'Calm down? Has your son just had the fuck kicked out him? Well, has he?'
No, I think. But then, my son isn't a disruptive, horrible little piece of fucking shit either. I don't answer the question. She gives me the best Glasgow evils for a second or two, then turns to the headmaster to utter the words that any self-respecting, entitled bastard will utter in this day and age.
'See when my lawyer's finished with youse, I'm going to be loaded, and youse lot are all going to be out of jobs. You're shite the lot of you.'
Yes, madam, parents suing the education system is the way forward. It's weird that the government just doesn't plain encourage it.
36
The Plague of Crows is having fun. Enjoys the work. Likes a challenge. It had felt as though the police got a little too close in January, maybe there'd been a few too many chances taken, so this time the Crow will retreat a little. Go back to basics. Nothing too fancy. No live webcam. A simple, straightforward crime, much as had been perpetrated the previous August.
A social worker. A journalist. A police officer. Drawing up the shortlist had been time consuming, but entertaining, as usual. So many to choose from. Well, perhaps that had been the case with the social worker and the journalist. Not with the police officer, however. The police officer had been asking for it. The police officer had looked in the camera and had said, come and get me. The police officer had called out to the Plague of Crows, and the Plague of Crows was coming to get him.
*
Back at the station, the teacher downstairs. The media have arrived. They love a good beating in school. They can say that it's barbaric and Victorian. They can revel in it. They can be happy. I hate them all. It's because of people like them that the likes of Clayton even exist, that he can play the sport of manipulation.
They all know that the pupil pretty much got what was coming to him — if perhaps a little heavy handedly — yet they have come to execute the teacher. He will be the symbol of authority, the pupil will be the working class hero. No good will come of it.
On finding out the level of media interest, Superintendent Connor immediately put DCI Dorritt on the case, to show how seriously we were taking it. And, of course, to make sure that I didn't get on TV, given that I look like three kinds of shit.
Sitting at my desk, getting the paperwork in order, typing up some notes on the case to hand over to Dorritt. He and I don't really get along so well. It's because I'm normal, and he's a total douchebag. Something like that. Anyway, typing up the notes will allow me to limit how much I have to speak to him.
'How was the school?'
Look up. Taylor's walking by. Slowly. In no rush to get anywhere, which is pretty much how he's been since we were removed from the Plague of Crows. It was like the whole thing with Clayton just sunk the careers of me, Taylor and Gostkowski overnight.
I presumed Taylor would continue to work on the case, even though he was ordered off it. I wonder if Connor thought the same. But no, Taylor stepped away. Completely. Realised what it was doing to him and turned his back. Killed him, though. It might have been a release for some, but not Taylor.
Inspector Gostkowski seemed to take it in her stride. She was taken off the case and given other jobs to work on and she went off to do that. Haven't spoken to her about it, but wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't thought about the Plague of Crows since then. That's who she is. She applies herself with the utmost diligence to the task at hand.
Another casualty of the Clayton fiasco was that great fuck buddy relationship we had going on. Didn't want to know me after that, as if being with me reminded her of that time when her career got completely shafted.
Maybe she blamed me. It was me who interviewed him in the first place. It was me who decided that out of all the people I'd talked to, he was the one. It was me who had her going off checking on Clayton's wife and then at Clayton's golf club, and had me and Taylor turning up at his house, to his obvious delight.
I believe I might have asked her for sex four more times after that first time she rejected me. She refused every time, and then finally said, 'Sergeant, it's over,' just to make sure I got the message.
I wasn't supposed to be upset, we'd just been fuck buddies after all, that's the point. So that night I nailed a hooker. She charged twenty-five pounds. I gave her thirty.
Gostkowski and I have had one case together, which we handled professionally enough. The case itself did not work out satisfactorily, but at least we didn't end up in some bitch fight.
Been thinking a lot about the waitress in Costa. The one Gostkowski made me picture naked. I've pretty much had that image in my head ever since. She seems like a good bet.
Asked her back to my place once, with little aforethought. She was pretty fucking cool, I have to say. Didn't say yes, didn't give me an outright no. Might, she said. Maybe.
That was it. I've been thinking about her naked a lot more since then, but trying not to go in there every night, because now when I see her it feels like there's some expectation. Is she looking for me to ask? And that kind of uncertainty makes me feel like a teenager, and who the fuck wants to feel like that?
Something's going to happen though. It has to.
'It was shit,' I say. 'A mess. If we just let teachers whack the shit out of the little bastards when they first caused trouble, this kind of thing wouldn't happen. Of course, the teacher's going to be the bad guy.'
'He thrashed the fuck out of a fifteen-year-old, Sergeant,' says Taylor.
'Yes, he did,' I reply. 'But in the same way that some twenty-one-year-old gets into trouble for knobbing a fifteen-year-old, when the girl has already got fake breasts and looks older than he does… things are not always as straightforward as the facts would make you think.'
'Aye, great analogy, Sergeant. I dare you to take that one on to
He starts to turn away. Looks fed up, as he does all the time at the moment.
'What have you got on?' I ask.
Me and Taylor haven't worked directly together since January. Connor is keeping us apart, as if the combination of the two of us will bring down the entire station with our collective stupidity. He's just waiting for the court case, wherein Mr Clayton is attempting to suck £1.3m from the public purse, and then, if we lose, Taylor and I might well be finding ourselves out of a job.
Might celebrate then. Not sure.
'Attempted murder,' says Taylor, 'with an added bigotry ingredient. Can't get enough of them.'
'And the other thing?'
'The other thing, Sergeant,' he says, 'is finished. At least, I'm finished. I'm not going back there, and when the Plague of Crows strikes again, it isn't going to be my problem.'
Nod. Look miserably at the floor. The Plague of Crows took three more victims, fucking up me, Taylor and Gostkowski along his merry way. Maybe Gostkowski doesn't think of herself as a victim, but let's see how long she has to wait for her next shout at promotion.
He loiters. Taps his fingers on the end of my desk. Nothing much else to say. We used to hang out. We used to go to the pub. Don't anymore. It was an odd relationship, I suppose, not friends as such, what with him being the boss. But really, that's what we were. That's what we are. Friends. But now we're not working together anymore, we never go to the pub. Neither of us will take the time to say, 'Pub?' so that the other one can say, 'Aye, all right.'
We used to go there to talk about work, and would end up talking about everything else.
'You ever speak to Montgomery about it?' I ask.
'No, I haven't,' he says.
I nod. I can imagine it'd be pretty difficult.
'Whenever you see one of them walking about the station, do you get the feeling they're looking at us? You
