Читать книгу Logan McRae Crime Series Books 4-6: Flesh House, Blind Eye, Dark Blood - Stuart MacBride - Страница 49

DI Steel leaned back against the working surface and ground her cigarette out in the sink. ‘It doesn’t prove anything.’

‘Look.’ Logan pointed at the bleach marks above the tiled splashback. ‘There was blood all the way up the walls. Four streaks.’ He wrapped his hand around an imaginary knife, raised it high, then stabbed the inspector four times. ‘Each time the knife comes out it sprays blood in an arc up the walls.’

‘Aye, it was in the SOC report.’ She shook her head. ‘Jesus … I do read these things, you know!’

‘None of the other crime scenes have that kind of stabbing-blood-pattern.’

‘So she fought back, it’s—’

‘Alec, you got the footage you shot this morning at the Stephens’? I need to see the kitchen.’

Alec went through his pockets, pulling out HDTV tapes and reading the labels. He found what he was looking for, swapped out the one in the camera and fiddled with the buttons.

‘I don’t see what this has to do with—’

‘Got it.’ Alec flipped the camera’s little screen around and pressed play.

‘See?’ Logan pointed at the picture, ‘There’s blood all over the floor, none on the walls or ceiling. I’ve been through every crime scene photo since 1985 and when he kills them onsite it’s always the same – floor soaked, blood splashed to about knee high, fine spray on the units. No marks up the walls.’

‘Oh come off it. Leith saw the bloody Flesher!’

‘Yeah, and lived to tell the tale. This guy has enough time to turn the kitchen into a butcher’s shop as he hacks up Valerie Leith, but doesn’t get round to killing the husband? Does that sound like the Flesher to you?’

Steel sucked a breath in between her teeth, face creased into an unhappy grimace. ‘But the husband saw him!’

Logan held up the copy of Smoak With Blood he’d found in the Leiths’ bedroom. ‘It’s all in here. The MO, the costume, the fact he leaves bits of meat behind. Best selling book in Aberdeen since we raided that butcher’s shop. You got any idea how many Margaret Thatcher fright masks were bought last week? Hundreds.’

‘Stop. Back the What-the-Fuck bus up right now. You are no’ making this bastarding case any more complicated than it already is. Understand?’

‘Plus I called the lab – they did a rush job on that slab of meat we found at the Stephen house this morning. It was a bit of Duncan Inglis. If the Flesher’s still got slices of him knocking around, how come Valerie Leith ends up in her own freezer?’

The inspector took another look around the kitchen: the bleached-out walls and ceiling. ‘Oh bloody hell … Fine. OK. You win, get another search team up here – half a dozen uniforms, couple of dogs, and the IB – we’ll go through the place from scratch, but if this is all a sodding waste of time you can tell the ACC why we pissed away a dozen man-days.’

‘Heather? Heather, are you awake?’

Darkness. Stench. Cold.

She groaned and slapped both hands over her eyes.

‘Heather?’

‘Go back to sleep, Mr New.’

‘Don’t call me that – my name’s Tom, I told you three times already.’ Pause. ‘It stinks in here …’

‘Well, whose fault is that?’

‘I’m thirsty.’

She let her hands fall away and stared up into the void. Mr New was always bloody thirsty.

‘Is there anything to drink on that side?’

Heather felt the water bottle, lying next to her on the smelly mattress. ‘He’ll be back soon.’

A shuffling sound, then Mr New was whispering to her through the bars. ‘We have to get out of here.’

‘The Dark won’t let us.’

‘We have to try! What have you got on that side? Anything we can use as a weapon?’

‘You can’t—’

‘I’M NOT DYING IN HERE!’ He hammered on the bars, making them boom and rattle. ‘I’m not …’

Later.

She could hear him feeling his way around on the other side of their cold, dark prison. ‘It’s a container …’ he said at last. ‘Like the ones they send offshore. It has to be. I can feel the locking bar on the door …’

He fumbled with something, grunted, swore, then tried again. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!’ More fumbling, then what sounded like a man’s belt being unfastened and removed. ‘Go on you bastard …’ Clicking noises, and then a rusty creak. ‘Come on, come on …’ Another creak. ‘Yes, yes, come on …’ CLANG. More swearing.

And then a loud metallic groan. ‘You fucking beauty!’

A thin shaft of light streaked into the darkness. Heather could just make out Mr New’s face – he was grinning.

Duncan placed a hand on Heather’s shoulder. ‘This isn’t a good idea.’

She grabbed the bars. ‘Get me out! Don’t you dare leave me in here!’

Mr New looked back at her. ‘It’s padlocked, OK? The bars are padlocked. I’ll get help. I’ll bring them back.’

‘Seriously: this is a really, really bad idea!’

‘Don’t leave me!’

‘I’ll be back …’ He put one hand against the door and pushed. Outside, there was nothing but a dirt-walled corridor lit by a flickering fluorescent tube. And for the first time, Heather got a look at her cellmate: he wasn’t a tall man, but he looked … friendly, with his bald head and little white beard. He stepped over the threshold. ‘I promise. I’ll be back.’

And Mr New was gone.

Duncan wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. ‘Shhhh. It’s OK. He’ll be back soon. You’ll see. He’ll be back soon, then everything will be all right again.’

The sunlight was already beginning to go as the search team worked its way across the large back garden. ‘You know what, Sherlock,’ said Steel, cigarette firmly clamped between her lips, smoke curling away into the pale blue sky, ‘this wasn’t one of your better ideas.’

Logan leant on the decking rail and watched one of the dog handlers trying to persuade his Alsatian not to crap in the flower beds. ‘There’s got to be something here.’

‘I’m giving this ten more minutes then we’re sodding off back to the station.’ Steel flicked her cigarette butt away to join the little pile she’d made in the last couple of hours. ‘But first – you can go put the kettle on.’

Logan opened the patio doors and they stepped back into the kitchen, just as one of the IB techs was shovelling a dessert spoon of ice cream into his gob. He froze as he caught sight of them. ‘Whad?’ mouth full. ‘Id was onry goig to wasde …’

Steel snatched the spoon from his hands. ‘This is supposed to be a crime scene!’

The tech swallowed, blushed and stuck the carton back on the work surface. ‘I was only—’

‘Don’t give me that bollocks.’ She pointed back towards the rest of the house. ‘Now get out there and find me some forensics: you’re supposed to be a bloody professional, for God’s sake!’ She waited until the kitchen door closed behind the tech’s embarrassed backside before asking Logan, ‘Well – what is it?’

‘Mackie’s, vanilla.’

‘Ooh, cool. Get us a clean spoon, eh?’

Logan rummaged one out of the kitchen drawer and passed it over.

‘Ta … You heard from Insch?’

‘Wife gets out of hospital today. She wasn’t well enough for the memorial service.’

Steel was silent for a long time. ‘Poor sods.’ She dug her spoon into the tub and extracted a heap of vanilla. ‘We’re up to about two hundred pound in the kitty, going to get one of those benches in Duthie Park. Somewhere nice, you know: with a view of the ducks or something? In memory of Sophie Insch, 2003 to 2007. Sorely missed. That kind of thing.’

‘He’d like that.’

‘Aye, well …’ The ice cream disappeared. ‘Best present we can give Insch is to put that cock-weasel Wiseman away for the rest of his sodding life.’ She stood there with a thoughtful look on her face, as if she was on the verge of some portentous announcement. ‘See if you can find some chocolate syrup.’

Duncan was right, Mr New did come back: unconscious and thrown over the Flesher’s shoulder like a side of meat. He was dumped on the metal floor in a puddle of his own vomit.

The Flesher stared down at Mr New for a minute, then turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him. Leaving Heather in darkness again.

She shuffled forwards. ‘Mr New?’

‘See: told you it was a bad idea.’

‘Mr New, are you dead?’

She strained her ears, just able to make out a wet breathing sound. But she couldn’t tell if it was Mr New, or the Dark. Heather waved Duncan over. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Not yet. Soon.’

She unfastened the top of her water bottle and reached through the bars, groping her way along the rusty floor with her fingers: metal, metal, cold sick –‘Urgh’ – metal, hair. She dragged his face round, and poured water over it.

Coughing. Spluttering. Groaning. And then tears. ‘Oh Jesus …’

She heard him struggle to his knees, breathing in painful hisses. Then there was a clang as he fell back against the bars. He stank of puke and fear and blood.

‘He’s …’ Mr New spat. ‘Ow … It’s like a rabbit warren out there … underground … dirt … I found her. I found Hazel …’ He was sobbing now, the words getting harder and harder to make out. ‘He’s got a butchery with … with bits of … She was my wife …’

BANG – something thumped into the bars. ‘SHE WAS MY WIFE!’ Then Mr New’s sour breath washed across Heather’s face. ‘He’s going to kill us. I’ve seen it – bits of body hanging from hooks in the ceiling. I won’t be a victim. I won’t!’ He was whispering now, as if that would make any difference to the Dark. ‘When he comes back, I’ll pretend to be dead and … and then you start screaming, and he goes over to see what’s wrong and I … I’ll ram his head into the bars. Keep doing it till the bastard’s dead. You grab his hands! You grab his hands and pull, so he can’t get away!’

‘I don’t—’

‘You have to! You have to or we’ll both die in this shit-hole! Is that what you want?’

Duncan stood behind him, staring at the closed door.‘Maybe he’s got a point? If you don’t do it, you’ll end up dead like me.’

‘But I can’t—’

‘Yes you can!’

Heather shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

‘We have to work together, Heather. We have to, or we’ll die in here.’ Mr New took a deep breath. ‘He comes in, you scream, I charge. It’ll all be over in a couple of minutes and we’ll be free. OK? We’ll be free …’

‘Well,’ said Steel, watching as the IB packed their kit back into the filthy Transit van, ‘that was a waste of time and money.’ It was cold and dark outside, just a sliver of moon poking out between the clouds as everyone locked up and got ready to go home.

The lead tech peeled off his SOC suit. ‘Nothing left to find – the whole place’s been bleached to buggery and back, half the carpet’s missing, any evidence is so compromised it’s not funny.’

Steel turned and poked Logan in the shoulder. ‘Well, Poirot, you figured out how you’re going to explain this one to the ACC?’

‘But it’s a copycat, it has to be.’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’

A loud bleeping noise came from inside the house, closely followed by the wailing alarm and a uniformed PC’s head. ‘It’s not working properly!’

Logan rolled his eyes. ‘Did you enter the alarm code?’

‘Course I entered the alarm code: one, nine, nine, three.’

‘Five. One, nine, nine, five.’

The PC disappeared back into the house muttering, ‘Bloody handwriting’s appalling …’

Logan turned back to the IB team-leader. ‘Is there anything we didn’t search?’

‘House, garden, garage, cars – we did the lot.’

‘Come on, Laz,’ said Steel, ‘give it up, eh?’

He pulled out the last search report again, flipping through to the photocopied map at the back – reading by the glow of the Transit van’s headlights. They’d gone over every nch of the property, twice, and still not turned up anything. Logan took one last look around him: house, front garden, flash cars, road, field, other field, garage, and back to the house again. The nearest neighbours were a faint yellow flicker through trees. Miles from anywhere.

‘You think they’re on mains water?’

Steel shrugged. ‘Probably.’

‘What about sewage?’ Clutching at straws.

‘How the hell would …’ She drifted to a halt and stared at him. ‘Oh, you’re kidding… Tell me you’re kidding!’

‘It’d have to be downhill from the house, but close enough to the road so the tanker can get in and drain it.’ He started walking round the garden, Steel hot on his heels.

‘If you think I’m rummaging through someone else’s jobbies in my good work suit, you’ve got another think coming!’

There was no sign of a septic tank cover anywhere in the front garden. ‘OK, the road runs downhill to the right. We just have to see if we can find one there.’

‘I’m warning you, Sergeant, if I get shite on my suit—’

But he was already out of the front gate, wandering down the road in the dark, probing the field next to the house with a torch. Mud, grass, mud, sheep … He switched his attention to the grass verge: more mud, patch of dead nettles, brambles, a roadkill rabbit, yet more mud. A rectangular shape poked out between tufts of grass. Logan squatted down and rapped on it with his knuckles. Solid.

He ran the torch round the edges of the slab. It was overgrown with grass and weeds, bedded in with a thick layer of mud.

Steel stood beside him, staring down at the septic tank lid. ‘There you go: no bugger’s moved that for ages. No need to go guddling about in crap after all. Oh dear, what a shame.’ She consoled herself with one last cigarette. ‘Time to call this little disaster to a halt and bugger off to the pub.’

‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’ He stood, torch grazing across the lid one last time. There was a faint glimmer of something white… Logan bent down and peered at it – a scrape in the side of the concrete, pale cream in the torch’s yellow glow. It was the only thing not clarted in mud.

‘Come on then, I’m parched.’

He took a handful of grass and pulled – it came away from the lid in a slab of spiky green, like a punk toupee. ‘It’s been peeled off and slapped back on again, so no one would know. Look.’

Steel did. ‘So, maybe they had it emptied recently, and …’ She stood there, smoking furiously. ‘Ah bugger it, we’re going to have to search the bloody thing, aren’t we?’

‘Yup.’

Mr New’s voice was a painful whisper in the darkness: ‘That’s him! Are you ready?’

Heather shrank back against the wall. ‘I don’t feel well …’

A rattle and clunk from the door to the prison.

‘It’s our only chance!’ And then Mr New was silent as a shaft of light rushed across the rusty floor. He was lying on his side, arms and legs arranged as if he were still unconscious. As if he weren’t dangerous.

Enter the Flesher, carrying a bucket of soapy water; the smell of pine disinfectant cutting through the bitter reek of Mr New’s vomit. One step, two steps, three steps…

She glanced at Mr New who was mouthing, ‘Now. Scream now!’ at her.

Heather moaned. Clutched her stomach.

Mr New glared at her, forming words without sound: ‘Please!’

She screamed.

The Flesher ran to her, water and foam slopping out of the bucket. Mr New lurched to his feet and charged, lips curled back in a snarl, exposing missing teeth and bloody gums, his face covered in bruises. He slammed into the Flesher’s back and they both crashed into the bars. The metal room reverberated with the sound of flesh and bone against metal.

The bucket hit the rusty floor and bounced, end over end, the contents spraying out.

Mr New reeled backwards, and charged again. BOOOOM! The Flesher staggered. Mr New grabbed the back of the rubber Mrs Thatcher mask and rammed the Flesher’s head into the bars.

‘Grab his hands! Grab the fucker’s hands!’

Duncan was right behind her.‘Don’t do it, Heather.’

‘I …’

‘GRAB HIS HANDS!’

‘He can’t beat him. No one can beat him.’

Mr New smashed the Flesher’s head off the bars again. ‘GRAB HIS FUCKING HANDS!’

The Flesher looked up, hollow eyes latching onto Heather’s. He was the Dark and he knew. This was a test.

‘No.’

‘HEATHER: GRAB HIS FUCKING HANDS!’

‘I can’t …’

‘Don’t get involved.’

The Flesher turned and grabbed a handful of Mr New’s shirt. Then buried a fist in his face.

Mr New staggered, slipped in the puddle of vomit, and fell back against the wall. BOOOM… He lay there, groaning, and the Flesher kicked him in the head. Mr New’s skull clattered off the metal wall. A spray of blood burst from his lips, spattering down onto the rusty floor.

‘No one can beat Him. He’s eternal.’

The Flesher lurched back a couple of steps, and kicked Mr New again. Then grabbed him by the throat, dragged him upright, and slammed him against the bars. Mr New’s arms hung limp at his sides, and then his knees gave way. He slid sideways down the bars, his head bouncing off the floor.

Two minutes later the Flesher was hauling the tin bath into the prison – Heather nearly wet herself. She scrambled back into the far corner, biting her lip, trying not to cry, trying not to draw attention to herself. She’d been good, she’d been good, she’d been good…

Mr New groaned and tried to get up, arms and legs trembling with the effort. He didn’t even make it to his knees: the Flesher reached into the tin bath and pulled out a small plastic rectangle – no bigger than a TV remote 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.