A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (17 page)

'Feels like one of those war movies,' I say, 'when they're waiting at the airfield to see who's going to make it back from the bombing raid. Or they've sent Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton out on a mission and there's nothing they can do other than wait for the phone or radio to start going.'

'Broadsword to Danny Boy…' says Taylor humourlessly. 'Yes, I suppose it feels something like that. What've you got on this morning?' he asks, turning, his tone picking up, shaking off the maudlin feeling of hopelessness.

'Usual,' I say. 'Thirteen year-old kicked fuck out her mum… a child abuse case… couple of stabbings, gang-related probably… and there were a few leftovers out our way last night after the Celtic – United game.'

'What are you doing standing here then?' he asks.

'Everything seems to be in hand,' I say. 'Everyone who had to be brought in, has been. Questioning has been done or is in order. Mostly just the paperwork and the odd talking-to to be delivered. Thought we could have lunch.'

He glances over his shoulder.

'It's 9.47.'

'Yes,' I say, 'it is. I meant, I was coming in to ask if you wanted to have lunch today. Talk about the case.'

He looks at me. Wonderfully expressive, lugubrious eyes, like an orang-utan whose forest has just been burned down, killing all his relatives and destroying his collection of David Attenborough DVDs.

'Sure,' he says. 'Twelve will suit me.'

'Right.'

I stand beside him looking out on the car park for a while. Nothing happens. No cars come or go, barely a pedestrian in the street beyond. The day is grey and flat and perfectly befitting of the mood. Eventually I turn away without speaking, and head back to my desk.

Back in the pub after work. Getting to be a regular occurrence again. You can't change your spots etc., etc. For a while there, after I'd gone up the mountain, and Taylor was determinedly getting his feet under the desk of responsibility, we went months without coming here. Then we came once, and then without really thinking about it here we are, several nights a week. Two divorced, miserable, single men out on the lash. Boo-yah!

Inevitably we always end up talking about Taylor's obsession. Sometimes I manage to get the conversation around to the new Bob album, or whether Thistle are going to get relegated or which one of the women at the station I'd like to sleep with next – although weirdly I never mention Gostkowski – but those conversations always end up rather one-sided and so I give in to the inevitable and let him elucidate what he's thinking. Because he certainly ain't thinking about Bob, the Thistle or women.

Of course, at the moment we're not talking about anything. Two fat old wankers sitting in a pub in complete silence. Silence, that is, apart from the rest of the general chatter and the fact that they're playing an entire album by that noxious little shit Olly Murs. Fucking hate Olly Murs. He'll be doing the Eurovision Song Contest soon, just you wait and see. That's his level.

Although, you know, I can imagine Bob doing Eurovision one year. It's the kind of crazy, fucked-up, completely out of left field kind of shit he'd do. Pop up out of nowhere representing Armenia or Latvia, some shit like that. Wouldn't be that much weirder than singing
O! Little Town of Bethlehem
.

'How are you and Adele getting on?' I ask Taylor, to break the near ten-minute silence.

He takes a moment, while he gets dragged back from whatever woods it is he's inhabiting, says, 'Who the fuck's Adele?'

'You know, the fat, chav, singing girl thing. Her.'

He grunts, looks disinterested. Well, of course he does. No grown man is going to want to be reminded of the fact that they like listening to Adele.

'Got bored,' he says. 'Threw it out, I think… Maybe it's still in the car.'

'Back onto Bob?' I say.

'Been listening to Bach's Christmas Oratorio.'

I believe there follows what many would call a stunned silence. He doesn't even look abashed. In fact, judging from the glazed look in his eyes he feels so comfortable with this information that he's already forgotten he said it and is back in amongst the trees, searching for his killer.

'But Bob did a Christmas album…' is all I can find to say.

'What?'

'Bob did Christmas. Why are you listening to someone else's Christmas? And Bach… I mean… what the fuck?'

He shrugs.

'It's different. Heard it on Radio 3, quite liked it. Lasts just over eight minutes, which on most days takes up the entire drive to work.'

He shrugs again. Jesus. How can you casually say things like 'I heard it on Radio 3' and just shrug as if nothing's wrong.

'You were listening to Radio 3?'

'Aye. I do sometimes. At home. When I'm making dinner. Or breakfast. Have it on in the kitchen.'

'That's… that's…'

He's looking at me like I'm the weird person.

'Grow up, Sergeant. There are worse fucking betrayals than that in life.'

Suppose. Like listening to Guns 'N' Roses' version of
Knocking On Heaven's Door
.

'But you could listen to '
Cross The Green Mountain
. That's just over eight minutes.'

'You know how many times I've listened to that song in the last ten years?'

Continue to stare at him. 'It's like you've suddenly become bipolar.'

'Fuck off, Sergeant.'

'You're implying that there's a finite number of times somebody can listen to any one of Bob's songs before they need to listen to…. Bach.'

He shakes his head then drains his pint. Settles the glass down on the table and stares at it for a moment.

'I'm leaving,' he says.

Glance at my own drink, my third vodka tonic, nearly empty.

'We haven't done the Plague of Crows,' I say. Pointless really. He's too bloody maudlin even for that.

'No, we haven't.'

He looks at me. Nothing to say. The time for talking ended about two months ago, since when there's been nothing new to talk about. We need something else to happen, and when it does, then the shit can hit the fan, the politicians can take charge, the media can fly in ferment, and we can talk again.

'See you in the morning, Sergeant. You probably shouldn't stay too late. The drink's starting to show on your face.'

He leaves. I don't watch him go. That's ironic.

Is it ironic? I think it's showing on his face and don't see it on my own, and he's seeing the same thing with me. Or is that only ironic in an Alanis Morissette type of way?

And do I care?

Drain the glass, head to the bar. A quiet night. The girl behind the bar seems happy with something to do.

'What can I get you?' she asks.

I try not to stare at her breasts while contemplating an all out shock & awe offensive.

Boo-yah!

*

There are crows high in the trees. None of them are sleeping, all awoken by the noise from below. A grey early morning. They look down and watch what is happening in the forest. Three people tied to chairs, another walking between the three. Extracting information.

There is a light attached to the head of the person who's moving around. The light bobs, here and there, up and down. Something glints in the light.

Crows like things that glint. One of them wonders if it might be food.

Interview Room 3. A man with a baseball bat. Well, he no longer has the baseball bat. When you're interviewing a suspect it's best to relieve them of all weapons. Learned that from CSI.

Have no sense of impending action. The room springing to life. No sense that everything is about to change. Sometimes that happens. Not today. Not so far.

The guy in front of me, who would be defined in any statistical analysis as a nineteen-year-old fuckwit, is not being given quite as hard a time as he ought to be by the interviewing officer – me – because he quoted Bob Dylan right at the start.

'Let me die in my footsteps.'

He said that. Let me die in my footsteps. People generally don't say
let me die in my footsteps
because it doesn't really make much sense. Although it makes sense in Bob's terms, when he was writing it in the early 60s about not wanting to spend his life hiding in an atomic bomb shelter. So, in that sense, the clown was being a bit over-dramatic, but all the same, he'd nailed his target audience.

For his part, I could immediately see that he had a bit more respect for the arresting officer when he discovered that he was a Dylan freak. Now we're almost mates, and the only thing standing between us is that this idiot banjoed some bloke in the pub over the head with a bat because he made some comment about the length of his girlfriend's skirt. That, and the fact that the Bob thing was only ever going to get him so far.

'That's how it is, man,' he says, when we finally move on from Bob and get around to addressing the issue of assault.

'What do you think Bob would have done?' I say. Even I'm aware of how stupid that question is as it leaves my mouth. Wonder what PC Corrigan is thinking as she stares vacantly across the room.

'What the fuck?' he says. 'I don't fucking know, do I?'

Hah. You may have seventeen Bob albums on your iPod, you little shit, but you're no fan. He just likes Bob Dylan because he thinks it makes him look cool and it sets him apart from his contemporaries who are all listening to God knows what. And really, I don't know. What are nineteen-year-olds listening to?

'You admit that you hit Stewart Addleston over the head with the bat in an unprovoked attack in the King's Head last night at just after 10.30pm?'

He looks across the table then shrugs.

'I'm not admitting anything.'

'You'll be waiting for your lawyer…'

'Of course I want a fucking lawyer.'

Hold my hand up. Waste of time. Well, it's a waste of time for me to be doing this. And guys like this should be banned from listening to Bob.

'Anything else you want to say before I end the interview?'

He shrugs.

'It is what it is,' he says.

Oh for fuck's sake. The stupid little prick. All right, he threw me off my game with the initial Bob quote, but now I think I might need to find an opportunity to get his baseball bat and whack the bastard around the head with it.

All in all a very unprofessional interview, something mercifully brought to a halt when the door flies open. Which is unusual. Often enough you get interrupted in the middle of these things, but usually you're going to get a gentle knock and then a wait for an invitation.

It's Morrow. He's flying, right enough.

'Sergeant, we're on again. Taylor's office.'

He disappears. Heart in mouth.

'Interview suspended, 8:17,' I say to the room, and then, with a quick glance at Corrigan, intended to indicate to her that she should deal with the suspect, I charge out of the room after Morrow. Up the stairs three at a time. Into the main open plan. Everyone is standing around looking at monitors. Some hands are at mouths. Some mouths are hanging open. A couple of people are looking squeamish. Just as I get to Taylor's office, he's flying out in the other direction.

'Come on, Sergeant,' he says. 'Think we've got it.'

'You're fucking kidding?' is all I venture in return, as I fall in behind him.

'Been waiting for this for two and a half months,' he barks, careering down the stairs.

I'm out after him, into the car. Straight away he lights it up and we zip out of the car park, wheels spinning, siren wailing. On the charge.

*

A large wood out past Shotts. There would be some officers, seriously, there would be some who would have said nothing. Wouldn't have put the siren on, wouldn't have called in the local plods. Would have wanted to be first on the scene, would have wanted to be the one with the glory.

Taylor, however, ain't one of them. All he's interested in is getting to these people before they die. As soon as we're in the car, I'm calling it in. The local station, the guys from Edinburgh, letting everyone know.

He knows the Plague of Crows won't still be there. It's possible he's wrong in thinking that the footage currently playing online is being broadcast live, but even if it is, it's not going to make any difference. The guy isn't going to have taken any kind of chance. We're not going to find him standing there camera in hand, asking the players in the piece to give him more desperation and inner angst.

This is all about getting to these people before they die to a) save their lives and b) hopefully get some information from them about how they came to be tied to a chair, their feet in concrete and their brain under attack.

'Same setup as last time?' I ask. Heading along the M8, touching a hundred. Could be going faster, but it's just not that great a motorway. Two fucking lanes, for crying out loud. Why improve that when you can flush fifty gazillion down the stank for a tram system in a wee bit of the capital? Bastards.