*
I've got an Americano. I asked for space for extra milk and still had to give it back to them so they could tip some of it out to allow space for extra milk. It's like their mission statement is We Will Burn Your Lips The Fuck Off. DI Gostkowski is drinking mint tea with delicate little sips.
'What d'you do all day?' she asks.
'You're on our side, right?'
She smiles.
'Despite what all you strapping men think, it's not a competition. Nevertheless, I've been instructed by the Superintendent only to pass back the information that he authorises me to. So, your secrets are safe with me.'
'We went looking for possible woods that the killer might use the next time.'
She pauses, the cup at her lips, then sets it back down without taking anything from it.
'You looked for trees? In Scotland?'
'Yes.'
'Did you find any?'
'Funny.'
'Seriously? There have to be a million places that this guy could use…'
'We narrowed it down to around nine hundred or so… Well, you know, in the vicinity. And then, you know, some of them are going to have nests and very obvious crow communities, and those are the ones that we can concentrate on. Shouldn't be so many in the end.'
It seemed pretty lame as we went about our business this afternoon. Now, explaining it to another polis, it sounds flat out stupid, despite my best attempts at justification.
She takes her next sip, bit of a longer drink this time as it's cooled down enough. Finally makes some kind of 'well, I suppose you have to do something' expression with her face.
'What are the Bat-team up to?' I ask to get us off the subject. Don't want to loiter over the possibility that two senior detectives spent their day chasing their own bollocks.
'I don't suppose what they did amounted to much more. Spent the day familiarising themselves with the investigation. I can't say that they had anything new to add at this stage. Seem like a sharp enough bunch.'
'Full of themselves or aware that they're stepping on toes?'
'Oh…' she begins, and then thinks about it. At least, she's thinking about how to put it, rather than thinking about whether or not these people might actually be in danger of disappearing up the arsehole of their own self-importance.
'They're confident,' she says eventually.
'Good. Confidence is important.'
She smiles a little at that. We glance at each other, then let our eyes drift around the café. These places are just permanently busy nowadays. Everybody's drinking coffee. Even the people who are going to go and get pissed later, still have a coffee first.
Maybe I'm just making that shit up. What do I know?
'So, have you got anything for us?' I ask.
Quick shake of the head, and she looks slightly abashed. This will, presumably, become a nightly thing, and it's going to get a little awkward if she has nothing to say every day.
'Like I said, they were getting their feet under the desk. They spent the day asking questions. Tomorrow, I suppose, we'll find out if they've got anything new to bring to the table.'
We hold each other's eyes for a moment, then she looks at her watch.
'Gotta go,' she says and takes a last quick sip of tea. Her phone has been sitting unlooked at on the table, and she lifts it and puts it in her pocket as she stands. 'Same time tomorrow, Sergeant?'
'Sure,' I say, which doesn't sound like much, but is better than all the innuendo that immediately came to mind.
'Right. I'll be in touch if there's anything I think you should know before then,' she says, and then she's off, back out the door and onto the street, leaving me alone with a half-drunk Americano with a little too much milk.
I watch her across the street. Can't quite see the entrance to the station from where I'm sitting, but keep following her until she's out of sight. Then I turn back to my coffee and take a long drink.
Check my phone. No messages. 7:17. Ought to be getting back to work. Wonder how it went with Taylor explaining to Connor that we set out on a two-man mission to search every wood in Scotland.
Hopefully he lied. That's what I would have done.
14
Already dark.
The policeman, the journalist the social worker; the tailor, the baker, the candlestick maker.
The lucky three.
Police Constable Morgan. Lives on the outskirts of Dundee, works in Perth. Single, no kids. Has been friends with his killer online for nearly a year, although all this time has known the Plague of Crows as a twenty-seven-year-old woman named Dulcie.
Linette Grey. Lives in Bankfoot, works on the front line of social services in Perth. Single, no kids. Spends her days visiting families who hurt each other. Three-year-olds still in nappies who are never fed or changed, six-year-old children given alcohol and cigarettes and not much else, drug addicts, wife-beaters, husband abusers, child abusers. She deals with the police often; a couple of times it has been Constable Morgan. But just a couple, which isn't many, given the number of years she's been doing the job. The police, however, when it comes to looking for a connection between the victims, are at least going to be able to find one, and it will lead them off in entirely the wrong direction.
Malcolm Morrison. Lives in the centre of Perth in a modern, chic apartment. Small, but perfect for impressing women. Single, no kids. Works for the Dundee Courier amp; Advertiser. Fancies himself for a job on one of the big London tabloids, but there is plenty of time. For the moment he's compiling an interesting body of work. Some people might consider that they'd suffered by his hands along the way, but they could live with it. Or not. Has been friends with his killer online for nearly a year, although all this time has known the Plague of Crows as a twenty-seven-year-old woman named Dulcie.
Dulcie has a lot of friends. Dulcie knows how to cover her tracks.
Linette Grey awakens to find herself in a small clearing in the middle of a wood. She feels cold. It takes her some time to sort out all the sensations in her head. The cold. The fact that she can't move any part of her body. The low hills above the tree line. The two men strapped to chairs less than a couple of yards away. The fact that she recognises one of them but can't remember who it is. The fact that the one who isn't strapped down, the other person in the clearing doing something to the head of one of the men, she doesn't recognise at all. The fact that when she realises what's happening, and she tries to scream, no sound comes out.
From somewhere overhead comes the loud squawk of a crow. She can't compute that either. She tries to scream again.
They are in a small wood, about a mile from the A85 between Perth and Crieff. Even if she had been able to scream, no one would have heard, but the Plague of Crows doesn't like to take chances.
15
Worked until just after eleven, reviewing everything we have on the case, looking over all the potential murder sites trying to make some sort of informed guess about where we should check next, then home to a late supper and crawling into bed — on my own — about one. Started thinking about Gostkowski late in the evening and wondered if we might bump into each other at the cigarette hole, but it didn't happen.
Home alone, late, two nights in a row. Not about to end either, is it? We're no nearer catching this bloke or having even the faintest idea who it is. Long, late nights stretching immeasurably into the future. Jesus.
Slept all right, got to the station just before eight. Still have that feeling that I'm last to arrive. Feel everyone looking at me, like where the fuck have you been, don't you know there's a war on?
I stop, look around. I'm imagining it. Most of our lot aren't involved in the war, and they don't give a shit that I wasn't at my desk by 6 a.m. They're like soldiers, trained and armed to the teeth, dispatched into the war zone, and then told, nah, don't bother, these other guys are going to do the fighting, you lot go and jerk off in the corner.