A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (21 page)

Maybe this new spirit of cooperation will allow us to talk to each other about it. I'll just hold my breath for that one, then see you in Hell.

*

We finish work just after 11:30. Taylor goes first, and then Gostkowski and me. We barely speak to each other, my buddy and me, and she follows me back to my place again. We do the same as the previous night, shower then bed, although this time we start in the hallway before we get to the shower.

And at the end of it she kisses me on the cheek, goes to the bathroom, then leaves with a nod and a slightly crooked smile.

I might allow myself the thought that she's almost the perfect woman, except that would be outwith the terms and conditions of the relationship. Instead, I don't think about anything, not even crows and trees, dark and foul deeds, before I fall asleep and dream of nothing.

'That was ballsy.'

Seventh interview of the morning. Decided to take a cup of coffee from this guy, because I was desperate. Six brief interviews, the time taken driving around, as usual.

I start off every interview with the same view. This is the guy. This guy sitting right in front of me. It's him. Guilty until he persuades me otherwise. Might as well. I'm not wandering around presuming innocence; where did that ever get anyone? We're not randomly interviewing people off the street, we're talking to people who are at least in the ballpark of suspicion, and although there's still going to be an element of stumbling across the right person by accident, it's not as much of an accident than if we bumbled around Buchanan Street bus station testing people to see if they were handy with a bone saw.

Of course, I usually change my mind in about five seconds. Most people have
I Didn't Do It
written on their forehead, whether they know it or not. Today, for some reason, I'm not feeling so forgiving. This bloke is the third I've not yet crossed off the list, the third name to take away and do a little more research on.

Started with the first guy on the list. It's not going to be him, though, is it? Not the first guy you speak to after having come up with a new line of enquiry. He was arrested for the rape of a young girl outside a night club. And when I say young, she was seventeen and pished out her face. Nevertheless, there was no question she was raped. The newspapers picked it up because his dad's been on the telly a bit. Nothing major, but it doesn't take much for a tabloid to decide you're worth putting on the front page. So overnight the whole country thinks he's a rapist. Then the DNA test falls flat on its face. It wasn't him. Some other fucker with short hair, a tattoo and his jeans round his ankles. He wasn't charged, off he goes.

The following day the newspapers carry banner headlines about how he's not a rapist.

Ha! As if. The following day the newspapers have moved on. Most of them don't even mention his release, and if they do, it's buried somewhere beside an advert for 2-for-1 at Iceland on page 57.

At some stage he picks up meagre compensation from a variety of sources, but the damage is done. Everyone thinks he's a rapist, and he has to live with it.

I spoke to him for ten minutes. Still wore the chip on his shoulder, still blamed everyone else. The girl, the police, the media, his parents. At no point had he ever asked himself whether he could have avoided any of it. Living in a reasonable house, with a reasonable car out front, and a wife and kids that he managed to hang on to despite the rape allegation, you'd think that maybe he would just move on. But he hadn't.

He stayed on the list.

Then there was the ex-footballer whose career frittered to a halt after being done for drink driving three times. Of course, it would be the police's fault he was done for that, and for driving without a licence. Perfectly reasonable for him to hate us, and not to blame himself in any way. His slow walk into the arms of disgrace, despite the fact that he played for a shitty wee team that was neither Rangers nor Celtic, nor even the great Partick Thistle, was well documented by the newspapers.

He lived in a squalid basement apartment in Dalmarnock. Miserable little shit more or less ranted the entire time at me for my part in his downfall.

He stayed on the list.

And now this guy. Comfortably middle class, living in a large house on the north side of the city. A Lexus in the driveway. No more than ten minutes drive from the hills and trees and the great outdoors. Similar to the first bloke. Wrongly accused by the police, wrongly arrested, name in all the papers. This one for the murder of a schoolgirl who lived on the same street as him. Several years ago now, but people hold grudges all their lives.

Unlike the earlier guy, this one was on the front pages for days. You know the thing they do, where they get the creepiest photograph they can find and splash it as big as possible? They can't say he's guilty, they can't say,
this is the guy who did it
, but they're saying it anyway even if they're not using the actual words.

And worse for this bloke, even though he was ultimately released, even though it was proven that he hadn't killed her, the real killer was never caught. There was never anyone else splashed all over the front pages. The story was celebrated enough that the guy did get front pages to announce he'd been released, but you know what the public are like. No one believed it.

'What?' I ask.

'The press conference you gave yesterday afternoon.'

'You saw that, did you?'

This bloke reminds me of a businessman who's all smiles, and who you know is going to ram you up the arse just as hard as he can. As soon as your back is turned, obviously.

'You seemed to be offering yourself up as his next victim.'

'I don't think I was doing that,' I say, despite the fact that that's exactly what I was doing.

'Clearly you were,' he says, leaning forward and popping two sugar cubes into his cup. 'I wonder if you have some great plan to fall back on, or whether you think you're just going to be too strong for him. Was it intelligence of some sort, Sergeant, or were your words dictated by some misplaced bravado?'

'Tell me about your arrest,' I say. I'm not here to talk about me. And even if he hadn't come across as some dodgy fucker, turning the conversation away from himself is exactly the kind of thing that's going to make me suspicious.

'Are you looking for people with a grudge, Sergeant?'

They all ask that. It's fair enough. We can hardly sneak up on them.

'Tell me about your arrest,' I repeat.

He smiles, slurps at his coffee in an almost affected manner. I'd say he was gay, except for the photographs of the two children all over the place and the wife he's mentioned about four times. Maybe he's in denial. Maybe I haven't a clue.

'It was a long time ago, Sergeant. 2001. You must be really scraping the barrel. Desperate, are we?'

'The killer is working meticulously. So are we.'

'Well, you have to, yes. That'll be why your colleagues were here two months ago.'

Fuck. Inevitable. Bloody Edinburgh. I immediately want to ask him who he spoke to but I don't want him to know that I'm in a left-hand-knows-fuck-all-about-the-right-hand situation.

'As I said previously, and as I've said to you people many, many times in the past… I was arrested for a crime I didn't commit. What can I say? I was paid, in the end, just over two hundred thousand pounds compensation. Bought this place with the money. Can you imagine?'

He looks around. I don't follow his gaze. It's an old Victorian gaffe that would go for well over half a million now. Not that the price would have risen in the last four years. Just shows you how mental things were for a few years there at the start of the decade.

'Why would I be bitter?' he says. 'I understand totally what you're doing, and why you need to do it, but seriously? I've got all this, I met my wife, a fellow victim. I have two beautiful children.'

Can't help glancing again at one of the photos when he says that. They look like regular children to me. You know, fuck ugly.

'What d'you mean your wife's a fellow victim?'

He snorts.

'Used to be on
High Road
, you know, years back. They accused her of turning up drunk on set. Big scandal. Huge. All over the papers. Ruined her career. You must remember it?'

I don't read those kinds of papers. I shake my head.

'Mid-90s,' he says. 'Crazy times. I didn't know her then, of course. She was still fighting the press years later when I was doing the same. That's how we met. We had the same lawyer.'

'Who gets the lawyer in the divorce?' I ask glibly.

For some reason he doesn't seem to think that's funny.

I leave seven-and-a-half minutes later, and his name stays on the list.

*

Back in the office just after six. Maybe subconsciously I thought I'd had enough, and I didn't leave any more on the list throughout the afternoon. Three people to check up on seems enough. Neither Taylor nor Gostkowski is there when I get back, so I grab a coffee and a Danish and settle down at my computer to do some more reading on the back story of the three blokes who stayed on the list.

Gostkowski returns a few minutes later, gets to work, doesn't speak to me. Taylor comes in just before seven. He whistles at the two of us like we're dogs. Seriously. The whistle that's all teeth and lips and sounds like a referee. I've never been able to do that. Naturally, like obedient police puppies, we follow him into the office. He's already sitting behind his desk. He doesn't indicate that he wants the door closed, and somehow we know that we shouldn't.

'Sir,' says Gostkowski, just as he's about to launch. He raises his eyebrows. 'You just whistled at us,' she says. 'Like we were sheep. Can I ask you not to do that again, please?'

God, she's bold, isn't she? I just take that shit. I don't think you whistle at sheep though. You whistle at the dogs that are rounding up the sheep.

He looks slightly taken aback – too used to pishing all over me and having me accept it – and then nods. 'Of course, Stephanie, I'm sorry.'

She nods. We can move on now, as I choose not to push for my own personal apology.

'First of all, nice job, Sergeant, we've had a lawyer on the phone, pretty much before you even made it back to the office.'

Jesus. I hate people. I hate all people. Literally. I hate fucking everybody. I need to go and live in a fucking yurt. Or die. I've had enough. I'm just trying to do my fucking job here. Can't I do a job?

'Hazelgrove,' he says. The rapist. Who wasn't a rapist. But whose life was ruined by the combination of the police and the media.

'Suing us, is he?'

'Not yet, but he will do if word gets into the newspapers that he's been questioned by the police in connection with the Plague of Crows.'

'Do we suppose that the next call Hazelgrove's lawyer made was to the Evening Times or the Sun to tell them that they would sue the police if it became public knowledge that they'd interviewed his client?'

Taylor smiles ruefully.

'If it wasn't, it was only because he'd called them first. I hope you were a little more circumspect with the rest of your interviews.'

He looks at me. I'm going to ignore that.

'Right, I'm not going to ask how you got on. Like me, I expect you came back with a few people on whom to make further background checks. Get to it, bring me something when you have it. There are, however, a couple of things that are going to shit on our parade…'

That's a nice analogy. Police work as a parade. Marching along the street while the crowds cheer us on, fully supportive and desperate for us to do well.

'One of the things that separates the human race from the rest of their fellow fucking awful species on planet earth, is the ability to see an opportunity and make the most of it. Consequently, the criminal collective, on realising that the police are going to be occupied with the latest serial killer on the block, are using the occasion to steal more shit, beat up more people and trash more shops and businesses.'

Actually, those wildlife shows would indicate that there are a lot of opportunistic species, but it seems pedantic to mention it.

'Maybe we could bring the army in and put the city in lockdown.'

We both look at Gostkowski with slight surprise. Sounds like she's been spending too much time with me.

'It might well come to that,' says Taylor, and he's almost smiling.

'What's the other thing?' I ask.

'Birds,' he says. 'There are just hundreds – literally hundreds – of reports of people killing birds, then inadvertently hitting buildings and people and all kinds of shit that isn't a bird. Then, inevitably, they're getting into fights because they think they're justified in going after the birds and that other people should be understanding of the fact there might be a little collateral damage. And of course, the folk going after the birds in the first place are already armed. Getting ugly out there.'

'Any deaths?' asks Gostkowski.

I hadn't even thought that. Was just assuming a bit of a bunfight.

'One so far. Who knows how many it'll end up with.'