The Unburied Dead (33 page)

'In the name of fuck? What…? What…? Why the fuck were you going to see Charlotte?'

I sort of shrug. Don't know how I'm going to say this without it sounding like a complete load of shite. He picks up on the hesitation, however. Makes it easier for me.

'You're not shagging her, are you, Hutton? Don't tell me you are actually shagging her?'

Just sort of nod my head. He looks at me with slightly gaping mouth. Still got a bit of chicken pie on his tongue, a couple of bits in his teeth.

'I do not believe it,' he says, and there's no doubt that's the truth. 'Am I the only bloke in that entire station who hasn't slept with that bloody woman?' The man looks incredulous. I've managed to impress him. 'How long's this been going on?'

'About a week.'

'Every night? Just the once? What?'

'Christmas Eve, Saturday, Monday.'

'Fuck.' Lets the word drift off into nothing. He lifts my cup of tea and drains it. When his mouth drops open again, the pieces of chicken have gone. 'That's where you've been all these mornings. Christ. What's she want with someone like you?'

'There's just been something between us since I accidentally saw her tits a few months ago. It's been an elephant in the room kind of thing. An itch needing to be scratched.'

He's peering at me, as if I'm some kind of weird exhibit in the zoo.

'How, in the name of all fuck, did you accidentally see the superintendent's tits?'

'It just sort of… happened… But, I'm telling you, they were great tits, and I've been thinking about them ever since then, and every time I looked at her, she knew I was thinking about her tits, and weird though it sounds, obviously she was thinking,
the sergeant's thinking about my tits
, and it was getting her excited – or at least curious – and she just had to give it a try.'

'Or three.'

He lets out a long sigh. I hide behind my mug, with raised eyebrows, even though it's empty. Even now, as we're having this conversation, I'm thinking about her tits again, despite having seen plenty more of her than that.

'All right,' he says. 'You've been fucking the superintendent. Not actually relevant to the investigation. So Bathurst went to see the superintendent on Friday night, she also had lesbian sex on Friday night, but not with the superintendent…?'

'Yes.'

'So she spoke to Miller, presumably about the Addison case, although we don't know, and then she went off somewhere else to some lover.'

'Yes.'

'And do you know who this lover was?'

I stare across the table, lowering the mug. I'm really not going to answer that, but then I don't have to. Eileen Harrison: the only known lesbian at the station, the two days off work, coming back after the visit from the other sergeant… it all plays out in his eyes as he looks at me, and then he nods. His face goes blank, he leans on his hands, then rubs his face.

'So we've had officers running about for the past five days trying to find out who Bathurst slept with just before she died…'

'It's just the way it's worked out,' I say.

He looks unimpressed with that. Unimpressed with me and Eileen Harrison.

'You could've told me, at least, that you knew Bathurst had been to see Miller. Why didn't you say?'

I really don't have an answer for that.

'You wanted it to be your own little secret? Was that it? Is it more than sex, Hutton? What are you saying?' I'm not saying anything, you're saying it all for me. 'You think you've got some sort of chance with her? You want to be Mr Miller? Fuck's sake, Hutton, what are you thinking?'

He's hit the nail on the head. He is a detective after all. I just sit there looking like a lump of lard.

'When are you seeing her again?'

'Don't know. She was fucked off about the Montague business. Think she might have dumped me.'

Don't know how pathetic my voice sounded just then. He shakes his head, the anger leaves his face to be replaced by a smile. Starts to laugh. Wonder what he's doing, but it becomes infectious and I join him. He's right to laugh at me, after all, I deserve it.

'She just used me for sex,' I say, and we both end up pishing ourselves laughing for five minutes over the absurdity of me and Charlotte Miller.

If you can't laugh, what can you do? Bastard.

When we get ourselves back together he asks the obvious question.

'What was it like then?' he says. I would have asked him the same thing if the situation had been reversed.

Look for the right words, but it's hard to find them. How to encapsulate such beauty in mere language.

'Fucking brilliant,' is as good as I can do.

He looks appreciative. 'I expect it probably would be.'

The waitress hovers nearby, Taylor orders another piece of chicken pie; no chips. She disappears again. He smiles, shakes his head, rolls his eyes, says, 'Shit, I should have ordered more tea.' Calls over to her, raises his cup. She nods at him, and there's a fifty percent chance she understood what he meant.

Glad I've told him at last. And it takes some more of the edge off this pointless infatuation. I needed a good kick in the arse to start getting over it, and her reaction to the Montague business was a reasonable start. Taylor pishing himself laughing at me is also what I needed.

'So, you think she's dumped you because of Jonathan Montague?' he asks.

'She hasn't said as much, but that's probably about it.'

'She's probably shagging him 'n all.' He smiles. 'Three times in six days, you lucky bastard…'

We sit in silence for a moment. The second piece of chicken pie arrives, suspiciously quickly. Really, did they even have time to heat that up in the microwave?

Taylor doesn't seem bothered by the indecent haste, and tucks straight in.

'So, Charlotte's mad about you going to Montague. She knows it's because we're checking out Crow. Bathurst has told her the whole story...'

'We assume, we don't know.'

'Whatever. She doesn't think the Addison case has anything to do with this, despite the three deaths, and so she doesn't want us digging away at old wounds. Leave them be and concentrate on finding Ian Healy.'

'Or,' I say, 'she knows they're connected because she's part of it. Wants to ensure we don't discover the truth.'

'Too scary, Hutton. Crow, fine, 'cause the guy's sick. But Miller. If that's the case, why not just put herself in charge of the case when she removed Bloonsbury?'

'She tried that.'

'What do you mean?'

'She said she was doing it. I threatened to reveal the fact that Bathurst went to see her on Friday night; told her to put you in charge instead.'

He looks at me, forkful of chicken pie in hand.

'You're jerking me off?' he says.

'Nope.'

'Jesus fuck, Hutton, you're full of little secrets. Anything else you'd like to tell me?'

'Well, it was odd, because at the time that I was ordering her about – and let's be clear, I was a lot less forceful than that sounds – I assumed she'd slept with her. So, even though she hadn't, she still thought the fact that they'd seen each other the night Bathurst was murdered was enough of a reason to withdraw from leading the investigation.'

Taylor nods away as he continues to wolf down the pie.

'Yep, that might be significant. Anything else?'

'Don't think so.'

'Good. I think I've heard enough secrets.'

I gesture to the waitress that I'd like some more tea.

'So what are we going to do?' I ask.

He spears another piece of pie.

'We're going to ignore her and go after Crow. Go back down to Arrochar later this afternoon. Speak to a few people, do a more thorough search of that horrible little house of his, and we're going to work out where he went.'

The tea arrives.

'Magic,' I say.

Some time after four o'clock. The evening has already arrived, but still the country is bright with the low cloud and the snow lying on the ground. Hogmanay, the usual busy night ahead. Still, it isn't like it used to be around here, that's for sure. Anyone's granny will tell you that. All that running around and first footing; turning up at the house of total strangers with a bottle of White & McKay at your armpit; singing strange songs without words which could be Cole Porter as much as Harry Lauder; all that has gone. We've become a nation of people who sit and watch rotten TV, and complain endlessly about how bloody awful it all is and how New Year just isn't what it used to be. As if it's everybody else's fault but our own.

No crap TV for us tonight, though. We're on the hunt for Crow, and after a few hours wasting time chasing reported sightings of Ian Healy, we're back on track. Might be the wrong track, but I have a feeling.

In the last two days nearly ninety people have reported seeing Ian Healy. Sounds good? Rubbish. If they'd all come from the same place, we'd be fine. But, as is always the case, we've had calls from everywhere. Down south as well, as his picture went out on the national news.

So Ian Healy is this week's Elvis. Working a petrol pump in Wolverhampton; sitting on a bench in Hyde Park; throwing up over the side of the Mull ferry in choppy seas; playing golf in Nairn.

That's the trouble with putting out photographs
–
you get all sorts of nutjobs calling in. Same last week with the photofit, which turned out to be a pretty poor resemblance of our man. Every poor bastard with no one to talk to wants to phone the police.

Problem is that it only takes one of those calls to be right; you can't ignore any of them. So I had four hours checking up on spurious calls from around Glasgow.

Bloonsbury charged around for a few hours until he hit the wall about three o'clock. Didn't see him do it, but you could smell the whisky on his breath, see it in his eyes. Can't keep a fuck-up away from his drink for long.

Just before I left I got another call on the Batphone from Charlotte. What are you doing tonight, Thomas? Frank's in Poland. Why don't you come down? Seriously…

Not sure what she's playing at. Fortunately, however, I'm not going to fall for it as badly as I was. I'm not completely over the hump, so it doesn't mean I'm not going to go down there, but at least I'm starting to get sceptical about it. Still not thinking straight, of course.

Anyway, the waste of an afternoon is behind us and we head on down to Crow's house. We can talk to a few of the people in the vicinity and not just the repugnant neighbour. Do a more thorough investigation of the house, try and see beyond the porn and empty beer cans, see if there's any note of where his ex might be.

We get to the house not long after five. Step out of the warmth of the car into the chill of night. Stop and look out over the loch. No cars on the road, low cloud and the snow muffling any sound. Silence. More snow in the air, but it hasn't started to fall with any force. The loch is still, hardly a wave washes upon the shore. The mountains covered in white. Beautiful. Scotland in all its silent, scenic grandeur. Clean and fresh.

Hear the faint murmur of the TV set from the house next door. Wild cheering from some ridiculous quiz show. The moment is gone. We turn back to Crow's house. The snow covered path virginal. He hasn't been about today, but then we hardly expected that.