DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  'Anyway, I saw this.'

  She tosses the paper over, folded open at the personal ads section. One of them has been circled.

  Octopussy. Specialises in instruction for teen boys.

  Good rates. Octopussy will make you into a man.

  Suite 437, G72 etc etc

  I read it several times. Once would have been enough. Too much, in fact. Once read, it can't be unread. Finally I look up.

  'You think... I mean, this has nothing to do with James Bond?'

  'I think this has nothing to do with James Bond,' she says. 'And there are all sorts of things that it could actually refer to, but you know, it's just a thought. The 'octo' part of it could be short for octogenarian, that's all. Seems weird that around here you'd have a woman in her 80s offering teenagers sexual instruction, but I think it'd be weirder to have a James Bond-level of villainy.'

  Long, exhaled breath. Rub of the eyes. Can I allow myself to be distracted from my mission to file one stupid fucking report on this stupid fucking computer system?

  'I don't know where it gets you,' she says. 'Maybe that ad was placed by your suicide/murder victim, maybe the kid answered it, maybe they had sex. It just supplies the method by which they met, not a lot else.'

  'You're right, but it's more than we've been working on the last few days. Thanks.'

  I tap the paper. Harrison starts to get up.

  'D'you need this back?' I ask.

  'Slim pickings,' she says, with a shake of the head.

  'Well, if you're ever desperate,' I say, and she rolls her eyes and off she goes.

  That's probably sexual harassment these days. In fact, no probably about it. It is sexual harassment. She's cool with it, though, all part of the game. The politically correct brigade would be as annoyed at her as they are at me.

  Shit, must go on that diversity course. Keep forgetting. It's part of my objectives.

  GET THE NECESSARY PAPERWORK, make my way along to Mail Boxes Etc. in Rutherglen. The girl on the counter is naturally suspicious, which is really the appropriate attitude with the police. Can't blame anyone who regards us with suspicion.

  I look in the box. It's empty. That was kind of what I'd been expecting. If it was weird that Tommy Kane had answered the ad, it was going to be double weird to find he wasn't alone, and this end of Glasgow just isn't a double weird kind of a place.

  The necessary paperwork, which I have in my hand, also happens to allow me access to information on the owner of Box 437. Suite 437 as it had been rather grandiosely referred to in the advert.

  The girl on the counter hands over the necessary documentation without a word. She's looking at her hands. There's a stiffness about her, an awkwardness about the whole exchange, that we find quite often in this job. People don't like speaking to the police, so they cover their discomfiture with rudeness.

  Whatever.

  The name Maureen Henderson leaps off the page.

  'I'll need a copy of that,' I say.

  She lifts her eyes, only briefly engages mine, and then turns away to the photocopy machine.

  Hmm. Another reason people are awkward with the police is when they're hiding something. She's probably got drugs in her handbag. That'd be the usual kind of thing.

  She hands over the paperwork. I smile.

  'Thanks for your help.'

  She looks through me as if I am an agent of Sauron. I leave.

  21

  'Octopussy?'

  Taylor slowly lifts his head. Morrow and I are standing in his office. Morrow has been smiling since I filled him in on the details. Obviously, for the younger police officer, this kind of thing is the equivalent of working in A&E when someone comes in with a Barbie doll inserted in their penis.

  'It's definitely her. Seems logical to assume this was how he found her.'

  He stares at me, then at Morrow.

  'Stop smiling,' he says.

  'Yes, boss,' says Morrow, although he doesn't.

  'I mean,' says Taylor, 'apart from the James Bond thing, it's a pretty vulgar name, isn't it? Is it obvious from just the name that it's an eighty-year-old offering sex? Really?'

  'True enough,' I say. 'I just put the word into the urban dictionary. It has a variety of meanings, none of which relate to old people sex.'

  'I don't want to know what those definitions are. But it does beg the question, how would anyone replying to the advert know that this was an eighty-year-old offering sex, rather than one of those other definitions you're talking about?'

  Morrow laughs.

  'I'm loving this,' he says.

  It's refreshing not to be the immature one in the room.

  'Don't know. Maybe it's just one of those things that are known around here. In the way that people know stuff. Communities know stuff. They know where to go dogging, they know when pampas grass in a garden means the owners are swingers, rather than that there just happens to be pampas grass growing in the garden.'

  'Yeah, maybe doesn't really cut it. You,' he says, pointing at Morrow, 'stop grinning, and I mean, really, stop grinning, you're pissing me off.'

  He nails the tone. Morrow quits grinning.

  'Thank you. Now that you've sorted your face out, go and do the usual internet search. It's what we invariably end up doing these days.' Internet and alcohol, the two main drivers of crime. 'See if Maureen had an online presence of some sort.'

  'She didn't have a computer,' says Morrow.

  'True enough,' I say. 'Her house was like going back to the 1950s.'

  'Did she have a library card?'

  Glance at Morrow. Morrow nods.

  'There you have it,' says Taylor.

  'You think she ran some kind of porn school from the library?' I say.

  'Funny. There's that internet café down in Rutherglen, isn't there? Or she could've taken the train into the city. Constable, try and find her online; Sergeant, identify places she could have used the internet, go to those places and see if anyone knows anything about her.'

  'Yes, boss.'

  'Yes, boss.'

  And out the door we go.

  JUST AFTER FOUR IN the afternoon. Feel like I might work late tonight. Nothing to go home to. No fucking surprise there. Starting to feel like I need to visit a drinking establishment, but that's unlikely to end well. Then there's drinking at home, and by drinking at home, I don't mean having a bottle of wine as part of a Tesco £10 meal for two. So, maybe if I work late, the drinking is less likely to happen.

  Drew a blank at the library. Old Maureen hadn't been in there, or at least, hadn't used her card, in over three years. It always seemed a stretch to think she'd be running some sort of online porn operation from a public library. I asked out of interest, and they said it wouldn't be possible. They have filters.

  Now I have every internet café in south Lanarkshire and Glasgow to check out, which isn't so many. It's not like the centre of London here. If I have to go into the city it might take me into tomorrow, but there's one small place at the back end of Rutherglen Main Street to check out first.

  Park the car outside Iceland, and take the short walk along. Almost dark, a few people around. It may be early November, but Christmas is in the air. Decorations in the shop windows, adverts for boxes of chocolates and turkeys and perfect roast potatoes that take five minutes in the microwave.

  Beneath a tree across the road there's a guy standing on a box. A box that may, I suppose, be an actual soap box. I hear him first, the sound drifting across the road, intermingled with the passing cars. Don't particularly pay attention, but then, as I'm directly over the road from him, there's no traffic on Rutherglen Main Street, and everything is quiet. His voice drifts across, the words clear.

  'After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it....'

  An articulated lorry passes by, travelling slowly. Tesco. Every little helps. I stare at it, my eyes focussed beyond the lorry on the space
where the guy is. My heart starts pounding, and I think, Jesus, when this lorry passes he's going to be gone. That guy, who was standing there a second ago spouting some biblical shit, is going to be gone.

  And then there goes the lorry, and the bloke across the road is still standing on his box, staring wildly into space, not looking at me at all, and now his words are lost as a wave of cars follow in the lorry's wake, the lights at the far end having changed. I watch him for a moment, as if expecting him to point in my direction, and then I turn and walk the short distance to the café.

  The door pings as I enter, stop for a second, take a quick look around. There are a few tables down one side. Signs saying free Wi-Fi on the wall. There are a couple of teenagers sitting at one table. They're both on their phones, neither of them talking. The other side has six small booths with a computer in each. None of them are currently occupied. The kid behind the counter is reading a newspaper. The Evening Times more than likely. He glances up at the sound of the door, then looks back to his paper.

  I approach the counter.

  'You know that guy across the road, the Bible guy? Is he usually there?'

  'Every day, man,' says the kid. I'm saying kid. He's like eighteen or something. 'He stands there and recites books from the Old Testament off the top of his head. Every fucking day, man. It's a bit fucked up.'

  'I've never seen him before.'

  'Can't have been looking.'

  I flick open my ID and the guy gives me a glance to indicate his disquiet at me for luring him into conversation without letting him know I'm a police officer.

  'DS Hutton,' I say.

  'Yeah?'

  He glances over at the table, but these teenagers aren't interested. Too cool to care that the Feds have just entered the building.

  I place a picture of Maureen on the counter.

  'You recognise this woman? She ever come in here?'

  He looks at me for a while before looking at the photograph. He glances down, a smirk automatically coming to his lips. Well, at least now there'd be no point in saying he'd never seen her before. The opposite of poker face.

  'Sure,' he says. 'Maureen. Comes here all the time. Haven't seen her in a few days, mind.'

  'She uses the computers?'

  'Sure. That's why she comes. Never has anyone with her or nothing.'

  'You know what she does online?'

  'What the fuck, man? Course I fucking don't.'

  'You know her name, maybe she talks to you.'

  'Aye, she does talk to me. You know why? 'Cause she's a lovely wee woman. Not a nosy prick, like some people.'

  'Is there any way to go through your records so we can see what she looked at?'

  'Fuck off, man.'

  You just want to give people a big old bear hug sometimes, don't you? And while you're hugging them, bring your knee swiftly up into their testicles.

  'Maureen's dead.'

  'What the fuck, man?'

  'Committed suicide last week. We're just trying to work out her last few days, trying to find some clue as to why she might have killed herself. We need to know the kinds of things she did online.'

  I'll give him some bonus points for the fact that he actually looks disconcerted by the news.

  'That's terrible,' he says.

  'Yes, it is.'

  'I don't have that information here,' he says.

  'Can you get it?'

  'Not me. You'll need to contact head office. I'm just, like, a guy here, you know. I don't own this joint. I know dick all about those things. Any problems, I call Livingstone, they send a guy out.'

  'Livingstone?'

  'Aye.'

  'OK. Give me a contact, and I'll make some calls.'

  He turns away, digs out a card, which is stained with coffee and God knows what else, then hands it over. I'm about to slip it into my pocket when he says, 'I need that.' So I write down the details and hand the card back to him.

  'Thanks for your help,' I say.

  'Why'd she do it?'

  'Don't know yet.'

  He doesn't reply, but as I turn away he mutters, 'Fucking polis,' at my back. I stop for a second, contemplate crushing his skull with a Khan-like death grip, then head on out the door.

  Darkness has arrived with much greater intensity in the few minutes I was inside. I look across the road. Soap box guy is gone.

  22

  I got to go out into a miserable fucking November afternoon and speak to people. Morrow got to sit and look at online porn. Although, ultimately it came down to online granny porn, so I think I was better off.

  He's not looking at it when I get back though. I slump down into my seat, check the time. Feeling hungry. That's good. I can leave it another few hours, then by the time I get home I'll be ravenous. I can stop and get a carry-out on the way, fish supper probably, have a couple of beers with dinner, then crawl into bed. Avoid hitting the pub and hopefully get to sleep before the demons start demanding something of me.

  'You already find what you're looking for?' I ask.

  'Oh, yes.'

  He's not smiling anymore. I reckon a couple of hours looking at old women naked is going to wipe the smile from anyone's face. He types a couple of things into his computer, then swings the screen round to let me have a look. I'm immediately greeted by the sight of old Maureen completely naked, lying back on the sofa in her front room, her legs wide open. I could add more, but I can't bring myself to think about it. No one wants to visualise that.

  'Holy fuck,' I say.

  Morrow nods, but doesn't look at the screen.

  'I've seen enough.'

  'Sure beans,' he says.

  He turns the screen back, clicking off the page as he does so.

  'So, that's something you can't un-see,' I say.

  'You get anywhere?'

  'Yep. She was using the café on Rutherglen Main Street. The guy recognised her. Sounds like she went in there a lot. I need to make another couple of calls to try to get access to what she was doing. That account of hers, was there the opportunity to chat with her online, anything like that?'

  'Oh, yes. All sorts.'

  'How do you suppose she uploaded the pictures?'

  He shrugs.

  'Phone, USB stick, who knows? But she must've then gotten rid of whatever she took to the internet café.'

  'It's weird, isn't it? Why didn't she just have a computer and internet in her own home if she was going to do this kind of thing?'

  He nods.

  'Yep, I thought about that. Asked around up there in her little block. Internet's shit, apparently. Always has been. Maybe she tried and it wasn't working. Maybe she didn't want a computer in her house in case the rays from it killed her. Old people have weird ideas.'

  Ain't that the truth.

  'You spoken to Taylor?'

  He nods.

  'Right, I'll just go in and update him.'

  And off I go.

  FISH SUPPER DISPATCHED, second bottle of Stella. 10.58 p.m. Pretty tired, not quite tired enough. Sitting in front of the television.

  In the corner by the window is a large ficus benjamina, which, remarkably, has survived for over five years. I thought I'd kill the damn thing in days, but it's still going.

  It'll outlive me. One day I'll be dead and it'll be sitting there for a while afterwards thinking, I haven't seen the Miserable Cunt much recently. I wish he'd come back, I'm dying for a pint.

  There are three pictures on the walls. One is an original film poster from Casablanca. Worth something now, I dare say. Bought it in 1985 for £250. There's a painting of the harbour at Anstruther. It was a present. I stuck it on the wall to keep her happy, imagining that I'd take it down when she wasn't there. She's long gone and I never did get around to removing the picture. Then there's Grace Kelly. I never knew which movie it was from, never tried to find out. Someone said Rear Window once. Maybe they're right

  There's something teenage about having a movie poster and a b&w movie star on your wall. Certainly
, that's what Peggy used to say. I don't care. What does it matter? The women that come back here aren't doing it because they think I earned a 1.1 in classics from Oxford.

  There's the air of cigarette smoke, but it's not as bad as some houses. I leave the windows open a lot, try not to smoke too much inside. Nevertheless, A Smoker Lives Here is more or less emblazoned on the walls.

  BBC4 trundles round to the next show. The last one only finished a minute ago, and I've already forgotten about it. I don't even know what I was watching. It was just on, right there, in front of me. I have no idea what it was called.

  'Now on Four,' says the faceless man on the television, over the BBC4 graphic, 'Dr Lesley Brothers travels to Israel to continue her examination of the Book of Daniel. With scenes of a graphic nature, that are liable to be upsetting to you in particular, Sergeant Hutton...'

  The show starts.

  What?

  He never said that. He didn't. He couldn't have done.

  Dr Brothers is saying something, standing in the middle of a Middle Eastern desert, but I can't hear what she's saying. The guy on the TV, he didn't just mention my name.

  Is that a thing? Are they doing that now? They know who's watching and can tailor everything so that it's viewer-specific?

  God, my head's swimming. Shut up! Shut up, Dr Lesley Brothers! Jesus!

  I hit the remote, pressing buttons to turn it off. Keep hitting the wrong one. The volume turns up. What? What? Go away, for fuck's sake. Fucking television.

  Just stop!

  The remote control is a blur. I could get off my stupid arse and turn the set off, but do I even know where the button for that is? I never turn it off at the set.

  Must be one of these buttons on here. Crap, come on. The channel changes. What? More noise? What?

  There are images flashing by, images of a great beast, a beast with ten horns, crashing and breaking and destroying, images in black and white. The voice is talking, another voice. Not Dr Lesley Brothers. Someone else. Someone like her, lecturing us. Lecturing the viewer. Lecturing me. Telling me about Daniel.

  Daniel. Why do I want to know about Daniel? Fucking Daniel!