In the corner by the window is a large ficus benjamina, which, remarkably, has survived for over five years. I thought I'd kill the damn thing in days, but it's still going.
It'll outlive me. One day I'll be dead and it'll be sitting there for a while afterwards thinking, I haven't seen the Miserable Cunt much recently. I wish he'd come back, I'm dying for a pint.
There are three pictures on the walls. One is an original film poster from Casablanca. Worth something now, I dare say. Bought it in 1985 for £250. There's a painting of the harbour at Anstruther. It was a present. I stuck it on the wall to keep her happy, imagining that I'd take it down when she wasn't there. She's long gone and I never did get around to removing the picture. Then there's Grace Kelly. I never knew which movie it was from, never tried to find out. Someone said Rear Window once. Maybe they're right
There's something teenage about having a movie poster and a b&w movie star on your wall. Certainly, that's what Peggy used to say. I don't care. What does it matter? The women that come back here aren't doing it because they think I earned a 1.1 in classics from Oxford.
There's the air of cigarette smoke, but it's not as bad as some houses. I leave the windows open a lot, try not to smoke too much inside. Nevertheless, A Smoker Lives Here is more or less emblazoned on the walls.
BBC4 trundles round to the next show. The last one only finished a minute ago, and I've already forgotten about it. I don't even know what I was watching. It was just on, right there, in front of me. I have no idea what it was called.
'Now on Four,' says the faceless man on the television, over the BBC4 graphic, 'Dr Lesley Brothers travels to Israel to continue her examination of the Book of Daniel. With scenes of a graphic nature, that are liable to be upsetting to you in particular, Sergeant Hutton...'
The show starts.
What?
He never said that. He didn't. He couldn't have done.
Dr Brothers is saying something, standing in the middle of a Middle Eastern desert, but I can't hear what she's saying. The guy on the TV, he didn't just mention my name.
Is that a thing? Are they doing that now? They know who's watching and can tailor everything so that it's viewer-specific?
God, my head's swimming. Shut up! Shut up, Dr Lesley Brothers! Jesus!
I hit the remote, pressing buttons to turn it off. Keep hitting the wrong one. The volume turns up. What? What? Go away, for fuck's sake. Fucking television.
Just stop!
The remote control is a blur. I could get off my stupid arse and turn the set off, but do I even know where the button for that is? I never turn it off at the set.
Must be one of these buttons on here. Crap, come on. The channel changes. What? More noise? What?
There are images flashing by, images of a great beast, a beast with ten horns, crashing and breaking and destroying, images in black and white. The voice is talking, another voice. Not Dr Lesley Brothers. Someone else. Someone like her, lecturing us. Lecturing the viewer. Lecturing me. Telling me about Daniel.
Daniel. Why do I want to know about Daniel? Fucking Daniel!
Jesus, will you shut up? Shut the fuck up with your fucking voices!
I can't find the button on the remote. Go away. I can't leave the room, because it will still be here, louder and louder, eating at me. I need to turn it off. I jump out of my seat, so many voices in my head.
Stop it. Just fucking stop it! I don't know where the button is. The on/off button. I grab the television. The remote has fallen on the floor. I pull the TV forward. Not far enough. I shake it. Shake the TV. Grapple with it. Shut up, you useless piece of techno-shit! Fucking stop!
I push the TV off the unit. It falls onto the floor. The plug comes out of the wall. The picture dies. The sound stops.
Breaths are so heavy. Laboured. Fucking TV. You weren't speaking to me. Fuck you. Of course, you weren't. Fuck you. I stamp on the back of the TV. It's stopped now. I can leave. Where am I going to go? That's always the problem, stuck in this stupid little fucking piece of crap apartment. Me and Grace Kelly.
Fall onto my knees. Turn my back on the television.
Daniel. Fuck you.
Lean forward, head in hands. Breaths still short. Head. Head needs to explode. Squeeze it. Squeeze it harder. Maybe it'll stop.
23
Don't make it into work.
The alarm on my phone goes off at 6 a.m. as it always does. I haven't been in bed very long. Lay on the carpet a long time, fell asleep, woke up, felt cold, couldn't move. Shivered. Heating had turned off. Finally crawled into bed. The alarm goes off and it barely feels like I've been asleep. The alarm set to Nokia-supplied jazz music. The only thing that usually wakes me up. Set loud.
It plays and plays. Switches itself off after a couple of minutes. Comes back on, eight minutes after it turned itself off. I don't sleep through it. It's there, right next to my head, right next to my fucking head, right inside my head, but it doesn't make me move.
Finally turn it off, maybe the eighth time it's going through its cycle. Maybe the ninth. No one's counting.
Some time later the house phone rings. And rings. I think it wakes me up. Somewhere I recognise that it will be the station, looking for me. Sergeant Ramsay. I don't answer.
The mobile rings shortly afterwards. I let it. In some part of my brain I hear the conversation that's going on at the station. Ramsay reporting back to Taylor. Taylor not accepting that he can't get in touch with me, telling him to keep trying. Taylor irritated, the irritation covering up the worry. Has probably been waiting for me to fall off the cliff since I returned to work.
From somewhere I think of the toilet cleaner. The enlightened toilet cleaner, just trying to do a good job, trying to make peoples' lives that little bit better. I said I'd do something for him. I said I'd investigate ways to deal with the town graffiti artists. Investigate. Because that's what I do. Yet what have I done?
The home phone rings again. I don't have a phone in the bedroom. I'm not getting up. This time, however, I know I'm going to get the mobile. Taylor will be worried, and the least I can do is ease that for him. Albeit, I'm lying here at the bottom of the fucking cliff, so that thing he's worried about has happened.
The mobile rings as soon as the home phone rings off. I take the call without speaking.
'Sergeant Hutton?'
'Yes.'
'You all right?'
There's the question. I don't answer straight away, as I'm not sure what to say to that. Not in the mood for making shit up, not in the mood for pretending, but the thought of telling the truth ain't so fucking great either.
'No,' I say eventually. Look around for a clock, even though of course I know there isn't one to see. Take the phone away from my ear to look at the time. 10:13. Work starts officially at 08:30. Taylor gave me just over an hour and a half to be late before looking for me. 'Won't make it in, but I'm all right.' Bet I don't sound it. 'I'll take the day as leave, square it off with the boss later.'
'You'll be in tomorrow,' says Ramsay. Not a question, or an order, just a statement. Very straight, Ramsay. Knows who he's dealing with, but not judgemental.
'Yeah,' I say.
He clicks off. I lay the phone on the bedside table. The curtains are open, the morning outside grey and dull. The phone call has been little but a minor blip. It hasn't woken me up, hasn't penetrated the grey, hasn't allowed me to bounce back up from the bottom.
The toilet cleaner. That guy. I said I'd help him. I can't do it from here, can't do it today, but I can do it tomorrow, if I make it into work. He deserves it. Just a guy trying to help people. The least I can do.
This morning, that's all I've got to cling to. Not much, and not enough. The grey swirls around, crawls over my head, crawls inside my brain. I curl up under the sheets. Still feeling wiped out. Maybe I can get back to sleep.
That's all I've got. Sleep.
*
Haul myself out for a walk just after two in the afternoon. Heading for the park at
the top end of town, as that was where I so often found myself in the summer when I was getting over all that shit that happened in the spring. This time, however, I've no intention of going to the park. I time it so that I'll get to the church at the same time as Mrs Buttler. She said she was there at the same time every day. Practically invited me.
The person I really want to talk to, the person who's flitting in and out of my head, is Philo Stewart, but that's too complicated. I can't be having the feelings I'm having for her. It's not going to help anyone. Certainly not me. Mrs Buttler, sitting in silence in a silent church, is much safer territory.
Sure enough, the iron gates are closed but not padlocked. The door to the church is closed, but unlocked. I walk into the small entrance hall, along the short corridor, and into the nave.
Close the door behind me and take in the scene. Nothing has changed. Rows of empty pews in perfect silence. Empty, of course, bar Mrs Buttler. She doesn't turn to see who's there. I assume she knows it's me. Don't even consider for a second – having cast my instant judgement on him – that she will expect her husband to have come across. Not the type to step into the church. He likely would not even realise that's where his wife has gone.
I walk silently down the aisle and take my place in the pew across from where Mrs Buttler is sitting. We don't look at each other. I stare up at Jesus in blue behind the chancel.
Beautiful silence. So much more healing than it would have been sitting in silence in my front room, Grace and me. Nevertheless, I feel quite detached from the religion of it. It's not about God. It would be the same if this were a library, or an old stately home devoid of guests, or a magnificent old town hall, no one else inside.
That's what I tell myself. Jesus looks down upon me and begs to differ.
'I heard a guy on the street yesterday,' I say, finally breaking into the endless hush. Hadn't thought about saying it, the words just appear in my mouth. 'He's on Rutherglen Main Street every day apparently, quoting the Old Testament.'
I pause but she doesn't come in. Nothing to suggest that she knows the guy I'm talking about. Why should she, anyway? Rutherglen Main Street is two and a half miles from here.
'Said something about a leopard. A leopard with four wings on its back and four heads. I don't know, something like that.' I try to think of the exact words he used, but they've gone.
'Daniel,' she says. Her voice edges softly out into the silence.
Ah. The Book of Daniel. Of course. The book that's currently lying on a kitchen worktop in my apartment. That damned book.
'What does the four-headed leopard represent?'
'Well, there's the question. It's the same with all those old books. Scholars, priests, whoever, have placed interpretations on them, and who knows how accurately?'
I feel her looking at me, and finally I turn away from Jesus in Blue. She shrugs.
'Daniel had a vision of four beasts, which were supposed to represent four conquering rulers who would rise and fall.'
'The leopard was the first beast?'
'The third.'
'And the first two? A hyena and a giraffe?'
She laughs. 'A lion and a bear actually.'
'Of course.'
'Although the lion had the wings of an eagle.'
What if the Old Testament was actually written by the Monty Python equivalents of their day, and all that stuff was originally intended as surrealist comedy?
'And the bear had the wings of a dragonfly and the feet of a centipede?' I ask.
She laughs again. I haven't heard her laugh before now. Nice to hear. I don't suppose many of them ever laugh when they're talking about this awful church business.
'No, the bear didn't have wings. It just had ribs in its mouth. I mean, between its teeth, rather than as part of its mouth. I think that's how it is.'
Ribs?
'How many ribs?'
'Three. Why?'
Just like my gormless buddy in the internet café, I ain't got no poker face.
'Three ribs. What kind of ribs? I mean, the ribs of what animal?'
She looks away. Her eyes fall on the large Bible on the lectern. 'Don't think it says. You can look if you like.'
I don't move. Sit there staring at the lectern. Work has just intruded like a spear in the side of the head. That wasn't why I came here. I didn't want to think about work. Not yet.
Maybe I should just go to the park. Try not to think about a lion with wings and a bear with three ribs in its teeth, and Maureen with wings and young Tommy with ribs down his throat.
The third one, the leopard with four wings and four heads. Does that give us any clue as to who or when or why someone will next be killed? Should I be dashing into work with the information? Is it evidence? It's not evidence. A clue then? Something to shunt us off in the right direction?
Can't think straight. Can't think at all.
I've been looking at her the whole time, all this running through my head.
'You shouldn't go back to work,' she says. 'Whatever it is you're thinking, you look pretty messed up. It's like bringing your phone in here. You came here for something other than work.'
I don't speak. I can feel her compassion. At least, I think the compassion is hers. Perhaps it's the guy in blue up in the window.
'I presume there was something with ribs with regard to Tommy Kane,' she says.
'Sorry?'
There's no inquisitiveness in her voice. Resignation almost. As if she's saying, you shouldn't be thinking about work, but since you are, I'm just going to hurry you along, so that you can get past it for the day, and go back to the empty, maudlin thoughts you ought to be having.
'I saw Maureen hanging, same as everyone else around here. She had those wings on her back. They looked... it was bizarre. I didn't know what it meant. I'm sure no one did.'
'We thought they were meant to be angel's wings.'
'We all did. But if you're suddenly getting interested in Daniel 7, then presumably there was something about ribs with the boy. He had ribs in his mouth, or whatever.'
I stare across the aisle. Don't say anything else. The thought of work drills away, alongside its friend, inadequacy. I would have known this days earlier if I'd read the damned book; if I'd bothered speaking to a minister or Bible scholar; if I hadn't kept stabbing 'angel's wings' into fucking Google, like a deranged automaton, incapable of even the slightest lateral thought.
'Go home, Sergeant, or go for a walk.'
I look into the eyes of Mary Buttler. The large Bible on the lectern stares down at me sternly, pushing me away.
*
Wake up. Lie still for a moment trying to remember what day it is, what's coming in the morning. Work or weekend?
Work.
Reach out for my phone, check the time. 1.31 a.m. Have been in bed for four hours. Stare at the ceiling. Curtains open as always, the room dimly illuminated by the street lights.
Instantly aware of the usual problem. Awake in the middle of the night and straight away my brain starts whirring. Not necessarily about what needs to be done the next day. It can be anything, although it's invariably bad. Memories and thoughts ping in from all areas of the past – entirely random, never good – as though they're being catapulted from various points around the universe of my head.
Pushing that kid over when we were playing in the field. I was eight years old. Nine possibly. He fell into cow shit. He was off school for a couple of days. When he came back you could still see the bruises on his arm from where his mother had beat the crap out of him. Because I'd pushed him into cow shit. I didn't say sorry. Didn't know how. Just never spoke to him again.
That's what's in my head, that memory pinged in from the outer limits, from nowhere. Why did I just think of that?
I become aware of her before turning, think about it for a moment or two, as if the middle of the night is happening in slow motion, and then look over. She's standing at the window, looking down at the street. Holding something in her hand. I watch
her for a while, wondering whether I should speak. I should probably get up first. Don't want to talk to her while lying in bed. Maybe if I just lie here long enough, she'll go away; or, at the very least, I'll go back to sleep and she'll be gone when I wake up.
I swing my feet out the bed and sit up.
'What's going on, kid?' I say.
She turns. She's holding a stuffed lion by the ear. It looks pretty old. She's wearing the same dress and cardigan as the previous two times that I've seen her. Is it two? Maybe it's more than that.
'Did you read the book yet?'
Shake of the head.
'I'm there, though. I know I need to.'
'Yesterday was a bad day.'
'Yes, it was.'
What? How does she know that?
'I'll read it in the morning. Going to get up early, go for a run. I'll read the book over breakfast, get into work early.'
She nods.
'That's good. You should.'
She turns back to the window, as though everything that had to be said has been.
'Anything happening out there?' I ask.
'Not tonight,' she says.
I wonder. All I need to do is look away, and when I look back she'll be gone. Is that how it works? I put my head in my hands for a moment, and although it's at first a slightly contrived action, it feels so natural. Sitting on the edge of a bed, leaning forward, head in my hands, feeling confused and wasted and miserable. Ah, you stupid arsehole.
Sit like that long enough that I quite forget that I initially put my head in my hands in the hope that the kid would vanish. So long, in fact, that I forget I'm not alone.
Except that, when I finally lift my head, it turns out I am alone.
Tiredness returns, for all the world like I've been rapped over the head with it. I slide back under the covers, lie down and fall asleep.
24
Woke up at just after 4 a.m. Went for a run. Stopped at the Esso garage on the way home and bought rolls and bacon and orange juice and milk and coffee. Came home, had a shower, drank two glasses of water, made breakfast, ate breakfast, read Daniel 7 while I ate, and now I'm walking in through the front door of the station at 6.27 a.m.
The Blood That Stains Your Hands Page 12
