by Tony Black
Brennan stood by the edge of the photocopier, leaning on his elbow. He could feel his neck expanding in his shirt collar, a pulse beating hard on the knot of his tie. His first instinct was to push up off the copier, steady himself, but he didn’t seem able to engage his brain in time to meet the eyes around the room that waited on his words to follow. Brennan tucked a finger behind his tie, loosened the knot, and then undid the top button of his shirt. The relief was instant, but seemed at once to be replaced by a craving for nicotine. ‘Right, you heard the Chief Super… You have very few days left before we hand over to Lauder. If you want to avoid that fate, you better get bloody moving.’
Brennan found his legs heavy as he went towards the office at the end of the incident room. Galloway had undermined him in a public fashion. He had seen scores of senior officers throw their weight about, it was nothing new to him — it was the way she had done it that rankled. The inference was that she wanted the case solved. But turning it over to a new DI wasn’t the way to go about that. What Galloway really wanted was to show him — and everyone else — who was boss.
Brennan was two paces inside the door and lighting up a cigarette when McGuire came in.
‘This is a joke…’
Brennan took a deep draw on his cigarette. He looked at McGuire then pushed past him and called out to a PC, ‘Ben, gimme a fag!’
The constable took up a packet of Marlboro and handed them to Brennan. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Thanks.’ He removed a cigarette and put it in his mouth, lighting it with the tip of the Silk Cut. He made to return the packet but the PC held up his hand.
‘Keep them, sir…’
Brennan returned to the office, closed the door.
DC Stevie McGuire was sitting down now, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘What can I do? She’s got our balls in her handbag.’
McGuire leaned forward in his chair. ‘You can raise a complaint.’
Brennan grimaced. ‘Don’t be bloody daft. She has her promotion board today; she’d really be gunning for us after that.’
McGuire moved his hand from the back of his neck, met it with his other and placed them over his face.
‘It’s not that bad,’ said Brennan.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘We still have a few days.’
‘And then?’
Brennan took another pelt on the Marlboro — he approved of the strength of it. ‘I’m not thinking that far ahead.’
‘You can bet Ian Lauder is…’
‘You’ve changed your tune. I thought you pair were mates.’
McGuire tutted. ‘I just think we’ve all worked far too hard on this case for Lauder to come in with Bryce and all the rest of his boys and start calling the shots.’
Brennan removed his jacket, put it on the back of the office chair. He took a quick pull on the Marlboro, then put it on the edge of the desk, ash out, as he rolled up his sleeves. He sat. ‘Leave Lauder to me, Stevie. I’ve got a funny feeling he’ll not be as popular with the Chief Super in a little while.’
‘Eh? How come?’
Brennan crossed his arms over, leaned on the back of the chair. ‘Do you trust me?’ He retrieved his cigarette.
McGuire perked up. ‘Yes, course I do!’
‘Then when I give you the nod later on, be ready to help me out with a little bit of extracurricular activity.’
‘Like what?’
‘I thought you trusted me.’
McGuire bit: ‘I do. Count me in.’
‘Good, then wait for the nod.’
Brennan held the cigarette in between his thumb and forefinger, took repeated little drags, then stubbed it on the back of the stapler and dropped the dowp in the bin. ‘What stage are the team at with Tierney and Durrant’s known associates?’
McGuire scratched his head. ‘Not getting far…’
‘How come?’
‘They’re, eh, in lockdown. No bastard’s talking.’
Brennan squinted, pointed a finger at McGuire. ‘Right, the next lot they bring in, I want you to do the interviews, rough them up a bit… This lot are scum; Tierney and Durrant were the worst of the lot. They had dealers and they had pimps and they knew a string of ex-cons who don’t want to go back inside — hit them hard, rattle their cages. Put the heavy threat of the force taking a serious interest in their day-to-day activities if they don’t give us what we want and make sure they know we’re not pissing about.’
McGuire smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘But go canny, eh… Don’t have her down the way quoting us the tale of the slippery steps.’
‘Sir.’
Brennan tweaked the end of his nose. ‘And where’s our minister?’
‘He’s still at the Travelodge. Knows not to stray too far.’
‘Right… Bring him in this morning, soon as.’
‘Sir.’ McGuire rose, turned his back to Brennan and walked out the door, closing it behind him.
In the empty office, Brennan felt a twinge of shame creep up on him. He was close to losing the case to Lauder and he knew that wouldn’t look good among his colleagues. Wullie had said there was no way back for you in the force once people started to see you as someone who can’t come up with the goods any more. He had told him about an old hand who had started to lose respect when his wife developed mental illness. Simpson was a respected DI, had worked the big cases like Bible John, had brought in some big faces in his day, but when his wife started walking about the town in her nightie and slippers he was never the same man.
‘You know what Simy’s problem was, Rob?’ he’d said.
‘What was that?’
‘He lost respect for himself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He got to the stage where he was so worried about what folk were saying about him, that he questioned his own abilities. The mind’s a funny thing, Robbie lad, it’s all about tricking it into believing that you’re the bee’s knees. If you can convince yourself, who else is going to doubt you?’
Brennan knew Wullie was right. He needed to keep his fears to himself. If he started to show weakness the entire force would be on him like a pack of wolves that had scented blood. There was just no place for self-doubt on the job — it was lethal. He had to be smarter than that, he had to search out other’s weaknesses, Lauder’s, and hold them up to public ridicule.
He raised the phone, dialled an internal number.
Ringing.
It was answered: ‘DS Bryce.’
‘Hello, Brycey.’
‘Rob, how’s it?’
‘Not bad. I hear congratulations are in order.’
Bryce’s voice quavered: ‘Yeah, we cracked the bastard late last night, full confession.’
‘Always good to hear another one’s off the street. Well done, lad.’ Bryce wasn’t a bad bloke, thought Brennan, just a little dim — like a forty-watt bulb to Lauder’s sixty-watt.
‘Look, Rob, you’ll have heard about the handover. Got to tell you, it wasn’t my idea, mate.’
‘Brycey, don’t worry about it. It’s just that cow playing divide and rule.’
Bryce’s tone rose: ‘Setting man against man, that’s it.’
‘Look, I thought we should have a chat anyway, about the handover, so if you want to grab your boss and head up…’
‘Can go one better than that: why don’t you join us for a beer tonight? Having a few after work to celebrate.’
Brennan smiled into the phone. ‘Might just do that. The Bull as usual?’
‘Yeah, say about six, seven…’
‘See you there, Brycey.’
He hung up.
As he put down the phone the door to the office was flung open. DC Stevie McGuire stuck his head in. ‘Minister’s on his way, sir. Be here in a half-hour.’
Chapter 39
Brennan ordered McGuire to go and prepare the interview room; he had a phone call to make. He knew it would have been better to meet face
to face with Lynne Thompson, ask her the question he wanted to know about her friend Carly that she had been so reluctant to answer, and it would be clumsy with her mother there on the line, but he had no choice. Time had almost defeated him on the case, and he knew if he didn’t get a result before Lauder took over he was as good as finished.
Brennan dialled the number.
The phone started to ring.
He knew there was no advantage to be gained from showing the Reverend John Donald that he had unearthed a secret, something he and his wife had tried so hard to keep from everyone, the police included, but it would give him something to prod the minister with. And he needed that. Brennan needed to have the minister onside for his next move. Without him, he felt pretty sure that the case was going nowhere; certainly not before Lauder pushed him out.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello, Mrs Thompson, it’s Detective Inspector Rob Brennan.’
A pause. ‘Oh, hello there.’
‘And how are you keeping?’ Brennan loathed the formality of these situations, the small chat; life would be so much more straight forward if everyone just said what they meant.
‘I’m well, thanks… And you?’
‘I’m fine, Mrs Thompson. You’ll no doubt have seen the news.’
A clearing of throat. Her voice lowered a little: ‘Yes, I saw the, er, news about Mr Sproul.’
Brennan listened to her intonation carefully — she seemed to have put a stranglehold on her vowels. ‘I think I mentioned on my last visit, about speaking to Lynne again.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’
Brennan tugged at the phone line, started to twist it into little kinks. ‘Oh, really.’
‘She’s very upset about everything, as you can imagine, Inspector.’
Brennan cleared his throat. ‘Yes, I can understand that, Mrs Thompson, but I’d like to stress how important your daughter is to our investigation… A young girl has been killed and her child is missing. We still have no idea of the whereabouts of…’ He suddenly became aware of a silence on the other end of the line that made him wonder if he was speaking to himself. ‘Hello?’
There was no reply, then, ‘Lynne, here, take the phone.’
‘Hello, Lynne… Do you remember me?’
‘Yes, of course.’ The girl’s voice came loaded with nerves but short on actual words.
‘And how have you been keeping?’ Formality again; it irked him.
‘Okay, I guess.’
Brennan dropped the telephone cord, sat upright in his chair. ‘Lynne, I don’t want you to think too hard about what I’m about to ask you, all right?’
‘Okay.’
‘I think, by now, you know there’s nothing you can say that’s going to harm you, or get you into trouble…’
‘I suppose.’
‘If you are going to think about anything, you need only concern yourself with your best friend, Carly, and her baby, Beth. You knew all about Beth, didn’t you, long before anyone else did?’
There was a gap on the line. It stretched out too long and Brennan jumped in again: ‘You knew about Beth before Reverend Donald and his wife, didn’t you?’
The girl’s voice lowered yet further: ‘Yes.’
Brennan raised his eyes, thanked above. ‘Now, remember what I said: no one can hurt you now, Lynne… Peter Sproul was the father, wasn’t he?’
A gap. Brennan imagined the young girl looking at her mother and then a defiant nod coming. ‘Yes.’
Brennan scrunched his eyes, and smiled into the receiver. ‘What happened, Lynne?… What happened with Carly and Peter Sproul?’
The young girl started to cry. Brennan felt an enormous guilt for upsetting her. He heard her mother making encouraging noises, then, ‘He… he… raped her.’
Brennan froze. The facts of the matter had crossed his mind many times before but hearing them uttered this way somehow gave them more power. ‘Did she tell you about that, Lynne?’
More tears, sobbing. ‘Yes. More than once. He used to come into her room… She told her…’ The girl paused.
Brennan prompted: ‘Carly told her parents — is that what you were going to say?’
‘Yes.’
The thought of what Carly Donald had gone through in the months before her death welled up in Brennan. He felt his chest ache for her hurts. He wanted to be able to take the culprit and wring the life out of him, like Carly had surely had the life wrung out of her. The girl had faced a trial of misery. Brennan knew who to blame for some of it, and thought he knew who to blame for the rest.
‘Okay, Lynne, that’s enough now. Go back to your mum. You’ve done well. Thank you.’
The young girl started to cry again as the phone line died. Brennan placed down his receiver, rose from the chair and picked up his jacket. Something drew him to take the picture that Lorraine had given him from the pocket. He stared at the familiar shape for a second or two; he was responsible for bringing another child into this world and the thought gored him. Could any of the children be protected from the beasts that were out there? Brennan shoved the scan back in his pocket. As he put his hand in the sleeve of his jacket he spotted the Reverend John Donald being led towards the interview room by DC Stevie McGuire.
‘Right, Minister, let’s see what you have to say for yourself now,’ he muttered.
As Brennan left the office for Incident Room One he was stopped by a WPC. ‘Sir, I have the lab on the phone for you.’
‘What do they want?’
‘I think you should take it.’
Brennan picked up the phone. ‘Hello.’
‘ Rob?’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘I just thought you’d like to know that hunch you had about the ammunition…’
‘What about it?’
The boffin’s voice rose an octave: ‘You were absolutely right: the bullets were gold-washed.’
Brennan liked to be proven right; it hadn’t happened enough lately. ‘Pro hit all right. Told you. Thanks, Mike.’
He hung up, turned the phone over to the WPC, said, ‘Did you get anywhere running that ammunition through the system?’
She lowered the receiver, reached over a pile of blue files for a loose sheaf of paper, then another. ‘There’s a few, sir.’
‘How many?’
She curled down the corners of her mouth, showed a row of milk-white teeth. ‘I haven’t counted but I’d say over the country, I mean Scotland, fairly few… but in the UK and Ireland we’re into the dozens, especially in Ulster.’
‘Those Troubles have blocked our job.’
A smile. ‘Do you want me to cross-ref with over the water, sir?’
‘It’s a hit with military precision on our patch. They have enough on their own to still clear up without going out of their way to help us, but give it a go.’ Brennan nodded to her. ‘Good work, Constable.’
‘Thanks, sir.’
On the way out, Brennan picked up his pace. He didn’t want the minister to get too comfortable. He wanted him on edge. As he swung open the door, the minister was standing in the corner of the room with his hands behind his back.
Brennan was the first to speak: ‘Would you like to take a seat?’
‘I’d sooner stand, unless you have something to tell me.’
Brennan indicated the chair. ‘I have plenty to tell you and I’d like you to be comfortable but, please, suit yourself.’
The minister removed a grey-to-white handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his nose, then moved forward. As he sat down Brennan noticed the redness at the edges of his nose. ‘Can you tell me what this is about, please, and how long you will be keeping us under house arrest?’
Brennan turned over the cover of the blue folder sitting on the desk, said, ‘This is about the murder of your daughter and about your missing granddaughter, you know that… You also know you are not under house arrest, but merely helping us with our inquiries. I should have thought, Minister, in the circumstances, you would be more t
han happy to do that — am I wrong?’
The minister crossed his legs, showed grey argyle socks. He checked his watch as Brennan shuffled papers.
‘Will you need me long?’ he said.
Brennan tilted his head, huffed. ‘Are you in a hurry, Minister? Got somewhere to be?’
He looked away, frowned. Dark semicircles had appeared under his eyes in the last couple of days.
Brennan started again: ‘It’s not the Moderator’s job, is it?… My boss has an interview today. I know how nervous they make some people.’
‘Can we just get on with this, please?’
Brennan slapped hands on the desk, smiled. ‘Glad to. Shall I start with the investigation update?’ The minister nodded and Brennan ran through the events that had transpired since they’d last met. He watched the older man for signs of interest but none showed; he seemed to Brennan all too keen to get out of there. ‘For me, Minister, the most interesting piece of information I turned up was from Carly’s best friend.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, Lynne Thompson.’
‘I know the girl; she’s from a good family.’
‘Very good,’ said Brennan. ‘They are all devastated at the loss of Carly. You knew Carly confided in Lynne?’
‘They were young girls.’ The minister crossed his legs the other way. ‘I’m sure they talked a lot.’
Brennan leaned back in his seat, turned eyes upwards. ‘She told me something very interesting about your man about the house.’
‘Are you referring to the late Peter Sproul?’
Brennan nodded. ‘Who else?’
‘Well, I’d sooner not talk about the deceased if you do not mind. Suicide is such an unfortunate business.’
Brennan was stunned at his defence of Sproul. ‘The man was a convicted child molester. He’d spent years behind bars for raping children and you let him into your home.’
The minister’s tongue flashed before his grey lips. He retracted it quickly, searched for words. ‘I do not judge people on their past mistakes, but on what they hope to make of the future.’
Brennan stood up, walked round to the minister’s side of the desk, sat on the edge. ‘He was a serial child sex offender and you let him into your home. He raped and impregnated your daughter and you did not reveal that to anyone, even when she came to you…’