Chapter 60
EDINBURGH
Brodie hadn’t been back to the depository since the night he had been stabbed, three years earlier. Memories of lying in the Royal Infirmary, his family and colleagues thinking he was going to die, ran back through his mind now.
Brodie could fight and had been in many fights, but a sneak attack from someone with a knife could kill anyone.
Lucy Warren had saved his life that night, without a doubt.
Yes, he had moved slightly, and the blade had not struck its intended target on his body, but she had jumped right in and taken down Gabriel Kane.
Brodie reached the spot in the depository where he had previously been attacked, and held on to the extendable baton, his senses heightened.
It was always dark down here underground, and nobody could tell if it was night or day.
No windows to illuminate anything, just a few bare bulbs behind cages, as if they were in a prison.
He saw the lamp on the small desk lit, as if it hadn’t been extinguished in three years. He noticed the large red book still on the shelf. He idly wondered what its title was, but he couldn’t allow his concentration to waver for a second.
He rounded the corner and walked on, preparing for the man to jump out, but he didn’t. Then he saw the door leading into a stairwell, which he opened cautiously. Nobody was there. The dim light from this vast room partly illuminated the stairs on one side, but otherwise, it was pitch-dark.
He entered the stairwell, which descended only.
The stone steps were worn in the centre after many years of people treading up and down them. Brodie took each step gently until he reached the next level.
He reached a door with reinforced glass. A faint light illuminated this level, while darkness enveloped the passage to the lower floors. He pulled the door open and stepped inside. More racks of books filled the space, and it smelled even more musty. It was the place where books went to die.
He rounded a shelving unit, ceiling-high, which was about ten feet, and saw another doorway. He held the baton tight up to his shoulder, ready to bring it down fast.
It was a room with several doors. Sliding doors, one of which was open, revealed another dim light inside. At the far end stood a freight lift, featuring old-fashioned concertina gates. There was nothing beyond the gates.
Brodie stepped forward and peered inside. There was a bed and a portable chemical toilet, but nothing else.
He then heard movement behind him and spun round.
Dermot Hume stood facing the freight shaft, holding two women whom he had chained together. Their backs were turned to the shaft. He turned to look at Brodie.
‘Glad you could make it.’ Hume had his red glasses on and he was holding a large butcher’s knife.
‘I’m sorry about your fiancée, Dermot,’ Brodie said.
‘The only woman I ever loved. And Moira and her pals ruined our future that night. I wish I had died along with Nancy.’
Brodie could see that the man was now revved up, spittle flying from his lips. A walking stick lay close by, used by Hume after the surgeries to repair his hip and pelvis.
‘Fucking brain trauma. Me! A surgeon. I couldn’t walk properly afterwards, and I couldn’t see clearly. There went my job. Thankfully, I sued and received some money, which I invested to make a living. No thanks to your fucking sister.’
‘This isn’t helping, Dermot. It isn’t going to bring Nancy back. And she wouldn’t want this, surely?’
‘How the fuck do you know what she would have wanted? Besides, it’s my decision. I’m the one who wanted revenge.’ He laughed. ‘Now you have a choice to make: Ruth or Moira. Who lives and who dies. Choose, Brodie. Which one is going down the lift shaft?’
Brodie had studied the engineering schematics before he came in and knew the lift used to carry books back in the old days, and that there was old heating machinery down there. All of it was redundant now.
‘You don’t want to do that, Dermot,’ another voice said from outside the room.
‘I told you not to bring any other copper here!’ Hume shouted, waving the knife about.
‘I’m not with the police, Dermot,’ Gabriel Kane said, stepping into view.
Brodie looked at Hume, his face a mask of pure rage. ‘You were the one I was chasing that night three years ago, weren’t you, Dermot?’
Hume laughed. ‘Yes, I was. It was brilliant. The idea was to kill you and escape down here, but things went sideways. You captured Dr Kane, yet I managed to slip away into the alleyway beneath the South Bridge. Dr Kane could have given the game away, but he didn’t. Kudos to you, doctor.’
‘I aim to please.’
‘You were the one on the camera footage we captured from the bookshop,’ Brodie said. ‘The man who was there with Kane and Marianne Taylor.’
‘Correct again. I was taught my skills by Dr Kane.’
‘He was my patient,’ Kane said. ‘Then, when I was incarcerated, Ruth suggested to Dermot that he undertake volunteer work. And lo and behold, the position of patient librarian became available, and Ruth pulled some strings to help Dermot secure the job. We communicated by highlighting words in books to create sentences. He was my patient, and I taught him how to focus his anger.’
‘By killing people,’ Brodie said. ‘That’s why you forgot who was under the gravestone.’
Kane chuckled. ‘Exactly.’
Brodie didn’t want Hume to know they had already discussed this back in the hospital.
‘Why there?’ Brodie asked Hume.
‘Those gravestones are next to my Nancy. It’s almost as if she could see them being punished.’
Kane walked forward, and Brodie could see Hume visibly relaxing.
‘You asked me to come along to talk to Hume tonight. Talk him off the ledge,’ Kane said. ‘But just like three years ago, you made a terrible mistake. There’s two of us now, versus you.’ He turned to look at Hume just a foot away now. ‘Dermot, I think we should kill both women, don’t you?’
Hume smiled. ‘I do.’
‘No, please,’ Moira said.
Brodie took a step towards them.
‘Uh uh, Brodie,’ Hume said. ‘One more step and I’ll kill Ruth first.’
Brodie halted, feeling the sweat trickle down his back, even though it was cool in here. He realised he wouldn’t reach Ruth in time if he lunged, yet he was determined to try anyway. Both women were gazing at him, their backs to Hume, awaiting the grab that would lead them to their deaths.
‘Is there room for both of them down that lift shaft if we throw them down together?’ Kane asked.
Hume turned to look, laughing. ‘Yes, there—’
Kane stepped forward, reached out and touched Hume on the back. Hume fell down the shaft, which was three storeys high, screaming as he went, and they all heard the thump as he died when he landed on the roof of the parked lift.
‘Come away from the edge, ladies,’ Kane said, ushering them away from danger, just as Lucy ran in.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, running up to Brodie.
Kane looked at her. ‘Hume looked into the shaft and fell to his death.’ He looked at Brodie. ‘I tried to grab him but missed.’
Brodie nodded. ‘He fell.’
Kane smiled. ‘Now I get a full Sky package as well, DCI Brodie.’
Brodie had no answer.