lantern-glow. Brennan looked out to the sky, large cumulus sat like a bulwark against the blue of the expanding horizon. He knew by the time he reached Craigleith Road the weather could have changed, but he wound down his window a few inches and swapped his cigarette to his right hand in a move of defiant optimism.
In Ayr, where Brennan had grown up, he remembered nothing but sunny days. Bright, warm afternoons with long walks along the beach and games of football, with Andy playing in goal. They had enjoyed a happy, stable childhood. Was it only nostalgia, he wondered, that made him look back so fondly? Perhaps. He knew he missed his brother, but you couldn’t bring back the dead. Brennan had often thought about an afterlife, about heaven and hell and all the variations in between, but dismissed it entirely. He had seen enough of this life to believe that nothing could be worse in hell. He found his mind returning to the SOCOs’ photographs of Fiona Gow and Lindsey Sloan. How could hell not be on Earth?
Brennan dredged up some lines by the Ayrshire poet Robert Burns that he’d learned in boyhood. Burns had created a vision of depravity that still loomed large in Brennan’s mind, it was where ‘sat Auld Nick in shape o’beast’.
As he drove Brennan recited from Burns: ‘Coffins stood round, like open presses… That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses.’
The poet was supposed to be a great humanitarian, and yet he had created such an inhumane vision.
‘A murderer’s banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristaned bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape.’
Brennan thought it was as if the whole country had always been rotten, and here in Edinburgh was the mouldering core. As he drove, he eyed the crowd: how many knew there was a brutal murderer among them? None, except him. It was a burden he always carried, knowing that there was more to the city than people ever imagined. It was not the place of sweeping spires and cobbled streets, of mawkish sentimental Scottishness; it was a hard place. And no one knew it better than him.
With each day that passed Brennan now felt himself drawing further away from Edinburgh in spirit. The city dragged people in, the tourists flocked at Festival time and Hogmanay; the disenfranchised Little Englanders decamped there when the equity was high enough on their commuter-belt maisonettes. But the place had no root, no heart. Its historic residents had long ago got the message that if you were poor you were not welcome. They’d been pushed to the outskirts of the city, to massive dumping grounds where they were left to fester, helped along by criminality, drug abuse and state-sponsored indolence. The game was up in Edinburgh, thought Brennan, the place was choking on its own filth and he despised his role in the mess.
As the car drew closer to Edinburgh High the DI found himself trapped by a wave of guilt; how could he let Sophie grow up in a place like this? Lindsey Sloan had attended the same school as his daughter only a few years ago and she had ended up mutilated, murdered. What had happened to the place? A year ago he had visited the murder scene of another young girl, she had been hacked to death, dismembered, and dumped in the lee of a high- rise. He had thought of Sophie then too, worried about where she was for an instant, but dismissed the notion that any harm could come to her because she wasn’t at all like the victim, wasn’t in her demographic. He knew now that he had been wrong to think like that; Sophie was every bit as likely to be a victim now. The battle lines were growing every day and it worried him. How could he keep his daughter safe?
As he got closer to the school Brennan saw the gates were fringed with parked cars; worried parents picking teenagers up from school. He knew Sophie wouldn’t thank him for turning up like this but he needed to see her, needed to talk to her without Joyce around. He took the car into the staff car park, pulled into an empty space by the front of the building. He had a good view of the door he expected to see his daughter walking through at any moment.
As Brennan stilled the car’s engine he watched a group of teenage boys jogging from the football field, banging their boots off the wall to shake away clumps of mud and grass. It was still warm and he decided to step out of the car, remove his jacket. As he did so, a thin, angular man in a tracksuit emerged from the playing fields and raised an oversized hand. For a moment Brennan searched his memory for the man’s identity but his name remained elusive.
‘Hello again, Inspector,’ said the man. He could clearly tell Brennan wasn’t sure who he was. ‘Colin… Colin Crawley, we met at the Sloans’.’
‘Oh yes, of course… Hello.’
The man was sweating, his face flushed red. He wiped the back of his sleeve over his brow, said, ‘Been taking advantage of the good weather, bit of five aside with year six.’
Brennan nodded. ‘Good idea.’
As the man stood before the DI he swayed a little, his hair was stuck to his brow. ‘I heard about the dreadful business with…’ he leaned forward, lowered his voice, ‘Lindsey.’
The DI became aware of a slow trail of students leaving the building; his attention diverted to the front door as he scanned the blur of blazers and schoolbags for his daughter.
‘But of course, you’ll be here for Sophie.’
Brennan turned to face the man, he hadn’t mentioned his daughter went to the school. He felt his brows tighten as he stared at Crawley.
‘Mrs Sloan mentioned you have a daughter here…’ he looked away, brushed at a grass stain on his elbow, ‘Just a dreadful business for them… we had a memorial service, for the school. Seemed the least we could do.’ He broke away, took a step to the front. ‘Oh, here she is
…’
It was Sophie. As she came through the door with two other girls, she halted in her tracks to stare at her father. She put a hand in the pocket of her blazer and turned down her head as she walked towards the car and got in without speaking.
‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ said Brennan.
Crawley raised a supplicating hand towards the car, ‘Of course.’ He stood waving them off as Brennan reversed out of the parking space.
Sophie spoke, ‘What were you doing with Creepy Crawley?’
Brennan smirked, the nickname seemed to fit. ‘Just passing the time of day, love.’
A tut, frown. ‘And could you have parked any closer?… All my friends saw you.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘I don’t need a lift, I have a bus pass.’ She started to roll down her window, ‘And this car stinks of fags.’
Brennan gave a wave out the window to Crawley; he was going inside now. ‘Well, we won’t be in it for long, I thought I’d just take you for a milkshake or something.’
‘Christ, Dad… I’m sixteen.’
She said it like she was twenty-six, or forty-six, thought Brennan. He turned to her, ‘And?’
‘I don’t drink bloody milkshakes!’
The DI turned on the blinkers, pulled out. ‘OK, Starbucks then. I’ll buy you a coffee. Does that suit you?’
She slumped in the seat, tucked her schoolbag on the ground beside her feet. Didn’t answer.
The traffic was slow-moving, cars full of teenagers pulling out every few yards. ‘This is a nightmare,’ said Brennan.
‘I never asked you to come and collect me… It’s so embarrassing.’
‘Maybe I should put the sirens on, eh?’
Sophie sprang to life, ‘Don’t you dare.’
Brennan laughed as he caught her eyes burying into him, raised his hands from the wheel in mock surrender. ‘I was kidding. Kidding.’
At the Starbucks on Palmerston Place, Brennan ordered himself a black coffee and a latte for Sophie. They took the last two remaining seats in the cafe and sat; Sophie disconsolately resting her head on her hands in front of him.
‘Mum said you’ve moved out.’
The words came as a shock to Brennan, ‘Just like that.’
‘Pretty much.’
He eased a spoon into his coffee cup, stirred. ‘It’s not as simple as you make it sound you realise… I mean.’
‘Oh, please. Don’t go dumping all your guilt on me.’
