Chapter 35 #2
‘And you perverted that,’ Brodie said. ‘Used those skills to kill and hide your murders.’
Sherlock’s expression darkened slightly. ‘Perverted? No, detective chief inspector. I elevated them. Mitchell wasted his talents on ordinary deaths, on people who’d died of disease or age or stupid accidents. I applied those same skills to creating art, to giving death meaning and significance.’
David Duffy had moved closer, his face a mask of conflicting emotions – fear, confusion, something that might have been pride or might have been horror.
‘You killed Alan McRae, didn’t you?’ Brodie asked, his eyes never leaving the scalpel at Lucy’s throat. ‘The detective who was investigating you. He got too close, figured out the connection.’
Sherlock nodded towards another table in the shadows that Brodie hadn’t noticed before. David Duffy moved to it, gripping the sheet that covered its burden, and pulled it away.
Alan McRae’s body lay on the table, his skin waxy and pale, his eyes closed. He’d been embalmed, preserved, positioned with the same care as all of Sherlock’s other victims.
‘He was indeed getting too close,’ Sherlock confirmed. ‘Too clever by half, really. If he hadn’t poked his nose in, he’d still be alive. But he kept digging, kept connecting cases that were supposed to look unrelated. So he had to go.’
‘I was the catalyst for you starting up again, wasn’t I?’ Brodie asked, remembering what Gabriel Kane had told him.
‘You were. You hadn’t met me before, because I worked in Dundee, but I kept abreast of what was happening in the investigation, and saw you were the lead on the case.
I read about you all the time, all confident that you would catch me, but you didn’t.
Then when you came to Fife a few weeks ago to investigate that other case, I thought it would be fun to play the game with you. Directly this time.’
‘Only one of us was going to win. And naturally you thought it was you.’
‘That’s right. I took care of the others, which was fun in itself, but not as much as being The Embalmer. That sounds a little bit like a superhero, don’t you think?’
‘No.’
‘I have to admit,’ Sherlock continued, almost conversationally, ‘I thought you might have figured it out before now, DCI Brodie. You were always good, back when we first played this game seven years ago. But I thought this time you’d be quicker.
Tell me – what gave my game away? Did I make a mistake at a crime scene? ’
The scalpel remained pressed to Lucy’s throat, but Sherlock’s attention was fully on Brodie now, his dark eyes bright with curiosity. He genuinely wanted to know, wanted to understand if he’d made an error in his perfect plan.
‘You could say that,’ Brodie replied, playing along, buying time.
‘When we were at Burntisland, examining Claire Nisbet’s body, you were dressed in your forensic coveralls.
When you took them off and were about to get in your car, I was leaning on the driver’s door.
That’s when I saw it – sand on the mat. Fresh sand, not old.
It wasn’t from you just examining the girl on the beach that day because the coveralls cover everything, including your shoes.
It had to have been put there earlier. Multiple trips to beaches, multiple bodies positioned in sand. ’
‘Sand,’ Sherlock breathed, and for the first time something like respect crossed his face. ‘That’s what gave me away? Sand on a car mat?’
‘It got me thinking,’ Brodie continued. ‘And then Detective Superintendent Breck here did some digging. Found out that Mitchell’s funeral parlour was closed down years ago.
And he found out where the old building was located.
This parlour is where you and David started your undertaker training.
Where you learned your craft before you went to medical school and became Doctor Ronald Holmes. ’
Sherlock laughed, delighted. ‘Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Brought down by sand. There’s a certain poetry to that, don’t you think? The medium I used to display my work becomes the evidence that exposes me.’
Brodie looked at David Duffy, who stood close to his friend, his face pale and stricken. ‘You had me fooled, David. All this time, maybe suspecting your friend but not wanting to believe it. But you were part of it, weren’t you? Helping him, covering for him.’
‘No!’ David’s voice cracked. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with it. I didn’t know. I swear to God, I didn’t know what Sherlock was doing until—’
‘David? A killer?’ Sherlock interrupted, his tone amused.
‘Please, chief inspector. My dear friend hasn’t got the stomach for this work.
I merely asked him along here to help me with something.
Told him I wanted to show him something important, that I needed his assistance.
He had nothing to do with the killing. That was all me. ’
‘Then why is he here?’ Breck demanded.
‘Because family is important,’ Sherlock said simply.
‘David was like my brother when we were at school together. It’s why we decided to become funeral directors.
Whatever else has happened, whatever choices we’ve each made, that bond matters.
Friendships can last a lifetime. I wanted him to witness my final exhibition, to understand what I’ve been creating all these years. ’
Brodie’s mind was racing, calculating distances, possibilities. He was too far from Sherlock to rush him before the scalpel cut Lucy’s throat. Breck was even further away. David Duffy was close to Sherlock, within arm’s reach, but showed no sign of wanting to intervene.
They needed a distraction. They needed something to shift the dynamic, to create an opening.
He shifted slightly, the scalpel moving fractionally away from Lucy’s throat. Not much, but enough that Brodie’s breath came slightly easier.
‘You killed Mark Finlay, didn’t you?’ Brodie said.
‘Yes. The old codger was poking about into cases of people I’d murdered, and he thought he was on to something.
And Janice Nisbet. Some young female police officer.
I can’t remember her name now, but she had been looking at photos and poking her nose in instead of just moving boxes from one place to another.
I have literally killed so many people that I can’t remember them all, but I am so skilled that they all looked like an accident.
And it didn’t hinder things when I was the one doing the post-mortem, like with Mark Finlay. ’
‘Very clever,’ Brodie said.
‘I knew I had to resurrect the game again,’ Sherlock continued, staring into space for a second.
‘Just to see if you could beat me this time. If you’d learned anything, if you’d become good enough to catch me.
And you did! You figured it out! Though admittedly not quite fast enough to save young Lucy here. ’
He smiled down at Lucy, who was staring up at him with undisguised hatred above the gag.
‘We had such a great night together last night, Lucy. Such a wonderful evening. I felt almost guilty, knowing what I was planning. But that’s what makes the art perfect, you see – the intimacy before the death, the connection and then the severance.
Colleague, friend, lover.’ His smile widened. ‘And now victim.’
‘Let her go, Sherlock,’ Brodie said. ‘You don’t need her. You have me now. Swap her for me.’
‘She’s going to be yet another victim of The Embalmer,’ Sherlock announced as if sharing thrilling news.
‘And then I will kill you both. David can watch, finally understanding what I’ve been creating.
It’ll be beautiful, truly. The detective who almost caught me, dying in the same place where I learned my craft. Full circle.’
David Duffy had moved even closer to Sherlock, close enough now to touch him. ‘Let me watch,’ he said, his voice strange and distant. ‘I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be right beside someone as they lose their life – to see it happen, to understand it.’
Sherlock laughed, pleased. ‘Of course, my friend. You can assist. First, we’ll position her properly and ensure the lighting is correct. Then we can make the arterial cut and insert the tube for the embalming fluid—’
David Duffy grabbed Alan McRae’s corpse and heaved it off the table with surprising strength. The dead detective’s body flew through the air, arms and legs flopping grotesquely, and crashed into Sherlock with the full force of dead weight propelled by fury and desperation.
The scalpel went flying, clattering across the floor as Sherlock screamed – surprise and rage mixing in a sound that was barely human.
He staggered backwards and fell, McRae’s corpse tangled with his legs, and before he could recover David had grabbed Lucy and yanked her off the table, pulling her clear of danger.
Breck moved with the speed of a man twenty years younger, covering the distance to Sherlock in three strides. His boot connected with the pathologist’s groin in a kick that would have made a professional footballer proud.
Sherlock’s scream reached a new pitch, his hands going to his crotch as he went into a foetal position, McRae’s body falling away from him.
Brodie rushed to Lucy, his hands already working at the gag in her mouth, pulling it free. She gasped, sucking in air, her eyes streaming with tears that might have been relief or terror or both.
Duffy stood nearby, breathing hard, a scalpel in his hand.
Brodie tensed, ready to fight if Duffy moved towards them with the blade. But Duffy just looked at it, then at Brodie, his expression exhausted and broken.
‘Relax,’ Duffy said quietly. ‘I’m only going to cut the bindings. Get her free.’
He moved behind Lucy, who flinched but held still as Duffy carefully cut through the plastic ties binding her wrists. Then he knelt and cut the bindings around her ankles, his movements precise and gentle.
When Lucy was free, Duffy tossed the scalpel away, the blade skittering across the floor to join the one Sherlock had dropped.