the woman started to raise her leg, hooked it round the back of the man’s knee. For a moment the eagerness of the coupling intensified, both heads thrashed backwards and forwards like a drunken Punch and Judy show. The woman teetered on her one heel and dropped the leg she had raised; as she stepped back she ran hands down the man’s shirt front, then started to unbuckle his belt.
‘Fucking hell, she’s only getting him out,’ said Collins.
The wire operators leaned closer to the window, ‘Should have cameras on this, it’s urban porno!’
Brennan creased his brow as he felt the van start to dip to one side; he pressed his hand against the ceiling as he attempted to raise himself in readiness for an outburst, and then the wire lit with the sound of movement from the flat. WPC Elaine Docherty spoke, ‘There’s a knock at the door.’
Brennan clamped down the motion in the van, ‘OK, Elaine, go to the door, answer it… but remember what we said.’
The occupants of the van fell into a tense silence as they monitored the wire; Brennan felt the skin tightening on his forehead as he brought a hand towards the earpiece and frowned. A green light flashed on the radio equipment in front of him and a jagged line was traced from one side of a small, flat screen to the next. The sound of the door’s lock turning was the first thing the DI heard and then the hinge creaked, quietly at first, and then noisily. A thud like a board being kicked echoed down the line and then the hinges screamed once more and the door was slammed hard against the frame.
‘Who the hell are you?’ The voice was Crawley’s.
The team waited for Elaine’s reply; it came after a pause, her words quivering over the wire, ‘Are you looking for business?’
‘Where’s Angela?’
There was a rustle of clothing, like an outdoor jacket, an anorak. Footsteps trailed along exposed boards.
‘S-she’s out.’
‘Where is she?’ Crawley’s voice was high-pitched and sharp, he sounded agitated.
‘Just… out.’
The sound of the anorak rustling came again, there was a muffled burst and some static on the line and then nothing.
‘What’s happened?’ said Brennan.
One of the operators leaned forward, flicked a switch. The jagged line disappeared from the screen then he flicked the switch again and it reappeared as a single straight rule dissecting the screen. ‘Don’t know… Hang on.’
DS Stevie McGuire spoke, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
‘Hold tight, Stevie.’
McGuire’s tone pitched up a notch, ‘I’m going in. Fuck this!’
‘Stevie, stay in the back… Do you hear me? Stay where you are.’
The operators worked over their equipment, pressed buttons, turned dials. Their arms jumped between the various controls, smacking into each other as they went. Neither seemed able to return the WPC’s voice to the line.
Brennan removed his headset and said to Collins, ‘We’ve fucking lost her… Come on.’
The van doors flew open as the officers ran into the darkened street. Collins shouted into his radio, ‘We’re going in. That’s a go.’
Lou and Brian ran from further down the street as Brennan raced for the front door of the tenement. ‘Stevie, where are you?’
There was no reply.
‘Shit!’ The DI entered the stairwell, reached out and grabbed the banister, took two steps at a time as he lunged upwards. His heart was pounding, a million thoughts rushed through his mind — predominant being where the hell was WPC Elaine Docherty?
At the first landing, Brennan leaned into the curve of the stairwell, looked upwards; he saw DS Stevie McGuire racing ahead of him. He knew this meant the back door was unguarded; he switched his point of view, turned eyes downwards but saw no more movement. As Collins caught up with him, Brennan straightened and threw himself back into the chase. He paced the hallway, then ran for the steps once more. He felt the sweat breaking on his chest and back. Collins was close behind him.
At the final landing, he saw the door to Angela Mickle’s flat lying open. Brennan pushed himself, panting and out of breath, towards it. His lungs twinged, the air felt hot around his head as he entered the front room and took in the sight of DS Stevie McGuire knees bent, sitting on his haunches, holding his hair bunched in a fist.
‘They’re fucking gone!’ he said.
Brennan wheezed forward, ‘What?’
McGuire rose, fronted his superior. ‘I said Elaine’s gone… He’s fucking taken her!’ He pointed a finger, forced it into Brennan’s chest, ‘I told you, I fucking told you this would happen!’
The DI stepped back, raised a hand towards McGuire — the DS knocked it away, he inflated his chest as he stepped towards Brennan.
‘Whoa, hang on, Stevie,’ said Collins; he pushed himself between the officers, moved McGuire towards the window.
Brennan turned from them, made for the kitchen — he took two steps inside, looked the place up and down, and then ran through the living room and back to fling open the doors leading from the hallway. As he checked the empty rooms he felt his heart rate ramping even higher; a sickly feeling encircled his stomach as he became dimly aware of the fact that he had lost his prime suspect and WPC Elaine Docherty. His instinct was to keep looking but he knew they were not there. He halted his pacing, he could hear Lou and Bri entering the scene; their voices trailed from incredulity to sparring with the bellicose McGuire. Brennan touched his parched lips, pressed his hand tight to his mouth. He wanted to hit out, to strike the wall or door with fists but he knew that wasn’t going to help — he needed to think, to act.
Brennan called out to the others, ‘Get to the back close! Now… fucking move it!’ He ran out of the front door.
The group converged in the narrow hallway, scrambled to the stairwell. Coat tails flew out as the sound of leather-soled shoes slapped the stone steps. Brennan felt the others’ panic as they descended behind him; he knew they were all thinking ahead, wondering how to explain their roles in the mess. He wanted them to concentrate on what was happening right now, but he could sense the tension and fear the team exuded like a poisonous gas.
The DI was first through the back door; the poorly-lit yard felt spacious after the stairs but odd items littered the path: a tin bath, a number of bicycles, a rusting lawnmower. Brennan followed the flags to the back wall, placed his foot on a pile of bricks and aimed his line of vision into the next garden. He jumped back down, cursed, ‘Shit…’
‘Nothing?’ said Collins.
‘What do you think?… We’ve lost them. Get on that radio — I want every uniform within a country mile in Leith — now!’
‘Yes, sir…’
As Collins removed his radio, Brennan jogged back towards the others; a painful stitch had set up in his side, his breathing felt strained, painful. When he reached the edge of the tin-roofed shed by the back doorway, Brennan bent himself over and gagged. His stomach contents whirred inside him for a moment and then presented themselves with a whoosh, splashing on the paving flags. His throat burned, and was immediately backed by a further burning, throbbing pain in the front of his forehead. The sight of the vomit, the smell and the dim-green wash of the lighting made Brennan’s head spin. His eddying thoughts added to the distilled feeling of fear he now had for WPC Docherty; the fear seemed to be centred in his stomach but was spreading. As he straightened himself, Brennan had his knees loosen; he reached out a hand to steady himself on the shed, but was soon jerking it up into a guard.
‘You fucking bastard!’ spat McGuire.
The sergeant’s fist connected cleanly with Brennan’s jaw, dropping him to the ground in a moaning, writhing heap.
