See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

by Douglas Lindsay

  ‘And what if...,’ I begin. The words fail. Taylor’s looking at me, waiting for me to say it. Morrow’s staring too, although he doesn’t know what’s coming.

  Fuck it.

  ‘What if it’s Clayton and it’s aimed at us?’ I say. ‘Me... aimed at me. Jesus, really, what if it’s not Clayton and it’s aimed at me?’

  ‘Did you think your political guy looked like Clayton?’

  And there’s the question.

  He looked like a door-to-door saddo in a cap with a beard. Any guy could look like that. Look at the Groucho mirror scene in Duck Soup.

  All right, they were brothers, but the principle’s the same.

  ‘I don’t know,’ is all I’ve got.

  ‘WHO SENT YOU?’

  The last syllable emerges as a high-pitched ejaculation, as the beak of the crow stabs into the side of my head.

  I can’t see it – I can never see it – but I can sense he’s looking at me, his head tilted to the side.

  ‘What?’

  Take a breath. At least I’ve managed to get him to stop. Maybe if I can keep him in conversation, I’ll recover my strength, be able to get up off the forest floor, before he can do it again.

  ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘What d’you mean, who sent us? Get outta here! You some kinda schmuck or what?’

  I stare at the trees above, the leaves moving in the wind. Unattractive trees. Vague trees. Impossible to tell what kind they are. Maybe if I close my eyes again it will all go away. The damp. The trees. The crows.

  ‘Fuck!’ I blurt out, as the beak stabs into me again. The same spot. Is it my imagination, or is the crow starting to get somewhere? Can I actually feel my skull weakening in that area? Is my brain beginning to feel the cold, right there, through the thinning skull?

  ‘Jesus,’ says the crow, ‘will you just relax?’

  ‘How can I relax? You’re stabbing my skull!’

  ‘We’ve been over this,’ says the crow. ‘Every goddam night. I really don’t know why I keep coming back here. Why don’t you just wake the fuck up and we can all get on with our lives?’

  ‘It’s not that easy.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he mutters.

  He grabs my ear with his beak, bites and pulls, and I yelp at the pain.

  I wake up. Eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Sweating and uncomfortable. My ear hurts, like it’s been bitten, and my hand goes straight to it. I feel sick.

  22

  SATURDAY MORNING. I’M heading into the office, but have decided to stop off at the church at the top of Cambuslang. The Old Kirk. Haven’t been back here since last year. I realise I’ve missed it.

  Woke up at 06.30. Headache, the dull throb right bang where the crow has been pecking away at me. I know it doesn’t make sense. I mean, you get hit in your dreams, why should you be in pain once you wake up?

  Yet, where’s the crow coming from? It must be coming from inside me, inside my head, my imagination, my guilt, my something. He’s there for a reason, and he’s causing me pain. Pain in my head, inside and out.

  Mundanely, I take two paracetamol and the pain fades by the time I’ve finished eating breakfast.

  Drive the car into work, taking the five-minute detour to the Old Kirk on the way. It’s only 07:45, but somehow it doesn’t seem surprising the gate to the church is not chained up, and the front door is open. Must be something going on, which seems strange, given the church is no longer in use for regular services.

  Wedding or a funeral.

  Park the car, then stand in the car park for a few seconds, looking up at the old building. A nice morning. Summer. A freshness still in the air, but the day will be warm and not too muggy. The steeple is etched against a hazy blue sky.

  Through the gate and up the path to the front door. Look over at the two graves that caused all the fuss the previous November. The grave I dug up with the body of the young girl, and the new grave, where the body of church member Maureen Henderson was buried in a hasty ceremony to make sure the graveyard did not slip into obsolescence.

  I’ve followed the story, presumed that once the fuss had died down, the church in Cambuslang would make sure the body was reburied elsewhere. Instead, the matter has become buried in the courts, and Maureen’s body remains where she was interred. The longer she stays there, one feels, the greater the chance she stays there for good.

  I open the door and enter. Immediately feels cooler in here. Take a moment, listen for any sound, and then walk through the short hall, open the door on the right and into the nave.

  She’s there at the far end of the church, arranging flowers at the altar. She turns at the sound of the door, a scowl on her face, which immediately relaxes when she sees me. She turns back to what she’s doing, rather than watch me walk towards her.

  The old place looks emptier than before, although the same quiet calm remains. Hands in pockets, I stop when I get to the front of the church, and Mary Buttler turns and smiles.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I thought you’d be back eventually,’ she says, ‘although I was beginning to wonder. What brings you here today?’

  Reply with my shoulders.

  ‘Not sure. I guess some part of me knew instinctively you’d be open. Wedding or funeral?’

  She gives me a bit of an eyebrow, glances at the flowers and then looks back.

  ‘You can’t tell?’

  ‘No idea,’ I say.

  ‘Funeral,’ she says.

  ‘An old parish member?’

  ‘Jean,’ she says. ‘Lovely woman. Been in a home for the past ten years, hadn’t been here in a long time.’

  We hold the gaze for a second, then she turns away and continues to work with the flowers. I watch her for a short while, and then walk further towards the back of the church, up the steps, to where the choir used to sit.

  ‘The place looks... I don’t know, seems emptier than before.’

  I look up at Jesus in blue as I say it. Jesus, whose name I mention so often. I expect he doesn’t mind. He’s the forgiving sort...

  She tuts, and when I look round she’s shaking her head.

  ‘The St Stephen’s lot have been up here. Take what they like, move it down to their dreadful building. They’re like... they’re like ISIS. No respect. They won the war, they won the peace, and now they just do what they like. I’m sick to death...’

  Another loud tut, she takes a moment from what she’s doing – probably not a great idea to work with flowers when you’re thinking about strangling someone – deep breath, then returns to the job.

  ‘Won’t be my problem for much longer,’ she says.

  ‘Why not?’

  She doesn’t answer immediately. Funny, I came here for peace, and thought I’d get it, but not unsurprisingly walk straight into the continuing bitterness of the old church merger.

  The peace really only comes from an empty building. As soon as people are involved, there it goes...

  ‘They said all combined posts in the church had to be advertised. Due process they called it. It’s the law, they said. So my job was opened up to everyone, not just in the church, of course. Thirty-seven people applied, but only two of those were from within the church community. Myself, and one person from amongst the St Stephen’s crowd. Guess who got the job.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She looks up. Eyes a little red. Seems like a reasonably open wound onto which I’ve just poured salt. Crap. Had to ask. Well, she wanted me to, I suppose.

  ‘How long have you got left?’

  ‘This is my last duty. I hand over the keys on Monday morning. I need to move out of the house by the end of June. Not that she’s getting the house, she doesn’t need it. Lord knows what they’re going to do with it, but whatever it is, we can guarantee it’ll be to their benefit and no one else’s.’

  She straightens up, a pair of scissors in her right hand.

  ‘I could bury these in someone’s head,’ she says, ‘and the only thing stopping me is not knowing
who to do it to first.’

  ‘I think there might have been enough murder over these churches,’ I say, but there’s no condemnation in my voice. I find myself on her side, completely.

  I walk back down towards her. There’s a tear on her cheek. Jesus, how stupid do I continue to be? How self-centred. I came here for me, that’s all. If the place was open, what was I expecting? Peace and quiet? Solitude?

  Yet, naturally, I walk into someone else’s problems, and they seem so much more intimately significant than mine.

  I walk over beside her and take her into my arms. And it’s not the asshole me who’s holding her. It’s the not the dickhead who would, under other circumstances, be happily banging her over the back of a pew while Jesus watched, looking somewhat perturbed.

  I just hold her, she presses her cheek into my chest.

  I’m comforting her, but she’s comforting me too. It feels safe and warm. And fleeting.

  Over her shoulder I look up at Jesus. He’s looking sceptical. He knows me after all, but I give him the nod. We’re good here, I say. He relaxes.

  There’s just the three of us, and we’re all joined by the same melancholy. The passing of the years, the changing of the guard. The things you need to do to get by.

  23

  THE POLITICS HAVE ARRIVED.

  Summoned into Riverside. Me, Taylor, Connor. Morrow left behind to work the case. No one in particular in charge, not that there generally needs to be.

  There are thirty-three people in the room. The Chief Constable of Scotland standing before us. An Edinburgh man through and through, and there will be plenty here wishing he’d fuck off back where he came from.

  This really is turning into the Crows business all over again. Fuck, what do I care? Don’t care about the politics, don’t care about who’s in charge. At some point it will all be over, and I’ll be back on the domestic violence and pub violence and petty theft that makes up a majority of what we do.

  I remain haunted by my stupidity. Still feel the absurd embarrassment and wretchedness from having sex on a desk. Still feels like I stepped over a line, or through a portal, stepped onto another path.

  Have barely thought of Philo since then. It feels wrong to. I have this sense she doesn’t want me thinking about her. Maybe at first she was amused by my sexual tomfoolery, but not now. Not now that the dust has settled and she’s had a chance to think about it.

  Now she’s dead, she only lives on when people think about her. That makes sense, right? When someone thinks of her, she survives, she’s there, she exists through the thoughts in that person’s head. Yet now, for the first time since she died, it feels like she doesn’t want me to be thinking of her. She doesn’t want to exist in my head, or exist because of my head. Her husband, the weak cuckold, he’ll be thinking about her today, and she won’t be torn. She’ll be there, with him, continuing to exist because of him.

  Jesus in blue didn’t really help. I had a brief respite of a few minutes, Mary in my arms, feeling some comfort. But she had to get on with her preparations, and I had to get to work, and it was over. And once she’s gone, the chances of me going by the Old Kirk and finding it open are virtually nil. It wasn’t just Mary who was going into that old church for the last time.

  Thirty-three people in a room. How many of those are men? Thirty-three. It’s pretty fucking funny, isn’t it? How shit an organisation is this? It’s a surprise we’re not here to discuss women’s issues.

  Yes, I know, they’ve intentionally made sure there are no women in the room so I can concentrate.

  ‘Look, gentlemen, we all know how this could go,’ says the man at the front. The Chief Constable of All Scotland. Jefferson. The highest officer in the land. First time I’ve sat in the same room as him. I wonder if I’m actually legally entitled to even open my mouth in his presence.

  Itching to say something, although I’m not even sure what yet.

  Concentrate!

  ‘We’re still some way off making a significant advance on any one of these investigations. They seem so disparate, so otherworldly in some ways, I can well understand why there are reservations about their interconnectedness. But perhaps, within this inherent contradiction, we see their true similarity. Their very diversity, and the fact they seem so unsolvable, perhaps points to the correlation between them.’

  He’s boring me. Maybe because he’s just saying what I already think. Only, in a more long-winded way.

  ‘Each of you, the teams working the four individual murders, will continue to pursue your investigations. However, management at superintendent level of each of the cases within your regular chain of command will be removed, and you will report to a single officer here in Dalmarnock. Chief Constable Tobin will take overall responsibility for the umbrella operation, with you feeding every piece of knowledge gained in your investigations into his office. I don’t need to tell you...’ But you will anyway... ‘that as you do not have sight of what the other investigations are involved in, and cannot necessarily know what is relevant and what is not, we request you feed everything back to the centre, regardless of how trivial or irrelevant it may seem. It may well be such a piece of information that finally leads to the breakthrough in this case. If at any time...’

  On and on. Finally zone out. I’ll tune back in if people start laughing.

  Not sure why I’m here. Under strict instructions from Connor to keep my mouth shut. Under even stricter instructions to make sure that should, for some obscure reason no one could possibly understand, I do somehow open my mouth, the name Clayton does not emerge.

  Naturally, of course, I’m now sitting here trying to stop myself saying Clayton. The little boy in me. The part of me that’s just the same as it’s always been.

  When you’re young, you think somehow it’ll be different being an adult. You’ll feel different, and you’ll think differently. Yet it never happens. Perhaps you grow up a little, you don’t laugh at Monty Python so much, and you become a little more aware of the feelings of others and how you impact on them – although, of course, awareness need not necessarily lead to decency – but the real you, who you are and how you think, you’re stuck with it from about the age of three. That’s just how it is.

  And now, while the grown up part of me knows I should keep my mouth shut, the other part, the part that’s always been happy to stick my hand into a bunch of nettles, even better if I’m taking someone else’s hand with me, is itching to let rip. Connor be damned.

  Uh-oh. Get the sudden feeling everyone is looking at me. And yes, everyone is looking at me. Thirty-two men. Or, thirty-one men and the demi-god at the head of the table. All looking my way.

  Must have switched off at the wrong moment.

  I look the big man at the front in the eye. Of all those other bastards looking at me, I can feel Taylor’s eyes the most. He’s the one who’s disappointed, the one who knows I drifted away.

  ‘Sergeant?’ says the beak at the front.

  Now, I would normally be predisposed to think ill of this guy. It’s just how it is. He’s in a position of authority, and by the very dint of wanting to be there, and conducting his career in such a manner as to reach that position, then he must be a dick. Weirdly, though, I like the cut of his jib. And here, right now, I can see him looking at me, and he knows I wasn’t listening, and I can tell he’s going to be cool about it.

  ‘I was saying that really, the reason we’re all here is because of the e-mail messages and the text you received.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have any insight into why someone might have chosen you? I know Superintendent Connor said you were reviewing all your old cases.’

  The name is right there. In my mouth, the tip of my tongue, on my lips, and by God I can’t stop it, and boom! here it comes, spewed out onto the table in amongst the thirty-three bold and brave men of the Scottish Police Service.

  ‘Clayton,’ I say. Doesn’t come out quite right, so I repeat the name.

  There foll
ows a murmuration of raised eyebrows. I can sense Taylor’s deep breath, and the jagged stare of Connor, stabbing into my head. The poor man must be silently screaming, don’t mention the fucking crows!

  ‘That would be Michael Clayton,’ says the beak.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, my estimation raised further by the fact he knows who I’m talking about. He’s done his research.

  He glances around the room, gauging the reaction of those present who know the story, and then comes back to me.

  ‘You never established anything on this man before. Indeed, the Police Service was fortunate not to end up in court. Do you suppose he’s continuing the murderous ways we were unable to previously prove, or do you think he might have seen these murders are taking place and is taunting you? Taunting the police. Trying, perhaps, to lure us into further acts of indiscretion.’

  That there is a good point. It could well be, despite his position, this man is really not a complete idiot.

  Don’t mention the crows!

  ‘He’s a very clever man,’ I say. ‘I don’t doubt it’s him who’s contacting me. There’s no one else, no one else who would care enough. We know he’s got the technical computer ability to carry it off –’

  ‘You suspect it,’ begins Connor, ‘and have absolutely –’

  He’s silenced by a move of the beak’s hand. Jesus, there’s authority. Also, to be fair to Connor, someone with respect for it. I think I’d just keep talking all the more if someone did that to me.

  All right, I’m not mentioning the crows, but everything else is on the table.

  ‘He was suspected by a predecessor of ours, DCI Lynch, in a murder/rape case a few years ago. He couldn’t pin him down, Clayton managed to sue the police...’ The beak looks like he knows what I’m talking about, but I keep going anyway. ‘... and then he came to Lynch afterwards, a few months after it was all done and dusted and we’d basically had to shelve the case and place it in the Unsolved column, and told him he’d done it.’