He heard the words, turned: it was Charlie. As he held the station door open he stared into Brennan’s eyes. The DI felt the cigarette slip from his mouth. He watched it fall, roll a few feet, then get carried off in the breeze. The action snapped him back to reality.
‘Fine. All fine.’
Brennan pushed past the desk sergeant, went for the stairs. There was suddenly a new purpose in his step; it was the quickening of thought, the realisation that the long period of doubt was over.
As Brennan reached Incident Room One he saw a huddle of bodies round the television screen. He knew at once there had been a break — when these things occurred it was like observing a sea change. The team’s collective unconscious altered immediately. The faces morphed from their previous expressions of dogged resilience towards hope — something experience had taught Brennan he was better off doing without. As he walked in he was tempted to clap his hands together and ask what was going on. He felt like he’d missed out; he was a spectator.
McGuire turned round and spotted him, spoke: ‘Here he is!’ The DC trotted towards him. ‘Where have you been?’
The question poked Brennan, made him defensive. ‘Nowhere.’ As he answered he immediately felt stupid; at once he realised the question was innocent. ‘What’s going on?’
McGuire grinned like a schoolboy as he grabbed Brennan by the arm. ‘Get over here. They’ve got them!’
Brennan didn’t understand. He knew what he wanted the words to mean, but wasn’t sure if he’d processed them correctly. Since he had been with McArdle his mind had tripped back to his brother’s murder. The realisation that he still had another case to solve brought back a sudden dose of present-day reality. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and stared at the television. ‘Can someone turn this up?’
A small yellow triangle appeared on the screen; the number beside it increased as the volume rose. It was a breaking news report. Brennan sensed the tension mounting all around him; the incident room felt like the terraces of a football stadium as the supporters of the leading side waited for the final whistle. He hushed his team quiet. The room stilled as all eyes turned to the television.
‘ And can I remind you these pictures are live…’ said the news reporter.
The scene was of a town Brennan didn’t recognise — as he tried to adjust, to take in what he was seeing, absorb the information, he scanned the street and the faces in the crowd. He noticed there was a strap along the bottom of the screen that confirmed what he’d been hoping: MISSING BABY CASE… LIVE PICTURES FROM CALAIS. It took him a moment to process the information; his thoughts raced away and became tangled in a net of emotions. He wanted to punch the air, to smack the desk with his fist or make some other expression of relief but he held himself in check; he had to.
‘Jesus, we’ve got them!’ His mind calmed as he said the words. He was almost light-headed. A smile spread across his face — it was impossible to hide it. On the screen, images of French gendarmes surrounding a silver car appeared. The camera was shaky, the lens going in and out of focus, but Brennan kept his eyes fixed on the dark- suited officers, armed with assault rifles, as they approached the car. The French officers were fast, brisk and businesslike. They knew the routine and took no chances as they swooped. Two men inside were removed whilst a small bundle with furiously waving arms and legs was taken from the back seat.
Brennan’s chest tightened, his throat constricted.
‘Look, it’s the kid,’ said a PC.
‘They’ve got her! She’s alive!’
A loud cheer swept round the office. Arms were raised; a blue folder was thrown in the air. Brennan turned to McGuire and grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘We did it! By Christ, we did it!’
A wave of bodies started to sway as uniforms and detectives hugged and leapt. Tables and chairs were pushed aside as the team crossed the floor and flung arms round each other. Brennan laughed as he watched Lou slapping Brian’s beer gut, and then a round of cheers went up. It was like a party, thought Brennan, but as he stared at the relieved, smiling faces he knew that they still had plenty to do.
The case had been tough; it had taken a lot out of the team, and him. Brennan knew he didn’t look at the world in the same way any more. Another part of what made him human had been surrendered. How he would deal with that was a problem for another day, though. He moved off just as the room’s pitch intensified.
‘Where are you going?’ said McGuire.
‘Got a couple of calls to make. Don’t worry — carry on without me. Enjoy the moment.’
Brennan closed the door to his office and moved towards the desk. He could still hear noise outside as he drew up the international directory on his computer screen and started to tap in the number of the Garda Siochana in Dublin. His thoughts left the celebrations immediately as he announced himself to the telephonist and asked for the special investigations team. It always surprised him how quickly things came together in the end. No matter how many times it happened, the DI never quite accepted the sudden transformation from bewilderment to cheering the successful resolution of an investigation. It was as if the period before, the groundwork, the heavy lifting, had never happened. The effort expended and the toll it had taken on everyone seemed insignificant compared to the accomplishment. He knew there was a low coming — the payment for such a high — but it didn’t matter at this stage. He allowed himself a smile, some sneaking admiration for the result.
Brennan was still smiling into the phone as his call was passed on; in four rings it was answered.
‘Hello, this is Wylie.’ The accent was familiar, thick Celtic tones.
‘Ah, yes, hello… DI Robert Brennan, Lothian and Borders CID.’
‘And what can I do for you today, sir?’
Brennan tightened his grip on the receiver, wondered how to put this, went with: ‘It’s more what I can do for you.’
‘Oh, really now…’ The Guard paused, then his voice indicated a change of subject: ‘You sound like there’s a bit of a do going on there.’
‘We’ve just wrapped up a big case… The team are in high spirits.’
‘Congratulations,’ said the Guard. The moment passed; he got back to work. ‘Now, you said you had something for me…’
Brennan passed over the details that McArdle had provided in the cell. He kept his tone low and serious as he detailed the whereabouts of the Limping Man.
‘I know the place well,’ said the Irishman. He cleared his throat, rustled some papers. His tone remained flat. ‘I’ll get on this right away.’
‘Best of luck,’ said Brennan.
‘Be more than luck we’ll need… by the sounds of him.’
‘I’d expect him to be armed, and very definitely dangerous.’
A huff. Hint of a raised inflection. ‘Oh, yes. I’d say so.’
As Brennan looked out to the office, lowered the phone, he could see the revelry was likely to continue for some time yet. He didn’t feel like celebrating. Too much had happened lately to make him feel more than a little unsociable; he felt like withdrawing from the world. He sensed a prolonged period of analysis queuing in his mind. There were facts to be chewed over, digested. There was never a definitive ‘why?’ — he knew that well enough. But it didn’t stop him challenging for an answer. Was there something to be learned? Something to be revealed about the human condition? He doubted it. There would only be black hours of rumination, more data to add to the sum of his knowledge, but little understanding. The mysteries he preoccupied himself with were inscrutable, and as perennial as the Edinburgh rain.
As he thought about the Irish force apprehending the Limping Man, Brennan reached into his wallet and removed the newspaper cutting he’d carried around for so long. He placed the thin paper on the desk in front of him and read the headline through one more time. He had done it — he had found his brother’s killer, but the achievement did not register the kind of elation he had hoped it would. That was the problem with his job, thought Brennan. All the sense of achievement came after the tragedy had taken place — there was no altering what had happened. There was no medal to pin on his chest. As Wullie had told him long ago, ‘There is no winning in the force, only degrees of losing.’
Brennan picked up the cutting and stared at it, touched its curling edges, ran a finger over the grainy image of his brother. Then he crumpled it into a ball and dropped it in the waste-paper basket beneath his desk. He rose, walked to the filing cabinet on the other side of the room and removed a bottle of Talisker from the bottom drawer, put it under his arm. He picked up his jacket, switched out the light, and went to join the team.
