‘Well, not the young girl. Or her family… Which reminds me, would you, eh…’
Brennan nodded. ‘Consider it done.’
‘Good. Good. Her name is Lindsey Sloan, like I say, a local girl… There’s a file obviously.’ The Chief Super removed a blue folder from the top of a pile on his desk and handed it to Brennan. It seemed a slim volume to contain the details of a life that had ended; it would be added to now though, in minute detail. It struck him that most victims attracted more attention in death than they ever did in life; the thought gored him.
‘I’ll alert the parents.’
Brennan rose.
‘Oh, if you don’t mind…’ The Chief Super indicated the chair again. ‘I’m not finished.’
‘No?’
‘No, I’m not. I wanted to ask if you’d seen this?’
He passed a sheet of paper over the desk towards Brennan, who turned it around, scanned the rubric. It was the memorandum about the complete ban on overtime. Brennan took a deep breath and stared out of the window; he caught sight of a road sweeper leaning on his broom.
‘Well, you did see this?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘And, what, sir?’
The Chief Super looked perplexed, he removed his glasses again, started to fumble for words. He tapped a pile of papers on the other side of the desk. ‘This is the duty roster, it’s what we are budgeted for this month.’ He picked up another pile of papers, ‘And this is what has been added to it from your little escapade last night… Where am I supposed to find the savings?’
Brennan rolled his eyes towards his feet. ‘I think that’s an administrative issue, sir… As I said, I’m running a murder investigation.’
The Chief Super gasped, his neck seemed to shorten as he threw himself back in his chair. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. Do you read the papers?’
‘Yes, full of crime, sir.’
‘I was referring to the recession… The country is in dire straits in case you haven’t noticed, and we are public servants, we have to do our bit. Do we understand each other?’
When he was younger, Brennan knew, he would have flared up after a remark like that. But not now. For some time he had come to the conclusion that life was an endless succession of such blows. Wullie had called it ‘eating crow’. Brennan knew the bird was a staple of every man’s diet, and it was a measure of the man how much he could consume without reacting.
He answered, ‘I think we understand each other, sir.’ His heart beat faster now, he felt it pounding beneath his shirt front, but his chest cavity felt strangely empty. He was trapped, but he knew it was futile to struggle in the trap. It only made things worse, made the job more difficult for you.
The Chief Super painted a thin smirk on his face, ‘Good, I’m glad we understand each other. Because any further misunderstandings will have very serious consequences, Inspector.’
Chapter 7
Brennan knew that life was never going to be easy for him. For some it was. For the brutes whose only aim was to get snout to trough, life was simple, a joy even. For the thinking, the intelligent, it was a complex affair. He recalled an interrogation of a repeat offender — a gangly youth he’d watched grow into a stocky recidivist — who said he’d been in trouble his whole life because he ‘just had one of those faces’. Brennan knew he had one of those faces too; but there was more. There was something inside him — an energy he was dimly aware of. He would often feel it rise in him, force him to rebel, and even when he held it in check — ignored it, sublimated it — it was still there. It shone out of him, it showed in his face, and the brutes scented it like pack dogs detecting adrenaline before an attack.
Brennan had tried to deny his self, who he was inside — to have an easy life — but it didn’t work. It merely weakened him, his energy attenuated. Denial of his true self only brought in doubts, and ultimately lowered the innate respect he had for himself. By the age he was now, Brennan knew he should have accepted his lot. Both physically and spiritually — he was what he was. There was no point fighting it, denying himself. But he sometimes longed for an easier path from birth to death — how could he not when the ignorant brutes had it so good?
He felt controlled like a marionette on strings. Life was all about control — who had it, who controlled whom — it dictated the level of your contentment and happiness. If you were a controller, the world felt like it was yours, even a small world. But if you were controlled, even a little, you were nothing but someone’s plaything. Brennan had sometimes wondered about leaving the force, the city, hauling up somewhere alien to him. Somewhere where no one knew him, where he could be free, untrammelled. But it was only a dream. There was no escape from his lot and he knew it. The inner scream could rage, roar louder, but it had to be suppressed. Exhibiting doubts was a weakness, and if they saw weakness on the force, it made their control of you even stronger.
The door’s hinges wheezed as Brennan entered Incident Room One. At once heads turned in his direction: he managed to ignore them for his first few steps but when Lou and Brian turned round to greet him in unison, the DI halted. He saw McGuire down the other end of the room at the whiteboard with Elaine Docherty, one of the WPCs; they seemed to be very close but separated instantly as they caught sight of Brennan; he tipped back his head to beckon McGuire over.
‘Right, listen up.’
The room stilled. A few rose from chairs, others eased themselves onto the corners of desks. Files and coffee cups were put down.
‘There have been some developments in the last few minutes…’ The silence was interrupted by a cackle of low voices. Brennan raised his own voice, ‘We have a name for our victim. She is a local girl and was on the missing persons’ list so we tied the dental together pretty quickly.’
‘What’s her name, boss?’
Brennan turned over the blue folder in his hand, opened up. He was surprised to see a colour photograph of a smiling young girl; she looked nothing like the bloodless corpse he’d seen a few hours ago. ‘Her name is Lindsey Sloan, I’ll be giving the details over to Stevie and he can fill you in…’ Brennan leaned forward, passed the folder to the DS.
‘Have the parents been notified?’ said McGuire.
Brennan shook his head, ‘That’s a job for you and me this afternoon, Stevie.’
‘I can hardly wait.’
The DI continued his impromptu briefing. ‘Now, I don’t need to tell you that the scene of the crime was particularly gruesome. Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that we are dealing with a seriously deranged killer…’ Brennan spotted the far entrance door to the room open, DI Jim Gallagher sauntered in and pulled out a chair; as he sat he swept a hand over his thick-set jowls. He was not part of the squad; Brennan eyed him down the length of the room, ‘Something for us, Jim?’
Headshakes, a smoker’s cough into a fist. ‘No, just passing through. Carry on…’
Brennan ignored the interruption, ‘Right, what’s everyone got for me?’
Lou was first to speak, ‘Well, everything’s up in the air now that we have an ID, surely.’
‘Nothing come out the field?’
‘Cow shit, sir,’ said Collins.
‘That it?’
‘Not a mark; there’s some footprints but they’re looking like the kid’s…’ He turned over a page in his notebook, ‘Er, Ben Russell.’
‘What’s he had to say for himself?’ said Brennan.
Collins deferred to McGuire.
A shrug, ‘Not much, they were out clubbing, he stopped for a pish, found the victim. He’s a student, the whole lot from the car were, I don’t think they’ve got a parking ticket between them.’
