Whisper For The Reaper: A spine tingling murder mystery (Detective Inspector Declan Walsh Book 4)

by Jack Gatland

  ‘Some kind of sick suicide cult,’ he replied. ‘All linked by a card with a red man, in the shape of a cross, holding a scythe. Dad ran the case about ten years back.’

  ‘Did he ever talk about it?’

  Declan shook his head. ‘I’d just started in Tottenham with DI Salmon,’ he explained. ‘Derek and dad didn’t get on that well, as you probably know. Things were a little strained until mum died. And after that, although we spoke, he didn’t talk business.’

  Wintergreen pulled the folder on the table closer, but didn’t open it. ‘A dozen people died between 1990 and 2012,’ she began. ‘None of them had any kind of defensive injuries, all seemed to take their own lives in a variety of different ways. Hanging, shooting, injecting, slashing at their throats. The only thing that linked them together was a single white card with this image on.’ She pulled a business card sized piece of card in a small, clear plastic bag out of the folder, showing it to Declan. One side was blank, but the other side had a small red man, wearing a hat, arms outstretched, one hand holding a red scythe.

  ‘Every one of them had this. And every one of these had only the victim’s fingerprints on it, right here.’ She held the card through the plastic by the corner, with her thumb and index finger.

  ‘As I said, a sick suicide cult,’ Declan repeated. ‘I remember something; weren’t they all people with secrets, or who’d done wrong too? The one in Hurley was a rapist, right?’

  Wintergreen pulled a file from the folder, reading it.

  ‘Craig Randall,’ she said, holding up the image of a fifteen-year-old boy. ‘Visited Hurley with his parents every weekend. Believed to have assaulted a fifteen-year-old girl at the campsite, but nothing was ever proven. Found dead in the woods, having slashed his own throat. No sign of a struggle, blood spatter proved it was a self-inflicted wound.’

  ‘But my dad believed it was murder,’ Declan replied, remembering snippets of the case. ‘Something about the blade never being found.’

  Wintergreen nodded at this, opening the folder and scattering other files across the table. Women, men, all ages and sizes faced Declan. All dead, all found with the Red Reaper card.

  ‘None of them were found with the item that caused their death,’ she said, showing them. ‘The ones that hanged themselves had the noose but at the same time didn’t show what the victim could have stood on to gain the height.’

  Declan worked through the files, arranging them into chronological order.

  ‘First one is in Berlin, in 1990,’ he said, reading through them. ‘Then Bruges, then Paris… The rest are all in Britain from 1996, and over a sixteen-year period.’

  He considered this.

  ‘If it was a killer, then they came from Germany to the UK, most likely settled…’ he stopped, and then nodded.

  ‘This is why you have an issue with Karl.’

  ‘How much do you know about Karl Schnitter?’ Wintergreen asked, as if confirming this.

  ‘Not much,’ Declan admitted. ‘Came from East Berlin when the wall fell, was an apprentice to a mechanic, worked in London for a bit and then moved to Hurley, opened up a garage in Marlow, with a smaller one in the village.’

  ‘What would you say if I said that Karl hadn’t just been a mechanic?’ Wintergreen watched Declan. ‘What if I told you that before the wall fell, he’d been a border guard on the East Germany side?’

  ‘I’d say it wasn’t my business, and if my dad vouched for him, then so did I.’

  ‘And how do you know your father vouched for him?’ Wintergreen raised her eyebrows as she asked this, giving the impression of an elderly schoolteacher, asking a question that she already knew the answer to. Declan bit back his immediate reply and considered this. How much did he know? He knew that as a child they’d been friendly, but in the last twenty years he’d only visited home a scattering of times, even less after his mother had died. Karl was always around, but never there. And it was only after Patrick Walsh’s funeral that Karl attempted to befriend Declan.

  ‘No,’ he replied staunchly. ‘I’m not playing this game. This is what spooks do. Make you doubt yourself. If dad had believed that Karl was a potential murderer, then he’d have damn well proved it.’

  ‘Maybe he did,’ Wintergreen smiled, ‘and placed it on an encrypted USB drive?’

  The room was silent for a moment.

  ‘Look, this is interesting, but still circumstantial,’ Declan continued. ‘And I’m still waiting to see what this has to do with me.’

  ‘Everything,’ Wintergreen said, looking to Marlowe, who passed her a second folder. ‘The victims, because that’s what they were, they were never given justice. They were simply classed as strange but acceptable suicides.’ She picked up the card with the red image and tossed it across to Declan. ‘What do you make of this?’

  Declan picked the clear bag up, but the moment he turned it around, Wintergreen raised a hand. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Right there. If you were holding the actual card, how many fingerprints of yours are now on it?’

  Declan considered this. He’d turned it, using two fingers and his thumb. He’d held the corner, but now the thumb was along the side.

  ‘Every card,’ he intoned. ‘Every card had the same placement of the fingerprints?’

  Wintergreen smiled, as if watching a student coming to the same conclusion.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, pulling out of the second folder a blank business card; the only things visible on it were two fingerprints, one on each side at the corner, as if she’d placed ink on her index finger and thumb to create it. ‘Just like this.’

  She watched Declan.

  ‘You’re the detective, and Patrick always said you were a better one that he was. So tell me, DI Walsh. What does your gut, your detective instinct, say now?’

  Declan worked through the files in front of him, slowly checking the details of each before moving on.

  ‘Going on the hypothetical situation that these are all murders, and that these are all by the same person, we have someone who’s male, or at least an incredibly powerful woman.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The bodies,’ Declan replied, still reading. ‘They’re positioned. Also, the killer has to stay with them throughout the death.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The fingerprints,’ Declan continued. ‘Sure, there’s a chance that they could make the victims hold the card while alive, but this is too precise. Far easier to wait until the victim is dead, then simply use the dead hand to place the prints. So the killer watches the victim kill themselves, waits, places the prints on the card and then secretes it away before leaving. That’s someone with a firm belief that they won’t be disturbed.’ He stopped, going through the files a second time. ‘What I can’t work out is why they listen to them. Hypnosis? No. There're drugs in several of the systems, but nothing that would make someone suggestive. For the victims to kill themselves, there must be some kind of emotional trigger, a psychological reason. Blackmail?’

  ‘What kind of blackmail?’ Wintergreen was leaning closer now as she watched Declan work through the options.

  ‘All the deaths are quick, painless,’ Declan considered. ‘Well, mostly. Craig Randall slit his own throat, but the autopsy shows that he had benzocaine in his system. That’s a topical pain reliever, so probably numbed the immediate pain. And by the time it broke through, it was too late. So the killer isn’t in it for the pain, the trauma. They’re in it for the death. The finality, perhaps.’

  ‘You still haven’t explained the blackmail.’

  Declan looked up.

  ‘I’ll give you a choice,’ he said calmly, as if considering his words. ‘I can slowly cut your arm with a dull blade, or I can quickly stab the arm with the sharp point instead. Which do you choose?’

  ‘The stab,’ Wintergreen replied.

  ‘Why?’ Now it was Declan’s turn to ask the question.

  ‘Because it’s quicker.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Declan mused. ‘You go for
the path of least personal discomfort. It’s one reason people jump off buildings. There’s no pain until the very end. So what if the killer gave them a choice? They kill themselves quickly, or he, or she, whatever the killer is, does it to them slowly? Maybe even add the family as a bonus into it. Now the victim knows they’re going to die, but they can choose to decide how.’

  Wintergreen smiled. ‘That’s what your father believed, too.’

  ‘But my father never caught the Red Reaper,’ Declan continued. ‘After Craig, the killings stopped.’

  Wintergreen looked at the second folder. ‘Actually, that’s not quite true,’ she said. ‘There was one more murder.’ She opened the folder and passed a file over to Declan.

  CHRISTINE WALSH

  ‘My mum died of cancer,’ Declan said as he looked down at the folder. ‘She was terminal. In hospital.’

  Wintergreen nodded at this. ‘I know,’ she replied, pulling out a clear bag from the folder, one with a card in it. A now familiar card. ‘However, there’s more to that. Your mother was sick, and she was fighting a real bastard, but the doctors still believed that with new treatments, they could extend her lifespan. She was in hospital, but they expected her to be released within the week. Your father went to the cafeteria to grab a coffee, and when he got back, your mother had passed away in her sleep.’

  ‘I know this,’ Declan was getting angry now. He didn’t want to relive this moment. ‘What are you getting at here?’

  Wintergreen tossed the bag over so that Declan could look at it. ‘That was found under her when they moved the body,’ she explained. ‘There was no reason for Christine to have one of these, and again, the fingerprints, once the nurse who found it was removed from the suspects, were the same two fingers in the same location.’

  ‘The Red Reaper killed mum?’ Declan shook his head. ‘No, that’s not the way he works.’

  ‘Your mother didn’t die in her sleep,’ Wintergreen continued, tapping at a line in the file. ‘She gave herself a fatal morphine overdose. It’s exactly how the Red Reaper worked. And this was a personal message. Your father was Chief Superintendent by this point, and this took the wind out of his sails. He never spoke of the case publicly again.’

  ‘Publicly?’ Declan looked up. ‘So he still worked it?’

  Wintergreen shrugged. ‘Where do you think we gained these files from?’ she asked. ‘He had duplicates of everything. Once he retired, he started working on this. Claimed he was working on his memoirs, but actually this was his entire life.’ She sighed. ‘The USB drive was supposed to tell us everything. But the day before he was to meet with me, he had a car accident. The one you believe was murder.’

  ‘Was it?’ Declan almost didn’t want to know the answer. Wintergreen didn’t reply. Instead, she looked to Marlowe, who passed her another clear bag, with yet another Red Reaper card.

  ‘This was in the glove compartment of his car when it crashed,’ she explained. ‘The police assumed it was evidence from a case that Patrick had taken, but we snaffled it before they tossed it aside. Can you guess what was on it?’

  Declan looked from Wintergreen to Marlowe. ‘So what, you want me to avenge his death?’

  ‘You don’t want to?’ Wintergreen watched Declan closely. ‘Think about it, Declan. You’re damaged goods right now. You need to get yourself back in the police’s good books. Solving this could help you.’

  ‘More cold cases,’ Declan muttered but stopped as Wintergreen held up a hand.

  ‘I never said this was a cold case,’ she reached into the folder and pulled out another file, sliding it across. ‘This is why we had to use such an unconventional route to get you here. Nathanial Wing. Sixteen years old, moved into Remenham four years ago with his parents, worked as an intern for a web designer in Henley while he did graphic design at college. Found yesterday morning on the sixteenth green of Temple Golf Club, in Hurley. Poor bastard had slit his wrists open and bled into the hole. No blade located.’

  She leaned closer.

  ‘He knew your father was hunting him. He sent him a message by killing your mother. And then at the end he killed Patrick as well. Now, he’s free to do whatever he wants.’

  ‘Why the sixteenth hole?’ Declan started moving through the cases again. ‘It should have been the fifteenth.’

  ‘Why?’ Wintergreen frowned at this. Declan started counting on his fingers.

  ‘Twelve murders. Then mum and dad. If that’s correct, then that’s fourteen. So this should be the fifteenth.’

  ‘Maybe the sixteenth was an easier hole to get to?’ For the first time, Marlowe spoke. Declan shook his head.

  ‘It’s not,’ he replied. ‘It’s right next to the road, which means although it can be reached easily, it’s also more visible. Fifteenth is far easier, if you want privacy. They’ve gone out of their way to do this. Which means…’

  ‘Which means that there’s a body out there that nobody’s considered,’ Wintergreen leaned back in her chair. ‘Your father was right about you.’

  Declan went to reply to this, but stopped. A moment from a couple of weeks earlier came to mind now. When he’d sat in the local pub with Karl, they’d toasted to his parents.

  ‘He never got over her loss. He was never the same after her murder.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her death. He was never the same after her death.’

  ‘You said murder.’

  ‘Apologies, sometimes words for me merge when speaking in another tongue. Death and murder, they are very similar in German.’

  No. This couldn’t be. Karl couldn’t have done this.

  Karl was a mechanic. He serviced Patrick Walsh’s car. What if that was why the car had run off the road? He could have placed the card in the glove compartment way before the drive.

  ‘I know you’re working this through,’ Wintergreen continued. ‘I can see that in your eyes. You’re wondering whether Karl Schnitter could have done such a thing. Could do it again, even. Do you know DCI Mark Freeman?’

  ‘I knew him briefly when he was a DI under dad,’ Declan replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s running the case in Maidenhead,’ Wintergreen gathered her folders together now, rising from the chair as she did so. ‘You should reach out to him. Offer your services.’

  She stopped, as if deciding whether to add anything to this. Eventually she looked back.

  ‘There was no Karl Schnitter before the fall of the Berlin Wall, by the way,’ she ended. ‘We looked. There was a Karl Meier, who worked as a guard on the wall near Bernauer Street, who disappears from history the day that Karl Schnitter arrives in 1990. Two weeks after that? The first Red Reaper body is found in Potzdamer Platz.’

  ‘Possibly coincidence,’ Declan replied. ‘And we can’t prove that they’re connected.’

  ‘Bar one thing,’ Wintergreen walked to the door. ‘Schnitter is a German word. It translates in English as Reaper. Mister Marlowe will drive you home. And we’ll be in touch once we decrypt your father’s USB drive.’

  Declan sat silently in the boardroom, trying to take in everything that had been thrown at him. His parents were both killed? Karl Schnitter, the mechanic who’d not only been a friend of theirs for years, was an East German guard who not only changed his identity but also picked a name to match the image on these cards? And there was something about the image too, a memory from years earlier, but Declan just couldn’t picture it yet…

  ‘She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?’ Marlowe smiled. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’

  Rising from the chair, Declan followed Tom Marlowe out of the boardroom and back to the car park. It’d be late by the time he arrived back home, but he didn’t see himself sleeping anytime soon.

  3

  Disciplinary Dates

  DS Anjli Kapoor was already waiting in Temple Inn when DC Billy Fitzwarren phoned.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Where do you think?’ she replied irritably.

  ‘I’m ente
ring from Fleet Street,’ Billy said, the sounds of traffic heard behind him as he walked through the north entrance into Temple Inn. ‘Give me a moment.’

  Anjli disconnected the call and looked up at the red brick building that she faced. Four storeys high, it was once the offices of the Temple Inn Crime Unit, otherwise known as the Last Chance Saloon. Now, however, it was a building site; Bright yellow tubes ran down the frontage, held in place by scaffolding that ran across it and ending in large orange rubble tips, where contractors on the upper floor could throw pieces of broken and ripped apart plasterboard and brickwork, saving them from having to carry the pieces downstairs.

  Anjli didn’t really know what was going on here; they’d told her it was a renovation of the offices, but the Temple Inn offices had only operated on the lower two levels of the building. This was a full scale build of the entire thing.

  This was a plausible way to remove the Last Chance Saloon quietly.

  She’d expected this, if she was brutally honest. After the problems with Declan going on the run and Monroe hiding for his life, there had been rumours of the unit being too autonomous. Most units like this had uniformed officers, cells and even a Detective Superintendent in charge of everything. And although Chief Superintendent David Bradbury had helped the Last Chance Saloon in their last case, he controlled the City of London’s police force and was technically Anjli’s boss’s boss’s boss.

  Maybe they’ll promote Monroe, she thought to herself. That would be a good thing in her books; promote everyone up. Declan could become DCI, she’d become DI… But she knew that this wouldn’t happen. They’d painted too many targets on their backs, actively shaken too many wasps’ nests to expect a simpler life. After the fallout, when the unit was temporarily disbanded considering an enquiry, they relieved both Declan and Monroe of duty on injury-related accommodations. That one had been recently branded a terrorist and had gone rogue, while the other had gained help from organised crime were ignored publicly, but Anjli knew these were tallies that were about to be counted. There was still every chance that Monroe could be invalided out of the force altogether, while Declan would be quietly dumped somewhere rural to finish out his years. Meanwhile, Doctor Marcos had gone on sabbatical, DC Davey was working in Tottenham for DCI Farrow, Billy was dumped into the central Cybercrime Unit and Anjli was back in Mile End, working in the same unit that had fired her almost a year earlier. Granted, there wasn’t a DCI Ford there to make her life hell, but it wasn’t exactly the joyous homecoming you’d expect.