So what? You get a million of these a day. But you always know with Herrod that he's going to turn it into some conspiracy or other. Yet there's no way he'll get anywhere near investigating some small time insurance fraud anyway. Bloonsbury or Taylor will stick some fresh-smelling Detective Constable on it for ten minutes, before they move onto some other crime they'll never solve.
'Your point is?'
'It's all a load of shite.'
'You said that. We know. We're not here because it's fragrant. What are you saying?'
'That's my point. It used to make sense. You came in here on a Monday morning, you did your job, you took from it what you could, and every now and again you arrested some eejit and kicked fuck out him. Tell me that didn't make sense.'
'You sound like an advert for the force in the Sunday Times.'
He shrugs, spits out a sigh, shakes his head.
'I don't know. I've just had enough, you know. All this crap, all these eejits. I've had enough of them all. Every last fucking one of them.'
He finishes his lament, stubs the cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. My heart bleeds for him. I almost want to give him a hug.
'Shut up you stupid prick and stop feeling sorry for yourself. You're talking pish.'
He grunts at me and moves another report from In to Out without looking at it.
The door opens. One of those terribly young constables walks in looking like the before half of a Clearasil advert, followed by DCI Bloonsbury — a man who hasn't slept for a month — reeking of alcohol. The model detective. We nod at him; he ignores us, walks into his office and slams the door shut. A couple of shots of J amp;B, two cups of coffee, half pack of Bensons and he'll be ready for us.
The man's downhill slide has picked up some momentum in recent months. Word is the Super's on the point of kicking him into touch but, for all that hard bitch act, you can tell she's soft on stuff like that. Likes to take care of her men.
Bloonsbury's door reopens almost immediately, half an hour before schedule. Got a face on him like a flat tyre and a piece of paper in his hand, which he waves in the air. Looks like Neville Chamberlain.
'Herrod?'
'What?'
Bloonsbury looks at the piece of paper and gives it another shake.
'Rape case? Stonelaw Road?'
Herrod nods. Looks moderately sheepish, if so grotesque a man can even remotely resemble a sheep.
'Well, what the Hell are you doing sitting about when there's some poor lassie to get interviewed? Get your arse over there.'
The door slams shut. Herrod stares at the floor, then looks up as he fumbles for another smoke.
'See what I mean?' he says.
I ignore him and feel sorry for the victim. If getting raped wasn't enough, the poor girl has to be confronted with Herrod the following morning.
*
Quarter to three. Dispatched to the hind end of Rutherglen Main Street, Detective Constable Morrow, PCs Kelly and Bathurst in tow. Spent most of the day working on a big theft — two hundred TVs in a lorry up at Bothwell services — and I get called away to come and hold Morrow's hand while he does his best to ask the right questions. And it's a no-hoper right from the off.
Fight broke out between three morons not far from the town hall. Two against one, rather than all three for themselves. The one comes off worst, ends up on the ground getting his head beaten to a pulp. He'd already been whipped off to the Victoria by the time we got here, but there've been enough people to tell us what he looked like after the attack. Massively swollen head, face bloodied and purple, no teeth left to talk of. Horrible. A few of them thought he might be dead, but apparently he survived it. Probably because they didn't hit him anywhere near his brain. Seen enough of these stupid bastards who've had too much to drink, think they're Clark Kent and end up with heads the size of basketballs. Seen enough of that, seen far too much of a lot worse.
So at two fifteen in the afternoon, three days before Christmas, when there are more people on Rutherglen Main Street than you'd get on a Vietnamese refugee tanker, no one sees a thing. Plenty of folk saw the guy lying on the pavement looking like dog food, but no one saw the incident take place or the assailants in question.
There are two things to do at a time like this. Forget it and go back to the station; or hang around for five hours questioning everyone over the age of three, all the while getting absolutely nowhere. If the bloke stiffs, of course, then the papers will get hold of it and all of a sudden you've got to look as if you're doing something. But if he walks, then bugger it, what's the point?
Now I would have had Morrow down as a sad young bastard, keen to make his mark. Thank God that didn't pan out. Morrow turns out to be human. Seems as disinterested as I am. Asking the right amount of questions; looking concerned, being seen to do his bit, but fully aware that it's pointless; just dying to get back to the station for a slash and a cup of tea. I admire that in a young detective. Look good in front of the public, then forget about it half a minute later. The way forward.
Constables Kelly and Bathurst do their bit. Kelly looks moderately perturbed at the obvious lack of interest from CID, but he ought to know better. Hard to tell about Bathurst. A closed book. She has a very impressive cover mind, although perhaps too young for these old hands.
DC Morrow appears from a shop, looking like a man who wants to be somewhere else. I detach myself from an old wife who claims to have seen everything, but is obviously talking out of her prescription-drug-addled arsehole.
'What's the story, Tom?'
Consults his notebook. Very efficient.
'Got a bit of a description from the shop assistant. Not great, but enough to stick into the computer, see what we can get. Apart from that, not much at all, sir.'
I nod, turn away, look up and down the street. Cold, grey afternoon, the Christmas lights on and looking pathetic. A thousand shoppers and they all look miserable.
Still haven't bought anything for Rebecca. I have no idea what you buy twelve year-old girls these days. Don't want to look like an idiot. Buy her some toy they advertise on the TV, when for all I know she's already busy doing drugs and men. Can't go for the latest piece of tech, because I've no idea what her mother will have bought her recently. Tough decision. I'll do my usual and ask one of the women at the station.
Already got the boy his Rangers change strip. Nearly choked in the shop when I had to buy it.
I shrug. 'Fancy a cup of tea, Tom?'
Morrow nods. 'Sounds brilliant.'
A last look around the scene of the crime. Kelly and Bathurst appear to be running out of people to interview. Nothing much else to do. You might never know an incident had taken place.
'Right then, constable,' I say to him, and off we go.
*
Taylor's there when I get back. My immediate boss, sitting in his office behind the fog of depression.
The first time I ever talked to him was at a Dylan concert. We kind of bumped into each other, realised that we were at the same station. It was a bit awkward. Then we found that we were both Dylan freaks, and that was even more awkward. It was like, I want to be the Dylan weirdo around here, I don't want there to be some other bastard.
We ended up having this grudging kind of Dylan bitchslap comparison thing. He'd seen him seventeen times in concert, to my twelve; I had two iPods full of Dylan — about twelve hundred tracks — he's a traditionalist, doesn't like bootlegs or concert material, so just had all his studio albums. About four hundred tracks worth or so.
There are two kinds of people reading this. There are those who are thinking, fucking Dylan losers, get some proper music on your iPod, for fuck's sake. And then there are the genuine Dylan freaks out there who are thinking, seventeen concerts… twelve hundred tracks? That's not a Dylan freak, that's a passing interest. That's fucking barely knowing that Dylan exists.