Flesh House by Stuart MacBride Page B

the glass at a crowd of people in the front lobby, all looking very, very upset. 'Second thoughts ...' She turned round and headed back towards the stairs. 'You got any money on the sweepie?'
'Tenner on him punching someone Saturday.'
She nodded. 'I've got Monday. It's no easy keeping him at just the right level of pissed-off-ishness. Too much and he snaps early - no dosh for Auntie Roberta. Too little and the bugger won't lamp anyone.'
'What if you're the one he thumps?'
Steel grinned. 'I'll fucking kill him.' She marched out onto the rear podium car park, sparking up a cigarette and blowing out a cloud of smoke that glowed in the security spotlights. 'Oh, Christ I needed that.' She shuddered happily and puffed her way over to an unmarked pool car. 'Right, we're off up the hospital.'
'You said we were going to the pub!'
'Oh come on, no' like you've got anything better to do is it? Go home and mope in an empty flat? Wah, wah, wah, my girlfriend's in Glasgow playing cops and robbers and I'm not getting any. Wah, wah, wah ...'
Silence.
She tapped ash from the end of her fag, little flecks of orange sparkling amongst the grey. 'It'll be good for you, get you out a bit, stop you developing wanker's elbow.' Still nothing. 'OK, OK. Insch'll no' admit it, but he's up to his ears in shite and sinking fast. He needs a hand. The ACC wants us to go up to A&E and interview that bloke whose wife disappeared yesterday. Take a bit of the pressure off.'
Logan kept his mouth shut.
'Buy you a pint after?'
As the inspector said, what else was he going to do?
They'd put Mr Leith in a semi-private room, between a man with lymphoma and a boy with two broken legs. According to the ward sister Leith was doing better than expected - given the shock and his injuries. They'd probably be letting him out in a couple of days. Steel gave the PC stationed outside the door permission to sod off to the canteen for a cuppa, then got Logan to pull the curtains round Leith's bed.
The man's head was nearly invisible beneath a thick layer of white bandages, a faint yellow stain leaking through where Wiseman had tried to open his skull with a cleaver.
Steel settled herself down on the visitor's chair, and asked Leith if he was awake. The man groaned, opened a pink eye and blinked. A morphine drip snaked into the back of one hand. A tremble, then he was still again.
'We need to ask you some questions about what happened yesterday, Mr Leith.'
'I ... I told the other one. You know ...' he frowned, trying to remember,'Big. Bald. Fat ...' The words slurred and misshapen by drugs.
'I know, but you need to tell me as well.'
'Out shopping ... Sainsbury's, something for tea ... came home ... he was waiting for us ...' It took a while, but eventually they got the whole story. How Valerie had unpacked the shopping from the car while he checked the answering machine. And then she was screaming and he ran into the kitchen and there was Wiseman, killing her ...
Leith stopped, hand fumbling for the button that would pump another dose of morphine into his veins as he told them how he'd tried to stop Wiseman, but the man was too strong. The flash of a meat cleaver, blinding light, darkness ... When he came round he was alone in the house, and the kitchen was covered in blood.
Steel checked with Logan, making sure he was getting all of this down. 'And did you hear him say anything?'
'He said ... he said we were smoak with blood ... we'd be sacrificed on the altar ...' Leith's thumb hammered the button again, but it didn't seem to do any good. 'Oh God, Val ... I should ... I should have fought harder! I never should have let him take her ...'
'Christ that was depressing.' Steel took a deep swig at her white wine, sat back and watched Logan work his way through a bag of Scampi Flavour Fries. Half past eight and the pub was starting to liven up, the murmur of conversation rising as more people drifted in out of the rain. 'What do you think Wiseman does with the bones?'
Logan shrugged.