Deity

‘We don’t know that,’ said Brook.

‘He looked dead to me,’ said Charlton. ‘I know, I know,’ he added, before Brook could make his objection. ‘We could be having our heads messed with. But we need to find Poole.’

‘He’s been abducted.’

‘How do we know that wasn’t faked?’ asked Charlton, waving his hand at the screen.

‘We don’t,’ said Brook. ‘But we know Lee Smethwick and Rusty are connected. We know Smethwick is terminally ill and hung up on Egyptian burial rites. We know Poole is a pathologist.’

‘We also know Poole’s connected to the students,’ interrupted Charlton. ‘He’s connected to the house where they were last seen and now we have film of him attacking Rusty Thomson.’

‘Poole’s not behind Deity.’

‘You sound very sure of that.’

‘Why would Poole upload footage to implicate himself in a murder?’ said Brook. ‘If anything, Deity has shone a searchlight on his past indiscretions. Why would he want that? Besides, Poole’s not smart enough to run rings round us like Deity has for the past week.’

‘Those are opinions,’ answered Charlton. ‘Fact — Rusty Thomson left Poole’s illegitimate son at the end of a rope. That’s motive where I come from. Fact — we have film of him attacking Rusty Thomson.’

‘Motive?’

‘Revenge for his son’s death.’

‘Yvette Thomson said Poole didn’t give a damn about their son,’ pointed out Noble.

‘Exactly,’ agreed Brook. ‘Poole didn’t even know his son was dead. That’s why he continued supporting Yvette long after Rusty had taken Russell’s place.’

‘You saw what I saw,’ said Charlton, waving a hand at the screen. ‘If Poole didn’t give a damn about his son, why did he attack Rusty?’

‘I don’t know,’ confessed Brook. ‘But I know Poole didn’t abduct Kyle, Becky and Adele. He wasn’t even in Derby.’

‘How do we know Kyle, Becky and Adele weren’t still at the Kennedy house when Poole and Alice got back from Chester?’

‘So now Alice is involved in kidnapping her son?’ Brook smiled at Charlton’s discomfort. ‘Sorry, but it just won’t hold up, sir. The only interest Poole had in Rusty was finding out-’ Brook stopped in mid-sentence and raised his face to the heavens. ‘The plaster,’ he said with a sigh.

‘What?’ said Charlton.

Brook looked into space with a hand on his forehead. ‘Rusty was at the party.’

‘But the night before — ’ objected Charlton.

‘- the night before, Poole was following Rusty on Kyle’s bike,’ continued Brook. ‘And when he got the chance, he pounced. He cut Rusty on the neck to get a sample of his DNA. That’s how he got his proof. He didn’t kill Rusty, he surprised him and Rusty dropped the camera. By sheer fluke, it captured shots of him bleeding on the pavement so he acts out his own death scene.

‘It’s perfect,’ said Brook, warming to his theme. ‘By now Rusty must know we’ve got Yvette because he gave her to us. He must know he’s our prime suspect. But he’s got this amazing piece of film that shows him being attacked. Not faked but real. So what does he do? He broadcasts it so it throws all our theories up in the air. We’ll think he died before any of the abductions happened. That’s why he doesn’t appear in any broadcasts until now.’

‘But what about the party?’

‘When Jake looked through the curtains for a second he didn’t see Rusty. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. The plaster puts him there — the blood didn’t belong to Kyle, Becky or Adele. That much we know. That’s Rusty’s blood from the cut on his neck. I guarantee it.’

There was silence for a moment, as everyone searched for a flaw. Finally Charlton nodded. ‘Okay. At least he got sloppy and left us his DNA.’

‘I don’t think this man does sloppy,’ replied Brook softly. ‘More likely he didn’t care because he’s not on the database. But that’s good for us.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he thinks he’s invulnerable and that’s a weakness.’

‘And what about Kyle, Adele and Becky?’ asked Noble. ‘If those monologues are to be believed, they were dead before we even interviewed the parents.’

Twenty-Six

‘Len. I know you’re in there.’

The back of Poole’s neck tingled. The disembodied voice floated out of the darkness. Poole had had a bellyful of groping around in the murk but he knew he’d have to summon the courage if it meant the chance of a way out. He looked longingly back to the shaft of sunlight above the empty pool. With a deep breath, he turned and stepped into the shadows, inching his way towards the disembodied voice. ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted. His voice echoed around the vaulted ceiling of the pool room.

‘Len?’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m here — at the end of the passage.’

‘I don’t see you.’

‘Follow my voice.’

Poole reached the first room leading off the corridor. He could barely see through the shadows but he was sure there was another sarcophagus by the room’s far wall.

‘Hurry up, Len. I haven’t got all day and you certainly haven’t.’

Poole continued to inch blindly down the corridor, passing another open room. Again he fancied it contained a sarcophagus of some sort but it was too dark to see. As he approached the third room, he could make out a dim light from beyond the bend of the corridor. Again he hesitated. Again he glanced into yet another darkened room to his right and again he could discern the shape of a coffin. This time he leaned into the room and ran a hand along the wall. He found the light switch but it didn’t work.

‘Hurry up, Len. Or you can stay there and rot.’

Poole took another deep breath. The heat in this part of the building was oppressive and Poole unzipped and discarded his tracksuit top. His bottoms stank worse but he couldn’t remove them and retain the dignity he so cherished.

He crept onwards. The light became brighter with each watchful step. He passed a fourth room, which was lighter than the others. No coffin. No sarcophagus. But there was a chair. A chair that sat beneath a rope which dangled from an iron cross-girder above.

‘Last chance, Len.’

With improved visibility, Poole quickened his step towards the light, turned another corner and stopped in dismay. Instead of a way out, the dim light that drew him on belonged to a laptop open on a small folding table. A grinning face greeted him from the monitor.

‘Hi, Len.’ The young man beamed happily from the screen.

Poole tried to place the face. ‘Who are you?’

The talking head spoke, fake emotion distorting his voice. ‘Dad, don’t you know me?’

Puzzled, Poole squinted at the screen. ‘Rusty?’

‘Give the man a cigar.’

‘Jesus. You look different. What have you done to your face?’

‘I’ve had a makeover, Dad.’

‘Just who the hell are you?’

Rusty grinned again. ‘Who was I last week or who am I next week?’

‘I don’t understand.’