A Plague Of Crows

'Yep.'

'Why?'

'He told me.'

'When?'

'When we'd let him go and he'd successfully sued the police, the Sun and the Daily Express.'

'Bravado? Rubbing it in? Just making shit up to try to piss you off?'

'Maybe.'

'So what made you believe him?'

He turns and looks at me again.

'He knew. He knew things he couldn't possibly have otherwise known. But he was good. Covered his tracks down to the last detail. Every time we thought we might have him, he had an out. Every track…. Bastard.'

We stare at each other for a few seconds and then he slowly turns away. Lifts the rod, flicks the line and the bait darts out over the water.

I look away. There are two other middle-aged blokes fishing on the other side of the pond. A chill day, low cloud, no hint of rain, not cold enough for snow. A flat, grey day. In the distance you can hear the traffic from the M74. A constant low sound, occasionally penetrated by a loud exhaust or an unnecessary charge up the outside lane.

'You there yet, Sergeant?' he asks.

'What?'

'You at the stage where you wonder what the fucking point is? You're there to catch criminals, to keep order, then you catch one and you're immediately hit with paperwork and human rights lawyers and all the rest of the crap. Fucking signs up on every wall of every station telling you how to conduct every single moment of your life in uniform. And you're always the bad guy. The scum… the bastards who rape and steal and assault and murder… they're the ones with the rights. The human fucking rights. Isn't that a joke? You there yet? You got to that point where you think, what in the name of fuck am I doing this shit for?'

No answer to that. I've been there a long, long time. I've just never had the guts to get out. What else am I going to do?

'He was the final straw. Clayton. Pushed me over the edge sure as I was standing on a cliff. Knew what he was doing as well. Picked his moment. Then he told me. Told me what he'd done to her, all that shit that hadn't been in the papers. Told me, as he was walking away with his three quarters of a million quid.'

'He told me it was a couple of hundred thousand.'

Another snort. 'From us, maybe, but he got more from the papers. He did all right out of it. Slaughtered a young girl, and earned seven hundred and fifty grand… Is that what it takes to be rich?'

'Did you wonder whether this might be him?' I ask. 'All this stuff with the crows, did you ever think it could be him?'

He's still flicking the line, although I can see that it's a more mechanical movement now than it was when I first arrived.

'Hadn't even crossed my mind,' he says. 'I'm not wrapped up in him, or my old work. Barely ever watch the news. I just do this… go and watch the Celtic at the weekend. Sometimes I can't even be bothered with that. I don't watch the news. I don't think about Clayton. He beat me, that's all. He beat me, and I've had to live with it. I don't think about him.'

'Now that you are,' I say, continuing to push him, although it's not like I'm unsympathetic to the oppressive weight of defeat that hangs over him, 'what do you think?'

He continues the movement of the line, but it's becoming less and less focussed. Suddenly realise that I'm completely fucking him up as I stand here. He'd been doing fine, and now I bring him this. And if this guy, this Clayton, turns out to be the Plague of Crows, then there are now a great list of victims who wouldn't have been killed if Lynch had been able to get his man in the first place. How shit is that going to make him feel?

I have a vision of Lynch at home, hanging from a light fitting, the cord around his neck, his face black and purple, tears dried on his cheek, a bottle of vodka on its side, the dregs having dribbled onto the carpet.

Or maybe that's me.

'Yes,' he says. 'Now that you make me think about it. Yes. He was intelligent, knew everything we'd try to uncover, and he had it all taken care of. He was on top from the start, and he stayed there. And…'

Finally he stops the continuous movement of the rod, the flick of the line.

'… and he was a sick fucker. The things he did to that girl. Is he sick enough to carry out this weird stuff that your Crows bloke is accused of doing….?'

'There's no accused about it,' I mutter.

'Yes,' says Lynch. 'It could be him. Let me know when he walks away and laughs in your face.'

He coughs, stares down at the water.

'Nothing's biting the day,' he says, then he lays the rod down on the grass and looks around. There's a bench a few yards away, and he lifts his small bag and walks over to it. Glance at my watch. Lunchtime, more or less, and he's taking a break. I realise that we're finished. He's not about to ask me to join him. He's said all he has to say.

Think of something else just as I'm about to leave.

'Has anyone else been asking about him?'

He turns and looks at me. Just a glance. Curiosity mixed with contempt, before moving quickly onto complete disdain. Doesn't even bother answering.

I'll take that as a no.

I watch him for a few moments and then turn away as he takes a small flask from his bag.

31

Back in the office with Taylor and Gostkowski. Ramsay tried to grab me on my way in, Gostkowski had already been grabbed, but I put him off and managed to get Gostkowski out of her interview with some little wanker who assaulted a couple of pensioners, so that the three of us can have a chat about Clayton.

More work to be done, more research into his family and what he's been doing for the past eleven years of his life, but for the first time since last August we actually have someone to investigate.

I've just finished laying it all out. My senior officers have listened without interrupting.

'Either of you know DCI Lynch?' asks Gostkowski when I'm done.

Shake my head.

'I remember the case,' said Taylor, 'but it was nowhere near us. Didn't know the guy. I might have had an opinion on it at the time but…' and he waves a dismissive hand in the air. 'And no sign of the wife?'

'None.'

'And no photos…'

'No photos. But, she was on High Road, apparently, so that might make her slightly easier to track down. Although, it's liable to have been in the early days of the internet, maybe there won't be too much online. We'll need to go and find someone at STV.'

'If there's a wife, if she's still around…'

'He said she was out getting her hair done.'

'Well that proves bugger all. If there's a wife then she's pretty crucial to it. We know how well executed this whole thing has been,'

He hesitates to glance at Gostkowski, who has reached over and taken the iPad that was lying on the edge of Taylor's desk. Fairly confident that she probably isn't checking the weather, the football transfer window or a recipe for that night's dinner, he ignores her and continues talking.

'She's going to be aware of him having been away for a while. Presumably she's thinking he's on some business trip or other.'

'He said she was a victim of the press as well. Maybe she's involved.'

He stares at the desk as he thinks about it.

'Maybe. Maybe. Don't like it. Everything we think about the Plague of Crows is based around him being in control. The second you bring someone else into it, no matter how much you trust them, you start to lose the control. There's also the matter of someone else being able to, in some way, moderate your insanity. This guy… this guy is a fucking basketcase. You've been married. Take the stupidest, weirdest, ugliest thing you ever did before or after your marriage, and then imagine if you'd have done it if your wife had known about it.'

We look at each other while we think about weird, ugly, stupid things we've done. Gostkowski glances up with a curious smile on her face, then looks back at the tech.