Heartbreaker (Brennan and Esposito Series) (3 page)
R
ain lashed down, incessant and hard, washing away the life from the city, draining the colour from the afternoon, turning daylight to premature dusk. It was borne on a chill wind that when it swirled and strengthened made the cold wet drops into razor-ice projectiles, reminding everyone, if they needed it, that summer was only a distant memory and autumn was on its last legs.
Not the best kind of day to be out for any length of time.
Not the best kind of day to discover a dead body.
Detective Inspector Phil Brennan of the West Midlands Major Incident Squad stood on Saturday Bridge in Birmingham, looking down on the nearly drained locks of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal from underneath an umbrella, waiting to be given the signal to approach. The two-tone crime-scene tape stretched across the footpath, demarcating where the normal world ended and the other world – the dangerous, murderous, tragic and brutal other world – started. Phil stood with his back to the tape. He had been here enough times. He knew which world was his.
The rain kept all but the most persistent rubberneckers away. The white plastic tent erected on the bank of the canal ensured that those who remained wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. Phil ignored the watchers, avoided eye contact and feigned deafness with the few reporters and TV crews who had braved the elements to chase a story. Shut out everything that was taking up valuable real estate inside his head, just concentrated on what was before him.
The hand holding the umbrella barely shook. That was something. His unshaven look could be explained away as fashionable stubble. His clothes, never very smart, might just look particularly shabby because of the rain. The sunken red eyes with the sleep-deprived black rings around them were harder to explain, though. He just hoped no one noticed. He sucked on an extra-strong mint, focused.
Even with the white tent erected, he knew that the chances of preserving the crime scene in the face of this whipping rain were, unless they were miraculously, religiously lucky, slim to none. But procedure had to be followed. He walked down the raised metal squares of the common approach path, stood at the entrance to the tent.
‘You ready for me yet?’ he called in to Jo Howe, a short, round, middle-aged woman and the leading crime-scene investigator.
Jo was kneeling on the ground, checking all around, careful not to touch the body in front of her. ‘I’ll call you when I’m ready. Get in the pub with the others,’ she said without looking up.
He wanted to say,
I just want to be doing something. I
need
to be doing something.
But didn’t. Instead he turned, walked away. Doing as she had suggested.
His wet jeans moulded themselves to his legs like a second skin, constricting his movement in the most unpleasant way possible as he walked back up to the bridge. His leather jacket kept out most of the water, but it still ran down his umbrella-holding hand and up his sleeve, down the back of his neck. He should change his clothes as soon as possible. Might get a cold or flu. Part of him didn’t care.
He pushed through the small crowd, dodged the media, crossed the road and made for the pub. The Shakespeare had been on the same spot in Summer Row for years. Victorian and resolutely old-fashioned, it maintained a sense of tradition beside the more fashionable bars and kitchens that had sprung up next to it.
Phil went inside, flashed his warrant card at the barman, who beamed back. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked.
Phil knew the type. Eager to get bragging rights for assisting the police and hoping that some of the glamour of a major investigation would rub off on him. Glamour.
Tell that to the dead person on the canal towpath
, thought Phil.
‘Coffee, please,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in the back room.’
They had temporarily taken over the pub. Uniforms, plain clothes and SOCOs gathered around, sheltering from the rain until the temporary incident unit arrived. Phil saw two members of his team, Detective Sergeant Ian Sperring and Detective Constable Imani Oliver, sitting silently at a table underneath a bust of Shakespeare. He went over to join them.
‘Heard somebody in here once asking if they were brothers,’ said Sperring, pointing to the bust above his head, then to an identical one on the other corner. ‘Shakespeare. Wondered if one did the writing and one did the, I dunno, acting or bookkeeping or something.’
‘And what did you tell them?’ asked Imani, a glint of humour in her eye.
Sperring shrugged. ‘Told them what they wanted to hear,’ he said, expression liked a closed fist.
There was no love lost between the two officers, but Phil had insisted that since they were part of his team, they had to work together. Detective Constable Nadish Khan, the other immediate member of the team, was away on a training course. Sperring, ten years older than Phil and many pounds heavier, was ensconced in the corner, his bulk at rest, looking like he was going nowhere. Imani, keen and alert, was on the stool opposite.
Phil had been settled in Colchester, happy with his position with Essex Police. But when events had taken a near-terminal turn for the worse, the area hadn’t seemed as welcoming, so he and Marina had decided on a change of scenery and picked Birmingham, the city of Marina’s birth, as a destination. It had taken Phil some time to be accepted by his team. And for him to accept them. But out of that animosity had evolved a way of working they could all accept. The team had even begun to respect Phil’s methods, even if they weren’t in a hurry to adopt them.
He took off his leather jacket, slung it over the padded chair and sat down beside them. The pub was warm. He could almost feel the steam rising off his soaking legs. The front of his plaid shirt was wet through, the T-shirt underneath likewise.
Phil never wore a suit for work. He dressed as he pleased. A combo of Red Wing boots, heavy Japanese selvedge denim, a Western shirt and a leather jacket was the nearest thing he had to a uniform. This approach had brought him into conflict with other officers over the years, most recently his own team. He believed that creativity in dress led to creativity and intuition when it came to the job. His views weren’t embraced, but he was tolerated. As long as he kept getting results.
‘They ready for us yet?’ asked Sperring, barely glancing up from the mug of industrial-strength tea he was stirring.
‘They’ll call us when they want us,’ replied Phil.
‘Why you been standing out in the rain?’ asked Sperring, looking up.
Phil looked at his junior officer. Sperring had been stabbed on a case a few months previously and it seemed to have aged him. Not that he would admit it; he had wanted to come back to front-line duties the first opportunity. Phil admired his tenacity.
‘Just… waiting,’ he said.
Sperring studied him, eyes unusually compassionate. About to say something else. Thinking better of it.
Phil’s coffee arrived. He thanked the barman, put his hand in his pocket.
‘On the house,’ the barman said.
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Table of Contents
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PART THREE: The Softest Bullet Ever Shot
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