DS Hutton Box Set

by Douglas Lindsay

  37

  Sitting in the kitchen, I don’t know how much later. An hour maybe. The sex slowed down, hardly became romantic or anything, but at least I stopped myself coming too quickly. Jesus, she looked fucking amazing sitting back on the swing seat, the dress at her waist, her legs open. Fucked her with my tongue for God knows how long. Every time she orgasmed, she’d squeeze my head tightly with her thighs. Could hardly breathe. Wonderful.

  Drinking another gin and tonic, sitting at the island, leaning on the expensive wood while watching her make a sandwich.

  ‘You’re supposed to be telling me about Clayton.’

  She hasn’t put the sunglasses back on, which is good. She’s changed her dress, but this one, simple, long, flowing, floral green and blue, is no less alluring.

  The smile has gone, which I noticed as soon as she’d come back down the stairs. All through the interview yesterday, and through the early exchanges today, and throughout the sex, the smile had been there. Coming and going, delicious and attractive, mostly unreadable.

  In the ten minutes she’s been back in the kitchen there have been no smiles. A troubled look that – just like the smile – I’m unable to read. Perhaps this is her usual demeanour post-sex. She troubles herself with her insatiable appetite. Hates herself for needing sex to deal with any situation.

  I mean, most people aren’t insatiable, most people don’t need to have sex with everyone they meet. I have my moments myself, of course, and I understand them. I know where they come from. Presumably she has her own reasons, but really, despite having a fucking ball the last hour, I don’t care. Nevertheless I really ought to take something back to Taylor other than an air of gratification.

  ‘He’s dangerous,’ she says.

  Wow, there’s a departure.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  The small kitchen knife, slicing through cucumber, stops mid-cut. Eyes close for a second. Her hands are steady, though, and shortly she opens her eyes, continues with the movement.

  ‘He tells me stories. I don’t know whether or not any of them are true. About things he did at school. Killing people who made him jealous. Almost... they’re almost too simple. Simple little stories, like they’re out of a crime thriller, or they’re taken from episodes of TV. I don’t know if I should believe him. He’s either telling the truth, in which case he’s very, very dangerous, or else...’

  She finally looks up. Her eyes are impossible. I don’t understand this woman at all.

  ‘Don’t judge me, Sergeant,’ she says.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Don’t judge me, because we had sex. Because I told you I have sex with everyone.’

  ‘I’m not judging you,’ I say. It’s not the time for her to get introspective, or to worry about what I’m thinking.

  ‘All men judge all women,’ she says, the knife cutting a little harder onto the board. ‘Especially after they’ve had sex.’

  I’m not sure about that. The judging goes on before the sex. Afterwards... not so much judging.

  ‘We need to talk about Clayton,’ I say. ‘If he’s not telling the truth...’

  Ham, cheese, cucumber, tomato and mayonnaise, your classic sandwich combo. You can’t beat a sandwich after sex.

  ‘He’s delusional,’ she says. ‘The actions of anyone displaying that level of delusion are going to be highly unpredictable. It could be it never moves beyond his imagination, but it could be if he ever finds himself in a dangerous or stressful situation, and he believes in the past he has dealt with these situations in a certain way, that... If he believes he has already committed murder, or that murderous acts are trivial enough to be casually admitted to, there’s nothing to say he wouldn’t then carry out such an act.’

  Slice of bread on top, perfectly cut from a thick loaf with one of those bread knives you see in supplements for several hundred pounds, then she slices each sandwich in half, places them on plates, and lifts them both.

  ‘Shall we eat outside?’

  She looks up, finally the smile is back, although this time a little forced.

  ‘Bring the drinks,’ she adds.

  TAYLOR LOOKS UP AS I walk into his office. Police work. It really is shit, sometimes. Here he is, nearly seven o’clock on a Monday evening. Hasn’t had a day off in forever, will be in here again first thing tomorrow morning.

  The papers won’t give a shit. All they see are unsolved murders. If he took the day off, or the afternoon off, or stepped out the fucking office for two minutes to grab a cup of coffee, there would be a damned photographer there to record the moment for the Lazy-Ass Polis Bastard Could Give A Fuck About Body Count headline.

  And right enough, he looks exhausted.

  ‘You speak to her?’ he asks. ‘You have an air about you.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s fine.’

  Close the door, take a seat.

  ‘You look knackered,’ I say. ‘You should go home.’

  He glances at his watch.

  ‘Going to give it another half hour. Tell me about her.’

  There’s something else to tell him about, but I’m not sure yet. Need to think while I talk, even though thinking about it on the way over here hasn’t really helped.

  ‘Says her clients were cancelled as she’s about to be struck off. She’s been staying in a small cottage in the Campsies. Clayton pays her privately for daily visits.’

  ‘Why she’s getting struck off?’

  ‘Sleeping with patients.’

  ‘Hmm. Does she also sleep with investigating police officers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did it help her talk?’

  ‘Quite changed the mood. The woman we met yesterday, the one who was waiting for me today, I could easily imagine that woman being the one she described herself as. Wanton. Post-sex, it was like I was talking to someone else.’

  ‘Maybe that’s her way. Maybe she hates herself for it. You must be used to women hating themselves for sleeping with you.’

  ‘Hilarious.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. What’d she say about him?’

  A second, lower my eyes.

  ‘This is what’s troubling you,’ he says.

  ‘He talks a lot about crimes he’s committed. Murders.’

  ‘Plague of Crows?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lynch’s case?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘It’s fucking weird. I mean, we suspect the guy’s been committing the Bob Dylan murders, aimed specifically at me, so why wouldn’t he... why wouldn’t he know this shit. It’s just...’

  ‘Sergeant...? What shit?’

  ‘He told her about a variety of people he said he’d killed. Some guy in school he was jealous of, some girl at university who pissed him off, some guy he worked with who wanted to have a relationship...’

  ‘And how’s that all connected to you?’

  ‘The school story. It happened when I was at Cathkin. It happened. Not in my year, but there was a guy killed in the fields down from the school, head staved in with a brick, just like Clayton described it. The –’

  ‘Could it have been Clayton?’

  ‘No! It was that little twat, John McGuire. It was McGuire. Everyone knew. Jesus, he was found with blood on his fucking hands.’

  ‘Maybe Clayton did something similar.’

  ‘I was at Glasgow Uni for four years. One person was murdered in all that time. A girl, been trying to remember her name, but it’s not there. She’d been in the Conservative party. Killed, not raped, never found her killer. Clayton told Brady the story. And then – and this is the fucking weird clincher to absolutely say he never did any of this shit – he told her about killing some guy at work, dressed in a gimp suit, by thrusting a wine bottle into his mouth. Jesus, I worked that case! I worked the fucking case, second year on the job. And we got the guy. And no, no, there was no question about the killer. We nailed him. He confessed. There was DNA, there was CCTV, it was as clear-cut
a case as you could imagine. The guy’s still nicked. Clayton did not commit that murder. He’s appropriating it, to make himself look... fuck, I don’t know...’

  ‘Why does he want the doc to think he’s a killer?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they’re all... they’ve all got some connection to me. It’s like he’s using her to taunt me. Just the same as he’s been doing with the Dylan murders.’

  I’m looking curiously at him, like I expect him to have an explanation. I sure as fuck don’t.

  ‘So why was she suddenly happy to break the doctor/patient confidentiality?’ he asks. ‘Those bastards usually dine out on that shit.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You think maybe you broke down the walls with your whole, damaged, Casanova thing you’ve got going on?’

  ‘You’re cracking me up,’ I say.

  He sighs heavily.

  ‘Jesus, I fucking hate this guy. We could have video evidence of the bastard knifing someone in the face and we’d still be wary of him having faked it. He’s got us, and the fucking suits, pishing in our pants every time we mention his damn name.’

  ‘What d’you want me to do?’

  ‘You’re going to have to... first off, you’re just going to have to look into all those old crimes, get the files out, maybe even speak to the fuckers who’re in prison. Speak to people. Find out if there’s the slightest possibility Clayton could have been behind any of it. After that... God, I don’t know. We need to speak to Clayton again, but he can easily hide behind doctor/patient. Jesus... This bastard just runs rings round us.’

  ‘Maybe we should just take him out,’ I say. ‘Take him out the game.’

  He blinks, keeps his eyes on mine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kill him,’ I say.

  ‘Jesus. You’re saying that in here, when not twenty-four hours ago we were wondering if he had the place bugged? Are you out of your fucking mind, Sergeant?’

  There he has a point.

  He leans forward, elbows on the desk, face into his hands, then quickly rubs them and looks up.

  ‘Go home, Sergeant. Be in early tomorrow, write it up for me. Whatever you were thinking of doing now, don’t. Just go home. You’ve done enough for the day.’

  ‘I’d be pushed to say I’d describe the last few hours as work.’

  He waves me away, I look down at him for a few moments, but he’s turned back to some paperwork and I’ve been dispatched.

  Out the door, close it on him, annoyed at the dismissal and head back towards my desk. I stand and look at it, contemplate logging on and seeing if there are any more e-mails, mutter ‘fuck it,’ to myself, and then I’m out the door of the open plan and practically jogging down the stairs.

  38

  The thought’s in my head now, once, twice, three times, keeps on coming back, as if Clayton planted it himself.

  This torture would be over if I killed him. Me. Doesn’t have to be some secret police unit that doesn’t actually exist, (even though most of the population probably think the police have a secret assassination squad.) We don’t have to call in a random US airstrike, following which we can have some official say, oops, sorry, we meant to hit Iran. We don’t have to order some reluctant young constable, or pull a dodgy favour from some dodgy Glasgow gangster who still owes us one from some fucking dodgy deal we did at some point in the last twenty years.

  I could just do it. Go and interview him, then kill him. Been a while since I fired a gun, but if I was close enough not to miss, well... I wouldn’t miss.

  There would be no point, and no peace of mind to be had, in trying to cover it up. I’d always be waiting; waiting for Clayton to come and bite me from the grave. I’d need to do it and then face the consequences, or do it and then turn the gun on myself.

  Jesus, the thought of that brings blessed relief.

  Taylor was right, though. I shouldn’t have mentioned it in his office. That was just stupid. Unbelievably stupid. He really should have complete deniability. That’s the trouble with me now taking the law, and Clayton’s life, into my own hands. Taylor is liable to be caught up in it, and dragged down in the aftermath. I’d need to do it in such a way Taylor was totally detached. Mentioning it to him was a lousy start.

  So, Sergeant, you’re seriously thinking about it?

  Sitting at home, at the small dining table I’ve occupied more and more since the one time I sat there with Philo. Just me, a bottle of wine, and Bob on the CD player. Shadows In The Night. It remains as ephemeral as it was last week, so as usual I’m playing it over and over. He’s on his third run through the songs since I sat down, swallowing me up in his melancholy as we go along together.

  Bottle of wine nearly empty, this on top of three hefty g&t’s this afternoon. Drove home too. Fucking tube.

  Turning the bottle around and around in my fingers. To be honest I didn’t really get the notes of citrus and passion fruit. But yes, Mr Marketing Man getting paid at £500/a word, it is nice to drink on its own.

  I had an all right few months after Philo, helped through by my lesbian buddy. But really, all that time I was just one crisis away from batshit crazy, and boom, here we are, the crisis has come calling on its miserable grey horse, gloom and depression quickly descending, sending me the way of the bottle and inappropriate sex. Sex with interviewees on desks, sex with witnesses, weird non-contact sex on a couch with a colleague. Perhaps, before any of this crap is over, I’ll have come up with some other ill-chosen method of sexual congress, like sex with a victim’s partner at the undertaker’s.

  Empty the glass, tip the rest of the bottle into it. Already wondering whether I’m going to open the next bottle, and knowing I will.

  I want to talk to Harrison, she’d probably enjoy the story of the nymphomaniac psychiatrist, but I shouldn’t call her. Not again. Not that I called her on Saturday, but it’s too soon. This is a difficult time, but it’ll pass soon enough, even if it just passes with me dead, either with my liver as the centrepiece of an exhibition or finally at the hands of Clayton. Whatever happens, it’ll slip away, and the story of the psychiatrist and me will wait for another day. When it’s all over, I still want to have Harrison around. I don’t know how many times I could sit next to her naked and drunk and not fuck things up.

  Tired, drunk, miserable, beginning to feel nauseous. Jesus fucking Christ. What if I do? Really, what if I get hold of a gun or a knife or a fucking vacuum pack of fucking coffee granules, go and see Clayton and shoot him or stab him or beat the living fuck out of him? What’s there to lose?

  Arms on the table, then rest my head on my forearms. As I make the movement, I catch the glass of wine and it tips, the glass tumbling on the table and breaking, and at the same time as my head touches my hands, glass shatters and the wine spills over the table.

  ‘Aw, fuck!’

  Straighten up, sit back, as the wine runs off, soaking into my trousers.

  ‘Fucking hell.’

  Can’t be bothered moving. Jesus, what fucking difference does it make? Wine soaking into the old, fucking, stupid soak. Sit there, feeling the drip of the booze on my leg, the dampness spreading, and then put my hands and forearms back where they were and rest my head again.

  Pressing my hands into the table I feel the sharp jab of broken glass.

  39

  Tuesday morning. Three plasters on my right hand. Tried taking them off this morning so I didn’t look like a dick, and immediately started covering everything I touched in blood.

  On the plus side, the crows took a night off. I think. Maybe I just don’t remember. And if there weren’t any crows, why weren’t there? Maybe they’ve done their work. They wanted me to assume command over my own life. They wanted me to realise what it was I had to do. Put a bullet in Clayton, then do the same to myself. Everything over.

  It’s time to take control, and while I’ve yet to do it, I know now what it is I’ve got to do. And so, no more crows.

  More likely, more mundanely
, I dreamt about them and had just forgotten by the time I woke up.

  Still no reports of any further murders around these parts. The bout of random slaughter on the streets and railway lines of Glasgow really might be over, and all because the boss and I worked out the killer was working around Bob Dylan album titles (with incidental help from the less-than-super superintendent). Fortunately that information hasn’t yet reached the media – a miracle in itself – so we haven’t had The Bob Dylan Murders graphic on the news.

  Obviously it’s good that the murders are done and dusted, but I’m kind of curious as to what he would have done next. Curious enough that I spent some time this morning going through the album titles and contemplating how it is one would murder someone after the fashion of Street Legal or Shot of Love. Christmas In The Heart, where someone would be stabbed through the chest by a tree decoration or a giant Santa candle, is the one I think we missed out on.

  Taylor’s not known as the wisest man in Police Scotland for nothing. They’ve done what he was suggesting they would, by bringing all the cases together under one roof. We gave them Morrow, and he’s off into Dalmarnock for the foreseeable.

  The press are loving it of course. They’d particularly love it if there was another murder, but they don’t necessarily need it just now. Seven murders in six days, all the work of one person? That is at least a month worth of headlines, and they’ve made up for a couple of days without a new death with sad tales from bereaved relatives, funerals and vigils, plaintive flowers beside the train tracks, and occasional angry mobs outside the Islamic Community Centre that used to be a church.

  Tandy Kramer’s dad is still around, somewhere. With the investigation being taken over by a new team – led by a DCI Collins – it was obvious they weren’t going to let her body go yet. More questions to be asked, even if ultimately they never actually get her body re-examined. Mr Kramer, meanwhile, has taken the opportunity to speak to every newspaper going, the story of his relationship with his daughter and the heartache he feels – and the lawsuit that will be coming the way of the Police, Transport Scotland and the Scottish Executive – telling not quite the same story he told me.