The Reaper didb-1

by Steven Dunne

  Hendrickson’s grin remained but it had lost some of its wattage. Now it was Robinson’s turn to look at the floor as Jones looked up at Brook. He, in turn, permitted himself a brief dart towards her eyes and fancied he detected a scintilla of approval in her expression. He couldn’t hold the look for long and turned away, throwing a ‘Good night’ over his shoulder as he left.

  Brook walked away more calmly than he felt, listening for the telltale mutter and laugh that signalled some further insult. It arrived, as usual, as Brook rounded the corner and descended the stairs to the car park. He shook his head.

  ‘Why didn’t I just slip away? Why?’

  ‘Who does that twat think he is?’ spat Hendrickson. ‘Fucking London ponce.’

  ‘He’s from Yorkshire originally,’ offered Jones, not looking at either of her colleagues. This was a subject best avoided.

  ‘Yeah. So what the fuck was he doing in the Met then?’

  Jones took a breath and looked straight back at Hendrickson to signal her final say on the matter. ‘He was some kind of rising star, they say. The best criminal profiler on the Force. Until he got sick.’

  The portly figure of PC Aktar walked in. ‘Come on, my duck. Let’s get out there,’ he said to Jones. ‘We’ve got a city to look after.’

  ‘Coming.’

  ‘Sick my arse. I’ve seen his file. He had a fucking breakdown. So what’s he doing here then?’ asked Hendrickson. ‘I’ll tell you what he’s doing here, my girl…’

  ‘I’m not your girl…’

  ‘…he couldn’t hack it in the Met, see. A college boy who thought he could do a better job than us ordinary coppers but he couldn’t handle it, could he? So what happens?’ He glanced at Robinson as though he wouldn’t continue unless people insisted then carried on a split-second later. ‘We have to take him off their hands, don’t we? Why? Because Derbyshire’s a second class county and we can make do with middle-aged burn-outs who are treading water until they retire. That’s why. We’re shit and he’s better than us so we should all bow down and kiss his arse.’

  ‘Sounds like fun, sarge,’ laughed Robinson.

  Hendrickson smiled back at him. ‘Ai. It’s true though, innit? And there’s not a copper in this nick who doesn’t agree with me.’

  ‘He does his job,’ chipped in Jones, on her way out.

  Hendrickson smirked. ‘I might have known you’d defend him.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ flashed back Jones, her colour rising, though she knew only too well.

  This time Robinson joined in with a leer. ‘We all know he’s your boyfriend, Wendy.’

  ‘He is not my boyfriend,’ she replied through gritted teeth, ‘I danced with him once and he gave me a lift home. Nothing happened. How many times?’

  ‘Would that be a fireman’s lift?’ asked Hendrickson. He and Robinson cackled as Jones headed for the corridor.

  ‘Piss off the pair of you.’

  ‘Please try and control your language, constable,’ Hendrickson shouted after her. ‘Your boyfriend might hear you.’

  As they headed for the car park, Aktar kept his eyes trained on Jones, waiting for the explanation. She ignored him for a few moments then, without looking at him, said, ‘Not a bloody word.’

  Brook pushed through the heavy metal door at the foot of the stairs and stepped into the artificial half-light. It was cold and dark, the chill winter’s day having left a permanent freezing damp coating the ground. Brook shivered and pulled the collar of his overcoat up.

  As was his custom, he stepped into the middle of the ramp to get to his car. He couldn’t go near other cars. He needed space between himself and any obstacles. There’d been a rat once. So now Brook trod a path equidistant from both lines of vehicles.

  He reached his old sports car, all the while scanning the floor for movement. He opened the creaky door and launched himself onto the cracked leather seat to avoid being nipped on the ankle by a stray psychotic rodent. He felt like a child launching himself into bed to escape the talons of the Bogey Man skulking below. He didn’t care.

  As he swung his battered Austin Healey Sprite out of the car park, Brook was appalled at its throaty din. The reverberations of the old car’s straining engine clattered against the dark structures gathered around Derby’s Police Headquarters and were flung back at Brook in a fit of pique by the empty office building across the road.

  What a racket. He was aware of it now, once the bustle of the day had long departed. The roar he savoured with a connoisseur’s pleasure on a sunny Sunday drive in the Peaks made him wince in the echo chamber of the night. It was a cacophony that could have shattered the walls of Jericho, had the biblical city been no more than a 50 mile round trip from Derby.

  Brook picked up his takeaway and was home in a few minutes, one of the advantages of living in a city as small as Derby. A quick trip round the inner ring road past the Eagle Centre, skirting the new shopping precinct, and Brook was back at his down-at-heel rented flat on the Uttoxeter Road.

  It wasn’t much of a front but it was as good a place as any. And it was central. No Barrett home in a suburban development for Brook. No tasselled sofa and MFI flat packs. Brook was used to city living, where he could be quiet and anonymous: unless, of course, he was driving the Sprite home after midnight when everyone could mark his progress through the streets. Not that he cared about disturbing people. Like all insomniacs, he assumed everyone else slept like babies.

  Brook slowed the Sprite to a crawl and carefully manoeuvred the delicate bodywork onto the pavement-cum-drive outside his ground floor flat. He killed the engine, heard the fan belt call a cranky halt to its day’s work and stepped out of the driver’s seat holding his Chicken Jalfrezi, listening to the pre-ignition running before the engine finally died. He closed the door gingerly, not bothering to lock it.

  Instinctively he turned to the upstairs window of the flats next door in time to see the curtain fall. Brook nodded, satisfied. Old Mrs Saunders probably slept less than he did. He supposed she’d be having ‘a word’ with him tomorrow about ‘all that noise in the middle of the night’. Comforting really, having such a busybody keeping an eye on the place. Not that he bothered about security. He had nothing of value. But then again, he was a policeman and, as such, was as interested as Mrs Saunders in the ‘comings and goings’, if only out of a kind of default curiosity.

  Brook hesitated before going in. He wanted a cigarette. He’d gone without for two days. He extracted a dog-eared pack from the boot of the car and flipped open the box. One left. That was good. And bad. If he were still in Battersea, he could have gone for more, any time of night. But he wasn’t. He was in Derby and it was closed.

  Brook lit up and inhaled deeply, enjoying the sting and feeling an immediate and gratifying nausea. He stood by his car and looked out over the building site across the road and on, past the sweep of Derby’s low horizon. There wasn’t much to be seen. It was a dark, misty night and cold air was blowing down from the Peaks.

  For the first time in the three years since his transfer, Brook was beginning to look at the skyline like an old friend. He hadn’t chosen Derby as a place to live and work. He’d picked up the first available transfer out of London. If it had been to Baghdad he would have taken it. Just to get out.

  And Derby hadn’t let him down. It was a pleasingly unremarkable place to lose himself. An engineering town by tradition, which marked out the population as hard working and straightforward, it also boasted a large and well-integrated Asian population.

  Frank Whittle, pioneer of the jet engine, was much honoured in a city where Rolls Royce was the main employer. Derby also had one of the largest railway engineering works in the world. It was a city built on transport, going nowhere. Obligatory retail parks ringed the city and much of the population and traffic had followed, making Brook’s neighbourhood, if not any more glamorous, then certainly a little quieter.

  And despite the inevitable decline of such an industry-dependent city, crime wa
s not excessive and murder was rare.

  But what really marked out this East Midlands backwater was the Peak District, a few miles to the northwest. Brook had fallen in love with it and took every opportunity he could to drive into the hills and soak up the peace of the countryside. Ashbourne, Hartington, Buxton, Bakewell, Carsington Water. All were favoured haunts, where he could dump the car and walk for hours alone, clearing his mind of all the clutter.

  And now, as a bonus, he was discovering a sense of belonging. That was good. It would prepare him for the biggest challenge of all; retrieving a sense of himself.

  For the first time since joining the Met as a callow, yet confident twenty-three-year old, Brook began to believe that it might be possible to wash the garbage from mind and body. Now, here, he was only wading in the gutter. In London he’d been drowning in a sewer.

  Chapter Two

  Brook took a final urgent drag and tossed the cigarette. He walked up the communal access road and unlocked the back door into the kitchen of his flat. He never used the front door as it opened into his living room, a quaint reminder of a childhood spent in a back-to-back terrace, with which he wasn’t comfortable. Memories of strange, rubicund men collecting rent or insurance and breathing light ale fumes into his pram were still keenly felt forty-odd years on.

  He looked briefly at the answer machine. For once it was flashing so he played the message. It was from Terri, his daughter, wishing ‘a happy birthday for tomorrow to my number one dad’, her nickname for him since acquiring a second father. She’d moved with her mother and ‘number two dad’ to Brighton after the divorce. Brook didn’t wipe the brief message but left the machine flashing to remind him to ring her.

  It didn’t sit well with Brook that a father should need a reminder to talk to an only daughter and his unexpected good mood soured as a result. He looked at his watch. It was his birthday. He could see the single envelope on the mat by the front door. He left it there.

  After picking at his curry and downing a celebratory glass of milk, he showered and went to bed. He remembered to leave a little food by the flap, in case Cat tired of its nocturnal foraging, and lay down to read in his box-sized bedroom, head grazing one wall, feet flat against the other for the warmth from the radiator on the other side.

  For a change, sleep came quickly, though it rarely lasted beyond an hour. And too often it would be an hour of visions exploding across his brain. Some he could recognise, some he couldn’t. Then sometimes, on a case, he would see something-a face, a crime scene, a piece of evidence-and recall an echo of it in a dream he’d already had. It bothered Brook at first until he’d been able to write it off to the Job. The things he’d seen were enough to fever any brow.

  Tonight even the concession of one fitful hour was withdrawn and he woke to the noise of the phone a few moments later. It was DS John Noble.

  ‘Sir, you’re awake.’

  A sigh was Brook’s only answer. ‘What’s up, John?’

  ‘Murder, sir. A bad one.’

  ‘Bad as in poorly executed or bad as in not nice?’

  ‘The latter I think,’ replied Noble, making a conscious effort to impress with his vocabulary. Eighteen months hanging on to DI Brook’s coat tails had taught Noble three things. ‘Avoid swearing, John, in my presence at least. Try to speak proper English, if you know any. And most important, don’t ever call me guv.’

  ‘DI Greatorix should be dealing but he’s already on a call.’

  ‘So he is. Where are you?’

  ‘ASBO-land.’

  Brook let out a heavy sigh of frustration. ‘John, if you’re on the Drayfin, just say so.’

  ‘I’m on the Drayfin Estate.’

  ‘What’s the address?’ Brook jotted it down. At this time of night it wouldn’t take him long to get to the rundown housing estate on the south side of the city, built in the sixties when Britain’s city planners had decided that people were keen to live cheek by jowl in identical, low-cost boxes. It was little surprise to Brook that residents in such areas attracted more than their fair share of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’

  Fifteen minutes later the noise from Brook’s Sprite ensured that those houses on the Drayfin Estate still in darkness were fully alerted to the commotion in their midst, and soon switches were being flicked and curtains twitched.

  If he spent much more time driving around in the middle of the night, the National Grid would be inviting him to the staff parties. The idea brought a brief smile to Brook’s lips. A pity he couldn’t introduce such levity into his dealings with others, he thought.

  Brook was mulling over the comedic potential of his future transactions with Sergeant Hendrickson when, without warning, he jumped onto the brakes. The car shuddered to an unconvincing halt. Seconds later a black and white cat hurtled across the path of the Sprite and skittered away into the mist, a pink tail hanging from its mouth.

  Brook exhaled heavily and, fully awake now, pulled over to the huddle outside Number 233-a small red brick semi-detached-as an ambulance was pulling away. He killed the engine, aware of looks and smiles exchanged between the knot of uniformed constables attempting to keep warm on the verge outside the house.

  He wondered if the earlier incident with Hendrickson had been thrown into the mix for general sport. Such disputes spread like wildfire amongst the smaller, close knit stations and D Division was no exception.

  A young man stepped from the throng. Detective Sergeant Noble was a good looking, fit twenty-seven year old who took a keen interest in his own advancement. Apart from a regulation-stretching blond mop, parted in the middle, he was smartly presented, even at this late hour. The contrast with his own hurriedly assembled and shapeless clothing wasn’t lost on Brook.

  ‘Evening, John-or rather morning.’ Noble nodded but Brook could tell he wasn’t his usual ebullient self because he fidgeted with his latex gloves, not meeting Brook’s eye. ‘Have you puked, John?’ he enquired with a hint of mockery.

  ‘No sir.’ A pause. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Who was that in the ambulance?’

  ‘PC Aktar, sir. He was first on the scene. He fainted.’

  ‘Causing great hilarity amongst his colleagues no doubt.’ Despite himself Brook took a little comfort from this alternative explanation for the smirks that had greeted his arrival. ‘Is it that bad, John?’

  ‘Not so much to look at. I’ve seen worse. It’s just…’ he tailed off and looked at the floor.

  ‘Is the PS in there?’ asked Brook.

  ‘The surgeon’s been delayed.’

  Brook raised an eyebrow then nodded. ‘Right, the other murder. And SOCO?’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘A fresh crime scene. Talk me through it.’

  ‘The family’s name is Wallis.’

  Brook narrowed his eyes in recognition. ‘Bobby Wallis. Yes. Petty theft and an ABH. General scourge if memory serves. Which one is it?’

  ‘Well.’ Noble looked round as though he were afraid of making a fool of himself before turning back to Brook. ‘There are four bodies.’

  ‘Four?’ Brook fixed his DS with a stare. A long-buried echo sounded in the vaults of his heart, quickening its beat. He ignored Noble’s faint nod and ran his bottom lip underneath his upper teeth, a gesture of calculation that he hoped would mask his unease. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Bobby Wallis, his wife we’re assuming, plus his daughter-Kylie-and a baby. One survivor. The son. Jason Wallis. He was out cold and a strong smell of booze on him. Could be drugs as well. He’s gone off to hospital.’ Brook turned to Noble with his eyebrow cocked. ‘He’s under guard,’ answered Noble. ‘But there are no obvious bloodstains on his hands or clothes. And if he was in there…’ Noble looked away.

  Brook nodded then looked around as though a cigarette vendor might recognise his need and come forward with a pack. It seemed he was about to make one of those periodic visits to hell that he’d moved to Derby to escape. Months of stultifying boredom, interspersed with sp
oradic journeys through the entrails of the human condition, Brook a mute witness to the black hole of depravity and despair that sucked all virtuous emotion from him. Black. The colour of man’s heart. The colour invisible in the night. The colour of old blood.

  ‘Witnesses?’

  ‘A neighbour across the street, Mrs Patel, says she saw a white van make a delivery. Around 8.15. There are pizza boxes from Pizza Parlour inside so it looks legit. She remembered a partial plate. I’ve put it out on the wire. No hits yet.’

  ‘Score one for the busybodies. Are you checking with Pizza Parlour?’

  ‘They’re closed but we’re running it down. Do you think it’s important?’

  ‘Yes. The van’s wrong. In my experience most pizza deliveries are done on a moped. If Pizza Parlour did have a van, they’d have their livery all over it.’

  ‘So why would our nosy neighbour not see that if she can remember a partial?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’ve been onto Traffic to be on the lookout on all the major roads.’

  ‘Good. Give it to the motorway boys as well though he may be long gone. And tell them we’ll need to look at all the CCTV for our time slot.’

  Brook waited while Noble got on the radio to Dispatch, all the while scanning the uniformed officers for the chance to bum a cigarette. But no-one would light up until the senior officer had disappeared into the house.

  Noble rejoined Brook. ‘Well, let’s take a peek, John.’ And with that Brook attached his mental blinkers and concentrated fully on Noble’s brisk summary as they walked towards the front door.

  ‘The next door neighbour found them, sir. A Mr Singh. He came round at about half past twelve to complain about noise-loud music-the front door was ajar so he walked into the front room and there they all were. Apart from the son-Jason-who was flat out in the kitchen.’

  ‘How were they killed?’

  ‘Throats cut, and, well, you can see for yourself. You won’t believe it.’ Noble’s recollection began to gnaw at his composure. His features adopted the pained squint of a man holding on to himself, so useful at funerals.