Death Do Us Part (DI Damen Brook 6)

by Steven Dunne

  ‘Frazer and Nolan announced their wedding in the Telegraph,’ declared Noble. ‘Petty remembered it because it wasn’t long afterwards that she was performing their autopsies.’

  ‘Together for ever. Stephen and Iain,’ Banach uttered solemnly.

  ‘Together for ever,’ repeated Caskey. ‘That’s it. Maybe the Gibsons took out a similar announcement.’

  ‘That could throw up hundreds of potential vics every month,’ suggested Smee, aghast.

  ‘Get the press office on to the Telegraph, John,’ said Brook. ‘Find out when Frazer and Nolan were in the paper. Then ask if the Gibsons made a similar proclamation.’

  ‘August,’ nodded Noble, making a note. ‘Their wedding anniversary.’

  ‘Good,’ said Brook. ‘And if they had, they would’ve kept a copy of the newspaper at home.’

  ‘I’ll check with the exhibits officer,’ said Noble.

  ‘And get the press office to ask the Telegraph management to suspend all personal columns, especially those dealing with relationships – marriages, anniversaries, engagements. You know the drill.’

  ‘They might have a problem with that,’ said Noble. ‘It’ll cost them.’

  ‘My heart bleeds,’ retorted Brook, pausing in embarrassment when a few wry smiles broke out. ‘Poor choice of words, but it’s been six days since the Gibsons were murdered, and if the killer hasn’t selected his next victims already, he’ll be doing it soon.’

  ‘What if they don’t comply?’ said Caskey, finally able to look at him.

  ‘Charlton wants something meaty for his briefing. If the Telegraph doesn’t suspend, we announce how we think the killer is selecting his victims, let the public apply the pressure.’

  ‘They’re going to love you for that,’ said Noble.

  ‘And after all that good press I’ve been getting,’ quipped Brook.

  ‘So maybe this guy at the party was incidental,’ said Banach, nodding at the mystery man on the screen. ‘Maybe our killer hasn’t physically encountered the victims.’

  ‘We still need to eliminate him,’ said Brook.

  ‘Couple of emails,’ said Cooper, clicking on his mouse. ‘A ballistics tech wants to see you about a reconstruction at EMSOU.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Brook.

  ‘Donald Crump.’

  ‘Crumpet,’ said Noble, smiling. ‘Not seen him since he moved out to the Badlands. What about a reconstruction?’

  ‘That’s all it says. He wants you and DI Brook over to EMSOU,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Schlep all the way to Nottinghamshire?’ groaned Noble. ‘Better be important.’

  ‘That’s wild country,’ said Morton, winking at Noble. ‘Need an armed escort?’

  ‘You said two emails,’ said Brook, frowning.

  ‘David Fry’s service record,’ said Cooper. ‘Do we still want it?’

  ‘He was in the Gibson house, and he’s missing,’ said Brook.

  ‘Left the army with a dishonourable discharge,’ said Cooper, scanning his monitor. ‘He assaulted a soldier under his command, put the guy in hospital for a week.’

  ‘Any reason why he’s at liberty in Derby instead of in the Colchester Glasshouse?’ asked Noble.

  ‘That’s all they gave me,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Brook.

  ‘So he’s quick with his fists,’ argued Banach. ‘Trouble is, none of our victims were beaten.’

  ‘Champagne and shooting is not his style,’ agreed Brook, thoughtful. ‘Nevertheless, he’s a person of interest, so maybe it’s time to put something out there.’ He looked at Noble. ‘Make it clear we want him as a witness rather than a suspect at this stage, though.’

  ‘I’m not traipsing out to Hucknall?’ ventured Noble.

  ‘Too dangerous,’ quipped Brook, glancing at Caskey. ‘Sergeant. With me.’

  On the M1, Caskey was first to break the awkward silence after their last exchange. ‘I’m sorry about my attitude before.’ Her voice was hesitant, unused to apology.

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Your question about Ray Thorogood. It hadn’t occurred to me. If Ray wasn’t at the farm, he should have taken the opportunity to get himself an alibi, make sure he was seen somewhere else.’

  ‘Seen and remembered,’ said Brook. ‘With his entire family about to be slaughtered and Ray set to inherit, he needs a cast-iron alibi to put to bed a lot of the suspicion. You’d expect to find his dibs and dabs in the family home, but we’d have been all over him if Reardon had died.’

  ‘And an alibi prevents all that,’ nodded Caskey.

  ‘You found no traces of him on or around the victims?’

  Caskey looked across at him. ‘Nothing anywhere near the major trauma sites. Some hairs and prints in his old room and common areas like the kitchen. But nothing in blood or on the bodies. The security suite had his prints all over it, but that doesn’t prove he shut down the system. It was the texts he exchanged with Jemson that put him in the frame.’

  ‘I saw them,’ said Brook. ‘Grim reading.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think someone could be so cold about killing his own sister.’

  ‘Never underestimate the depravity of the human race, Sergeant. And Jemson was just as callous, prepared to rape and murder a girl he once professed to love.’

  ‘She’s lucky she’s alive to tell the tale,’ said Caskey. A slight edge in her voice made Brook look across at her. ‘Without her statement, we’d have no way of placing Ray at the scene the night before.’ Large rain droplets began to distort the view through the windscreen and Caskey flicked on the wipers.

  ‘How hard did you look for Ray?’

  ‘Trust me, his picture was everywhere that same evening. And I do mean everywhere. National TV and newspapers. All the agencies. The case was very high-profile.’

  ‘But no response.’

  ‘Not a sniff. Nothing that panned out, at least. No one saw him on the day of the murders, including Reardon. And no one saw him scarper. He disappeared without trace until that sighting in Spain and even that’s never been confirmed.’

  ‘Financials?’ ventured Brook, even though he knew the answer. ‘Electronic witnesses are a lot more reliable than people.’

  ‘First port of call,’ answered Caskey. ‘Same story – no spending on his plastic for the week before his parents were butchered.’

  ‘I read that in the file,’ said Brook. ‘I thought it odd.’

  ‘So did I until I found out his cards were maxed out the week before,’ said Caskey.

  ‘Maxed out?’

  ‘He withdrew cash from ATMs up to his credit limit on all plastic the week preceding the murders. A contingency plan in case things went awry, we thought.’

  ‘And not worried how suspicious it would look if things went to plan,’ answered Brook. ‘ATM film?’

  ‘Scarf across the face and a hoodie,’ replied Caskey.

  ‘Strange,’ said Brook.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The mix of detailed preparations and rank incompetence.’

  ‘Incompetence?’

  ‘Recruiting people like Jemson and Coulson to carry out his plans.’

  ‘Jemson was no Einstein, but he had a reasonable IQ,’ replied Caskey.

  ‘And he held a grudge against Reardon.’

  ‘Not to mention the know-how Ray needed to shut down the security system and wipe the cameras,’ said Caskey.

  ‘You’ve left out the most important reason Jemson was recruited,’ said Brook. ‘Not only did he know about Luke’s secret obsession with Reardon, he also knew he had a viable grudge against Mr Thorogood. Both made him the ideal patsy.’

  ‘A patsy who managed to turn the tables.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call life in prison turning the tables,’ said Brook.

  ‘He’s alive,’ replied Caskey. ‘That’s more than you can say for Jemson.’

  Brook glanced across at her, his eye drawn by a pendant, the letter G on a silver chain, peeping through her shirt.
She caught him looking. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  She touched the letter lightly as though caressing it, then pushed it back through the gap in her shirt. Her smile couldn’t hide the pain. ‘My late partner.’ Brook kept quiet out of respect, but evidently she took his silence for a prompt. ‘George.’

  ‘And he had a matching pendant?’

  She looked at Brook, then away. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘He must have been young. When he died, I mean.’

  Caskey maintained her attention on the traffic. ‘Same as me.’ Again she mistook his silence for a question. ‘Twenty-nine.’

  ‘Dare I ask what happened?’

  ‘Home invasion while I was at work.’

  ‘And you found the body.’ She nodded imperceptibly. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Her eyes were fixed on the dark lanes of the A38. ‘I’m over it,’ she said, her voice hoarse, affirming the opposite. Brook accepted the lie as a conversation closer. No one was ever over the death of a loved one, especially if it was sudden and violent.

  He indicated the next turn-off and Caskey manoeuvred into the inside lane on to the roundabout. ‘So what do you want to do?’

  ‘Do?’ asked Caskey.

  ‘You worked out why I asked the question. You get to choose.’

  She took a moment to consider. ‘I thought it was obvious. I’d like to stay on the inquiry, please.’

  ‘You won the wager, you don’t have to say please.’

  ‘And if I hadn’t won?’

  ‘But you did,’ insisted Brook.

  ‘I’d like to know.’

  He considered for a moment. ‘After your insights in the briefing, I need you on the team. You got inside the killer’s head. Where the monsters live. That’s the job. That’s where we need to be if we’re going to catch him.’

  She looked searchingly at him, a hint of mockery playing around her lips. ‘Where the monsters live?’

  ‘A little trip I make from time to time.’ Caskey was silent, but he could see the questions forming about his past. ‘You can ask.’

  ‘I know most of the details from DI Ford.’

  ‘I’m sure he was very sympathetic,’ grinned Brook.

  Caskey smiled briefly. ‘He wasn’t your biggest fan. But I’m not so naive that I’d accept a single opinion. And from what I’ve seen Sergeant Noble is fiercely loyal.’

  Brook smiled. ‘To a fault sometimes. He’s helped me a lot. When I first came to Derby …’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me,’ said Caskey. ‘I know about keeping personal stuff where it belongs.’

  ‘I know you do,’ said Brook. ‘But you need to know what happened.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m your senior officer, and at some point in the future I may need to order you to put yourself in danger.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And that won’t work unless you have complete confidence in me.’

  Caskey shrugged. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘It was a long time ago. I was young and I made a mistake, got too involved with a case. A case that took my marriage and nearly my sanity.’

  ‘The Reaper killings,’ said Caskey. Brook let his silence act as confirmation. ‘Was he your first monster?’

  ‘That’s something I’m still trying to work out,’ smiled Brook. ‘But he was the cleverest prey I ever hunted and he beat me fair and square. I was outthought and outmanoeuvred.’

  ‘Sounds tough.’

  ‘There were consolations,’ said Brook. ‘I learned a lot about evil and even more about myself.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That it’s important to know where the monsters are, Sergeant.’ Brook turned to look at her. ‘But you wouldn’t want to live there.’

  A couple of minutes’ silence followed, Brook concentrating on directing Caskey through more roundabouts.

  ‘Can I ask something?’ she said.

  ‘I can see you need inducting into the squad.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ve heard that you’re impossible to offend.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but you can speak freely as long as you use decent English, avoid swearing in my presence and, most important, don’t ever call me guv.’

  ‘Because it brings back your time in the Met?’

  ‘Something like that. We’re here.’

  Caskey pulled her Saab into a small car park, guiding it into a space next to the drab building that housed the East Midlands Special Operations Unit. For a site housing departments that oversaw every aspect of forensic services for the entire East Midlands, stretching across five counties, the building didn’t give off any hints about the breadth and strategic importance of the work that went on beneath its dog-eared flat roof.

  The archaic design and shabby construction screamed post-war prefab, and Brook found it so depressing that he routinely avoided as many EMSOU seminars and training courses as he could get away with.

  ‘What’s your question?’

  Caskey thought through her wording before settling on simplicity. ‘You didn’t really believe all that rubbish about a link between Black Oak Farm and the Champagne Killer, did you?’

  Brook studied her. ‘You didn’t really believe all that rubbish about a gay sex killer, did you?’

  ‘Touché!’

  ‘What are we looking at, Don?’

  Donald Crump turned to Brook with red-rimmed eyes, housed in a sweaty face, heavy on the jowls.

  ‘How are things with you, Don?’ he began. ‘I’m good, Inspector. Nice to see you. How was your move out to this shitty building in the middle of nowhere, Don? Like walking off the edge of the earth, Inspector.’

  Brook had forgotten Crump’s bluff manner and heightened sense of self-importance. He glanced at Caskey, who raised an amused eyebrow. ‘How was the move out to Hucknall, Don?’ he said in a voice guaranteed to communicate lack of interest.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ replied Crump, shaking his head. ‘It’s like the Wild West out here. Hard to believe this country has gun laws with all the drug-related shoot-’em-ups in the Nottingham ’burbs.’

  Brook nodded and paused for a beat before indicating the four crash-test dummies arranged on separate chairs. Wires protruded from rods inserted into the dummies and were attached to two posts about three metres away. ‘So what are we looking at?’

  ‘A reconstruction of the two shootings,’ said Crump, indicating first the dummies on the left and then on the right. ‘This is Breadsall, and this is Boulton Moor.’

  ‘And this is the position of the shooter,’ said Brook, pointing to the two posts.

  ‘Right. As you see, from the position of the bodies recorded by SOCO at the crime scenes, we were roughly able to extrapolate the angle of each bullet’s journey from the weapon. And with the use of lasers, we can also plot the bullet back to its source and get a fairly accurate indication of the shooter’s height. The killer is between five-eight and six feet as you know.’

  ‘Killer?’ said Caskey, glancing at Brook. ‘So we’re talking about a lone gunman.’

  ‘Sorry if that queers your profile, but I thought you’d need to know,’ said Crump. ‘Two different guns were used, but there was only one shooter.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ said Caskey. ‘Couldn’t two shooters be a similar height?’

  ‘Maybe if they were Siamese twins,’ said Crump. He moved to the two wires emanating from the dummies on the right. ‘When we traced the path of the bullets back to source, it was clear, from the second incident in particular, that the guns were held no more than six inches apart.’ He raised his hands to the wires to prove how close the shooter’s hands would have been. ‘See? We didn’t notice it quite so obviously in the Breadsall shootings because one of the victims must have turned his body slightly when the fatal shot was fired. Even so, that put the two weapons no more than twelve inches apart. Boulton Moor is more clear-cut. Neither victim tried to turn away and the bullets entered at the angle you can see, fired from the position pl
otted. There’s no mistake. Your shooter was alone and fired with a gun in each hand.’

  ‘One killer,’ said Caskey, her brow creased in bewilderment. ‘Two shots fired but from two different guns. What am I missing?’

  ‘He wanted both victims to die at the same time?’ exclaimed Noble.

  ‘The exact same time,’ said Brook, taking a welcome sip of tea. ‘That’s why he used two guns, so he could fire simultaneously.’

  Noble held up his hands. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s lost his own life partner,’ said Caskey. ‘His soulmate. He feels cheated, alone.’

  ‘More than that,’ added Brook. ‘He’s obsessed with the idea that he should have died with her so they could continue their journey together.’

  ‘Hand in hand?’ ventured Noble.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Why not just kill himself if he’s that depressed?’ asked Banach.

  ‘Because death is no release if he has to make the journey alone,’ said Caskey. ‘Live or die, he can’t face either alone.’

  Noble nodded, thinking it through. ‘So as a public service, he decides to start offing happy couples to spare them the pain of their partner croaking before them.’

  ‘A service,’ agreed Brook. ‘A gift. That’s how he sees it.’

  ‘It’s almost poignant,’ observed Banach.

  ‘And the trigger?’ asked Morton. ‘I mean, assuming our guy didn’t off Frazer and Nolan the day after his wife died.’

  ‘It could be anything,’ said Brook. ‘Something he’s seen, something he’s heard. Something that brought it all back, convinced him that killing happy couples would spare one of them a lifetime of solitary anguish.’

  ‘And our mystery man at the party is our prime suspect again,’ said Morton.

  ‘Insofar as we know, he’s grieving, so he fits the profile,’ said Brook. ‘Also he’s strong, and around the right height, according to Maureen McConnell’s description. And he knew the first victims.’

  ‘Matthew Gibson is a six-footer,’ said Noble hopefully.

  ‘It’s not Gibson,’ said Brook. ‘He’s gained a partner, not lost one.’

  Noble conceded with a lift of the eyebrows. ‘And I suppose we can disregard Trimble for the same reason.’