See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

by Douglas Lindsay

  Take another drink, although it’s already finished, so just get the dregs and the melted ice.

  ‘I’m having another. D’you want one?’

  ‘Why not? You can tell me your plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons, bring peace to the Middle East and stop people talking shite on the Internet.’

  7

  I’M LYING IN A FOREST. I don’t want to be back in the forest. It hasn’t been long enough. Eyes open, but I can’t get up. Unable to lift my head, although I can’t feel what it is that’s holding me down.

  I can feel the damp earth and leaves and twigs beneath me, the cold air on my chest and legs. Naked again.

  Have a sudden fear I’m not in a mild-mannered forest in Scotland, but somewhere else. Somewhere warmer, somewhere more continental. Somewhere the spiders are large, where the bugs are insidious. Then at the same time I notice the leaves in the trees, I recognise the smell in the air, and I remember I always have this thought. I always worry I’m somewhere large spiders are going to be crawling over me, before realising I’m in central Scotland. The Trossachs.

  I remember it’s not the spiders I have to worry about, then I hear it. The same thought process every time, with the same result. As though I can’t hear the crows until I’ve run through the progression in my head.

  There they are, right on cue. The crows. And I can feel the tension on my skin, the cold sweat starting up straight away. And I can’t turn, but I can hear the fluttering of the wings behind me, the ugly squawk getting closer. As usual, I worry about my head. Is my head all right? Has my scalp been removed?

  But my head feels normal. There’s no extra chill where my hair should be, because it’s still there. The rest of my body feels odd, naked in a forest, but my head feels normal. Feels as it should.

  And then the fluttering stops with the sound of a bird landing in the leaves, a few feet behind me. I try to look round, but I can’t move. I try. Want to turn. Can’t do it. The footfalls of the bird get closer, and then they stop. Right there. Right by my head, just behind my right ear.

  I look round as much as I can, and can just make out the wing. The black wing. The crow. I can’t remember what’s coming. I should know, I’ve been here so often. It taunts me, and although I can’t see it, I can imagine its head tilted to the side in curiosity. Or in mocking laughter.

  And then there’s the pain of the sharp jab. Its beak, stabbed into my skull, just behind the ear. A short break, and then another one. Another. Fuck, that’s sore. Same spot every time, just behind the ear. Is that a weak spot?

  Why there? Why not some soft part of the body? If he wants into the brain, why not go through the eyes? Stupid crow.

  Again, another three jabs in quick succession.

  ‘Fuck off!’

  I can speak! Ha! I can’t move, but I can speak. I’d settle for the reverse.

  ‘Fuck off!’

  Do crows understand profanity? It’s the tone, isn’t it? Trying to scare him with noise. It’s all I can do. Maybe if I roar.

  I roar. Throaty, all the noise I can muster. It hurts, but it’s loud, before tailing off into a high-pitched yowl.

  Silence.

  I can see the bird thinking about it, its head still to the side, staring at me. But he hasn’t backed off. Maybe I’m going to need to scream again.

  ‘What was that?’

  A strange voice. I don’t know what the voice is. I understand the words, but the voice in itself is inexplicable. An alien sound.

  ‘Was that a scream? Were you, I don’t know, impersonating a lion? Jesus. I’ve got to tell you, pal, whatever it was, it failed.’

  ‘I was trying to scare you.’

  That’s all I can think to say. Really? That’s all I’ve got? And it hurts to talk. My throat hurts after the roar.

  ‘Oh, yeah, because that worked. Listen kid, you just lie there. I’m going to do my thing, you’re going to do your thing. Whatever it is. But enough with the roaring already, my ears hurt.’

  ‘What is your thing?’ I say. ‘Pecking at my head isn’t a thing.’

  ‘Sure it is.’

  ‘That’s not even half a thing.’

  ‘Buddy, accept it. It’s a thing. A whole, goddam thing.’

  ‘I want you to stop!’

  ‘Well, go ahead then. I’m only here because of you, so don’t try fucking with my shit.’

  ‘What d’you mean? What d’you mean you’re only here because of me?’

  ‘You’re the one with the fucked up head. You’re the one who wants someone to drill inside it and remove everything. You’re the one who wants to forget. So I’m here doing what I’m supposed to be doing, and you’re roaring! Jesus! What kind of fucked up shit is that?’

  ‘Yes, I want to forget, but not like this.’

  ‘Hey, kid, forgetting don’t come easy in life. You can’t just forget shit. It takes effort. Bad things have to happen. You need to think about what it is you really want. I’m not here because I want to be. Jesus, there are worms and shit to eat, why would I spend my time tapping away at solid freakin’ skull here? Any time you want me to leave, you know what to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know what to do, kid, so just do it.’

  I wake up. Eyes wide open. Don’t sit up in bed, just lie there, naked, staring at the ceiling. The covers have fallen off. Cold. The middle of the night, still dark. Sweating.

  I cough. My throat’s sore.

  8

  WEDNESDAY MORNING. The usual crew together in the hastily assembled ops room. It’s not quite all hands yet. Too early to know what we’re dealing with. Could just have been a drunken lout, although no one’s putting money on that.

  It’s not that anyone’s saying, dear God, a drunken lout on a train platform at eleven o’clock in the morning? Never in all my life! It’s the beanie, and the hair. Looks wrong, feels wrong.

  Taylor is majoring on the beanie.

  ‘Yep, there are guys wearing beanies all year round,’ he’s saying, ‘regardless of the weather, but the intent here, coupled with the peculiarity, and of course, there’s hair sticking out the bottom of the beanie because it’s a feature, and a couple of the others on the platform remember him wearing glasses... it all says disguise.’

  Six of us in the room in all. Taylor, Morrow and me, three constables. Cairns, Jones, and Ablett.

  Constables come and go, don’t they? It’s like this production line of spotty youths and flat-chested girls.

  I know, I know, the size of their chests has nothing to do with it.

  ‘Which also means we can rule out a random act of badness, some kid just having a moment of madness and thinking, fuck it, this’ll be funny. He, or she, went there with intent. So, was it with intent to kill Tandy Kramer specifically, or was he happy to just kill?’

  He looks around the room, glances back at the white board which has everything we know so far – yep, not very much – then turns back.

  ‘I think we ought to hope it was the former, because that way at least it ends here. And it hugely increases our chances of doing a quick job. If it was random...’

  He lets the sentence go with a wave, glances at the clock then looks at me.

  ‘I need to be in with Connor. Can you start divvying up, Sergeant? We’ve got to pin down who got her pregnant, so we need to speak to men in their forties with whom she had even the slightest contact. We should look at the CCTV footage from later on. We won’t be looking for the beanie, but it’s possible the killer returned. It’s going to be tough recognising him, but have somebody take a look anyway. And broaden the scope of her fellow students you speak to.’

  Another glance at the clock.

  ‘I’ll go and meet the girl’s father off the plane,’ he continues, ‘but that’s not for another few hours. Right...’

  He gives me the get on with it nod, and then leaves. I stand up and turn to address the crowd of four. This is where, if we were in a sitcom, they’d all start talking to each other and c
ompletely ignore me. No sitcom this. Just seems like it, ninety-eight per cent of the time.

  KNOCK AND ENTER. TAYLOR back at his desk, typing quickly. Eyes on the screen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do that before.

  ‘Are you touch typing?’

  He turns. Looks more tired than he did thirty minutes ago. In no mood for the usual light-hearted frivolity I try to bring to any murder investigation.

  He doesn’t say anything, just answers the question with something of an impatient eyebrow.

  ‘How’d it go with Connor?’ I ask.

  ‘They’re not cutting staff,’ he says.

  The look of disgruntlement stays on his face.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Just like it sounds.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just thought... Everyone’s been talking about it. Just presumed there were going to be cuts.’

  ‘There are going to be cuts. But not staff cuts, just budgetary cuts. They don’t want to lose any more police officers. Not yet.’

  ‘Politics?’

  ‘Damned politics. Absolutely. That’s what it’s all about. The government have passed down the instruction. There’s less money, but they don’t want any headlines about cuts in frontline policing. They don’t want... fuck, whatever, you get the picture. There will be no cushy redundancy payments.’

  ‘So how do they make the cuts without cutting staff?’

  ‘They cut everything else. They close buildings, they put eight people in an office designed for two. They stop overtime payments...’

  ‘That’ll be a bastard.’

  ‘Yes, it will. We exist on overtime. There are occasions when we absolutely need it. They won’t stop it altogether, but it’s to be cut by eighty per cent.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘No, fuck on,’ he says, even though that’s not an actual phrase. ‘And so on and so on. There’ll be a pay freeze, and an actual pay cut is not out of the question. Allowances are gone, any other kind of monies paid out, forget it. That kind of thing. But no staff cuts, so the fucking government can stand up there and say they’re saving fucking money on the police, but front line services, all the bobbies-on-the-fucking-beat crap, hasn’t been affected. Which of course, it fucking will be.’

  ‘Jesus...’

  ‘Yes. Jesus. No doubt they’re just saving their damn money so they can flush it down the fucking NHS toilet. The minute they start charging people for fuck-witted stupidity, then they’ll be able to balance their fucking budget a lot better. So, madam, you went hillwalking in a fucking blizzard, with visibility less than two feet, and you broke your leg? That’ll be fifteen fucking grand for the hospital. You’re seventeen and you drank two bottles of vodka a day for a year? You can pay for your fucking liver treatment, and if you can’t and you die, then that, my dumbass friend, is natural selection at work. Congratulations, you’re a living fucking anthropological project.’

  Hmm, the boss doesn’t usually swear.

  He shakes his head, stops himself before he launches into another example of entitled Britain, absolving itself of all its problems and passing them on to the government.

  ‘Bollocks,’ he mutters, and then waves away the conversation. ‘You’ll just have to find another way to finance your Jedi football coaching course. Where’ve you got to?’

  ‘Just off into the university with Morrow. He’s going to speak to some more of her classmates, and apparently there are a couple of older fellows amongst them. I’m speaking to her lecturers and tutors. She had three different men for maths, and a couple of statistics people, one man.’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, then he glances at the door by way of saying it’s where he wants me to go, turns back to the computer and starts typing.

  ‘That’s not your resignation letter?’ I say, as I’m leaving.

  He doesn’t answer.

  9

  USED TO HAVE THIS LECTURER at Glasgow. Maths. While back now, wonder if he’s still here. He’d walk into the lecture hall. Wouldn’t look at the class, wouldn’t say anything to the class. He’d turn his back and start to write the lecture on the board. All he said was what he wrote on the board. No elaboration. He would stand for an hour, writing equations and shit, and then the hour would be up, he’d put his bag or whatever under his arm, and then he’d turn and walk out. No questions, no ‘you should do this or the next thing for next week’. Nothing.

  At the time, I don’t know, I was nineteen or so I guess, I just thought, well that’s weird. Looking back, it seems pretty sad. The guy must have been extremely screwed up. Or else, just in completely the wrong job. Perhaps he was one of those maths geniuses you hear about, you know, the type who are usually Asian and can get their BSc by the time they’re six. Maybe he was one of those. I mean, what kind of job do you get when you’re a maths genius? Most of them probably end up as lecturers, but they’re geniuses, they don’t want to talk to people. They want to sit in a room with shit scribbled all over blackboards, occasionally looking up from a book to ignore some gorgeous woman who wants to sleep with them because they’re a genius.

  Had to bring sex into it.

  The first guy I speak to, Dr Dalzeil, reminds me of my maths genius of a lecturer, who may not, of course, have been a genius at all. Maybe, in fact, he was the cleaner and he was faking it. Maybe he knew fuck all about maths, and that was why he never took questions. He just stood up there, copying someone else’s notes onto a board.

  ‘Was she in my class?’

  That’s how Dalzeil responds to my initial question. But the way he says it, it’s not evasive, it’s not smug, it’s not dismissive. It’s confused. The tone says, what, those people who sit there have names?

  ‘Yes, she was in your class. Had been all year. American,’ I add.

  ‘American?’

  I have a photograph, which I hadn’t thought I’d need, but I take it out my pocket and place it on the desk in front of him.

  ‘I recognise her.’

  ‘You’ve been teaching her for the last year.’

  ‘We’re not a school,’ he says. ‘I don’t think... I don’t think I’m expected to have any sort of relationship with the students.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I have rooms. Near the bowling club. I mean, Burnbank. Burnbank Bowling Club. I can see the clubhouse.’

  He has rooms. Do people have rooms anymore? Nevertheless, despite the fact that speaking to him is getting me absolutely nowhere, I do find him quite refreshing. And, as a bonus, I won’t have to arrest him.

  THIS GUY’S MORE LIKE it. Has bit-of-a-cunt written all over him.

  ‘Yes, terrible business,’ he begins, as we ease ourselves into seats in his office. ‘She was very good. Highest grade in the midterms, was fully expecting her to have the highest grade this month. I know what we think of Americans, but we do get some very able maths students coming over here.’

  ‘Did she do any sort of extra, I don’t know, did you tutor her in some way, give her any extra help?’

  ‘Never needed to. Most able student in her year. Very clever. Very clever indeed.’

  ‘You never saw her out of university?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ He tosses one of those casual hands. ‘Well, you know, perhaps out on Byres Road...’

  This is him. I know it. It’s no big deal, and from looking at the build of the guy, it’s not him who pushed her in front of the train, but he was sleeping with her. I wonder how much to bother letting him wriggle around before getting the truth out the fucker.

  ‘She was pregnant,’ I say.

  He holds my gaze. I can hear the swallow. Silence in the room, and then the sound of the gentle tapping of his fingers.

  ‘Well, obviously that’s not something I was aware of.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Of course not. She was hardly... she was hardly likely to suddenly stand up and annou
nce it in a lecture hall.’

  ‘No, but she might have divulged the information over the kitchen table, or while lying in bed.’

  The tension in the face drops. It doesn’t relax, just repositions itself. Now we’re getting to it, and he’s not going to take that kind of shit from a police officer. We’re about to get the lawyer spiel or the do-you-know-who-I-am spiel, or the I-have-friends-in-the-SNP spiel. Any one of those and he can fuck off.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re implyi...’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  I could have found out this stuff before asking these guys, but didn’t have the time, and it’s easy enough to check if they’re telling the truth. And anyway, there’s nothing ultimately this guy can do about the gigantic piece of circumstantial evidence helping nail the fucker to the gatepost.

  ‘Cambuslang,’ he says. ‘Top end of Wellshot.’

  I stare across the desk at him. Hold it. Don’t need to add anything.

  ‘It means nothing,’ he says.

  That, my asshole friend, is bullshit, but there’s still no need for me to speak. No way he has the balls to stare me out.

  ‘She was one of my students, she died in Cambuslang, I live in Cambuslang. And on that basis, what? Is that enough for you to take me to court? Is that the sort of evidence the police choose to go on these days, because if it is...’

  He looks off to the side, stares vacantly, then finally looks back at his silent interrogator.

  ‘I’m not saying anything else,’ he says. ‘So, if you’re just going to sit there like fucking Avercamp or something, then, I don’t know, please feel free. I have a tutorial class to attend in fifteen minutes.’

  Avercamp? I don’t want to know.

  ‘You’ll need to cancel it or get someone else to do it,’ I say.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What were you doing yesterday morning?’

  ‘What?’

  Oh, he’s looking very pissed off now. The cool, calm composure of an ice hockey player in the middle of a brawl. What a dick.