A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller

by Douglas Lindsay

  The seed has been planted, however, if only because neither of us was planting anything.

  'Good night, Sergeant,' she says.

  I nod, she breaks the look and heads inside.

  The door closes and I'm left on my own looking across the car park. I'm knackered, but tonight will be one of those nights when I don't sleep.

  There are too many of those nights.

  10

  Seven minutes past eight. Made it into work ahead of schedule, mainly because I didn't have time to get drunk last night, hardly slept, was wide awake from about six. Got up, already wearied and worn out. Shaved, showered, made myself some bacon and toast and coffee. Drank orange juice. Watched the news. The Plague of Crows was all over. They had the Justice Minster on, announcing that this would be the government's top priority and that a team of top Edinburgh detectives were being put on the case.

  He actually said that, used that very phrase. Top Edinburgh detectives. He didn't say that it was because Glasgow detectives are obviously shit, what with them being so provincial, but then he didn't say it in such a way as he said it.

  So I got into work not long after seven, and now it's seven minutes past eight and Taylor and I are sitting in Connor's office. Waiting to be informed, presumably, that we've been put back on traffic duty what with us being so shit, 'n' all. If only we'd received our training in Edinburgh. We're so disadvantaged.

  I reckon, and I'm just saying, that if we ever get to be independent, the nation will quickly descend into the kind of ethnic violence and hatred that you get in all those countries in the middle of Africa the minute the sensible (or vicious imperialist) authority buggers off. Catholics versus Protestants, Edinburgh versus Glasgow, Highlands versus soft southern lowland bastards. Someone, somewhere, will want to make amends for Culloden. We hold a grudge. It'll be shit.

  I'm still going to vote for it, though. Time to stand on our own two feet, rather than get a piggy back for the rest of eternity.

  'What the fuck are you thinking about?' says Taylor.

  I glance over. Uh-oh. Must have been doing that thing where I was having an internal discussion and was letting it show on my face.

  'Politics.'

  He looks at me with that wry paternal smile.

  'Trying to decide whether you'd shag Sarah Palin or Aung San Suu Kyi?'

  The door opens behind us before I can puke my stomach out laughing, and Connor walks crisply into the office. Sits down across the desk. First time I've been in here since the Leander incident. Still feel that vague discomfiture at being forced to sit in the presence of authority. Even, or maybe especially, when it's a total ball sack like this bloke.

  'You'll have heard the news,' he says.

  He's tired. Hasn't slept at all. Must give him credit for that, I suppose. When he'd first made his preposterous 24/7 speech, I kind of imagined him buggering off home at some time after six, spot of dinner, game of bridge down the club, early night, swan into work about nine. He's still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. Hasn't been home.

  'There's a task force coming from Edinburgh,' said Taylor, who somehow manages to say the words task force without spitting.

  'Yes,' says Connor.

  He stares at us both for a moment, and I suddenly realise that he's pissed off. I'd been assuming he'd love it all, the attention, the murders on his patch, the meetings with senior constables and government ministers. But of course, of course he's pissed off. He loves being in charge, he's a micro-managing control freak. Needs everyone doing exactly as he wants. And this absurd task force of red-hot genius coppers who have solved every fucking crime they've ever stumbled across – which is why Edinburgh is such a shiny, beautiful, crime-free place to live – won't be coming in here under his charge. There'll be someone arriving to take over, leaving the Superintendent to do his usual thing, dealing with local crime and overseeing us bunch of shit Glasgow polis who are incapable of solving our way out of a paper fucking bag.

  'It's understandable,' says Taylor. What the fuck? Connor gives him the imperious eyebrow, but Taylor never was one to be intimidated by authority. 'We thought we were looking for one guy who had committed a grotesque murder on our patch. Now… well, we know it was a pretty damned well-organised murder, and that level of organisation has continued. Maybe it wasn't just the one guy. The victims came from all round the city, and now we've got the internet thing. Presumably it's been done from within Britain, but we don't know if it's from Rutherglen and Cambuslang, do we? Could be anywhere. Indeed, anywhere in the world. I hate it as much as you, but it's understandable.'

  'I'm glad you hate it,' says Connor glibly.

  Taylor doesn't respond to that. He's said his bit. Makes sense, albeit it wasn't what I'd been thinking. I'm keeping my mouth shut. Not that I've got anything to say anyway.

  'We've no option, of course,' adds Connor. 'They want a couple of local officers as liaison.'

  He's looking at Taylor. I'm here, but I'm not entirely sure I need to be. Liaison. Taylor's going to be chewing my testicles off when we get out of here, as if it's my fault. Liaison, for fuck's sake.

  'I've given them DI Gostkowski and Constable Grant. They've been involved before, they know everything… They do know everything?'

  Taylor takes a moment to think about it. He's given the case far more time than anyone else. It's been his case, his priority. How much does he know, how many mental moves ahead has he made on the chess board of the investigation that he hasn't communicated to anyone else?

  'Yes,' says Taylor. 'Gostkowski will do a good job.'

  'She'd better,' says Connor. 'I'm going to ask her to play both sides.'

  Holy crap, now we're talking.

  Oh. He didn't mean that, did he?

  'Sir?' says Taylor.

  He's genuinely curious, while I'm sitting here with an image in my head of DI Gostkowski playing both sides. Need to get a grip.

  'I'm not letting this investigation get away from me,' says Connor. 'I'm not happy about it. I want you two to stay on it. You'll need to be discreet and you'll need to keep out of Edinburgh's way. You've been working it for three months now, Chief Inspector, so hopefully you'll be a few steps ahead. Should be, at any rate.'

  He pauses, looks from one of us to the other. Office politics. Holy shit. They all condemn me for the office affair, but shit, that's nothing compared to office politics. That's a fucking battleground, plagued by all sorts of evil pitfalls.

  'You will report to me, and Edinburgh will not know you're involved. DI Gostkowski will liaise with you. It will be one way. She'll let you know what's happening with their side, but will not reciprocate, unless I gauge that we should. I very much doubt that she will be given anything like full access to the investigation, but she'll be on the inside and we'll have to wait and see what she can generate.'

  'PC Grant?' I ask.

  'Will not be in on any of it. She'll be liaising with the task force as intended.'

  Taylor sits back. Thinking it through. This has potential to be ugly. There are power games going on, and we're getting sucked into it. That's what he's thinking. Is there a way out? How can he avoid this? It is tempered, of course, by the thought that he'll want to do it too. He really does hate Edinburgh getting brought in.

  'OK,' he says. 'How do you want us to work?'

  'You do your own thing,' says Connor. 'I'm not a detective, I'm leaving you to it. It's… it's rogue, going rogue. I don't like it, but I like that lot coming here much less. And like I said…'

  He hesitates then looks at me.

  '… be discreet.'

  He nods in the direction of the door.

  Taylor rises and I follow him out. Not sure that I've taken a breath in the last minute or so, Connor built up such an air of tension.

  We get out his office, the air clears and we stop for a second to look at each other.

  'Fucking rogue,' is all that Taylor says, shaking his head.

  'You be Danny Glover, I'll be Mel Gibson?'
r />   He gives me the look then heads for his office, his discreet and obedient sergeant in tow.

  11

  When I say office… Twenty minutes later we're sitting in Starbucks in Hamilton. Just got off our patch, come for morning coffee. The place is jumping. Why make yourself a cup of instant at home, when you can give Starbucks a few quid plus some other stupid amount of money to eat something you didn't know you wanted until you got in here? This is the coal face of the recession. People with nothing better to do than drink over-priced coffee.

  As we were walking out of the station, the cavalry were arriving. I wondered if they'd all be dressed in black suits, wearing shades, and have toothpicks sticking out the corners of their mouths. But they were just a bunch of guys. And women. The alpha male wasn't obvious as they walked by. Perhaps they're an autonomous collective.

  'I don't know how this ends well,' I say, to break the long silence. Taylor has been drinking coffee and thinking. He shakes his head. In agreement. 'They catch him and we don't, we're wasting our time,' I continue. 'None of us catch him, we're all fucked. We catch him… then what do we do? We take him in there, throw him to the wolves and say, Boom! In your face, you Edinburgh wankers…'

  'There is no end game,' says Taylor. 'Connor's not thinking that far ahead. His nose is out of joint and he's doing the first thing he thought of to fight back. Not a lot else he could do.'

  'He could have sucked it up and accepted his place.'

  'No one sucks anything up any more, Sergeant.'

  We both drink. Neither of us bought anything to eat. Another customer arrives, but they won't find anywhere to sit. Cold morning again, feel the draught as the door opens and closes.

  'He's coming again,' says Taylor. 'He has to be. Why start all this shit off unless that's what he's doing? And he's confident he's not going to get caught at it. He knows he's not going to get caught. How does he know he's not going to get caught?'

  He looks earnestly at me. I've just been thinking that my coffee could be warmer.

  'I'm thinking.'

  Rubs his chin. We both find ourselves looking over at a kid in a pram agitating to be given more chocolate, which the father inevitably hands over.

  Have barely seen my own kids this year, which is shit. Can't think about that now, although that appears to be what I usually think when I think of my own kids. No time.

  'Maybe we need to start looking at woods, the woods around here, further afield. Work out where he strikes next.'

  'That's a lot of woods,' I say. 'An unworkable amount of woods. And we're assuming he does the same the next time.'

  'Exactly,' says Taylor. 'He may have called himself the Plague of Crows, but maybe next time he's going to be the Plague of Chainsaws and tuck his victims away in a disused warehouse.'

  I laugh, but we both know that's not going to happen.

  'He's established an instantly identifiable corporate image,' I say. 'I don't think he's changing that.'

  'Which means, if he's coming back, chances are he's doing the same thing again. Multiple killings in a wood. So how does he know he won't get caught?'

  'He doesn't do it around here,' I say. 'Unless he's already done it.'

  'Yep.' Quick, unnecessary glance at his watch. 'We've known about this less than twenty-four hours. Not impossible that it's happened in a wood in central Scotland, or anywhere else in Scotland, and the victims haven't been discovered yet. For all his careful planning, that is one thing he must have left to chance. How could he know that someone wouldn't be out walking? A hiker, someone walking the dog, whatever.'

  'He could take care of them. Add them to the list. A more regular murder.'

  'But he wouldn't know that they hadn't told someone where they were going. That's chance again. They don't come home, odds are someone goes looking for them… Shit, we've been over this before... He knew he was safe, and whatever it was he put in place the last time, he could have done it again.'

  'One thing's different,' I say. 'The trees.'

  'Fuck, aye. Decent thought, Sergeant, he's not going to have the same level of cover.'

  'Which reduces the number of woods or forests he's going to be able to use.'

  'Hmm…' he mutters. Hand drawn over the face, more coffee, another look around the joint. The whining kid is demanding something else. The dad immediately capitulates and hands it over. We ought to be able to arrest people for that kind of thing. Sure, they'd object at the time, but they'd thank us in the long run.

  'We're looking for an evergreen forest,' says Taylor. 'You think that's it? A pine forest, something like that?'

  'Do crows like pine?' I ask. He doesn't answer, but he isn't likely to. How the fuck do we know if crows like pine?

  'All right,' he continues, 'since we've picked up the ball… We've got our pine forest. Where the fuck is it? There's not a lot of pine around here, but one of the things he's done in the last twenty-four hours is take it global. Why Scotland? He could be anywhere. Hell of a lot of pine in the world.'

  'And if he was somewhere else, it wouldn't necessarily be pine. Could be any kind of forest. Could be in the middle of the fucking desert.'

  Taylor nods, drains his coffee.

  'We can't go everywhere with this. We need to keep it grounded. Small steps. We've got a wood or forest, we've got crows, and we've got crows' nests. He needs cover so he's likely to have to use an evergreen forest…'

  'But not a densely populated one, not one of those they plant just so they can chop them down again a few years later…'

  'Too dense for the crows, less likely to find a convenient, natural clearing in the middle of it.'

  'Yes.'

  'Yes, yes…' says Taylor, his mind going over the options, '…but there are still going to be woods with bare trees that just by their sheer volume or location provide cover, so we'll have to consider those too.'

  Suddenly Taylor straightens, shoulders back, head up.

  'You finished?'

  He still drinks faster than me.

  'No,' I say.

  'Leave it then.'

  'Where are we going?' I ask, as we make for the door.

  'No point in us sitting around talking about trees. What do you know about trees?'

  'Bugger all.'

  'Same here. Let's go and find someone who knows about trees.'

  'You know wh–'

  'No, but we'll find someone who knows someone who knows about trees.'

  There's probably a website for that.

  12

  In the office of the tree expert. Forestry Commission out at Aberfoyle. Forty-five minute journey. I drove. Might have been a waste of time for us both to come out here, but this is how Taylor works. He likes the time in the car. We can stick Bob on the CD player and think. Or we can stick Bob on the CD player, turn it down a little, and talk things through. Only in the most serious of circumstances is Bob sacrificed to the necessity of quiet.

  Alice Whittaker is standing at the window looking out over the local woods. We can see the edge of the golf course. Played a round there once on a station day out. I think I shot a handy 136 or so. 70 over par. Not my best round, although sadly not my worst either.

  Taylor is looking at maps on the walls, I'm standing with my bum against a ledge, arms folded. There's an informality about the whole thing that wouldn't be there if we were seated around a desk.

  So far all we've had is general chitchat and a couple of questions about crows and trees. Nothing much. We didn't say why we were here, but it became pretty obvious the minute crows got a mention.

  Taylor spoke to a crow expert last time. Maybe we'll go and see him again. What kind of job is that? Crow expert. I don't suppose it was his actual job title.

  'You think your man is going to strike again?'

  Taylor can do artifice and bullshit as much as the next man, happy to tell an interviewee as little as possible. He'll gauge the woman, make a call.

  Alice Whittaker is all right. You can tell. She won't call a new
spaper as soon as we walk out the door and let them know what the police are thinking. She probably won't even tell her husband over dinner tonight that the police called.

  'Yes,' says Taylor.

  'Which would explain why the man responsible has gone public with footage he's kept tucked away for several months.'

  'Yes.'

  We're on the first floor, allowing that view up to the woods and the golf course. Taylor, clutching the mug of tea we were given when we arrived, goes over and stands beside her and they look out at the view together. I'm a couple of yards away, feeling a bit left out.

  No, really, I don't feel left out. Take a sip of tea. My mug has Arbroath FC written on the side, and I wonder why anyone would have an Arbroath FC mug.

  'What are you looking for exactly?' she asks.

  'I know this sounds absurdly far-fetched, but we need to know if there's any way we could narrow down his next kill site. You've seen the footage?'

  She nods, making the appropriate expression of horror.

  'We have to make some assumptions at this stage. So we assume he's doing the same again. But we also assume he's going to need cover to carry out his work. He's not going to be using a wooded area where the trees have shed.'

  She's nodding. Thinking it through. Some people would already have laughed at him and told him not to be so fucking stupid. The notion is absurd. It's Scotland. There are trees all over the place. Not as many as there were a thousand years ago, but enough to make it needle-in-a-haystack territory.

  'OK,' she says. 'We can lose the densely populated planted forests, as that won't suit his purposes. We can discount some of the deciduous woods, although I'm not sure you can dismiss them completely. Maybe not areas as close to suburbia as the one where the first murders were committed, but there are going to be woods in the middle of Perthshire, and further afield, where there's going to be the opportunity to carry out that kind of work. Around here even. Where it doesn't matter that the leaves have shed, because there are enough trees in the middle of nowhere to provide adequate protection.'