Читать книгу Logan McRae Crime Series Books 4-6: Flesh House, Blind Eye, Dark Blood - Stuart MacBride - Страница 65

The walls pulsed in the darkness, she could feel them, making the air taste of sparklers. Heather lay on her back, one arm thrown across her face, the pressure keeping her eyes from rolling out of her head. ‘Kelley … I don’t feel good …’ On the other side of the wall, the new girl was screaming again. Shouting. Swearing. Demanding to be let out. For a blissful couple of hours she’d been quiet – then she’d told them all about her sister and how she’d opened the door expecting the pizza guy, only to find the Flesher standing on the top step. How everything was covered in blood…

Still, the calm had been nice while it lasted.

‘Kelley?’

‘Shh … I’m here, Heather. It’s OK. You just need a bit of sleep, that’s all.’

‘I think there was something wrong with the meat …’

Silence.

‘What? What was wrong with it?’

‘Maureen. The new girl. She said her sister was diabetic. She’d be injecting herself with drugs … I thought it tasted funny… Oh God …’

Kelley reached through the bars and gave Heather’s hand a squeeze. ‘They inject with insulin. It occurs naturally in the body. I doubt it’d even survive the cooking process. Maybe you got concussion when you banged your head?’

‘Maybe.’

The screaming settled down for a minute and Heather breathed a sigh of relief. Then it started up again. ‘That bloody racket isn’t helping.’

She waited for Mr New to appear and tell her she was being cruel, but nothing happened. Maybe he was off giving Duncan’s ghost a hard time? The sulky sod had barely showed his dead face since Kelley arrived. Or maybe it was Heather’s fault? Maybe Duncan wasn’t coming round so often because she was getting a little bit less mad every day? Now that she wasn’t trapped in here on her own any more, maybe she was going slowly sane.

Heather laughed. Then groaned. Then thought about throwing up.

‘You should take some of your medicine. He made me promise to give you your medicine if you weren’t feeling well.’

‘I don’t feel well.’

Kelley let go of her hand and there was a scrabbling sound. Then a package was pressed into Heather’s palm: tinfoil, wrapped around two small pills. ‘You have to take these and get better. If you don’t he’ll come back and hurt me. Don’t make him hurt me …’

Heather didn’t want to take them.

‘Now, Honey—’ Duncan poked her in the shoulder.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Heather? I’m right here.’

‘Just take your medicine.’

‘But it could be anything.’

‘Honey, if He wanted to hurt you He could turn you into veal chops any time he liked, couldn’t He?’

‘But—’

‘But nothing. You’re not feeling well, remember? You banged your head? And if you don’t take them He’s going to hurt Kelley. You want to make Him hurt her?’

Heather ran a finger over the pills. ‘No.’

‘So take your medicine and nobody has to die.’

Operator: Emergency services, which service do you require?

Caller (female): It’s him! From the papers and the telly! The Flesh bloke!

Operator: It’s OK, madam, we—

Caller: I saw him! I was looking out the window and I saw him! He climbed in over the back fence!

Operator: He’s in your back garden?

Caller: Not my garden, next door! I saw him – he had the mask and the apron. He went in the back door!

Operator: Can you confirm your address for me?

Caller: Seventy-three Springhill Crescent, Northfield. Hurry!

Operator: I need you to stay inside and lock all your doors and windows. The police are on their way.

Anderson Drive flashed by the car’s windows, the city’s lights glowing in the indigo night. Logan kept his foot flat to the floor, following in the wake of blaring sirens and flashing lights. Sitting in the passenger seat, Faulds turned the radio up.

‘Alpha Mike Three, this is Alpha Sixteen, what’s your ETA, over?’

‘Just coming up to the roundabout onto Provost Frazer Drive so about—’ the sound of a horn blaring in the background. Jesus! LEARN TO DRIVE YOU WANKER! Did you see that? Get the bastard’s number plate…’

‘Still waiting on that ETA, Alpha Mike Three.’

‘Oh, right. Five, six minutes tops.’

‘OK,’ said Faulds, as they flew through a set of red traffic lights, ‘who’s had firearms training?’

Steel shouted through from the back seat. ‘Don’t look at me.’

‘Alec?’

The cameraman shrugged. ‘Not the sort of thing they do in the BBC.’

‘Logan?’

‘Last Christmas, but I’ve never been on an actual—’

‘Good enough for me.’ He picked up the radio handset.

‘Control, this is Chief Constable Mark Faulds. Tell the Senior Firearms Officer he’s to stay put till I get there.’

‘But, sir—’

‘I’ve handled dozens of these situations before. You don’t get to be Chief Constable by hiding under a desk.’

There was some muffled conversation, and then the voice on the other end said, ‘Yes, sir.’

Faulds winked at Logan. ‘You and I are going to be in at the kill.’

That was what Logan was afraid of.

Springhill Crescent was a strange conglomeration of semidetached houses: some were harled, but others were clad in dark brown wood, looking like something out of a Norwegian housing estate. Number Seventy-two was the left-hand side of a pair, its exterior in need of a good coat of creosote. The upstairs lights were on, glowing in the cold night.

Logan ducked back behind a people carrier two doors down. ‘Are you sure about this?’

Faulds grinned. ‘You ready?’

‘How the hell did you talk them into it?’

‘Rank has its privileges.’ Faulds ejected the magazine from his borrowed Heckler and Koch MP5 automatic machine pistol, checked the load, and slapped it back into place. Then did the same with his Glock 9mm. He squeezed the airwave handset attached to the shoulder of his black, bulletproof jacket. ‘Team Three, we are good to go.’

A click. ‘Roger that, Team Three… Sir, are you sure I can’t—’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ He peered round the side of the huge car. ‘Any movement?’

‘Negative. Target is still in the building.’

Logan adjusted the strap on his borrowed helmet, pulling it tight under his chin, then wrapped the black scarf around the lower half of his face, like the bad guy in a cowboy film. It smelt of stale cigarette smoke and onions.

Faulds did the same. ‘You nervous?’

‘Bricking it. You?’

‘Stay behind me; you’ll be fine.’ He patted Logan on the back. ‘Flesher’s got a knife and a bolt gun, neither’s going to go through your vest. OK?’

‘All teams – positions for entry.’

‘Here we go …’

They ran for the front door, staying low through the gate and up the concrete driveway. Team One got there first, standing flat against the wooden wall to one side of the red door, waiting. Logan and Faulds stopped directly opposite. And then a burly figure dressed all in black lumbered her way up the path, carrying a one-woman battering ram.

She placed the striking end against the lock and nodded at Faulds.

The Chief Constable clicked on his Airwave again. ‘Team Two?’

‘Back garden is secure, we’re ready to go in.’

‘OK, everybody on three, two, one—’

The constable swung her battering ram – BANG – the lock tore free of the doorframe and they were in.

Team One took the lounge, Team Two burst through the back door and into the kitchen, Logan and Faulds hammered upstairs.

Landing: ‘Clear.’ Faulds kicked the bathroom door off its hinges: ‘Clear.’ Bedroom one got the same treatment: ‘Clear’ Bedroom two: the door banged back off the wall. ‘Hands on your head! HANDS ON YOUR HEAD NOW!’

Logan charged into the room after Faulds, the machine pistol heavy and cold, even through his gloves.

A naked middle-aged woman was tied to the bed, covered in blood, screaming behind a makeshift gag. The Flesher stood over her, knife in one hand and a slippery chunk of offal in the other, face unreadable behind that rubber Margaret Thatcher mask.

‘I SAID, PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!’

The Flesher dropped the knife. He was naked from the waist down, his trademark butcher’s apron draped over an exercise bike in the corner, allowing his erection to swing free.

Faulds pointed his gun at the offending member, and the Flesher slapped both hands over it.

‘Other head.’

The muffled shouts from the bed got louder. The woman struggled against her bonds, screaming blue murder as Faulds forced the Flesher to his knees at gunpoint. Logan hurried over and untied the silk scarf gagging her.

‘Aaaaagh… You bastard!’

‘It’s OK, you’re safe! You’re safe!’

Faulds dragged the Flesher’s hands behind his back and slapped the cuffs on.

The woman writhed, yanking at the silk scarves tying her wrists and ankles to the bedposts. ‘You dirty bastard!’

Logan scanned her naked body, trying to figure out where all the bright-red blood was coming from … only it wasn’t blood.

‘He’s my husband!’

It was tomato sauce.

The press officer sat at Logan’s desk in the history room, with her forehead resting on the Formica and her arms wrapped over the top. ‘Oh dear Jesus …’

Faulds leant back against the other desk, still wearing his borrowed SAS ninja outfit. ‘When we left she was on the phone to one of those ambulance-chasing lawyers that advertise on the telly.’

The press officer hauled herself upright. ‘Why couldn’t it have been him? I really thought we’d finally come to the end of this bloody case, and now we’ve got a lawsuit to deal with.’

Logan finished off his post-incident report and stuck it in the ‘out’ tray. ‘I can’t believe she’ll go through with it. Can you imagine what the headlines are going to be like? “POLICE RAID KINKY SERIAL KILLER SEX GAMES”, “WANNABE FLESHER CAUGHT PLAYING HIDE THE SAUSAGE”. Not exactly going to get them a lot of sympathy, is it?’

The press officer stared at him. ‘They weren’t photogenic, were they?’

‘Not from where I was standing.’

‘That’s something, I suppose …’

‘If it helps,’ said Faulds, peeling off his bullet-proof vest, ‘I’ve got that criminal psychologist coming in tomorrow. We could get him to do a piece on why people who dress up as mass murderers for sexual kicks are a menace to the gene pool?’

‘Chief Constable!’ She was on her feet like a shot. ‘Are you suggesting Grampian Police should lower itself to character assassination just to avoid a lawsuit?’

‘Yes.’

She smiled. ‘Sounds good to me.’

‘What you still doing here?’ asked Rennie, plonking himself down on the edge of Logan’s desk. Half past eight and the station was gearing itself up for another quiet night of underage drinking and random acts of vandalism.

Logan nodded at the pile of paperwork sent up by Tayside Police. ‘Trying to catch up on those two sisters who got grabbed in Dundee.’

‘I went on a stag night in Dundee once. Ended up in this strip club and—’

‘What do you want?’

‘Right.’ Rennie clapped his hands together. ‘Tonight: Archie’s, pints. Laura and me are off to a costume party later, but we can stop by for a few drinkies on the way.’ He dropped his voice to a camp stage-whisper, ‘Laura’s got this kinky schoolgirl outfit. She put it on last night, and I tell you—’

‘Is this going to be one of those conversations where you tell me about your sex life and I fantasize about beating you to death with an office chair?’

‘OK, OK.’ The constable held his hands up in surrender. ‘Jealousy’s an ugly, ugly thing.’ Pause. ‘About you and Jackie: I was thinking—’

‘Don’t, OK?’

‘But you’re both mates, I mean I—’

‘Just … don’t.’ Logan pulled the crime scene photos from the pile and flicked through them.

‘I only wanted to—’

‘Seriously, you’ll live longer if you shut up right now.’

There was a brief, petulant silence. ‘You’re going to come to the pub though, yeah?’

‘Will Jackie be there?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’ll think about it.’

Rennie nodded. ‘You can bring your English overlord if you like?’

‘You’re kidding, right? He sodded off hours ago.’

‘Come on, while the cat’s away, the mice can sod off to the pub and get blootered.’ Rennie jumped to his feet. ‘Couple of pints, get you out of this shitehole, spend some time with the living for a change.’

The world twisted and throbbed around Heather’s head. In and out, in and out. Sounds came and went in the darkness: the pounding of her heart, her mother’s disembodied voice: ‘You’re just feeling a little under the weather, darling. You’ll be fine. You will.’ A cold, papery hand on her forehead.

She’d been asleep, but now she was awake. Or still asleep, and dreaming she was awake. Feeling drunk and tired and sick. ‘I want to see my Justin …’

‘I know, darling, I know. You’ll see him one day. When you die. But that’s not going to happen for a long, long time. The Flesher will look after you. You’ll see. The medicine will make you all better.’

‘Kelley? Kelley?’

‘Shhh … Kelley’s asleep, darling. You should be too. You’ll feel much better in the morning.’

The screaming outside had started again: Maureen bellowing at the top of her lungs that she was scared and wanted someone to let her out… Only the words were different. Panicked. ‘Please! I’ll do anything you want! Please!’ More screaming. ‘Please! I won’t tell anyone: PLEASE!’

Her mother kissed Heather on the forehead. One soft hand cradling her cheek.

‘Please! Please don’t—’ Crack. And then there was no more screaming.

The silence was beautiful and rich and dark. Like chocolate.

Heather didn’t even mind when the hacking started.

The bar was full of off-duty police officers and students, both sets here for the cheap beer. Logan sat at DI Steel’s normal table – in the corner beneath the television – polishing off his first pint of the night and enjoying every mouthful.

‘I mean, think about it,’ said Rennie, dressed for some unfathomable reason in a dog collar and priestly black, ‘how come whenever the Flesher strikes, our so-called Chief Constable Faulds is nowhere to be seen?’

Logan consigned his empty pint glass to the drinker’s graveyard that covered the table. ‘You’re not still on about this, are you?’

‘Where is he tonight, then?’

‘How should I know?’

‘Exactly!’ Rennie finished off his Stella and plonked it down with the others.

Logan shook his head. ‘I don’t know where Steel is either, but that doesn’t make her Jack the bloody Ripper.’ He pointed at the collection of empties. ‘Your round.’

The constable stood, pulled on an ecclesiastical expression, and marched off to the bar. Blessing random strangers on the way, leaving his girlfriend behind.

Rennie wasn’t kidding about Laura’s kinky schoolgirl outfit – she was dressed in an exact replica of the Albyn School uniform, only she had her shirt-tails tied beneath her breasts, hoiking them up to create a vertiginous cleavage and exposing her stomach at the same time. The skirt was so short there was a flash of white knickers every time she moved her stockinged legs. She’d even put her long, blonde hair in pigtails and painted freckles on her cheeks.

Logan had never really got the whole schoolgirl fantasy thing himself – it always seemed a bit paedophilic – but the other men at the table were falling over themselves to laugh at her jokes and ogle her breasts.

Logan barely heard his phone when it went off. ‘Hello?’ With all the laughing, jiggling and rampant testosterone, he couldn’t make out a word. ‘Hold on, I’ll have to go outside …’

The front door to Archibald Simpson’s was sheltered by a granite portico, held up by huge Ionic columns, a perfect little haven for all the banished smokers to light up in. He waded through the cigarette smog to the outer edge, looking into the cold, rainy night as Colin Miller said, ‘You in the pub again? Christ knows how your liver copes … Listen, I did a search on all the victims, right? No’ just the Aberdeen ones: every bugger. They all had a wee thing in the papers three or four weeks before they died. It’s like clockwork, but.’

‘You sure?’

‘Every last one of them. Gonna be all over the front page tomorrow: “HEADLINES SPELL DEATH FOR FLESHER VICTIMS!” Continued page seven, eight and nine.’

‘Can you email me all the references you found?’

‘What am I, your secretary?’

‘Oh come on, you wouldn’t have a story at all if—’

‘Aye, aye. Bloody prima donna.’ But he promised to send them straight over. ‘You up for that curry you owe us this week then?’

‘Khyber Pass, or Light of Bengal?’ They were still debating the relative merits of sit-in versus takeaway, when someone poked Logan in the shoulder and said, ‘Shift over for God’s sake. I’m bloody drowning out here.’

DI Steel squeezed in beside him, then dragged her hands through her sodden hair, shaking the water off all over Logan’s trousers as he hung up.

‘Hey, watch it!’

‘Oh, grow up, you’re no’ going to melt.’ She gave her hair one last pass – leaving it remarkably tidy-looking for a change – then produced a packet of cigarettes from her sodden jacket and lit up. ‘How come you’re looking so happy? Someone polish your truncheon for you?’

‘I’ve found a connection.’

‘Four hours I waited in that bloody doctor’s surgery.’ The inspector hauled up her trousers. ‘You any idea how many buggers are getting themselves tested for HIV and Hepatitis C right now? Thousands. National Health Service my sharny arse!’

‘Should’ve gone to the duty doc.’

‘I’m no’ letting that bastard anywhere near me with a needle.’ She smoked her way into a scowl. ‘I liked Doc Wilson better. Might’ve been a miserable cancer-ridden bastard, but at least he could take a joke.’

Probably not the epitaph the ex-duty doctor had been hoping for. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘I … hold on a minute – what connection?’

Logan told her about the newspaper clippings.

‘Bloody hell …’ She took the cigarette out of her mouth, grabbed his shoulders, and planted a big, smoky kiss on his lips. ‘Laz, I love you! Call the station and let them know, then I’m going to buy you a bloody huge drink!’

He phoned Control, and by the time he’d finished Steel was waiting for him inside with a double Highland Park. ‘Well?’ She handed him the glass. ‘What did …’ she drifted to a halt, staring at Rennie’s girlfriend as the constable reached the punchline of whatever joke he was telling. Laura threw back her head and laughed, exposing the smooth skin from her throat all the way down into her cleavage. Setting everything jiggling.

‘Oooooh,’ said Steel, ‘that can’t be legal.’ She drifted off into a little reverie… ‘Yes, anyway, come on. Can’t spend all night staring at nubile young women’s chests: there’s drinking to be done.’