The door opens. Taylor walks in, looking slightly uncomfortable. Gostkowski is with him. I have no idea if this is the first time they've seen me. I don't even know what day it is, never mind who might have been in here.
They close the door. There are a couple of seats, but they won't be sitting down. I wonder which hospital this is.
'They think you've got PTSD,' says Taylor, after a few moments of silence.
Well, they're probably right. I've had it for nineteen years, it makes sense that someone would pick up on it eventually.
If I tell myself that's what I've had often enough...
'The Plague of Crows is dead,' he continues. Going straight for the facts, because he's not comfortable talking about me lying here like a dead weight. 'Stephanie picked up the fact that Clayton's sister-in-law had been working in the café across the road. We tracked her down, found where she kept all her stuff, did all her planning. She had a series of potential spots marked out for her next forest venue. I wasn't sure, but I realised that I'd been to all the places on the map that could be used during winter. She couldn't have known that I had already checked them out. We picked the six most likely and dispatched an armed unit to each. Not too heavy handed, didn't want the Crow getting away. Just ignored Montgomery on it, in case it was all a set-up. Given how much of an arsehole he'd become, he probably wouldn't have done anything anyway. So... you probably saw what happened. They were supposed to bring her in, but our guy... and I'm saying our guy, but it's not like I know who the fuck it was... made the call to take her out.'
I've been holding his gaze throughout. When he stops talking I glance at Gostkowski, then look away. Lower my eyes. Do I not want them to see me like this? Banged up and pathetic, silent and withdrawn, ready for the end? Bald?
I don't think it matters. Just got nothing to say.
'The other two are dead,' says Taylor. 'You were lucky.'
If that's what you call it.
Gostkowski's not saying much. Taylor continues talking, filling the uncomfortable silence with facts that I can't bring myself to tell him don't interest me.
'She had a shit life. Abused as a kid. We're still trying to find her sister, but it looks like the dad abused her as the eldest and not the younger sister. She became an actress, got a part on High Road, fucked it up. Took some newspapers and the police to court. Long time ago. We hadn't got that far back. Montgomery had, it turns out. They made some half-arsed attempt to speak to her, but no better than when they talked to Clayton. Never made the connection. She met Clayton through their lawyer, dated him a couple of times, made the mistake of introducing him to her sister. The sister seems likely to be pretty fucked up 'n' all. Just the fact that she went for Clayton in the first place.'
He hesitates, as if he might be leaving a gap for me to fill. That's probably it. A gap in the conversation that I can step into, thereby letting them know that I'm all right.
There's a fucking laugh.
'Maybe if she'd stayed with Clayton it might have kept her straight. But then, given what he'd done, it seems unlikely. He dumped her, she went off the deep end. Yet she managed to do it in a very cold, patient and time-consuming way. We've got the boys going over her computers, but it looks like she was planning this for years. It's all there.'
He pauses again. Maybe it's for me to speak, maybe he's finished. I don't have any questions. I ought to have questions. We spent months on this investigation. It had us pulling our hair out. But now that it's over, I don't want to know anything about it. The Plague of Crows is dead. Time to move on to the next thing. The next crime. Wonder what the next crime will be?
No, actually, I really fucking don't.
'Your hand was crushed to all kinds of fuck. That must've hurt. She broke fourteen bones.'
That would explain the screaming pain. I broke one bone in my hand once before and that was painful enough.
Taylor shuffles. No closer to his comfort zone. Doesn't know what to say to someone who looks fine, but isn't saying anything back. Of course he's not getting angry like that wanker Montgomery, but he's equally uncomfortable.
He walks to the window and looks outside. I don't know what he'll be looking at, or even what floor we're on. He turns back. Another glance at me, not really sure what to say, and then he nods at Gostkowski and walks slowly from the room.
My heart bleeds. He's my best friend. Maybe he's the one I should be talking to. Feel like I'm letting him down in my silence, but I can't say anything. How can I tell him what the terror in the woods reawakened in me?
The weight of depression rests slightly more heavily on me. Gostkowski does not immediately follow the DCI, yet she's not staying. I catch her eye. We stare at each other. I know she's not going to say anything. If she's trying to communicate through a look, then that ain't happening either. She bends over me and kisses me softly on the cheek.
Another look after she's straightened up, and then she walks slowly from the room, closing the door behind her. For a while I stare at the door, then I close my eyes.
I close my eyes.
'HEY.'
I'm back in the woods. For some reason I don't seem so upset, not as worked up as usual. I'm watching them, watching those other guys do their thing. But the women are different. I don't know who they are. I've forgotten. Perhaps that's why I'm not upset. It isn't my women that are getting raped, the women I've been so worried about and so remorseful over all these years. These are some other women who I don't have any feelings for. This is like watching the news. If they showed rape on the news.
'Hey.'
Open my eyes, dragged very slowly from sleep. The dream is gone in an instant, so that I have no memory of it.
'Hey.' Again. The voice is soft.
I manage to focus on the man beside the bed. It's Clayton. Michael Clayton. I hadn't been expecting him. I wonder what time it is. Dark outside. I wonder how he got past the policeman outside the door. How do I even know if there is a policeman guarding the door?
Why would there be a policeman outside the door? They got the Plague of Crows, didn't they?
'You intrigue me, Detective,' he says. Not that I've got anything to say to that. Not that he's waiting for me to say anything to that either. 'I was watching you. The way you manipulated poor old Jane. And, of course, I say manipulated, because I thought that's what you were doing. But you weren't, were you? You weren't playing a game.'
He's sitting down. He leans forward and places his forefinger in the middle of my forehead. Leaves it there for a second then leans back.
'You didn't need your brains eaten out, did you? There's already something missing. What is that? What did you mean when you said you thought Jane was someone else? What did you mean?'
He has the eyes of a crow. Clayton, with the eyes of a crow. Dead. Wanting. Expecting. Entitled.
'I wondered if I might kill you tonight, but there doesn't seem any point, does there? It's hardly sport. Like I always thought I'd kill the old man. Detective Chief Inspector Lynch. That's what I thought, but then... it seems so much more fun leaving him to live on, humiliated and broken.'
He pauses. Leans his chin on the palm of his hand, even though there doesn't appear to be anywhere for him to rest his elbow.
'You... You're already broken. What broke you? Not me. Not this. Not the infamous Plague of Crows. Not spending all those weeks searching for her. Hmm...'
He seems to get bored talking and looks around the room. There's nothing doing. Nothing to see. A bland hospital room. Could be anywhere. I wonder which hospital it is.
'You took your time turning up,' he says distractedly. 'I'd been expecting you right from the start. You took your time. I wondered if Lynch would put you on to me. Hmm... I expect he's got his head buried so far up his backside in self-pity he hadn't even noticed the news. Too bad... Do you care? I don't believe you care.'
I hold his gaze. No, I don't. He tosses an unconcerned hand in the air.
'I didn't come to kill you. I did come
, after a fashion... to chat. Some might call it confess, I suppose.' He laughs. 'Ha! Confess... you know what I mean. Thought I might tell you the story, in expectation of it going in one ear, etc., etc. You'd never pass it on, and if you did, who'd believe you? You're a basketcase.'
He shakes his head, waves that hand again.
'What does it matter? You're not going to be impressed anyway. Lynch was impressed. Impressed enough that it got under his skin and it ruined him. But you... you're not interested in the minutiae, are you? You're not interested in anything.'
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
Epilogue
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 wit
h 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.
~ The End ~
Book 3
THE BLOOD THAT STAINS YOUR HANDS
1
There's a light on in the sitting room. Must have forgotten to turn it off. Close my eyes, stretch my legs, pull the duvet a little tighter on the right where the cold air is getting in.
No. I know I didn't leave the light on.
There are plenty of those nights. The nights that end with me collapsed in a heap, crawling to bed with no idea of the time, when I leave the light on or the television on or the fridge door open or forget to set my alarm or all of those things, and in the morning I wonder why it was that I didn't just step out the front door, walk down to the train station and fall in front of the overnight sleeper to Euston.
Last night wasn't one of those. It was a regular night. Worked late, bought a fish supper and a bottle of Coke Zero on the way home, watched some documentary on BBC4, went to bed, turning off the lights on the way.
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