DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  A bauble topples from the Christmas tree with a tinselly shiver, settles on the carpet. Bloonsbury suddenly coughs a bloody cough, a strangulated breath wheezes from his body. Silence broken, the spell dispersed.

  'I'll call an ambulance,' she says, because she has to. Although, might she not want Bloonsbury to die where he lies?

  There's something in her eyes, then she turns and is gone from the room.

  Look down at Bloonsbury. Too late for an ambulance anyway; the man is dying. From the hands of Detective Sergeant Hutton. I'd like to be able to say that he's the first man I've killed, but I can't. On good days, on days when I can block out the past, when I can turn the past into another lifetime, those are the days when I could say he's the first man I've killed. There aren't many of those days.

  Look at Taylor, and can tell he's thinking the same thing. We are indeed uninvited guests. Silence over the house. A clock ticking somewhere. For some reason I start wondering what Frank is doing, and will he care?

  Poland, that was it. Knee deep in gorgeous Central European women.

  'Go and listen, Sergeant. Make sure she calls an ambulance. And the local plods 'n all,' says Taylor.

  'Aye.'

  46

  Three o'clock, New Year's Day. Watery sun low in the sky; bright afternoon with the snow still thick on the ground, frost already in the air for the night ahead. Clear, chill, fresh, a beautiful day.

  Sitting in the car across the road from the old family home. Have been sitting here for over twenty minutes. Can't decide whether or not to take the giant step across the road. I don't deserve for Peggy – or for any of them – to take me back, but if I go over there, clutching the small bunch of flowers that currently lies on the passenger seat, then take me back is what they'll do. Despite being a total fuck up over he past few days, my future is there if I want it.

  Caught a couple of hours sleep, some time between five and eight. Woke up feeling as completely shit as I have for the previous few days. Looks like case closed, but it'll be weeks before the stench of this vanishes; and I can still feel the warmth of Bloonsbury's blood pulsing over my hand.

  The Great Detective, Glasgow's one time police hero, lies in the morgue at the Victoria. Died on his way to hospital, and they brought his body up this morning; died at the hands of Detective Sergeant Hutton. Said to someone that he was the first man I'd ever killed, but not with any conviction.

  Checked out some things this morning. Our suspicions were pretty close to the mark, and anything new we've discovered has confirmed our theory.

  Found out from Josephine Johnson that she spoke to Bloonsbury first on Saturday. He told her to call Herrod the following day. Set him up right from the off. Poor lassie unknowingly played her part, Herrod walked straight into it. Bloonsbury knew his man, knew he would charge round there on his own. White knight. Waited for him, then butchered him. His own man. Can't understand it, because I would've thought Herrod would've been all right to keep his gob shut. But who knows what was going through Bloonsbury's mind the last few weeks?

  Found details of a car stolen from Dunoon late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Turned up in Arrochar. Fits the bill for Bloonsbury having dealt with Crow.

  What else do we have? They're going back over the body of Bathurst, see if they can find any trace of Bloonsbury on there; now that they know what they're looking for.

  Taylor interviewed Healy for a couple of hours. Didn't sit in on it. He wavered all over the place; psychotic to reasonable to switched-on lawyer to deranged killer. And through it all, an obsession with Josephine Johnson. To hear him speak, their relationship bordered on Romeo and Juliet for tragedy, and to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for longevity. An obsessive personality which had needed an outlet, and had found it in a woman who had run away from him. He didn't seem to think she had run away. He seemed to think that at any moment she might be coming back. He seemed to think that there were a variety of reasons why she had left, but had admitted that there was a possibility that she had chosen to leave because she was a 'bitch-slut intent on fucking as many other guys as possible' which was why he'd had to punish her.

  Can you believe anything such a man tells you? Said that he was taken by Bloonsbury after he blundered into the flat of that stupid tart in Rutherglen. Thought he must have been followed. Pretty messed up in those manacles, so he lost track of night and day, but we know how long he was there.

  Ian Healy should be locked up for the rest of his life, but who knows these days? Gets a decent lawyer and he'll probably have the jury feeling sorry for him because he was kidnapped by the police; and they'll let him off. We'll get enough evidence on the guy to convict a multitude of murderers, but you never can tell. Fucking lawyers.

  Found Bloonsbury's prints in Crow's house and on the car that was used in the Edwards hit and run. Drunk Jonah; didn't even think to wear gloves. You just don't think to do it as an officer, do you? When you get prints, you check them against those of known criminals – not against your own men.

  So Bloonsbury is guilty as charged on all counts. And dead with it, which is good. All the best scum get killed at the end. Saves on the trial costs, and means there isn't going to be any screw-up in the courtroom with some bloody awful jury.

  Which leaves us where? Bloonsbury's gone to Hell and taken his secret with him. Charlotte Miller.

  She sat watching it all in the middle of the night, as the ambulance arrived and whisked away the dying man. Guzzled expensive brandy; bottled in Roman times. Hid behind her masque of wealth and shock, all carefully constructed. Safe in what knowledge? That there was no connection between her and Bloonsbury, or this: every step of the way, after every action she has taken, she has wiped the board. There will be nothing out there to point the finger in her direction.

  Can you convict anyone on the actions of someone like Jonah Bloonsbury? Maybe it was the final act of petty revenge from a dying man. To make it look as if she'd colluded with him all along. That she'd let him into her house at the end, rather than him letting himself in or breaking in. The front door was left open, remember, but that could point either way.

  Yet what other proof do we have? We had our suspicions before we went down there, and the way Bloonsbury acted suggested she was part of it. But that was it. It could be that our continuing investigations will unearth something, but we both know she'll have been more thorough than that.

  And so, today, she left us to it. No attempt at interference. Appeared at the station for twenty minutes. The Chief Constable turned up – all shiny buttons and stinking of drink – then left with a smile far from his face, ten minutes later.

  She called me into her office just before she went. Stood in front of her in that office for the fifth time in a week. Wary rather than nervous. Wondered if I was going to hear a confession.

  Not a chance.

  'I'm going away for a few days,' she said.

  Just a few days? I thought. Those days will likely stretch to weeks.

  'Need time to think. Get my head together. Chief Constable thinks it would be a good idea. Let things settle. The last few days have been rather hard on the station,' she said. Rather hard? Go on, Charlotte, tell it how it is. 'It all seems like some great conspiracy.'

  That's exactly what it is, darlin'. And there's a good chance you're at the centre of it all.

  She looked at me for a few seconds. Don't know what she was expecting me to say. Was she looking for sympathy? But I didn't give her anything. There was nothing to say. Taylor and I both suspect her of involvement and we'll do everything to get evidence of it. And fuck it if that drags me into it as well, because of what's been going on between me and her. I'll deal with that if it comes.

  My bet, however, is that there'll be no evidence to find.

  We're left to wonder what went on between her and Jonah Bloonsbury. Maybe it goes back all the way. Sixteen years ago to his first moment of glory and a chase across open moorland. Must have started sometime. Maybe the two of them
have been in it together all along, riding the back of the other. And while Bloonsbury couldn't cope and floundered in an ocean of whisky, Charlotte Miller rode the high seas. Was going to go all the way.

  'Would you come with me?' she said. A quiet, nervous voice, but I wouldn't believe that voice now no matter what the tone. Still, that request was out the blue. An electric shock. But whereas before it would have been a shock from an entire power grid, now it was like static off a jumper. 'Now that it's over, you should be able to get some time off. I'm sure Dan wouldn't mind.'

  Dan would go fucking mental. But there was nothing to worry about. There was no way I was going anywhere else with Charlotte Miller. Standing in front of her desk was as far as she was ever going to take me.

  'Don't think so,' I said. Still too many things to sort out. And even if there weren't...

  She swallowed. Took it well. Knew what I was thinking, I'm sure.

  And that was that. She didn't say anything else, I turned my back on my infatuation of the past week and walked from her office. Closed the door behind me.

  A couple of minutes later she swept out of the station. No goodbyes. We couldn't exactly lock her up just because Bloonsbury tried to kill her, but I would bet now if we find something and want to bring her in, she'll be very difficult to get hold of. It might not just be weeks that the few days turns into, but months and years. Off somewhere with her bank account and silk pyjamas.

  And that's just about it. Some questions answered, some not. A few leftovers, such as the man who currently rots in prison on the Addison murder charges from last year. The crimes of Gerry Crow – although that's all hearsay. Maybe it was Bloonsbury all along. Who knows? It'll be for someone else to work out what to do with the guy.

  We're done, and I'm left sitting across the road from my ex-wife, waiting for something. Maybe it's for one of them to take the decision out of my hands. For one of them to look out of the window and notice the car parked across the road. For one of them to decide whether to draw the curtains or come over and invite me in.

  At the back of my mind – despite all the stupidity of being infatuated with Charlotte Miller – I was presuming that I'd end up back here, that I'd be walking in through that door. But last night I killed a man, and it wasn't the first time. It was the first time in seventeen years. And while seventeen years is a long fucking time, it's not long enough.

  I always thought that when I met the right women I'd talk to her. My part in the Balkan war. I'd let it all out, a great tumble of awful reminiscence, spewing forth, unstoppable, ending with me in tears and a wreck on the floor. And for years I thought it would be Peggy. For years. And maybe even this past week I'd thought it would be Peggy, that she was the one I could talk to.

  But sitting here, across the road from her house, I know. I don't think I was lying to myself when I first thought she'd be the one. I genuinely believed I could talk to her. Now, however, I know for sure. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week. And some time soon, after I move back in, I'll wake up jabbering and sweating and panicking in the middle of the night and she'll look at me and be afraid and hope that I'll talk to her, and I'll see it in her eyes. The sure and certain knowledge that I won't. The sure and certain knowledge that there probably is someone out there in whom I'd confide, but that it's not her.

  I see a movement in the front room, and suddenly I know that I can't be sitting here waiting for them to make the decision for me. I have to leave.

  Engine on, into first, and smoothly away from the side of the road. Grasp the steering wheel firmly because my hands are shaking. Look at the clock. Must have been an hour that I sat there. Late afternoon, New Years day.

  Automatically flick the music on. Bob. Idiot Wind.

  I haven't known peace and quiet so long I can't remember what it's like. Time for me and Bob to hit the nearest pub.

  ~ The End ~

  Book 2

  A PLAGUE OF CROWS

  Prologue

  They'd probably have viewed things differently if Detective Inspector Leander had kicked the fuck out of me, rather than the other way round. All right, regardless of the outcome of the manly posturing and handbags that it ultimately came down to, I have to hold my hand up, take responsibility for my own actions, and admit that I was banging his wife.

  But surely they would have taken into consideration that he's a workaholic deadbeat loser who had forgotten his wife existed, and that I was only giving her what she deserved... had I not put him in hospital with a fractured jaw, a couple of broken ribs and a punctured lung. And, you know, people make a lot of the punctured lung, but Jesus, lungs get punctured all the time. Guys puncture lungs when they're playing football, and they play on. Break a rib, damned good chance that you'll puncture a lung along with it. God, you've still got another one. How many do you need?

  He decided not to sue me, which is something for which I am apparently to be grateful. Well, I wouldn't have had to puncture his lung if he hadn't cracked a bottle of wine over my head. Good thing he hits like a girl.

  He had seven weeks off sick. That must have been fun around the house, just the two of them. Maggie running after his every need. They must have had some interesting conversations over the breakfast table.

  Under other circumstances I might have felt bad when he confronted me about it. I'm not a completely heartless wanker. I felt some level of guilt about the fact that I was fucking the wife of another guy at the station. But Maggie... if you saw her, you'd know. How could I not? Leander oversnagged. And I mean, seriously oversnagged. I saw a wedding photo of them around the house, and fair enough, on their wedding day they looked kind of natural. Almost like a couple. But over the years he's worked too many hours, suffered too much stress, drunk too much, smoked a few too many God-knows-what, and he's just running to sad middle age; Maggie, on the other hand, is a few years younger, never had kids, works out, doesn't drink, and just keeps getting hotter.

  I doubt I'm the only one. Don't care now, didn't care back then. Whatever, I was the one Leander found out about. We were both in the Whale one night, which was stupid, don't know what I was doing in there drinking with all our lot, and getting worse and worse for it. He asks me if I've shagged his wife. I say no, in the drunk kind of way that pretty much says 'Oh yes!' – but I'm thinking, you know anyway, you sad sack, so it doesn't matter – and then he minces off to a corner to sulk for a while, before coming back and beaning me over the napper with the bottle. Chaos and mayhem ensue.

  Chaos, the whining Nancy boy, ended up in hospital with a punctured lung, while Mayhem got nicked. They weren't really ever going to charge me with anything, but they suspended me until I got help with my issues.

  Fucking issues.

  August

  1

  She hasn't said anything for upwards of ten minutes. I'm the one who's supposed to be talking, although I haven't opened my mouth since I sat down. I've barely looked at her as that just increases the awkwardness. This isn't comfortable for me. I've no idea how she finds it. She's probably used to people clamming up and going all silent movie on her.

  Silent movie? What the fuck? Actors in silent movies didn't sit all sullen and miserable. They overacted like all kinds of shit to compensate for the silence. So I'm not sitting here like I'm in a silent movie, I'm just like everyone else who's been told to go somewhere and who doesn't want to play.

  I'm looking at a picture on the wall. A painting. The top half is red, the bottom half orange. I keep waiting for her to ask me what I think it represents.

  Does she care that I'm not interested in her psycho-drivel, or does she just see it as easy money? She can sit here doing bugger all for an hour and at the end send a bill for four hundred quid to the police.

  I start to wonder if I could be a psychiatrist, and how long the training lasts, and if there are any modules from which they'll make you exempt if you're already a certifiable nutjob.

  Sadly I haven't even been certified as a nutjob. I think someone just wrote p
ain in the arse on my file and thought that if they suspended me and made me talk to someone I might become less of a pain in the arse. How was that ever going to happen?

  'What do you think it represents?' she says.

  Ha!

  Every week I mean to bring a Psychiatrist Bingo card with me, rather than just the one in my head. My mother. My father. Childhood trauma. Why do you think that is? What do you think it represents?

  Of course, if I was playing actual Psychiatrist Bingo, she'd have to ask me what I was doing, and if I told her then she'd have to ask me what I felt about the fact that I was choosing to do this, and how did I think it impacted on our time together.

  Time to go. I stand up. I contemplate walking out without even looking at her, but I can't stop myself glancing her way. It's a warm day and she's just wearing a light blouse on top. Open at the neck. I look at her breasts. Small, enticing.

  Oh, God... Stop it. Stop doing that thing. It's not about her breasts.

  Enticing, for crying out loud. Get a grip.

  We look at each other for a moment. It feels like she can read my every thought. She knows I've been playing Psychiatrist Bingo, she knows I just glanced at her breasts, and she knows I liked them and immediately chastised myself for looking and for thinking about it.

  Nevertheless, she's wrong about the most fundamental thing. She thinks my time in Bosnia left me with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I like to tell myself that that's the case. I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don't speak to anyone about it, but if I did, that's what I'd tell them.

  Me and my PTSD. That could be the title of my autobiography. My PTSD And Its Part In My Downfall.

  But I'm lying to myself. The whole time I'm lying, because I don't have PTSD.

  I have guilt. And I have shame.

  I leave, closing the door behind me.