A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller

by Douglas Lindsay

  'If there is, that would be a mistake,' I say.

  'And he doesn't make mistakes. Check it anyway.'

  Off back out the door, away to speak to a woman I know.

  18

  Ninety minutes later we're sitting in Taylor's car, heading up the M80 on our way to the murder site. A polis in Perth thought he recognised the hills and went for a look. Found the bodies where the killer had left them, still surrounded by birds. Birds which seemed reluctant to leave despite the presence of the police. In the end, apparently, they killed a couple of them. Better not let that get out to the press. Bird-Killing Cops Disrespect Crime Scene or some shit like that.

  We're listening to Bob, thank God, although Taylor stuck on Saved, which he knows I don't like. Petty. Very petty.

  The boys from Edinburgh have already headed on out to take charge. We oughtn't to be going at all, but Connor called Taylor in and told him to get his arse out there. He's expecting us to blag our way onto the crime scene. Hopefully it'll be the locals who are in charge of securing the perimeter and they won't know to tell us to bugger off. Next time it happens, if there is a next time, the guys from Edinburgh will be ready for us. They'll know that we're still working the case.

  What we're doing now is starting a turf war over investigation rights, but we're not thinking about that at the moment. Just doing what we're told.

  The one positive, and it's a pretty small positive but we're grasping, is that the area was one that we'd marked off as a potential spot when we saw the Whittaker woman in Aberfoyle. We'd been thinking along the right lines, just without the resources to do anything about it.

  If we'd told the Edinburgh boys what we were thinking, would they have done anything? Would they have said good idea chaps, let's crack on? Probably not. Or maybe they've been thinking the same thing.

  Taylor's not talking. Thinking the case through, likely wondering the same thing I am. Will he have left no trace and be gone on his way? Will it be three months before he strikes again? Longer, shorter, exactly to the day?

  Phone goes, take the call. Sophie in the tech room.

  'Yep?'

  'Sergeant,' she says, 'we got a good look at your guy from the video. He was wearing a mask.'

  That makes sense. Even though he was obviously confident his victims were not going to survive, he doesn't take chances.

  'What kind?' I ask. Pointless question, but I feel like I need to say something to justify a conversation that has already pretty much given up all that it will.

  'Well… a crow. It looks like the head of a crow… I'll send the images over.'

  I stare straight ahead, don't immediately say anything.

  'Can you see his eyes?' I eventually think to ask.

  'No.'

  'He knew we'd check…'

  'Fuck, yeah. And given the precision of the scalping that everyone's talking about, it's hard to imagine he wore the mask while he was cutting. He hardly needed to care that his victims would see what he looked like. So, he just put the mask on for filming. He knew we'd see. That's why he waves.'

  'What?'

  'Oh yes. And you know he's not waving at that terrified woman. He's waving at you.'

  'Us.'

  'If that's how you want to see it, Sergeant.'

  There's a short silence which Sophie in the tech room breaks by hanging up.

  She watches movies. People don't say goodbye when they end phone calls in movies, they just hang up. That's because at some stage the writer will have been told to cut the script down, so he'll have scrapped pointless shit like people being pleasant to each other. Now it's seeped insidiously into society.

  'Mask?' says Taylor.

  'A crow's head.'

  'Oh for crying out loud… What was the other thing?'

  'He waves when he's filming her eyes 'cause he knows we're going to check that shit.'

  'Jesus. He's taking the piss?'

  'I think we knew that already.'

  The conversation is over, and we're coming towards the end of the motorway, still twenty minutes or so to go and Bob is well into In The Garden.

  *

  The place is crawling with our lot, sealed off from the public at a good distance. Fortunately, as we'd been hoping, it's the local plods who are guarding the site and keeping the ghouls at bay. Bit of an out of the way place, as it was always likely to be, but there are still plenty of people who have driven out here to try to take a look. Really. What the actual fuck are these people thinking?

  On the other hand, maybe we should sell them tickets, make a bit of money, put it back into the Force. No doubt some liberal somewhere would object to selling tickets to see murder victims.

  Not just liberals, you reckon?

  We walk through the woods like we're meant to be there, badges at the ready. We've had to flash them four times so far. Closer to the scene there are no uniforms. A few plain clothes detectives, a host of the white jump suits. Already we can see the bodies, still cemented in place, still strapped in. Taylor saw the same last time, but obviously they were gone by the time I got there.

  Grotesque murder. Does that bring it all back, all that crap from the past that I don't want to think about? You'd think, but it doesn't. Not at all. I'm ready for it. Prepped. With the exception of all that shit with the Keller case last year, it's not like we're used to a massive pile of brutalised dead – although it's getting bigger pretty quickly – but I'm ready for it when I see anything nasty in the course of my duties. It's the moments like this morning, when it creeps up out of the blue, grabs me by the testicles when I'm not expecting it, that's when it really hurts. That's when I go hurtling back and I can't stop it.

  Taylor nods at a couple of feds as we enter the small clearing. There's not a lot of noise, other than that of some low conversation and the occasional footstep taken through fallen leaves.

  It's a similar forest to the one I was in this morning. At least it makes it feel like we're on the right track. Maybe next time, with a little more chance to prepare, we'll be ready for him.

  Ha! If detective work doesn't get you there, sheer bloody-minded burying your head in the sand will see you through.

  Just as we get to the cadavers a crow squawks high in the trees. We both stop and look up. The others all do the same. Just for a moment. The real killers are all up there, watching over their victims, wondering if they're going to get another chance to pick at the bones.

  Wonder if the public will start going bat-shit crazy for killing crows. That collective mentality is so fucked up sometimes. Someone will point out that yes, it was the crows that were committing the murders, the other bloke just facilitated it. The crows are the real killers. Let's get the bastards! And off they'll go, all Henry the fucking Fifth, and crows will be laid waste all over. Not like I give a shit, but there's nothing worse than crowd violence just for the hell of it. Even if it is against crows.

  We get right up to them before anyone intervenes. Two feet away, as close as we want to get. Stand in silence over the three cadavers, each of them exposed to the elements.

  One of them, the guy who looked like he was already dead in the video, has had the inside of his head almost completely cleaned out. Fuck, I've never seen anything like this. It's so grotesque, so absolutely horrible, that it's almost like standing over a waxwork, or playing one of those god-awful video games that Andy spends all his time on.

  With the other two there's a little more brain matter left in the cavity. A munge of grey/red soup. Vichyssoise or some shit like that. Damned disgusting. The heads are supported so that they can't tip forward, the remains of the brain matter can't spill out. Hard to read the expressions on the faces, as they've all had their eyes picked. Carbon copy of last time.

  The possibility that that's what it might be – a copy – flits through my head, but it's not that. This is the same guy.

  'Detective Chief Inspector,' says a voice approaching quickly from four o'clock. Here we go. We both turn, although obviously I don't r
eally answer to Detective Chief Inspector. Give it another few decades.

  We are met by Detective Chief Inspector Montgomery. He's the same rank as Taylor but obviously, in ranking terms, being from Edinburgh is like an away goal in Europe.

  'Why are you here?'

  Straight to the point. It was always going to get down to some sort of bitch fight pretty quickly. Would have been nice to get a bit more of a look before we got tossed. I do the sensible thing, turn away from the awkward handbags situation, and start making a mental note of everything that I can see before we get ejected.

  'I thought it would be instructive for two of the investigating officers who were at the first crime scene to visit the second one, so that there could be some sort of direct comparison.'

  Which is, of course, a perfectly valid point. But let's not let common sense get in the way of some dick jousting.

  Taylor stares it out for a moment, but then Montgomery probably realises that the longer we stand here like we're in a Steven Segal film on Channel 5 at 11pm on a Friday night, the longer we get to take in the crime scene. A situation like this would have been so much more fun back in Bogart's day. There would have been punches thrown, we'd have cracked open a bottle of whisky and all three of us would have nailed the blonde broad.

  What with it not being Bogart's day, Montgomery pulls his phone from his pocket. He stares at us as he makes his call, it's just that I'm not looking. Start walking round the small triangle of the dead, examining their bonds.

  Duct tape, largely, but tight. Unbreakable from inside the bond. Bare feet cemented in concrete as before. High-backed chairs, the neck bound to the wooden slats as is the forehead, or what's left of the forehead after he's superscalped them. Eyelids stapled open. Lovely touch.

  'Glasgow are here,' he says. Crisp voice. Sharp. I've nothing against the guy, and Taylor won't have either. Just doing what he's been told. Might even be worthwhile trying to be nice to him for a minute or two. Might be. He hangs up without saying anything. He must have been watching the movies too.

  Taylor breaks eye contact, turns and starts looking over the bodies. Face impassive. Jesus, what other kind of face can you have when confronted with this? Having seen it before, he quickly makes the assessment that it looks exactly as it did previously, then he looks round the clearing, up at the tree tops. A few crows visible. Watching. Not as many as we saw in the footage. Maybe the others have all gone off to another killing.

  Taylor's phone rings. He glances at Montgomery as he takes it from his pocket. Can see him briefly curse himself for not having thought to turn it off.

  Taylor answers and doesn't say anything at all. Nice. The movie people would love him. Listens for a moment, then clicks the phone off and puts it back in his pocket. He takes a last glance around the area then looks at me. That last call might as well have been on loudspeaker. We all know what was said.

  'Where was the van parked?' he says, looking at Montgomery.

  This is where we find out how much of a wanker we're dealing with. If Taylor had asked before the phone call, Montgomery would have been obliged to tell him to clear off. Now, however, he knows he's won. He can afford a moment of magnanimity.

  'Need to know basis,' says Montgomery, nailing his colours high on the wanker mast, 'and you don't need to know. I'll trust you not to interfere any further in the investigation.'

  He takes a step closer.

  'Now fuck off,' he adds.

  Take a quick glance around the clearing while the two bulls mentally wrestle over shagging rights. The logical thing would be for the van to have approached the same way as the rest of us, up the track that leads most quickly back to the A85. Logic doesn't enter into it though.

  There's another track on the far side of the clearing, leading away in the opposite direction, and there are three of the white jump suit collective in the vicinity examining shit on the ground. That'll be it then.

  'Come on, Sir,' I say, to break the Mexican stand-off. Although, to be honest, it's not really a Mexican stand-off, is it? These days Mexican stand-offs usually last about a second-and-a-half and then fifty innocent civilians get massacred. 'We parked our car over this way,' I say to Montgomery, and nod.

  Start to walk off, Taylor alongside. He's staring at the ground, fighting the annoyance, trying to gather as much information as he can in the short time that we have.

  The short time that we have… Fuck's sake. Sound like a pair of cancer patients. Bucket list: walk the Silk Road, sleep with Kate Beckinsale, climb Kilimanjaro, establish if the killer's tyre tracks were the same as the last time.

  'Don't tread on anything, don't speak to anyone, don't tamper with any evidence, and keep on walking,' gets thrown after us.

  Into the trees on the other side. Taylor glances back over his shoulder. The camera never looked this way, there was never a shot from the other side showing this part of the clearing. He kept the van behind him the whole time.

  We stop behind the forensics fellows.

  'Same tracks as the last time?' he asks.

  Can feel Montgomery's bitter little eyes burrowing into the back of us, but Taylor has hardly slowed down.

  'Think so, Sir,' comes the reply.

  And on we go, without breaking stride. We walk on down the track up which the killer drove his van packed with prospective victims, and soon enough we come to the police cordon and walk once more out of the crime scene.

  19

  Long day. 11:32pm. Sitting in Taylor's office. This time last year we would have conducted this part of the discussion in the pub. Suddenly it all seems much more grown-up around here, and it all comes from Taylor.

  He had a shit time of it while his wife left him and DCI Bloonsbury was flushing his life down the toilet, taking as much of the station with him as he could. Nevertheless, he came out of all that a much stronger man. He was already a good detective; that whole shambles made him a better man, and that filtered through to his work. The added responsibility hasn't weighed him down either, and now even at 11:32pm, when the investigation is going nowhere and the circumstances just got a hell of a lot worse, he still looks switched on and determined, rather than stressed and miserable and knackered.

  One day that great attitude might rub off on me, but it hasn't happened yet. Most days I still feel like a twelve-year-old playing at being a policeman; and I reacted to the general tumult of the Bloonsbury business by sleeping with the new Detective Inspector's wife. Very mature.

  We have some still-shot close-ups of the killer's mask, still-shots of the look on the faces of the victims. We've written up everything we can recall about the crime scene and cross-checked it with the previous one to see if he's given us anything else. So far, he hasn't.

  Connor had Taylor in for an hour or so going over it all. Connor seems quite chipper. He feels that we have as much chance of solving the crime as the Edinburgh lot, but we have none of the responsibility. For months it's weighed on him, and he was worried that Edinburgh would come in and arrest someone in the first twenty-four hours. Now that they haven't, now that someone else has looked at it and not managed to discover the really obvious, glaring thing that we must have missed, he's relaxed a little. The pressure is off and suddenly he sees the chance of some one-upmanship.

  That's the kind of man he is. Maybe they all are by the time they get to that pay grade.

  'Fucking crow mask,' says Taylor. 'Really.'

  'There was you saying we weren't in an episode of Scooby Doo.'

  'It's like Batman, some shit like that. Holy crap, what is the matter with people? It's like they can't just commit crime anymore. They want to be seen committing the crime, they want their name in the newspaper, even if it's a false name. The next thing the guy'll do is get a TV camera crew lined up to record his thoughts before, during and after the crimes…'

  'Plague of Crows Confidential…'

  'And he'll burst into fucking tears when he's talking about his victims, then the camera will follow him to the graves
ides as he pays his respects…'

  'And when we ask the TV crew for his address they'll protest client confidentiality and make us out to be the bad guys.'

  He sighs, shakes his head. 'We're always the fucking bad guys, Sergeant, no matter what happens.'

  There's a knock at the door. In comes DI Gostkowski. She looks tired. Haven't seen her most of the day, and we missed our seven o'clock at the coffee shop.

  'Sir,' she says, nodding at Taylor. Doesn't even look at me.

  'Should you be in here?' asks Taylor. 'We already pissed them off once today.'

  'I heard,' she said. 'Your name's mud.'

  She glances over her shoulder then turns back.

  'DCI Montgomery went home for the night about half an hour ago. There aren't many of them left, Sir. Thought it would be safe to come up. For a minute or two.'

  'All right. Just stand in the doorway, like you're stopping for a passing chat. Nothing official. Be precise.'

  I feel like I'm in another room, watching a tense and intimately shot detective drama on TV.

  'A replica of the previous job. The van appears to be a Ford Transit. He has a team looking through footage of the nearest CCTV to see if there's any sign of Transits on the roads out of Perth. Not a lot of CCTV around there, however, once you're out of Perth. Time of death between six and eight this morning, the journalist the first to go, maybe an hour before the others. They presume it was when the skull was removed.'

  'Sloppy,' I say, with my inability to go five minutes without saying something glib. To the credit of DI Gostkowski, she completely ignores me.

  'They ended up killing seven crows at the scene, and this evening they got word back that all seven contained human brain matter in their stomachs, so there's added confirmation on the crows. The video isn't just some set up.'

  'Jesus,' mutters Taylor.

  'Everything else that's been gleaned from the site so far coincides with what we saw in August. The same goes for the victims. One police officer, one social worker – and this one was a door-to-door, dealing on the front line with all the fuck-ups social worker – and a journalist.'