STEVEN DUNNE

The Disciple

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Steven Dunne 2010

Steven Dunne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-84756-164-0

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847561640

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 9780007411023

Version: 2018-07-09

In loving memory

Jean Robertshaw

(1930 – 2009)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

In Conversation with Steven Dunne

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

The man eased the door closed, guiding it gently onto the latch. When he heard the lock click he sucked in a lungful of the sharp salty air to clear his head. He could hear the occasional gull in the distance but it was a lonely note, the early birds not yet on the wing, the light insufficient to make out the pickings left by the receding tide.

He looked at the sky, dark and damp, no hint yet of the grey dawn peeping over the horizon, then hitched his jogging bottoms higher and retied the strings. He smiled as he rearranged his genitalia, feeling the tacky moisture of recent sex along his groin – even at the age of forty-three, the thrill of illicit conquest still bestowed a childish buzz – then stepped onto the wet road and crossed to the far pavement.

He turned to see the girl in the first-floor bay of the guesthouse, barely covered by a worn curtain that had doubtless shrouded hundreds of copulating lovers from the eyes of the world. He grinned but motioned her away from the window in mock censure. She, in response, let the curtain slip to show him a breast, then let the curtain fall completely and stood before him naked.

The man put his hands on his hips in feigned disgust, then looked around and pointed down the road, as though someone else would be walking around at this ungodly hour.

The girl shrugged her shoulders and laughed. She turned her back, bent over and pressed her buttocks against the window.

The man shook his head and turned to jog away, realising that his departure was the only way to end the cabaret. Kids today!

As he turned onto King’s Road, jogging gently towards the burnt-out skeleton of the West Pier, Tony Harvey-Ellis glanced at the grey-black ocean, wondering whether to risk a dip after his run. The water would still be mild even in late autumn.

He pulled in a huge breath and looked around in vain for another soul. He loved this time of day when he could have Brighton to himself. The early hours were the best time to venture out onto the streets. The throngs of tourists had eased after the hot months but Brighton still drew frenzied hordes of hens and stags all year round, carousing long into the night – enough to deter most residents at the weekends.

This was his time, time to think; increasingly his only time since his life had become so complicated. With all the new accounts needing his attention and the constant juggling of the demands of his wife and stepdaughter, he had become unused to solitude. At least Terri’s age was one less problem to concern him – she was legal now. Her real father would find it difficult to pin anything on him after so long … assuming he still cared.

Harvey-Ellis paused briefly, stretching his upper torso and flexing his knees. The sweat was beginning to dot his forehead and his knees felt ready for some real work. He checked his watch – it was five o’clock – and prepared to set the stopwatch on his chunky Tag Heuer.

A noise that was neither the sea nor a car made him turn. A figure, indistinct in a tracksuit and baseball cap, was jogging along the promenade a couple of hundred metres behind him, feet slapping at the ground, breath steaming in the sharp air.

Annoyed at having his solitude contaminated, Harvey-Ellis consoled himself with the thought that at least he’d have a spectator to impress. He started his stopwatch then struck away powerfully from the jogger.

As he ran, Harvey-Ellis practised shifting an imaginary ball to his left and then right. He felt good as he bounced lightly across the tarmac. Maybe this would be his last season. He loved his rugby, loved the physicality of it, the sense of brotherhood, the union of wildly differing human physiques melded into one team, one purpose. But he didn’t love it enough to move from his position on the wing to a berth with the forwards, as his pace dwindled. He’d seen enough human battering rams with beetroot noses and cauliflower ears to want to risk his good looks.

He slowed and half-turned to see the other runner almost upon him. A natural competitor, Harvey-Ellis lifted his pace again. For a few seconds, he listened for the receding sound of the other runner’s footfall, but instead it seemed to be drawing nearer.

Okay, thought Harvey-Ellis, time to put on the burners, show you a sight all too familiar to the fullbacks of the Southern and District League. He picked up his pace to a sprint, lifting his knees, pumping his arms straight and blowing his cheeks rhythmically to take the necessary shallow breaths.

For nearly a minute, he maintained this pace and tried to block out all movement in his peripheral vision. But his ears could not block the sound of the second runner closing in and his eyes could now see the shadow thrown over his own by the jaundiced glow of streetlights. His lungs could take it no more. He threw up his head and slowed through the gears to a stop. He put his hands on his knees and sucked air urgently into his lungs, turning to grin at his pursuer. He didn’t see the clenched fist, or the small needle protruding from it.

‘You win,’ he panted.

Jason Donovan Wallis was alone except for Bianca, his tiny sister snoring gently in her room. His aunt was on nights again and the bitch had left him in charge. Dread. Not that he wanted to go out in this weather but her draughty old house in Borrowash, a few miles to the east of Derby, chilled him to the bone. No heating, no light. Storm damage, they’d said on the radio; the whole area was under blackout. Despite this, the heavy curtains were drawn across the windows, blocking out any hint of the faint moonlight, and Jason was not in the least tempted to change that.

He’d had a text from Banger chatting that the rest of the crew were ‘Gonna make the most of it, smoke some peng, do some cars, whatever.’ Did Jason want to ‘stop being a gay and come and hang. LOL.’

Yeah, right. Walk around in the dark like a skank – with that killer still out there. No way. He weren’t going nowhere on his own. That copper Brook had warned him about The Reaper after his mum, dad and sister were cut up. ‘The Reaper’s out there waiting, watching,’ he goes, ‘waiting to finish the job.’ Jason was well gone at the time. Booze, drugs maybe, he couldn’t remember. Brook had threatened him, tried to make him cough to that old biddy’s murder. ‘You’re next, Jason – you’re next.’

Jason eased into a secret smile. The Reaper had forgotten him. Jason was a survivor. And he’d sorted Brook out – no messing. Trashed his place and mashed his cat’s brains in. Feds who fuck with me get fucked up double.

He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, squinting at the single flickering candle he’d managed to root out from under the stairs. He listened to the wind howling and stared out of habit at the inert TV screen.

The noise of the front gate creaking on its rusty hinges made his head turn. Jason waited, not moving, aware of the rising tide of fear washing through him. But no one knocked at the door. No one banged on the window. Only the sound of the gate assaulted his ears, pounding against the wall under the weight of the wind.

‘Bollocks!’ he spat. Now he’d have to go out and refasten it or it would be hammering all night. Trust his aunt to be on nights, leaving him on his own to babysit. He listened for the sound of the gate, dreading its explosion, beckoning him off the couch, out of the sanctuary of the house.

But it didn’t come. Outside the wind raged still, whipping sodden leaves and soupy litter into a drunken dance, but the gate refused to complain under the assault. Gradually Jason’s annoyance turned to puzzlement … then dread began to seep into him. Now he longed to hear the crash of the gate, telling him it was only the weather out there messing with his head.

He tiptoed to the window to look out through a crack in the curtain into the wildness. A dark figure stood by the gate, perfectly still, perfectly calm against nature. Though Jason could see only blackness where the face should have been, he sensed that whoever was standing there was staring straight back at him.

He hurtled out of the living room. With the door opened, the draught sucked the life from the small candle but Jason didn’t return to relight it. Instead, sprinting up the stairs three at a time, he bundled into his bedroom to look out of the window at the garden below. He could make out nothing, until a flash of lightning illuminated the scene. The figure had gone.

Jason’s heartbeat was beginning to slow when a single bang on the door quickened it once more. He could feel panic rising within him like bile and was unable to keep his limbs still. Frantic, he looked round for his mobile, his only umbilical cord to the rest of humanity, then realised, a wave of nausea crashing over him, that he’d left it downstairs.

Another bang on the door, but it wasn’t a friendly sound – rather a booming rhythmic knell.

After the third knock, silence returned. Even the wind whistling up from the Trent seemed to take a time out.

Jason held his breath. Eventually he plucked up the courage to tiptoe back down the stairs. He pulled open the tatty curtain that served to block the draught from the front door and peered through the condensation on the mottled glass. No one there. He heaved a sigh of relief and then fumbled in his pocket for his lighter so he could relight the candle. When he looked up once more, it was to see a figure filling the doorway. He leapt backwards in shock, pulling the curtain back across the door.

Jason shrank back to the foot of the stairs, cowering on the bottom step.

‘I’m sorry about the old woman,’ he said, almost to himself. Then he spoke more loudly, directing his words towards the door. ‘We didn’t mean to kill her. I told Brook. He knows. Didn’t he tell you? Is it the cat? That was Banger’s idea. I didn’t want none of it. It weren’t me …’

Jason began to whimper quietly but stopped at the sound of tinny music leaking out of the front room. He leapt to pick up his mobile and looked at the display. He had a text from an unknown number. Jason pressed a key and read the text.

You’re next.

Jason let his hand fall and began to sob again. Then he lifted his phone once more and dialled the source of the text. It was picked up on the first ring. No one spoke.

‘I said I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. What do you want from me?’ No answer. Then the noise of breaking glass in stereo. In his right ear on the phone. In his left ear from the kitchen at the back of the house. Jason lowered the phone and turned towards the gloom of the hallway. He bolted to the stairs and sprinted back up them, not daring to glance towards the dark kitchen.

At the top of the stairs, he turned and ran towards his bedroom again. It flashed through his mind that perhaps he should grab little Bianca to keep her safe, but he decided he didn’t have time. She’d have to take her chances.

Jason shut the bedroom door and pulled a chest of drawers across it. He yanked back the curtains and opened the window. Immediately the cool spray of rain hit his face, soothing him. He looked down into the gloom of the overgrown front garden, at the billowing privet hedge that his aunt had been nagging him to trim, glad now that she’d refused to pay him and it had been left untended. If necessary, if he had to jump, Jason was confident it would break his fall. Now all he could do was wait. He clutched his phone and pondered ringing the police but, before he could decide, the handle of the bedroom door turned. After a couple of increasingly urgent turns, it began to reverberate under the shoulder of the intruder.

Jason took a huge gulp of air and balanced himself on the sill. The door crashed again and the chest of drawers began to shift. His eyes closed, Jason launched himself into the void.

A couple of seconds later, he felt the breath leave his body as he hit the privet. He could feel his skin begin to tear from dozens of tiny scratches but felt himself come to a near stop, cushioned by the hedge’s volume. Under Jason’s weight, the hedge began to topple but he was able to cling on by grabbing a few flailing branches. He used their movement to land his feet on the pavement of Station Road.

Jason quickly righted himself. He looked down at his right hand. Incredibly his mobile was still in his palm. The display was lit. Another message.

Behind you.

Before Jason could turn he felt a hand grab his damp hair and pull back his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of a blade lifting towards his left ear, then a short, sharp pain as a hand pulled heavily across his throat …

Detective Sergeant Laura Grant walked unsteadily across the beach. A combination of the shifting shingle and the need to hold the two Styrofoam cups of coffee steady caused her to stumble as she picked her way towards the small huddle gathered around the tarpaulin-covered body spreadeagled by the sea’s edge.

Scene of Crime Officers swarmed around the body, working with uncommon haste before the elements returned to launder the evidence. Some took pictures, some dug in the sand with trowels looking for non-existent artefacts, others combed hair and bagged hands.

Grant rubbed her eyes as she walked. She’d only just returned to work after her sick leave, and though she felt the unscheduled bout of exercise was beneficial, the unexpected glare of the low sun certainly wasn’t.

Trying not to stare ghoulishly towards the tarpaulin, she reached the hastily erected police tape and bobbed under with some difficulty as Dr Hubbard, the most senior forensic pathologist in Sussex, re-covered the body and rose from his haunches to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Joshua Hudson.

‘White male, forty-ish. He’s been dead no more than eight hours and no less than six, I’d say.’

Hudson looked at his watch. ‘Which would mean he drowned between four and six this morning,’ he said, sweeping back his thick grey hair with a tobacco-stained hand. ‘Early bird, eh?’

‘Or very late, Chief Inspector. Depends on your point of view. It is the weekend. And please don’t pre-empt my findings on COD.’

‘He didn’t drown?’

‘It’s difficult to say definitively at this moment, Chief Inspector. I like to keep an open mind.’

‘Fine. He probably drowned,’ prompted Hudson, lighting up a cigarette and ignoring the reproachful glance of one of the SOCOs.

‘Probably. But it’s not exactly Cape Horn round here,’ observed Hubbard, surveying the calm sea. ‘And he’s wearing boxers, not swimming shorts, so he wasn’t planning a dip.’

‘A lot of them aren’t, Doc, until they’ve had a dozen Breezers and God knows how many tequila slammers.’

Laura Grant held out a cup of white froth towards Hudson.

‘True. But he’s fit for his age. Powerful legs – though not from swimming.’

There was a hint of smugness at that and Grant squinted up at the doctor for further explanation.

Hudson, however, had missed it. ‘These things happen to the fittest people, Doc,’ he said and took his coffee with a brief wink at Grant and a quick ‘Cheers, darlin’’. Grant glanced up at the two uniformed officers on crowd control. PCs Wong and West both gave her a sly grin to provoke a reaction to her first ‘luv’, ‘sweetie’ or ‘darlin’’ of the day but Grant maintained the face of a stoic.

‘Still …’

‘Look, doc, he’s got shorts on. He went in the water and I’m ruling out a shark attack,’ said Hudson. Grant and the two uniformed officers exchanged an amused glance. Even one of the normally taciturn SOCOs managed a smile. ‘So just tell me he went for a swim and drowned so we can all go home.’

‘There is some trauma to the head,’ replied Hubbard.

‘Probably from a boat.’

‘Even so, I’ll need to examine the wound to find traces of boat.’

‘What about his watch?’ asked Grant, deciding it was time to pretend she was a functioning police officer. They all looked at the dead man’s wrist.

‘What about it?’

‘Looks expensive, guv. If it’s waterproof he might have gone for a dip voluntarily. But if it’s not he would have taken it off. Unless …’ she said with a tilt of her head for emphasis.

‘… unless he was murdered,’ nodded Hudson, kneeling to look at it. ‘12.05. Sorry, luv – waterproof.’

Grant shrugged her shoulders. ‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t commit suicide, guv.’

‘Suicide? How about it, Doc?’

‘I’ll say it again, I’m ruling nothing out. If you found his clothes …’

Hudson looked at Grant. ‘We’re on it,’ she said. ‘We’ve got uniform following the tide back. Maybe he left his ID …’

‘A suicide note would be better,’ added Hudson. ‘You’ll do a tox kit on him?’ he asked Hubbard, who rolled his eyes. ‘Bloody tourists. Why can’t they die at home?’

‘Oh, he’s not a tourist, Inspector!’ the doctor interjected.

Grant and Hudson turned to him, impressed.

‘How can you tell that?’ asked Grant, half-expecting some labyrinthine Sherlock Holmes monograph on ‘The Identification of Tourists’.

The good doctor permitted himself a satisfied smirk at the sudden attention. ‘Because I know who he is.’ Hudson pulled back the cover and gazed at the black and blue face on the sand. ‘That’s Tony Harvey-Ellis. I’ve met him a couple of times. Rotary Club, you know. And maybe even a rugby club do, I can’t be sure. But I know he used to play to quite a good standard. He’s a fairly big cheese in Brighton.’

‘Are we talking Dairylea triangle big? Or Christmas Stilton?’ asked Hudson, now dismayed that his workload on the case was suddenly threatening to escalate.

‘Stilton definitely – he’s one of the partners in Hall Gordon Public Relations. They’ve got that large building on the front – pretty successful by all accounts, though I’ve always considered him to be a bit of a prat. Really fancied himself, if you ask me.’

Hudson reached again for his cigarettes. ‘Great. That’s all we need.’

Jason Donovan Wallis woke clutching his throat, panting for his last breath, trying to staunch the blood from a wound inflicted many times before. His gasps slowed as recognition dawned and he became aware of his surroundings. His heart rate levelled but with relief came the tears, slow and unwelcome but above all silent. All signs of weakness were ruthlessly mocked in White Oaks, so inmates cried with the mute button on.

Jason lay back on his bunk. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat so he tore it off, wiped it around his tear tracks and slung it on the floor. He sat up on his bunk and tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths, as softly as he could manage so as not to wake his roommate.

The sun slammed in through the grimy curtain-free window, flat like a searchlight in a watchtower across the quadrangle. He shielded his eyes. Was this it? His life. Every morning, waking up in a fug of moisturised panic, remembering the old woman begging for mercy, or the sheet-covered trolleys of his butchered family, or, worst of all, the faceless psycho chasing him, killing him. What was it Father Donetti had told him after Sunday Service? Cowards die many times. How many times, he hadn’t seen fit to mention. Jason hoped it wasn’t too many more.

At least here the only danger was from other inmates, young offenders keen to seek out those weaker than themselves so they could pass on abuse from further up the hierarchy. So far he’d managed to keep his head down and hang tough in all the right places.

Jason stood and pulled his blanket over his pillow and tiptoed over to his bag, already packed for his release. He pulled out a fresh T-shirt, dragged it over his head and crept to the window to look out at the chill of the morning. It was early but he still had to screen his eyes from the low sun. He looked over the grounds, which were covered in a light frost, down the drive to the main gate, and then across at the outbuildings, which housed most of the workshops where the day staff tried to teach some of the inmates a trade.

For the first time since his sentence began, Jason was invaded by a pang for freedom, a yearning to get out of the block and wander round the site. He could have it to himself. He could even walk down the drive to the gates and peer at the world outside. If he really wanted, he could open the gate and walk out. If he wanted …

Hudson and Grant stood either side of the sheet-covered steel trolley. The two women were huddled in position, the younger slightly behind the elder, holding onto her arm with both hands. Hudson nodded to the mortuary technician, who peeled the sheet back from the corpse.

The older woman screamed and collapsed to the floor, the younger woman’s flimsy grip on her arm insufficient to keep her upright. Hudson managed to grab her and haul her up. The young girl ignored her plight and stared open-mouthed at the body of Tony Harvey-Ellis.

‘Oh God, no,’ she said, tears streaming down her face, her breath coming in short hard bursts. ‘Oh God. Oh God.’

A second later the girl seemed to become aware of her surroundings. Her arms sought her mother and gathered her into an embrace, each wedging their tear-stained face onto the shoulder of the other.

Grant nodded at the technician, who re-covered the body with appropriate solemnity.

Hudson posed the superfluous question. ‘Is that your husband’s body, Mrs Harvey-Ellis?’

‘I don’t understand.’ Amy Harvey-Ellis wrung the damp handkerchief around her fingers and stared at the untouched coffee that she’d accepted on her arrival, without understanding any part of the transaction. The tears began to well again. ‘I don’t understand. He shouldn’t even have been here.’

Her daughter Terri grabbed her forearm and wrapped it in hers. ‘Mum,’ she said, for no reason other than to remind her she was there. ‘Mum.’ And as always, whenever comfort is offered to the tearful, the dam burst and Amy Harvey-Ellis began to shake with anguish once more.

Seated on the other side of the interview room, DCI Hudson and DS Grant lowered their eyes in a well-oiled show of respect for distress.

‘Why shouldn’t he be here, Mrs Harvey-Ellis?’ ventured Grant, after an appropriate pause.

Amy looked up at Laura Grant with a desperate look in her eye. ‘He wasn’t supposed to be in Brighton. He should have been at a conference in London until tomorrow night.’

As discreetly as they could manage, the two detectives exchanged a knowing glance. ‘Can you think of any reason why your husband would come back to Brighton early?’ Hudson asked, fighting to keep an inquiring note in his voice.

‘And why he might want to conceal his return from you?’ added Grant.

Terri stopped consoling her mother and looked hard at Grant, tears beginning to gather in her own eyes. ‘Can’t this wait? We’ve just lost somebody we loved. We’ve just had to identify his body.’ Without waiting for an answer, Terri gestured her mother to stand and led her to the door. Hudson made a show of getting out of his chair to usher them out. Grant didn’t move.

At the door, Amy lifted her face away from her hands and spat out, ‘My husband would never kill himself. Never! It’s absurd. He loved us.’

‘Please sit down, Mrs Harvey-Ellis. I know this is difficult,’ said Grant. After a momentary pause, Amy Harvey-Ellis returned to her seat, accompanied reluctantly by her daughter.

‘It’s procedure. We have to explore all possibilities until we can rule them out,’ added Hudson. ‘I mean, there was no note with his clothing so the chances are it’s an accidental drowning. He goes for an early morning jog, works up a sweat and fancies a swim. Something goes wrong, he gets into difficulties …’

‘Did he have any health problems at all? Maybe a bad heart?’ Grant spoke softly, probing gently as all the grief counsellors had advised.

‘Nothing like that. He played rugby, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Okay,’ murmured Grant. ‘And you can’t think of anyone he might have been staying with near the spot where we found his running gear?’

This time it was Terri who answered. ‘We’ve told you, we don’t know anyone who lives near there.’

‘Okay, Miss Harvey-Ellis, I think that’s all for now. Take your mother home,’ said Hudson.

‘Brook. My name is Terri Brook. Tony was my stepfather.’

‘So you weren’t blood relations?’ asked Grant.

‘Can I take my mother home now?’

‘How old are you, Terri?’ asked Grant.

Terri Brook looked at her, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead. Even Hudson raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m seventeen, whatever that’s got to do with anything.’

‘Just for the records,’ nodded Grant, taking a note.

‘Now can we go home?’

Hudson turned to Amy. ‘One more thing, Mrs Harvey-Ellis – how did your husband travel up to London?’

Jason Wallis stood and accepted the hand offered by the grey-haired priest, whose intense blue eyes fixed Jason as they shook hands.

‘Cheers for our talks, Father Donetti. They were a big help.’

‘A pleasure, my son. And I hope you’ll remember what we said. No more shoplifting. I don’t want to see you back in here.’

Jason smiled. ‘No probs. And I’ll try to go to church every Sunday, Father.’

The priest laughed. ‘No, you won’t, lad. But the Almighty is everywhere. Just ask him for help wherever you are. He’ll answer you.’

Jason picked up his bag and turned to the large doors that would lead him to the drive and the gates beyond.

He walked down the drive, enjoying the crunch of the gravel underfoot. As he walked he could feel eyes on him, watching his progress. Without stopping, he turned to look. He couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean some of his new acquaintances weren’t following his exit, wishing they were in his place. He looked back at the buildings with something approaching affection. The dreams had stopped for a while. But now being spat out back into the world that had chewed him up, the dreams had started again.

He reached the gates, hoping there’d be no one there to greet him. He’d told his aunt not to bother – it was a long traipse with a toddler. He turned one last time to face the buildings that had offered him sanctuary these past months and then stepped outside the gates.

‘Yo! Jace! MoFo. Over here, blood.’ Three young men standing beside a cream-coloured stretch limo shouted in unison at him from across the highway. All were dressed for sport – baseball caps, sweatshirts, trainers. Only the jeans would betray them on the field of dreams, slung low as they were to flaunt grubby Calvins. The Stella cans they all carried were drained, crushed and discarded on the pavement with a sly look at the limo driver, in the hope of catching an expression of disgust.

Jason tried to look pleased to see them but the old fear started gnawing at him. He’d been warned by Brook.

Grass up his crew or face The Reaper.

He now adjusted his posture and his walk, showing he was dangerous, aggressive, best avoided. He shook out a cigarette and lit it with a macho pull. To finish his repertoire, he spat on the ground as if he hadn’t a care in the world and rolled over to knuckle-tap his crew, a battle-hardened grimace glued to his face.

‘Grets, Banger, Stinger. Gimme some skin. S’guarnin, blood?’

‘Same old, same old. Smokin’ the peng, dodgin’ the leng. How was it?’

Jason grinned, taking in another massive drag of tobacco. ‘Piece of piss, fam. I can do the time standin’ on mi head.’

‘Fucking holiday camp, yeah?’ grinned Banger.

‘We was gonna bring you a squeeze in case you’d turned fag,’ said Grets, laughing.

‘You keep your booty zipped, man?’ joked Banger.

‘What you chattin’?’ laughed Jason in mock outrage. ‘I only saw one guy who was blatant fag,’ he shouted. ‘He tries to gimme a tea-bagging and I tear him a new one.’

‘’Cept he probly enjoy it,’ cackled Stinger. ‘You shoulda sun-flowered his ass, blood. That’d learn him.’

‘I hear that.’

The telephoto lens gazed steadily from the bushes a few hundred yards down the road, whirring rhythmically as the posse’s likenesses were stored. It was lowered once the boys had ducked into the stretch, Jason bobbing in after a final nervous look around as if he expected someone else to be there.

‘Poisoned? Are you sure, Doc?’

‘There’s no mistake,’ said Dr Hubbard, sitting back in his cramped office and contemplating Grant and Hudson with his hands behind his head.

‘So he was dead before he went in the water?’

‘No, he wasn’t. That’s the clever bit. His lungs were full of water. He drowned. Without a post-mortem it looks like an accidental death. But I’ll be telling the coroner murder.’

‘We’re listening,’ said DS Grant.

‘Scopolamine.’ The doctor beamed at them as though expecting Hudson and Grant to slap their foreheads in recognition. ‘Also called hyoscine. Dr Crippen was a big fan. Killed his wife with it.’ When their expressions remained vacant, he ploughed on. ‘It’s in the Pharmacopoeia. It’s a cerebral sedative which was used to treat epilepsy and other manias – I’m talking over a hundred years ago. Then around 1900 it was combined with morphine to create an anaesthetic which was used in the Great War. It brings on a condition called “Twilight Sleep” in which the patient is conscious but effectively paralysed and has no response to, or memory of pain. Very dodgy stuff though.’

‘And was there morphine in Harvey-Ellis as well?’

‘There was, Sergeant.’ The doctor pulled a photograph from a pile on his disorganised desk. ‘This is the victim’s neck.’ They peered at the picture. ‘You see that pinprick? That’s a puncture wound. He was injected.’

‘Injected?’ asked Hudson.

‘Could it have been self-administered?’ ventured Grant.

‘Good lord, no. Even if he’d had the pharmaceutical knowledge, which is unlikely in his line of work, it’s the angle. Somebody stuck a hypodermic into him, as though standing above him. Like this.’ The doctor demonstrated the angle of the injection.

‘So Harvey-Ellis may have been sitting on a bench on the seafront when he was attacked?’ mused Hudson.

‘Perhaps.’

‘If he was out jogging he could have been tying a shoelace or getting his breath back, guv,’ added Grant.

‘Also possible,’ nodded Hubbard. ‘And the effects would have been very fast acting, particularly with his pulse and heart rate elevated. Harvey-Ellis would have begun to feel groggy almost immediately. Depending on dosage, he might even have been hallucinatory. Either way he’s easily handled physically and mentally. It wouldn’t take much to lead him down to the water and help him off with his clothes.’

‘And in the unlikely event there are other people around at that time of day, the killer can make it look like they’re a couple of drunks, guv.’

Hudson eyed Hubbard. ‘So we’re looking for a medical man between the ages of 130 and 160 years old?’

Dr Hubbard stared back at Hudson in blank incomprehension. A sudden explosion startled the two officers as Hubbard guffawed and nodded with genuine appreciation.

‘Very good, Inspector. I’ll have to remember that one for the dinner party circuit.’ Hudson darted a quick glance at Grant. They waited for the mirth to subside. ‘Well. It’s difficult. I mean, older medical men, and particularly chemists, might be familiar with the narcotic qualities of these two drugs to some extent. Scopolamine is a derivative of the nightshade family so anywhere that you find those plants could be a source. My research tells me that the drug is used a lot in Colombia, some tree over there contains it, but it’s not recreational like cocaine. It’s used in rapes and abductions, stuff like that. And it’s colourless and odourless so very difficult to detect.’

‘Are the two drugs used in combination for legitimate medical purposes?’ asked Grant.

‘I can’t think of a single medical circumstance these days,’ said Hubbard. ‘Separately, yes. Morphine is used in the relief of severe pain as you’ll know, and scopolamine in minute doses is used to treat things like motion sickness. Combined? No. No reputable physician would prescribe it. It was last used in the sixties during childbirth but sometimes there were complications when patients were unable to feel and report pain.’

‘Which means any mention in the profiling database will definitely be worth a follow-up, guv,’ nodded Grant.

Hudson sighed. ‘Okay. It’s a murder inquiry. Thanks a lot, Doc.’

Hubbard grinned, shaking his head again as they left. ‘A 160-year-old doctor,’ he chuckled. ‘Very good.’

Jason woke with a start and ran his hand over his throat as he sat up panting. He took several deep breaths to calm himself, darting an eye to his bedroom door to be sure the chest of drawers was still in place. Jason threw back his duvet and padded to the window, tearing off his soaking T-shirt and throwing it down on the floor.

He pulled the curtain aside as minutely as he could and flicked a glance up and down Station Road. A light wind was blowing and the brown and withering leaves of the trees were shedding as the seasons waged their inexorable campaign. Branches swayed with gentle eroticism against the backdrop of the streetlamps. Nothing else moved.

He moved the chest of drawers away from the door and tiptoed to the bathroom. He drank from the tap to counter the dry stickiness of too many WKDs, downed with his crew to celebrate his release. Returning to his room, he fancied he heard a noise so he lifted the chest of drawers back into place as quietly as he could manage.

He flicked at his mobile. It was four in the morning. He pulled the curtain further back, opened his window and took a long pull of chilled air, faintly scented with decay and the sharp promise of winter.

He heard the creak of a floorboard and froze. His eyes darted around the room, at the dark shadows of the wardrobe, the blackness of an alcove. He could imagine The Reaper hiding there, waiting to strike. He flung himself back into the still damp bed and pulled the duvet over his head.

Finally, he poked his head out from his cocoon and heaved a timorous sigh.

‘Oh my days.’

Was this all he had to look forward to – cowering in this gloomy old house, waiting to die? Waiting for The Reaper to spring from his hiding place and cut him to pieces?

He was invaded by an urge for the outdoors and dressed quickly. He padded downstairs to the kitchen to pull on his Nikes. He took a pinch of the barely eaten welcome-home cake baked by his aunt and crunched down on the icing. Kicking aside one of the three deflating balloons mustered for his homecoming, he tiptoed softly to the door. A minute later he was out on Station Road, hunching himself against the breeze in his too thin jacket, heading towards the bridges – one for the river and one for the railway that no longer stopped in Borrowash. He crossed the road that fed traffic across to the scrubby flood plains of the Trent and beyond, heading towards the path from which he’d occasionally fished as a young boy, and further on to the grounds of Elvaston Castle, dilapidated and long since abandoned to its fate by the council.

As he approached the railway bridge, Jason was halted in his tracks by a noise, which might have been a car door slamming. He turned to face the line of parked cars resting beside the pavement from their daily labours. Nothing moved. No one stood outside their car ready to disappear into their home and no engine was started by a driver making an early start.

Jason stood back against a hedge, completely still apart from his eyes, which flicked frantically around in the gloom. Then he spotted the cat wandering down the pavement towards him, bobbing along, not a care in the world. He breathed more easily but wondered whether leaving the safety of the house was a good idea. The Reaper could be out here, waiting for his chance. But that was exactly why he had to get out. In the open air he could see all comers. In bed, death lurked behind every curtain, every door.

He turned to resume his walk but before he could take another step the cat, now just a few yards away, swerved away from a gate and froze, staring at something behind a hedge. Jason tried to follow the cat’s gaze but could see nothing. He crossed the road as stealthily as he could manage and continued to stare after the creature.

Jason’s heart rate, already accelerated, missed a long beat when he saw the shoe glistening black against the streetlight. He could see a leg now, also dressed in black, and further up to what might have been a gloved hand. He looked around for an escape route, peering back up the road to his aunt’s house, wondering whether to make a run for it. But to do so would take him closer to the figure hiding in the neighbouring garden. Before Jason could separate reason from panic, the figure stepped out of the garden and faced him in a manner he knew only too well from his dreams.

In the split second before he ran down Station Road towards the river beyond, Jason’s feverish mind managed to register the black balaclava, black overalls and black sport shoes. Black … to hide the blood.

Chief Inspector Hudson lit a cigarette and watched idly as the Scientific Support Team unloaded their equipment and prepared to do their work on the sleek black Mercedes nestling in the parking bay of Preston Street NCP. A uniformed officer looked round, then took out a set of keys at Hudson’s signal. He approached the driver’s door then hesitated. He reached out a gloved hand and opened the door.

‘Not locked, sir,’ he said then stood back.

‘Thanks.’ Hudson discarded his cigarette and approached. DS Grant reached the top of the stairwell at that moment, panting heavily, and walked with some difficulty over to the hub of activity.

Hudson kept his eyes on the car as Grant joined him. ‘It’s four floors up, girl. Don’t you think you should be taking the lift?’

‘Good for me,’ she grinned by way of explanation, though Hudson knew all about her claustrophobia.

‘Face it, luv. You’ll never see twenty-nine again. It’s downhill all the way.’

‘So I see,’ panted Grant, giving Hudson the once over. Hudson laughed, then turned his eyes from the interior of the vehicle to the uniformed officer and nodded at the boot. ‘Okay, Jimmy.’

The officer popped the boot and Hudson and Grant moved to take a look. Inside was a soft brown leather suitcase which, to judge from its shape, appeared full. On top of the suitcase a dark blue suit covered in cellophane had been hastily tossed in. Next to the case was a set of car keys. The officer examined the suit and pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of the jacket. He handed it to Grant, who’d just finished snapping on latex gloves.

‘Double room. Paid in cash,’ said Grant. ‘It’s an invoice from the Duchess Hotel. I know it. It’s a dive on Waterloo Street.’ Hudson flashed an inquiring glance. ‘A tom I know got beaten up there by her client.’

‘So Harvey-Ellis did come back early for a bit on the side. Our big cheese has got himself a tasty cracker.’

Laura Grant smiled indulgently. ‘Well, he was alone when he parked the car, guv, I’ve just seen the footage. The car arrived at 14.07 hours on Saturday …’

‘14.07 hours,’ said Hudson. ‘This is National Car Parks, darlin’, not the SAS.’

‘That’s what it says on the computer, guv. But I can put “Saturday lunchtime” in the report if you prefer?’

Hudson chuckled, then gestured at the suited technicians waiting to examine the car. They approached the vehicle and set to work combing, sifting and collecting.

Keep running. Keep thinking. Keep running. Keep thinking. Jason was used to neither but still he ran and tried to think, attempting to block out the vision of a vengeful hunter gaining on him. He’d set off into the murk of the fields, picking up the path that hugged the deceptively idle river.

But his tar-lined lungs wouldn’t let him run and he had to stop to suck in much-needed oxygen. He wheeled round unsteadily, ready for an attack, but there was no one behind him. He coughed then sucked in a few hard breaths and tried to focus back down the path, but sweat stung his pupils. He wiped it away and a few seconds later he saw the figure, maybe a hundred yards away, striding relentlessly towards him. Jason turned and struck out again, trying to tamp down the fear that was constricting his lungs even more than the tar.

When he slowed again, he could hear the steady rhythm of his pursuer. Eventually Jason had to rest again but this time his rapid pull for oxygen couldn’t ease the stabbing pains in his chest. He faced back down the river, trying to see, but again the sweat salted his vision. Although there was no artificial light to soothe him, a fine moon ensured good visibility and, as his breathing became easier, he was able to distinguish a dark figure rounding the bend of the path.

As he scrambled along, Jason began to sob soundlessly as he’d learned to in White Oaks. A part of his brain urged him to stop to face his fate: anything was better than this torment, day and night. But he didn’t. Something basic, something primal inside kept him going.

When he stopped again, Jason realised he was at a fork in the path. The main path continued to follow the river back towards Derby, but the left fork wound its way round to Elvaston Castle and its dark tree-lined grounds.

He turned down the path towards Elvaston. After hobbling round a couple of ninety-degree bends, he staggered onto the overgrown bank of a stream. He settled into the undergrowth with a view of the path and tried to regain the rhythm of his breathing as quietly as he could.

Several minutes elapsed but nobody came down the path. Jason began to shiver and, worse, started to get cramp. He’d crouched in as near a position of readiness as he could manage but it soon began to hurt. After ten minutes of this, Jason finally had to swivel into a seated position and wait, eyes darting, ears pricked, every sense on heightened alert.

Hudson and Grant stepped into the gloom of the dingy lobby onto a threadbare carpet, feeling the tacky pull of ancient spillage on their shoes. The noxious odour of cheap disinfectant assaulted their noses and the tobacco-stained walls did the same for their eyes.

The man behind a cramped bureau gave Grant an unsubtle stare of approval as she approached, then turned to Hudson with an over-friendly grin. He was short, slightly overweight, and had long straggly hair that disguised his early baldness as ineffectively as the grin hid his yellowing teeth.

‘It’s thirty for the hour or sixty-five for the night and we don’t do breakfast …’ Grant’s warrant card silenced the man and his manner became defensive. ‘Oh yes, Sergeant. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m DS Grant, this is Chief Inspector Hudson. We’re inquiring after a guest who stayed here on Saturday night,’ said Grant, brandishing a photograph of Tony Harvey-Ellis under the man’s nose. ‘Are you the proprietor, sir?’ she asked as he took the picture from her.

He looked up at her and back at the photograph. After a moment’s hesitation he nodded. ‘I am.’

‘Your name, sir?’ asked Hudson, swinging around, preparing to take an interest for the first time.

‘Sowerby. Dave Sowerby.’

‘Do you recognise the man, Mr Sowerby?’ asked Grant.

Sowerby concentrated fiercely on the photograph. ‘No,’ he said after a few moments of unconvincing deliberation. He handed back the photograph, returning his attention to the reception desk and fiddling with some papers as if to imply a heavy workload.

‘Mmmm.’ Hudson wandered off to the front door but neither he nor Grant made any attempt to leave. After a minute, Hudson ambled back to the desk, picked up the local newspaper from under a stack of documents and jabbed a finger at the picture of Tony Harvey-Ellis, smiling on the front page. ‘Perhaps this is a better likeness, Mr Sowerby?’

‘Is that the guy?’ said Sowerby, hardly bothering to look.

‘That’s him,’ said Hudson. ‘His name is Tony Harvey-Ellis. But then you knew that because he stayed here Saturday night. Mr Harvey-Ellis drowned in the early hours of Sunday morning. The picture we showed you was taken at the mortuary.’

‘Most people who see a picture of a dead body tend to react in some way,’ added Grant, smiling coldly.

‘You, on the other hand, didn’t react at all, sir. Now why might that be?’

Sowerby tried to look Hudson in the eye but couldn’t hold on. ‘I didn’t realise …’

‘You didn’t realise how important my time is, did you?’

‘I … I …’

‘You didn’t realise that I get very pissed off when someone wastes my time when I’m investigating a suspicious death …’

His words had the desired effect and Sowerby’s eyes widened. ‘Suspicious!’ he said, agitated. ‘It doesn’t say anything in the papers about suspicious. It says he drowned.’

‘You calling me a liar now, sonny?’ said Hudson, fixing Sowerby with a cruel glare.

‘No, no.’ Sowerby raised his hands in pacification.

‘Cuff him, Sergeant. I don’t like this dump. We’ll do this at the station …’ Hudson turned and began to saunter away. Grant made no attempt to reach for the handcuffs.

‘Wait! Just hang on …’ pleaded Sowerby to Hudson’s retreating back. ‘I’ve got a business to run.’

‘Guv,’ said Grant. ‘Give him a minute. I think Mr Sowerby wants to help.’ She turned back to Sowerby. ‘Don’t you, sir?’

‘I do. I didn’t realise …’

Hudson stopped at the front door but didn’t turn around. There was a brief silence as Grant considered how best to continue. ‘Maybe Mr Sowerby was just trying to protect a valued client.’

Sowerby looked from Hudson to Grant and nodded eagerly. ‘That’s it, a valued client – a regular.’

‘I mean, we can understand that, can’t we, guv?’ continued Grant. ‘He was just being … discreet.’ Sowerby continued to nod eagerly and looked with hope towards Hudson’s back. ‘I mean, we’d want the same discretion if we stayed at a hotel, guv. Wouldn’t we?’

Hudson turned now, his lips pursed. ‘I suppose,’ he conceded eventually and padded back towards the bureau. ‘All right, we’re listening.’

Grant nodded and smiled encouragement at Sowerby, who wasted no further time. ‘Mr H is … was,’ he corrected himself, ‘a regular. He had an understanding that we’d turn a blind eye. You know …’ He looked encouragingly at Grant.

‘Discretion,’ she obliged.

‘That’s it. Discretion. He was married, see …’

‘No?’ said Grant.

‘He was. But he had a right eye for a pretty girl. And he always paid cash, you know,’ added Sowerby enthusiastically, before suddenly realising he’d said the wrong thing. ‘Not that I don’t …’

Hudson held up his hand. ‘Any particular pretty girl this last time?’

‘Well, he had more than one but this weekend it was the usual.’ ‘Usual?’

‘Yeah, the one he’d brought here a few times. Very pretty. Brown hair. Slim but not …’ Sowerby darted a glance at Grant, who raised an eyebrow ‘…not flat.’ Hudson now had to douse down a smirk. ‘And, of course…’ Sowerby now stopped himself, beginning to look uncomfortable.

‘Go on,’ prompted Hudson.

‘…young,’ said Sowerby quietly. ‘They were always very young.’ Hudson and Grant faced Sowerby in silence, well-versed in tightening the screw. ‘Not that I had any reason to think they were … you know … illegal.’ He stared down at the floor to see how far he’d dug himself in.

‘Then why think they might be?’

‘The usual one. The first time he brung her in was a couple of years ago…’ Sowerby stalled over the words. Hudson and Grant waited, knowing it would come ‘…And she’d tried to dress up normal but I could see…’

‘See what?’

‘She had one of those sweatshirts on.’

‘Sweatshirts?’

‘You know. You see them all over town. It was one of them from the posh school. Part of their uniform. Badge and all.’

Jason’s limbs were screaming in pain. He decided he couldn’t sit it out any longer. His pursuer had either given up or taken the wrong path. So, with daylight beginning to creep across the horizon, Jason clambered back onto the path, standing as upright as he could manage. He rubbed his back until the noise of a breaking twig froze his entire frame. Slowly Jason turned. The man was standing ten yards away, facing him, perfectly still, perfectly unruffled. Jason tried to see his face but it was completely obscured by the balaclava. Through the hot tears distorting his vision, Jason could see the man’s breath as it hit the morning air. But unlike Jason, he wasn’t panting with fear or looking round for help.

A second later the man moved towards Jason. In a black, gloved hand, raised to catch the dawn light, Jason fancied he saw the glint of a blade through his tears. He began to sob violently and his shoulders shook. He looked around to plot his escape but, instead of turning to flee, Jason’s legs crumpled and his knees hit the ground. Wailing, he curled himself into a ball as the man walked towards him and inclined his head to look down at him.

‘I told you. I’m sorry we did the old woman,’ he wailed. ‘I’m sorry about the cat.’ The figure bent down on one knee to examine Jason. ‘I’m sorry about everything. Please don’t kill me. Please. I’ll remember. I can be good. Please…’ Jason’s voice became a high-pitched whine as his emotions and any semblance of physical control disintegrated.

Jason had no idea how long he’d been unconscious but by the time he woke dawn had turned into a bright chill morning. Birds were singing and the low sun was beginning to burn off the dew. He lifted himself onto one elbow and looked around. The man had gone. Jason stood, grimacing at the squelch of excrement and urine in his trousers, and turned to waddle home, eyes lowered to the ground in misery.

Chapter Two

Hudson rolled his greasy fish-and-chip paper into a tight ball and threw it at the bin next to their bench. It fell short and a couple of seagulls standing guard on the seawall railing glided down to investigate. Hudson stood to pick up the offending litter then jammed it into the bin – to loud dismay from the gulls – and sat back down, squinting into the pale sun. He pulled out his cigarettes and threw one in his mouth. After taking a man-sized pull he exhaled into a Styrofoam cup, taking a large gulp of coffee before returning it to the bench.

Laura Grant had long since finished her tortilla wrap and now had her pen poised over a notebook, listing the tasks that Hudson deemed fit for the two DCs, Rimmer and Crouch, assigned to help them with the legwork, now that Tony Harvey-Ellis’s death was being treated as murder.

‘Anything else, guv?’

‘I guess we pay a call to Hall Gordon PR. Find out if Harvey-Ellis had any enemies they’d know about. Put that at the top of our list.’

Grant raised her eyebrows and fixed him with her cool blue eyes.

‘You honestly think it’s possible?’ asked Hudson. ‘The daughter?’

‘Stepdaughter,’ said Grant. ‘Harvey-Ellis wasn’t her real dad.’ ‘But he was married to her real mum.’

‘Remember what she said when we first broke the news, guv. Someone we loved. It jarred at the time.’

‘She fits the description, I suppose. Right age, right hair,’ conceded Hudson.

‘And Tony and Amy had only been married four years.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘Well, let’s assume Tony and Amy knew each other for at least a year before they married. That means Terri’s known him for about five years. Terri is seventeen now which makes her around twelve when Tony and Amy first meet, thirteen when they get hitched.’

‘So?’

‘You’ve got two grown-up kids, guv. What were the most difficult years? Early teens, right?’

‘By a country mile.’

‘Right. Terri’s a seventeen-year-old girl who’s known her stepfather – the man who replaced her real father – since she was a teenager, before even. Now I don’t know how many people you know with stepmums and dads…’

‘Not many. Different generation. We had to grin and bear it.’

‘Well, I know three. Two of them hated their stepparent with a vengeance. I mean, hated. Enough to wish they would just die for breaking up the cosy family unit.’

‘And the third?’

‘They had an affair,’ said Grant. Hudson pulled a face. ‘There are no half measures with this sort of thing, guv.’

‘It’s a bit of a reach, Laura. But it’s easy enough to check all the same. Crouchy’s on the car park cameras to see if it was the girlfriend who dumped Tony’s luggage. So get Rimmer to sniff out a picture of Terri for that lowlife Sowerby to take a peek at, see if she’s “the usual”. Better yet, have him get a picture of her from school.’ Hudson smiled. ‘She might be wearing the same school uniform he saw her in.’

‘Will do.’

‘If this pans out and the girl has been having it off with her stepfather, it opens up all sorts of avenues. With Harvey-Ellis porking his wife and daughter,’ he said, with a glance at Grant to see if she was offended, ‘it brings the mother into the equation.’

‘Hell hath no fury,’ nodded Grant, ignoring her colleague’s choice of language. She knew from experience that he enjoyed proving female coppers were oversensitive. She thought for a moment. ‘Or maybe the mother knows and doesn’t mind.’

‘How could the mother not mind?’ said Hudson.

‘Maybe she knows but she doesn’t know. Knowing tears her life apart. She loses husband and daughter. But if she blinds herself, she’s a happily married mother – if that makes sense.’

‘Female logic?’ Now it was Grant’s turn to pull a face and Hudson, with a guilty laugh, held up his hand. ‘Okay, I know what you mean. She blocks it out.’ He squirrelled a glance at her. ‘Thank God you’re not one of those lesbian ballbreakers they’ve got up in the smoke, Laura.’

‘How do you know I’m not?’

Hudson laughed. ‘Because you’re a top girl, Laura. A top girl.’ Grant raised a cautionary eyebrow, but couldn’t resist a smile and Hudson laughed. ‘Roll on next year, when I can collect my pension and piss off to Jurassic Park with all the other dinosaurs, eh?’

‘Amen to that, guv.’

Jason Wallis lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling only the dry distortion of old tear tracks on his cheeks. He’d woken up a couple of hours previously but hadn’t moved at all.

The house was quiet now. His aunt was in bed resting before her next shift and baby Bianca had finally fallen asleep after her lunch of chips and beans. Thankfully his aunt hadn’t returned until half an hour after Jason had waddled home, soiled and scarred by his ordeal. He’d had time to bung his fouled clothing into the washer and set it going before showering and retreating to his room in shame and terror, once more pulling the chest of drawers across his door for safety. He’d collapsed into bed and lost consciousness almost at once – to call it sleep would have implied rest – and had woken with a start some time later, a film of sweat covering every millimetre of his skin. He’d sobbed quietly for the rest of the afternoon before finally succumbing to something approaching sleep.

When he woke again, he was surprised to discover waking didn’t involve panting and clutching at his throat. He merely opened his eyes gently and looked towards the window. The sun was beginning to set and Jason’s tight belly had begun to growl. Footsteps approached his door, followed by a soft knocking.

‘Jason?’ his aunt asked. ‘You in there?’ She knocked again. Still no answer from Jason who continued to lay mute, eyes burning into the ceiling. Finally his aunt tried the door but the chest of drawers prevented entry. ‘What are you doing, Jason? You better not be taking drugs, you little shit!’ She rattled the door but couldn’t shift the chest. ‘Let me in.’

Jason sat up. Necessity required a response. ‘I’m not. Don’t worry, Auntie. I’m all right.’

‘You sure you’re not doing drugs?’

‘You’re doing my head in. I’m okay, I tell you. What is it?’

His aunt hesitated, then, no doubt mindful of the time, said, ‘I’m off to work. There’s a chicken pie in the microwave for you and I’ve put your washing on the radiators.’

‘Cheers.’

‘If Bianca wakes up, let her watch cartoons. But make sure you put her to bed before seven. Got that?’ No reply. ‘Got that?’ she repeated.

‘I’ve got it,’ Jason replied, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

‘You sure you’re all right, Jason?’

‘Oh my days, I’m all right.’ Jason’s aunt’s grunted and her footsteps receded along the landing. A moment later the stairs began to complain under the assault from her hefty frame. The front door slammed, her car coughed into life and Jason heaved a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes and a tear squeezed onto his cheek.

‘I’m all right,’ he muttered. ‘I’m all right.’

Hudson prepared a sly cigarette as Grant fired up the computer. Although she disapproved of him flouting the smoking ban so brazenly, she was disinclined to make an issue out of it.

There was a knock on the door and DCs Jimmy Crouch and Phil Rimmer came in without waiting for an answer. Hudson’s cigarette hand moved from behind his back and returned to his mouth when he saw it wasn’t the Chief Super. ‘Take a seat.’

Rimmer, a tall and well-muscled thirty-year-old with short blond hair and handsome features, and Crouch, a smaller and broader man with thickset features and wavy black hair, pulled up chairs. Both were holding large envelopes.

Hudson moved over to a board where a large close-up of the late Tony Harvey-Ellis, face slackened and eyes closed, was pinned.

‘Let’s get started.’ He pulled out his notebook from a pile of papers on the desk and flipped it open. ‘This is our victim. Tony Harvey-Ellis, wealthy local businessman and ladies’ man. As you know, Harvey-Ellis died in the early hours of Sunday morning sometime between 4 and 6 am, having left the Duchess Hotel to go for a run. His running shoes and kit were found on the beach, just past the West Pier. His body, however, was carried nearly a mile further down the seafront and was washed ashore just off Madeira Drive.

‘According to the pathologist he drowned after being drugged or, more accurately, poisoned, with a mixture of…’ Hudson broke off to peer at the preliminary forensic report pinned under Tony’s face ‘…scopolamine and morphine. The assailant injected Tony with the drugs, rendering him incapable of defending himself. He was completely docile within minutes and unable to resist when the killer helped him out of his clothes and into the sea where, suffering from muscular paralysis, he drowned. Laura.’

The two detective constables switched their gaze to DS Grant, who took up the reins. ‘As you know, his car was found in Preston Street NCP unlocked and with his luggage inside. It seems Tony had driven back to Brighton from London where he’d been at a conference and parked in Preston Street on Saturday around lunchtime…’

‘14.07,’ beamed Hudson.

‘14.07,’ echoed Grant, with barely a glance at him. ‘At this point he was alone so it’s reasonable to assume that the girl he was meeting is from the local area, although it’s possible he might have already dropped her off at the hotel in nearby Waterloo Street. Either way he’s booked a double room…’

‘I thought he lived locally,’ said Rimmer.

‘He lives locally with his wife, Phil,’ interjected Hudson. ‘Out near Falmer. But Tony is what we used to call a shagger.’

The two DCs smiled and nodded; Grant shook her head in mock disapproval. ‘Or a “ladies’ man” to anyone under sixty, although his taste seems to run to young girls,’ she continued, addressing Rimmer and Crouch. ‘Not very young,’ she added, ‘but borderline legal.’

Rimmer took this as his cue. ‘Theresa Brook goes to Roedean. She’s in sixth form now studying English and Media Studies – very bright apparently. The school won’t give us a picture though. Not without written authority from the Chief Super. They’re afraid of paedos.’

‘We may not need it, guv,’ interrupted Crouch. He pulled a black and white A4 photocopy from his envelope. It was divided into four smaller squares each containing a distinct image. ‘This is from the NCP on Sunday morning. The girl in this picture carried a case identical to the one we found in the car.’ He passed it round. ‘See, she’s even got a suit wrapped in plastic over her arm. Now we haven’t got her putting the case and suit in the car, but Forensics have lifted two sets of prints from the car and the case. One set belongs to the victim. Likely the other belongs to her.’

Hudson gazed at the picture of Terri Brook struggling under the weight of the luggage and nodded at Grant. ‘You were right, Laura.’

‘Is this our killer, guv?’ asked Crouch eagerly. ‘Not yet,’ replied Hudson. ‘For now she’s just someone with something to hide.’

‘Like what, guv?’ asked Rimmer.

‘This is Terri Brook, the victim’s stepdaughter,’ said Grant. The two DCs nodded with the gravity of it all but still risked a ribald glance at one another. ‘We can now surmise that Harvey-Ellis spent the night with his seventeen-year-old stepdaughter. Jimmy, show this picture to the landlord at the Duchess, a Mr Sowerby, to confirm.’ Crouch made a note.

Hudson crushed his lit cigarette between his yellowed fingers, sending sparks to the floor, then placed the tab in a drawer and strolled over to the window. ‘Terri Brook was probably the last person to see the victim alive and now, seen cleaning up after the fact, she has to be a viable suspect.’ Hudson’s voice trailed off and he put his hand to his chin and tapped it with his fingers, a mannerism Grant recognised as a sign that he was perplexed by something.

‘Guv?’

Hudson roused himself and turned to face Rimmer and Crouch. ‘What else have you got, fellas?’

‘Forensics are looking at the victim’s running gear from the beach,’ said Rimmer. ‘They found traces of fresh semen on his tracksuit so it looks like the victim had sex before he went for his run. It’s possible his partner’s DNA will be present. They’re following it up asap.’

‘Jimmy?’

‘Preliminary findings on the victim’s room at The Duchess aren’t good. The room was cleaned and another couple had already stayed there. The techs aren’t hopeful. Anything they find is likely to be compromised.’

‘All right. This is what I want. Continue chasing up appropriate CCTV if there is any. Concentrate on where Tony’s clothes were found. That’s where he was attacked. That’s the one place we know his killer was. On that basis, organise as much uniform as you can and go door to door around that area. I want witnesses, whether they saw or just heard something. Why aren’t you writing this down?’ Rimmer hastily started scribbling.

‘Anything else, guv?’ he asked a moment later.

‘Yeah. Parking tickets. You can’t stand still in roller skates without getting one on the sea front so check details for the week before within a half-mile radius of the Duchess. Our killer seems to know his way about.’

‘He?’ asked Grant with a raised eyebrow.

‘Figure of speech,’ answered Hudson, not looking at her.

‘Should I follow up on the school picture, guv?’ ventured Rimmer.

‘No. Forget it.’ Hudson inclined his head. Crouch and Rimmer took the hint, stood up and left.

After a suitable pause spent watching Hudson pace the room, Grant returned her attention to the computer, keying in her ID when prompted. While she waited for recognition she looked up.

‘Guv?’

‘It’s all wrong, Laura.’

‘What is?’

‘We’ve got two halves of a crime that don’t fit together. This girl Terri…’

‘Are we bringing her in?’

Hudson turned to her. ‘Tell me why we should.’

‘We have it from Sowerby and the CCTV. She cleared out the room she and Tony were staying in. Guilty conscience right there.’

‘She’s having an affair with her stepfather, maybe since she was fifteen. Anything else?’

‘There isn’t anything else, guv. That’s why we should bring her in.’

Hudson paused, seeking the right words. His face cleared when he found them. ‘Did she kill her stepfather?’

Now it was Grant’s turn to think. ‘Poisoning is a woman’s crime,’ she said. Hudson waited. ‘There may be a motive we don’t know about,’ she ploughed on. ‘She may have found out there were other girls.’ Hudson said nothing. ‘Okay, guv. Honestly, I can’t see her as the killer.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’d need sophisticated medical or pharmaceutical knowledge for a start.’

Hudson smiled at her. ‘As opposed to English and Media Studies.’

‘But she’s a bright girl, guv. She may have made the effort. There’s always the internet.’

‘It’s just the way Harvey-Ellis was killed, Laura. It was so cold and…’

‘And professional?’ Grant ventured.

‘Exactly. I’ve seen a lot of domestics, I’m sure you have. And I saw Terri and her mother. They were in pieces. If either of them had killed Tony, it would have been a crime of passion. If someone had shot him six times in bed, I’d be looking at them. If someone had taken a baseball bat to him while he slept, I’d be looking at them. If someone had chopped off his knackers…’

‘All right, guv, I get it.’

‘And if Terri had done any of those things I could accept that in the heat of the moment she might get her prints all over the evidence and her mugshot on camera. But someone managed to get the better of Harvey-Ellis while he was pumped up with adrenaline – a fit rugby-playing forty-three-year-old. Someone was waiting for him. And when they got the chance there was no hesitation. This was planned and executed by somebody far more ruthless than a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl.’

‘So what now?’ asked Grant, breaking off to answer a prompt from the computer. She hit the return key, typed in the words ‘scopolamine’ and ‘morphine’ from her notebook and returned her attention to Hudson.

‘We speak to her to sign off on the details, but we treat her as a witness. Maybe she saw something; maybe she knows who might have wanted Tony dead. Unlikely, I know. Also, if we’re treating the murder as professional then first we go to his profession…’

‘Oh Jesus!’ exclaimed Grant, staring intently at the monitor.

‘What?’

Grant flipped the monitor round. ‘The MO, guv. It’s The Reaper.’

Laura Grant drove up the shady, tree-lined drive to a large whitewashed house. She parked outside what looked like the main entrance and killed the engine.

Chief Inspector Hudson got out of the passenger seat, coolly taking in the surroundings. Mature trees, outbuildings, manicured paths leading off in all directions. There was an old-fashioned Victorian greenhouse to the rear of the property and he could see a large conservatory on the back of the house.

Grant, being half Hudson’s age and never in touch with a time when houses could be bought for a few hundred pounds, was unmoved by such a show of wealth. She glanced over at Hudson, who seemed to be minutely shaking his head.

‘Christ!’ he said. ‘No wonder this country’s in the shit when people who produce nothing but hot air can afford a house like this. Public relations, my arse. Did you know, when my mum and dad got married, they bought a terraced house in Balham for £800?’

Grant smiled. ‘Yes, guv. I did know that.’

Hudson finally broke away from his surveillance and caught her eye. Then, with an exaggerated cockney accent, he added, ‘In my day…’

Grant nodded towards the entrance as Terri Brook walked towards them. She looked stunning, though her eyes still betrayed the telltale residue of tears. She appeared much older than her seventeen years, dressed in figure-hugging black trousers and a ribbed polo neck. Her make-up was discreet, her mid-length brown hair lightly tinted and swept back and delicate pieces of gold adorned her ears.

‘Hello, you found it then?’

Hudson nodded. ‘Eventually. It’s not often we get out to Falmer.’

‘Really? What about the university?’

‘Not so many murders and armed robberies on campus these days, miss.’

‘Yes, sorry. Stolen bikes and soft drugs not your thing, I suppose. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your names?’

‘I’m DCI Hudson, Miss Harvey-Ellis, this is DS Grant. Nice place you’ve got here.’

‘It keeps the rain off. And I’m Theresa Brook, okay, but I prefer Terri.’

‘Brook. Of course,’ said Hudson, exchanging a glance with Grant.

Terri escorted them through the entrance portico into an enormous modern kitchen and through into an even bigger conservatory, furnished with sturdy cream sofas. She gestured for them to sit, then at a coffee pot and poured for both officers when they nodded.

‘Where’s your mother, Miss Brook?’ asked Grant.

She looked a little sheepish and raised melancholy eyes to Hudson. ‘Call me Terri. I’m afraid I owe you an apology, Chief Inspector. Mum’s asleep. She’s still not up to it. She’s been sedated. I’m sorry. Perhaps if you came back later…’

Hudson paused for a few moments, then smiled in sympathy. ‘Please don’t apologise, Terri. We quite understand.’ Grant raised an eyebrow at her superior. He wasn’t usually so understanding when suspects tried to mess him around.

A pause from Terri. Then, ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey.’

‘Terri, do you think I could have a glass of water?’ asked Hudson.

‘Of course.’ She left to fetch the water after a brief pause.

‘Guv?’ said Grant once Terri was out of earshot.

‘I think we should take a run at Terri while she’s on her own.’

‘She’s only seventeen; she should have a parent with her.’

‘How much less awkward would it be without her mother present? Christ, we’re talking about an affair between Terri and her mum’s husband.’

‘I know but I’d feel a lot…’

Terri returned with a glass of water and handed it to Hudson, who took a token sip before placing it on the table.

‘Terri. Perhaps you can help us with some things,’ said Hudson in an easy manner.

‘I … I don’t know what I can tell you.’

‘We just need some background, really,’ said Grant.

‘For instance, can you tell us about any enemies your father might have had?’ asked Hudson.

‘Enemies? What’s that got to do with him drowning?’ Grant and Hudson said nothing. ‘Are you implying Tony was murdered?’

‘We’re not implying anything, Terri…’

‘You are, aren’t you?’ Terri was incredulous, disbelieving. She seemed to be shaking. Hudson and Grant studied her carefully and couldn’t detect any artifice.

‘At the moment we’re looking at all angles,’ said Grant.

‘Then you’re making a mistake. Tony was a popular guy. Everybody liked him. Everybody. I can’t believe anyone would want to murder him.’ She stared into the distance and Grant fancied a sliver of doubt deformed her features for a second.

‘Nobody had a grudge or wished to harm him in any way? Think back. We could be talking about a couple of years ago.’

Terri shook her head, now unable to meet their gaze. ‘No one, I’m telling you.’

‘We’ll come back to that one,’ said Hudson quietly. ‘Do you know where your stepfather was staying in Brighton the night before he died?’ Again Terri shook her head. Hudson hunched down over his notebook as if checking a detail. ‘It was in a hotel in Waterloo Street. The Duchess. Bit of a pigsty actually. Not really your stepfather’s sort of place I would’ve said. Do you know it?’

He looked back up at her as she shook her head. Her colour was darkening slightly, but otherwise she retained her composure.

‘Any idea why he might check into that hotel under a false name?’ asked Grant. ‘Gordon Hall.’ She continued to look at Terri. ‘Actually the register says Mr and Mrs Gordon Hall. Did you know your stepfather had a lady friend?’

Terri’s lips were becoming tighter and tighter and the ability to speak had deserted her. She shook her head again.

Hudson had some sympathy but he also knew that the more he tightened the screw, the more detailed the confession when it came. ‘You see what he did there. That’s a play on the name of his company, you know. Hall Gordon Public Relations,’ he pointed out helpfully.

‘Any idea who Mrs Hall might have been?’ asked Grant.

‘No!’ croaked Terri, clearing her throat. ‘Can I have one of those cigarettes please?’

‘Of course.’ Hudson took two cigarettes from the packet, handing one to Terri and putting one in his mouth. He lit hers then his own.

‘Whoever she is, I’m afraid it’s now almost certain she was having a sexual relationship with your stepfather. I’m sorry to have to tell you that.’

After several long drags, Terri finally broke the silence. ‘How do you know?’ she croaked.

Not, I don’t believe it, Grant noted. ‘We found fresh semen on his jogging pants.’

‘And traces of female DNA. The lab’s working them up now. The semen is his, obviously. The other … well, it should help when we find out who she is.’ Terri nodded dumbly, tears welling up in her eyes

‘And the girl was quite young, according to the landlord. Maybe underage,’ added Grant.

‘It must be upsetting to discover what kind of man your stepfather was,’ said Hudson.

Terri bowed her head and now began to sob. Hudson felt guilty. He remembered how his own teenage daughter regressed when the adopted habits of adulthood bit too deep.

‘This must be difficult,’ said Grant, moving to sit next to the girl to offer some comfort.

Hudson quietly pulled out the CCTV image from the car park and placed it on the table in front of Terri. She barely glanced at it but the violence of her sobbing increased, and her head sought refuge and bobbed up and down in Grant’s arms.

Eventually a measure of calm returned and Terri was able to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. ‘I loved him,’ she said simply.

‘I believe you,’ answered Hudson, resisting the urge to be judgemental. ‘Tell us what happened at the weekend.’

Terri found such a simple question difficult, embarrassed to be discussing the sex life she had hidden from the world. ‘We … were together, you know, Saturday night. We were awake … most of the night.’ She glanced up at the two detectives to see if they’d cracked her simple code. Their expressions were unaltered. ‘Tone plays rugby … played rugby … and he wanted to go for a run. It was really early. Five o’clock.’

‘You didn’t go with him?’

‘God no! He was only going to be an hour, he said. I saw him walk to the seafront and turn towards the old pier and I never saw him again.’

Her lip began to wobble so Hudson piled in with the next question to keep her mind busy. ‘Did you see anyone else on the road?’

‘No one.’

‘Any cars pull away at the same time?’

‘Not that I noticed.’

Hudson nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘I went back to bed and woke up at about nine and Tone wasn’t back. I didn’t think anything of it. I showered and went out to get a coffee, thinking he’d be back when I got back, but he wasn’t. By half eleven I was frantic. I went for a walk along the front but I couldn’t see anything. I thought maybe he’d had an accident and was in hospital. So I packed up his stuff and took it to the car park, threw it all in the boot. I hung onto his wallet. I was going to drive the car but thought it might be better to leave it for Tone. The only problem was if I wanted to leave the car keys I couldn’t lock up. So I threw them in the boot. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem. Unless someone randomly tried the door, most people would assume it was locked. Then I came home.’

‘Was your mother here when you got back?’ asked Grant.

Terri nodded.

‘How long had your affair been going on?’ asked Hudson.

Terri bit her lip, recognising the relevance of the question. ‘Not long,’ she replied.

It was an obvious lie but Hudson decided there was little to gain by challenging it. The victim wasn’t pressing charges, the criminal was dead.

‘I loved him,’ she repeated in the softest whisper.

‘This is very important, Terri,’ said Grant. ‘Who else knew you were going to be at that hotel?’

Terri stared off into space to think. She shook her head. ‘Apart from the guy at the hotel, no one.’

‘Mr Sowerby?’

‘Mr Sowerby, yes.’

‘Would Tony have told anyone?’

‘I don’t think so. Why?’ She answered her own question immediately. ‘You think someone planned this. You think someone was waiting near the hotel, to kill him.’

‘It seems likely. Does your mother know about the affair?’ asked Hudson.

She looked down. When she looked up she had more moisture in her eyes. She blinked it away and shook her head. ‘As far as you know.’

‘As far as I know,’ she echoed into her lap. She lifted her head suddenly. ‘You’re not suggesting …?’

‘Hell hath no fury like a woman losing her husband to her daughter,’ observed Hudson with more cruelty than he’d intended.

‘Forget it,’ spat Terri. ‘My mother couldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘What about your father?’

‘My father?’

‘Your real father.’

Terri seemed momentarily nonplussed by the question. ‘He … I don’t know. I mean, of course not. Besides, he lives in Derbyshire.’

‘That’s not what we call an alibi, Miss Brook.’

‘Do you know if your father ever visited your stepfather at his place of work?’ asked Grant, as casually as possible.

Terri looked at her as if she’d been slapped. ‘I’m not sure.’ She bowed her head and cried some more.

Grant looked at her notebook. ‘Would it surprise you to hear that a couple of years ago your father, Damen Brook, Detective Inspector Damen Brook of Derby CID, paid a visit to Tony at Hall Gordon Public Relations? This is according to Mr Gordon, the company director. During his visit he assaulted your stepfather and threatened to have him arrested for molesting his daughter. Apparently he went to great pains to humiliate your stepfather in front of his colleagues. It caused a huge stink at the firm.’

‘And your mother had to go in to assure the directors that all the allegations were groundless. Do you still say your mother knew nothing of your relationship?’ Hudson and Grant waited.

‘But she didn’t believe it,’ croaked Terri eventually, unable to look at them.

‘Well, I’m afraid she’ll have to believe it now.’

Terri looked up at them in alarm. ‘You’re not going to tell her?’

Hudson stood and motioned at Grant to follow suit. ‘Of course we’re not going to tell her, Terri. But do you honestly think this thing can stay under wraps?’

‘I think what Chief Inspector Hudson means is that sooner or later she’s going to find out.’ Grant patted Terri on the arm and made to leave. ‘And, all things considered, Terri, it would be better coming from you.’ Grant followed Hudson out but turned back at the door. ‘If it’s any consolation, according to Sowerby, you were one of many.’

Laura Grant kicked open the door, holding two coffees. Hudson, phone cradled under his chin, saw it was her and removed the hand that was holding the cigarette from behind his back.

‘Any luck, guv?’

Hudson made to answer then returned his attention to the receiver. ‘Hello. Derby HQ? This is DCI Joshua Hudson from Sussex CID. Who am I speaking to? Sergeant Hendrickson, I wonder if you can help me. I’m going to be in Derbyshire on leave this weekend and I was wondering about looking up an old colleague, name of DI Damen Brook … well, no, I wouldn’t really say he was a friend. Like I said, he used to be a colleague, only I wouldn’t like him to find out I’d been in the neighbourhood and not looked him up. So I was wondering what shift he was on over the weekend so I could drop in … oh really? Next Monday. What a shame. Do you know where? Well, yes, he always was a bit like that, now you mention it.’ Hudson listened to the monologue at the other end of the line. Finally he was able to get a word in. ‘Well, thanks very much for your help, Sergeant.’

‘There’s one enemy DI Brook’s made,’ said Hudson, putting the phone down. A sombre expression invaded his features. He turned to Grant and took his coffee from her, taking a noisy draught. ‘Bad news.’

‘He’s got an alibi?’

Hudson stubbed out his cigarette and ran his fingers through his grey hair. ‘Far from it. He’s on two weeks’ leave until next week. There’s some book coming out about The Reaper case so he decided to get away from the hoo-hah.’

‘Where is he?’

‘No one knows. Apparently he never sees fit to tell anyone. He could be out of the country for all they know.’

‘So he could’ve been stalking Harvey-Ellis, waiting for his chance.’ Grant couldn’t conceal her excitement. ‘He’s our guy, guv. I can smell it.’

Hudson nodded. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe? This was your idea, guv.’

‘I know, but I don’t like it, Laura.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve got a daughter. And if I’d found out someone … well, I wouldn’t wait a couple of years before I did something about it. If Brook was going to kill Harvey-Ellis, why didn’t he do it as soon as he found out about the affair?’

‘He assaulted him, in front of witnesses, he knew he couldn’t kill him. So he decided to wait.’

Hudson nodded. ‘Maybe. But the least he could do was have Harvey-Ellis arrested for raping his daughter. Why not take that option?’

‘Why? Because he wants to kill him, guv. And maybe he wants to avoid a trial, avoid putting Terri and his ex-wife through the ringer.’

‘Then it’s the same problem we had with Terri and the mum. This murder was cold and calculated. If it’s revenge for his daughter there’s got to be some passion somewhere, even after two years. I don’t see any.’

‘Maybe he’s a cold fish.’

‘He’s still one of us, Laura, the thin blue. Let’s not lose sight of that. And you’re talking about one of the smartest detectives in the country, by all accounts. He deserves any benefit we can give him.’

‘If he’s so good, why hasn’t he caught The Reaper, guv? He’s had several cracks at it.’

‘Just the same, we don’t want to be going off half-cocked. We’ve got nothing on him.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Get everything we’ve got on all The Reaper murders so we can get a handle on what Brook’s been up against – see how he thinks.’

‘And then?’

‘Pack a bag.’

Chapter Three

September 1995, Northern California

The vehicle swept into the gas station and drew to a halt next to a pump. Sensored floodlights banished the gathering gloom and cast the surrounding woods into surly shadow and a multitude of insects came to life at the sudden warmth of the lights. A powerfully built young man in oily dungarees, with unkempt straw for hair, half-ran, half-walked from the flat slab of a building towards the pump. He arrived and stood waiting for the driver, looking intently over the vehicle, wiping his mouth with a napkin extracted from his grimy shirt pocket.

The driver stepped out, pulling his map from under a sealed plastic wallet full of deep red rose petals on the passenger seat. He stared at it for a moment then tossed it back into the vehicle to cover the small box of bullets on the back seat.

‘Fill her up, sir?’ asked the attendant, his mouth still half-full of food. It had stained his chin with a film of grease. The man nodded and strolled towards the building, stretching and flexing his frame as he went. He’d been driving all day and could feel the tingling in his legs as blood reintroduced itself to his muscles.

He walked into the shabby prefab and let the fly screen clatter behind him. The man heard the nightly news report of the latest from the OJ Simpson murder trial being chewed over by the commentators. There was no escape from the story, even in this remote corner of Northern California.

His dark eyes flicked around the squalor, adjusting to the strip lighting that buzzed and flickered overhead. A water cooler burped its welcome somewhere in the back and insects glided towards his eyes and ears. The fetid atmosphere was almost tangible, unperturbed by the ancient fan struggling to push the treacly air around the room.

A man dressed in a soiled, sweat-stained, sleeveless vest, which must once have been as white as his arms, leaned forward across his desk. The reflected glow of a small TV danced around his three-day stubble.

‘Evening, sir. Welcome to Alpine County,’ beamed a middle-aged version of the young man filling his car. ‘Caleb Ashwell’s the name. That there’s my boy Billy.’ He turned off the TV and stood to greet his customer.

‘Evening,’ replied the man, declining to throw his own name into the mix. ‘Am I on the right road for Markleeville?’

‘Yes, sir. You’re on 89 – ten miles out of Markleeville. That where you’re headed, Mr … ?’

The man looked up at Ashwell and, after a pause, answered. ‘Brook. No, I’m headed for South Lake Tahoe.’

A slow yellow grin filled Ashwell’s features. ‘Not far to go, sir. Maybe thirty, forty miles,’ he said. ‘You English, Mr Brook?’

‘You could say that,’ answered Brook distractedly.

‘I knew it,’ exclaimed Ashwell, slapping the counter. ‘Just love that accent. Welcome to California, Mr Brook. God’s own country. After Texas, ’course.’ He held out his hand for Brook who kept his hands behind his back but, when Ashwell wouldn’t be denied, he placed his thin hand into the American’s rough paw and shook as firmly as he could.

If Ashwell noted Brook’s discomfort at the contact, it didn’t seem to have registered. ‘And we all sure loved your Mrs Thatcher over here. The Iron Lady. Mighty fine. Mighty fine. And your Princess Di? Well now, sir she’s a real beaut, yes indeed.’ Ashwell’s face cracked into the professional smile of the salesman. ‘Is that a Dodge Ram 250 you got out there, sir?’ he said, marching to the grimy window to look out. ‘Didn’t know you could rent that model any longer?’ He turned to Brook expectantly, waiting for his answer.

Brook gazed back, his own smile starting to function. ‘I didn’t, I bought it second hand in Los Angeles.’

‘A ′92?’ The smile was broad but the eyes were probing. Clearly there weren’t abundant opportunities for conversation on this lonely stretch of highway.

‘No, 1991 – it’s already clocked over a hundred thousand though,’ replied Brook.

Ashwell seemed satisfied with that. ‘In four years? Ain’t a lot for the 250, sir. She’s just getting started. Mighty fine vehicle – a real workhorse. You must be touring round a lot. You been to Yosemite yet?’

Brook nodded and fixed his interrogator with his dark eyes. ‘I drove through yesterday. It was magnificent.’

‘Ain’t it? One of the Lord’s finest day’s work right there.’ Brook shrugged. Ashwell pressed on. ‘And you’re gonna love Tahoe.’

Brook noticed a camera on the back wall, stared at the red light for a few seconds, then looked back at Ashwell with a half-smile.

Ashwell must have seen him looking because, unsolicited, he said, ‘Had a couple of robberies last year. Goddamn bikers.’ He looked around for somewhere to spit but then evidently thought better of it.

‘You can never be too careful,’ agreed Brook.

The young man came through the door, rubbingb his hands with a cloth. ‘Billy. This gentleman’s from England.’

‘They got a queen, Pop.’

‘That’s right, son. Whyn’t you pour Mr Brook here a cup of coffee to take with him?’ He turned to Brook. ‘On the house, you understand. Freshly brewed. You ain’t got far to go but you need to stay alert on these roads and a cup of hot Joe always does the job. It’s awful dark out there when the sun dips.’

Brook smiled. ‘Thank you for your kindness. What do I owe you?’

Billy returned with a lidded paper cup and handed it to Brook. ‘Ten bucks even.’

Brook pulled a credit card from his wallet, thought for a second, then slid it back in. He then pulled out a large wad of notes, methodically looking for the right denomination, before pulling out a ten-dollar bill. ‘Pity they didn’t make these easier to use,’ said Brook, apologetically. ‘They all look the same.’

‘Just like niggers,’ chortled Billy, until his father’s hand caught him hard round the head.

‘Don’t you talk your foolishness round real people,’ shouted Ashwell. ‘Get on up the house.’ Billy’s head sagged onto his chest and, close to tears, he slumped away. ‘Sorry about Billy, Mr Brook. He ain’t bright but he ain’t usually that stupid.’

‘No need to apologise – must be hard out in this wilderness for a boy his age. Your wife too,’ said Brook, suddenly keen to make conversation.

‘It sure is a lonely stretch of blacktop, sir, no word of a lie – but beautiful too. ’Specially in the winter when the snow’s on the hills. Got a cabin up on the bluff,’ said Ashwell, indicating behind him with a flick of his head. ‘Momma’s gone. There’s just Billy and me.’

Brook nodded. ‘I see.’ He stared back at Ashwell but seemed lost in thought. He smiled. ‘I don’t suppose you sell corkscrews; lost mine last night at the campsite.’

‘No problem, sir.’ Ashwell slapped a penknife on the counter, which had various attachments including the corkscrew Brook was looking for. ‘Five bucks.’

This time Brook counted out five ones. ‘Well. Thanks again for the coffee.’

‘Don’t mention it, Mr Brook. Now you drink it while it’s hot. And we’ll hope to see you again soon,’ he called to Brook’s receding frame. Ashwell stood motionless, watching the Dodge pull away as the deathly quiet slowly engulfed the station again.

A moment later the silence was shattered as the sound of another engine signalled a different vehicle encroaching on the California night.

‘I still don’t see how you can rule out the wife and daughter.’ Chief Superintendent Donald Maddy stroked his beard as was his custom when ruminating over matters of detection. It didn’t help his deductive powers at all – he didn’t have any – but, whenever matters outside his comfort zone were presented to him, he subconsciously reached for his facial hair to mask his unease. Grant had read the textbooks and knew that psychologists attributed this kind of mannerism to a desire for concealment based on inadequacy. She also knew that had she, Hudson and the Chief Super been discussing community policing or traffic management, Maddy would have opened himself up by putting his hands behind his head, inviting contradiction so he could show off his in-depth knowledge of the subject.

She looked over at Hudson who nodded. He always encouraged Grant to take the reins in the Chief Super’s office, because he was too easily exasperated when those he dubbed ‘pencil necks’ didn’t accept his superior expertise.

‘It’s the way he was murdered, sir,’ answered Grant. ‘He was killed by someone who knew what they were doing. The wife and daughter wouldn’t have had a clue.’

‘They might have hired someone to do it,’ observed Maddy.

Hudson’s features began to darken but, before he could speak, he heard Grant say, ‘Good point, sir. We’ll certainly keep that in mind.’

Maddy seemed pleased that his impressions were of some value and attempted to gild the lily. ‘What was that drug again?’

‘Scopolamine mixed with traces of morphine.’

‘Ah yes,’ he said as though in recognition.

‘It induces a condition known as Twilight Sleep,’ said Grant. ‘It’s why Harvey-Ellis was so compliant with his killer, sir. We’ve got no material evidence here in Brighton apart from those drugs. Whoever did this has come and gone without a trace.’

‘No witnesses, nothing on CCTV?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘What about this Sowerby?’

‘A weasel, sir, and we’re not ruling him out. However, we’re dubious he could plan something this slick. And motive is weak – Harvey-Ellis was a good customer. There’s always money but Sowerby swears blind he didn’t sell him out. For the moment we believe him.’

‘And he didn’t notice anyone who might have been setting this up?’ asked Maddy.

‘No one.’

‘Which leaves only the wife and daughter,’ nodded Maddy. ‘As I said.’

‘Not quite true, sir,’ said Grant. ‘But this is where it gets tricky. The ex-husband also has motive and, what’s more, he has professional criminal know-how.’

‘Opportunity?’

‘We’re not sure yet. He lives in Derby. But he does know Brighton. Two years ago he found out his daughter and stepfather were lovers and marched into Harvey-Ellis’s office where he assaulted him and threatened him with arrest.’

‘Sounds promising.’

‘Yes, sir. But he’s a serving DI in Derby CID. Damen Brook.’

Maddy made eye contact for the first time. ‘The Damen Brook? Of Reaper fame?’

‘The same.’

Maddy took a minute to process the information, then shrugged. ‘We must root out all bad apples, Detectives. That’s our job. Do what you have to do.’ He nodded at them both, clearly expecting this to be the end of the meeting. When they showed no sign of moving, he held out his hands. ‘Something else?’

‘We ran the combination of drugs through the database,’ said Hudson, deciding it was time to contribute. ‘The only recent incidence of those two drugs being used in a crime was during the last Reaper killings in Derby.’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Maddy, this time unashamed to have it spelt out for him.

Hudson paused for a second to be certain there would be no misunderstanding. ‘We’re working on the theory that Brook learns about the drugs while working the Reaper murders and then puts the same drugs to use when he kills Tony Harvey-Ellis.’

‘Sounds reasonable. What’s the problem?’

‘If we clear Brook, it means Brighton may have had its first Reaper killing.’

The man listened to the music over the quietly chugging engine. He checked his map one more time then turned off the headlights to enjoy the music in the dark. Fauré’s Requiem seemed appropriate to the grandeur of the landscape, not that he could see much of it now, tucked away as he was in a side road that had been cut into the terrain to allow the US Forest Service to do its work in the thick woodland.

He ejected the tape, turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. He left the door open and allowed the light to illuminate his work as well as the thousands of excited insects heading for its unexpected balm. He produced a flashlight from a small rucksack and tucked it into his black boiler suit. Other items had already been carefully packed but the man extracted one and examined it. The 9mm M9 semiautomatic pistol was not his tool of choice – brutish and unsubtle things, guns – but when spur of the moment work raised its head, he would have to put it to use. He’d bought it from a pawn shop in LA last year but had never intended to fire it. Now that it was to be pressed into service, the man had to be sure he knew how to use it. He checked the safety lever again as the pawn shop owner had shown him and made sure that a bullet from its 15-round magazine was in the chamber.

When he was ready, he placed the gun back in the rucksack and pulled the bag over his shoulder. He reached back into the car to pick up the drink from the cup holder and closed the door quickly to extinguish the light.

In the dark he gazed at the cloudless heavens. All unnatural illumination now extinguished, the man marvelled at the son et lumière around him – the stars blinking like traffic lights and the Milky Way cradling all these celestial bodies in its opaque arms.

When he could bear to close his eyes to the majesty above him, his ears were invaded by nature’s symphony. Insects, crickets and cicadas set the rhythm, accompanied by the birds who hunted them. The hoot of owls was familiar, watching for the scurry of rodents. Other calls, cries, warnings and death rattles he didn’t recognise but the performance filled him with awe nonetheless – the cacophony of the forest as it lived and died. And all the time the damp smell of the timber filled his lungs, with an aroma unsurpassed by the sweetest perfumes as the ageless woodland exhaled all around him.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there in the night, composing himself for the task ahead, but it was difficult to pull away.

Eventually he flicked on his flashlight and started his walk to the forest at the edge of the tarmac. He could have driven onto the dirt track that wound its way through the trees but he couldn’t chance being heard. And if the ground was soft he would have run the risk of leaving an impression of his tyres. As usual he’d thought of everything.

As he set off, a pair of eyes shone back at him, but the animal wasn’t curious enough to stare for long and skittered away through the undergrowth. The distinctive three-note whistle of the Mountain Chickadee sounded nearby as it prepared to dip and dive for flying insects, but the man was now oblivious to all but the work in hand.

He walked steadily with the flashlight in one hand, drink in the other. It wasn’t the city terrain he was accustomed to and he found it hard going at first until he hit his stride. Twenty minutes of steady progress along the track brought the man to a clearing at the top of a small rise from which he could see a building next to the highway, bathed in moonlight below. He doused his light. The track he stood on wound back into the forest and took a leisurely and sinuous course that would eventually bring it out behind the main road. Before that though, the man could see a light from a house set back from the road – this was his destination.

Having recovered his breath, he made for the light. A few yards further on, however, he stopped. Another track, overgrown and near undetectable, wound its way off into the trees and would have been of no interest had the man not spotted a dark patch a few yards further along it. He edged closer and bent over the stain, flicked his flashlight on and touched it with his fingers. It was oil. He peered down the track as best he could. As his eyes adjusted to the blackness, he fancied he could make out two lines on the ground that might have been flatter than the rest of the vegetation. He hesitated briefly, then crept along the track into the darkness.

A few moments later the track widened out into a flat and well-tended clearing, completely surrounded by high walls of rock and dense foliage. It was deathly quiet in this sheltered bowl and unnaturally hot. The man’s recently shaved head began to itch in the heat. He guessed that this might once have been a disused quarry or part of an opencast mine. But interesting though the geography might be, what drew the man’s immediate attention was the line of vehicles parked along the far rock wall. There were eight different vehicles in various stages of decay, from vaguely roadworthy down to rusted hulks, and, from what he could see, all were some kind of motor home. The newest he recognised – a bright yellow VW camper – and its tyre tracks were still visible across the well turned soil.

The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Something brushed his cheek and he opened his eyes at once. He shivered now, despite the heat. Maybe it had been a flying insect or a bird’s wing because no foliage hung nearby. Maybe. What he couldn’t explain was the sensation he’d felt, like the scrunch of long fingernails dragging across his day-old beard and, more, the distant scent of a woman’s perfume hanging on the still air.

He turned the light back on and moved closer to the line of vehicles, stopping at the VW camper. His flashlight followed a line of five faint scratches along the side of the bodywork, travelling from the door handle back towards the rear door. The man shone his light quickly at the spot on the ground where the marks ended, cupping his hand over the beam to limit its visibility. A long painted fingernail, twisted and torn from its digit, lay on the ground – and beside it were more scratchings in the ground. He stared intently at the earth, which was firmer here.

‘HELP,’ he read. After a few minutes, he turned and made his way back to the main track.

Chapter Four

‘A new book released today offers a chilling insight into the horrifying events of two years ago when the serial killer known as The Reaper struck in the Derby suburb of Drayfin. The family of Robert Wallis were subjected to a brutal attack in their home which left both parents and their eleven-year-old daughter, Kylie, dead. All the victims had been drugged and their throats cut. The only survivors were teenage son Jason, who was out of the house that night, and baby daughter Bianca, who was there but was spared.

‘Brian Burton, crime correspondent at the Derby Telegraph, covered the case extensively and hopes to throw new light on the events of that night. Rose Atkins went along to his book launch to speak to him for East Midlands Today!

‘In Search of The Reaper by Brian Burton chronicles the terrible events of the night almost two years ago when Derby became the latest city after London and Leeds to be visited by the notorious serial killer, The Reaper. After he left, three people, including an eleven-year-old girl, were dead and two other children orphaned. I asked the author why he felt compelled to write this book.’

‘I covered this case from the start, Rose, and I felt it was important to share with the people of Derbyshire, and hopefully beyond, some of the reasons why this terrifying killer struck in our city and also to highlight some of the mistakes that have allowed this butcher to remain at large.’

‘In your book, Brian, you’re very critical of Derbyshire CID. Can you tell us why?’

‘I don’t think there’s been nearly enough analysis of what went wrong during the Wallis investigation and I hope the book sheds new light onto what more could have been done.’

‘You’re talking about the roles played by Detective Inspector Damen Brook and Chief Superintendent Evelyn McMaster.’

‘It’s no secret that I’ve been critical, particularly about Inspector Brook, whose competence for the investigation I questioned at the time. I think Superintendent McMaster’s main failing was not realising that DI Brook’s capacity to catch The Reaper was seriously in question. Her subsequent failure to remove him from the investigation showed a profound lack of judgement. But at least Evelyn McMaster paid the penalty for her failings and has since left her post. One of the most galling aspects of this case, in my opinion, is that the chief architect of the police’s dismal inability to catch, or even identify a suspect, is still in the Force.’

‘Why do you say DI Brook was unfit to run The Reaper investigation?’

‘Well, you have to go back to the history of The Reaper, which I cover in the book. The first documented Reaper killing was in 1990 in North London. The family of Sammy Elphick were murdered in their home in Harlesden. The killings were highly ritualistic, with messages written in blood on the wall, something that is a distinctive characteristic of all the Reaper killings. Again both parents and a young child were slaughtered. And perhaps even more startling was that, once again, DI Brook was on the case.’

‘To be fair, he was only a Detective Sergeant at the time though, wasn’t he, Brian?’

‘That’s true. But as you’ll see in the book, my research shows his superior, DI Charlie Rowlands, left the day-to-day running of the investigation to Brook. And in Harlesden, just as in Derby, no witnesses were found and no suspects were identified. Not one, even though DS Brook was on the case for more than a year, by which time a second family had also been killed – Floyd Wrigley, a petty but violent offender and heroin addict, his common-law wife and his young daughter Tamara. This time the killings took place in Brixton in South London and all three had their throats slashed.’

‘Returning to your book, Brian, you also allege that a mental breakdown suffered by Brook shortly after the Brixton murders in 1991 was no more than a smokescreen for removing him from the case.’

‘That’s right. By then I think the penny must have dropped and Brook was axed from the inquiry. And what many in the Derbyshire constabulary have personally complained to me about is that an officer who was patently unfit for duty in London should then be transferred to Derby. To me, and others, that sends the message that Derbyshire’s a second-class county. And, of course, what better place for The Reaper to strike than a city policed by a man who has already failed to catch him twice? And that’s exactly what happened. The Drayfin killings in Derby remain unsolved and The Reaper remains at large.’

‘But DI Brook was removed from that investigation at an early stage.’

‘Too late, in my opinion, Rose. By the time a local detective, Inspector Robert Greatorix, had been assigned to the case, valuable time had been wasted and the trail had gone cold. To this day, nearly two years later, not a single suspect has been identified. Sound familiar?’

‘Thank you, Brian, for taking time out from your book launch to talk to us. In Search of The Reaper is available from today. This is Rose Atkins for East Midlands Today.’

‘Rose Atkins, with Brian Burton there. I should say that East Midlands Today contacted the Derbyshire constabulary prior to recording that interview and both Chief Superintendent Charlton and Detective Inspector Brook were unavailable for comment.

‘On a related matter, troubled teenager Jason Wallis was released from a young offenders’ institution yesterday. Jason had served three months of a six-month sentence for shoplifting at White Oaks near Lichfield. Seventeen-year-old Jason survived the murder of his family by The Reaper two years ago, because he was out drinking with friends, and has been in trouble from a young age. This film of Jason was taken at the time of the Wallis family’s appeal against Jason’s permanent exclusion from Drayfin Community School after he allegedly assaulted a female teacher. Just a few weeks later, Jason’s family were brutally slain by The Reaper in their home. Before Jason Wallis was released, we sent Calum French to speak to John Ottoman, husband of the teacher involved.’

‘I’m standing outside the home of John and Denise Ottoman. Twenty-two months ago, Denise Ottoman, an English teacher for nearly thirty years, was teaching a group of Year 10 GCSE students when she was allegedly assaulted by Jason Wallis, one of her pupils. The assault, while never proven, led to Jason’s suspension from Drayfin Community School, though he was later reinstated after the death of members of his family in Derby’s first Reaper murders.

‘Denise Ottoman meanwhile has not returned to work and was granted early retirement on health grounds almost a year ago, at the age of fifty-one. I asked her husband about his reaction to news that Jason Wallis would soon be free.’

‘Appalled but resigned would be my reaction.’

‘Why do you say that, Mr Ottoman?’

‘Without wishing to personalise this and relive the events surrounding the assault on my wife, I should say that Jason Wallis has been a blight on this neighbourhood almost since he was old enough to shout an obscenity. He has been a violent and disorderly individual for much of his life and has shown scant regard for the feelings and welfare of anyone but himself.’

‘Surely his early release is a sign that the young man has turned his life around?’

‘More likely a case of the society we live in bending over backwards to accommodate anti-social elements. It’s no surprise to my wife and I that the authorities have seen fit to release him, but what I find upsetting is that Jason Wallis can walk away from his sentence after three months while my wife Denise has not been able to set foot outside our house since the assault – she’s a prisoner in her own home.’

‘What do you say to those who believe that Jason’s offending has its roots in his family’s murder and that he’s suffered enough?’

‘Simply that Jason’s anti-social behaviour started many years before the death of his family. His father and mother weren’t the most functional parents and seemed to keep Jason on a very loose leash, which only encouraged him to greater heights of unpleasantness. The tragedy is, I taught Jason’s sister Kylie at Drayfin Primary and I was as upset as her classmates that such a lovely girl should have been taken from this world so suddenly and so violently.’

‘So you’re suggesting it might have been better if The Reaper had murdered Jason instead of his sister Kylie?’

John Ottoman glared at the reporter. ‘That’s your interpretation of what I said, not what I actually said. I need to get back to my wife.’

‘Just one more question, Mr Ottoman. If you could speak to Jason now, what would you say?’

Ottoman turned back and faced the camera. ‘I’d remind him that The Reaper is still at large and to change his ways while he still can.’

Caleb Ashwell glowered at his son who stared sulkily at the neck of his Coca-Cola bottle, avoiding his gaze.

‘Send a boy to do a man’s work,’ growled Ashwell. ‘No word of a lie. Maybe you ain’t no boy. Maybe you a girl. How about it, Billy? You a bitch, Billy? Got too much of your whore momma in you? That true, boy?’

Billy’s face darkened, his mouth opening, but he knew better than to reply and kept his counsel, continuing to stare anywhere but at his father.

A noise from the next room broke the tension and Caleb looked up at Billy who was finally able to look back.

‘Go fix that, boy!’

Billy jumped up and went to the next room and Caleb stood to stretch his legs. He flung open the front door and stepped onto the stoop to roll a cigarette.

Billy came back to stand behind his father and eyed the tobacco tin. ‘Can I have one of them, Pop?’

‘These is for men, not boys, nor no cissies neither.’

‘I ain’t no cissy, Pop. I’m sixteen. Seventeen next month.’

‘What you say?’

‘I ain’t no cissy. It ain’t my fault Mr Brook don’t stop. He just kept right on going, Pop. I followed all the way to Echo Lake and he don’t stop. Just kept on going.’

Ashwell eyed his son with one final sneer of disdain then relented. He tossed over the tobacco tin. ‘Well, maybe I didn’t put enough sleep in the coffee. Pity we didn’t get an address.’ He struck a match and held it to his cigarette. ‘Probably flat out on his porch sleeping like a baby…’ He stopped when the flame illuminated a pale paper cup outside on the deck table. ‘What the hell?’

Billy turned and they both approached the coffee cup as though it were a landmine. Billy picked it up gingerly.

‘It’s full.’

Caleb’s realisation came a second too late – the baton was already travelling towards his head. As he turned to run into the cabin for a weapon, the tip crashed down on the front of his head, and he slumped onto the deck like an unsupported scarecrow.

Billy stooped to check his father, then looked up at his attacker as he stepped out of the shadows. ‘Mr Brook?’

‘Pick him up and get him inside.’ Brook held the baton in his right hand and a gun in the left. He gestured with it.

The boy dragged his father up into the sparsely furnished cabin as best he could manage and Brook followed. There wasn’t much to see inside – a blackened stove in the corner, a small dog-eared sofa and an old rocking chair with wooden spokes for a backrest. They faced the cold stove and an old TV, mounted atop a wooden crate. There was a rickety dining table and four matching chairs in another corner.

‘Over there,’ nodded Brook. Billy walked the staggering Caleb over to the old rocking chair and sat him down in it. Brook pulled a pair of cuffs from his belt and threw them at Billy. ‘Pull his hands through the back then put those on his wrists.’

Billy hesitated for a moment, then stepped behind his father and pulled his arms together before clicking the cuffs into place. Brook ordered Billy to sit on the floor before slapping Ashwell’s face to revive him.

Ashwell moaned and opened his eyes. He tried to rub his head with his cuffed hands, not yet registering the restraints.

‘What the fuck?’ He pulled urgently at the cuffs and tried to stand, but Brook raised the gun once more.

‘Better relax, Mr Ashwell. It’ll go easier that way.’

Ashwell looked up at Brook and shook his head to clear his vision. ‘Mr Brook. What the hell you think you’re doing?’

‘Apologies for the crude attack, Mr Ashwell. It’s not my usual style.’ Brook swung his rucksack down to his feet and started to rummage around in it. After a few seconds, he extracted the penknife he’d bought a few hours earlier at the gas station below. From his rucksack he also removed a half-bottle of red wine and, using his recent purchase, opened the bottle. ‘Needs to breathe,’ he said to Caleb with a grin.

‘You ain’t answered my question, you sick son of a bitch. What the fuck you think you’re doing? This is kidnapping. You can get twenty years for that in California.’

Brook smiled at him. ‘You’ve researched it, have you?’ Ashwell didn’t answer. Brook pulled out a CD of Fauré’s Requiem and looked over at Ashwell with a look of regret on his face. ‘I don’t suppose you have a CD player?’

‘A CD player? That what this is about, you bastard? No, we ain’t got no CD player.’

‘Pity. Then again, you’re a few notches up from my usual clients. The things you’ve done … maybe you don’t deserve beauty.’

‘Beauty. What the fuck?’

‘I could always hum it for you.’

‘Hum it to me? Fuck you, there’s a TV there. Help your goddamn self. You want the key for the gas station? There’s maybe two hundred dollars in the till. That’s yours but that’s all we have. Sooner you get what you want, sooner we can all get on with our lives. But do me a favour, leave the keys to these goddamn bracelets in the station so I can get my hands moving again, will ya?’

Brook eyed the overweight Ashwell. He’d certainly belied first impressions. The man was smart. His tone had changed now, was almost friendly as he tried to normalise the situation, tried to present Brook with a vision of how things should end. A finale with all three lives intact. Brook decided it was time to up the stakes.

‘I’m not here for your money, Mr Ashwell. I’m here to extract payment of a different kind. I’m The Reaper and my currency is life.’

* * *

DCI Hudson hurried back to the car with the two coffees as a heavy shower began to pelt him. Grant leaned over and opened the door for him and he sat down awkwardly with the cellophane-wrapped sandwiches under his armpit.

Grant took her chicken salad from him and peeled the lid from her Americano.

Hudson took a swig of his tea. ‘Bloody weather. You get north of Watford and you’re straight into the next ice age. You’re not going to need those,’ he said, nodding at her sunglasses.

Grant removed them with a smile. ‘My eyes get tired at the moment.’

‘I hope you haven’t come back to work too soon, luv. You know what these viruses are like.’

‘I’m fine, guv. But I’d feel better if we weren’t going up to Derby,’ said Grant, giving her protest another airing.

‘I thought you liked the idea.’

‘Until I realised that Brook should be coming down to our turf. That’s how we pressure him.’

‘With what? Look, darlin’, he isn’t back at work until tomorrow morning. I know you think this is a courtesy too far but, trust me, it’s best we make the effort.’

‘You think we’ll catch him off balance?’

‘It’s worth a try. If he thinks he’s got away clean he won’t be expecting questions, never mind a visit – it gives him less time to think.’

‘I don’t know. On his home ground he might be more at ease. And we’ll be outsiders.’

‘Home ground,’ smiled Hudson. ‘No such thing. Damen Brook is the outsider wherever he is.’ Hudson took another mouthful of tea and swilled it round his mouth.

‘You sound like you know him.’

Hudson cocked his head. ‘I do sort of, though mainly by reputation – I only met him twice.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Brook doesn’t make friends easily, or go out of his way to earn the respect of colleagues. He was a DS to one of my mates when I was up in the Smoke. You remember I told you about DI Charlie Rowlands? A legend and a fantastic copper. When he died, Brook was at the funeral. He gave a reading. We shook hands. No more.’

‘So he won’t remember you, guv?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘What did Rowlands think of Brook?’

‘Charlie was in charge of the first Reaper inquiry in North London in 1990. Harlesden, it was.’

‘Sammy Elphick, Mrs Elphick and their son.’

Hudson smiled at her. ‘I see how you spent your evening. No wonder you’re tired.’

Grant shrugged. ‘We need to be ready.’

Hudson nodded. ‘Well, Sammy was small time, a petty criminal like the other victims. They found him and his wife tied up with their throats cut. But before they died they watched their son die – he was only ten but The Reaper strung the boy up from the ceiling and cut two of his fingers off and the parents cried while they watched. Then there’s the blood message on the wall.’

‘SALVATION!’ nodded Grant. ‘Religious nutter?’

‘Seems like.’

‘So what went wrong with Brook?’

‘Brook was Charlie’s DS but Charlie told me Brook ran the entire thing. He said he was the most brilliant detective he’d ever worked with and he’d worked with a few. But the problem Brook had was getting on with ordinary coppers, coppers who weren’t as good as him. He came across as arrogant and condescending, and they despised him for it. Still do. And when The Reaper came along … well. It was his first failure.’

‘What happened?’

‘You’ve read the files.’

‘He had a breakdown after Brixton in ′91. It doesn’t say why.’

‘From what I can gather, Brook started to take it home with him, started brooding about the stuff he’d seen. His marriage started to suffer.’

‘Not unusual.’

‘No. But there was another case…’

‘Not The Reaper?’

‘I can’t remember it very well, luv. It was after the Elphick killings had died down. There was another murder, not related. Some runaway schoolgirl called Laura something – Laura Maples. That was it. She’d been raped and murdered in some grubby squat. Brook found the body but not before the rats had been at her.’

‘And that tipped him over the edge?’

‘Who knows? By the time the second family were killed in Brixton…’ Hudson looked across at Grant.

‘Floyd Wrigley, common-law wife and daughter,’ she answered hesitantly. ‘Throats cut. “SAVED” written on the wall.’

Hudson nodded. ‘By then Brook was starting to veer off the rails according to Charlie. Soon after he had some kind of breakdown and a couple of years later he put in for a transfer to wind things down and get some peace. In 1993 The Reaper killed in Leeds but Brook got nowhere near that. Roddy Telfer, a smalltime drug dealer, had his head blown off and his girlfriend was strangled.’

‘Different.’

‘Very. There’s still a thought that it may have been a copycat because of the MO.’

‘Sounds completely wrong for The Reaper.’

‘It was, but the perp wrote “SAVED” on the wall after the killings. So…’

‘And then nothing for over fifteen years until two years ago in Derby.’

‘No. And nobody knows why. But it was all there in Derby. The parents, Mr and Mrs Wallis, and their young daughter had been drugged. The Reaper had delivered some food. It was doctored with scopolamine and morphine…’

‘Twilight Sleep.’

‘Right. He delivered the food and came back when they were out cold and cut their throats. The parents had cried so it looks like he made them watch the girl bleed out. It’s a signature. “SAVED” was on the wall again and some art poster. And there was some classical music playing while they died. Another signature.’

‘What’s that all about?’

Hudson shook his head. ‘No idea. Something to let us know The Reaper’s a cut above your average killer, I guess.’

Grant nodded. ‘Well, he’s been in the wind for twenty years so I suppose he is. Just Brook’s luck to be in Derby for The Reaper’s comeback. Or is it?’

Hudson drained his tea and managed a half-note chuckle. ‘You think The Reaper struck there to send Brook a message? Could be. But here’s the measure of the man. The Reaper kills the Wallis family. Brook’s back on the case. A week or two later he gets himself suspended – why, we don’t know – but his career’s over for all money. Then a few weeks later he solves the Laura Maples case, after nearly twenty years. He confronts some rich old geezer on his deathbed – Svensson or Sigurdsson or something – gets him to confess to the rape and murder of the schoolgirl. On videotape, mind you. Then the guy poisons Brook and cuts his own wrists. But Brook survived and that catch saved his career.’

‘SAVED.’ Grant looked down at the dregs of her drink and nodded. ‘Convenient.’ She looked up at Hudson, her eyes suddenly shining.

‘What’s wrong, luv?’

Grant ignored him and reached into the back seat for a file. ‘I know why he got suspended, guv.’ She handed a sheet of A4 to Hudson and indicated a date at the bottom of the page.

‘Fuck me. Good spot, Laura. Brook assaulted Harvey-Ellis six days after the Wallis murders. He went AWOL in the middle of one of the biggest investigations of his career because he found out about his daughter and her stepfather.’

‘And he came down to Brighton to sort it out.’

The man sipped on his glass of Californian Zinfandel and extracted a notepad from his rucksack. Caleb Ashwell had slipped back into unconsciousness, his head slumped on his chest, his double chin fanning out like a goitre.

Billy Ashwell shifted on his knees and eyed Brook. ‘What you gonna do, Mr Brook? Pop ain’t so good. He needs a doctor.’

Brook picked up the cup of coffee and put it on the floor next to Billy.

‘Drink it.’

Billy shook his head. ‘Ain’t supposed to drink coffee. It keeps me awake nights.’

Brook smiled. ‘That won’t be an issue, Billy. Drink it!’ he said softly, brandishing the gun and hoping the boy wouldn’t spot his lack of ease with the weapon. Again Billy shook his head. ‘Why? What’s in it?’

‘Don’t know. Pop makes it.’

Brook nodded. ‘Will it kill you?’

‘Nope. Knock you out though.’

‘Then drink it or I’ll shoot your father, then I’ll shoot you.’

Billy hesitated then withdrew a hand from his pocket and flicked the lid from the cup. ‘It’s cold,’ he said, before realising it would make no difference to Brook. He took a wary sip and scrunched his face.

‘More,’ said Brook. Billy stared back sulkily then took a huge pull on the cup, almost draining it.

‘Okay,’ said Brook. ‘That’s enough. Put the lid back on.’ Billy did as he was told. A few moments later his head began to roll and he couldn’t sit upright. Brook was able to take the cup from the burly young teenager without a whiff of resistance.

He retreated to a chair to watch and was pleased to be able to put down his gun. He began to write down all of Billy’s symptoms. At the top of the page he wrote ‘Sleep’, because that’s what Caleb had called it, followed by ‘Twilight’ and a question mark. After a few moments of writing he closed the notepad. Billy’s eyes were now just slits, he behaved with all the somnolence of a junkie.

‘Stand up.’ Billy lifted his head and tried to stand but his limbs wouldn’t obey. Brook smiled. ‘Perfect.’

A groan came from Caleb Ashwell, still slumped on the rocking chair. He shook his head and tried to right himself on the chair, but failed. Brook poured him some wine into a plastic cup. Ashwell drank, licked his lips, then opened his eyes.

‘Sorry I don’t have a proper glass.’

Ashwell blinked then fixed Brook in his sights. ‘You lousy bushwhacking son of a bitch. Get these cuffs off me, you fucker, or I’ll kill you.’

Brook smiled back but remained perfectly still. ‘I see you’re not a wine drinker, sir. Can I get you a beer instead?’

‘A beer? Fuck you. I said, get these cuffs off, dammit, ’fore I take a baseball bat to your ass.’

‘Do you think abusing and threatening me is the right way to secure your release?’

‘I don’t give a cold shit in hell what you think, you Limey fucker.’ He tried again to right himself. He noticed Billy on the floor beside him. ‘What you done to my boy?’ Then he saw the cup. ‘You son of a bitch. You fed that coffee to my boy?’

‘Sleep you called it. Would that be from Twilight Sleep?’ Ashwell didn’t reply. ‘Twilight Sleep, caused by a mixture of scopolamine and morphine. In small doses it can create a zombie-like compliance – in larger doses, death. I’m impressed. Where would you get that sort of knowledge? And, more importantly, where do you get your scopolamine?’ Still Ashwell remained mute. ‘Maybe you know it better as hyoscine.’ Brook took a sip of wine. ‘Let me assure you, sir, that unhesitating and well-mannered cooperation is the only way you and your son have a chance at seeing the dawn.’

Ashwell continued his sulk, but the barriers in his mind had crumbled. ‘Used to be a fly boy down South America. Had my own charter service. When I went to Colombia I found out about scop. They use it a lot down there for robbing folk. Rape too. It comes from Borrachero trees. Brung some saplings back with me to grow.’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, around,’ Ashwell said with a grin. ‘You want some, I’m sure we can come to an understanding.’

Brook took another sip of wine. ‘So when you got back from South America you set yourself up in a lonely gas station miles from anywhere and started using it on people.’

‘Not people, Mr Brook. Tourists like you.’

Brook smiled at the distinction. ‘They get a spiked coffee and young Billy follows them in the tow truck until the drug takes effect.’

‘S’right. When the drug kicks in, they pull over for a sleep. Then he robs them. And that’s the operation, right there.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Sure. When they wake up they don’t know what’s happened to them – scop causes amnesia, see. They just go on their way. No harm, no foul. Eventually they work out they been robbed. But what the hell? They’re insured, ain’t they?’

Brook smiled. ‘Surely when they wake up and realise they’ve been robbed, there must be some evidence they’ve been here.’

‘What evidence? We don’t got no till receipt. We say it’s broke and if they want one, we just write a chit. And we only take the ones who pay cash.’ Brook smiled suddenly, his black eyes disappearing under a concertina of skin. ‘You knew, didn’t you? That’s why you put your credit card back.’

‘One of the reasons.’

‘How in the hell you know what we was going to do? ’Bout the coffee an’ all?’

‘Let’s just say I had a feeling.’

‘Bullshit. Are you police?’

Brook fixed Ashwell with a wintry eye. ‘You’re going to wish I was.’

‘Why? What you going to do? Nuth’n. You’ve had your fun. Now take our money and get on out.’

‘You’d make a great salesman, Mr Ashwell.’

Brook pulled off his black gloves. He had a pair of latex gloves underneath. Then he stood, zipping his boiler suit up to his neck. ‘I’m sorry I’ve got no great art to remind you,’ he said. A cutthroat razor gleamed suddenly in his hand.

Ashwell saw it and began to talk a little faster, grinding his wrists against the handcuffs. ‘Remind me of what?’

‘Of how wonderful the human race can be if it aspires to greatness instead of evil. Ideally, you should die beneath a beautiful painting, with wondrous music as your companion to oblivion. Alas…’

‘You’re gonna kill us over a few dollars? You’re gonna kill my boy?’

‘You killed Billy years ago. I’m just here to make it official.’

‘I ain’t killed no one.’

‘Really? Tell me, did you kill your wife before you murdered the humanity in Billy or after?’

‘My wife?’ screamed Ashwell.

‘No matter. The chronology is hardly an issue now.’

‘You son of a bitch…’

‘So what happens to the children in your operation?’

asked Brook, to forestall another rant. ‘I hope it’s quick and painless.’

‘Children?’

‘You know, the children who don’t drink coffee – the children on holiday with their parents who could identify Billy. And the other people in the vehicle who can remember what happened to them – the people who can remember being robbed, the people who can remember the car crashing, the people who can remember Billy turning up to help, the people who can remember being towed back here, who know where you’ve parked their car, with all the other cars in the clearing out back.’

Ashwell smiled his green and yellow smile and thought for a second. Then he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Oh, those people.’ He seemed to drift off for a moment, remembering secret pleasures. ‘Well, that’s why I choose tourists like you, Mr Brook, on holiday, hundreds of miles from home. It could be months before some of those people are missed. And even when they are reported missing…’

‘Of course. They’re travelling. They could be anywhere,’ nodded Brook, his mouth beginning to harden.

‘Exactly. And if the crash ain’t killed ’em, we bring ’em back here and have some fun. We party with the wives in front of their menfolk. They don’t like that.’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘Then we kill the men in front of their families. They sure do make a hollering. We kill the little ’uns straight off usually but if the kids are old enough, we keep ’em a while and show ’em a good time. I get to bust the girls then give ’em to Billy when I get bored. If we get a real squirrelly little bitch, I invite my brother Jake over for a blind date.’ Ashwell sniggered. ‘They’re old enough to bleed, they’re old enough to butcher. That’s what Jake says.’

Brook walked over to Ashwell’s chair. ‘I hope Jake’s already dead because I’ve got a lot on at the moment.’

‘Ain’t no call to take on so, Mr Brook. We kept the sweet stuff for you. Got plenty of money left. Lot more than two hundred dollars. You can have it all. And don’t forget we got you on camera, Mister Brook.’

Brook circled slowly round behind him.

‘I bought some gas and left,’ said Brook. ‘No harm, no foul.’ He moved directly behind Ashwell so that the cuffed man had to strain to keep him in view.

‘We got your licence plate too.’

‘Same answer,’ whispered Brook in Ashwell’s ear.

Ashwell’s head was yanked back so his Adam’s apple strained at the skin of his throat. Brook placed the blade of the razor onto the submerged blue of the carotid artery.

‘We got a mic in that camera, Mr Brook,’ squeaked Ashwell. ‘They’ll know your name.’

‘Oh, I doubt that.’ However, Brook appeared to hesitate as he processed this new information. Ashwell waited, hope seizing him. ‘See, that’s the other reason I didn’t give you my credit card. My name’s not Brook,’ said the man. He began to hum the Requiem … then sliced cleanly into Ashwell’s flabby neck.

Chapter Five

Damen Brook opened his eyes but remained motionless in his sleeping bag. The trees near the tent were creaking under the wind’s assault and an owl hooted off in the distance, but the noise that had woken him had not been one of nature’s sound effects. He looked at his watch – two in the morning. Maybe a car at the bottom of the field had woken him – but at this hour and in the depths of the Peak District? It seemed unlikely. He felt around for his water bottle and took a short drink.

He closed his eyes but reopened them at once. Someone or something was definitely moving around outside his tent. He lifted his head from the makeshift pillow and followed the source of the noise. Beyond the mound of his feet, framed by the moonlight, Brook could see a shadow on the other side of the canvas. The paper-and-comb noise of a zip unfastening sent Brook scrabbling for his torch. Flicking it on he trained it on the tent’s flap, but this didn’t halt the unfastening – it merely hastened it.

Fully alert now, Brook sat up and cast around for a weapon. He reached for his walking boots but the mention of his name turned his muscles to solid ice.

‘Who is it?’

‘Damen. Damen. It’s me.’ Brook didn’t recognise the little-girl voice. ‘Laura.’

Brook’s heart, already working hard, went into overdrive. Sweat dotted his forehead. ‘Laura?’

The flap opened and a pretty young girl popped her head through the gap.

She smiled at him and proceeded to crawl into the tent on all fours. ‘Laura Maples. You must remember,’ she grinned. Her skin was pale and she wore nothing but the briefest silk night slip, which did little to conceal her small breasts as she climbed onto his sleeping bag. ‘I’ve come to thank you for Floyd,’ she smiled and proceeded to unfasten his sleeping bag.

‘What?’

‘You must remember Floyd,’ she said. Her smile vanished and she massaged her neck briefly, then showed her fingers to Brook. They were covered in blood. ‘I do.’ She moved towards him, recovering her smile, and climbed on top of him.

Brook shone the torch onto her unblemished peach-fuzz face. He felt a hand pulling at his sleeping bag. ‘Stop.’ He grabbed her hand – it was icy cold.

‘Please, Damen. Just once for love.’ She pushed his arms down and kissed him with her frosty lips. Brook could feel her soft flesh trembling in her too thin slip and tried to pull away, but she pressed closer to him for warmth, her tongue beginning to search for his.

A stench so foul Brook thought he might retch made him push the girl away and he swung the torch back to her face. The blackened skull and orbs of her eye sockets glared back at him and he shrank back to the wall of his tent, almost collapsing the frame. The broken beer bottle protruding from her neck glistened in the artificial light, grimy panties still dangling from its neck – testimony to her killer’s final incriminating act.

‘You’re not real,’ shouted Brook. He darted the torch this way and that, searching for her corpse. She had gone. Brook heaved a sigh. A second later he felt the movement at his feet and knew at once what it was. He scrambled to pull the sleeping bag off his legs but the seething, roiling mass of rats struggling for air at the bottom of his fetid bed gouged and scraped their way to freedom over his quivering torso.

Brook sat bolt upright and took several huge gasps of air. When his heart returned to near normal, he poked a bleary head out into the sharp, cold air of the morning. Although only wearing underpants and T-shirt, he spilled out onto the sopping grass and raised his six-foot frame to its full height, welcoming the fingers of dawn massaging their faint warmth into his face.

He closed his eyes and rubbed the fatigue from them. It had been years since he’d dreamed of Laura Maples, dreams he thought he’d left behind forever. Her killer, Floyd Wrigley, was in the ground – Brook had seen to that – and his nightmares had been buried with him. Or so he had thought. Two nights in a row. He heaved a final huge sigh. Something was wrong.

He looked at his watch and scrabbled back inside the tent, emerging with a box of matches inside a plastic bag. The first two matches he removed failed to ignite, but the third obliged, and Brook slid it under the kettle of his one-ring camping stove and made some tea.

Brook returned to the tent, dressed quickly, then packed his sleeping bag, camera and other meagre possessions into the side of his rucksack.

He then set to work taking down his quick-erect tent. He worked rhythmically, occasionally looking around as he folded, but there was no landowner or farmer to complain this early in the morning.

Brook packed his stove, kettle and mug and struck out down the path that would eventually spit him out into the small hamlet of Milldale, on the River Dove in Derbyshire’s Peak District. Forty minutes later he was standing on Milldale’s ancient footbridge, admiring a nearby heron and feeling the warmth of the low sun spread its balm.

He clambered up the steps to the municipal toilets. After an icy wash, Brook gazed at his bleary face in the cracked mirror. He then set off up the path next to the river that would eventually take him to his home in the village of Hartington. He walked steadily, ignoring the hunger gnawing at his tight belly and feeling quiet pleasure at the newfound strength in his legs and shoulders. Two weeks of wild camping, walking fifteen miles a day and eschewing alcohol and cigarettes had left Brook feeling as fit as he had in years. But the dream of Laura Maples gnawed at him. What did it mean?

Brook power-walked the last mile into Hartington and up the small hill to his front door, stopping only briefly to get a pint of milk and a loaf of bread at the corner shop. As he was extracting his keys from a side pocket, his eye wandered to the small, lavender-scented front garden of Rose Cottage next door. He noticed that the ‘To Let’ sign, which had been there for many a month, had now been taken down and laid flat along the side wall of the cottage. At the same time, he noticed that several upstairs windows had been opened to air the place out.

He unlocked his front door and stepped into the porch, kicking the large pile of unopened mail to one side. As soon as he entered the inner door he heard the urgent ping of the answer phone alerting him to messages. Two weeks away, two messages. He pressed the play button.

‘Hello, sir. Hope you’ve had a good holiday wherever you’ve been.’ It was DS John Noble. ‘I thought I’d give you the rundown on The Reaper book. It came out on Tuesday and got a fair amount of attention. Brian Burton was interviewed on East Midlands Today apparently – I didn’t see it. Surprise, surprise, he has a go at you in it, about the way the investigation went, you know the routine, and the BBC rang up to find out if you or the Chief Super wanted to be on with him. The Chief’s said no. As he doesn’t know you all that well, he’s fretting that you might get sucked into saying the wrong thing. Don’t worry, I told him you don’t talk to anyone if you can help it, least of all journalists …’

Brook smiled at this and muttered, ‘No comment!’

‘Anyway…’ The message cut off at this point but was picked up again in the next one. ‘It’s me again. Just to say I’ve taped the interview for you if you can face it. I’ve also left a text on your new mobile just in case you actually manage to take it with you, remember how to turn it on and have learned how to access your messages. Unlikely, I know. See you tomorrow. Oh, BTW,’ Brook rolled his eyes, ‘Jason Wallis was released a couple of days ago. Thought you might want to know.’

Brook’s expression hardened. ‘So you’re out at last, you murdering little coward.’ He made some tea and took a sip while glancing through the side window at the memorial to his slaughtered cat. He reflected on the night two years ago when he’d risked everything and played The Reaper, holding Jason hostage, confronting him with his crimes and threatening to cut his throat unless he turned himself in for the murder of Annie Sewell, an old woman in a sheltered home.

He looked back to the cat-shaped stone. He’d underestimated Wallis. A week later Jason and his crew had come after Brook, wrecking his down-at-heel flat and killing his cat.

Brook smiled suddenly. ‘The Reaper’s dead, Jason. Did I forget to tell you? For all you know he could be waiting round the next corner or passing you in the street. It could be anyone. It could be me. Sweet dreams.’

Brook finished his tea and deleted the messages. He took out his brand new mobile phone and turned it on, confirming there was a text from Noble, but didn’t bother to read it. He wasn’t comfortable texting but had no desire to endure the how-was-your-holiday conventions of a phone conversation so he painstakingly tapped out: ‘Jason Wallis. Did anyone inform the Ottomans?’, making sure he took the time to add the capital letters and question mark.

A few minutes later Noble replied – ‘who’ – without punctuation or a capital letter.

Brook was disheartened on two fronts. ‘A pity we don’t remember the victims as we remember the criminals,’ he muttered and switched off the phone.

Then he booted up his computer and went to take a shower.

* * *

Special Agent Mike Drexler drained his espresso then turned his attention to the orange juice. He took a long slow sip and grinned at his companion.

‘Yummy. I never imagined things could taste like this and I could feel this good on top.’

Special Agent Edie McQuarry flashed him a sarcastic smile and exhaled tobacco smoke over him. ‘A month away from the weed and you turn into some kind of goddamn evangelist. It’s sickening.’

‘I got news for you, Ed. I haven’t had alcohol for three weeks either.’

‘Well, give the man a prize. While the rest of humanity is out getting drunk and laid, you’ll be able to stay home nights and brush up on your macramé.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ve no idea but my sister says she does it on her coffee mornings.’

‘Sounds kinky.’

‘Well, if you ever get a hankering to wear a poncho I’ll hook you up.’ McQuarry eyed her partner before taking another long pull on her cigarette and twisted her mouth to exhale the smoke away from the other tables. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned sisters.’

Drexler looked up. ‘Ed, it’s been ten years now. I’m over it.’

‘Glad to hear it. So how’d it go last week?’

‘How’d what go?’

McQuarry raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s October, Mike. And I’m your partner.’

Drexler smiled bleakly into the distance. ‘How do these things usually go? You place the flowers, wipe the dirt off the headstone, say a few words. “Hey, sis, let me tell you about my year.”’ He smiled at his partner. ‘Gotta keep busy standing over the dead.’

‘You visit your mother?’

Drexler’s smile was a mask behind which words were carefully selected. ‘What’s the point? She doesn’t know who I am. I barely know myself. Since Kerry died…’ He shrugged. What else was there to say?

Opposite McQuarry, a large woman sitting next to her even larger husband and two grossly overweight boys, caught her eye to purse her lips in disapproval, before opening them to fork in a mouthful of syrupy pancakes.

Drexler followed McQuarry’s gaze to their table. ‘If anyone complains I’m going to have to arrest you.’

‘We’re outside, goddamn it, Mike. What more do they want?’

‘It’s a public place. There are laws.’ Drexler tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t maintain it.

‘My first smoke of the day ruined.’ McQuarry stubbed out her cigarette, then briefly examined her left hand.

‘How is it?’ asked Drexler.

She grinned at him, then flexed her hand more vigorously, trying not to wince at the discomfort from the scar tissue. ‘Good as new, Mike.’

Drexler nodded. A tension rose within him and McQuarry knew what was coming. ‘Listen, Ed…’

‘If you’re gonna start that crap again, Mike, we’re gonna have a problem. You’re my partner. You saved my life. I got cut ’cos I got careless, and if it hadn’t been for you I could’ve been filleted by that piece of shit. End of story.’

Drexler managed a smile. ‘Okay. You won’t hear me mention it again. But I never got to say thanks, you know, for still wanting to saddle up with me and backing me in front of the Board. I owe you.’

‘You don’t owe me shit, Mike, it was a good shoot. Just how many more times aren’t you ever gonna mention it?’

Drexler returned her grin. ‘Coupla hundred.’

McQuarry drained her coffee and they both stood in unison. Drexler counted out a few dollars and dropped them on the table. She eyed the morbidly obese family as they passed their table. ‘You know, I don’t complain about lardasses encouraging me to weigh my heart down with fat,’ she said, a little more loudly than was necessary, as she stalked away from the restaurant.

They walked down Placerville Main Street through the morning sunshine, back to their dark blue Chevy. They’d been partners in the FBI for nearly three years and were comfortable in each other’s company. Drexler was thirty-three, slender and tall with curly brown hair, a handsome face and a lopsided smile.

McQuarry was thirty-eight and two years away from being a fifteen-year veteran. She looked younger, or so Drexler always told her, and despite his occasional teasing she saw no reason to disbelieve him. Her hair was also brown, but darker and shinier, and she tied it in a ponytail when on duty. She was a foot shorter than Drexler and full-figured, though she tended to think she was overweight and had been ‘careful’ with her diet for most of her adult life.

‘Nice place, this,’ said Drexler.

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No. I can see myself living in a place like this in a few years. It’s safe, got great fishing…’

‘Safe,’ sneered McQuarry. ‘Sacramento’s not safe enough for you? It’s the most boring city in the world.’

‘You’ll never get over ’Frisco, will you, Ed?’

‘No, I never will – the most beautiful place in the world. And they got a ballpark. And another thing – the most dangerous activity in San Fran is being a tourist who says ’Frisco. It’s San Fran or SF – never ’Frisco. Got that?’

‘Go easy on me, officer, I’m just a country boy who don’t know no better.’

McQuarry threw the keys at him. ‘Amen to that. Now let’s move it, Mike. We got another hour on the road.’

Grant grabbed her small suitcase from the boot before Hudson could attempt to carry it for her. They walked from the residents’ car park to the reception area of the Midland Hotel and checked in. They found their adjacent rooms and Hudson paused at his door.

‘What do you fancy for dinner? French? Italian? Spanish?’

Grant tried not to laugh. Her superior had many qualities, but subtlety wasn’t one of them. She’d ridden this merry-go-round so many times since they’d first started working together and it always stopped at the same place. Hudson wanted a curry. He always wanted a curry, but he insisted on going through the motions of asking his sergeant for her preference before deciding.

Grant was tired and decided to shortcut the process. ‘You know what, guv? I quite fancy a curry.’

Hudson’s eyebrows rose, as if entertaining the proposal for the first time. ‘Curry? Good call. I think I can manage that.’

Grant tossed her case into her room and locked her door.

‘Going out?’

‘We’ve been in the car a long time, guv. I think I’ll stretch my legs.’

‘Scope out a curry house while you’re at it.’

Grant left the hotel and walked into Derby railway station next door. She looked around to get her bearings, saw the newsagents tucked in a corner and went to buy a local paper. She also bought a cheap baseball cap with ‘Derby Pride’ as its slogan. She fixed it on her head, briefly amused at her new cap. She’d never had clothing that endorsed one of the seven deadly sins before.

She set off along a nondescript road, on one side of which sat a row of brick terraced houses, identical even down to the colour of the paintwork on doors and windows. On the other ran a metal fence separating the pavement from the station car park.

Enjoying the cooler air, she walked on past a dilapidated railway building, which sported a ‘For Sale’ sign, no doubt trying to tempt developers to see the potential for apartments. She reached a set of traffic lights and stopped to look around. There wasn’t much to see. Across the road was a smart redbrick building developed pre-credit crunch. It had a shiny new entry phone system and several buttons next to the main door. Beyond that there was a flyover which ferried traffic in and out of Derby. As Grant stood in the gathering gloom, she was oblivious to the telescopic lens pointed at her, too distant to hear the frantic whirring of the camera recording her image.

Drexler pulled the Chevy across the highway onto the dusty forecourt of the gas station. There wasn’t a lot of room to park with all the flashing Highway Patrol cars, an ambulance and the other support vehicles squeezed into the available space. There were always more people than you’d expect to see at a crime scene. It didn’t help that the space between the gas pumps had been taped off by the CSIs to prevent the corruption of potential tyre, finger and footprints.

Drexler brought the car to a halt tight up against a patrol car and he and McQuarry both stepped into the unseasonal heat. A short and heavyset middle-aged man in brown uniform and a wide-brimmed hat walked out of the mêlée to greet them. He had a brown moustache flecked with grey and chewed mightily on a piece of gum. He stood resting both hands on his gunbelt as he watched the agents approach.

‘This is Special Agent Mike Drexler; I’m Special Agent Edie McQuarry.’

‘Sheriff Andy Dupree, Markleeville PD. Thanks for coming so quick.’

‘No problem, Sheriff,’ nodded McQuarry.

They shook hands briefly. ‘Welcome to the Ghost Road.’

‘The Ghost Road?’ said Drexler.

‘This is the Ghost Road?’ McQuarry looked around at the highway with new eyes. ‘′89, of course.’

‘S’right, ma’am. Some people think it’s haunted, some people think there’s creatures in the forest. Latest I heard, aliens are to blame.’

‘To blame for what?’ asked Drexler.

‘Unexplained crashes. Vehicles disappearing. This is like the Bermuda Triangle for cars, Mike,’ explained McQuarry.

‘Started twenty years ago this year. I was just a greenhorn trooper back in ′75. We lost a family between Yosemite and Tahoe. The Campbells. Five of ’em. Mom and Pop, two teenage boys and a ten-year-old girl. Left Yosemite on a bright breezy morning one Easter and were never seen again. They got reported missing two weeks later…’

‘Two weeks?’

‘They was on holiday, Agent Drexler. No one to report them overdue. Except the manager at the condo, but why would he phone it in? Happens all the time. He gets to keep the deposit and re-let the apartment.’

‘Right.’

‘Far as we know, other families disappeared on this road too. Last one was just a couple of months ago. Family name of Bailey set out from San Diego in a VW camper. They…’

‘What do you mean, far as we know?’ Drexler was unable to keep a trace of censure out of his voice.

Dupree took a pause and shot Drexler a lingering look, then allowed himself a thin mocking smile. ‘Well, when we can be bothered to take a break from hunkering down on the Krispy Kremes, and there’s not a Klan meetin’ or a rodeo on the tube, we sometimes squeeze in some police work.’

‘Excuse my partner, Sheriff,’ said McQuarry. ‘He flunked the diplomacy training.’

‘He’s excused, Ma’am.’

‘What the Sheriff means, Mike, is there could be other families who’ve disappeared.’

Dupree nodded. ‘S’right. My kinda vacation. Load the wife and kids into a Winnebago and set off for the horizon. Who knows how many others do the same? We don’t get notified in Markleeville if a car full of people from Alabama goes missing unless there’s a paper trail that puts ’em here. Don’t mean they didn’t drive up 89 with a pocketful of cash. Know if it was me, I’d be paying cash for my gas. Out in the backwoods that can still be the only currency.’

Drexler nodded. ‘I see.’

‘And is that why you’ve called us in, Sheriff?’

‘Not exactly, Ma’am. But I think we can rustle up a connection.’ Dupree turned and led them towards the gas station.

Drexler noted he had a slight limp. ‘So what have you got for us, Sheriff?’

‘Two bodies so far. Caleb Ashwell, owner of the gas station. The other one’s in here. Customer found him round six a.m. We figure this one was killed second, as he’s got blood spray from the first on him.’

They walked into the low building where two CSIs were going through their various procedures. A harsh striplight illuminated the dark office, but nothing else. McQuarry decided not to ask where the specialist crime scene lighting was. They probably didn’t have any and there was no sense drawing attention to it and causing further offence. She pulled her latex gloves from her pocket and put them on. Drexler did the same.

A well-built young man, seventeen, eighteen at most, hung from a steel rafter in the low ceiling.

‘Ashwell’s son Billy,’ said Dupree. McQuarry gazed up at him. His face was pale and his lips slightly parted and discoloured. Nearby a chair had been knocked over on its side and discarded plastic packaging lay on the floor. Otherwise there was order.

McQuarry clicked on a small Dictaphone. ‘White male, Caucasian, mid-to-late teens. Lips and tongue cyanosed. Probable cause – asphyxia.’

Drexler stood near the plastic packaging. ‘This is for a tow rope, Ed.’ He looked behind the counter. Several more ropes in their untouched packaging sat on the shelf. ‘Taken from the store here. The hanging was improvised. Suicide?’ he asked Dupree.

‘Homicide,’ said Dupree. Both agents were slightly taken aback by his confidence. Hangings were rarely clear cut, the majority being suicides as it was not the easiest way to kill and would usually require multiple assailants, particularly to subdue a strong young man.

‘Who found him?’

‘Old Ben Gardner called in for gas round six this morning. Says he saw the boy hanging when he got to the door. He’d had to pump his own gas, which was unusual – the boy usually ran out to serve you before your engine was off. Ben said he was clearly dead. Well, he was in ’Nam so I guess he’d know. He rang it in straightaway – didn’t touch anything, didn’t even walk through the door.’

McQuarry nodded and clicked off the Dictaphone. Until the body was cut down they wouldn’t be able to say more. She looked over at Dupree who nodded in response and led them out of the back door of the station onto a dirt track which took them to a small, functional wooden cabin.

Both agents were beginning to sweat now as the midday sun began to parch the bare track and they were relieved to dip under the cooler canopy of the trees.

It took them a few minutes to adjust their eyes to the murk of the cabin. They could see the shadowy form of Caleb Ashwell, tensed and twisted from his death throes. They could see the sinewy debris of his throat and the dark pool of drying blood on his grubby vest. They could see the handcuffs behind his back and an opened wine bottle on the table. It took a while to make out the words daubed in blood on the wall, though, as the darkening stain was nearly lost in the gloom.

‘“CLEARING UP THE GROUND”,’ read McQuarry. ‘Interesting.’

‘That’s what we figured until…’ began Dupree.

‘What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stood.’ Dupree and McQuarry turned to Drexler who smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry. Philosophy major. It’s Wittgenstein.’

‘Cute,’ said McQuarry. ‘Doesn’t change what looks like a classic murder-suicide to me. Boy kills father. Boy feels guilty and kills himself.’ She turned to Dupree. ‘But this message makes you think it was a double murder?’

‘No, Mba’am. Something else.’

Brook rubbed his eyes and took another scant mouthful of his baked potato. He washed it down with a slurp of cold tea and returned his gaze to the computer screen. He reread the FBI report and then clicked on a link to take him to the Los Angeles PD Homicide Report on the death of the Marquez family.

He read carefully: although the father and eldest son’s petty criminal background fitted the profile, several factors marked this down as something other than a Reaper killing. The timeline was fine. The Marquez family had died in 1995, at the same time the original Reaper Victor Sorenson had lived in LA, but the use of both a shotgun and several different knives on the two parents and four children pointed away from The Reaper. In addition, the two girls, one fifteen the other twelve, had both been raped at the scene, a violation to which The Reaper had never stooped. Sorenson killed his prey quickly. He didn’t want them to suffer; he just wanted them to experience beauty before they died – a piece of art, a beautiful aria, a glass of expensive wine. Then they could cease to exist, happy in the knowledge that they were leaving behind lives that weren’t worth the living, knowing the world was a better place without them.

Brook looked at his watch. It was past eleven. Three hours spent scouring the unsolved murder files of various US law enforcement agencies had left Brook feeling in need of another shower. America sickened him and he resolved never to go. What was it Sorenson had said just hours before he died? Something about a nation that called itself the Home of the Brave presiding over such appalling murder statistics? No wonder Sorenson felt The Reaper’s ‘work’ would be lost in America and had returned to England to strike in Derby. Brook had been searching for months to find cases that fitted The Reaper’s MO and wading through so much stuff had left him numb.

He logged out of the FBI site and clicked onto his Hotmail account for something to do. He cleared the usual junk and was left with nothing. Not surprising. Apart from some of the US agencies he’d emailed asking for information about families murdered in their homes, nobody even knew he had an email address.

Brook stood, stretching his legs, and went outside to his back garden, sucking in the sweet night air. He shook his head. Why was he still looking? Sorenson was dead. The Reaper was gone. What was he hoping to achieve? To unmask Sorenson to the world? Why? So he wouldn’t have to carry the knowledge alone? There had to be something else driving him. Guilt? The dreams?

A black cat dropped down from a neighbour’s wall and headed straight for Brook’s legs, purring in anticipation of the pleasure to come. ‘Hello, Basil, you little monkey. I haven’t seen you for a while.’ The cat fell onto Brook’s foot and writhed around his ankle until Brook leaned down to scratch its head and neck. After a couple of minutes, Brook extricated himself from its clutches and went back into the house. He re-emerged with a saucer of tinned tuna for the cat and a measure of malt whisky for himself and sat down on the bench, dividing his gaze between the feeding cat and the cotton-wool stars.

He was tired now, torn between the comfort and novelty of his own bed and the urge to go for a stroll, to feast on the chill air. In the end he did neither and satisfied himself with a barefooted amble around the lawn, enjoying the freshly nourished Basil’s acrobatic skills as he chased the nocturnal insects that had dared to enter his territory.

Finally Brook drained his glass, and returned to the cottage. Unusually, there was an email alert on his computer. He clicked on his inbox and was greeted by a message with the tagline ‘REAPER’ and the subject ‘CONGRATULATIONS’.

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