any alarm bells with you at all. The other information we want is the name of any disgruntled employee, past or present, who has caused problems, particularly with regard to their attitude to the corpses.’
‘Such as?’
‘Whoever performed this procedure has specialist knowledge and may have been in the industry. So we want names of anybody they consider took a morbid interest in the preparation of remains, that sort of thing,’ explained Brook. ‘Maybe someone’s had to be sacked recently because they had some sick hang-up or acted inappropriately in some way. I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out. Get names and addresses for follow-up on Monday. And the name of anyone who lives east of Derby, where the bodies were dumped, goes to the top of the list.’
Gadd, Morton and Cooper scribbled down their questions.
‘Do we think there’s a sexual motive?’ asked Gadd.
‘Not at this time,’ said Noble.
‘Anything else we need to know?’ asked Rob Morton.
‘Two things,’ said Brook, looking at Noble. ‘Although McTiernan’s internal organs were removed, the heart was replaced and stitched back into the body cavity. Why, we don’t know. Secondly, the brain had been attacked and cut up using a homemade tool which was inserted up the nose and into the cavity.’ Brook watched his team cringe. ‘Pieces of brain were then removed via the nostrils, we assume using some kind of sharp hook on the tool.’
‘Jesus,’ said Morton. ‘Why?’
‘We don’t know, though removing the brain with all the other organs reduces decomposition and improves the embalmer’s chances for successful preservation.’
‘So if you do get a lead on a suspect ex-employee, find out what it was they did to the bodies, without revealing that MO,’ said Noble. ‘We keep that to ourselves to weed out the cranks.’
‘The Embalmer,’ nodded Cooper, pleased with himself. ‘Catchy.’
Brook drove home late to Hartington and was tempted into the garden to drink in the early summer air and a small glass of Aberlour malt whisky. As he settled on to the bench, a jet-black cat dropped from the drystone wall on one side of his small sheltered garden. It bounded up to Brook and threw itself at his feet, wriggling around his ankles until Brook gave it the required attention. ‘I’ve nothing for you, Basil, sorry,’ he said, scratching the cat’s neck. ‘Or me,’ he added, feeling his stomach rumble.
After ten minutes without provisions, Basil stalked away to resume his nightly rounds and Brook trudged indoors after he’d drained his drink. He yearned for a cigarette and resolved to buy some at the earliest opportunity. Noble was right. Cigarettes were Brook’s only weakness and it was stupid, if not impossible, to impose rigid control over every aspect of his life. Without an Achilles heel, Brook wasn’t human but a robot, unable to function, unable to do his work. Being a detective was not just a job to Brook, more a calling, a calling that required him to know about weakness — and if he tried to eradicate his own, how could he understand those of the murderers, armed robbers and rapists he was employed to catch?
Back in his kitchen, he opened the fridge. It was empty except for the half-eaten baked potato he’d picked at the previous night — and the night before that, he seemed to remember. It was going black. He tipped it into the bin and rummaged around the cupboards. He hadn’t eaten for a day, by dint of neglect rather than choice, and he knew he needed fuel to keep going.
The cupboard was bare. Not even tins. But there was a bottle of ketchup, a packet of tomato Cup-a-Soups and an egg carton with two eggs left. Brook fried the eggs and dabbed the yolks with ketchup then ate them mechanically before hauling himself up to his bedroom.
As he climbed into bed, he had a flashback of the pale yellow carcass from Shardlow Gravel Pit lying at his feet that same day. He shook the memory away. It wouldn’t be wise to go to sleep with such an image seared into his consciousness.
He fell asleep but, as usual, he couldn’t sleep past the early hours and after his first cup of tea, he dressed and drove back into the station as the sun was coming up.
Slumped at his desk just after seven, Brook found the list of funeral directors he’d compiled the other day. There were close to fifty. For something to do he began dividing the company names and phone numbers on to five separate pieces of paper.
Nine
A couple of hours later, Brook trudged out into the corridor and down to the ground floor to buy a vending- machine tea. After feeding coins into the machine, he plucked the too-thin cup from the service-hatch to the sound of raised voices. He wandered towards the duty desk for a better look.
Sergeant Gordon Grey, a close friend of Harry Hendrickson, with two years until retirement, was at the counter, trying to placate a nervous but not unattractive woman of about forty. She had clearly been crying, and was preparing to do so again. Behind her was a short overweight man, sporting a shock of combed-over grey hair and voluminous sideburns, which Brook assumed were a misguided attempt to hide his sagging jowls. He was at least fifteen years older than his female companion and, in addition to his dubious coiffeur, he’d made a pitiful attempt to dress young. The white training shoes and baggy blue tracksuit would have looked ridiculous on a man twenty years his junior.
‘I’ve told you. His bed’s not been slept in and Kyle would never leave without telling me where he’s gone,’ pleaded the woman. ‘You have to believe me.’
‘Mrs. .’
‘. . Kennedy.’
‘Mrs Kennedy, it’s Sunday morning and there’ll be plenty of eighteen year olds waking up in strange beds or on friends’ sofas. I’m sure your son Kyle will turn up soon enough — probably with a limp and a hangover, eh Len?’ Sergeant Grey grinned knowingly at the man with the comb-over, who was affectionately rubbing Mrs Kennedy’s upper arms.
‘Steady on, Gordon,’ said the man identified as Len.
Mrs Kennedy stared at Grey in confusion until the penny dropped. ‘He doesn’t behave like that,’ she replied tersely. ‘You have to do something.’ She tilted her head towards her companion. ‘We should never have gone away.’
The old man leaned into her for comfort. ‘It’s okay, Alice,’ he said. ‘There must be a simple explanation. We’ll find him.’
‘Of course you will,’ said Grey soothingly. ‘He’ll turn up. Have you tried ringing him?’
The man gave Grey a patronising glare but declined to follow up with sarcasm.
‘He hasn’t got his phone with him,’ said Mrs Kennedy. ‘It’s turned off and sitting on his bed. If you have kids, you must know how strange that is.’
‘But if he’s eighteen, he can look after himself.’
‘No, he can’t,’ replied Mrs Kennedy, her face beginning to quiver. She pulled a tissue from her handbag.
‘He’s only just eighteen,’ said Len. ‘And he’s. . the sensitive type, if you know what I mean.’
‘Len!’ snapped the woman. She gathered herself together and addressed the Sergeant. ‘Are you going to take details or not?’
Sergeant Grey reluctantly picked up a pen. ‘When did you last see him?’
‘He was in his bedroom on Friday afternoon before we set off for Wales,’ answered Mrs Kennedy. ‘Later, he was having a few friends round for his birthday and-’
‘Friday afternoon?’ Sergeant Grey’s manner took on a sterner hue.
‘About three,’ she confirmed, unaware of the change in Grey’s demeanour.
Grey spoke slowly for emphasis. ‘So his bed has not been slept in for two nights, after a party.’ He put down the pen to address the man. ‘Look, Len, you know the format. If I take details, they have to be entered on the National Computer and then eventually the National Missing Persons database. Then there’s an automatic risk assessment. That will trigger man hours looking for a young man,
