In My Time Of Dying: DS Hutton Book 5

by Douglas Lindsay

  ‘You made a film that you didn’t bother if anyone saw?’

  ‘It’s still a movie, and I still directed it. I have a copy I can show, should I think it worthwhile. I can use it, as can anyone who was involved. It’s part of the process of getting from here,’ and he waves a small hand across the put together set of a small-time movie, ‘to the big leagues. That’s all.’

  ‘Is it possible someone was upset about the movie not getting any kind of release?’

  ‘So upset they’ve started killing people?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really... it was just a movie, these things happen all the time, they really do. That’s why, when you look down a jobbing actor’s screen credit, you’ll barely recognise anything. There’s so much of that kind of thing, and it’s all about taking the next step up the ladder,’ and he gestures around, this production, with an actual actor people have heard of, presumably constituting that next step.

  ‘Was there anything about the movie that might have inspired murder?’

  Finally, finally, the arms uncross. He must think we’re justified in asking the question. That’s big of him.

  ‘Look, it all seemed pretty straightforward to me at the time. Just a job. Four-week shoot, pretty normal for this kind of thing, everyone doing what they had to do, film got made, we took it away, did some editing, got a couple of students at the Conservatoire to do us a score on the cheap, just piano and cello mostly, nice though, nice, the lad played the Bach, you know the Suite in G Major, I mean really, could’ve been Yo-Yo fucking Ma, no one could tell the difference.’

  Sometimes it’s worse when they start to talk.

  ‘How was your relationship with Annabeth Blake?’

  The producer. That’s the person who runs the operation, unlike the executive producer, who organises a bit of funding, then has sex with someone he shouldn’t, before playing a round of golf.

  The guy’s got no poker face, I’ll give him that. Unless he’s cunningly displaying no poker face in this regard to fool us, in order to give more credence to the other denials that spill from his lips.

  ‘She’s a cunt.’

  Ha!

  ‘What kind of a cunt?’ asks Kallas.

  Behind me there comes the sound of bitter coughing, a raking, rancid hack drawn from the back of the throat, and then as I turn, the guy in the Celtic t-shirt, in a paroxysm of spluttering, drops his pint glass and it shatters, and he manages a loud and throaty, ‘Fuck’s sake,’ into the early afternoon air.

  32

  With another couple of interviews to be conducted on an afternoon that seems to be shrinking, we finally split up. I get Mr Blair, the cuckold, who’s been known as Tony since the bright Friday morning in May 1997 that heralded the dawn of Cool Britannia, a period in our history which turned out to be pretty much just as shit as all the others.

  ‘You’re a gravedigger?’

  He looks at me over the top of the shovel he’s leaning on. Despite the shovel, he is not currently digging a grave. We are, however, in a graveyard. South side of town, on a bleak low hill behind a church, not much of a view beyond the surrounding streets.

  ‘I work for the council,’ he says, the tone of his voice fitting perfectly with the dismissive look. ‘I’m employed as a Grounds Maintenance Operative.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You taking the piss?’

  ‘Just asking what you do.’

  This guy is not happy being interviewed, but then, I guess he knows why I’m here.

  ‘I’m a groundsman. A park keeper. One of a team of twelve for this... district. One of the jobs involves graves.’

  ‘So you’re a gravedigger,’ I say, and can’t help smiling.

  ‘Fuck off, mate.’

  In an attempt to reset the conversation, which, to be honest, I’m making a bit of an arse of, I turn away for a second, looking around at the grim day.

  ‘The graveyard is attached to the church, or it’s a separate council property?’

  ‘Really?’

  I turn back to him.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Whatever. Used to be part of the church, back in the old days. Then it went, I don’t know, it was like dormant for a while, then the council needed it, they bought some land next door, they expanded,’ and he indicates the newer section of the cemetery to the left, which is still bleak, ‘and they took over the running of it. Don’t ask me when that was. Well, you can if you like, but I don’t fucking know. Mind if I smoke?’

  Like he cares if I do, as he takes out the cigarette and lights up without waiting for a reply. I don’t say anything, but I am quite happy to stand here and breathe in the second hand fumes. I’ll take anything.

  That’s a great smell. Fresh nicotine on a dull, shitty afternoon in Glasgow.

  ‘You knew your wife’s boss?’

  ‘Ha. Here was me thinking you’d come to do a feature on my work.’

  ‘I never said I was a journalist, did I?’

  Snarky is as snarky does. This isn’t going well.

  I need a drink.

  ‘You knew your wife’s boss?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d never met him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even at, I don’t know, like a film premiere or something?’

  He takes a drag, looking moodily away across the graves, head shaking.

  ‘Whatever. Might have met him a couple of times. But I hated those things, hadn’t been to one in five years.’

  ‘The two of you,’ I say, not really thinking it through, ‘you and your wife, you don’t go together.’ Unlikely to help on the snarkiness front.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Maybe... I don’t know, you look like you come from this world, she looks like she comes from a world of movie premieres.’

  ‘I’m too working class for that shit?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say bluntly. It’s what Kallas would’ve said.

  He takes another pull on the fag, nodding as he does so, then leans again on the shovel, does his manly staring across the graveyard thing. Hmm, not bad from me. The interviewee appears to have appreciated the blunt approach and extraordinary perspicacity of the investigating officer.

  ‘Yeah, whatever. Gill and I. Met at uni, she was already, you know, I grew up in Garrowhill, she grew up in some posh bit of Cambuslang...’

  ‘She’s from Cambuslang?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Suppose. I mean, they like sent her to Hutchie, then they moved at some point, when she was thirteen or something. Went to Bears-fucking-den. But look, we go to uni, and we’re both studying film, so what difference does it make? We hit it off, got together, man that’s all she wrote, as Springsteen would say.’

  ‘No kids?’

  ‘She never wanted them. I don’t know anything about them. We don’t talk about it. Why?’

  ‘How come you didn’t end up in film?’

  Another long drag of the fag. Slowing it down. Can see he’s slightly discombobulated by the razor-sharp, quick-fire questioning from a police officer at the top of his game.

  ‘S’lottery, in it? Hardly any jobs going. We interviewed for the same one, way back, like ten year ago, something like that. She got it.’ He shrugs. ‘I needed the money. I got this. Here I am, all these years later.’

  ‘And you don’t like the movie world?’

  ‘Fuck, man, who does, apart from all the narcissistic wankers who work in it? It’s just avoiding real life while you can, right? Do it all your life, can you say you ever really lived?’

  I hold his gaze for a moment, then look around the graveyard. By that measure, would you call this living?

  ‘Do you and Gill get on OK?’

  ‘The fuck does that mean?’

  ‘Seems your lives have diverged. So, has th –’

  ‘Fuck that, man. She’s got her job, I’ve got mine. We do our shit, but we still end up back in the same fucking bed at night.’

  The rapproc
hement didn’t last very long. On the verge of spitting out a question about her affairs, I look away, give myself a second or two.

  ‘So, tell me about David Cowal,’ I say instead.

  ‘What about him? I didn’t know him. I said I didn’t know him. What d’you want?’

  ‘You think there was anything going on between him and Gill?’

  I get the look then. The anti-police glare, like I’m supposed to be intimated by it. Would be nice if we could just arrest people for looking at us funny. I mean, they can do that in America, and that’s almost a functional country.

  ‘You mean, were they having an affair?’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does she ever work late? Travel? Spend much time away from home?’

  He doesn’t answer that straight away, choosing instead to give me the spiteful look of the aggrieved interviewee. But we know where that look comes from. That’s the staring-into-the-abyss-of-the-truth look. We’ve all done that. Hurts like fuck.

  ‘Does she ever work late? Tra –’

  ‘Aye, all right. She works late. She travels. She does all that kind of shit. What d’you want from me? Doesn’t mean she was shagging the boss, does it?’

  I give him the look that says, we all know she was shagging the boss, but strangely it doesn’t break his look of defiance. I do believe he thinks I can go and take a fuck to myself. Very respectful of him to so far avoid actually saying it.

  ‘Has she ever mentioned Harry Lord?’

  ‘Ha!’

  A beat.

  ‘That it?’

  ‘What d’you want from me? That’s the guy who got murdered the other night?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘No, she never mentioned him. Why would she mention him?’

  ‘She and David Cowal worked with him.’ Leave the pause. Brace myself for the reaction to the next line that pops into my head. ‘Maybe she shagged him too.’

  He unthinkingly snaps, grabs my collar with both hands, drops the cigarette, teeth gritted, mouth in a snarl, a splash of spit on my face, his smoky breath in my nose – try not to breathe! – and I await the assault, deciding I’ll take it from there if it actually comes.

  It doesn’t. He grunts, he pushes me back, turns away, kicks the gravestone that we’d been standing beside. I will not think about how easy a virus can be transmitted in such an altercation.

  ‘Christ’s sake,’ he says.

  ‘You ever had an affair, Mr Blair?’ I now toss into the mix, and his head starts shaking before he turns to look at me.

  ‘The fuck has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Could make you more tolerant of your wife having affairs with a couple of guys she worked with.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Not necessarily, of course. Plenty of husbands have the one rule for me, one rule for her rule.’

  ‘None of us were having an affair.’

  ‘While, on the other hand, were you the spurned and hurt cuckold, that might make you more likely to seek revenge against the men who bedded your wife.’

  That stops the ill-natured interview in its tracks. He’s had his outburst, he’s come close to throwing a punch, he managed to stop himself, and now he just wants out.

  ‘You’re asking me if I killed that Lord guy, and Gill’s boss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He’s breathing heavily through his nose, the caged, raging bull.

  ‘No,’ he says finally, the word spitting out.

  We hold the angry stare, the Mexican stand-off in the graveyard. The perfect time for the informed and instinctive officer to make a judgement on whether the accused might be hiding something.

  Well, I fucked it. I’ve conducted the entire interview like a moron, and so I can’t tell anything. Haven’t even got anywhere near asking about Margaret Malone. He’s pissed off, and it’s impossible to tell what anyone’s thinking when they’re this angry. Easiest thing in the world to hide behind. You don’t have to fake innocence, when all you’ve got is rage. And why shouldn’t you have rage when some moron comes tripping up to you at work out of the blue and accuses your wife of sleeping around?

  ‘We’re done,’ he says, which is not really his decision to make, but which I was thinking in any case. Time I got out before I did any more damage.

  He gives me a final glare, a final dismissive shake of the head, and then he turns away, lifting the spade and carrying it in the centre of the handle, horizontal to the ground.

  I watch him for a while, and then shake my head, at myself rather than anything else.

  ‘Fucking useless,’ I mutter to the quiet earth and the buried dead.

  33

  Late Saturday afternoon, me and Harrison and Kallas and Ablett in the situation room, going over what we have so far.

  The first murder on Monday evening, and now here we are on Saturday afternoon, there’s been a further two deaths, and really, what do we have? A link between the three, which promises a long investigation with God knows how many dead ends. A clue left by the killer that all the deaths might be Covid-related, but we’ve found nothing to indicate Margaret Malone doing anything of the nature of the other two, and even then, when a killer intentionally leaves you a clue, it’s not usually something you can trust.

  Impossible to tell if Kallas is feeling any strain, but one presumes she would be. First big murder investigation at her new station, buck effectively stops with her, even if the chief will pull some buck-stops-with-me crap, and in four and a half days we’ve made little progress.

  Kallas under stress looks not unlike Kallas drinking coffee in a café and Kallas getting undressed and walking into the Clyde.

  God, that seems a lifetime ago.

  ‘You’ve got anything more on the film, Eileen?’

  I’ve done my bit on Tony Blair. Stopped short of a full admission of my perceived view of my own incompetence, but did at least admit to not even coming away with any kind of feeling about him. Certainly not in a position to strike him from the list, which means nothing at this stage, as we’ve more or less not struck anyone from the list.

  ‘I spoke to Annabeth Blake,’ says Harrison. ‘She’s happy for us to go and see her. Tomorrow morning, she lives near Bridge of Allan.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘She described the film in pretty much the same way as you said Crawford described it. It was a dead end, never likely to see a release. People are just doing jobs, no one’s really caring what happens to the movie. Expectations are zero. If it gets released, and becomes a thing, and suddenly it really matters to their career that they were in this movie, then sure, they can get excited about it. But at this stage, everyone’s just glad to get four weeks’ work, four weeks with something to do and a small pay cheque.’

  ‘Was there any dispute during filming?’

  ‘She sounded a little cagier on that, I have to say. I think it’ll be worthwhile having a word.’

  ‘OK, thanks, Eileen.’

  Kallas looks up at the board. She’s sitting at the end of the desk, then there’s Harrison, Ablett and me in a line. Ritter was off today, back in tomorrow. Milburn still out there in the wilds, chasing down leads.

  The three victims in a row on the board. Lord, Cowal, Malone. The money guy, the movie guy, and the Fat Whore. Yeah, I know, that’s terrible. I shouldn’t be thinking of her as a whore, just because of some stupid movie, and I shouldn’t even be thinking she was fat, even though... well, she was fat as fuck. Just was.

  I may get drunk again, and I may be a twat, and I may have sex with someone inappropriate, yet I’ll manage to never refer to the victim as the Fat Whore out loud, so there’s that. Bully, the fuck, for me, I’m practically a fucking Millennial.

  The door opens, Milburn pitches up, slightly flushed, out of breath.

  ‘Katie,’ says Kallas, ‘you did not need to rush.’

  Milburn makes some sor
t of gesture to imply she hadn’t been, but then she obviously had, so in the end she just kind of lets it go, and then takes a seat at the far end of the table from Kallas, next to me. She doesn’t give me so much as a first glance, never mind a second.

  ‘You spoke to Margaret Malone’s sister?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ says Milburn, and she takes out a notebook and has a quick read over her notes. An old fashioned look about her when she does that. I like it. Her breath just about back to normal. ‘She hadn’t seen her sister in a couple of weeks. Said they were a bit up and down with regards communication. Margaret hadn’t been working for a while. Her last job, in fact, was last year, working behind the bar at the Red Lion. Did it for about six months, then got let go after Christmas.’

  ‘The sister knew about the film?’

  ‘Yeah, she said Margaret got that from a guy she met in the pub. They all thought it was funny, apparently, having someone that heavy and unattractive playing a hooker. She said Margaret didn’t care. Or,’ glances at her notes, ‘couldn’t have given three fucks, to quote her more precisely. She just liked the idea of a movie, got paid a little in cash, had a day on the set. Everyone wants a little bit of that movie magic,’ she shrugs.

  ‘Was there any follow-up to the movie, any takeaway, anything that might have come back to haunt her about it?’

  ‘That was really the limit of her knowledge. Didn’t think it played any further part in Margaret’s life, and it certainly didn’t lead to an acting career.’

  ‘OK. Any possible Covid connection?’

  ‘She said she hadn’t been infected, as far as she knew. Really nothing hugely tangible, though she might have done some stuff online.’

  ‘OK, we’ll get into that. Anything else that’s viable?’

  ‘She had three ex-husbands, and didn’t speak to any of them. They all hated her, and she hated them. The sister, in fact, unaware initially that there might be a connection to either of the previous murders in town, was assuming the killer must’ve been one of Margaret’s exes. She said they were taking bets within the family which one it might be.’

  We all smile except Kallas, who, being an automaton, doesn’t understand that that’s something to smile about.