Six Dead Men Read Free Page A

Johnson.
    “Yes... I did, didn’t I. Well, she’ll need to come in for another interview at some point. I can always rectify the situation then.” Damn. I’d never normally miss something like that.
    Johnson left the interview room.
    Deed wandered back to his office and stood looking at the board attached to his wall with the faces of five dead men. Five men with nothing in common except their unusual deaths. No physical evidence linked these men. Their ages varied. They had died in very different circumstances, locations, months, sometimes years apart. Yet as soon as he had seen the photos of these men on the coroner's slab he had known without a doubt that their deaths were linked. It was a knowledge, he chose not to speak about but which he was unable to deny.
    Everyone knew about his pet hobby, his obsession with unusual deaths. He often heard them whispering in corners, muttering how it was unhealthy. Perhaps it was. Even as a child I was fascinated by bodies . Maybe it stems from seeing mum’s corpse, lifeless yet peaceful, strangely unravaged by the traumas of the cancer which ransacked her body . How she raged against the dying of the light. Dad tried so hard to save her, making her see specialists he found through his medical connections, but none of it made any difference. It must have been so hard for him to raise me single handed and keep his medical practise together. I loved hanging on the edge of his get togethers with his medical buddies. Such good times. They’d forget I was there and talk about anything, everything. Maybe if I’d had siblings I wouldn’t have been so insular.
    Deed had come across the first two cold cases shortly before his father died. He remembered how he had spent longer and longer hours at the station. Mainly it was to avoid the big empty house and hospital style bed which had become a central feature of the living room. At the time memories of his mother’s painful cancer death had come back with such force they threatened to engulf him. He was plagued by nightmares he could not rid himself of. And always they were about his helplessness. A man feels he should be able to help his loved ones when they’re suffering. But he knew even his best efforts were futile.
    Back then those crime scene photographs intrigued him, pulled him away from painful reality, gave him a problem in a world where he was good at finding solutions. Something in them caused his gut to react violently, a clenching which was to be the first signal of many to come. The puzzle of these cases helped him forget the tubes of fluids the doctors had pumped into his father to ease his last days. They drew Deed into a world of mystery and intrigue beyond the cases which fell onto his desk. Cases he solved all too easily. Even now the dead men drew him away from the painful images of a once lithe father, withered and frail in his remaining days.
    So why am I thinking about mum and dad again?
    Madison Bricot’s image superimposed itself over the pictures of the five dead men as he glanced at the pin-board. Deed felt a disquiet descend over him.
    Surely it can’t be her. But there was something... that strange scent?
    Deed suddenly felt light-headed.
    God damn it Robert, forget about what she looks and smells like man. Trust your instincts. Trust your gut. It never lets you down.
    Maybe I should let Johnson sit in on the next interview rather than just watch from the observation room. All I need is to find the evidence and little miss Thumbelina will be heading to one of her Majesty’s fine establishments.
    He picked up the picture of Calvin Burry and with certainty, added it to the five pictures already on the pin-board.
    Curtis Franks aka Junior’s Best Friend
    Junior Bricot's my bruv. He's got this daftness about him. He's a real dope, there's something missing in him - like his brain's wired all wrong, gets himself into all kinds of trouble. The first time I saw him he was hanging out down by the arches trying