Murder Mile (12 page)

Gallagher replied, ‘Well, I just want you to know I’m doing my best.’

‘That’s all we can ask.’

‘But, it might not be good enough if he decides to …’ The DI abruptly curtailed his conversation as Brennan stepped in front of him.

‘Ah, Rob, just the man.’ The Chief Super held out a blue folder, handed it to Brennan. ‘This is the profiler’s report on Fiona Gow … Jim and I have just been going over it.’

Brennan knew it was bluster, the pair of them had been caught red handed, they were discussing him. His facial muscles conspired against him and released a thin smile. ‘Have you really … nice lunch was it, Jim?’

Gallagher nodded, the sunlight slanted across his face. ‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Always nice to have a bite with friends, I say.’

The Chief Super pushed up his glasses. ‘We were discussing the case, Rob,’ he said. ‘And we have come to the conclusion, partly based on this morning’s revelation, that we need to call in a profiler.’

Brennan widened his grin. ‘I already have one.’

‘You do? Who?’

‘Lorrimer.’

The Chief Super stepped forward, the sun’s glare bounced off his brow and his glasses. Brennan couldn’t see his eyes behind their lenses as he spoke, ‘Joe Lorrimer’s Strathclyde …’

Brennan at once knew he had walked into an ambush he’d created for himself. His thoughts played tag as he searched for a way out. ‘He’s the best there is.’

‘And what about the cost implication?’

‘Like I said, I think Lorrimer is the best man for the job and …’

The Chief Super cut him off, ‘You really didn’t listen to a word I said earlier did you?’ A disbelieving frown crossed his face as he lowered his chin towards his chest and eyed Brennan from above his glasses. ‘We’ll have a talk about this in my office, I think …’

The Chief Super turned for the stairs. Brennan caught sight of Gallagher grinning, he had the pleased look of a sheepdog that had just jumped through a hoop. ‘This way, Rob,’ said the Chief Super.

Brennan managed two steps before he was called from below.

‘Rob?’ It was Charlie from the front desk. ‘Some people here to see you.’

‘He’s busy,’ said the Chief Super.

‘Oh, I think he’ll want to see them, sir … It’s the Sloan girl’s parents.’

Chapter 16

NEIL HENDERSON SAT
in a dingy old drinker at the edge of the Grassmarket. It was as far from his usual stomping ground as he could get, but he needed a break, an escape. He had thought he would be delighted to get out of prison, back to the real world where there was no night-time lockdown, no sly groping in the showers or food that wasn’t fit for swine. He didn’t miss the danger, the cons with sharpened spoons or the screws who were looking for any excuse to batter their black batons off your head. He didn’t miss the lack of privacy or the boredom, the endless days stretching on and on, each one as miserable as the next. And for sure, it was a blessing to be able to score without having to put your snout in hock for weeks on end, or trade chocolate bars for a one-skin spliff that had precious little puff in it. He could score and shoot up, get fired into a bag of Moroccan rock if he wanted; but somehow, it wasn’t stacking up like he had hoped it would. It hadn’t taken Boaby Stevens long to find him and now he had to get his money in a hurry. If he didn’t he knew they’d be scraping him off the ground beneath a flyover.

Henderson had had plans in the past, dreams. None of them had ever materialised. He wondered if he was jinxed; if he was one of those people who was going to go through life with nothing. When he was nine or ten he’d been told by his mother’s then boyfriend,
a
thug called Dinger, something that had stuck in his mind like a jagged shard of glass since. ‘See you, laddie, you’re going nowhere but the jail.’

‘Why’s that?’ he’d asked.

Dinger sneered at him, ‘Cause that’s the only place your type ever go.’

He had been angered, wanted to hit him. That’s how Henderson solved everything then, and now, he thought. Nobody got lippy if they thought there was the chance of a split nose in the offing. He’d fronted up, even though he was only a boy. ‘And what’s my type?’

These days, thought Henderson, that kind of thing was meat and drink to adults; they didn’t bother with a bit of cheek, but back then it was enough to get you leathered. Back then, when Henderson was a lad, he remembered it was enough to get you more than leathered.

Dinger and Henderson were alone, the man grabbed him by the ear, threw him down then lifted him by the neck and marched him upstairs. His knees dragged on every step as he screamed out – he knew something was wrong – then a hard slap dazed him into quiet.

In his bedroom he was still a little woozy, but from where he lay on the edge of the bed he saw Dinger’s neck, pink and fat above his collar. He had red hair, it was cut short and tight to the nape with little spikes sticking up. ‘Shut your fucking hole, laddie.’

He remembered every word he had said, right up until the moment he’d tried to forget, he couldn’t remember anything after that. He’d blocked it out.

‘What are you doing?’ He watched Dinger fiddling with his belt buckle. ‘Tell me, I want to know.’

There was no reply. Henderson, the nine- or ten-year-old, was tense as a rod when Dinger turned around. There was a strange smell in the air – Dinger’s face had turned red, as he started to open his shirt buttons.

‘What’s going to happen?’

No answer.

‘Why are you looking at me?’

Still, no answer.

The boy felt his stomach start to tremble and there was a whooshing feeling in his chest that he couldn’t explain. He looked up at the man, he was opening the rest of his shirt buttons. His chest was freckled and red. He looked at the boy with a twisted grin on his face, said, ‘Get your trousers off.’

Henderson didn’t move. He was cold, frozen. Even as the heat rose in his head he felt chilled to his insides. He couldn’t speak.

The man slapped him across the face.

He felt a flash of pain, tasted blood in his mouth as he fell from the bed, and then his trousers were pulled down.

‘There is a special treatment for boys like you, do you know that?’

He still couldn’t speak. His cheek brushed the carpet, the fibres scratched at the corners of his mouth as he called out in agony. He couldn’t believe the pain he felt. As he now remembered, his face contorted into a grimace.

Henderson stared across the Grassmarket bar, raised his pint to his mouth. His hand was shaking a little but steadied as the golden liquid in the glass touched his throat. He looked about, wondered if there was anyone there who had caught him in deep thought; they would have been able to see what he was thinking of. It was his greatest shame.

For a long time, Neil Henderson had thought he was the only person in the world to have undergone such treatment. His mother’s boyfriend had told him he deserved it and Henderson had believed him. He had felt like a truly degenerate little boy, one who required a special punishment. For some time he was a different child, he remembered how everyone had said so. He was quiet, withdrawn. There was no more trouble, for a while. He never told anyone about the trip upstairs but felt somehow, even now, that everyone should have known. It was such an awful occurrence that he felt that all
grown-ups
should have seen the signs, spotted them in him, and known what had happened. He simply couldn’t believe that it had happened and that no one, not a soul, had any idea of it except him.

It was Henderson’s secret, he kept it to himself. Even now.

There had been times when he had wondered about the man. He had fantasised about finding him, taking him on a little trip of his own to somewhere desolate. He had devised numerous tortures he would inflict upon him. He would tie him up, nail-gun his knees so he couldn’t move, then he would slowly remove strips of flesh from his freckled chest with a Stanley knife. He’d bludgeon his face with a claw hammer and blowtorch his testicles, before finally castrating the bastard with a cold blade. He would take his time, make sure it hurt. Make sure there was as much agony inflicted as was humanly possible by one man on another. He wouldn’t hold back.

Henderson raised his glass again, drained the last mouthful and called over the barman. ‘Hey, mate, another pint in here.’

The barman nodded, moved down to Henderson’s end of the bar and took up the glass. He returned with it fully topped up.

‘There you go. Might want to go a wee bit slower with that one,’ said the barman, leaning over to face him.

‘What you on about
slower
?’ Henderson snapped.

‘I mean, that’s your last in here … You’ve had a bucket already.’

Henderson looked up at the barman, he was older than him, quite a few years older than him but obviously fancied his chances. He knew he could take him, even after a fair drink, but he was still basking in his post-prison glow. His mouth shut fast; the barman retreated.

Henderson took his pint to the corner of the bar, selected a secluded table and sat down. He took a couple of small sips, it made him want a cigarette. He hadn’t yet adapted to the smoking ban, and didn’t like going outdoors for a drag. He massaged the brow of his head with his fingertips and let out a sigh.

His mind had wandered earlier; he knew why.

He didn’t like to think about the incident he had tried to lock away for so long but he had been forced to stare into the black heart of himself because of Angela. Reading her journal had raised the dead in him; but the bastard Dinger was dead, there could be no revenge now. Henderson understood why Angela had been so hysterical when she saw that item on the news the other night, the item with the body that turned up in a field off the A720. It had been a rekindling of old memories for her; but she
could
take revenge.

‘What was it with her?’ he mumbled; immediately checking himself. No one in the bar had heard him. He looked back to his pint glass, raised it to his mouth and swallowed another mouthful.

He had started reading her journal thinking it was going to be the spicy confessions of a teenage schoolgirl, but as he read on it turned his stomach. He felt surprised by his reaction; surely it would be natural to feel sympathy for her. After all, she had gone through the same kind of indignity that he had: an adult they should have respected had taken advantage of them. But he didn’t – he felt nothing for her except contempt. For years he had stored up his anger; a social worker had once described him as ‘self-loathing’ and the description had struck him because he knew he did loathe himself. Now he loathed Angela too, because she was no better than him. They were both worthless, but she could do something about it and he couldn’t.

Henderson took out the little mauve-coloured diary and placed it on the table in front of him. It had already started to open at the page he had creased with rereading so many times. He stared at it for a moment longer, took another sip of his lager, and then he raised the diary and read once more.

The next I remembered was waking up in the field …

There was a field on the news – it had set her off, he saw that now.

He thought back to the story from the television report. There had been a murder in a field outside Edinburgh, off the A720. He knew it was a young girl, they had said that on the television.
There
was no name, at least the filth hadn’t released one. He tried to remember what else had been said but all he could see in his mind’s eye was the footage from the field, the reporter all suited up and freezing by the side of the road. He cursed himself for not paying more attention. Then he cursed Angela for distracting him, arking up and having a carry on. It was her screaming and messing about that distracted him.

He picked up the diary again. None of it seemed real to him. This was a story about a teacher, some gymnastics coach, who had tried it on with Angela and ended up taking her out to a field. And now there had been a story on the news about a girl who had been murdered in the same field.

Henderson tried to concentrate, to think. It was as if the same group of disparate thoughts came back to irritate his mind like a mosquito bite.

He returned to the entry.

…
I could hardly move my hands because they were tied, but I pulled and pulled to get free. I felt this fear, it was like terror in me. I tried to blot it all out – like this was all happening to someone else, in a film maybe. It was cold and I had to wee. I remember when I did wee, I felt it run all down my bum and I knew I had no knickers on. I wasn’t able to see very well at first, but I think it was just my eyes getting used to the dark like when you play hide and seek as a kid. I saw the moon first and then I saw him, I recognised the Creep straight away, he had the scratch marks on his face where I went for him. I don’t know what he was doing, just standing there and then he leant over and picked something up, it was my tights from my gym bag, he was rolling them on his hands and then he tried to tie them round my neck. I wanted to say, ‘No, go away’ but I couldn’t speak. When he leant right over I knew I had to do something or he was going to kill me. I don’t know how my hand came free, he couldn’t have tied me properly, but my hand was on a stone, a big rock and I grabbed it up and hit him on the side of the head. He fell onto me, I thought I was going to be crushed, but I wriggled out from
under
him. I thought I’d killed him but I just kept running and running
.

Henderson turned the last page, there were no more entries. He closed the little mauve-coloured diary and placed it in his inside pocket as he stood up and headed for the door.

Chapter 17

THE DOOR’S HINGES
sang out as Neil Henderson returned to the flat he shared in Leith with Angela Mickle. He hung his jacket on the hook and staggered though to the front room, belching loudly as he went. He found Angela splayed out on their filthy mattress, her works sitting on the floor beside her. He angled himself above her, swayed a little as he looked down. There was a white line of dried spittle around her mouth and her skin looked pale as whey.