her, after we'd finished. She came, she fucked, she came, she left.
Thinking about her as I sit at my desk, but not in any proactively vomit-inducing romantic way. Would be nice if we quickly developed into fuck buddies. Been a while since I had an out-and-out fuck buddy. Such a rare thing to find. There's usually one of you, if not both, ends up thinking romantic thoughts, and before you know it something's said, and there goes the fuck buddy relationship and then not long afterwards, there goes any kind of relationship.
Enjoy it while you can, as much as you can, in the sure and certain knowledge that it won't last.
Grabbed a look at the newspaper headlines on the way in. The Sun led with
The victim who managed to last until the cavalry arrived — although it's doubtful she knew anything about it — didn't make it through the night. Heard the news on the radio as I was getting breakfast. Extraordinary that she lasted that long. She remained sedated once the paramedics had finally done the job, and had never had anywhere to go. There was never a chance of recovery. If she died because someone decided to pull the plug in the middle of night, then you couldn't blame them.
Taylor arrives just after seven. Stops at the desk, acknowledges my presence with a nod. I read into it that he's desperately impressed that I'm here, what with me having previous.
'Can you spend some time looking at the three dates?' he says.
'What am I looking for?'
'Whatever you can find. See if there's a connection. And I don't mean, you know, anything big, anything that would be obviously flagged up as happening on those dates, the This Day in History section. Check newspapers for the day after each of those three dates, note down every story that might be of worth, see if there's anything that recurs, any theme, any name. Anything.'
'You have a hunch or something specific?' I ask.
He stops. He'd been slowly edging towards his office as he spoke, as if he didn't even have time to get the words out.
'Neither,' he says, and suddenly, just for a moment, seems a lot less dynamic than a few seconds ago. Gives himself a shake, snaps out of it. 'Just a thought, nothing more. Clutching at straws. I assume…' He pauses at the use of the word. Never assume anything in this game, and he knows it. 'I'm thinking that he does it when he's ready, and the fact that there's less of a gap between the second and third than between the first and second, is an indicator that he's getting better, able to put his plans together more quickly. That's what I think. Nevertheless, it's no reason not to consider other angles. Let's give it a go.'
He looks around the office, maybe making a note of those already at work, but more than likely just collecting his thoughts, then turns back.
'The downside is that, even if you don't find anything, it doesn't rule it out. He could be committing the crimes on specific dates, but there's no public record of what those dates are. So…'
And he just lets the sentence drift off, waves a haphazard hand then walks to his office.
Turn back to my computer screen and start looking through the newspaper archives. Might as well begin with the Evening Times. My heart isn't exactly singing at the prospect, but at least it's something constructive.
Suddenly DI Gostkowski is standing beside my desk. Not sure what she's working on at the moment, how many of us are being placed under Edinburgh command and control. I'm very happily staying out of the office politics, leaving it all to Taylor. From the general lack of grown men shouting, throwing teddies in the corner and behaving like football supporters, I'm guessing that some sort of mutually beneficial agreement has been reached between the two forces — and let's not pretend that that would have been reached by anything other than total desperation — and we are all, like the High School Musical kids and George fucking Osborne, in it together.
She looks fresh. I'm guessing — although it's not a word I would usually use to describe a forty-five-year- old, marginally overweight bloke who smokes too much — that I probably look reasonably fresh as well. Rather than go home and lie awake in bed thinking too much about the day gone by, we banged each other's brains out and sleep came very easily.
'Fuck buddy,' she says, and a small smile comes to her face.
Interesting etiquette. Some would say that just the acknowledgement of the notion that you might be fuck buddies is overstepping the mark, that the person saying it is laying down some sort of rule and talking about the situation, which in itself is denying the very nature of one's fuck buddy role. You have sex, you don't talk, you don't acknowledge. So this is a bold move, early on in the fuck buddy relationship. I'd never make the move myself, but it probably is the case that if anyone's going to do it successfully, it has to be the woman.
And that smile. Intriguing. Beautiful. Almost not even there before it's completely gone. I attempt what I hope will be an equally small and intriguing smile in return and nod. She taps her closed fist on the desk, as if asking to come in, and then walks on her way. I watch her go, and I'm pleased to say that as I look at her, all I think is how great she looks naked and that I can't wait to sleep with her again tonight, and barely a romantic thought crosses my mind.
*
I never thought the dates idea was up to much. If that was what the Plague of Crows has done, then he was leaving something to chance. Using specific dates might have been a tricky one for us to work out perhaps, but if we did it, then we might have an in. So it was a long shot, like Taylor said. Something that he probably thought of while lying awake in the middle of the night, because he didn't have a fuck buddy.
Anyway. Four-and-a-half hours later — and I realise that this is something I could spend much longer on, but four and a half hours somehow seems enough — I'm standing at the door of his office.
'Nothing,' he says, without looking up. Not even a question. He knows.
'Nothing,' I say.
He sits back. Stares out the window. Another grey, cold day in January. There's a guy snooping around the car park, looking in windows. It could be someone hoping to nick a car — it's not like there aren't people around here with the sheer balls to nick a car from outside a police station — but we both know it's a journalist.
He lifts up the phone.
'Sergeant,' he says, to Ramsay at the front desk, 'there's an intruder in the car park. Send a couple of guys out to put the wind up him, eh?'
He hangs up. Looks tired again. Indicates for me to come in and sit down. The walls are still lined with the photographs of the woods of central Scotland. Now they seem pointless. Now they're taunting him. How was it ever going to be any different? They told him where to go, but it was no use. It hadn't allowed him to save anyone, and neither had they ever been going to. Not unless the Plague of Crows chose a patch of wood within a couple of miles of here.
He lifts the phone again, says, 'Can you come in here, Stephanie, please?' and hangs up.
Neither of us speaks. He's vaguely looking at a couple of pieces of paper on his desk, but in such a way that I can tell he's not actually looking. I watch him for a second, then look away. Outside, the bloke in the car park has been confronted by Constable Carr. They're arguing. No doubt the journalist is stating his case that his human rights are being infringed and that this is undoubtedly just another example of a thuggish police force cracking down on innocent civilians engaged in perfectly innocent activity.
The police. Never the good guys.
DI Gostkowski walks into the room, stands for a second, then closes the door unbidden and pulls up the other seat. And in an instant we have the feel of a war room. The cabinet come to establish the strategic overview and map out the way forward. I prefer war rooms conducted in pubs, and it is lunch time. I'd probably suggest it, but somehow the very presence of Gostkowski puts everything onto a higher plain of maturity.
'All right, we've finally come to an agreement with Montgomery, although to be honest we've been working fine without it for some time. The three of us are going to be… I don't know…'
'Special Forces,' I chip in. 'Working to the same end, sharing information, but not actually part of the main force.'
He looks at me for a second. So much for the presence of DI Gostkowski. She says nothing.
