recent turn of events. Brennan knew his job had never looked more difficult.
As he pulled into Fettes Station the DI stilled the Passat’s engine and opened the driver’s door. As he stepped out he realised he had driven all the way back from the A720 without his seatbelt on; as he went to lock the door he noticed a cigarette still burning in the ashtray. ‘Fucking hell.’ Brennan opened up the door, retrieved the cigarette and clamped it in his mouth. On the way to the station doors he inhaled deeply, drawing the tobacco into his lungs and sighing it back into the cold Edinburgh air.
The front desk was unattended, Brennan was glad not to have to exchange pleasantries with Charlie; he didn’t feel very pleasant. On the stairs he felt his pulse rate increase with the impending approach of the Chief Super’s office but as he reached the top steps was relieved to see the door was closed. Benny would have to be faced, but that was a challenge for another time. Brennan headed for Incident Room One with an attenuated stride.
‘How do, boss?’ It was Collins, perched on the edge of a desk with a pencil behind his ear.
‘Just dandy, why shouldn’t I be?’ said Brennan.
Collins seemed to have averred the tone of a serious man, rose smartly, removed the pencil from his ear. ‘What’s the word from the scene, sir?’
Brennan sighed, didn’t bother to answer. He scanned the room. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Erm, well lunch… And Lou and Brian are in with Mr Gow.’
Brennan withdrew his stare, took in Collins. ‘And what the fuck’s going on with the ID on our latest victim?’
‘ID, sir?’
‘Jesus Christ, do I have to do everything around here?’ Brennan walked away from him, turned half way down the line of desks, ‘We have a corpse in a field that I will bet a pound to a pail of shite is brass… If the SOCOs haven’t got prints off her yet then I want you down there sticking that pencil up a few arseholes, get me?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Collins raked a telephone towards him, lifted the receiver and spoke, ‘Scene of Crime…’
Brennan spun on his heels; something caught his attention on the desk to his left. It was the florid tie that he had previously seen around Gallagher’s neck. The DI moved to the desk; he didn’t know what he was looking for but something told him he should be looking. He opened the top drawer; a packet of McCoy’s crisps and a Mars bar stared out at him. He opened the second drawer; on top of a loose pile of papers sat a blue folder marked ‘Gymnastics’. Brennan retrieved the file, placed it on the desk and leafed through.
‘Now, Jim, let’s see what you’ve been up to…’ The pages contained Gallagher’s thin spidery scrawl in the margins, but there was nothing that stood out for Brennan. He knew what he was looking for — something to incriminate the DI, something to confirm his suspicions. As people began to trickle back from lunch, he turned more pages, then he was interrupted by Collins sprinting to his side.
‘The ID’s in… she’s been in before and she’s brass. Name’s Angela Mickle…’
Brennan bit, ‘Result.’
‘That’s not all, boss, we’ve got an address as well.’
Brennan closed the folder he was looking at, picked it up. ‘Brilliant.’
‘Want me to tell uniform to check it out?’
‘Shit no, we’ll do that.’ Brennan called out to the room, ‘Who’s got a free minute?’
Elaine Docherty stood up, ‘I can help out…’ It was the first time Brennan had spoken to the WPC since the revelation that she was attached to McGuire; the awkward friction between them was palpable. ‘I mean, if you need someone I can…’
‘Great, Elaine.’ Brennan choked back the tension. ‘Can you take this file, make a photocopy and give it in to Lou and Brian…’
She looked disappointed, ‘Oh, I thought…’
‘What?’
‘Aren’t you going on a raid?’ she said.
Collins laughed, ‘Elaine’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie, boss.’
‘We are…’ he handed over the file, ‘but you’re going to the interview rooms.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Brennan nodded, ‘And when you’re finished… put it back in Jim’s top drawer.’ He tapped the side of his nose, grinned at her, ‘Like it was never out of there, if you know what I mean.’
Elaine smiled back, ‘Yes, sir.’
Brennan turned for the door, ‘Right, Collins… You ready to rumble?’
Chapter 42
DI Rob Brennan passed the car keys to Collins on the way down the stairs. There was too much going on inside his mind to concentrate on the task of driving. He had been right; he had followed his instinct and it had paid off. He knew that the latest victim in the field near Straiton was a prostitute, he had sensed it, and his suspicions had been confirmed by her fingerprints yielding a police record. He would go over the file, the whole team would, and search for something — anything — that could prove useful for the wider murder investigation, but at this precise moment, all Brennan wanted to do was catch the brass’s killer.
He knew when people on the edge of society met their end in this way, their killers left a sticky trail behind them. There were no criminal masterminds working the Links. Life was brutal there, on the fringes. He had encountered so many slayings that were no more than arguments gone too far, an exchange of words that became an exchange of blows. Those deaths weren’t planned; any planning came after the event, in a pathetic attempt at covering up.
In the car Brennan picked up the radio and made sure there was uniformed back-up on the way. The line crackled for a moment, then the radio room replied: ‘Two cars are attending… Inspector.’
Brennan spoke into the hand-piece, ‘Right, I don’t want them going in guns blazing. They wait in the wings until I arrive and they wait quietly… Got it?’
The radio operator confirmed the request, ‘The message has been relayed, the cars will wait for you, sir.’
Brennan put down the hand-piece but kept the volume high on the radio.
The address was for a flat in Leith; Brennan knew the location well. It was near the Links; there were good people living there, a community that objected to street walkers plying their trade in their midst, but Brennan knew there were good people everywhere. There were bad too; crime was never far, whoever you were.
The DI thought over the last few hours, and what they had unearthed. Another young woman had been killed, in horrific fashion. Angela Mickle might have been a prostitute, but Brennan wondered what chaos in her life had led her to be cut up and dumped in a field on the city’s outskirts.
He spoke out, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
Collins turned to face him, quickly drew his eyes back to the road. ‘What’s that, boss?’
‘This brass… Why? I mean she’s been killed and some bastard’s hacked her up and dumped her in Straiton like the others.’
Collins dropped a gear, pressed the brake pedal, then accelerated again. ‘You want my guess?… She’s been offed by some nut-job — a punter, a boyfriend — and he’s gone, “Shit what have I done, I’m in the frame for murder”…’
Brennan steadied his hand on the dash as the car leaned into a tight bend, ‘And he’s thought, I’ll make it look like those murders out in Straiton… I don’t buy that, Collins, he’d have to be fucking daft to think he’d get away with that…’
Collins spun the wheel, ‘Aye, that’s what I’m saying, a nut-job…’
‘OK, well, let’s follow your theory… Suppose your nut-job’s successful in convincing us that he’s killed this brass just like the others… Then that puts him in the frame for three murders, not one…’
‘Well, if you put it like that, sir…’
‘I do put it like that.’
They had reached the address; Collins slowed the car. Brennan and the DS stepped out of the vehicle and
