by Tony Black
‘What is it?’ said Brennan yet again.
‘I think I’ve found the genitalia.’
Gallagher spoke, ‘There’s no doubt this is a sexual predator now.’
Brennan looked to Pettigrew; he was laying aside the scissors.
‘Well, it’s hard to tell … but …’
Brennan prompted, ‘But what?’
Pettigrew raised his hands, waved one over the victim’s head. ‘Well, there is the eyes … they’re not there. They’ve been appropriated.’
Gallagher tapped on the slab with his forefinger. ‘I told you! It’s a trophy take. We had this on the Fiona Gow case too.’ He turned to Brennan. ‘We’re after the same guy … Tell me you doubt me now.’
Chapter 15
DI ROB BRENNAN steadied himself before the whiteboard in Incident Room One, knew he was staring into an abyss. He tapped two fingertips on his cheekbone, removed his hand, buried it in his trouser pocket, and nervously started to thumb the wedding ring he was unsure he should still be wearing. His mind was pervaded with confusion. The body of a young woman had been found, mutilated in the most grotesque fashion. As he looked at the photographs of Lindsey Sloan’s ivory-white corpse he wondered what it was that he was missing. The answer, he told himself, was a clear line of enquiry to follow. Nothing had presented itself. The team had been door-to-door, checked the victim’s background and spoken to her known associates. The girl had no obvious enemies, lived a quiet life. She was not a typical murder victim. It was as if she had been plucked from the street and singled out for her brutal death in some sick lottery. The more he played with the events of her death, the more it baffled him.
Lindsey Sloan had a life, a family; she was someone’s daughter. Thoughts of his own daughter now emerged; he knew he had to call Sophie soon. He would have to explain why her stable family unit had been blown asunder. Why her father was no longer going to be a part of her daily life. The thought stabbed at him. Brennan couldn’t bear inflicting any kind of pain on her; he could not comprehend the true hurt the Sloans now faced. He wondered if he would ever be strong enough to take such a blow.
‘Christ, Rob,’ he whispered.
He was losing focus; was it because he had none? The case had him mystified. He knew there were always pieces of the puzzle that remained elusive, in every case, but this case seemed to be unlike anything he had ever known. How did a young girl end up in a field, strangled, with a broken neck and multiple wounds? What had she done? Who had she encountered that was capable of such evil? There had to be something he’d missed; there had to be somewhere to begin the search. The clues were out there, they always were – he knew this. He also knew Lindsey Sloan’s murder was not a one-off; this killer had struck before, Jim Gallagher had all but proven this. And all the received wisdom indicated this kind of killer would strike again; unless he was stopped.
DS Stevie McGuire appeared at Brennan’s side; he had closed a hand around a blue file, folded it beneath his arm. ‘That was Joe Lorrimer on the phone,’ he said.
The sound of the DS’s voice broke Brennan’s concentration, brought him back to reality. ‘Oh, aye.’
‘He’ll be with us later today.’
‘Good.’ Brennan was not in the mood for conversation; he returned his gaze to the whiteboard, brought his hands together and worked them like he was lathering soap.
‘There’s not much to go on, is there?’ said McGuire. He seemed insistent on pulling the DI into a discourse.
‘Not much at all.’
McGuire raised the blue file in his hand, ‘I’ve been through the Fiona Gow file … no answers there either.’
Brennan turned, frowned. ‘Where is Jim?’
‘He’s gone for a bite. I asked him for the profiler’s report on Fiona Gow, but I can’t see what it’s going to add.’
Brennan turned round to face the DS, eased himself onto the edge of the table next to the photocopier, was resigned to debate the case’s slow progress. The tabletop creaked as he settled himself, folded arms. ‘It’ll add fuck all, even if it ties in with Lorrimer’s judgements, without a break.’
McGuire nodded, tapped the blue file off his thigh. ‘Jim seemed happy enough to have the two cases linked up.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he … Jim’s after this case, wants to take over.’
McGuire brought a hand up to his face, rubbed. His skin sat in folds below his eyes. He looked tired, strained. ‘Why though? Surely he’s past all that at his stage.’
‘You think? Never heard of going out in a blaze of glory? … Look, I don’t trust Jim’s motives, there’s something not right about his interest in this case so just keep a bloody close eye on him, Stevie.’
McGuire looked unconvinced, agitated. ‘I don’t know, sir, are you sure you’re not just, well I don’t know, being defensive?’
Brennan felt the implication dent his armour, he didn’t want to admit McGuire might be right, he didn’t like Gallagher imposing himself on his territory. But he didn’t want to deny his gut either. ‘I guess we’ll see.’ He rose, straightened himself, leaned back as he attempted to loosen the anxiety in his neck. He returned to the whiteboard, tapped at the picture of Lindsey Sloan.
McGuire had the Fiona Gow file open now, started to stick up her pictures. ‘They’re remarkably similar in terms of …’
Brennan cut it, ‘You mean they’re nothing like your typical murder victims? They never led chaotic lives, they were stable. They didn’t come from poverty, they were workers. They weren’t promiscuous … So where do we start?’
McGuire lit up. ‘If you proceeded on the assumption that most victims know their attackers, then we’re looking at a very bland bunch of possibilities.’
‘Or we’re not looking in the right place at all.’
McGuire closed the file again, turned towards Brennan. ‘Perhaps she did know her killer, only he fits quite plainly into wider society.’
Brennan looked over McGuire’s shoulder, towards the window – a white cloud sat like a smear against the grey sky. He understood perfectly what the DS was saying, he understood that the facts pointed to him being right too, but something stopped him buying into the assumption. ‘You could be right, Stevie … or totally wrong.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if it’s random? What if our killer selected these girls on the basis of some random criteria that could mean any number of girls out there might be plucked off the street.’ He raised a finger, pointed out the window. ‘I mean, who’s to say he didn’t select them because they were about the same height and weight … used the same bus stop … smoked the same brand of ciggies …’
‘That’s nuts.’
‘Exactly!’
McGuire looked confused, his eyebrows lowered, stretched his brow. ‘I don’t get you.’
‘What I’m saying is, Stevie, that’s how we need to think to catch this guy. He is fucking nuts. His thought processes aren’t the same as yours or mine. If we’re going to catch him we’re going to have to stop thinking like this is a normal murder investigation, because it clearly isn’t.’
McGuire pinched his cheeks, exhaled a heavy breath. ‘We need Joe Lorrimer in here as soon as.’
Brennan nodded, widened his eyes. His thoughts had already shifted. ‘I need to make a phone call.’ He walked towards his glassed-off office at the other end of the room; as he went inside he closed the door and drew down the blinds. It wasn’t exactly privacy but it was as close as he was going to get. The call he had to make was gnawing at him; he knew it wouldn’t be well received but there was no way of avoiding it. After all, he was still a father.
Ringing.
‘Hello.’
‘Joyce, it’s Rob.’ There was silence on the other end of the line. He let the fact that he was calling register, settle in his wife’s mind for a moment, but she didn’t bite. ‘We need to talk.’
A tut. ‘I don’t think so.’
Brennan felt himself gasp for air, he was full of
mixed emotions. He didn’t want to go through this rigmarole with Joyce, their marriage had ended long ago and they both knew it. They had been inhabiting their house in Corstorphine like ghosts, barely encountering each other, rarely sharing words beyond the bare minimum to make their coexistence tolerable. He simply wanted out now, but that didn’t mean he wanted to face the recriminations, have his affair cast up, or say goodbye to his daughter.
‘There are certain formalities, Joyce.’
She was lighting a cigarette now, he could hear the lighter clicking. ‘I have a lawyer for that.’
Brennan didn’t rise to her gambit. ‘Good. That will make things easier.’
‘All you have to do is stay away.’
He couldn’t let that go. ‘If by that you mean not see my daughter, you’re mistaken.’
‘Do you think she wants to see you?’
Brennan’s gaze veered out of focus, but found nothing to alight upon in the middle distance. He felt slightly sick, what had Joyce said to her? Had she told her about the affair? The mounting tension constricted his vocal cords as he tried to speak again. ‘I swear Joyce if you’ve polluted her mind …’
‘What? Fucking what, Rob?’
‘I’ll fight any order …’
Her tone and pitch increased. There was no escaping the anger she directed at Brennan. ‘You destroyed this family … You’re no longer a part of it. You cannot do us any more harm.’
A number of replies queued on his lips, but he never got a chance to give voice to them; the line died. She’d hung up. Brennan put down the phone. The realisation of what had just happened seemed to make him numb; his impressions sank into his mind but none of them came close to anything so coherent as thought. The predominant truth he faced was that he had hurt Joyce; more than he thought possible. He knew it wasn’t hurt at the thought of losing him – he believed she no longer cared about him, or their marriage – it was the hurt of a wounded ego. Her husband had rejected her, in favour of another woman. She abhorred him for it and feared the ignominy. She felt too old now to start again, to find a new life partner and the thought burned her. Brennan knew he was the focus for the full brunt of her ire. In the days and weeks to come she would burn him in effigy; bottles of wine would be consumed with friends, or alone, and she would give vent to her spleen. He had ruined her life; Joyce’s outward misery now had an inward direction: she could dump the whole lot on him. And he knew she would.
Brennan rose, he tapped his shirt pocket, removed an Embassy Regal and his lighter. As he walked out of his office, McGuire was sitting at his desk; he stood above him, said, ‘I’ll be at the front door, shout me if anything happens.’
‘Unlikely, but OK.’
Brennan started out for the exit, got as far as the coffee machine, turned and pointed to McGuire’s shirt front, ‘Fix your tie, eh. We can at least look like we give a shit.’
He stomped towards the stairs; as he went, an angry energy seemed to seep from the tensed stock of his body. Things were not going well, and when that happened, he knew he became difficult to live with. He knew this, not just because other people had told him, but because he found it difficult to live with himself.
The soles of Brennan’s shoes slapped noisily on the stairs as he descended. By the window on the first landing he caught a chink of sunlight breaking through the clouds – it painted an irregular ribbon on the wall. For a moment he was gripped by its form and then the sound of familiar voices droned up from the lower staircases.
‘Leave him to me, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, Jim.’ It was the Chief Super. ‘There’s plenty to call into question from his file if needs be.’
Gallagher replied, ‘Well, I just want you to know I’m doing my best.’
‘That’s all we can ask.’
‘But, it might not be good enough if he decides to …’ The DI abruptly curtailed his conversation as Brennan stepped in front of him.
‘Ah, Rob, just the man.’ The Chief Super held out a blue folder, handed it to Brennan. ‘This is the profiler’s report on Fiona Gow … Jim and I have just been going over it.’
Brennan knew it was bluster, the pair of them had been caught red handed, they were discussing him. His facial muscles conspired against him and released a thin smile. ‘Have you really … nice lunch was it, Jim?’
Gallagher nodded, the sunlight slanted across his face. ‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Always nice to have a bite with friends, I say.’
The Chief Super pushed up his glasses. ‘We were discussing the case, Rob,’ he said. ‘And we have come to the conclusion, partly based on this morning’s revelation, that we need to call in a profiler.’
Brennan widened his grin. ‘I already have one.’
‘You do? Who?’
‘Lorrimer.’
The Chief Super stepped forward, the sun’s glare bounced off his brow and his glasses. Brennan couldn’t see his eyes behind their lenses as he spoke, ‘Joe Lorrimer’s Strathclyde …’
Brennan at once knew he had walked into an ambush he’d created for himself. His thoughts played tag as he searched for a way out. ‘He’s the best there is.’
‘And what about the cost implication?’
‘Like I said, I think Lorrimer is the best man for the job and …’
The Chief Super cut him off, ‘You really didn’t listen to a word I said earlier did you?’ A disbelieving frown crossed his face as he lowered his chin towards his chest and eyed Brennan from above his glasses. ‘We’ll have a talk about this in my office, I think …’
The Chief Super turned for the stairs. Brennan caught sight of Gallagher grinning, he had the pleased look of a sheepdog that had just jumped through a hoop. ‘This way, Rob,’ said the Chief Super.
Brennan managed two steps before he was called from below.
‘Rob?’ It was Charlie from the front desk. ‘Some people here to see you.’
‘He’s busy,’ said the Chief Super.
‘Oh, I think he’ll want to see them, sir … It’s the Sloan girl’s parents.’
Chapter 16
NEIL HENDERSON SAT in a dingy old drinker at the edge of the Grassmarket. It was as far from his usual stomping ground as he could get, but he needed a break, an escape. He had thought he would be delighted to get out of prison, back to the real world where there was no night-time lockdown, no sly groping in the showers or food that wasn’t fit for swine. He didn’t miss the danger, the cons with sharpened spoons or the screws who were looking for any excuse to batter their black batons off your head. He didn’t miss the lack of privacy or the boredom, the endless days stretching on and on, each one as miserable as the next. And for sure, it was a blessing to be able to score without having to put your snout in hock for weeks on end, or trade chocolate bars for a one-skin spliff that had precious little puff in it. He could score and shoot up, get fired into a bag of Moroccan rock if he wanted; but somehow, it wasn’t stacking up like he had hoped it would. It hadn’t taken Boaby Stevens long to find him and now he had to get his money in a hurry. If he didn’t he knew they’d be scraping him off the ground beneath a flyover.
Henderson had had plans in the past, dreams. None of them had ever materialised. He wondered if he was jinxed; if he was one of those people who was going to go through life with nothing. When he was nine or ten he’d been told by his mother’s then boyfriend, a thug called Dinger, something that had stuck in his mind like a jagged shard of glass since. ‘See you, laddie, you’re going nowhere but the jail.’
‘Why’s that?’ he’d asked.
Dinger sneered at him, ‘Cause that’s the only place your type ever go.’
He had been angered, wanted to hit him. That’s how Henderson solved everything then, and now, he thought. Nobody got lippy if they thought there was the chance of a split nose in the offing. He’d fronted up, even though he was only a boy. ‘And what’s my type?’
These days, thought Henderson, that kind of thing was meat and drink to adults; they di
dn’t bother with a bit of cheek, but back then it was enough to get you leathered. Back then, when Henderson was a lad, he remembered it was enough to get you more than leathered.
Dinger and Henderson were alone, the man grabbed him by the ear, threw him down then lifted him by the neck and marched him upstairs. His knees dragged on every step as he screamed out – he knew something was wrong – then a hard slap dazed him into quiet.
In his bedroom he was still a little woozy, but from where he lay on the edge of the bed he saw Dinger’s neck, pink and fat above his collar. He had red hair, it was cut short and tight to the nape with little spikes sticking up. ‘Shut your fucking hole, laddie.’
He remembered every word he had said, right up until the moment he’d tried to forget, he couldn’t remember anything after that. He’d blocked it out.
‘What are you doing?’ He watched Dinger fiddling with his belt buckle. ‘Tell me, I want to know.’
There was no reply. Henderson, the nine- or ten-year-old, was tense as a rod when Dinger turned around. There was a strange smell in the air – Dinger’s face had turned red, as he started to open his shirt buttons.
‘What’s going to happen?’
No answer.
‘Why are you looking at me?’
Still, no answer.
The boy felt his stomach start to tremble and there was a whooshing feeling in his chest that he couldn’t explain. He looked up at the man, he was opening the rest of his shirt buttons. His chest was freckled and red. He looked at the boy with a twisted grin on his face, said, ‘Get your trousers off.’
Henderson didn’t move. He was cold, frozen. Even as the heat rose in his head he felt chilled to his insides. He couldn’t speak.
The man slapped him across the face.
He felt a flash of pain, tasted blood in his mouth as he fell from the bed, and then his trousers were pulled down.