of a ned bricking another ned, and then you get into it and there's all sorts of subtext.
The summer seems a long time ago, but sometimes I look back fondly on my days sitting on the side of Ben Ime, watching old people trudge by and Tornadoes low-flying and clouds coming in from the west. Happy days.
There's talk of a redundancy round coming up. They'll be looking for volunteers. I'll need to do the maths. The other side of the coin, the side where one doesn't take redundancy, is that there ain't going to be any less crime committed, but there will be fewer officers around to do anything about it.
To be honest, the lump sum on offer is going to have to be pretty fucking low for me not to go for it. But then, there's a damned good chance that the lump sum on offer will be pretty fucking low.
Back to my desk. The paperwork seems to have grown in my absence. That was one of those things that got mentioned in my annual report. It was made part of my objectives.
Morrow is sitting across the desk, head buried as usual. I'm really pleased he's not one of these officious cunts — and I know that's a word that a lot of people hate, but it is the actual dictionary-defined term for people who are just too organised — although naturally his paperwork pile isn't quite as apocalyptic as mine.
'Any word from the hospital?' I ask, slumping into my seat. Not hungover today, but beginning to think that on days when I'm not hungover, I have a kind of anti-hangover feeling caused by withdrawal.
He shakes his head without looking up. I stare at the paperwork for another moment or two. It's breeding. It's breeding so much that I can actually see two pieces of paper humping each other trying to produce more paper. I'd probably get a bollocking from someone if I poured water over them.
Straight back up again and over to Taylor's office. He's in his usual position. Sitting at his desk, albeit this time he's staring at his computer screen rather than at the ceiling. As police officers go, Dan Taylor is slightly more cerebral than others. Not that I want to imply he reads — I don't know — fucking Kierkegaard or anything, but he thinks a lot. Likes to take his time, think things through. He doesn't rush, doesn't jump to conclusions. Spends a lot of time staring into space. Working things out.
I'm more of an Action Man type of police officer. Leap in, punch a few people, a bit of shouting, sort things out. Taylor stares at the ceiling. I believe his methods are more effective than mine. Mine is more fun.
Today, however, he's looking at the computer screen. There's an intensity in his gaze. He'll be looking at a single image, trying to see the thing that everyone else missed. Or looking at a photograph, attempting to read the lie behind the eyes.
He hasn't noticed me yet. Given that I've pretty much just come in for a chat, and the vague hope that seeing me will remind him that he has an interesting case to investigate, I contemplate turning and walking back out again.
Decide that that's just what I will do. Watch him for a moment. Hesitate before leaving. There's something in his face. He's not trying to work something out. There's dread in his eyes, rather than curiosity or inquisitiveness.
'Chief Inspector? Everything all right?'
He doesn't answer for a moment, then finally says, 'Close the door,' without looking up. Shut the door, glance out at the office as I do so. In the far corner I can see three of the guys standing around a computer screen. None of them look happy. One of them is staring over in our direction.
'What is it?' I ask.
He doesn't answer. I watch him for a moment, the strong uneasy feeling growing. I realise that the guys out there are looking at the same thing as Taylor. I look back at them through the office window and can see they've been joined by a fourth, and I know I no longer need Taylor's permission to go and look at what he's watching.
Round the side of his desk with a strange feeling of fear. I've had to watch a lot of really nasty shit online in my time in this job. How bad can this be? And yet I know it's going to be awful.
I stand behind Taylor and look over his shoulder. Recognise it straight away, entirely because it's such a clear picture. Well shot using an expensive digital camera. The scene from the woods. Three people cemented to the ground surrounded by a chaos of birds. It appears that two of the victims are already dead. Maybe they're all dead, but the third is twitching massively beneath his bonds. Body convulsions. But it's impossible to tell whether the person is panicking, or whether the crows that are squabbling over his brain have hit the appropriate nerve, causing him to spasm.
Watch it for a few more seconds and then turn away and return to the other side of the desk. Notice that there are now seven people around the computer and that there are others on their way over. The entire office is being drawn in that direction.
'How?' is all I ask.
'Fuck,' is all he says in reply. Indeed, it isn't a reply at all, more an expression of oncoming disaster.
'Not sure how quickly this'll…' he starts to say, but I point in the direction of the gaggle around the computer and a brief moment of resignation and defeat flashes across his face. Doesn't last long, and he stands quickly.
'Fuck it,' he says. 'We're already behind the curve with this, we need to start getting a grip. I'm going in to speak to the Super, you get them together. Meeting Room A, ten minutes.'
He walks past me, stops at the door.
'Make it five,' he says, and then he strides off in the direction of higher authority.
8
Back in the operations room. This is what we've feared for the last three months. Worse, indeed, given that we didn't know the killer had filmed the twitching, bloody horrible deaths.
We don't know exactly when it started, but instantly the Plague of Crows is all over the internet. The Plague of Crows. That's what he's calling himself. Wanker.
Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, all over. Every single social media site you can think of, hundreds of them, names being thrown around that I don't even know exist. Now, all right, that doesn't really mean too much. I couldn't begin to care about all that shit, but the young 'uns around here, and the experts, a lot of this is new to them too. And the guy has accounts coming out of his arse. The Plague of Crows is a new presence in the world of social media, he's well prepared, and suddenly he has unleashed a clusterfuck of online horror.
Straight off, we're diving in there, trying to get sites closed down, things taken off. Not from this station, of course; this thing flew straight to the top. This is the kind of thing that will have had the First Minister feeling his testicles squeezed. The police, however, look worse than anyone.
A few months ago there were three people killed in the woods, and we did a deal with as many influential people as we needed to play it down. And now, there on every single computer monitor in the damned world, is proof that we lied.
People love that shit. The media love that shit. Those who didn't know anything about it will be exploding in a masturbational paroxysm of police-hating frenzy, and those who knew but had been persuaded to keep quiet will now be unleashed.
This isn't the worst thing, of course. The media deciding that the police are a bunch of lying fuckers? We get that every day. 'We'll never trust the police again,' say public who believe everything they read in the papers. Yeah, whatever.
'Why now?' says Taylor, standing at the head of the room.
We haven't met like this to discuss the summer deaths since last month. It was full on for a few weeks, then it began to tail off. There really was nothing to find. The guy who'd done it, had done it well. Eventually we had to acknowledge that there were other crimes being committed. I got taken off it about four weeks ago. Taylor's still going, however. He has worked on nothing else for three months. The superintendent has been quite happy with that, aware of just how shit this whole business has the potential to be.
There were two things we've been scared of all this time. One was that the truth behind the killings would
