by Steven Dunne
‘There’s an interesting bit of film on it. I checked and the same thing is also on YouTube and getting a lot of hits. You should take a look.’
‘I will.’
‘What time will you be—?’
But Brook had rung off and was already typing the web address into his computer. The Deity home page loaded. It was no longer under refurbishment. The background was in grey and black. Live Forever and the other slogans were there in large red lettering, just like the leaflet, but there were another couple of features. In one corner of the screen, a countdown was taking place. According to the clock there were another twenty-three hours and twenty minutes to go.
In the centre of the screen was a large black box with a Play button in the middle.
Brook looked at the interactive whiteboard on one wall of the Incident Room. ‘How do you get that screen working, John?’
Noble took a remote control from a slot at the side of the whiteboard and flicked at a button. He nodded at Brook who clicked on the website’s Play button. Morton and Cooper entered and turned to look at the brightening screen, unbidden.
A disembodied female voice spoke over the black background.
‘What we see and what we seem
Is but a dream, a dream within a dream.’
Gradually the picture became clearer. It was night. The date on the display was 19 May – the night before the party. The person filming was elevated and a little distance away, but zoomed in almost immediately to show four burly young men surrounding another young man of slighter build.
Brook glanced at the photographs on the boards. Despite the distance, despite the less than ideal lighting, Brook was convinced that the slender young man being surrounded was Kyle Kennedy. For the next few minutes, the four stocky lads cajoled, pushed and slapped Kyle from one to the other. The sound quality wasn’t the best but Brook and his team could clearly hear the laughing and jeering. One young man in particular seemed to be leading the assault. He was chunky to the point of being overweight with cropped hair and a malicious laugh.
‘We’re not going to witness a murder, I hope,’ said Morton. Chief Superintendent Charlton entered with a cup and was about to speak when Brook held up a hand and pointed to the screen.
At that moment, another teenager, taller than the others with an athletic frame, walked into shot. The assault stopped.
‘That’s Jake McKenzie,’ said Brook, without taking his eyes from the action. ‘He was at the college today.’
Kyle walked towards Jake. An exchange took place but a minute later, Kyle walked back to his tormentors. The ringleader swung a heavy punch and Kyle fell. The aggressors left, giving Jake a wide berth. Then McKenzie ran to minister to the prostrate figure and, shortly after, Kyle seemed to revive but then ran off, screaming.
The film ended and the screen blackened.
‘What was that?’ asked Charlton.
‘A serious assault on one of our missing students, sir,’ said Brook. ‘Broadcast on deity.com, which is a website address on a leaflet.’ He gestured to a copy beneath the photographs on the display. ‘We have four copies of that leaflet; one each found in the bedrooms of the four missing Derby College students.’
‘Four?’
‘Yes, sir. I think the lad getting beaten up is Kyle Kennedy, the first one to be reported missing. From the date on the film, it’s clear this was the night before he disappeared. His mother told us she saw him go out at nine that night, but he came back late and ran straight to his room without her seeing him. Now we can understand why.’
‘And after this party she found a small bloodstain on a plaster,’ said Noble. ‘The lab’s working up the DNA.’
‘From this film it likely belongs to this …’ Charlton gestured towards the whiteboard.
‘Kyle Kennedy,’ obliged Brook.
‘Right. Let me see it from the start. And make a recording for the boffins to enhance.’
Brook clicked the Play button again and raised a surreptitious eyebrow to Noble, who forced himself not to smile. Make a copy? We’d never have thought of that.
When the film finished for the second time, Charlton rubbed his chin to signal he was in detection mode. ‘A dream within a dream. What’s that from – The Tempest?’
Brook was impressed. ‘That’s not a bad guess, sir. But in fact it’s from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.’
Charlton nodded as though recognising it. ‘What do we make of the film? Genuine?’
‘It’s very well acted, if not.’
Charlton was suddenly animated. ‘You won’t be showing that at the press conference, will you?’
‘No. We’ve only just seen it ourselves. That doesn’t mean the public won’t have seen it – my daughter says it’s on YouTube as well, so no telling how quickly it’s spreading. But you’re right; we’ll need more background before we can pass it on officially.’
‘Agreed.’ Charlton looked at his watch. ‘I’ve obviously arrived back just in time.’ Book and Noble resisted glancing at each other this time. ‘Can we get that off YouTube?’ he asked, looking at the screen.
‘I would think so,’ said Cooper, ‘but there’s no telling how many people have linked it and spread it around. It could still go viral as an email attachment or a Screencast on Twitter.’ Charlton nodded sagely as if he knew what Cooper was talking about. ‘Press briefing at six o’clock, you said, Sergeant. I’ll take the lead.’ He smiled pointedly at Brook. ‘If that’s okay with you, Inspector.’
‘It’s fine,’ answered Brook. Charlton wasn’t about to start trusting him in front of the press again, in spite of the conciliatory tone of their last conversation.
‘You’d better bring me up to speed,’ said Charlton.
Brook looked over at Noble, who moved to the photo display. ‘We have four Derby College students – Kyle Kennedy, Becky Blake, Adele Watson and now Russell Thomson – missing after attending a party for Kennedy’s eighteenth birthday last Friday night. It was apparently a small gathering, not your usual loud music and screaming minidramas. Kennedy’s mother, Alice, and her friend, Len Poole, had gone to Chester for the weekend. When they returned on Sunday morning, they found this leaflet on Kyle’s bed.’ Noble held up the Deity leaflet. ‘This is a copy. The originals are being fingerprinted. On top of the leaflet was Kyle’s mobile phone. The SIM card had been removed. His room was tidy and the bed hadn’t been slept in. Similar sights greeted the parents of the other three students at whatever time they eventually became concerned about their child’s whereabouts. Russell Thomson was the last to be reported missing this morning, so we haven’t processed his laptop yet but the SIM card was also missing from his mobile.’
‘Six days. Long time,’ observed Morton.
‘It is,’ said Brook. ‘But Miss Thomson works nights so it’s easy to see how Russell wasn’t missed. Besides, all four teenagers are bright, apparently responsible and self-sufficient. They had their own house key to come and go as they pleased.’
‘We’ve checked the laptops of Kyle Kennedy and Becky Blake,’ said DC Cooper. ‘They’ve been completely wiped.’
‘They deleted all their files?’ said Morton.
‘If they’d just done that, Rob, we could’ve recovered everything from the hard drive, but the hard drives have been professionally emptied of everything but the software.’
‘Would the students possess that knowledge?’ asked Charlton.
‘It’s not so hard,’ answered Cooper. ‘Kids grow up at a keyboard these days. They know how to do everything.’
‘The other two had laptops, you say?’ asked Morton.
‘The technicians are picking up Thomson’s today but there’s no reason to think it would be different. However, Adele Watson’s laptop is missing,’ said Brook. ‘She is said to be a talented writer and poet but her writing books are missing as well.’
‘So she took them with her?’
‘It’s possible. We also think it’s possible Adele’s father may have hidden her lapto
p as well as her writing,’ added Noble.
‘Why?’ asked Charlton.
‘We’re not sure,’ said Brook. ‘We’ve been told she was scared of him and we think maybe she’s been writing about her relationship with her father.’
‘Relationship?’ asked Morton. ‘You mean sexual?’
‘Not definitely. It was just a vibe we picked up,’ replied Noble. ‘But if there was something untoward, it would be natural for Watson to want to destroy any thoughts she might have committed to paper or computer – or at least hide them away until he’s had a chance to sanitise. This is only speculation at this point, sir, but Watson was the only parent who gave us that feeling.’
‘But why take her laptop if her hard drive has been wiped?’ said Cooper.
‘If he didn’t wipe it, he won’t know.’
‘Did you check Social Services and the SO Register?’ said Charlton.
‘No sex offenders in the area and no social-work hits on the Watson family,’ answered Noble.
‘But you got a vibe off him,’ repeated Charlton.
‘Adele’s was the only bed that was messed up and the phone moved – we think, by Watson, maybe to lie down in her room, who knows?’
‘To masturbate, you think,’ said Charlton.
Brook and Noble exchanged a glance and shrugged noncommittally.
‘It sounds a bit thin,’ continued Charlton.
‘It wasn’t just that,’ said Brook. ‘Watson tried to steer us away from Adele’s boyfriend when most normal fathers would be doing the opposite.’
‘Do you need a warrant?’
‘We’ve got one,’ replied Brook. ‘We’ll execute after the press briefing.’
Charlton nodded. ‘Okay, but tread lightly. A missing daughter buys a lot of sympathy and the press may descend in numbers after they’ve been briefed. What about the college?’
‘It’s the last day before half-term tomorrow so we flood it with bodies, question everyone we can,’ said Brook. ‘Hopefully tonight’s press conference will shake something loose. Someone must know something.’
‘What about neighbours around the Kennedy house?’
‘We’re putting a canvass together. Not much to see or hear apparently,’ answered Noble. ‘We’re still following up but an appeal through the media might help.’
‘Other party-goers?’
‘As far as we know, only the missing four and Jake, the lad in the film, were invited. He went to the Kennedy house but says he didn’t go in. No idea why – yet.’
Charlton looked at his watch again – an hour to the press conference. ‘So where are they? They can’t just disappear into thin air, not all four of them, abducted without a struggle or a witness.’
‘We agree,’ said Brook. ‘They left of their own accord. They each packed a small rucksack with a few clothes. They each made their bed, took apart their mobile phone, removed the SIM card and placed the phone on the Deity leaflet, on the bed. It’s a statement.’
‘That tells us what?’ asked Charlton.
‘That they’ve decided to leave,’ said Brook.
‘Why?’
‘Why do teenagers do anything? Each of them, in their different way, is unhappy. Adele is having problems with her boyfriend and father, Kyle is gay and confused and Becky has had her dreams of being a model shattered.’
‘And Russell Thomson?’
‘Not sure,’ admitted Brook. ‘But there are rumours he’s been bullied in the past. We’re checking. Either way the artefacts send a message. They’re leaving their lives behind. No computer to email them, no phone to contact them or trace their whereabouts. We’ve applied to their providers for a record of their email and mobile usage before they disappeared but that’s still in the pipeline. DC Cooper was checking their online presence …’
‘They don’t have one,’ said Cooper. ‘They’re not on Twitter except for Adele, and she hasn’t tweeted for several weeks.’
‘What’s the content?’ asked Brook.
‘I’ve done a printout for the board but it’s all activist nonsense about the environment, the dangers of nuclear weapons, that sort of thing.’
‘Wanting to breathe clean air and avoid vaporisation,’ said Brook, with a sideways glance at Cooper. ‘What a weirdo.’
‘Emails?’ asked Noble, trying not to smile at Cooper’s discomfort.
‘Nothing,’ answered Cooper stiffly. ‘Wherever they are, they haven’t sent an email using any account their parents told us about since last Friday. And any record of their emails before then, has been wiped from their computers. Not only that, they haven’t even left a message on Facebook because I checked. All four of them unsubscribed on the day of the party.’
‘Wow,’ said Morton.
‘Wow is right,’ said Cooper. ‘My kids would rather lose an arm than their Facebook presence. However, there’s already a Facebook page dedicated to their disappearance. It was started by a Fern Stretton and I’m keeping an eye on it in case anything useful crops up. Also I’m keeping tabs on the comments on YouTube. You never know. No chat on Twitter yet.’
‘Okay, I’ll ask again,’ said Charlton. ‘Where are they?’
Brook looked him in the eye. ‘At the risk of stating the obvious, we don’t know. In fact, we don’t know anything about their movements after the party. That’s our starting-point. I rang Alice Kennedy earlier today to ask her to leave the house and touch nothing else. If the four don’t come forward in the hours after the press conference, we’re going to need SOCO to go over the whole place as well as each student’s bedroom.’
‘Are there any facts I can use at the press conference?’ asked Charlton, starting to become frustrated.
‘Becky and Adele both had passports from recent foreign holidays,’ said Noble. ‘However, Kyle Kennedy has never left the country and according to his mum, didn’t have a passport. But she was wrong. He applied for a passport three months ago. I got on to the Passport Service this morning when we found out Russell Thomson was also missing. Thomson applied for a passport at the same time as Kyle. The interesting thing is, the same person endorsed the back of their photographs …’
‘Let me guess,’ said Brook, deep in thought. ‘Adam Rifkind.’
Noble smiled. ‘How did you know?’
‘I met Rifkind this morning. He’s a lecturer at Derby College. He teaches English Literature and Media Studies to all four. He’s the perfect choice to endorse a passport application. And there’s one more thing. He’s Adele Watson’s ex-boyfriend.’
‘That’s not all,’ said Cooper, rifling through his notebook. ‘You asked me to track down the Deity website.’ He found the right page in his notes. ‘The domain name was registered and paid for by Adam Rifkind.’
‘How did he pay for it?’
‘Credit card, six months ago,’ answered Cooper.
‘Six months?’ said Brook, mildly surprised.
‘So we have a suspect,’ said Charlton. ‘And he’s been planning this for a long time.’
‘Planning what?’ said Brook. ‘Persuading four young adults to walk away from their unhappy lives? There’s no crime in that.’
‘What about the happy slapping?’ insisted Charlton.
‘He wasn’t involved in that.’
‘Somebody filmed it and it’s on his website,’ said Cooper.
‘Russell Thomson filmed it. Or that’s what we’re meant to believe.’
‘How do you know Thomson filmed it?’ asked Charlton.
‘I didn’t say that, I said we’re meant to think he filmed it because he’s a film nut and because he recently acquired a camcorder from his mother. And according to Miss Thomson, the camcorder is never off his wrist,’ added Brook. ‘He wanders the streets filming whatever takes his fancy so the broadcast we saw could be a product of that.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Charlton.
‘You think someone’s yanking our chain?’ said Noble.
Brook grimaced at the metaphor. ‘I’m sure o
f it. But I prefer, What we see and what we seem is but a dream. These kids are smart, sir. They’ve disappeared without a trace. That takes some doing.’ He looked at Charlton. ‘I think we’re being challenged, presented with an alternative reality. We have to question what we see, who people are.’
‘You’re not making sense,’ said Charlton impatiently.
‘The Edgar Allan Poe poem you just heard quoted on the website was also used in a film called Picnic at Hanging Rock.’ Brook held up one of the DVDs and tossed the other to Noble. ‘Adele, Becky, Kyle and Russell watched it last Thursday.’
‘The day before they disappeared.’
‘Right. And when we looked through Adele’s bedroom, she had the anthology of Poe’s poems opened at the same poem. She’d written Miranda in the margin.’
‘Who’s Miranda?’
‘She’s a character in the film. She disappears with her friends.’ Brook looked around at all the furrowed brows. ‘Exactly. Sergeant Noble and I will be watching it tonight. Anyone else who hasn’t seen it should do so after us.’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ asked Charlton. His voice had been rising steadily. ‘I can’t start waffling about some old film to the press.’
‘We don’t know what’s going on because we’re not supposed to,’ said Brook softly. ‘They’ve created an enigma for us and we have to find them to understand it.’
‘I don’t get it. You mean this Rifkind …’
‘Rifkind’s a fall guy. He’s not the brains behind this.’
‘Then who is?’ demanded Charlton.
Brook turned to look at the photo array. He gazed into the dark passionate eyes peering out from under a heavy fringe. ‘My money would be on Adele Watson. She’s the writer. She’s the one with the imagination. She’s also the one with access to Rifkind’s wallet and credit cards while they were seeing each other.’
‘Wouldn’t Rifkind spot if he’s paid for a website he knows nothing about?’ objected Noble.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Brook. ‘How much was it?’
‘Ninety-nine pounds for the year,’ replied Cooper.
‘I don’t go through every item on my credit-card bill,’ conceded Morton. ‘As long as the total looks right and no one’s bought a bunch of computers in Rawalpindi.’