saying.
Gorgeous and bisexual. Holy crap. Seriously, any time you meet a woman like that, it's like they've been invented. By me. The chances of me, Miller and another gorgeous bisexual woman all ending up in bed together might be nil, but at least they're not as nil as they would be if she wasn't bisexual in the first place.
Things did change a little between us a few months ago. I guess I'd always had the same opinion of her as most of the other men around here — that vague mixture of suspicion, revulsion and lust — then one day I blundered into her office without knocking just as she was changing to go out to an official lunch.
It was late summer. She'd been wearing a white blouse and I'm guessing, a white bra, and I walked in on her as she had both of them off and was standing by her desk in trousers and nothing else. As I entered she was bending over, but she straightened up, made no attempt to cover herself and looked at me as if she wasn't standing there topless.
It was a weird moment. We stared at each other for rather a long time; although, obviously when I say that we stared at each other, I mean that she looked me in the eye while I stared at her tits. I knew it was wrong, but by God I couldn't stop myself. I was keen to look her in the eye, I really was, but all I could do was stare at her tits, thinking, holy mother of all fuck, those are the best tits I've ever seen in my life, I want those tits. I couldn't speak, because all I would have said was, Wow, look at your tits, or Have you seen your tits, they're amazing or something equally stupid. So I stood there, mouth slightly open, staring at her tits, until she said, 'Sergeant?' and the spell was broken.
I finally managed to look her in the eye, said, 'It can wait,' and left. Closing the door behind me.
I remember walking out into the station thinking that it was utterly bizarre that a man — me — who had seen so many tits in his life, should be so enamoured by any pair of tits, but I was hooked. Must admit that I have viewed her with a lot more respect since then.
That's probably wrong, isn't it?
I like to tell myself it's because it was a moment when she proved that she transcended sexuality and was a woman of strength and power, but really it's because she's got great tits.
She's married to a boring suit called Frank, who sells oatcakes or some shit like that abroad. So the guy's never here, which gives her plenty of time for bridge building. Met the bloke a couple of times and nearly fell asleep talking to him. One of the camel coat Ibrox brigade, turns up there about once a season and talks as if he knows a shit load about Scottish football, when in truth he doesn't know any more than any other comedian who supports the Rangers. Believe he's got designs on becoming a director, and they're welcome to each other.
It's nearly ten o'clock and me and Taylor are sitting in the pub. I've just arrived, having smoked my fiftieth of the day on the way here. Taylor's been here since about five. Given that, he's remarkably cogent. Probably been making a pint last a few hours, since there was no one here to buy him a round.
The aggravated assault was the usual thing. Domestic, brothers, one of them ended up in hospital, the other's in a holding cell back at the station. They were fighting over a woman, which is no surprise, and she played the innocent, desperately concerned third party throughout. Playing one off against the other, and if any of them should be in the slammer, it's her.
'Your round,' says Taylor, with the detective's eye for detail. I think I could dispute that but choose not to bother. Make my way to the bar, catch the eye of the sultry barperson. Agnes.
'Vodka tonic, and a pint of heavy,' I say, and she nods and goes about her business. It's a quiet night, there's no one else within hearing range and I wonder whether I should go for it. She's wearing a tight white top, displaying adequate amounts of cleavage, and as she bends down to retrieve the tonic from the fridge, I get a good view of her massive buttocks. Very sexy. She stands up, slightly flushed around the chops, not a bad looking girl. Nevertheless, decide against. Go for idle chatter.
'Can you change the tape, Love?'
She listens to the music for a second and shrugs.
'It's Christmas,' she says, pouring the pint.
'There's more to Christmas than bloody Band Aid. You must have Bob's Christmas album.'
She watches the smooth brown liquid slowly fill the glass, the light reflecting off its deep hues. Sound poetic? Can't stand the stuff myself.
'Bob who?' she says.
Decide it was just as well I didn't go for it and hand over a twenty pound note. Then, drinks and change in hand, make my way back to the table. Sit down, suddenly occurs to me it's a few hours nearer Christmas and I still don't have anything for Rebecca. Look at the watch. Have to have something by five o'clock tomorrow evening. Bugger.
'What do you think of Bloonsbury?' says Taylor, licking the froth from his lips.
'What do I think of him?'
'Aye. Has he still got it? For a big case like this, I mean.'
'Fuck knows. I doubt it, but he seemed a bit more switched on this afternoon. But let's face it, the Addison case aside, what's he done in the last five years?'
No answer. There is no answer.
'So why,' I say, 'did she put him on this one?'
Taylor shrugs. 'So's he'll screw up, maybe.'
'Why?'
'It's like James Bond in The Man With the Golden Gun.'
'You mean there's an Asian dwarf?'
'No, not the film, the book.'
'Never read it.'
'James Bond is washed up, at a dead end. He's been brainwashed by the Russians. The Secret Service have no more use for him. But, fuck, he's James Bond. They can't just pack him off to a desk job. So they send him after Scaramanga, the deadliest assassin in the world. If he kills him then he's proved his worth; if he gets killed then they don't have the problem of what to do with James Bond.'
'Oh, aye. So what happens?'
'What do you mean, what happens? He's James Bond. What do you think happens?'
'But Jonah Bloonsbury ain't no James Bond.'
Taylor lifts an eyebrow.
'Fucking right he's not. She's sailing him down the river and when he fucks up, he's history.'
Take my first drink, screw up my face. Put in too much tonic. How do I manage to still do that after seven or eight million of them?
'So then what?'
'We get it,' he says, shaking his head. 'Would have been Crow, but now that he's buggered off to his one- bedroomed ruin in Arrochar, we'll get stuck with it. And it'll probably be after he's killed again, and the press are baying for blood. Bloonsbury's won't be enough.'
'So?'
'So, we'd better start thinking about how we're going to get this guy.'
'Oh.' Work. 'So that's what you've been sitting here thinking about, is it?'
'Not just that,' he says, and I'm not sure I want to know to what he is alluding. 'Anyway, someone's got to do it, 'cause Jonah's probably face down in a ditch by now.'
'So what have you come up with for your five hours ruminations?'
He takes an especially large drink, licks the froth from his lips, lays his hands on the table.
'Bugger all. I was waiting for you.'
Very funny.
'I'm serious,' he says in reply to the look on my face, and I believe him. 'So, what have we got? Some weird bastard who slashes a woman to pieces. Total rage, cutting her up to the extent that she is unrecognisable.'
'Why not just leave it to the profilers?' I say. They have these sad folk who just sit there all day inventing people. Someone pishes against a wall and they spend three weeks compiling the psychiatric profile of the man, before deciding his brother stuck a carrot up his arse when he was three. It's their job, let them do it.
He points his finger at me. I hate it when he does that. 'Because they don't know fuck all, son,' he says.
He's right.
