BACK INTO THE OFFICE. Dorritt peels off. Taylor walks towards his office, me behind, and he indicates for Morrow to join us as we enter.
‘I don’t even want to talk about that,’ he says, not looking at me, as he sits down. ‘Any of it.’
He glances at his computer, without taking anything in, then indicates for Morrow to close the door. We wait, as Taylor places his hands on the desk, composes himself. I don’t think he’s trying to work out what to say. Just getting the ill feeling of sitting with Connor out of his head.
‘Right, we’ve got a murder to solve, and we need to get somewhere today. I’ve had enough of this shit. ‘Cause this... whatever we see, whatever any one of us thinks, when it comes down to it, it was a young girl getting hit by a train. And as time passes, and we don’t find this guy, it’s just another bullet in the ammunition of all those fuckers out there who think we don’t do a decent job. And at some point there’ll be an inquest, and we’ll be standing up there saying we couldn’t work it out. We had the guy caught on camera and we knew nothing.’
He says all this while staring straight ahead. Finally lifts his eyes, moves from me to Morrow and back.
‘What have you got?’
‘I think it’s random,’ says Morrow, straight off. I give him a glance.
‘Why?’ asks Taylor.
‘She was popular,’ he begins. ‘I mean, more than usual. She was a Californian amongst a bunch of pasty, white Scottish kids. She brought a bit of Hollywood. She had the looks, the accent, everyone liked her. And she wasn’t stupid, they liked that as well. She’d slept with a couple of the boys, a few of them had a thing for her, but it was nothing serious. No one had any expectation. If there were any of them with a secret desire for her, someone who maybe knew about her and Dr Ferguson, then it was a damned good secret. The classes she was in were fairly small, they all seemed like a decent bunch of well-adjusted kids. The tutors, not just Ferguson, are all very positive about the students. The ones I’ve spoken to, at any rate.’
I nod in agreement.
‘We’ve been all through her social media,’ Morrow continues. ‘There’s nothing. She was bright, attractive, popular, and did what she said on the tin. She’s your classic untimely death, front page of the newspaper, popular kid, why did she have to die?’
That should have been yesterday’s newspapers, except Cambuslang isn’t quite on the national radar. Maybe today they might have caught up, but then there’s a double beheading and an outbreak of religious and racial disharmony to talk about.
‘I really don’t think somebody murdered her for who she was. She just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, the right place at the right time, if you’re the guy in the beanie.’
Taylor accepts all of that, then turns to me.
‘The CCTV footage from the half-hour prior to the killing shows our man loitering at the station. He passes up two trains. Now, it could be he was waiting specifically for her, but it was a very precise set of circumstances he needed. The victim had to be standing close to the edge, she had to be distracted so as not to be too concerned about the train and not notice the guy hanging around just behind her, and it probably helped there weren’t too many witnesses around. With the other two trains that passed through the station without stopping in the previous half hour, there was no one especially close to the platform edge. As a way to kill a specific person, it’s not especially effective. What if they don’t go anywhere near the platform edge? What are you going to do? Drag her kicking and screaming, and then look at everyone else and say, she jumped!’
‘So you agree?’
‘Yes. Definitely a random killing. Look, there’s the possibility the seeming randomness comes from Ferguson, or someone, paying for this to be done to her, but I don’t buy it. Really don’t. This isn’t about the girl, it’s about the guy in the beanie.’
‘So you think there’s no point in pursuing any further inquiries at the University?’
Give myself a second to think.
‘I don’t want to say there’s no point. But I think the things we started to find out, like Ferguson getting her pregnant... we shouldn’t let them go, but I don’t think that’s our focus. This is a random guy, killing out of badness.’
‘And pre-planning it,’ says Taylor, ‘as indicated by the disguise.’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm, all right, that seems reasonable. Not good for us, not good for the possibility of getting a result, but reasonable. What next?’
‘I’d like to broaden the CCTV search,’ I say. ‘Rope in film from every camera in the area, see if there’s any further sign of him. From shops, cafés. Just the immediate aftermath...’
‘We looked at a lot of it already,’ says Morrow.
‘I know. But this is it, this minute, the guy in a beanie. Ten minutes later, five minutes, whatever, he wasn’t a guy in a beanie anymore. If we’re going to get sight of him, it’s then. We need to be looking at people and thinking, could it be him? Could this person be the beanie guy, two minutes after he’d taken the hat and coat off? Same trousers, perhaps, same build maybe. Anything. And we need to get the image of him from the CCTV out there. I know there’s no face, but we’ve got to do it.’
‘We already issued it,’ says Taylor.
‘And no one’s paid any attention. We need to get them to pay attention. It’s like Morrow said, she was American, she was smart, she was front page of the newspapers attractive. Let’s get her on the front page of the newspapers, get people talking about her and interested in her. Let’s get them interested in this random guy, who just chose a girl out of badness and pushed her in front of a fucking train.’
Taylor scratches his chin. Coming out of his funk, the funk that talking to Connor inevitably puts him in. Coming up for the air of a genuine investigation, some serious police work to get stuck in to.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Let’s spend the day in this direction. We’ll leave the University be for now, at least. We’ll not say anything to anyone about that, of course. If any of them are stewing, we’ll let them stew. Dr Ferguson can stew. Haven’t heard from Balingol, whether he’s confirmed Ferguson as the father of the baby, but I don’t suppose it matters. Still, we won’t lose sight of it.’
He stares again at his desk, cheeks puffed out, the universal sign of a man in deep contemplation, and then indicates the door.
‘Go to it. You don’t need to bring every suggestion to me, just work on what you think is best. If you need me to authorize anything in particular, I’ll be here.’
We turn, Morrow opens the door.
‘And Sergeant, concentrate on this. I know you must be desperate to get your task force up and running, but not today.’
Decent gag, although Taylor’s face does not crack, and then we’re out the door.
Back to the desks, sit down. Morrow’s looking at me, questioning the task force remark.
‘Above your pay grade,’ I say, laughing.
He keeps the bugger off to himself and then starts moving paperwork around. We’ll need to divvy up, get into the sit. room and get the others on board with what we’re doing.
Move the mouse to bring the monitor back up, quick check of e-mails.
And there it is, right there. The thing to stop the morning in its tracks.
I can feel my stomach curling in on itself. Throat dry. It’s not fear. It’s not even dread. Just... it’s just this. This shit. All this fucking shit.
I open the e-mail, but it’s only got one line, the line I could see in my inbox, then I forward it to Taylor, get up, indicate for Morrow to follow me, and back into the boss’s office.
14
The sender’s e-mail address shows as: [email protected]
There is no title in the e-mail.
The single line reads: Have you worked it out yet?
Taylor has the e-mail open already as we walk into the office. I stand back from his desk, let Morrow lean forward and look at it.
‘That’s from the university, right?’ he says.
‘Yep.’
‘Fuck it,’ says Taylor. ‘I expect it’s a pointless exercise, but just send a reply, a blank reply, from your account, Tom, see what happens. I presume...’
He lets the sentence go. I pass the instruction down the line, indicating for Morrow to go and do it. He turns, walks quickly from the room.
‘Fuck, we had a plan, thirty fucking seconds ago,’ says Taylor.
Swearing an awful lot these days. Very poor.
Taking it in turns, as one so often does in a partnership, I immediately have to be the positive one, to pick the investigation back up again, even though I walked in here with my stomach in my mouth under the crushing weight of pessimism.
‘It’s easily looked into,’ I say. ‘I’ll get in there, establish who runs their tech, speak to them, see how it could have happened. It could be anything. Remote computer genius, right down to some first year kid just putting a week one lesson into action and pulling our chain.’
‘Yes, but unless it’s the latter, it ties this thing to the university, which means it’s quite possibly what we’d just decided it’s not. i.e. they were targeting Tandy Kramer herself.’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think this alters the arguments we’ve just been making.’
I’m saying it. I really don’t think it.
Footsteps, Morrow back in the room.
‘Got the Mailer Daemon straight back,’ he says.
‘Fuck,’ says Taylor.
‘Right,’ I say, taking a much tighter grip on the thing than I feel like I have, ‘I’m going in there to speak to their IT. Rob, you just keep doing what we were going to be doing. If I’m not back by the time you’re ready to move ahead, get some of the others in and get on with it.’
‘Yep,’ he says, and he’s gone again.
Look at Taylor, shrug, not much else to say. Well, at least, I don’t.
‘It was sent to you, Tom,’ he says. ‘They know you’re investigating Tandy Kramer. Who knows that? You’ve not been on TV, you’ve not been high profile...’
‘I’ve been at the university, spoken to a lot of people,’ I say.
He nods, turns away.
‘Fuck,’ he mutters again. ‘Just be careful. You’ve had enough shit in the past couple of years.’
I wait for him to turn back, but he doesn’t, so out the door, give Morrow a quick thumbs up and then off down the stairs, back out into the world.
‘I’M NOT SURE.’
In a small office with a woman in her late forties. She’s squeezed into an emerald green top, showing every middle-aged bump and lump and bulge. Tell you what, it’s unbelievably sexy.
I mean, I don’t know where my head is, do I? I’m fucked up. I own my fucked-uppery. I’ve given into it, enabling myself. I allow it to excuse everything. Weirdly, since the time of Philo, it’s not had to excuse much. I drink every night, but rarely get drunk. Sure, I’m regularly late for work, but it’s the lack of sleep that’s getting me rather than the alcohol. Haven’t had sex, at all, which means, more to the point, I haven’t had sex with anyone I deeply regret having had sex with. And let’s face it, I usually exist in a permanent state of what the fuck were you thinking?
I know. The feeling’s more than likely mutual.
Yet, I’m sitting side on to this woman, no desk between us. She’s attractive, a large woman, great breasts, legs crossed, skirt just above knee-length, long dark hair, and I want to sweep all the crap and paperwork off the desk and bang her right here.
Seriously, where has that come from?
Ah, yes, of course. I’m fucked up. I have the wastrel’s excuse. I don’t have to feel bad about myself.
‘You don’t know?’
She sighs.
‘I expect it’s the same with you. Cuts, cuts, cuts. I was working in the accounts section. Been there for fifteen years, then they move me here.’
Lovely soft accent. Highlands somewhere, I reckon.
‘But someone must oversee the e-mail system?’
She smiles. Great lips.
Focus!
‘Off-site.’
‘Off-site? Is it in Scotland?’
‘No. Sorry, you didn’t have to come in here, although I’m glad you did. Could have saved yourself the trouble with a phone call. Everything’s run out of California somewhere. When we’re talking about it, we always call it Silicon Valley, but I don’t know if it actually is. We just call it that. Office joke. Could be in Los Angeles for all I know.’
‘Do you have a contact there?’
‘Yes, of course. Do you want me to speak to him, or would you –’
‘It’d be best if you could just give me his number.’
Check the clock. California, eight hours behind, do the quick calculation.
‘Probably won’t be in work yet, anyway. Yes, just give me the number, I’ll call him later. A couple of contacts, in fact, just in case.’
‘Of course.’
She reaches over the desk, lifts a business card from a small holder. My eyes get stuck on her breasts, the stretching of the tight green top, as she moves. When I look back at her face, she’s already looking at me.
Jesus, I need to get a grip. By the age of forty-seven one really ought to have mastered the skill of staring at a woman’s breasts without her noticing. Or, more to the point, have stopped staring at women’s breasts altogether.
Yeah, I know, it’ll never happen.
‘Sorry.’
She looks at me in a superior manner – and it is one of the ways in which women hold immense superiority over us – but accompanies the look with a straightening of the shoulders.
‘This is my card, in case you need to get in touch again. I’ll write the American numbers on the back.’
I watch her, leaning on the desk, copying numbers slowly from a sheet. Wedding ring. A bonus. Always better when they’re married.
‘What do you do all day?’ I ask. ‘I mean, if you’re in technical support and the technical stuff is staffed out?’
She smiles, glances over at me, catches me looking at her breasts again. She raises her eyes, but she’s still smiling.
‘Are you going to stop that?’ she says.
Manage to look slightly abashed. Just slightly.
‘Maybe if I just got them out, you could have a good look and we’d be done with it.’
I have some glib comment to say to that, but it’d only get in the way. No words required.
She smiles again, there’s a small movement of her eyebrows.
‘AND THEN I FUCKED HER on her desk.’
Eating pizza, eight in the evening, still in the office, with Eileen Harrison. She laughs.
We’re sharing a 14” funghi with extra cheese. Eileen likes extra cheese, like there’s never enough cheese on a pizza.
‘You are unbelievable,’ she says. ‘I mean, seriously, did you make that story up when you were fifteen?’
‘Look, it happened. These things just happen.’
‘It happened this afternoon?’
‘Yes.’
‘You had sex on a desk with a large-breasted witness in the middle of a murder inquiry?’
‘I think witness is a stretch. She was someone I just happened to be speaking to.’
She looks around. There’s no one within earshot anyway. I had already checked. It wasn’t as though it lasted very long, but even so, I don’t want Taylor getting to hear about it, the mood he’s in. And Eileen’s right. I do feel like a naughty teenager, worried about getting caught with his pants down.
‘OK, details,’ she says.
‘I gave you the details.’
‘You gave me a little of the set up, which quickly jumped from the two of you chatting happily about you being a pervert, to the two of you fucking on the desk! Those weren’t details.’
‘How many details do you want?’
‘Remember when, a few weeks ago, I told you about me a
nd the fitness instructor at the gym, late evening, everyone else gone home?’
What a great story.
‘That kind of detail.’
Take my last bite of pizza. Need to be getting back to the grind.
‘And don’t give me the, I’ve finished, sorry, need to get on with it crap.’
‘I have and I do,’ I say, looking up, with what I’m afraid can only be described as a mischievous look on my face. ‘Have to admit, there was a moment after she’d removed my trousers when I thought maybe she was going to avenge my staring by taking a photo and sticking it on Instagram, but no...’ Close my eyes for a second. Shake my head, open my eyes again, look at Eileen. She’s smiling. ‘Wicked tongue on her.’
‘Always a bonus.’
‘And then...,’ I begin, but really, I don’t want to get into this now. Middle of a murder enquiry, bad enough doing what I did, just ridiculous getting turned on again in the office. ‘Well, you’ll just have to wait for the details, my old friend. Need to get on.’
She rolls her eyes.
‘Charlatan,’ she says, still smiling, as I get up and start walking away.
‘Thanks for the pizza.’
‘Leave me.’
A casually waved hand, and I’m across the office and back at my desk. Sit down, bring the e-mail in-box back up. Constantly checking for anything new. Of course, it could come from anywhere.
Look back at the short report I’m writing up for Taylor. The feeling of unease, that I have lurched back into my old ways, that I have been stupid and immature, a feeling I haven’t had in months, suddenly comes sweeping over me, and I feel useless again.
Sex on a desk with a stranger. Giggling about it over pizza with my mate. Grow the fuck up, man!
And I force myself to think about California, and an e-mail coming from there, coupled with the fact that was where Tandy Kramer had lived, and that was where Mr Kramer arrived from this morning, and that maybe, rather than spending twenty minutes fucking whatever-her-name-was in the emerald top, I really ought to have been shooting back here to say to Taylor, Hey there’s this, and it might just mean something.
DS Hutton Box Set Page 84
