The Doll's House (2 page)

‘
J
esus Christ, is she… smiling? Just what we want before Christmas.'

The lead forensic scene investigator's voice carried from the middle of the living room to the hallway. Detective Inspector Phil Brennan made to move inside. An arm thrust across his body, restraining him.

‘Not yet,' said the voice attached to the arm. ‘Maybe you do things differently out in the sticks, but we follow the rules here.' Then a cough. ‘Sir.'

Phil looked at the speaker, aware that other eyes, down the hall, were on him too. Detective Sergeant Ian Sperring carried an extra ten years and an extra twenty-odd pounds compared to Phil. Plus an open dislike of authority, especially when it came in the shape of a younger superior officer from outside the area.

Well this is working out
, thought Phil, the note of sarcasm directed towards himself. He wondered whether to say anything, to give DS Sperring a reminder, gentle or otherwise, about who was in charge of the case and respecting the chain of command. Decided against it. They were working. They needed their energies for the job in hand.

But it wouldn't be forgotten. Just dealt with later.

The two men wore regulation hooded blue paper suits and booties, second-skin latex gloves. Despite the December cold, Sperring was red-faced and sweating in his. They were both impatient to be allowed in. Phil craned his neck round the door frame again. Just the glimpse of what he saw both stunned and sickened him.

‘Call me when you're ready,' he said, turning and heading outside.

A white tent had been erected around the doorway, lit from inside. Blue plastic sheets had been staked and placed to stop onlookers and news crews peering in. Beyond that, yellow and black tape marked the perimeter of the ordinary world

The location wasn't important. No matter where he went, it was always the same. When a murder was committed, it opened a doorway from the ordinary world to the nightmare world. And those doorways could appear, he had discovered throughout his career, anywhere and everywhere.

The house was cold enough, but outside was freezing, the Birmingham winter being particularly harsh.

Birmingham. Of all places. Phil had never imagined he would end up working here.

 

It was eight months since a deliberate explosion had killed Phil's father and almost killed his mother and himself. Eight months since he had come out of a coma. Eight months since his daughter's abduction and his wife's fight to get her back. Eight months. A long time to think about where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do with his life.

But still. Birmingham.

‘You know, maybe we should get away for a bit,' Marina, his criminal psychologist wife, had said one night in July as they sat on a bench outside the Rose and Crown pub in Wivenhoe. They were squeezing what they could out of the brief summer. Phil was, uncharacteristically, wearing a baseball cap, as his scars were still a little vivid, his hair not yet grown enough to cover them. Their young daughter, Josephina, was with her grandmother for the evening. They had both decided they needed to talk.

Three months had passed by then. Their wounds, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, had been patched up but were still fragile. Sudden, unexpected movements could and did split them open again.

At first they hadn't talked about what had happened, not in depth. They hadn't been able to articulate it; like soldiers sharing a horror of surviving war, the experience had shell-shocked them into silence. But gradually, over time, that had changed. They needed to do it and had found a way. To Phil and Marina it was like learning a new language; different and unfamiliar, yet evolving into forms expressing and communicating hurt, loss, rage and guilt.

Once they had reached that stage, they had both received counselling, separately and together. Just as they had learned how to talk and communicate once more, now they relearned how to walk, readying themselves to move on. But recently Marina had been distracted, like something else was on her mind, something she couldn't discuss with him. And now, first asking Eileen to look after Josephina, she had decided they should go to the pub to talk. Phil, with some trepidation but no choice, had gone along with her.

‘A holiday,' he had replied, somewhat relieved. ‘Good idea.' That was what she had been up to, he reasoned. Booking a holiday. Keeping it from him as a surprise. Yes. That must be it.

‘Yeah…' Marina put down her gin and tonic, leaned across the trestle towards him. The lowering sun made a golden halo around her mass of dark curls. Phil never tired of seeing that. Hoped he never would. ‘That would be good. Help with your convalescence and all that. But I was thinking something a bit more… long term.'

Phil shuddered inside.
She's leaving me. Next she'll tell me that she can't look at my face without being reminded of what happened.
He said nothing. Waited for her to continue.

‘You gave me the idea,' she said.

Phil frowned. ‘Me?'

‘Yeah,' she said. ‘You said you were dreading going back. Walking into the office, the whole team staring at you, wondering how damaged you were, whether you were still up to it.'

The halo around Marina's head disappeared, the sun hidden by a cloud. ‘Let's not —'

‘You said so yourself. Even told that police counsellor you were sent to.' There was an undercurrent to that statement – clearly Marina thought the job should have been hers. She continued. ‘How everything around here reminded you of what had happened, and that you couldn't shake it off.'

Phil said nothing. There was nothing there he could disagree with.

Marina sat back, drank. The alcohol gave her the courage to speak her mind. ‘It was the same for me. You know that. Worse in a way – I haven't got a job to go back to. I can't rejoin the police as a psychologist, DCI Franks made that perfectly clear.'

‘What about Essex? I thought the university would have you back. Jump at the chance, your old mate there said.'

She shrugged, her face in shadow. ‘Yeah, well, my old mate doesn't hire and fire. And the ones that do, well… maybe they thought that after everything that's happened, the notoriety, having me there, my name, might attract the wrong kind of student.'

‘They tell you that?'

‘Not in so many words. Just in the spaces between the words.' She looked around at the harbour, the pub, the people as if she wouldn't see any of it again. Or not for a long time. ‘Still, they're not the only university in the country… I've been headhunted.'

Things fell into place for Phil then. He felt relief at understanding, apprehension at what she was about to say next. ‘Where?'

Marina paused before speaking. ‘First, I should say it's a good job. Very good. Good money, level seven. Lecturing in psychology. Senior position.'

‘Where?'

‘Birmingham.'

Phil stared at her. ‘Birmingham? But —'

‘Yeah, I know. I said I'd never go back after the childhood I had there. But everything's changed. I've changed. And none of my family are left there now. Thank God.'

‘But Birmingham…'

‘It's like a new city now. Hardly anything left of the old one. A good place to make a fresh start.'

Phil paused before speaking. ‘With me?'

She reached across the table, took his hand in hers. ‘Of course. I wouldn't want to go without you. Or Josephina. We're a family. A team.' She smiled. ‘So what d'you say?'

‘This would be permanent?'

‘A year. At least. Probationary period. Just so they can be sure that, you know, my name doesn't attract the wrong kind of student.'

‘What about me?'

‘Get a transfer. A secondment.'

Phil stared at her. ‘And end up in Ops or Traffic or plain clothes or something? Or stuck in the office, desk-jockeying. I'd want to go into Major Crimes. Front-line work. It's what I'm good at. What I know. What I am.'

‘Well, with your arrest rate and commendations it shouldn't be too difficult. Think about it.'

He did.

And surprisingly, it wasn't.

‘
B
irmingham.' Standing on the doorstep in the cold night air, saying it aloud, still didn't make it any more real. ‘Birmingham.'

‘Ready when you are, DI Brennan. Boss.'

Phil turned at Sperring's voice. The DS had caught him talking to himself and was staring at him, thoughts of a less than complimentary nature behind his eyes.

Phil felt himself reddening. ‘Just reminding myself where I am, DS Sperring.' Once he'd spoken, he felt angry with himself. Despite his age, Sperring was a junior officer. Phil didn't need to explain his actions to him.

‘Whatever works for you, sir.' Sperring, face passive but clearly unimpressed, turned and went back into the house.

Phil turned to follow and stopped. He became aware of his breathing, listened to his body for pain, tightness. He had always suffered from panic attacks, even before the explosion. A lot of police at his level did – more than would let on, he had discovered. It went with the job. When they hit they were excruciating and debilitating. And back on front-line duties, in charge of what looked to be a major homicide, heading up a team that didn't know him and, if Sperring was anything to go by, didn't trust him, this would be the perfect time to get one.

He hesitated, breathed deeply, told himself everything was OK. His occupational therapy had been good and his psychological tests had been solid and consistent. He had been given a clean bill of health. He was fine, fit. Ready to go. His physical scars would heal. His stomach lurched.

It was the mental ones he worried about. How much had the explosion, the coma really taken out of him? What was still buried inside? What had he forcibly contained within himself in order to return to work?

There was only one way to find out.

Checking his chest for those familiar tightening bands and finding none, he looked at his hands. They weren't trembling too much.

I'm ready
, he told himself.

Ready to push everything else to the side: the pain, the uncertainty of the previous few months, the horror of the months before that. Operations. Convalescence. Doubt. Cruel doubt, building from nagging to consuming to outright fear: that he would ever be whole again, fully functioning as a man, a husband, a father. That he could ever come back to work, ever regain the respect of a team, ever be as good as he had previously been.

Yes
, he said.
I'm ready
.

Ready to step into that nightmare world once more. To take control. Listen to the ghosts, honour the dead.

Ready.

He hoped.

He stepped inside.

 

The hallway seemed even brighter after the dark outside. Squinting, he reached the living room. ‘What's the state of play?'

Detective Constable Nadish Khan, standing beside Sperring in the doorway, turned to him. Short and sharp, with enough cockiness and self-composure to power a small town. He flicked a thumb inside. ‘You seen that film
Seven
?' he asked.

‘Yes,' said Phil, slightly confused.

‘Proper old-school stuff. But good, you know? Brad Pitt. That old black guy who always plays the clever one.'

‘Morgan Freeman,' said Phil. He gestured to the corpse. ‘What's that got to do with…'

‘Well, you know how they did it, so you got these proper horrific crime scenes, but you only get glimpses of them, you know; someone's standing in the way, that kind of thing? And it leaves you to put the rest together in your head?'

‘Yes…'

‘And you know how your imagination works, how what's in your head is worse than what's actually there?'

‘Yeah…'

‘I've just seen glimpses. And I hope it's my imagination.'

‘That bad.'

Khan nodded. ‘Pretty much.'

‘Joy,' said Phil.

‘Anyway,' continued Khan, ‘Jo Howe's just finishing up.'

Phil peeked in. Jo Howe was the leading forensic scene investigator. A short, round, middle-aged woman. She was just straightening up from the body. Phil glimpsed the corpse behind her. Cold, rigid. He saw blonde hair, a pink party dress, like a child's idea of what an adult would wear. Howe moved in his way again and his glimpse was gone.

She shook her head. ‘God…'

‘You ready for us yet?' Phil called.

‘Thought I was. Just one second…'

Phil looked down the corridor, out into the night, back to the living room. He shivered. The house seemed about as cold as it was outside.

It was an ordinary house in an ordinary boxy housing estate just off the Pershore Road on the fringes of Edgbaston. Built fairly recently, gated, and at odds with the larger, older Edwardian houses it was nestling between, the estate seemed to have won a competition for how many tiny houses could be squeezed into as small a space as possible.

‘Who called it in?' Phil asked Khan.

‘Community support officer,' the DC replied. ‘Neighbour reported that the house had its lights on day and night, and no one ever went in or out.'

‘Very civic-minded.'

‘Gated community, innit? Thought something must be up.' Khan smiled. ‘Neighbour said they'd seen a thing about cannabis farms on the telly. Thought it was one of them. Thank God for public vigilance, yeah?'

Phil nodded. Khan's accent – young, street yet Brummie-inflected – took some getting used to. ‘Yeah. In this case, anyway. Who owns the house?'

‘Rented,' said Sperring, hearing the conversation and crossing to them. ‘A letting agency operating just off Hurst Street. City Lets.'

‘We know who the tenant is?'

‘Glenn McGowan. Moved in a couple of weeks ago. Short-term let. They had no one over Christmas so they let him take it. Said he wouldn't want it for long.'

Phil gave a puzzled frown. ‘How d'you know all this?'

Sperring's face was impassive. ‘Phoned the agency before I came here and remembered the conversation.' His voice matched his face. ‘I'm police. It's what we do.'

Khan, Phil noticed, looked slightly uncomfortable at Sperring's words. Phil weighed up whether to challenge him or not. He decided this wasn't the right time. Concentrate on the investigation.

‘Glenn McGowan. What do we know about him? Anybody contacted him yet?'

‘Not yet,' said Sperring. ‘We're looking into it. He seems to have done a runner.'

Phil looked into the living room. ‘Don't blame him.'

Jo Howe gave the all-clear. Phil stepped into the room. ‘Come on,' he said. Sperring and Khan followed him.

‘I'm Phil Brennan, by the way,' he said to Jo Howe. ‘New DI with the Major Investigation Unit. SIO on this case.'

He was sure he heard a disparaging remark from Sperring's direction.

Jo Howe introduced herself. ‘What a lovely way to meet.' She was small, cherubic, with a face more suited to smiling than frowning. She wasn't doing much smiling at the moment.

‘So,' he said, ‘what have we got here?'

She stepped back.

‘Look for yourself.'