by Steven Dunne
At a small footbridge over a tributary, Brook swung off his rucksack and poured two cups of tea from his flask. ‘I didn’t bring sugar.’
‘That’s fine.’
They sat against a large rock, sipping their tea. It was ten minutes before Grant spoke again. ‘You know, there’s one thing I’ve begun to understand about the Reaper murders, Damen.’
‘What?’
‘That one of the reasons he chooses who his victims are going to be is to make us question whether we care about what he’s done. And, whether we like it or not, because we realise that the dead aren’t going to be missed, we don’t do our job properly…’
‘I hope—’
‘No, I don’t mean we don’t do everything we’re supposed to do to catch him. We’re professionals after all. It’s just that … it doesn’t matter as much. When we see crowds cheering The Reaper outside the Ingham house, we’re not disgusted – surprised maybe, even a little amused, but we’re never going to go that extra mile as we would for a murdered toddler or a beaten pensioner. Do you know what I mean?’
Brook nodded. ‘I think so.’
‘I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I can see Harvey-Ellis died for a legitimate reason. It’s hard to care that he’s dead. Whoever killed him, if it’s because of the way he behaved in life … then, I guess that doesn’t mean his killer is necessarily a bad person.’
Brook smiled. ‘Is this where I say “gee thanks” and you throw the cuffs on me?’
Grant smiled. ‘It wasn’t meant as a trap.’ She looked at him. ‘Besides, you didn’t kill Harvey-Ellis, did you?’
Brook looked back at her, once again feeling a surge of admiration for her abilities. Day off or not, he knew he’d have to be on his guard. ‘When’s your train?’
‘Six o’clock tonight.’
Brook checked his watch. ‘If we walk to Alstonefield we can have lunch at the George. Taxi back to my place and I’ll run you into town for six.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Where’s your luggage?’
‘At the hotel.’
Brook packed the flask into his rucksack and they set off again. The sky had darkened and a light rain began to fleck their clothing. A half-hour later they approached a wooden footbridge across the river and Grant crossed as Brook removed his boot to shake out a stone. With his boot retied, Brook climbed over the bridge and followed Grant steadily up the steep path. She skipped up the gradient but Brook caught her at the top of the slope where they both sat panting. Brook made his three thousandth resolution to give up smoking for good.
Once rested, they followed the footpath past a YMCA and onto the road, into the pretty village of Alstonefield. The George sat on a small triangular green and, after kicking off their boots and ordering a couple of pints, they were soon sitting in front of a roaring log fire to contemplate the menu.
‘So why did you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Brief that journalist. Not a great career move.’
‘I’ve not had a great career, Laura.’ He took a sip of his beer.
‘I did it because they’re innocent.’
‘In the face of all the evidence.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is this just a feeling or something more concrete? I’d like to know. For the interview.’
‘It’s not them, Laura. They’re…’ Brook remembered his conversation with Drexler the previous night ‘…civilians.’
‘Civilians.’
‘Yes. The Reaper is fighting a war against ugliness and there’s no room for civilians. They get in the way.’
‘But Ottoman was at the scene. The DNA doesn’t lie.’
‘I can’t help that, Laura. But when we get them back to Derby we’ll ask him.’
‘Think Charlton will want you on the interview, Damen?’
‘He may not want me on the case. I have a bad habit of getting myself removed from investigations. That’s why you need to know. So you can ask him.’
‘What should I ask him?’
‘Keep it simple. Ask him why he was there, why he got his prints on the scalpel and his DNA on the fence. Ask him why on earth he would kill everybody present except Jason, the one person he and his wife must hate above all others. Ask him why he made the call to the emergency services. Ask where the second mountain bike is.’
‘We don’t know for certain that there ever was a second bike.’
‘Two killers. Two bikes. Ask him.’
Their sandwiches and chips arrived and they waited for the waitress to leave but the conversation had dried up and they ate in silence apart from the cracking and spitting of the logs. When the food was finished, Brook stretched out his legs and closed his eyes.
‘So why didn’t he kill Jason Wallis?’ asked Grant finally.
‘Wrong question, Laura. Ottoman didn’t kill anyone.’
Grant smiled and shook her head. ‘Why not?’ Brook flicked a glance at her. ‘Flip it over, Damen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Okay. Assume he’s there by accident. Assume he didn’t kill the Inghams. Assume what you like, but Ottoman was there. And the person he hates most in the world was there, helpless before him. He had the scalpel in his hand – we know he did. So even if he didn’t kill the Inghams, it’s all set up. Why not just do it? It’s the right question. You were on the scene alone at one point. If Wallis had hurt you in some way, could you have killed him?’
Brook opened his eyes and looked into the distance, remembering his dead cat, head smashed in by young Wallis two years ago. Then he remembered the sensation, the frisson of power as he picked up the scalpel in his gloved hand and moved it from under Jason’s hand and held it against his throat. He took a sip of beer. It was the right question.
After lunch Brook and Grant took a taxi back to Hartington. They were both damp after their exercise and Brook insisted on Grant taking a shower. He gave her an old T-shirt and sweatshirt to wear so she had dry clothes for the journey. After making coffee he checked his answering machine. There were six messages. He listened to them all. Two were from Noble warning that Chief Superintendent Charlton was after Brook’s blood. The other four were from Charlton, his tone clipped and increasingly angry at each renewed attempt to get through to Brook without success.
‘Aren’t you going to answer those?’ asked Grant from the doorway, rubbing a towel through her hair.
Brook shrugged. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
He took his own shower and dressed in his bedroom. Again he looked briefly across at Rose Cottage but, although a light was burning somewhere in the back, he saw no sign of his neighbour.
When they set off for Derby it was already dark, but traffic into town was light and they reached the Midland Hotel forty minutes later. Grant disappeared into the hotel and re-emerged with her small case and Brook walked her on to the platform.
‘Thanks for a lovely day, Damen,’ she smiled. ‘You don’t need to see me onto the train.’
‘I don’t mind. It’s only twenty minutes.’
She looked into his eyes and leaned forward to give him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Go. I’ll see you in a few days.’ Brook handed over her bag and turned to leave. ‘And the next walk we do, we can go a lot further.’
Brook smiled at her. ‘I look forward to it.’
‘He’s leaving it late.’ McQuarry blew out smoke through the window and flicked the butt into the middle of the road. She looked for the spray of orange but the lashing sleet extinguished the smouldering cigarette before it hit the ground. She closed the window to block out the buffeting wind and horizontal rain howling around their car.
Drexler looked over at her, his hands superfluously gripping the steering wheel of the stationary vehicle. ‘It’s tonight, Ed. Tuesday.’
‘There’s only three hours left before Wednesday, Mike.’
‘Trust me.’ Drexler watched McQuarry put the pack in her pocket, resisting the urge to ask her for a cigarette. ‘He’s laid the ground t
oo carefully. And how perfect is this weather for discouraging stray witnesses?’
‘You shoulda let me call out the cavalry.’
‘He won’t move unless it’s just us.’
‘He said that?’
Drexler pursed his lips. ‘I just know.’
McQuarry shrugged and took out her weapon. She checked the magazine before returning it to her belt, then lay back and closed her eyes.
Ten minutes later the glint of a headlight heading away from the lake alerted the agents to Sorenson’s approach. They both slid down further in their seats. The gates opened smoothly and the red Toyota stopped at the highway. It took an age to turn onto the deserted road so the two agents lifted their heads to identify the problem.
Sorenson was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring directly at Drexler and McQuarry’s car. Despite the poor visibility, they could clearly see Sorenson smiling at them, his dead eyes creased in chilly amusement. A shiver ran down Drexler’s back. Finally the Toyota turned left towards Tahoe and continued as sedately as it had the last time.
‘How sure of himself is this guy?’ smiled McQuarry over at Drexler. The smile faded when she saw the vacant expression on Drexler’s face. He fired up the engine and, as though in a trance, manoeuvred the Audi onto the highway in pursuit.
They didn’t speak again until they rolled up to the Golden Nugget Motel an hour later, coming to a halt in a darkened corner of the deserted parking lot. Sorenson’s car had pulled up outside the reception office.
Brook walked out of the station and back to his car. As the Ingham case was largely on hold until the Ottomans could be run to ground, most of the officers involved were taking a couple of days to recharge while Forensics continued compiling the evidence against the couple. Hudson was back in Brighton now and Grant was on her way. He thought of Terri and resolved then and there to visit her as soon as the case was over. Really over.
He lit a cigarette. It was a strange feeling to be at the end of something that hadn’t ended. But for Brook the case could never end, not until he knew, so he set off for Drayfin, pulling up outside the Ottomans’ house about twenty minutes later.
He nodded to the constable at the gate and bounded up the steps to the house. Two SOCOs were still at work even at that hour and Brook exchanged a few strained pleasantries before wandering in and out of the rooms. He went to the master bedroom and pulled several pairs of shoes from the Ottomans’ wardrobe and examined them. John Ottoman was a size ten and his wife Denise a size six. Close, but not the shoe sizes of the bloody footprints found in the Ingham house. That was one thing going for them at least.
He headed down to the pitch-black garden and pulled open the shed door, although it had already been searched for the second mountain bike. He shone a small torch on the floor, looking for signs of oil. He couldn’t find any. He returned to his car and looked back at the house, which was of similar design to the Ingham and Wallis houses. A thought occurred to him and he jogged back up to the front door.
‘I suppose the loft has been searched, hasn’t it?’ he inquired of the officer standing in the hall.
‘You suppose right, sir,’ he replied through his mask. ‘Nothing. DCI Hudson even worked out they had an allotment, but there’s nothing there either.’
Brook nodded, wondering if there was a slight dig somewhere in the last sentence. Hudson seemed to achieve that easy rapport with people, especially subordinates, that Brook found impossible to master, and it was plain, outsider or not, that Hudson was already popular with Derby officers. He trudged back to his car and drove in to the station, stopping to get a coffee on the way.
At the entrance Brook spied Sergeant Hendrickson at the duty desk. With Charlton on the warpath, Brook paused until the portly sergeant was distracted by something at the rear of the duty office then walked quickly and quietly to the stairs.
The Incident Room was empty when Brook arrived. He sat at a desk and remembered the implied promise of Laura’s parting words. He took a sip of coffee and roused himself to look through the latest paperwork. It made for depressing reading. The DNA found on the fence panel in the Ingham yard had been positively matched to that from a hair found in a comb removed from the Ottomans’ bathroom.
Brook shook his head. With the couple away from home, bloodstained bikes and clothing could have been planted in their house. DNA at the crime scene was another matter.
Brook located the 999 tape and played it several times. He was forced to admit it did sound like John Ottoman.
He reread the interview notes with the butcher from Normanton who’d provided the meat for the barbecue at the Ingham house. A few card purchases for similar amounts had been followed up but no suspects identified. Not surprising. Brook was sure that The Reaper would have used cash. There was a footnote about the plastic bags used for packaging some of the meat having been discontinued three months previously. He closed the report and lifted himself to leave.
He paused, then sat back down and reopened the report. Three months? No wonder the butcher hadn’t noticed any new customers the week before the killings. Brook pulled out another cigarette but didn’t light it. There was something about the Ottomans and Mrs North that seemed significant all of a sudden, but he couldn’t bring it to mind. Then it came and, like a solved crossword clue, all the knowledge fell in a heap in his conscious mind. He leapt up and marched over to the exhibits officer’s desk and rummaged through a drawer, extracting a set of keys before quickstepping back to his car, ignoring Hendrickson’s parting sneer.
He roared through the centre of town. Ten minutes later he crossed the ring road and five minutes after that screeched to a halt outside the Ottoman house once more. He bolted back up the garden steps and into the kitchen, almost colliding with the SOCO who was finishing up.
A thought struck Brook. ‘That allotment the Ottomans have. Did they have a shed?’
‘Apparently,’ replied the officer, pulling down his mask.
‘Was there a freezer in it?’
‘A freezer? No. Just gardening equipment and a kettle.’ Brook smiled and turned towards the fridge freezer in the kitchen.
‘So this is the only freezer they’ve got.’
‘We’re just about to lock up, sir, if…’
‘One second … Bernard,’ replied Brook, having another stab at being a people person.
‘Martin,’ replied the officer tersely. ‘And like I said…’
But Brook had already yanked open the freezer and was slinging the contents onto the table. Tupperware containers with labels in a neat hand and the occasional ready meal were strewn across the kitchen table until it was emptied. ‘Vegetable lasagne, mushroom risotto, pumpkin soup, vegetable curry, vegetable chilli, ratatouille…’ Brook read. When he finished he nodded with satisfaction and started to refill the cabinet. There was no meat from the butcher’s shop in Normanton. There was no meat at all – the Ottomans were vegetarians.
Brook was encouraged. It was only circumstantial and not enough to clear them, but this was a big red flag against the Ottomans buying and handling meat to set a trap for the Inghams. The Ottomans would be unlikely to countenance the idea of storing flesh in their freezer for three months and upwards while they prepared to murder the Inghams. Being local, and assuming they could even think in those terms, the couple would more than likely purchase meats no more than a day or two ahead of time.
‘Was beginning to think you were a no-show, Mr Hera,’ said Carlson, the night manager, dropping the key into Sorenson’s spidery claw. ‘Number 7 as requested – the bridal suite. Nice and secluded,’ he added with a chuckle.
‘And all the other cabins are empty?’
‘Just like you asked,’ he grinned.
Sorenson’s black eyes burned into him and the coolness of his Siberian smile wiped the leer from Carlson’s face. Carlson plucked a sopping cigar butt from his mouth and rubbed a chubby hand around his whiskers. ‘Well.’
‘Thank you,’ said Sorenson softly. ‘Do
you have a rest-room I can use?’
‘Right there,’ said the man, nodding at a door in the corner of the office. Sorenson smiled his thanks and disappeared, counting out change in his hand.
Carlson loped over to the office door and, shielding his eyes from the neon above the entrance, squinted out at Sorenson’s car. A yellow-toothed grin slowly deformed his features and he returned to his reception desk, scratching his belly through his too thin T-shirt.
When Sorenson returned so did Carlson’s lascivious grin. ‘You get ever’ thin ‘you need in there, Mr Hera?’
This time Sorenson patted his breast pocket and returned his grin with a wink. ‘All set.’
Mrs Petras opened her door on the second knock and wiped her hands with her apron.
‘I’m sorry to call at this hour.’
‘Inspector Brook,’ she beamed. ‘Come in. I make coffee.’
‘I can’t, Mrs Petras.’ She looked crestfallen. ‘Urgent police business.’ Her face hardened. She understood duty. Brook offered her a cigarette which she accepted gratefully, taking a long pull when Brook lit it for her.
‘Do you remember seeing this woman, Mrs Petras?’ Brook brandished the photograph of Denise Ottoman.
Mrs Petras looked at it briefly. ‘Only from papers. She never see Dottie. Not see her before papers.’ Brook showed her a picture of John Ottoman for good measure but got the same result.
Brook paused, unsure of the right words. ‘Does Mrs North eat ready meals?’
‘No understand,’ she said.
‘Er, ready meals. Frozen food.’
‘Frozed. Never.’ She looked like she wanted to spit, so Brook smiled to disarm the unintended insult. ‘We proper cook. Go three times a week Eagle Centre. On free bus. We buy fresh. Young girls cook Iceland. Not me, not Dottie.’
Brook rushed back to his car. As he expected: pensioners bought fresh and cheap produce and cooked proper food. Meat and two veg. His late parents had been the same. It wasn’t just the desire to eat healthily that drove them to the corner shop or the greengrocer’s. It was also the daily balm of human companionship that drew them out of the house.
