Deity by Steven Dunne Page A

a cup of tea and wait for me in the gallery,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘I’ll finish up here.’
    Without speaking, Noble darted a glance at Brook and hurried out of the suite.
    Brook turned back to the two doctors, both oblivious to Noble’s discomfort. ‘Go on.’
    ‘You’ll observe the necrosis affecting the brain’s tissue. Very damaged and typical of the alcoholic. But look at this.’ Habib held the bowl out to Dr Petty and she picked up the two pieces of brain in both hands and turned them over. Habib indicated a series of cuts in the underside. ‘If we examine the underside of the brain, we can see the membrane has been punctured several times. Indeed, there has been some slicing of the brain into smaller pieces, some of which are missing.’
    ‘Missing!’ exclaimed Brook.
    ‘Now why this was done we can’t be sure,’ continued Habib.
    Brook narrowed his eyes. ‘Wait a minute. Pieces of the brain have been removed?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But when we found the body, the skull was intact.’
    ‘It was.’
    ‘Thennever mind why.
How
could someone do that to the brain with the skull intact?’
    ‘Good question, Inspector.’ Habib and Petty walked Brook back over to the ice-white corpse and pointed to the scarring below the deceased’s nostrils. ‘We’re not sure but we think someone has fashioned a tool, a kind of thin sharp probe a bit like a scalpel only longer and more robust, possibly hooked at the end. When placed inside the nostril at the correct angle, it can be forced up into the brain to puncture the membrane and allow the CSF to drain away.’
    ‘CSF?’
    ‘Cerebrospinal fluid,’ chipped in Petty, moving to the far side of the cadaver.
    ‘Sounds painful.’
    ‘Not if you’re already dead,’ she said, unsure if Brook was being serious. She pointed to the incisions on the upper lip. ‘The tool was pushed into the nostrils, causing these cuts as well as invisible scarring inside the nostrils. It would’ve been pushed up the nose, and forced through the cartilage and finally into the brain propelled by a heavy object such as a hammer . . .’
    Brook grimaced and looked around for Noble. He spotted him upstairs in the gallery holding two plastic cups and smoking a cigarette. Despite the reinforced glass screen between the gallery and the lab, Brook felt sure he could smell tobacco smoke.
    ‘. . . and cut into the brain. Then the detached pieces must have been pulled back down through the nose – hence the hook.’
    ‘Nice. And you don’t know why, Doctors?’
    Petty shrugged. ‘If I were starting out in anatomy back inthe Dark Ages, I might puncture the brain like this to see what happened. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.’
    ‘And when you say a tool was fashioned, does that mean that such a tool doesn’t exist?’ asked Brook.
    ‘Why would it?’ said Habib. ‘We don’t need to get to the brain through the nose these days.’
    ‘These days? So such a tool may once have been used?’
    Dr Petty nodded. ‘Hundreds of years ago. Longer even. Ancient anatomy isn’t my field. But if someone wanted to spend hours removing the brain without disturbing the skull, they’d certainly have to create one.’ She paused then smiled at him. ‘I’ll be happy to look into it,’ she added.
    Brook nodded his thanks and left.
    The front gate clattered outside and Becky jumped out of bed, pulling aside the shade on her bedroom window. The postman strode towards the house with a bundle of letters. This was it. She strained to listen and heard her father jump up to collect the mail. She held her breath and continued to listen for any reaction and heard first voices, then footsteps scuffling hurriedly up the stairs. She jumped back into bed. When the knock came on her bedroom door, she pulled the duvet back over her head. Another knock and a muffled conversation followed. Finally the handle turned and her father stuck his head into the gap.
    ‘Becks,’ he said softly.
    Even without a