Flesh House, page 32
‘MARCUS!’
Nothing.
‘Sodding hell.’ She turned and stomped back down the drive. Fine, if Captain Useless wasn’t going to help her, she’d just have to— She heard the door unlocking behind her.
Vicky turned, hands up in mock rapture. ‘Halleluiah!’
Only there was nobody there. The lazy sod had unlocked the door and disappeared back into the house. You know what? Fine. She’d unload the car on her own, and if Marcus thought he was getting any sex for the next month he was going to be very disappointed. He could go have a postmodern-ironic wank for all she cared.
She threw her handbag over her shoulder, grabbed as many carrier bags as she could manage and staggered back up the drive, her high heels clicking on the wet lockblock. In through the front door. The television was on: some pretentious latenight discussion programme droning on about a book no one would ever read. Why couldn’t he watch the sodding Simpsons like a normal person? That’s what she got for marrying someone called Marcus.
She stomped down the hall, calling,‘They’re your sodding parents, you know. You could help!’
No response.
Typical. She pushed through into the kitchen/dining room. He was such a useless … She stopped. Eyes wide.
Red.
Everything was red.
There was red everywhere.
The smell of hot copper and sea salt.
Raw meat.
Something that used to be a man was laid out on the kitchen table. In bits. She could … she could …
Clunk.
The front door closing.
Snick.
The front door locking.
RUN!
Vicky didn’t look back, just dropped her shopping and charged straight though the kitchen, heels skidding on the blood-slicked linoleum. She grabbed the patio door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Locked. Sodding Marcus!
Key in the lock. KEY IN THE LOCK!
She turned it and yanked the door open, throwing herself out into the night … which wasn’t dark for long as the back garden security light glared into life.
She slipped and fell, sprawling across the wet grass, and for a moment she was looking back into the kitchen. And came within an inch of wetting herself. It was him, the man from the papers: butcher’s outfit, Margaret Thatcher mask, knife.
Marcus’s head was staring back at her from under the table.
Vicky scrambled to her feet, grabbed her handbag, and ran.
Down the garden, heels sinking into the sodden turf. She wrenched the damn shoes off, leaving them behind.
Past the shed.
She could hear Him: the Flesher was coming after her.
She clambered over the back fence, ripping her jacket as she tumbled down the other side and into a gorse bush, not caring if the thorns tore her skin, just as long as she lived to see tomorrow.
She ran, tearing down the little gully that separated her street from the next one in the development, screaming ‘HELP ME!’ at the top of her lungs. Until she realized that gave the man chasing her something to aim for.
She concentrated on putting as much distance between them as possible instead.
Mobile phone. She had a mobile phone in her handbag. She had to call the police.
The Flesher crashed through the undergrowth behind her.
Vicky took a sudden dive to the left, into the grass, scurrying behind a huge whin bush. Holding her breath. Praying.
She could see him: a faint silhouette against the orange-grey clouds.
Phone. Where was her phone? Where was her sodding, bloody, fucking phone?
Vicky tipped her handbag out into the wet grass and felt her way through the contents: compact, tampons, purse, brush, credit card wallet, bits of paper, more bits of paper, more BITS OF BLOODY PAPER. Comb. Lipstick. PHONE!
She flipped it open and the screen sent out a little bloom of light. She slapped her hand over the thing, trying to hide the glow. Praying he wasn’t looking this way. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus …
Nine. Nine. Nine.
Come on, come on …
‘Emergency services, which service do you require?’
‘Police.’
‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to speak up, you’re very faint.’
Vicky cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered ‘Police!’ as loud as she dared.
Now all she had to do was tell the man on the other end who was after her, where they were, and—
The silhouette stopped, turned left, then right, then marched straight towards her.
Vicky ran.
52
One woman screaming would have been bad enough, but two of them going at it like blue-rinse foghorns was doing PC McInnis’s head in. Kingswells was meant to be a sleepy little commuter town, not a septuagenarian war zone: the battle line drawn through a dying leylandii hedge. Both sides were squaring off outside a pair of identical yellow-brick boxes, ignoring the misty drizzle that drifted down from the cold November sky as they screamed at each other.
McInnis had another go:‘Look, can we all please calm down. We—’
‘This was a nice place to live before you moved in!’
‘Oh why don’t you go shove a cactus up your—’
‘Ladies, if we can just—’
‘Should be ashamed of yourself!’
‘Just because you’ve got cobwebs growing down there doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t have sex!’
‘Don’t you talk to me like that!’
PC Guthrie had retreated back to the patrol car, out of the rain – lazy bastard – leaving McInnis to play United Nations.
‘Ladies, why don’t we go inside and—’
‘There’s a wee thing called Viagra. You should get some for your William, maybe perk the poor old sod up a bit. God knows he could use it.’
‘How dare you!’
‘If we could all just—’
Guthrie stuck his head out of the car window and shouted:‘McInnis!’
‘I’m busy.’ He turned back to his battling pensioners. ‘I need you both to—’
‘Someone’s spotted the Flesher in Kingswells: three streets from here!’
‘Holy shit!’
He sprinted back to the car and jumped in behind the wheel, ignoring the outraged cry of,‘What about my bloody hedge?’
McInnis put his foot down, leaving two smoking trails of rubber behind.
The whole car shuddered as he slammed on the brakes. Lights and siren blaring. First on the scene.
They leapt out of the car and swept the undergrowth on either side of the road with torchlight. Raindrops glittered in the beams like shards of falling glass as the drizzle gave way to proper pelting-it-down rain.
It was a stretch of wasteland between two housing developments, tarted up with a tarmac path and a couple of streetlights. PC Guthrie took a couple of steps into the darkness and bellowed,‘MRS YOUNG?’
‘How’s she supposed to hear you? Turn off the siren!’
And the night was suddenly quiet – just the drumming of rain on the car roof, the soft hiss of it falling on trees and bushes, and the gurgle of the stream at the bottom of the ravine.
McInnis had a go. ‘MRS YOUNG? VICKY? IT’S THE POLICE!’
‘There’s got to be miles of scrub and bushes out here.’
‘MRS YOUNG?’
A new sound joined the shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh of rain – distant sirens as patrol cars hammered along the Hazlehead Road, more coming over the back from Bucksburn. The cavalry was on its way.
‘Did Control say where she was—’
A woman screamed.
‘Over there!’ McInnis ignored the path and half-ran, half-scrambled down the slippery embankment with Guthrie hot on his heels, torchlight bobbing across wet grass, stones and bushes.
‘MRS YOUNG?’
They slithered to a halt at the foot of the slope, rain drumming off their peaked caps and black jackets. ‘OK,’ said Guthrie,‘you go left, I’ll go right.’
McInnis snorted. ‘Bugger that! If the Flesher’s out here we should stick together, so—’
‘Don’t be such a big jessie. There’s a woman out there getting murdered, remember?’ He stumbled off into the downpour, following the beam of his LED torch. It wasn’t long before he was swallowed by the night.
McInnis swore, then waded out into the knee-high grass. This was ridiculous – probably just a hoax, or some kinky sex game gone wrong, like those idiots in Northfield with all the tomato sauce. Nothing was going to happen. False alarm.
He swung his torch across a mountain range of gorse bushes.
‘MRS YOUNG?’
He didn’t see the patch of mud that sent him sprawling. One minute he was upright, and the next he was lying flat on his back, watching his torch spin through the air … It came down somewhere deep inside the prickly bushes – clattering through the branches till it finally hit the ground. ‘FUCK!’
A pause, then the Airwave handset on his shoulder started ringing: Guthrie.‘Are you OK? What happened? You need help?’
There was no way McInnis was going to say he’d slipped and fallen on his arse. ‘I’m fine. Dropped my torch.’
‘Moron.’
‘Up yours.’ McInnis ended the call and struggled to his feet. Everything was soaked through: trousers, jacket, socks, T-shirt, pants. ‘Bloody marvellous …’ He could see the faint gleam of his torch leaching out beneath the line of gorse bushes. For a second he considered just leaving the damn thing, but it wasn’t as if he could get any wetter.
He edged his way forward in the dark.
The torch was no more than a couple of feet from the outer cordon of spines. McInnis hunkered down and tried to reach it.
Thorns scratched the back of his hand as he fumbled in the shadows. Stupid bloody torch. Come on … Branch, rock, something horrible and sticky – please not dog shit, please not dog shit— torch! McInnis grabbed it, thankful no one had seen him make an absolute tit of himself.
And as the torch came out of the bush, its beam glittered back from something dark and oily. Blood. His hand was covered in blood. There was something white further back. It was a foot.
McInnis froze, then slid the beam up: ankle, leg, thigh, buttock … a woman, lying on her front, naked except for a pair of control-top knickers and a substantial bra. Her neck had been slashed so deeply the head was barely attached. Very, very dead.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ He sat back on his haunches. Mouth open wide as the rain hammered down all around him. He reached for his Airwave handset and punched in Guthrie’s badge number.
It was picked up on the second ring.‘Aye?’
‘It … I’ve found her.’
‘She OK?’
Pause. ‘No. She’s …’ he drifted to a halt, all the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. The sound of the rain had changed – the soft hammering of water on vegetation had been overlaid with a new, harder noise. As if there was something else … someone else there.
‘What?’
McInnis stood. Trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed anything. Oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit.
‘Where are you?’
He whipped round, snatching his baton from his belt, ready to crack the bastard’s head open … But there was nobody there. Just the rain and the bushes and the weeds and the grass and the darkness.
‘McInnis: what the hell’s going on?’
Idiot. Scaring himself like that. He turned back towards the bush. ‘Nothing. We need to get the IB out here and …’ The Flesher was standing right in front of him.
‘Oh,’ McInnis could barely get the words out,‘shit.’
And then the Flesher hit him.
Darkness.
‘Ah Jesus!’ McInnis sat up, coughing, water streaming down his face, a bright light shining in his eyes.
‘You OK?’
Everything smelt of blood. ‘Where…?’
Guthrie peered at him. ‘Bloody hell! What happened to your nose?’
McInnis shuddered, spat, and held out a hand, getting Guthrie to haul him to his feet. ‘How long?’
‘Is she in there?’ Pointing at the bush.
‘How long was I out for?’ Another shudder. His nose felt as if it was on fire.
‘Not long. A minute? Two? I saw your torch: nearly killed myself getting here. Tore the arse right out my trousers.’
McInnis wiped a hand across his mouth, it came away covered in red. ‘He was here: the Flesher. I saw him!’
‘Which way did he go?’
‘I don’t bloody know, do I?’
The wailing sirens were getting louder – flashing blue lights bouncing along the road as a patrol car San Franciscoed over the speed humps, making for Vicky Young’s address. He could hear another one on the opposite side of the ravine. They could still catch the bastard.
McInnis swept his torch over the surrounding grass and bushes. Three tracks led away into the damp undergrowth. One went up the hill, back towards the patrol car, another headed off to the right – where Guthrie said he’d come from – and the third snaked away to the left.
McInnis staggered into a run, following the trail of flattened grass.
‘What about the body? We can’t just leave—’
‘She’s not getting any deader, is she?’
There was a stream at the bottom of the ravine, swollen by the torrential rain. Guthrie slithered to a halt at the water’s edge. He was on his Airwave handset again, telling Control where the body was, while McInnis tried to work out which way the bastard had gone.
Upstream, downstream … no sign of flattened grass on the other bank.
McInnis picked his way around a small pile of boulders, following the course of the stream. Heading away from the road.
‘Aye,’ Guthrie waved his torch back towards the patrol car,‘down here, we’re in pursuit of—’
McInnis froze. ‘Will you shut up a minute?’
‘Look, I’m only trying to—’
‘Shhhh!’ There was a clump of brittle whin, six foot further up the slope, its seed husks rattling in the downpour. Not quite loud enough to hide the faint sound of sobbing coming from inside the bush.
Pulling out his pepper spray, McInnis inched forwards. ‘Police! Come out with your hands up and no one gets hurt.’
Guthrie crept round the other side. They made eye contact for a second and McInnis mouthed,‘On three.’
One.
Two.
Three: Guthrie grabbed the nearest branch and yanked it back. The person hiding in there squealed and tried to scrabble away, but there was nowhere to go. It was a woman: mid to late forties; only partially dressed – pale skin glowing in the torchlight; no shoes; her trousers ripped and stained; her blouse torn, the buttons missing, the material soaked with bright red blood.
McInnis put the pepper spray away and held out his hand. ‘You’re going to be OK.’
She squirmed back against the branches, clutching a big leather handbag in front of her like a shield. Her bruised face was twisted and filthy. ‘Don’t touch me! Please don’t touch me! Please!’
‘It’s OK. We’re the police. You’re safe now.’
‘Please …’
McInnis straightened up and ran his torchlight across the rain-hammered night. There was no way they could leave her alone out here in the dark while they went after the Flesher.
‘Son of a rancid bitch.’
The bastard had got away.
53
‘Who stinks like a brewery?’ DI Steel, turned in her seat to sniff at Logan. ‘You bathe in beer this morning?’
The briefing room was full, everyone waiting for DCS Bain to turn up and hand out the morning assignments. Up till now the discussion had been exclusively Flesher-related: speculation and rumour leaving reality far behind as the tale of PC McInnis’s clash with Aberdeen’s most notorious serial killer was told and retold.
Logan pointed at the green-faced constable sitting next to him. ‘That’s Rennie you can smell. He went for the world record vodka-and-Red-Bull-get-pissed-quick-athon last night.’
‘Oh, aye?’ The inspector grinned. ‘And there was me thinking our wee boy looked like shite’cos he’d been up all night shagging Luscious Laura.’
Rennie went pale, and then bright red. ‘Not feeling too good.’
‘If you’re going to puke, do it in that direction: Laz’s suit needs a good clean, he won’t mind.’
‘No one’s being sick on anyone. We—’ Logan sat up straight. ‘Look out: Bain.’
The Detective Chief Superintendent had finally appeared – Faulds, the ACC, the Procurator Fiscal, and the DCI from Strathclyde following on behind. The room fell silent.
‘Right,’ said Bain, nodding to a constable who killed the lights,‘Elizabeth Nichol.’ A face appeared on the screen behind him – middle aged, bleached blonde hair with grey-flecked roots beginning to show, her face a patchwork of bruises. ‘Alpha Nine Three discovered her less than two hundred yards from the body of Vicky Young.’
Click and the photo changed: night time, a woman in bloodstained underwear lying face down beneath a gorse bush, the skin tones bleached out by the photographer’s flash. ‘Her throat was cut through to the bone, she was nearly decapitated.’
Click and they were looking at a kitchen table covered with bits of human body. ‘Marcus Young.’ Click – a severed head, lying under the table.
Click – back to the battered, terrified face of Elizabeth Nichol. Bain picked up a stack of paper from the desk beside him and handed it to the nearest constable, telling him to take one and pass the rest on. ‘This is the preliminary victimology report on our survivor.’
Logan accepted the pile from a queasy-looking Rennie and handed it on to Steel. According to the cover sheet, the Family Liaison officer they’d assigned Elizabeth Nichol was the same one he’d taken to see Andrew McFarlane: PC Munro.
‘Read it later,’ said Bain. ‘The gist is that Nichol went to the Youngs’ house to borrow a cookery book. Mrs Young was out shopping, but her husband asked Nichol in to wait. She says the doorbell went fifteen minutes later and when Young went to answer the door he was forced back into the hall and beaten. Nichol panicked and ran.’
‘Not bloody surprising,’ muttered Steel.
If the Chief Superintendent heard her, he wasn’t letting on. ‘Next thing she knows, she’s wandering round the waste ground at the back of the houses in the rain. She comes across Vicky Young’s body and is accosted by a man fitting the Flesher’s description. They struggle, but Alpha Nine Three turns up and she manages to escape. PC McInnis found her hiding in a whin bush. Her clothes were torn and covered in blood.’
