A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller

by Douglas Lindsay

  'You admit that you hit Stewart Addleston over the head with the bat in an unprovoked attack in the King's Head last night at just after 10.30pm?'

  He looks across the table then shrugs.

  'I'm not admitting anything.'

  'You'll be waiting for your lawyer…'

  'Of course I want a fucking lawyer.'

  Hold my hand up. Waste of time. Well, it's a waste of time for me to be doing this. And guys like this should be banned from listening to Bob.

  'Anything else you want to say before I end the interview?'

  He shrugs.

  'It is what it is,' he says.

  Oh for fuck's sake. The stupid little prick. All right, he threw me off my game with the initial Bob quote, but now I think I might need to find an opportunity to get his baseball bat and whack the bastard around the head with it.

  All in all a very unprofessional interview, something mercifully brought to a halt when the door flies open. Which is unusual. Often enough you get interrupted in the middle of these things, but usually you're going to get a gentle knock and then a wait for an invitation.

  It's Morrow. He's flying, right enough.

  'Sergeant, we're on again. Taylor's office.'

  He disappears. Heart in mouth.

  'Interview suspended, 8:17,' I say to the room, and then, with a quick glance at Corrigan, intended to indicate to her that she should deal with the suspect, I charge out of the room after Morrow. Up the stairs three at a time. Into the main open plan. Everyone is standing around looking at monitors. Some hands are at mouths. Some mouths are hanging open. A couple of people are looking squeamish. Just as I get to Taylor's office, he's flying out in the other direction.

  'Come on, Sergeant,' he says. 'Think we've got it.'

  'You're fucking kidding?' is all I venture in return, as I fall in behind him.

  'Been waiting for this for two and a half months,' he barks, careering down the stairs.

  I'm out after him, into the car. Straight away he lights it up and we zip out of the car park, wheels spinning, siren wailing. On the charge.

  *

  A large wood out past Shotts. There would be some officers, seriously, there would be some who would have said nothing. Wouldn't have put the siren on, wouldn't have called in the local plods. Would have wanted to be first on the scene, would have wanted to be the one with the glory.

  Taylor, however, ain't one of them. All he's interested in is getting to these people before they die. As soon as we're in the car, I'm calling it in. The local station, the guys from Edinburgh, letting everyone know.

  He knows the Plague of Crows won't still be there. It's possible he's wrong in thinking that the footage currently playing online is being broadcast live, but even if it is, it's not going to make any difference. The guy isn't going to have taken any kind of chance. We're not going to find him standing there camera in hand, asking the players in the piece to give him more desperation and inner angst.

  This is all about getting to these people before they die to a) save their lives and b) hopefully get some information from them about how they came to be tied to a chair, their feet in concrete and their brain under attack.

  'Same setup as last time?' I ask. Heading along the M8, touching a hundred. Could be going faster, but it's just not that great a motorway. Two fucking lanes, for crying out loud. Why improve that when you can flush fifty gazillion down the stank for a tram system in a wee bit of the capital? Bastards.

  'Exactly,' he says. 'All three are women this time.'

  'You think it's live? Live footage?'

  'It's been taken on a grim, cold morning in central Scotland. Could be any morning. We might well find them completely decomposed, but I don't think so. And the last couple were filmed as he circled around them. This one's stationary, implying it's on a tripod, implying that it's happening now and he was making sure he'd be nowhere near it.'

  There's another police car away ahead of us, lights on, siren blaring. Presumably going in the same direction. Wonder if Taylor has any fear of everybody turning up at the wrong place? Probably not. He had those trees emblazoned in his head.

  Are they already showing it on the news channels? Jesus, they must be dying to, but really, it's nine in the morning. You can't go showing people getting their brains eaten out live on air, even with one of those messages that they have to put in front of everything nowadays. You should be warned that the following clip contains scenes of a somewhat unsavoury nature.

  Lurch back into silence. Aware that there are sirens behind us as well. Could be more locals, or could be the Edinburgh guys. We weren't looking to steal a march on them, Taylor just didn't want to take the time to slow down, didn't want to lose the half minute it would have involved, along with the possibility of a bunfight with Montgomery.

  That can come after the victims have been saved.

  Off the motorway, nearly loses it as he flies onto the Shotts Road, then skids spectacularly as he takes a ninety degree turnoff before we come to the golf course, and he starts gunning it down a small road. See the feds up ahead, and wonder if they're the first on the scene. Must be others here by now, it's taken us nearly twenty minutes.

  In the last few months he's visited all the potential places. All of them, all over the country. That's what he's been doing. Driving and thinking. Listening to Adele and Bach… He knows every one off by heart, knows exactly where he's going.

  Can see it up ahead, through the trees. Three of our cars are there already and an ambulance. That's good. In my rush I never said ambulance, and just because it's obvious doesn't mean that someone would have thought to do it.

  He skids to a halt having slithered along a final stretch of damp muddy track, nearly hitting one of the other police cars and coming up just an inch or two short. Out the car, quick dash into the clearing. There are seven feds and two paramedics. And crows. In the trees, in the air. Still lurking, upset at being interrupted in the middle of breakfast.

  There's a sergeant, who appears to be in charge, although he seems as out of his depth as most people are going to be at a scene like this. A couple of the others are looking around the perimeter of the small clearing. There's an officer each beside two of the victims. The ones who are already dead. The paramedics are attending to the survivor. If you can call her that.

  The video camera set a little to the side on a tripod has been turned away, and presumably turned off. All those fucking ghouls who've been watching it on their computers are going to be disappointed. The TV networks will now be able to switch to comfortable edited footage that was recorded earlier, footage they've already seen and so know what's coming.

  As Taylor and I approach the officers move back to let us have access. The woman, a strange half-head of long blonde hair in thick curls, is sitting bolt upright, still strapped in the position in which she was left. Her mouth is gagged, her eyes stare blankly ahead. There's a little blood running down from one of them. Her whole body seems to be tugging against the bonds, but as we get closer we can see that she's not making it tug. There's no thought involved. She's spasming constantly, violently, her body unnaturally pushing against the restraints.

  We both stand and look for a second. A crow flutters past.

  'Anyone got a gun?' asks Taylor.

  For a second I presume he means for the woman rather than the crows, but that probably says more about me.

  'Didn't want to let it off, Sir,' says the Sergeant, 'in case we disturbed her.'

  Taylor glances at her again. Another crow swoops in and tries to grab a piece of one of the other two cadavers, is waved away by the attending officer.

  'Kill a couple of them, Sergeant,' says Taylor. 'If that's not enough, kill another couple.'

  He steps closer to the blonde.

  'She gone?' he asks of the paramedics.

  They've been working either side of her head, trying to stem the bleeding, and they take their hands away so that we can see the damage.

  Jesus fuck. F
eel the vomit start to rise, but I can't go throwing up, not in front of all this lot. At that moment I get the smell of it and realise that others have already heaved a couple of times.

  Her brain is eaten away, the light grey matter mixed with blood. It's not so different from the ones we saw last time, and yet it is much, much worse. She's still alive. A twitching, quarter of a life.

  The gun goes off and I, at least, flinch. Maybe the others do too. Another quick couple of shots, accompanied by the fleeing of crows and the frantic flutter of wings and the crowing and squawking.

  I step away – nothing more to see here – and walk into the middle of the clearing. Montgomery is approaching, large strides through small trees. I hear Taylor say, 'What are the chances I'm going to be able to talk to her?' and one of the medics snorts in reply.

  I step further away, to the edge of the clearing, looking around. A couple of constables are already doing the same thing, and I wonder if they've been told to or whether they just want to get away from the murder scene. Is that what I'm doing? Do I think there's worth in looking around the area, or do I just not want to look at a grisly murder site in the middle of a wood?

  Too many times grisly murder scenes in woods play out in my dreams. Can't stand to look.

  But has the killer waited in the undergrowth to watch? Or does he have another camera hidden somewhere in the trees? That would make sense. A camera. Maybe he did that before, although the surrounding areas were thoroughly searched. Yet there are changes each time to the way he operates, and those changes have been related to filming and release of video.

  Is there another camera, which is already relaying details of the investigation live onto the web? Not so likely, because then we'd get to hear about it, and would be able to take the camera down before we'd finished. He might want to see the whole thing play out.

  Montgomery and Taylor are talking, but I've walked out of earshot. Low voices. They're not arguing though, which is good. Back in November, Montgomery came in like he was General Haig, expecting to have everything solved and wrapped up long before Christmas, but as time's gone on he's likely grown just as desperate as Taylor. Doesn't want stuck with this for the rest of his life.

  Walk over to the two constables, who have now been joined by a third.

  'Looking for anything in particular?' I say.

  'Just anything out of the ordinary,' says one, as the other two shake heads.

  'Listen, the guy obviously knows what he's doing with a webcam. Let's check around, look to see if we can find a camera. And let's be aware, he has some resources going on here. He may well have access to some cool-as-shit, microscopic little fucker that'll be easy to miss. So, check trees, bushes, at a decent level off the ground.'

  We get to work in the trees. As soon as I've had the thought I know we're going to find something. I throw a 'Don't touch anything that you find,' over my shoulder at them.

  Like the boss, I don't care who does the business that works out, as long as it gets done. The call goes up a few minutes later. In the meantime, Taylor has already been over to ask what we're doing, leaving the horrible twitching victim to the paramedics. They haven't even taken the gag out of her mouth yet, worried that the second the bonds get loosened she'll become a spasming horror. They're trying to sedate her, but so far her brain isn't recognising whatever it is they're pumping into her.

  Taylor liked the sound of the camera search and left us to it. Wandered around the small clearing, breathing the place in. Won't be happy that all we found were two dead bodies and a convulsing wreck.

  The camera is near the top of a bush, tucked in behind some leaves in the middle, but with a clear view through the foliage to the scene. It's one of the local guys who finds it, and it was me who sent them out on their task, but there's no doubt that this is in Montgomery's hands the second the cry goes up.

  He walks over, doesn't immediately grab it and put it in his pocket. There's nothing to be gained from bringing the filming to an end the second we have confirmation of another camera, and he'll take a moment to consider whether there's anything to be gained by letting it run.

  We can speak to him. The killer.

  Do we want to speak to him? Have a one-way conversation, where we don't even know if he's listening? We don't know yet if there's a microphone.

  While I stand to the side of the discussion between Montgomery and one of his sidekick Inspectors – Marqueson I think – I realise that I'm in the camera's line of vision.

  I stare into it for a moment. Wonder if he's somewhere watching right at this moment. Calls back to the station have indicated that he's not broadcasting this anywhere online just now, not that we can find – and he's been pretty adept at advertising himself to the world – so I'm not worried that at that moment I'm being ogled by millions of people around the planet. But maybe I'm being ogled by the one guy. The Plague of Crows. And if not right at this minute, later, when he's looking at the footage in the comfort of his own bedroom or his own basement, whichever hovel it is that he inhabits.

  I feel no fear. Indeed, as I stand in his line of sight, I suddenly think that maybe this is what I'm waiting for. The brutal, unpleasant death. The death that makes people feel sorry for me, a death that makes people regret I'm gone, and forget why it is they want nothing to do with me at the moment.

  Of course, I also believe that I wouldn't be sucked so easily into his trap, in the way that these others were. The police officers in particular, assuming that one of these three women is one of us. They know what's out there, they know we're being targeted. How in the name of fuck are they allowing themselves to be taken?

  Not me. I have a moment, not of invincibility, but of knowing that this guy, currently watching me in the stinking depths of his festering fleapit, would not be able to get to me. I'll see him coming. Or her coming. Whichever, it won't matter. Maybe he'll take me down, maybe I'll die trying to take him down, maybe we'll go together, Holmes and Moriarty plunging hand-in-hand into the waterfall, but he won't get me out here, he won't get me bound and gagged, the top of my head removed.

  I stare into the camera. Don't speak, but he can read my face. I know what he's thinking, I know he understands.

  Come and fucking get me, you prick.

  One of those moments when I don't care. I've lived long enough. Done enough. Seen enough. Had enough women, drunk enough vodka. And, more than anything, I've done things I deserve to die for. Or not done things.

  Come and fucking get me, you prick. I know my lips aren't moving, but fucking read them anyway. Come on.

  Marqueson moves in front of me and blocks out the camera. By the time the view is clear again I've moved out of sight.

  26

  Mostar, in the middle of Bosnia, was a bunfight in the war. Centre of the whole thing. The Bosnian Serbs bombed it, took it. The Bosniaks took it back. The Bosnian-Croats fought them for it. Back and forth, a shitstorm of war, death and destruction.

  When I arrived in the early autumn of '93 the Serbs had moved on and the Croatians were laying siege. They held the city to the west, had ethnically cleansed, raped and murdered the Bosniaks out of that part of town, back over the main road and the Neretva river to the east of the city, and were shelling all kinds of shit out the joint. It was war, that's what happens.

  Of the ancient architecture in Mostar, the shining light was the Stari Most, the old bridge. The Croatians shelled it to destruction in November that year. I watched it happen. It wasn't strategic in any way, wasn't like you could get a tank across it. They just did it for the Hell of it, for the effect on the morale of the besieged population. They did it because they could.

  I arrived in town thinking that the Serbs were the bad guys, because that's what I'd been told, only to discover that everyone was a bad guy. Yep, the Serbs had already destroyed the Franciscan monastery and the Catholic cathedral and fourteen mosques and the library with 50,000 books, they just hadn't waited for me to turn up to see it. Weirdly it wasn't shocking, because
I already knew that was the kind of thing they did. But I arrived to find the Bosniaks and Croatians doing the same to each other. For some reason I was surprised. Must have been young and innocent.

  The Croatians, so innocent themselves, who would later be so offended when the Serbs dared to lay siege to Dubrovnik. How could the Serbs shell an ancient walled city? How could they damage an historically important site, the heartless fuckers? Poor Croatia, they would never do such a thing. They were the victims. Look at us world, we're the victims. Victims. The world agreed.

  Some say they set tyres on fire in Dubrovnik to make it look worse, that when foreign journalists drove into the city after the siege was lifted, there wasn't as much damage as they'd been expecting. I wasn't there then. I was in Bosnia, in the middle of the forest. Maybe it's not true. Maybe rather than the burning tyres being propaganda, it's the story of the burning tyres that's propaganda.

  Who knows any of that shit? That's what happens in war. Everyone leaps up and down saying they're innocent, and if their absolute guilt is established, then they leap up and down justifying why they were just doing what they had to do.

  No one wins.

  There were crows in the forest. Were there crows in the forest? Probably. Once. Sometimes when I wake up, now that the Plague of Crows is in all our heads, I see the crows in the forest in Bosnia, even though I know there were no crows. No birds at all. Birds are smart. They may not be so smart that they can play chess or solve mathematical puzzles or design an iPad, but they're smart enough to get the fuck out of Dodge when the bullets start flying.

  Maybe people are smart too, they've just got nowhere to go.

  They destroyed the bridge at Mostar. The Croatian Army. I was there. I saw it. They say it's been rebuilt, but I'm never going back. I'm never going to see it again.

  They destroyed the ancient bridge. Mortar attack. 9th November 1993. The bridge at Mostar. The ancient bridge. Yet they were the good guys. That's what we were told.

  Good guys don't blow up bridges just for the hell of it.