A Plague Of Crows: The Second Detective Thomas Hutton Thriller by Douglas Lindsay

apply that kind of memory and analysis to every other crime scene, I'd be a far better copper than I currently am.
    Hands over my head, bring my head down between my knees. But it's not going away. It's here now, just like it comes every now and again.
    Guilt. Fear. Self-hatred. Shame. What could I have done differently? That's always the question. What could I possibly have done that night that I wouldn't be sitting here now in this position?
    Why can't he take me? The guy, this guy, the Plague of Crows guy, why can't he take me ? If he's got something against the police, take me. I'd be no one's loss. And it's what I deserve. Strapped to a chair, my head sliced open, picked at by birds. Angry birds.
    Hah! Angry fucking birds.
    End up curled on the forest floor wishing I was dead. Wishing I was dead. Then it could all go away, unless there is a Hell. Unless my mother was right. There's a Hell. And I won't be going there because I used to keep magazines under my pillow when I was fourteen.
    Don't want to do this anymore.
    Not anymore.

17
     

    Taylor had headed up over Eaglesham moor. He gets back to the office about ten minutes before me, so that when I get back, having answered the call, he's in position. YouTube on the computer, watching the murder scene. The latest murder scene, the one we've been expecting. Everyone out in the station is going mental, they're on the phone, they're shouting, they're clustered around computer screens. For the time being this will transcend the dicks from Edinburgh. They'll get to it on their own when all the shit has settled down. Or, more to the point, when we find out where these latest poor bastards are.
    'Any chance they're still alive?' I say to Taylor's shoulder.
    He answers with a slight wave of the hand, then points at one of them.
    'This guy's dead already. The other two aren't, but they can't last too much longer.'
    'You spoken to Baird?'
    'No, not long in. Give him a call, will you? He's bound to have watched it.'
    It comes to an end and he immediately clicks back to the start.
    'Any clue to where it is?'
    He snorts.
    'There are trees, a few low hills in the background and the weather's miserable as shite…'
    I watch it through, start to finish, for the first time. As before, there's absolutely no evidence of the person taking the film. They're doing it on a hand-held, walking around the scene, catching it quickly from all angles. Two minutes, thirty-seven seconds in length. One person dead, two people alive, awake and terrified. Wide eyes. The guy got a great shot of a crow pecking into the middle of an open eye, and then withdrawing quickly as if spooked by what it had just done. The last shot before the end of the film is blood running from the eye. An eye with the eyelid pinned back, an eye that can't be closed.
    The noise is just the clamour of the birds. Wings flapping, the occasional squawk as they get in each other's way. There's no sound from the cameraman, not even a muffled footstep or a low breath. No cars to be heard in the distance.
    It's real, but of course you watch it as if you're watching Saw II or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre . Just a film. Given that there's not that much blood, maybe it wouldn't even be an 18. Kids today. Played Call of Duty with Andy one day last year. Fucking hell. Having seen the real thing, I didn't last very long.
    'He posted this from a new account?' I ask.
    'Plague of Crows 2,' says Taylor, and he glances over his shoulder.
    'Maybe he's a Hollywood executive.'
    'You look fucking awful, what happened?'
    In the middle of the woods, with one bar worth of reception, and me lying on the forest floor curled up in the mother of all foetal positions, the phone had rung and dragged me back. Answered in a daze. Got in the car and started driving back without really knowing what I was doing. Finally came out of it somewhere along the last part of the M74. It was only when I'd returned to the station that I noticed the passenger side mirror had