'One thing's different,' I say. 'The trees.'
'Fuck, aye. Decent thought, Sergeant, he's not going to have the same level of cover.'
'Which reduces the number of woods or forests he's going to be able to use.'
'Hmm…' he mutters. Hand drawn over the face, more coffee, another look around the joint. The whining kid is demanding something else. The dad immediately capitulates and hands it over. We ought to be able to arrest people for that kind of thing. Sure, they'd object at the time, but they'd thank us in the long run.
'We're looking for an evergreen forest,' says Taylor. 'You think that's it? A pine forest, something like that?'
'Do crows like pine?' I ask. He doesn't answer, but he isn't likely to. How the fuck do we know if crows like pine?
'All right,' he continues, 'since we've picked up the ball… We've got our pine forest. Where the fuck is it? There's not a lot of pine around here, but one of the things he's done in the last twenty-four hours is take it global. Why Scotland? He could be anywhere. Hell of a lot of pine in the world.'
'And if he was somewhere else, it wouldn't necessarily be pine. Could be any kind of forest. Could be in the middle of the fucking desert.'
Taylor nods, drains his coffee.
'We can't go everywhere with this. We need to keep it grounded. Small steps. We've got a wood or forest, we've got crows, and we've got crows' nests. He needs cover so he's likely to have to use an evergreen forest…'
'But not a densely populated one, not one of those they plant just so they can chop them down again a few years later…'
'Too dense for the crows, less likely to find a convenient, natural clearing in the middle of it.'
'Yes.'
'Yes, yes…' says Taylor, his mind going over the options, '…but there are still going to be woods with bare trees that just by their sheer volume or location provide cover, so we'll have to consider those too.'
Suddenly Taylor straightens, shoulders back, head up.
'You finished?'
He still drinks faster than me.
'No,' I say.
'Leave it then.'
'Where are we going?' I ask, as we make for the door.
'No point in us sitting around talking about trees. What do you know about trees?'
'Bugger all.'
'Same here. Let's go and find someone who knows about trees.'
'You know wh-'
'No, but we'll find someone who knows someone who knows about trees.'
There's probably a website for that.
12
In the office of the tree expert. Forestry Commission out at Aberfoyle. Forty-five minute journey. I drove. Might have been a waste of time for us both to come out here, but this is how Taylor works. He likes the time in the car. We can stick Bob on the CD player and think. Or we can stick Bob on the CD player, turn it down a little, and talk things through. Only in the most serious of circumstances is Bob sacrificed to the necessity of quiet.
Alice Whittaker is standing at the window looking out over the local woods. We can see the edge of the golf course. Played a round there once on a station day out. I think I shot a handy 136 or so. 70 over par. Not my best round, although sadly not my worst either.
Taylor is looking at maps on the walls, I'm standing with my bum against a ledge, arms folded. There's an informality about the whole thing that wouldn't be there if we were seated around a desk.
So far all we've had is general chitchat and a couple of questions about crows and trees. Nothing much. We didn't say why we were here, but it became pretty obvious the minute crows got a mention.
Taylor spoke to a crow expert last time. Maybe we'll go and see him again. What kind of job is that? Crow expert. I don't suppose it was his actual job title.
'You think your man is going to strike again?'
Taylor can do artifice and bullshit as much as the next man, happy to tell an interviewee as little as possible. He'll gauge the woman, make a call.
Alice Whittaker is all right. You can tell. She won't call a newspaper as soon as we walk out the door and let them know what the police are thinking. She probably won't even tell her husband over dinner tonight that the police called.
'Yes,' says Taylor.
'Which would explain why the man responsible has gone public with footage he's kept tucked away for several months.'
'Yes.'
We're on the first floor, allowing that view up to the woods and the golf course. Taylor, clutching the mug of tea we were given when we arrived, goes over and stands beside her and they look out at the view together. I'm a couple of yards away, feeling a bit left out.
No, really, I don't feel left out. Take a sip of tea. My mug has Arbroath FC written on the side, and I wonder why anyone would have an Arbroath FC mug.
'What are you looking for exactly?' she asks.
'I know this sounds absurdly far-fetched, but we need to know if there's any way we could narrow down his next kill site. You've seen the footage?'
She nods, making the appropriate expression of horror.
'We have to make some assumptions at this stage. So we assume he's doing the same again. But we also assume he's going to need cover to carry out his work. He's not going to be using a wooded area where the trees have shed.'
She's nodding. Thinking it through. Some people would already have laughed at him and told him not to be so fucking stupid. The notion is absurd. It's Scotland. There are trees all over the place. Not as many as there were a thousand years ago, but enough to make it needle-in-a-haystack territory.
'OK,' she says. 'We can lose the densely populated planted forests, as that won't suit his purposes. We can discount some of the deciduous woods, although I'm not sure you can dismiss them completely. Maybe not areas as close to suburbia as the one where the first murders were committed, but there are going to be woods in the middle of Perthshire, and further afield, where there's going to be the opportunity to carry out that kind of work. Around here even. Where it doesn't matter that the leaves have shed, because there are enough trees in the middle of nowhere to provide adequate protection.'
'This guy doesn't leave things to chance,' says Taylor. 'Every angle covered. Spare bit of ground in the country, someone's out walking their dog.'
Slight movement of the head. She doesn't completely agree. But we need to make some calls to narrow down the list. We need something.
'All right…'
'Do you have… is there some kind of reference work, easily referenced map, something like that, where we can look at it and say, right, it can be here or here or here? That's what we're getting at. If we did that, how many areas are we going to need to check out and how many are we likely to miss because we're looking at a map?'
She glances at him, then turns and takes a quick look at me. Making sure I'm still there. Or that I'm not stealing anything.
'Might as well start with Google Earth,' she says.
'What?' Taylor looks annoyed. 'I already looked at Google Earth. I was looking for…. I don't know, something that…'
'You were looking for something that showed all the wooded areas in Scotland, with an overview of the position of those woods in relation to urbanised areas?'
'Yes.'
'Well, let's look at Google Earth. To make you feel better, I'll do it with you, tell you what kinds of trees you're looking at and give you my opinion on whether or not any particular wood is a plausible place for your chap. Happy?'
Taylor makes a throwaway gesture. It is, despite himself, exactly what he was looking for.
'Will you scream if I say you're looking for a needle in a haystack?' she says.
He doesn't scream, but doesn't reply. Takes a step away from the window, goes and looks at an ordnance survey map on the wall.