Steven Dunne - Deity

Danny nodded, sifting the information. ‘That’s fine. But we have a policy at Millstone House Shelter. If someone asks for help, we try to give it. We don’t ask questions about their background or whether they’ve been in prison. We don’t even ask for a name if they don’t want us to know. A hard bed and simple food is all we can give, but we give it willingly.’

‘Very commendable,’ replied Brook.

‘Look, we’re not doing the census, buddy,’ cut in Noble. ‘We just want to know if he stayed here in the last month.’

‘And you don’t have a name,’ said Danny.

‘Not yet,’ said Brook. He stared back at Danny’s lived-in features. ‘I think we’d better have a look round. Maybe ask some of your residents.’

‘They won’t be here for a few hours yet,’ said Danny, still pleased to be so obstructive. ‘Come back around five when the soup’s ready. Fine day like today, they’ll all be down at the riverside gardens tucking into a few tinnies.’

‘Five o’clock?’

‘Sure, if you like wasting your time. Even if you find someone who wants to talk to you, you won’t get much sense out of them. Not after tea-time beers. You’re better off coming back in the morning.’

Brook nodded. ‘You’ve seen a lot of dead men, have you?’ Danny’s grin disappeared. ‘Sorry?’

‘You didn’t turn a hair at the photograph,’ chipped in Noble.

Danny looked evenly into Brook’s eyes. ‘I’ve seen a few. I used to be in the life. You break into enough derelict houses to doss down, you’re gonna find bodies sooner or later — or what’s left of ’em. The lost ones. And, natural enough, the wretched and the desperate that come here are sometimes taken unto God in the middle of the night. This isn’t a health spa.’

‘You’re not in the life now,’ said Brook.

‘Not since Jesus found me in the depths of my depravity and held out His hand to me. Me! No matter what I’d become and what I’d done, He wanted me by His side.’

‘And now you do His work,’ said Brook, making some effort to keep the cynicism from his voice.

‘With a song in my heart, Inspector,’ replied Danny.

‘Praise the Lord,’ sneered Noble.

‘Noticed anyone else taking an unusual interest in your residents? Besides staff, obviously.’

‘In what way?’

‘Asking about your guests, where they might go after they leave here, maybe even plying them with alcohol.’

‘The only alcohol allowed in here, friend, is already in their bellies when they arrive. And no, no one has been taking an interest in the lost souls who end up here. Except the staff.’

‘And Jesus,’ said Brook. Danny answered with a fake smile. Brook turned and signalled to Noble to leave.

‘I think his name was Tommy. He was here,’ said Danny. ‘About three, four weeks ago.’

‘Tommy?’ asked Noble.

Danny turned to leaf through a ledger. ‘Tommy Mac, it says here. I assume that’s short for something. He was a Scot.’

‘Is there a date?’ asked Noble.

‘April twenty-fifth for two nights.’

‘Anything unusual about his visit? Anything happen to him, like maybe he got into an argument with someone?’

Danny shook his head. ‘He came. He left. Far as I remember.’

‘No one here he managed to aggravate, someone who might bear a grudge?’

‘There’s always conflict, Inspector. Spend a couple of nights here and you’d be arguing over a discarded tab end with the guy in the next bed. But the one redeeming feature about the demon drink is they rarely remember anything the next day.’

‘Do you have CCTV?’

‘Some. Thefts and assaults are not unknown.’

‘Would you have it for Tommy’s visit?’

‘Not after three weeks.’

‘I’d like a photocopy of the names of all the men who stayed here during those two nights. .’

‘I told you. .’

‘. . or whatever names they gave. I also want the names of staff on duty while Tommy was here.’

‘The staff I can give you. You’ll need the director’s permission for a list of guests. Not that they left contact numbers. They leave here and they become invisible again, as soon as the door shuts behind them.’

Jake sat on his bed, naked but for a towel round his waist, chatting on MSN with some of his fellow college footballers. They had a big game against Trent Poly at the weekend and his teammates were not shy in telling all their contacts on Facebook how convincingly they were going to win. Trent Poly r gay .

‘Trent Poly is gay,’ he said, but declined to correct their grammar online. Jake didn’t usually join in such meaningless banter. He didn’t see the point. They’d know the result after the match and the endless speculative boasting seemed like a waste of effort — doubly so if they lost. Tonight, however, he was happy to kill time, to be distracted by trivia and he spent another vacant half-hour trying to respond to his teammates’ incoherent ramblings.

Kyle’s Smiths CD was playing. After fruitlessly searching for Kyle in the dark fields the night before, Jake had returned to pick it up and bring it home. Now he was going to his party. What would Kyle say to him when he opened the door? Track 9 began to play. Take me out tonight .

Jake glanced sideways at the DVD-shaped parcel on the bed. Picnic at Hanging Rock — Special Edition . He’d bought it earlier today and it was expensive. His mum had wrapped it for him though he wouldn’t tell her who it was for in case she mentioned it to his dad. When she’d asked if it was for a girlfriend, he’d let her believe it.

With a heavy heart, he typed in a final inanity, being careful to misspell a couple of words, and logged out of MSN.

Becky’s face fell as Kyle opened the door to her. ‘Shit. What happened to you, Kylie?’

He smiled weakly at her despite the painful swelling around his face. ‘You should see the other guy — not a scratch on him,’ he joked.

‘But what. .?’

‘I had a disagreement with Wilson about my sexual orientation.’

‘That fat tub of guts. At least you’ve got a sexual orientation.’

Kyle giggled then winced in pain. ‘Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.’ He ushered her in. Becky couldn’t hear music or even a TV. Only Adele was there, sitting on a small sofa with a bottle of untouched WKD in her hand, staring into space. She glanced up at Becky and smiled when she saw the jeans, trainers and sweatshirt, the leather rucksack over her shoulder.

Becky nodded back at her and looked around. ‘Geek Boy not here?’

Adele shook her head. ‘Not yet. Do you want a drink?’

Becky prepared to refuse, citing her skin as the reason. A model must have beautiful skin. ‘Don’t see why not.’

Jake stood beneath the streetlight outside Kyle’s house. He’d been there nearly five minutes, just watching, wondering what to do. He’d seen no one arrive and no signs of life. There wasn’t even the barely muffled pulse of loud music that had greeted his arrival at every other teenage party he’d attended. Maybe Kyle hadn’t come home after the previous night’s beating. Maybe he was lying out in the fields injured or dead. For the first time in his life, Jake envied people who smoked.

With a deep breath, he approached the glass front door and raised a hand to knock. But instead of knocking, he waited. He couldn’t hear anything; no music, no laughter and none of the usual loud screeching and shouting for attention that characterised every other conversation held at such gatherings. It was as quiet as the grave.

He stood frozen, his hand aloft, ready to pound on the door. Finally he lowered his arm and walked around the side of the house where there was a large floor-to-ceiling window. The curtains were drawn but Jake could see movement on the other side so he drew nearer and fixed his eye to a crack in the material. He pulled back and turned away, deep lines of confusion etched on his brow. A second later he walked back down the small drive and set off for home.