Steven Dunne - Deity

Brook glanced across at the only other recent photograph of Russell they’d tracked down — a headshot, the one taken for his Derby College entry pass and the same one he’d also used for his passport application three months earlier. His bland features were partially covered by his unkempt hair as though Russell wanted to hide as much of his face as he could, despite the use to which the image would be put.

Something about the Facebook picture struck Brook as interesting but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Then he looked again at the hands. They hung out of a long-sleeved sweatshirt, only the fingers visible. He thought of Terri and her scars. Could Russell be hiding similar scars from a suicide attempt? He’d certainly had a troubled life, by all accounts. But he was eighteen now, on the cusp of leaving fulltime education, the trauma of school bullying behind him. Surely if he was going to enter into some kind of suicide pact, it would have happened before now. Then again, he could say the same for the others.

He looked either side of the squinting Russell’s head and narrowed his own eyes to see clearly. There was something in the background. DC Cooper returned to the Incident Room with three cups of tea.

‘Can we get this photograph enlarged? Here and here,’ added Brook, circling two areas with a pen.

‘No problem,’ said Cooper.

The room began to fill up again for the broadcast. Noble approached, reeking of the sweet perfume of tobacco.

‘Don’t you get bored being right all the time?’ said Noble. Brook raised an eyebrow. ‘Poole was waiting downstairs to have a word with you. I put him in Interview Two.’

Charlton returned with a coffee and took his usual table at the back without looking up at Brook. He dangled his legs a foot above the floor and sipped quietly on his cup to wash down the humble pie.

Noble extinguished the lights. A few seconds later the Deity homepage appeared. The countdown was at fifteen seconds.

At zero, a soft and melodic piece of choral music began to play, all weeping violins and lamenting voices. It sounded like some sort of Requiem to Brook but he knew it wasn’t Mozart — that particular piece of music was seared on his memory from his struggles with The Reaper. However, the churchgoing Charlton nodded in recognition. Brook heard him mutter, ‘Verdi.’

Meanwhile the small video screen opened with the front page of a newspaper. Cooper maximised the screen. The South Wales Argus , dated December 2007, sported the headline: 17th teenager takes life . Beside the headline was a grainy picture of the doomed teenager, perhaps a few years younger, smiling happily for the camera next to a birthday cake — a poignant image never intended for use outside the family album.

Before the assembled officers could read the story, the picture changed. Another newspaper, another young person ending her suffering — BULLIED GIRL TAKES OVERDOSE . This time the local paper was in London. And so it continued. GIRL JUMPS TO HER DEATH AFTER LOVER’S TIFF in Surrey. JOBLESS TEENAGER FALLS UNDER TRAIN in Yorkshire. UNKNOWN BOY HANGS HIMSELF in Denbighshire. This last was accompanied by a picture of a youngster hanging, neck snapped, from the end of a rope.

The sequence and the music ended and the film began. Brook had been right. It was the footage of Wilson Woodrow’s suicide, taken by the mysterious figure in the bushes. The doomed Wilson was framed against the river wall with the Council House building in the background. He grunted and turned away from the river, puffing towards the camera. A murmur of surprise ran through the Incident Room. They had sound.

Wilson approached the bushes, walking unsteadily, the camera following his movement as he looked furtively on the ground for large stones. He bent down to pick one up and tottered back with it towards the river wall and returned for more. Then they heard it. The words were slurred and scattered between Wilson’s grunts of effort but the rhyme was unmistakable. ‘She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not.’ The film ended with Wilson clambering on to the river wall, sobbing and chanting, ‘She loves me not,’ and stepping off into the river.

The screen went blank and a male voice poured softly from the speakers. ‘Bye, bye, Wilson.’

There was silence for several minutes as they waited for more.

‘Cancel the lipreader,’ said Brook, still staring at the screen, waiting for the countdown to start again.

Instead the funereal music began again and the pale face of Becky Blake filled the screen. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted and her skin was deathly white. Her hands were crossed, the tips of her fingers just visible under her chin. They were also deathly white. A second later the picture changed to Kyle Kennedy in the same pose. Like Becky, his face was ashen, but peaceful and still. There was a pronounced swelling on his jaw, presumably a souvenir of Wilson’s punch.

Finally Adele’s face appeared and Brook’s breathing quickened. She had the skin of an angel. Not a blemish, not a hair out of place. Her mouth and eyes were closed, her head slightly to one side. Brook saw carpet encroaching on the shot in the top right-hand corner.

The image faded and with it the music. Brook smiled. ‘They’re alive.’

‘Trust me, sir,’ insisted Brook to a disbelieving Charlton. ‘Those last three pictures were faked.’

‘Why would they fake them?’ asked Noble.

‘They want people to think they’re dead to increase media attention,’ explained Brook. ‘That tells us they’re alive. You’re forgetting. .’

‘. . what we see is but a dream? No, Inspector, we’re not,’ said Charlton. ‘But I want more than inverted logic to tell me they’re still alive.’

‘Look at the carpet next to Adele’s head.’ Brook pointed to the frozen image on the screen.

‘What about it?’

‘It’s on the floor in Alice Kennedy’s living room.’ Brook looked at Noble. ‘John?’

Noble narrowed his eyes at the screen. ‘You’re right.’

‘So what?’ argued Charlton. ‘So they were killed there.’

‘And their bodies spirited away in a van that loaded them up without a single witness noticing,’ replied Brook. ‘No, sir, these shots are faked. They must have done it before they left the house. Remember the talcum powder SOCO found on the living-room carpet?’

‘Yes,’ replied Charlton doubtfully.

‘They rubbed it on their face and hands and tried to play dead.’ Noble smiled.

‘Exactly,’ said Brook.

‘That only means they were alive at the Kennedy house,’ argued Noble. ‘They could still be dead.’

‘True, but then why show us fake pictures? If they’re dead, why not show us the real thing? Deity has had no qualms so far about broadcasting violence and death.’

‘You got me there.’ Noble nodded.

‘So what do we tell the press and TV?’ asked Charlton. ‘Do we denounce these pictures as fakes?’

‘No. That might provoke a reaction,’ retorted Brook.

‘You talk as though Deity is an entity, a being with power over these kids.’

‘Somebody’s got a hold over them,’ said Brook. ‘Look how Wilson was manipulated — Jake McKenzie too. If we denounce these pictures as fakes, whoever’s behind this might feel compelled to come up with the real thing.’

‘We have to say something, if only to the parents,’ said Charlton.

‘We tell them that we’re accepting nothing at face value and they shouldn’t either. That goes for our investigation and how we respond to the media.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Brook,’ said Charlton.

Noble rang off. ‘Alice Kennedy.’