Brennan knew being human was hard, tough. We were animals, but we were no longer allowed to be. We had come down from the trees and learned to walk upright — but, given the right circumstances, how many of us would revert to the primordial swamp? He knew it was in him, the atavistic tripwire had been crossed before: he’d struck people; thrashed some. None that hadn’t deserved it, but how far had he been from the ultimate conclusion of violence? Some way, he thought, some way indeed — but he wasn’t exactly sure how far.
Brennan remembered an old TV interview with the late John Lennon: he’d been asked about a line in a song of his about war and destruction; he’d said count me out, but then added count me in. The songwriter concluded he had to add the line because he knew he was all too human. That was the problem thought Brennan, what was in us was there, whether we denied it or not. He knew you only needed to turn on the news any night of the week to see evidence of the fact that, no matter how much we liked to pretend otherwise, we were animals.
If you removed the authority figures, the men in uniform, the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and consequences, then lawlessness was never far away. Desperation played a part too, like a magnifying glass on tinder, but the definition of desperation was open to interpretation. A hungry dog will fight and kill another dog for a scrap of food; human appetites were more complex, but they could trigger the same bestial reaction. None of us was immune to acting on our instincts, we could no easier be separated from them than the salt from the sea; it was our nature. We constructed an artificial image of ourselves, allowed a social duplicity to emerge when we believed in an evil strain in the blood — but, did we all have dark hearts? Brennan wondered.
We had domesticated ourselves — like we had domesticated the wolf — but the savagery we were capable of made the DI uneasy in his own skin. As he looked into the tent the SOCOs had erected he did not want to be a part, however insignificant, of the human race. It reviled him — the fact that he could draw this conclusion, intellectualise it, was no consolation. Thought and action, it seemed, bore little relation to each other. There was a wider, more sweeping force at play and none of us — man nor beast — was beyond its reach.
Brennan and McGuire were halted inside the white tent by a SOCO; he was fully suited in white overalls and held out two small boxes to the DI and the DS. Brennan removed a pair of blue covers for his shoes; when he had them in place he dipped into the other box and removed some lightweight rubber gloves. McGuire followed him. They both declined an offer of facemasks.
In the far corner of the tent, two men in white overalls stood chatting to Dr Pettigrew; he was a broad man with a small head and a short neck that looked like they’d been pressed into the bulk of his body. The doctor indicated to the ground with a yellow pencil for a moment or two and then returned to writing in a blue folder. He seemed calmer than usual, certainly for the time of day. Brennan nodded to McGuire, the pair approached the doctor.
‘Good morning,’ said Brennan.
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Dr Pettigrew.
Brennan declined a rejoinder. As he spoke to the doctor he became vaguely aware of the slight bundle at his feet; it was a corpse but seemed far too insignificant to have been a vessel for life. Brennan stepped away from the doctor, rounded the body and kneeled down beside it. He sensed DS McGuire behind him, he seemed eager to keep his distance.
‘All right, Stevie?’
A nod, shake of the head.
Brennan turned back to the victim; a thin, pale-green plastic covering had been placed over the body, it fluttered every few seconds in the breeze that got under the tent flaps and exposed white, glass-smooth skin.
‘I hope you haven’t had your breakfast,’ said Dr Pettigrew. When Brennan looked up, the doctor was smiling — a row of yellowed teeth on display.
This time Brennan bit, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t splash your brogues.’
As he removed the covering, in one swift sweep, Brennan was shocked by the whiteness of the victim’s body. The only relief from the harsh pallor was occasional patches of pale-blue and black skin. The girl, a young girl, lay contorted to one side. Her legs were splashed with blood and mud and her dress had been pulled up, over her head. Her stomach was exposed, but where the pale skin showed it was in sparse patches as dark blood had dried over the main share of the surface. Deep welts marked where a thick blade had struck her stomach and the tops of her thighs. Her genitals had been crudely hacked out.
Brennan turned back to McGuire; the DS looked drawn as he raised a hand to his cheek; his mouth sat slantwise and uncertain in his face. ‘Stevie, go and keep an eye on Collins, eh.’
He nodded. Retreated, at a jog, to the tent opening.
Dr Pettigrew watched the DS go, eyes flitting about, eager for information. ‘The skin colour is due to…’
Brennan interrupted, ‘Loss of blood, yes, I know.’
‘Then I don’t know why the hell you need me here. It’s not like I couldn’t do with the extra time in bed.’
Brennan rose, he felt a flash of heat in his chest, for some reason he hoped the victim hadn’t heard him and then he remembered she was dead. He fronted the doctor. ‘You’re here for the same reason I am — a young girl has been murdered.’
‘Yes, I–I’m aware of that.’ All the power had been sapped from his voice but the sound of it seemed to rally him. He pointed to the corpse, ‘I didn’t need to go to medical school to tell you that!’
Brennan felt the heat in his chest rise to his head, he gripped his jaw tight. The muscles in his neck firmed. Was he the only one left on the squad who cared about these people? ‘Then perhaps you can put some of that medical training to good use and give me a time of death.’
The doctor eased himself back on his heels, scratched under his chin, ‘Well, rigor mortis has set in… clearly. I’d say it’s starting to subside now…’ He hoisted up his belt as he continued, ‘I’d say she’s been dead a good sixteen hours anyway.’
Brennan stored the timing away, he was searching for a particle of optimism, but found none. He returned to the corpse, pointed to the doctor. ‘Give me that.’
Dr Pettigrew removed a pencil from his top pocket and handed it to Brennan. He leaned forward and slipped the tip of the pencil under the hem of the girl’s dress that was covering her face. The doctor was watching him as he withdrew the dress; it was stiff with dried blood.
‘Jesus,’ said Brennan.
‘Quite a sight, isn’t it.’
The DI scanned what was left of the victim’s features. Her face was no more than a mass of black ruptures and contusions. She had been beaten soundly, pummelled. The girl lay at an unnatural angle, ligatures at her neck seemed to have turned it too far from her shoulders. Her mouth, parallel to the ground, was slightly open — a clump of what looked like red cloth was stuck between her teeth. At first Brennan thought the skin of her face had been flayed, there was so much blood, but then he became aware of why: her eyes had been gouged out. The swelling had hidden the sockets, but he was sure the eyeballs had been removed.
‘Her eyes… are they?’ he said.
‘Removed,’ said Dr Pettigrew, ‘plucked out.’
Brennan shook his head, he didn’t want to stare at what was left of the girl’s face any longer. He returned the covering and stood up.
‘Can you hazard a cause of death?’
‘Take your pick, the broken neck or the abdominal punctures.’
Brennan returned to stare at the victim, her thin white arm protruded, seemed to reflect too much light. Only a few hours ago the girl was somewhere else, living her life. What had happened? How did a young girl, a teenager, turn up brutally murdered, hacked to death, in a field on the outskirts of Edinburgh? No matter how many times he had to encounter the bestial side of life and death, Brennan remained confused by it all. Each death, each life cut short, snuffed out, was another scar on his soul.
He turned back to Dr Pettigrew, pointed a finger. ‘I want that girl thoroughly looked at. What is that in her mouth?’
The doctor leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest and creased his narrow forehead as he bawled out. ‘We can’t get the red cloth, her jaw’s clamped on it. But, I’ll tell you this for nothing, Inspector… you have a seriously deranged psychopath on the loose.’
Outside the tent Brennan removed his blue shoe coverings and handed them to a passing uniform, stomped towards McGuire. The DS was leaning on the bonnet of the Passat, staring into the night sky. The wind caught Brennan’s coat as he pulled the rubber gloves from his hands, secreted them in his pocket. He stopped still for a moment, felt his shoulders tightening inexplicably, then he shook himself, buttoned his coat and approached McGuire.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
McGuire steadied himself on the bonnet of the car. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He fastened his eyes tight, thin radial lines appeared at their edges. ‘It’s just deranged… utterly callous.’
Brennan moved round beside him, hitched his thigh on the edge of the car’s wing. ‘It looks… practised.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘The ligatures, the hacked genitals and the eyes… it’s all specific.’
McGuire turned to face him, ‘You think this is pathological, like some kind of ritual?’
Brennan looked out to the field, there were more SOCOs arriving, directing photographers. ‘No, not ritual, more like a release. What I’m saying is, it’s systematic — and controlled — our killer knew what he wanted out of this.’
‘I hate to admit it, sir, but Pettigrew’s right then — we’ve got a psycho on the loose.’
Brennan eased himself off the bonnet of the car, the springs wheezed beneath him. ‘It’s more than that, Stevie, we’ve got a psycho who’s acted on his urges.’ He crossed the ground towards the car’s door. ‘And it’s down to us to stop him acting on them again.’