The drive back to FHQ took nearly an hour and a half as rushhour got its claws into Aberdeen. He could have put on the pool car's siren, but Logan wasn't exactly looking forward to getting there. At least the nose-to-tail traffic put off the inevitable ... He pushed through into the noisy incident room and everything went silent. Then the Detective Chief Superintendent started a round of applause, uniform and CID standing to join in. The DCS clapped him on the shoulder and told the room how he was a credit to the force. How they'd never have caught Wiseman if it wasn't for Logan. How everyone was proud of him. But Logan didn't feel very proud. Not when all he could think about was that little girl lying on the tarmac, face white, lips blue. The high-pitched whine of the defibrillator as the paramedics tried to restart her heart. The look on her mother's face when he told her. Insch in tears. No, he didn't feel very proud at all.

  Midnight. Two steps to the right ... lurch to the left ... bang into the thing in the hall, stuff clattering to the floor ... Logan fumbled for the light switch, missed, tried again, and finally light blossomed in the little hallway. 'Honey, I'm home.' It took three goes to get the key out of the lock. Jacket up on the hook by the door. And stumble through to the kitchen ... 'Oh ... bollocks.' The place was a mess: flour and eggs all over the work surface and the floor. The bedroom was just as bad - drawers lying open, the contents spewed out over every available inch. The lounge was like a bombsite. CDs and cushions and junk mail strewn all over the carpet. Suddenly Logan felt a lot more sober. But the TV and DVD player were still there, and so was his laptop. What sort of burglar, broke in and didn't steal anything? The only things missing were Jackie's clothes and possessions: the industrial grey underwear; the stuffed and porcelain pigs; the hairdryer; the extensive collection of shampoos, conditioners, moisturisers, and other assorted unguents ... She'd come past, picked up her stuff and trashed the place. This was going to take forever to clean up. Back in the bedroom Logan picked up one edge of the duvet and peered underneath, hoping Jackie wasn't as vindictive as Alec's ex. At least the bed was a jobbie-free zone. He sat on the mattress, looking at the devastation. Just to be on the safe side, he wasn't going to brush his teeth tonight: Jackie might not lower herself to crapping on the fitted sheet, but he wouldn't put cleaning the loo with his toothbrush past her. 'What a brilliant, fucking day.'

  25

  Interview Room Number Two was stiflingly hot. It stank of stale sweat, stale cigarette smoke, farts, and too much aftershave. None of which were doing Logan's hangover any favours. Plus, he was pretty certain DC Simon Rennie was responsible for the most offensive of the smells, but the constable denied everything. Rennie shifted from one foot to the other, and Logan braced himself for the eggy onslaught. 'Will you stop bloody doing that!' Rennie manufactured an innocent expression. 'I didn't do anything. Probably Laughing Boy here.' He pointed at the prisoner. 'Fuck you.' Ken Wiseman's voice was like razorblades and gravel. His face wasn't much better: covered in little sticking plasters, scratches and scabs; bruises spreading across his pale skin; nose squint; right arm in a fibreglass cast. Which had made getting the handcuffs on interesting. 'Ooh, hark at Oscar Wilde.' Rennie stuck two fingers up behind Wiseman's back. 'Shut up, Kenneth.' 'Want to make me?' The butcher raised his hands, jerking them, making the cuffs creak. 'Think these'll stop me ripping your fucking head off?' 'That's enough. Both of you.' Logan stared at the ceiling tiles. When the hell was Faulds going to get back?'Rennie - don't goad the prisoner. Mr Wiseman, don't you think you're in enough trouble without threatening police officers?' 'And fuck you too.' Technically the interview was suspended while Faulds was off talking to the criminal psychologist they'd drafted in, but the cameras were still rolling. Just in case Wiseman did something rash - like kill the pair of them. 'Come on Ken, why don't you make it--' 'I said, FUCK - YOU!' Which was about as cooperative as he'd been all morning. 'Fine. Sit there and sulk.' It wasn't as if they needed a confession to put him back in prison. They'd caught him in the act: illegal imprisonment, grievous bodily harm, animal cruelty, criminal damage, abduction, causing death by reckless driving ... That and a very good defence lawyer would get him at least another sixteen years. But it was nothing compared with what would happen if they could prove he was the Flesher. The only way he'd get out of Peterhead Prison was in a coffin. Hopefully sooner rather than later. A murmur of conversation came from outside the interview room door - too low to make out any words - and Logan breathed a sigh of relief. About bloody time Faulds got back; with any luck he'd have brought a round of coffees with him. The door slammed open. It wasn't Faulds: it was Insch. Oh no. Logan was on his feet. 'Sir, I don't think you should be--' 'You bloody animal!' The inspector's voice was a slurred growl, the smell of alcohol coming off him in waves. Wiseman smiled and waved. 'Hey, Fat Boy.' 'Sir, come on, you have to--' 'She was four!' 'Shame, eh? I'd've got a shit-load of money selling her.' 'You're dead.' The inspector pointed a shaky finger at Rennie and Logan. 'You and you, go take a walk.' 'Sir, we can't do that.' 'Fifteen minutes. You leave me and this bastard alone for fifteen minutes.' 'Sir--' 'GET OUT!' Rennie flinched and started sidling towards the door. Logan turned on him. 'Don't you bloody dare!' And the constable froze. 'Sir, we have a duty of care--' 'She was four years old!' 'Hurts, does it?' Wiseman struggled to his feet. 'Come on then, Fatty. You show me how much it fucking hurts.' 'Sir, you have to leave. If you lay one finger on him in custody--' The butcher took a deep sniff, howched, then spat. A yellowgreen glob spattered across Insch's cheek. And the inspector lunged. Rennie squealed, but Logan was already moving, dropping his shoulder into the fat man's side and heaving - sending them both crashing into the side wall. They landed in a tangle of limbs, pain flaring across Logan's stomach as the inspector's elbow landed right in the middle of the scar tissue. Then Rennie piled in, dragging the inspector up and off while Wiseman laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Luck was on Logan's side for once: he actually managed to find a parking space within walking distance of the hospital entrance. He manoeuvred the pool car into it and switched off the engine. They sat there in silence. He snuck a glance at his passenger. 'Are you sure you're OK?' Insch didn't look up, just sat there in the passenger seat, staring at his hands. At least he'd stopped crying. 'Sir?' The fat man curled his fingers into fists the size of sledgehammers. But his voice was tiny:'It's my fault.' 'You shouldn't--' 'We were convinced he had her somewhere. Brooks ... Brooks thought we could save her if we could get Wiseman to talk.' He sniffed. 'If we could make him tell us where Samantha Harper was. I'm not proud of what I did ... Two broken fingers. Three teeth. Black eye. Bruised ribs. Dislocated shoulder. And Wiseman still wouldn't tell us ...' A tear rolled down the inspector's cheek. 'Turned out she wasn't missing after all. She'd run off with a carpet fitter from Lanarkshire. Her husband had made the whole Flesher thing up because he didn't want anyone to know.' Logan sat in uncomfortable silence, watching the seagulls wheeling above Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Not wanting to believe what he was hearing. 'We were so sure it was Wiseman ...' Insch wiped the tear away, but another one welled up in its place. 'And seventeen years later, he comes back and takes my daughter. All because I,' the inspector raised a huge fist and bounced it off the dashboard, hitting it harder and harder with every word, making the plastic creak 'did - what - Brooks - wanted!' The whole car rocked as Insch hammered his massive fist down, cracking the dashboard, then dug his fingers into the hole and yanked back and forth, tearing the car apart. 'Jesus, calm down!' It was like being trapped in a wardrobe with an angry bear. Outside, a nurse paused on her way past, then hurried off. Probably to call the police. CRACK and a slab of black plastic came off in Insch's bleeding hands. 'CUT IT OUT!' Logan slapped him. And instantly regretted it as the inspector turned his purple, furious face in Logan's direction. He was actually foaming at the mouth, a thin trickle of blood running from one nostril. Insch raised a massive, torn fist-- Logan closed his eyes and waited for everything to go painful ... But nothing happened. Silence. When Logan opened his eyes again, the inspector was slumped in the passenger seat, shuddering silently, tears running down his face.

  Heather sat with her back to the metal wall, feeling its cold seeping deep into her shoulders as she started into the Dark. Duncan was right - the Dark was more than just an absence of light, it was a living, breathing thing. When Duncan left her on her own it whispered to her. Whispered terrible, terrible things. She pushed her hands over her ears and sang to drown it out, one of those stupid kids' songs off the telly that Justin likes ... liked ... so much. Singing and crying and trying no to listen to the Dark. Where the hell was Duncan? Abandoning her - he knew, he knew, he knew, he knew, he-- 'Heather, come on, Honey, calm down.' She looked up at him, standing there with his blood halo glowing red like a burning building. 'You left me!' 'I was only away for a minute.' 'You left me ...' He squatted down next to her.'No I didn't.' 'You died.' 'But I'm here now.' She squinted through the bars - just visible in the faint glow from Duncan's head. The Dark was silent again. 'It scares me ...' 'Shhhh ...' He kissed her forehead, then got up and walked over to the tinfoil parcel of sliced meat.'You know, this is starting to smell a little funky.' 'Don't leave me alone in the dark.' 'Probably be OK for another couple of days though. Sell-by dates are just a load of old bollocks anyway.' 'Duncan.' 'I promise, OK? I'll never leave you again.' On the other side of the bars the Dark was silent. Biding its time. Knowing that sooner or later Duncan would let her down. And then Heather Inglis would belong to the Dark.

  Four Days Later

  26

  The Identification Bureau lab looked like a school science department on the caretaker's day off. Every available surface was covered in plastic evidence bags and reports. There were more bags in the cardboard boxes stacked by the door, another mound of samples piled up by the freezer. A little radio sat on top of the superglue cabinet, filling the air with dreadful syrupy music. Four days since DI Insch had tried to rip Wiseman's head off in Interview Room Number Two, and the investigation was going nowhere. Logan picked a report from the top of the pile and flicked through the results. 'Nothing at all?' The lab technician peeled off her facemask and scowled at him - there was a perfect outline of clean skin where the mask had been, but the rest of her face was stained with a thin layer of black fingerprint powder. 'You not think I would have said if there was? That I might actually be professional enough to recognize a bloody clue when I found one and tell someone?' 'Who rattled your cage this morning?' 'Don't start.' She pulled an empty whisky bottle from its evidence bag and slammed it down on the vacuum table. 'There's no one else in today: I've got a whole department's work to do, hundreds of sodding samples, and now they want us to DNA-type everyone who's been reported missing for the last four months! You have any idea how much paperwork that is?' She stood and fumed silently for a moment. 'And the bloody stereo's stuck on Radio Two: I've spent the last hour and a half listening to show tunes! Sunday my arse.' 'Feel better now?' 'How come it's never like this on CSI? Never see them drowning in paperwork, forced to listen to Elaine Paige.' She clicked on the power and the vacuum table whined into life, sucking away the excess aluminium powder as she dusted the bottle. Logan flipped to the last page of the report. 'So ... not even fingerprints?' 'Which part of "nothing" are you having difficulty with? Believe it or not, some criminals actually wear gloves these days.' Something from Kiss Me Kate warbled to a close and the news came on:'The headlines at four thirty: Oil-workers strike in cannibal-meat protests; Government minister apologizes for affair; Interest rates set to rise; and memorial service for Inspector's daughter--' 'We did get some fibres, but unless you get me something to match them to, they're bugger all use.' '--four-year-old Sophie Insch was killed on Tuesday during a high-speed pursuit by Grampian Police to capture Kenneth Wiseman. Mourners gathered today at Oldmeldrum Episcopal Church to pay tribute--' It had been one of the worst mornings of Logan's life: picking Insch up from his house, driving him to the church, sitting with him and his two remaining daughters while the vicar read the eulogy. Holding the girls' hands as their father cried. Their mother didn't even make it out of hospital for the service. The wake at the Redgarth afterwards ... then back to the house for tea and sympathy. And all the time Logan knew it was his fault. He'd been the one driving the pursuit car, he'd forced Wiseman to crash. ' ... scumbags, eh?' 'Mmm? Oh ... probably.' No idea what she was talking about. 'I mean, look at all this!' She pointed at the mound of bagged hairbrushes and clothing. 'I have to scrape DNA samples off dirty underwear! How screwed up is that? And you know how many bits of meat we've actually managed to ID? One. And before you get all excited, don't. The chunk they found in the Leiths' freezer belonged to Valerie Leith. Bastard butchered her and left a slab of her thigh behind.' '--strike action on the North Sea oil platforms supplied with meat by Thompson's Cash and Carry in Aberdeen. The workers are demanding immediate medical evacuation back to the mainland for tests to be carried out. One of the catering companies involved, spoke to our reporter--' 'And how the hell am I supposed to DNA-test every missing person? You have any idea how many get reported in Grampian every year? Fucking thousands!' Logan let her rant for a bit, while he listened to the rest of the news. Then the radio announced it was time for Pick of the Pops. The IB technician said,'No you bloody don't!' grabbed it off the top of the superglue cabinet and stuffed it in the freezer, slamming the door on the jangly theme tune. 'Elaine Paige is bad enough; I am not listening to Dale Sodding Winton!'

  'How's he taking it?' Faulds stuck a mug of milky coffee down in front of Logan. The canteen was quiet, just the two of them and the old man behind the counter. 'Not great. His house's been trashed, his dog's been put to sleep, he's got two traumatized kids, his wife's in hospital with a breakdown, and his daughter's dead ...' Logan stared into the depths of his mug. 'Usually he just gets angry about stuff; don't think I've ever seen him depressed before.' 'There's been an accident with that interview tape, by the way. Seems the whole ... ahem, "episode", was accidentally recorded over. Audio and video.' Logan nodded. At least there'd be no evidence that Insch tried to assault a prisoner in custody. 'Thanks.' 'Bloody interview's going nowhere anyway. Wiseman won't even cop to the things we've got him red-handed for - it's like talking to a brick wall.' Faulds emptied a couple of sugar packets into his latte. 'I'm going to get the psychologist to talk to him. See if he can loosen the mortar a bit ...' 'Always works on the telly.' 'I really wanted a confession before I had to go home, but there's no chance of that now.' He took a sip of his coffee, then added another sugar. 'Got to get back to Birmingham tonight. Curse of the Chief Constable: they like to think they can manage on their own, but the whole place turns into Lord of the Flies if I'm away for more than a week.' 'You going to come back up for the trial?' 'Probably: couple of days, here and there. Depends what I've got on. But I'll make the sentencing. Hell or high water I'm going to see that bastard put away for the rest of his life.'

  'Wait, wait, this is the best bit ...' Rennie pointed the remote control at the little telly in the CID office, cranking the sound up as Logan wandered in. There was a small knot of plainclothes officers listening to Chief Constable Faulds' voice booming out of the speakers, sounding terrified:'TRACTOR! TRACTOR! TRACTOR!' The picture lurched as the car braked hard and screeched back in behind a canary-yellow digger. 'Don't you lot have any work to do?' Rennie grinned at him. 'Just doing a little teambuilding. Very impressive driving, by the way. I especially liked the way you tried to go through the hedge.' 'Who the hell taught you to drive?' Everyone laughed. But Logan really wasn't in the mood. 'You do know a little girl died during that, don't you, Constable? Insch's daughter. The one we had a bloody service for this morning!' The laughter stopped.' She's lying there in the boot, bound and gagged, on her way to be sold to some paedophile. You still think it's fucking funny?' Logan snatched the remote out of Rennie's hand and hit the eject button. Everyone suddenly seemed to remember they had something important to do. Elsewhere. Only Rennie remained, shuffling his feet. 'Sorry sir. I wasn't meaning to ... you know.' He pointed at the TV. 'Alec made it up. It's kind of a blooper reel. Now that we've caught Wiseman. You know: highlights of the case.' He coughed. 'They've even got that bit in it where DI McFarlane trips over and ... breaks his wrist ... it ... they put a funny soundtrack on it ...' He pulled the DVD from the machine and handed it to Logan. 'Sorry, sir.' 'Thought you were supposed to be dealing with those INTERPOL files.' 'DI Steel said it was a waste of time and I had to try identifying the other victims instead. So I'm trolling through the misper lists looking for fatties ... I mean larger men and women who fit the victim profile. Then getting stuff to DNA-sample. See if they match any of the chunks we found.' 'Yeah, I heard.' Logan turned the disk over - Alec had even made a cheesy label for the thing:'GRANITE CITY 999: LICENSED TO LAUGH' 'Trouble is, half the buggers aren't even missing any more. Three thousand misper reports last year, and does anyone bother to let us know when their nearest and dearest turn up safe and sound? Do they hell. What are we, psychic?' 'Poor old Simon Rennie. Boo-hoo.' 'Yeah, well ... Word is we're going get a case review. ' Logan groaned. 'When?' 'No idea. Soon.' 'Who?' 'Strathclyde.' 'I see ...' Strathclyde Police - where Jackie was. He'd not heard from her since she'd trashed the flat. He should take a leaf out of those home security lectures they kept having to give and get the locks changed, just in case she decided to come back and 'redecorate' again. '--tonight?' He looked up to find Rennie staring at him. 'What?' 'You know, in the old days at least you used to pretend you were listening. Do - you - want - to - go - out - tonight? Bowling and beer. I can ask Laura to bring along a friend if you like? You know, now that you and Jackie ... well, you know.' 'Thanks,' Logan dropped the Granite City 999 DVD in the bin. 'But I really don't feel--' Rennie backed away. 'Hey, just think about it, OK? No need to be miserable all your life.'

 

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