‘Aye, it was George Street and all that New Town bit.’ He looked to his wife, smiled. ‘She liked the trendy bars, our Lindsey.’
The DI made a mental note, asked if it would be all right to speak to some of her friends and then he changed subject. The picture he was getting of Lindsey Sloan was remarkably similar to that of Fiona Gow, but he had found nothing to link the pair, no commonality.
‘Can I ask, Mr Sloan, did Lindsey ever change schools?’
‘No, no. Always the one school… Edinburgh High.’
Brennan flinched, his mind reeled for a moment, then steadied itself as he recalled the case notes had said Fiona Gow had gone to Portobello Academy. ‘What about clubs, or games at school?’
‘No, I don’t think so. She wasn’t into that sort of thing.’
‘Gymnastics,’ Mrs Sloan’s voice had firmed. ‘She liked her gymnastics for a wee while there at the school but she gave it up.’
Brennan leaned in, ‘She gave it up?’
‘Said it wasn’t her thing. She took her notions, Lindsey, one minute it was all this, the next she wasn’t interested… A typical teenager,’ said Mrs Sloan, ‘How old is your daughter, Inspector?’
Brennan took a sharp intake of breath as the question came his way, ‘She’s sixteen… Sophie’s sixteen.’
‘What a lovely name.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You should cherish her, Inspector.’ Mrs Sloan looked out to the street, she had no more tears, but her hurt was so palpable it could almost be touched.
‘I think, Inspector, we should call it a day, for now,’ said Mr Sloan.
Brennan rose, his chair scraped noisily along the floor and he winced, but Mrs Sloan didn’t falter. ‘Thank you, you’ve been very helpful,’ he said.
The man put his arm around his wife and helped her from her chair, led her to the door. The pair looked frail, older than their years, as they shuffled slowly out of sight. As Brennan watched them go he felt a pinch in his throat; he had seen too many good people destroyed by the evil that was out there. He wanted to help them, wanted to right their wrongs, but he wondered what use he could possibly be to them now. Their daughter had been taken, there was nothing he could do to alter that; he couldn’t bring Lindsey back. The thought hacked into him, tugged out his pity and replaced it with a febrile anger.
Chapter 19
As DI Rob Brennan walked into Incident Room One his attention was drawn towards WPC Elaine Docherty. She was standing next to the coffee machine, throwing back her blonde hair and laughing loudly. It was a scene that looked out of place in the sombre setting. Beside her, DS Stevie McGuire placed a hand on her arm — they seemed to be sharing a joke, the moment looked intimate — but the vision shattered before Brennan’s eyes as McGuire spotted him coming and made a quick retreat. Brennan let his stare linger on the pair for a moment longer, he watched the WPC pick up a blue folder and press it to her white shirt front; she quickly exited the room, averting her eyes as she passed him. McGuire closed his mouth like a zipper and manoeuvred himself clumsily behind his desk.
Brennan approached. ‘Stevie,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir.’
The room fell into hushed silence; Brennan looked around him, heads that had sprung up dropped suddenly as his eyes roved around the room. He saw at once this wasn’t the kind of conversation they should have in the open. ‘Never mind, I’ll see you later,’ he said.
‘Sir.’
As Brennan strolled through the room he felt as though he had brought in an air of anxiety; either that, or the team was unsettled. He knew they needed a break. They had been working hard, had done everything the DI had asked of them, but nothing had turned up. They needed some encouragement, a reminder that their roles were worthwhile. They were a murder squad and if that wasn’t something to be valued, Brennan didn’t know what was. He had his own troubles and wondered if he’d been neglecting the team. Was it his fault that there hadn’t been a break? Had he missed something? He checked himself; knew that wasn’t the case. Brennan had watched doubts creep in before, they didn’t carry any weight, they didn’t mean anything. They were merely reminders, prompts that kept you on track. Without the doubts, his actions — the team’s actions — went unchecked and that was something he would never allow to happen. The process was continual, non-stop. If doubts crept in, they kept them on their toes, and that was something to be welcomed.
Brennan halted himself in the middle of the room, looked around. The place was busy enough, but there was none of the adrenaline high that came of getting close to solving a case. He needed to prod them, cajole.
‘Right, listen up everyone,’ he said. ‘I know we’ve not had a break on this case yet, but we’re still in the early days.’
A chorus, ‘Sir.’
Brennan took in the team’s gaze; he had their attention, it was important to hold it. ‘You’re doing fine, no one has put a foot wrong and as long as we keep at it, keep doing what we’re doing, then we’ll get that break. That’s all it takes, I’ve seen it a million times before: a case can rest on a single scrap of information that turns everything on its head. Keep looking. Keep turning over the stones, because that’s how we’ll get this bastard.’
The team stood around, some shuffled; they were waiting for more. Brennan didn’t want to overdo it, but conceded to the call. ‘I’ve just spoken to the Sloans, they’re good people.’ He paused, drank in the team’s interest; he knew that they understood him. ‘That family deserves our best, so let’s bear that in mind.’
Heads dipped, some looked at each other, exchanged mournful expressions. Everyone in the room absorbed the import of Brennan’s words; he saw that they knew what he meant: he was proud of them. There were times on the force when he wanted to throw things, turn over filing cabinets, clear his desk; but not now. He looked at his team with such affection that the thought touched his mind like a kindness.
Immediately Brennan withdrew into himself; it wasn’t right to show his sentiments. ‘Right, that’s all. Back to work.’
The DI strode towards the whiteboard, eyed the photographs that had been stuck up of Fiona Gow and Lindsey Sloan. He stood with one hand in his trouser pocket and with the other he removed the black marker pen from the thin shelf and started to fiddle with the cap between thumb and forefinger. His mind was flitting to and fro, between the meeting with the Sloans and what he knew about the case as it stood. The Sloans had not given him much to go on, but what could he expect? They had just lost a daughter, he had felt their anguish every second he had been with them. It was painful to watch. The woman was ruined; she would never be the same again. How could she? How could anyone recover from that? What they were going through was not something you could adequately comprehend; his mind darted towards Sophie once again. She would be getting out of school soon, there would be no one to collect her from the gates because she was too old for that now. But was she? The girls on the whiteboard weren’t much older than Sophie. Brennan felt an urge to pick up his daughter, hold her in his arms and keep her safe. The urge had presented itself before; at first he had thought it was a side-effect of the job, but now he knew it was nothing to do with it. It was about being a parent, about wanting to hold on to your child for ever. He had seen that in Mrs Sloan and he knew her devastation was drawn from the realisation that she could never keep her daughter close to her, and now she would never see her again.
Brennan removed the cap from the marker as in his peripheral vision he spotted DS Stevie McGuire and DI Jim Gallagher approaching. McGuire seemed to be striding ahead of the older DI; he looked back towards him as if he wondered why he was being followed or just what Gallagher was going to ask the boss. His eyes told a story all of their own: he clearly had Gallagher down as a challenge to his position as head boy. He reached Brennan first, said, ‘Well, how did it go?’
The DI turned from the whiteboard, put a stare on Gallagher then moved his gaze towards Stevie. ‘Not well.’
‘Did you get anything?’ said Gallagher, his voice rising with an unnatural inflection.
Brennan stood before them for a minute, let them digest his manner and then turned to the board. He wrote
