The Unburied Dead (22 page)

'I think I'd better go.'

Cheap, but fuck it, I didn't come here for her to go Jeremy Kyle. I'm kidding myself anyway.

The hand squeezes a little tighter, something approaching a sob escapes her lips. This is the woman who rules the station with an iron hand in an iron glove.

'Stay with me, tonight,' she says, her voice cracking as she speaks, and it feels like a hand squeezing my stomach. Why does she need me to stay the night?

Christ, she's not going to kill me in her bed. Get a grip you stupid arse.

I don't reply but I know the answer. She looks up at me and her face is streaked with tears, her eyes red. I'm getting sucked in and if she's playing me, I'm falling into the game. Blinded by her air of vulnerability, the sexuality of it – which may be as much blinded by deception, no matter how aware I think myself to be.

She stretches a little, I lower my head, and our lips meet. I can taste the tears, I can feel her tongue gently probe into my mouth.

We kiss for a long time in front of the fire, until her tears have dried, than we go to her bedroom and this time the lovemaking is more tender and infinitely more intimate than before.

It is a cold morning, winter finally seeming to have arrived, after an eternal autumn of mild and wet weather. The clouds are low, the threat of snow in the air. The night before has been busy, the usual Saturday fracas, enhanced by the time of year. Assaults, knifings, burglary, so much crime alcohol-enhanced. The station buzzes, more crime to be dealt with than anyone has time for. In the middle of two murder enquiries, Detective Sergeant Herrod is landed with an assault from the night before; all the while he ponders the state of his Chief Inspector. The night asleep at his desk, bundled into a taxi and sent home a couple of hours previously. A man to inspire loathing and the distant memory of respect.

Herrod hates every minute of the work that he does, loves it at the same time. The perfect conduit for his rampant ill-humour, the perfect outlet for his paranoia, a brilliant excuse to escape his home and his wife.

Nearly noon and he wonders about Hutton – yet to appear this morning. A Sunday perhaps, but this is no time for a day of rest. Taylor is at his desk, thinking as usual, but no Hutton, and he hopes he is not out investigating a lead. Hates the idea that it might be Taylor and Hutton who solve the murders.

Has had a vague thought as to why Evelyn Bathurst might have been killed, but refuses to believe it, refuses to think about it. Sometimes he is aware of his own paranoia. There is always another reason.

The phone rings as he is in the middle of putting together his report on the attempted assault, and he scowls at the ring.
If this is some other piece of shite...

'Herrod,' he growls down the phone, imagining it sounds hard. Sees himself as the tough cop.

There is a slight hesitation, a small voice.

'Sergeant Herrod?' says a woman. Doesn't recognise the voice. Sounds like a callbox.

A callbox? Where did she find one of those?

'Aye, I said that already.'

More hesitation. Bloody women. If this is another one about to report some pointless piece of shite, he'll tell her to go and get a life and hang up.

'What is it, Hen, I'm busy?'

'I was told to speak to you. It's about these murders,' she blurts out.

Herrod's eyebrows raise a fraction. Could be something, could be some stupid sad woman who wants a bit of attention. She does sound nervous, however.

'All right, Hen. Take your time. Now, what's your name?'

She doesn't answer, doesn't want to tell him. He controls the desire to shout down the phone. Something he's used to doing with the public.

'I can't help you if you don't tell me your name, Hen,' he says.

'I'm scared.'

He tries to lower his voice and sound compassionate, although he knows it's beyond him.

'Where are you phoning from?'

'Not Glasgow,' she says, after a few seconds. 'I don't really want to say.'

Herrod rolls his eyes. Bloody hell, here we go, he thinks. No name, no address. Are you on Planet Earth, he wants to ask.

'All right, you don't have to tell me that either, just tell me why you're phoning.' On the verge of hanging up.

'I went out with a man in Glasgow. About a year ago. Just a few times.' She stops, he wonders if she might be crying. 'Maybe a bit more than that. We… I guess we were an item, but it was one of those things. It just kind of happened, even though I didn't want it to.'

Herrod holds the phone in front of his face and looks at it. Oh my God. She's phoning up to complain about her relationship. Wonderful. One step from being one of these people who dial 999 to complain about their dishwasher breaking down.

'Yes?' says Herrod, tentatively. This is almost laughable, and he has that weird sense of humour that kicks in briefly before he completely loses the head.

'Maybe three months all in, including a bit of… off and on.'

She doesn't say anything else, not immediately. More money gets put into the machine. Herrod taps his fingers on the desk. Lightening up. What the Hell, might as well spend a day on the phone listening to someone's relationship issues.

'Take your time,' he says again, feeling absurdly pleased with himself that he's actually managed to be nice to someone.

He can hear her breathing. He looks around the station. Everyone else seems to be sensibly occupied. Why is it just him?

'He was just… strange. We were friends for a while. We met at an evening Spanish class at the university. You know, one of those things you sign up for and go to once or twice. Friends, that was all really, that was all I thought. Then one day he comes on to me, really strong. Really pushing it….'

More hesitation. Herrod cannot help himself.

'And you shagged him?'

She blurts out a rueful laugh.

'And you got pregnant?' Herrod has seen the shows.

'Nothing like that. No. No. It just sort of happened, and the sex was pretty decent. You know. I'm not… you know, I don't want you to think… I've been with a few blokes, and you get some, you know, some of them… quick tweak of the breasts, quick grope and within a minute their ejaculating. He was better than that. That's all.'

Herrod thinks of the last time he had sex and wonders how close it fitted the description she's just given. Immediately stops thinking about it, and the annoyance creeps back. Bloody women, all so perfect at having sex. He holds the phone away from him and stares at it again. Gives it a withering look and brings it back in.

'Go on,' he says. 'I've got all day. No, I have…'

'It just got, very quickly, very quickly… in fact, looking back, even before it began, it was weird. He was weird. Obsessive. We fought, almost from the start. It was stupid of me to let it last as long as I did, but I couldn't face the big fight at the end. He was just everywhere, buying me presents, over-protective, smothering me. He smothered me.'

'But not literally, because you're on the phone,' said Herrod.

He could sense her staring at the phone, nonplussed by his quick-witted chatter.

'No,' she said, uncertainly. 'I didn't mean it literally.'

'All right,' says Herrod. 'And your point is, caller?' Feels like he's Alan Green on Radio 5, taking some endless call where the caller refuses to ever come to the rub.

'It was just freaky in the end. I ended it a couple of times, he started hassling me. It got…' She shivers. She has tried not to think about it in over a year and mostly she's been successful. The news of the last week had forced it once more uncomfortably into her head. 'He was always there, he was always phoning. I'd get home from work and he'd let himself in. He'd be there, waiting for me, dinner made, wine on the table. Jesus…'

The words
Jesus made dinner for you?
are on his lips, but the time for sarcasm is past. However slowly, she is finally getting to the point.

'We had a big fight one day, another one, another one… I said everything I was thinking. Everything. I said insults that I hadn't even been thinking. The size of his cock, his breath, his… fuck, everything. Sense of humour… like he fucking had one.'

Her words are coming more quickly, the feelings are being dredged up as before. Anger and fear, loathing, desperation.

'Fuck…' she mutters down the phone.

'What happened?'

'There were just a couple of days of it,' she says quickly. 'I changed the locks, then I saw him standing outside my house. Watching. Fuck, I got up in the middle of the night and he was still there. He turned up at my work. Fucking bastard. Really. He just creeped me out. Then he swiftly got to the death threats. Fucking freak.'

'Did you call the police?'

She snorts down the phone.

'Oh yes. Like you lot gave a fuck.'

'Well why the fuck are you calling the police now?' says Herrod, his disdain bursting to the surface.

'Because I thought you needed help,' she snaps.

Herrod scowls at the phone. Briefly it's a toss up on who will hang up on the other.

'What did you do?' says Herrod.

'I just left. Just as well that I was in a position to. Was renting my flat, job was shit. I went to live in Dundee, stayed with a pal for a while. Got my own place now. Put a lot of shite on Facebook, made him think I was somewhere else. I heard he kept looking for me.'

'It's a tragic story,' says Herrod. The tone of his voice is awful. Horrible cynicism, deserving that she hangs up.

'Well it is now,' she says sharply.

'What d'you mean?'

'The guy was a fucking freak,' she says. 'I mean, fuck… I don't know why he was obsessed with me. Really. Who knows why any of that shit ever matters, why anyone falls for anyone else…'

'Cut out the… fuck, I don't know, the fucking philosophical mumbo jumbo and just tell me why in the name of fuck you're calling. From a fucking call box.'

Another pause. She wants to hang up, but she needs the call. She's thinking about it too much, thinking about him too much. She needs to transfer those thoughts, get them off her chest, out of her conscience.

'I looked at his Facebook account a while back, which really fucked me up on the trying not to think about him front. He was friends with all these women… they looked like me, same hair colour, same sort of age. It was just creepy. He was writing the weirdest fucking shit. I looked again last night because I'd started thinking about it again. That shit just got weirder and scarier, until a couple of weeks ago and then it stopped.'

'And?'

'And… I was wondering if that weird shit had begun to manifest itself in different ways. More dangerous ways…'

'And?'

Herrod wonders if his life will end sitting here, talking to this woman on this phone.

'Those two women who were murdered in Glasgow. They look like me… I look like them,' she adds helpfully.

Herrod shakes his head. Fuck.
Hitler, My Part In His Downfall
. She was probably recording the fucking conversation and it would be on YouTube in a few minutes. Jesus.