Murder Mile (2 page)

‘Have you been to the scene?’ Brennan knew he hadn’t; if he had he wouldn’t be relaying the uniforms’ report. He was reaching, making assumptions.

‘No.’ Stevie sounded defensive now. ‘The victim’s half naked, bound and tied.’

‘So it
looks
sexually motivated, Stevie.’ He let the implication hang.

‘Yes, sir.’

Brennan removed his fingers from the blinds, turned towards the bed. The wind outside worried the window latch. ‘Where is she?’

‘Just off the bypass … Straiton will be about the nearest if you’re mapping it.’

‘She’s in the wilds?’

McGuire’s tone softened, he seemed to be relaxing again. ‘A field … The boffins are setting up, or on their way there now.’

Brennan gouged a knuckle into his eye, rubbed. He was awake now, but not fully functioning. It was cold in the room, it would be colder outside; the chill air would wake him, he thought, if the job didn’t get there first. ‘OK, Stevie, pick me up in fifteen.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He hung up.

Brennan returned the phone to its cradle and looked at the pillow lying beside his; it didn’t look slept on. His thoughts zigzagged for a moment. He turned away, flicked the light switch on, immediately his eyes creased in a defensive move as the shadeless bulb burned. He let his vision adjust for a moment or two and then he headed towards the wardrobe. He stood firm footed as he tried to grasp what his next move should be. He grabbed the first shirt he came to – pale blue, button-down collar – and matched it with the first pair of trousers he found – grey, chino-style – they had been
put
away with the belt still in the loops and were saggy kneed; he dressed quickly.

In the bathroom the strip light was even brighter. Brennan ran a cold palm down his chin but knew a shave, even a quick run over with the electric razor, was out of the question. He looked at his stubble, it had started to lighten, there were white spikes poking through; he wondered why the greying hadn’t reached the hair on his head yet. In a moment the passing thought was expunged from his mind; he had more serious matters to consider now. The demands of the job always came first and he felt vaguely guilty to have let himself forget that, even for a second. There was a woman lying dead in a field – that was his focus now.

Outside the bathroom, Brennan stood in the top landing staring at his daughter’s bedroom door. A light flickered on the inch or so of exposed jamb – she had fallen asleep with the television on again. He’d told her about that a dozen times but had always been ignored. He sighed; there was another talk he needed to have with Sophie – one he didn’t want to have – and he wondered how she would react.

Brennan grabbed his jacket and overcoat from the banister, headed downstairs. He looked at his watch as he went, it read 3:42. McGuire would be arriving in under five minutes. In the hallway outside the kitchen door Brennan put on his jacket, fastened the buttons, then fitted himself into his overcoat. He felt bulky as he thrashed about looking for his cigarettes. He tried all his pockets; they weren’t there.

‘Fucking hell,’ he mumbled.

Brennan turned the handle on the kitchen door, walked in. He saw his wife straight away; she was sitting with her face towards the wall, smoking one of his cigarettes. He looked at her for a moment, tried to discern some kind of meaning from the tableau but could find none.

‘Joyce …’

She had heard him come in, couldn’t have failed to, but she refused to acknowledge him. He stared on, she was still for a
moment
longer and then she brought the filter tip of the cigarette up to her lips and inhaled deeply. Brennan continued watching her for a few seconds longer and then retreated through the door, closing it gently.

In the hallway, he shook his head and made for the front door. He opened up and stepped outside. At the end of the driveway Brennan felt his mind jam with incoming thoughts, none of them aligned with what he knew he should be occupying himself with. Was this the way it was going to be now? Day after day fading into one another, into insignificance. Did nothing matter any more? Certainly nothing he did made a difference. Every emotion he felt was pastiche – a throwback to childhood or adolescence when feelings meant something, indicated a mood shift or a new sensation. There were no new sensations in adulthood. Nothing was new. All that was left was the husk of experience. Life was drudge. Endless routine. It took something painful – the shock of hurt, tears – to bring back the unsettling realisation that you could still feel.

Brennan wondered if this was why he stayed in the job. It certainly wasn’t the rewards. There was no satisfaction – even capturing a killer and seeing justice served came after the event, after the killing. He could never do anything about that. His job was making sense of the mess, sweeping up after it; but never halting anything. He saved no one. If he knew this, understood this, then what did that make him: a ghoul? Did he simply get off on witnessing other people’s hurt? Did it make him feel more alive – just alive, in any way – to be so close to death and to people’s encounters with death?

Brennan stamped his feet, tried to knock out the cold. He felt his lungs itch for tobacco. When he got like this, a cigarette always helped. He didn’t know why; all he knew was the simple act of lighting up took him out of himself. He put his thoughts into the cigarette, then watched them burn up. Wullie had always said, ‘Never trust your mind, Rob … It’s a tool, a bloody good tool, but don’t let it rule you.’ You had to listen to your gut too, and if there was a choice between gut and head, the gut was always right.

As the VW Passat rolled into view, McGuire raised a hand above the wheel and signalled to Brennan. The car stopped next to the kerb, dislodging some rainwater from the gutter. McGuire had the passenger’s window down, was leaning over, ‘Think we’re going to have our work cut out with this one, sir.’

Brennan grabbed the door handle, stepped in. ‘Is that what you think?’

McGuire turned, his face indicated angst, his eyebrows rose in an apse. ‘Revise what I said about
looks
sexually motivated, sir … We’ve got genital mutilation and some seriously sadistic carving. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.’

Chapter 2

‘WHO HAVE YOU
been speaking to?’ said Brennan as he got inside the car, slammed the door.

‘The doc …’

Brennan fished in the glove box for cigarettes, there were none. He eased himself further back in the seat, roved the street with his eyes. ‘Is he on the scene now?’

‘Well he was five minutes ago … I just called him.’

‘I hope you told him to hang around, I don’t want him fucking off to his pit for a few hours’ shut-eye before private practice kicks off.’

McGuire’s stare lingered on the DI for a little longer than looked healthy, he seemed to be sucking in his lips. ‘Would you like me to call him again, tell him to hang on?’

Brennan returned the look, it was the one that said,
I shouldn’t have to tell you, Stevie
. He slammed the glove box shut. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any fags in this motor?’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Don’t be … you’re far too free with your apologies, laddie.’

Brennan couldn’t remember when he had started calling people laddie. He certainly hadn’t done it before he was forty; it would have seemed too unnatural. He wondered if it happened right around the time when people had stopped calling him son. He remembered Wullie calling him laddie when he started in the job; he didn’t
mind
it from him. There were others who had made intimidation of junior officers into an art form though; they made you feel like you should think yourself lucky to be part of their club. Brennan had laughed them up; he was part of no club.

‘So do I have to wring it out of you?’ said Brennan.

McGuire turned, they were leaving Corstorphine now. ‘Well, it’s only been fifteen minutes since we last spoke but the SOCOs are on site and just about set up …’

‘Spare me the details, Stevie … stick to the stuff it might be useful for me to know before we arrive, eh.’ Brennan felt himself frowning, he was giving the DS a hard time and he knew it, but this was a murder investigation. He could let up when they had the killer in custody.

‘It’s a young girl, in her teens.’

‘White?’

‘As a ghost, by all accounts.’

‘ID?’

‘No ID, sir. It’s dark out there, they’re off the road, we might turn something up when the day breaks.’

Brennan shook his head, there should have been floodlights up there already. Every minute was precious at this point in an investigation – without a lead in the first forty-eight hours it halved your chances of an arrest. McGuire was still talking, the DI held up a hand, ‘Hang on, Stevie, who’s out there for us now, Lou?’

‘It’s Collins, he was on call.’

‘Fucking Collins …’ Brennan picked up his mobile, dialled the DS.

Ringing.

He answered quickly, ‘Collins.’

‘It’s Rob.’

He yawned into the phone. ‘Hello, sir.’

Brennan raised his voice a notch, dropped some steel in his tone. ‘How many uniform you got out there?’

‘Jesus, I haven’t counted … half a dozen maybe.’

‘Double it, and get the klieg lights out there. I want the surrounds searched, and by that I mean thoroughly. If there’s a fucking field
mouse
taking a dump on our scene I want it photographed and catalogued, got it?’

‘Boss, you did read the Chief Super’s memo about the OT, didn’t you?’

‘Listen, leave Benny to me … get the search done.’

He hung up.

DS Stevie McGuire was shaking his head, he looked solemn, as if he might begin to chant. ‘Playing with fire aren’t you?’

‘This is my investigation and I won’t be running every move I make past the bean counters.’

‘Your call, sir.’

Brennan looked out the window; they had reached Liberton already, ‘Bloody right it is.’ He kept staring out into the empty city, it was bathed in a surreal glow from the street lamps. Brennan liked this hour, it reminded him of the early morning fishing trips he’d taken with his brother Andy, when they were boys; he was thinking about those times more and more now. He was thinking about all too much now, he knew he needed to regain focus, keep his life outside the job.

By the sounds of it, he was dealing with a deranged killer. Murder was never pleasant, but mutilating a young girl and leaving her in a field required a warped mind. If he was to capture this killer, Brennan knew he would have to train himself to think like him. He had done this before, put himself in the mind of a maniac, tried to figure out what drove him, but he had always withdrawn quickly. It was no place to dwell for too long, but it was a fact that you could only make so much progress with generalities – you needed to get personal, understand the criminal – only then could you hope to know them, and through knowing, capture. Brennan had to be the killer – become him in mind – to feel his emotions, his thought patterns. But never to become like him. The task was to take what you could from the insanity and level it against your own mentality. It was never easy, never enjoyable.

McGuire negotiated the Straiton roundabout, said, ‘It’s not far up here by all accounts.’

Brennan had already spotted the police crew up ahead, pointed, ‘There.’

‘Oh, yeah. I see them.’ McGuire put on the blinkers, started to drop down through the gears and pull off the road. As they entered the lay-by Collins spotted them and raised an arm, flagged them into the side. He approached the driver’s door first.

‘Morning, Stevie … Sir.’

The pair nodded, McGuire spoke, ‘Is the doc still about?’

‘Aye, Pettigrew, miserable bastard’s been bending my ear for the last half hour.’

‘What’s his problem?’ said Brennan.

Collins made a fist, shook it up and down, ‘The guy’s a wanker … that’s his problem.’

Brennan didn’t acknowledge the remark, exited the car. A chill blast caught him as he stood in the road. He fastened his top two buttons, turned up his collar and called out to Collins; the DS moved round to the other side of the car.

‘Boss?’

‘Got any smokes?’

He looked relieved, ‘Aye, sure.’

Brennan removed an Embassy Regal, cupped his hand around the tip as Collins lit him up. He took two swift pelts on the cigarette then looked around the scene. It was miles from anywhere, and yet still close enough to the sprawl of the city. In an hour or two the bypass would be clogged with commuter traffic.

At the front of the lay-by an old Ford Escort was parked. There had been a car just like it at one of the first crime scenes that Brennan attended as a junior officer. It was a lock-up in Fountainbridge: the car was running behind the door when he arrived. The door wasn’t locked, but something had been stuck in the hasp on the other side. He battered the door with his shoulder to get in, then saw the man in the front seat. He’d blocked up the top of his window, around the hosepipe leading from the exhaust, with a damp towel. Brennan saw the man’s face again, his skin pale, his eyes rolled up inside his head. He remembered the taste of the fumes, how they burned his lungs
as
he grabbed the door, lunged in, and dragged the man out. It was pointless, though. The man fell limp and lifeless on the concrete floor of the lock-up. Escorts had always seemed like bad luck since then, thought Brennan.

‘Whose car’s that?’

‘The Escort … that’s the bloke that found it.’ He looked in his notebook, ‘No, sorry, his mate was driving … Garry Johnston, that’s who the car’s registered to.’

Brennan flagged him down. ‘Where are they now?’

‘At the station, giving statements. There were two girls with them, they were a bit hysterical, thought they’d be better on a cup of tea.’ He made a motion simulating the act of cup to mouth, ‘Think there might have been a jug or two taken as well, if you know what I mean.’

Brennan inhaled deep on the cigarette, took another couple of quick drags and handed it back to Collins. ‘Stub that in the ashtray, eh.’ He nodded to the Passat.

‘Sure, boss.’