‘Tiny Tom.’ Phil nodded. ‘He left a while ago.’
‘When?’
Phil shrugged. ‘A week? Two?’
‘Left, how?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Think.
I need to find out where he went from here.’
‘He left with Oz.’
‘Who’s Oz?’
‘Ozzy looks after us, brings us gear.’
‘He’s your benefactor?’ Phil nodded. ‘Is he Australian?’
‘No. English, I think.’
‘Describe him.’
‘I’ve only seen him clearly once and I was rammed.’
‘Try and remember, Phil.’
Phil took a deep breath. ‘He’s younger than us. Forty, forty-five maybe. Short hair, well built, that’s all I can remember. It’s always at night see, after we’ve had a few.’
‘How does he get here?’
‘He has transport. A big van, I think.’
‘A big van, are you sure?’
Phil fixed Brook with a glare. ‘Damen, I can’t be sure of anything. Maybe it was a car. All I think about is the . . .’
‘. . . next fix. I get it,’ said Brook, ‘but did the next fix arrive at the same time as Tommy left?’
Phil thought for a minute then slowly nodded. ‘You’re right. Ozzy gave us a few bottles of whisky then Tommy left with him. Bath and bed, Tommy said.’
‘And you don’t know where.’ Phil shook his head. ‘Okay. Phil, promise me if he comes again, you won’t go with him.’
‘What?’
‘Promise me, Phil.’
‘Why? What’s going on, Damen?’
‘Tommy’s dead. We found him in the river. We think another . . . vagrant has died as well. That we know about. Does the name Barry Kirk ring a bell?’
‘Bazza? He was here. Is he dead too?’
Brook
nodded in the dark. Phil’s expression didn’t waver. Instead he shrugged. ‘Lucky him, I say. That’s the life. We all know what’s coming. If it ain’t me, maybe I’ll read about it in the crapper,’ he sniggered.
‘Phil, things were done to Tommy. His organs were removed.’
‘Lot of use they’d be.’ Phil sniggered again.
‘Don’t you get it yet, Phil? You’re living in a body farm. Barry and Tommy were here, now they’re dead. I think this guy Ozzy takes them somewhere and when they’re dead he guts them like a fish.’
‘So what? He brings us drink, sometimes some rock. Tommy wasn’t my friend, Damen. We don’t have friends in the life. Just rivals for the last smoke, the last drop. We’re on borrowed time, man. Like I said. Lucky Tommy, lucky Bazza.’ He grinned with pleasure. ‘Now I’ve got a bottle of theirs with my name on it.’
Brook searched in his pockets and found a pencil. He wrote on the grubby wallpaper. ‘I’m your friend, Phil. I can help you.’
‘Is that right? Give me money then. I’ve got the rattles something rotten.’
Brook looked him in the eyes. ‘I can help you if you’ll let me. You’re sick.’
‘Don’t fucking patronise me,’ snarled Phil. ‘I’m not sick. This isn’t an illness. I’m weak, no moral fibre, no character. Geddit?’
‘Okay, calm down.’
‘I made my choices and I got it wrong. I fucked up so don’t tell me I’m sick unless you’re got a pill for failure.’
‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’ Brook tore off the flap of wallpaper
and scrunched it into Phil’s top pocket. ‘If this Ozzy comes back or if you want my help, money, a bed for the night, anything – that’s my mobile number. Call me.’
‘From a payphone? Just give me your mobile and I’ll ring your landline, it’ll be quicker.’ Phil’s face shone with sincerity.
‘I’m a copper, remember. We both know you’ll have sold the phone before I get to the end of the street. Just get to a payphone and use it.’
Phil grinned and Brook could see his rotting mouth. ‘Is there a retainer for this service?’ he asked sheepishly.
Brook fished around for the meagre change from his twenty pounds and poured it into Phil’s hand. A noise caught his attention. ‘Was that a car door?’ He flung the flimsy door open and hurtled down the stairs to the main room in time to hear a vehicle pulling away. ‘Out of the way,’ Brook shouted at the throng of men swarming around the window, picking full bottles out of a crate. ‘Move.’
By the time Brook had jostled his way past the sluggish scrum of men and vaulted out of the window, the lights had disappeared. He turned back to the silhouette of his fellow Oxbridge graduate, stooping to pluck his own precious bottle from the crate.
After a second, Phil came to the gaping window, spinning the top from his whisky and downing a huge swallow. Eventually he lowered the bottle and leaned on the sill. ‘Where’s Jock?’ he asked.
Brook finally scuffed his feet across the forecourt of St Mary’s Wharf station at a quarter to four in the morning having walked across the centre of town. He was annoyed that he’d surrendered all his change to Phil Ward, not that he could
have enticed a taxi to pick him up at any time of day given the condition he was in. He’d tried phoning for a squad car but all units were tied up and even Noble had turned off his mobile.
He plodded wearily up the steps to the glass doors, dismayed to see Sergeant Hendrickson on duty at the front counter and wishing he hadn’t left his smartcard in his desk. As he approached the intercom, Brook saw the uniformed officer muttering something under his breath which even a novice lipreader like Brook took to be, ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’
Brook pressed the intercom, monitoring Hendrickson for further evidence of abuse. ‘It’s DI Brook. Let me in, Sergeant.’ Hendrickson unveiled his most obsequious smile and pressed his own button.
‘DI Brook isn’t on duty at this time, sir. Please call back later.’
He released the button and affected a return to pressing paperwork on his counter.
Brook’s lips tightened and he pressed again. He did have his warrant card for emergencies so he pulled it from his shoe and, after brushing the condensation from it, forced it against the glass. He pressed the intercom button again. ‘
I’m
DI Brook. Open the door now.’
Hendrickson shielded his eyes from a non-existent glare and opened his mouth in fake recognition. He buzzed Brook into the station. ‘I didn’t recognise you in that get-up. Sir. Been to a fancy dress party, have we?’ A PC whose name escaped Brook stood behind Hendrickson, smiling gleefully at the poorly disguised insubordination.
Brook made for the lifts. Hendrickson had never said anything to him that on paper would have been deemed inappropriate and Brook knew that to complain about a fellow officer’s
attitude
would lead to further ridicule. However, on an
impulse he stopped and turned to face him. ‘I’m undercover, Sergeant – something you might have come across if you’d made the grade at CID.’
As Brook marched away, the expression on Hendrickson’s face turned to hate. ‘You fucking Southern cunt,’ he spat when Brook was out of earshot. ‘They should have left you in that loony bin and thrown away the key.’
Brook walked through the quiet station gratified to encounter nobody else capable of commenting on his appearance. In his office he changed into an old sweater and jeans and dumped his damp and dirty clothes in a bin bag for disposal. He’d only ever worn them on those rare occasions when he was forced to do a little garden maintenance but, after three days living rough, and with some of the substances now adhering to the fabric, they were better thrown away. He wouldn’t be running short of scruffy clothes anytime soon.
Brook sat briefly at his desk and read various notes left for him by Jane Gadd about The Embalmer. The Millstone House enquiries had proved fruitless. Only three vagrants staying during Tommy McTiernan’s visit had given full names, and none of them had been traced. Gadd had tried to find out whether Barry Kirk had visited the hostel but if he had, he’d done so under a false name.
Next Brook skimmed the forensic report on Kirk. His body had been in the water for eighteen to twenty days. But even with an approximate timeframe for the dumping of the body, they were struggling to identify any suspects at the site.
The few staff who worked at the sole security gate to the vast gravel pit road system had been interviewed. All were longtime employees and in the clear. Also, all the trucks and
lorries captured on the only CCTV camera at the site over the last month had all been present on legitimate business, and although a couple of drivers had minor records, they too were beyond suspicion, according to their tachographs. The probe into ex-employees had also produced nothing thus far.
The list of anglers given to Noble by the man who reeled in Barry Kirk’s remains had not rung any alarm bells either. All were solid citizens with nothing more than parking tickets to their names.
Brook sent a text to Noble about the possible abduction of another vagrant and asked him to hunt up any possible CCTV around the Leopold Street squat then walked wearily out to the car park, tossing the bin bag in his boot. He cranked the heating up high and sped back to Hartington through the deserted roads.
After a hot bath and shave he staggered up to his bedroom and collapsed on to the soft bed, for once sleeping through until noon without moving a muscle.
The man switched off the headlights long before reaching the turn on to the overgrown drive and a few moments later glided to a halt near the black outline of the furthest building on the complex. He killed the engine and clambered out to unload his supply of jars and tools from the passenger seat.
Looking about the pitch-black site as he walked silently but purposefully towards the heavy timbered doors at one end of the building, the man smiled in contentment. The gods favoured him. Nut, the Goddess of the Sky, had sent a canopy of clouds to cover his arrival. With the nearest artificial light a quarter of a mile away on the estate, no one would know he was there. Kids would sometimes roam by in daylight, but
without windows to smash, they rarely lingered long enough to discover his lair. Besides, the building was on the edge of the countryside, with only a ploughed field between the derelict buildings and the river. The off-licences, pubs and shops that kids loved to hang around were in the opposite direction.
The man put down his load in front of the boarded doorway and felt behind one of the large shrubs growing out of control off to one side. He pulled out a small aluminium stepladder, with its camouflage of green radiator paint, set it against the right-hand doorjamb and climbed level to the swallow’s nest wedged between the doorjamb and the wall. With a final look round, he put his hand inside an aperture behind the nest and pulled on a lever. A loud click sounded and the large timbered door on the right shifted slightly.
He jumped down from the ladder and returned to his vehicle to fetch his human cargo.
B
ROOK REACHED HIS OFFICE JUST
before two o’clock in the afternoon. With him he carried two bacon sandwiches and a polystyrene cup of tea. He finished the first sandwich while writing the report on his encounter with Phil Ward. He was unwrapping the second as Noble walked in.
‘Welcome back to the land of the living. How was it?’
Brook smiled without humour. ‘It was terrible. Don’t ever let anyone tell you the homeless are having it easy. I’m not one for soft living, but after one night . . .’ He shook his head. ‘And if I ever suggest doing something similar in the future, John, I want you to have me sectioned.’
‘What, again?’
Brook eyed him in mock censure and bit down on his sandwich. ‘Forget I said anything. Where are we on McTiernan and Kirk?’
‘It’s going nowhere. Still no useful feedback from any funeral homes or medical schools. Same answer from local hospices. No missing bodies. No suspicious employees. Nothing.’
‘What about Jock?’
Noble shrugged. ‘I could put out an alert, but without a photo and even a real name . . .’
‘Any
film?’
‘There are no CCTV cameras on Leopold Street. Jane’s going to sift through any film for the Normanton area between two and three this morning.’
Brook took another bite. ‘We might have to take the inquiry up a notch if we want to shake something out.’
‘Charlton won’t buy into that.’
‘Probably not.’
‘So the tip about the squat panned out.’
‘I think so. The place is being used as a body farm, John. Tommy McTiernan and Barry Kirk were there. Somebody’s supplying lots of drink to keep a stock of vagrants in one place. There was a case of whisky. Barley wine too. I just missed Jock’s abduction.’
‘You didn’t actually see it happen then?’
Brook looked up. ‘No.’ Before Noble could comment, he held up a hand. ‘I know, I know. He’s a vagrant. He could’ve just wandered off. But somebody turned up to deliver alcohol in the early hours of the morning and I don’t see an alcoholic tramp wandering away from that.’
‘Maybe,’ said Noble. ‘You should brief Jane. She’s working The Embalmer solo for now.’
Brook paused over his next bite. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s your other case. It’s pretty labour intensive. Me, Rob and Dave have been—’
‘Other case? What are you talking about?’
‘The missing students from Derby College,’ explained Noble. Brook narrowed his eyes in confusion. ‘I thought you knew.’
‘I’ve been living rough for the best part of three days, John. How would I know?’
‘Well,
you’re logged as the SIO.’
‘I’m what!’ exclaimed Brook.
‘You were there at initial contact with the parent. You even took charge of a piece of evidence, so Sergeant Grey put you down as Senior Officer.’
Brook stared into the distance and closed his eyes. ‘Deity.’ He opened them again and pulled out the leaflet left by Alice Kennedy. He handed it to Noble. ‘I just picked it up. I forgot all about it. Grey – that sneaky . . .’ Brook omitted the noun he wanted to use. ‘That’s just great.’
‘Live Forever. Young. Beautiful. Immortal
,’ read Noble. ‘Nice idea. This was at the parents’ house, right?’
Brook nodded, suddenly feeling very tired. ‘The mother . . .’ He looked up to Noble for a prompt.
‘Alice Kennedy.’
‘She found it in her son’s room – didn’t she?’
‘She did.’
‘That’ll teach me to take an interest.’
Noble typed the Deity web address into Brook’s computer. ‘Closed for refurbishment.’