DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  I open my eyes again. Don't move. Look through the open bedroom door, at the closed door to the sitting room. The light shows around the edges. Attune my hearing to the night.

  Silence. No wind outside, no cars in the vicinity, can't even hear the distant, low rumble of the M74.

  Turn my head to look at the clock. 02:02. Fuck. Feel myself becoming more and more awake. These days I have no trouble getting to sleep, but often wake up in the middle of the night and I can never get back off.

  I raise myself from the bed and look at the light. I want to ignore it. I can't hear anything, don't get the feeling that I'm being burgled. It's just a light. I start trying to tell myself that maybe I did leave it on, even though I know I didn't.

  Fuck.

  Feet over the side of the bed, sit there for a moment. Stretch. The air is cold, even though I haven't slept with the window open. Wearing a T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. Stand up, stretch again. Look at the light. Start to feel nervous.

  Where are the nerves coming from? If I did believe it was a thief, I'd be straight in there. No nerves, wouldn't give a shit what happened. Not anymore. Nothing seems to matter anymore.

  Jesus, pull yourself together, Hutton.

  Walk through, across the hall, open the door to the sitting room.

  The light is coming from the lamp on the small table. The room looks the same as it always does. The TV in the corner, the sofa where I conduct much of my life, watching sport, eating pizza, the small dining table big enough for two, the picture of Grace Kelly on the wall next to the door. The one that I ought to have taken down years ago.

  There's a girl standing at the window, looking down on the street. For a second I wonder if it might be Rebecca, but this girl is too young, her hair too long. I didn't creep in, she should have heard me, but she doesn't turn.

  I stand like that for a while, staring at the back of her head, then finally say, 'What are you looking at?'

  She doesn't answer for a few moments, then she turns. I don't recognise her. She's young. Twelve, maybe. She's wearing a dress with a cardigan. The sleeves of the cardigan are too short. There's a timeless quality about her clothes.

  'Just looking at the view,' she says.

  'Do I know you?'

  She shakes her head. 'No.'

  She turns back and looks at the view again: the street five floors below, and the more or less identical block of houses across the road.

  I walk over beside her and look down. The street is quiet. A few cars parked as ever, none driving by. There's one person in sight. A man, directly across the road. He's talking, holding something in his hand. I can't hear what he's saying, but he's not looking up here. I can't see who he's talking to.

  'What's that in his hand?' I ask.

  'A Bible,' she says.

  Maybe it is. Maybe it's a book. How can she possibly tell from up here that it's a Bible? I need my eyes tested, I know that. Putting it off. Not that I care about glasses, and the signs of encroaching middle age.

  'How do you know it's a Bible?'

  She doesn't reply. She's not there. I turn round to look at the room. She's gone. The light is off.

  From the streetlights, I can make out the glint in Grace Kelly's lipstick. Turn back and look at the guy across the road.

  A car approaches, slows as it passes him. The driver's watching him, possibly laughing at what he thinks is a drunk guy railing against the world in the middle of the night.

  There was a young girl here a minute ago, wasn't there? That doesn't make sense. I turn again and look at the room. Dark. Silent.

  Maybe not. It's the middle of the night. Maybe I was dreaming.

  What was it I was dreaming about?

  I walk back through to the bedroom and crawl under the duvet.

  2

  Things haven't been too bad since the night I stubbed out a cigarette on my arm.

  You get your touchy-feely police officer. The one who wants to understand people. The one who thinks they can make a difference. Nip problems in the bud. The metaphorical arm around the shoulder, the calming word of advice.

  There's not a huge amount of time for that kind of malarkey in these under-funded days of course, but there could be ten police officers to every crime and it wouldn't make any difference to me. Whatever the opposite of that asinine expression touchy-feely is, I'm it.

  I do my job in the most pragmatic way possible. I deal with what's there before me. When a crime has been committed, and it lands on my desk, then I'll turn on the switch and get to work. I genuinely hate people who break the law, who take it into their own hands, who think they're above it, whose actions have a total disregard for others. Nevertheless, I never have any sympathy for the victims.

  I never feel their pain. My heart does not go out to them. I do not empathise or sympathise. I don't try to understand what they're going through. The words pull yourself together stay tucked away, but they're not that far inside my head.

  So I don't understand people and their problems and never think about them. For example, in this line of work one occasionally comes across someone – usually a teenager – who self-harms. I've always looked at them and wondered what the fuck they were thinking. It probably wouldn't have taken too much effort to find out, but I never tried.

  But one night, alone in my sitting room in front of one of those atrocious Hollywood action movies, with an eighty-year-old Bruce Willis shooting people in the face in the blessed name of popcorn, America and entertainment, I stubbed a cigarette out on my arm. A fucking sobbing mess of depression, alcohol and cliché.

  But I tell you what; that moment, that moment when I burned a fag into my skin and the pain shot up my arm, and I held it there until the burning tobacco fizzled out on the flesh, and the pain shot straight to my head, and I opened my mouth in a silent scream, I thought two things.

  Firstly, it wasn't nearly as painful as getting your hand crushed by a pair of pliers or being tasered on your butt-naked erect penis.

  And second... the second was the thing. The moment I realised why people do this shit. Why they burn themselves. Why they break their bones. Why they inflict pain. Because at that moment, I wasn't thinking about how fucked up I was; I wasn't thinking about screwing up my latest relationship, or how miserable my pathetic stupid life had become, and I wasn't thinking about the guilt I carried around from that forest all those years ago, or the on-going, never-ending stabbing guilt of being a total let down of a father. All I was thinking about was the stupid burn on my arm and the fact that it felt as though my flesh was on fire.

  That'll be it, I thought. That's why you fucking stab yourself! I started laughing. Yep, hysterically. Was it the kind of laughter that turns to tears? Jesus, I don't know, I was already fucking crying before I started.

  I lay there sobbing and laughing manically for God knows how long. Fell asleep at some point. Woke up the next morning at 11 a.m. It was still three days before I was due to return to work after my extended sick leave – as my doctor had declared me able – so I didn't have to run around, grabbing toast and diving into the shower. I just lay there, a dull throbbing in my arm, devoid of everything. Devoid of guilt, devoid of depression, devoid of fear. Empty.

  I have neither laughed nor cried since. Nor, indeed, felt the need to stab myself with a cigarette.

  The next time work brings me into contact with some poor fucker who's obviously been stabbing themselves in the eyeball with a fondue fork, I won't feel any sympathy for them, much beyond a vague curiosity about whether or not it worked. But at least I'll have a better understanding of why they did it in the first place.

  Ha! Hutton, the humanist prick.

  3

  I'm talking to the guy who cleans the toilets.

  Hmm, toilet vandalism. I'd been thinking the same thing since Ramsay passed on the case this morning. It's not something you get out of bed for, is it? No one joins the police so that they can investigate toilet vandalism. No one sits in class when they're fourte
en and thinks, fuck me, I'd better stick in at this English and Maths shit so that I can investigate toilets when I'm older.

  And the same would apply, you'd think, to the poor bastard who has to spend his life cleaning the toilets.

  He's taken me on a quick tour of the vandalised area, and now we're standing outside the small building. The bottom end of Main Street. A cold morning, early November. Walking to work this morning – yep, I walked to work, so booyah! – there was that fabulous autumnal feel in the air. The one that makes you think that it was always like this when you were a kid, and it only seems to happen on about three mornings a year now. Reminds me of going to watch the Thistle on a cold day in Forfar.

  Anyway, the scent of it has gone. Now it's just a regular cold morning in Scotland. A weak sun, a mournful suggestion of the loss of something that once was.

  'How long's it been going on?'

  So far the notebook has stayed in my pocket.

  'How long has the vandalising of toilets been going on?' he asks.

  'Yep.'

  'I don't know,' he says, pointedly. 'Since the sack of Rome in 455?'

  'Everyone loves a comedian.'

  'What d'you want me to say, man? I started doing this job two years ago. Every one of the toilets on my route was already vandalised to some degree. I repair them, I clean them, people vandalise them. Every week. That's what happens. That's what people do.'

  Sure, he's a bit lippy, but he's got a point.

  'It's the equivalent of you catching a criminal and then the jury letting him off, allowing him to go and commit more crime. And doing it week after week.'

  'That's pretty much how it works.'

  'I bet it is. Perhaps we can work together to at least catch and prosecute the toilet vandals.'

  'It's a fair cop,' I say. 'But why now?'

  'Just had enough,' he says. 'A build up. Would be nice if you lot could do something.'

  'So, you're the repair guy as well as the cleaner?'

  'It's not exactly in my job description.'

  'Why d'you do it then?'

  'I don't know,' he says, but there's a wistfulness in his voice, rather than bitterness, or blind stupidity. There's something about this guy. You know, it's like that show, Undercover Bosses, or whatever, one of those shows where the chief executive goes and makes burgers. Or cleans the toilets. You form an impression of some guy who cleans toilets for a living and this guy isn't it. 'You clean the toilets. They look pretty good. You create a clean environment for people to use. I mean, is it world peace or a cure for cancer or scoring the goal that gets Scotland to the World Cup Finals? No. But day-to-day, you know, people's lives, it's nice to create somewhere where they can go to the toilet and not think, Jesus, this is a shit tip, I'm getting out of here as fast as I can. People have expectations of pubic toilets and I want them to be surprised when they come in. Like to do a good job. Then some bell-end defaces them, and I report it to the office and they stick it at number eight hundred on the list of eight hundred things that need to get done. No one gives a shit about the toilets. So I do. Just get on and take care of things myself.'

  'Fuck,' I find myself letting slip. There's something incredibly impressive about this guy.

  'What?'

  'Nothing. So, do you report the repairs, get them to pay you for the work and materials, that kind of thing?'

  'Nope.'

  'Must cost you.'

  'Not so much. Money's not that big a deal. I just go home nights. Small place. Doing my Masters in English Lit.'

  'Couldn't get a job after uni?'

  'Worked for HSBC for a while. Split time between Hong Kong and London. Didn't like the travelling. All that corporate shit. Lunches and guys talking out the corporate end of their corporate arse, working until three in the morning on deals of absolutely no importance whatsoever to anyone. All that world, it's just emperor's new clothes. Wanted something simpler.'

  'You're not serious.'

  'That's what everyone says. You should hear my dad. But look, I provide a service. I make a small difference to a small number of people. I don't have to think about my work. Can let my mind wander. And yes, I know, there's some sort of OCD going on. If I walk into somewhere that's looking a bit dirty, I need to clean it. Don't know where that comes from, but I've got it. So I do it for a living. Albeit,' he adds, shaking his head, 'I don't actually need the living. Long term I'll probably end up in academia.'

  He finishes his little justification, although there wasn't an ounce of self-satisfaction or affectedness in the tone, then glances at his watch.

  'Look, Sergeant, I know there's not a lot you can do, short of setting up a massive surveillance operation, and I doubt the public are going to be happy about CCTV inside the toilet.' He laughs, I join him. 'Even then, if you caught them, they're probably twelve years old and all you can do is report them to their parents, who themselves likely don't care. But if you could give it some thought and try to come up with something, I'd appreciate it.'

  We shake hands. I turn and look around at the area. Cold and grey. How can you live here and not be depressed? I mean, fundamentally depressed, right down to the soles of your shoes.

  'That house over there,' he says. 'The one standing on its own. Used to be the public toilet. Not many people know that.'

  'They converted a public toilet into a house?'

  'Yep. Weird, isn't it?'

  'Not really a selling point,' I say. 'Converted public toilet.'

  'No, but I'll tell you what's weirder. Estate agents will use "converted barn" as a selling point. Quite posh sounding, isn't it, in its way? Converted barn. Now, maybe the barn just had hay in it, but chances are it also had cows. Those cows would have been shitting up a storm. No matter how gross a public toilet can be, it's never going to be as bad as a barn. Yet, converted barn sounds pretty cool, converted public toilet... not so much.'

  'Hmm. It's probably related to space, rather than hygiene. Barn suggests spaciousness, public toilet suggests dark and dingy squalor.'

  'Suppose,' he says.

  We both look at the converted public toilet for a while, and with a shrug he turns and heads off to the next toilet on his route. I stand at the bottom end of Main Street and look up at the sky. Tut-tut, looks like rain.

  Jesus, where did that come from?

  I PASS DCI TAYLOR AS I walk back into the office. He gives me the eyebrow as I slump back behind my desk. Look across at DI Morrow, who doesn't lift his head at my arrival.

  The various files and photographs and reports that litter the desk are pretty much as they were an hour ago, just before I went out for my life-changing chat with the toilet cleaner. To my right I'm aware of DCI Taylor folding his arms. I look at the phone, knowing that I have several calls to make. Indeed, the act of interviewing the toilet guy was mostly one of phone-call avoidance. I'm back now and the phone is still there, looking at me, waiting for me to pick it up.

  Sitting in silent judgement, it reminds me of my first wife.

  Glance over at the recently installed coffee machine, something which they've done in an attempt to stop us all constantly trooping across the road to Costa. That, and I expect they're hoping it brings in some income which they can use to fund policing in this area, what with the government much closer to bankruptcy than anyone cares to admit.

  From the coffee machine, I turn my glance round to Taylor as I'm aware he's still staring at me.

  'You have a look about you,' he says.

  'Just had an epiphany.'

  Morrow looks up. Sure, you can ignore a guy when he sits down opposite you, but much tougher to disregard an epiphany announcement.

  'Jesus,' mutters Taylor.

  I shake my head, and stare off across the room, trying to capture what it is that talking to the toilet guy has made me realise. Though, was it even a realisation? There was just something about him. The simplicity of it. The ease with which he discussed his life. I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who seemed so much at pe
ace with how he lived. And he cleans toilets.

  'Bored now,' says Taylor, when I take more than ten seconds to find the right words. 'Suicide, with a hint of potential murder, up in the public park. You might as well come along. If you can conjure up the right amount of poetry and drama, you can tell me about your dumb-ass epiphany on the way. We're walking, by the way. Nice day. Autumnal.'

  Morrow watches us go and then once more bows his head to the paperwork.

  4

  We're at the bottom of the public park. Down by the large pond with three separate streams running into it. Came here a lot over the summer when I was off work. Sitting in amongst the trees. Getting used to things again. Thinking. Above us and behind us, through the trees, is the Old Kirk, the spire visible between the bare branches of the oaks.

  Down here, set in the grass, is a plaque commemorating the Cambuslang Wark, a time when the local minister rallied the troops behind God. God, and all that. 1742, it says. Apparently thirty thousand people would gather in this place to listen. I used to sit on the bench here and try to imagine what that looked like.

  We've come to get some perspective. There is a woman hanging by the neck from the footbridge at the top of the dip, where the footpath is taken high across the stream that runs through the gully.

  There are a few of our lot around, including the pathologist, Balingol, waiting for the body to be cut down, something which is imminent. The area has been cordoned off, and already every inch photographed and examined. There are a few spectators at the edge of the cordon, and a couple of officers nearby trying to make sure that no cynical bastard is uploading the investigation and the cutting down of the poor deceased directly onto YouTube.

  The woman is dressed in a light brown coat. The whole scene, horribly melancholic and grim, a sight to depress the crap out of even the most upbeat toilet cleaner, has the edge taken from it by the bizarre sight of the woman having a pair of large, feathered wings attached to the back of her coat. Clumsily attached, too, barely holding on.