Steven Dunne - Deity

‘Jim Morrison, James Dean, River Phoenix,’ he said, noting the posters dotted around Adele Watson’s walls. ‘Young, beautiful and immortal,’ he added, suddenly thoughtful. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked, nodding at a fourth poster.

The Watsons shook their heads.

‘It’s Kurt Cobain,’ said Noble. ‘He was lead singer with Nirvana.’

‘Was?’ enquired Brook.

‘He shot himself.’

‘And that?’ Brook enquired, pointing to a poster of a young blond man over Adele’s bed.

Watson scoffed loudly. ‘That? That’s a faggot.’

His wife frowned at him. ‘That’s Alexander Skarsgard. He’s in True Blood .’

‘What’s that?’ asked Brook.

‘It’s a show about vampires, if you can believe it?’ spat Watson. ‘And it’s full of faggoty actors like him pretending to be men.’

‘You’re not a fan,’ observed Brook patiently.

‘Please,’ he sneered. ‘People will swallow anything.’

‘I like it,’ said his wife. ‘The men are hot.’

‘Jesus, Roz, give us a break.’

‘Your husband’s right, Mrs Watson,’ Brook said gravely. ‘All actors are gay.’ Noble looked away, trying not to smile.

Watson became animated. ‘Thank you, Inspector. But try telling that to my wife and daughter.’

‘I mean, proper women are attracted to real men,’ continued Brook. ‘Firemen, soldiers. .’

‘Exactly,’ Watson agreed.

‘. . builders,’ Brook threw in.

Watson went back into his shell as his wife squinted suspiciously at him. ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ he muttered.

‘So Adele is more interested in actors than builders,’ said Brook.

‘Well, her boyfriend isn’t an actor,’ said Mrs Watson.

‘Boyfriend?’ enquired Noble, looking at Brook. ‘You didn’t mention that before.’

‘With a Porsche, as well,’ said the shrivelled woman. ‘You should speak to him.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘She didn’t tell me. Jim saw him though.’

‘I never saw him,’ blustered Watson. ‘But he dropped her off last week and she was crying. She said he’d dumped her.’ He smiled coldly at the detectives. ‘So maybe that’s who you should be out looking for.’

‘And you don’t know his name?’

‘No,’ said Watson.

‘Perhaps Adele mentioned him in an email?’ suggested Brook.

‘No. Her laptop’s gone — I told you.’

Brook held up a hand in apology. ‘So you did.’

‘And he drove a Porsche,’ said Noble, making a note.

Watson hesitated now. ‘Not definitely. But a sports car of some kind. Or maybe it was a saloon.’

‘You told me it was a Porsche,’ said Roz Watson.

‘Either way, an older man,’ prompted Brook, fixing his eye on Watson. ‘With money.’

‘I would think.’

Brook smiled warmly at the husband and wife. ‘Well, if you could go downstairs and finish that list of contacts with PC. .’

‘. . Crainey,’ finished Noble.

‘Right. And keep out of Adele’s room in case Scientific Support Officers need to do any work.’

‘There’s something wrong there,’ said Brook, when they were standing under the streetlight outside the front gate.

‘I know. They seemed more angry than concerned.’

‘And they didn’t mention their daughter by name the entire time. At the Blake house it was Becky this and Becky that — same with Mrs Kennedy and Kyle.’

‘Now you mention it,’ said Noble, passing Brook a cigarette.

‘Another odd thing — he seemed happy telling us his daughter had been dumped. That’s not normal. Contrast that with a typical father like Fred Blake who thinks no one’s fit to breathe the same air as his daughter. Anybody dumping Becky Blake would be bad-mouthed for the rest of his life.’

‘Think Watson has an idea who the boyfriend is and plans to confront him?’

‘That might explain his memory loss over the Porsche.’ Brook took a deep lungful of smoke. ‘But there’s more to it than that. His daughter’s missing but he hardly seems surprised or worried.’

‘Like he knows where she’s gone?’

‘Or maybe why she might go.’

‘Something to do with him, you think?’

Brook shrugged. ‘Possible. We need to search the house.’

‘Looking for what!’ exclaimed Noble.

‘The laptop, for one thing. And something containing Adele’s writings.’

‘You think Watson took Adele’s laptop?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe she hid it herself. Either way, Becky and Kyle both left their laptops behind. So where’s Adele’s?’

‘Maybe they need one between the three of them so she took it.’

‘And not even put it in its case?’

‘It’s odd. But why would Watson take it?’

‘No idea. Perhaps he thinks there’s something on it — a poem or a piece of writing or an email — he doesn’t want anyone to see.’

‘Containing what?’

‘Who knows? It may be no more than father and daughter butting heads over her choice of boyfriend, but girls can be pretty vitriolic behind your back.’

‘What about Mrs Watson? Do you think she’s covering for her husband about something?’

‘I’m not sure she knows there’s anything amiss, not deep down.’ Brook smiled sadly. ‘Maybe even he doesn’t.’

Noble nodded. ‘So it may all be in his head.’

‘Or Adele’s. Teenage daughters are younger versions of our wives, John, so it’s not a huge leap for that relationship to be corrupted. The boyfriend could have triggered something in him that caused conflict. Our daughters having sex with other men is the secret dread of all fathers, the first thing we picture when boys start looking their way. It’s even worse when older men are looking.’

Noble kept silent, waiting for a corroborating anecdote from Brook’s own past parenting. It didn’t arrive. He threw his butt to the pavement. ‘I’ll put in a call to Social Services tomorrow. See what pops up on the Watsons. So where does this leave us?’

‘With three unhappy kids looking to change their lives,’ Brook said. ‘Three abandoned mobile phones and three leaflets. This website. .’

‘Deity?’

‘We need to find out who’s behind it. Tell Cooper to start on it as soon as he gets in tomorrow. And get a warrant for the Watson house.’ Brook looked at his watch then back to the front door as the uniformed FLO closed it behind him. Brook stepped to the rear of his car and opened the boot. He took out the small tightly packed bin bag retrieved from the Kennedy dustbin. ‘It’s gone eleven, John. Can you get a lift back with. .?’

‘I can,’ said Noble.

‘Good, get some rest before your surveillance. Take this bin bag to the lab and give them the plaster. I’ll call on this Russell Thomson on my way in tomorrow and then we’ll see about going public.’

It was close to midnight when Brook finally pulled up to his cottage in Hartington. To his annoyance, a lime-green VW Polo was parked outside his house so he had to leave his BMW in the cramped drive of Rose Cottage, the empty rental property next door.

He trudged wearily to his tiny porch carrying one of the Deity leaflets in a plastic wallet — something to think about in the lonely hours to keep his mind off the mortal remains of Barry Kirk.

He fumbled for his door key, trying to ignore his grumbling stomach. He hadn’t eaten since his bacon sandwiches but hadn’t had time to buy food again. Worse still, he hadn’t bought cigarettes.

When Brook put his key in the lock and turned, nothing happened — the door was already unlocked. Had he forgotten to lock up this morning? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d wandered out in an insomniac fug. Once he’d even forgotten to close the door.