Truth Lies Bleeding

by Tony Black

  ‘I warn you, it’s not a pretty sight,’ Wullie Stuart had told him.

  They said young Brennan fancied himself back then, said he was full of it. A typical Weegie, even though he was from Ayr. Anyone west of Corstorphine was a Weegie to this lot. ‘I can handle it,’ he told the detective sergeant.

  ‘Are you sure, son? There’s no shame in holding back.’

  ‘I can handle it.’

  The crime scene was in a high-rise. There had been a call from neighbours about a domestic. Loud roars, shouting and screaming. The usual. Uniform had attended and then CID had been called. Brennan had pestered the officers to get a hand-up. He wanted to learn at their elbow – it was the best way to learn anything, his father had told him that.

  ‘Okay, then. But take a hold of this.’

  Brennan looked at the sergeant’s hand. He was holding out an old Tesco carrier.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Your lunch.’

  ‘But I’ve had my lunch, sir.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  When realisation dawned, Brennan shook his head. ‘You’re all right . . . Keep it.’

  ‘Okay.’ Wullie nodded. ‘Okay.’

  The young uniform followed the detective sergeant up the grimy stairwell. It smelled of piss and stale tobacco. The walls were daubed with graffiti, large illiterate swabs for or against Hibs and Hearts, numbers to call for blow jobs, threats of violence. None of it fazed the twenty-year-old, but something told him he was about to enter a new realm. He knew he was going to see something he’d never seen before. Would it change him? No, never. How could it? He was well equipped for anything they threw at him.

  The door had been booted – the hinges hung on bent screws. Two panels had been caved in – knuckles maybe? He’d have said a shoulder or a firm kick, but there was blood smeared there. Knuckles, then, so a junkie perhaps . . . someone too out of it to know they’d broken every bone in their hand putting in the door. There was more blood inside. And a stench. A smell Brennan had never encountered before. It filled the nostrils and seemed to get right inside your head. He’d never known a smell like it; it came loaded with suggestions. It wasn’t an acrid smell or an uncomfortable smell, one that made you want to put your nose into your sleeve, but it wasn’t something he’d like to keep regular contact with. It unnerved him. Years later, he’d acknowledge it as the smell of poverty. The smell of lost hope, of squalor and abandonment and dissipation. Of all those things, and something else, something more sinister.

  ‘Oh, Christ!’

  Brennan knew his mouth had drooped. He felt dumb, unable to move.

  ‘Get down!’

  There was a flurry of bodies; a black flash crossed the room. There was a man at the window. He struggled with the handle, and suddenly it opened and a gust blew in. Cigarette ash flew into the room from a large smoked-glass ashtray by the ledge. Brennan felt lost.

  ‘Who let the fucking dog in?’ shouted Wullie. ‘This is a fucking murder scene!’

  Brennan saw the dog, a small, stout Staffordshire bull terrier type. It was on the floor tearing at something. He didn’t get a full look at the dog – his eyes were fixed elsewhere. On the floor was a familiar form – it looked like a woman. There was a dress, floral-print. Yellow flowers, with white centres, splattered with dark red marks. There was a head, and hair. Pale brown hair; the colour of his mother’s. But there was something missing. The face. Where the face should be was a pulpy, black mess. The eyes were there, he could see them, but not the whites. The blood vessels had ruptured and the eyes sat like black eight-balls. There was no sign of any skin, only a prominent white shard of bone set in the middle of the face where it had supported the base of the nose.

  ‘No, leave it!’ Wullie grabbed at the dog; there were growls, Wullie roared, called the beast a bastard. He pulled at its collar. It took some time for Brennan to draw his attention to the ruckus. When he did it took some time for his mind to process what was happening. The dog was attached to the woman’s side, tugging with its mouth; it wasn’t about to let go. Sinewy, blood-red strands of flesh stretched like glue as the dog’s jaws were prised apart. The corpse seemed to move, almost come to life as the contest to extricate the animal continued.

  Brennan heard sounds, words: ‘It’s the guts!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The dog’s eating the guts.’

  ‘Get away!’

  ‘I’m telling you . . .’

  Brennan heard a cigarette being lit; one of the officers laughed at the scene before them. Then the dog broke free, ran for the door. Brennan felt it brush his trouser leg. He looked down, saw another black blur.

  ‘You okay, son?’ said Wullie.

  Brennan felt his throat go dry; his head felt hotter than a coke kiln. As he lifted his gaze to the sergeant a tremor passed through him from the ground. When it reached his knees they seemed to lose all their strength, folded beneath him. He couldn’t remember his head hitting the floor.

  It was a dark, dank lane. Not the place for a party. Not the place for a carry-out, dodging the school, getting drunk with friends. It was private, though. Brennan knew privacy had a high value amongst teenagers; in Muirhouse, a dark lane where they put the bins out was somewhere no one was going to bother them. He put himself in the girls’ mindset for a moment; poor girls, he thought. A few cans, a laugh, bit of messing . . . They wouldn’t forget this day for the rest of their lives. He hoped it didn’t scar them too much. But then, where they came from, they had every chance of more of the same to follow. Brennan knew it was the other girl he really needed to feel sympathy for – she wouldn’t get any more chances.

  The SOCO spoke, something trite about it being a sad way to meet her end; Brennan switched off. Words had no place here. Not at this point. There were no words to explain away what had happened. It seemed shameful to speak; beyond pointless. A life had been taken, in brutal fashion, and disposed of without any concern for the innate value of being. In situations like this, there was no humanity. There was no need for the pretence of civility, for language. Explaining away how we came to this pass was someone else’s job. Evaluating man’s inhumanity to man was an intellectual exercise that had no place in a dark lane where a young girl lay, lifeless, draped in her own blood.

  Broken glass crunched under Brennan’s feet as he neared the white tent the SOCOs had erected over the dumpster at the bottom of the lane. There was a man clad head to foot in white, a hood on his head, exiting the tent. He put eyes on Brennan then looked away.

  ‘Minute . . . Gimme those.’ Brennan pointed to the box he held. It looked like tissues but held disposable gloves. The detective grabbed a pair, said, ‘Thanks.’

  The atmosphere inside the tent was foetid. There was a reek of cheap lager and sugar-rich fortified wine that had mingled with the sweet smell of blood and the sweat of grown men, overdressed in too many layers of protective clothing. Brennan was used to the stench. He pulled on the gloves, snapped them onto his wrists.

  He could feel people watching him as he moved. This was his show. He was the main act, the one who would make sense of this mess. Brennan slowly paced back and forth, always keeping the dumpster in the corner of his field of vision. He looked at the ground, sat on his haunches and scraped at the terrain. ‘This footprint’s been cast, has it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  A SOCO photographer came into the tent holding a large Nikon with a mounted flash; he looked at Brennan and turned around.

  ‘Just a minute.’

  The photographer returned. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Let me see that.’ Brennan took the camera from him. He flipped it over, pointed the long lens to the ground and looked at the small screen on the back. The camera had stored the crime scene perfectly. As Brennan spun the wheel he kept looking around, checking nothing had been missed. He handed the camera back.

  ‘Get those back to DC McGuire.’

  The SOCO raised the camera, spoke: ‘I wanted to get a few more with the new car
d in . . .’

  ‘After I’m done. Wire those to the station now.’The SOCO seemed to be processing the request. ‘Now, officer.’ Brennan kept a stare on him; the man backed out of the tent.

  ‘You.’ Brennan pointed to another suited-up officer, on his haunches holding a small brush. ‘This printed?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Brennan stored the response, then ignored the officer. Prints were rarely of any use in this kind of situation, but a necessity. Brennan knew the number of murder cases he’d made use of prints was a low scorer. They were nearly always partials – a bit of a thumb, a palm. The good prints – the full hands, the clearly identifiable fingertips – were only useful if their holders were on record. Fine, if you were working housebreakings, where the local skag-heads and scrotes were always slipping up; but murder, that was different. Killers knew the stakes were higher. Even in a state of panic, they knew to clean up, cover their tracks.

  There was a swish on the tent flap. DS Collins appeared. He had one hand in a protective glove and was wrestling the other one on.

  ‘Fucking things, hate them . . . Like johnnies.’

  Brennan turned. He didn’t appreciate the stilled ambience he’d created being disrupted. ‘They irritate pricks, you mean.’

  Collins grinned. ‘Yeah, something like that, sir.’

  The DS walked towards the dumpster, jerked open the lid, flicked his head. ‘You seen our stiff?’

  Brennan felt a flicker in his chest. He turned towards the bin. When he drew even with Collins, he shook his head. ‘Your mother must have been a lovely woman.’

  The DS frowned, clearly confused. Brennan took the weight of the lid from him, pushed him aside.

  As he looked inside, Brennan exhaled slowly. The girl was small, tiny. Her flesh was pale; white. Dark welds had been made at the corners of her mouth; black contusions detailed where her teeth had been clattered. Her mouth presented a dark rictus; dried blood sat at its edges and pooled in the hollow of her neck. Brennan was disturbed by how still she looked. She was almost peaceful, at rest.

  ‘I hear Ian Lauder’s gunning for you, boss,’ said Collins.

  Brennan stared at the girl. ‘That so?’

  ‘Fair pissed you turfed his shooting out the big room.’

  Brennan huffed, ‘Tough shit.’ He put a stare on Collins. The DS was chewing gum; it annoyed Brennan. He waited until his jaw stopped moving and then he pulled his gaze back to the girl.

  There was a deep incision on her forehead, running round to her temple. Her pale blonde hair had been matted by dark blood which had stuck her to the black refuse sack she lay on.

  Brennan reached in, moved some of the rubbish around her. He saw her milky-white body, arms truncated at the shoulders. ‘Do we have her arms?’ he said.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘How do we know they’re not in here, then?’

  ‘We don’t.’

  Brennan lifted the edge of a black plastic refuse sack. The raw butt where her arm once sat seemed to have been ripped and torn by a jagged edge.

  ‘What you think – saw?’

  Collins leaned in. ‘Fucking cheapo one . . . Not electric – too rough.’

  ‘Why go to the bother?’

  ‘Doesn’t want her ID’d, obviously.’

  ‘If she’s from the scheme we’ll ID her without prints.’

  ‘Might take longer though. That’s what they’re thinking, I’d say.’

  Brennan delicately lowered the black plastic. ‘That’s a lot of thinking for a pack of skag-boys.’

  Collins didn’t seem to be giving the DI his full attention. He started chewing on the gum again. ‘Look, maybe it’s a trophy take.’

  ‘Fuck off, Collins, you can’t draw that from one corpse.’

  The DS exhaled loudly, reaching into his pocket for a packet of Embassy. He took one out the pack and wrestled the rubber gloves off. ‘Well, what do you reckon, sir?’

  Brennan shrugged. ‘Panic, probably. If she’s local, and she’s been offed by another local, and our murderer had a bit of nous, they’d want to make it look different to every other square-go gone wrong.’

  Collins moved out to the flap over the entrance. He had a cheap plastic lighter in his hand, shook it as he spoke to Brennan. ‘Maybe. Maybe . . . But you’re forgetting one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That girl wasn’t killed around here . . . There’s not enough blood for this to be the crime scene and the time of death doesn’t tally.’ Collins lit his cigarette and stepped out of the tent.

  It riled Brennan, but the DS was right. ‘So the girl was hacked up to make her easier to move.’

  ‘Put a body in a bag, it’s gonna stand out.’

  ‘But put it in two or three . . . could be anything.’

  Chapter 7

  BRENNAN STOOD LOOKING AT THE silent, cold body of the dead girl. She couldn’t have been much older than Sophie. He felt a strange urge to check where his daughter was; it made his heart quicken for a moment and then it passed. It was instinct, a mad spiralling of thought that denied the solipsist in him. He brushed it aside: Sophie was safe and sound. Brennan knew that it wasn’t her lot to end up in a dumpster at the end of a dark lane in a grim public housing scheme. He knew it was the fate of the poor, the indigent. They lived the types of disorganised, chaotic lives that led to heavy drinking, promiscuity, crime, violence and a higher likelihood of murder. The facts couldn’t be denied. It didn’t mean she deserved any of it.

  ‘Right, get that girl out of there,’ he hollered. ‘I want that bin tipped and every inch of it gone over . . . Anything that even looks like it might have been a murder weapon – including a ginger bottle – I want it tested.’

  The SOCOs stood up, watched Brennan cutting the air with his palms. ‘And if there’s so much as a jaggy steel comb I want it looked at . . . She’s had her fucking arms sawn off – where are they?’

  Brennan slapped the bin. ‘Come on. Move it.’

  The group moved to the dumpster, white-suited arms tucked into rubber gloves gesticulating over how best to remove the debris. Brennan watched for a moment, then left them to their work. Outside the tent he followed Collins down the lane.

  ‘Bri, hold up,’ he said.

  The DS removed the filter tip from his lips, spun on his heels. ‘What’s up?’

  Brennan resisted the urge to state the obvious, said, ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘My gut says she’s local.’

  Collins looked around him, flagged an arm to the high-rises. ‘Welcome to the Killing Fields.’

  ‘Until we have an ID we need to go with what we have.’

  ‘We’ve got fuck all.’

  Brennan put his hands in his pockets, leaned towards Collins. ‘We think she’s local . . . Most murder victims know their killer very well. If we have to shake up every bastard within a country mile of her, we will.’

  Collins scratched his head, puffing out his cheeks. ‘Look, shouldn’t we wait and see what the SOCOs turn up?’

  ‘We don’t have time on our side, Bri . . . Get your boys knocking on doors now.’

  As Brennan walked away he heard Collins mutter something, but he couldn’t make it out. When he turned round the DS was flicking ash onto the ground and kicking at a pothole. Brennan removed his left hand from his pocket, looked at his watch. ‘Find out when those bins were last emptied,’ he pressed his points home with a finger in the air, ‘quiz all the taxi drivers, any that were out here between the time of death and the discovery, bring them in . . . If anyone on the scheme still gets milk delivered, I want to know what their milkman had for breakfast . . . Get searching every verge, hedge, gutter, gully and fucking rabbit hole from here to the black stump. And when you’ve done that, you can turn over the tramps.’

  Collins swayed where he stood, staring at the pothole. ‘Anything else, sir?’

  Brennan smiled. ‘Not just now . . . But don’t make any plans for the weekend, e
h.’

  When he reached the end of the lane the reporter was still there. Uniform were keeping a close eye on her now. She spotted Brennan and started to shout at him. He missed what she said because his attention was distracted by a press photographer leaning over the roof of a squad car to get a shot of him. Brennan upped his pace towards the blue-and-white tape, ducked under and started to make his way towards McGuire’s car. As he unlocked the door he felt relieved to be leaving the scene, but couldn’t resist a final glance towards the lane. The thought of the young girl lying in the dumpster jabbed at his heart but he knew any emotional response had to be locked away. Emotions had their place, but they got in the way of rational thinking. There was a killer out there, and it would take a slow, methodical approach to catch the bastard.

  Brennan turned the key in the ignition and engaged the clutch. As he turned at the end of the street he spotted a small child, two, three maybe, peering through the palings of a poorly maintained fence. The child had a colourful ball in her hands. When she saw Brennan staring back at her she dropped the ball and smiled, a wide heart-melting smile. For an instant, Brennan forgot where he was, why he was there. The future seemed full of possibilities for the small girl; life was an adventure that had just begun for her. As he pressed the accelerator pedal and sped past the child, he looked into the mirror. She was staring, waving now. Brennan lost his smile about the same time as his vehicle drew even with the lane’s opening.

  ‘Where’s the fucking justice?’ he muttered.

  On the road back to the station, Brennan lit a Silk Cut. The taste was minimal, but he needed something to stop him grinding his teeth. It felt good to be back on the job, to be off desk duty, but he knew this case was going to test him. It was a feeling, a sense of uncertainty. Wullie had said he knew the tough cases within the first five minutes. It was an exaggeration, but Brennan knew what he meant. This job, this life, was all about following your instincts. Your head was prone to distractions, and your heart wasn’t to be trusted.