social stuff, the interaction that added up to friendship was never spoken of; it had to remain below the mask of manliness that their social mores had taught them to wear. Brennan might indeed have felt more for Wullie than his own father but the thought of ever expressing such inner workings was laughable to him. Years had passed in each other’s company; secrets and hurts had been shared that would have felled many a man and yet they would both go to their graves knowing how much they had meant to each other but never having given voice to a single emotion. Did it matter? Did the words carry so much import that they needed to be said? Brennan knew the answer; some things could not be said with words, some things were only cheapened when brought into the open air.
‘Hello, Wullie.’ The older man shuffled his feet behind the table, placed his palms either side of his pint glass and went to push himself up. Brennan raised a hand, ‘No, don’t get up… I’m just going to sit down.’
Wullie nodded, ‘Christ, you’re looking well.’
A laugh. ‘Well, I’m still here.’
‘Always something.’
The barman appeared in front of them, put Brennan’s pint on the table and retreated.
‘Cheers, then.’
‘Aye, I suppose so…’ Wullie took a sip of his pint and placed it back on the beer mat. He fingered a stray drop that had landed on the tabletop. He seemed distracted, unsure of himself. ‘Look, I really was sorry to hear about you and the wife.’
He obviously couldn’t remember her name; maybe never knew it. That didn’t matter thought Brennan; Wullie and himself had never been that type of friends. They had never entertained in each other’s homes, they had never shared intimacies of their family lives. That kind of detail was sacred, another part of their existences that needed to be kept out of the light; if they were both family men, once, then those times had passed into ignominy like so much else.
‘Don’t be sorry.’ Brennan’s reply served as a stopper on the topic; it was stored away now, not to be returned to.
Wullie gulped another mouthful of his drink, ‘So, you working a case?’
The old detective must know he was working a case; it was a conversational gambit. A verbal cue to commence with the real reason for Brennan’s visit.
‘Aye… bad one.’
‘Children?’ said Wullie.
Brennan shook his head, ‘Well, as good as… teenagers.’
Wullie returned his pint to the table, rubbed at the spikes of white stubble on his chin. ‘Christ, you’ve got the case they splashed all over the fucking papers…’
‘You read it?’
‘Of course I read it… Everyone in Edinburgh’s read that. Jesus, painful for the families.’
Brennan eased himself back in his chair, the cushion sank to accommodate his frame. He reached out for his pint glass, raised it and gulped a long draught. The cold beer worked like a palliative; he wiped white foam from the tip of his lip and said, ‘They’re in bits. Can’t blame them, anyone would be.’
Wullie was shaking his head, rubbing his fingers over his thighs. Brennan noticed the knees of his Farah trousers were shiny.
‘Where are you at with it?’ said Wullie.
Brennan exhaled a long breath, ‘We have some forensic… It’s a serial murder.’
‘You got a profiler?’
‘Joe Lorrimer.’
Wullie raised an eyebrow, ‘Joe’s good.’
Brennan reached into the blue folder he had in his document wallet, it was the profiler’s report. He held it before Wullie. ‘You want to see this?’
‘Not got my glasses, want to give me the highlights?’
Brennan opened up the folder, ‘OK, let me see…’
Wullie cut it, ‘I warn you… first I hear of constellated disadvantage or the like, I’m off!’
The DI smiled, ‘I’ll edit as I go… Right, the psych fit is quite detailed: there’s a strong methodical mind at work, systematic and a lover of routine. It’s almost pathological so we’re talking about an intense individual, someone likely to be able to keep that under wraps, though perhaps this could bubble to the surface now and again
…’
‘So he could hold down a good job.’
‘Easy, no bother.’ Brennan returned to the list, ‘There’s a superior streak which would make it hard to form intimate relationships… Perhaps as a result of a family trauma, likely a conflicted relationship with his mother.’
‘A loner,’ said Wullie.
Brennan nodded, returned to the file. ‘The superiority complex manifests in a need to dominate.’
‘A control freak.’
‘… Any marital set-up would be unique, if not bizarre, because of the demands he’d place on obsequiousness. The home would be a microcosm of control, pseudo-moralising, elitism…’
Wullie held up a hand, ‘OK, I think I get the picture before you delve any further into fucking psychobabble.’
Brennan closed the folder over, smiled. He raised his pint and watched Wullie do the same. ‘So, what do you think?’
He sighed. ‘Any trophies taken?’
‘Eyes… And there was genital mutilation, but that was hidden on the corpses.’
‘Jesus… a sick bastard.’
‘True.’
Wullie scratched the edge of his mouth, ‘This is a dangerous man you have on your hands; if the forensic matches the two killings then he could be lining up another kill.’
‘Why would you say that?’
Wullie leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs. ‘It’s the control… That’s what it’s all about. You think he’s the controller, but he’s not, he’s controlled… by impulses.’
‘The impulse to kill?’
‘He’s ruled by impulses. The routines are impulse-driven, it’s like an intense OCD, he regulates his life to ease the control impulses… That’s what the killing is, he can’t get away from that. He can store it up and up but then he’s into a state of tension and fear and there’s only one way to release that.’
Brennan leaned forward, ‘Then why the gap, between the killings?’
‘He feels remorse, not like you and I, but he feels differently to the victim afterwards. The tension’s been released, he’s been let off the hook… That might last some time, but the mindset isn’t changed — can’t change — the impulses come back eventually and they have to be dealt with.’
‘So what triggers the impulse?’
‘Fuck knows — brain chemistry, the mother was a control freak — does it matter? What matters is, Rob, this bastard is in your manor and he’s going to strike again. He can’t avoid it, and neither can you.’
Brennan drained the last of his pint, stood up. ‘Another?’
‘Why not.’
At the bar the DI mulled over what Wullie had told him; much of it was old news but what he had managed to glean was a decent second opinion. His own theories were well formed, Joe Lorrimer’s were too, but what he needed was confirmation that neither of them were off course. If he had been missing something Wullie would have pointed it out, he always did, but the fact that he had merely confirmed Brennan’s worst fears only added to the certainty that he would soon have another killing on his hands.
Brennan returned to the table with the drinks. Wullie stared vacantly into the middle distance.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh, Nothing… Just thinking about an old case.’
‘Relevant?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well, tell me more.’
