Whisper For The Reaper

by Jack Gatland

  She didn’t look back at them as she left the office.

  Declan was leaning against a waist height wall as she walked out of the main entrance.

  ‘Are you supposed to be here?’ she asked. Declan grinned.

  ‘Christ no,’ he replied. ‘That’s why I was so cautious. Worried that I’d be hit by lightning just for considering it.’ He looked at Anjli, as if evaluating her. ‘How’s it been?’

  ‘You’ve worked the spot,’ she replied. ‘How was it for you?’

  ‘I was here a couple of days, and in that time I uncovered two corrupt cops and solved a murder,’ Declan smiled. ‘Probably an uncommon situation.’

  ‘Fair point,’ Anjli shrugged as she joined Declan on the wall. ‘There’s something off, here. It’s not the people, they’re all perfectly fine. Even DCI Esposito’s doing his best to make me feel at home, although it’s obvious he’d rather I buggered off elsewhere. He had me sorting out vandalism in a park yesterday.’

  ‘That an option?’ Declan asked. ‘To go elsewhere?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Anjli sighed. ‘Don’t even know where I’d go. I spent most of my career here and then went across to Monroe. Feels like a massive step backwards.’

  ‘I might have an answer,’ Declan smiled. ‘You got any holiday time?’

  ‘Even if I didn’t, I reckon Esposito would give me something, just to get me out of the way,’ Anjli chuckled. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I need your help as much as you look like you need mine,’ Declan replied. ‘And with you beside me, it’ll be easier to get Monroe on board.’

  ‘On board what?’ Anjli frowned. Declan rose from the wall.

  ‘I’m hunting a serial killer that might have killed my parents.’

  Anjli went to speak, stopped, and then started again.

  ‘Let me go speak with HR,’ she suggested.

  Monroe didn’t know why he kept coming back here; probably because he had nothing better to do. But here he was again, standing on King’s Bench Walk in Temple Inn, staring up at the building that had once been the offices of his baby. A child that had grown so tall, taken down some of the worst people possible, and might now be kept from him forever.

  His phone vibrated; pulling it from his pocket, he saw it was Declan, again. Monroe groaned, staring down at it until the call went to voicemail. Not that he didn’t want to speak to Declan, it was the fact that he didn’t know what to say to him. You can’t give advice when your advice has been proven wrong.

  Another call now; this time from Anjli. Sighing again, Monroe let this do the same as the first. However, as it also moved to voicemail, a message from Declan appeared on the screen.

  Answer your phone you stubborn bloody idiot it’s important

  As Monroe read this, the phone started vibrating again; a second call from Declan. Looking to the heavens in exasperation, Monroe connected the call, putting it to his ear.

  ‘Declan,’ he said, forcing a smile. He’d been told once that if you smiled when you talked, the voice would sound warmer. He didn’t know if it worked, but it was worth a try. ‘Sorry, I missed your call. I’m in the shops.’

  ‘Signal’s always bad in shops,’ Declan replied. ‘Which one are you in?’

  ‘Supermarket.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s the steel in the construction,’ Declan was walking as he spoke. ‘Always a problem until you get outside.’

  ‘If you want, I can call you when I get out,’ Monroe suggested.

  ‘Not a problem, Guv,’ Declan said down the phone. ‘I’ll just come to you.’

  Monroe went to reply again, to lie once more, but something didn’t feel right here. Looking around, he groaned as he saw Declan and Anjli walking across the Temple Inn car park towards him.

  ‘In fact, I see you right now,’ Declan continued down the line. ‘In the produce section.’

  Monroe silently swore as he disconnected the call, waiting for Declan and Anjli to approach.

  ‘How did you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Marcos,’ Anjli replied. ‘We called her before you, Guv.’

  ‘Bloody woman,’ Monroe muttered. ‘Can’t keep a secret.’

  Declan looked up at the building. ‘How long until it’s operational again?’ he enquired. Monroe shrugged.

  ‘Week, maybe two.’

  ‘And will we be back inside?’ Now it was Anjli’s turn to talk. Monroe went to reply, but found he didn’t have the words.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he eventually admitted. ‘I genuinely don’t know.’

  Declan was watching Monroe as he spoke. ‘How bored are you? On, like a scale of one to ten? One being usual day at the office and ten being you’ll do anything to get out of this rut?’

  Monroe considered this carefully.

  ‘Twenty seven,’ he smiled. ‘Christ, I’m going mad, laddie. Finally ready to get back on the bike and someone nicked the wheels.’

  ‘I might have a different bike for you to ride,’ Declan replied. ‘Putting together a team. Been given the go ahead to hunt a serial killer. Very off the books, unpaid, and possibly even uncredited. But at least it’ll give us something to work on together.’

  ‘Is it going to be a ball-ache of a job?’

  ‘Most likely.’

  Monroe smiled. ‘Can we bring Rosanna too?’

  Declan laughed. ‘She’s already examining the body.’

  ‘Aye, so there’s a body?’ Monroe slapped Declan on the arm. ‘Why the hell are we standing around here chatting, then?’

  And with that, DCI Alexander Monroe gained his next case.

  7

  Functioning Room

  They decided that nothing could be done until the next day, so Declan gave both Anjli and Monroe details of where to meet him and then took his leave, returning to Hurley before the evening rush hour traffic became too much of a problem.

  Once in the village and parked up, Declan walked over to The Olde Bell pub. He was very aware that arriving at Maidenhead with a full team would turn heads, and currently that was exposure he didn’t need. And at the same time, he didn’t want to turn his house into a police unit, especially with Jess around.

  Although, to be honest, she’d probably fit right in.

  There was another alternative; one that he considered as he walked to the bar. The landlord, a young man in his early thirties, was cleaning glasses as Declan approached. Declan knew that the glasses would have been washed en mass in a glass washer under the bar, and that this was more a drying of the glasses, but the traditional imagery wasn’t wasted on him.

  ‘Declan,’ the man nodded, taking the pint glass he was drying and placing it on the bar. ‘Guinness?’

  ‘Make it a half, Dave,’ Declan replied, looking around the bar, freezing when he saw Karl Schnitter sitting in the corner, reading a newspaper.

  Realising he was staring, Declan looked back to Dave the landlord.

  ‘You using the function room at the moment?’ he asked casually. ‘I’m looking for a place to have a couple of meetings.’

  ‘How many meetings?’ Dave poured the Guinness as he spoke. ‘Ongoing usage or a couple of parties?’

  ‘Police business,’ Declan leaned in, speaking softly. ‘Got a team coming up from London.’

  ‘Oh aye, is that about the Chinese lad on the golfing green then?’ Dave passed the half pint over and Declan returned a five-pound note across as payment.

  ‘You know I can’t talk about an active case,’ he replied.

  ‘Your dad talked about them all the time.’

  ‘Dad talked about a lot of things that he shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Your dad was more fun than you, it seems,’ Dave grinned.

  ‘Maybe I’ll tell you about it when I’m further down the line,’ Declan took a sip of the Guinness and sighed. He wasn’t a drinker, and had avoided alcohol since the night with Kendis, but there was something to be said for a nice pint of Guinness. ‘Maybe you have a meeting room to hand? Just a few days, so anything you’re not
using.’

  ‘We’ve got meeting rooms in the Malthouse, next door,’ Dave suggested. ‘Library’s not being used, it’s smaller than the rest but I’m guessing you won’t be paying corporate rates.’

  ‘What would I be paying?’ Declan didn’t really want to ask, but Dave thought this over for a moment.

  ‘If it’s only a couple of days, I’ll let you have it for free, civic duty and all that, on the condition that all food and drink is bought here. No sneaky lunches down at the Rising Sun.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Declan smiled, shaking Dave’s hand. ‘We’d need it from tomorrow.’

  ‘That can be arranged,’ Dave leaned closer, so that the other drinkers at the bar couldn’t hear. ‘Do you want me to let the Germans know?’

  Declan stared at Dave in confusion for a moment. ‘The Germans?’

  ‘Well, I’m guessing it’s all connected, considering that they’re in the same business?’

  Declan shook his head. ‘I have no clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Ah, so not then,’ Dave tapped his nose. ‘Well then, a word to the wise. Couple of weeks back we had a German couple arrive. Booked an open-ended stay, brother and sister, they claim, took a twin room. In their thirties, he said he was LKA, some sort of German police.’

  ‘Landeskriminalamt,’ Declan replied. ‘I worked with them twice when I was stationed in Germany. They’re like German CID.’ He looked around the bar. ‘I wonder why they’re here though?’

  ‘Well, the girl said that they were hunting someone,’ Dave was warming to the role of informant now. ‘Wondered if it was the same thing as you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Declan mused. ‘Do me a favour, let me know if they pop in here. I ought to have a word with them, police to police and all that.’

  He looked back to the corner of the pub now. Karl was staring up at him, the newspaper now placed on the table in front of him.

  ‘Give us whatever lager Karl’s drinking these days,’ Declan said, looking back to Dave, who pulled out a bottle of Belgian ale from the fridge, opened it and passed it across with the altered change from the five-pound note.

  There wasn’t much.

  ‘Lucky I didn’t order a pint for myself,’ Declan mused as he put the change away. Dave had already moved on to the next customer, the conspiratorial conversation now over, so Declan took the half pint glass and the bottle over to the corner table.

  ‘Mind if I?’ he asked. Karl smiled, waving to a seat.

  ‘Only if that is for me,’ he motioned at the bottle. Declan nodded and passed it across as he sat.

  ‘I wanted to thank you,’ he started. ‘Again. For trusting me when nobody else did. When I was on the run for terrorism, you were pretty much the only person who helped.’

  ‘You would have done the same,’ Karl sipped from the bottle, smacking his lips and sighing with pleasure. ‘And I knew you were innocent. I know you. It is difficult to believe someone you have known for decades could be capable of such a thing.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Declan replied, watching Karl. He couldn’t believe that Karl could be a killer. He’d known him all his life. But at the same time, there were questions that needed to be answered. He must have worn these worries on his face because Karl, noticing Declan’s expression, leaned in.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he asked. Declan leaned back; not intentionally backing away from Karl, but more so he could take in the man sitting opposite him.

  ‘Germans,’ he started. ‘I spent a lot of time with them when I was in the Military Police. Mainly helping them arrest pissed squaddies. I always found Germans to be blunt in conversations. Not as comfortable with the fancy language of a more British conversation.’

  ‘Is this a way of saying that Germans are rude?’

  ‘Not at all, the opposite in fact. I always found Germans to be refreshing. You can be blunt with them. You don’t need to dance around topics. You can just talk about them.’

  ‘And what topics are you dancing around now, Detective Walsh?’ Karl’s voice was softer now, the emotion drained out of it. Declan knew he was wary now, not sure where the conversation was going.

  ‘When I came to you that night, on the run and scared, you took me at my word,’ he said. ‘You knew I wasn’t lying. Or, at worst, you trusted me enough to believe that even if I was lying, there was a reason.’

  Karl didn’t reply. Instead, he made a curt nod at this.

  ‘So, in return, I’d like you to tell me the truth. And know that no matter what, that if there is a reason for you to lie, I trust you enough to understand that.’

  ‘I see,’ Karl wore the expression of a man who really didn’t see.

  ‘What was your job in Berlin before the wall came down?’ Declan asked.

  Karl stopped, as if frozen, the bottle of beer halfway to his mouth.

  ‘I was a mechanic,’ he eventually whispered. ‘I have said this already.’

  ‘Let me rephrase that,’ Declan replied carefully. ‘I might not have explained it correctly. What was your job in Berlin before the wall came down, Mister Meier?’

  To his credit, Karl didn’t bluff his way out of this, or stammer that there was some kind of mistake. Instead he nodded, placed the bottle down onto the table and looked directly at Declan.

  ‘Your father’s notes?’ he asked. Declan shook his head.

  ‘Helen Mirren.’

  ‘Women. They will be the death of me,’ Karl replied calmly. ‘Yes, my name was Meier. And yes, I was, as you probably already know, a Grenztruppen, a border guard on the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall.’

  ‘Why lie about this?’ Declan sipped at his drink as he observed Karl. Karl shrugged.

  ‘This was the end of the eighties,’ he explained. ‘Less than forty-five years since the Second World War. My father had been a German soldier during the war. He was young, and even though he did not follow the teachings of Hitler, it did not matter as they conscripted all Germans. However, he was a soldier, and thus became called Nazi. After the war, there were trials.’

  ‘Nuremberg.’

  Karl nodded at this. ‘Many soldiers were arrested, charged with terrible crimes. All of them had the same excuse. I was just following orders.’

  ‘And how does this relate to you?’

  ‘I too was just following orders. And my orders were to stop people escaping from East Germany to West Germany. I patrolled the Bernauer Strasse section; if you have visited the Berlin Wall memorial, you see that they have kept a section just as it was back then, showing the two walls and the kill zone between. There is a watchtower there. I was in that, and several nearby.’

  Declan nodded. He had indeed seen that section of wall before.

  ‘I was led by a Hauptmann, a Captain in the Grenztruppen by the name of Wilhelm Müller,’ Karl continued. ‘He was a monster of a man and followed the GDP orders to shoot at fugitives with great happiness. In fact, he would walk the land between walls slowly, listening, feeling vibrations, from where the tunnels were being built. Then, he would mark a line in the sand where he believed the tunnel was, and then order us to machine gun the line. Tunnels were very close to the surface sometimes, and occasionally bullets would get through, injuring builders. And when he was not doing that, he was tempting dissidents to run, convincing them of weaknesses in the wall, so that when they attempted, we would shoot them.’

  He took a swing of ale.

  ‘He claimed it was all by chance though, and he would flip a coin. An East German Mark. If it landed number side up? They would survive, and Müller would let them try for freedom. If it came up on the other side though, then they would be killed.’

  ‘So he claimed the universe was killing them, not him?’ Declan shook his head. ‘Hell of a guy.’

  ‘A liar,’ Karl added. ‘One of the other guards told me once that Müller dropped the coin once, when tossing it. When the guard picked it up, Müller snatched it back angrily before he could look at it. But he’d see enough. He’d see
n that the coin had two sides the same. What you would call ‘tails’. He would show a coin, make this big speech about chance and destiny, and then palm it for one that gave him the outcome he needed. That way he looked like he wasn’t consciously deciding to kill, when at all times he was.’

  They sat silently for a moment.

  ‘Movies make it seem like crossing the wall is simple,’ Karl added. ‘It is just two walls, after all. Not even that high. But hundreds of people died trying. And they hated our unit for what Müller did.’

  ‘You expected another Nuremberg after the fall?’ Declan asked. Karl nodded.

  ‘Müller was known. He had his own nickname, The Reaper. And as such they named us The Reapers,’ he said, looking at the bottle as he spoke, not seeing Declan flinch at the name. ‘When the wall came down, we knew they would come for him. For us. I wanted to leave too, as I hated what I had done. I had a passion, repairing cars, and decided that I would start a new life somewhere far away. But Grenztruppen didn’t find it easy to do that. I had to create a completely new identity.’

  ‘Why did you pick Schnitter?’ Declan asked. Karl chuckled.

  ‘It was not of my choice,’ he replied. ‘Hauptmann Müller heard I was trying to leave, to escape, and came to me. He said that for a year’s salary, he would create a new life for me. He had a friend, an Oberst in the Stasi who could do this. I agreed, I paid the money, everything I owned to do this. And in return, he names me ‘Reaper’. A reminder that I will always owe him for my new life.’

  Declan nodded. He didn’t know what he would have done if placed in the same situation.

  ‘You think I am the Red Reaper,’ Karl continued. ‘I can see how you would consider that. Especially with the image.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ this threw Declan. Karl’s eyes widened in surprise.

  ‘I thought you knew?’ he replied. ‘The image, the man with the hat, with the scythe? It is an Ampelmännchen.’

  Declan recognised the name, but couldn’t remember where from. Luckily Karl was still talking.