by Tony Black
‘Yes, sir.’ She looked crestfallen.
‘Good work, though. Keep it up.’ Brennan spoke loud enough for the room to hear as he left. He caught sight of McGuire in the corner of his eye. The DC was frowning.
Chapter 15
DI ROB BRENNAN TOOK THE car McGuire had been driving that morning but he had since claimed. He had already put the seat back to accommodate his heavier frame, had adjusted the steering wheel slightly, but it still didn’t feel like a vehicle he should be driving. The VW Passat started on the first turn of the key. The noise beneath the bonnet betrayed the fact that it was a diesel engine. Edinburgh had too many diesel engines, thought Brennan – taxis, buses, they were all rank, stinking up the city worse than any brewery. The place didn’t need any help on the grime front; it had been doing well enough for centuries. He engaged the clutch and pulled out.
A smattering of rain hit the windscreen as Brennan turned onto Comely Bank. He put on the wipers. By Raeburn Place the rain was coming down in torrents. He slowed his speed through the Circus. He liked the New Town. The symmetry, the organised geometry of the buildings, suggested order. He knew that disorder was the more common currency where people were concerned, but he liked to believe the New Town was different. This was where R. L. Stevenson grew up. Brennan liked to imagine the young writer storing up material for his stories among the grey granite walls and cobbled streets. He knew for sure there were plenty of Jekyll and Hyde characters in Edinburgh. On the west coast, where he grew up, people were plain and simple. Agrarian, almost. Bastards were bastards and you saw them coming a mile off. In Edinburgh, he never tired of saying, people would piss down your back and tell you it was raining.
The morgue was on the other side of the city. The Old Town had more heart and soul on display, medieval spires and dark closes – the stuff of tourist dreams and the people who lived there’s nightmares. When Brennan had arrived in Edinburgh he had thought the hotchpotch of pends and wynds was like nothing he’d ever seen before. He fell for the romance of the city’s history, instantly. It made him proud to be a Scot, for once. The country hadn’t always been the arse-end of the world, the seat of an ersatz parliament that watched the nation’s wealth siphoned off by its larger neighbour. The only country in the world to discover oil and get poorer. Brennan’s capital city had once spilled over with men of towering intellect. The place still dined out on their achievements, lauded them on every street in stone and bronze.
It was the infamous Deacon Brodie that best summed up the city for Brennan, though. The respectable businessman persona Brodie adopted by day contrasted starkly with the burglary trade he plied by night. The deacon seemed to embody the schizophrenic air that the city choked on still. It was a mix of stoic kirks and grand cathedrals, of bold achievements and great plans; but it was also the place where innocent-looking teenage girls wound up, beaten and bloodied, in grimy piss-smelling back alleys. They just didn’t put that stuff in the tour guides.
Brennan eased the VW over the juddering mix of potholes and worn-out cobbles of Calton Road onto the roundabout. On Horse Wynd he was expecting to be stopped by the lights. As he drove on, squeezed between the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the half-billion-pound new parliament building, he didn’t know which way to spit. Both buildings, on opposite sides of the road, were not there for the likes of him. Brennan was a working man. There were times when he might not be able to look himself in the mirror, but he could always reassure himself that he benefited the public good. How many of those wankers could say that? he wondered. He did the job he did, not just for him – though he was born to it – but for everyone else walking the streets and paying his way. Royals and politicians were parasites. ‘Come the revolution, those bastards will be first against the wall!’ Wullie had said that many a time. The thought made Brennan smile. He could hear his mentor’s voice, the inflection rising, the grin spreading. He missed the old man.
It was well after clocking-off time. The parking bays on Holyrood Road were empty. Brennan parked outside the morgue and removed the key from the ignition. The car’s engine rattled a few times before it stilled. Stevie had been gunning the motor, overrevving. It was a new car too – had the lad no respect for anything? Brennan frowned and removed his seat belt, got out the driver’s door. The rain had eased but was still fierce enough for him to run towards the little unassuming building. Unless you knew it was there, you could miss it. The city morgue looked like a public toilet or a small community library. There was nothing to distinguish it except a small plaque, which you couldn’t read from the street – the building was set back about twenty yards and was in a small, gated garden.
At the path’s bourne, by the gate, Brennan pressed the buzzer. The staff inside had stayed on and were expecting him. He was buzzed in right away. At the door an Asian woman smiled and opened up. She wore a green set of overalls like a surgeon.
‘Hello, Rob.’
‘Misa, how’s things?’
She looked at her watch. ‘I’m on a tightrope . . . Pete’s mum’s had to pick up the kids.’
Brennan got the message. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
The pathologist led Brennan through to the waiting corpse. When he saw the still, cold body laid out on the mortuary slab, he felt his throat freeze. Her hair had been combed back from her head. It made her look older, but she was still such a very young girl. Her head lay against a wooden rest, like a chopping board, and her brow glistened where a damp cloth had wiped away the muck and blood. No matter how many times Brennan saw the dead like this, there were still occasions when he could be jolted. The old jakeys, the middle-aged, there was a hint that they had lived, seen something of life. It was as if their corpses confirmed this. To look at this young girl lying there stilled Brennan’s blood: she looked as though she had been robbed. Her life had been stolen away from her. She didn’t look at peace; she wanted answers too.
Misa spoke loudly, in technical terms about what she had done with the girl’s remains. The DNA database had turned up no matches. The legs, below the knees, had been laid out and the arms similarly placed; it looked like an unwholesome jigsaw. Brennan stopped the pathologist: ‘You’re blinding me with science, Misa. Keep it simple, eh.’
She smiled. She had very white teeth. Brennan wondered why such a nice, seemingly normal, young woman would want to spend her waking hours poking about in the entrails of dead people. The thought passed. ‘It’s been a blow to the head, a blunt instrument.’
‘Like a hammer?’
Misa creased her nose. ‘No. More like something pointed. I’d expect a larger skull cavity with a hammer. We had large fragments but a hammer blow can look like that . . .’ She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger.
Brennan nodded, moved around the girl’s body. ‘What about this?’ He pointed to the knees, where the legs had been removed.
‘Hacked off . . . I got the JPEG from Stevie with the saw. I’d say it’s as close as you can be to a match. The bones have been ripped at with metal teeth. It’s a no-brainer.’
The detective moved to the top of the slab, stared down at the girl’s face. ‘What are these?’
‘Contusions . . . There’s a lot of heavy bruising, consistent with a fall. The knees are blackened, but here, look at this . . .’ Misa took up the girl’s arm. There were small penny-sized black dots on the forearm’s underside. ‘That’s fingertips, bet any money.’ She lowered the arm and repeated the action with the other arm. ‘Here too, and the front – that’s a palm grip.’
Brennan felt his Adam’s apple rise as he swallowed a breath. ‘She was in a fight.’
‘With a woman, I’d say . . . or another girl.’ Misa directed Brennan to take a closer look at the bruising. ‘Those punctures, the small crescents, that’s from sharp nails.’
‘So we’re looking for a female?’
‘Or a trannie,’ Misa laughed.
Brennan returned a smile, but couldn’t find it in him to laugh with her. ‘Okay, love, get off to your kids.’
>
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, get away home.’
Misa pulled a green heavy-cotton cover over the corpse. ‘Okey-dokey, pleasure doing business with you.’ She started to wheel up a trolley as Brennan left the room.
On the steps outside, Brennan put his hands in his pockets. The packet of Silk Cuts rested against his knuckles. He removed them, sparked up the lighter. After two or three consoling puffs, he took out his mobile phone, called the office.
DC Stevie McGuire answered. ‘CID.’
‘Stevie . . . Brennan.’
‘Hello, sir.’
‘Have you got those young girls in for questioning yet?’
There was a pause, a squeak of a chair. ‘They’re coming in first thing tomorrow, boss.’
Brennan wasn’t impressed; rolled eyes. His voice came like a growl: ‘Stevie, get a couple of uniform right away and fucking drag them into an interview room if you have to. Tonight, do you hear me?’
‘Yeah, sure. What’s the rush?’
Brennan didn’t like his authority being questioned. ‘Do you need it gift-wrapped with “urgent” stamped on the front? Fucking do it and don’t question me.’
‘Yes, sir.’ McGuire sounded contrite.
‘Good. Now, Misa will be sending over the preliminary pathology report. Looks like our victim had been in a fight . . . I want those girls given the full forensic. If we can link a flake of fucking nail polish to them we’ll do them.’
McGuire stayed quiet for a moment, then, ‘Sir, there was something else . . .’
‘What is it?’
‘Linda was compiling the missing persons list earlier.’
‘Yeah, and?’
‘The girl from Pitlochry . . .’
Brennan rolled his eyes, sighed, ‘Yeah, what about her?’
‘Well, her parents called up – they saw the item on the TV news and want to come down.’
‘Our girl’s local, Stevie.’
‘Well, what should I tell them? They’re coming down in the morning.’
Brennan shook his head. He had too much to do without playing nursemaid to the parents of a missing teenager. ‘Well, add that to your list. Take them down, lay their fears to rest . . . Right now, I’d be taking bets on our girl being local.’
Chapter 16
THE MINISTER SAT FACING THE train’s window. His wife, opposite, seemed to be gazing at a different landscape. Frieda had always been a taciturn woman, even before they had married and she’d buried herself in the household’s chores. She was never one to express what was going on behind those pale-blue eyes of hers. She had been a calm young woman, a bit of a wallflower, they used to say, but he liked that about her. The way she had seemed uninterested in having a large circle of friends, or socialising even, had appealed to him. They had their own little coterie, church folk and family, and until recently they’d had Carly.
‘What are you thinking, my dear?’ said the minister.
Frieda raised herself slightly in the seat. She looked uncomfortable. It wasn’t a long journey – it was being away from the manse and familiar surroundings she had never liked. Surely a missing daughter rendered all of that meaningless, though; other things were on her mind. Should be, anyway.
‘Do they have a buffet on this train?’ she said. The words came out cleanly and crisply, as though she had been practising them over to herself for some time.
The question wasn’t expected. The minister flustered, ‘I-I don’t believe so.’ He looked over to his wife. She had opened her bag and removed a small handkerchief. ‘There might be a trolley, you know, with sandwiches and the like.’
Frieda patted at the corner of her nose with the handkerchief, then folded up the small white cotton square, returned it to her leather handbag. The clasp made a loud snap as it shut. ‘They’ll be expensive.’
Everything she said seemed unnatural to him. He hoped to God she wasn’t going to break; he couldn’t stand to see that. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
She returned her gaze to the window. The minister followed the line of her vision. There was rain falling on the green, open fields. In the middle distance, some sheep were huddling under a copse of trees; they looked wet and miserable. The thought wounded him. For days he had been filled with visions of Carly out in the wider world. The image of the animals – huddled against the harsh elements – seemed to signify his worst fears.
They had made mistakes with Carly, he was sure of it. They were only human, with feet of clay – how could they not? But he did not know what they could have done any differently. Carly had always been a headstrong girl, he thought, but she was stable. She worked hard at school and got good examination results. She was a prefect – they didn’t make just anyone a prefect – so the teachers had to see something in her.
The minister smoothed down the sides of his moustache. He repeated the action three, four times and then he felt conscious of his wife watching him. ‘What is it?’
‘You’re making a habit of that.’
He withdrew his hand, smiled. ‘I’m sorry . . . I wasn’t aware of it.’
She didn’t smile back. ‘Don’t be doing that when we get to the police station . . . They’ll think there’s something funny about you.’
For the second time, he was shocked. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Frieda pinched her mouth. She seemed to be wearing more lipstick than usual, or was it a different colour, perhaps? ‘You know what they say about the police – always suspicious.’
The minister shook his head. ‘We have a missing daughter, and they have found a child who . . .’ He stopped himself. He could feel his breath shortening. ‘I’m sorry.’ He leaned out, touched his wife’s hand. ‘I don’t mean to snap at you.’
She brought her other hand over his, patted it softly. ‘No need to apologise.’
They sat in silence for the remainder of the journey. When the train arrived at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, the reality of the situation suddenly gripped the minister. He took the small overnight bag that his wife had packed for them down from the overhead rack and placed the strap over his shoulder. Frieda put on her raincoat and fastened the buttons. He watched her tighten the belt and admired her cinched waist. His wife was a fine woman. She didn’t deserve this. As he took a slow breath he made a silent prayer that God would spare her any misery, that Carly would not be the girl, the poor unfortunate murdered child they had come to see. He knew at once, as he made his wish before God, that if she was not his child, if it was not Carly who had suffered that cruel end, then it must be another mother’s daughter. He was, in effect, wishing misery on someone else and this was surely no way for a minister of the church to think. But he thought it and prayed to God Carly was safe.
On the station concourse the number of bodies, rushing about, running for trains, made him feel uncomfortable. Pitlochry was a quiet town, peaceful. This was the big city. He did not want to be here. The reason for his visit made this obvious, but it was as if the entire population and every building conspired to make him feel unwelcome. Edinburgh had always left the minister cold, all large population centres had, but he knew he would never again be able to feel anything but unease here.
As they passed through the ticket barriers Frieda seemed to slow at his side. She placed an arm on his own. ‘What is it?’ he said, ‘Is everything okay?’
For a moment she seemed to look blankly at him, and then her arm slipped from his and she swooned forwards. The bag on his shoulder swung round, slipped to the ground as he lunged to catch his wife. She had fainted; without warning she had lost consciousness. The minister tried to hold her up, stop her from hitting her head on the cold tiles. She was surprisingly light in his arms, but as the heavy bag threatened to topple them over he realised he couldn’t hold her up.
‘Can somebody help me please?’
A man in a business suit brushed past. Two young women, chatting, turned away.
‘I’m sorry . . . Please could you . . . ?’
> More walked on. He was losing his grasp. He could feel the grip he had on Frieda’s coat slipping. His knees started to wobble. ‘Please, somebody?’
From the other end of the station a young man sprinted towards them. He grabbed the minister’s wife and eased her onto the ground. He supported her head with his hand, then spoke: ‘Are you John Donald?’
The minister kneeled down beside the young man who was loosening off his wife’s coat. ‘Yes, I am.’
The young man extended a hand. ‘I’m Detective Constable Stephen McGuire . . .’ He touched Frieda’s brow with the back of his hand. She seemed to be stirring. ‘I think she’s going to be fine – just a wee turn.’
‘She’s never fainted before.’
The DC raised himself on his haunches, said, ‘I’d say she’s entitled in the circumstances.’
‘Indeed, yes.’
McGuire pointed to the car parking area. ‘I have a car waiting . . . But if you’d prefer to go to the hotel, get freshened up first . . .’
The minister looked at his wife. She held out a hand, tried to sit up. ‘Frieda . . . We’ll get you to the hotel, rest up for a bit.’
She pushed the DC away, flagged her husband aside. ‘No. No. We’ll get this over with. Right now.’
The minister took his wife’s hand as they settled into the back of the policeman’s car. Her fingers felt cold; her hand was trembling. He wished there was something he could say, do, but nothing presented itself. There had been hundreds, thousands of family tragedies to deal with over the years. He’d found the right words for all of them; they came naturally, with ease. None had ever been in this situation, though. This was new territory for him. He tried to tell himself that he was not alone, that God was with him – the thought did calm him, but there was still the nagging feeling he carried in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t shake. It was the what if? What if the girl was Carly? The minister found himself squeezing his wife’s hand tighter. She reciprocated, turned.
