A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (37 page)

He casually looks away, makes another small gesture. Suddenly he seems terribly affected, in a way that I'd never noticed before. He's sitting here talking to me. It's a real conversation about things that actually happened, yet he's acting, and acting in quite an old-fashioned way. He's channelling Laurence Olivier or a touch of the exaggerated camp of Jeremy Brett's Sherlock.

He's been acting all along. We knew that. Couldn't believe anything he said.

'You used her?' I say. Found my voice. But really, I haven't found my voice.

Another casual throw of the hand, accompanied by a smirk.

'Things needed done, but I'd rather not get blood on my hands. She was very talented with… you know, she had talent. A steady hand. Yes. She had a steady hand.'

'So what happened?'

He laughs. A conceited, no-no-really-I-don't-want-to-talk-about-how-great-I-am laugh. Usually I'd be reaching out and putting my hands round the throat of someone with this amount of self-satisfaction. That's the laugh that Ronaldo makes when someone compliments him on his latest hatrick for Real.
Well, of course you recognise my genius, but don't for a second think I don't have better things to do other than talk to you…

'I got bored. Who wouldn't have? I left the odd hint lying around. Not that you picked it up. Detective Gostkowski. Smart girl. She spotted it. Thought she might. Not that I wasn't prepared to hand out a much heavier hint if it was required…'

'How did you know…'

My voice tails off. I'm getting sucked in.

No, in fact, no I'm not. I really don't care. My questions are automatic, words falling out my mouth. I'm not interested, just asking because that's what he expects me to do, sitting there with the smugness of Whistler.

How did he know that the police would kill her, and if they didn't, what plans did he have in place? Those are the questions. But you know, they can remain unanswered.

'Oh, Jane, she was so… psychotic,' he continues, smiling, ignorant of or unconcerned by my ambivalence. 'Strange that we ended up back together. Mutual hatred of Caroline.' Another cavalier wave of the hand. Where's the woman with the pliers when you need her? 'Ha! Never healthy. Never likely to end well, was it? Hmm… I did all the computer work, of course, but I've set it up to make it look like she did it all. Rather splendid, computers. Wonder what I'll do with them next… Hmm…'

I'm keen for him to stop talking, but he doesn't appear to share my enthusiasm for silence.

I want to get off. I'm lying here, no interest in police work, no interest in the criminal case that has led me to a hospital bed, yet the only visitors I've had have been ones who've wanted to talk crime.

Where's my family? I suddenly think of the kids. What age are they now? How can I forget that? It's only three months since I last saw them. They're my kids, for God's sake.

My head is in sludge. I think about my kids. I picture them. I wish they were here now, and not Clayton. I wish they were here talking about school and music and movies, and acting shy on the subject of boyfriends and girlfriends and arguing over whether or not the science teacher they share is an idiot.

But my kids aren't here, and there's a reason for it. Because why should they be?

Maybe I fall asleep. I'm not sure. When I open my eyes Clayton is gone

Me and Dr Sutcliffe.

I've lost weight. Not through living on the side of a mountain and eating rabbits. I'm just not eating. Don't feel like it. A little alcohol now and again when I've needed refreshment. Vodka tonic, with a squeeze of lime if I'm looking for one of my five a day.

Spending quite a lot of time in the public park at the top of Cambuslang. Sitting in amongst the trees, watching spring creep in on the land. Warm mornings in early May.

That's where she found me this morning. Sutcliffe. Sitting on a park bench, down by the pond. At the bottom of the hill where once thirty thousand gathered at the time of the Cambuslang Wark. It says so on the plaque behind me. Freshly mown grass all around, trees beyond that.

I wasn't thinking about the trees. Just enjoying the warmth, the smell of the grass. Dylan's
Black Crow Blues
still in my head. Could hear the lawnmower in the distance. There was a woman with a pram. A couple of boys on the skive from school. Another woman out for a walk with her elderly mum.

I didn't even see Sutcliffe approaching, then suddenly she was sitting beside me. Wearing a light, blue-and-white summer dress, a delicate floral pattern. A cardigan draped over her shoulders. She looked…

It doesn't matter how she looked.

'Sergeant,' she said. She'd found me here before. She was carrying two cups of coffee, and she handed me one. As I took the cup from her our fingers touched.

'Thank you.'

She smiled then looked away. Followed my gaze across the pond.

'The grass smells lovely,' she said.

I nodded. Sipped the coffee. It was still hot. The air was warm, so it wasn't as if I needed the hot drink, but it was reviving all the same.

'You all right?' she asked.

'Just the same,' I said, smiling. The answer she's come to expect.

'When are you going to talk to me?' she asked.

We've moved on from obfuscation and long silences, having long since acknowledged that there's something I need to tell her that I have no intention of ever saying.

I smiled again, didn't reply.

'You can't talk to me today anyway,' she said.

'Why not?' I asked without looking.

'I've got the day off.'

'Why are you here?'

She didn't answer. I looked round at her. There was a smile upon her lips.

*

At any given time, just over one in every ten police officers are off sick.

Taylor comes to see me every now and again. Slowly conversation is returning, although to be honest we have yet to really get beyond awkward.

A few weeks ago he told me that the police had settled out of court with Clayton and his high price legal team. £250k. Just like that. £250k because Taylor and I turned up and interviewed him, he ran away and we fell for it. Taylor has been reprimanded; he didn't mention what was going to happen to me. Maybe they'll wait and see if I ever go back. Maybe they'll forget.

At the time I didn't mention that Clayton had come to see me. Did the next time though. Felt a bit more like talking. Words were coming back.

I remembered it as best I could. Perhaps that wasn't very well. It was all a haze. And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if he'd actually come.

Really? Was he really there, sitting by my hospital bed, admitting that he was the power behind the Plague of Crows' demented throne? Or was I just imagining it because somewhere in the depths of my head I needed that justification? I wanted to believe that my instincts had been right.

Taylor asked a few questions. Impossible to judge what he thought. Whether he believed me. They found all the computer files, all the techie skulduggery, all of that stuff, on her hard drive. Yet if Clayton had been doing it all along, and he was smart enough to cover his tracks the way the Plague of Crows had been doing, then couldn't he also have been smart enough to make it look like someone else was doing it?

So Taylor asked some questions, then he left. We haven't talked about it since. Maybe I'll get back to it when I'm one of the ninety percent, rather than one of the ten.

*

And now the doctor and I are lying in bed. It's probably unprofessional of Dr Sutcliffe to sleep with one of her patients. She could get cast out of the psych doctor cooperative.

I could tell she was getting interested after I left hospital. She realised there was something in my need to sleep with every woman I ever met. Perhaps she's justified it to herself. The only way to get to the bottom of it was to sleep with me too.

What the fuck do I know? Maybe she just needed to have sex. Although, if that was it, she probably ought to have found someone who isn't her patient. And who isn't a complete fuck-up.

She's lying beside me. The post-sex glow. (What women see as the post-sex glow, and what men see as the few minutes after sex before you fall asleep or go back to work or go and watch sport.) Her head is resting on my arm. Her fingers are making soft patterns on my stomach. Occasionally she kisses my chest.

A warm early afternoon breeze comes in through the open window. Summer is almost here. The leaves are coming. The woods are changing.

###

Douglas Lindsay is the author of the Barney Thomson crime series, which begins with
The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson
, and is currently seven novels and three novellas strong. He is also the author of two new police series: the Thomas Hutton novels (
The Unburied Dead,
A Plague Of Crows
) and the DCI Jericho books (
The Case Of The Stained Glass Widow
and
We Are The Hanged Man
)
.
Douglas lives in Somerset.
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Novels

Lost in Juarez

The Unburied Dead (Thomas Hutton #1)

A Plague Of Crows (Thomas Hutton #2)

We Are The Hanged Man (DCI Jericho #1)

Barney Thomson series

Novels

#1 The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson

#2 The Barber Surgeon's Hairshirt (aka The Cutting Edge Of Barney Thomson)

#3 Murderers Anonymous (aka A Prayer For Barney Thomson)

#4 The Resurrection Of Barney Thomson (aka The King Was In His Counting House)

#5 The Last Fish Supper

#6 The Haunting of Barney Thomson

#7 The Final Cut

Omnibus

The Barbershop Seven (all seven novels)

Novellas

The End of Days

The Face of Death

Barney Thomson, Zombie Killer

Short stories

The Case Of The Glass Stained Widow (DCI Jericho)

Santa's Christmas Eve Blues