The Meating Room Read Online Free PDF

streaked with blood. Scraps of skin, hair, and lengths of gut as thick as rope were scattered across the tiled floor, although some effort had been made to sweep them to one side. Other areas looked as if a bucket-load of blood had been spilled over them, and the walls – from floor to head height – could be a blood-spatter analyst’s training room.
    ‘Any thoughts?’ he asked Jessie.
    ‘Bring back the death penalty?’
    ‘Do you see her head?’
    ‘We should check the boot of the Jag.’
    Gilchrist grimaced. ‘I don’t think he would do that.’
    ‘Why not? He’s not left much to chance here.’
    ‘The SOCOs will let us know soon enough.’
    Gilchrist continued to scan the scene, trying to imagine how the events unfolded – from a killing to a disembowelling to a beheading to a skinning to a ritual placement of the body on the bed. And, as he studied the bloodied mess, he came to see some order, some logic, in the massacre. The shower had been turned on to full power in the wet room, no doubt to clear most of the victim’s blood from the assailant. Skin and guts had been swept to one side as if in an effort to clean up the mess, and the tiled floor was streaked and smeared as if someone had tried to rub it clean.
    He froze for a moment as he took it all in, then said, ‘Where are the towels?’
    ‘In a cupboard?’
    ‘No. The towel rails are empty. There’s none in here.’
    He waited while Jessie eyed the full-length heated towel rail on the wall next to the wet room, those on either side of the double sink, the rim of the claw-footed bathtub.
    ‘Which means what, exactly?’ she said at length.
    ‘Check the laundry basket, the washing machine, the kitchen. I’d like to see—’
    ‘What, you’re thinking he washed up after doing—’
    ‘Just do it.’ The words came out louder than intended. ‘Bloody hell, Jessie, for once in your life do something straightforward without challenging it.’
    Her lips tightened and she said, ‘Yes, sir,’ before walking to the wicker laundry basket at the side of a wardrobe. She flipped back the lid, let it drop, then left the bedroom without another word.
    Gilchrist stepped away from the bathroom door and walked to the window.
    He pulled out his mobile and got through on the second ring.
    ‘Missing me already?’ Cooper said.
    ‘It’s a mess, Becky. An absolute hellish mess.’ He breathed in, knowing she would not break the silence. Cooper was like that; someone who would listen to the entire story, hear every word, before casting judgement, good or bad. ‘He’s taken out his whole family. Wife and two girls, in their beds—’ Another gush of air. Christ, it was difficult to breathe. All of a sudden, he was aware of the body on the bed behind him, the thick, stale air in the room. He reached forward and flung open the window, ignoring his earlier instruction to Jessie.
    ‘Andy?’
    ‘Sorry, it’s . . .’ He shook his head, struggling to stop tears nipping his eyes. Christ, what would he have done if this had happened to his own family? How could he have lived after that? But Brian McCulloch had not lived, of course. He had simply taken his own life, unable to live with the crushing burden of what he had done. As that logic fired through Gilchrist’s mind – his subconscious challenging, ideas flickering, fading, then resurfacing – he came to understand what he had failed to see earlier.
    He turned to stare at the skinless corpse.
    ‘I need you over here,’ he said to Cooper. ‘I need you to establish how the children were killed. I suspect they were drugged. Maybe injected. Maybe spiked drinks. And I need you to check McCulloch’s system for drugs.’
    ‘Are you all right, Andy? You don’t sound—’
    ‘No, I’m not all right.’ He paused, aware that he had raised his voice, and tried to pull himself together, squeezed a thumb and forefinger into his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Becky. I’m sorry, I . . . it’s just . . . I’ll get back to