The Unburied Dead (21 page)

The old guy looks over his shoulder, sees something on the television.

'Look, I'm going to have to go. I think it was this morning, all right?'

'And did you see him go?'

'Naw, naw. I told you, he phoned. Now, are you finished?'

Taylor nods, the old guy turns away.

'He didn't leave you a key, did he?' he asks as the door begins to close, and gets the negative reply as it slams shut.

He turns and looks at me.

'Don't you just love the public sometimes?' he says.

'Think we should arrest him?' I say.

'Bad hair?'

'Aye.'

He smiles then says, 'Right you, the door.'

Haven't had to do this in a while. Usually there's some strapping young constable not long out of Kicking the Door Down School on hand to do the job for you.

Boot to the door, as high up and close to the lock as possible. First kick and the whole thing creaks, and suddenly I'm not surprised because I remember what a shit-tip the entire house is. Second kick and the door smashes open, the lock flying backwards up the hall.

'Feet of steel, or rotting door frame?' he says.

'Very funny.'

He leads the way – no need for subterfuge – and puts on the hall light. You can smell the alcohol, the decay, and we split up and go room to room, through everything.

There are no surprises. The house looks much as it had done the previous day, certainly smells the same. Empty beer cans or wine bottles in every room. Liked his cheap German shite by the looks of things. The walls are bare and sad. Some of the drawers in the bedroom have been left open, a few clothes scattered about. Either someone else has been here searching – an incomplete search – or, more likely, Crow hurriedly packed a bag and grabbed a few stinking clothes before he went. Although it might be that he lived with drawers open and clothes strewn about his bedroom in any case.

Don't bother to count but find approximately two hundred porn magazines under his mattress. That's really sad. That's where you keep them when you still live with your parents, but when you're a middle-aged man living on your own? Why not just have them lying out on the bedside cabinet? Habit, presumably. He's kept them under his mattress for forty years. There were a couple of them off-the-shelf from the newsagent, but most of them were a lot more disgusting. Sick Scandinavian things, with animals and women being used in ways that go far beyond the usual extent of women being used in pornography; the more we search his house, the sicker we realise he was.

In a cabinet in another room, Taylor finds the wholly expected and utterly massive DVD collection. Most of them are in unmarked boxes but we don't bother to check them out. He must have picked up most of this stuff from company hauls. We have warehouses jumping with this kind of crap, as well as a variety of other illegal products, and there are plenty of rozzers who'll use these places like a supermarket.

No sign of a computer anywhere. Try to think if I'd seen one the previous day but I didn't notice. Crow was a simple man, whose familiarity and comfort with technology didn't really extend much beyond the TV remote and the ring pull on a beer can, so it's quite possible that he lived a life with his head buried in the non-tech sand.

It's not a big house; half an hour and it's done. I need a shower, feel disgusting. We stand in the middle of the sitting room. Depressed. Morbid. This guy was one of us.

'You surprised?' says Taylor.

'No, but it's horrible. Jesus, the man's a slime. If he ever comes back and he's not the one committing murder, I want to get him for something. Weird porn, whatever.'

Taylor nods his head, looks around, thinking.

'He isn't coming back though, is he?'

Rhetorical question. There's no way he's coming back.

'You're right.'

'So, what do you think?' he says, and he starts moving towards the front door as he says it. 'What does this make Crow? A murderer?'

I nod my head as we step out into the cold darkness of night – the breeze off the loch feels refreshing, after the sleaze and stench of the house – and I close the door behind me. It shuts, but only just.

'Aye, I think this makes him an anything.'

We get into the car and sit and stare into the darkness. The windscreen is smeared with rain and it's like the fuzz in front of us stopping us from getting a clear view of the situation.

'What now?' I ask.

'Not sure. But I think we should just keep this to ourselves. Fuck, I don't know. If Crow killed Bathurst, does that mean Jonah was in on it?'

'He must be. There were things done to the body that the press never got hold of from the first murder.'

He nods again, then shakes his head. 'This is bad. Fucking Jonah. But then, maybe not him. Maybe it was Miller. We don't know she wasn't in on the Addison case. Or maybe, Crow had nothing whatsoever to do with Bathurst dying. Maybe he's just gone off somewhere. The guy's retired, he can go where the fuck he wants. Maybe he went to see some of those bloody awful children of his,' he says, then shakes his head again. 'All right, no way he did that, but who knows? All the evidence points to last night's killer being the same as Monday night's killer, and all the other evidence points to that not having been Crow.'

Take a deep breath. A neat summation and basically we haven't a clue where to go next.

'Either way,' he says, 'we keep this to ourselves for the moment. Hope no fourteen year-old delinquents decide to break into the place and find all that crap.'

He starts the engine, gets the heater going full blast then turns the car round and heads back towards Loch Lomond.

*

Arrive back at the station some time just before ten. The thought of spending a night in a hotel with Miller had long since vanished, but was then suddenly reactivated by a text from her asking me to ring her at home when I was done for the day. Decided not to do that while sitting in the car with Taylor. Pathetically, my heart has been thumping faster ever since.

There's a light on in Bloonsbury's office, Taylor goes in to speak to him. The great man is head down on the desk, grunting in his sleep. An empty bottle of White & McKay sits openly at his right arm.

Taylor lifts it, places it in the bin, then turns out the light as he closes the door behind him.

On the doorstep in Helensburgh, where I was three nights ago. Made a brief call to Miller and she asked me down. Don't know what the hell I'm doing here. Half expecting to find Crow waiting behind the door with a knife. Was tempted to tell Taylor before I left, but I couldn't. Kept my mouth shut, like a bloody idiot. Walking into the lair, completely defenceless. It's the sort of thing you watch people do in the movies, and you think,
what are you doing, you idiot? Get some back up!

But I could hardly come screaming down here with back up, could I? The demon's lair? It could just be that I'm the biggest and stupidest arse on the planet. So what if Bathurst and Miller had sex? Under other circumstances I'd have been watching the video.

The door opens and Miller invites me in. Dressed similarly to the other night, but a different colour scheme. She smiles, doesn't say anything, looks nervous. Closes the door behind me and ushers me into the sitting room. The Christmas tree still burns, but it looks incongruous now.

Half waiting for the appearance of Crow but my guts are telling me it won't happen. Stand by the warmth of the fire, wonder where Frank is, but don't really care. Remember Italy as I hear her pouring drinks behind, then she is beside me and I've got a vodka tonic in my hand.

We stare into the fire. Think I'm going to let her do most of the talking. Need a cigarette.

'Mind if I smoke?' I say.

She shakes her head. Produce the packet, shake one loose and light up. Feels good tonight, probably because I haven't smoked many in the last couple of hours.

'We are all busy in this world building Towers of Babel; and the child of our imaginations is always a changeling when it comes from nurse.'

That's all she says. I've heard that one before; we all have. It's her favourite line, and she gives it to all the new recruits. Can't imagine that it means much to most of them, but it sounds good, and I know what she's thinking. She would have said those words to Evelyn Bathurst, and what Towers of Babel can she build now?

'Did you know her well?' she says.

Stare deep into the fire. It's the first time I've slowed down all day. Take a longer drink from the glass than I intended. Feels as good as the cigarette, the alcohol burns its way down, the chill hits my stomach.

After the shock of the start of the day, it's gradually turned into just another murder. You have to stay focused on these things, can't let them get to you, but it doesn't mean your brain doesn't occasionally kick into overdrive. A warm fire, vodka tonic in your hand and a woman who might be implicated in the murder standing next to you.

Your back was turned. The glass could be poisoned…

Control yourself, Hutton, you fucking idiot.

'No, not really. Not any better than the rest of us.'

'No,' she says, and the voice is small and strange.

'When was the last time you spoke to her?' she says, after another long silence in the crackle of the fire.

Take another large swallow of the vodka, nearly drain the glass. Does she know that I told Bathurst to come and talk to her? Does she know what I know and that I know it? Christ, I could run rings round myself. I have to trust her, because why else am I here?

'Last night, about five. She was just on her way out.'

'How did she seem to you?' she asks quickly.

'I don't know. Like normal, I suppose.'

I may have decided to trust her, but I'm not telling her a thing.

'She didn't say anything about what she was doing last night?' The eyes flicker at me, I wonder if she knows that I'm in possession of the facts. But how could she?

Shake my head, drain the glass.

'No. Said she was going out some place, but nothing specific.'

She doesn't say anything. Out of sight her hand slips into mine, her fingers squeeze. Her touch electrifies and bemuses at the same time. Lift my glass without thinking, the ice cubes clink down to my mouth, with the dregs of tonic. I need another one.

When she speaks again the voice is even smaller than before; the words stab out.

'I heard you went into work together on Christmas Day,' she says. How the hell did she hear that? 'How was that, Thomas? You spent the night with me.'

I can almost feel my flesh crawl. She sounds like a spurned lover, a little girl lost in the deep fathoms of a relationship which she doesn't understand. But this is Charlotte Miller, I can't believe she's hurt.

I look at her, and the first tear has started to trickle down her face. Jesus. Can't be real. Try to think rationally. Which is new for me.

Her head rests on my shoulder, a tear drops onto the back of my hand. She's either toying with me or getting genuinely emotional. Either way, I'm out of my depth.

It may not have lasted between Peggy and I, but by god it lasted forever by my standards, and all because she never went emotional on me. I stopped feeling emotions many years ago. I don't like emotions, especially in other people. I want to exist in another world, a hundred years ago, when everyone had stiff upper lips and just put up with shit and no one ever cried.