a WPC waited for it. Brennan nodded to the crowd who looked up as he entered. He pointed to one of them. ‘Lou, what’s the go with the door-to-doors?’
A short man in a Markies shirt and tie, open at the collar, bedraggled, spoke: ‘I’m about fifty per cent through them.’
‘And?’ Brennan moved his fists in a circular motion.
‘And… nothing, sir.’
‘ Nothing?’
‘No one at the halfway houses saw anyone matching our victim. There’s a few left to try but we’re drawing blanks.’
Brennan shook his head, jutted his jaw. ‘Did you start these before or after we had the full pathology report?’
Lou leaned back against the wall, touched his brow. ‘Erm, bit of both… Some before, some after.’
‘Right. The ones you covered before, go back and ask if they saw anyone with a kid.’
‘Yes, sir.’ He pushed his shoulder blades off the wall, returned to his desk.
Brennan started to move fists again, halted, pointed. ‘Brian… what pictures you got?’
A shake of the head.
‘Nothing?’
‘Not so far. I’ve not got them all in yet, we’re halfway through the train stations footage and haven’t started on the buses… The community centre’s wasn’t running.’
Brennan arked up, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ He smacked a fist in his open palm. ‘How many bods have you got screening?’
‘Four on the early shift, two the back.’
‘Double it. I’ll worry about the overtime later.’
Brian nodded, ran fingers through his hair and picked up the phone’s receiver.
Brennan paced round the room. He looked at the whiteboard. There were more photographs of Carly now; her name had been added in red marker pen. Brennan’s gaze hung for a moment, then he turned swiftly.
‘Okay, Davie… you’re up.’
When the DC rose, he was a full half-foot taller than the rest of the room. His arms seemed too long for his body and his elbows poked out at an unnatural angle as he spoke: ‘I hate to say it, boss, but I’ve got even less to report than the others.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Brennan shook his head.
‘I’ve pulled in the pimps working the Links but they’re giving nothing away.’
‘Are they holding back?’
A shrug. ‘Hard to say… They’re never forthcoming at the best of times.’
‘Haven’t you got any brass that talk?’
Davie scratched his earlobe with a long bony finger. ‘I tried that too — nothing.’
Brennan threw up his hands, kicked out at a waste bin. ‘Right, get them in… take a meat wagon and round them up.’ He turned, pointed again. ‘Davie, you can head up the interviews and I want them started today. Go on through the night if necessary… Tell Charlie to clear some cells.’
‘Sir, do you know how many sex workers there are out there?’
Brennan hated the phrase, it was too PC. He preferred the tried and tested handle — seemed to fit. ‘Get them all in, all the brass and ass walking Leith, and interview them. One on one. A young girl has died — someone knows something. And in case anyone has lost sight of the fact, there’s a child, a baby girl called Beth that’s missing… When I get my balls put over the coals on national television I want to be able to tell the country that every single man and woman in this room is doing everything they possibly can to find that child and her mother’s killer.’
The room fell silent. Heads were bowed.
Brennan continued, ‘This might turn out to be the biggest case any of you will ever work on. We have a seriously deranged killer on the loose and don’t think for a second the press and public are going to let us forget it.’ He walked to the window. ‘Look out there — that’s where our killer is. There are people who know him, or her, and they’ll lead us right to where the bastard is hiding. I want every single one of you to up your game — the stakes have never been higher. I want this bastard, and I want that child out of harm’s way.’
The room was still quiet.
Brennan slammed his fist down on a desk. A cup and some pens jumped. ‘Do you hear me?’
Together: ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good, now get to work. I want results… Nothing else will cut it.’
Brennan put one foot in front of the other, paced through to his glass-fronted office. He slammed the door, more for effect than anything. As he sat at his desk he watched the bodies pass his window; he knew they were a long way from finding out anything. The case had him mystified. He knew there was some piece of the puzzle that hadn’t yet come into view, but he didn’t know where to begin looking for it. What had happened to that girl back in Pitlochry that made her pack up her belongings and head for the big city? It had to be more than a tiff with her parents. Yes, the minister was a queer fish, as Stevie described him, but he wasn’t a monster. Surely there was family support there for the girl, and if it wasn’t there in sufficient quantities then she’d had some options available to her. At what stage did the best choice become to uproot herself from friends and family, with a baby, and head out into the unknown?
The more Brennan played over the events in his mind, the more it baffled him. Who was Carly Donald? He needed to find that out. He needed to get under the skin of the young girl from Pitlochry who had ended up in cold storage in the capital city. Brennan could see the whiteboards through the glass front of his office. The name of Carly’s school was listed at the top of a number of contacts that had been deemed worth chasing. Teachers, friends, a hockey coach and the family doctor.
‘Bullshit,’ mouthed Brennan.
He would have to check this out himself. He had to start pushing a few buttons; the information was out there, it always was, it was just a matter of finding it. The girl had a child, Jesus, a child that no one knew where to look for. Who had the child? Was the child still alive? The questions mounted but the answers remained elusive. A thought of Lorraine cross-hatched with the case: he was soon to be a father again — how would he feel if his child was missing?
Someone had fathered Carly’s child and Brennan wanted to know who. It was his experience that in small towns, information like that was never far from the lips of gossips; even if they were wrong, there were always theories. He didn’t know where finding the father would lead him, or the investigation, but that was the way things went. You upturned every stone, in the hope of finding what you were looking for there. It was when you left stones unturned that you ran into difficulties.
Brennan felt his conscience pull. He picked up the receiver of the phone, dialled home. His wife answered after a few rings.
‘Hello.’ Her voice immediately chided him for his infidelity. She didn’t need to say the exact words — his guilt drew its own meaning.
‘It’s me, Rob.’
‘Oh, decided to return my call, did you?’
He turned to his blotter to see if there were any messages. ‘What call?… First I’ve heard of it.’
‘I called about an hour ago.’ Joyce’s tone was indignant. He’d tired of that tone, and more besides. Even the things he had once admired and enjoyed in Joyce had become tiresome. The way she did her hair, the books she read, her pet phrases; her familiarity bored him. Lorraine was a very different woman; she didn’t need to be, all she needed to be was someone other than Joyce, but Brennan hadn’t realised that at the time.
‘What is it, then?’ he said.
A sigh. ‘What do you think, Rob? It’s your bloody daughter.’
Sophie had been testing her parents lately, but Brennan had more to worry about. Joyce could handle a stroppy teenager, surely. ‘Look, you know what she’s like… What they’re all like at that age.’
The volume seemed to have risen on the other end of the line. ‘Well, yes, I do know as a matter of a fact, because it’s me that’s dealing with it every day of the week, Rob, whilst you get to go off playing cops and robbers.’
