DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  'Oh, aye. So what happens?'

  'What do you mean, what happens? He's James Bond. What do you think happens?'

  'But Jonah Bloonsbury ain't no James Bond.'

  Taylor lifts an eyebrow.

  'Fucking right he's not. She's sailing him down the river and when he fucks up, he's history.'

  Take my first drink, screw up my face. Put in too much tonic. How do I manage to still do that after seven or eight million of them?

  'So then what?'

  'We get it,' he says, shaking his head. 'Would have been Crow, but now that he's buggered off to his one-bedroomed ruin in Arrochar, we'll get stuck with it. And it'll probably be after he's killed again, and the press are baying for blood. Bloonsbury's won't be enough.'

  'So?'

  'So, we'd better start thinking about how we're going to get this guy.'

  'Oh.' Work. 'So that's what you've been sitting here thinking about, is it?'

  'Not just that,' he says, and I'm not sure I want to know to what he is alluding. 'Anyway, someone's got to do it, 'cause Jonah's probably face down in a ditch by now.'

  'So what have you come up with for your five hours ruminations?'

  He takes an especially large drink, licks the froth from his lips, lays his hands on the table.

  'Bugger all. I was waiting for you.'

  Very funny.

  'I'm serious,' he says in reply to the look on my face, and I believe him. 'So, what have we got? Some weird bastard who slashes a woman to pieces. Total rage, cutting her up to the extent that she is unrecognisable.'

  'Why not just leave it to the profilers?' I say. They have these sad folk who just sit there all day inventing people. Someone pishes against a wall and they spend three weeks compiling the psychiatric profile of the man, before deciding his brother stuck a carrot up his arse when he was three. It's their job, let them do it.

  He points his finger at me. I hate it when he does that. 'Because they don't know fuck all, son,' he says.

  He's right.

  'So why so brutal to the face?' he says. It's like being at school.

  'Personal grudge.' Think about those photographs. 'Deep personal grudge.'

  He nods. 'Either against her, or someone who looks like her.' Fits the bill. 'I'll go for the latter. If he knew her we'll find out about it, but it doesn't feel right.'

  'Could be some psycho who sort of knew her. Worshipped her from afar and all that shite. She didn't know anything about it, he makes his approach one night after the cinema, she rejects him, he slashes her to pieces.'

  He shakes his head. 'Maybe, maybe. I don't know. I like the sound of it being some fuck-up with no previous relation to her at all. Completely arbitrary. If she hadn't been there last night, she would never have got it. She was in someone else's place.'

  'So, what? We're looking for some guy who's been dumped by a bird with dark brown hair? That could be me.'

  'Aye, well you've been dumped by just about every size, hair colour, personality type combination, so I'm not about to drag you in.'

  'Thanks.'

  'Don't mention it.' Another drink from the glass. Funny how he's managed to speed up now he's got someone to buy him a round. 'What we need is a description of the guy. She was walking along a main road, for God's sake, just come out of a busy cinema.'

  'There were like ten people at it.'

  Shrugs. 'Whatever. You'd think the woman in the ticket booth would be able to remember a few more faces.'

  'You just can't rely on people.'

  'Ain't that the truth,' says Taylor, then with another long pull at his glass he finishes off his pint. 'Buy you another, Hutton,' he adds, to general astonishment.

  I nod, mouth partially open in surprise. Taylor never buys a round at home. Now; two nights in a row.

  Taylor makes his way to the bar, I look around the pub. The usual crew. One or two others from the station, but never too many. Most of them prefer the Whale, and they're welcome to it.

  The door to the pub opens, and with a portentous gust of cold wind, in walks Charlotte Miller. Raised eyebrows from the Feds, and then we all try to pretend we haven't noticed.

  Try not to choke on my vodka when she walks over to our table and sits down. Smile at her, try not to look at, or even think about, her tits. Smell her perfume, breathe it in. Don't imagine her naked... She's wearing a fuck-off blue trouser suit and, as usual after fourteen hours in the office, looks as if she just got dressed five minutes ago.

  'It's a cold night,' she says, rubbing her hands.

  I nod. Look her in the eye. Seems there's a bit of a spark there, as there has been ever since the tits incident. (In my head it's known as the Tits Incident.)

  'What happened with the assault? Brothers, was it?'

  'Aye.' Talk normally. 'We've got one at the station, the other's in hospital.'

  'Over a woman?'

  'Aye.' She smiles at this and shakes her head.

  'You men are all alike.' Wait for the literary quote, but Stevenson mustn't have written anything about men only thinking with their dicks.

  Taylor returns with the drinks and nearly drops his pint. Makes a quick recovery. Give the guy his due. He's suspicious of her, but she doesn't turn him into a quivering blob of jelly, the way she does some of his contemporaries.

  'Hello, Dan. Been here long?' she says. Bitch. Will know exactly how long he's been here. Now me, that would have had me in a tangle of deceit and idiocy, trying to explain why I'd spent so long in the pub. But so what if Bloonsbury had given us this big Jock Stein speech? It was the end of the day and if we had nothing else immediate and wanted to sit in the boozer, we could. But I would still be trying to justify myself. Taylor's too cool for that; or past caring.

  'About five hours,' he says. 'Can I get you a drink?'

  She nods. 'Whisky, neat, thanks.'

  He turns back to the bar. She taps her fingers on the table. Long fingers, and I imagine them all over my body. Sometimes I bore even myself with the ridiculous one-tracked-ness of my brain when this woman is around.

  'What are you doing for Christmas?' she says.

  'Working.' Stick to one word answers.

  She smiles, almost looks understanding. 'Someone's got to. Frank and I are going to Braemar.'

  I nod, not surprised. Braemar. Brilliant. Eat some smoked salmon and fucking quails' eggs for me.

  'When are you seeing the children?' she asks.

  'Tomorrow evening.' She asks about the children every now and again. I think she learned to do it on a management weekend. One of these things where they pitch twenty people into a bog on Benbecula with a box of matches, a pot noodle and three sheets of toilet paper, and tell them to survive for a fortnight.

  'Oh,' she says. Taylor is labouring behind a guy at the bar trying to decide between cheese and onion and chardonnay wine vinegar flavour. 'You won't be out late, though?'

  Starting to sort of gawp at her. She must know the look. What's she getting at? I don't see this coming at all. She almost sounds nervous, except that it's not a word I could possibly associate with her. I shake my head and say, 'I doubt it.'

  She taps her fingers.

  'I was wondering if you'd like to come over later. To the house, I mean. Frank's going to Aberdeen on business for the night. Just like him, Christmas Eve, for God's sake, but you know what he's like. Meeting him in Braemar on Thursday morning.'

  Various thoughts flash around my head. Vague things about Aberdeen and Frank. Push them to the side. She's inviting me to dinner, at her place, when her husband's going to be out of town. Fucking hell. It'll be just me and her. And her tits.

  'Aye, I think I could manage that.'

  She smiles. I could eat that smile. 'Great. I'll speak to you tomorrow.'

  Taylor returns, glass in hand, lays it down in front of her. Wonder if he notices how pale I've become. Feel white, but I may not have descended that far.

  She smiles at him, lifts the glass. 'Cheers,' she says, and before we can make a gr
ab for our drinks she's downed it in one. Looks at the two of us. Having said what she came to say, and realising she isn't about to get any meaningful conversation, she stands up.

  'Right,' she says, 'thanks for the drink, Dan. See you both tomorrow.'

  We nod, she turns and walks out, leaving a trace of French perfume in the air. We watch her go, then the door is closed behind her and we turn to alcohol, our only friend.

  'What the fuck was that all about?' says Taylor eventually.

  I'm not sure, and shake my head.

  'When a woman brings her breasts to the party,' I reply, quoting the legendary Stevenson, 'chaos, pestilence and Armageddon cannot be far behind.'

  9

  He remembers a frosty November morning. Breakfast in a café in the centre of town, and then a walk through Kelvingrove Park. The sky was clear, the air was cold and crisp. The morning that it started to go wrong.

  They had spent the night together; made love in the evening, and then again in the morning, although only after she'd insisted on a trip to the bathroom for mouthwash. She had ordered pancakes, maple syrup and bacon for breakfast; he'd ordered the same. They both drank coffee.

  They'd talked about her buying a new computer. He was trying to persuade her to buy a Mac, because he had a Mac and he would have been able to help her out with any problems. She'd said with a smile that it was almost as if he was being co-dependant sometimes. When she'd seen the look on his face she'd quickly added that she was kidding. Even though he'd known what it meant, he'd Googled co-dependant when he'd got home, to find out if there was anything else that she could have meant by it, some way in which she could have offended him that he hadn't already realised.

  By then it had already started, they'd already had their first major fight. Walking through the park, hand in hand, the morning as perfect as it could get, sex and breakfast and blue skies and crisp, fresh, clean, sharp air, they had met two of Jo's friends. Alex and Eugenie. Out for a walk on a cold, crisp and fresh November morning. They had stood and chatted, although he had not had much to say. They'd been Jo's friends not his, he considered it just an interruption to the perfection of the morning. And then the bloke had suggested they all went for coffee, and the interruption had suddenly blown their day apart. Jo had looked at him, he had silently conveyed his desire to not go for coffee, and then she had accepted.

  They sat in the coffee shop for an hour and a half. He said nothing. He had wanted Jo to know how much he didn't want to be there. He'd stared out the window. He'd looked bored. At one point, after the mugs had been cleared away, he'd even put his head on the table. It hadn't seemed rude, not to him. He had merely been expressing himself. He thought it would have been ruder to say something.

  When Alex and Eugenie had gone, Jo had torn into him. She didn't use the word co-dependent then. Worse. Much worse. They had argued in the street. People gave them a wide berth.

  Later they'd kissed, they'd made up. A few days later, at any rate. They'd had sex again, but it wasn't quite as magical as the mouthwash morning. It was never quite as magical again.

  Co-dependant. That was what she'd said. He called it caring and loving, a desire to see that everything was perfect in her life. And she'd called him co-dependant.

  Before the end he had bought a PC, so that he could help her out with any PC difficulties she might happen across.

  EARLY MORNING. HE STANDS in the newsagent. Looking for a present for Jo, although he's not sure when he's going to get the chance to give it to her.

  He buys presents every now and again. When she comes back he'll be ready. This one is because he's feeling guilty. Guilty about what he'd done to Jo the previous evening. He'd only wanted to talk to her. Had only wanted to sit down, find out how she'd been doing. It would have been nice to hold her, to run his fingers over her skin, to kiss her; to lie naked with her, to caress her breasts, to eat her, his lips and tongue all over her body; to slam into her, his erection aching and sore, over and over.

  Had that been too much to ask? That was all, all he had wanted. Why hadn't she just said yes? It was Jo, he was sure it had been Jo. Why hadn't she just agreed to make love to him, like she had so often in the past?

  He looks helplessly along an endless collection of boxes of chocolates. A glorious array of enticing packages, and every one, everything he looks at, reminds him of Jo, and reminds him of that bloodied body. He sees blood spraying into the air, he feels the knife warm and damp in his hands, he feels the soft flesh of the face splay under the force of his stabbing. It all makes him feel vaguely unwell, nauseous, but he decides it's because he hasn't had any breakfast. He wonders if he should go for a cup of tea. Looks at his watch, almost time to get to work. Plate of Cheerios would sort him out.

  He can't get the vision of what he did out of his head. It was supposed to give him relief, but he is beginning to accept that maybe it wasn't Jo under that frantic knife. And he still wants to see her, but doesn't want to do to her what he did last night to that woman. That would be...unnecessary.

  He looks over the middle row of books, feels a flurry of the heart, a coldness in the blood. Then he realises it's not her, not Jo, the woman with dark brown hair on the other side of the shop. She looks up, notices him staring at her, and looks away. The hair's the same. Maybe a bit shorter, curlier.

  He starts to follow as the girl walks slowly out of the shop. Maybe it is Jo. Those eyes, he saw the light in those eyes. Maybe she's had plastic surgery so he wouldn't recognise her. That's the sort of thing women do.

  He walks out into the cold, grey morning. Eyes narrowed. Heart beats quickly. She hasn't noticed yet as she walks along the crowded road. Too many people.

  Could he do it again? So soon? The previous evening he had lost control and then staggered home to throw up, like a pathetic little child who couldn't take it. Staggered home in shock, throwing up when he walked into the house; and still the thought of it turns his stomach.

  Jo steps under the bus shelter and waits. Seven or eight other people there. He follows her and stands at the side. Glances over occasionally, but she doesn't look back. Suffers the churning in his stomach, feels sick every time he thinks of what he did. Could he do it again? This time she catches his eye and he recognises that look. Fear.

  Why are they all frightened of him? They don't know what he's going to do. Maybe it isn't fear. Maybe that's what he's looking for it to be. Maybe she's just got indigestion. So he smiles pleasantly and wonders which bus she's going to catch. He looks at his watch. He has to get to work, no point in arousing suspicion. There are too many people about anyway. This isn't a quiet street after dark. Morning rush hour is no time to make advances upon women, even when they ask for it. Gives her another look, which she avoids. Time to go to work.

  He turns away from the bus stop, walks across the road and is nearly hit by a taxi. A horn blares.

  10

  Christmas Eve. Bloody awful morning. Had far too much to drink last night. Sat up until some time after three with Taylor, listening to all his marital difficulties. Wondered at first why he seemed reluctant to go home then, as the lager took over, he started telling me all about it, and I got what I had managed to avoid at the party on Monday night. The 'my wife's having an affair' speech. It comes to us all, and you hear it so often you become immune – until you're the poor sod in question.

  Debbie's all right – not that I'd touch her with a stick – but she's a few years younger than him and that's always going to tell in the job. She's a teacher at Cathkin High, a shiny new building built on playing fields up on the hill above Cambuslang. I went there in its previous incarnation, when the only things that were shiny were the razors the pupils used to cut up the drugs. God knows what it's like now that they're in a new building that the taxpayer will still be forking out for in fifty years' time. Can't imagine it's any easier for the staff, and apparently she returns home every night with new horror stories of student brutality and didactic ineptitude. Combine that with similar tales of
wretchedness from Taylor, and you can tell what fun nights they must have in. I kept thinking of the irony of him feeling guilty all year about his fling with DS Murphy, when Debbie has spent most of that time impaled on the biggest dick in town.

  So I arrive this morning, ten minutes after eight, feeling like shit, looking like the inside of a football boot. Sewer breath from Hell, totally forgotten about having to buy a present for Rebecca and a night in with the station god-queen. Saw Alison on my way in – think it's going to be a regular feature – and she nearly wet herself laughing.

  Cup of coffee to start the day, then a phone call downstairs. The thug brother had been released with the usual stipulations, and I was happy because it meant I could forget about it for a while. Ten minutes later we got a message from the hospital that brother number two had just unexpectedly died. Brain haemorrhage, as far as they could tell, but they weren't sure. So we have to go and get the first idiot and bring him back in. Up the charge to murder or manslaughter, whatever. Fortunately, that bit's out of my hands.

  The clock has now ticked its way round to just after ten, and the office is in a state of ferment. Seventeen burglaries overnight, three reported rapes, a couple of major assaults, another ten or so minor ones, a shit load of other petty criminal activity, and in the middle of all that some guy walks in and says he saw Ann Keller not far from the cinema, sometime after eleven on Monday night. Several people are wetting themselves with excitement. Bloonsbury presumably, but it's hard to tell. He has looked this morning – if it's possible – worse than me.

  I've been delegated one of the rape cases, just so a bad morning can get a little bit worse. Young Asian girl shafted by three teenagers on her way home from a party. White boys, of course. Father's going mental. Not at the three white boys – silent fury and a gun to the back of the head for them, should he ever find them – but at the mother for phoning us. There's no justice like your own justice, and you keep yourself to yourself. Anyway, I got packed off with PC Grant to start the ball rolling. Did our stuff, looked like we were investigating, and now the girl's downstairs making a statement to a couple of female officers, all us men being bastards and incapable of sympathy, such is the modern way of thinking. Fine by me, and now I'm back on the murder case, detailed to follow up various reported sightings of Ann Keller the previous evening. Most of them are futile – nearly half are downright impossible, given what we already know of her movements, and the rest are dubious. The only one to make any sort of sense was the bloke who came to the station. Everything he said tied in with what we already knew, and he came up with a good enough description of the guy we're looking for. Assuming, of course, that this bloke isn't him. These headcases move in mysterious ways. We got a photofit out of it anyway, and that'll be on the news all day. These things never actually look human, but sometimes they get results. Course, I've to spend the rest of the day following up all the other crank calls to see where it gets us, which will be nowhere.