DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  No can do, compadre. Please...

  'Listen, Sir, I'm not saying that I'm not going to try.'

  'Good,' says Taylor with a bit of tone.

  'I'm just letting you know that I doubt we're going to get anywhere. There are people who do this kind of shit, they have no idea of how easy it is for us to track 'em down. But this dude, he knows what he's doing. I'm about to spend the next several weeks on this, and I'm already pretty sure that every alleyway he leads me down is going to have a brick wall at the end. It's like, you know, there could be metadata and shit included in the film and JPEGs that he's uploaded, we often times catch out folks with that shit. Just got a feeling, though. Just got a feeling. This guy knows what he's doing. He's boss, man. I'm telling you, totally boss.'

  Totally boss... Bloody hell.

  9

  Jesus, this sucks all kinds of shit, it really does. Sitting in an office at eleven-thirty in the evening watching video footage of three people getting their brains eaten out. Again. I'm watching it again. Not counting how often I've seen it now. Just keep playing it over and over. I want something to take to Taylor. He got me my job back, making sure I wasn't kicked into touch, for a reason. He finds me useful to work with.

  Right at the moment, I'm not being very useful. The Plague of Crows might well have been everywhere on the internet, but it was the same shit all over. A lot of it's gone now, but we got copies of it and it was so widespread that there's still a fair amount up there.

  As the evening has worn on, the thought has been getting stronger and stronger. This guy is in complete control. He was in control when he committed his crime, he was in control when he chose to release all this stuff to the media. It's not like he was going to have inadvertently included his name and address, or that he'll have accidentally walked in front of the camera and then not edited it out.

  And, as predicted, so far the geeks have been unable to unearth any trail through the internet postings. It was beautifully worked. Knew what he was doing, knew how to cover his tracks.

  I suddenly get the feeling that he knows I'm sitting here, right this minute, and he's laughing at me. I glance round the office. Most people are still here. Connor might be a total wanker, but he's managed to get us all to do his bidding. No one has dared leave yet, which is a fucking joke.

  We're all getting the feel for this, same as we got the feel for it back in the summer. This guy is going to choose when and if he reveals himself. If we get lucky before that, well, it'll be just that. It'll be because we'll get lucky.

  Need a fag. Morrow is across the desk, but he's a good lad. Whatever his vices are, and it's not as though he won't have any, they're much better hidden than mine. I've already got Bob and the cigarettes in my pocket. A ten-minute break out the back, will listen, I think, to Positively 4th Street, Will You Please Crawl Out Your Window? and one other yet to be decided.

  My feelings on Positively 4th Street have changed over the years. There's really not a lot to it, but it's the feel of thing. I love the organ.

  There's a place to smoke out near the front, but go that way and you'll get passed by anyone walking out, including Connor. He's still here, in a meeting with the Chief Constable of Strathclyde and, fucking get this, the Justice Minster from Holyrood and his minions. Ha! Wankers, the lot of them. The shit's hitting the fan so let's bring the politicians in, because obviously they'll know what they're doing.

  Out the back, just digging the earphones out of my pocket, find that I'm not alone. DI Gostkowski, halfway through, at a guess, a Lambert & Butler. Like smoking a dog shit, but each to their own. I nod, she nods. Hesitate for no more than a second while I decide whether to engage, then decide not to. I'm knackered. I really want to go home and go to bed, and I need the break. I need the filthy smoke in my lungs, and I need Bob whining in my ear.

  I get the music going, earphones in, light up the fag, deep draw, milky and smoky death filling my insides. Fuck, that tastes good. Breathe out slowly. It's a cold night, and I've only got a shirt and jacket on. Feel the cold, but don't care. It's fresh. Gostkowski, being possibly the most organised person on earth, is appropriately dressed.

  Stand in classic pose, one hand in pocket, other with a fag, eyes closed. I'm not even thinking about her.

  'Dylan?' she says. As if she knows exactly how loud she'll need to speak for me to hear her above the music.

  Earphones out and back in my pocket, don't fiddle about with the MP3 to turn it off.

  'You like Dylan?'

  'Some of it,' she says. 'Haven't listened to him in a while. You and the boss listen to nothing else?'

  'Pretty much.'

  She nods. That'll be it, then. She planned a four-sentence conversation. And some of them were pretty fucking short sentences. Now I'm stuck with the dilemma of whether or not to put the earphones back in.

  What a stupid dilemma. It shouldn't even be a dilemma, but it is. I don't want to stand here in silence, I don't have anything to say to her. If I try to force conversation it'll be awkward and uncomfortable and just generally shit, but then I'm standing here thinking that if I put my earphones back in she might think I'm rude.

  For God's sake.

  'You ever see him in concert?' I ask.

  The kind of small talk that normal people have.

  'Is it true about you and DI Leander?' she asks. 'Well, Leander's wife.'

  'You don't believe the stories?'

  'People make things up,' she says. 'They exaggerate.'

  Acknowledge that with slight head movement. Doesn't take much. She's got a nice voice. I like DI Gostkowski.

  Jesus, and what are you basing that on? Her voice, she's more organised than I am and she looks good in a coat. Get a grip, Sergeant.

  'It seems very cavalier,' she says. 'Once, maybe, because that's what happens. But an affair, a public affair that everyone knows about. Seems curious behaviour.'

  She doesn't add, for a grown-up, but she might as well have done.

  So I do that thing that ultimately proves very dangerous. I don't try to employ artifice of any kind, don't measure my words, don't try and sound something I'm not, to try to impress her. I'm just honest. Women have this weird view of honesty, as if it's a positive.

  Start by shrugging, albeit a shrug that doesn't get any further then a casual movement of the cigarette.

  'I thought the same thing too. Just once. Makes sense. You get a taste, you know what it was like, add her to the list, she can add me to her list, everybody's happy...'

  'Except DI Leander...'

  'Well, at that stage I guess he wouldn't have known. But, of course, you're lying to yourself, aren't you? Maybe if it was shit, if the sex was shit, then sure, once is going to be enough. But we're both in our 40s, we know what we're doing. The sex wasn't shit. It was fantastic. Loud, raucous, tender in places, fast and slow. When she went on top... man, you should have seen her... Jesus.'

  Take another draw from the fag. Getting a little carried away. Happy days. Look at DI Gostkowski. She's staring at me, but there's nothing in her face.

  Shake my head.

  'What are you going to do? Once is never enough. And you know... you know if the first time is brilliant, if it's brilliant from the start, it's only going to get better. It always gets better. So you do it once, and you think, all right that'll do, enough already. But there's a voice, and the voice is saying, imagine what it's going to be like a month from now. Two months from now. You know there'll be a point where you've done it enough, when it stops getting better, when it's no longer fresh, but it ain't after the first time. Never is...'

  I'm not looking at her. I've got her hooked though. And the reason she's hooked is because I wasn't trying to hook her. I look across the car park to the dull houses on the street. Some lights on, some people already in bed.

  'Well, I had sex with PC Grant once. That was a relationship with a natural lifespan of one night.'

  As soon as the words are out my mouth I kick myself. Fucking idiot. Re
ally. For months now I've been priding myself on the fact that I've managed not to tell anyone about Grant, and quite liked the fact that I'd obviously surprised her. And now I just blurt it out. Fucking moron. Gostkowski looks like a safe pair of hands, but you never know, do you?

  Look at the ground. Embrace self-loathing. And although it has nothing to do with it, although a glib throwaway comment about a night spent with PC Grant really ought to have no bearing on the past, self-loathing always takes me back to the same place. Takes me back far enough, to a warm night in a forest. A long time ago. A different world. A different me.

  That's what I want to think. A different me.

  'When are you stopping? Tonight I mean?' she asks, pressing the butt into the ground with her boot.

  Dragged back. The chord to the past temporarily snapped. Although it'll never be broken. At least, not until I face up to it in some way other than the odd moment of darkness, staring into the night.

  'Don't know,' I say. 'He's a fucking idiot if he thinks he's going to get anywhere with no one getting any rest...'

  'Yes.'

  There's a movement behind us. One of those young constables whose name I haven't managed to learn yet since I got back. He addresses Gostkowski. Maybe it's because she's the senior officer, maybe it's because he knows her. Maybe I'm invisible in my smoky, melancholic haze.

  Shut up!

  'The DCI says everyone not on the night shift has to go home, be back in for eight.'

  'Thanks Graham,' she says, and the young fellow heads back inside, out of the cold.

  She glances at me as she turns towards the door. I've not finished the smoke, and am in no rush. There's a moment while we stare at each other. One of those stares. You know the kind. The one where you both know that at some stage you're going to end up in bed together, but not tonight. The mood might have been heading in that direction, but it's been broken.

  The seed has been planted, however, if only because neither of us was planting anything.

  'Good night, Sergeant,' she says.

  I nod, she breaks the look and heads inside.

  The door closes and I'm left on my own looking across the car park. I'm knackered, but tonight will be one of those nights when I don't sleep.

  There are too many of those nights.

  10

  Seven minutes past eight. Made it into work ahead of schedule, mainly because I didn't have time to get drunk last night, hardly slept, was wide awake from about six. Got up, already wearied and worn out. Shaved, showered, made myself some bacon and toast and coffee. Drank orange juice. Watched the news. The Plague of Crows was all over. They had the Justice Minster on, announcing that this would be the government's top priority and that a team of top Edinburgh detectives were being put on the case.

  He actually said that, used that very phrase. Top Edinburgh detectives. He didn't say that it was because Glasgow detectives are obviously shit, what with them being so provincial, but then he didn't say it in such a way as he said it.

  So I got into work not long after seven, and now it's seven minutes past eight and Taylor and I are sitting in Connor's office. Waiting to be informed, presumably, that we've been put back on traffic duty what with us being so shit, 'n' all. If only we'd received our training in Edinburgh. We're so disadvantaged.

  I reckon, and I'm just saying, that if we ever get to be independent, the nation will quickly descend into the kind of ethnic violence and hatred that you get in all those countries in the middle of Africa the minute the sensible (or vicious imperialist) authority buggers off. Catholics versus Protestants, Edinburgh versus Glasgow, Highlands versus soft southern lowland bastards. Someone, somewhere, will want to make amends for Culloden. We hold a grudge. It'll be shit.

  I'm still going to vote for it, though. Time to stand on our own two feet, rather than get a piggy back for the rest of eternity.

  'What the fuck are you thinking about?' says Taylor.

  I glance over. Uh-oh. Must have been doing that thing where I was having an internal discussion and was letting it show on my face.

  'Politics.'

  He looks at me with that wry paternal smile.

  'Trying to decide whether you'd shag Sarah Palin or Aung San Suu Kyi?'

  The door opens behind us before I can puke my stomach out laughing, and Connor walks crisply into the office. Sits down across the desk. First time I've been in here since the Leander incident. Still feel that vague discomfiture at being forced to sit in the presence of authority. Even, or maybe especially, when it's a total ball sack like this bloke.

  'You'll have heard the news,' he says.

  He's tired. Hasn't slept at all. Must give him credit for that, I suppose. When he'd first made his preposterous 24/7 speech, I kind of imagined him buggering off home at some time after six, spot of dinner, game of bridge down the club, early night, swan into work about nine. He's still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. Hasn't been home.

  'There's a task force coming from Edinburgh,' said Taylor, who somehow manages to say the words task force without spitting.

  'Yes,' says Connor.

  He stares at us both for a moment, and I suddenly realise that he's pissed off. I'd been assuming he'd love it all, the attention, the murders on his patch, the meetings with senior constables and government ministers. But of course, of course he's pissed off. He loves being in charge, he's a micro-managing control freak. Needs everyone doing exactly as he wants. And this absurd task force of red-hot genius coppers who have solved every fucking crime they've ever stumbled across – which is why Edinburgh is such a shiny, beautiful, crime-free place to live – won't be coming in here under his charge. There'll be someone arriving to take over, leaving the Superintendent to do his usual thing, dealing with local crime and overseeing us bunch of shit Glasgow polis who are incapable of solving our way out of a paper fucking bag.

  'It's understandable,' says Taylor. What the fuck? Connor gives him the imperious eyebrow, but Taylor never was one to be intimidated by authority. 'We thought we were looking for one guy who had committed a grotesque murder on our patch. Now... well, we know it was a pretty damned well-organised murder, and that level of organisation has continued. Maybe it wasn't just the one guy. The victims came from all round the city, and now we've got the internet thing. Presumably it's been done from within Britain, but we don't know if it's from Rutherglen and Cambuslang, do we? Could be anywhere. Indeed, anywhere in the world. I hate it as much as you, but it's understandable.'

  'I'm glad you hate it,' says Connor glibly.

  Taylor doesn't respond to that. He's said his bit. Makes sense, albeit it wasn't what I'd been thinking. I'm keeping my mouth shut. Not that I've got anything to say anyway.

  'We've no option, of course,' adds Connor. 'They want a couple of local officers as liaison.'

  He's looking at Taylor. I'm here, but I'm not entirely sure I need to be. Liaison. Taylor's going to be chewing my testicles off when we get out of here, as if it's my fault. Liaison, for fuck's sake.

  'I've given them DI Gostkowski and Constable Grant. They've been involved before, they know everything... They do know everything?'

  Taylor takes a moment to think about it. He's given the case far more time than anyone else. It's been his case, his priority. How much does he know, how many mental moves ahead has he made on the chess board of the investigation that he hasn't communicated to anyone else?

  'Yes,' says Taylor. 'Gostkowski will do a good job.'

  'She'd better,' says Connor. 'I'm going to ask her to play both sides.'

  Holy crap, now we're talking.

  Oh. He didn't mean that, did he?

  'Sir?' says Taylor.

  He's genuinely curious, while I'm sitting here with an image in my head of DI Gostkowski playing both sides. Need to get a grip.

  'I'm not letting this investigation get away from me,' says Connor. 'I'm not happy about it. I want you two to stay on it. You'll need to be discreet and you'll need to keep out of Edinburgh's way. Y
ou've been working it for three months now, Chief Inspector, so hopefully you'll be a few steps ahead. Should be, at any rate.'

  He pauses, looks from one of us to the other. Office politics. Holy shit. They all condemn me for the office affair, but shit, that's nothing compared to office politics. That's a fucking battleground, plagued by all sorts of evil pitfalls.

  'You will report to me, and Edinburgh will not know you're involved. DI Gostkowski will liaise with you. It will be one way. She'll let you know what's happening with their side, but will not reciprocate, unless I gauge that we should. I very much doubt that she will be given anything like full access to the investigation, but she'll be on the inside and we'll have to wait and see what she can generate.'

  'PC Grant?' I ask.

  'Will not be in on any of it. She'll be liaising with the task force as intended.'

  Taylor sits back. Thinking it through. This has potential to be ugly. There are power games going on, and we're getting sucked into it. That's what he's thinking. Is there a way out? How can he avoid this? It is tempered, of course, by the thought that he'll want to do it too. He really does hate Edinburgh getting brought in.

  'OK,' he says. 'How do you want us to work?'

  'You do your own thing,' says Connor. 'I'm not a detective, I'm leaving you to it. It's... it's rogue, going rogue. I don't like it, but I like that lot coming here much less. And like I said...'

  He hesitates then looks at me.

  '... be discreet.'

  He nods in the direction of the door.

  Taylor rises and I follow him out. Not sure that I've taken a breath in the last minute or so, Connor built up such an air of tension.

  We get out his office, the air clears and we stop for a second to look at each other.

  'Fucking rogue,' is all that Taylor says, shaking his head.

  'You be Danny Glover, I'll be Mel Gibson?'

  He gives me the look then heads for his office, his discreet and obedient sergeant in tow.

  11