Tony Black - Murder Mile

‘Why Jim? Why did you cover for him… If there is some kind of excuse, if he had something over you, I can live with that, but you have to tell me.’

Gallagher’s fingers started to massage his head, first the sides, and then the crown, mussing what remained of his hair. ‘You’ve no fucking clue, Rob.’

‘Well, fill me in…’

Gallagher sat up straight; his eyes were rimmed in red. His face seemed to have lost several shades of colour as he spoke, ‘Do you have a cigarette?’

Brennan tapped at his pockets, shook his head. ‘Hold on, I’ll get some.’ He walked to the door and opened the Judas hole to attract the duty officer. When Davie appeared he motioned with two fingers towards his mouth to signify he wanted cigarettes. The officer opened up the door, held it ajar. ‘Hold on, I’ve got a pack in the doocot,’ he said.

As Brennan waited for Davie to return, the main door to the cells opened up and DS Stevie McGuire passed through; as he saw Brennan he increased his pace. ‘All right, boss…’

‘Stevie, what did you get for me?’

He held up a single sheet of paper, ‘Not much to go on, but…’

Brennan raised his hand, read the copy of an original charge sheet that detailed the manslaughter of John Burnside by Colin McCabe, both residents of Dungarn Boys Home. He turned his gaze back towards Gallagher in the cell as he spoke again, ‘Right, Stevie, go on…’

‘I ran the name through… Colin McCabe… it’s Crawley.’

Davie appeared with the cigarettes; Brennan took the packet of Silk Cut and a box of Swan Vestas matches and returned to the cell. As the door closed and the key turned once more, Brennan lit two cigarettes and handed one to Gallagher. The strong smell of tobacco lingered in the enclosed area as he walked back to his place at the wall and looked at the charge sheet. He kept the paper in his hand for a moment then leaned forward, placed it on the bed next to the prisoner.

Gallagher picked it up, read. His voice came weakly, ‘That’s good work, Rob… You were always a good copper.’

Brennan raised his cigarette, inhaled deep. ‘Tell me what happened at Dungarn, Jim.’

He sneered, thin white lines appeared at the sides of his red eyes. ‘It would be easier to tell you what didn’t happen at that place.’

Brennan allowed Gallagher a moment, then pressed again. ‘That boy, on the charge sheet…’

‘Colin McCabe… It’s Crawley, he changed his name years back, way before the Education Board started looking into that kind of thing.’

Brennan frowned, ‘No, I didn’t mean him… The victim, John Burnside, tell me about him.’

Gallagher raised the cigarette to his mouth and took a deep draw on it; his hand seemed to flutter before his face as he held the cigarette. He pinched his lips and blew out a thin trail of blue smoke as he spoke with a trembling voice, ‘He was a cunt… What do you want me to say, Rob. He arse-fucked us all… He was a fucking animal. What we did, he had it coming.’

Brennan watched the ash fall from the tip of Gallagher’s cigarette, stepped forward. ‘What we did?’

Gallagher’s head turned sharply; his eyes were wide as he took in the DI. ‘You’re the detective… Why the fuck do you think I’m here?’

Brennan stood before Gallagher, bent his knees to face him. He had taken in Gallagher’s words, absorbed their implication, but their true meaning seemed to have escaped him. The logical answer had been given, but Brennan’s mind seemed to be having difficulty keeping up. ‘ We, Jim?’

Gallagher lowered his head again, the cigarette in his fingers fell to the ground as he clutched at the back of his neck and sobbed. ‘Colin and me, we killed him… Colin took the weight, they had it down as manslaughter but it should have been murder because we killed him, we both did.’

Brennan felt an urge to reach out to Gallagher, to place a hand on his shoulder and offer him some comfort; the man was hurting, but there was no sympathy on offer to him. Brennan rose, turned away towards the cell door. As he gathered his breath, his strength, he tried to process the information he had just received.

Gallagher called out to him, ‘What’ll they do to me, Rob?’

Brennan turned back, his heart was pounding beneath his shirt front. ‘What’ll they not do to you, Jim.’

DI Rob Brennan made his way towards the main staircase at the front of the station. He paused before placing a foot on the first step and felt himself pulled towards the main desk; as he turned, Brennan locked eyes with Charlie for a moment. The desk sergeant had observed the earlier arrival of DI Jim Gallagher and had been silenced by the shock of his removal to the cells. The unusual display of taciturnity sent a jolt through Brennan: he knew Charlie was a barometer of the station’s mood, and looking into his hollowed, lined face, the reading he took was for stormy weather to come.

It unnerved Brennan to think of the way he would be perceived in the station after Gallagher’s betrayal, but he shoved it to a part of his mind where he seldom retreated to. What people thought of him was of little concern to Brennan at this stage of his life — he had never been one to cultivate colleagues for his own ends, or any other reason — nor was he concerned with winning any popularity contests. The force could think what it liked about him — he’d stared down opprobrium in the past but he knew now the rest of them would have to get used to being on the receiving end. This was what bothered Brennan more: the force was going to share the blame for Gallagher’s wrongdoing; he had no doubts about that at all.

Brennan kept a fixed glare on Charlie for a moment and then the older man tipped back his head in acknowledgement; it was an unspoken concurrence — passed between them like radio waves, and would have been just as impossible to execute without the correct equipment. They had both been around long enough to know that the shame Gallagher had brought on himself, and all of them, was not a perennial experience; it was as if the sheer scale of what he had done was beyond words, beyond reason. Brennan returned Charlie’s nod and took the first step towards the Chief Super’s office.

The DI had vowed to inform Benny of Gallagher’s return to the station right away — he hadn’t done that, but disobeying direct instructions from the Chief Super seemed like a low-grade offence today. He knew his superior would have to reassess his priorities too: it was not the time to go after slightly wayward DIs when his own best boy had stepped beyond the limits of all known boundaries. Benny’s priority would now be damage limitation — his own arse was on the line, thought Brennan, why would he care about settling old scores? The DI replayed recent decisions he’d been challenged on by Benny: there was the overtime ban; the appointment of a profiler from Strathclyde; and there was the press conference which had descended into complete and utter farce. Brennan felt himself gripping the banister tighter as he ascended the stairs; he knew that, even a few hours ago, he would not have been able to go to the Chief Super to seek support for his next move, but the axis of power had shifted now. The DI knew Benny was a greatly diminished force; he would have to put his faith in solving the case — that would be his redeemer — and there was only one man left capable of delivering that for him since Gallagher had dropped out of the picture.

Brennan grabbed the handle to the Chief Super’s door; he felt ready to flay any opposition to his desired course of action, but he knew that the situation would require some degree of subtlety. It never helped to overplay your hand, he thought, and he knew that what he was about to propose was risky; getting Benny’s support would be the easy part.