A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (28 page)

'Aye. That might be because we've got a chip on our shoulder, but whatever it is, aye, feel it every damn time.'

Montgomery and his crew still haven't moved on, although they must be close. There isn't a lot of point in them being here as opposed to back at their own ranch, but this case is his nemesis – and we all know about that – and it's as though he feels he needs to stay here until it's solved. I've no idea what kind of behind-the-scenes manoeuvres have taken place to try to facilitate it or whether there've been any discussions on whether he should be replaced. What I do know is that three weeks ago there was a sympathetic lifestyle piece on Montgomery in the Saturday edition of the Scotsman. It was entitled something along the lines of
The Tortured Copper
. Fuck me. And that was the paper that in January printed a front page photo of him under the headline
Always The Last To Crow
.

Taylor taps his fingers again. Stares randomly at the desk. I glance around the office. The usual hubbub of noise, of police officers and administrative staff going about their business. Notice Mrs Lownes across the office, on her way to deliver something to the Superintendent.

'I miss hearing about your sexual exploits,' says Taylor, as if reading my thoughts. 'It's the closest I got to having sex in the last two years.'

He turns at that and walks away. Shoulders hunched.

The phone rings. The display indicates that it's DCI Dorritt. I stare at it for a moment, but given that Dorritt is sitting in Taylor's old office, which is no more than fifteen yards away and has glass walls, and therefore he will be watching me as I watch the phone ring, I can't really pretend I'm out of the room.

After the third Plague of Crows event, the police and local authorities across Scotland implemented a scheme whereby everyone considered to be under threat was issued with a panic bracelet. Yes, a panic bracelet. To be worn at all times.

They intended doing this after the second batch of killings, but of course, couldn't just go out and order some panic alarms or tags or whatever. They had to go through due process. A consultation to decide the best way to track each member of staff, and then an open competition to find the provider of the service. Can't do anything that's publicly funded without going out to tender.

All that meant the system wasn't in place by the time the third batch of murders occurred. However, it's now in order. They decided they couldn't track several thousand people on an individual basis, that the only sure fire way to do it was to put an implant in their head or something. Not really practical.

They considered a panic alarm that you'd have on your key ring or round your neck or something, but they sensibly realised that eventually you're going to forget where it is or what you've done with it or you'll get out of the habit of wearing it or taking it everywhere.

So they hit on the bracelet idea. You put it on, you never take it off. It contains a tracking device and an inbuilt panic button. So that it won't be constantly set off accidentally, there are two buttons, which have to be pressed in a short sequence of three to set off the alarm. The only way to remove the bracelet is to pull it apart, and if the circle of the bracelet is broken then the alarm is triggered.

Is anyone happy about this? Fuck, of course they're not. No one likes it. Virtually every officer you meet says he'd prefer to take his chances. It feels like some kind of weird futuristic shit. Fucking Blade Runner kind of shit. No one wants that.

They reckon it's foolproof, however, which of course means it won't be. Wherever we are, it should be with us, and if we get into trouble, then we call for help. Should we get the opportunity.

They were so up themselves with the foolproofness of the whole idea, they happily announced what they'd done on TV. Wanted to show Scotland how seriously they were taking it, and how much they were determined to protect their staff. Or, if you wanted to take a different point of view, they wanted to show the Plague of Crows what they were doing, so that the next time he could come prepared.

If they'd just shut the fuck up about the fucking bracelets, it might be that the Plague of Crows never even noticed. They're pretty cool looking. They're not some clunky 1970's piece of plastic, looking like they came off the set of
Blake's 7
. They look like they were bought out of a surfing shop, something like that, which no doubt was one of the things that contributed to them costing the government over £550 each.

But ultimately, that's what this is all about. That's what the government are thinking. They want to be seen to be doing something. Politicians are incapable of taking measures and not telling everyone what they've done. What would be the point in that? What's the point in doing good then the public not knowing anything about it? Being seen to get involved is even more important than getting involved in the first place.

A lot of muttering that the damn bracelets will stay even once the Plague of Crows is caught; if he's ever caught. They will argue that it's for the well-being of their officers. I doubt it, but at the same time, wouldn't put it past the bastards.

There was some discussion with the National Union of Journalists about whether all their members in Scotland would be equally tagged, and they came back with a collective fuck off. They probably all want to be the next journalist selected, because they will all have that basic human belief in infallibility and will believe that they'll be the one to escape, and then they'll be the one to break the story.

Ultimately, they had the choice, so said no. We weren't given the choice.

For the first few days the bracelet was a pain in the arse. Felt like I had a camera trained on me. Now, of course, I don't care. It's just there. I presume there isn't someone sitting in a massive room somewhere – in India, if anywhere – following my every move, thinking,
ah, he's sitting in again tonight, the sad lonely fucker
or,
ah, I see he's made once again for Glasgow's infamous red light district
.

Same as everybody else, I've stopped caring.

The one positive of not working full time on the Plague of Crows is that work finishes at a normal time. We're doing twelve-hour days, instead of seventeen or eighteen. The bad part of that is that it shows even more how miserable and empty my life is, because I've got fuck-all to do with the extra time I have in the evening. I want to do something other than sit at home eating a fish supper, drinking vodka and watching crap TV, but I don't know what it is. Anything I think of just makes me feel like some desperate middle-aged loser having some sort of mid-life crisis, and trying to think of something new and worthy to do now that the autumn years of my puff are fast approaching.

So, instead, I do nothing, and in dark moments tell myself I'm happy doing nothing, and that the reason I don't try to give myself anything more interesting to do is because I'm happy being a fat, slobby useless bastard who hates his job and does fuck-all with himself.

Last summer, long weeks of climbing hills and sleeping under the clouds and stars, and of hunting food and living in the wild, seems like more than a lifetime ago. I rarely think about it, and I never, ever, wake up dreaming about it.

The other wild living, the feral living, that I did in a forest nineteen years ago… that still comes to me at night. All the time. And during the day.

I know I need to face up to it, to look at it, think about it, talk about it, accept responsibility for it, but deep down I just hope to fuck that I die before I have to do any of those things.

*

Sitting in Costa. Bad day today. Bad evening ahead. I'm here to hit on the waitress, no other reason. It's time. Time must be running out. Whatever the fuck time is.

Sometimes I come here because I'm positively trying to drink coffee instead of vodka. Today I feel reckless and depressed and I don't care. I don't care what happens. Tonight is an evening for getting completely hammered, for falling asleep with a kebab in my lap, and waking up at four in the morning in a cold sweat, feeling like complete shit.

Feeling recklessly horny. So before I go home and get wasted and stupidly drunk, fuck it, I'm going to get laid and if I have to pay for it, then to hell with it, I'll pay for it, and I'm not going to think about the ways in which I might have to do the paying.

I asked Constable Grant. That was fate avoidance right there, that's what I'm talking about. Just out and out asked her. Nothing subtle. Do you want to come by my place tonight? She said no. Didn't even feel that she needed to give me an excuse.

Couldn't blame her. What was I thinking? And I look like death. Nothing attractive about me. Whether there normally is, who knows? Maybe. A certain look of having been places and done stuff. Now I just look tired and old and fat. Three stone heavier than I was last summer, an increase that's showing no sign of abating. That's what being middle-aged does to you, especially when you eat fish suppers, drink vodka and do sod-all exercise.

'Everything all right for you today?' she says.

I look up at the waitress, having been staring morosely at the floor. She's smiling. A nice smile. I like that she smiles and that she asks if everything's all right. It's not in her job description. She's not singling me out or anything, I hear her asking all around the shop. Happy in her work. A genuineness and generosity about her that the rest of society could do with picking up on.

No, really, it could. It's easy enough to see your own faults in others.

'Pretty miserable,' I say, breaking the conventions of polite conversation.

'Aw, too bad,' she says. 'What's up?'

Look up at her. She's holding an empty mug and a plate with muffin crumbs on it, the wax casing twisted neatly at the side. She has a small towel over her arm, as if she's the waiter in an expensive London hotel bar.

This is the moment to ask. This is the moment to come out with the latest clumsy approach. The latest desperate attempt to get laid; or the desperate attempt to grab the future. And it all just disappears. Whatever it is that it takes, it all vanishes with a snap of the fingers. Seeps out of me, runs out of me, courses out of me, races from me. The confidence, the chutzpah, the desperation, the energy, the desire, the lust. It all goes, leaving behind a wave of suffocating darkness, the kind of sorrow that bleeds you dry, makes you want to collapse to your knees. Vomit. Makes you want to vomit. And give up.

I answer with a small wave of my hand. Nothing to say. Nothing to do. Nothing.

'You want to come back to my place tonight?' she says.

Look up at her again. She's taking pity on me. That's my first thought. I'm sitting here feeling utterly pathetic, wallowing in self-fucking-pity, and she's been sucked in. I don't think about the other thing.

'You don't have to do that,' I say.

'What?' she says, and she's smiling, that lovely smile, although this time there's a bit of an edge to it. Not a nasty edge though. Not sure what the word is for the kind of edge it is. Naughty maybe. A naughty edge.

She lowers her voice.

'I don't have to take you back to my place and fuck the life out of you?'

Now that is not something I've heard her say to the other customers.

'All right.'

Life is sucked back into me.

'I get off in about half an hour. I'll get you another coffee while you wait, Sir. On the house.'

And off she goes, flashing that lovely smile again.

*

I like lying on my back in bed because it makes my fat stomach flatten out. Five minutes earlier I was behind her, ramming my cock inside her as far as I could, my hands on her hips and loving every second of it, every moan and every thrust and every gasp from her as my cock slammed into her. It was absolutely glorious, but I'd look down and my bloated fat middle-aged stomach was there in front of me, fatter than I'd ever noticed it before.

Now she's on top of me, ten years younger than me at least, and slim. Beautifully slim, with delicious small breasts. The breasts I've been thinking about since Gostkowski made me picture her naked. And there they are, moving around in front of me as she fucks me with fabulous, wonderful energy, an energy that I seem to have lost.

She started off slowly, just for half a minute or so, half a minute of complete deliciousness, but then she got carried away, as you do, couldn't stop herself, and for the past couple of minutes she's been frantic, closing in on her orgasm, moaning loudly, taking all of my cock, taking it as hard as she can, her hands all over me in her frenzied, erotic desperation.

I'm watching her face, watching her breasts, watching the movement of her nipples, trying not to come. Don't want to come yet. This is just what I needed and I want it to last so much longer. There are so many other positions I want to fuck her in, I want her tongue all over me, I love listening to her orgasm and I want to hear it again and again.

And then, with an 'Oh fuck, yes!' she reaches her climax, her shoulders straight, nipples pointing into the air, her hands raised to the side like she's just scored the winner in the World Cup Final.

Holy crap, I wish there was video. I really wish there was video.

Finally she stops moving, after grinding on to me for another short while, and she lifts herself off and kneels down beside me. She looks at me, that smile even broader.