In My Time Of Dying: DS Hutton Book 5

by Douglas Lindsay

  The things she’s faced, you’d think – she thinks to herself – you’d think she could laugh in the face of a spider, giant house spider or not. Big bastard for Scotland maybe, but nothing compared to the ones you see in Australian YouTube videos. One of the very many reasons she’s never been to Australia. Now she will never go.

  To be fair, she’s about to never do anything again in her life, bar lie on a mortician’s slab, and rest in a coffin to rot.

  She closes her eyes, does not wake up enough to wonder why it was she woke up in the first place. There are always noises, outside, to the left, to the right, above and below her. Noises don’t mean anything. She wakes frequently during the night, and always enjoys the moment of looking at the clock, knowing she can go back to sleep.

  Something in her arm. What was that? She doesn’t open her eyes, rubs the mark at the top of her bicep, the nick, the bug bite. Mosquito? Midgie? In October? That’d be weird. Where are you now, Mr Spider? What’s the point of you being in the room if you’re not even going to take care of the damned bugs?

  Her arm feels tired, heavy, she stops rubbing the mark. The thing, it’s not bothering her anymore anyway. The midgie. Gone away. Maybe she squashed it. Her arm lies flat on the bed. She goes to move over onto her back, finds she can’t.

  What? That doesn’t make sense. She should be able to lie on her back. Forces herself, all of her might, there’s twenty-three and a half stones to move, that’s what the scales at the doctor’s said – Jesus, she could see how he looked at her, the cheeky, privileged bastard, he could get to fuck – and she flops onto her back at last, such a strange amount of energy to do that one small thing, and now she opens her eyes and there’s someone in the room.

  She goes to scream. The genesis of the thought is there, at least. Then a cloth is thrust in her mouth, and the scream doesn’t happen. And she wants to sit up, she wants to jump out of bed. It’s all there. All the thought processes. One after another in her head. Do this, do the next thing, meet the danger head on.

  But she can’t move. She can’t scream. The figure stands over her, a knife in hand, clear in the lights of Main Street.

  ‘I’ll close the curtains.’

  The prick in the arm. That must have been it. Just a small prick. A jab with a needle, a debilitating drug.

  There’s no terror, no fear, just anger. Doesn’t know who it is. She got a good look at the face before the curtains closed, but didn’t recognise it.

  Fucking bastard coming into her bedroom. Well, go on then, steal something, you stupid fucker! The things she could say if she could talk. Mouth crammed with material, throat catching, loud breaths through her nose, and all she can do, her only fight, is the impotent look of rage and anger in her eyes.

  ‘We need to talk,’ says her visitor. A pause, a smile in the dark. ‘Let’s be honest, I’m going to talk, you’re going to listen, because you have no choice. And then you’re going to die.’

  The killer pauses over her, then pulls back the sheets, tossing them to the side, then rips open the pink pyjama top, and pulls it sharply from beneath Margaret Malone’s heavy body, before doing the same with the bottoms.

  And then comes the knife, and with it, the beginning of the bloodletting.

  28

  She’s gone when I wake up. I have instant recall of the night before, as I lie in bed at 6:14. Still dark outside, feeling vaguely shitty, though I’ve felt worse.

  We finished the vodka. Lying here this morning I curse myself for finishing the vodka, grateful at the same time. I still reek of it. You don’t drink half a bottle of vodka the night before and not stink of it the following morning.

  Five minutes later I’m standing in the shower. Maybe I can wash it off. I hate myself, as usual in such circumstances. Slept with a victim’s daughter, half my age. At this stage, the early stage, where everyone involved is a suspect, it follows that I also slept with a suspect. I have a history of sleeping with suspects. It never, and I mean, never, ever, ends well. You don’t go sleeping with women involved in a murder inquiry, it’s just monumentally stupid.

  I stand in the shower for a long time. Wash repeatedly. Finally get out, dry off, clean my teeth, gargle with Listerine, walk naked through the apartment past the table with the empty bottle of vodka, the two glasses with melted ice cube water, damp circles around them on the mat, into the kitchen, just the right amount of self-loathing to perform.

  Cold water and coffee. That’ll do. Don’t need any food. Check the time, still have nearly an hour before I need to head to work.

  What can I do in an hour that would sweat the drink out of me?

  Sweat by some means. Come on, you’ve had your moments of home exercise.

  Drink water, make coffee, drink coffee, into the spare room where there’s an old exercise bike, still hopefully plugged into the wall after all these years, and the bike and I look at each other with undisguised malice.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

  The bike, in its scorn, is too cool to reply.

  I get on the bike, immediately do that man thing of going too fast from the start, having not turned my legs on a bicycle in God knows how long. Set the timer at twenty minutes, put my head down, close my eyes, and get on with it.

  Breathing heavily after five, feel pathetic for that, but keep going. Sweating after ten. Uncomfortable sitting naked on the seat, wishing I’d put on shorts. Dripping after twenty. Keep going for another few minutes, give it a final minute of exertion, the bike’s resistance cranked up to full, and then get off, clutching for air, a few moments with hands resting on thighs, and then walking abjectly back into the kitchen. Grab a tea towel, wipe the sweat off, toss the towel on the floor by the washing machine, drink two glasses of water.

  Wish there was an app for letting you know how much you still reek of booze.

  Back into the shower. Time going by, always the chance to add being late to being drunk, but I’m sober and I can still get there in time, so just be like a little Fonzie, you prick.

  More shower gel, more shampoo, I must stink of this shit, out the shower, more Listerine, into clothes, more water, more coffee, and finally I’m walking out the door, and in all that time I’ve hardly given Samantha Cowal a thought.

  We drank vodka, we had sex, we drank more vodka, we had more sex, we fell asleep. Or, at least, I fell asleep. I have no idea what she did. Maybe she took photographic evidence. Maybe she’ll turn out to be a plant from the chief inspector. Not a victim’s daughter at all, just a test.

  If that’s the case, I failed. Or passed, depending on what they were testing me for.

  Really, all the chief has to do to get rid of me is tell me she’d like me to fuck off, and I probably would.

  Park the car behind the station, up the stairs outside, then just as I turn along the walkway on the first level, the door to the station opens and Kallas emerges at a rush, three officers behind her. Ablett’s one, don’t recall the names of the others.

  We’re beside each other in a second, then she’s waving to the left, along the walkway, around the corner, on and on.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, as I fall in beside her, already at a jog.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘You look fresh,’ she says. ‘Did you exercise this morning?’

  I take a moment to adjust to this new reality, that not only did I take twenty minutes of exercise, but that it still shows on my face. That, and the inspector thinks it more worthy of conversation than the fact there are five of us heading out of the station at a jog.

  ‘Yes,’ I say brusquely. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘There is a mask on a door around the corner, along main street. I do not have any other information. It could be nothing. We are going to check.’

  Down the stairs, along past the boarded up shop fronts, the grill over the front of the off licence, the old charity shop, the key cutting/shoe repair/jack of all trades shop that everyone loved, and no one used, and so it had to close down, and th
e boards on the windows of what used to be a record shop, where once, a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I used to buy seven inch singles for forty-five pence.

  ‘It was called in? No one knows a –’

  ‘Constable Strong spotted it on his way into work. He reported it to me as soon as he arrived, and we’re going there now. Given that, as you say, the public are unaware of the significance of the mask, this mask has worrying potential.’

  Constable Strong, part of our five-person team. I knew that.

  Across the road, past another boarded up shop, and then we’re there, and sure enough, there it is, nailed to a dark blue front door, the mask of death with which we have become familiar.

  ‘Fuck,’ I say quietly, and Kallas, after a quick look up to the level above, and then across the road, rings the bell.

  ‘You agree the mask is the same as the others?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She lifts her hands, already with gloves on, and runs her fingers over the mask, and then takes a step back.

  ‘I assume this has stairs that lead to the next level.’

  ‘Yep. I’ve been in these a couple of times.’

  ‘The apartments are maisonettes?’

  ‘No. The doors on this side lead to first-floor flats, the equivalent doors on the other side of the building lead to the second-floor flats.’

  She rings the bell again. The other three stand behind us, and it registers that Ablett has a ram.

  ‘Why do the British say flat instead of apartment?’ asks Kallas, looking up at the first-floor windows directly above.

  ‘No one knows,’ I say.

  ‘It comes from flett, an old English word for dwelling,’ says a voice from behind. A beat. ‘Tolkien used it for the platforms the elves built in trees.’

  Oh, do fuck off, Strong.

  ‘English is an interesting language,’ says Kallas. She leaves the perfect comic beat, then adds, ‘Maybe that’s why so few of you speak anything else.’

  She carefully removes the mask from the door, and then looks round at Ablett and indicates for her to get to work with the chib. Ablett nods, steps forward, sets herself, then lets the ram strike the door with a whack near the lock, and the wood gives at the first crunch.

  I go to head up the stairs, but Kallas touches my arm, and then walks quickly up at the front, the four of us behind.

  She stops at the top of the stairs by the closed internal plywood door with no lock, knocks hurriedly, gives it no more than a couple of seconds, and then she opens the door, and walks quickly into the flat, saying, ‘Hello?’ as she goes.

  She stops a few paces into the short corridor.

  A door to an internal bathroom straight in front. Doors on either side at both ends of the corridor. Four rooms. Kitchen, sitting room with monster TV, and two bedrooms I dare say.

  ‘Hello?’

  Nothing still, just as we know there will not be anything, and then she throws, ‘A room each,’ over her head and walks to the end of the corridor on the Main Street side, and before anyone else has the chance to so much as open a door she says, ‘Got it.’

  She sticks her head back out from the room.

  ‘Crime scene protocol. Looks like the same killer as before. I think we know the killer has already gone, but let’s be careful. Can you call it in, Sergeant?’

  And I’m already on the phone.

  29

  For now, just me and Fforbes in the bedroom with the corpse.

  It’s a small room, and there’s a tonne of clutter. Not much room for anyone else, albeit Kallas has just walked out to take a call from the chief.

  We’re standing either side of the bed, the corpse in between us.

  That, my friends, is a gruesome sight.

  ‘Killer had a bit more surface area to play with this time,’ I say, the words just appearing in my mouth without much aforethought.

  Fforbes can’t stop herself laughing.

  ‘You’re awful, Tom, you really are.’

  ‘I do what I can.’

  The smiles die away, and here we are again, me and her and a giant, bloody corpse, with the skin flayed from her face.

  I mean, her face. That is some grotesque, fucked up shit. Her face, down over her chin, to about midway on her neck, is raw flesh.

  ‘You think she was alive when that was done?’

  ‘I’m afraid, I think I do.’

  ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘Hmm. Did you notice the spider up there in the corner?’

  I look from the flayed face to the pathologist, who is herself still looking at the flayed face, and then I look around for the spider.

  Jesus. Big bugger. No way could I sleep with something like that in my room. Would have to get rid of it. It’d be me or him. Or me or her. It’s the ladies that are usually the bigger spiders, right?

  ‘That’s huge,’ I say, turning back to the corpse.

  The whole body is once again covered in blood, the white floral bed linen soaked with it. Impossible to tell how many cuts there are on the body, but it’s not like we don’t already know.

  ‘Any other flayed areas you’ve spotted?’

  ‘No, seems like the killer saved it for the face. That must have been...’ and she finishes the sentence with an involuntary shiver. A moment, she nods to herself, then she says, ‘She’s pregnant, which explains the size, albeit she is naturally big anyway.’

  I look at this great hulk of an overweight woman in her fifties, and think about the things we’ve already learned about her life, my brow furrowed, before finally a voice somewhere in the far recesses of my common sense gives me a nudge in the right direction.

  ‘You’re talking about the spider.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ and then she looks up, a curious smile on her face. ‘You’re a piece of work.’

  ‘I wasn’t actually joking.’

  ‘Not the most attractive spider, the giant house, but still useful to have around.’

  ‘Have a lot of them in your house, then?’

  ‘None. My cat kills spiders as soon as she sees them. Brutal little bastard.’

  A moment. I don’t really want to talk about Fforbes’s cat. I don’t want to talk to anyone about their cat. You want to own a cat, on you go, but I don’t want to know about that cute thing it did, and I don’t want to see a photograph. The minute you express the slightest interest in someone’s cat, you might as well shoot yourself in the face.

  ‘I’m going to be seeing that face in my dreams,’ I say.

  And it’s not just a conversational filler, intended to get us off the subject of Fforbes’s cat. Seriously, this bloody, eviscerated flesh-wound of a skull is the absolute stuff of nightmares. The face you see in the mirror looking over your shoulder when you straighten up from cleaning your teeth. The face you see standing at the end of the hallway. The face in the window when you pull back the curtains.

  ‘Yes, we should probably cover it until the body is removed,’ says Fforbes, although having said that she makes no effort to do anything about it, and we both stand there, enhancing our nightmares.

  ‘If she’d been alive, she’d have been able to make some noise, wouldn’t she? Something, when the skin was done like that, because there wouldn’t have been a gag or tape around her mouth?’

  ‘The gag could just have been thrust into her mouth,’ says Fforbes, which is really quite obvious, and I nod along with her as she says it. ‘Always effective. There would have been some noise escaped her throat, but nothing... nothing anyone would have heard. She lived alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The downstairs unit is an empty shop, and next door and above...?’

  ‘We’ve asked, so far no one heard anything.’

  ‘People usually don’t,’ she says.

  ‘The public have ears of convenience.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘In this instance, however, our killer has been pretty switched on. They know what they’re doing. They’re planning, they’re thinkin
g.’

  ‘Which means each victim has been carefully selected.’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Sergeant?’

  I turn to Kallas at the door of the room.

  ‘We should get on, though first I need coffee. You want to join me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  And we both nod at Fforbes, who says, ‘I’ll give you a shout when I’m ready for you,’ and we’re out the room and back along the busy corridor of the final home of the latest victim.

  30

  ‘You were drinking last night.’

  The café in between the murder scene and the station. Quiet as ever. Two staff behind the counter, both wearing masks, three other customers. A couple of workmen, their credentials in their orange vests and the unwashed work trousers, and a young woman in a business suit, looking at a MacBook. Earbuds in, coffee in hand, this year’s spectacles, hair pulled tight. Looks like she’s about to go to the bank and fire everyone, before pocketing a bonus and flying to New York.

  ‘Shit,’ is all that escapes my lips in answer to that, and then I lift the coffee cup as though having that in front of my face might spare me the conversation.

  ‘Thank you for trying to cover it. Most people won’t notice.’

  ‘How did you? I must smell of it.’

  ‘It’s your eyes. They had a certain clarity the last couple of days. I didn’t notice at first, when we were rushing along to the crime scene, but the clarity has gone.’

  Lower the cup, place it silently back on the table, lower my eyes with it.

  Well, there’s a feeling. Shame. Like my dad talking to me when I was fifteen. I’m not annoyed, I’m just disappointed.

  Some shame. All it makes me want to do is head to the off licence, go home and start the process of forgetting. Jesus, why am I still here? Mortgage long since paid off, enough money kicking around I could meagrely survive until my pension arrives.