The Dying Place. Luca Veste

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       6

      Murphy and Rossi returned to the station, leaving the support officers with the task of taking Sally Hughes to the morgue to identify her son; Murphy hoped they’d managed to make Dean look presentable at least before showing his mother the body. Murphy was relieved that the next time they’d speak to her she might be more accepting of the reality. At the moment, they had little to go on without speaking to her, other than a list of people whom Dean Hughes might have spent most of his time with. He read through it as Rossi questioned the officers who had been going door to door around the church that morning. Murphy realised how long it had been since he’d been in uniform, where you’d come across the same people, the same names, over and over. Now the names meant nothing. The people on the list would have only just entered primary school when he was in uniform in the late nineties, before the explosion of technology which seemed to have occurred a decade later. Now everything seemed to centre on a computer. Even those weren’t really needed any longer, as everyone seemed to have a brand new mobile phone which did the job just as well.

      Not even forty, Murphy thought as he scanned the list. Barely late thirties, and he already felt left behind.

      Social media, that was the thing. Everything being laid open. Murphy shunned it completely – didn’t like the idea of anyone from his past being able to find him that easily. He’d been involved in a few cases in the previous years which had involved the websites – Facebook, Twitter, Bebo – so he knew enough about them that he wasn’t lost in a conversation.

      Twitter was the new thing, it seemed, for the genesis of such cases. The papers went through peaks and troughs with the story – usually when nothing much else was happening. Trolls, bullies, threats. Each platform gets their turn. They all get blamed, when Murphy knew the real cause.

      The people.

      It didn’t matter which website or avenue was used, they’re all just a way of exerting power.

      Murphy had no doubt Dean Hughes would be on there, so he rolled his hand over the mouse of his computer, typing www.face—before the page auto-filled itself.

      Scrolling down the page, he realised just how common a name it was. He tried to narrow it down by putting in Liverpool as the location, but it was still difficult to find the right one from all the results. Dean and Hughes was obviously a popular combination of names in Merseyside. He clicked on two different profiles before finding the right one. Profile picture set to a group of five lads, shaven heads on three of them, the other two with a swept-over quiff thing going on. Dean Hughes in the middle. All arms spread wide, cans of lager in one hand, teeth showing. First comment on the picture when Murphy clicked on it …

      Gay as fuk lads!

      Murphy shook his head, clicking the x in the corner of the picture and returning to the profile page itself. He waited for the inevitability of the page being set to private, which was supposedly happening more often these days. He was only mildly surprised when he was able to start scrolling through Dean’s wall posts. Most of the youngsters – or teenagers he should say – he’d had reason to investigate this way seemed to revel in the lack of anonymity. Everything was left open for public viewing and consumption.

      ‘What you on?’ Rossi said, swivelling her chair around the desk and stopping as she reached his side.

      ‘Dean’s Facebook page. Look at this – Carnt be assed wth dis. Ned 2 gt stned lads – how do you misspell “need”?’

      ‘No one gives a toss online.’

      Murphy grunted in reply and carried on scrolling, only pausing to read the various status updates. ‘Last one was seven months ago. Which ties in with the theory of him disappearing suddenly.’

      ‘Anyone posted on his wall recently?’

      Murphy scrolled back up to the top, looking to the left СКАЧАТЬ