‘So, what did you have? Someone killing people after the manner of Mr Dylan’s album titles, and you had to work this out? Your two or three mentions in your otherwise seemingly irrelevant press conference were your way of letting the killer know you’d made the connection?’
Jesus, she’s seen right through us.
‘You don’t want to come and work for the police?’ I say, and she laughs.
‘I might be of some use if all the crimes you investigated had a Bob Dylan angle, but otherwise, I think my talents better serve me here.’
‘You must have seen him in concert,’ I say.
‘Five or six times.’
I look surprised.
‘I see. You’ll have seen him over a hundred, I’m supposing,’ she says.
‘Well over.’
‘Well, each to their own, Sergeant. I’m old enough to have seen Mr Dylan in his heyday. These days, these fifty or sixty concerts a year he plays that all you younger Dylan junkies overdose on so you can swap stories about how many you’ve attended, like guys in a bar comparing penis size...,’ and she finishes the sentence with a dismissive wave. ‘Mr Dylan just ain’t what he used to be. I’ll keep my memories where they are.’
‘You weren’t at the Albert Hall in ‘66? No wait, Manchester? Were you at Manchester?’
In actual, technical terms, this isn’t really any different from jumping a witness on the desk, in that the job’s equally not getting done, but chatting about Bob at least has a more wholesome feel to it.
‘No, but I saw him in Glasgow in between.’
‘Shit.’
‘Actually he was rather good. I got his autograph too.’
‘No way. You still got it?’
I automatically look around the walls of the office, expecting to see the small, framed piece of paper, the legend’s scrawl preserved behind glass for future generations.
‘Well, it wasn’t really possible to keep it.’
She smiles again, and I’m so detached from my detective’s brain – largely because I’m sitting here like some sort of brain-dead fanboy, who’s lost all sense of reason – I have no idea what she means, so ask the question with a couple of raised eyebrows.
‘He signed my thigh,’ she says.
‘No fucking way,’ I say, quickly holding up an apologetic hand at the language.
‘It was Mr Dylan, you could hardly be surprised.’
‘Holy crap.’
She takes a moment, then looks to the side. I follow her gaze, and find she’s looking at the clock sitting on the mantelshelf above the filled-in fireplace.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘You’re right. Dr Brady...’
Probably best. I mean, how far away was I there from asking if I could see the actual thigh that was signed by the legend himself? Not very far, to be honest, and if there wasn’t such an air of grown up respectability about Cairns, I’d probably still have a go at it.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I’m curious how she comes to be involved in these murders. We haven’t seen her in over a week, so I do hope she’s all right.’
‘I saw her yesterday. She was fine. Well, physically she was fine, I’m not sure...’ and there the words drift off.
I’ve come in here to talk about Brady, but it doesn’t mean I actually know what I’m going to say, of course. Slightly thrown, not so much by Dylan fandom, but by the fact Cairns is on to us, that she knew what Clayton was thinking even before we did.
‘I may not be able to answer all your questions, Sergeant, either ethically or because I just don’t know, but please feel free to ask and discuss anything. You can be assured it won’t go any further than these walls.’
‘Right.’
Take a second, get my head in the right place – like that ever happens – and then, ‘How long has Dr Brady worked here?’
‘A little over two years. She’d been working in Germany for, I’m not sure how long, I think several years, and she applied for this post while she was still there. She’s been with us since she arrived back in Scotland. I do remember her getting in from Frankfurt on a Sunday evening, and starting work on the Monday morning.’
‘And she’s well remunerated for her work?’
A pause, while she thinks this one over.
‘I think her wages here are not really on the table of the discussion, but I do know she was in a very lucrative practice in Frankfurt.’
‘Why did she come back?’
‘That’s a personal matter for Veronica. She left her family behind in Frankfurt. A husband and daughter. I imagine there was some sadness there.’
‘Does she see them? You know if she travels to Germany much?’
‘I believe so. In fact, I rather presumed that was where she went last week, and that her sudden request for time off work was perhaps as a result of some family crisis, or that some unexpected opportunity had arisen to spend time with her daughter.’
Eyes lowered, thinking this through. Not the time for it, though. Just need to be gathering information, try to put it all together.
‘We saw her yesterday, and also on Sunday, so no, she’s not in Germany.’
‘And she was all right?’
‘Like I said, physically, yes.’
‘If you could tell me the way in which she might be linked to your murder investigation, I might know better if there is any way in which I could be of help.’
‘We have a suspect. The name isn’t in the public domain, at least, not in terms of this investigation, although he is someone who’s been involved in police matters before. Michael Clayton.’
Leave a gap to see if the name rings a bell, but there’s nothing on her face.
‘Dr Brady’s story for the past week seems a little thin, and we’re not sure about it. But she says she’s been seeing Mr Clayton as a client for some time, and she’s also been seeing him as a private patient every day for the past week.’
The brow furrows, Cairns leans forward on her elbows.
‘I don’t know the name, Clayton, but I don’t know the names of all the clients we have here at the practice. But that does sound suspicious. Just give me a second.’
She lifts the lid on the laptop that’s been sitting, closed, beside her, and I look past her head, out at the spire of the university, while she checks up on the names of Brady’s clients.
If this isn’t straightforward, if this isn’t a simple matter of Clayton having a psychiatrist, then why did Clayton put us on to her? Why would he help us?
Help us? He wasn’t helping. He was just using her as a messenger, to further taunt me.
There he goes, tying me up in knots again, and he’s not even in the room.
She closes the laptop, head shaking.
‘No, there’s no Michael Clayton. Is it possible he was using a different name?’
‘Yes,’ I reply, ‘but then, we asked Dr Brady about him, and she didn’t react. If he’s registered with you under a different name, she at least knows what his real name is, and she didn’t mention any other.’
‘Well, that makes no sense. Perhaps you were right to come and see me.’
‘She also says she’s under investigation from the BMA.’
The brow furrows again.
‘What for?’
Don’t immediately answer, partly because of my own part in this issue, then finally I internally roll an eye or two and get on with it.
‘Having sex with her clients.’
Cairns looks surprised, then says, ‘Good grief. Which ones?’
‘All of them.’
‘We are talking about Veronica here?’
‘Yes.’
A second while she processes this, then finally the shoulders lift.
‘There is definitely something fishy about all of this, Sergeant, I’m afraid. I obviously don’t know the level of involvement of your Mr Clayton in these crimes you’re investigating, but if he’s got Veronica involved, then I urge you to get to the bottom of it with all speed. She has been an asset to
this practice, and there has never been the slightest hint of trouble or of an investigation from the BMA.’
We hold the gaze, then her eyes drift to the clock again.
‘I think perhaps you have some investigating to do,’ she says.
‘Yes, you’re right. One more thing. You know if Dr Brady has any family in the city, close friends, anybody like that I could speak to?’
‘Sorry, Sergeant, she’s a good doctor, but we are in fact quite a disparate practice, even though we’re all confined in this small, old building. I’m not sure she even has any close relationships with any of the other staff here. I’ll ask around in the morning and let you know.’
I push the chair back.
‘Thank you, Doctor, you’ve been very helpful. I must... maybe some day we could meet socially to talk about Bob. I’d love to hear about the concert in ’66.’
‘Give me a call, Sergeant, you know where to find me.’
42
BACK INTO THE OFFICE, almost eight by the time I get there. Need to find out about Brady’s husband and child back in Germany, but that they exist, and that they’re in Frankfurt, is all I’ve got. Taylor’s not in his office, Morrow back at Riverside or has gone home for the evening, the superintendent’s door is open, his chair empty.
Check of the watch, wonder how long I’ll give it, wonder if it’s too late to call Germany. Whatever, it’s never too late to speak to someone, but it might just be too late to actually get hold of anyone useful.
I Google the doctor, and it seems odd it’s taken any of us two days to do it. And there we are, 763 results (0.447 seconds), and the next hour or so will take care of itself.
DON’T GET HOME UNTIL well after eleven. Stopped for a Chinese on the way, lemon and ginger chicken with fried rice, pop it on the table as I walk past, heading for the fridge. Also dived into the off-licence for a vodka and wine top-up.
Found what I was looking for a couple of hours into my late evening stint back in the office, nothing but the duty constables for company. A report in German on a missing child. Dr Brady’s missing child. No way that’s a coincidence.
I called Germany, everyone I spoke to spoke English, which was a bonus – and naturally, spoke it better than me in a couple of cases – but I was calling late enough our time, and it was obviously an hour later with them, and I didn’t get hold of anyone familiar with the case. Alarm clock will be set, and I’ll be in early to crack on with it.
Already I’ve got Clayton kidnapping Brady’s daughter, and then making her do stuff under threat to the kid. Why not? It’s a theory, and hardly the most outlandish.
Not that it’s given me too much enthusiasm for the task ahead. The days of suddenly getting the hint of a clue and thinking, this is it, this is going to drive us forward, are long dead.
Now I’ve got nothing. I need to get some sleep, and then I can get into it with Taylor in the morning. Maybe he can provide the enthusiasm, but it’s hardly any more likely.
And I could just go straight to sleep, but why skip the opportunity for food and alcohol when it’s there, regardless of how little it’s required, and so here I am, at the table, wine and a glass and a fork. Contemplate putting on the TV, then decide as usual to go for some dear old Bob, trying not to think of Dr Cairns’s thigh. Oh Mercy tonight. Slow, moody and sorrowful, just in a completely different way to Shadows In The Night, recorded back in the day when Bob still had a voice. Ha! Like Bob ever had that much of a voice.
Bite me, ye Bob Dylan fans.
Alcohol and a carry out, the national diet. Seems too late for me to make any other effort. My life is fucked, as good as over, and me, only forty-seven. I tried, I really did, but my one chance at redemption rested in the hands of someone who was killed within a couple of days of me realising what I could have.
And there will be no police redundancy. No pay off, no golden handshake. Stuck here, in this fucking awful job dealing with murderers and halfwits. All I can do is walk off into the sunset, bottle of wine in one hand, vodka tonic in the other.
Still thinking about Dr Brady, even though there’s nothing to be done until morning. I didn’t understand her, that was the thing. Didn’t get her at all. I was blinded by my own lust to start with, I guess, but afterwards, when we were eating lunch, I had nothing. I don’t even think she was putting up a wall to try and block my male superpower X-ray vision. She just sat there, talking or not, her mind working in a way I didn’t remotely understand.
It’ll be the kid. Introduce the kid into it, and it all makes sense.
Pour more wine, shovel more food.
We shovel Chinese carry outs, don’t we? All of us. The only way to eat it differently is to use chopsticks, but there’s something about eating a Chinese takeaway with chopsticks that just makes you feel like a bit of a dick, even in your own house, even with nobody watching.
The wine works its way quickly to my head. I relax, the tension of another crappy day in the stupid crappy office begins to fade. Another day over, another day in the bag, another day negotiated, another day nearer the grave.
I wonder about Dr Brady, and if she has indeed ever had sex with any of her clients. Has she been lying about everything, or does she keep that kind of thing from the boss upstairs, who once had Bob Dylan sign her thigh? I mean, you would, wouldn’t you?
I’m disposed to believe Brady has been lying, but nevertheless, as I sit eating dinner, I imagine her having sex with a variety of clients in her office, male and female, and gradually those clients are replaced in my imagination by me, and I shovel Chinese carry out and fantasise about fucking the woman I had yesterday, on her garden furniture and on her office furniture.
AS IT HAPPENS, DR BRADY has never fucked anyone in her office. Not in a chair, not on the floor, not on her desk, not at the door... as Dr Seuss might have written, had he ever written a book about a psychiatrist not having sex with her clients.
She sits in her cage, her hands on her knees, her head bowed. She’s not looking at Clayton. She’s not looking at the television, which has been set up just outside the cage.
Clayton is watching TV, his seat just beyond arm’s length of the bars. Perfectly positioned. If she reached out and took a swipe, she would miss him by less than an inch. Not that she thinks about it.
‘You should watch,’ he says. ‘You make a lovely couple.’
He turns the sound up, still not too loud, but loud enough.
The sounds of summer. A back garden. Birds in the trees. Cars in the distance. Two people having sex on a swinging seat and on the grass, in a small, secluded copse.
The couple are filmed from a bedroom window, and from a hidden camera in the trees. The microphone is in the structure of the garden chair. Great sound quality. The film has been edited, so it switches between angles.
The room is filled with the sound of her moaning, and of Thomas Hutton breathing heavily. She is lying back on the grass. He is kneeling between her legs, has hoisted her hips up off the ground, and is fucking her forcefully, the doctor nearing orgasm.
‘This is a great position,’ says Clayton, his voice slow and analytical, like a scientist dissecting a scene from a nature documentary. ‘Your breasts are small, but this displays them beautifully.’
Despite herself she looks up.
‘Fuck you,’ she mutters bitterly, before quickly looking away.
‘I don’t know why you’re upset,’ says Clayton. ‘Seriously, you look like you’re having the most tremendous fun. As does Sgt Hutton, bless him.’
He smiles, his fingers entwined in his lap. The Dr Brady on the television cries out, trying not to make too much noise, her body juddering, as Hutton presses against her tightly, thrusting into her as far as he can go. The caged Dr Brady hangs her head, determined she won’t cry. Determined she won’t break in front of this man.
‘Now,’ he says, turning the sound off, but leaving the video playing, ‘I don’t wish to upset you, but I think it might be time to bring Sgt Hutton to heel,
so I’m going to tell you what we’ll do. I rather fancy one of those headlines where they imply that despite having lots of work to do, and a deranged killer to catch, the police are too busy having fun. So we’re going to put this video online...’
She gasps, then quickly closes her mouth. There’s nothing to be said, nothing to be done. He has dominion, and has already let her know just how pitiless he is. She cannot appeal to his compassion, for he has none.
‘Obviously it’d be tremendous if we could put this on YouTube, it’s the most wonderful platform, but we have to accept that YouTube just doesn’t want this kind of content. Not even something as magnificent as this. So, what we’ll do is use a proxy server and set up our own page, we’ll get... What am I doing? You don’t want to hear the mechanics, do you? You just want to know about the exposure. I mean, don’t worry, darling, you look magnificent. Look, look at yourself!’
She doesn’t look up. She knows what’s happening, despite the sound being off. She knows Hutton has not yet ejaculated, she knows he barely let her finish coming before withdrawing, then thrusting his head between her legs and sucking and licking her, while she was still tender and not ready for it, so that she was spasming and gasping, delirious, the fury of discomfort and pleasure.
‘Men are going to love you, women too, if they’re not jealous. You look fabulous, darling. Hutton just looks like a brute, but you... you’ll be the darling of the talk show circuit...’
‘I just want to see Chrissie!’
She says it through gritted teeth, closes her eyes after the exclamation.
Shouldn’t have said it. Shouldn’t have let him see beneath the mask, let him see how much he was getting to her. And it had sounded so weak. But then, it was hardly a surprise, given the situation.
He stares at her, looking amused, his eyebrow raised, waiting for her to look back.
‘Gosh, you really ought to have said. Would you like me to bring her up?’
Now Brady raises her head, the anger and hurt quickly lost to her surprise.
‘She’s here?’ she says. ‘Chrissie’s in this house?’
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean Page 22
