DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  11

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I never do.’

  Clayton stares at a vague spot on the wall in front of him. Not looking at the still life this time.

  ‘I just blocked it out,’ he says, making another of his affected hand gestures. Under other circumstances, Dr Brady might have been making notes on the hand gestures, and what they meant. She didn’t think, though, given the current set-up, he would appreciate it. ‘I mean, it was like it hadn’t happened. I created in my mind – oh, this is good, you probably want to write this down – I created in my mind a character. A beastly character. I never saw him again, I never held him responsible for anything again, but in my head I knew he was to blame for poor Adam’s death. So when they asked, when they came asking – oh, and they did – I knew who did it, and I wasn’t saying. That was my secret. So, I wasn’t lying when I said I had nothing to do with it, I really wasn’t. Adam’s killer was this other character who, I admit, I was protecting. But that was all. Who was I to judge?’

  Dr Brady realises more and more, as the sessions continue, she will be writing less and less of what she actually thinks.

  ‘Did you have an alibi for the time the murder was committed?’

  ‘Mother,’ he says, throwing the word across the room. ‘Not that she thought she was protecting me, or lying for me. I said I was in my room, and she backed me up. Elaborated, of course, just to make sure. Said she’d brought me a cup of coffee and some cake at almost the precise time Adam died.’

  He laughs, a high, curious, ugly sound, which somehow crawls right inside her.

  ‘I don’t even like coffee,’ he says, laughing some more. ‘Well, if they’d got us in separate rooms at the same time and asked us questions, I dare say they could have found us out on that particular lie, but what do the police know? Stupid.’

  ‘Perhaps they just didn’t suspect you at all,’ she says.

  ‘Probably not. There was so little to suspect. Just an anonymous, fat, little kid, sitting at the back of the class.’

  He laughs again, rueful this time, completely different in tone. Contemplative.

  Brady has a question for him, but doesn’t really want to ask. She takes a deep breath, watches him. Expecting his eyes on her, but he seems quite focused on whatever indistinct point he’s staring at on the wall, a smile on his face.

  ‘Have you killed anyone else?’ she asks finally.

  His eyebrows shoot up and he turns and looks at her, his expression amused rather than annoyed.

  ‘Why, yes! Of course!’

  She manages to hold his stare, but doesn’t ask him to elaborate. Again the fanciful wave of the hand, then he turns back to his current spot on the wall.

  ‘Took a while, of course. I mean, really, I’m not some, I don’t know, I’m not an uncontrollable psychopath. I took my time, I really did. There were others there, others in the class that year, who really... well, it was almost remiss of me not to do it, it really was. But I’m not stupid. If another member of the class had gone, well, really... The police would never have been away. And I know what you’re thinking. You probably see it all the time, you’re thinking I’d somehow scared myself. I was frightened by my own power, my own ability to be so cruel. Well, you’re having none of it. It was just a matter of common sense.’

  ‘You said yesterday you were crying while you were hitting him in the head.’

  She wonders if he’s going to turn on her, but you have to point these things out. The room is completely silent, not a sound entering from outside. She can hear herself swallow. Some people, most people, don’t like the contradictions being pointed out. Especially people like Michael Clayton.

  ‘So, I waited,’ he says eventually. His voice low, the tone the same, having addressed her words internally and having decided to completely ignore them. ‘Waited so long I quite forgot about poor young Adam. That may sound... I don’t know, how does it sound? Heartless? That I forgot Adam was dead? Anyway, there you are, you can’t decide what your brain remembers and what it doesn’t. And then it was university, and I stayed at home of course, because mother didn’t really want me staying in student digs. That would have been too... vulgar...’

  ‘Which university did you attend?’

  ‘Glasgow, of course. Good grief, I wasn’t going to go to Strathclyde. And all those other so-called universities around here, well they were just some fool’s pipe dream back then.’

  ‘What did you study?’

  ‘Oh, maths and eh... maths and computing. I was good. Had little trouble. A very smooth path. Well, academically. Otherwise... I thought, I really thought, you know, it’s time for a change. I can be a different person. Why not? People change. There was no one there from school, no one who was going to judge me. No one to tell other people I was this strange little boy sitting in the corner, not speaking to anyone. I could be an entirely new character. I could reinvent myself. Isn’t it just perfect? So, there I was. The talker. The debater. Joined the Conservative party, joined the debating club. Ha!’

  Having given the plan and the set up, he stops when it comes to explaining what went wrong. She waits for him to talk this time. In truth, she wishes he wouldn’t. She doesn’t want to know. The story that’s coming won’t be a pleasant one.

  ‘Really, they just... can you believe it?’ he says finally, the tone of voice now low. The bitterness has flowed through him, and has gone. Sorrow remains. The regret is at his rejection, however, not at the way he handled it.

  ‘Perhaps I wasn’t so good at the part. I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t... did you get on a debating team? Did you g –’

  ‘No! God no. I mean... There was Phil. I remember Phil. He was good, I admit it. And there were a couple of others, I had to give them that too. But Bethany...’

  Another burst of near-hysterical laughter.

  ‘She was a piece of work, she really was. The debating skills of a wildebeest fleeing from a lion. My God... No, no, it wouldn’t do at all.’

  Another pause. He stares at his vague spot.

  ‘Why did they pick Bethany over you?’

  ‘Because of her tits,’ he says, his voice level. ‘Her tits. She would go around, Jesus, she would wear these thin V-neck jumpers and no bra. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she had great tits. But tits don’t make the debater, believe me, they really don’t.’

  Brady has a sudden thought.

  ‘You didn’t kill Bethany?’ she says. ‘You killed someone who chose Bethany over you.’

  ‘No,’ he says, matter-of-factly, ‘it was Bethany.’

  She lowers her eyes. She can’t read him. She’s not sure her insights at the end of all this are really going to be of any use to anyone.

  ‘I left it over a year. I waited. I’m good at waiting. I can wait as long as it takes. I stayed in the club and in the party, making a gradual withdrawal. Soon enough I was the person I was at school, the quiet one sitting at the back. When I came for Bethany it was almost eighteen months later. When the police were asking who might have had a grudge against her, they’d all forgotten about me. It was so long in the past. And... and yes, it sticks in my throat to admit it, but they were all so, all so damned won over by her fucking tits it probably didn’t even occur to them I had been slighted. So, you know what? No one came asking. Not a single, fucking copper! Dear God.’

  Another short silence. The details of the death are coming. She doesn’t want to hear them.

  ‘And you know what? You know what I found out? When I dragged her into the bush, when I stripped the clothes off her, when I finally removed the thin V-neck jumper she always wore?’

  He turns and looks at Brady, his face hardening, a look of curious contempt.

  ‘Her fucking tits weren’t even that great. Jesus. I mean, they were all right, but not especially pert or anything, the nipples were kind of, I don’t know, pale and non-descript. It wasn’t me who was fooling anyone, it was her! She was the one playing a part. Playing the part of the gi
rl with the great tits. Fucking hell.’

  ‘What did you do to her?’ she asks, the question burning in her throat.

  ‘Oh, you know, just strangled her. Nothing, it was nothing. Didn’t even rape her. Thought about it, but rape is so... Well, for one thing, it leaves behind some rather clear evidence of the perpetrator. You have to bring some element of calculation into these things.’ He taps the side of his head, not looking at her. ‘So, yes, that was Bethany.’

  ‘And did you create another character? Someone else you could blame for Bethany’s murder?’

  ‘Yes, yes, oh yes. But, as I said, I didn’t need him. So, the good thing was, he was still there. I had him in reserve. I mean, for the next time. Do you want to hear about the next time?’

  He turns and stares at her with a look of expectation.

  12

  In the door at seven minutes after nine. Stopped at the shops on the way home, determined not to have another night of alcohol and no food, or of me standing in the kitchen making a couple of crappy pieces of toast and eating cheese from the fridge, more or less drinking wine from the bottle. Bought a salmon fillet, some salad and a wholemeal ciabatta.

  So now I’m sitting at the table, place set, dinner on a plate. Listening to Bob. Been enjoying his albums of old American standards. Yeah, I know, they’re excruciating, right? Got to be plenty of people thinking that. His voice is so up front, it’s great. I love it. Everyone else, I don’t give a shit what they think. My only complaint is they’re too short. You put one of the CDs on to sit down to dinner, you eat your dinner, you’re thinking about shit, and then, poof! it’s over.

  Shadows In The Night, the first one, is my favourite. Pretty bleak and melancholic, though. Slow, so full of sorrow. Perfect for a miserable, grieving misanthrope like myself.

  Glass of wine, the usual Chilean Sauvignon. Stare at an indistinct spot on the wall in front of me. Mind near as empty as it’s going to get. Bob drones on, occasionally holding the notes, frequently magnificently off-key. A beautiful sound. New York in the fall, autumn leaves and lonely cups of coffee in old cafés that have been on the same street corner since the ‘40s. Untouchable women walk by, too remote, too unapproachable.

  Maybe those places don’t exist anymore. Those cafés. Maybe all you see is Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts and some coffee chain we’ve never heard of, serving the same stuff we get in the same cafés over here, and the women are just women, and the falling leaves are just dull and old and a sign of impending, gathering gloom.

  June in Glasgow. Autumn in New York. Maybe I could take a few days off, head out there. Don’t travel much. Don’t get around much anymore... Bob doesn’t do that one.

  Don’t feel like going online. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll check out flights to New York in October. If I remember. And if I don’t, well I guess I’m not bothered.

  The album comes to an end. The silence, just for a second, seems crushing, and then I lift the bottle, pour the third glass of wine, look at the clock. Ten o’clock.

  With an almost theatrical sigh, decide I’m going to stick the news on. I doubt our local rail death will have made any kind of impact, but I’ll take a look anyway. Grab the remote, TV on, sit back at the table.

  First up they’ve got the double beheading. Heart sinks. I don’t know what I thought there was going to be. Some crappy English political story maybe. The kind of thing the BBC can get excited about, when they can have one of their correspondents standing happily in front of Number 10, looking like it’s all terribly important, despite the fact we’ll all have forgotten about it by tomorrow morning.

  But no, despite having taken place in the complete independence-voting backwater of Glasgow, they’ve made the double beheading their main story.

  And there, on the screen, is the story of our times. Two whites beheaded in an Islamic centre. Outside the building, there are demonstrations. Demonstrations against the Islamic community. Demonstrations against immigrants, all immigrants. And then here comes the Muslim community leader to say we can’t blame Islam for this, and that they are appalled. And there’s the government minister saying they’ll clamp down on this kind of appalling extremist behavior. And then the expert predicting there will more to come, and the Tory backbencher saying the security services should have more power, and then there’s the liberal saying we must respect the right of people with a grievance, whatever their religion, to behead people.

  Maybe she doesn’t quite go that far.

  I turn it off. Don’t want to know. It’s all so fucking depressing.

  I have a niggling doubt. It doesn’t make sense, of course. Why would they do it in an Islamic centre? Wouldn’t you do it in a church? And I know, it used to be a church, but wouldn’t you do it in an actual, live, functioning church, or at least in one that’s not been converted for Islamic use?

  Fuck knows. Maybe they were also objecting to their own place hosting AA meetings.

  Take a long swallow of wine. I had thought the third glass would be my last, but the fourth now looks likely. Once you’ve had the fourth, the end of the bottle is in sight, and there seems little point in putting it back in the fridge.

  Get up, which in itself seems an effort, over to the CD player, start Bob off again from the beginning, and sit back down at the table. Back against the chair, eyes straight ahead at an indistinct point on the wall that seems to define my evening dining experience, glass of wine in my right hand, as the slow, wretched chords of I’m A Fool To Want You fill the room.

  THE CROW’S BACK AGAIN in the night. I remember I’m in the same position. I remember I can’t move. I remember the feel of his beak against my skull. I remember the pain. When I wake in the morning, it’s like I can still feel it. The pain is still there.

  I take a couple of paracetamol with some toast and a cup of tea, and the pain leaves. I can’t remember what the crow said though. Just his voice. Just the accent. Maybe the crow sounds like he comes from old New York because I’ve been listening to the Dylan CD every day.

  They say that accent, the accent of old New York, is dying out. Like the voice of Pathé newsreels and 1940s cricket commentaries.

  13

  Called into Connor’s room. Me and Taylor, and DCI Dorritt. I’m never sure why I get called into Connor’s room, but particularly today, as we’re not discussing the train death.

  Taylor still seems pissed off, although it’s not particularly directed at Connor. It’s hardly his fault. If Connor had his way, he’d increase his budget by 800%, and be in charge of a station four times the size. He won’t like the cuts any more than anyone else, although for different reasons. I doubt too much of the extra work that will have to get done will find itself his way.

  ‘So, we’re going to have to look at it all, right across the board. The recommendations are going bottom up, not top down. Of course, the decisions on what actually happens will go the other way, but we have to make proposals that suit us best, and meet the requirements of the organisation on all levels, and then staff those proposals appropriately up the chain of command with a view to things working out to our advantage.’

  Still not sure why I’m here. Perhaps he’s looking for some earthy commentary on everything he’s saying. The occasional, shut the fuck up or get to the point!

  ‘What kinds of things do you want us to look at?’ asks Dorritt.

  ‘Everything,’ says Connor. ‘No one’s leaving, so that’s fine. Can we move to a smaller building? Would it be cost effective, both in the short and long term, to sell this place, move in somewhere smaller? A different location in Cambuslang. A cheaper location. If we stay here, can we sell off some of the property? Can we move, for example, another government office onto the premises, rent the space out to them? Look gentlemen, everything’s on the cards here. And don’t think I’m immune. Even I’m looking at the real possibility of having to give up this office. We’re looking at all of us, every one, being in a large open-plan. That may well be just how’s it going to have to be.�
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  Maybe we could have a massage parlour. A pub. Sex shop. All three in one exciting, modern venue. I keep all that to myself. Taylor looks like he’s ready to shout at someone, and it’d be foolish to provide him with an easy target.

  ‘Can I ask why I’m here?’ I say, because I seem to have too much urge to talk, yet not hungover enough to say anything that’s going to have Taylor manhandling my testicles.

  ‘Yes, of course. Like I said, this is going to be bottom up...’

  ‘I’m not at the bottom.’

  ‘Well... I’d like the views of the constables, and I thought you’d be a good man to go around, get them together, form, if you like, a task force. I’m not expecting... of course, I’m not expecting anything from them of the likes... you know, I’m not looking for the boots on the grounds men to come up with great, you know... what I’m looking for is nuts and bolts stuff. Penny-pinching we could call it. How we can save on the day-to-day stuff, but without it looking like... we need to not worry the public. We need the public to know the police are still here for them, that we’re still capable of doing the job.’

  What a dick.

  ‘Should I give my task force a name?’

  The question’s just out there before I can stop it. Should have kept my mouth shut. For his part, Connor’s mouth opens a little but he doesn’t really know what to say to that. Don’t look at Taylor, but can feel the death rays penetrating my head, more piercing and more painful than the beak of any crow.

  And there’s the crow. Back in my head. The stupidity of that last comment, and of the very idea of me heading up any kind of task force – a task force of lowly idiots, too stupid to think of big ideas – is gone. The crow is back, and he brings with him sorrow and fear.

  I make a small gesture, dismissing the question and the room relaxes. I owned the room there for a moment, which doesn’t happen very often. Of course, I owned it by being Jim Carrey in a room full of Angela Merkels.