DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  ‘Jesus...’

  ‘Yes. Jesus. No doubt they’re just saving their damn money so they can flush it down the fucking NHS toilet. The minute they start charging people for fuck-witted stupidity, then they’ll be able to balance their fucking budget a lot better. So, madam, you went hillwalking in a fucking blizzard, with visibility less than two feet, and you broke your leg? That’ll be fifteen fucking grand for the hospital. You’re seventeen and you drank two bottles of vodka a day for a year? You can pay for your fucking liver treatment, and if you can’t and you die, then that, my dumbass friend, is natural selection at work. Congratulations, you’re a living fucking anthropological project.’

  Hmm, the boss doesn’t usually swear.

  He shakes his head, stops himself before he launches into another example of entitled Britain, absolving itself of all its problems and passing them on to the government.

  ‘Bollocks,’ he mutters, and then waves away the conversation. ‘You’ll just have to find another way to finance your Jedi football coaching course. Where’ve you got to?’

  ‘Just off into the university with Morrow. He’s going to speak to some more of her classmates, and apparently there are a couple of older fellows amongst them. I’m speaking to her lecturers and tutors. She had three different men for maths, and a couple of statistics people, one man.’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, then he glances at the door by way of saying it’s where he wants me to go, turns back to the computer and starts typing.

  ‘That’s not your resignation letter?’ I say, as I’m leaving.

  He doesn’t answer.

  9

  Used to have this lecturer at Glasgow. Maths. While back now, wonder if he’s still here. He’d walk into the lecture hall. Wouldn’t look at the class, wouldn’t say anything to the class. He’d turn his back and start to write the lecture on the board. All he said was what he wrote on the board. No elaboration. He would stand for an hour, writing equations and shit, and then the hour would be up, he’d put his bag or whatever under his arm, and then he’d turn and walk out. No questions, no ‘you should do this or the next thing for next week’. Nothing.

  At the time, I don’t know, I was nineteen or so I guess, I just thought, well that’s weird. Looking back, it seems pretty sad. The guy must have been extremely screwed up. Or else, just in completely the wrong job. Perhaps he was one of those maths geniuses you hear about, you know, the type who are usually Asian and can get their BSc by the time they’re six. Maybe he was one of those. I mean, what kind of job do you get when you’re a maths genius? Most of them probably end up as lecturers, but they’re geniuses, they don’t want to talk to people. They want to sit in a room with shit scribbled all over blackboards, occasionally looking up from a book to ignore some gorgeous woman who wants to sleep with them because they’re a genius.

  Had to bring sex into it.

  The first guy I speak to, Dr Dalzeil, reminds me of my maths genius of a lecturer, who may not, of course, have been a genius at all. Maybe, in fact, he was the cleaner and he was faking it. Maybe he knew fuck all about maths, and that was why he never took questions. He just stood up there, copying someone else’s notes onto a board.

  ‘Was she in my class?’

  That’s how Dalzeil responds to my initial question. But the way he says it, it’s not evasive, it’s not smug, it’s not dismissive. It’s confused. The tone says, what, those people who sit there have names?

  ‘Yes, she was in your class. Had been all year. American,’ I add.

  ‘American?’

  I have a photograph, which I hadn’t thought I’d need, but I take it out my pocket and place it on the desk in front of him.

  ‘I recognise her.’

  ‘You’ve been teaching her for the last year.’

  ‘We’re not a school,’ he says. ‘I don’t think... I don’t think I’m expected to have any sort of relationship with the students.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I have rooms. Near the bowling club. I mean, Burnbank. Burnbank Bowling Club. I can see the clubhouse.’

  He has rooms. Do people have rooms anymore? Nevertheless, despite the fact that speaking to him is getting me absolutely nowhere, I do find him quite refreshing. And, as a bonus, I won’t have to arrest him.

  THIS GUY’S MORE LIKE it. Has bit-of-a-cunt written all over him.

  ‘Yes, terrible business,’ he begins, as we ease ourselves into seats in his office. ‘She was very good. Highest grade in the midterms, was fully expecting her to have the highest grade this month. I know what we think of Americans, but we do get some very able maths students coming over here.’

  ‘Did she do any sort of extra, I don’t know, did you tutor her in some way, give her any extra help?’

  ‘Never needed to. Most able student in her year. Very clever. Very clever indeed.’

  ‘You never saw her out of university?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ He tosses one of those casual hands. ‘Well, you know, perhaps out on Byres Road...’

  This is him. I know it. It’s no big deal, and from looking at the build of the guy, it’s not him who pushed her in front of the train, but he was sleeping with her. I wonder how much to bother letting him wriggle around before getting the truth out the fucker.

  ‘She was pregnant,’ I say.

  He holds my gaze. I can hear the swallow. Silence in the room, and then the sound of the gentle tapping of his fingers.

  ‘Well, obviously that’s not something I was aware of.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Of course not. She was hardly... she was hardly likely to suddenly stand up and announce it in a lecture hall.’

  ‘No, but she might have divulged the information over the kitchen table, or while lying in bed.’

  The tension in the face drops. It doesn’t relax, just repositions itself. Now we’re getting to it, and he’s not going to take that kind of shit from a police officer. We’re about to get the lawyer spiel or the do-you-know-who-I-am spiel, or the I-have-friends-in-the-SNP spiel. Any one of those and he can fuck off.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re implyi...’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  I could have found out this stuff before asking these guys, but didn’t have the time, and it’s easy enough to check if they’re telling the truth. And anyway, there’s nothing ultimately this guy can do about the gigantic piece of circumstantial evidence helping nail the fucker to the gatepost.

  ‘Cambuslang,’ he says. ‘Top end of Wellshot.’

  I stare across the desk at him. Hold it. Don’t need to add anything.

  ‘It means nothing,’ he says.

  That, my asshole friend, is bullshit, but there’s still no need for me to speak. No way he has the balls to stare me out.

  ‘She was one of my students, she died in Cambuslang, I live in Cambuslang. And on that basis, what? Is that enough for you to take me to court? Is that the sort of evidence the police choose to go on these days, because if it is...’

  He looks off to the side, stares vacantly, then finally looks back at his silent interrogator.

  ‘I’m not saying anything else,’ he says. ‘So, if you’re just going to sit there like fucking Avercamp or something, then, I don’t know, please feel free. I have a tutorial class to attend in fifteen minutes.’

  Avercamp? I don’t want to know.

  ‘You’ll need to cancel it or get someone else to do it,’ I say.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What were you doing yesterday morning?’

  ‘What?’

  Oh, he’s looking very pissed off now. The cool, calm composure of an ice hockey player in the middle of a brawl. What a dick.

  ‘Where were you yesterday morning? And remember, I can independently verify your schedule.’

  ‘I was here.’

  ‘In this office or at various places around the university?’

  ‘In this office. I
was working. I’m co-authoring a paper on the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. I don’t suppose you even know what that is.’

  Oh, fuck you, you pompous prick.

  ‘What time did you get here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It was yesterday. Think about it.’

  He shrugs, continues the annoyed look of the unfairly hounded.

  ‘What d’you want me to say?’

  Give him another second. I’ve had enough. Fun over.

  ‘Yesterday morning, not long before she was pushed in front of a train, Tandy Kramer had sex with a man in his forties. Given you’re the right age, you knew Miss Kramer, and you live in the same town in which she very probably had sex, it’s entirely reasonable for us to check the DNA of the sperm we found in her body against yours, which will tell us either way. So this it, maths guy. We’re going down to the station. Right now. You and me. You can tell me whether you had sex with Miss Kramer, but remember, I’m going to have absolute proof of whether you’re telling the truth. Now, get your coat.’

  ‘I don’t think you quite realise who I am.’

  There is a pregnant pause.

  Yes I do.

  You’re a dick.

  10

  ‘She was nineteen, there was nothing illegal. There’s no university law expressly forbidding relationships with the students. Yes, it’s frowned upon, but if you think I’m the first...’ He holds his finger up before Taylor can get in a line about the fact that none of the others got pushed in front of a train, less than half an hour after having slept with the member of staff. ‘And I’m not even married. So, I don’t see the problem here, I really don’t.’

  ‘She was pregnant,’ says Taylor. Voice low, calm. Great tone. ‘It may not have been illegal, but it would have been very bad for your career.’

  ‘You think I was the only one she was sleeping with?’ says the desperate Dr Ferguson. ‘Have you learned anything about Tandy in the last day and a half?’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough, when we get the results of the lab work back on the foetus.’

  ‘Fine, but I say it again, I wasn’t the only one.’

  ‘You weren’t the only member of staff?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jesus.’

  ‘Why are you so sure there were others?’

  ‘Oh, just look at her. She was gorgeous, she was confident. Girls like her... they’re always the same.’

  Go on, you idiot, keep digging.

  Taylor maintains the cold stare across the desk. I already told him Ferguson doesn’t like it. Can’t handle the silence.

  ‘I can prove I was on the train, on my way to Partick, when Tandy died.’

  ‘We know,’ says Taylor.

  ‘What?’

  That throws him. If this guy ends up in court, I hope for his sake he just tells the truth straight from the off, because otherwise it’s going to be embarrassing.

  ‘We have CCTV of you getting on the train in Cambuslang. We have CCTV of you getting off the same train in Partick. The person who pushed Miss Kramer onto the train tracks was smaller in stature than you.’

  His face starts to relax, his shoulders are a little straighter.

  ‘Well, why the fuck am I here then?’ he says.

  Manners. People just have no respect for the police. See the amount of this kind of shit we get?

  ‘Because someone killed Miss Kramer. The only exceptional fact in her life we know so far is she was pregnant. The only person we know for a fact was sleeping with her is you. Therefore, the only person in the entire world so far we know had a motive for perhaps wanting her dead, extreme though I admit that is just because she was pregnant, is you. That’s why you’re here. And the fact you had a perfect alibi, and had quite possibly arranged to go ahead of Miss Kramer to the university so you wouldn’t be seen together, does not mean you didn’t arrange for someone else to push her in front of the train.’

  ‘But...’

  Words dry up. You could see his emotions come and go. Taylor had him when he said about them going on separate trains so no one could see them together. That’s absolutely what happened, and no doubt he got to go first, because his job as a lecturer was more important than her position as a student. Great kicker when Taylor mentioned the possibility of him hiring someone to kill her. There’s nothing to suggest it, but it’s always good to put it out there and see what happens.

  ‘You couldn’t even let her get on the same train, three carriages apart, could you?’ says Taylor. ‘You made her wait in Cambuslang.’

  Not something you’d wish on anyone in itself.

  ‘Right, Dr Ferguson, I need to go to the airport to meet the girl’s father. You’re going to stay here with Sgt Hutton and tell him everything about you and Miss Kramer. The first time you noticed her in class, the first flirtatious glance, the first time you slept together. I want it all. And when I get back, and if the Sergeant’s happy with the information you’ve given him, then we can talk about what happens next. At the moment, all that’s happening next is you’re talking. And talking.’

  Taylor pushes his chair back, gives him a final stare and then leaves.

  Great speech, beautifully delivered. Just leaves the place feeling a bit flat afterwards. Now it’s going to be like trying to pick the room up again after Oor Andy has just beaten Djokovic 17-15 in the fifth.

  SITTING AT MY DESK a few hours later. Dr Ferguson is gone. We’ve got everything we need for now, and I doubt he’s about to flee the country. You get a feel for these people, and this fellow isn’t the kind to get anyone too worried. Yes, he’s in his forties and he was sleeping with a nineteen year-old, but we’ve all done that, right? Or, at least, some of us have.

  I told him to prepare for it all getting out. It’s going to happen. People are going to know, if they didn’t already. The two of them seemed to have done a decent job of keeping it under wraps, but too late to worry about that now.

  Taylor came back, looking as miserable as you’re going to feel having spent two hours with the deceased’s father, and authorized the release of the lecturer. Happy to go on my say.

  Now we’re sitting separately, at our own desks, trying to tie things together, seeing if anything matches, if any piece of information sparks off any other. Back in the ops room at seven this evening.

  Morrow returns to the room, having been gone for a while, and takes a seat opposite.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  I lift and drop a couple of pieces of paper.

  ‘Don’t know we’ve got much beyond our lecturer. For all his apparent presumption he wasn’t the only one, seems he was. At least, if there were any others, she was keeping them a good secret ‘n’ all. We really only stumbled upon this guy because he happened to live where she died and he’s absolutely shite under interrogation. Not sure we’d have got him otherwise.’

  Look around the papers and notes hoping something else might jump off a page at me.

  ‘Little else. We’ve looked through her stuff. She was pretty regular in her Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr posts. Mostly Fall Out Boy and Chris Hemsworth.’

  ‘I like Fall Out Boy,’ Morrow contributes to the conversation.

  ‘You just want me to know you’ve heard of them,’ I say.

  He laughs, finally sits down.

  ‘Hey, did you hear about the thing in Clarkston this afternoon?’

  ‘Clarkston?’

  ‘Fucking gruesome.’

  Morrow never used to swear. Must be my bad influence. At least I’ll leave some legacy around here.

  ‘Gruesome?’

  ‘Double beheading. Go on, put it up on BBC News.’

  ‘In Clarkston?’

  ‘That is just some freaky, weird shit man. Two white folks in a Muslim community centre. Used to be a church. The place was locked up. The guy who runs it was opening it up for this AA meeting they have on Wednesday afternoons...’

  ‘An Islamic AA meeting in what used to be a church?’

&nbs
p; ‘Yep.’

  ‘Isn’t there so much irony in that itself, it could explode?’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s irony,’ he says.

  ‘Suppose.’

  ‘Anyway, he opens up, nothing untoward about the locks or the doors or the windows or anything, then goes into the main hall, and boom. There they are, tied upright in chairs in the middle of the hall, back-to-back, heads in their laps. In red paint on the wooden floor was scrawled, Unbelievers. Oh, they got the i and the e the wrong way round.’

  ‘Holy fuck,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘holy fuck. You’ve got a church, you’ve got beheadings and you’ve got Islam.’

  ‘A perfect shitstorm.’

  ‘Exactamundo,’ he says. ‘It looks like a fun case, but kind of glad it’s not ours.’

  Well, I’ll just have to disagree with him there. I don’t think it looks fun at all, but I do have absolutely no doubt I’m delighted it’s not ours.

  ‘I’m disappointed for you, but you’ll just need to crack on with our mundane, old pushing in front of the train.’

  ‘Yep, I’m on it.’

  ‘Sit. room at seven.’

  ‘Right.’

  And even though I dismissed the conversation, there’s no way I’m getting that image out of my head. Two decapitated bodies tied back-to-back. More extreme and instant than the Plague of Crows, but it’s certainly reminiscent. Not that what the Plague of Crows did wasn’t extreme.

  ‘Maybe it’s a Highlander type gig,’ says Morrow.

  I’m still thinking about it and I don’t want to be, so I don’t respond.

  ‘Perhaps we should be checking out the whereabouts of Christopher Lambert.’

  ‘You can have that one,’ I say.

  He manages to focus for about a minute and a half, and then says, ‘You know Highlander 2 is like, I don’t know, the worst sequel of all time. I mean, what were they –’

  ‘Constable!’

  Finally he shuts up, looks back down at the pile of papers I’d placed on his desk. He looks at his, and I look at mine, but I still can’t concentrate. Not now.