, rather than a huge, bad-tempered Detective Inspector. ‘If you want, I suppose I could stick them in the canteen microwave for half an hour. But that might not be very professional. What do you think?’

  Insch just ground his teeth at her. Face rapidly shifting from angry-red to furious-purple. ‘Fine,’ he said at last,‘then you can help by accompanying DS McRae to a cash and carry in Altens.’

  ‘And what makes you think I—’

  ‘Of course, if you’re too busy, I can always ask one of the other pathologists to take over this case.’ It was Insch’s turn with the nasty smile. ‘I understand the pressure you must be under: working mother, small child, can’t really expect the same level of commitment to the job as—’

  Isobel looked as if she was about to slap him. ‘Don’t you dare finish that sentence!’ She flung an imperious gesture in Logan’s direction. ‘Get the car, Sergeant, we’ve got work to do.’

  Insch nodded, pulled out his mobile and started dialling. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a call
to make … Hello? … That West Midlands Police? … Yes, DI Insch: Grampian CID, I need to speak to Chief Constable Mark Faulds. … Yes, of course I know what time it is!’ He turned his back on them and wandered away out of the spotlights.

  Isobel scowled after him, then turned and snapped at Logan,‘Well? We haven’t got all night.’

  They were halfway to the car when a loud,‘WILL YOU FUCK OFF WITH THAT BLOODY CAMERA!’ exploded behind them. Logan looked over his shoulder to see Alec scurrying in their direction while the inspector went back to his telephone call.

  ‘Er …’ said the cameraman, catching up to them by Logan’s grubby, unmarked CID pool car,‘I wondered if I could tag along with you for a while. Insch is a bit …’ He shrugged. ‘You know.’

  Logan did. ‘Get in. I’ll be back in a minute.’ It didn’t take long to pass the word along: he just grabbed the nearest sergeant and asked her to give it forty-five minutes, then tell everyone to finish up and get their backsides over to Altens.

  Alec was in full whinge when Logan got back to the car. ‘I mean,’ the cameraman said, leaning forward from the back seat – knee-deep in discarded chip papers and fast-food cartons,‘If he didn’t want to be in the bloody series, why’d he volunteer? Always seemed really keen till now. He shouted at me – I had my headphones on, nearly blew my eardrums out.’