Deity (48 page)

‘Where else?’ said Brook.

Cooper and Noble walked through the door and marched over. ‘Mrs Mansell, three doors down,’ said Noble. ‘We don’t
have a photograph yet but we showed her the composite. She got a good look at the guy and she’s certain it’s Smethwick.’

‘What happened?’

‘Not sure. She noticed the top of the ambulance driving into the cul-de-sac. It was dark so she went upstairs for a better view and saw Smethwick closing the back doors. A couple of minutes later he drove away and this morning she noticed Len’s Jaguar parked in the street. She didn’t see Len.’

‘Did she get a number-plate?’ said Charlton. Noble shook his head. ‘What about CCTV?’

‘None,’ said DS Morton.

‘But once we knew The Embalmer might be involved with the students, we looked at roads surrounding the Brisbane Estate for the night of the party and found an ambulance parked at the bus stop on Western Road near the new housing development. There’s a CCTV camera. It’s some way off but you can definitely see people getting into the cabin around four a.m. on Saturday morning. The techs are trying to enhance it, but . . .’

‘At least we know we were right,’ said Brook. ‘They must have walked to Western Road through the fields at the back of Kyle’s house.’

‘And then where?’ said Charlton.

‘When we know that, we find our students,’ said Brook.

‘We’re rechecking all CCTV for the night of the party,’ said Morton. ‘Assuming the ambulance had the same plates as when Inspector Brook was attacked, if there’s any sighting we get an approximate location.’

‘Keep on it.’

‘DS Gadd and her team are digging into Smethwick’s past,’ said Brook. ‘Assuming Rusty Thomson’s not local,
Smethwick’s background gives us our best chance to find them.’

Without waiting for a second invitation, Poole skidded towards the light with only the briefest wary glance at the gore on the floor around him. As he drew near he was able to see the shadowy outline more clearly. The figure didn’t have an elongated head but wore some kind of white headdress with feathers on the side. His legs were tightly bound and encased in a slim-fitting white robe, held in place by a long trailing sash wrapped around his waist.

As the figure turned and shuffled back to the light, Poole caught a glimpse of the man’s hands and face. They were dark green. He wore green knitted gloves on his hands and what appeared to be thick make-up on his face and neck.

Poole hesitated. ‘What the fuck is going on?’ The scratch of a rodent’s talons on the concrete floor induced a nervous glance behind him and he hastily skipped after his saviour.

‘Let me out of here,’ he demanded. He looked around for a weapon but saw nothing suitable. He considered rushing him, but his bizarrely dressed captor looked tall and powerful. Poole hoped there’d be a better opportunity.

Through two more large white-tiled rooms they travelled, the stranger not looking back once. At the entrance to a brightly lit third room, Poole could hear the whine of a generator. His green guide turned and ushered him into a large dome-like space at the centre of which was a sunken whitetiled dry pool, surrounded by a wooden rail. Too small for swimming, Poole guessed it was some kind of treatment pool. High windows at the top of the dome allowed Poole’s first glimpse of natural light – the sun was shining.

In the middle
of the dry pool lay a large empty sarcophagus. It looked extremely sturdy. At the base stood a large jar with a heavy stoneware lid, much like the one Poole had kicked over in the darkness a few rooms away. It was empty. To one side stood a hefty wooden table. Next to it was a large copper tank with two tubes attached. With a sinking heart, Poole realised it was for draining and storing the blood from a corpse. Next to the large table was a smaller table on which sat a loaf of bread and two wine glasses. There was also a variety of surgical instruments, most of which he recognised. He picked up a bone cutter and brandished it.

‘Ra smiles on us, Anubis,’ said Osiris.

‘Let me out of here,’ snarled Poole.

His captor stood, arms folded, before him – in one hand the crook and in the other some kind of whip or flail. His eyes were closed as though in prayer and when he opened them, the bloodshot whites of his eyes were picked out in stark contrast to the dark make-up covering every inch of his face and neck. Poole fancied he recognised the man in his rearview mirror.

‘Think you’re going to cut me up and dump me in the river, sicko?’ growled Poole, mustering some aggression.
Over my dead body
, went unsaid. ‘Let me out of here.’

‘Fear not, my subject. I mean you no harm.’ Osiris raised his face to the heavens to intone with great solemnity: ‘Geb, Nut, Father of the Earth and Mother of the Sky, I prepare to join you in the Underworld. Horus, my son, I call on you to continue my work in this world as I . . .’ At that moment, the man fell into a violent coughing fit which ended with him covering his mouth with a white-robed sleeve. When he pulled the sleeve away, Poole saw blood there.

‘What
the hell’s going on?’ demanded Poole, advancing on the man. ‘You abduct me in the middle of the night and bring me here. How dare you? Let me go.’

The green face returned to the horizontal and the man glared at Poole. ‘I am Osiris, insect, and I dare to bring you to this holy place.’

‘What place? Where are we?’

‘We are at the Ibu, Anubis.’

‘Ibu? Anubis?’

‘The place of purification where I must prepare for my journey. Come, Anubis, eat.’ Given his almost bound legs, the man walked as best he could over to the table bearing the food. Poole readied the bone cutter.

Osiris waved a hand at the loaf and the bottle. ‘Sacred barley for your sustenance. Wine for your thirst.’

Poole screwed up his face in disbelief. ‘You don’t expect me to touch that, do you, you fucking fruitcake? Now let me out.’

‘Unless you join me in a sacred meal, Anubis, you will never look upon Ra, the Sun God, again.’ Poole hesitated, tightlipped, gripping his weapon. ‘Fear not. The food is blessed.’ Still Poole stared until Osiris could be patient no longer and snarled at his guest in the broadest Yorkshire accent: ‘Fucking eat summat or you’ll get my khopesh up your arse.’ He reached under his garments, drew out a large sickle-shaped sword and brandished it above his head. It glinted in the muted sunlight and Poole shrank back. ‘Eat, I command you.’ Osiris regained his composure and smiled beatifically, a better argument occurring to him. ‘Or would you prefer to return to the first chamber and the shelter of Apep’s black cloak?’

Poole slowly approached the table. He picked up the loaf,
all the while watching the bizarre figure before him. He tore off a corner of bread without breaking his gaze and chewed half-heartedly. Osiris smiled his approval. After the first wary mouthful Poole realised how hungry he was and tore off some more. Osiris picked up the bottle and made to pour it into two glasses. Poole’s eye was drawn by a colourless crystal substance resembling sugar in the bottom of one of the glasses. He stiffened and raised the bone cutter.

‘No wine for me.’

Osiris smiled and poured wine into the clean glass and placed it next to Poole who didn’t pick up the glass until Osiris showed him the sword again. Poole took a wary sip. Osiris then poured wine into the other glass and stirred the liquid with a hooked brass rod from the array of surgical tools. When the crystals had dissolved, the man raised the glass to make a toast.

‘Anubis, God of Embalming, you bestowed your gifts upon me and now I return them with thanks. Use your skills, Jackalheaded One . . .’ He coughed heavily for a few moments then grinned through bloody teeth. ‘And prepare me for immortality.’ He declined to drink and instead laid the large sword on the floor and clambered on to the wooden table. He took off his domed crown and lay on his back then rummaged under a sleeve and exposed Poole’s wristwatch.

‘It is time.’ Propping himself on an elbow, Osiris swirled the dark red liquid around his glass and drained the contents in one gulp. ‘I shall await you on the other side, Anubis.’

He lay back down but sat up almost immediately, his broad Yorkshire accent to the fore again. ‘Oh, and don’t go kicking
my
guts around t’floor, you clumsy bastard,’ he snapped. ‘I’m already a servant down, thanks to you.’ A second
later he was overcome with serenity once more and lay back.

Poole stepped nearer the green-faced man then made a grab for the misshapen sword. ‘You fucking weirdo. What’s going on? How do I get out of here?’ But already the man’s eyes were rolling back in his head and his breathing had begun to grate. The empty glass threatened to break from his greenfingered grip and Poole rescued it and raised it to his nose.

‘Potassium cyanide? Jesus.’

Poole felt for a pulse around the neck but couldn’t find one. He grabbed Osiris by the shoulders and shook him violently. ‘How do I get out of here?’ he screamed. His voice was flung around the tiled walls. ‘Tell me.’ A moment later, he lowered the man’s shoulders on to the table. He was dead.

Len ran back through the other chambers, looking all the while for doors or windows. The only doors led to other rooms and the only windows were too high and filled in with bricks, or boarded up. Next to the chamber with the rats, Len found another door but although it wasn’t locked he couldn’t budge it. It was blocked on the other side. He banged on it and hacked at it with the sword, screaming for help but heard no answering cry save his own, echoing through the building.

Reluctantly he returned to the dry pool. At least there was light here. He decided to finish the loaf to keep his strength up and began to chew while he considered his options.

A sudden noise spun him round and he trained his eyes on a darkened corridor which led away from the pool chamber. Although it was dark, Poole could just make out the doorways of other rooms opening off the unlit passage. He turned and took a pace towards the blackness. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Len,’ whispered a voice from the shadows. ‘Is that you?’

‘Sir’
shouted Cooper, nodding to the large screen. The Deity broadcast was about to begin. Someone switched off the lights and the room fell silent. The countdown reached zero.

Becky Blake sat on a wooden chair in a bare white-tiled room. There were no windows visible and the light appeared to be artificial. The time and date display showed the film had been shot on the Sunday after the party at five o’clock in the evening. Becky wore a long white robe with a V-neck. She held a piece of A4 paper in her hands but didn’t look at it. Brook could make out a couple of paragraphs of handwritten text on the sheet.

Becky grinned enthusiastically at the camera but then made an effort to get her excitement under control. ‘I’m Becky Blake. I’m eighteen years old. I want to say goodbye to my mother and father and to my best friend Fern.’ She hesitated then glanced down at the paper. ‘The world is a terrible place and I don’t want to see any more of it. I’m looking forward to a different reality. You won’t see me again but please don’t mourn. Time to die.’ The shot ended with Becky gazing earnestly into the camera, trying to suppress a smile. Then she reached off-screen for a glass and, after a quick swirl, downed it in one.

A few seconds later, Kyle sat in the same chair in the same room and seemed to be wearing a similar robe to Becky. The display showed the same date but ten minutes later than Becky’s monologue.

Kyle was nervous. He licked his lips and flexed his swollen jaw, looking hesitantly at whoever was holding the camera. At an unseen signal he nodded and began. ‘My name is Kyle Kennedy. I’m eighteen years old and come from Derby. I want to say goodbye . . .’ For a moment, emotion paralysed his vocal
cords. He cleared his throat and looked back up into the lens. ‘I want to tell my mum goodbye and that I love her. Dad, I’m sorry I wasn’t the son you wanted. I didn’t choose this path. If I had, I would have chosen to be gay in a more understanding place.’

He gathered himself before continuing. ‘I’d like to say goodbye to Jake.’ Again he paused and looked away. ‘The tenton truck is here, Jake, and I’m standing in the middle of the road. Goodbye, Morrissey. I love you.’ He prepared to stand up but relaxed back on to the chair and, almost as an after-thought, added, ‘Time to die.’ He reached for his own glass. . . then downed the contents.

Brook’s heart began to beat faster as Adele Watson appeared on the screen. The scene was shot in the same format as the others, fifteen minutes later than Kyle. Adele Watson sat confidently on the chair and gazed mockingly into the camera. Her dark eyes reached across cyberspace and burned into Brook’s. He could see from her manner that she meant business, her thin smile almost scornful in its superiority. She wasn’t to be cowed and wouldn’t shrink from the path she’d chosen – Adele was totally in control.

‘Hello, faceless voyeurs. I hope you’re all enjoying the show. I’m Adele Watson and I’ve existed for eighteen excruciating years in a little backwater of Hades called Derby. Don’t worry, it’s not long to the money shot – what you’ve all been waiting for. But first I need to ask a favour. I need all you good people to take a moment after you’ve witnessed our humble sacrifice and think about what we’re about to do because it’s not selfish. We do this for you. We go willingly for the chance to speak to you, to show you that the world is fucked and we want no part of it.

‘Look
around, citizens. What do you see? Does it make you happy? Everywhere your eye falls, man is gorging himself on the planet. The animals, the oceans, the soil, the weak, the poor, the downtrodden – shit, even the air particles we breathe are being fucked over so a few members of a sad and lonely and unhappy elite can feed on what’s left of our ailing world. If this elite were aliens, we’d organise, we’d resist and we’d fight with our dying breaths. But whilst our world is being raped, we do nothing. We scuttle around doing their bidding, making their lives richer and the planet poorer. And do we protest? No. Do we rise up? No. Instead, we struggle blindly on and hope they’ll leave us alone or if we’re really good boys and girls, let us join their club.

‘And the membership card? Money. You remember that stuff. Course you do. You’ve all had some, you’ve all wanted more, so you can buy stuff you don’t need and which won’t make you happy. But that doesn’t stop you. Obviously you haven’t bought enough stuff. Must try harder. That nagging doubt where your soul used to be has to be driven out. Work more, eat more, buy more. The pursuit of happiness depends on it.’