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.'
'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.'
