Rennie sniffed. 'Not like it's our fault is it? Insch should have called in the Environmental Health people from the start.' He was right, but Logan didn't want to be overheard agreeing with him. 'What happened to you last night then?' The constable grinned. 'Wouldn't you like to know?' Logan thought about it, said,'Not really,' and went back to his paperwork. 'OK, OK, I'll tell you.' Rennie scooted his chair closer. 'Her name's Laura and we were at it all night. It ever becomes an Olympic sport, that girl could bonk for Scotland. She could suck a bowling ball through a garden hose.' He sighed, happily. 'Think I'm in love.' 'It's like Romeo and Juliet.' 'Only with lots and lots of condoms.' The discussion at the incident board was getting heated, DI Insch heading his usual shade of beetroot. 'What's the book at?' asked Logan, as Insch placed a huge finger in the middle of Faulds' chest and poked. 'Six hundred for lamping someone, three hundred for a heart attack.' 'You're taking bets on when Insch'll have a heart attack now? What the hell is wrong with you people?' Logan shook his head. Then put ten quid on the inspector punching someone before the week was out. From the look of things, it was probably going to be Chief Constable Mark Faulds. Insch turned and stormed out of the room, followed a beat later by DI Steel and an angry-looking Faulds. Maybe the end of the week was a little conservative: Logan doubted Insch would last till the end of the day.
'Three cups of tea, two rowies and an Eccles cake.' DC Rennie stuck the tray on top of a mound of dusty archive boxes, then helped himself to one of the cowpat-shaped disks of flour, lard, butter and salt, chewing as he handed out the mugs. Faulds accepted his with an exasperated smile - still on the phone with his Deputy Chief Constable. 'I know it is, Arthur, but it's the same every year ...' He grabbed the other rowie, lumbering Logan with the Eccles cake. The room looked even smaller than it had when Faulds had claimed it for his own yesterday, marking his territory with a laminated sheet of A4 taped to the door:'FLESHER HISTORY ROOM'. Someone kept sticking Post-it notes on it with,'ABANDON HOPE ALLYE WHO ENTERHERE' scrawled on them - it looked like DI Steel's handwriting. The walls were lined with stacks of file boxes going back twenty-five years, each one representing another Flesher victim. Newcastle, Glasgow, London, Dublin, Manchester, Birmingham: they'd all sent up everything they had, and now Logan, Faulds and Rennie were sifting through the lot, looking for anything that might help catch Ken Wiseman. Rennie parked his backside on one of the three desks squeezed in between the case histories, and munched his way through his rowie, staring at the death board as Logan pinned up another victim in chronological order. 'So,' said the constable, pausing to sook his fingers clean of grease,'Wiseman's a chubby chaser then?' Logan pulled out the crime scene photo that went with the face - another kitchen splattered with blood - and stuck it on the board. 'What?' Rennie pointed at the photos. 'All the women: chunky. Most of the blokes too. Not wanting to speak ill of the dead and that, but the whole lot look like they could have done with a few less pies.' Logan opened a box file from Northumbria Police and dug about for the next victim. 'If he's killing them for meat, he'll want a reasonable covering of flesh, won't he?'
