Steven Dunne - Deity

‘Just that.’

‘It was on the Deity website, it was on the news in the evening. Are you telling me that you haven’t seen a piece of film that might have a bearing on your son’s disappearance?’

She didn’t reply. Instead she went to the kitchen. ‘I’m making coffee,’ she explained. ‘Want one?’

‘You’re making coffee?’

She smiled sweetly at him. ‘Got to start the day with a cup of hot coffee.’

‘Is that what you did when you found your mother’s body?’

Her eagerness to please vanished for a split second but resumed almost at once. ‘I was only nine. And it was a can of Lilt back then.’ Her eyes lowered in sadness. ‘She left me on my own.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Brook.

Yvette found her smile a second later. ‘No use crying over spilled milk.’ She breezed back to the kitchen.

‘I brought Russell’s computer back yesterday,’ shouted Brook, looking around the living room. He spotted the laptop on a side-table still in the plastic bag he’d returned it in. He picked it up. ‘Why didn’t you watch the broadcast, Yvette? I want an answer.’

She appeared at the doorway. ‘No sugar, right?’

‘You’re a mother. Your missing son could be on that film,’ insisted Brook. ‘The son you begged us to find.’

She looked right at him now, her lips quivering. ‘Russell’s not coming back. He’s dead.’

‘Russell!’ exclaimed Brook. ‘Did you say Russell?’

She hesitated. ‘My son, yes.’

Brook smiled sadly. ‘Your son is dead? How do you know?’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘A mother always knows.’

‘Of course she does.’ Brook pulled Russell’s laptop from the plastic and turned it on.

‘Why are you turning that on? There’s nothing on there. You said yourself.’

‘The files on here were wiped but the software wasn’t touched,’ answered Brook.

Yvette looked at him, processing the information. ‘I don’t understand.’ Her eyes suggested otherwise.

‘Don’t you?’ The software loaded and Brook flicked his eyes around the desktop. ‘Word, Recycle Bin, Help — and an old web browser. Is that all that’s on here?’ Yvette didn’t reply. Brook clicked on the browser icon.

‘It takes ages to load,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘It’s really old.’

Brook nodded. ‘I know,’ he said softly. He turned to face her. ‘But only yesterday you told us Russell was a film buff, that he spent hours filming and watching his films on a laptop.’

‘I. . er, that’s right.’

‘On this?’

No reply.

‘I don’t think he watched films on this piece of junk, did he?’ Yvette didn’t answer. ‘He had another laptop.’ Still no reply. ‘An expensive one capable of uploading and watching films.’

Yvette stood up and smoothed down her robe. ‘No, he used that one,’ she said airily.

‘Then show me the software,’ said Brook.

‘I don’t know about that stuff.’

‘I think you do. Where’s the other laptop?’ said Brook. ‘And more importantly, where is Russell?’

She glared at him briefly before returning to the kitchen to pour two coffees. She placed one next to Brook with a coquettish smile. ‘You did say no sugar.’

Brook’s face was like stone. He swung his own laptop case from his shoulder and turned on his machine. He cued up the last Deity broadcast as Noble had shown him and swung the screen round to face her.

She glanced at the screen but didn’t react. A moment later, Brook paused the broadcast on the picture of the hanged boy. Yvette’s eyes widened. ‘No, no, no!’ she screamed and threw her coffee cup at Brook, who just managed to duck in time, though hot coffee scalded his hand. ‘Leave us alone!’ she wept, and leaped towards the front door. Brook had anticipated her and blocked her way so she turned and headed for the back door. Brook declined to follow, instead pulling out a handkerchief to cover his burning hand.

A few seconds later he heard more screaming, and a struggling Yvette was being restrained with some difficulty by Noble and PC Patel.

‘Yvette Thomson. You’re under arrest for the murder of Russell Thomson.’

Brook plucked the nearly new toothbrush from the cup and dropped it in the evidence bag. He jogged back down the stairs where Don Crump was waxing lyrical about his antipathy to early mornings.

‘It’s Sunday, for Christ’s sake — middle of the night too, I mean, fuck me. .’ He stopped when his colleagues’ eyes were drawn first to Brook on the stairs and then to their tasks. Crump turned to Brook, who handed him the evidence bag.

‘What’s this?’

‘Yvette Thomson. DNA profile, please.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No. You can clear Russell’s room of all the artefacts. I want them bagged and tagged,’ said Brook, over his shoulder.

‘What about his DNA? SOCO already looked, remember.’

Brook turned at the front door. ‘You may have to separate it from other samples,’ he said, ‘but I’d try Mrs Thomson’s bedroom.’

Crump rolled a lascivious eye to colleagues and in his best Kenneth Williams accent, said, ‘Ooh, Matron!’

Cooper scrolled through all the texts on Yvette Thomson’s phone as Brook and Noble looked on.

‘Since the students went missing, Yvette’s sent him fifteen texts. All asking where he is and when he’s coming back and all increasingly desperate. All unanswered as were the thirty calls she placed to his mobile number. If she’s faking it, it’s pretty impressive.’

‘Anything else?’

‘You want to see her snapshots?’

‘Why not?’ said Brook. ‘We might get a better likeness of Rusty.’

Brook placed the evidence bags and photographs on the table and turned on the recorder to announce the time, date, his own name and those of Noble, PC Patel and the duty solicitor, Roger Sands. Yvette Thomson sat perfectly still and stared into space. She seemed to be in a state of shock. ‘State your name for the record, please.’ No reply. ‘Yvette.’

The solicitor touched her arm and Yvette looked up. She roused herself to think. ‘Yvette Gail Thomson.’

‘Have the charges been properly explained to you?’ said Brook.

A pained expression infected her features. ‘I did not kill my son,’ she answered.

‘But you accept that he is dead,’ said Brook.

‘Don’t answer that,’ said Sands.

Brook shot him a malevolent glance and picked up a picture of the hanged boy taken from the Deity broadcast and pushed it towards her. ‘Is that your son?’

‘You don’t have to say anything, Miss Thomson,’ said Sands. ‘They have no evidence.’

‘Is that your son, Yvette?’ persisted Brook. ‘Look at it.’

She darted a glance at the photograph then closed her eyes, forcing tears on to her cheeks. After several minutes of silence she finally answered. ‘Yes. That’s Russell.’

‘Not Rusty.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Every time you referred to your missing son before this morning, you called him Rusty.’

‘Well, I could hardly call him Russell, could I? Out of respect.’

‘So Rusty is not your son.’

‘Miss Thomson, I advise you. .’ began Sands.

‘No.’

‘He’s your lover.’

‘Miss Thomson. .’

She hesitated but then said proudly. ‘Yes.’

‘Miss-’

‘Keep quiet,’ spat Yvette at Sands. ‘I’ll shout about our love from the rooftops if I want.’

Brook smiled at Sands. ‘How long has Rusty been your lover?’

‘Four years.’

‘And Russell died three years ago, is that right?’

‘When we — I — lived in Wales, yes.’

‘Near Denbigh?’

‘Briefly.’

‘So you met Rusty the year before your son died.’