‘Terri!’ screamed Brook.
Noble grabbed him around the shoulders and began to push him down. ‘Easy.’
‘I’ve got to find Terri.’ Brook struggled but his strength was gone and he was unable to overcome Noble. His eyes stung with smoke and he closed them to ease the fire under his eyelids. When he was able to open them again, Noble’s face appeared at the end of a long dark tunnel. ‘John.’ His voice was muffled by a face mask which was feeding him the sweetest gas, but Brook yanked it off and tried again.
Noble pushed Brook back down on to the stretcher. ‘Sir. Take it easy. We’ve got to get you to hospital.’
‘Terri,’ pleaded Brook. The sky behind Noble’s head turned into the roof of the ambulance and Brook sat up despite the burst of pain behind his eyes. He saw the flashing lights of police vehicles in the blackness and realisation dawned.
‘Sir, your hand is seriously—’
‘Terri was in the boot of the car.’
‘The VW?’
Brook levered himself off the trolley and put his right hand down on it. He felt a sickening pain. He looked down. His hand had been wrapped in a sterile bandage. At the same time he became aware of a tight wrapping around his head.
‘You need to rest,’ insisted Noble.
‘Then the sooner you let me see the car, the sooner I rest.’
Noble turned to the paramedic behind him.
The paramedic shrugged. ‘There doesn’t appear to be any smoke inhalation but he may have concussion and he needs to be on fluids for those burns.’
Brook cut short the consultation by getting to his feet and hopping unsteadily from the ambulance. He fought off the
nausea and stepped gingerly around the loose limestone blocks and over what was left of the wall, then climbed down the slope towards the smouldering car. Noble appeared by his side a moment later and supported him down the slope.
Keith Pullin and his team of emergency workers delicately laid the blistered and charred remains of the body on to a canvas sheet. The knees were pulled up towards the chest and the desiccated hands were held near the face. The mouth was frozen in an oval of agony.
‘Male. About five ten, I’d say, though it’s difficult to tell height when they get themselves into that position,’ said Pullin. ‘Do we have a name, Inspector?’
Brook barely shook his head, gazing intently at the yawning boot of the car that Pullin had crowbarred open at Brook’s request. It was empty. He began to totter back up the slope, Noble in pursuit.
‘Hell of a blaze for a VW,’ said Pullin, taking out his cigarettes.
Brook turned. ‘What?’
Pullin inhaled a belt of tobacco smoke and turned to Brook. ‘Hell of a blaze for a VW. They don’t have large tanks.’
Brook’s eyes narrowed.
What we see
. . . ‘Think there might have been an accelerant?’
‘Very possible,’ replied Pullin. ‘We’ll know more in the morning.’
Brook walked back to the body and got down on his haunches to run an eye over the corpse. He stood and looked into the blackened shell of the car. The remains of the laptop Ray had gathered up as he made his escape, sat in the passenger-seat well. Brook turned to climb up the slope again.
‘. . .
be on the lookout for a black Porsche Carrera, number-plate AFR 110, registered to an Adam Rifkind. Approach with caution and detain all occupants.’ Noble replaced the handset and looked across at Brook in the passenger seat. ‘It’s done.’
‘And we need to upgrade the alert at ports and airports to be on the lookout for Kyle Kennedy.’
‘Care to explain?’
‘It was too easy, John. That’s not Rusty Thomson or Ray down there. And he’s got four passports, remember. I’m guessing he won’t try to leave the country as himself or either of the girls.’ Brook held his good hand up to his head. His vision was blurring again.
‘Sir, you should be in the ambulance. You’re suffering.’
‘My daughter’s missing and it’s my fault. Why shouldn’t I suffer? Start the car and follow this road,’ added Brook, able to nod sufficiently to indicate a direction. Noble eyed him, unmoving. ‘Please.’
Noble started the car. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To find my daughter.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Back at the cottage. When I got there, the VW’s engine was warm. Ray had been somewhere before I got home. Somewhere close because Terri rang me from home so Ray only had half an hour to move her.’
‘I thought she rang you on her mobile.’
‘She did but her script for the call was in the kitchen. After she rang me, he took her somewhere then drove back to the cottage.’
‘And you think . . .’
‘I think it was too easy. He could have got clean away but
he didn’t. He came for me, John. He wanted me to know about Deity. And he wanted me to come after him.’
‘So he engineered a fake crash?’ said Noble doubtfully.
‘The fire was too strong. Ray used an accelerant to burn the body beyond recognition. We’d think it was him and stop looking. At least until we identified the real victim.’
‘So he buys himself a few days, maybe a week.’ Noble nodded slowly.
‘Time enough to make a fresh start somewhere else. New face, new identity . . .’
‘Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch but I’ll buy. So how did he get away from the crash?’
‘Rusty had a bicycle, remember. I’m betting he stashed it there earlier. He’s been a step ahead all the way. Until now.’
‘He won’t get far on a bike,’ said Noble.
‘He won’t need it for long. He’s got other transport nearby.’
‘You mean Rifkind’s Porsche.’
‘Exactly. It was parked outside Rifkind’s holiday cottage. Remember – Adele and the others had their own house keys. I’m betting Adele also had a key to Rifkind’s cottage so she could let herself in to wait for him.’
‘And now Ray’s got it and can help himself to the Porsche keys.’
‘He took the Porsche keys before, because he gave me Adele’s house keys tonight. Insisted on it.’ Brook pulled out the keys given to him by Ray. ‘I’m guessing one of these gets us in.’
‘But why give you the keys?’
Brook looked across at Noble in the dark. ‘It’s a reward. For playing a good game.’
‘And the reward is Terri.’ Noble found it hard to get his
bearings in the dark country lanes but he tried to speed up where he could. ‘Okay, so who was that in the car?’
‘Ray’s cleaning house, John. He gave us Yvette but I think he still has a protective instinct towards her. Wilson wanted to bed her – he’s dead. Len slept with her and he’s missing . . .’
‘The body was too tall for Len,’ said Noble.
‘Exactly. That leaves one other person.’
At that moment, the road sign for Alstonefield leaped out of the dark at them.
‘Rifkind.’ Noble nodded.
Noble shone a torch over Adam Rifkind’s sturdy front door. The house was in darkness, the Porsche Carrera gone. Noble found the right key on the bunch and unlocked the door. He pushed through before Brook and shone his torch into the compact cottage. The small sparsely furnished front room was empty. Brook padded through to the tiny kitchen, also empty.
He pointed a finger to the upper storey and the two detectives noiselessly made for the stairs. Before they could set foot on the first step, however, Brook heard a muffled noise at his feet.
‘Can you hear that?’
The noise seemed to vibrate through the floorboards so Noble shone the torch on the rug at their feet then fell to his knees and pulled it aside. He groped at a shiny brass handle recessed into the wood and yanked open the trapdoor. The stench of sewers hit their noses and Terri’s tear-streaked face peered up from the shadows.
Noble jumped down to help her up the steps. She mumbled something through the gag in her mouth and Brook watched helplessly as Noble untied the gag and then the rope tying her
wrists behind her back. Eventually she was able to fling her arms around Brook’s neck, squeezing him so violently, he yelped in pain.
‘Dad, thank God.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘I will be when I get into the fresh air. It stinks to high heaven down there.’ She looked aghast at his roughly bandaged hand and head. ‘What happened to you?’
Brook hugged her again. ‘Forget about me. Ray didn’t hurt you, did he?’
‘No, Dad. Please, I need some fresh air.’ They were both shaky on their feet and supported each other out into the cloudless night. Noble’s phone began to croak and he moved away to answer it.
Brook walked Terri to the road and she sat on the drystone wall. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Terri looked into his face. ‘For what?’
‘Everything,’ said Brook, after a pause.
She opened her mouth and was about to speak when Noble hurried back to them.
‘Gadd’s found the ambulance.’
B
ROOK STOOD IN THE DOORWAY.
His head and hand throbbed with pain and he felt as if he needed to sleep for a week. He closed his eyes for a second and stepped towards the sarcophagus. When he lifted his eyes he saw Adele Watson. Young. Beautiful. Immortal. She seemed at peace. Her face was calm, and her long slender hands were crossed beneath her smooth throat.
‘Don’t touch anything in the coffin,’ said a white-suited SOCO.
Brook picked up her cold hand and caressed it with the thumb of his good hand.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ said the SOCO. ‘We’ve not done the coffin.’
Brook turned blankly to the officer. ‘Get out.’
‘Pardon?’ said the officer.
‘Get. Out.’
Noble appeared at the doorway. ‘Graham,’ he called to the officer. ‘Got a minute?’ Reluctantly Graham hauled himself into the corridor, preparing to berate Noble in Brook’s place.
Noble waited for him to pass then glanced up at Brook but he’d already turned back to Adele.
Brook picked up her hand again. ‘Forgive me, Adele. I let you down.’ He placed her waxy hand back down on to her chest and carefully opened the handwritten volume resting on her stomach.
The missing book. She’d left her diary behind. She’d left her rough notes behind. But when sudden fame engulfed her, she had her collection, her anthology of doom, ready for the world. Be damned and publish. Brook flicked through it with some difficulty. Every page was full of poetry. She had a lot to say.
He placed the book back on her bandaged abdomen.
Brook and Noble walked slowly through the derelict building, following in Gadd’s footsteps as she explained what little she knew. The two Detective Sergeants covered their noses against the sickly-sweet smell of old blood mingling with the caustic chemical odour of embalming. But Brook was oblivious to all sensory input. Noble monitored his empty expression. He’d seen him this way before. He was back on the tightrope.
‘The hospital closed in 2004,’ explained Gadd. ‘Smethwick used to volunteer here but we’re still looking for documentary proof of that. My guess is when it closed he had the run of the place and decided it would be a perfect base of operations.’
‘How come it’s not as wrecked as the rest of the site?’ asked Noble.
‘It’s the furthest building, for one thing. And I’m guessing he made a big effort to secure it from intruders. He was an engineer, remember. He boarded and barred all the windows and barricaded all the doors from the inside – except the way
he came in. He seems to have rigged something up that only he can access. It took us ages to break in.’
Gadd looked sympathetically across at Brook but he was completely blank. ‘We found Phil Ward and Jock – they were embalmed and partially mummified. Jock’s insides are on the floor. It looks like Poole knocked over his canopic jar. From the look of his tracksuit, he must’ve spent some time sitting in the remains . . .’ She shuddered.
Noble’s phone began to croak. He listened for a few moments then rang off with a puzzled expression. ‘That was Cooper. Traffic found Rifkind’s Porsche. It was in the centre of Derby, just pulling into Westfield car park.’
Brook cocked his head. ‘Derby?’
Noble was glad to see Brook back with them. ‘That’s not the weird bit,’ he said. ‘Rifkind and his wife were in it. They were going shopping.’
‘But the cottage . . .’ began Brook.
‘Rifkind says he wasn’t living there; he was working on his novel at home. He told his wife to lie to anyone who called.’
‘But I saw the car at his cottage,’ said Brook.
‘Rifkind said you told him to keep it out of sight because of Adele’s father, so he left it at the cottage. He fetched it yesterday.’
Brook’s smile was thin. ‘So Rusty escaped on a bicycle.’
‘Bicycle?’ said Gadd. ‘We found one in the same bay as we found the ambulance. It looks like the one Rusty was riding towards Borrowash.’
Noble smiled over at Brook. ‘No bicycle. No Porsche. Face it, Rusty didn’t get away. He’s impersonating a slice of toast at the mortuary. You got him.’
The
mid-morning sun shone weakly through high skylights in the domed roof. On a large wooden table lay a bizarrely dressed figure wearing tight white binding around his legs and dark green face paint which matched his dark green knitted mittens. A white conical headdress with feathers was on the floor nearby.
‘Lee Smethwick aka Ozzy Reece aka Osiris,’ said Gadd.
‘He’s not been embalmed,’ said Noble.
‘No,’ replied Gadd. ‘Should he be?’
‘That was why they took Len,’ murmured Brook.
‘Ex-pathologist,’ explained Noble. ‘He had the skills to embalm Smethwick’s body so he could live forever in the Afterlife.’
‘Well, obviously Poole didn’t play ball,’ said Gadd.
‘Len must’ve realised what lay in store if he got out,’ said Brook softly.
‘Good riddance, I say,’ snarled Noble.
A voice boomed from the shadows. ‘
Len. It’s Rusty
.’ Noble and Gadd looked at each other then ran back to the corridor which led to the rooms where Adele and the other three bodies had been discovered. The voice emanated from there.
‘Sorry I can’t speak to you live but I have to be somewhere. I have a confession, Len. I lied – there is no way out. You’ll have to twiddle your thumbs until the police arrive unless you burn the place down. The good news? They’ll be there very soon.’
DC Cooper walked out of the gloom and beckoned them to follow. He led them past the four rooms. Adele’s body was in the first, Kyle’s the second and Becky’s the third. As they passed the fourth room, a SOCO taking photographs illuminated Poole’s limp body dangling from the end of the rope.