Steven Dunne - Deity

‘And what about cause of death?’

‘Same. Habib says alcohol poisoning but they’ll need to run more tests. Parts of the brain were missing again as well as the organs.’

Brook saw a figure stir to look at him from a nearby doorway and moved further away.

‘And there’s been a development in another of your cases. I need to go over . . ’

Brook saw the man in the doorway looking at him and switched the phone to his other ear. ‘John, I can’t talk for long. But I’m not coming in for a few hours yet. I got a tip from a new face at Millstone House. Somebody at check-in this afternoon knew McTiernan and it seems Tommy was raving about some squat on Leopold Street.’

‘Official?’

‘No, it’s just a derelict but this guy at the refuge, Mitch, says he can’t wait to get back there tomorrow. It seems there’s someone pretending to be from some agency calling round to drop off bottles of whisky.’

‘Whisky? No agency does that.’

‘Exactly. I’m going to check it out now.’

‘Want some back-up?’

‘That won’t help. Speak soon. Wait, John. What did you have to eat tonight?’

‘Er . . Chicken Madras, why?’

Brook ran his lower lip under his teeth. ‘Just wanted to know.’

He ended the call and put the phone on silent then squelched up St Peter’s Street, past Waterstone’s and the small clock-tower which showed two o’clock in the morning. The temperature had dropped and the cold hand of night was beginning to grip. Brook pulled his flimsy overcoat up round his neck, burrowed his hands deeper into his too-thin pockets then quickened his walk to get the blood moving. First order of business after he took a bath — get some decent boots, assuming his feet hadn’t already rotted away to stumps. He pulled out a damp handkerchief and sneezed mightily into the cloth. An inquisitive dog popped its head out of a shapeless pile of blankets in a shop doorway and monitored Brook’s laboured progress with a smooth turn of the head.

‘Good dog,’ breathed Brook as he walked on. The dog, placated, yawned and burrowed back down towards the heat of its owner.

Brook ran the back of his hand across his nose. All he needed — living rough with a cold. He came to a decision. He was exhausted. He couldn’t take another night. This would be his last. The previous two had been fruitless — fruitless, that is, if you excluded the insights he’d gained into a life without a home. Three days and two nights on the streets, and so much about the behaviour and condition of the dispossessed had begun to make sense to Brook. The adoption of a flea-bitten abandoned dog, like the one he’d just seen, was more than a play for sympathy from punters with spare change. The animal offered warmth and the kind of unswerving love and loyalty that acted as antidote to the vitriol unleashed by the well-heeled walking by. He’d heard it all.

Get a job, you fucking tramp.

You stink.

Why don’t you top yourself and do the world a favour?

And it wasn’t just verbal. He’d seen people sleeping in doorways, urinated on by drunken teenagers, kicked awake by shopkeepers and threatened with worse if they came back. And despite being a DI, Brook had not intervened. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to break cover, but a small part of him knew that it was more than that. In just three days of homelessness, Brook had become submissive and, in many ways, helpless. Now he actively avoided eye-contact with others, didn’t want to be noticed, to be the target of abuse or engage with people whose first reaction towards him would be contempt. Brook had assumed the position.

For a second he paused and pulled off a damp glove to scratch his beard again — something had bitten him, he was sure. Living without the basic freedoms and comforts bestowed by an income had quickly reordered his priorities. Food, warm shelter and clean clothes were no longer taken for granted but had become the fundamental pillars of his existence. Brook had never been the sort of person to spend more time than necessary over basic functions, but after the first twelve hours padding around Derby, in the oldest clothes he could muster, he not only longed for a hot bath but had a hunger gnawing at his belly that he’d never experienced before.

After one full day, Brook stank to high heaven and had spent the emergency?20 note in his back pocket on the Sub of the Day , his first packet of cigarettes in a month and a small bottle of whisky, being careful to get the cheapest brands of both to allay suspicion amongst his new acquaintances.

He plodded on, taking the walk of the damned — head sagging forward, shoulders rounded, feet barely clearing the ground, like a prisoner in the Gulag. He reached the top of Osmaston Road and crossed the new link road, Lara Croft Way, which, like most road improvements in the city, had reduced traffic-flow to a virtual standstill during rush-hour. At two in the morning, however, it was deserted and Brook ambled across the four lanes, past the boarded-up bar, long since closed after a stabbing, and turned on to Leopold Street.

Just before reaching Normanton Road, Brook stopped and pulled out a grubby piece of paper given to him by Mitch, his new friend from the Millstone House Shelter. It didn’t have an address on it; the homeless didn’t use addresses — the consequence of being homeless, Brook supposed. Instead they preferred more traditional methods of navigation — a vague description of the location, the description of the house and how to get in.

Brook looked around and was held for a moment. On the other side of the road was a funeral parlour — Duxbury amp; Duxbury. He made a mental note to check they’d been contacted.

He turned back to the darkened, boarded house. He checked Mitch’s note again and approached the steel security grille fastened over one of the windows. This was the place. He pulled aside the grille so he could see inside. It moved easily but it was far too dark to see anything. However, the smell of body odour hit his nostrils, as did a sickly-sweet smell which Brook associated with crack cocaine abuse. He listened for the scurrying of rats but heard nothing but the now familiar harsh rasp of sleeping vagrants mumbling and snoring in their fitful slumber.

Brook took a final breath of fresh air and lifted a leg through the window space, but his foot was suddenly held by a strong hand.

‘Fuck a ye doin’, pal?’ said a voice of pure Scottish tar. Despite the many things Brook had learned about sleeping rough, one thing remained a mystery. Why so many vagrants seemed to be Scottish.

‘Looking for Mitch and a place to kip,’ Brook replied in as gruff a voice as he could manage. He hadn’t yet slipped into the parlance as easily as he would’ve liked.

‘We’re full, pal. Fuck off.’ The hand holding Brook’s foot shoved it roughly back out of the window.

Brook didn’t move away. He knew from his days on the street that the only way to get a result now was to fructify his vocabulary and employ an unfamiliar aggression. ‘Who the fuck says?’ he snarled back.

‘You mouthin’ off, Jimmy? Jock says, so fuck off afore ye get a busted mouth.’

Brook tried not to smile, his default reaction to any form of verbal threat. He was a Detective Inspector and had been threatened many times. Almost always such belligerence was for show, an attempt to gain control over a situation that was overwhelming the aggressor. And when a DI smiled back at hostility, the violent facade often crumbled and Brook knew he had control. But not this time. He needed an alternative strategy.

‘I’ve got fags,’ he said, producing a pack and holding them up to Jock’s face.