It was me. That fucking awful thing. I didn't just see it. I was supposed to be an impartial observer, I was supposed to be working. But it was more than that. I wasn't just an observer. I became part of the story.
This wood, this old wood with trees that just happened to grow here for whatever reason, and not because some forestry manager decided they would, this wood takes me back. It shouldn't. It's really not that similar to the forest where it happened. Perhaps it's just because it's natural. Feels natural in a way that so many woods in Scotland don't. So many woods. So many trees. Planted by big companies, or natural woods close to populated areas that end up filled with crap, the detritus of all our lives. Crisp packets and needles and condoms and beer cans and fucking shit.
This feels natural, like all those woods that are all over Bosnia. Nobody planted them. Of course, worse has happened in those forests in recent years than has ever happened in a small wood up the Clyde valley.
I end up sitting at the base of a tree, resting my head back against it, staring straight up at the bare branches out at a damp, grey sky. Immediately feel the dampness soak through my trousers, soak my underwear. Just as quickly forget it, ignore it. It doesn't matter.
Close my eyes. Can feel spots of rain on my face, or drips from the branches above. But I'm lost. Eighteen years ago. Nineteen? A long time, not long enough. I can hear it, see every detail. Every detail. If I could apply that kind of memory and analysis to every other crime scene, I'd be a far better copper than I currently am.
Hands over my head, bring my head down between my knees. But it's not going away. It's here now, just like it comes every now and again.
Guilt. Fear. Self-hatred. Shame. What could I have done differently? That's always the question. What could I possibly have done that night that I wouldn't be sitting here now in this position?
Why can't he take me? The guy, this guy, the Plague of Crows guy, why can't he take me? If he's got something against the police, take me. I'd be no one's loss. And it's what I deserve. Strapped to a chair, my head sliced open, picked at by birds. Angry birds.
Hah! Angry fucking birds.
End up curled on the forest floor wishing I was dead. Wishing I was dead. Then it could all go away, unless there is a Hell. Unless my mother was right. There's a Hell. And I won't be going there because I used to keep magazines under my pillow when I was fourteen.
Don't want to do this anymore.
Not anymore.
17
Taylor had headed up over Eaglesham moor. He gets back to the office about ten minutes before me, so that when I get back, having answered the call, he's in position. YouTube on the computer, watching the murder scene. The latest murder scene, the one we've been expecting. Everyone out in the station is going mental, they're on the phone, they're shouting, they're clustered around computer screens. For the time being this will transcend the dicks from Edinburgh. They'll get to it on their own when all the shit has settled down. Or, more to the point, when we find out where these latest poor bastards are.
'Any chance they're still alive?' I say to Taylor's shoulder.
He answers with a slight wave of the hand, then points at one of them.
'This guy's dead already. The other two aren't, but they can't last too much longer.'
'You spoken to Baird?'
'No, not long in. Give him a call, will you? He's bound to have watched it.'
It comes to an end and he immediately clicks back to the start.
'Any clue to where it is?'
He snorts.
'There are trees, a few low hills in the background and the weather's miserable as shite...'
I watch it through, start to finish, for the first time. As before, there's absolutely no evidence of the person taking the film. They're doing it on a hand-held, walking around the scene, catching it quickly from all angles. Two minutes, thirty-seven seconds in length. One person dead, two people alive, awake and terrified. Wide eyes. The guy got a great shot of a crow pecking into the middle of an open eye, and then withdrawing quickly as if spooked by what it had just done. The last shot before the end of the film is blood running from the eye. An eye with the eyelid pinned back, an eye that can't be closed.
The noise is just the clamour of the birds. Wings flapping, the occasional squawk as they get in each other's way. There's no sound from the cameraman, not even a muffled footstep or a low breath. No cars to be heard in the distance.
It's real, but of course you watch it as if you're watching Saw II or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Just a film. Given that there's not that much blood, maybe it wouldn't even be an 18. Kids today. Played Call of Duty with Andy one day last year. Fucking hell. Having seen the real thing, I didn't last very long.
'He posted this from a new account?' I ask.
'Plague of Crows 2,' says Taylor, and he glances over his shoulder.
'Maybe he's a Hollywood executive.'
'You look fucking awful, what happened?'
In the middle of the woods, with one bar worth of reception, and me lying on the forest floor curled up in the mother of all foetal positions, the phone had rung and dragged me back. Answered in a daze. Got in the car and started driving back without really knowing what I was doing. Finally came out of it somewhere along the last part of the M74. It was only when I'd returned to the station that I noticed the passenger side mirror had been swiped off. There was a note inserted in the socket, squeezed in, so that it hadn't blown off when I'd been hitting eighty-five on the motorway. I had a fleeting moment of thinking that I wouldn't bother contacting the person who had left their name, address and an apology and that I'd just get it fixed myself – or, more than likely, never get it fixed, ever – and then I read the note.
You was parked in the middle of the fukkin road, you wanker. Ive got you're number.
And he's calling me the wanker. People wonder why the police beat the shit out of them sometimes, but really. Hopefully he'll come and find me. Well, I'm saying he, but who knows. All we're looking for is someone who doesn't know the arse end of an apostrophe, but that doesn't really narrow it down, does it?
'Fell over in the woods running back to the car.'
He looks at me and I look down the front of my jacket and trousers. Not that bad. I don't look like I was curled up in a ball like a fucked-up trauma victim. That wasn't what he meant.
He doesn't introduce any more awkwardness into proceedings by pushing me on it.
'Call Baird. Ask if he's got any opinion to offer. Don't bother trying to pin the bastard down. Anything'll do.'
Back out to my desk. Morrow's walking by.
'You seen it?' he says.
'Oh, yes.'
'Fuck.'
'Aye.'
All delivered without breaking stride, and he's off out the door. No idea what he's working on at the moment, but I presume it's not this. Maybe we're all on it until we at least find out where the victims sit, the soft parts of their bodies eaten away by birds.
As usual Baird answers the phone without actually saying anything. Hello is too many words.
'You've seen it,' I say.
'Yes,' he replies abruptly.
He and Balingol are the two pathologists for our part of town. Joint winners of last year's Miserable Cunt Of The Year award. That's a genuine award, I'm not making it up. And as you can imagine, there was some pretty stiff competition around these parts.
'Anything to tell us?'
'I thought you lot had been taken off the case, Sergeant,' he says.
'It's all hands at the moment.'
He grunts, then doesn't say anything. He's not one to fill a silence.
'Any idea how long those two might have lived after that footage was shot?'
'I knew you people were going to ask that,' he mutters.
'So you'll have an answer then.'
'And you know that I can't possibly say.'
'Ball park?'
He grunts again.
'Taking into consideration the lev
el of deterioration you can see in the film, the activity of the birds, what do you think?' I ask.
'Sergeant, tell your boss... with the blood vessels in the brain, they could have bled to death in five minutes, and if one wasn't hit right away, maybe twenty minutes, half an hour.'
'Let's call it somewhere between five and twenty minutes, something like that,' I say.
He grunts. 'I don't think that was exactly what I said.'
'Thanks.'
I hang up, no doubt marginally before he does. He doesn't do goodbyes either. I think his dad must've walked out on him when he was a child.
Go back through to Taylor. He's still watching, leaning forward now, peering closely at the screen.
'What'd he say?' he asks without moving his eyes.
'Somewhere between five and twenty minutes.'
'He said that?'
I smile. God knows what my face looks like. Smiling. Not in the mood, not in the right place mentally to be smiling at anyone.
'That's what it boiled down to.'
'Well, at least we can presume the poor bastards are dead.'
'You're assuming this was recorded this morning?'
He shrugs.
'God knows. We might as well. Whoever these three are, chances are they've not been reported missing yet. This must be recent. Let's not get carried away with the weather similarity, but it was a reasonably bright day yesterday, today it's been pishing down everywhere.'
'Fair enough.'
'Right, need you to get an enhancement of the footage. That is one clear-as-fuck, stone-cold beaut of a shot of the terror on that woman's face. Let's see if there's any reflection in her eye.'
'If there is, that would be a mistake,' I say.
'And he doesn't make mistakes. Check it anyway.'
Off back out the door, away to speak to a woman I know.
18
Ninety minutes later we're sitting in Taylor's car, heading up the M80 on our way to the murder site. A polis in Perth thought he recognised the hills and went for a look. Found the bodies where the killer had left them, still surrounded by birds. Birds which seemed reluctant to leave despite the presence of the police. In the end, apparently, they killed a couple of them. Better not let that get out to the press. Bird-Killing Cops Disrespect Crime Scene or some shit like that.
We're listening to Bob, thank God, although Taylor stuck on Saved, which he knows I don't like. Petty. Very petty.
The boys from Edinburgh have already headed on out to take charge. We oughtn't to be going at all, but Connor called Taylor in and told him to get his arse out there. He's expecting us to blag our way onto the crime scene. Hopefully it'll be the locals who are in charge of securing the perimeter and they won't know to tell us to bugger off. Next time it happens, if there is a next time, the guys from Edinburgh will be ready for us. They'll know that we're still working the case.
What we're doing now is starting a turf war over investigation rights, but we're not thinking about that at the moment. Just doing what we're told.
The one positive, and it's a pretty small positive but we're grasping, is that the area was one that we'd marked off as a potential spot when we saw the Whittaker woman in Aberfoyle. We'd been thinking along the right lines, just without the resources to do anything about it.
If we'd told the Edinburgh boys what we were thinking, would they have done anything? Would they have said good idea chaps, let's crack on? Probably not. Or maybe they've been thinking the same thing.
Taylor's not talking. Thinking the case through, likely wondering the same thing I am. Will he have left no trace and be gone on his way? Will it be three months before he strikes again? Longer, shorter, exactly to the day?
Phone goes, take the call. Sophie in the tech room.
'Yep?'
'Sergeant,' she says, 'we got a good look at your guy from the video. He was wearing a mask.'
That makes sense. Even though he was obviously confident his victims were not going to survive, he doesn't take chances.
'What kind?' I ask. Pointless question, but I feel like I need to say something to justify a conversation that has already pretty much given up all that it will.
'Well... a crow. It looks like the head of a crow... I'll send the images over.'
I stare straight ahead, don't immediately say anything.
'Can you see his eyes?' I eventually think to ask.
'No.'
'He knew we'd check...'
'Fuck, yeah. And given the precision of the scalping that everyone's talking about, it's hard to imagine he wore the mask while he was cutting. He hardly needed to care that his victims would see what he looked like. So, he just put the mask on for filming. He knew we'd see. That's why he waves.'
'What?'
'Oh yes. And you know he's not waving at that terrified woman. He's waving at you.'
'Us.'
'If that's how you want to see it, Sergeant.'
There's a short silence which Sophie in the tech room breaks by hanging up.
She watches movies. People don't say goodbye when they end phone calls in movies, they just hang up. That's because at some stage the writer will have been told to cut the script down, so he'll have scrapped pointless shit like people being pleasant to each other. Now it's seeped insidiously into society.
'Mask?' says Taylor.
'A crow's head.'
'Oh for crying out loud... What was the other thing?'
'He waves when he's filming her eyes 'cause he knows we're going to check that shit.'
'Jesus. He's taking the piss?'
'I think we knew that already.'
The conversation is over, and we're coming towards the end of the motorway, still twenty minutes or so to go and Bob is well into In The Garden.
THE PLACE IS CRAWLING with our lot, sealed off from the public at a good distance. Fortunately, as we'd been hoping, it's the local plods who are guarding the site and keeping the ghouls at bay. Bit of an out of the way place, as it was always likely to be, but there are still plenty of people who have driven out here to try to take a look. Really. What the actual fuck are these people thinking?
On the other hand, maybe we should sell them tickets, make a bit of money, put it back into the Force. No doubt some liberal somewhere would object to selling tickets to see murder victims.
Not just liberals, you reckon?
We walk through the woods like we're meant to be there, badges at the ready. We've had to flash them four times so far. Closer to the scene there are no uniforms. A few plain clothes detectives, a host of the white jump suits. Already we can see the bodies, still cemented in place, still strapped in. Taylor saw the same last time, but obviously they were gone by the time I got there.
Grotesque murder. Does that bring it all back, all that crap from the past that I don't want to think about? You'd think, but it doesn't. Not at all. I'm ready for it. Prepped. With the exception of all that shit with the Keller case last year, it's not like we're used to a massive pile of brutalised dead – although it's getting bigger pretty quickly – but I'm ready for it when I see anything nasty in the course of my duties. It's the moments like this morning, when it creeps up out of the blue, grabs me by the testicles when I'm not expecting it, that's when it really hurts. That's when I go hurtling back and I can't stop it.
Taylor nods at a couple of feds as we enter the small clearing. There's not a lot of noise, other than that of some low conversation and the occasional footstep taken through fallen leaves.
It's a similar forest to the one I was in this morning. At least it makes it feel like we're on the right track. Maybe next time, with a little more chance to prepare, we'll be ready for him.
Ha! If detective work doesn't get you there, sheer bloody-minded burying your head in the sand will see you through.
Just as we get to the cadavers a crow squawks high in the trees. We both stop and look up. The others all do the same. Just for a moment. The real killers are all up there, watching over their v
ictims, wondering if they're going to get another chance to pick at the bones.
Wonder if the public will start going bat-shit crazy for killing crows. That collective mentality is so fucked up sometimes. Someone will point out that yes, it was the crows that were committing the murders, the other bloke just facilitated it. The crows are the real killers. Let's get the bastards! And off they'll go, all Henry the fucking Fifth, and crows will be laid waste all over. Not like I give a shit, but there's nothing worse than crowd violence just for the hell of it. Even if it is against crows.
We get right up to them before anyone intervenes. Two feet away, as close as we want to get. Stand in silence over the three cadavers, each of them exposed to the elements.
One of them, the guy who looked like he was already dead in the video, has had the inside of his head almost completely cleaned out. Fuck, I've never seen anything like this. It's so grotesque, so absolutely horrible, that it's almost like standing over a waxwork, or playing one of those god-awful video games that Andy spends all his time on.
With the other two there's a little more brain matter left in the cavity. A munge of grey/red soup. Vichyssoise or some shit like that. Damned disgusting. The heads are supported so that they can't tip forward, the remains of the brain matter can't spill out. Hard to read the expressions on the faces, as they've all had their eyes picked. Carbon copy of last time.
The possibility that that's what it might be – a copy – flits through my head, but it's not that. This is the same guy.
'Detective Chief Inspector,' says a voice approaching quickly from four o'clock. Here we go. We both turn, although obviously I don't really answer to Detective Chief Inspector. Give it another few decades.
We are met by Detective Chief Inspector Montgomery. He's the same rank as Taylor but obviously, in ranking terms, being from Edinburgh is like an away goal in Europe.
'Why are you here?'
Straight to the point. It was always going to get down to some sort of bitch fight pretty quickly. Would have been nice to get a bit more of a look before we got tossed. I do the sensible thing, turn away from the awkward handbags situation, and start making a mental note of everything that I can see before we get ejected.
DS Hutton Box Set Page 33