A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (25 page)

'Aye, I won't be long,' he says, and he waves a dismissive hand in the direction of the door.

And we're gone.

*

Long day. This time I think she falls asleep for a while in my bed, but when the alarm goes at 5.30 she's not there.

Me and Taylor off to see Clayton. We're opening up the investigation, letting Clayton know he's under suspicion. Gostkowski has been dispatched to his golf club and other places where he makes himself known and pretends that he's always had money rather than getting it from being a sordid, murdering bastard who just happened to be smarter than everyone else. She seemed quite happy with the division of labour, but she's a team player, Gostkowski. Will do what she's told. Not bothered about who's making the arrest, just interested in doing a decent job.

Part of my trouble is that I don't think I'm interested in either.

Sex was great again, which is a positive. I think falling asleep at my place might have been a little outwith the terms and conditions, but we'll get over it. Business as usual today, which is always slightly surprising when one considers the things we were doing to each other last night.

'Nice place,' says Taylor, pulling the car up in the driveway. 'Paid for by the police and the newspapers.'

'Well, the Express and the Sun,' I say glibly.

Out the car, stand and take in the surroundings and the air. Cold morning. Damp. Miserable. Look back out onto the street and up and along the road. A lot of trees. Arboreal. Large Victorian homes, set back from the road, large front and back gardens.

'Fucker,' mutters Taylor, and he turns towards the house.

*

'How many times have you been married?'

He smiles. 'Just the once.'

He's wearing the same clothes as yesterday. What does one make of that in an investigation? But then, maybe the shirt beneath it and the underwear are different. The same trousers and jumper doesn't really tell us anything.

Burble burble.

'You told the sergeant your wife had been involved in
High Road
. Called her a fellow victim of the press. Your wife doesn't appear to have been an actress.'

Clayton stares across the short distance of the Axminster.

'At any time in her life,' adds Taylor.

Clayton smiles, shakes his head.

'Wife,' he says. 'My wife is gone, I'm afraid. Didn't work out. It's…' and he lets the sentence trail off. 'I've been seeing someone for a few months. Nothing… you know, it's nothing. She used to act. Nothing much, you know. But she did a few episodes of
High Road
back in the day. I suppose everyone did.'

Taylor stares at him witheringly. Always interesting to watch the reaction of the interviewee at this moment. The bitter middle-aged copper staring at him with complete contempt, not believing a word he's saying. Taylor and I went over everything Clayton said to me yesterday, so he knows that the man's lying. Or, if he's telling the truth, then he was previously lying with some amount of bravado.

Clayton, of course, looks like he's discussing that morning's fourball over a pot of lapsang souchong at the club.

'That flatly contradicts what you told the Sergeant yesterday afternoon,' says Taylor.

Clayton continues to stare amicably, as if Taylor has just complemented him on his four iron approach to the fifteenth; and, as if he's too humble to know what to do with praise, he sits in his amicable silence.

'You and your wife have the same lawyer,' says Taylor, 'as you were both victims of the press. That was how you met. That was what you told the sergeant.'

Interesting character study. You know, if you study characters. I prefer really just to bludgeon characters, or to squeeze them into some neat pigeonhole that exists in the prejudiced part of my brain.

Clayton is being cool. Attempting to show that he's not at all rattled by being caught with his honesty trousers at his ankles. Attempting to show that he's not rattled by having two coppers in his house, because he has nothing to hide. Having some fantasy about your wife or your girlfriend, mixing them up for whatever reason, isn't in itself illegal. Nevertheless, he just looks all the guiltier for his suave urbanity in the face of an interrogator armed with the facts.

'How does that tie in with your girlfriend, who you've only known a few months, and who was in
High Road
? Your girlfriend has the same lawyer, or your wife has the same lawyer?'

He smiles now, as if Taylor is the simpleton, not really understanding.

'I do apologise, Detective Chief Inspector,' he says, and already there's a tone about the apology that says, 'between you and me I just said any old shit to your monkey here, because he's not terribly important and I didn't think it mattered. Now that you're here, obviously you'll get the truth.'

Maybe I've got a chip on my shoulder.

'You don't need to,' says Taylor quickly, 'just tell me the facts.'

'Obviously,' says Clayton, as if any of this is obvious, 'I meant my girlfriend. She did some acting a long time ago, but the press really did for her very early on. It wasn't just that they ruined her career, not really. It just made her realise that she didn't want a career. She's been very successful since then, in all manner of different enterprises. But yes, we do have the same lawyer, and yes, well, I'm rather afraid I do tend to tell people these days that she's my wife. A bit early perhaps, but she doesn't mind.'

'We mind that you tell the truth when you're being interviewed in relation to a murder investigation.'

Clayton makes a grand gesture with his hands, as if forgiving himself and acknowledging that we can now all be friends. I'd love to take a couple of strides over there, step on the edge of the sofa and bury my knee in his face. Wouldn't look so smug then, would you, you bastard?

'Once again I apologise,' he says. 'You can be sure that everything you hear today is the truth. I really must learn to keep my…' and he hesitates while he tries to conjure up the correct word to describe the fact that he's a lying fuck, 'my foibles and fantasies to myself.'

'What's her name?' asks Taylor. 'And where can we find her?'

'My wife?'

'This girlfriend,' says Taylor, 'who appeared on
High Road
. What's her name, and where can we find her?'

'Oh,' he says, as if he hadn't been expecting that. What now? Another apology, and a confession that in fact there is no girlfriend? I hugely want this guy to be the Plague of Crows, but of course, the longer this goes on, the more he comes across as an annoying prick who likes wasting police time. Generally, in life, you don't have to go too far to find one of those.

'Samantha,' he says. Of course. Suddenly I think of Grace Kelly in
High Society
. And you know, that's what this bloke aspires to. He found himself with money that he didn't deserve, and he used it to become part of a society to which he was never really meant to belong. 'Samantha Taylor,' he adds.

If he's just making that up, he's giving her the name of the officer asking the questions. Nice. That's one step from giving her the name of whatever object he just happened to be looking at, like Samantha Window or Samantha Turner Print.

Suppose Taylor's a common enough name around these parts.

'And was that her name when she appeared in
High Road
?'

'Far as I know,' he says. 'Obviously all that's behind her now. She doesn't talk about it much.'

'Where do we find her?'

Hesitation, then, 'Oh, I can get you her number. It's in my phone. She's working in the city at the moment doing some consultancy work for a firm of accountants on St Vincent Street. Parker & Howles.'

'And your wife?' says Taylor. 'What's the story there?'

'Ah,' he says. 'Well, it's as well you got me now, as a few months ago even, I doubt I'd have been able to talk to you about it. Still hurt too much. We met while I was at my lowest ebb during that dreadful affair. She knew what the police were like, what the media were like. She knew the lies they told. She gave me extraordinary support. It was really rather touching. We married in the middle of it all although, in retrospect, perhaps we shouldn't have done.'

Taylor stares coldly. Says nothing. The standard technique, playing the game of being cool just as much as Clayton's been doing it. Meanwhile I take my phone out and Google Parker & Howles. Without looking at him I notice the surreptitious glance in my direction

'You probably want to speak to her,' he says. 'Of course, of course. I can get all her details. They're in the other room, if you just bear with me for a moment. And I can get you the direct line for Samantha too, save you looking up the company on the website, Sergeant. She's just there temporarily, sorting out some client database or other.'

He leaves the room. I glance quickly up at Taylor.

'We're just letting the suspect walk out the room,' I say.

Taylor smiles grimly. 'He'll be back. And if he runs… if he runs, then he might as well sign a confession.'

'And we'll be the ones who let him get away.'

'I'll make sure you get all the credit, Sergeant,' he says. 'You find Parker & Howles?'

'Nothing,' I say. 'Don't exist according to Google.'

And then we hear the car starting.

'Ha!' barks Taylor. 'Got the bastard.'

We're both up and running to the front door, but that last remark proves to be somewhat premature.

*

I hate car chases. Sure, there's a certain adrenalin rush if you're driving, but the lead car is always the one with the odds on its side. It knows roughly where it's going, or at least can choose the way, and chances are that the chasing car is the police car. When accidents happen during car chases, the police get the blame. It's as if the guy running away, the criminal, well he gets a free pass, because he's doing what all fun-loving criminals do on the TV. He's doing what people expect him to do. Run. The police, on the other hand, have a duty of care to make sure members of the public don't get hurt. So when shit happens during a car chase, you can bet your arse it's the police who end up looking bad.

I particularly hate car chases when I'm sitting in the passenger seat. Then it's just like being on a fucking rollercoaster and usually ends up with me vomiting over the driver or out the window or onto the floor. Doesn't take much. And I'm usually petrified and spend the entire time with my eyes shut.

This time, however, I don't even get as far as beginning to worry about the car chase, or even as far as fighting Taylor for the honour of driving so that at least I won't be scared and I won't vomit.

The front door is locked.

Taylor barks, 'Fuck', no time to look for the key, and we run through to the front room. The library, he probably calls it. The white Lexus is legging it down the driveway. Taylor grabs the nearest wooden chair and smacks it into the window. It's some fucking glass, doesn't even crack. The chair buckles, and one of the legs breaks off. This is a man with money to spend on his windows.

Quick look around the room. There's a large glass paperweight or ornament or some such. Jesus, there's all sorts of shit on cabinets and sideboards and all sorts of middle-class furniture accessories. The paperweight looks the best option.

'Stand back, Sir,' I say, and Taylor edges away from the window as he looks over his shoulder. Hurl the paperweight at the window with the kind of ugly chuck that would usually precede a leg break on the sub-continent. The paperweight sails straight through the window, leaving an almost perfect cartoon hole, cracks emanating from it in all directions.

Taylor is still holding the chair, and now he attacks the window. I pick up some other piece of heavy ornamental junk – a bronze golfing trophy – and go over beside him.

It doesn't take long before we've broken out, the whole escapade taking barely half a minute. Of course, Clayton is gone, and as added insurance he's closed the large metal gate at the driveway entrance that was open when we arrived. Taylor climbs out through the window, cursing as he snags his jacket on the edge of the glass, and I follow.

We stand in the cold morning, and already the sound of the car is lost and we're standing still in stupid impotence, having let the man slip through our fingers.

'Fuck it,' mutters Taylor. 'Seriously, fuck it. What was that?'

He looks angrily at me, as if it's my fault we let the guy get out of here right enough.

'Is that the signed confession?'

'It feels like it,' I say, 'but we hadn't gone anywhere near the Plague of Crows.'

'No, we hadn't.'

He kicks the ground again.

'Bollocks. Get on the radio, Sergeant. Get the word out for that car. Time to call in the guys from Edinburgh.'

Three hours later. Still in Clayton's driveway. We've gone into overdrive. Currently about forty guys all over his house. Ours and Edinburgh's. A blitzkrieg of forensic examination. Other officers going door to door up and down the street. Found his car in the centre of town parked near Glasgow Central. That doesn't really help, does it? He could have got a train to anywhere. It wouldn't even have been that far for him to run up to Queen Street, thinking he was throwing us off the scent by parking near Central. Or he could have got on a bus. Or he could be sitting in a Costa just round the corner.