coat and your car keys.’
‘Sir.’ Napier went to the corner of the room, removed a wax jacket from the stand. He checked in the pocket and produced a set of keys, said, ‘This way, gentlemen.’
McGuire smiled, cast eyes in Brennan’s direction as they left the office.
Napier led them to a navy Mondeo with mud splashes at the wheel arches. Inside, the car was covered in empty McCoy’s crisp pokes and Mars bar wrappers. As Brennan moved his feet an oily carton from a chip shop stuck to his shoe, added to the smell of the vehicle’s interior. That was the tipping point. ‘Jesus, Napier, when did you last clean this car out?’
‘Eh, this morning.’
‘Well, I’d hate to have seen it before then.’
McGuire handed over an empty bottle of Bell’s whisky from the back seat. ‘Hope you weren’t driving when you tanned this.’
Napier snatched the neck, said, ‘That’s going to the bottle bank!’
They drove in silence; Brennan lit a cigarette.
Napier wound down his window, spoke: ‘This is a real shock to the whole community, you know.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘We’ve never had anything like this before, nothing even close… It’s sent a shiver through us all.’
Brennan remained silent, took a pull on his Silk Cut, looked at the tip.
The manse house wasn’t far away — a substantial red sandstone building to the rear of the kirk. Brennan eyed the comfortable residence and tried to calculate in his head how many millions it would fetch in Edinburgh. Several, was his answer. The gardens surrounding the property were extensive and clearly well maintained.
‘Who does the lawns?’ said Brennan.
Napier shrugged. ‘Don’t know, to be honest.’
As they walked towards the front door, McGuire called to the inspector, ‘There’s someone in.’
Brennan stopped on the path, followed McGuire’s finger-point. There was a light on and curtains twitched in an upstairs window. There was a man standing there. ‘Who’s that?’
Napier squinted. ‘Looks like Pete.’
‘Who?’
‘Odd-job man… Maybe he does the lawns. You want me to ask him?’ Napier waved to the man at the window. A weak reciprocal gesture came.
Brennan strode for the door, pressed the ringer. In a few moments he heard footsteps, then the sound of the lock turning.
‘Hello.’ The man was in his thirties, short, shaved head and a muscular build beneath a Glasgow Rangers shirt. He looked first at Brennan, then peered over Brennan’s shoulder to Napier. ‘What’s all this, then?’
Napier eased through the door. ‘Just procedure, Pete. These officers are up from the city.’
The man’s gaze intensified, his hands dropped from the door’s edge and he retreated inside. ‘I see.’
Brennan spoke: ‘Forgive me, I don’t have any record of a… What is it you do here?’
‘I do the maintenance, whatever’s needed really.’ The man’s face seized.
Brennan nodded to McGuire — the DC removed his notebook. ‘What’s your full name, sir?’
‘Peter… Peter Sproul.’
Brennan made sure McGuire had a note of it. ‘And how long have you been employed at the manse?’
Sproul put his hands on his hips, seemed to be counting back the time. ‘I’d say it’s coming on for a year, now.’
‘A year, really?’
‘Yes. A year.’
Brennan watched as Sproul fidgeted, then folded his arms across his chest. ‘I suppose you’ll be here about Carly… Dreadful business.’
‘You must have known her very well.’
‘Yes, well, I don’t know about very well, but I certainly knew her. I live out the back.’ He turned, pointed to the rear of the house. ‘A granny flat so to speak.’ He smiled; no one returned the gesture. ‘Just a dreadful business, terrible really.’ He unfolded his arms, turned towards the kitchen. ‘Can I get you some tea?’
Napier’s face lit up.
‘No. We won’t trouble you,’ said Brennan. ‘If you can just point out Carly’s room.’
Sproul walked across the parquet flooring. He wore training shoes and they squeaked on the polished surface. Brennan watched him pitch himself on his toes and felt his curiosity piqued. ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’
Sproul grabbed the badge of his football shirt. ‘It’s not St Johnstone!’ He smiled again, but it vanished quickly. ‘No, I’m from Glasgow, well, Paisley really. There’s a difference but you get tired of explaining it after a while.’
Brennan turned to McGuire, checked he was still writing the details down. ‘Mr Sproul, this is DC McGuire… He’s going to ask you a few questions.’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Yes, really.’
McGuire stepped forward, indicated the door to the kitchen. Sproul led the way as Brennan went upstairs.
‘What will I do?’ said Napier.
‘I saw a shop across the street — go get yourself a Mars bar.’
The stairs creaked as Brennan ascended. He felt a strange sensation, like he was going backwards in time. It reminded him of a famous point on the Carrick Hills near his hometown called the Electric Brae. Tourists went there and switched off the engines of their cars, let the handbrake off. As the cars rolled down the people inside felt like they were rolling up the hill. It was all an illusion of course; the world was full of them, thought Brennan.
The manse was an old property. It could have done with redecorating, maybe even modernising, but that would destroy the feel of it. At the top of the stairs the carpet had worn thin. Brennan looked down at the torn surface, straggled wool fibres sticking up, and thought it was a trip hazard. He didn’t think anyone would care now — the occupants of the house had worse things to worry about.
He moved on. There was a picture on the wall he recognised: a small blonde girl leaning against a wall while a rough collie, ears pinned down, waited at her back. The image seemed intensely familiar and at the same time utterly alien to him. It was like seeing a flash of memory from childhood — a time, or a place, that wasn’t there any more — that existed only in the annals of his mind.
He looked away. His eye caught a door with a large paper sunflower stuck on it. The flower had a face drawn in the middle and the petals bore letters; they spelled
out: CARLY’S ROOM
Brennan felt his throat freeze as he thought of Carly. Until now she had been a corpse to him. At best, a pale young girl on a mortuary slab. She didn’t exist in the real world. She existed in blue folders and on whiteboards. She existed in pathology reports and photographs and newspaper stories, but Carly Donald, the young girl who once had a family, friends, a life, didn’t exist to Brennan in any real sense, until now. As he stared at the door to her room, he knew he was about to bring her to life for him. It always happened this way: he’d shut out the reality of murder as long as he could; the case, the investigation, came first. After a while, sometimes sooner rather than later, the victim showed up.
The detective took a deep breath, touched the handle on the door and walked into another world.
Chapter 28
Devlin McArdle sat with his head in his hands. ‘Can you not shut that kid up!’
Melanie paced the living room with the screaming child on her shoulder. ‘I’m trying.’
‘Not hard enough!’
McArdle got up, grabbed his black leather coat from the hall stand.
‘Where are you going?’
