A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (36 page)

'What the fuck is it with you?' she says. 'How can you be so… fucking superior? You're about to have your brains eaten out by a bunch of fucking… birds…. birds… and you don't give a shit. What makes you better than this? What makes this beneath you? You fucker…'

She looks round at the social worker, forgotten in her growing violence of humour.

'Jesus, fuck the lot of you.'

She turns away.

He's still crying. The guy with the social worker moondog face is still crying, his eyes plastered wide open for the rest of his life. For fuck's sake, accept your fate will you, you fucking idiot? You were bound to die at some point anyway. At least this way you'll get on the news and a bunch of fuckers will go and lay flowers outside your front gate.

She's back, standing in front of me. Duct tape and bone saw in hand. She lays the saw down on the ground, then quickly wraps the tape around my mouth, tight, making me gag for a moment, a few seconds to adjust my breathing.

'I don't want to fucking listen to you,' she mutters, as she does it. Which is funny, really, because I wasn't saying anything. Then she pulls my eyes open and – one of those moments I hadn't really been looking forward to – pins the eyelids back with a staple gun. Rougher now than she was when she was shaving me, but she knows the blood spilled by the stapling is going to be minimal.

She bends, lifts the bone saw. Stares me dead in the eye and there's not a lot I can do now to avoid the look.

I feel relief. Now that it's here, I feel relief. No more waking up screaming, no more cold sweats. No more searching for the woman I can talk to, or the woman I can make love to, the woman who can erase the memories of what I've done. No more pointless crime solving, no more having to put up with the fucking public, the fucking public who have long since lost any sense of personal responsibility, the fucking public who demand everything from the police and give nothing in return. No more worrying, no more stress, no more having to get up in the morning, no more coming into work.

'You asked for it,' she says, as the buzz of the saw fills the grey morning light. 'Now you're going to g—'

I guess the bullet must travel at roughly the same speed as the sound of the shot. A loud crack. A red hole opens up in her forehead. She stares blankly at me for a few moments, and then she falls backwards, a dead weight. The bone saw, still running, falls onto the social worker's leg and he silently screams.

My stomach wraps itself in a knot.

I wish I could close my eyes.

I can't speak. I don't want to speak. Maybe I've forgotten how. I'll probably speak again at some point. Montgomery was in for a long time, asking endless questions.

What a complete arsehole. Didn't seem to appreciate my silence. But I wasn't talking to him. I was barely even looking at him. My eyes might occasionally have been pointing in his direction, but I wasn't interested.

I'm in a hospital bed, but I'm not really sure why. The effects of the taser have worn off, I think. My head has been shaved, and my hand is in a cast, two things that don't normally make you bed ridden. Maybe I'm confined here because I'm not saying anything.

The Plague of Crows dropped like a stone and it was over. Just like that. Too late for the journalist, just in time for me and the social worker. Well, it ought to have been in time for the social worker. The police made the mistake of loosening his bonds before the paramedics got there, and he was freaking out. Started bleeding from his exposed cranium, dead by the time the ambulance turned up. If they'd just left him alone. If he'd just sat still.

They carefully cut away my bonds. I could have said,
just fucking rip them, I don't give a shit.
But I didn't. I didn't say anything. Still haven't. I expect that's why they think I might have gone a bit mental.

Montgomery really was an arsehole.

Have seen two doctors and several nurses. Lost track of time. Don't even know when they bandaged up my hand. It's not sore anymore, but maybe they've got me packed full of pain killers.

Maybe that's why I can't talk. Maybe that's why my brain is sludge.

But that's not it. I know. I thought I was going to get relief. I thought I'd be free, and that freedom was taken away.

I can't speak. I don't want to. My vocal chords, my brain, everything, is submerged beneath the weight of guilt and sorrow and self-loathing.

There's a television in the corner of the room. Small, placed too high on the wall. I haven't turned it on yet. A few nurses turned it on for me, as if they thought I was incapable. I put it off as soon as they left the room.

The door opens. Taylor walks in, looking slightly uncomfortable. Gostkowski is with him. I have no idea if this is the first time they've seen me. I don't even know what day it is, never mind who might have been in here.

They close the door. There are a couple of seats, but they won't be sitting down. I wonder which hospital this is.

'They think you've got PTSD,' says Taylor, after a few moments of silence.

Well, they're probably right. I've had it for nineteen years, it makes sense that someone would pick up on it eventually.

If I tell myself that's what I've had often enough…

'The Plague of Crows is dead,' he continues. Going straight for the facts, because he's not comfortable talking about me lying here like a dead weight. 'Stephanie picked up the fact that Clayton's sister-in-law had been working in the café across the road. We tracked her down, found where she kept all her stuff, did all her planning. She had a series of potential spots marked out for her next forest venue. I wasn't sure, but I realised that I'd been to all the places on the map that could be used during winter. She couldn't have known that I had already checked them out. We picked the six most likely and dispatched an armed unit to each. Not too heavy handed, didn't want the Crow getting away. Just ignored Montgomery on it, in case it was all a set-up. Given how much of an arsehole he'd become, he probably wouldn't have done anything anyway. So… you probably saw what happened. They were supposed to bring her in, but our guy… and I'm saying our guy, but it's not like I know who the fuck it was… made the call to take her out.'

I've been holding his gaze throughout. When he stops talking I glance at Gostkowski, then look away. Lower my eyes. Do I not want them to see me like this? Banged up and pathetic, silent and withdrawn, ready for the end? Bald?

I don't think it matters. Just got nothing to say.

'The other two are dead,' says Taylor. 'You were lucky.'

If that's what you call it.

Gostkowski's not saying much. Taylor continues talking, filling the uncomfortable silence with facts that I can't bring myself to tell him don't interest me.

'She had a shit life. Abused as a kid. We're still trying to find her sister, but it looks like the dad abused her as the eldest and not the younger sister. She became an actress, got a part on
High Road
, fucked it up. Took some newspapers and the police to court. Long time ago. We hadn't got that far back. Montgomery had, it turns out. They made some half-arsed attempt to speak to her, but no better than when they talked to Clayton. Never made the connection. She met Clayton through their lawyer, dated him a couple of times, made the mistake of introducing him to her sister. The sister seems likely to be pretty fucked up 'n' all. Just the fact that she went for Clayton in the first place.'

He hesitates, as if he might be leaving a gap for me to fill. That's probably it. A gap in the conversation that I can step into, thereby letting them know that I'm all right.

There's a fucking laugh.

'Maybe if she'd stayed with Clayton it might have kept her straight. But then, given what he'd done, it seems unlikely. He dumped her, she went off the deep end. Yet she managed to do it in a very cold, patient and time-consuming way. We've got the boys going over her computers, but it looks like she was planning this for years. It's all there.'

He pauses again. Maybe it's for me to speak, maybe he's finished. I don't have any questions. I ought to have questions. We spent months on this investigation. It had us pulling our hair out. But now that it's over, I don't want to know anything about it. The Plague of Crows is dead. Time to move on to the next thing. The next crime. Wonder what the next crime will be?

No, actually, I really fucking don't.

'Your hand was crushed to all kinds of fuck. That must've hurt. She broke fourteen bones.'

That would explain the screaming pain. I broke one bone in my hand once before and that was painful enough.

Taylor shuffles. No closer to his comfort zone. Doesn't know what to say to someone who looks fine, but isn't saying anything back. Of course he's not getting angry like that wanker Montgomery, but he's equally uncomfortable.

He walks to the window and looks outside. I don't know what he'll be looking at, or even what floor we're on. He turns back. Another glance at me, not really sure what to say, and then he nods at Gostkowski and walks slowly from the room.

My heart bleeds. He's my best friend. Maybe he's the one I should be talking to. Feel like I'm letting him down in my silence, but I can't say anything. How can I tell him what the terror in the woods reawakened in me?

The weight of depression rests slightly more heavily on me. Gostkowski does not immediately follow the DCI, yet she's not staying. I catch her eye. We stare at each other. I know she's not going to say anything. If she's trying to communicate through a look, then that ain't happening either. She bends over me and kisses me softly on the cheek.

Another look after she's straightened up, and then she walks slowly from the room, closing the door behind her. For a while I stare at the door, then I close my eyes.

I close my eyes.

*

'Hey.'

I'm back in the woods. For some reason I don't seem so upset, not as worked up as usual. I'm watching them, watching those other guys do their thing. But the women are different. I don't know who they are. I've forgotten. Perhaps that's why I'm not upset. It isn't my women that are getting raped, the women I've been so worried about and so remorseful over all these years. These are some other women who I don't have any feelings for. This is like watching the news. If they showed rape on the news.

'Hey.'

Open my eyes, dragged very slowly from sleep. The dream is gone in an instant, so that I have no memory of it.

'Hey.' Again. The voice is soft.

I manage to focus on the man beside the bed. It's Clayton. Michael Clayton. I hadn't been expecting him. I wonder what time it is. Dark outside. I wonder how he got past the policeman outside the door. How do I even know if there is a policeman guarding the door?

Why would there be a policeman outside the door? They got the Plague of Crows, didn't they?

'You intrigue me, Detective,' he says. Not that I've got anything to say to that. Not that he's waiting for me to say anything to that either. 'I was watching you. The way you manipulated poor old Jane. And, of course, I say manipulated, because I thought that's what you were doing. But you weren't, were you? You weren't playing a game.'

He's sitting down. He leans forward and places his forefinger in the middle of my forehead. Leaves it there for a second then leans back.

'You didn't need your brains eaten out, did you? There's already something missing. What is that? What did you mean when you said you thought Jane was someone else? What did you mean?'

He has the eyes of a crow. Clayton, with the eyes of a crow. Dead. Wanting. Expecting. Entitled.

'I wondered if I might kill you tonight, but there doesn't seem any point, does there? It's hardly sport. Like I always thought I'd kill the old man. Detective Chief Inspector Lynch. That's what I thought, but then… it seems so much more fun leaving him to live on, humiliated and broken.'

He pauses. Leans his chin on the palm of his hand, even though there doesn't appear to be anywhere for him to rest his elbow.

'You… You're already broken. What broke you? Not me. Not this. Not the infamous Plague of Crows. Not spending all those weeks searching for her. Hmm…'

He seems to get bored talking and looks around the room. There's nothing doing. Nothing to see. A bland hospital room. Could be anywhere. I wonder which hospital it is.

'You took your time turning up,' he says distractedly. 'I'd been expecting you right from the start. You took your time. I wondered if Lynch would put you on to me. Hmm… I expect he's got his head buried so far up his backside in self-pity he hadn't even noticed the news. Too bad… Do you care? I don't believe you care.'

I hold his gaze.
No, I don't
. He tosses an unconcerned hand in the air.

'I didn't come to kill you. I did come, after a fashion… to chat. Some might call it confess, I suppose.' He laughs. 'Ha! Confess… you know what I mean. Thought I might tell you the story, in expectation of it going in one ear, etc., etc. You'd never pass it on, and if you did, who'd believe you? You're a basketcase.'

He shakes his head, waves that hand again.

'What does it matter? You're not going to be impressed anyway. Lynch was impressed. Impressed enough that it got under his skin and it ruined him. But you… you're not interested in the minutiae, are you? You're not interested in anything.'