A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller (31 page)

'I'm sure it's nothing, Sir,' she says. 'He's not the most reliable.'

'It's two in the afternoon,' says Taylor, 'he usually isn't that shit.'

Another glance at his watch, a quick look around the station.

'I'm going round there. Only take a few minutes. You stay on the domestic. You know where we're going with it anyway. I'll call in, let you know when I find him.'

Some glib comment comes to Gostkowski's mind, about not killing Hutton when he finds him, but it's not her way to utter any of the occasional glib comments that enter her head.

Taylor leaves.

*

He stands at Hutton's door. No answer. Waits impatiently. Has a bad feeling. Was aware of having had a bad feeling even before he came out here, even before he began to enquire after Hutton's whereabouts. Pointlessly checks his watch. Looks along the short corridor. Tries the door handle. Locked. Another glance along the corridor, and then he puts his shoulder to the door.

Nothing. This is what he needs the Sergeant for. Does it again, and again. Kicks it with the sole of his shoe, hard next to the lock. Nearly falls over. Someone along the landing sticks their head out the door, looks suspiciously along the corridor.

'Fuck off,' mutters Taylor, words vaguely aimed in their direction. The door closes again.

He's not counting. Eventually the lock starts to give and the door opens, screws pinging away into dark corners.

He enters the flat. Smells of cigarettes. Taylor shakes his head. Genuinely thinks at this point that he will find Hutton dead. For all the worry, he's not thinking about the Plague of Crows. He's assuming something much more prosaic about Hutton. Alcohol poisoning, perhaps. A binge too many. Fallen asleep in his bath and drowned.

Would he have killed himself? There was a darkness in him. A depth of some description that he did not talk of. A past. The war in Bosnia. Never talked about it. Never talked about it to the point that it was significant him not talking about it.

'Sergeant?' he calls. Despite the ill-feeling, still wary of walking in on the sergeant, drunk and naked in bed with someone or naked in front of the TV.

Glances into the bathroom. Nothing. Slight feeling of relief, yet the wariness and anxiety grow. Into the bedroom. Clothes dumped everywhere, the bed unmade. A full ashtray. An empty bottle of vodka on the floor beside the bed. Taylor's heart sinks at the sight of it all. And then, there it is, and his heart sinks even more.

The bracelet. The bracelet which was supposed to be impossible to remove without setting off a string of alarms, sitting humbly and quietly on the bedside table.

He stares at it, then carefully takes out a handkerchief, lifts the bracelet and puts it in the pocket of his coat.

You might call it sensory deprivation. Can't hear, can't see. There's no smell. Hands and legs bound, can't touch anything. Trouble is, that leaves pain.

A lot of pain. The after-effects of the taser still linger, particularly in my groin, but the worst is my hand. She crushed my hand, while I lay, impotently, consumed by pain. And the pain in my hand has not lessened.

I don't know what the body does to try to combat pain. I presume it does something, releases some chemical or other. Whatever it is, it ain't up to the task of dealing with a crushed hand. The most God-awful screaming pain I could ever imagine.

She crushed my hand to get the bracelet off.

You know? You know what? I deserve it.

I wake up, blinded by darkness, and all I can think is that I've had this coming. I don't know who she is. At least, I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but there was something trying to click in the middle of my brain. I'd been thinking about it, something about her. She seemed familiar. I walked into this. Something about her face.

I saw her in my dream. The dream that's not really a dream, the dream that's a flashback. She was there. She was one of the women, sitting on the sidelines, watching their men being butchered,. She was there, getting raped, several men taking her in turn. She lay on the forest floor as her sister or cousin was shot in the head because this pathetic, complicit coward could not get an erection. And then she watched as the coward put two bullets in her grandfather's chest. She was there throughout.

I lie, bound and gagged in the dark, no idea where I am, no sounds, no smell, and that's all I can think. Really, she doesn't look like any of those women, but she could easily have been one of the younger ones. Maybe that's what this is. Revenge. She was a sixteen-year-old girl being violated, physically forced out of her youth.

My hand throbs. My penis aches. Feel a bloody, useless miserable wreck. But lying here, lying in this abject state of despair, I don't feel fear at the horror that's to come, I don't feel regret, I don't feel any kind of self-pity.

Relief.

Is that what I'd say? I feel relief. At last, it's come. Revenge has come. Revenge will be brutal and unpleasant and agonising, but at the end of it I'll be dead, and when I'm dead I'm going to be free. I won't have to live with that night in the forest in Bosnia anymore.

Any day now, I shall be released.

Bob comes into my head. Fuck, I almost laugh, except I can't laugh. My mouth is gagged and anyway, I'm not for laughing. Not like this, and not with those images in my head.

I've been wanting release for so long. Suicide always seemed a chicken's way. Running from it. Not facing up to my past. I knew it was coming eventually. The time when I would have to stand up and face the consequences of what I'd done.

Every time I saw the war crimes tribunal in the Hague, I wondered if they were going to mention me. Mention the Scottish journalist who stuck his nose in, got involved, went too far, couldn't get himself out, sat and watched and even then, when all he had to do was have sex in order to save a life, couldn't even do that.

There seems to be a blanket over me. Why is there a blanket? That seems like a consideration, when none has been previously given.

I'm lying here, tortured, aching. Everything hurts. My past has caught up with me. And I feel relief. And I can't help thinking that I shouldn't be feeling relief. Relief is something else to be feeling guilty about. I couldn't save that woman. I killed the old guy. I don't deserve relief. I don't deserve to feel relief at this torture.

I just deserve to suffer, and to go on suffering.

Taylor is in Connor's office. Montgomery sits to the side, nominally more an observer than a participant, but he is about to get involved.

Taylor is incredulous. Connor uncomfortable. Montgomery contemptuous.

'You're fucking kidding me?' barks Taylor.

Connor has been getting gradually weaker as the months have gone by, as the Plague of Crows has turned his great opportunity into the dead weight that will sink him. He will call it his bane, Connor's Bane, when he writes his memoirs. The memoir that no one will want to read or, indeed, publish.

'Chief Inspector,' he says, although as words of admonition they are bound to receive no respect.

'What's the point in these stupid bracelets,' says Taylor, dismissively holding up his wrist, 'if we don't follow up when there's an identifiable issue? He's missing. The sergeant is missing. Why are we here? Why did the department spend God knows how much money if we're just going to ignore it when it happens?'

Connor glances at Montgomery. Montgomery looks dismissive of Taylor, although he has little more respect for Connor as he can see he wants him to argue his case for him.

'It's not the fact that there's a rogue bracelet, or there's potential for something to have happened to a police officer,' says Montgomery. 'It's the officer in question that's the issue.'

'Aw, come on to…'

'Chief Inspector, by all account your sergeant has been going off the rails the last couple of months. Regularly late for work. Two weeks ago he missed an entire day after a night when he was seen pouring into a taxi, completely out of his face on vodka. He's sleeping around the station like he's on some demented bender of sexual destruction. And this despite being suspended last year for inappropriate sexual behaviour.'

'During none of which,' says Taylor, 'did he remove his bracelet or actually go missing.'

'It's not too great a logical progression to imagine him taking it a step further and wanting some peace and quiet. He's probably sleeping with someone else he shouldn't be, and doesn't want to be traced to their house.'

Taylor rages. Closes his eyes. Could take two steps over there and land a punch on the fucker. And not some pointless, painful blow to the jaw. A punch to the neck, just under the chin. Let's see the bastard get up from that.

Part of Taylor's annoyance, of course, comes from the fact that he knows Montgomery might be right. It is odd that Hutton has just vanished, and he really cannot explain how he would have removed the bracelet without damaging it. Nevertheless, it would be in keeping with how it's been going with him. They hadn't been talking about it, but clearly the Plague of Crows business, something about it, something intrinsic at the heart of the case, had got under Hutton's skin.

'Have you checked what
your
wife's doing today?' says Montgomery.

He looks coldly at Taylor, knowing full well that Taylor had been divorced in the past year, his wife leaving for a younger model.

Taylor looks at Connor, ignores Montgomery. It's the only way to deal with him, punching in the throat being off the agenda.

'Sir,' he says, reigning back the tone, 'can you explain to me how he got the bracelet off?'

Connor stares across the desk. He doesn't look at Montgomery, as he has fallen so far back into the pits of insecurity that he can't stand to be undermined any further.

'I don't know,' he says. 'Butter?'

Taylor stares disdainfully across the desk. Look at the bracelet, he thinks. Look at your stupid, fucking bracelet you pathetic, ignorant fuck. It's tight around your wrist. Butter, for crying out loud.

'Chief Inspector,' says Montgomery, 'let's be realistic here. It's not just the unreliable habits of your sergeant that are the question. I know if the Plague of Crows returns, chances are he will take out one police officer as part of his ritual, and it's always possible that that one police officer could be from this station. However, it seems highly coincidental, highly coincidental, that it should be one of the previous investigating officers. If he wanted to make a point then surely he would have taken one of my men, one of the men who are actually involved in the case at this time. This… doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for the Plague of Crows to take Sgt Hutton. That the sergeant has gone somewhere he knows he shouldn't, that quite possibly he's with someone that he knows he shouldn't be, is far more likely.'

He stares at Taylor. Taylor has looked at Connor throughout. Connor sits uncomfortably looking at Montgomery.

'There's no place for talk of coincidence in police work,' says Montgomery.

'Coincidence?' barks Taylor. 'Two months ago we had the Sergeant in front of the cameras, taunting the guy, trying to draw him out. This could be it. This could be the drawing out. And what are we doing to handle that?'

He looks between the two of them.

'Maybe two months ago,' said Connor. 'But he's tipped too far over the edge now for anyone to trust him.'

'Jesus,' mutters Taylor. He stands quickly. Hesitates. Sits back down. Addresses Connor, although realistically he knows that he's speaking to Montgomery.

'On the obviously farcical off-chance that Sgt Hutton has been taken by the Plague of Crows, would it be possible for you to ask G4S to run a check to make sure that all the social services staff currently covered by the security check are accounted for?'

Connor knows that this is not within his remit. He has power over a small section of south-west Glasgow, and not much power at that. He looks to Montgomery.

'Chief Inspector, do you know how many false alarms there have been in the past two months?' says Montgomery.

He pauses. Taylor again contemplates walking out, but knows that it will look churlish.

'Oh, G4S are happy to do it when we ask, but you know how much it costs? How much it costs the police every time we ask them to make a 100% check?'

'Isn't that part of the contract?' says Taylor. 'Didn't someone think to make that part of the contract? That they would check when we asked? What, in the name of God, is the point of this thing if we have to pay them every time we ask a question?'

'We can ask questions, Chief Inspector, but we are required to provide extra funding for 100% checks. That's the contract as it stands.'

'Jesus Christ…'

'I doubt either of us has experience of writing a government contract, so let's not get into that.'

'So the system is set up in such a away that it discourages us from using it?'

'If you want to be jaundiced about it…'

'A police officer is missing under peculiar circumstances…' says Taylor harshly.

'Not just any policeman,' says Montgomery. 'A wayward officer. An officer out of control. A maverick.'