Brennan widened his grin. ‘I already have one.’
‘You do? Who?’
‘Lorrimer.’
The Chief Super stepped forward, the sun’s glare bounced off his brow and his glasses. Brennan couldn’t see his eyes behind their lenses as he spoke, ‘Joe Lorrimer’s Strathclyde…’
Brennan at once knew he had walked into an ambush he’d created for himself. His thoughts played tag as he searched for a way out. ‘He’s the best there is.’
‘And what about the cost implication?’
‘Like I said, I think Lorrimer is the best man for the job and…’
The Chief Super cut him off, ‘You really didn’t listen to a word I said earlier did you?’ A disbelieving frown crossed his face as he lowered his chin towards his chest and eyed Brennan from above his glasses. ‘We’ll have a talk about this in my office, I think…’
The Chief Super turned for the stairs. Brennan caught sight of Gallagher grinning, he had the pleased look of a sheepdog that had just jumped through a hoop. ‘This way, Rob,’ said the Chief Super.
Brennan managed two steps before he was called from below.
‘Rob?’ It was Charlie from the front desk. ‘Some people here to see you.’
‘He’s busy,’ said the Chief Super.
‘Oh, I think he’ll want to see them, sir… It’s the Sloan girl’s parents.’
Chapter 16
Neil Henderson sat in a dingy old drinker at the edge of the Grassmarket. It was as far from his usual stomping ground as he could get, but he needed a break, an escape. He had thought he would be delighted to get out of prison, back to the real world where there was no night-time lockdown, no sly groping in the showers or food that wasn’t fit for swine. He didn’t miss the danger, the cons with sharpened spoons or the screws who were looking for any excuse to batter their black batons off your head. He didn’t miss the lack of privacy or the boredom, the endless days stretching on and on, each one as miserable as the next. And for sure, it was a blessing to be able to score without having to put your snout in hock for weeks on end, or trade chocolate bars for a one-skin spliff that had precious little puff in it. He could score and shoot up, get fired into a bag of Moroccan rock if he wanted; but somehow, it wasn’t stacking up like he had hoped it would. It hadn’t taken Boaby Stevens long to find him and now he had to get his money in a hurry. If he didn’t he knew they’d be scraping him off the ground beneath a flyover.
Henderson had had plans in the past, dreams. None of them had ever materialised. He wondered if he was jinxed; if he was one of those people who was going to go through life with nothing. When he was nine or ten he’d been told by his mother’s then boyfriend, a thug called Dinger, something that had stuck in his mind like a jagged shard of glass since. ‘See you, laddie, you’re going nowhere but the jail.’
‘Why’s that?’ he’d asked.
Dinger sneered at him, ‘Cause that’s the only place your type ever go.’
He had been angered, wanted to hit him. That’s how Henderson solved everything then, and now, he thought. Nobody got lippy if they thought there was the chance of a split nose in the offing. He’d fronted up, even though he was only a boy. ‘And what’s my type?’
These days, thought Henderson, that kind of thing was meat and drink to adults; they didn’t bother with a bit of cheek, but back then it was enough to get you leathered. Back then, when Henderson was a lad, he remembered it was enough to get you more than leathered.
Dinger and Henderson were alone, the man grabbed him by the ear, threw him down then lifted him by the neck and marched him upstairs. His knees dragged on every step as he screamed out — he knew something was wrong — then a hard slap dazed him into quiet.
In his bedroom he was still a little woozy, but from where he lay on the edge of the bed he saw Dinger’s neck, pink and fat above his collar. He had red hair, it was cut short and tight to the nape with little spikes sticking up. ‘Shut your fucking hole, laddie.’
He remembered every word he had said, right up until the moment he’d tried to forget, he couldn’t remember anything after that. He’d blocked it out.
‘What are you doing?’ He watched Dinger fiddling with his belt buckle. ‘Tell me, I want to know.’
There was no reply. Henderson, the nine- or ten-year-old, was tense as a rod when Dinger turned around. There was a strange smell in the air — Dinger’s face had turned red, as he started to open his shirt buttons.
‘What’s going to happen?’
No answer.
‘Why are you looking at me?’
Still, no answer.
The boy felt his stomach start to tremble and there was a whooshing feeling in his chest that he couldn’t explain. He looked up at the man, he was opening the rest of his shirt buttons. His chest was freckled and red. He looked at the boy with a twisted grin on his face, said, ‘Get your trousers off.’
Henderson didn’t move. He was cold, frozen. Even as the heat rose in his head he felt chilled to his insides. He couldn’t speak.
The man slapped him across the face.
He felt a flash of pain, tasted blood in his mouth as he fell from the bed, and then his trousers were pulled down.
‘There is a special treatment for boys like you, do you know that?’
He still couldn’t speak. His cheek brushed the carpet, the fibres scratched at the corners of his mouth as he called out in agony. He couldn’t believe the pain he felt. As he now remembered, his face contorted into a grimace.
Henderson stared across the Grassmarket bar, raised his pint to his mouth. His hand was shaking a little but steadied as the golden liquid in the glass touched his throat. He looked about, wondered if there was anyone there who had caught him in deep thought; they would have been able to see what he was thinking of. It was his greatest shame.
For a long time, Neil Henderson had thought he was the only person in the world to have undergone such treatment. His mother’s boyfriend had told him he deserved it and Henderson had believed him. He had felt like a truly degenerate little boy, one who required a special punishment. For some time he was a different child, he remembered how everyone had said so. He was quiet, withdrawn. There was no more trouble, for a while. He never told anyone about the trip upstairs but felt somehow, even now, that everyone should have known. It was such an awful occurrence that he felt that all grown-ups should have seen the signs, spotted them in him, and known what had happened. He simply couldn’t believe that it had happened and that no one, not a soul, had any idea of it except him.
It was Henderson’s secret, he kept it to himself. Even now.
There had been times when he had wondered about the man. He had fantasised about finding him, taking him on a little trip of his own to somewhere desolate. He had devised numerous tortures he would inflict upon him. He would tie him up, nail-gun his knees so he couldn’t move, then he would slowly remove strips of flesh from his freckled chest with a Stanley knife. He’d bludgeon his face with a claw hammer and blowtorch his testicles, before finally castrating the bastard with a cold blade. He would take his time, make sure it hurt. Make sure there was as much agony inflicted as was humanly possible by one man on another. He wouldn’t hold back.
Henderson raised his glass again, drained the last mouthful and called over the barman. ‘Hey, mate, another pint in here.’
The barman nodded, moved down to Henderson’s end of the bar and took up the glass. He returned with it fully topped up.
‘There you go. Might want to go a wee bit slower with that one,’ said the barman, leaning over to face him.
‘What you on about slower?’ Henderson snapped.
