‘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 becamesuch 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.’
‘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 becameDoctorRonald 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 hashappened, 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.
