Murder Mile

Chapter 37

DI Rob Brennan parked on the street outside Robbie’s Bar on Leith Walk. He had a strange tingling sensation playing in the pit of his stomach that he knew signalled apprehension. It had been some time since he had met up with Wullie Stuart, a man he held the utmost respect for since serving under him on the force. Wullie was old school, what they used to call ‘no nonsense’ but would probably be referred to these days as unaware, at best, as difficult at worst. The last time Brennan encountered Wullie he had been shocked, not by the physical deterioration of the man — although that in itself was a sort of shock — but by the way he had gone from a man of action to a man of inaction in seemingly one fell swoop. It had worried Brennan at the time — he felt for the old boy; but it had also been a sobering glimpse of what the future might hold in store for him when he gave up the DI’s role; or indeed, it gave up on him.

Robbie’s was one of the more lauded of Edinburgh’s drinkers; a long, dark and little bedecked bar stretched from the front door to the back where a mix of hardened bluenoses and tabard-clad office cleaners mingled with the shop and factory workers. It was not a place of shirts and ties, the sight of a mobile phone was greeted with disdain, down-turned mouths and headshakes. City people — Edinburgh’s real warts-and-all occupants — held court in Robbie’s. There was an unspoken chivalry that surrounded the interior like a poker-room pall; there were house rules here, but they weren’t written up and framed on the wall. It was the kind of place where, one step inside, you knew it was different from all the corporate superpubs with their cocktail specials, their discount microwave meals and their shiny teenage servers spouting, ‘Have a nice day, sir’.

Brennan walked through the door of the pub and took two paces towards the centre of the room. It was busy, Robbie’s was always busy, but it was a kind of busy that Brennan liked. Not jammed; not jumping. Just filled with enough people to create a homely atmosphere that was far enough away from home to let you forget the cares of such a place. A couple at the bar eyed him cautiously; they had a way of appraising him that made him think they were criminals. Brennan was used to it; he knew police stuck out for them — there was a banner draped around his neck that read ‘filth’ for these people — but that was OK, the opposite was also true. The whole elaborate police-criminal pas de deux was as instinctual as the hair rising on a cat’s back upon encountering a dog. It was as good a warning sign as any to remind them both to steer clear, or face the consequences, which were rarely pretty for either party. The key was toleration; social exclusivity was impossible and so they walked around each other, noting the other’s presence but obviating its impact. Brennan turned a hand into his trouser pocket and drummed fingernails on the bar with his other as he raked the room with his gaze. For a moment he thought he had been the first to arrive but then he spotted Wullie sitting at the far end; the sight of him struck like a lash. His old mentor was slouched over a pint glass, his frame and face shrunken; it struck Brennan that after a certain age time became more precious, the path downhill steeper.

He nodded to the barman, ‘Pint, mate…’ and took a step towards the back of the room.

‘I’ll drop it over to you.’

‘Cheers.’

Brennan tried to keep his mind in gear as he approached Wullie; he knew why he wanted to see him. The social stuff, the interaction that added up to friendship was never spoken of; it had to remain below the mask of manliness that their social mores had taught them to wear. Brennan might indeed have felt more for Wullie than his own father but the thought of ever expressing such inner workings was laughable to him. Years had passed in each other’s company; secrets and hurts had been shared that would have felled many a man and yet they would both go to their graves knowing how much they had meant to each other but never having given voice to a single emotion. Did it matter? Did the words carry so much import that they needed to be said? Brennan knew the answer; some things could not be said with words, some things were only cheapened when brought into the open air.

‘Hello, Wullie.’ The older man shuffled his feet behind the table, placed his palms either side of his pint glass and went to push himself up. Brennan raised a hand, ‘No, don’t get up… I’m just going to sit down.’

Wullie nodded, ‘Christ, you’re looking well.’

A laugh. ‘Well, I’m still here.’

‘Always something.’

The barman appeared in front of them, put Brennan’s pint on the table and retreated.

‘Cheers, then.’

‘Aye, I suppose so…’ Wullie took a sip of his pint and placed it back on the beer mat. He fingered a stray drop that had landed on the tabletop. He seemed distracted, unsure of himself. ‘Look, I really was sorry to hear about you and the wife.’

He obviously couldn’t remember her name; maybe never knew it. That didn’t matter thought Brennan; Wullie and himself had never been that type of friends. They had never entertained in each other’s homes, they had never shared intimacies of their family lives. That kind of detail was sacred, another part of their existences that needed to be kept out of the light; if they were both family men, once, then those times had passed into ignominy like so much else.

‘Don’t be sorry.’ Brennan’s reply served as a stopper on the topic; it was stored away now, not to be returned to.

Wullie gulped another mouthful of his drink, ‘So, you working a case?’

The old detective must know he was working a case; it was a conversational gambit. A verbal cue to commence with the real reason for Brennan’s visit.

‘Aye… bad one.’

‘Children?’ said Wullie.

Brennan shook his head, ‘Well, as good as… teenagers.’

Wullie returned his pint to the table, rubbed at the spikes of white stubble on his chin. ‘Christ, you’ve got the case they splashed all over the fucking papers…’

‘You read it?’

‘Of course I read it… Everyone in Edinburgh’s read that. Jesus, painful for the families.’

Brennan eased himself back in his chair, the cushion sank to accommodate his frame. He reached out for his pint glass, raised it and gulped a long draught. The cold beer worked like a palliative; he wiped white foam from the tip of his lip and said, ‘They’re in bits. Can’t blame them, anyone would be.’

Wullie was shaking his head, rubbing his fingers over his thighs. Brennan noticed the knees of his Farah trousers were shiny.

‘Where are you at with it?’ said Wullie.

Brennan exhaled a long breath, ‘We have some forensic… It’s a serial murder.’

‘You got a profiler?’

‘Joe Lorrimer.’

Wullie raised an eyebrow, ‘Joe’s good.’

Brennan reached into the blue folder he had in his document wallet, it was the profiler’s report. He held it before Wullie. ‘You want to see this?’

‘Not got my glasses, want to give me the highlights?’

Brennan opened up the folder, ‘OK, let me see…’

Wullie cut it, ‘I warn you… first I hear of constellated disadvantage or the like, I’m off!’

The DI smiled, ‘I’ll edit as I go… Right, the psych fit is quite detailed: there’s a strong methodical mind at work, systematic and a lover of routine. It’s almost pathological so we’re talking about an intense individual, someone likely to be able to keep that under wraps, though perhaps this could bubble to the surface now and again

…’

‘So he could hold down a good job.’

‘Easy, no bother.’ Brennan returned to the list, ‘There’s a superior streak which would make it hard to form intimate relationships… Perhaps as a result of a family trauma, likely a conflicted relationship with his mother.’

‘A loner,’ said Wullie.

Brennan nodded, returned to the file. ‘The superiority complex manifests in a need to dominate.’

‘A control freak.’

‘… Any marital set-up would be unique, if not bizarre, because of the demands he’d place on obsequiousness. The home would be a microcosm of control, pseudo-moralising, elitism…’

Wullie held up a hand, ‘OK, I think I get the picture before you delve any further into fucking psychobabble.’

Brennan closed the folder over, smiled. He raised his pint and watched Wullie do the same. ‘So, what do you think?’

He sighed. ‘Any trophies taken?’

‘Eyes… And there was genital mutilation, but that was hidden on the corpses.’

‘Jesus… a sick bastard.’

‘True.’

Wullie scratched the edge of his mouth, ‘This is a dangerous man you have on your hands; if the forensic matches the two killings then he could be lining up another kill.’

‘Why would you say that?’

Wullie leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs. ‘It’s the control… That’s what it’s all about. You think he’s the controller, but he’s not, he’s controlled… by impulses.’

‘The impulse to kill?’

‘He’s ruled by impulses. The routines are impulse-driven, it’s like an intense OCD, he regulates his life to ease the control impulses… That’s what the killing is, he can’t get away from that. He can store it up and up but then he’s into a state of tension and fear and there’s only one way to release that.’

Brennan leaned forward, ‘Then why the gap, between the killings?’

‘He feels remorse, not like you and I, but he feels differently to the victim afterwards. The tension’s been released, he’s been let off the hook… That might last some time, but the mindset isn’t changed — can’t change — the impulses come back eventually and they have to be dealt with.’

‘So what triggers the impulse?’

‘Fuck knows — brain chemistry, the mother was a control freak — does it matter? What matters is, Rob, this bastard is in your manor and he’s going to strike again. He can’t avoid it, and neither can you.’

Brennan drained the last of his pint, stood up. ‘Another?’

‘Why not.’

At the bar the DI mulled over what Wullie had told him; much of it was old news but what he had managed to glean was a decent second opinion. His own theories were well formed, Joe Lorrimer’s were too, but what he needed was confirmation that neither of them were off course. If he had been missing something Wullie would have pointed it out, he always did, but the fact that he had merely confirmed Brennan’s worst fears only added to the certainty that he would soon have another killing on his hands.

Brennan returned to the table with the drinks. Wullie stared vacantly into the middle distance.

‘What is it?’

‘Oh, Nothing… Just thinking about an old case.’

‘Relevant?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Well, tell me more.’

Wullie uncrossed his legs, played with the perma-crease in his trousers. ‘That profile, I’d say was missing one thing… These bastards usually have someone looking out for them, someone covering their tracks.’

‘A wife you mean?’

‘Maybe, aye… Or a parent. A sibling… It’s a lot to organise, a lot to get right for one person. It’s also a lot to go wrong, and with as much heat on the bastard as you’re applying I’d say he could do with someone to help cover his tracks.’

Finding the killer was a big enough ask for Brennan; finding his helper could wait till after the event, he thought. But, it was something to think about, even though he had plenty to think about as it was. ‘Look, there was something else I meant to ask you…’

Wullie’s expression changed, he seemed to lighten around the shoulders, relax more. ‘What was that?’

Brennan twisted round to face him, ‘You got anything on Jim Gallagher?’

Wullie shrugged, ‘Big Jim… Never liked the prick, is that enough?’

Brennan laughed, it was good to have another of his opinions endorsed. ‘Join the club… No, it was just something Charlie said.’

The old man playfully landed a punch on the DI’s arm, ‘Och, he’s meaning the raffle thing from years back. Fucker staged a raffle at the station, charity thing y’know, but he fiddled it so that himself and two vice ponces picked up the prizes… Was a big stooshie at the time, but Jim’s a fly bastard and everybody knows it.’

Brennan bit, ‘What do you mean, fly?’

‘Just what I say, he’s a bit wide. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but he’s not the only copper on the force like that

… A lot of it will have to do with his upbringing, couldn’t have been easy that. I always cut him some slack for the boys’ home stuff.’

‘Boys’ home?’

Wullie creased his brows, ‘He was brought up in a home, an orphanage, Dungarn it was, a right shit-hole… I think his parents died when he was about five or six, was a car crash in Fife, nasty business.’

Brennan picked up his pint, held it before his lips, said, ‘Really, I didn’t know that.’