The detective settled himself in the seat, made a show of turning up the cuffs on his shirtsleeves. ‘Do I need to paint you a picture, Minister?’
A head tilt. ‘I’m afraid you might have to, because I don’t see any connection between my career prospects and this unfortunate turn of events.’
‘“Unfortunate turn of events”… You make it sound like your washingmachine’s on the blink.’ Brennan sat forward, rested elbows on the table. ‘Your daughter has been murdered and your granddaughter — Beth — remember her? She’s missing.’
The minister looked away, his pallor faded.
Brennan let the implications of his words settle. He rose from the chair and paced the room, spoke: ‘Now, here’s how I see it: you’re up for the top job in the Kirk, and young Carly is unfortunate enough to get herself pregnant. Now, how does a respectable Church of Scotland minister deal with that? Does he throw a party in the manse? Take an ad out in the paper?… I wonder.’ Brennan stared at the minister — he was looking away. ‘No, here’s what I say he does: he thinks about how this will look for him. Oh, now, the parishioners won’t like it, he thinks. No, no. They’ll talk, they’ll complain, they’ll put words in ears, maybe even write letters. No, no. That would never do. Am I painting a clear enough picture, Minister?’
‘Yes, very clear.’ His speech was blunt, brisk.
The DI leaned over him, shouted, ‘I doubt it. I doubt it very much.’ He didn’t like the minister’s demeanour — he was acting as if he had some cards in reserve, and Brennan knew full well he had no such thing. He fired on, ‘You see, when I found out you were in line for the Moderator’s job, it made me think. What did it make me think? you’re wondering… Well, it made me think that if an opportunity like that presented itself, an opportunity of a lifetime, you might say, some people would do almost anything to stop it slipping through their fingers.’
‘No, this is wrong… You are wrong about that,’ said the minister.
Brennan returned to the table, leaned over. ‘I doubt it. You see, I watched you talking about your daughter and I think I learned one or two things about you, Minister. You are a very secretive man, you like to keep your private life, as the saying goes, private. Am I right or am I wrong?’
The minister nodded, said, ‘Is there a law against that, Inspector Brennan?’
A smile, wry one. ‘No. Not against that. But there is a law against murder.’
The minister’s eyes flared. He rose. ‘This has gone far enough. I demand to have a lawyer, now.’
Brennan eased back, lowered himself into the chair. ‘You can have a lawyer any time you like, but jumping the gun a bit, aren’t we? No one’s charged you with anything.’
The minister sat down again, ran fingers through his thick grey hair. ‘This infernal questioning is leading nowhere.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that… and more besides.’
‘Meaning?’
‘ Meaning I’d like you to start answering some questions, with some straight answers. Like why didn’t you tell us about Beth?’
The minister laced his fingers, looked at his palms, turned them over. The actions seemed perfunctory. ‘That would seem like an error now.’
‘I’d say so. But you’re not answering my question.’
The minister raised his eyes. ‘My wife and I, well, we were in so much shock…’
Brennan wasn’t buying any of it. ‘Why did Carly run away?’
A sigh, followed by a deep breath. ‘We discussed with her about putting the child, erm, Beth, up for adoption.’
‘And Carly wanted to keep her.’
‘No. Well, not at first… Before the birth, Carly was in favour of adoption.’
‘But then she had the child, she held Beth in her arms and changed her mind, is that it?’
The minister nodded his head.
‘So, you pressed her to have the child adopted?’
‘No. Not at all… It’s very complex, Inspector.’
‘Then explain it.’
His gaze turned away from Brennan; his eyes drooped in time with his shoulders. He spoke: ‘We… removed Carly from school when the pregnancy was uncovered. We tried to keep her from prying eyes.’
Brennan knew exactly what he was saying, and wasn’t saying. ‘You were ashamed.’
The minister’s lower lip curled into his mouth, sat over his teeth for a moment, then subsided. ‘There was some element of that, yes.’
‘You were ashamed, and you were afraid you’d miss your chance to be Moderator.’
The minister didn’t answer the question, said, ‘It was very… complex.’
Brennan rose from his chair again, began his pacing ritual. ‘And then Beth was born.’ The child’s name seemed to unsettle the minister every time he heard it.
‘Yes. Carly had the child at home. My wife was a midwife when we met and… It was a simple procedure for her.’
‘And the adoption?’
‘We had made all the arrangements.’
‘Go on.’
Talking like this was a trial for the minister — each word was drawn from a deep, dark well. ‘Somewhere along the way, Carly had a change of heart. She didn’t want to give up the child and… there were words.’
Brennan turned, pointed to him. ‘You laid down the law.’ He raised his voice: ‘You told her she was giving up her child whether she wanted to or not!’
The minister raised his hands to his head, lowered his brow towards the table. His words were inaudible. Brennan watched as he rested his eye sockets on the heels of his hands.
‘Well, this is all very interesting, Minister… All very interesting indeed, wouldn’t you agree?’
Chapter 25
DC Stevie McGuire was waiting for Brennan as he left the interview room. He had a blue folder pressed to his chest, said, ‘I have a media statement back from PR… Do you want to cast your eyes over it?’
Brennan took the piece of paper, read:
Lothian and Borders Police investigations into the death of a young woman on the Muirhouse Housing Estate in Edinburgh are ongoing. Police are treating the matter as suspicious. The victim’s identity will not be released until all family members have been informed. Police are keen to hear from anyone in the locus between the hours of…
Brennan returned the paper, pinned it to McGuire’s folder. ‘Release the name.’
‘ What?’
‘You heard.’
He walked off; McGuire trailed him.
‘Sir, are you sure that’s-’ He broke off as Brennan spun round.
‘Look, Stevie, how many calls from the hacks have we had on this?’
The DC shrugged. ‘A lot…’
‘More than that, son. We’ve given them nothing and they’re getting antsy. If we hold off on the ID then they’re going to know we’re playing them hard… We’ll be upping the pace, but we need to keep them onside, make them work for us.’
McGuire nodded, said, ‘You’re the boss.’
Brennan placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed. ‘Don’t you forget it.’ He smiled at McGuire. There was another reason behind his thinking, and he wanted to relay it: ‘Look at it this way, Stevie — we might be jumping the gun a bit, but we’ll piss off our mole something rotten.’
The pair shared a brief laugh as they walked towards the incident room; Brennan wondered if he was coming round to the DC. Phones were ringing, uniforms running to and fro. There was a message coming through the fax —
