turnover.’
Duxbury screwed his small eyes towards the ceiling. ‘We were?’
‘You were. We’re looking for somebody who may have worked for a funeral parlour as an undertaker or mortician.’
‘May have?’ enquired Duxbury.
‘Maybe he still does. His name might be Oz or Ozzy.’
Duxbury took a sharp intake of breath and tried to disguise it. Then he said weakly, ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘Funny, if that bell in your head had rung much louder, I’d need ear plugs.’
Duxbury looked at Brook but said nothing. Brook just waited — it would come.
‘Someone’s complained?’
As no one had complained, Brook raised an eyebrow.
‘Just tell me who and where he is.’
‘About a year ago Oz worked for us for two weeks as a hearse driver.’
‘Not to work on the bodies?’
‘No. We had an illness and were shorthanded so I reluctantly took him on.’
‘But you let him go.’
‘Two weeks later. We had to. He wouldn’t give us a National Insurance number, kept asking for cash in hand. Well, payroll were having none of that, obviously.’
‘So you don’t have an address?’
‘No. He kept promising us his details but we never got them.’
‘Full name?’
‘Ozzy Reece.’
‘Description?’
‘Well-built, about forty, brown eyes, cropped hair.’
‘Any tattoos, distinguishing marks?’
‘I never saw anything.’
‘Local accent?’
Duxbury nodded. ‘I think so. But maybe from further north. He could be quite broad sometimes.’
‘You said you didn’t get an address.’
‘No, but I think he lived near Shardlow.’
Brook looked up sharply from his notebook ‘Why Shardlow?’
‘He must have mentioned it once.’
‘Did you take any pictures of him?’ asked Brook.
‘What on earth for?’
‘ID badges, computerised records, that sort of thing.’
‘I told you. .’
‘You don’t have any records of him. I think I’m getting it.’ Brook pointed at the derelict house across the road. ‘Did he ever take an interest in that house?’
Duxbury looked at Brook as though he were a genius. ‘Yes, he did,’ he replied. ‘Always going over to that window to look in, sometimes even talking to the tramps inside. Once I asked him why he was so interested.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He just laughed and said he was drumming up business.’
‘Was he friendly with any of your other staff?’
‘Not at all. He wasn’t the type to fit in.’
‘Did he have a locker or any place unique to him that might give us a DNA sample or a fingerprint?’
‘No. There’s the hearse, but he hasn’t been with us for over a year, so. .’
‘And how did he turn up for work?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Clothes? Transport?’
‘We gave him the suit to take away with him. He turned up in that.’
‘Where is it?’
‘He never gave it back.’
‘And how did he get to work?’
Duxbury shrugged. ‘I assumed public transport. If he had a car, I never saw it.’
Brook snapped his notebook shut after tearing out a page to write his number on. ‘Anything else you remember about him, call me. For now, I want a list of current and ex-employees who would’ve known him. Round your current staff up now, we’re going to need to interview them all.’
Brook stared at Duxbury until he started looking for paper and pencil, before ringing Noble. ‘John, we’ve got a lead on Ozzy Reece. Get DS Gadd and a couple of other officers over to Duxbury’s Funeral Parlour on Leopold Street. And see if you can rustle up a composite artist to come with them. Yes, now.’ He rang off and flipped round Duxbury’s completed list. ‘Only four people?’
‘Yes. And they’re all current. There’s not a high turnover in our industry.’ Duxbury coughed. ‘I’m sure you understand.’
Brook nodded. ‘So what did Ozzy do?’
‘Do?’
‘That might make people complain.’
Duxbury looked away. ‘It’s a bit. . weird,’ he finally said.
‘I can handle it.’
‘Well, I walked into the Slumber Room one morning and Oz was in there.’ Duxbury hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘He was interfering with a corpse.’ He seemed reluctant to elaborate.
‘Go on,’ urged Brook.
‘Well, he’d undressed the deceased and removed the padding from the abdominal cavity.’
‘Padding? To keep the natural body shape?’
‘In the absence of internal organs, yes. Well, he was trying to force something else into the cavity.’
‘What was it?’ demanded Brook.
Fifteen
Twenty minutes before briefing, Brook was arranging photographs of the four missing students on a display board, having managed to obtain a photograph of Russell Thomson from the college. DS Gadd was writing up a report on the interviews at Duxbury amp; Duxbury. Noble walked into the Incident Room carrying two teas. He gave one to Brook, smiling an apology at Gadd then pulled out a sheaf of papers from his jacket. ‘One search-warrant for the Watson house. And the Chief’s on his way back. You were right — he was out of the door as soon as I mentioned the press conference.’
PC Patel knocked and walked into the Incident Room. She handed Brook an HMV bag and a two-pound coin and headed for the entrance.
Brook extracted two DVDs of
‘The receipts are in there, sir,’ she said in mock disbelief. ‘The DVDs were eighteen quid each.’ She shook her head and rolled her eyes as she left.
Noble picked up one of the DVDs. ‘Any joy at the funeral parlour?’
‘Our man worked there briefly a year ago,’ said Brook, pocketing his change.
‘So he’d know about the tramps in the squat.’
‘All over it, apparently.’
