Deity

by Steven Dunne

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Cooper stood up. ‘We’ve made a start on Fern Stretton’s computer to see if she’s got any pictures or messages.’

  ‘Fern who?’ asked Charlton, with a heavy sigh.

  ‘Best friend of Becky Blake and the girl who started the Facebook memorial site, dedicated to the disappearances,’ answered Cooper. ‘Lots of chit-chat with Becky, going back a year or more, but nothing of interest yet. No messages from Russell, Kyle or Adele. Various other Friends have tagged photos of our missing students and I’ve put a hard copy of them all on display. Nothing untoward that I could see, just the usual posing and gurning.’

  Charlton stood up from the table. ‘Weren’t we searching the fields behind the Kennedy house?’

  ‘We had fifty uniformed officers all over that area. Nothing,’ said Noble, tightlipped. ‘And cameras on the A38 drew a blank. We still don’t know how they left the estate.’

  Charlton surveyed the room with barely concealed frustration. ‘So what are we doing now?’

  ‘We’re doing what everybody else is doing,’ answered Brook. ‘Waiting for the next broadcast.’

  ‘And if it shows the film of Wilson jumping into the river, we’re going to have a media storm on our hands,’ snapped Charlton. He began to pace about. ‘We have to be seen to be doing something.’

  ‘The next broadcast—’ began Brook.

  ‘The next broadcast, the next broadcast!’ Charlton shouted now. ‘So we’re going through the motions waiting for four eighteen-year-old college kids to spoonfeed us clues, is that what you’re saying?’ He looked round at the wary faces, all trying to avoid his eye. ‘If that’s all we have to say at tonight’s press briefing, Inspector, then you’re the one who’s going to be saying it.’ Charlton’s finger jabbed at Brook. ‘No sick-notes this time.’

  Brook nodded. A second later he broke the silence. ‘There is one thing. It may be a bit of a tangent but we’ve discovered a link between Russell Thomson’s mother and Len Poole, Kyle Kennedy’s future stepfather. It’s a bit delicate because Poole has connections to this Division.’

  ‘The expathologist.’ Charlton nodded.

  ‘Yes, sir. They’re both from North Wales and we think they once had a relationship. Russell might even be Len’s son.’

  Charlton smiled sarcastically. ‘And you want to trot off to Wales to follow it up. If you can’t stand the heat—’ He stopped in mid-sentence. He’d gone too far and he knew it at once. Never in front of the troops. Never. Turning valid criticism into humiliation was a recipe for disaster. ‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled-for.’

  All eyes turned to Brook. After a second he smiled. ‘Forget it, sir. We’re all under a lot of pressure. Let’s take a break before our next spoonfeeding.’ There was a ripple of nervous laughter around the room and even Charlton managed a toothless smile as he hurried from the Incident Room.

  Noble pulled out his cigarettes and sidled up to Brook. ‘Coming outside for a quick one while Charlton changes his underpants?’

  Brook shook his head. ‘Go easy on him, John. It took a lot of guts to apologise to a serial failure like me.’

  ‘You’re mellowing in your old age.’

  Brook raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Late middle,’ conceded Noble from the door.

  Brook watched his nicotine dealer leave and resisted the urge to follow. The countdown stood at nine minutes. He strolled over to the new photo array and examined the pictures from Fern’s Facebook site. Naturally enough most of the pictures were of Becky – she was Fern’s best friend and an aspiring model, after all. Some of the pictures he recognised from the glossy pile torn from her wall and hidden under her bed. All of them showed the blond-haired student striking the regulation poses to be seen in every Sunday supplement.

  Kyle and Adele were less well represented, being mainly tagged in group shots. Kyle seemed naturally shy in most of the pictures but what few there were of Adele showed her confident and staring defiantly at the camera. The dearth of pictures of Adele showed she didn’t thirst for attention like most aimless young people.

  There was only one shot of Russell Thomson, though it was hard to tell it was him; one half of his face was covered by his camcorder as he filmed himself in his bedroom mirror. Brook looked closely at what detail was visible – his lank, dark brown hair, his pallid skin and shaving rash. His hands were long and artistic and the one eye not covered by the camcorder was squinting to allow the other eye to see through the lens.

  Brook glanced across at the only other recent photograph of Russell they’d tracked down – a headshot, the one taken for his Derby College entry pass and the same one he’d also used for his passport application three months earlier. His bland features were partially covered by his unkempt hair as though Russell wanted to hide as much of his face as he could, despite the use to which the image would be put.

  Something about the Facebook picture struck Brook as interesting but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then he looked again at the hands. They hung out of a long-sleeved sweatshirt, only the fingers visible. He thought of Terri and her scars. Could Russell be hiding similar scars from a suicide attempt? He’d certainly had a troubled life, by all accounts. But he was eighteen now, on the cusp of leaving fulltime education, the trauma of school bullying behind him. Surely if he was going to enter into some kind of suicide pact, it would have happened before now. Then again, he could say the same for the others.

  He looked either side of the squinting Russell’s head and narrowed his own eyes to see clearly. There was something in the background. DC Cooper returned to the Incident Room with three cups of tea.

  ‘Can we get this photograph enlarged? Here and here,’ added Brook, circling two areas with a pen.

  ‘No problem,’ said Cooper.

  The room began to fill up again for the broadcast. Noble approached, reeking of the sweet perfume of tobacco.

  ‘Don’t you get bored being right all the time?’ said Noble. Brook raised an eyebrow. ‘Poole was waiting downstairs to have a word with you. I put him in Interview Two.’

  Charlton returned with a coffee and took his usual table at the back without looking up at Brook. He dangled his legs a foot above the floor and sipped quietly on his cup to wash down the humble pie.

  Noble extinguished the lights. A few seconds later the Deity homepage appeared. The countdown was at fifteen seconds.

  At zero, a soft and melodic piece of choral music began to play, all weeping violins and lamenting voices. It sounded like some sort of Requiem to Brook but he knew it wasn’t Mozart – that particular piece of music was seared on his memory from his struggles with The Reaper. However, the churchgoing Charlton nodded in recognition. Brook heard him mutter, ‘Verdi.’

  Meanwhile the small video screen opened with the front page of a newspaper. Cooper maximised the screen. The South Wales Argus, dated December 2007, sported the headline: 17th teenager takes life. Beside the headline was a grainy picture of the doomed teenager, perhaps a few years younger, smiling happily for the camera next to a birthday cake – a poignant image never intended for use outside the family album.

  Before the assembled officers could read the story, the picture changed. Another newspaper, another young person ending her suffering – BULLIED GIRL TAKES OVERDOSE. This time the local paper was in London. And so it continued. GIRL JUMPS TO HER DEATH AFTER LOVER’S TIFF in Surrey. JOBLESS TEENAGER FALLS UNDER TRAIN in Yorkshire. UNKNOWN BOY HANGS HIMSELF in Denbighshire. This last was accompanied by a picture of a youngster hanging, neck snapped, from the end of a rope.

  The sequence and the music ended and the film began. Brook had been right. It was the footage of Wilson Woodrow’s suicide, taken by the mysterious figure in the bushes. The doomed Wilson was framed against the river wall with the Council House building in the background. He grunted and turned away from the river, puffing towards the camera. A murmur of surprise ra
n through the Incident Room. They had sound.

  Wilson approached the bushes, walking unsteadily, the camera following his movement as he looked furtively on the ground for large stones. He bent down to pick one up and tottered back with it towards the river wall and returned for more. Then they heard it. The words were slurred and scattered between Wilson’s grunts of effort but the rhyme was unmistakable. ‘She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not.’ The film ended with Wilson clambering on to the river wall, sobbing and chanting, ‘She loves me not,’ and stepping off into the river.

  The screen went blank and a male voice poured softly from the speakers. ‘Bye, bye, Wilson.’

  There was silence for several minutes as they waited for more.

  ‘Cancel the lipreader,’ said Brook, still staring at the screen, waiting for the countdown to start again.

  Instead the funereal music began again and the pale face of Becky Blake filled the screen. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted and her skin was deathly white. Her hands were crossed, the tips of her fingers just visible under her chin. They were also deathly white. A second later the picture changed to Kyle Kennedy in the same pose. Like Becky, his face was ashen, but peaceful and still. There was a pronounced swelling on his jaw, presumably a souvenir of Wilson’s punch.

  Finally Adele’s face appeared and Brook’s breathing quickened. She had the skin of an angel. Not a blemish, not a hair out of place. Her mouth and eyes were closed, her head slightly to one side. Brook saw carpet encroaching on the shot in the top right-hand corner.

  The image faded and with it the music. Brook smiled. ‘They’re alive.’

  Twenty-Two

  ‘TRUST ME, SIR,’ INSISTED BROOK to a disbelieving Charlton. ‘Those last three pictures were faked.’

  ‘Why would they fake them?’ asked Noble.

  ‘They want people to think they’re dead to increase media attention,’ explained Brook. ‘That tells us they’re alive. You’re forgetting …’

  ‘… what we see is but a dream? No, Inspector, we’re not,’ said Charlton. ‘But I want more than inverted logic to tell me they’re still alive.’

  ‘Look at the carpet next to Adele’s head.’ Brook pointed to the frozen image on the screen.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s on the floor in Alice Kennedy’s living room.’ Brook looked at Noble. ‘John?’

  Noble narrowed his eyes at the screen. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘So what?’ argued Charlton. ‘So they were killed there.’

  ‘And their bodies spirited away in a van that loaded them up without a single witness noticing,’ replied Brook. ‘No, sir, these shots are faked. They must have done it before they left the house. Remember the talcum powder SOCO found on the living-room carpet?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Charlton doubtfully.

  ‘They rubbed it on their face and hands and tried to play dead.’ Noble smiled.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Brook.

  ‘That only means they were alive at the Kennedy house,’ argued Noble. ‘They could still be dead.’

  ‘True, but then why show us fake pictures? If they’re dead, why not show us the real thing? Deity has had no qualms so far about broadcasting violence and death.’

  ‘You got me there.’ Noble nodded.

  ‘So what do we tell the press and TV?’ asked Charlton. ‘Do we denounce these pictures as fakes?’

  ‘No. That might provoke a reaction,’ retorted Brook.

  ‘You talk as though Deity is an entity, a being with power over these kids.’

  ‘Somebody’s got a hold over them,’ said Brook. ‘Look how Wilson was manipulated – Jake McKenzie too. If we denounce these pictures as fakes, whoever’s behind this might feel compelled to come up with the real thing.’

  ‘We have to say something, if only to the parents,’ said Charlton.

  ‘We tell them that we’re accepting nothing at face value and they shouldn’t either. That goes for our investigation and how we respond to the media.’

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Brook,’ said Charlton.

  Noble rang off. ‘Alice Kennedy.’

  ‘She recognised Kyle’s voice in the broadcast?’ ventured Brook.

  Noble nodded. ‘Bye bye Wilson.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean Kyle was shooting the film or spoke to Wilson as he drowned. It could’ve been recorded at any time in a completely different context and added later.’

  ‘I told her. The technicians are on it.’

  ‘How’s she holding up?’

  ‘Okay. Patel’s with her.’

  ‘What can I do for you, Len?’

  Poole looked up from the hard chair. He held Brook’s eye for a moment before breaking into a grin and looking round the room. ‘I can see why people crack up in these places,’ he said. ‘They’re not exactly welcoming.’

  ‘That’s the idea.’ Brook moved from the door to sit at the table opposite Poole. ‘DS Noble’s bringing us tea, if that’ll help.’

  ‘A cigarette would help more. If you’ve got one.’

  Brook smiled faintly. The guilty smoked like laboratory beagles in the Interview Rooms. ‘I will have when DS Noble gets here. I didn’t know you smoked.’

  ‘Just the occasional one when I’m on my own. When you’ve spent a lifetime dealing in death …’

  ‘At least I won’t need to explain the health risks to you,’ observed Brook.

  Poole laughed. ‘No. I’ve seen a few Grow Bags in my time. That’s what we used to call heavily tarred lungs in my day,’ he explained. ‘Though tumours were the only things that grew there.’

  ‘You sound like you miss it, Len.’

  ‘Sometimes I do, but only because it was a part of me when I was younger. That’s what nostalgia is really.’

  ‘A desire to be young again?’

  ‘Young, innocent, carefree.’

  ‘It’s a myth, Len. Kyle’s predicament should tell you that much.’

  Poole lowered his head. ‘I suppose.’

  Noble entered carrying a tray of plastic cups and set them down. ‘No sugar, sorry.’

  ‘I’m sweet enough.’ Poole grinned. Neither officer cracked a smile.

  ‘So what’s a life of indolence like?’ asked Brook.

  ‘Can’t complain,’ answered Poole. ‘I’ve got a decent pension and Eileen left me well looked after, God rest her soul.’

  ‘Good to be back in Derby?’ asked Brook innocently. ‘Seeing old friends.’

  Poole paused and took a sip of tea. ‘It’s okay. I’m only here until Kyle finishes college and Alice sells the house. Then it’s back to Chester.’

  ‘Back to your voluntary work,’ said Noble.

  Poole stiffened. ‘Voluntary work?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Noble without a trace of apology in his voice. ‘I thought I read somewhere that you worked with orphans.’ He smiled politely to drive up the temperature. Just wait, Brook had always taught him. The guilty abhorred silence – they always talked through it, not about their guilt, not at first, but about anything that came into their heads. Eventually, if you were prepared to wait long enough, the drivel ran out and the only thing left to talk about was their confession.

  ‘Yvette,’ said Poole, nodding, as though the link were selfevident. Then he hardened his features. He wasn’t here to defend himself when attack would be the better foot forward. After all, he was a professional, a well-respected man, a man with qualifications and expertise, a man with a certain standing in the community and, best of all, though he prided himself on never being blasé about it, he had money. ‘I don’t know what she’s been telling you, Inspector, but there’s something I think you need to know about that woman.’

  ‘Yvette?’ asked Brook.

  ‘She’s delusional, Inspector – a complete fantasist. It’s tragic really, but not atypical for an orphan to develop these fantasies.’

  ‘And what sort of fantasy would Miss Thomson want to tell us
?’ asked Noble.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m even mentioning this,’ said Poole, looking at the older detective for understanding.

  ‘Sure you do,’ replied Brook.

  Poole briefly put his head in his hands then sat straight and stared defiantly back at his inquisitors. ‘Yvette thinks that she and I have a relationship – a sexual relationship.’

  Brook and Noble’s expressions didn’t change. They gazed evenly at Poole, declining to give him a hint of their reaction.

  ‘And do you?’ asked Brook finally.

  Poole did his best to look Brook in the eye. ‘No.’

  ‘And have you ever had such a relationship?’ asked Brook.

  ‘How dare you ask me that!’ shouted Poole.

  ‘How dare I?’ Brook shouted back, standing up and knocking over his chair. ‘I didn’t ask to see you. You came to us, and if you want to sit there playing games and looking coy, you can leave now. I’m not here to whitewash your version of history. I’ve got four young people to find and I don’t want my time wasted.’ Brook made to leave and beckoned Noble to join him with a flick of his head.

  ‘Inspector,’ said Poole. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right.’ Brook and Noble stood frozen by the door. ‘Please sit down.’

  Brook, apparently reluctantly, moved back to pick up his chair. Noble followed suit, trying to hide his amusement behind a hand. Brook’s ‘Bad Cop’ was a rare sight and all the more convincing for it.

  ‘We’re listening.’

  ‘I’m worried. Yvette – she’s unstable. I’m afraid she might do something to hurt me or even Alice.’

  Brook hid his surprise well. He wished he could turn on the tape recorder but Poole was not under arrest or caution. ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Because you were right. I did have a sexual relationship with her once.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘When?’

  Poole knew better than to answer the question. ‘You should’ve seen her, Inspector. You think she’s pretty now.’ He shook his head. ‘Boy, she was something back then. She knew all the tricks. I was putty in her hands.’

  ‘Where did you first meet her?’