I’d been sort of constructing my defence on the way over here. How exactly was it Taylor thought he could suspend me for this? Hadn’t I more or less been following his orders?
The thoughts vanish, now that I’m standing in front of him. If I’d been going to do something unorthodox, or something veering dramatically from the standard police officer’s investigative playbook, then he didn’t want to know about it, and he certainly didn’t want anyone else to know about it. It was up to me to make sure something like this didn’t happen.
‘It’s not like I’m sitting here blowing sunshine up my own arse about my part in it, but –’
‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘I know you gave me some sort of green light to do anything to get her to talk, but I shouldn’t have just walked in to this. I mean, with the Dylan thing... seriously, this person, Clayton, it must be Clayton, is out to get me. Me. It’s about me. And he’s owning me. I should be being careful, yet, as ever, I couldn’t help thinking with my dick.’
He holds my gaze but doesn’t dissent. Doesn’t stop me. Does me the favour, at least, of not actually agreeing with me, but I’m not wrong.
‘You need to go,’ he says. ‘I’m not, just yet, suspending you from duty, but you need to get out before Connor arrives.’
Glances at the clock, turns back.
‘I don’t care what you do today, but probably best if it’s not related to the investigation. And whatever it is, don’t go anywhere near Clayton or Brady. Go and play golf, go for a walk in the hills, go to fucking Millport and eat a snowball in the Ritz for all I care, just don’t touch this.’
Hands in pockets, walk to the window, my back turned to him. Stand there in silence for a certain amount of time, something I quite lose track of. Cars arrive, one by one. Ablett and Jones. Milburn. I think her name is Milburn.
It suddenly strikes me that perhaps I’ve said my goodbyes. Not many to make, but I’ve done the round. I called Peggy to apologise. The kids won’t care I never actually spoke to them. In fact, they wouldn’t have wanted to. I visited the old church for the last time at the weekend. I paid my respects to Philo last week, and I know she won’t want me going back. Now Taylor is telling me to go. One of these times he sends me packing from his office has to be the last. Perhaps this is it.
Maybe, when he told me to go to Millport for the day, what he really meant was go and finish this. Maybe when he expressly told me not to go after Clayton, he meant go after Clayton. It doesn’t matter anyway, doesn’t matter what he meant. I’m going. Clayton is out to get me, and he’s going to be out there until I do something about him.
And he’s beaten me, I’ll give him that. I should be able to get him through regular police investigative channels, but I can’t. I need to do something else. Go after him in a different way. And if, as a result, I get taken down too, well that’s just how it’s going to have to be.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
Last thing on the list. Apologise to Taylor. And he may not pick up on it, but I’m not just apologising for this. There are so many things over the past few years. Beyond counting.
He doesn’t immediately respond, and I don’t turn. Not sure how long I’ve been standing here. Maybe he got up and walked out at some point. Then finally there’s the sound of his chair getting pushed back and then he’s standing beside me, and here we are again, two middle-aged fuckers looking down on a dull carpark together.
At that moment, Gostkowski walks out and stands still, looking around. Taking in the day. Then she lights up her smoke, and folds her arms.
There’s such an air of finality I wonder if he’s going to come out with some sort of male bonding shit, but when he finally speaks, while his voice is infected with the same weight of despondency, he plays it as straight as I might have expected.
‘Hand everything you’ve got over to Morrow before you go. He’ll be heading over to Dalmarnock in about half an hour.’
I don’t speak.
‘Where are you anyway?’ he asks.
‘I am... closing in,’ I find myself saying, and then can’t stop the laugh.
The laughter goes, we don’t look at each other. Both watching Gostkowski, although I daresay I see her through quite different eyes than the boss.
‘The doctor has an ex-husband and a daughter who live in Germany. Frankfurt. Eleven days ago the daughter disappeared.’
I don’t turn, but feel Taylor’s eyes on me.
‘Didn’t manage to get hold of anyone in Frankfurt last night, but I don’t doubt for a second Clayton took the girl.’
‘Fuck,’ mutters Taylor.
‘Yeah. Fuck. The press would love to get hold of that angle. Missing kid, they love that shit.’
‘Anything else?’
‘She was lying about the suspension and being under investigation from the BMA. She’s a good doctor, there’ve been no problems. I don’t have all the proof, but I believe what we have here is Clayton using Brady’s daughter against her. All part of the game. The trap.’
‘Crap,’ he mutters.
He steps away from the window. Stands in the middle of the small room, right hand worrying his chin, then, having gone through the available options, sits back at his desk.
‘You need to leave,’ he says, ‘but give me everything you’ve got. I’ll pass on to Morrow what I think he needs. If you have to write it up, go and do it now. Get on with it before Con –’
The door opens.
‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ shouts Connor, letting rip before even slamming the door behind him.
Well, that changes the mood in the room.
‘Sir,’ says Taylor, voice steady. ‘The Sergeant is just going to write up what –’
‘I want you out the building,’ says Connor, looking at me, ignoring Taylor.
While I’ve got nothing to say to the pompous prick, I don’t immediately scurry to the door either. And though I say pompous prick – because it’s not like he isn’t one – I have to say that in this he has a point. I should be out the damn door, for all sorts of reasons.
‘I need the Sergeant to write up where he’s got to in the investigation,’ says Taylor. Still no urgency in his voice, no attempt to rise and meet Connor at whatever pitch he’s talking.
‘What are you writing up?’ asks Connor, still looking at me, still largely ignoring the boss.
‘I met with the head of Clayton’s psychiatrist’s practice yesterday evening,’ I say.
‘Clayton! What the fuck? Seriously, Sergeant, you are going to very quickly get the fuck out of this station. I don’t want to hear about Clayton, I don’t want anyone talking to him, I never want to hear about that fucking man again. Get out! Get out!’
His voice is near a scream by the time he’s finished. Being spoken to in a way maybe only one of my wives has ever spoken to me before. I’d deserved it then too. And while I took it from her, I don’t feel like I want to take it from this dickhead. Especially when he’s basically telling us to never speak of the perpetrator of the crimes we’re investigating.
I don’t move. His face is a mass of agitation, veins strained in his neck, fists clenching.
‘Sergeant,’ says Taylor, playing his own role in this little office drama, ‘you need to do what the Superintendent says. I know who you spoke to, I can chase it up. You need to get out.’
‘Get out!’ spits Connor, like some weird, hissing, expectorating echo.
Jesus, I could just headbutt that cunt right now.
I stand my ground. I haven’t moved an inch, or clenched so much as a fist or a jaw muscle. Just standing here, waiting my time.
I’ve been wrapping it all up, haven’t I? Bringing everything to a conclusion. That’s how it seems. Why not go out in a blaze of glory? Headbutt the superfucktard, spend a short period in a cell, leave with my head held low, then go and see Clayton, kill us both.
Who’d miss me?
I know I’m not physically bristling, but I can feel it rising inside me. The urge. I can feel t
he urge. I want to take this fucker out on my way past.
‘Fuck,’ mutters Taylor, and I guess the boss, having my back as ever, can read my thoughts. He’s up and out his chair, he gets to the door, and he stands there, door held open, and now in the confined space of his office, Connor is pushed back a little, and Taylor is between us.
‘Go, Sergeant, I’ll give you a call later.’
Another few seconds, but there’s nothing for it now. Now, in order to get to Connor, I’d need to fight my way past Taylor, and an ugly and unfortunate brawl would ensue, when what’s required is a clean-cut headbutt, leading to an instant felling of the tree of authority.
And so, finally, when I move, it is quick and decisive and I just get it over with. ID card out the pocket, toss it onto Taylor’s desk, then out the door without looking at either of them.
The open-plan has been quiet, waiting to see how it would play out, but I ignore them, the uncomfortable silence of the room, and soon enough I’m down the stairs and on my way.
45
So I’m ready to combust. Consumed by rage. Bursting, fizzing, hissing, anger spitting from me, feeling like my brain could explode out of my head in a bloody, fucked up, bitter, putrid eruption. I could lay into that cunt. Headbutt him and kick him, rip his fucking face apart, tear his flesh, crush his throat. I could take on fifty Connors, I could run headlong into the fucking orc horde at Helm’s Deep, I could charge into a fucking terrorist training seminar on blowing yourself to fuck and take on every one of those fucked up, stupid fucking arsehole motherfucking murdering bastards.
And here I am. Sitting in a car in a carpark. And all I can do is put the car in first and wait for the gate to open.
Tightly gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white, I drive round the corner, managing not to wheelspin and not to angrily throw the rear of the car out, then park in a side street, out of view of the office.
And then, in the quiet surroundings of a small street in Cambuslang, with no one watching, and without even taking off my seatbelt, I let the rage spew forth.
HARD TO BREAK THE INSIDE of a car. Throat sore, fists sore. Maybe I broke a bone in the knuckle of my right hand punching the windscreen. Maybe, if I wasn’t such a pussy, I would’ve broken the windscreen. Can you break a windscreen by punching it? I expect Dwayne Johnson could. Or, at least, he could in a movie. I’d have taken him on then, ‘n’ all, though things might not have ended well.
As it is, how did it end? The anger evaporated into the car and on out, into space. And I was left, sitting there, spent and hoarse and sore about the hands and fingers. The car survived the onslaught.
And now I drive home. Drained. Empty. Fingers tentatively gripping the steering wheel. The anger, the spirit, the fight, all of it, has been spent. Spat out, twisted and ugly and unpleasant, vomited into the ether, and now there’s nothing left.
There are a hundred places to go, but I can’t think. For now I just need to get back to the safe haven of my old sitting room, the place where fifty per cent of the sitcom takes place. Where I can sit in silence, a drink in my right hand, and stare at an indistinct spot on the wall. Not even Bob, not even the melancholic Shadows In The Night. Because I don’t feel melancholic. I just feel nothing.
My phone pings as I’m driving, the sound of it fills the void for those brief few moments, but I don’t pick it up.
Go through the motions. Changing gear, accelerating, braking, stopping at lights, foot down, clutch, automatic movements. Park, in the front door, up the stairs, open the door, into the house.
Stand in the silence of the sitting room. Aware the room smells stale. Late nights and cigarettes and alcohol. Open the window, look down at the street below.
Where is there to go from here?
There’s one person standing in front of me, and it’s not Connor. I may have burst my balls in rage at him, but he’s not the problem. Connor is an insignificance.
Clayton. It’s all about Clayton. So, when I leave here, when I can finally pluck up the whatever-it-takes to go and do something other than stand staring at the street below, there will only be one place to go. There will only be one thing to do.
Clayton has to die. That’s all.
No one counts the seconds. No idea how long I stand here. Cars pass beneath me, a few pedestrians. There are people I recognise scuttling by, on the way to work, or on the way home from the graveyard shift.
The phone pings again, the noise muffled in my pocket. Turn finally, look into the kitchen at the digital clock on the cooker. 09:27.
It’s never too early for vodka and tonic. Into the kitchen, large glass, lots of ice, lots of vodka, no lemon to hand, fill the rest of the glass with tonic, first taste of the day, a long swallow, and it’s sharp and cold and bitter, and I stand there, glass in hand, feeling nothing, just me and the emptiness and the alcohol. The alcohol? The booze. It’s booze. When you’re drinking for the relief of it at 09:30 in the morning, you’re boozing.
Finally take the phone from my pocket. Both messages from Taylor. First one:
Write your report, have it in by 09:45. Leave town. I’ll be in touch.
The second:
Sergeant?
A moment, and then I write the reply.
I’m on it.
Grab the laptop, sit down at the table, another long drink, open up Word and start typing, my hand moving to the glass, the glass to my mouth, slowly, metronomically, almost once every sentence.
LATE MORNING. SITTING on the sofa, looking at the TV. The TV is turned off, I’m on my seventh drink of the morning. The vodka is having the desired effect.
I submitted my brief report – if it could be given so grand a name – saying everything that had to be said, by 09:39, and have since been sitting in silence, only leaving the sofa to top up the drink. At some time after eleven I started eating peanuts. Not good to drink so much vodka at that time in the morning on an empty stomach. (Like it’s good to do it on a full Scottish.)
Approaching midday, no obvious sign of intoxication.
Options.
1. Sit here until I’m completely wasted, fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night feeling like shit, crawl into bed, perhaps having made a stop in the bathroom to throw up. Wake up tomorrow morning. Live. Die. Repeat.
2. Pack a bag, get in the car, head north. Check into a hotel. Do what I’m doing here, but with a view. Probably best to not do it straight away, on the back of seven vodkas.
3. Stop drinking. Sleep it off. Engage the case. Try to find a way to sort this out so that it ends well for me, badly for Clayton. Do the kind of thing a TV detective would do. Pull it out the bag when everyone assumes I’m screwed.
4. Accept I’m screwed. Life, career, everything else, down the drain. Drink heavily. Find Clayton. Kill Clayton. Kill self.
Number 1 promises long term misery. Number 2 seems too much effort. It would involve sobering up, making a decision. Number 3 seems so unlikely as to barely warrant its place on the list. Which leaves Number 4.
Number 4 benefits everyone.
Too late now to check a gun out of the armoury, which had been my initial plan for dealing with Clayton. Bullet in the eye. Now I couldn’t get someone at the station to sign me over a stapler, never mind a weapon.
What are the other options? A knife. Strangling. Suffocation. Broken neck.
I’m no trained assassin. There’s absolutely no reason to suppose that if I get into hand-to-hand combat with a man like Clayton I would come out on top. However, if I’m going to die, I really need to take him down with me. Otherwise it’d just be a waste, and there’d be nothing to stop him moving on to the next sorry bastard.
I could do with a gun, but a surprise attack with a knife ought to do it as well. If I turn up at his door then he would likely assume I’m there for further questioning of the suspect. He’s been happy to welcome us in up until now, and there’s no reason why it should be any different. He sees every engagement with the police as a potential lawsuit.<
br />
Maybe he already knows I’ve been kicked out, of course. That wouldn’t be the world’s greatest shock. We’ve never really understood the full extent of his capabilities, and for all we know, never witnessed him operating at full capacity.
Drain another glass, back to the fridge. No more tonic. I knew that after the last time, but I’d forgotten. Stare into the fridge, hoping it will make another bottle of tonic materialise, or help me find some tonic-substitute, whatever it might be. Finally close the door and turn to look at the almost empty bottle of vodka.
Yep, time for vodka on the rocks. Mixers are for pussies anyway. Another three ice cubes, then tip the remainder of the bottle into the glass. Hey, there’s another bottle of vodka at least, so everybody relax.
Back through to my place in front of the TV, bumping into the door frame on the way. God, that’s a stiff drink now, the second mouthful just as bad.
Tired. Decision time. Get in the car, round to Clayton’s house, or sit here, festering in pathetic, drunken impotence. The other option, the hitting the road and getting as far away from Glasgow option, just isn’t happening. This needs to be over, and that only happens if I stay. Sitting in this seat, or heading out into the city, I need to be near to Clayton. That’s the only chance this thing ends, one way or another, and I need it to end. We all do.
Lay my head back. Make the decision to go, with my eyes shut and the alcohol kicking in. Not the best combination. I’m not going anywhere.
46
Wake up to the sound of the door closing. Eyes flicker, finally manage to focus on the room. Lift my head off the cushion, and immediately hit by the wave of nausea and the spitting, shooting stab of a headache. Head back down on the cushion. Jesus.
Still daylight, but then it’s June. It’s daylight until ten. It feels much later than when I passed out, but I’ve no idea how long ago that was. Deep breaths. The instant wave of nausea beginning to pass. At least I’m not going to throw up on the carpet. Just yet. Not just yet.
DS Hutton Box Set Page 101