Steven Dunne - Deity

He stepped past the bank of computers and checked there was water in the kettle that Rob Morton had had the foresight to bring in, as well as a jar of instant coffee and two pints of milk. He switched the kettle on and looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven on a bright warm Sunday morning.

Brook made coffee for everyone and walked over to look at the large map that nearly filled one wall. He stared at the bridge in Borrowash then at the approximate location of Shardlow gravel pit — approximate because many of the flooded pits were not on the map, having been dug out after the map was published.

The land between Derby and the M1 was flat and wet. Broken ground was home to two rivers as well as the many manmade lakes and waterways created by the extraction of building materials — an excellent place to hide the dead.

Brook took a sip of his coffee, again recalling the image of the body from the gravel pit — the swollen face, the pale buttery flesh. But even before the incision in the flank had been located, Brook had known this was the same MO. He knew enough forensics to realise that a body with organs intact should have been bloated from the decomposition gases but this. . vacant vessel, this receptacle of some mother’s hopes and dreams. . had been exsanguinated and efficiently gutted like a pig at the abattoir.

‘Penny for them,’ said Noble, at Brook’s shoulder.

‘Stick it in your pension, John. I can’t get a handle on this at all.’

‘I know what you mean. Seems like we’ve only got half a crime here.’

‘Exactly that. We’ve got one dumped body that hasn’t been killed. And now a second that presents as the same MO. So what’s the motive?’

‘Maybe Habib and Petty got it wrong. Maybe McTiernan was forced to drink himself to death. That would make it murder.’

‘It still doesn’t get us a motive.’

‘Some grudge against the less fortunate,’ shrugged Noble. ‘There could be a million reasons. Maybe one of Charlton’s sexually assaulted schoolkids is finally getting even. Or maybe it’s a necrophiliac with a thing for black-toothed vagrants.’ He smiled. ‘Motives aren’t always obvious with a nut job.’

‘Nut job,’ repeated Brook with distaste.

‘Or maybe Habib’s right. Maybe someone’s making haggis with human offal.’

‘And black pudding with the blood,’ added Brook. ‘A psychotic butcher with a taste for human flesh — don’t think I didn’t consider it, John. But if someone has the privacy to do this, and the skills to process body parts so efficiently, they wouldn’t need to risk dumping the bodies where they can be found.’

‘So why dump the bodies at all, you mean?’

‘More questions than answers at this stage.’

‘Maybe our guy likes the adrenalin rush, people knowing what he’s doing. That way he creates a climate of fear. He scares the public and feeds on that.’

Brook shook his head. ‘Who’s going to be scared? No one paid any attention to McTiernan. As Charlton said, this is page eleven stuff.’

‘The second body might change things.’

‘Not if it’s another. .’ Brook cast around for a suitable word.

‘Tramp,’ offered Noble. ‘Don’t be afraid to use correct vocabulary. Sir.’

Brook smiled at being admonished by his own words. ‘No one will worry about these tramps turning up dead. No one cared about the prostitutes the Yorkshire Ripper slaughtered until he killed that poor shop assistant.’

‘So he’s daring us to care.’

‘Care? John, you’re missing the point. If he didn’t dump the remains we wouldn’t even know they were missing.’

‘So he’s dumping the bodies to draw attention.’

‘To find an audience, yes.’

‘He’s succeeding.’

‘I know,’ said Brook, rubbing his chin. ‘But I don’t think it’s our attention he’s after.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because we don’t understand what he’s doing — but somebody out there does. And that’s who he’s doing this for.’

DS Gadd and DC Cooper walked over to join Brook and Noble. Cooper took a sip of his coffee and shook his head at Noble. ‘Nada. I’ve spoken to Nottingham University Medical School. He’s not theirs. And with a necrotic liver and chronic heart disease, Tommy McTiernan’s physical condition put him near the bottom of every wish-list. There’s very little demand for his body or his organs, even if they obtained consent — not for transplant, nor for research.’

‘Same here,’ said Gadd. ‘Unwanted in life. Unwanted in death.’

‘Somebody wanted him, Jane,’ said Noble. ‘And if we draw a blank on the phones it’s looking more likely that McTiernan’s body hasn’t been stolen and hasn’t been misplaced.’ Noble’s mobile phone began to croak and he moved away to answer it.

‘Then how did our doer find Tommy?’ asked Cooper.

‘How do you find all the Tommys?’ said Brook. ‘You look on the streets.’

‘You think someone’s roaming the city looking for victims and just took him,’ said Cooper.

‘It’s starting to look that way,’ said Brook.

‘Alive?’

‘That would be easier than finding and transporting corpses,’ replied Brook.

‘Unless someone’s tipping him off about fresh bodies. A doctor maybe,’ said Cooper.

‘What’s in it for a doctor?’ asked Gadd.

‘All right, an ambulanceman then,’ retorted Cooper.

‘Same question.’

‘I don’t know, Jane. Money?’

‘No chance,’ replied Gadd. ‘Besides, these tramps usually die in public, in a hostel, on the streets, in shop doorways, so we’d know about them first. Or they die in the back room of some squat and don’t get found for weeks, maybe even months. The Embalmer’s taking them alive. McTiernan was fresh.’

Cooper nodded. ‘I suppose just picking them up and offering them a bed and a meal would be the easiest thing in the world.’

‘And when he’s got them where he wants them, he feeds them as much drink as they want and waits for the inevitable,’ said Gadd.

‘Patient man.’

‘Maybe he’s helping things along,’ replied Brook. ‘It’s hard to say. But if he has all this privacy, once he’s got them, he can do what he likes and he can take his time. Who would miss Tommy — a homeless man with no family? And even if McTiernan has friends on the street, his disappearance wouldn’t be unusual. He’s invisible, even to them.’ Brook paused, deep in thought. ‘That’s the life.’

‘He’d need an awful lot of privacy — and space.’

‘Somewhere remote,’ said Brook, moving back to the map.

‘So how do we catch him, sir? And what do we charge him with? Littering?’

Brook smiled, then looked down at his misshapen sweater and shabby trousers. He turned to each member of his team in turn and looked at their smart casual clothes. ‘Maybe we need a presence on the streets.’

Noble finished speaking on his mobile but continued writing in his notebook. ‘That was Don Crump from the lab. The Forensics paperwork won’t be done until tomorrow but he’s given me the heads-up. The traffic cones are clean — no prints at all, not even legitimate workmen. Also, Tommy had been drinking whisky in industrial quantities.’

‘Blended or malt?’ asked Rob Morton.

‘I didn’t ask,’ replied Noble.

At that moment, the door to the Incident Room opened and Chief Superintendent Charlton walked in holding a polystyrene coffee cup. He was dressed in a light grey suit with a white shirt and dark blue tie. There was silence. Charlton was rarely to be seen on a Sunday. Like a naughty schoolboy, Rob Morton removed a cigarette from behind his ear and put it in his pocket.

‘Morning, everyone. Didn’t mean to interrupt. I was on my way to church but as I didn’t get my paperwork I thought I’d better come and see what was going on. Pretend I’m not here.’ He shuffled towards the back of the room and on his way, the man who wasn’t there caught Brook’s eye for a few seconds. ‘Carry on,’ he beamed at Noble, sitting on a table to listen.