by Tony Black
‘And you accepted that?’
A nod. ‘It seemed irresponsible to press her, she was very unsettled then.’
‘She must have had a boyfriend, someone you suspected?’
‘No, no one.’
Brennan raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, it was hardly an immaculate conception, Minister.’
He riled, ‘I have no idea who the father of the child was, Inspector.’
Brennan paused, took a deep breath. He had already been through all the possibilities and their permutations in his mind. ‘We can have that checked.’
The minister nodded. ‘I’m sure you can.’
The line of questioning had stalled. It gave Brennan an opportunity to change tack: ‘I see you’re in line for the big league.’
‘Excuse me?’ His voice sounded tired.
‘You didn’t expect that to escape us, surely…’ Brennan turned his cheek, squinted. ‘I’m talking about the job — Moderator of the Church of Scotland.’
The minister nodded, brought his hands out in front of him and laid them on the table. ‘You present that like it is an important piece of the puzzle, Inspector.’
Brennan smiled. ‘Maybe it is.’
‘And why would that be?’ His tone grew cockier.
The detective settled himself in the seat, made a show of turning up the cuffs on his shirtsleeves. ‘Do I need to paint you a picture, Minister?’
A head tilt. ‘I’m afraid you might have to, because I don’t see any connection between my career prospects and this unfortunate turn of events.’
‘“Unfortunate turn of events”… You make it sound like your washingmachine’s on the blink.’ Brennan sat forward, rested elbows on the table. ‘Your daughter has been murdered and your granddaughter — Beth — remember her? She’s missing.’
The minister looked away, his pallor faded.
Brennan let the implications of his words settle. He rose from the chair and paced the room, spoke: ‘Now, here’s how I see it: you’re up for the top job in the Kirk, and young Carly is unfortunate enough to get herself pregnant. Now, how does a respectable Church of Scotland minister deal with that? Does he throw a party in the manse? Take an ad out in the paper?… I wonder.’ Brennan stared at the minister — he was looking away. ‘No, here’s what I say he does: he thinks about how this will look for him. Oh, now, the parishioners won’t like it, he thinks. No, no. They’ll talk, they’ll complain, they’ll put words in ears, maybe even write letters. No, no. That would never do. Am I painting a clear enough picture, Minister?’
‘Yes, very clear.’ His speech was blunt, brisk.
The DI leaned over him, shouted, ‘I doubt it. I doubt it very much.’ He didn’t like the minister’s demeanour — he was acting as if he had some cards in reserve, and Brennan knew full well he had no such thing. He fired on, ‘You see, when I found out you were in line for the Moderator’s job, it made me think. What did it make me think? you’re wondering… Well, it made me think that if an opportunity like that presented itself, an opportunity of a lifetime, you might say, some people would do almost anything to stop it slipping through their fingers.’
‘No, this is wrong… You are wrong about that,’ said the minister.
Brennan returned to the table, leaned over. ‘I doubt it. You see, I watched you talking about your daughter and I think I learned one or two things about you, Minister. You are a very secretive man, you like to keep your private life, as the saying goes, private. Am I right or am I wrong?’
The minister nodded, said, ‘Is there a law against that, Inspector Brennan?’
A smile, wry one. ‘No. Not against that. But there is a law against murder.’
The minister’s eyes flared. He rose. ‘This has gone far enough. I demand to have a lawyer, now.’
Brennan eased back, lowered himself into the chair. ‘You can have a lawyer any time you like, but jumping the gun a bit, aren’t we? No one’s charged you with anything.’
The minister sat down again, ran fingers through his thick grey hair. ‘This infernal questioning is leading nowhere.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that… and more besides.’
‘Meaning?’
‘ Meaning I’d like you to start answering some questions, with some straight answers. Like why didn’t you tell us about Beth?’
The minister laced his fingers, looked at his palms, turned them over. The actions seemed perfunctory. ‘That would seem like an error now.’
‘I’d say so. But you’re not answering my question.’
The minister raised his eyes. ‘My wife and I, well, we were in so much shock…’
Brennan wasn’t buying any of it. ‘Why did Carly run away?’
A sigh, followed by a deep breath. ‘We discussed with her about putting the child, erm, Beth, up for adoption.’
‘And Carly wanted to keep her.’
‘No. Well, not at first… Before the birth, Carly was in favour of adoption.’
‘But then she had the child, she held Beth in her arms and changed her mind, is that it?’
The minister nodded his head.
‘So, you pressed her to have the child adopted?’
‘No. Not at all… It’s very complex, Inspector.’
‘Then explain it.’
His gaze turned away from Brennan; his eyes drooped in time with his shoulders. He spoke: ‘We… removed Carly from school when the pregnancy was uncovered. We tried to keep her from prying eyes.’
Brennan knew exactly what he was saying, and wasn’t saying. ‘You were ashamed.’
The minister’s lower lip curled into his mouth, sat over his teeth for a moment, then subsided. ‘There was some element of that, yes.’
‘You were ashamed, and you were afraid you’d miss your chance to be Moderator.’
The minister didn’t answer the question, said, ‘It was very… complex.’
Brennan rose from his chair again, began his pacing ritual. ‘And then Beth was born.’ The child’s name seemed to unsettle the minister every time he heard it.
‘Yes. Carly had the child at home. My wife was a midwife when we met and… It was a simple procedure for her.’
‘And the adoption?’
‘We had made all the arrangements.’
‘Go on.’
Talking like this was a trial for the minister — each word was drawn from a deep, dark well. ‘Somewhere along the way, Carly had a change of heart. She didn’t want to give up the child and… there were words.’
Brennan turned, pointed to him. ‘You laid down the law.’ He raised his voice: ‘You told her she was giving up her child whether she wanted to or not!’
The minister raised his hands to his head, lowered his brow towards the table. His words were inaudible. Brennan watched as he rested his eye sockets on the heels of his hands.
‘Well, this is all very interesting, Minister… All very interesting indeed, wouldn’t you agree?’
Chapter 25
DC Stevie McGuire was waiting for Brennan as he left the interview room. He had a blue folder pressed to his chest, said, ‘I have a media statement back from PR… Do you want to cast your eyes over it?’
Brennan took the piece of paper, read:
Lothian and Borders Police investigations into the death of a young woman on the Muirhouse Housing Estate in Edinburgh are ongoing. Police are treating the matter as suspicious. The victim’s identity will not be released until all family members have been informed. Police are keen to hear from anyone in the locus between the hours of…
Brennan returned the paper, pinned it to McGuire’s folder. ‘Release the name.’
‘ What?’
‘You heard.’
He walked off; McGuire trailed him.
‘Sir, are you sure that’s-’ He broke off as Brennan spun round.
‘Look, Stevie, how many calls from the hacks have we had on this?’
The DC shrugged. ‘A lot…’
‘More than that, son. We’ve given t
hem nothing and they’re getting antsy. If we hold off on the ID then they’re going to know we’re playing them hard… We’ll be upping the pace, but we need to keep them onside, make them work for us.’
McGuire nodded, said, ‘You’re the boss.’
Brennan placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed. ‘Don’t you forget it.’ He smiled at McGuire. There was another reason behind his thinking, and he wanted to relay it: ‘Look at it this way, Stevie — we might be jumping the gun a bit, but we’ll piss off our mole something rotten.’
The pair shared a brief laugh as they walked towards the incident room; Brennan wondered if he was coming round to the DC. Phones were ringing, uniforms running to and fro. There was a message coming through the fax — a WPC waited for it. Brennan nodded to the crowd who looked up as he entered. He pointed to one of them. ‘Lou, what’s the go with the door-to-doors?’
A short man in a Markies shirt and tie, open at the collar, bedraggled, spoke: ‘I’m about fifty per cent through them.’
‘And?’ Brennan moved his fists in a circular motion.
‘And… nothing, sir.’
‘ Nothing?’
‘No one at the halfway houses saw anyone matching our victim. There’s a few left to try but we’re drawing blanks.’
Brennan shook his head, jutted his jaw. ‘Did you start these before or after we had the full pathology report?’
Lou leaned back against the wall, touched his brow. ‘Erm, bit of both… Some before, some after.’
‘Right. The ones you covered before, go back and ask if they saw anyone with a kid.’
‘Yes, sir.’ He pushed his shoulder blades off the wall, returned to his desk.
Brennan started to move fists again, halted, pointed. ‘Brian… what pictures you got?’
A shake of the head.
‘Nothing?’
‘Not so far. I’ve not got them all in yet, we’re halfway through the train stations footage and haven’t started on the buses… The community centre’s wasn’t running.’
Brennan arked up, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ He smacked a fist in his open palm. ‘How many bods have you got screening?’
‘Four on the early shift, two the back.’
‘Double it. I’ll worry about the overtime later.’
Brian nodded, ran fingers through his hair and picked up the phone’s receiver.
Brennan paced round the room. He looked at the whiteboard. There were more photographs of Carly now; her name had been added in red marker pen. Brennan’s gaze hung for a moment, then he turned swiftly.
‘Okay, Davie… you’re up.’
When the DC rose, he was a full half-foot taller than the rest of the room. His arms seemed too long for his body and his elbows poked out at an unnatural angle as he spoke: ‘I hate to say it, boss, but I’ve got even less to report than the others.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Brennan shook his head.
‘I’ve pulled in the pimps working the Links but they’re giving nothing away.’
‘Are they holding back?’
A shrug. ‘Hard to say… They’re never forthcoming at the best of times.’
‘Haven’t you got any brass that talk?’
Davie scratched his earlobe with a long bony finger. ‘I tried that too — nothing.’
Brennan threw up his hands, kicked out at a waste bin. ‘Right, get them in… take a meat wagon and round them up.’ He turned, pointed again. ‘Davie, you can head up the interviews and I want them started today. Go on through the night if necessary… Tell Charlie to clear some cells.’
‘Sir, do you know how many sex workers there are out there?’
Brennan hated the phrase, it was too PC. He preferred the tried and tested handle — seemed to fit. ‘Get them all in, all the brass and ass walking Leith, and interview them. One on one. A young girl has died — someone knows something. And in case anyone has lost sight of the fact, there’s a child, a baby girl called Beth that’s missing… When I get my balls put over the coals on national television I want to be able to tell the country that every single man and woman in this room is doing everything they possibly can to find that child and her mother’s killer.’
The room fell silent. Heads were bowed.
Brennan continued, ‘This might turn out to be the biggest case any of you will ever work on. We have a seriously deranged killer on the loose and don’t think for a second the press and public are going to let us forget it.’ He walked to the window. ‘Look out there — that’s where our killer is. There are people who know him, or her, and they’ll lead us right to where the bastard is hiding. I want every single one of you to up your game — the stakes have never been higher. I want this bastard, and I want that child out of harm’s way.’
The room was still quiet.
Brennan slammed his fist down on a desk. A cup and some pens jumped. ‘Do you hear me?’
Together: ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good, now get to work. I want results… Nothing else will cut it.’
Brennan put one foot in front of the other, paced through to his glass-fronted office. He slammed the door, more for effect than anything. As he sat at his desk he watched the bodies pass his window; he knew they were a long way from finding out anything. The case had him mystified. He knew there was some piece of the puzzle that hadn’t yet come into view, but he didn’t know where to begin looking for it. What had happened to that girl back in Pitlochry that made her pack up her belongings and head for the big city? It had to be more than a tiff with her parents. Yes, the minister was a queer fish, as Stevie described him, but he wasn’t a monster. Surely there was family support there for the girl, and if it wasn’t there in sufficient quantities then she’d had some options available to her. At what stage did the best choice become to uproot herself from friends and family, with a baby, and head out into the unknown?
The more Brennan played over the events in his mind, the more it baffled him. Who was Carly Donald? He needed to find that out. He needed to get under the skin of the young girl from Pitlochry who had ended up in cold storage in the capital city. Brennan could see the whiteboards through the glass front of his office. The name of Carly’s school was listed at the top of a number of contacts that had been deemed worth chasing. Teachers, friends, a hockey coach and the family doctor.
‘Bullshit,’ mouthed Brennan.
He would have to check this out himself. He had to start pushing a few buttons; the information was out there, it always was, it was just a matter of finding it. The girl had a child, Jesus, a child that no one knew where to look for. Who had the child? Was the child still alive? The questions mounted but the answers remained elusive. A thought of Lorraine cross-hatched with the case: he was soon to be a father again — how would he feel if his child was missing?
Someone had fathered Carly’s child and Brennan wanted to know who. It was his experience that in small towns, information like that was never far from the lips of gossips; even if they were wrong, there were always theories. He didn’t know where finding the father would lead him, or the investigation, but that was the way things went. You upturned every stone, in the hope of finding what you were looking for there. It was when you left stones unturned that you ran into difficulties.
Brennan felt his conscience pull. He picked up the receiver of the phone, dialled home. His wife answered after a few rings.
‘Hello.’ Her voice immediately chided him for his infidelity. She didn’t need to say the exact words — his guilt drew its own meaning.
‘It’s me, Rob.’
‘Oh, decided to return my call, did you?’
He turned to his blotter to see if there were any messages. ‘What call?… First I’ve heard of it.’
‘I called about an hour ago.’ Joyce’s tone was indignant. He’d tired of that tone, and more besides. Even the things he had once admired and enjoyed in Joyce had become tiresome. The way she did her hair, the books she read, her pet phrases; her familiarity bored him. Lorraine was a ve
ry different woman; she didn’t need to be, all she needed to be was someone other than Joyce, but Brennan hadn’t realised that at the time.
‘What is it, then?’ he said.
A sigh. ‘What do you think, Rob? It’s your bloody daughter.’
Sophie had been testing her parents lately, but Brennan had more to worry about. Joyce could handle a stroppy teenager, surely. ‘Look, you know what she’s like… What they’re all like at that age.’
The volume seemed to have risen on the other end of the line. ‘Well, yes, I do know as a matter of a fact, because it’s me that’s dealing with it every day of the week, Rob, whilst you get to go off playing cops and robbers.’
That was unfair. ‘Is that right?’
A pause. ‘Well, it’s how I feel. I’m tired of all of this, tired of being the only one who raises our daughter and I’m tired of getting no support… I want to know what the point is, Rob? What’s the point any more?’
He didn’t have an answer for her. He stared into the open-plan office and searched for something to say, but nothing came. Maybe there was no point.
‘Well?’ said Joyce. ‘Are you just going to leave that one hanging?’
He watched one of the DCs walk over to the whiteboard and scribble something in red ink. He found some words: ‘I’m going away for a few days.’
A tut. ‘Well, that’s just great. Just bloody-’
He cut her off. ‘Joyce, shut up. I’m investigating the death of a young girl and her baby is missing. I’m going to interview her friends and people who knew her. She came from Pitlochry.’ He blasted his words. ‘Is that all right with you? Do you think you can manage a day or so with Sophie and her tantrums whilst I try and find out who cut up a young girl and left her body in a rubbish bin and what the fuck they’ve done with her child?’
There was no reply for some moments, then, ‘If you’re interested, Sophie, your own daughter, who was supposed to be sick and took the day off school, has left the house. She’s taken a bottle of vermouth and some of my housekeeping money… In case it’s of any concern to you, I thought I should let you know. I’ll be scouring the streets for her when I put down the phone.’
Brennan had no time to reply before she hung up.