Tony Black - Truth Lies Bleeding

The SOCO spoke, something trite about it being a sad way to meet her end; Brennan switched off. Words had no place here. Not at this point. There were no words to explain away what had happened. It seemed shameful to speak; beyond pointless. A life had been taken, in brutal fashion, and disposed of without any concern for the innate value of being. In situations like this, there was no humanity. There was no need for the pretence of civility, for language. Explaining away how we came to this pass was someone else’s job. Evaluating man’s inhumanity to man was an intellectual exercise that had no place in a dark lane where a young girl lay, lifeless, draped in her own blood.

Broken glass crunched under Brennan’s feet as he neared the white tent the SOCOs had erected over the dumpster at the bottom of the lane. There was a man clad head to foot in white, a hood on his head, exiting the tent. He put eyes on Brennan then looked away.

‘Minute… Gimme those.’ Brennan pointed to the box he held. It looked like tissues but held disposable gloves. The detective grabbed a pair, said, ‘Thanks.’

The atmosphere inside the tent was foetid. There was a reek of cheap lager and sugar-rich fortified wine that had mingled with the sweet smell of blood and the sweat of grown men, overdressed in too many layers of protective clothing. Brennan was used to the stench. He pulled on the gloves, snapped them onto his wrists.

He could feel people watching him as he moved. This was his show. He was the main act, the one who would make sense of this mess. Brennan slowly paced back and forth, always keeping the dumpster in the corner of his field of vision. He looked at the ground, sat on his haunches and scraped at the terrain. ‘This footprint’s been cast, has it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

A SOCO photographer came into the tent holding a large Nikon with a mounted flash; he looked at Brennan and turned around.

‘Just a minute.’

The photographer returned. ‘Sir.’

‘Let me see that.’ Brennan took the camera from him. He flipped it over, pointed the long lens to the ground and looked at the small screen on the back. The camera had stored the crime scene perfectly. As Brennan spun the wheel he kept looking around, checking nothing had been missed. He handed the camera back.

‘Get those back to DC McGuire.’

The SOCO raised the camera, spoke: ‘I wanted to get a few more with the new card in…’

‘After I’m done. Wire those to the station now.’The SOCO seemed to be processing the request. ‘Now, officer.’ Brennan kept a stare on him; the man backed out of the tent.

‘You.’ Brennan pointed to another suited-up officer, on his haunches holding a small brush. ‘This printed?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Brennan stored the response, then ignored the officer. Prints were rarely of any use in this kind of situation, but a necessity. Brennan knew the number of murder cases he’d made use of prints was a low scorer. They were nearly always partials — a bit of a thumb, a palm. The good prints — the full hands, the clearly identifiable fingertips — were only useful if their holders were on record. Fine, if you were working housebreakings, where the local skag-heads and scrotes were always slipping up; but murder, that was different. Killers knew the stakes were higher. Even in a state of panic, they knew to clean up, cover their tracks.

There was a swish on the tent flap. DS Collins appeared. He had one hand in a protective glove and was wrestling the other one on.

‘Fucking things, hate them… Like johnnies.’

Brennan turned. He didn’t appreciate the stilled ambience he’d created being disrupted. ‘They irritate pricks, you mean.’

Collins grinned. ‘Yeah, something like that, sir.’

The DS walked towards the dumpster, jerked open the lid, flicked his head. ‘You seen our stiff?’

Brennan felt a flicker in his chest. He turned towards the bin. When he drew even with Collins, he shook his head. ‘Your mother must have been a lovely woman.’

The DS frowned, clearly confused. Brennan took the weight of the lid from him, pushed him aside.

As he looked inside, Brennan exhaled slowly. The girl was small, tiny. Her flesh was pale; white. Dark welds had been made at the corners of her mouth; black contusions detailed where her teeth had been clattered. Her mouth presented a dark rictus; dried blood sat at its edges and pooled in the hollow of her neck. Brennan was disturbed by how still she looked. She was almost peaceful, at rest.

‘I hear Ian Lauder’s gunning for you, boss,’ said Collins.

Brennan stared at the girl. ‘That so?’

‘Fair pissed you turfed his shooting out the big room.’

Brennan huffed, ‘Tough shit.’ He put a stare on Collins. The DS was chewing gum; it annoyed Brennan. He waited until his jaw stopped moving and then he pulled his gaze back to the girl.

There was a deep incision on her forehead, running round to her temple. Her pale blonde hair had been matted by dark blood which had stuck her to the black refuse sack she lay on.

Brennan reached in, moved some of the rubbish around her. He saw her milky-white body, arms truncated at the shoulders. ‘Do we have her arms?’ he said.

‘Nope.’

‘How do we know they’re not in here, then?’

‘We don’t.’

Brennan lifted the edge of a black plastic refuse sack. The raw butt where her arm once sat seemed to have been ripped and torn by a jagged edge.

‘What you think — saw?’

Collins leaned in. ‘Fucking cheapo one… Not electric — too rough.’

‘Why go to the bother?’

‘Doesn’t want her ID’d, obviously.’

‘If she’s from the scheme we’ll ID her without prints.’

‘Might take longer though. That’s what they’re thinking, I’d say.’

Brennan delicately lowered the black plastic. ‘That’s a lot of thinking for a pack of skag-boys.’

Collins didn’t seem to be giving the DI his full attention. He started chewing on the gum again. ‘Look, maybe it’s a trophy take.’

‘Fuck off, Collins, you can’t draw that from one corpse.’

The DS exhaled loudly, reaching into his pocket for a packet of Embassy. He took one out the pack and wrestled the rubber gloves off. ‘Well, what do you reckon, sir?’

Brennan shrugged. ‘Panic, probably. If she’s local, and she’s been offed by another local, and our murderer had a bit of nous, they’d want to make it look different to every other square-go gone wrong.’

Collins moved out to the flap over the entrance. He had a cheap plastic lighter in his hand, shook it as he spoke to Brennan. ‘Maybe. Maybe… But you’re forgetting one thing.’

‘What?’

‘That girl wasn’t killed around here… There’s not enough blood for this to be the crime scene and the time of death doesn’t tally.’ Collins lit his cigarette and stepped out of the tent.

It riled Brennan, but the DS was right. ‘So the girl was hacked up to make her easier to move.’

‘Put a body in a bag, it’s gonna stand out.’

‘But put it in two or three… could be anything.’

Brennan stood looking at the silent, cold body of the dead girl. She couldn’t have been much older than Sophie. He felt a strange urge to check where his daughter was; it made his heart quicken for a moment and then it passed. It was instinct, a mad spiralling of thought that denied the solipsist in him. He brushed it aside: Sophie was safe and sound. Brennan knew that it wasn’t her lot to end up in a dumpster at the end of a dark lane in a grim public housing scheme. He knew it was the fate of the poor, the indigent. They lived the types of disorganised, chaotic lives that led to heavy drinking, promiscuity, crime, violence and a higher likelihood of murder. The facts couldn’t be denied. It didn’t mean she deserved any of it.