Douglas Lindsay - A Plague Of Crows

'What?' he says.

In a way, she already has what she's come for. Really, she'd been thinking that if he is the Plague of Crows and if he's in the middle of putting together another crime, then he wouldn't even be home. She'd always known that she'd be making her mind up in the first few seconds.

'Your girlfriend not here?' she asks, perched on the end of the sofa.

He snorts quietly again, makes an ugly movement of his lips.

'She left.'

'Oh. That's too bad.'

A shrug. Another scowl. She wonders if he's been sitting here playing X-Box, eating pizza, since the girlfriend walked out. Has it so utterly ruined him?

'What was it you wanted?' he asks. 'You people can't stay away.'

She stares for a moment and then gets back to her feet.

'I think I've already got what I was coming for,' she says.

He looks at her. Quizzically for a moment and then he shakes his head. Whatever. Doesn't care.

'Sure,' he says.

She looks away. A glance around the room. Feels strange walking in and walking back out. What will she say to the Chief Inspector? That hunch of yours, about Clayton… it's shit. It's not him. Wherever we're going to find Sgt Hutton, it's not down at his place.

Clayton is all they have, and she is about to make the bold move of striking him off the list of one based on a feeling, and the fact that he's playing X-Box. It's going to be tough going back with nothing, but is there any point in asking?

What were you doing last night? What about earlier today? We really need to get hold of your wife so that we can ask her how much of a nutjob you are.

She stops. She stops thinking. The thought processes stop and are replaced by a slight confusion. Where has she seen that face? It comes back to her immediately, no searching around in the canyons of her brain for the information. One of the things that makes her a good officer. Instant access to everything she needs to know.

She crosses the room and lifts the photograph. Clayton standing with a woman on each arm. One of them is his wife. She recognises the other. The hair is completely different. The photograph is a few years old, but it's the smile. She knows the smile.

'This woman,' she says, turning to Clayton. He's watching her, annoyance beginning to stir him from his apathy.

'What?'

'This woman,' she repeats. 'Who is it?'

He snorts again.

'That's my wife,' he says. 'Or, at least, it was. Bitch. Don't ask me where she is now. Haven't seen her in fucking years.'

'Not your wife, the other one.'

He appears not to hear the question. He noisily rattles off several rounds of machine gun fire, his face expressionless. She waits for a few seconds, but soon realises that she'll be waiting forever.

'Not your wife,' she repeats.

He turns. He looks in the direction of the photograph, although she gets the feeling that he could be staring into darkness for all that he's seeing. He snorts again, another small and bitter laugh.

'You people are so shit,' he says.

Looks back at the screen, shaking his head. Enjoying knowing something that she doesn't.

'Tell me how shit we are,' she says.

She has to wait again. The sneer doesn't leave his face. He rattles off more gunfire. She glances at the television. He says 'fuck', as red is smeared across the screen.

'Tell me how shit we are,' she repeats.

He half glances in her direction, but his game is ended and now he's concentrating on what he's done and setting up another game.

'That's my sister-in-law. Jane. That's her name. Jane. Sounds so unassuming, doesn't it?' He laughs. 'Dick and Jane play in the woods, or Dick and Jane build a house. Then there was Dick and Jane fuck round the back of the studio while whacked out of their heads on crack.'

He laughs again.

'What?' she says. Becoming irritated. 'What?'

He doesn't reply. Clicking rapidly through pages. Concentrating on the TV.

'Would you look at me while I'm interviewing you?'

She has his attention.

He stops, stares at her. The sneer has died away and there's nothing on his face. Eyes are dead.

'Jesus…' he mutters. Shakes his head, turns back to the TV. Now, however, he stares at the set-up screen, but doesn't do anything.

'Tell me about Jane,' she says.

Slight movement of his fingers and he starts witlessly clicking and trawling, before the game sparks to life again.

'Met her through the lawyer. That's how I first met Caroline. Jane and I were going out. Jane was on High Road . There were stories about her on set, you know, fucking, drug taking, that kind of thing. The usual crap. Fucking press. They love that shit.'

'You went out with her?'

'For a while. I mean, like twice or something. It was nothing. She was a fucking space cadet. Introduced me to Caroline. Wasn't happy when we started seeing each other, by the way. Can't blame her…'

'She sued the press over her stories?'

'Lost.'

'Then what?'

He plays for a few seconds, then glances over. He shrugs.

'Not sure. She was fucked. No money. Didn't want to ask us 'cause she was fucked off at Lin. And me. She was a fucking fucked-up junkie crack whore. Don't know what happened to her.'

'What's her name?'

Another quick glance, this time annoyance mixed with disdain.

'Fucking Jane,' he says. 'What else are you looking for? Her designation? One of Two, some shit like that, some kind of Star Trek shit?'

'What was her second name? What name did she use on High Road ?'

He snorts. Knew what she meant.

'Fucking police,' he mutters.

He's finished.

Gostkowski stands in the middle of the room, clutching the photograph of Clayton, and Clayton's wife and Clayton's sister-in-law, the waitress at the Costa across from the police station. The waitress who had spoken to her and Hutton. The waitress about whom she had teased him.

Then suddenly she's running out the room, reaching for her mobile.

*

Clayton stands at the window, watching her leave, DI Gostkowski driving hurriedly back down the long driveway.

Another fine job under his belt. Another solid performance being someone he isn't. Along the way he has perhaps forgotten who he actually is. Perhaps he doesn't want to know. It'd be pretty lonely being the only one in here. Most people are lonely, or desperate enough to do something about it. That's what he thinks. So he submerges himself in various people and does not think of the contradiction.

He wasn't pretending to have been dumped by a girlfriend that never existed. He was that person, sitting in pathetic, game-playing loneliness. He was someone who had been dumped by his girlfriend.

A few years ago it would have made him smile. To carry off something like that with such panache. Now it means little. He watches her go. He doesn't smile.

Maybe that's why he played the spurned, depressed lover so well. He was tapping into the part of him that had had enough.

He has things to do, but he's not in any rush. The police won't be back for a while, and it's not like he has to change anything around here before they come.

He slumps down into the chair in front of the TV and lifts the Xbox handset. Before he restarts the game, he lifts the bottle of Coke, unscrews the lid with one hand and tips the remainder of the warm, flat liquid, small pieces of chewed pizza and all, into his mouth.

It kicks in some time during the journey. The awakening. The realisation that I'm being an idiot. A fucking idiot, no less.

When you're guilty, when you've done something you're scared is going to be found out, then you look for it everywhere. Everything reminds you of it. You constantly think you've been caught. Each turn of events seems to be taking you back to that place.