Steven Dunne - Deity

‘So it could still be murder.’

‘Habib thinks not, but they’re still doing tests.’

‘What else?’

‘The scars below the nostrils were also caused by some kind of sharp tool pushed into the nose to puncture the membrane on the brain and let the fluid drain away.’

‘Same as McTiernan.’

‘Right. One difference: Habib said Barry Kirk’s brain was more cut up and the scarring was much deeper. The right upper lip was almost sliced through.’

‘Did you run the MO through HOLMES and the PNC?’

‘No hits on either database. Nothing even close to this MO came back.’

Brook fired up his computer and logged on to his internal email account. ‘Ancient anatomy,’ he muttered, narrowing his eyes.

‘Sorry?’

‘Something Dr Petty said. Is Egypt a member of Interpol?’

‘I think so. I can check.’

Brook took a sip of his tea and ran his eye down the list of contacts. He clicked on Habib’s email address and typed a few words and numbers, then sent it off to him marked for Dr Petty’s attention. ‘If they are, run the MO past the Interpol database.’

‘You mean. .’

‘Yes, I mean ask Jane to do it,’ replied Brook testily.

Noble raised an eyebrow. ‘Because of the cotton?’

‘No, because they have an ancient culture of embalming the dead.’ Brook sighed. ‘We have little enough to go on. The chances are the Egyptian police are still in disarray after the revolution, but it might be worth asking the question. Also. .’ Brook blinked and turned to him.

‘What is it?’ asked Noble.

‘Kirk’s upper lip was almost sliced through, you say.’

‘Yes.’

‘Worse than Tommy?’

‘That’s right.’

Brook pushed his chair back and stood. ‘Kirk was dumped at least fifteen days before McTiernan.’

Noble’s face wasn’t registering enlightenment. ‘Maybe longer.’

Brook smiled. ‘My God, John. He’s practising.’

‘Practising?’

Brook nodded. ‘Practising on the bodies.’

‘For what?’

‘When we know that, we’ll know who we’re looking for. He’s removing all the organs, including the brain, and trying to leave the corpse cosmetically intact. But he’s having the most trouble extracting the brain without leaving a mark, so he needs more bodies. With Kirk he was clumsy and almost sliced through his top lip but with Tommy, his technique had improved; the scarring wasn’t as pronounced.’

‘And you think Jock will turn up with less scarring than McTiernan under the nostrils because The Embalmer’s improving his technique — interesting.’

‘We should speak to Charlton.’

‘We can’t.’

‘We must. Suppose the vagrants are just the first? Suppose he perfects what he does and gets ready to show us what he can really do.’

‘Hasn’t he already?’

‘I don’t think so. He’s barely started. He’s honing his skills, getting better, but he’s still not good enough. Once he’d cut McTiernan’s upper lip, he stopped hacking at the brain. He needs to leave the body without a blemish. That’s why he didn’t try to hack up his brain as much as Kirk. He’d already ruined him. We’ve got to convince Charlton to-’

‘Sir, Charlton’s not here. He’s at a conference until next Monday.’

‘A conference?’ Brook was annoyed but then started to smile. ‘A conference,’ he said again. ‘Okay.’

‘Sir? I know that look. .’

‘We have no choice, John. This is urgent. The Embalmer needs more bodies to practise on. He got Jock last night in Leopold Street.’

‘You’re not certain of that.’

‘As certain as I can be. He was grabbed before I could get to him.’

‘And the missing students?’

‘Students? You mean we’re missing more than one?’

‘As of yesterday evening we’re missing three — two girls and the Kennedy boy, Kyle.’

‘How do we know they’re one case?’

‘We don’t, for sure. But apparently they were all at the same party last Friday night and no one’s seen them since.’

Brook raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘A party? How old are they?’

‘They’re eighteen, all attending Derby College, all very bright — ’

‘- and all old enough to please themselves,’ finished Brook. ‘They’ve been to a rave, John, and got wrecked.’

‘Or Ibiza. Or a festival,’ Noble said. ‘I know. Nevertheless, it’s been reported and you’re SIO, so until we find them. .’

Brook sighed. ‘Anything gone out to the press?’

‘Not yet. There’s no evidence of foul play or violence. Think we should?’

‘For once, yes. They can do our job for us.’ Then Brook changed his mind. ‘But I suppose we can’t let them run with it until we have a few facts.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Okay, John. For your sake, we’ll do it by the book. Round everyone up, DS Gadd included. We’ll have a joint briefing in two hours — both cases. Meanwhile, you can bring me up to speed on these students. I promise, tonight we’ll talk to the parents.’

As Brook finished his account of the episode in the Leopold Street squat he looked round the Incident Room, hoping the rest of his detectives were feeling the same urgency. ‘And the chances are we’re not going to find Jock alive unless we can work out who’s taken him. We don’t have a picture, we don’t have a surname and even “Jock” could be a nickname. On the other hand, we do have a name for whoever’s dropping off the alcohol. His name is Oz or Ozzy. He’s not Australian. He’s early middle-aged and powerfully built.’

‘Is that all there is to go on?’ asked Cooper.

‘You have to remember who’s giving the description,’ replied Brook.

‘Ozzy. Do we know if that’s a real name?’ asked Gadd.

Brook shrugged. ‘Unlikely. But even if it’s an alias maybe it’s a nickname he uses at work, maybe even at one of those funeral homes or hospices we spoke to on Sunday.’ Brook looked around to see if the name rang any bells. ‘No? Well, make a note of the name for any follow-up. We may have to do it all over again, this time face to face.’ Brook tried to ignore the groans and turned to the large map of the Derby area.

‘But for now, we concentrate on the house where Jock was abducted. It’s our only active lead.’ He pointed to Leopold Street. ‘It’s derelict, with no power, no heating, and it’s home to about ten vagrants, though obviously that number is fluid. We’re going to be doing surveillance ourselves, starting tonight.’ More groans. Brook raised a hand. ‘When Charlton gets back, I’ll make sure we get more bodies on this, but until then it’s down to us.

‘Now, it’s a tight road, so position your car with care. Our suspect has transport and we don’t want to scare him off. You’ll take two four-hour shifts. Rob and Dave, you’ll take ten till two, so go home now and get some rest. John and Jane, you’ll relieve at two tomorrow and stay until six. I’ve been out there three days so I’ll take tonight off,’ he added, unable to meet eyes. ‘Remember, our guy’s a night owl so he’ll only come when the streets are deserted. This morning it was nearly three before he showed up.’

‘You think he’ll be back so soon?’ asked DS Gadd.

‘If he really has got Jock, probably not, but as it’s our only solid lead, we can’t take the risk.’

‘And don’t forget, if we’re right, he has to keep the occupants happy or they might move on,’ added Noble. ‘So he might turn up just to deliver more booze.’

‘Exactly. If he makes a delivery, try to follow him but it will be almost impossible for him to miss you at that hour. So if he’s leading you round in circles, you’ll have to bring him in and hope we can take it from there and get him to fess up .’ Brook smiled and looked around the ring of four detectives who stared sombrely at the floor. He wished their expressions were an indication of the investigation’s gravity, instead of regret at losing a night of TV and a warm bed. ‘Finally, until Forensics puts us on the right track, we get stuck into the legwork. Jane, I want you to check out off-licences and bulk suppliers of alcohol tomorrow. You’re looking for anyone buying large amounts of whisky and barley wine.’