Deity

‘Of course.’ He laughed.

‘But only after I pass my A-levels.’

He grinned again. ‘Beautiful and smart. You’ll knock ’em dead, honey.’

Becky held out her arms for another hug then sneered at her stepmother over his shoulder. The answering smile was sullen.

‘Where are all your photos, love?’ asked her dad, noticing the bare walls suddenly. ‘All your portraits?’

‘I thought I’d pack them away for the move to London,’ Becky replied after a brief pause.

Her father hesitated then said excitedly, ‘You’re right. We’d better get organised; you’re going to need a whole new wardrobe.’

‘So I guess we can kiss goodbye to a holiday this year,’ observed Christy, turning for the door.

‘Book your holiday,’ Becky spat at her. ‘The big fashion houses throw clothes at young models for nothing. It’s free advertising,’ she explained to her father.

‘Free advertising,’ her father echoed for the benefit of his wife. ‘Hear that, Christy?’ He gazed back, damp- eyed, at the apple of his eye. ‘Your mum would’ve been so proud.’

Becky returned her head to her father’s neck but, unable to keep her eyes from the door, looked up in time to see her stepmother stalking away. She grinned maliciously towards her retreating back.

Brook tapped on the window of the small hatch with his warrant card. The orderly looked up from his tabloid and gave Brook and Noble a steely glare before reluctantly dragging himself to his feet. He was small but powerfully built, despite advanced middle age, and was dressed in white trousers and snug-fitting, white T-shirt which matched his cropped hair and showed off hard, gym-pumped biceps. He barely glanced at them as he slid open the small window.

‘What can I do for you, Officers?’

Brook spotted the blue ink of prison on the orderly’s gnarled forearms and neck. ‘Detective Inspector Brook, Detective Sergeant Noble,’ he said, enunciating their ranks a little more distinctly than usual. ‘Is your supervisor in?’ Brook peered down at his ID badge. ‘Danny.’

‘Just popped out,’ grinned the orderly, exposing a rack of teeth like an elephant’s ribcage. ‘I’m in charge.’

Brook pulled out the SOCO photograph of the dead man and held it up to Danny’s cold blue eyes. ‘Do you recognise this man? Social Services think it’s possible he stayed here recently.’

The orderly looked briefly before shaking his head. ‘Can’t say I recognise him.’ He glanced back up at Brook. ‘You’ve tried Social Services then.’

‘And the Job Centre. Without a name they’re completely in the dark. They suggested we try here and the outreach centres.’

Danny nodded, sifting the information. ‘That’s fine. But we have a policy at Millstone House Shelter. If someone asks for help, we try to give it. We don’t ask questions about their background or whether they’ve been in prison. We don’t even ask for a name if they don’t want us to know. A hard bed and simple food is all we can give, but we give it willingly.’

‘Very commendable,’ replied Brook.

‘Look, we’re not doing the census, buddy,’ cut in Noble. ‘We just want to know if he stayed here in the last month.’

‘And you don’t have a name,’ said Danny.

‘Not yet,’ said Brook. He stared back at Danny’s lived-in features. ‘I think we’d better have a look round. Maybe ask some of your residents.’

‘They won’t be here for a few hours yet,’ said Danny, still pleased to be so obstructive. ‘Come back around five when the soup’s ready. Fine day like today, they’ll all be down at the riverside gardens tucking into a few tinnies.’

‘Five o’clock?’

‘Sure, if you like wasting your time. Even if you find someone who wants to talk to you, you won’t get much sense out of them. Not after tea-time beers. You’re better off coming back in the morning.’

Brook nodded. ‘You’ve seen a lot of dead men, have you?’ Danny’s grin disappeared. ‘Sorry?’

‘You didn’t turn a hair at the photograph,’ chipped in Noble.

Danny looked evenly into Brook’s eyes. ‘I’ve seen a few. I used to be in the life. You break into enough derelict houses to doss down, you’re gonna find bodies sooner or later — or what’s left of ’em. The lost ones. And, natural enough, the wretched and the desperate that come here are sometimes taken unto God in the middle of the night. This isn’t a health spa.’

‘You’re not in the life now,’ said Brook.

‘Not since Jesus found me in the depths of my depravity and held out His hand to me. Me! No matter what I’d become and what I’d done, He wanted me by His side.’

‘And now you do His work,’ said Brook, making some effort to keep the cynicism from his voice.

‘With a song in my heart, Inspector,’ replied Danny.

‘Praise the Lord,’ sneered Noble.

‘Noticed anyone else taking an unusual interest in your residents? Besides staff, obviously.’

‘In what way?’

‘Asking about your guests, where they might go after they leave here, maybe even plying them with alcohol.’

‘The only alcohol allowed in here, friend, is already in their bellies when they arrive. And no, no one has been taking an interest in the lost souls who end up here. Except the staff.’

‘And Jesus,’ said Brook. Danny answered with a fake smile. Brook turned and signalled to Noble to leave.

‘I think his name was Tommy. He was here,’ said Danny. ‘About three, four weeks ago.’

‘Tommy?’ asked Noble.

Danny turned to leaf through a ledger. ‘Tommy Mac, it says here. I assume that’s short for something. He was a Scot.’

‘Is there a date?’ asked Noble.

‘April twenty-fifth for two nights.’

‘Anything unusual about his visit? Anything happen to him, like maybe he got into an argument with someone?’

Danny shook his head. ‘He came. He left. Far as I remember.’

‘No one here he managed to aggravate, someone who might bear a grudge?’

‘There’s always conflict, Inspector. Spend a couple of nights here and you’d be arguing over a discarded tab end with the guy in the next bed. But the one redeeming feature about the demon drink is they rarely remember anything the next day.’

‘Do you have CCTV?’

‘Some. Thefts and assaults are not unknown.’

‘Would you have it for Tommy’s visit?’

‘Not after three weeks.’

‘I’d like a photocopy of the names of all the men who stayed here during those two nights. .’

‘I told you. .’

‘. . or whatever names they gave. I also want the names of staff on duty while Tommy was here.’

‘The staff I can give you. You’ll need the director’s permission for a list of guests. Not that they left contact numbers. They leave here and they become invisible again, as soon as the door shuts behind them.’

Jake sat on his bed, naked but for a towel round his waist, chatting on MSN with some of his fellow college footballers. They had a big game against Trent Poly at the weekend and his teammates were not shy in telling all their contacts on Facebook how convincingly they were going to win. Trent Poly r gay.

‘Trent Poly is gay,’ he said, but declined to correct their grammar online. Jake