‘Birmingham.’ 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.’