Читать книгу Logan McRae Crime Series Books 4-6: Flesh House, Blind Eye, Dark Blood - Stuart MacBride - Страница 53

Thursday morning lashed against the tiny window of the Flesher history room, the wind and rain playing counterpart to the ping and groan of the solitary anaemic radiator. Logan stuck his finger in his ear and tried again, shouting into the phone: ‘No, not McKay, McRae: Mike, Charlie, Romeo, Alpha, Echo.’

Static. A high-pitched buzzing noise.

‘Is this Detective Superintendent Danby? Hello? You left a message about the Flesher’s Newcastle victims?’

More buzzing, and then: ‘… know what I’m sayin?’ The DSI’s voice was like a Geordie foghorn.

‘Sorry, I can barely hear you.’

‘Look, I went through the files, right? There’s nothin’ in there about them bein’ in Weight Watchers.’

DI Steel slouched into the room, but Logan got his hand up before she could open her mouth. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a copy ofthe investigation reports here. But did anybody ask the families? I mean, if there wasn’t any reason—’

‘So what are you expectin’ me to do? Go round and ask the poor bastards’ relatives if they were tryin’ to lose weight? It was nearly twenty years ago: know what I mean?’

‘Look, I wouldn’t ask, but we’ve got some victims here who were members and—’

‘And you think this is how he finds them.’

‘Well—’

‘I’ll stick a couple of woodentops on it, OK? Can’t say fairer than that, know what I mean?’

‘Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.’

‘You can thank us by catching the bastard.’

Steel waited for Logan to hang up, then plonked herself on the corner of his desk and peered at his notes. ‘Oh for God’s sake: you were supposed to chase up this Weight Watchers thing days ago. What the hell have you been doing?’

‘I did. That was Newcastle getting back to me. And how come you’re so bloody cheery this morning?’

She scowled at him. ‘Don’t start, I’m no’ in the mood. Where’s Defective Constable Rennie?’

‘Bain’s got him going through more of those INTERPOL reports.’

‘Yeah, like that’s going to help.’ She stuck her hands into her armpits and turned to face the death board, in all its bloodstained glory. ‘Susan proposed last night.’

‘Congratulations?’

‘’Cos I don’t have enough to worry about. Last year it was all, “Let’s get a cat!” now it’s, “Let’s get married!” You know what’s next, don’t you? Bloody babies.’ She shuddered. ‘Creepy little bastards…’

The inspector started rummaging through the paperwork on Logan’s desk. ‘So come on then: how is he? Insch.’

Hunched up and crying at the kitchen table. Planning revenge. Depressed. Dangerous. Destructive. Drinking away his pain. Grieving… ‘He’s OK.’

Steel nodded. ‘Thought so. Hard as nails is our Inschy.’ She stopped at the plastic wallet containing Wiseman’s second – better typed – confession and skimmed through it. ‘This is appalling …’

‘Got a call from Craiginches – Ken Wiseman beat the living hell out of Richard Davidson last night. Thought I should go up, have a word. Maybe ask him about that,’ He pointed at the confession.

‘What, Wiseman won’t speak to Faulds, or Bain, or me, or that Liverpudlian psychologist toss-pot, but police hero DS Logan McRae’ll get him to talk?’

‘I only meant—’

‘Ah, like I care.’ She dropped the confession back on Logan’s desk. ‘It’s the mighty DCS Bain’s investigation now. You can do whatever you like, I’m off for a fag.’ She stood. ‘I’d say take Alec with you, but he’s got his camera glued to His Holiness DCS Bain’s arse.’ Putting on a whiny voice for: ‘Oh Detective Chief Superintendent, you’re so big and clever!’

Probably just as well – Logan didn’t really want a BBC film crew there while he passed on Insch’s message.

‘But don’t forget we’ve got that bloody case peer-review with Strathclyde at half twelve.’

‘But I’m not—’

‘If I have to be there, so do you. And you’re no’ wriggling out of it, so don’t even try. Half twelve: if you’re late I’m going to … do something nasty to you. Can’t be arsed thinking what at the moment, but it won’t be pleasant.’

Wiseman coughed, then spat whatever he’d brought up onto the scuffed linoleum floor. The interview room wasn’t exactly straight out of Better Homes And Prisons magazine, but the glob of glistening phlegm didn’t help. The butcher’s face was a mass of bruises, Elastoplasts, little white butterfly stitches, and scabs.

Logan took another sip of what passed for coffee from the vending machine in reception. ‘Little birdy tells me you and Richard Davidson had a falling out.’

Wiseman shrugged. ‘Some people are born stupid.’

‘You put him in hospital: broken leg, cracked ribs, concussion—’

‘Little shit came at me, crying about his mummy.’

‘Not think you’re in enough trouble, Ken?’

‘What are they going to do: arrest me?’

Fair point.

‘I’ve got a message for you. From DI Insch.’

‘Let me guess: he’s going to kill me? Only way I’m getting out of Peterhead Prison’s in a body-bag?’ Wiseman snorted. ‘Heard it all before. His mate Brooks said the same thing. Look what happened to him.’

Silence.

‘He says he’s sorry.’

The ex-butcher frowned, sat back in his seat and pursed his lips, looked down at the handcuffs holding his left wrist to the plaster cast on his right, then up at the camera bolted to the wall. ‘What for?’

But there was no way Logan was going on record saying Insch assaulted a prisoner, even if it was seventeen years ago. ‘I want to talk to you about your confession.’

‘Thought that’s what we were talking about.’

Logan pulled the plastic envelope from his pocket and placed it on the desk. ‘“I did it. I did it and I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt her, but I did. There was a lot of blood—”’

‘I know what it says.’

‘“Afterwards I did not know what to do, so I proceeded to dispose of the body by cutting it up—”’

Wiseman lurched forwards, banging his grubby fibreglass cast on the scarred tabletop. ‘I said I know what it fucking says!’

Logan smiled. He’d just been using the confession and Richard Davidson’s assault as an excuse to pass on Insch’s message, but somehow he’d managed to hit a raw nerve. The butcher was so blasé about everything else… ‘Who was she?’

‘She wasn’t anyone. I made it up. It’s what they wanted to hear. They said they’d—’

‘Remember Angus Robertson? The Mastrick Monster?’

‘I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.’

Logan pointed at the interview room, the camera, the officer standing by the door. ‘Prison, remember: not a social club. Robertson said your cells were next to each other. That late at night you’d tell him about the woman you dismembered and the guy you beat to death in the showers.’

‘You going to take Roberson’s word for it? Lying little bastard killed fifteen women—’

‘Who was she?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Your car boot was full of blood.’

‘And you’re full of shite.’

Another sip of horrible coffee. ‘Why did you run, Ken?’

‘You deaf? I said …’ It seemed to take him a moment to catch up with the change of subject. ‘What was I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for that fat wanker to stitch me up again? Like last time?’

‘Someone’s still out there killing people.’

‘My heart bleeds.’

‘Who was she? The woman?’

‘Fuck. You.’

Logan tossed his plastic cup of plastic coffee in the bin, a little geyser of milky brown erupting as it hit the bottom. ‘Fine. Lie all you want, but I’m going to find out.’

Wiseman burst out laughing. ‘Oh, big scary policeman!’

‘Get him out of here.’

Logan made it back to FHQ just in time see a line of Grampian’s finest disappearing into the boardroom. DI Steel, loitered at the back, scowling at him. ‘What did I bloody tell you?’

‘Traffic was awful, OK?’

She grabbed his arm, speaking in a sharp, smoky whisper, ‘Listen up: you follow my lead in there – no volunteering information, no verbal diarrhoea, no pointing bloody fingers. We present a united front to these Weegie bastards. Understand?’

A voice from inside: ‘Inspector? We’re ready to start.’

‘Just a minute.’ And back to whispering again, ‘Everything was done by the book.’

‘Thought this was supposed to be a review to help us identify new ways to tackle the case.’

‘Oh don’t be so sodding naïve. What do you think they’ll do to Insch if they think he cocked this one up? Give him a pat on his fat arse and a big bag of sweeties?’

That voice again: ‘Inspector?’

‘Remember – everything done by the book.’ She turned and pulled Logan into the boardroom. ‘Sorry, sir, DS McRae was having difficulty tying his shoelaces and I had to supervise.’

DCS Bain waved them towards a pair of empty seats. ‘When you’re quite ready.’

Logan settled in beside Steel, and … oh … fuck was the only word that sprung to mind. The Strathclyde contingent were at the head of the boardroom table. The DCI they’d sent up to run the case review sat in the middle – red hair, sharp suit, statuesque in a mid-forties kind of way; to her left was a bearded sergeant with a face full of acne scars; and on her right, taking notes, was PC Jackie Watson. Fuck, fuck, and thrice more: fuck.

‘Will you sit down? Making me feel sick, pacing about …’ Steel was onto her second stick of nicotine gum, chewing with her mouth open as Logan marched up and down the history room. Pretending to read a witness statement from January 1988.

‘Why did it have to be her?’

‘Why do you think? She’s got a foot in both camps, she knows all our dirty little secrets and – look either you sit your arse down or I’ll twat you one.’

‘Didn’t look at me the whole meeting, as if I was a bloody stranger.’

‘Hell hath no fury like a ballbreaker scorned.’ Steel puffed out her cheeks and tried to blow a bubble with her gum. No luck. ‘What time is it?’

‘Twenty to five.’

‘Time for one last cuppa before we hit the pub then. Get them in, eh?’

Logan started collecting the mounds of dirty mugs. ‘Can’t tonight, I’ve got a prior appointment.’

‘Oh aye? Hot date? Randy Rachael from the PF’s office sniffing around again, is she? Or have you got yourself an eighteen-year-old nymphomaniac like Rennie? Trying to make Watson jealous, are we?’

He wasn’t rising to that. ‘Faulds kept saying we should go see Trinity Hall, speak to someone in the Flesher’s Incorporation about the original investigation. I got an appointment with their Boxmaster.’

‘What is he, a superhero? Boxmaster and Carton Boy, saving the world from the evil forces of plastic packaging?’

‘Sort of a cross between deputy club president and accountant, I think.’

‘And this can’t wait till tomorrow?’

‘Only time the guy could make it. You want tea or coffee?’

‘Surprise me.’

When Logan got back from the canteen, Alec was slumped in one of the visitor chairs, moaning about DCS Bain. ‘You know where I spent all day? Bored off my tits filming meetings. Yesterday too.’

Logan handed the inspector’s coffee over.

‘Ooh, ta.’ Steel took a slurp. ‘That’s what you get for following Bain about, isn’t it? Should have stuck with the A-team, you disloyal bastard.’ She swept a hand through her startled-terrier hair. ‘We’re much prettier too.’

Alec just sagged deeper into his chair. ‘You guys aren’t up to anything exciting are you?’

The inspector nodded. ‘Fifteen minutes I’m off to the pub.’ She pointed at Logan. ‘Laughing Boy here’s going to Trinity Hall because he’s got no mates.’

And at that the cameraman perked up. ‘Cool! Can I come?’

Logan shrugged. ‘It—’

‘Hold on a minute …’ Steel put her coffee down and squinted at him. ‘You planning on solving anything while you’re there?’

‘Doubt it,’ he picked up the list of trade members interviewed in 1990 and stuck it under his arm, ‘half these guys were in their late fifties when Brooks spoke to them seventeen years ago. Most of them’ll be making sausages in that great butcher’s shop in the sky by now.’

‘Aye, well,’ Steel grabbed her coat. ‘I’m no’ taking any chances. If Alec’s going, so am I.’

The little old man who met them at the side door to Trinity Hall was all smiles, cardigan and wrinkled suit. ‘I’ve always wanted to help out in a murder enquiry,’ he said, ushering them in to a tiny stairwell. ‘I love The Bill, Frost, Midsomer Murders, CSI, Wire in the Blood, only that’s not really a police show, is it? More one of those psychological things. I met someone from Taggart once.’ He stopped with one hand on the institution-green double doors. ‘Now, would you like the tuppence ha’penny tour, or the full Trinity Hall experience?’

Logan pulled on a smile. ‘How about we just make it about the Fleshers, sir?’

‘Perfect! Oh and call me Ewan, “sir” makes me sound like an old man!’ He winked, laughed, coughed for a bit – ending in a thin, rattling wheeze – then opened the double doors, revealing a long, dim corridor lined with ancient, grimy-looking paintings. Low-wattage spots cast tiny pools of light on the pictures and dark-blue carpet. ‘Trinity Hall has to be one of the best-kept secrets in Aberdeen: did you know we have a portrait of King William the Lion here? One of the oldest paintings in the place, been in the trades’ possession for centuries. Absolutely priceless, can’t even get it insured. We’ve got swords from the Battle of Harlaw in 1411. You see, the Seven Incorporated Trades have always been an integral part of the city. Did you know that for hundreds of years …’

Logan let him chunter on about the Weavers, Wrights and Coopers, Shoemakers, Hammermen, Tailors, Bakers, and Fleshers, as they wandered past darkened meeting rooms. Steel slouched along at the back, making popping noises with her nicotine gum.

Strange, old-fashioned paintings in ornate golden frames hung on one side of the corridor, their paint blackened by the passage of time. Each had a coat of arms on it, some decoration, and a wodge of text, nearly indecipherable in the low light. On the other side it was all portraits, sour-faced old men in various disapproving poses.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Steel, interrupting an involved anecdote about the first Flesh House being built in 1631 to stop people slaughtering animals in the streets, ‘who ordered the ugly blokes with a side order of extra ugly?’ She pointed at one of the portraits. ‘My cat’s arse is prettier than that.’

‘Ah … yes …’ The old man glanced at Alec’s camera. ‘Actually, that’s—’

‘Jesus! This one looks like a wart with a moustache!’

‘And, er … this,’ said Call-Me-Ewan, changing the subject, ‘is the Fleshers’ coat of arms.’

The painting was about the same size as Logan’s kitchen table. A red shield – with three knives, an axe, and one of the little Aberdeen castles on it – sat in the middle, a severed ram’s head on the left, a bull’s on the right. Beneath each head was a passage of flowery script, ancient varnish making the words crackle.

Steel squinted at the text: ‘“When sacerdotal sacrifice and feasts, made altars smoak with blood of slaughtered beasts…”’

The old man sighed. ‘You have to understand that the Fleshers date back to a time when Aberdeen was in her infancy – all the trades do. If you look in our books, you’ll see the same family names year after year, century after century. Generations of butchers all dedicated to supporting their trade and the community.’ He ticked the points off on his fingers: ‘Alms to the poor, funding public works, providing social care long before the NHS was even dreamt of. What’s happening now has nothing to do with the trade. We shouldn’t be stigmatized just because some … because someone hijacked the words from this painting.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Steel, ‘you can call him a cock-sucking arse-weasel. I won’t faint.’ Wink. ‘So come on then, how many people had access to this twenty years ago?’

‘This painting’s over a hundred and seventy-eight years old, Inspector. We have open days a couple of times a year: show members of the public around the hall, explain things to them, give them a bit of the history of the things we have here.’

‘So you’re saying it could have—’

‘And each trade has a big annual dinner dance. The members invite their friends and family, clients sometimes.’ He stared at the paintings. ‘We’ve had to cancel ours. No one wants to accept an invitation from the Fleshers with all these horrible things going on …’

Which wasn’t surprising. Logan pulled out his list of names from 1990. ‘You weren’t interviewed during the original investigation?’

‘No, my uncle died in seventy-four – I went back to Cupar for six months to help get everything in order, stayed for nineteen years. Didn’t come up again till ninety-three.’ He smiled. ‘Missed all the excitement.’

‘Do you recognize any of these names?’

Ewan produced a pair of half-moon glasses and polished them on the hem of his cardigan. Even then he had to hold the list at arm’s length, going through the names one by one. ‘Oh aye, he’s still here … so’s he … poor Charles took pancreatic cancer … this one’s moved to Australia to be with his grandkids … no idea – before my time … pneumonia … Alzheimer’s … you know, I haven’t seen Peter for ages. Think he’s in a nursing home now …’ and on it went. Ewan seemed to sag as he got to the end of the list. ‘Sorry. Seeing them all written down like this … death gets us all in the end …’

He took off his glasses and started down the corridor again. ‘Would you like to see the Dead Man’s Gallery?’

It was more like a passageway than a gallery – a long, thin space next to the main hall, lined with huge gilt frames containing dozens of little black and white photographs. ‘When I first joined,’ said Ewan, pointing at old-fashioned pictures of stiff, formal men with wild Victorian facial hail, ‘I’d show guests round here and we’d laugh at all the beardie-wierdies. Look at this one.’ It was a young man with huge sideburns and mutton chops that reached well past the collar of his starched shirt. ‘Like something out of Abbot and Costello Meet the Wolf Man, isn’t he? It’s not till you start seeing the faces of people you know in here that it really hits you: these were men. They had hopes and dreams, just like you and me. Families who loved them. Wives and children who mourned …’

He led them down to another huge frame, this one with a tiny plaster coat of arms at the top: red background, curved knives. The frame was only half full and some of the photos were even in colour, fading away to that strange seventies orange tone. Wide lapels, brown suits, and more sideburns.

‘And these,’ said Ewan, ‘are our recently deceased members. There’s Charles, I was telling you about him. Simon, Craig, Thomas… This is John: he was in the second wave on D-Day. And that’s my old mentor Edward. Lovely man; orphan, grew up in a children’s home, came from nothing and ended up with three butcher’s shops and a house in Rubislaw Den. Couldn’t have kids of his own so they adopted a little girl from a broken home.’ He pointed at a man with a ludicrous comb-over. ‘Robert there took in a wee boy with polio. Jane and I had two girls of our own, but I never forgot Edward’s example. So we adopted our youngest, Ben. Abandoned on the steps of St Nicholas Church the day after he was born. How could someone just throw away a life like that? Madness …’ Ewan stared at the photos in silence for a moment. Then went through them one by one: ‘Cancer, cancer, heart attack, pneumonia, cancer, Thomas had a stroke two weeks after his wife died; Edward and Sheila went in a car crash. Robert took an aneurysm on Union Street.’

He tapped the glass. ‘One day I’ll be in there. And people will come in and laugh at my photo. I’ll be dead, but I’ll always be part of something. That’s important, isn’t it? Not to disappear into nothing …’

‘Pierdolona kurwa fuck.’ Andrzej Jaskólski jabbed at the start button again. ‘Work jebany piece of shit!’ He kicked the metal wall, but the mill still wouldn’t start. Typical: the boilers go down for two days and now the pierdolone bone mill was broken too. ‘Go to UK,’ said his wife, ‘earn lots of money, come back and set up own clinic in Warsaw. Be rich man.’ Kurwa mać. Degree in Orthopaedic Therapy and he ends up working in stinking rendering plant in stinking abattoir in stinking arse end of nowhere Scottish backwater.

Another kick. ‘Start, dirty bitch fuck!’

One more kick and the machine rumbled into life, the huge steel teeth at the bottom of the trough grinding through bones and off-cuts and fat.

Only no chopped up bones fell into the next hopper.

Ja pierdole!

He grabbed the long wooden pole that leant against the wall – still not laughing at the kurwo foreman’s joke – and jabbed at the mass of bones.

Poke, jab, poke. A sudden clunk, and the pile slumped. Grinding noise. Bone and gristle fragments chugged into the next hopper, ready to be torn up into even smaller pieces.

Andrzej Jaskólski turned to put the pole back where he’d got it. Tonight he’d go into town with other Polish workers from abattoir. Drink. Maybe dance. Maybe find nice woman with own flat and not go back to jebanego bed and breakfast with no hot water and stains on ceiling and bed made of concrete.

He froze, one hand on the pole, then turned back to the sinking mass of cattle bones. Sweat breaking out on his forehead. Hoping his eyes were playing tricks on him…

They weren’t.

‘O kurwa jebana mać…’