get to a payphone and use it.’
Phil grinned and Brook could see his rotting mouth. ‘Is there a retainer for this service?’ he asked sheepishly.
Brook fished around for the meagre change from his twenty pounds and poured it into Phil’s hand. A noise caught his attention. ‘Was that a car door?’ He flung the flimsy door open and hurtled down the stairs to the main room in time to hear a vehicle pulling away. ‘Out of the way,’ Brook shouted at the throng of men swarming around the window, picking full bottles out of a crate. ‘Move.’
By the time Brook had jostled his way past the sluggish scrum of men and vaulted out of the window, the lights had disappeared. He turned back to the silhouette of his fellow Oxbridge graduate, stooping to pluck his own precious bottle from the crate.
After a second, Phil came to the gaping window, spinning the top from his whisky and downing a huge swallow. Eventually he lowered the bottle and leaned on the sill. ‘Where’s Jock?’ he asked.
Brook finally scuffed his feet across the forecourt of St Mary’s Wharf station at a quarter to four in the morning having walked across the centre of town. He was annoyed that he’d surrendered all his change to Phil Ward, not that he could have enticed a taxi to pick him up at any time of day given the condition he was in. He’d tried phoning for a squad car but all units were tied up and even Noble had turned off his mobile.
He plodded wearily up the steps to the glass doors, dismayed to see Sergeant Hendrickson on duty at the front counter and wishing he hadn’t left his smartcard in his desk. As he approached the intercom, Brook saw the uniformed officer muttering something under his breath which even a novice lipreader like Brook took to be, ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’
Brook pressed the intercom, monitoring Hendrickson for further evidence of abuse. ‘It’s DI Brook. Let me in, Sergeant.’ Hendrickson unveiled his most obsequious smile and pressed his own button.
Brook’s lips tightened and he pressed again. He did have his warrant card for emergencies so he pulled it from his shoe and, after brushing the condensation from it, forced it against the glass. He pressed the intercom button again. ‘
Hendrickson shielded his eyes from a non-existent glare and opened his mouth in fake recognition. He buzzed Brook into the station. ‘I didn’t recognise you in that get-up. Sir. Been to a fancy dress party, have we?’ A PC whose name escaped Brook stood behind Hendrickson, smiling gleefully at the poorly disguised insubordination.
Brook made for the lifts. Hendrickson had never said anything to him that on paper would have been deemed inappropriate and Brook knew that to complain about a fellow officer’s
As Brook marched away, the expression on Hendrickson’s face turned to hate. ‘You fucking Southern cunt,’ he spat when Brook was out of earshot. ‘They should have left you in that loony bin and thrown away the key.’
Brook walked through the quiet station gratified to encounter nobody else capable of commenting on his appearance. In his office he changed into an old sweater and jeans and dumped his damp and dirty clothes in a bin bag for disposal. He’d only ever worn them on those rare occasions when he was forced to do a little garden maintenance but, after three days living rough, and with some of the substances now adhering to the fabric, they were better thrown away. He wouldn’t be running short of scruffy clothes anytime soon.
Brook sat briefly at his desk and read various notes left for him by Jane Gadd about The Embalmer. The Millstone House enquiries had proved fruitless. Only three vagrants staying during Tommy McTiernan’s visit had given full names, and none of them had been traced. Gadd had tried to find out whether Barry Kirk had visited the hostel but if he had, he’d done so under a false name.
Next Brook skimmed the forensic report on Kirk. His body had been in the water for eighteen to twenty days. But even with an approximate timeframe for the dumping of the body, they were struggling to identify any suspects at the site.
The few staff who worked at the sole security gate to the vast gravel pit road system had been interviewed. All were longtime employees and in the clear. Also, all the trucks and lorries captured on the only CCTV camera at the site over the last month had all been present on legitimate business, and although a couple of drivers had minor records, they too were beyond suspicion, according to their tachographs. The probe into ex-employees had also produced nothing thus far.
The list of anglers given to Noble by the man who reeled in Barry Kirk’s remains had not rung any alarm bells either. All were solid citizens with nothing more than parking tickets to their names.
Brook sent a text to Noble about the possible abduction of another vagrant and asked him to hunt up any possible CCTV around the Leopold Street squat then walked wearily out to the car park, tossing the bin bag in his boot. He cranked the heating up high and sped back to Hartington through the deserted roads.
After a hot bath and shave he staggered up to his bedroom and collapsed on to the soft bed, for once sleeping through until noon without moving a muscle.
The man switched off the headlights long before reaching the turn on to the overgrown drive and a few moments later glided to a halt near the black outline of the furthest building on the complex. He killed the engine and clambered out to unload his supply of jars and tools from the passenger seat.
Looking about the pitch-black site as he walked silently but purposefully towards the heavy timbered doors at one end of the building, the man smiled in contentment. The gods favoured him. Nut, the Goddess of the Sky, had sent a canopy of clouds to cover his arrival. With the nearest artificial light a quarter of a mile away on the estate, no one would know he was there. Kids would sometimes roam by in daylight, but without windows to smash, they rarely lingered long enough to discover his lair. Besides, the building was on the edge of the countryside, with only a ploughed field between the derelict buildings and the river. The off-licences, pubs and shops that kids loved to hang around were in the opposite direction.
The man put down his load in front of the boarded doorway and felt behind one of the large shrubs growing out of control off to one side. He pulled out a small aluminium stepladder, with its camouflage of green radiator paint, set it against the right-hand doorjamb and climbed level to the swallow’s nest wedged between the doorjamb and the wall. With a final look round, he put his hand inside an aperture behind the nest and pulled on a lever. A loud click sounded and the large timbered door on the right shifted slightly.
He jumped down from the ladder and returned to his vehicle to fetch his human cargo.
Eleven
Brook reached his office just before two o’clock in the afternoon. With him he carried two bacon sandwiches and a polystyrene cup of tea. He finished the first sandwich while writing the report on his encounter with Phil Ward. He was unwrapping the second as Noble walked in.
‘Welcome back to the land of the living. How was it?’
Brook smiled without humour. ‘It was terrible. Don’t ever let anyone tell you the homeless are having it easy. I’m not one for soft living, but after one night. .’ He shook his head. ‘And if I ever suggest doing something similar in the future, John, I want you to have me sectioned.’
‘What, again?’
Brook eyed him in mock censure and bit down on his sandwich. ‘Forget I said anything. Where are we on McTiernan and Kirk?’
‘It’s going nowhere. Still no useful feedback from any funeral homes or medical schools. Same answer from local hospices. No missing bodies. No suspicious employees. Nothing.’
‘What about Jock?’
Noble shrugged. ‘I could put out an alert, but without a photo and even a real name. .’
