Taylor smiles ruefully.
'If it wasn't, it was only because he'd called them first. I hope you were a little more circumspect with the rest of your interviews.'
He looks at me. I'm going to ignore that.
'Right, I'm not going to ask how you got on. Like me, I expect you came back with a few people on whom to make further background checks. Get to it, bring me something when you have it. There are, however, a couple of things that are going to shit on our parade…'
That's a nice analogy. Police work as a parade. Marching along the street while the crowds cheer us on, fully supportive and desperate for us to do well.
'One of the things that separates the human race from the rest of their fellow fucking awful species on planet earth, is the ability to see an opportunity and make the most of it. Consequently, the criminal collective, on realising that the police are going to be occupied with the latest serial killer on the block, are using the occasion to steal more shit, beat up more people and trash more shops and businesses.'
Actually, those wildlife shows would indicate that there are a lot of opportunistic species, but it seems pedantic to mention it.
'Maybe we could bring the army in and put the city in lockdown.'
We both look at Gostkowski with slight surprise. Sounds like she's been spending too much time with me.
'It might well come to that,' says Taylor, and he's almost smiling.
'What's the other thing?' I ask.
'Birds,' he says. 'There are just hundreds – literally hundreds – of reports of people killing birds, then inadvertently hitting buildings and people and all kinds of shit that isn't a bird. Then, inevitably, they're getting into fights because they think they're justified in going after the birds and that other people should be understanding of the fact there might be a little collateral damage. And of course, the folk going after the birds in the first place are already armed. Getting ugly out there.'
'Any deaths?' asks Gostkowski.
I hadn't even thought that. Was just assuming a bit of a bunfight.
'One so far. Who knows how many it'll end up with.'
That thing I was saying about hating people. Double it.
'I saw a couple of guys fighting not that far from here on my way back this evening,' I say. 'Didn't think anything about it at the time.'
Neither of them make the observation that I might have stopped to do something about the fight. Life's too short. Even for your average police officer.
'Well,' says Taylor, 'the suspects are piling up in the cells. Fullest they've been since last summer.'
'Jesus.'
'Yes. So, I'm afraid you're both getting some work divvied up to you. How many guys you got to follow up after today?'
'Three.'
'Ditto,' says Gostkowski.
'Well, whatever you were going to do this evening on those, I'd like you to try to fit it in. However, you both need to speak to Ramsay, get what's coming to you. The Edinburgh lot are the dedicated officers for the Plague of Crows, so we can't really argue it.'
A final glance between us and then he nods at the door and we're dismissed. Gostkowski leaves. I follow her out.
*
Five hours. Interview three members of the great British public charged with assault. Make further various investigations regarding battery and theft. Squeeze in a few hurried phone calls on my three suspects, but make no progress on narrowing them down. Probably what I need is some time to have a bit of measured thought, and I'd be able to eliminate one or two of them on the basis of realising that I was sucked into adding them to the list just through natural dislike on my part.
Don't get the time for measured thought.
Gostkowski walks past my desk at some point after eleven, glances at me and shakes her head slightly on her way by. That's a reasonable call, and I'm old fashioned enough to think that it's the lady's prerogative to make the decision.
Nevertheless, as the evening has suddenly changed from complete rubbish followed by delicious dessert, to just complete rubbish, I can't help but be disappointed. I'd enjoyed the release of the past two nights, and had been looking for it again.
Sergeant Jones catches me looking at her as she sits on the other side of the office. She smiles, which is unusual, and I smile awkwardly back and then turn back to the ever-growing mountain of paperwork. She probably thinks she caught me staring idly off into space, but really I was looking at her, wondering if it might be worthwhile suggesting that she and I become fuck buddies for the duration of the investigation.
Despite the illicit smiling that took place across the office, I'm never likely to suggest it. I don't have that kind of relationship with Sgt Jones.
*
Leave the office just after midnight. Go home, make myself some tea and toast, wash it down with vodka and tonic. Drink the first one quickly, make another. Fall asleep watching a Danish movie about the aftermath of child abuse. Have vague thoughts that I oughtn't to be so hard on all the fucking awful people that live in Britain, because there are fucking awful people in every country. Fall asleep as I'm having the thought that there are plenty of people who would think that I'm fucking awful, as fucking awful as all those members of the public I so detest.
Wake up suddenly, darkly, shockingly, sweat on my face, mouth open, a strangled cry in my throat, flailing hand knocking over the near-empty glass, which lands on the carpet and silently spills the dregs. Sit bolt upright, trying to bring myself back down from the high of fear.
The forest is already fading. I'm not naked. I'm not naked. Still in yesterday's clothes. I look down, see it rather than feel it.
Peed myself. Sit staring at the damp patch in my trousers for a while. I peed myself. What the fuck is that about?
I know. I know what it's about. Not the first time since Bosnia, but the first in a long time. Stand up, feel a drip down the inside of my leg. Look down at the seat. Already damp.
What did I dream?
I don't want to know what I dreamt. I know what I dreamt. Walk out into the hall, tired, sore, hot, miserable, encased in fear and gloom and darkness. Tired. Tired more than anything else. I could just go and lie down in bed. Me and my damp trousers. Hesitate. Seriously consider it for a moment, and then head for the bathroom. Look at my watch as I turn on the light.
Aw fuck. Couldn't be worse. Already after half-five. No time, no point in going back to bed. Isn't that just the worst feeling in the world? No time to do what you desperately want to do. No more time. No time for sleep.
Lean on the edge of the sink and look up at the mirror. Look fucking awful.
You know that thing that happens in movies where people look up into the bathroom mirror and then suddenly there's someone there behind them, waiting to bury a knife in their head?
I'd jump, and maybe I'd even pee myself again, but I wish that person was there right now. I wish he'd come. From nowhere. The man with the knife to finish me off.
The man with the knife.
Come on, you fucker. Come on.
30
Sitting in the office. A little before seven. Everyone looks tired. I feel more awake now than most of the rest of them look. Do I look awake though, or are they glancing at me as they walk past thinking, fuck he's knackered, or what happened to him? They don't know. They don't know I slept for less than four hours on a chair and woke up scared and miserable, trousers soaking like some incontinent old bastard.
Cried in the shower. Falling to pieces. Exhausted.
They don't know I cried in the shower.
The tears were dried off after the shower. The piss washed away, trousers stuffed in the washing machine. I drank coffee, I drank cold water, I cleaned my teeth. I'm awake. I'm not scared any more.
I'm still miserable.
I know what today brings in terms of the Plague of Crows investigation. I have five more people to talk to, and I need to reduce my list of three suspects to one. More than likely, to none. Finally got my few quiet minutes to think ab
out it while I ate breakfast. And when I say ate breakfast, I didn't actually eat anything. I'll grab something later, probably on my way out. If I get the chance to go out. Cleared up all the outstanding crap last night, although mostly that means I found somewhere to park it, allowing me to work on the case that really matters, so the morning will depend on how much other stuff comes my way.
Hopefully, and this is of course a wild stab in the dark, people won't have been trying to kill crows during the hours of darkness, because that would be a wild stab in the dark. No crow killings, less chance of inadvertent murder. Of course, it might well be that the collective, intent on increasing the crime rate because they know the police are otherwise occupied, will have been even busier because it was too dark to kill crows.
Constable Forsyth passes by. Now there's a man who looks tired, and it's pretty obvious he's been working the night shift. He nods.
'Busy night?' I ask, as he's about to pass by without saying anything.
'In a word…' he says, 'fucking hell, aye. It was. Never stops.'
I'd question his maths, but to be honest he doesn't really look in the mood. Anyway, he doesn't stop.
Doesn't look good. Better grab a few minutes doing some research on my three fellows from yesterday. Or one fellow, as it happens. On further thought I decided to ditch the rapist. Partly this is because he spoke to his lawyer the minute I was out the door. He's just a money-grabbing shit. The Plague of Crows isn't in it for the money. He's here for the sport.
It also wouldn't be in keeping with the obvious desire for anonymity. It's one thing the police turning up out of the blue uninvited – like Adele and Alanis – but to then keep the contact going, make them mad at you again, get your face in the newspapers if at all possible. That's not the Plague of Crows.
I've also realised that I need to chop the footballer off the list. Sure, he was an odious little bastard, but he's also a footballer, dyed-in-the-wool, which is to say he's thick as fuck. This guy probably hasn't worked out yet how to tie his boot laces, which is the real reason his career stank up the lower divisions of Scottish football. I was just keeping him on the list because I was in a bad mood and he's an obnoxious arsehole. If I did about ten more minutes of investigation on the bloke I could probably find at least three reasons to arrest him, but none of them would be for having the wit to carry out the crimes of the Plague of Crows.
That's what we're talking about. The crimes may be vile, horrendous, brutal, vicious, depraved, whatever you want to call them, but they're the work of a man who knows what he's doing, a man of creativity and acumen, a man who knows how to play his audience. A man of quality, who has decided for one reason or another to put those qualities towards perpetrating the most appalling murder. So, whoever he is, he ain't some dipshit footballer.
Which leaves the guy with the ugly kids in the big house to the north of the city. Married to a woman who used to be on High Road, that's what he said. There was no sign of the wife, and for all the photographs of the bloody spawn, there were none of the missus. Or of him. It was all about the kids.
Maybe that was why he went on the list in the first place. These people with endless photos of their damn kids all over the place. Fair enough, if that's what you want to do, once the damn kids have left home. Maybe you actually want to be reminded of them. But while they're living in the house with you? Really? What's the point? You finally get the little bastards off to bed after they've spent the day torturing you and ripping out your soul, then you look round and there's a fucking photograph of them smiling back at you. Laughing at you. Mocking you, letting you know that there's no escape. They will be there, sucking you dry, for all time.
Whereas, give yourself a few hours without the evil grinning faces of your kids garishly looking down upon you like some insane, murderous clown in a Stephen King novel, and you might be quite glad to see them when they get up the following morning.
Haven't seen my own kids since two days before Christmas. Some days I miss them. Some days I never give them any thought. Some days I feel guilty. Maybe that's what leads me to feel resentment against the brigade who fill their home with evidence that they've reproduced.
There was no sign of the wife, however. The wife who had been on High Road. And there was a smugness about the guy. Like he was laughing at the police for being so lost. Being so desperate that they're searching around for any old person to interview.
And maybe he's right to be smug, maybe he's right to hate the police, and maybe he's right to be laughing at us and our desperation. But the fact that he's laughing, the way he was laughing, it was just the way that I'd expect the Plague of Crows to be laughing when he's sitting watching our press conferences on the TV.
So, that's what I thought while I was drinking coffee. That I'd discard the rapist and the idiot footballer and concentrate on this guy. The guy who does something in stationery, the guy who was accused of murdering a schoolgirl, but who was never charged, and who makes enough to keep the large house he bought thanks to the police and who has a Lexus parked on the front driveway.
*
I read the files, but it's always best to get the subtext, get the information that was never written down. Twelve years later, and the officer in charge of the investigation has been retired about nine years. Ex-DCI Lynch isn't old. At least, he didn't retire because he'd hit pensionable age. He just chucked it because he'd had enough.
Find him at a trout farm up by Larkhall. Comes here twice a week. Four of the other days he splits between river, sea and loch fishing. Doesn't fish on a Saturday. Goes to watch the Celtic. Divorced. No kids. As miserable a bastard as you could wish to meet.
He's flicking his line over the water. I'm standing far enough away to avoid getting a hook in my hair. He clearly did not enjoy being interrupted. Acted like he was being forever questioned about old cases, although the sergeant I talked to at his station pretty much said that none of them had heard anything about him since he left. He wasn't easy to track down.
'But you didn't catch the real killer?'
So far he's answered most questions with one or two words. Coming to be of the mind that I might just push him in. And he's yet to look me in the eye.
'We did,' he says.
'You did what?'
'Catch him.'
There's a fair amount of disconnect going on here, which would be helped if he'd put down the fucking rod, speak to me properly and stop answering questions in mini sound-bite size chunks.
'I thought the case remained unsolved? That that was part of the suspicion that continued to hang over Clayton?'
'We solved it,' he says. 'Just couldn't nail the bastard.'
'Who?'
He finally glances round at me. He's looking at me like I'm the idiot.
'What?' he says, continuing the theme where he thinks I'm the one being obtuse.
'Who couldn't you nail?'
He continues to stare at me with the clear implication that I'm being thick as shit. And he's right. Finally sinks in.
'Ah,' I say eventually. 'Clayton…'
'Thank Christ,' he mutters, and at last he can drag his contemptuous look away from me back to the dark water of the pond, then he flicks the line over his shoulder for all the world like he's Brad fucking Pitt in that fishing movie.
'You sure it was him?' I ask, risking opprobrium by even continuing the conversation.
'Aye,' he says. 'But he was good. Knew what he was doing. Covered up after himself. A real pro.'
I stare at the miserable old bastard. There we are, the kind of thing that we've been looking for. Knew what he was doing. Covered up after himself like a pro.
'You been following the Plague of Crows business?' I ask.
He snorts. I wait for him to say something. He doesn't.
'You been following the Plague of Crows business?' I say again.
He grunts, this time says, 'Aye. Fucking glad it's nothing to do with me 'n' all.'
'You think Clayton is the kind of
man who could be pulling this off?'
He'd been about to cast the line again, then lets it fall and lie limply in the water. He stares straight ahead of him, although his eyes are vague, looking at nothing.
'That's what this is all about, is it?'
'Yes.'
He's still thinking, still looking at an indistinct point in the middle of nothing.
'What led you to him?' he asks.
It would be fun to answer him with a grunt and few words, but one of us has to be a grown up.
'Fishing around. Pretty clueless, to be honest. Ended up talking to people who might resent the police and the media, as the Plague of Crows appears to do. Spoke to several people yesterday, he was one of them.'
'Why'd he stand out?'
'He was an irritating, smug fuck,' I say. He snorts again. 'Lived in a nice house, seemed to have done well for himself…'
'Fucking too right, he did.'
'… just something about him. Didn't like the cut of his jib. When I think about all the people I've talked to in the course of the investigation, he stands out. You sure he killed that schoolgirl?'
'Yep.'
'Why?'
'He told me.'
'When?'
'When we'd let him go and he'd successfully sued the police, the Sun and the Daily Express.'
'Bravado? Rubbing it in? Just making shit up to try to piss you off?'
'Maybe.'
'So what made you believe him?'
He turns and looks at me again.
'He knew. He knew things he couldn't possibly have otherwise known. But he was good. Covered his tracks down to the last detail. Every time we thought we might have him, he had an out. Every track…. Bastard.'
We stare at each other for a few seconds and then he slowly turns away. Lifts the rod, flicks the line and the bait darts out over the water.
I look away. There are two other middle-aged blokes fishing on the other side of the pond. A chill day, low cloud, no hint of rain, not cold enough for snow. A flat, grey day. In the distance you can hear the traffic from the M74. A constant low sound, occasionally penetrated by a loud exhaust or an unnecessary charge up the outside lane.
A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller Page 16
