A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (6 page)

'What is it?' I ask.

He doesn't answer. I watch him for a moment, the strong uneasy feeling growing. I realise that the guys out there are looking at the same thing as Taylor. I look back at them through the office window and can see they've been joined by a fourth, and I know I no longer need Taylor's permission to go and look at what he's watching.

Round the side of his desk with a strange feeling of fear. I've had to watch a lot of really nasty shit online in my time in this job. How bad can this be? And yet I know it's going to be awful.

I stand behind Taylor and look over his shoulder. Recognise it straight away, entirely because it's such a clear picture. Well shot using an expensive digital camera. The scene from the woods. Three people cemented to the ground surrounded by a chaos of birds. It appears that two of the victims are already dead. Maybe they're all dead, but the third is twitching massively beneath his bonds. Body convulsions. But it's impossible to tell whether the person is panicking, or whether the crows that are squabbling over his brain have hit the appropriate nerve, causing him to spasm.

Watch it for a few more seconds and then turn away and return to the other side of the desk. Notice that there are now seven people around the computer and that there are others on their way over. The entire office is being drawn in that direction.

'How?' is all I ask.

'Fuck,' is all he says in reply. Indeed, it isn't a reply at all, more an expression of oncoming disaster.

'Not sure how quickly this'll…' he starts to say, but I point in the direction of the gaggle around the computer and a brief moment of resignation and defeat flashes across his face. Doesn't last long, and he stands quickly.

'Fuck it,' he says. 'We're already behind the curve with this, we need to start getting a grip. I'm going in to speak to the Super, you get them together. Meeting Room A, ten minutes.'

He walks past me, stops at the door.

'Make it five,' he says, and then he strides off in the direction of higher authority.

Back in the operations room. This is what we've feared for the last three months. Worse, indeed, given that we didn't know the killer had filmed the twitching, bloody horrible deaths.

We don't know exactly when it started, but instantly the Plague of Crows is all over the internet. The Plague of Crows. That's what he's calling himself. Wanker.

Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, all over. Every single social media site you can think of, hundreds of them, names being thrown around that I don't even know exist. Now, all right, that doesn't really mean too much. I couldn't begin to care about all that shit, but the young 'uns around here, and the experts, a lot of this is new to them too. And the guy has accounts coming out of his arse. The Plague of Crows is a new presence in the world of social media, he's well prepared, and suddenly he has unleashed a clusterfuck of online horror.

Straight off, we're diving in there, trying to get sites closed down, things taken off. Not from this station, of course; this thing flew straight to the top. This is the kind of thing that will have had the First Minister feeling his testicles squeezed. The police, however, look worse than anyone.

A few months ago there were three people killed in the woods, and we did a deal with as many influential people as we needed to play it down. And now, there on every single computer monitor in the damned world, is proof that we lied.

People love that shit. The media love that shit. Those who didn't know anything about it will be exploding in a masturbational paroxysm of police-hating frenzy, and those who knew but had been persuaded to keep quiet will now be unleashed.

This isn't the worst thing, of course. The media deciding that the police are a bunch of lying fuckers? We get that every day. 'We'll never trust the police again,' say public who believe everything they read in the papers. Yeah, whatever.

'Why now?' says Taylor, standing at the head of the room.

We haven't met like this to discuss the summer deaths since last month. It was full on for a few weeks, then it began to tail off. There really was nothing to find. The guy who'd done it, had done it well. Eventually we had to acknowledge that there were other crimes being committed. I got taken off it about four weeks ago. Taylor's still going, however. He has worked on nothing else for three months. The superintendent has been quite happy with that, aware of just how shit this whole business has the potential to be.

There were two things we've been scared of all this time. One was that the truth behind the killings would get out and a shit storm would be unleashed. The other was that he'd do it again.

'Is he going to do it again? Has he already done it, and out there, right now, there's a small group of people strapped to chairs, shitting themselves? We need to know. We need people looking, we need to work on the basis that the three victims targeted the last time were done so because of their professions. So let's start looking to see if any such people are missing. And not just around here, or around Glasgow. This could be all over. We've got…'

The door opens, the Superintendent comes in. He nods at Taylor, who immediately steps back and cedes the floor to the boss.

His name is Connor and he came down from Aberdeen when the vacancy arose. No way they were promoting anyone from around here. Given the stories that were going around about us being a complete bunch of fuck-ups and the total shitbucket of criticism that came the way of all of us once the full story of that tube DCI Bloonsbury was known, they were dedicated to sending in a hard bastard to clean up the joint.

Didn't really help with me banjoing a fellow officer just a few months after Connor pitched up. Taylor must have really had to fight my corner, although there have been plenty of times in the last few months when I would have been grateful if they'd just left me sitting on my mountain.

So Connor comes in expected to be the hard man. A tough senior copper, sorting out the mess left by the previous incumbent who, in the opinion of most of these senior dinosaurs, suffered horribly from being a woman. We're not supposed to like him. We're supposed to think he's a wanker. If we like him he'll be doing a poor job.

Well, he's doing a brilliant job.

'We failed on this in the summer, gentlemen,' he begins, 'and now it's coming back to bite us on the arse. No one, and I mean that, no one… no one is to take any leave, any days off sick, anything, any-fucking-thing, until we have this man nailed to a fucking cross. We need twenty-four hour days, seven days a week…'

Because that's how people work best.

'… let no man stand aside at this time of need…'

Jesus suffering fuck. Quick glance round the room. Everyone is looking at him with the usual glazed expression. I love the fact that there are seven women in the room, but as far as he's concerned, they're men. And you know, I believe that he would think it was a compliment to them, as if being a woman in this job was an impediment.

Switch back on. He's taking a pause. His eyes settle on me for a moment and then move on. Not sure if he's trying to intimidate me, but I really really fucking hate him, so it's not happening.

'The release of this video footage is a serious matter, and one under which a line must be drawn with inordinate haste. If I find that anyone, regardless of rank or status, had anything to do with supplying the footage to this person, then they will be charged and dealt with as surely as if they had committed the murders themselves. Do I make myself clear?'

No one says anything, which is probably because we're all trying to work out what the fuck he's talking about. The footage was obviously taken by the killer while the victims died. It was never, at any stage, in the hands of the police. It wasn't police footage. Why even make that threat? Why even mention it?

That's how small a man he is. Needs to make up potential offences, just so that he can make up threats, just so that everyone can know he's a strong leader.

He has nothing else to add. He looks menacingly around the room, letting everyone know who's boss, and then walks quickly away, giving Taylor a filthy glance as he goes. Slams the door behind him.

What a complete arsehole. Really.

Taylor steps back to the head of the room and looks around us all. He probably wants to say something to show solidarity, to let us know that we're all in it together, not just against the killer. But against that level of stupidity from higher up, it would be unprofessional. So he does the sensible thing and acts as though the last minute and a half never happened.

'We're needing to check on all missing persons in the last couple of weeks. In particular we're interested in police, media, social services, but let's check every missing person that's out of the ordinary .'

He talks on for a while longer, divvying up the various tasks that have to be taken care of. Suddenly this has gone national – global – and there's going to be all sorts of shit hitting all sorts of fans. A lot of the work of the next few hours will be liaison with other authorities, as we try to get as much of the Plague of Crows stuff taken off the internet. The chances of getting it all removed seem incredibly slim.

Taylor, at least, looks keen to rise to the challenge. Finally, after three months, there's something to do on this case, other than stare at the ceiling and think.

*

Sitting in his office twenty minutes later. He called me in for a quick chat, before I go and spend the next however long it takes searching through as much of the various online footage of the murders as I can find. There's a lot of it out there, on many different sites, although most of it is replicated.

'We don't have much time, Sergeant,' he says, 'so glean as much as you can, as quickly as you can.'

'You reckon the guy's already lined up his next victims?'

I'm dying to go out for a fag. We used to smoke in here quite happily, until Connor arrived. I don't think anyone's risked having a fag indoors since the minute he walked into the building. That first morning he stopped as soon as he walked into the office. He smelled the air, looked around the room. 'There's a no smoking policy in the building, I take it?' he asked. Someone nodded. 'Good,' he said.

That was all it took. None of us have smoked inside since, although all of us immediately thought,
wanker
…

'Well, yes, I do, but it's not that. We're not getting left with this much longer.'

'How d'you mean?'

He waves a dismissive hand out at the station.

'The shit's hitting the fan, Sergeant. This isn't just a national story. It'll be global. It'll be on the news in … I don't know…everywhere. America, Brazil, fucking Vietnam… You think they're going to be happy about a no-name DCI from the arse end of Glasgow being in charge of a crime investigation that'll be in the New York Times?'

'You think Connor will take over?'

'Connor? No way. He was sent here to be a school teacher. To impose discipline on you lot.'

'And you,' I throw in quickly, but we're not really in the place for any light banter.

'He's an authoritarian, pen-pushing arsehole, as we just witnessed first hand. He's not getting to investigate anything, and neither will he want to. He's the kind that'll only take on what he's confident he'll succeed at.'

'So, who d'you think?'

'I think they'll bring someone in from outside.'

'Fuck.'

'Yeah, fuck,' he says.

He rubs his hands over his face, but he's not tired, he's not stressed. He's in a good place these days. Determined, if nothing else.

'So, we need to get somewhere before they breeze in and take it off us. Best case scenario is that they leave us working on it too, under some sort of umbrella operation. It'd be stupid not to. But the new guy might want us to have nothing to do with it. It's not like we can claim any sort of resounding success the last few months.'

Nod. Move to the door. 'Right, I'll crack on.'

'Frame by frame. Flag up the slightest thing, no matter how trivial.'

And I'm out the door.

Almost bump into DI Gostkowski as I step back into the office. She hasn't mellowed towards me over the last three months. The only real change in our working relationship is that, as so often happens with me, familiarity has bred attraction, and I've decided that actually she's pretty fit. A few warm summer days with her jacket off and the top buttons of her blouse undone.

She's still too much of a grown-up, and unlikely to touch me with a stick, but what the hell. I can dream.

'Detective Inspector,' I say, with a polite nod.

'Sergeant,' she says back.

Then I smile. Always good to hit them with a smile. You know, it doesn't cost anything. It's polite, it's friendly. She, on the other hand, heads off without a second glance. Work to do. Only the immature are going to bother with the slightest flirtatious smile at a time like this.

Well, there you have it. Time to address the issues at hand, not to be thinking about the endless search for the Holy Grail of convenient, fun and low maintenance office sex.

Mind on the job.

*

Some time later. Called back in to Taylor
's office. Me and the boss and a constable from Strathclyde HQ in Pitt Street who's an expert in computer hackery and the like. Detective Constable MacGregor. Looks about twelve. Knows shit about computers, the way I know shit about types of fags and Bob Dylan. His thing is probably more useful than mine.