In My Time Of Dying: DS Hutton Book 5 Read online

  In My

  Time

  Of Dying

  Douglas Lindsay

  This edition Long Midnight Publishing, 2020

  Copyright © Douglas Lindsay, 2020

  The moral right of Douglas Lindsay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or by licence, permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  www.douglaslindsay.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  epilogue

  By Douglas Lindsay

  1

  There’s some shitty line in the book Jaws, when the Richard Dreyfus character’s taking a piss, and Chief Brody’s wife’s fantasising about him – they skipped this narrative thread in the movie – and she wonders at the amazing size of his man-bladder, and how he can just keep peeing and peeing, as though this was some epic, Herculean ability, bestowed upon men by the Gods.

  Aside from the questionable, eye-rolling absurdity of having a grown woman impressed by this shit, it’s also complete bollocks. Nevertheless, I read that book when I was a kid, and that always stuck with me, and for decades I imagined there was this significant difference between gigantic man-bladders, and those dainty little female bladders that need emptying every fifteen minutes or so.

  Somewhere along the way I realised the truth of it. Men either have to constantly plan ahead, or else spend large chunks of their life searching for the toilet, while women can last literally days not giving a fuck. Next time you’re on a commuter train, look around. You’ll be able to spot the guy who should’ve gone before he got on board. His legs’ll be jiggling like a bastard, and he’ll be looking incredibly uncomfortable. Meanwhile, even if there are seven or eight women in the carriage who need to go, you’ll never know. They’ll just be sitting there, like a boss. For women, needing to pee is a thing that happens. For men, it’s an event horizon.

  I think about Chief Brody’s wife every time I find myself caught short. Happened at the weekend. Ended up in a bar in the centre of town. One of those things, one of those evenings. Drank vodka for four and a half hours. Embarrassingly, pathetically drunk at the end of it.

  Tried it on with four women. The first one humoured me, out of pity, for fifteen minutes or so. Then she blew me off. But not in a good way. The next completely ignored me. Probably just as well. She may, may your honour, not have been twenty yet. It’s not like I need any more reasons to hate myself as soon as I wake up in the morning. The third introduced her boyfriend to the party, not long after I’d complimented her breasts, and that could have gone badly until I showed him my ID card, and he backed the fuck off. The effectiveness of the ID card isn’t exactly a given, but on this occasion it did the trick. And then there was the fourth, near the end of the night, when she was as drunk as I was. Holy shit. She was no oil painting, I’ll give her that. She, I’m sure, could have said the same for me. So that might all have worked out, until she sicked up a little into her mouth while we were slobbering at each other, then she ran off to the toilet and I never saw her again.

  Beautiful night out. Clear sky, crisp and fresh. Decided to walk home from the middle of town. What is it? Four miles, maybe. Saved me worrying about throwing up in a taxi. At some point, inevitably, I needed to take a piss. I thought of Ellen Brody, and how disappointed she would’ve been in my inability to walk home without having to use the toilet.

  I stopped and peed against a fence. Two-fifteen in the morning, somewhere in Dalmarnock, on a cold night in early October. A car pulled up just behind me as I was in the act. I turned round to tell them to fuck off, and was confronted by a plod, approaching, while sensibly keeping enough distance in case I turned out to be one of those wankers who’d try to piss on the copper.

  We had a chat. During the chat it emerged that I too was a police officer, and senior to him as well.

  Perhaps I could have handled it better. Perhaps I was a bit of a dick about it. I was drunk after all. In the end, he of course let me on my way, but my dickery has had its inevitable consequence, and so here I am, standing in front of the new Chief Inspector, getting my arse handed to me.

  ‘HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN here?’ she asks.

  Chief Inspector Hawkins. Sophie Hawkins. St Andrews alumna, fast track police career, doubt she’s ever looked a criminal in the eye, several years younger than me, dyes her hair a weird grey, though it kind of looks purple in some lights, and exactly the kind of woman I’d hit on, drunk in a bar, at one in the morning.

  Yeah, all right, there’s not a woman alive I wouldn’t hit on, drunk in a bar, at one in the morning.

  ‘Two weeks,’ I say, playing along, as though this is some kind of expositional opening scene in a new TV series.

  ‘Two weeks,’ she says, nodding, as virtually anyone would’ve scripted.

  Way too early to get the handle on her. Promoted above her ability? Got where she is because she’s banging the Chief Constable’s nephew? Bureaucrat? Paper pusher? Petty, pill-popping ladder climber? Vindictive chip on her shoulder about us proper coppers on the front line?

  Says more about me than her – a lot more – that all the potential character types I invest her with are pejorative.

  Maybe she’s good. Maybe she got where she is because she can run shit, she’s good with people, she has an eye for police work. Nevertheless, all I see is the attractive younger woman, stepping on the balls of the workers in the trenches, as she makes her way to the top.

  ‘Can I be honest?’

  We look at each other across the desk. I don’t bother with the you’re in charge, you can say whatever you like line.

  ‘No point in being anything else, is there?’ she says, answering her own question. ‘I’d heard about you, of course. I presumed you’d’ve been long gone when I was given this station. Couldn’t believe they brought you back.’

  ‘Needs must...’

  ‘They must have needed a lot. Well, here we are, you and me... It’s a small station, cut to the bone, and we’re going to have to make the best of it.’

  Another one of those stares. The one where I stare blankly at her, and she looks inside me, and reads me like the cheap headline on the front of a hack newspaper.
/>   ‘I understand you’ve had sex with most of the women at the station,’ she says.

  ‘Not any more,’ I toss back quickly, deciding to engage in the conversation, rather than invoke mock offense that she’s enquiring about my sex life.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘That’s old news. The old days. I went away for a while, and when I came back, things had changed. The constables had changed.’ A beat. ‘I haven’t had sex with anyone at this station in, I don’t know, three years maybe. Most of them call me granddad.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start.’

  Finally shake my head. Can’t really be doing with the telling off. There’s work to be done. People to interview. Criminals to crush.

  ‘Can I get on?’

  ‘I’m going to need you to go on some courses.’

  Jesus suffering holy fuck, what new madness is this?

  ‘What?’

  ‘Courses.’

  ‘What courses?’

  ‘There are a variety of health and safety courses, there’s diversity and inclusion, there’s the manager’s toolkit. There are a variety of BAME issues...’

  ‘Really? That’s never been a prob –’

  ‘And I know there’s an AA meeting in French Street, you might –’

  ‘I’ve been.’

  A beat.

  ‘You might want to consider re-attending. There’s also the more general addiction meeting, which you might also want to...’

  ‘I’ve been to that too.’

  ‘And I see here you’ve been to counselling before, perhaps that’s –’

  ‘I had sex with the counsellor.’

  ‘I’m sure we could find you a male counsellor, or a woman you don’t find attractive.’

  ‘I find all women attractive.’

  She stares blankly across the table. She swallows.

  ‘I’ll send you a list of the courses I’d like you to attend, then we can talk about it.’

  ‘Can I get on?’ I repeat. The same words as a minute ago, the other side of this conversation where the young chief inspector decided she would try to shape me.

  I have not contempt, just sorrow.

  ‘Don’t be getting ideas,’ she says. Must still be thinking about that casual line I threw out about finding all women attractive. And really, is that true? Nah, of course not. Although, there’s something there, you know. Take the physically most unattractive woman, and imagine her on the point of orgasm, her face alive with passion. Whole different ball game. Or the coldest, meanest bitch, the one you can’t stand, the one who makes your life miserable, the woman you hate with every ounce of your being, and do the same. Stripped bare, all the artifice and the malice gone, lost to the moment, in the throes of orgasm. Phew... Totally different picture.

  And yes, this just applies to women. Even attractive men look brutish in orgasm. I know this, because I’ve seen them in porn movies.

  ‘You’re glazing over,’ she says, and she snaps her fingers, albeit, she’s not quite close enough to me to do it in front of my face.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Look, I know about... it’s all over your file, that you had an affair with the previous female head of the station. I expect you have a grid you tick off, or something. Just... I’m just warning you, don’t even go there.’

  I stare blankly across the desk. I can feel myself shutting down.

  How small we all are. How trivial. How inconsequential. Me. Her. All of us.

  She continues talking. She changes subject. Well, the subject is still me and my deficiencies, but she does at least move on from the possibility of her and I ending up in bed. Which, if I can just be fair to myself for a moment, was not something that had even crossed my mind.

  Now, though... Now it’s crossed my mind.

  2

  Her eyes open.

  Lying on her back, mouth dry. She licks her lips, swallows. Wonders if she’s been snoring.

  Thinks about Harry. Can’t sense him next to her. Moves her hand to the right, the sheets are cold.

  She blinks, lifts her phone, checks the time. The light of it illuminates the room. 2:25. No messages.

  Clicks the light off, settles her head back on the pillow. Her eyes are wide now, and she feels a twist in her stomach.

  Harry.

  Working late was one thing. He often worked late. Midnight wasn’t out of the question. But he’d messaged at eleven, said he wouldn’t be too much longer. What time had she turned out the light? 11:15?

  A noise beside her right ear. A tap on the pillow. She turns her head, lifting it slightly. What was that?

  It’s dark, she sees nothing. Maybe a fly? She hadn’t noticed a fly in the room, nor heard the sound of it.

  She holds her head just above the pillow, listening. Listening. Waiting.

  Nothing.

  She settles back, eyes still wide open staring straight up. Strange shadows on the ceiling, cast by the street lights through the gap in the curtains.

  What was casting the shadow? Her brain not working properly. It’s sensing something is wrong, but it’s not functioning alertly enough to identify the cause of the ill feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Something, something cool and liquid and heavy, drops onto her forehead. Her heart pounds, she bolts upright, she fumbles for the light...

  3

  Can’t sleep. Some time in the middle of the night. Feeling stupid and useless and wasted and pointless, at the worst end of inadequate. Like inadequate has a good end.

  I had some time off a while ago. Paid leave while my behaviour during my previous case was examined by the appropriate internal police authorities. I was found wanting, but since my existence had come to the attention of the press during the course of that investigation, my superiors chose to represent my actions as those of a hero. So the police wouldn’t look bad, I guess. I was praised for not shooting the suspect when I had him in front of me, a gun in my hand.

  Seemed slim heroic pickings, given he was unarmed at the time. Anyway, that was the narrative they went with, and since there was a certain amount of redemption involved, the press went along with it. Apparently on Twitter, that happy blend of art, music, wonder and total dumbfuckery, I was vilified by the American Right for not popping a bullet in the guy’s head. I deserve, so many of them opined, to die for my pusillanimity.

  If only.

  Nevertheless, despite being cast as the hero of my own story, it didn’t mean the police actually wanted me back. Quietly put out to grass was their plan, although it never actually got to a stage of being fully formulated. Paid leave while under investigation, became unpaid leave.

  Then, somewhere along the way, Covid-19 came along and bit everyone on the arse. The police were already struggling for numbers, and then when the lockdown was lifted and crime got an uptick – It’s back! And it’s bigger and better than ever! – they started calling in the random strays, recent retirees, and ne’er-do-well police outcasts.

  It was a different station I got called back to. They’d sold up the building, moving back to smaller premises, where we used to be, in Cambuslang precinct, that shithole of a 1960s building project. The superintendent had taken early retirement, and been replaced with a Chief Inspector. Our resident DCI, Dan Taylor, was still here when I got back, but he didn’t last much longer. I still talk to him every now and again. Shorn of work discussions and shared senior officer resentment, neither of us has properly adjusted to the new dynamic. Perhaps it’ll come. DC Morrow’s also gone. Passed his sergeant’s exam, and they moved him to Baillieston. Good on him. Decent kid, has way more going for him than I’ve ever had.

  There’s a new Detective Inspector. Kadri Kallas. Estonian. Long, light brown hair, attractive, slim, early forties, blunt as fuck. Been in Scotland fifteen years. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about sleeping with her, but she’s married, she has three children, I have zero chance, and so far, thank fuck, I’ve been fortunate enough not to be drunk in her presence, a
nd therefore haven’t done anything stupid. Our working relationship is fine, helped by her quickly adopting Taylor’s attitude towards me. That of the slightly concerned, slightly troubled, slightly baffled parent.

  Given she’s about ten years younger than me, that’s pretty fucking embarrassing.

  The constables have changed, or if they haven’t, I don’t remember them. Sgt Harrison’s still here, thank God, so I’ve got someone to sit with at lunch. Not that the new place has a canteen. Now we eat at our desks, or we muddle out into the precinct and sit on a bench, trying not to overhear other peoples’ conversations.

  When I think of all the coming and going, the ripping up and barely reassembling of the station collective, I hear the words All change! cried out in the background in the middle of Supper’s Ready. Haven’t listened to that song in years, but it’s still in my head, somewhere.

  All change!

  Except nothing changes. And this is what we do when we’re unhappy, when life gives us nothing to hang our hats on. We regress, and cling to the certainties of youth. Nothing can happen to them. Set in stone. Me and my mates listening to early Genesis, when everyone else had moved on. Reading Jaws. Long hot summer of ’76. The ruination of Ally MacLeod in Argentina. Playing down by the river. Spangles and Marathon and a finger of fucking fudge, and that impatient little cunt with the conker.

  Can’t sleep. Think of doing various things, but they all threaten to extend the wakefulness into early morning – get up and drink, watch TV, listen to music, read a book, masturbate – but I don’t want to do any of it, so I lie with my eyes determinedly shut, occasionally shifting position. Mind all over the place, but the only time it seems to settle is on some uncomfortable embarrassment, all those occasions that lurk in amongst the certainties, emerging from the fog of the past.

  My phone wakes me up at one minute past three. The last I looked at the time it was two-fifty-one, yet the sleep feels deep, like my head was completely buried in another world.

  ‘What?’ is all I can manage.

  ‘Probable murder,’ says Ramsay, from the front desk.