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
