DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  He ends this part of the conversation with a small, dismissive hand movement.

  ‘We don’t know, but we’ve got the basics... Rob?’

  ‘Lastly, we’ve got a woman, still unidentified, left lying in a basement, bound and suffocated.’ He pauses. ‘Actually, I’m the wrong guy here, I don’t really know too much more, sorry.’

  Taylor looks at me.

  ‘She was killed by the tape strapped around her head,’ I say. ‘Suffocated. This happened before the body was dumped. Since we don’t know who she is, we can’t begin to say where she was picked up, where she came from, when she disappeared etcetera. She’d been dead over a week, but not much over. The couple who live in the house... they don’t even register on the scale of suspicion.’

  Taylor pushes his chair back, gets up and stands at the window. Hands in his pockets, looking down on the car park.

  ‘Train; religious beheading; petty thuggery and drugs; bound, suffocated and placed in a basement...’

  His words drift off. And the words of that first e-mail drift into my head. Have you worked it out yet? Well, it’s a couple of days later, and no, no we haven’t. Haven’t the faintest idea. Not even entirely sure there’s anything to work out.

  Normally I’d get up and join Taylor at the window, but the presence of Morrow keeps me in my seat. I mean, if I do that, what’s poor Morrow going to do? Would he feel awkward sitting there, the last one at the desk, or would he feel the need to get up and join us, so there would be three of us standing at the window, looking down on a warm, bright day, three superheroes whose powers don’t extend much beyond being able to light more than one fag with the same match.

  Mind’s drifting.

  ‘Who’s going to see Clayton?’ asks Morrow.

  Taylor straightens his shoulders a little at the return of conversation.

  ‘I had thought about it being you,’ he says, ‘but best not to bring you into it. So the Sergeant is going, which unfortunately means I have to go with him, to make sure he doesn’t make a complete arse of everything, leaving the Police Service open to such an enormous law suit the entire operation has to shut down and go out of business.’

  He turns round, looking at me and not Morrow.

  ‘The very future of policing in Scotland depends on me not fucking up?’ I say.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  There’s a lovely pause in the conversation, as we all think about the consequences. We haven’t even talked about what we’re going to say to Clayton yet, which is probably because none of us has the faintest idea what that’s going to be.

  ‘Meet you at the Job Centre,’ says Morrow.

  25

  We have some further discussion about how this is going to go, but most of the conversation is Taylor stopping himself saying ‘and you keep your mouth shut.’ Into the car, sit in silence for a few minutes, and then I stick Bob on as we hit the M74 to drive to the other side of Glasgow.

  Bob’s Christmas album is a gem. No, seriously. This year, if you buy one Christmas album, make it Christmas In The Heart by Mr Dylan. All your Christmas favourites are there. The First Noel, Silver Bells, Winter Wonderland, Must Be Santa, and many more. With a backing track and angelic choir straight out of Bing Crosby, and the sixty-eight year-old Bob croaking his way through a total of fifteen yuletide classics, you can’t go wrong.

  Questionable choice in early June, I admit, but sometimes these festive CDs just find their way onto the player.

  Bob is rasping his way through Hark! The Herald Angels Sing when Taylor finally voices his vague displeasure at the choice of listening material.

  ‘What... the fuck?’ he says.

  Taylor’s as big a Bob fiend as I am, so I don’t know what his problem is.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s June.’

  I leave it a second as I cut inside one of those bloody women sitting at fifty miles an hour in the middle lane, glance over at her in annoyance, see it’s actually a bloody man and feel a fleeting moment of embarrassment at my prejudice, before moving out in front of him.

  ‘Bob transcends the months.’

  ‘Seriously, Sergeant... I know you’ve got fifty Dylan CDs in the car, why the fuck are you listening to this one?’

  ‘Rebecca was in the car last weekend. Took her to a chess competition.’

  ‘You said.’

  ‘She doesn’t like Bob.’

  ‘I know. No one does. It’s only you and me left.’

  ‘She agreed I could put him on if it was this, and we just listened to Must Be Santa on continuous loop. So, that happened. And I haven’t removed the CD. On the plus side, I took Must Be Santa off continuous loop.’

  He glances at me. Mentioning Rebecca, and the unstated fact I rarely see her, is enough to soften any argument. Nevertheless, it doesn’t quite get him to back off the anti-Christmas music crusade.

  He looks in the pocket of the passenger door, digs out Planet Waves, removes the offending Christmas CD from the player, puts it away, and within fifteen seconds On A Night Like This is filling the car.

  I let it play for a while then say, ‘This album always makes me sad because of Forever Young. Reminds me how I little I have to do with my kids.’

  He looks at me, wondering whether or not I’m taking the piss. He can’t decide, but leaves it on anyway.

  STANDING ON THE DOORSTEP. The front gate was open, the car parked at the top of the driveway. A big old Victorian house out past Bearsden. Doesn’t seem so long since we were last here.

  We checked to make sure Clayton hadn’t moved, but didn’t alert him to our arrival. For all the conversation and the tension in the car on the way down here, it’s entirely possible he won’t be in, it’s entirely possible the guy’s in Australia or China on holiday. Could be anywhere. But the front gate is open, and the Lexus in which he raced away from us over a year ago, the only car he had at the time, is sitting in the driveway.

  The fact he hasn’t moved is something that worries me. If these e-mails and the text have come from him, then this could be exactly what he wants to happen. He sits in his big, old fucking house, waiting for us to turn up and walk into his trap. The suits are all scared of him, and he’ll know it.

  Standing with my back to the door, looking out at the well-tended garden and the trees bursting forth. Summer sun, that whole thing going on, one moment in the neverending cycle. Leaves grow, they look nice, they die, branches are bare, leaves grow back again.

  ‘Great metaphor for the circle of life,’ I say.

  Taylor gives me a quick, impatient glance.

  ‘What?’ he says, the question not asking what I meant, but asking why I’m saying anything at all.

  ‘Leaves. Growing, flourishing, dying, growing again...’

  He catches my eye. He looks pretty pissed off. I get that it’s with the general worry of being about to talk to the walking Venus Feds Trap, rather than at my metaphor.

  ‘That’s not a fucking metaphor,’ he says. ‘That literally is the circle of life. Fuck’s sake, Hutton. Get your head out your arse.’

  He looks away. My head is so far up my arse the rebuke bounces harmlessly away, like someone firing a Nerf pellet at a Klingon War Bird.

  The door opens. Michael Clayton. Dressed like Roger Moore in a 70’s Bond movie. Sports jacket and slacks. Only the collar of the white shirt is smaller, along with the knot in the tie. My eyes travel all the way down to his shoes, not unlike the way, I’m afraid to say, I have looked at many a woman in the past.

  Those look like expensive shoes. Smart, brown Oxfords. Continuing with my head being detached from the game, I contemplate my own shoes, scuffed and a couple of years old, given the benefit of a clean once every six or seven months.

  The three of us stand and look at each other. Hard to read the look on Clayton’s face.

  ‘Mr Clayton...,’ says Taylor.

  Clayton smiles, broadly, cutting Taylor off.

  ‘I’m not sure I would entirely say I’ve been
expecting you, gentlemen, but somehow I’m not surprised. A few unexplained murders in Glasgow, must be time to round up the usual suspects... Is that it?’

  ‘We’d just like a word,’ says Taylor.

  Clayton holds his gaze for a few seconds, and then turns to me. The familiar detached amusement.

  ‘Have you the slightest, the remotest, the tinniest excuse for coming to talk to me?’ he asks. ‘At what point did one of you turn to the other and say, I know, some poor girl was pushed in front of a train in Cambuslang, let’s go and speak to Michael Clayton, he simply must be involved?’

  All this with his eyes trained on me. Like he knows the crows are in my head. Like he knows it’s the only damned reason we’re here. Like he knows Taylor and I had the conversation.

  ‘We’re pursuing several lines of inquiry, Mr Clayton,’ says Taylor, ‘we’d just like a word.’

  Clayton slowly shifts his gaze back to Taylor, and then with a theatrical movement, steps back and ushers us into the house.

  ‘You may as well come in, then,’ he says. ‘I’d hate to disappoint.’

  HE’S BEHIND A DESK in a small office, Taylor and me in chairs opposite. We’d examined this room before, back during the Plague of Crows business, but we didn’t interview him in here.

  An expensive office, two walls of old books, a large globe, paintings of battle scenes on the walls, an old desk lamp, heavy wooden furniture. The window is north facing, the light dim, the room cool. There’s no computer on the desk, the only device a retro dial phone. One could expect the place to be dusty, but unsurprisingly with Clayton, it’s immaculate.

  Tea has been offered and turned down. Nevertheless, he left us sitting in here and took the opportunity to go and make himself a small pot. While he was out the room, we didn’t move. We sat here, not wanting to be caught looking through papers and books and files and drawers.

  He slowly pours tea into a cup through a strainer, his movements precise. The pouring liquid is the only sound. The moment could almost be elegiac, one of those you want to capture and stop, stay in for as long as possible, except the guy pouring the tea is a psychopath.

  He places one sugar cube in the cup, using tongs to lift it from the bowl, stirs slowly, and then adds a little milk. He is being so particular and meticulous he could be performing some ancient Asian tea ceremony.

  ‘Can you tell us what you’ve been doing this past week, Mr Clayton?’ asks Taylor.

  Clayton continues as though he hasn’t heard the question, lays down the spoon, lifts the cup with the fingers of both hands, takes a silent sip, pauses for a second with the tea just beneath his mouth, then places it back in the saucer.

  ‘Almost perfect,’ he says. ‘Just needs another minute or two to cool down.’

  Finally he engages Taylor, clasping his hands together, then resting his chin in them, his elbows on the table.

  ‘I’ve been here,’ he says.

  ‘Can anyone verify that?’ I ask.

  His eyes move between Taylor and me, then he says, ‘I hardly think so.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’ asks Taylor.

  ‘Writing,’ he says. ‘A memoir.’

  He leaves that comment in the air for a few seconds, and then continues, ‘And yes, both of you gentlemen are in it. How nice of you to come back and potentially add another chapter.’

  I don’t look at Taylor, but I bet he’s thinking the same thing I am. The suits back in Dalmarnock will be pishing themselves when they learn this bastard is writing a book.

  ‘It’s called There’s Always A Reason And It’s Usually Stupidity. Just a working title of course, but my agent loves it. We’ll see. These books go through so many processes along the way, so many drafts. I’ve never done it before, feels quite tiresome now I’ve actually started.’

  ‘You’ve got an agent?’ asks Taylor.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I thought they were quite hard to come by?’ I say.

  What the fuck do I know?

  ‘With the story I’ve got to tell, there was practically a queue.’

  ‘Who’s your agent?’ asks Taylor. ‘And has he found you a publisher yet?’

  ‘Davina,’ he says, ‘my agent is called Davina. Lovely girl. Works for Cooper, Baylor and Reibach in Clerkenwell.’

  ‘London?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ll speak to her,’ says Taylor.

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  ‘Has she found you a publisher?’

  ‘She hasn’t officially gone out yet. We’re perfecting the first few chapters. There was some talk of a ghostwriter, but I really did want to take care of it myself. When we’re settled on the first, I don’t know, five chapters I think, then she will go to auction. She’s already put out some feelers. She’s very confident. She thinks we could be looking at a six-figure deal.’

  He makes a dismissive hand movement, the very idea of talking about money being so vulgar.

  ‘Have you seen anyone this week?’ I ask. ‘Have you played golf, been to the shops, out for dinner?’

  His eyes rest on me. I get the feeling, like he’s thinking it through on the spot, that just for a second there’s something going on in there that hasn’t been calculated.

  Everything about him seems premeditated, like he’s reading from a script he’s already written. Now, though, it looks as though he’s contemplating going off-message, like the politician goaded into a rogue moment, with his advisors covering their eyes and groaning. Except, Clayton makes every politician you ever watched look like a rank amateur.

  ‘I’ve seen my psychiatrist,’ he says. ‘If you must know.’

  Taylor recognises the departure too.

  ‘How long have you been seeing a psychiatrist?’

  ‘Ha! Provided with that piece of information, I wondered how long it would take you to blunder into doctor/patient confidentiality. Three seconds, was it? Longer than I thought.’

  ‘Can you tell us the name of your psychiatrist?’ I ask.

  ‘You people...’ he says.

  We get the look again, the eyes drifting between us, then he opens the drawer at his right hand, lifts out a business card, and tosses it across the desk.

  ‘You can call her, if you like. I rather presume she won’t tell you anything.’

  Taylor lifts the card, glances at it, then slips it into his pocket.

  ‘Which day did you see her?’ he asks.

  Another pause. Feels like Clayton’s back on script, which would be odd if he’d never intended telling us about the psychiatrist in the first place. Perhaps he writes these scripts in seconds in his head. Perhaps that’s one of his talents, one of the things to separate him from regular, everyday murdering scumbags.

  ‘I see her every day,’ he says.

  ‘Have you seen her today?’ asks Taylor.

  Clayton flicks the switch to impatience, as it must suit whatever plan he has.

  ‘I just said I see her every day, didn’t I? Today was a day, wasn’t it? An actual day? So, yes, I saw her. Why don’t you call her and ask?’

  ‘I will,’ says Taylor.

  There he goes, pushing the buttons. What a bastard. It’s one thing being quietly weird and smug, it’s what we expect; another thing altogether getting annoyed at us, when he knows fine well we have every reason to be here.

  Mouth shut, I think to myself. Keep your mouth shut.

  DRIVING AWAY, THE LIGHT of early evening beginning to dim a little further. Taylor looks thunderously angry. Bob remains silent. This is no time for Bob.

  ‘Pain in the arse it’s a Saturday evening,’ he says, eventually. ‘Nevertheless, we need to try to get these two people, at least before Monday morning. You take the agent, I’ll try to get the psychiatrist.’

  I can feel the darkness descending – the deep dark of the long, drawn-out nighttime – as a result of seeing that bastard again. It all comes flooding back, despite my pathetic attempts to keep it at bay with glib, dry humou
r. Never likely to cut it.

  Need a cigarette. Not smoking so much these days, but right now, I could use the whole packet. Will stand outside, in the carpark, when we get back to the station. I’ll stand out there and hope no fucker joins me.

  I stare ahead into the evening and wonder how much alcohol it’ll take to get me through the night. Jesus, do I even care if I get through the night?

  CLAYTON STANDS AT THE window, looking out on the warmth of a grey evening, the ends of his fingers tapping together, a pastiche of a comedy villain in this year’s big animated feature.

  He’s asking himself questions, carrying out a conversation in his head. There is someone else in the room for him to speak to, but these questions aren’t for her. They might point to some interesting psychology, of course, but the fact that he’s asking himself the questions rather than the psychiatrist, is probably indicative of the fact he’s not particularly interested in hearing what she has to say anyway, regardless of the effort he’s made in getting her here.

  It all seems so easy. Perhaps he should be doing something to make it a little more difficult. Create a problem of his own design, which he will then have to work to sort out.

  Perhaps introducing the psychiatrist into the mix might bring something of a frisson to the game. He would wait to see how that played out, and then decide if he would toss any more alligators into the pit.

  The police had already tried Dr Brady’s phone, it having rung within twenty minutes of Taylor and Hutton leaving his house. They would already be trying to track her down. Either way, it would be a mildly interesting spanner in the works for the next day or two. Nevertheless, all part of the plan.