Flesh House lm-4, page 18
part #4 of Logan McRae Series
31
'Deceased is female, mid thirties. Approximately fifteen stone.' Dr Isobel McAllister picked her way around the post mortem table, voice raised over the howl of the extractor fan. 'You know what,' said DI Steel, tugging at the crotch of her white SOC coveralls,'I'm sick of wearing these bloody things. Who the hell were they designed to fit? Quasimodo? It's bunching right up my--' Isobel glared. 'Can we please have quiet for once!' Then went back to her external examination. Valerie Leith was laid out on the shiny cutting table like a broken Barbie doll: forearms, biceps, head, torso, thighs, legs, all separate. Still covered in a thin grey-brown film of stinking gloop. 'Can you no' hurry up and wash the damn bits off?' 'If you will insist on dragging me in here in the evening to perform a post mortem, the least you can do is not interrupt while I'm doing it.' Steel puffed out her cheeks, readjusted the breathing mask over her face, and hauled at the crotch of her suit again. She lasted a whole two minutes before leaning over and whispering to Logan,'You're a bloody jinx, do you know that? Anyone else finds a body it's usually pretty fresh. You: it's half rotten and marinated in shite.' 'It's not my fault - it was just a hunch, OK?' 'Blind bloody luck, more like.' 'A considerable portion of flesh has been excised from the left thigh. Edges of the wound are deteriorated after prolonged immersion in sewage--' 'I said there was something funny about the Leith crime scene.' Steel scowled at him. 'What d'you want, a parade?' '--dismemberment was caused by a knife: single-sided blade, approximately eight inches long--' 'I'm only saying.' 'You have any idea how much trouble this is going to cause?' '--angle of incisions implies a right-handed suspect--' 'What happened to "good job, Logan, you're a credit to the force"?' 'Oh don't be such a drama queen, we --' 'Inspector, I will not tell you again! This is a post mortem, not a playground.' Steel actually blushed. 'Sorry, Doc.' And then, when no one was looking, she punched Logan in the arm. 'That was your fault!' The mortuary clock read eight fifteen before Isobel finally told her assistant to wash off the remains. Eight fifteen and Logan had been on duty since four in the morning. That was ... he was too tired to work out how long. Isobel's assistant started with the head. Dirty water gurgled down the cutting table drain, and as Valerie Leith's face slowly appeared from its coating of foul-smelling slime, Logan's spirits sank. With the other victims it'd been easy to maintain a sense of detachment. They were just hunks of meat. But this was different, this finally looked like a human being. Valerie Leith: thirty-five, skin all puckered and discoloured, brown hair straggly round her face as Isobel's assistant rinsed the sewage away. And somehow Logan didn't feel as pleased with himself as he had.
Aberdeen was a sparkling blanket - yellow and white streetlights shining in the deep blue November night outside DCS Bain's office window. The head of CID stood with his back to the room, staring out at the view. Taxis drifted by on the streets below; drunken clots of Aberdonians lurched for the nearest club, chip shop or taxi rank; the sound of sirens in the distance. Nearly midnight. 'Why the hell wasn't that septic tank searched the first time round?' 'Why would they?' Steel didn't bother covering her mouth, just let go a jaw-cracking yawn, followed by a little burp. 'God ... no reason to think this was anything other than what it looked like.' 'Insch should have--' 'Yeah, well, he didn't. And if it was me, I wouldn't have either. And neither would you, Bill.' The DCS turned and stared at Logan. 'But you did, Sergeant?' 'It was just a hunch ...' Steel clapped him on the shoulder. 'Don't be so modest! Tell you, Bill, he--' The DCS cut her off. 'The question is: what are we going to tell the media? How's it going to look when they find out her body lay undiscovered, less than thirty feet from her house for a fortnight? DI Insch--' 'Don't start, Bill, OK? Been a long day and I can't be arsed fighting with you.' Steel stretched out in her chair, making creaking noises. 'Doesn't matter what we tell the press: they'll just make up their own shite anyway.' 'You're not seeing the big picture here, Inspector. We told the world and his bloody dog that Wiseman killed Valerie Leith, didn't we? And if that's not bad enough, it looks like the same person killed the Inglises and Tom and Hazel Stephen. Where was Wiseman at the time? Craiginches!' The DCS sat back behind his desk. 'So now we've got two psychopaths out there, butchering their way through the populace, and our only suspect is looking less and less guilty every day!' 'Actually,' Logan dug in his jacket pocket, pulled out the dog-eared copy of Smoak With Blood Steel had given him, and dumped it on the desk,'We do have another suspect.' 'What,' the DCS examined the cover,'Jamie McLaughlin?' 'No, William Leith. I found a copy of that in the master bedroom.' Steel made a sound like a drowning elephant. 'You remembering he nearly got his head chopped off?' 'They have an alarm system at the croft, but somehow the killer managed to break in without setting it off. Then he dismembers Valerie Leith and dumps her in their septic tank. How did he know where it was? I'll bet if we search the garage again we'll find a crowbar or something that matches the grooves in that septic tank lid.' 'But Leith's head--' 'Wouldn't be the first time someone's injured themselves to shift the blame, would it?' The DCS swore, grabbed his phone and started dialling. 'Yeah, Pete, it's me. I want William Leith brought in ... No, no I don't. I want him here now ... Well, I don't care, do I? Just sort it!' He hung up, steepled his fingers, brooded for a minute, then asked Logan,'You still friends with that journalist scumbag?'
32
'All hail the conquering hero!' DI Steel was sitting in Logan's chair, feet up on his desk, a copy of that morning's Aberdeen Examiner open on her lap. 'Where the hell you been? I came in hours ago.' 'Really?' Logan stuck the brown plastic tray from the canteen down in front of her. 'Because Big Gary says you didn't get in till eleven. It's only quarter past.' Steel grinned,'Aye, aye: make with the bacon buttie, hero boy.' He handed over a tinfoil package and sat back against the room's only radiator. 'I didn't write the bloody thing, OK?' Steel unwrapped her buttie and tore a huge bite out of it. 'Chief Constable Baldy Brian wants to congratulate us personally for catching Leith. Of course, I put it all down to my inspirational leadership and--' 'You've got tomato sauce on your blouse.' The inspector peered down at her chest. 'Aw no' again!' 'Anyway,' Logan picked up his coffee and went to peel the Leith crime scene photos from the death board,'not as if makes any difference, is it? Doesn't get us any closer to catching the Flesher.' 'Are you mental?' 'Well, it doesn't, does it? He's still out there--' 'God, no' again ... Fine, be miserable. Your glass might be half empty, but mine runneth over. No' had a pat on the back from Baldy Brian for ages.' She took another massive bite, chewing happily. 'Mmmmph, mmm, mph-mmmm?' 'Yeah, I suppose. But not till Insch comes back.' He slipped the crime scene photos back in the Leith file, then stuck the whole thing in his out-tray. 'If there's nothing urgent on, I thought I'd go home and--' 'Oh no you don't! You heard the DCS last night: if Wiseman's slipping out the frame we need to find someone else to pin all this shite on. You and me are going through that 1987 case file with a nit comb.' 'You're kidding - we pulled a twenty-hour shift yesterday!' 'Aye, well feel free to whinge to your Federation Rep about it. And have one for me while you're there.' She polished off the last of her bacon buttie, scrunched up the tinfoil and lobbed it at the bin. Not even close. 'We've already been over the historical stuff, and--' 'And now we're doing it again. OK?' She sooked something out from between her teeth and chewed. 'Don't be such a work-shy bastard. Our pat on the back's not till after lunch: plenty of time to get cracking.' She pulled out her cigarettes and stood. 'Let me know how you get on. I'll be in a ... meeting. Yeah - anyone asks I'm in a meeting.'
Logan stifled a yawn, took another mouthful of coffee, and crawled back inside the McLaughlin case file. He hadn't been entirely honest with DI Steel - he'd not really read the whole thing before. Not all of it. He'd just skimmed the day-to-day stuff on his way to the post mortem and crime scene reports. Going through it from start to finish was something of a revelation. Once Detective Chief Inspector Brooks - this was 1987, before he'd got the promotion to DSI - had Ken Wiseman in his sights, he never looked at anyone else. As far as Brooks was concerned, Wiseman was guilty. It was the car boot full of blood that had done it. Brooks kept coming back to it in the transcripts, time and time again. DCI Brooks: Stop messing us about Ken, we know you did it. Wiseman: I told you! It was a Roe Deer, OK? Found it at the side of the road. DCI Brooks: Do you seriously expect me to believe-- Wiseman: It was still twitching. I took it home and butchered it. DCI Brooks: They found human blood in there too, you idiot. Wiseman: Mine. It was mine. Bloody deer kicked out when I hefted it into the boot, didn't it? Got me right in the face. Bled all over the place. Logan flicked through to the forensic reports. According to the lab, the samples were too degraded for a positive identification, the DNA test inconclusive. They'd tried again in ninety-five, fighting Wiseman's appeal. DNA testing had come on a bit since 1990, but the only human blood they could extract from the evidence shared so many markers with Wiseman's own that even an idiot defence lawyer could have poked holes in the prosecution case. So good old Detective Chief Inspector Brooks had tried to suppress the evidence. The defence managed to get hold of it anyway and that was it - case dismissed. Wiseman's original confession was given pride of place at the very back of the file, in its own clear plastic evidence pouch, obviously typed by someone with more fingers than brain cells: I did it. I did it and I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt her, but I did. Their was a lot of blood. Afterwards I did not know what to do, so I proceeded to dispose of the body by dismemboring cutting it up and getting rid of the parts. I do not remember ware I burried them. I had been drinking. There was another page and a half - a tortured mass of bad typing, poor spelling and twisted lies, and then, at the end, a shaky signature. As if the writer's hand had just been slammed in a drawer. There was a second version of the confession, all neatly typed by someone who could spell. Wiseman's signature wasn't any better on that one. Logan pushed the file away, wondering how the hell someone like Brooks had ever made it to the rank of Detective Superintendent; the bastard was little more than a criminal himself. And Insch had helped him. Mr Everything-Has-To-Be-Done-By-The-Book had beaten a suspect in custody and forced him to sign a confession. No wonder Wiseman went after him ...
Lunch was a baked potato in the canteen, eaten one-handed as he re-read the SOC report on the derelict butcher's shop where Ian and Sharon McLaughlin's remains had been found. He stuck the report back in the folder and pulled out Faulds' tatty copy of Smoak With Blood, flicking through till he got to the chapter on the same scene. When God makes man, he does so from the simplest of materials. Our bodies, our minds, the blood that courses through our veins, are no different from those of the animals we slaughter for food. A pig, a cow, a human being: after the butcher's tender ministrations it's all just meat. We are all just meat. It was an anonymous tip-off that led police to the disused butcher's shop on Palmerston Road, within spitting distance of the railway station; the rumble of passing freight trains making the ground shudder beneath their feet as they picked through the debris-strewn interior. Rats scuttled through the piles of broken plaster and crumbling furniture. The floor and walls spattered where pigeons had passed judgement on a shop closed for eighteen years and turned into a storage shed. Today, the sign outside says 'Property Management', but in January 1988 it was the final resting place for my parents. Or would have been, if not for that anonymous phone call in the dead of night. Logan flicked through the file - finding reference to a call made from a public phone box in Torry. The note said it was a woman's voice: drunk and scared. They thought it was probably a working girl, looking for somewhere to take a punter. Or maybe one of the city's growing homeless population, looking for a place to drink themselves to sleep. Brooks put out the usual appeals, but no one came forward. The fridges at the back of the shop had been cleared of their contents, the detritus piled up in the serving area. In here the walls were smeared with filth, mildew reaching out of the corners: a permanent shadow that not even the pathologist's spotlights could banish. My parents hung from hooks in the ceiling. That sounds more dramatic than it actually was. Although the smell was appalling (the power being long gone, and the fridges at ambient temperature) there was little to show that the cuts of meat hanging there had once been someone's mother and father. My mother and father. Now just meat. And on those filthy walls were written the words that would forever be emblazoned upon my soul. A message from the man who would become known as 'the Flesher'. " From ancient times, our origins we draw,
When priests were cons'crate to keep God's law,
When sacerdotal sacrifice and feasts,
Made alters smoak with blood of slaughter'd beasts ... " A message written in blood. The blood of my parents. After a period of sober reflection involving jam sponge and custard, Logan grabbed a cup of tea and went back to the history room. The file said Brooks traced the quotation scrawled on the butcher's shop wall to Trinity Hall - home of the Seven Incorporated Trades - a 1960s concrete box of a building with delusions of grandeur, on Holburn Street, not far from McFarlane's ... 'Smoak with blood' - a line from a painting belonging to the butchers' trade incorporation, AKA:'the Fleshers' And that was how he got his name. Logan's tea was stone cold by the time he'd finished reading all the interview transcripts: Brooks had hauled in every butcher in the city, whether they were members or not. That was when the fixation with Wiseman started. 'Wakey, wakey.' DI Steel meandered into the room, bringing a waft of stale cigarette with her. 'Half two: ready to be told what a clever little boy you are?' Logan looked up from Wiseman's first ever brush with the police. 'Give me a minute, I-- hey!' Steel snatched the transcript from his hand. 'Let's see what's so important ...' her lips moving as she read. 'Jesus,' she turned it over in her hands, peering at the biro notes scribbled on the back,'Basher Brooks strikes again. You see these? "He's obviously hiding something.", "Shifty.", "Evasive.", "Reeks of guilt ... " Talk about keeping an open mind.' She stuck it back on Logan's desk. 'Anyway, come on: arse in gear. Pat on the back time.'
30 minutes later
'Bastarding cock-weasel son-of-a-bitch!' Steel hurled herself into Logan's seat. 'Can you believe this shite? Fucking bastard!' She stood, swore some more, kicked the filing cabinet, called Chief Constable Brian Anderson a 'Sheep-shagging prick.' And collapsed back into the chair again. 'Well,' said Logan, picking his words carefully,'it could be worse ...' 'How? How could it possibly be worse?' 'Could've been DCI Finnie.' 'That ... cock?' She scrubbed her hands across her face. 'How could they say I'm not pro-active enough? How? How much more pro-fucking-active could I be? Did we not just catch Leith?' Logan settled himself in behind the other desk, bracing himself for the oncoming rant. Ten minutes later she was still at it. 'Course you know what this is really about, don't you? Can't have a lowly woman heading up a high-profile case like this. Nooooo. That needs a baldy-headed bastard, doesn't it?' She put on a broad Banff and Buchan accent for, '"I think it'd be mare appropriate fer DCS Bain tae tak a mare active roll ... " Wankers didn't take the damn thing off Insch, did they?' Steel sat and seethed in silence for a while, then pulled out her cigarettes, turning the pack over and over in her hands. 'Do us a favour, eh? Go see how the fat git's doing.' 'What, now?' 'No, no' now: tonight. I know he's been a tosspot lately, and he smacked you in the face ... but ... well ... take him a bag of jelly babies or something.' 'I can't, I've got something on tonight.' Which was a lie. Logan just couldn't face dealing with Insch's grief on top of all the guilt. Not yet. 'Insch is one of us, Laz, we've got no right abandoning him. No' with his wee girl dead like that.' 'But if I hadn't chased Wiseman--' 'You've always been Inschy's favourite. He needs someone to talk to, and you're it. Besides, what's the worst that can happen? He shouts at you a bit? Least it'll make him feel better. You no' think we owe him that?' Logan swore. But the inspector was right: he owed Insch that much. 'OK, OK, I'll go see him.' 'Good lad.' Steel hauled herself out of the chair and headed for the door, calling over her shoulder,'But for God's sake don't tell him I sent you! Got my reputation as a hardnosed bitch to think about.'
Half four and Steel still wasn't back. Logan sat with a fresh cup of tea and the old Media Office file on Ian and Sharon McLaughlin - all the press releases, the follow-up articles culled from the newspapers, speeches written for whoever was Chief Constable at the time. One of the newspaper clippings included a photo of Ex-DSI Brooks outside the Sheriff Court, a thin and hirsute DC David Insch standing off to one side.'SUSPECT REMANDED IN CUSTODY' He laid the article out on the desk and sat back, staring at the death board. How many of them died because Brooks couldn't get over his Wiseman-focussed monomania? Logan called Colin Miller and asked for a favour. 'What, again? You still owe me lunch from last time.' 'Do this one and we'll call it dinner - takeaway Thai?' 'I'm listening ...' 'Need you to go through the paper's archives. Missing persons, housebreakings, outbreaks of food poisoning, CJD ... that kind of thing. 1987 to 1990.' There was silence on the other end. 'You gonnae tell me what this is all about?' 'Nope.' 'You expect me to go huntin' through three years worth of pish, and you're no' gonnae tell me anythin'?' 'Look we--' 'Exclusive. I get the scoop on whatever it is, or I'm no' liftin' a finger.' 'I'm just trying to put the original investigation into context.' 'No exclusive, no deal.' Logan said he'd see what he could do. 'It's up to the inspector.' 'Which one: Fatty or Wrinkly?' 'Steel. Insch is on compassionate leave. His daughter--' 'Fuck - sorry, man, I forgot. Look, I'll do what I can, but I've got to go interview some scientist at the Rowett this afternoon. "Hepatitis C in the food chain: how safe is your dinner?" kind of thing.' Just what they needed, the papers stirring up more panic. 'Tell you what: the Howff, eight o'clock, buy us a pint and we'll talk about that exclusive.' 'OK, we ...' Logan closed his eyes and swore quietly. 'I can't tonight, I've got a thing. Tomorrow?' 'Fine, but you're buying.' 'Deal.' Logan hung up and went back to the McLaughlin case file - putting off the inevitable, until guilt and hunger got the better of him. Like it or not, he had to go see the parents of the little girl he'd got killed.
