Deity

blemish. That’s why he didn’t try to hack up his brain as much as Kirk. He’d already ruined him. We’ve got to convince Charlton to-’

‘Sir, Charlton’s not here. He’s at a conference until next Monday.’

‘A conference?’ Brook was annoyed but then started to smile. ‘A conference,’ he said again. ‘Okay.’

‘Sir? I know that look. .’

‘We have no choice, John. This is urgent. The Embalmer needs more bodies to practise on. He got Jock last night in Leopold Street.’

‘You’re not certain of that.’

‘As certain as I can be. He was grabbed before I could get to him.’

‘And the missing students?’

‘Students? You mean we’re missing more than one?’

‘As of yesterday evening we’re missing three — two girls and the Kennedy boy, Kyle.’

‘How do we know they’re one case?’

‘We don’t, for sure. But apparently they were all at the same party last Friday night and no one’s seen them since.’

Brook raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘A party? How old are they?’

‘They’re eighteen, all attending Derby College, all very bright — ’

‘- and all old enough to please themselves,’ finished Brook. ‘They’ve been to a rave, John, and got wrecked.’

‘Or Ibiza. Or a festival,’ Noble said. ‘I know. Nevertheless, it’s been reported and you’re SIO, so until we find them. .’

Brook sighed. ‘Anything gone out to the press?’

‘Not yet. There’s no evidence of foul play or violence. Think we should?’

‘For once, yes. They can do our job for us.’ Then Brook changed his mind. ‘But I suppose we can’t let them run with it until we have a few facts.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Okay, John. For your sake, we’ll do it by the book. Round everyone up, DS Gadd included. We’ll have a joint briefing in two hours — both cases. Meanwhile, you can bring me up to speed on these students. I promise, tonight we’ll talk to the parents.’

As Brook finished his account of the episode in the Leopold Street squat he looked round the Incident Room, hoping the rest of his detectives were feeling the same urgency. ‘And the chances are we’re not going to find Jock alive unless we can work out who’s taken him. We don’t have a picture, we don’t have a surname and even “Jock” could be a nickname. On the other hand, we do have a name for whoever’s dropping off the alcohol. His name is Oz or Ozzy. He’s not Australian. He’s early middle-aged and powerfully built.’

‘Is that all there is to go on?’ asked Cooper.

‘You have to remember who’s giving the description,’ replied Brook.

‘Ozzy. Do we know if that’s a real name?’ asked Gadd.

Brook shrugged. ‘Unlikely. But even if it’s an alias maybe it’s a nickname he uses at work, maybe even at one of those funeral homes or hospices we spoke to on Sunday.’ Brook looked around to see if the name rang any bells. ‘No? Well, make a note of the name for any follow-up. We may have to do it all over again, this time face to face.’ Brook tried to ignore the groans and turned to the large map of the Derby area.

‘But for now, we concentrate on the house where Jock was abducted. It’s our only active lead.’ He pointed to Leopold Street. ‘It’s derelict, with no power, no heating, and it’s home to about ten vagrants, though obviously that number is fluid. We’re going to be doing surveillance ourselves, starting tonight.’ More groans. Brook raised a hand. ‘When Charlton gets back, I’ll make sure we get more bodies on this, but until then it’s down to us.

‘Now, it’s a tight road, so position your car with care. Our suspect has transport and we don’t want to scare him off. You’ll take two four-hour shifts. Rob and Dave, you’ll take ten till two, so go home now and get some rest. John and Jane, you’ll relieve at two tomorrow and stay until six. I’ve been out there three days so I’ll take tonight off,’ he added, unable to meet eyes. ‘Remember, our guy’s a night owl so he’ll only come when the streets are deserted. This morning it was nearly three before he showed up.’

‘You think he’ll be back so soon?’ asked DS Gadd.

‘If he really has got Jock, probably not, but as it’s our only solid lead, we can’t take the risk.’

‘And don’t forget, if we’re right, he has to keep the occupants happy or they might move on,’ added Noble. ‘So he might turn up just to deliver more booze.’

‘Exactly. If he makes a delivery, try to follow him but it will be almost impossible for him to miss you at that hour. So if he’s leading you round in circles, you’ll have to bring him in and hope we can take it from there and get him to fess up.’ Brook smiled and looked around the ring of four detectives who stared sombrely at the floor. He wished their expressions were an indication of the investigation’s gravity, instead of regret at losing a night of TV and a warm bed. ‘Finally, until Forensics puts us on the right track, we get stuck into the legwork. Jane, I want you to check out off-licences and bulk suppliers of alcohol tomorrow. You’re looking for anyone buying large amounts of whisky and barley wine.’

‘Barley wine they should remember.’ She smiled. ‘Nobody drinks that filth.’

Brook pulled a piece of paper from his jacket. ‘Which reminds me. There’s a funeral parlour opposite the house. Duxbury and Duxbury. Anyone remember who contacted them?’

‘Me, I think,’ said Morton.

‘How did you leave it?’

‘They were ringing me back.’

‘Right. I’ll follow them up.’ Brook held out his arms. ‘Any questions?’

‘Do we drop the missing students?’ asked Morton.

‘You missed out the adjective.’ Cooper laughed.

Everyone joined in; even Brook managed a thin smile. Normally he would have discouraged such levity about an active investigation but he felt the missing students were an unnecessary distraction.

‘John and I will follow up on the students tonight. Anything else?’

‘Any usable film?’ said Cooper.

‘Local CCTV is trained on the shops further up Normanton Road but Jane will be in the Viewing Room, checking the hour between two and three last night. We may get a shortlist of suspect vehicles, we may not.’

‘What am I looking for?’ asked Gadd.

‘Vans, in particular. And get plates for follow-up if they look dubious.’

‘But we’re still not sure if this is a murder inquiry?’

‘No,’ said Brook. ‘But when people who like to play with dead things are ready to escalate, it’s the next logical step — especially if they run out of fresh corpses.’

‘What I don’t get, right, is — if this guy’s going for cosmetic perfection, why cut open these bums?’ asked Morton. ‘Most of them are in a right state.’

‘That’s the point,’ answered Brook. ‘He’s perfecting his technique on the most expendable members of society.’ An image of Phil Ward sprinting away from him on the track made Brook pause. ‘And let’s not forget these bums may have families. Once they had what you have: lovers, jobs, a future. They’ve lost all of that. Miserable though it may seem to us, all they have left is life, and no one has the right to take it away.’

While Noble knocked on the door, Brook ran his eye over the small, well-maintained suburban garden basking in the golden glow of dusk. A For Sale sign nestled up against the garden wall. The house itself was neat, if nondescript, similar to every semidetached they’d passed on the Brisbane Estate — a comfortable and characterless modern home for a small, hardworking family.

The compact driveway, its garage outgrown by modern vehicles, had two cars squeezed on to it — a sleek black Jaguar tight up against the rear bumper of a battered Nissan Micra. A good metaphor for Poole’s relationship with Alice Kennedy, Brook decided. Poole had money from a generous pension and his former marriage and, even from the briefest encounter with the couple, Brook had gotten the impression that Poole’s relationship with her wouldn’t have existed without it.

‘Come in.’ Poole stood aside to usher Noble into the warmth of the house. ‘Inspector Brook,’ he nodded as Brook entered in turn.