Murder Mile

Chapter 9

DI Rob Brennan chose to remain silent on the drive back to Fettes Police Station. He had allowed himself a rare moment of introspection after revealing to the Sloans that their daughter was dead. He felt their grief, but didn’t want to lug it around with him. There was sympathy and there was empathy; the latter meant taking on too much of the grief and he needed to keep a clear head if he was to catch their daughter’s killer. Though he knew it wasn’t healthy, he locked away the meeting with the Sloans; he would address his true feelings about what had happened at a later date. Of that he had no doubt.

When they reached the station Brennan realised he was holding the stub of a cigarette he had forgotten to smoke; it had burnt down to the filter tip and there was a dusting of ash on his trouser leg. He quickly brushed it off, placed the dowp in the ashtray as McGuire parked up.

‘What now?’ said the DS once he’d stopped the car, removed the key from the ignition.

Brennan felt his brain itch, ‘Did you get hold of Lorrimer?’

McGuire raised an eyebrow, looked ready to say ‘ Who?’ then, ‘Oh, profiler, Strathclyde… aye, he’s coming through.’

‘When?’

The DS turned away, exhaled. ‘Well, he said soon as… I’m hoping tonight or tomorrow.’

‘Call him, get a definite time. And don’t tell Benny, we’ll wait until Lorrimer’s on the job before we do that.’

‘Yes, boss… anything else?’

Brennan released his seatbelt, ‘I’m sure there will be, just let me get a look at the files before we plan the next move.’

The pair left the car, headed for the front door. Charlie was manning the desk again, nodded to them from behind the pages of the News. He seemed unchallenged, content. Brennan didn’t know whether to envy him or feel sorry for him. He had his foot on the first step as his mobile started to ring. He looked at the caller ID, it was Joyce.

‘I’ll catch you up there, Stevie.’

Ringing.

‘Hello.’

‘I want you out tonight,’ she sounded nervy, distraught.

‘Joyce, what are you on about?’ Brennan turned around, passed Charlie and headed out to the car park.

‘I want you out of our house and our lives.’

A vision of Sophie flashed before Brennan’s eyes, ‘Well, that’s never going to happen and you know it.’

‘We’ll see about that… How well do you think your affair will go down with the divorce courts?’

‘Joyce…’ His affair was almost a year ago, he hadn’t seen Lorraine in that time and he had no intention of changing that. ‘Why are you bringing that up now?’

There was a gap on the line, some shuffling. He heard her inhale a cigarette. ‘I’ve changed the locks.’

‘ What?’

‘You heard… And I’ve packed up your things. There’s two suitcases sitting in the garage, you can come and collect them when you like, but don’t try coming to the house.’

‘I want to see Sophie.’

Joyce tutted, ‘Since when? You don’t normally have any time for her.’

Brennan felt confused, his thoughts spiralled. Of course he had time for her, it was the job alone that kept him from seeing her. ‘You’ve no right to do this… You’ve just no…’

‘I’ve every fucking right. Every fucking right after what you did to us!’

‘Joyce, get a hold of yourself.’

‘I’m perfectly fucking together,’ she was roaring now, roaring into the phone.

‘Can we talk about this at least? I mean, where am I supposed to go?’

‘Why don’t you go to your slut, Rob?… Huh? Why don’t you go there?’

She hung up.

Brennan stared at the phone for a moment, then quickly turned towards the station. He hoped no one had seen him engaged in the call; his home life was something to keep separate, the two worlds could never mix. He pocketed the mobile and started to walk back towards the building. His thoughts filled with Sophie. How would she feel? How would she react? He tried to press delete on those thoughts but their impressions remained. He felt hollowed out like the hull of a shipwreck. He halted in mid-stride for a moment and tried to gather himself; a blackbird swooped on the car park, raised its yellow beak and set off again. Brennan watched the bird, wings spread, as it crossed the cloud-covered sky and felt he was watching a part of himself being carried away.

The DI steadied himself some more; this wasn’t the time or place for ratiocination, for dissecting the failure of his marriage. The job always had to come first, always. He returned to the station, his gait slow, but sure.

Upstairs, in Incident Room One, there was some activity but Brennan’s gaze alighted on McGuire and WPC Elaine Docherty smiling at each other like there was no one else in the room; he approached the whiteboard, turned to DS Collins, ‘This all we have on the Sloan girl?’

Collins leaned back in his seat, ‘Sally, anything to stick up?’

‘No, not yet. Once they’ve done the postmortem there will be.’

Collins returned to the DI, ‘That’s it for now, sir.’

‘What about Smeeton’s door-to-door?’

A shrug of shoulders, ‘There weren’t any doors really, nearest house was a couple of miles away… and it was a pitch-black night, remember.’

Brennan shook his head, returned to the board. The background details were sketchy, they had an address and a place of work but there were no friends, boyfriend listed. ‘Collins, what’s happening with all this fucking white space?’

The DS rose, approached the board. ‘Well, Lou is down at the travel agent where she worked, talking to her colleagues, and he’s going to follow up any names that come from there. And Bri is going through her history, school and previous jobs… There’s nothing standing out, though. She seemed very ordinary.’

‘Check out everybody she’s had contact with in recent years — youth club, local pub… if she knew a bus driver with a fucking speeding ticket I want him brought in. Got me?’

‘Sir.’

‘And Collins…’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Interview her classmates from school… She’s not long out the place, she’s likely kept in contact… Facebook generation and all that. Anything, no matter how insignificant, fire it up to me.’

Collins nodded, he looked as if he was about to say something, raised a finger towards the board, but Brennan cut him off. He spoke in hushed tones, ‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’

Collins turned round, Brennan watched over the DS’s shoulder as the Chief Super and DI Jim Gallagher walked down through the incident room.

Gallagher nodded, ‘Rob, how’s it going?’

‘Fine, Jim… is this a social call?’

The Chief Super hitched his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose as he looked at the board. ‘Everything ticking along all right, Rob?’

Brennan nodded, ‘Yes. Just fine.’ He watched the Chief Super peer over the details that had been written up in marker pen then quickly remove his gaze as he caught sight of the bloody photographs.

‘Right, well, got a moment, Rob? Something Jim and I would like to talk to you about?’

Brennan felt his spirit shrivel inside him; he looked over at Gallagher, he was smiling. Not a real smile, a false, painted-on one. They were up to something and Brennan knew it. He pointed towards his glassed-off section at the other end of the room.

‘This way, then,’ he said.

The Chief Super headed for the office, Gallagher laid up behind Brennan and let him go first, motioning him to go ahead with the palm of his hand. Brennan paced out, but he didn’t like the thought of Gallagher descending into obvious politesse — it made him feel wary.

The Chief Super took Brennan’s chair, sat. The two DIs stood there like schoolboys before the headmaster.

‘Is somebody going to tell me what this is about?’ said Brennan.

Gallagher laid a blue folder down on the desk, ‘You better take a look at this.’

Brennan reached forward, picked it up; it contained details of an unsolved murder case. There were pictures of the victim, bound and tied, her name was Fiona Gow. As Brennan scanned the files he immediately saw the similarities to the murder of Lindsey Sloan.

He said, ‘These deaths are five years apart… you think they’re connected?’

Gallagher readied himself to reply; the Chief Super stepped over him. ‘We don’t know, Rob.’

Brennan bristled, ‘Then why are you showing them to me?’

‘We believe,’ said Gallagher, ‘there may be a connection.’ He leaned forward, plucked a photograph from the file. ‘Look at the ligatures, the genital mutilation… and the eyes.’

‘It’s almost identical,’ said the Chief Super.

Brennan had to agree, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He could see where this was going; he now knew why Gallagher had been snooping around in his earlier briefing. ‘I’ll need this confirmed by the lab.’

‘Of course. But I can tell you now, this was my case, Rob, and the killings are identical,’ said Gallagher.

The Chief Super edged an opinion in, ‘I would have thought you’d welcome Jim’s input in this situation, Rob.’

Brennan leaned forward, closed the file. He was staring at Gallagher, but talking to the Chief Super when he replied, ‘You never solved this case, did you, Jim?’

Gallagher faltered, his mouth opened but no words came out. He seemed to recover quickly though. ‘We came close.’

‘Not close enough, Jim. If you had we might not have Lindsey Sloan’s name chalked up out there.’

Gallagher’s face flushed, he seemed to inflate. The Chief Super rose, stepped between the two men. ‘Right, well, I was going to suggest some co-operation on this case between you both, given the undeniable similarities…’

‘That’s not what we discussed…’ burst Gallagher.

The Chief Super flagged him down, ‘Rob, I’d like you to take Jim onto your team, he’ll report to you…’ He looked at Gallagher, ‘For the time being.’

Brennan’s head buzzed, he felt like an angry wasp had got in there. He looked at Gallagher and then back to the Chief Super. He didn’t know which one to despise the most. He knew Gallagher had cooked this up, it was trophy hunting, he was after the case because it was the biggest one going. Benny, though, he was just playing the only game he knew: divide and rule.

Brennan held himself in check, kept his tone low and flat. ‘And if I object, sir?’

‘Object all you like, Rob,’ said the Chief Super as he reached for the door handle, ‘it won’t make a blind bit of difference.’