DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  Waste of fucking space.

  15

  Home just after eleven. With the sex, comes the darkness.

  I feel guilty. Not just because of acting like some sort of sex-obsessed, teenage wanker while I should have been working, but because of Philo. In my head, which is the only place she exists for me anymore of course, she’s not judgemental. She thinks it’s funny. I can’t get past her thinking it’s funny. But she wouldn’t have thought it funny when she’d left her husband and she and I were living together.

  Into the kitchen, light on. There she is on the door of the fridge. The small black and white photograph I cut out of the Evening Times. Smiling back at me, every time I’m in here.

  How pathetic.

  Into the fridge, can barely look at her, other than some sort of apologetic glance, grab a bottle of wine, get the glass from the draining board, into the sitting room. Slump back on the couch, unscrew the bottle top, pour half a glass, take a drink, top back on, bottle on the floor.

  Half a glass of wine at the end of a long day, investigating crime, working hard at the office, fucking women on a desk? Are you a pussy? I’m going to drink the whole fucking bottle, half a glass at a time. It’s something about keeping the wine colder in the bottle than in the glass, but at the rate I’m drinking it, it really, really doesn’t matter.

  I put the television on, as ever BBC News pops up first. I don’t know why I do it. Putting the TV on late at night never ends well.

  First up, starving and burned Syrian children. Yes, Hutton, on you go, you feel sorry for yourself because you had fucking sex on a desk, you stupid twat. Much worse than having your entire society destroyed, losing your family and getting half your face burned off.

  Next half glass.

  Sit through a report on trouble brewing in the Baltic states, the beginning of unrest amongst the Russian population in Estonia. The man from the BBC, standing at a safe distance from a demonstration that is shaping up to turn violent, discusses whether the unrest is genuine or is being orchestrated by Moscow. There’s a brief interview with a commentator from Moscow denying all Russian involvement.

  And then we’re on to continuing unrest in certain parts of Glasgow after the double beheading. Today not as bad as yesterday. Well, there’s some good news. Following that, a quick mention of another suspicious death in Glasgow, a twenty-seven year-old fuckwit badly beaten, and then drugged. Police are still in the initial stage of their enquiries; i.e. they haven’t a fucking clue. That was a one-line item with three seconds of footage of a taped-off scene in a sink scheme somewhere on the south side, and then we’re onto sport.

  What a nice epitaph for the deceased. They can put it on his gravestone. Here lies Malky Big Baws. Loving son and father of eight, he was the last item on the news before the Test Match.

  More wine. This time I don’t bother putting the bottle back on the floor, leaving it sitting between my legs. It won’t be good for the temperature, but it’s not going to be in the bottle very long anyway.

  16

  Friday morning. Have been in since five to seven. Set the alarm for five forty-five. Forced myself up, ate breakfast, drank coffee, walked to work.

  Suddenly I realise just how good I’ve been mentally the last few months. I would have said I was shitty, humourless, going nowhere, barely contributing to my own life, never mind anyone else’s. Yet now I’ve plummeted back to pre-Philo levels of ill-humour and despair, I can see, by my own standard, the last few months have been pretty fucking good.

  You don’t know what you’ve got until you lose it, and I just lost some kind of peace of mind. It might have been mournful, but at least it wasn’t catastrophic.

  Roll on the end of the world, my feeble friends, it can’t come soon enough.

  Taylor sits down opposite and looks across.

  ‘You’re in early,’ he says.

  I acknowledge him, but don’t really have any words. He looks like he might be about to say something along the what’s the matter with you? line, or who are you and what have you done with the real Hutton? but decides not to bother. We’re both men after all.

  ‘Any more e-mails?’

  ‘Nope. You speak to the father about it?’

  ‘Yes, saw him last night. Asked him straight up. He looked... he’s pretty dead. Think he’s probably popping something. He’s American after all, they have a pill for everything. But his daughter just got murdered, can’t blame him. So, I don’t know, I really don’t think there’s a connection between the university having their shit hosted in California, and Kramer coming in from California, but we’ll see. Anyway, for now we’re not looking to let the body go until Monday, and I told him it’s not out of the question we keep it longer, so you know, we’ve got time to look into it.’

  ‘He must be pissed off, having to wait around Cambuslang?’

  ‘He’s staying in the city, and he’s got a cousin in Perth. I got the my family left Scotland in 1792 line.’

  ‘The year of the sheep,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There were sheep riots in Ross-shire. The government clamped down, fucked everybody up the arse. Lots of them emigrated.’

  ‘There were sheep riots?’

  ‘Riots about owners populating their land with sheep rather than people.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He stares blankly at the floor, probably considering his embarrassment at his complete lack of knowledge of Scottish history. Fucking listen to me, fucking Neil Oliver here.

  ‘I’m not sure he actually said 1792. I think I just said that now, as a kind of, any given year.’

  You know, ‘whatever’ as a word, phrase and social concept is overused, but sometimes there’s just nothing else to say.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Anyway, he’s going to visit the cousin in Perth for the weekend. Some home comfort, he said. His ex-wife, Tandy’s mother, lives in Brazil with her Zumba instructor, hadn’t see Tandy since she was eleven.’

  ‘Another happy family brought to its knees.’

  ‘Yes, that would be it. Anyway, Kramer’s coming back in on Monday morning. We should have a decision for him by then, either way. And we’re getting a visit from the American consul in Edinburgh, or someone from their office, this afternoon, but Connor can handle it.’

  ‘Let me,’ I say, although my voice doesn’t carry any enthusiasm for the joke.

  He smiles, stands.

  ‘Come in and see me when Morrow gets in and we’ll discuss the day.’

  ‘K.’

  He taps the desk, is staring vaguely across the office.

  ‘Another murder in Glasgow last night, d’you see that?’

  ‘Heard it on the news,’ I say.

  ‘Four murders in three days,’ he says. ‘Seems kind of weird.’

  I can’t muster much enthusiasm for the conversation. I want to know about our murder, not anyone else’s. All murders are shit. Sometimes life goes a while without springing one on you – unless, obviously, you live in America where people get murdered by the dozen on a daily basis, all in the name of one of the amendments or other – and sometimes it just dumps a shitload of them in your lap.

  ‘Maybe Glasgow’s just becoming that kind of place,’ I say.

  Catch his eye, then look back at my inbox. Slowly working my way through the crap as he talks to me. For example, there’s one from HQ entitled Effective Use Of Arrest Statistics When Dealing With The Media. Straight in the bin without opening. They can probably look and see who reads, or at least, opens their shit. I’m happy for them to discover that as soon as I see anything with their fucking name in the title, I’m depositing it in Trash quicker than a professional cyclist flushing drugs down a toilet.

  ‘Might let the day develop a little more, but I think I’ll give the others a call, maybe get together, see if there’s anything to join up.’

  ‘Good luck,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he says, although neither of us actually knows what I mean
t.

  Did I mean a genuine, hope you find something? A sarcastic, do that if you want, but make sure you don’t take me with you? An acknowledgement that the hardest part would be in getting three different Glasgow DCIs into the same room to talk to each other? And if Taylor is junior to the others, which he might well be, they’re really not going to be interested.

  ‘You look terrible,’ he says, as he turns and walks away.

  I look at his back, disappearing into his office. Mutter some expletive or other, much too quietly for him to hear.

  STANDING IN TAYLOR’S office with Morrow and a Detective Constable who’s come along from Dalmarnock. We’ve spoken to him before on tech matters. Back at the height of the Plague of Crows, when that bastard was stringing us along. Detective Constable MacGregor.

  Taylor’s not here, we just wanted somewhere we could close the door and keep out the noise, and this was available.

  MacGregor’s the kind of kid who makes me feel at least double my age. Not good on a day like today. He’ll probably even make Morrow feel long in the tooth. Maybe we can gang up and kick the shit out of him before he leaves.

  ‘Can I be honest with you, Sergeant?’ he says.

  ‘I think that’d be best.’

  Hands in his pockets. Jeans, collared t-shirt, unshaven. He’s been watching Serpico. You can always tell.

  ‘Didn’t really need to come over, but there’s a constable here... Tina, you know her?’

  I catch Morrow’s eye, and nod at McGregor. Everybody knows Tina. I mean, seriously, everybody. Wouldn’t be surprised if even Connor had attempted to get his wizened old manhood some action there.

  Worth knowing, though, I’ll give her that.

  ‘Met her a couple of weeks ago at Riverside. She was on a course we were running. I said I’d see her again, like to keep my word.’

  ‘Very noble,’ I say. ‘And why didn’t you need to come over here?’

  ‘Because, TBH, this is just a piece of piss, man.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Honestly, Sergeant, if even you wanted to send that e-mail, you could. Remember the last time I came over here to help you guys out?’

  I acknowledge it, but we’re not thinking about it.

  ‘That guy was awesome, seriously. But this, fuck, I mean, this is just a simple joe job. You could put I want to send a bogus e-mail and pretend it came from Downing Street into Google and it’ll take you straight to a site that’ll do it for you.’

  ‘And the University aren’t going to be able to tell it’s happened or where it came from?’

  For about the fifth time in the couple of minutes we’ve been in here, he glances through the glass door.

  ‘They might, depends on what kind of protocols they’ve got set up. So, I know what you want, you want to know if we’d be able to trace it right to the terminal where some guy sat and sent the thing, right?’

  He glances over his shoulder.

  ‘She doesn’t work in this office, Constable,’ I say, ‘so if you could concentrate for about another two minutes, then you can go downstairs and try to find her.’

  He smiles and nods. Fucking lemon.

  ‘You spoke to the University’s people in San Jose?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’d they say?’

  ‘I didn’t understand them, so I thought I’d speak to you instead.’

  ‘I’m glad I could be of help,’ he says.

  ‘You haven’t been.’

  This seems to surprise him.

  ‘You want me to talk to them?’

  ‘Yes, please, that probably makes sense.’

  ‘Awesome sauce,’ he says.

  ‘I know, ultimately, you’re not going to be able to tell us anything...’

  ‘I’m glad I’ve been able to manage your expectations,’ he says.

  ‘... however, here’s what I’d like to know. Is this just the work of someone with my level of ability, who went onto Google and followed a link to FakeAnE-Mail.com, or is there a greater level of technical ability at play here? And if it was straightforward, presumably you might be able to track down where it came from, yes?’

  He purses his lips, head tilted to the side.

  ‘Possibly,’ he says. ‘Give me the numbers in San Jose, I’ll speak to some people, get everything I need, get back to you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Awesome sauce,’ he says again. Looks over his shoulder for the first time since I told him not to. ‘Where do I find Tina, man?’

  17

  ‘Do you think I’m gay?’

  He delivers the words with comedic flair. He’s been acting the role ever since he started using her as his psychiatrist. There has been something in his tone. A touch of camp on his lips. Just a perfect suggestion of it. Enough to make someone wonder.

  She doesn’t answer, so eventually he looks round. She’s staring at him, but today she doesn’t seem to be playing her part.

  Their eyes meet. She manages to hold his gaze for a second, but then looks away. Today she doesn’t have the strength for it. Today those eyes seem to burrow right inside her. She could kill him some days. Hates him every day. The fear comes and goes.

  She’s a psychiatrist. She knows. The response is normal. She has to examine herself, try to keep her head right. The circumstances may be peculiar, but what she’s going through, thousands of people have gone through before. Today, however, her head is not in the game. Beyond self-examination. Beyond help. Unable to remove herself from the situation, unable to convince herself all will be well.

  She knows he’s playing a game, and he’s not the kind of person with whom anyone would want to play. Not, at least, when it is so completely on his terms.

  He turns back to the wall in front. What is he looking at today? His eyes settle on the framed page from a 1920’s Sherlock Holmes omnibus. He’s always wondered who butchered the original book, to remove the page and put it in the frame.

  It’s from The Five Orange Pips, three-quarters of the page with text, and an illustration on the upper right of the page, although it isn’t of Holmes. Five men, standing around a table, staring in horror at the pips that one holds in his hand.

  ‘He thought I was gay,’ he says. ‘How funny. He did make me laugh.’

  He laughs, as if to emphasise the point. Eyes on the illustration. He likes the illustration. It, itself, makes him laugh. As often seems to be the case, it is not particularly representative of the scene as it’s described in the book.

  ‘We worked in the same office, my first job after graduation. Yes, you can see it, can’t you? School, university, first job. A natural progression. Very linear. Perhaps, however, I will go back some day. Go back in time. I mean, in my narrative. Obviously I can’t actually go back in time. Where, where... where was I? Yes. Gay. He thought I was gay. I played along, what did it matter? We went out for dinner a few times, but always far away. Never in Perth. Never anywhere we were going to be seen. He didn’t want people knowing. He was one of the bosses, you see. One of the suits. That was what was so perfect.’

  He pauses, but doesn’t look round at her. Curiosity crosses his brow. Is that the sound of her crying? He could confirm by looking at her – of course, he knows it’s the sound of her crying – but this is more about him talking, getting the story out there. He doesn’t want to tell the wall, he wants to tell an actual person. A psychiatrist had seemed perfect, though it’s not like he thinks he needs help.

  ‘It was hilarious. When we went out, even though it was in Dundee or Stirling, or some little pub in Perthshire somewhere, out in the country, I always wore a disguise. He thought it was perfect, he laughed so much. He thought I was doing it in case we were seen by someone from work. That, of course, wasn’t why I was doing it at all. And then the fourth time, when we arranged it would be at his place, I wore a gimp suit.’

  He giggles this time, a strange sound, a laugh such as she hasn’t heard from him before. She bites her lip, tries not to sob, tr
ies to keep everything under control. She’s scared enough by him, but is even more terrified of the thought of him seeing her break down.

  She wipes away a tear. Sniffs as quietly as possible.

  ‘That was my character for this murder. The gimp. Not very original, and by God I looked dreadful. I arrived at his apartment in this absurd thing, wearing a coat, with the mask tucked around the neck. Hat and glasses, of course. There was someone who saw me leave, I think, and they gave a description to the police. Classic. Didn’t sound anything like me.

  ‘I get in, straight away, hat and spectacles off, pull the mask up. Me! Me in a rubber gimp suit. He looked so turned on, it was hilarious. Eyes lit up. God, he loved it, absolutely loved it. I mean, the main reason for the suit – and honestly, I found it really comfortable, but I’d never wear one again – was to throw him off his guard and, of course, the complete containment of me. Of me! You see? No hair, no fingerprints, no DNA left behind.’

  Another pause. She stares at the carpet, the small area inside her cage, inside this bizarre room that has been her home for the past six days.

  ‘I did wonder how far I’d let it go. I mean, God, he was on me like a wolf. Biting at the suit, his hand on my cock.’

  He snorts.

  ‘Yes, all right, my cock hardened. What was I going to do? When you’re wearing rubber, and someone puts their hand on it, it doesn’t know, does it? The cock doesn’t know whether it’s a man or a woman who’s caressing it, does it? Jesus. Don’t... don’t look at me like that.’

  She’s not looking at him. He knows she’s not looking at him.

  ‘He kissed me on the mouth. Ugh... His man-breath. Horrible. So, I broke away, I grabbed his crotch as some sort of cover, and said, wine! Lots of wine! Your finest bottle! He laughed, red or white, he says. White, always, of course. I looked around the room, in case there was something useful, which there wasn’t, and then he’s back with a bottle of, you won’t believe, Chardonnay. Anyway, we weren’t about to drink it. He pours two glass, but of course, I couldn’t possibly have put mine to my lips. We toast. I put the glass down on the table. I lift the bottle, I pour what’s left in it over his head. He looks annoyed at first, but then he’s laughing and licking at it as it spills over him. Then the bottle’s empty. Much easier to use an empty bottle than one with liquid sploshing around inside, making the weight unbalanced. Then I jabbed him in the eye with the open end. Ha! He staggers back a little, confused, curious. Is this part of the game? He didn’t say it, but I could see what he was thinking. Jabbed him in the Adam’s apple, then as he grasped at his throat, brought the bottle quickly up into his erection. Now he’s bent in half, still not sure if this is part of a game. I jump at him, he falls back, off balance of course, hurting, no idea what’s going on, and then I’m on top of him as he’s lying on the ground, and I put the neck of the bottle in his mouth and press down, pushing the opening right back against his throat. He can’t scream, of course, mouth full of glass. Now, at last, the fucking pussy, he starts to fight. Too bad. Too late. I squeeze the bottle in there, pressing it down against his lower jaw, breaking teeth, pushing it back up against the top of his mouth. And then, I don’t know, it was weird. The bottle broke. Would you think a wine bottle would break like that? Because of pressure against someone’s jaw? Weird.’