DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  The two porcelain figures are on a doily, on a small, round-topped table, built specifically at great expense to hold porcelain figures of people doing shit. As this investigation continues, we turn more and more into Miss Marple. I'll be sitting in front of the TV one night, channel surfing aimlessly, then I'll stumble across ITV3, and there we'll be, me and Taylor, investigating the middle classes killing each other. Taylor & Hutton, the show'll be called. Or maybe just Taylor, and I'll be relegated to incidental sidekick.

  'Foxtrot?' says Taylor, coming to stand at the window and glancing down at the happy couple, forever frozen in fully-clothed near-concupiscence.

  'Fucked if I know. I thought it was a tango.'

  'When d'you do that move in a tango?' he asks scornfully.

  'During the boring bits? I don't know, do I?'

  We stop looking at the stupid Lladro and stare out the window. Grey morning. A red car drives by, slowing down, looking at the latest tragic household in the community. It drives on, and once again there's silence from outside.

  Autumn leaves sparse in the trees, thick on the ground. The threat of November rain. The kind of day that would be melancholy on any street, and not just when one of the residents has been murdered.

  'How d'you know the husband didn't set it up?'

  'Neighbour heard the gunshot when the guy was still outside. The killer was obviously rushed, didn't have time to try to muffle the shot as well as he would've liked.'

  'Could've been working together, and it's all part of the setup to make us think the husband has nothing to do with it.'

  He shrugs.

  'Could've been, but I don't think so.'

  'Anything to suggest he was going to try to fake a suicide, other than what went on with the previous two?'

  'Looks like she was drugged, same stuff as the others. Then he's caught in the act, maybe as he's positioning her fingers on the gun or something, and he panics, knows that the wife is going to be able to identify him, so he pops the bullet in her chops. Takes the gun with him, as there was no point in letting it look like a suicide attempt.'

  'What the fuck is he doing?'

  'How d'you mean?'

  'Drugging them all with the same stuff. Why on earth go to pains to make it look like three people committed suicide, but use this very obvious link?'

  'Maybe he's an idiot.'

  'But... it's not even like he'd have to be watching CS-fucking-I, is it? He must know that the police could have worked that shit out fifty years ago, never mind now.'

  'That's where we're at, Sergeant,' he says. 'Lots of questions, no answers. And that's not to mention the damned turkey feather.'

  I give him a look. I'd been wondering when the part about four heads and four wings was going to come into play.

  'Just the one?'

  'The one what?' he says. Distracted.

  'Just the one turkey feather?'

  'Yes, just the one turkey feather.'

  'That biblical corollary we were looking for, the connection... Daniel 7, four beasts. First one has wings, which then come off, the second has three ribs in its mouth, the third has four wings of a fowl. The guy must have legged it with the wings, maybe intent on using them again.'

  He's looking at me like it's me who's the mad person. I'm not the freak doing all the biblical shit.

  'Right,' he says. 'Tell me about it when we get back to the station. Show me the damned book.'

  'Will do.'

  We stand, like two old women at a sea wall waiting for the first sight of the fishing fleet, staring out at the slow, grey morning.

  'What d'you think we'd be called?' I say.

  'What?'

  'If we were a TV show.'

  'Fuck's sake, Hutton,' he says, and turns away from the window.

  25

  Mrs Agnes Christie. The latest victim. The latest life to trawl through.

  To which church did she belong? What kind of relationships did she have with the other parishioners? What part, if any, did she have to play in the great south of Glasgow Granny Porn ring?

  Yes, all right, we're not really thinking about there being such a ring.

  I think I might have slept with a woman called Agnes once, although I'm not entirely sure, and I used to have an Aunt Agnes, but nowadays every time I come across the name, I just hear Billy Connolly doing his two lions sketch.

  'Agnes!'

  It used to make me laugh. Don't laugh much any more, at least, not so that the laugh isn't verging on the psychotic.

  Taylor had interviewed the husband, and the eldest two children. I get the third child, just arrived from the south of England. Jane Christie, unmarried, early thirties. A doctor working at the RUH in Bath.

  I'd been dreading speaking to her, as I dread speaking to any bereaved relative, until I heard what she did for a living. I like doctors. They spend their days dealing with misery and death, pain, suffering and bereavement. By the time they're thirty they're already hardened against this shit. Hardened and practical. Less likely to burst into tears, which is a massive bonus.

  Of course, there's also that thing we see more and more where the level of emotion displayed is directly proportional to the amount of reality TV the person watches. Someone who lives on a diet of Jeremy Kyle and X-Factor and The Only Way Is Brigafuckingdoon and all that shit, those people have come to see crying as the norm. Crying is what you do, it's the learned and correct emotional response. Letting people see how badly you're affected by X dying or by Y shagging your best mate's mum. However, the level of society that hasn't been assimilated into that world of cheap TV is far more likely to react to death/suffering/heartache in the old-fashioned, stiff-upper-lipped way of their forefathers.

  Doctors, like police officers, don't watch Jeremy Kyle and X-Factor. Don't have the time. Not to mention that we spend our lives dealing with real life crap, so why would we want to watch more of it on TV?

  'When was the last time you saw your mum?'

  Sitting in the café across the road. The only room available at the station was one of those where we interrogate the prisoners. Didn't want to take her in there. Don't want the civilians to see the manacles. And, of course, there's too much blood on the walls. Yep, stick that up your arse, Shami Chakrabarti.

  She's clinging on to her Americano with milk. You know, I'm not saying she's a doctor, so she like, doesn't give a shit that her mum's dead. The woman's working to keep it together. It's just, there's more chance of her being successful at that; there's more steel behind the eyes.

  'A few months. Things have been pretty busy at work... but, you know, not that that mattered. We saw each other a couple of times a year. Was due up at Christmas...'

  She looks off to the side. Being skilled in the art of getting women to talk – while sadly not so skilled in the more important art of getting women to shut up – I leave her to the silence, knowing that she'll fill the space.

  'She loved it when I came up to visit and didn't make any other plans. A long weekend at home. She'd fuss over me, like I was a kid again. It was... you know, on the one hand it's a bit shit when your parents refuse to acknowledge that you're not thirteen anymore and can make an actual decision for yourself without destroying all of humanity, but every now and again...'

  Her words drift away, hand to the face, then she reels it in and takes another drink of coffee.

  'Did she ever talk to you about the church?'

  She laughs. A nice laugh, and thankfully not one of those that precedes bursting hysterically into tears. Takes another drink of coffee, then shakes her head.

  'The poor bastard.'

  Can't help smiling. Somehow realise she's not talking about her mum.

  'Who?'

  'God. Mum'll be up there now, bending his ear about the church. And why did you let that happen? And what about this? And the next thing...'

  I smile with her. The smile slowly goes from her face, but is not replaced by sadness. A physician's practicality, that's what I see.
r />   'All the time. That was all she talked about.'

  'She went to the Old Parish before the amalga—'

  'Oh, no. She went to Halfway. Ever since it was mooted, I mean, way back, five, six years ago, when people first started talking about it being a possibility, she was all over it. She was wild, angry at the very thought, and then determined. She was so cross that there wasn't the same level of fight amongst the other elders.'

  'And she was still fighting?'

  'God, yes. She went to St Mungo's, but she hated it. She was still in court trying to overturn the sale of Halfway, even though... I don't know how far it's gone, but the new owners have already started the conversion.'

  'Did she know Maureen Henderson?' I ask.

  She looks vacant.

  'Don't know the name. Was she an elder?'

  'No, doesn't matter.' Shake my head, retract the carelessly tossed hand with which I'd dismissed the question. 'She was one of those who died last week.'

  'Of course,' she says. 'Sorry, of course I knew the name. Just wasn't thinking. She wasn't an elder, though?'

  'No, and she was originally from the Old Kirk. She was just another one with plenty to say.'

  'Mum never mentioned her.'

  Seems weird, but backed up by the fact that we found no correspondence with Agnes Christie amongst Maureen's paperwork. These two women, now attending the same church and both utterly determined that their original church should not go under, probably never had anything to do with each other.

  Shouldn't jump to conclusions, plenty yet to be uncovered.

  'What was the problem with the other elders?'

  'Not sure, really. You'd need to speak to Dad. He got a lot more of it than I did. Ultimately, for whatever reason, they weren't up for the fight. They seemed to rely on everything working out all right in the end...'

  'Because that's what usually happens.'

  'Exactly. Mum was all for, you know, she thought they should set up a war room.'

  'Nice.'

  A war room, eh? She would have had a natural ally in Paul Cartwright. If only they hadn't been on opposite sides of the fight.

  'Great expression, but she had a point. A small committee that right from the off would identify the strengths and weaknesses of the four churches. Address our weakness, and exploit theirs, use our strengths and try to take theirs out of the game.'

  'Good strategy.'

  'It was, but she couldn't do it herself. She also said, right from the off, that we had the money in the bank, and we should use it before it got swallowed up. We ought to spend it before things went too far. Go over the buildings and halls with a toothcomb, find every single thing that could be used against us, and correct it before the process really got going.'

  I like the way she says 'we' and 'us', although it can't be often that she ever went to the church.

  'Makes sense,' I say. Funny how many times we've heard this kind of talk in the past week.

  'She couldn't get the support for it. God, she was so mad. So she talked to us about it. We got all the arguments, all the rage, all the bitterness when ultimately the vote went against us.'

  And now she's dead, taking the bitterness with her.

  'Had that lessened over time?'

  'God, no. She was a broken record. I don't honestly think she ever imagined we'd get Halfway back permanently, but she had it in for the current building and all those wankers that run the show. God, sorry. Shouldn't use that language.'

  'I'm a police officer,' I say.

  She laughs. Dan fucking Brown would probably have called it a chuckle.

  'You want another coffee,' I say. 'I think we've still got some talking to do.'

  'Sure.'

  THAT EVENING I HAVE sex with the doctor. Ethically questionable, but that's just how it is. This is the kind of thing that happens.

  Her dad is staying with the elder sister, husband and three kids. No more space, other than the sofa, so she booked into a hotel. The Premier Inn over by the site of the old Glasgow Zoo.

  She spent a little time with them, dinner and what not, but couldn't stand to go through the entire maudlin evening. Excused herself. Stepped out of the family home, got into her hire car and thought, shit, the rest of the night alone sitting in my room at the Premier Inn when my mum just died? No!

  She had my card. She called me. Didn't want to inflict herself on any old friends of the family in town, as it would have been an evening of melancholic remembrance, which she didn't need. Needed someone she could talk to without having to talk about her mother being murdered.

  She called. I was still at the station. Morrow sitting across the desk. Just after eight. I was flicking through Daniel, wondering how long it was going to take me to pick up the phone to call Philo Stewart for expert interpretation of the book, with no reason why I should still have been at work, other than the fact that I hated the idea of going home alone.

  The doctor asked me out for a drink. I met her five minutes later. We had two vodka tonics each, then it was back to the Premier Inn.

  It was strange. I didn't actually want to have sex with her. I felt, almost, that I was just going along with it. Something to do. Something that was expected.

  She was fit, mind. Much bigger breasts than you'd expect from someone of her slim build, though it took a while for me to get that far. She took charge, undressed me, threw me back on the bed.

  Her mouth was straight over my cock. God, she was good. Painful at times, but that fucking great pain that you get. Hands all over, fingers squeezing my balls just that little bit too tightly. Tongue and lips massaging my erection, over and over, her long brown hair caressing my stomach and thighs. I wanted to see her naked, but if you're going to have to wait for that, it'd be tough to think of anything better to be doing.

  Usually I'm too impatient to lie there for long, but she wasn't letting me up, so I gave into it. She said one thing. Looked up at one point as her lips were hovering above the end of my erection, a trail of saliva and pre-cum between us, and said, 'I love cock.'

  Lost track of time. Didn't lie back with my eyes closed; watched her at work. She loved cock all right. I imagined she'd be happy to have more than one at a time. She kept drawing her mouth away, the juice on her lips, spitting down on my cock, and then swallowing me again.

  Eventually, at a time of her choosing and completely unrelated to how I might have been feeling, she sat up, removed her jeans and underwear, knelt over me and lowered herself onto my desperate erection. She was soaking and I rammed easily inside her; we gasped together.

  As she fucked me, she unbuttoned the top of her blouse and brought it up and over her shoulders, undid her bra and tossed it aside, and then leaned back, her arms to the sides, her face in rapture, putting her breasts on display for me.

  I held her waist and drove my cock into her as hard as I could, all the time my eyes on the movement of her breasts as she fucked me, squeezing her pussy on my cock in time with the rhythm of my movements, and then finally I couldn't wait any longer, and I broke the rhythm so that I could lean up and take her breasts in my hands, caressing them and squeezing them, before taking them in my mouth and sucking forcefully on her erect nipples.

  And so it went on. Like I said, this is the kind of thing that happens in life – we both had our reasons – but I was aware that I never committed myself to it in quite the way that I usually do.

  Now it's 6 a.m. and the alarm has just gone off. The thought goes through my head that she's still here, in my bed, then I wake up a little more and realise that I'm in her bed.

  There will be no nonsense when I go. No when-will-I-see-you-again. She stirred at the alarm, touched my arm briefly, probably just checking I was still here, and then turned her back. Thank God there was no arm draped across the chest, no head snuggled into the crook of my arm. She knows the score. We're all adults here.

  Can't hear her breathe. It's as if she's not here. At any rate, I don't have to make any decisions around her.
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br />   The cars are picking up outside. I close my eyes and listen to the first birds of the morning.

  26

  We're back in Connor's room. He's standing at the window, hands in pockets, looking down on a bright November morning.

  A good one today. Crisp, fresh autumn. Pale blue sky, a few clouds to the west. Kicked some leaves walking into work this morning. Didn't quite jump up and click my heels in the same movement, but there was something of the Gene Kelly about me.

  The morning after the decent sex the night before, aided and abetted by the fact that when I left she said goodbye, kissed me on the cheek, and that was that. No expectation, no exchange of numbers. Perfect.

  I shouldn't be complacent, because there's a bunny boiler around every corner – if nothing else, Hollywood has taught us that – but it felt right.

  Thinking about it, I'm not sure that Hollywood has taught us anything other than that. Still, it's important enough a warning to us all to justify a gazillion dollars and one hundred years of movie making.

  We're waiting for him. Been in here five minutes so far, maybe. Five minutes sitting in silence. I could sit here all day. It's like authorised skiving. Would have been nicer if he'd served coffee and doughnuts while we waited for him to pronounce, but you can't have everything.

  Taylor is checking his watch. Taylor has work to do. He doesn't get sitting in contemplative silence the way I do. You know, the new me, the new sitting-in-contemplative-silence bloke that I've become.

  'It's hard to even know where to begin,' says the voice from the window without turning round.

  Taylor glances at his watch again, then at me. He's thinking that'd it'd be best to begin with investigating the deaths, not sitting around waiting to have a discussion about it. He's waited more than a week, and he's waited nearly two days since Agnes Christie was killed. Doing what he can, but with his superintendent unwilling to face the facts.

  'The Church of Scotland community in this town...' continues Connor, then he shakes his head and the sentence slides away into nothingness. He turns and looks at Taylor. As usual, I've been requested to be in the room, but I may as well not be.