A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller

by Douglas Lindsay

  No one says anything, which is probably because we're all trying to work out what the fuck he's talking about. The footage was obviously taken by the killer while the victims died. It was never, at any stage, in the hands of the police. It wasn't police footage. Why even make that threat? Why even mention it?

  That's how small a man he is. Needs to make up potential offences, just so that he can make up threats, just so that everyone can know he's a strong leader.

  He has nothing else to add. He looks menacingly around the room, letting everyone know who's boss, and then walks quickly away, giving Taylor a filthy glance as he goes. Slams the door behind him.

  What a complete arsehole. Really.

  Taylor steps back to the head of the room and looks around us all. He probably wants to say something to show solidarity, to let us know that we're all in it together, not just against the killer. But against that level of stupidity from higher up, it would be unprofessional. So he does the sensible thing and acts as though the last minute and a half never happened.

  'We're needing to check on all missing persons in the last couple of weeks. In particular we're interested in police, media, social services, but let's check every missing person that's out of the ordinary .'

  He talks on for a while longer, divvying up the various tasks that have to be taken care of. Suddenly this has gone national – global – and there's going to be all sorts of shit hitting all sorts of fans. A lot of the work of the next few hours will be liaison with other authorities, as we try to get as much of the Plague of Crows stuff taken off the internet. The chances of getting it all removed seem incredibly slim.

  Taylor, at least, looks keen to rise to the challenge. Finally, after three months, there's something to do on this case, other than stare at the ceiling and think.

  *

  Sitting in his office twenty minutes later. He called me in for a quick chat, before I go and spend the next however long it takes searching through as much of the various online footage of the murders as I can find. There's a lot of it out there, on many different sites, although most of it is replicated.

  'We don't have much time, Sergeant,' he says, 'so glean as much as you can, as quickly as you can.'

  'You reckon the guy's already lined up his next victims?'

  I'm dying to go out for a fag. We used to smoke in here quite happily, until Connor arrived. I don't think anyone's risked having a fag indoors since the minute he walked into the building. That first morning he stopped as soon as he walked into the office. He smelled the air, looked around the room. 'There's a no smoking policy in the building, I take it?' he asked. Someone nodded. 'Good,' he said.

  That was all it took. None of us have smoked inside since, although all of us immediately thought, wanker…

  'Well, yes, I do, but it's not that. We're not getting left with this much longer.'

  'How d'you mean?'

  He waves a dismissive hand out at the station.

  'The shit's hitting the fan, Sergeant. This isn't just a national story. It'll be global. It'll be on the news in … I don't know…everywhere. America, Brazil, fucking Vietnam… You think they're going to be happy about a no-name DCI from the arse end of Glasgow being in charge of a crime investigation that'll be in the New York Times?'

  'You think Connor will take over?'

  'Connor? No way. He was sent here to be a school teacher. To impose discipline on you lot.'

  'And you,' I throw in quickly, but we're not really in the place for any light banter.

  'He's an authoritarian, pen-pushing arsehole, as we just witnessed first hand. He's not getting to investigate anything, and neither will he want to. He's the kind that'll only take on what he's confident he'll succeed at.'

  'So, who d'you think?'

  'I think they'll bring someone in from outside.'

  'Fuck.'

  'Yeah, fuck,' he says.

  He rubs his hands over his face, but he's not tired, he's not stressed. He's in a good place these days. Determined, if nothing else.

  'So, we need to get somewhere before they breeze in and take it off us. Best case scenario is that they leave us working on it too, under some sort of umbrella operation. It'd be stupid not to. But the new guy might want us to have nothing to do with it. It's not like we can claim any sort of resounding success the last few months.'

  Nod. Move to the door. 'Right, I'll crack on.'

  'Frame by frame. Flag up the slightest thing, no matter how trivial.'

  And I'm out the door.

  Almost bump into DI Gostkowski as I step back into the office. She hasn't mellowed towards me over the last three months. The only real change in our working relationship is that, as so often happens with me, familiarity has bred attraction, and I've decided that actually she's pretty fit. A few warm summer days with her jacket off and the top buttons of her blouse undone.

  She's still too much of a grown-up, and unlikely to touch me with a stick, but what the hell. I can dream.

  'Detective Inspector,' I say, with a polite nod.

  'Sergeant,' she says back.

  Then I smile. Always good to hit them with a smile. You know, it doesn't cost anything. It's polite, it's friendly. She, on the other hand, heads off without a second glance. Work to do. Only the immature are going to bother with the slightest flirtatious smile at a time like this.

  Well, there you have it. Time to address the issues at hand, not to be thinking about the endless search for the Holy Grail of convenient, fun and low maintenance office sex.

  Mind on the job.

  *

  Some time later. Called back in to Taylor's office. Me and the boss and a constable from Strathclyde HQ in Pitt Street who's an expert in computer hackery and the like. Detective Constable MacGregor. Looks about twelve. Knows shit about computers, the way I know shit about types of fags and Bob Dylan. His thing is probably more useful than mine.

  'You're not holding your breath, Sir, right?' he says.

  Taylor shakes his head. 'Can we just try and trace this guy somewhere, even if it's to a cafe or a wi-fi network or something?'

  'Not looking good,' he says.

  'Fuck,' mutters Taylor, then he gives a small dismissive wave to indicate that the constable should continue. 'Talk me through it like I'm an idiot,' he adds.

  'Yeah, me too,' I throw in from behind, which is mostly to let Taylor know that he shouldn't switch off on the basis that I'm going to be understanding what MacGregor's talking about.

  'So, your dude's done everything through this e-mail account, PlagueOfCrows@freemail.jp. Now, you can only get a dot-jp e-mail address if you're in Japan. Or rather if your computer is in Japan. Or, and this is the thing, if your computer seems to be in Japan. So either he's now in Japan, which isn't completely impossible, as the crimes were three months ago and he could have, like, walked there by now, or he's sitting in Scotland somewhere and he used a proxy server… You know what a proxy server is?'

  Well, do ya, punk? Taylor shakes his head, although it's not like he won't have some idea, because the clue's in the title. Our new friend the geek is trying to be dramatic and we're letting him.

  'The proxy server is the thing that means we're fucked. Sure, we can get warrants and shit to track down the ISP and IP and the like, but if he created it while sitting in Starbucks, you're screwed. And if he created it while sitting in a library, then you're double screwed, with marshmallows and extra cream.'

  'Just…' says Taylor, 'you know, just get to the good news.'

  He laughs. 'You're kidding, right? This isn't a good news, bad news situation. You're probably thinking that we can get him when he uploads shit to Facebook, but you know, I can tell you now we're going to find the dude used a proxy server for that too. It's totally boss…'

  'Is it?'

  'Yep. Totally. He uses a proxy to upload shit and then it looks like he's been posting from Tokyo, from you know, like Fukushimi, some shit like that, and you're just like, wow, what the fuck?'

  'We ca
n force the proxy server to give up the info, though?' I throw in from the cheap seats.

  He laughs again.

  'No can do, compadre. You can't force the proxy dudes to do shit.'

  No can do, compadre. Please…

  'Listen, Sir, I'm not saying that I'm not going to try.'

  'Good,' says Taylor with a bit of tone.

  'I'm just letting you know that I doubt we're going to get anywhere. There are people who do this kind of shit, they have no idea of how easy it is for us to track 'em down. But this dude, he knows what he's doing. I'm about to spend the next several weeks on this, and I'm already pretty sure that every alleyway he leads me down is going to have a brick wall at the end. It's like, you know, there could be metadata and shit included in the film and JPEGs that he's uploaded, we often times catch out folks with that shit. Just got a feeling, though. Just got a feeling. This guy knows what he's doing. He's boss, man. I'm telling you, totally boss.'

  Totally boss… Bloody hell.

  9

  Jesus, this sucks all kinds of shit, it really does. Sitting in an office at eleven-thirty in the evening watching video footage of three people getting their brains eaten out. Again. I'm watching it again. Not counting how often I've seen it now. Just keep playing it over and over. I want something to take to Taylor. He got me my job back, making sure I wasn't kicked into touch, for a reason. He finds me useful to work with.

  Right at the moment, I'm not being very useful. The Plague of Crows might well have been everywhere on the internet, but it was the same shit all over. A lot of it's gone now, but we got copies of it and it was so widespread that there's still a fair amount up there.

  As the evening has worn on, the thought has been getting stronger and stronger. This guy is in complete control. He was in control when he committed his crime, he was in control when he chose to release all this stuff to the media. It's not like he was going to have inadvertently included his name and address, or that he'll have accidentally walked in front of the camera and then not edited it out.

  And, as predicted, so far the geeks have been unable to unearth any trail through the internet postings. It was beautifully worked. Knew what he was doing, knew how to cover his tracks.

  I suddenly get the feeling that he knows I'm sitting here, right this minute, and he's laughing at me. I glance round the office. Most people are still here. Connor might be a total wanker, but he's managed to get us all to do his bidding. No one has dared leave yet, which is a fucking joke.

  We're all getting the feel for this, same as we got the feel for it back in the summer. This guy is going to choose when and if he reveals himself. If we get lucky before that, well, it'll be just that. It'll be because we'll get lucky.

  Need a fag. Morrow is across the desk, but he's a good lad. Whatever his vices are, and it's not as though he won't have any, they're much better hidden than mine. I've already got Bob and the cigarettes in my pocket. A ten-minute break out the back, will listen, I think, to Positively 4th Street, Will You Please Crawl Out Your Window? and one other yet to be decided.

  My feelings on Positively 4th Street have changed over the years. There's really not a lot to it, but it's the feel of thing. I love the organ.

  There's a place to smoke out near the front, but go that way and you'll get passed by anyone walking out, including Connor. He's still here, in a meeting with the Chief Constable of Strathclyde and, fucking get this, the Justice Minster from Holyrood and his minions. Ha! Wankers, the lot of them. The shit's hitting the fan so let's bring the politicians in, because obviously they'll know what they're doing.

  Out the back, just digging the earphones out of my pocket, find that I'm not alone. DI Gostkowski, halfway through, at a guess, a Lambert & Butler. Like smoking a dog shit, but each to their own. I nod, she nods. Hesitate for no more than a second while I decide whether to engage, then decide not to. I'm knackered. I really want to go home and go to bed, and I need the break. I need the filthy smoke in my lungs, and I need Bob whining in my ear.

  I get the music going, earphones in, light up the fag, deep draw, milky and smoky death filling my insides. Fuck, that tastes good. Breathe out slowly. It's a cold night, and I've only got a shirt and jacket on. Feel the cold, but don't care. It's fresh. Gostkowski, being possibly the most organised person on earth, is appropriately dressed.

  Stand in classic pose, one hand in pocket, other with a fag, eyes closed. I'm not even thinking about her.

  'Dylan?' she says. As if she knows exactly how loud she'll need to speak for me to hear her above the music.

  Earphones out and back in my pocket, don't fiddle about with the MP3 to turn it off.

  'You like Dylan?'

  'Some of it,' she says. 'Haven't listened to him in a while. You and the boss listen to nothing else?'

  'Pretty much.'

  She nods. That'll be it, then. She planned a four-sentence conversation. And some of them were pretty fucking short sentences. Now I'm stuck with the dilemma of whether or not to put the earphones back in.

  What a stupid dilemma. It shouldn't even be a dilemma, but it is. I don't want to stand here in silence, I don't have anything to say to her. If I try to force conversation it'll be awkward and uncomfortable and just generally shit, but then I'm standing here thinking that if I put my earphones back in she might think I'm rude.

  For God's sake.

  'You ever see him in concert?' I ask.

  The kind of small talk that normal people have.

  'Is it true about you and DI Leander?' she asks. 'Well, Leander's wife.'

  'You don't believe the stories?'

  'People make things up,' she says. 'They exaggerate.'

  Acknowledge that with slight head movement. Doesn't take much. She's got a nice voice. I like DI Gostkowski.

  Jesus, and what are you basing that on? Her voice, she's more organised than I am and she looks good in a coat. Get a grip, Sergeant.

  'It seems very cavalier,' she says. 'Once, maybe, because that's what happens. But an affair, a public affair that everyone knows about. Seems curious behaviour.'

  She doesn't add, for a grown-up, but she might as well have done.

  So I do that thing that ultimately proves very dangerous. I don't try to employ artifice of any kind, don't measure my words, don't try and sound something I'm not, to try to impress her. I'm just honest. Women have this weird view of honesty, as if it's a positive.

  Start by shrugging, albeit a shrug that doesn't get any further then a casual movement of the cigarette.

  'I thought the same thing too. Just once. Makes sense. You get a taste, you know what it was like, add her to the list, she can add me to her list, everybody's happy…'

  'Except DI Leander…'

  'Well, at that stage I guess he wouldn't have known. But, of course, you're lying to yourself, aren't you? Maybe if it was shit, if the sex was shit, then sure, once is going to be enough. But we're both in our 40s, we know what we're doing. The sex wasn't shit. It was fantastic. Loud, raucous, tender in places, fast and slow. When she went on top… man, you should have seen her… Jesus.'

  Take another draw from the fag. Getting a little carried away. Happy days. Look at DI Gostkowski. She's staring at me, but there's nothing in her face.

  Shake my head.

  'What are you going to do? Once is never enough. And you know… you know if the first time is brilliant, if it's brilliant from the start, it's only going to get better. It always gets better. So you do it once, and you think, all right that'll do, enough already. But there's a voice, and the voice is saying, imagine what it's going to be like a month from now. Two months from now. You know there'll be a point where you've done it enough, when it stops getting better, when it's no longer fresh, but it ain't after the first time. Never is…'

  I'm not looking at her. I've got her hooked though. And the reason she's hooked is because I wasn't trying to hook her. I look across the car park to the dull houses on the street. Some lights on, some people already in bed.


  'Well, I had sex with PC Grant once. That was a relationship with a natural lifespan of one night.'

  As soon as the words are out my mouth I kick myself. Fucking idiot. Really. For months now I've been priding myself on the fact that I've managed not to tell anyone about Grant, and quite liked the fact that I'd obviously surprised her. And now I just blurt it out. Fucking moron. Gostkowski looks like a safe pair of hands, but you never know, do you?

  Look at the ground. Embrace self-loathing. And although it has nothing to do with it, although a glib throwaway comment about a night spent with PC Grant really ought to have no bearing on the past, self-loathing always takes me back to the same place. Takes me back far enough, to a warm night in a forest. A long time ago. A different world. A different me.

  That's what I want to think. A different me.

  'When are you stopping? Tonight I mean?' she asks, pressing the butt into the ground with her boot.

  Dragged back. The chord to the past temporarily snapped. Although it'll never be broken. At least, not until I face up to it in some way other than the odd moment of darkness, staring into the night.

  'Don't know,' I say. 'He's a fucking idiot if he thinks he's going to get anywhere with no one getting any rest…'

  'Yes.'

  There's a movement behind us. One of those young constables whose name I haven't managed to learn yet since I got back. He addresses Gostkowski. Maybe it's because she's the senior officer, maybe it's because he knows her. Maybe I'm invisible in my smoky, melancholic haze.

  Shut up!

  'The DCI says everyone not on the night shift has to go home, be back in for eight.'

  'Thanks Graham,' she says, and the young fellow heads back inside, out of the cold.

  She glances at me as she turns towards the door. I've not finished the smoke, and am in no rush. There's a moment while we stare at each other. One of those stares. You know the kind. The one where you both know that at some stage you're going to end up in bed together, but not tonight. The mood might have been heading in that direction, but it's been broken.