the word ‘nightclubs’ and suffixed it with a large question mark. ‘She did the George Street scene,’ he said, his voice was matter of fact, blunt.
‘Pricey on a travel agent’s wage,’ said McGuire; he said it to the DI but was looking at Gallagher as he spoke.
‘Trainee travel agent,’ said Brennan ‘but we don’t know how much of a regular she was. Maybe she was drinking lemonade, maybe someone was buying her drinks for her…’
‘I’ll check it out,’ said Gallagher. He sounded over-eager, his vowels clipped and prim as a schoolmaster. He turned from the board, brushed past McGuire and had the receiver of a telephone raised to his ear when Brennan stopped him.
‘No, I want Stevie on that. I’ve something else for you, Jim.’
Brennan faced the board, raised the marker and drew a sharp line from the picture of Lindsey Sloan, topped it with an arrowhead and wrote the word ‘gymnastics’.
He turned to face the others.
‘What’s that all about?’ said Gallagher.
‘Just about the only thing her parents could remember her taking an interest in at school… There might have been some kind of club, some kind of social scene. I don’t know… But that’s the whole point. I want to know.’
‘She’s a wee while out the school, sir.’
‘I know that,’ Brennan’s voice rose, ‘I also know we’ve got nothing out of the group of friends she’s been associating with so far, or the old school pals we contacted. Her Facebook buddies and so on. This might be a stretch, Jim, but it’s a new line of enquiry and I’m not going to ignore it… Get on it right away and report back to me.’
‘Sir.’ Gallagher stepped aside, he sucked in his broad stomach as he eased himself round the desk and moved off to the other side of the room. He was still looking at Brennan as he sat down behind his desk, but quickly busied himself with the telephone when the DI kept a long stare on him.
McGuire had been watching the exchange of looks. He closed in on Brennan, tapped his chin with the knuckles of his right hand as he spoke, ‘I heard there was some kind of kerfuffle earlier.’
‘What?’
‘On the stairs.’
Brennan sniffed. ‘Bloody Charlie…’
‘Come again?’
‘That who you heard it from?’
McGuire made a half smile. Said nothing.
‘Oh, I get it. Look, it’s nothing for you to worry about… You’ve got more important matters to concern yourself with, laddie.’
The sergeant’s eyebrows shot up together. ‘Like what?’
‘Like what’s going on with you and Elaine Docherty?’
McGuire’s smile disappeared completely, his chin dimpled like the skin of a lemon as he replied, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Brennan let his mind skim the possibilities, could he have picked it up wrong? He was sure he hadn’t, but decided to give McGuire a break. Chances were a subtle word would be enough for them to get the message, and after all, he was hardly one to be preaching about office romance when his own affair with the force psychiatrist had cost him his marriage. ‘All right. Maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Stevie.’
‘I think you must have, sir.’
Brennan let the remark slide, but tagged a warning notice to it; he didn’t like his DS lying to him. ‘But I suppose we’ll see, in time.’ He dipped his chin to his chest, smirked. ‘Right, about this Sloan girl…’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I want you to go back to her friends, get the details of all the clubs and pubs they visited when they were out on the town.’
McGuire butted in, he had a biro in his hand, raised it. ‘The night she disappeared, you mean…’
‘No, Lou and Brian have covered that. We know her movements on the night she disappeared pretty thoroughly and…’ he trailed off, his eyes glazed over as he chased a line of thought.
‘What is it?’
Brennan leaned his back on the wall, tapped the marker. ‘You can cross-reference all of this with the Fiona Gow case file.’
McGuire turned, pointed with his pen up the room. ‘Right, Collins has it just now… But what am I checking in there?’
Brennan’s voice was flat, unemotional. He was working his thoughts out on the hoof. ‘She was a hairdresser, wasn’t she… They all like a good night out. Check if she was part of the same scene too.’
‘Pubs and clubs, then?’
Brennan shook his head, ‘Pubs, clubs, names, faces… If they bought a pair of fucking dancing shoes from the same shop I want to know.’
McGuire was biting the tip of his pen now. ‘Boss, they were five years apart.’
‘I know that, Stevie, and I know the club scene changes fast but there might be something in it.’
McGuire nodded. ‘Well, we won’t know until we try.’
‘Exactly.’ Brennan eased himself off the wall, leaned past McGuire and looked down the room. ‘Who checked the last club the Sloan girl visited?’
‘Er, Collins…’
Brennan called out, ‘Collins… Come here a minute.’
Collins rose slowly, strolled down the middle of the room, eying everyone’s desktop as he went. He was chewing gum and had a cigarette behind his ear, but when he reached the whiteboard he looked attentive. He thinned eyes, took in the new additions. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘The last club the Sloan girl visited…’
‘Called The Rondo, boss.’
‘Aye, get anything on the CCTV?’
‘Not a morsel… All cheesy quavers and glow sticks.’
Brennan pounced. ‘Right, get yourself hooked up with one of the WPCs and get down there tonight. And tomorrow night. Ask about, casual like, not heavy handed.’
‘Oh, nice one. Paid to go on the piss.’ He grinned at McGuire, but as he checked Brennan’s expression, Collins backtracked, ‘I mean, not actually on the piss, but…’
‘Just remember what we’re doing here, eh?’ He paused, stared at McGuire again, but addressed Collins. ‘Why don’t you take Elaine Docherty with you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
McGuire looked away, Brennan saw him struggle to maintain his earlier indifference to the WPC; he knew for sure he’d been lied to now.
Brennan turned back to Collins, said, ‘And go over that footage again, anything that sticks out, check it!’
Collins’s answer came quickly. ‘Nothing stuck out, sir, she was with friends, dancing and that. We ID’d them all.’
‘Check again; if anyone’s looking at her funny — hoick them in.’
‘Clutching at straws isn’t it?’
Brennan fired up, waved the marker pen to emphasise his point. ‘Fucking right we’re clutching at straws. And we’ll keep clutching till we get a result.’
Chapter 20
DI Rob Brennan turned the key in the ignition of the VW Passat and pulled out of Fettes Police Station. He had a cigarette burning in his left hand as he negotiated the gears. The sun had started to shine through the clouds, but there was little warmth in it. In puddles by the sides of the road, little iridescent patches of light played like
