Brennan knew that life was never going to be easy for him. For some it was. For the brutes whose only aim was to get snout to trough, life was simple, a joy even. For the thinking, the intelligent, it was a complex affair. He recalled an interrogation of a repeat offender — a gangly youth he’d watched grow into a stocky recidivist — who said he’d been in trouble his whole life because he ‘just had one of those faces’. Brennan knew he had one of those faces too; but there was more. There was something inside him — an energy he was dimly aware of. He would often feel it rise in him, force him to rebel, and even when he held it in check — ignored it, sublimated it — it was still there. It shone out of him, it showed in his face, and the brutes scented it like pack dogs detecting adrenaline before an attack.
Brennan had tried to deny his self, who he was inside — to have an easy life — but it didn’t work. It merely weakened him, his energy attenuated. Denial of his true self only brought in doubts, and ultimately lowered the innate respect he had for himself. By the age he was now, Brennan knew he should have accepted his lot. Both physically and spiritually — he was what he was. There was no point fighting it, denying himself. But he sometimes longed for an easier path from birth to death — how could he not when the ignorant brutes had it so good?
He felt controlled like a marionette on strings. Life was all about control — who had it, who controlled whom — it dictated the level of your contentment and happiness. If you were a controller, the world felt like it was yours, even a small world. But if you were controlled, even a little, you were nothing but someone’s plaything. Brennan had sometimes wondered about leaving the force, the city, hauling up somewhere alien to him. Somewhere where no one knew him, where he could be free, untrammelled. But it was only a dream. There was no escape from his lot and he knew it. The inner scream could rage, roar louder, but it had to be suppressed. Exhibiting doubts was a weakness, and if they saw weakness on the force, it made their control of you even stronger.
The door’s hinges wheezed as Brennan entered Incident Room One. At once heads turned in his direction: he managed to ignore them for his first few steps but when Lou and Brian turned round to greet him in unison, the DI halted. He saw McGuire down the other end of the room at the whiteboard with Elaine Docherty, one of the WPCs; they seemed to be very close but separated instantly as they caught sight of Brennan; he tipped back his head to beckon McGuire over.
‘Right, listen up.’
The room stilled. A few rose from chairs, others eased themselves onto the corners of desks. Files and coffee cups were put down.
‘There have been some developments in the last few minutes…’ The silence was interrupted by a cackle of low voices. Brennan raised his own voice, ‘We have a name for our victim. She is a local girl and was on the missing persons’ list so we tied the dental together pretty quickly.’
‘What’s her name, boss?’
Brennan turned over the blue folder in his hand, opened up. He was surprised to see a colour photograph of a smiling young girl; she looked nothing like the bloodless corpse he’d seen a few hours ago. ‘Her name is Lindsey Sloan, I’ll be giving the details over to Stevie and he can fill you in…’ Brennan leaned forward, passed the folder to the DS.
‘Have the parents been notified?’ said McGuire.
Brennan shook his head, ‘That’s a job for you and me this afternoon, Stevie.’
‘I can hardly wait.’
The DI continued his impromptu briefing. ‘Now, I don’t need to tell you that the scene of the crime was particularly gruesome. Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that we are dealing with a seriously deranged killer…’ Brennan spotted the far entrance door to the room open, DI Jim Gallagher sauntered in and pulled out a chair; as he sat he swept a hand over his thick-set jowls. He was not part of the squad; Brennan eyed him down the length of the room, ‘Something for us, Jim?’
Headshakes, a smoker’s cough into a fist. ‘No, just passing through. Carry on…’
Brennan ignored the interruption, ‘Right, what’s everyone got for me?’
Lou was first to speak, ‘Well, everything’s up in the air now that we have an ID, surely.’
‘Nothing come out the field?’
‘Cow shit, sir,’ said Collins.
‘That it?’
‘Not a mark; there’s some footprints but they’re looking like the kid’s…’ He turned over a page in his notebook, ‘Er, Ben Russell.’
‘What’s he had to say for himself?’ said Brennan.
Collins deferred to McGuire.
A shrug, ‘Not much, they were out clubbing, he stopped for a pish, found the victim. He’s a student, the whole lot from the car were, I don’t think they’ve got a parking ticket between them.’
Brennan swayed on the balls of his feet, pinched the tip of his nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘They never saw anything on the road… car, punter, fucking milk-float?’
‘Not a thing, boss.’
‘Right, Brian… you’re up,’ said Brennan, he pointed to the DS, clapped hands together. ‘Come on, chop-chop, eh.’
Brian rose, ‘I just checked with Dr Pettigrew about an hour ago, the postmortem’s not been done yet.’
‘What?’
Brian shrugged, ‘He’s due in later on… I tried to tell him you wouldn’t be pleased.’
‘Fucking right I’m not… So, is that it?’
Brennan watched Jim Gallagher get up and walk back to the door, he was putting a cigarette in his mouth as he went, mouthed a silent ‘Catch you later’ to the DI. Brennan scanned the rest of the room, looking for a grain of information.
‘Un-fucking-believable. Right, who’s doing the door-to-door?’
McGuire looked in his file, ‘Smeeton’s heading it up. He’s out now. Still early days yet, boss.’
Brennan frowned, ‘Try telling that to the press office when the hacks start on us… Call Smeeton, tell him to update us on the hour, sooner if he turns anything up. And that goes for the rest of you as well, anything comes in I do not want to hear about it second hand. Got it?’
Together, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Right, that’s it. Off you trot.’
Brennan walked towards the whiteboard at the other end of the room. Some pictures the SOCOs had taken had been stuck up there; he removed the photograph of Lindsey Sloan from the file McGuire held and stuck it beside the others. He was writing her name beside the picture when McGuire spoke.
‘Pretty girl?’
Brennan nodded, placed the cap back on the pen. ‘What was Jim Gallagher after?’
McGuire shrugged. ‘Search me.’
‘Let me know if he starts sniffing about, I don’t want him big-footing us.’
McGuire ran a thumb over his chin, ‘Is that likely?’
‘He’s a glory hunter isn’t he. Find out what he’s working on and let me know, eh.’
McGuire nodded. ‘Aye, sure.’
‘And whilst you’re at it I want you to get hold of a profiler.’
‘OK, we’re owed a favour by Northern, I’ll get them to send down McClymont.’
Brennan shook his head, ‘No I want Joe Lorrimer.’
‘Who?’
‘He’s Strathclyde. They might not owe us any favours, though.’
McGuire creased back the corners of his mouth. ‘Benny won’t like it coming out our budget.’
‘Fuck Benny,’ said Brennan. ‘I’ll deal with him in my own way.’