The Unburied Dead (2 page)

Is that what he's already thinking? Murder? Does he want to murder Jo? Of course not, but it's almost happened before. Must be realistic. He wants her. Wants to feel her and hold her. Smell that floral scent close up, breathe it in, taste it as he licks her neck. Feel her gasp as he thrusts his hand between her legs.

Maybe she'll want it too, or maybe she'll fight. If she fights…. Then you can never know what's going to happen.

He imagines the newspapers. He thinks about the newspapers all the time. Sometimes his name is in the papers, but not often. Never for something like this.

If she wants him, if she comes willingly, will the newspapers care, will anyone care? And if he rapes her, will anyone care? But if he leaves her body on the ground, raped and dead, maybe then they'll notice. Maybe then they'll start talking about him.

He looks out of the window, at the lights and wet streets of Rutherglen, as the train crawls towards the next stop. Shouldn't think like that. It's wrong. It's stupid. It's not very helpful. It doesn't help.
Are you listening, Dad?
It doesn't…fucking…help.

His eyes slither round again and he looks straight at her. She avoids his gaze. He loves her hair. The same hair that Jo had, just touching her neck. The hair that fell over his stomach when she was sucking him off. Twitches at the thought of her, tries to push it from his mind. Bloody Jo. But the thought is there now. Her tongue sliding the length of his penis, and not because he was forcing her. She'd wanted it. All the time. Always wanted him, his cock ramming into her, her hands all over him, his tongue all over her. All the time.

Then she'd started to fuck other people. And then she'd left.

The woman bites her nails, looking round at the first damp run of the platform as the train shudders slowly into Rutherglen station. Pretty face, slightly overweight, small nose, glorious red lips, getting very frightened by the strange guy two seats away who is staring at her.

The train comes to a halt beneath the M74. Again he glances over his shoulder at the woman as the doors open. Why should he hide it now? She knows what's coming to her.

There's giggling from up the carriage as the four teenagers drunkenly make their way off the train, pushing, laughing, arguing, shouting
fuck
into the night as loudly as possible.

He looks back to the woman. She's staring at him now, and this time looks away more slowly. He swallows. Maybe she does want him. Maybe she likes the attention.

He turns away and looks up the carriage. He smiles. He lowers his head. He can smell her, her scent filling the air. The two old women are looking at him, as if they can read the intent on his face.

'What?' he says, a bit disconcerted. 'What?' he repeats, and their eyes avert.

The sleeping man's head bobs up from a silent slumber, then flops back onto his chest. The doors start their slow fizz. There's a stamping on the floor behind. He is still perturbed by the attention of the old women, the women who somehow looked into him and could read every thought that was running through his brain, every bloody nightmare splitting his head apart.

He is slow to turn, and then suddenly realises what he's missing. Turns quickly now, but she's already out the door, the doors already closed. He runs to them, stands at the glass. She waits on the platform, crying out for the train to move off; breathless. He starts pulling at the rubber between the doors. Makes some headway. An inch. She doesn't wait. Two inches. She sees the teenagers disappear through the door into the waiting room, one other passenger making the slow walk along the platform, and runs after them. The train starts to move off. He's tugging desperately at the door but he's not getting any further. He's still there pulling at the rubber as the train pulls past the woman hurrying to the exit, and their eyes meet one last time. He drinks in the hair, hoping he will remember her, but all these women look the same. She shudders, then feels like crying with relief as he steps back from the doors and is gone as the train accelerates away into the rain, the still of the night.

He returns to his seat. Looks at the old women, who stare back this time, and he feels intimidated. His eyes drop.

'Bloody Jo,' he mutters.

The woman climbs the stairs to the bridge over the railway tracks. A lucky escape. She feels the relief, and already she is beginning to put it out of her mind. Men. They're all the same; and she starts again to construct her defences for when she has to explain to her husband where she's been all evening.

Monday morning, three days before Christmas. Sitting at the desk with a colossal hangover, the memory of the weekend still hurting. The football didn't go well – Partick Thistle lost three-nil at Ross County – and I ended up in bed with something that crawled out of the drains. I know, who am I to talk? But really. Don't remember a thing about the night either, so I don't know if it was worth it. At least I wasn't called in, and any weekend without that is something of a success.

Taylor isn't in yet, not that he'll care if he's judged. It's just me and Herrod and a collection of barely post-pubescent constables. The Superintendent's in of course, doing that woman in power thing. Letting all us men know who's boss and quoting obscure literature at us every ten seconds so that we know she's not just some totalitarian überbabe; that she's got as much brains as breast. Very commendable.

Passed Alison on the way in this morning. I was married to her for twenty-nine days a year or two ago – something which I did in a fit of idiocy after my divorce from Peggy came through. She was working downstairs somewhere, walking by with a criminal on her arm. He looked good on her. We smiled. Very cosy. We get on a lot better since the divorce, although we avoided each other for nearly a year afterwards. She's marrying Sgt McGovern in June, which is unfortunate.

Herrod lifts his head from some paperwork, tossing the file into the out-tray as he does so.

'It's all a load of bollocks, Hutton,' he says.

Can't argue with that.

'That you found the meaning of life again?'

He sticks his feet on the desk and lights a cigarette. Of course there's a no-smoking policy in the building, but there's no one here to police it. The man smokes B&H same as everyone else. That's one of the reasons he never gets any women, although, to be fair to the man, there's a long list of such reasons.

I'm still smoking Marlboro, but generally don't at work. Trying to be a good little soldier, obeying all the directives from the top.

'Got this guy, right?'

Herrod's always got a guy.

'The bampot says he was at his sister's all night. Who the fuck spends the night with their sister? I haven't seen my sister since she was twelve. I'd vomit on my sister.'

I'm fully prepared to believe that Herrod has in the past, at some time, vomited on his sister.

'But not this guy. This eejit spends the night with her. Very cosy. The sister backs him up, of course. Best buddies and all that shite. And all the while, as they're tucked up under the sheets, or whatever they're doing, his warehouse is going noisily up in smoke. Full insurance, nothing to do with me, mate, I was in bed with my fucking sister.'

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&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?