Deity (53 page)

‘Only just. He took sleeping pills but we caught him in time.’

Ray shook
his head. ‘Pity.’

‘Go on.’

‘We watched a couple of films and waited until early morning then we walked across the fields to our rendezvous and disappeared into thin air.’

‘Just like
Picnic at Hanging Rock
,’ said Brook. ‘We know about Lee Smethwick. We know about the ambulance waiting.’

Ray shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘We’ll find out where you took them any time now.’

‘I’m counting on it. I promised Adele – Lee too. It cements the deal. Lee had his uses, but you were always going to find him because he was a whack job.’

‘Was?’

‘He killed himself. That was always his plan.’

‘Because of the cancer.’

‘Partly, yes. You’ll see when you find him. It’s funny, it’s always the quiet ones. Lee had an aura, like an invisible shield, keeping normality at bay. And he loved Deity. He was desperate to be included. Well, he had the ambulance, he had the premises and a sackful of misappropriated drugs. And he insisted on showing me what he could do with those tramps. It wasn’t a great leap from there to tie his skills into Deity. Leave a good-looking corpse that lasts forever. What wannabe isn’t gonna love that reward for their misplaced vanity?

‘It’s interesting,’ he went on. ‘Lee with his Ancient Egyptian thing, wanting to live on after his body gave up on him. In their way, Adele and Kyle and Becky were just the same. Only they’ll live forever rattling around in cyberspace, same as Wilson. Once you’re immortalised in there, you can kiss obscurity goodbye.’

‘Where are they?’ said Brook.

‘They’re
in the Village.’

‘Which one?’

‘I can’t tell you until Len’s done his work.’

Brook narrowed his eyes. ‘Work?’ He took a moment to figure it out, then: ‘He’s embalming Lee.’

‘Right. In what the Egyptians called the Ibu . . .’

‘The place of purification.’

Ray laughed. ‘Oh, brother. You’re living this case every second, aren’t you? I knew it. The first time I saw you at the press conference hiding behind those lifeless eyes I could sense something in you. And then I just had to find out all I could. And when I’d done that, I had to meet you. And when I’d done that – well, my work was done but after meeting you, it wasn’t enough. I saw the pain you were in. I saw you needed help.’

‘I’m flattered by your concern.’

Ray clapped his hands together. ‘You kill me.’

‘I will if you’ve hurt Terri.’

Ray’s grin faded and he nodded at the gun. ‘Speaking of help – it’s time to die.’ He held his finger dramatically above the Enter button on his laptop. ‘Point that at me and your daughter goes before you.’

Brook picked up the gun and flicked off the safety. ‘You know about guns?’

‘Internet,’ replied Ray.

Brook picked up the M9 and examined it. He had never used it before, didn’t even know if it would work. ‘The firing pin was disabled, you know.’

Ray held Brook’s gaze. ‘You think I didn’t try it out first? You don’t know me, Damen.’ He grinned. ‘Shit,
I
don’t know me.’

‘You
fixed it,’ said Brook. Ray continued to smile. ‘Internet, right? How do I know you’ll keep your word, Ray?’

‘If I can keep a promise to a dead man, I can keep a promise to a friend in his final moments.’

Brook nodded and moved his hands over the gun. He checked the magazine. It was full. ‘A friend – so much more effective than a cyber-bully.’

‘Isn’t it!’ exclaimed Ray. ‘Russell made me realise and, well, Deity’s results will speak for themselves.’ He lifted the camcorder to his eye. The red dot appeared. ‘I told you it would be classy, Damen.
The Deer Hunter
directed by Michael Cimino – Oscar winner, no less. De Niro finds Christopher Walken playing Russian Roulette in a bar in Vietnam and tries to save his friend.’ Ray sniggered. ‘He fails.’ He held a hand ready to start the scene. ‘Ready for close-up. And –
action
.’

Brook lifted the gun to his temple and took a final look round his sparse kitchen. ‘One thing I need to tell you, Ray.’ He glued his eyes on to his opponent’s. ‘I’m not your friend.’

Then Brook pulled the trigger. There was a loud click and Ray burst out laughing. Brook tossed the gun on the table.

‘Your face!’ Ray giggled and pointed. ‘What am I like? I don’t know shit about guns, Damen,’ he continued, barely able to speak, ‘except it didn’t work when I fired it either.’

Brook stood and walked to the cupboard. Ray readied a finger over the keyboard. Brook ignored him and took out the leaded tumbler and filled it full of whisky. ‘Drink?’

‘I’m driving.’ Ray motioned Brook back to his chair. Brook glanced up the stairs to his bedroom door then took a sip of whisky before reluctantly returning to his seat.

‘Want to know something, Damen? I knew you’d pull the trigger.’

‘
Want to know something, Ray? I knew the gun wouldn’t work.’

‘How?’

‘Because now I’ve seen your personality disorder at close quarters, I know a bullet’s too quick.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that someone as sick as you needs to see the terror in people’s eyes as they die. You need to know that last second of life is as precious to them as it is worthless to you. You need the dying to see you watching on, living the life that they cling to. And you need to make that sensation last so you can feed on that energy in an effort to revive your own dead soul, if only for a few minutes.’

Ray stared at Brook, his grin absent. The silence hummed between them like an electricity pylon. ‘But Russell was quick.’

‘That’s when you found out you needed more. That’s why Deity is so drawn out. So you can watch the suffering. The parents, the friends, even the policeman trying to catch you.’

Brook’s vibrating phone broke the tension. Brook ignored it.

‘Go ahead,’ said Ray. ‘But don’t say the wrong thing.’

Brook looked at the display. ‘John. She’s fine – false alarm,’ he said. He listened for a few minutes. ‘Understood.’ Then rang off.

‘Progress?’ teased Ray.

‘Becky Blake.’

Ray narrowed his eyes. ‘What about her?’

‘We wondered why she was so upbeat in the last broadcast. Now we know.’

‘It’s because she’s famous now, remember.’

‘We
spoke to her friend again. Fern. Guess what? Becky told her she was going away but not to tell anyone. She told her she was leaving the country to disappear like the girls in
Picnic at Hanging Rock
. She said it was going to be all over the internet and when it was over, she was going to be famous. Then, a year later, she’d turn up alive and well and ready for a life in the public eye.’

Ray searched, thin-lipped, for an answer. ‘No. She couldn’t have, she didn’t have her phone. I checked all their texts and calls at the party. We’d unsubscribed from Facebook—’

‘That’s the really odd thing.’ Brook smiled. ‘They had a conversation face to face. The afternoon of the party, she swore Fern to secrecy, told her to say nothing. That she’d see her soon.’

Ray slammed a fist on the table. ‘I told the cunt a million times. It was because of her I took all those precautions. I’m deleting all her scenes just for that.’

‘Take it easy,’ said Brook, worried that he’d smash his fist on the keyboard in a fit of temper.

Ray took a deep breath and gradually regained his composure. ‘Okay, we misled her. I admit it. I told Adele to spin her a yarn.’

‘A desert island for a year?’ sneered Brook. ‘And she believed it?’

‘We promised to make her famous. She believed what she wanted to hear and Adele was very convincing. I’d be filming the whole time, enough for a documentary, maybe even a movie . . .’

‘And that’s why you all had to have passports, even though you had no intention of leaving the country.’

‘To convince Becky, yes.’ He chuckled. ‘Actually I’m glad. I
feel better knowing she betrayed me. It makes deceiving her that much sweeter.’

‘Deception won’t be at the top of the charge-sheet, Ray, I promise you.’

Ray shrugged. ‘I had to teach her a lesson, Damen, while there was still time. See her off to her Maker with a little humility in her bones. You should’ve been there. The others had taken their pill and gone to prepare, but I switched Becky’s to Rohypnol – enough to paralyse her but not enough that we couldn’t have some fun first.

‘You’ve heard of those tribes who pluck out the beating heart of their enemies then eat it while it’s still pumping to assume their power. Well, that’s the way we felt – Becky and me. When she opened her eyes and realised what was happening, man, what a rush. Deity? Fucking A – I was God to her, Damen. I put life inside her and then took it away.’

Brook’s eyes bored into him.

‘Don’t look at me like that, she had it coming. She was a nasty, spiteful bitch and I swore that one day I’d look into her eyes as she died and fuck her. And I always keep my promises.’ Ray took a deep breath and looked into the distance. ‘And boy, was it something – the best I ever had – even better than Yvette, the night after Russell hanged himself. Filmed it too. You want to see it?’

‘I’ll save it for your trial.’

Ray’s eyes widened. ‘My trial? That’s very tempting – almost worth giving myself up so I can be there to watch it.’

Brook stood, pushing his chair back. ‘All this high-minded talk about helping people with their pain and all you are is a tawdry little rapist.’

‘Careful, Damen.’ Ray held a dramatic finger over the
keyboard. Brook took a step towards him but stopped, darting a glance at Terri on the monitor. ‘Sit down,’ commanded Ray.

Brook stood, glaring at Ray, aching to put his hands on him. Ray moved his digit closer to the keyboard.

‘Did you rape Adele as well?’ Brook asked.

Ray’s lip curled. ‘Why are you so vulgar! Adele was my friend. I gave her dignity.’

Brook looked across at the image of his unconscious daughter, thinking the unthinkable. Then a minor glitch on the picture darkened his features.
All that we see
. . . He reached for the glass of whisky and took another step towards Ray.

‘What are you doing?’

‘It’s brilliant,’ said Brook. ‘I can’t deny it.’ He raised the glass. ‘To Deity.’ Then he flung the contents into Ray’s eyes as he leaped for the laptop. Ray gasped as the whisky hit him but he was able to sway back towards the keyboard, crashing his hand on to the Enter button.

Brook grabbed him, his face contorted, fist drawn back to strike. ‘Where is she?’

‘I didn’t want that, Damen,’ said Ray, trying to break free. ‘You killed her, not me.’ He ducked out of the imagined assault but Brook had already thrown him to the floor and was bolting up the stairs.

‘Terri!’ he shouted. Brook grabbed the handle on his bedroom door. It was locked. He ran to the end of the corridor, catching sight of Ray through an upstairs window, laptop under his arm, jumping into the VW. Without giving it a second thought, Brook turned and hurtled towards the bedroom door, flinging himself against the frame. The door buckled but didn’t give, so Brook backed up again and this time literally ran through the door.

Moments
later, Brook regained consciousness on the floor by his bed, lying amongst shards of lacquered wood. He was aware of blood streaming down his face from several cuts as well as his stitches, which had burst open. He put up a hand to staunch the flow only that he might see better. With a sickening feeling, he saw the bed was empty. He’d been watching a recording of his daughter immobilised in his bedroom and played over and over on a loop. It could’ve been filmed at any time that day.

Brook scrambled to his feet and careered down the stairs in two strides, falling at the bottom. He jumped up, swept the car keys into his hand and staggered to the car, jerking the BMW’s engine into life. He roared to the junction at the bottom of the hill, already debating left or right in his befuddled brain.

At the junction, he turned left and tore through the village at top speed. Within seconds he was out of Hartington and hurtling through dark country lanes. A mile away, on the other side of the valley he saw another car’s lights and gave chase. A minute later, cresting the brow of a hill, two minor roads – one left, one right – sheared off into the darkness.

Brook did a quick double-take and, seeing retreating headlights at the bottom of a long dip, hung a left in pursuit. He realised where Ray was headed but it was getting harder and harder to follow because his vision was blurring and he was drifting towards unconsciousness.

He reached the bottom of the long dip and began to climb. A rabbit caught in the headlights was squashed as Brook pushed the accelerator closer to the floor. It was no use. His head began to sag and the fog in his brain closed in around his
vision. He almost crashed headlong into a drystone wall but managed to wrest the wheel round in time and screech to a rubber-burning halt.

He came round moments later, woken by a loud explosion, and saw a bright flash of light in the distance. He gripped the steering-wheel harder and flung the gearstick into first, covering the 500 yards to the junction in seconds.

He staggered out of the car. The wall at the junction had been wrecked at high speed, evidenced by the black tyre- and bright green paint-marks on some of the displaced stones. Several layers of limestone had been dislodged but the VW was nowhere to be seen. When Brook clambered on to the remnants of the wall he saw the flames fifty feet below, down a steep shoulder of land that ended in a dry gulley. Sheep and new lambs were scampering for dear life away from the burning debris.

Brook, however, half-ran and half-fell towards the fireball of blackening metal. Once there, he ran to the blazing boot and, covering his hand with no more than a handkerchief, tried to pull it open.

‘Terri.’ He screamed with pain as his skin sizzled against the metal but still he tugged without success.

Brook removed his hand and felt his skin come with it as he lurched round to the driver’s seat to look for a release mechanism. He could see the burning body behind the wheel but couldn’t get within ten feet as white-hot flames surged from the car. His lasting memory as he passed out was the crackling and spitting of a human being, the acrid stench of melting rubber and the delicious aroma of roasting meat.