Chapter 35
Brodie pulled his car in behind Breck’s car at the trailhead, the gravel crunching under his tyres.
The location was remote – a single-track road that dead-ended at what looked like an old hiking trail, overgrown and barely used.
Through the trees ahead, Brodie could just make out the roofline of a building, highlighted against the bright morning sunshine.
Breck climbed out of his car and walked back to Brodie’s driver’s side window, his expression grim. He gestured towards the trail that led up through the trees.
‘The house is over that hill. About half a mile on foot.’
‘Did Thomas Mitchell give you any grief when you asked him where this place was?’ Brodie asked.
‘Yes, he did. I told him I could find out, but it would take a bit longer, and then I would make sure I let it be known in Saughton that he was a nonce. He soon coughed up the address. And here we are.’
‘Old bastard.’
Breck looked at Brodie. ‘We can approach quietly, scope it out before we move in.’
Brodie looked at the muddy trail, then back at Breck. ‘Fuck that for a laugh. I’m driving right up there.’
‘Liam—’
‘He has Lucy. I’m a hundred per cent confident.
He’ll be expecting us anyway. It doesn’t matter if we go crawling across a field like commandos or drive right up to the front door.
Either way, he knows we’re coming.’ Brodie’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
‘I’m not wasting time creeping through the woods while Lucy could be dying in there. ’
Breck studied him for a moment, then nodded. ‘All right. But I’m coming with you. My car stays here – if he’s watching, one car is less obvious than two.’
‘Get in.’
Breck climbed into the passenger seat, and Brodie put the car in gear, bypassing the trailhead and continuing up what was barely more than a dirt track. The Volvo bumped and lurched over ruts and stones, branches scraping against the sides. Through the trees, the building grew larger, more defined.
It was an old cottage, two storeys, stone construction that had probably stood for a hundred years or more.
But it had the look of abandonment – windows boarded up, roof tiles missing, paint peeling from the few bits of exposed woodwork.
No cars were visible, but there were outbuildings scattered around the property, any one of them large enough to conceal a vehicle.
As they drew closer, Brodie saw something that made his pulse quicken. Above one of the larger outbuildings, barely visible through decades of weathering and neglect, was a sign. The letters were faint, worn almost to nothing, but still readable if you knew what to look for:
THOMAS MITCHELL AND SON
Funeral Directors
‘Christ,’ Breck breathed. ‘I was prepared for Mitchell to have been talking shite, but this was his old funeral parlour right enough. The one he operated before moving to the bigger facility in Dunfermline. I thought it would be more commercial, but this looks like it dropped out of a bloody Halloween film.’
‘And where David Duffy trained,’ Brodie said, pulling the car to a stop in what had once been a gravel forecourt but was now mostly weeds and mud. ‘Where they both trained. He and his friend.’
They climbed out of the car, the silence of the location pressing in around them. No birdsong, no traffic noise, nothing but the whisper of wind through bare trees and the occasional drip of water from the eaves of the derelict building.
Brodie approached the front door, Breck at his shoulder. The door was newer than the rest of the structure, reinforced steel beneath a veneer made to look like old wood. Someone had replaced it recently, had made this building secure despite its abandoned appearance.
‘It’s unlocked,’ Brodie said, trying the handle.
‘Could be a trap,’ Breck said quietly.
‘Almost certainly is.’ Brodie pushed the door open. ‘But we’re going in anyway.’
The interior was dark, what little light filtered through cracks in the boarded windows revealing a space that had once been a funeral parlour’s reception room. It smelled of decay and damp.
They moved through carefully, each of them taking out a small torch, the beams cutting through the darkness.
The main preparation room led to a corridor, which opened into what had been the funeral home’s reception area.
Old furniture remained – chairs for waiting families, a desk where arrangements would have been discussed, faded photographs on the walls showing the business in its heyday.
‘Nothing,’ Breck said quietly. ‘The place is empty.’
But Brodie had noticed something – a door at the far end of the reception area, newer than the others, the frame recently repaired. He moved towards it, Breck following.
The door opened on to a back extension, a structure that had been added later, probably in the seventies or eighties.
Inside was another corridor, darker than the main building because the windows here weren’t just boarded – they’d been painted black on the inside, blocking out even the smallest sliver of light.
At the end of this corridor was another door. This one was heavy, reinforced, the kind you’d use for cold storage or to contain sound.
Brodie tried the handle. It opened.
Beyond was darkness so complete that his torch seemed almost useless against it, the beam swallowed by shadows. But he could make out stairs descending, stone steps worn smooth by decades of feet carrying bodies down to the basement preparation rooms.
‘Liam,’ Breck whispered, his voice tight. ‘We should call for backup. Wait for armed response.’
‘No time.’ Brodie started down the stairs, his torch beam sweeping back and forth. ‘If Lucy’s down here, if we wait, she’s dead.’
The basement was exactly what Brodie had expected and worse.
It was cold, damp, the smell of chemicals and decay mixing with the mustiness of long abandonment.
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, a constant rhythmic sound that set his nerves on edge.
The ceiling was low, the walls old stone that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
Old equipment still lined the walls – embalming tables, cabinets that would have held chemicals and instruments, a porcelain sink stained with decades of rust and God knew what else.
This had been the original preparation room, the place where Thomas Mitchell had taught a generation of funeral directors the art of embalming, of making the dead presentable for their final goodbyes.
Stainless steel tables still stood silent, their surfaces dulled by time.
Cabinets hung open, their contents long since removed or rotted away, their torchlights bouncing off glass and stainless steel.
But there were other doors leading off from this central room, darker passages that led into the unknown.
Brodie chose the first doorway, Breck close behind him. His torch beam swept across the space, and his heart nearly stopped.
At the far end of the room was a stainless steel table. And on that table was something – a shape covered partially by shadow, but unmistakably human.
‘Lucy,’ Brodie breathed, moving forward.
The room was pitch-black except for their torches, the beams pathetically inadequate for the space. Brodie could make out the table, could see the figure lying on it, but couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead, couldn’t see—
Light flooded the room, bright and sudden, and the door behind them slammed shut with a sound like a gunshot.
Brodie spun, blinking against the sudden illumination of the surgical lamp above the table.
Standing by the door was David Duffy, his face pale and frightened.
In front of them, holding a scalpel to the throat of the woman on the table – Lucy, Brodie could see her clearly now, gagged and bound – was The Embalmer.
Dr Ronald Holmes.
Sherlock.
The killer who’d haunted them for seven years.
‘Welcome, gentlemen,’ Sherlock said, his voice calm and pleasant as if he were greeting guests at a dinner party. ‘I’ve been expecting you, though I thought you might take a bit longer to find us. You’re improving, DCI Brodie. Well done.’
‘You knew we would come here. We’d figure out this was where you did your training to become a funeral director, all those years ago.’
‘I’m impressed.’
Lucy’s eyes were wide above the gag, her body tense on the table. Her hands were bound behind her back, her ankles tied together. She was alive, conscious, terrified. The scalpel at her throat gleamed under the surgical light, pressed just firmly enough to dimple the skin without breaking it.
Yet.
‘You were friends with Duffy,’ Brodie said, his voice steady despite the adrenaline screaming through his system. Keep him talking. Keep him engaged. Look for an opening. ‘You trained at the same time. Yet neither of you followed through.’
‘Correct. I got bored and he got scared,’ Sherlock said.
‘Being a pathologist not exciting enough for you?’ Breck had positioned himself slightly to Brodie’s left, creating two targets instead of one, making it harder for Sherlock to watch them both simultaneously, while keeping an eye on Duffy, who hadn’t moved.
‘A pathologist who could oversee post-mortems on your own victims.’
‘Exactly right, detective superintendent. You’re quite clever, both of you. Though perhaps not clever enough, given that you’ve walked right into my preparation room.’ Sherlock’s smile widened.
‘You both trained with Thomas Mitchell after you left school,’ Breck continued, his tone conversational despite the tension crackling through the room. ‘That’s how you became such an expert on embalming, on staging deaths, on understanding exactly how bodies respond post-mortem.’
‘Thomas Mitchell was an excellent teacher,’ Sherlock acknowledged. ‘He taught us everything about the art of death – how to preserve, how to present, how to make the deceased look peaceful and natural. He took pride in his work, in giving families one last beautiful memory of their loved ones.’