Deity

Brook was convinced that the slender young man being surrounded was Kyle Kennedy. For the next few minutes, the four stocky lads cajoled, pushed and slapped Kyle from one to the other. The sound quality wasn’t the best but Brook and his team could clearly hear the laughing and jeering. One young man in particular seemed to be leading the assault. He was chunky to the point of being overweight with cropped hair and a malicious laugh.

‘We’re not going to witness a murder, I hope,’ said Morton. Chief Superintendent Charlton entered with a cup and was about to speak when Brook held up a hand and pointed to the screen.

At that moment, another teenager, taller than the others with an athletic frame, walked into shot. The assault stopped.

‘That’s Jake McKenzie,’ said Brook, without taking his eyes from the action. ‘He was at the college today.’

Kyle walked towards Jake. An exchange took place but a minute later, Kyle walked back to his tormentors. The ringleader swung a heavy punch and Kyle fell. The aggressors left, giving Jake a wide berth. Then McKenzie ran to minister to the prostrate figure and, shortly after, Kyle seemed to revive but then ran off, screaming.

The film ended and the screen blackened.

‘What was that?’ asked Charlton.

‘A serious assault on one of our missing students, sir,’ said Brook. ‘Broadcast on deity.com, which is a website address on a leaflet.’ He gestured to a copy beneath the photographs on the display. ‘We have four copies of that leaflet; one each found in the bedrooms of the four missing Derby College students.’

‘Four?’

‘Yes, sir. I think the lad getting beaten up is Kyle Kennedy, the first one to be reported missing. From the date on the film, it’s clear this was the night before he disappeared. His mother told us she saw him go out at nine that night, but he came back late and ran straight to his room without her seeing him. Now we can understand why.’

‘And after this party she found a small bloodstain on a plaster,’ said Noble. ‘The lab’s working up the DNA.’

‘From this film it likely belongs to this. .’ Charlton gestured towards the whiteboard.

‘Kyle Kennedy,’ obliged Brook.

‘Right. Let me see it from the start. And make a recording for the boffins to enhance.’

Brook clicked the Play button again and raised a surreptitious eyebrow to Noble, who forced himself not to smile. Make a copy? We’d never have thought of that.

When the film finished for the second time, Charlton rubbed his chin to signal he was in detection mode. ‘A dream within a dream. What’s that from — The Tempest?’

Brook was impressed. ‘That’s not a bad guess, sir. But in fact it’s from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.’

Charlton nodded as though recognising it. ‘What do we make of the film? Genuine?’

‘It’s very well acted, if not.’

Charlton was suddenly animated. ‘You won’t be showing that at the press conference, will you?’

‘No. We’ve only just seen it ourselves. That doesn’t mean the public won’t have seen it — my daughter says it’s on YouTube as well, so no telling how quickly it’s spreading. But you’re right; we’ll need more background before we can pass it on officially.’

‘Agreed.’ Charlton looked at his watch. ‘I’ve obviously arrived back just in time.’ Book and Noble resisted glancing at each other this time. ‘Can we get that off YouTube?’ he asked, looking at the screen.

‘I would think so,’ said Cooper, ‘but there’s no telling how many people have linked it and spread it around. It could still go viral as an email attachment or a Screencast on Twitter.’ Charlton nodded sagely as if he knew what Cooper was talking about. ‘Press briefing at six o’clock, you said, Sergeant. I’ll take the lead.’ He smiled pointedly at Brook. ‘If that’s okay with you, Inspector.’

‘It’s fine,’ answered Brook. Charlton wasn’t about to start trusting him in front of the press again, in spite of the conciliatory tone of their last conversation.

‘You’d better bring me up to speed,’ said Charlton.

Brook looked over at Noble, who moved to the photo display. ‘We have four Derby College students — Kyle Kennedy, Becky Blake, Adele Watson and now Russell Thomson — missing after attending a party for Kennedy’s eighteenth birthday last Friday night. It was apparently a small gathering, not your usual loud music and screaming minidramas. Kennedy’s mother, Alice, and her friend, Len Poole, had gone to Chester for the weekend. When they returned on Sunday morning, they found this leaflet on Kyle’s bed.’ Noble held up the Deity leaflet. ‘This is a copy. The originals are being fingerprinted. On top of the leaflet was Kyle’s mobile phone. The SIM card had been removed. His room was tidy and the bed hadn’t been slept in. Similar sights greeted the parents of the other three students at whatever time they eventually became concerned about their child’s whereabouts. Russell Thomson was the last to be reported missing this morning, so we haven’t processed his laptop yet but the SIM card was also missing from his mobile.’

‘Six days. Long time,’ observed Morton.

‘It is,’ said Brook. ‘But Miss Thomson works nights so it’s easy to see how Russell wasn’t missed. Besides, all four teenagers are bright, apparently responsible and self-sufficient. They had their own house key to come and go as they pleased.’

‘We’ve checked the laptops of Kyle Kennedy and Becky Blake,’ said DC Cooper. ‘They’ve been completely wiped.’

‘They deleted all their files?’ said Morton.

‘If they’d just done that, Rob, we could’ve recovered everything from the hard drive, but the hard drives have been professionally emptied of everything but the software.’

‘Would the students possess that knowledge?’ asked Charlton.

‘It’s not so hard,’ answered Cooper. ‘Kids grow up at a keyboard these days. They know how to do everything.’

‘The other two had laptops, you say?’ asked Morton.

‘The technicians are picking up Thomson’s today but there’s no reason to think it would be different. However, Adele Watson’s laptop is missing,’ said Brook. ‘She is said to be a talented writer and poet but her writing books are missing as well.’

‘So she took them with her?’

‘It’s possible. We also think it’s possible Adele’s father may have hidden her laptop as well as her writing,’ added Noble.

‘Why?’ asked Charlton.

‘We’re not sure,’ said Brook. ‘We’ve been told she was scared of him and we think maybe she’s been writing about her relationship with her father.’

‘Relationship?’ asked Morton. ‘You mean sexual?’

‘Not definitely. It was just a vibe we picked up,’ replied Noble. ‘But if there was something untoward, it would be natural for Watson to want to destroy any thoughts she might have committed to paper or computer — or at least hide them away until he’s had a chance to sanitise. This is only speculation at this point, sir, but Watson was the only parent who gave us that feeling.’

‘But why take her laptop if her hard drive has been wiped?’ said Cooper.

‘If he didn’t wipe it, he won’t know.’

‘Did you check Social Services and the SO Register?’ said Charlton.

‘No sex offenders in the area and no social-work hits on the Watson family,’ answered Noble.

‘But you got a vibe off him,’ repeated Charlton.

‘Adele’s was the only bed that was messed up and the phone moved — we think, by Watson, maybe to lie down in her room, who knows?’

‘To masturbate, you think,’ said Charlton.

Brook and Noble exchanged a glance and shrugged noncommittally.

‘It sounds a bit thin,’ continued Charlton.

‘It wasn’t just that,’ said Brook. ‘Watson tried to steer us away from Adele’s boyfriend when most normal fathers would be doing the opposite.’