'I don't know ... I was hammered. Got a bottle of vodka out the freezer and next thing I know it's three am in the morning. I'm lying on the couch and Andrew's shaking me. He's crying and going on about how it wasn't his fault - she was going to leave him ...' Wiseman looked up, then straight back down again. 'She was lying at the bottom of the stairs, all twisted and ... and her head was ... She was already cold. There wasn't anything I could do.' He shrugged, big muscular shoulders rising and falling. 'We panicked. She was dead. And ... Andrew said we had to get rid of her. That if we called the police the business would be ruined. That no one would care if it was an accident or not. And ... the butcher's shop was right there.' 'She was your sister!' Wiseman started picking at the crack in his cast. 'She was always ... Andrew wasn't just my brother-in-law, he was my best friend ... We vacuum-packed the bits and buried them out in the middle of nowhere. Only ...' Shudder. 'The bag with her insides got caught on the boot catch. Went everywhere. I ... we had to scoop the bits out with our bare hands ...'
'What do you think?' asked Logan, when Ken Wiseman was back in his cell. 'He's a silly bastard.' Steel pulled out her cigarettes and stuck one in her mouth, flicking it from one side to the other with her tongue. 'If he'd come clean when they arrested him, he'd've got what? Four, five years for illegally disposing of a body and not reporting a death? Would've been out in three.' She sighed. 'Silly, silly bastard.' 'I meant - do you believe he only helped cut up the body? that she was already dead when he got there?' Steel shrugged. 'Don't think it really matters anymore if he did it or not. The PF'll do him for murder and he'll get another sixteen years. It'll be his word against McFarlane's, and who's a jury going to believe: an alki butcher, or good old Ken - Murdering Bastard - Wiseman? Anyway,' she fidgeted with her lighter, not looking Logan in the eye,'I suppose now someone's got to tell Insch.' And Logan got a nasty feeling who that someone was going to be.
50
According to the custody assistant, Insch's five-minute appearance in the Sheriff Court that morning had provoked a media circus and ended up with the inspector released on bail and into the ever-loving arms of Professional Standards. Which was a bit like being kicked in the testicles, smeared in marmite, then thrown to the sharks. He was still up there now. Logan got himself a newspaper and a cup of tea, then settled into one of the uncomfortable chairs outside the Professional Standards office. Bracing himself for a long wait with a punch on the nose at the end of it. 'You're an utter bastard!' Logan looked up from his
