Philip Brennan 03-Cage of Bones (5 page)

10

T
he antiseptic air in the corridor and the harsh overhead strip lighting felt warm and welcoming in contrast to the dismal darkness of the boy’s room. Judging from the way the other two women were unconsciously gulping in deep breaths, Marina reckoned they must have felt it too.

Marina had come straight away, as soon as Anni had hung up. No further appointments for a while, and the tone of Anni’s voice told her that this was not only urgent but important. More important than yet another assessment of whether some stroppy, self-deluded officer was fit to return to active duty.

Marina enjoyed working with Anni. She knew how hard it was to be a woman and have any success in the force, but to be a black woman in an area where there were hardly any took real determination. And Anni had plenty of that. But she was also bright enough not to let it show.

It was clear she was on Phil’s team. The denim jacket, cargo trousers and dyed blonde hair said that she had embraced the unorthodoxy and creativity he encouraged. From that had come confidence. But not arrogance. And that, Marina had discovered, was a rare trait in a police detective.

Phil’s team. When she thought about it, Marina reckoned she must be a part of that now. Especially as the police force was now her official employer.

Josephina, the daughter she and Phil Brennan shared, was approaching her first birthday. And, both of them being working professionals in fulfilling careers, they had agreed to share parenting duties equally. Feeding, cleaning, upbringing. They wouldn’t fall into outmoded patriarchal systems. They were a partnership; they would do things together.

It hadn’t lasted. Not because of any stubbornness or ideological need, but just because of circumstances. They had fallen into the pattern of most first-time parents. One working, one staying at home. Phil had kept working. He did his share but he still walked out the door in the morning, had something else in his life, could compartmentalise. Marina had tried, and found that she couldn’t. Work had been too demanding. So she had stayed at home with the baby. And she had begun to resent him for that.

So when the vacancy for an in-house criminal psychologist with the police force based in Colchester came up, she had jumped at the chance. She knew she could do this job. She had expected resistance or antagonism from Phil, put off telling him. She needn’t have worried. He was totally supportive, even gave her a reference. And when she was offered the job, he was the one who sorted out daily childcare for Josephina with his adoptive parents, Don and Eileen Brennan. They had been thrilled to have the baby with them.

So it was a winner all round. Marina and Phil kept both their careers and their relationship going, Don and Eileen felt involved and needed and Josephina got more than her share of attention. And evenings together felt, to Marina and to Phil too, she knew, even more special with just the three of them.

‘I’m a working mother with a career and a family,’ Marina had said to him, smiling. ‘I’m having it all, the
Daily Mail
’s worst nightmare. Worth doing just for that.’

Phil had laughed, agreed. Marina smiled at the memory.

Things were going well. Too well. This had never happened to her before. Something had to come along and spoil it. Something always did.

‘You OK?’ Anni’s voice.

Marina turned, blinked, pulled out of her reverie. Back to the corridor. ‘Yeah, fine. Just thinking.’

Anni turned to the doctor. ‘I brought Marina in because she’s a psychologist.’

‘And I think we’ll need you,’ said Dr Ubha.

‘I’m not a child psychologist, though,’ said Marina. ‘I’m with the police.’

Dr Ubha glanced at the closed door. ‘With what’s happened to that poor boy, I think we’ll need you anyway.’

‘I agree,’ said Anni. ‘You should be on the team for this one. Even if you can’t help with the boy himself, you can help find who put him there. You know what makes this kind of person tick.’

Marina nodded. Josephina’s smiling face came into her mind. She blinked it away. Swallowed hard. Concentrated. ‘What can I do?’

‘I need to start checking on missing children,’ said Anni. ‘Go at it that way. And check that, that … ’ she could barely bring herself to say the word, ‘that thing on his foot. See if there’s been anything similar anywhere else. If you can stay here and—’

A noise emanated from the boy’s room. A scream. The three women stared at each other.

‘He’s waking up,’ said Anni. ‘Come on.’

They ran back inside the room.

11

T
he white tent had already been erected at the side of the house. Keeping their findings safe and onlookers away. Phil began stripping off his blue suit. Mickey did likewise.

‘Like a personal sauna, these things,’ Mickey said. ‘Must lose half a stone every crime scene I come to.’

Phil gave a distracted smile in acknowledgement, checked his breathing. Fine. He looked up. The ambulances and Police Incident Units were parked at the top of the path, the area taped off, so the gawpers had gathered on the bridge. Peering over, necks craning. Trying for a glimpse of something dangerous or thrilling or exciting. A vicarious kick out of being close to violence but far enough away to be untouched by it. As though his work was some kind of sporting spectacle.

‘Like they’re watching TV,’ said Mickey, reading his mind.

‘Our audience,’ said Phil. ‘As though this is all a kind of showbiz.’ Then he thought of the cellar. Laid out like a stage set. The analogy didn’t feel appropriate any more.

‘Boss?’

Phil turned. The Birdies had arrived. DC Adrian Wren and DS Jane Gosling. Inevitably paired together because of their surnames. And their physical appearance didn’t help: Adrian stick thin, Jane much larger. They looked like a music-hall double act. But they were two of Phil’s best officers.

Phil called them over. ‘Adrian, Jane, good to see you both.’

They nodded their greetings.

‘Right,’ he said, addressing the group. ‘The CSIs are going to take over this area. Having been down there, I think we’ve got our work cut out for us.’

‘In what way?’ DS Jane Gosling frowned.

He explained what he had seen in the cellar. ‘We don’t know what kind of bones the cage is made from. Hopefully we will soon.’

‘Could they be human?’ asked DC Adrian Wren.

‘Don’t rule anything out,’ said Phil. ‘Not until we know for definite. But some of them have been there for years. And the way it was laid out, there’s a sense of ritual interrupted. Whoever’s responsible, it looks like he knew what he was doing. Chances are he’ll have done it before. So we need to know who owns the house, what sort of history it’s got, what hands it’s passed through, everything.’

‘Might be able to help there,’ said Mickey. He flipped through his notebook. ‘One of the two guys who called it in. Gave me the name of the demolition firm. George Byers. Based in New Town. They’ll know who owns the place. Might have had some dealings with them.’

‘Good place to start.’ Phil looked behind him at the big Georgian building. Faces were at windows, necks craning to see what was happening. ‘Before you do, find out what that place is. Who works there, what they do, if they saw anything or anyone going to and from this house. Someone must have seen something.’

Mickey, making notes, nodded again. So did Adrian.

Phil was still aware of being watched. He looked the other way. A concrete path, chipped, cracked and sprouting weeds, sided by a chain-link fence struggling to withstand an assault from the bushes, trees and weeds threatening to spill out over it. The path led past another dilapidated house. ‘What’s down there?’

‘Council allotments,’ said Mickey, following his gaze.

Phil looked again at the house on the opposite side of the path. Saw that it was in fact a small row of terraced houses, two-storey, in a terminal state of disrepair. The roofs were down to skeletal frames, the meat of tiles and fat of insulation starved off them. The windows and doors boarded up, the wood warped, aged down to grey. Gutters and drains rust-stained. The outside walls graffitied and tagged, filthy. And all around the terrace, weeds and vegetation making a bid for reclamation.

‘Jane, stay here. Co-ordinate with Forensics. Sorry, CSIs. Wouldn’t want to upset them.’

Thin smiles. Forensics had recently been rebranded as CSIs in line with the TV series. Made them feel more glamorous. On the outside at least.

‘Anni’s at the hospital with the kid. He’s still sleeping. No response. She’ll be looking into missing children, children’s homes, runaways.’

Another look round. The gawpers were still on the bridge. Nearby, but a world away. And Phil reckoned that deep down, they knew that. When they had seen enough they could walk away, taking the frisson of adventure back with them to their normal world. Plus a sense of thankfulness that what was happening down there wasn’t happening to them. But Phil couldn’t walk away.

And neither could the boy in the cellar.

‘I’ll check that house over there.’ He looked round his team. ‘We ready?’

They were.

‘Right. ‘Let’s go.’

Then Phil’s phone rang.

12

R
ose Martin swallowed hard. Then again. Felt that rush, that tingle of adrenalin, that she hadn’t experienced in months. This was where she belonged. Back. Working.

Since the call, everything had felt good. Right. She had pulled up to the Road Closed sign on Colchester Road just outside the village of Wakes Colne, holding her warrant card up to the windscreen, being allowed access where all other vehicles were being turned away. She felt that indescribable power that being above civilians gave her. She had missed it.

She pulled her car up to the crime-scene tape, flashing her warrant card again, silencing the nearest uniform’s entreaty to turn away. Just ducking under the tape, walking along the closed-off country road, her heels echoing, had been thrilling. The trees either side of the road seemed to bend in, beckoning her towards the crime scene.

She looked ahead. A 4x4 had ploughed into the banked up roadside, its left front side crumpled. Behind it, blue-suited CSIs stood and knelt in the road alongside uniforms. All attention directed downwards. She speeded up. Eager to rejoin her clan, immerse herself in that life once more. Lead them.

Then she stopped dead. Looked at them once more. Crouching. Kneeling. The body. There would be the body.

Her chest was gripped by a sudden fear; her arms began to shake. Her feet wouldn’t move forward. She wanted to turn, run back to her car, put herself on the other side of the tape once more. Forget about it. Hide herself away.

Marina was right. She had said this would happen.

Marina. Rose closed her eyes, controlled her breathing. Nothing that woman or her bastard boyfriend had to say was of any relevance to her. She would prove them wrong. Show them that she was strong enough to return, cool-headed and unafraid of anything the job could throw at her. She would show them.

The shaking subsided. Her breathing returned to normal. She flexed her fingers, regaining control of her body, willing it. Yes. She would show them.

She started walking again, the viaduct behind her, the leaves on the trees slowly moving, rubbing together, like jazz brushes over drum skins. She moved slowly at first, then with purpose. She reached the gathering of uniforms and blue suits. Held up her warrant card.

‘DS Martin,’ she said, slightly too loudly, ensuring they all saw her ID. She cleared her throat. ‘What have we got here?’

A plain-suited man she hadn’t spotted stood upright. He crossed towards her. ‘Hello, Rose,’ he said. ‘Good to see you.’ He stretched out his hand for her to shake. She took it.

Her superior officer. Acting DCI Brian Glass.

Glass offered her a smile. A small one, as if rationed. A quick flicker across his lips, then gone. Back to business.

She knew him by reputation. A no-nonsense, by-the-book copper. Always well turned out, but not flashily so. Respectably suited, as if he dressed for court or cameras. Hair short and tidy but not severe, greying at the temples. Methodical, diligent, got results by hard work. Straight-backed, well-built; his aftershave could have been Eau D’Alpha Male. Tanned, healthy-looking. Very tanned, in fact, thought Rose. Not just a copper’s copper, but a copper copper.

She smiled inwardly at that thought. Noticed his eyes make a quick detour to her breasts. Smiling inwardly once more, she pushed them further out in as unconscious a way as possible. She knew what her weapons were. Wasn’t above deploying them strategically.

Another smile flashed across his lips. Appreciative, this time. And in that instant Rose knew that this was her case. She could ask of him anything that she wanted. And get it. Because underneath that straight exterior, he was just another bloke.

She had him. Right where she wanted him. Maybe not immediately, but she could work on him. And that work wouldn’t go unrewarded.

Yes. This was going to be a good case.

13

P
hil walked away from the group, put his phone to his ear.

‘Phil? Just a quick call. About Josephina. Wondering what time you’ll be picking her up.’

He knew the voice straight away. Don Brennan, his adoptive father.

‘Hi, Don.’

Don Brennan picked up on the tone of Phil’s voice. ‘Sorry, you busy? This a bad time?’

Phil looked around. Orders given, his team were all moving away from him. He put his head down, covered the mouthpiece. ‘Kind of.’

Don’s voice changed immediately. ‘What’s happened?’

Don was an ex-copper. Responsible for Phil’s upbringing and for Phil’s career choice. He had also found it difficult to let go. Phil could understand that and tried to keep him informed as much as possible. When he could. He often joked with him, said that telling him about his day at work made him feel like the head of the CIA giving security briefings to a former US president.

Phil had suggested Don apply to work in the cold-case unit, but Don hadn’t been interested, said it wasn’t real police work, just an approximation of it. Something to appease the old-timers with. Give them a pat on the head and a sticker. Phil felt sure he would change his mind at some point.

Phil hesitated before speaking. He didn’t want to say too much about an ongoing investigation, but he also didn’t want to patronise the man he regarded as his father.

‘Someone been murdered?’

‘Wish it was that simple. I’m down on East Hill. We’ve found a child. It’s … not good.’

‘Abused?’

‘Probably. But alive. In the cellar of a house. In a cage.’ Phil expected Don to ask further questions but he was greeted with silence.

‘You there?’

‘Yes, yes … I’m still here. In a cage, you say?’ There was now no vestige whatsoever of the doting grandfather in Don’s voice. He was back in the day, back on the force. ‘What kind of cage?’

Again Phil hesitated before speaking. ‘It’s … bone. A cage made of bones.’

Phil heard nothing but the taut, static hum of silence.

‘Listen, Don, I’ll have to call you back later. Are you OK with Josephina for a while? I don’t know how long we’ll be with this.’

‘Yes, yes, fine … ’ Don sounded distracted. ‘You just … just call whenever.’

‘Will do.’ Phil looked at his watch, at the house by the allotments. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll give you a ring later, OK?’

Don said that was OK and Phil broke the connection.

His father had sounded strange, but Phil didn’t have time to dwell on that now. He looked at the house once more. Made his way towards it.