A Plague Of Crows

'Fell over in the woods running back to the car.'

He looks at me and I look down the front of my jacket and trousers. Not that bad. I don't look like I was curled up in a ball like a fucked-up trauma victim. That wasn't what he meant.

He doesn't introduce any more awkwardness into proceedings by pushing me on it.

'Call Baird. Ask if he's got any opinion to offer. Don't bother trying to pin the bastard down. Anything'll do.'

Back out to my desk. Morrow's walking by.

'You seen it?' he says.

'Oh, yes.'

'Fuck.'

'Aye.'

All delivered without breaking stride, and he's off out the door. No idea what he's working on at the moment, but I presume it's not this. Maybe we're all on it until we at least find out where the victims sit, the soft parts of their bodies eaten away by birds.

As usual Baird answers the phone without actually saying anything. Hello is too many words.

'You've seen it,' I say.

'Yes,' he replies abruptly.

He and Balingol are the two pathologists for our part of town. Joint winners of last year's Miserable Cunt Of The Year award. That's a genuine award, I'm not making it up. And as you can imagine, there was some pretty stiff competition around these parts.

'Anything to tell us?'

'I thought you lot had been taken off the case, Sergeant,' he says.

'It's all hands at the moment.'

He grunts, then doesn't say anything. He's not one to fill a silence.

'Any idea how long those two might have lived after that footage was shot?'

'I knew you people were going to ask that,' he mutters.

'So you'll have an answer then.'

'And you know that I can't possibly say.'

'Ball park?'

He grunts again.

'Taking into consideration the level of deterioration you can see in the film, the activity of the birds, what do you think?' I ask.

'Sergeant, tell your boss… with the blood vessels in the brain, they could have bled to death in five minutes, and if one wasn't hit right away, maybe twenty minutes, half an hour.'

'Let's call it somewhere between five and twenty minutes, something like that,' I say.

He grunts. 'I don't think that was exactly what I said.'

'Thanks.'

I hang up, no doubt marginally before he does. He doesn't do goodbyes either. I think his dad must've walked out on him when he was a child.

Go back through to Taylor. He's still watching, leaning forward now, peering closely at the screen.

'What'd he say?' he asks without moving his eyes.

'Somewhere between five and twenty minutes.'

'He said that?'

I smile. God knows what my face looks like. Smiling. Not in the mood, not in the right place mentally to be smiling at anyone.

'That's what it boiled down to.'

'Well, at least we can presume the poor bastards are dead.'

'You're assuming this was recorded this morning?'

He shrugs.

'God knows. We might as well. Whoever these three are, chances are they've not been reported missing yet. This must be recent. Let's not get carried away with the weather similarity, but it was a reasonably bright day yesterday, today it's been pishing down everywhere.'

'Fair enough.'

'Right, need you to get an enhancement of the footage. That is one clear-as-fuck, stone-cold beaut of a shot of the terror on that woman's face. Let's see if there's any reflection in her eye.'

'If there is, that would be a mistake,' I say.

'And he doesn't make mistakes. Check it anyway.'

Off back out the door, away to speak to a woman I know.

18

Ninety minutes later we're sitting in Taylor's car, heading up the M80 on our way to the murder site. A polis in Perth thought he recognised the hills and went for a look. Found the bodies where the killer had left them, still surrounded by birds. Birds which seemed reluctant to leave despite the presence of the police. In the end, apparently, they killed a couple of them. Better not let that get out to the press. Bird-Killing Cops Disrespect Crime Scene or some shit like that.

We're listening to Bob, thank God, although Taylor stuck on Saved, which he knows I don't like. Petty. Very petty.

The boys from Edinburgh have already headed on out to take charge. We oughtn't to be going at all, but Connor called Taylor in and told him to get his arse out there. He's expecting us to blag our way onto the crime scene. Hopefully it'll be the locals who are in charge of securing the perimeter and they won't know to tell us to bugger off. Next time it happens, if there is a next time, the guys from Edinburgh will be ready for us. They'll know that we're still working the case.

What we're doing now is starting a turf war over investigation rights, but we're not thinking about that at the moment. Just doing what we're told.

The one positive, and it's a pretty small positive but we're grasping, is that the area was one that we'd marked off as a potential spot when we saw the Whittaker woman in Aberfoyle. We'd been thinking along the right lines, just without the resources to do anything about it.

If we'd told the Edinburgh boys what we were thinking, would they have done anything? Would they have said good idea chaps, let's crack on? Probably not. Or maybe they've been thinking the same thing.

Taylor's not talking. Thinking the case through, likely wondering the same thing I am. Will he have left no trace and be gone on his way? Will it be three months before he strikes again? Longer, shorter, exactly to the day?

Phone goes, take the call. Sophie in the tech room.

'Yep?'

'Sergeant,' she says, 'we got a good look at your guy from the video. He was wearing a mask.'

That makes sense. Even though he was obviously confident his victims were not going to survive, he doesn't take chances.

'What kind?' I ask. Pointless question, but I feel like I need to say something to justify a conversation that has already pretty much given up all that it will.

'Well… a crow. It looks like the head of a crow… I'll send the images over.'

I stare straight ahead, don't immediately say anything.

'Can you see his eyes?' I eventually think to ask.

'No.'

'He knew we'd check…'

'Fuck, yeah. And given the precision of the scalping that everyone's talking about, it's hard to imagine he wore the mask while he was cutting. He hardly needed to care that his victims would see what he looked like. So, he just put the mask on for filming. He knew we'd see. That's why he waves.'

'What?'

'Oh yes. And you know he's not waving at that terrified woman. He's waving at you.'

'Us.'

'If that's how you want to see it, Sergeant.'

There's a short silence which Sophie in the tech room breaks by hanging up.

She watches movies. People don't say goodbye when they end phone calls in movies, they just hang up. That's because at some stage the writer will have been told to cut the script down, so he'll have scrapped pointless shit like people being pleasant to each other. Now it's seeped insidiously into society.

'Mask?' says Taylor.

'A crow's head.'

'Oh for crying out loud… What was the other thing?'

'He waves when he's filming her eyes 'cause he knows we're going to check that shit.'

'Jesus. He's taking the piss?'

'I think we knew that already.'

The conversation is over, and we're coming towards the end of the motorway, still twenty minutes or so to go and Bob is well into In The Garden.

*

The place is crawling with our lot, sealed off from the public at a good distance. Fortunately, as we'd been hoping, it's the local plods who are guarding the site and keeping the ghouls at bay. Bit of an out of the way place, as it was always likely to be, but there are still plenty of people who have driven out here to try to take a look. Really. What the actual fuck are these people thinking?