The Reaper didb-1

by Steven Dunne

  ‘Sergeant!’ he screamed at the top of his voice. ‘Get over here!’

  At this terrifying noise, the baby opened its mouth and began to scream as loudly as its tiny lungs would allow. Brook was unable to keep from laughing out loud and long at the baby’s distress. In a bad mood, he’d once said there was, ‘No finer sight than a child in tears,’ and finally his words had found a more worthy setting.

  He’d forgotten how to hold an infant and he marched the baby out of the front door at arm’s length, as though he’d set the chip pan on fire. Noble flew to him and took the bundle, amazed.

  ‘I thought…’

  ‘Get the little sod off to hospital. If you can, get a shot of the forehead before it gets cleaned off. And when you’ve done that get this place completely sealed off. See to it yourself, John, and let’s get it right this time.’

  Two hours later Brook stood at the gate of the Wallis house, pulling hard on a ‘borrowed’ Silk Cut and stamping his feet to keep warm. It wasn’t yet five o’clock but despite that and the biting cold a small huddle of interested bystanders stood shivering in the blackness on the other side of the potholed street, their faces glowing in the burnished light of flashing squad cars and ambulances. A Scientific Support van was parked next to Brook’s Sprite, its back doors open. Noble pulled up and got out of a squad car and approached Brook looking sheepish.

  ‘How’s the baby, John?’

  ‘It seems fine. No injuries.’

  ‘Did you get a shot of the writing…?’

  Noble waved a disposable camera at Brook and nodded.

  ‘…and was it lipstick?’

  ‘It looks like it. The hospital’s sending us a sample.’ Brook nodded. ‘Sir, I’m sorry about…’

  ‘It’s not your fault, John. I’m sorry I snapped.’

  ‘I didn’t check…’

  ‘You had a crime scene to preserve. You had every right to accept what Aktar told you. It’s his mess.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m just pleased we found out before the PS arrived. That would have been embarrassing.’

  ‘How could Aktar have made such a mistake?’

  ‘I suspect he was already feeling unwell.’

  At that moment, a scene of crime officer in bright protective clothing carrying one end of a carpet emerged from the house. The other end of the carpet followed supported by another officer. They placed it carefully in the back of the van.

  ‘Do you want a look round before the bodies go, Inspector?’ he said.

  ‘Please.’

  Brook leapt up to the front steps with Noble in reluctant pursuit.

  Inside more officers in bright clothing were photographing the victims before bagging the hands, feet and heads to preserve any trace evidence adhering to them.

  Brook stepped across the now bare floor to the girl still lying face down on the rug. He examined the cuts on her back but saw nothing new. Then he looked hard at her ankles and wrists and finally, the back of her head.

  ‘No marks,’ he said across to Noble who was doing the same examination of Mr and Mrs Wallis.

  ‘Same here. No obvious contusions or restraint marks as far as I can tell.’

  Brook nodded. ‘They were drugged.’ He went to look more closely at the wine bottle on the fireplace.

  ‘You think the wine’s drugged?’ asked Noble.

  ‘I don’t think so. The girl wouldn’t have had wine. The killer brought it for some reason. Maybe for himself-to celebrate a job well done.’

  Noble managed a chuckle. ‘Yeah, good health. Perhaps he’s left saliva in the glasses.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Brook walked back to the door and looked again at the scene as a whole. The TV was pushed back into the alcove, the CD player against the far wall. Brook had checked. It was an old one. Not like Brixton. No entry there. It was the pizzas. They were the way in. He approached the CD player.

  ‘This has been dusted, I take it,’ asked Brook of no-one in particular.

  ‘Yeah,’ answered a SOCO kneeling down by the fireplace.

  Brook turned the power on with his knuckle and ejected the tray. A CD of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony lay there. There was no case nearby.

  Brook smiled. Mahler: something to listen to, something beautiful. He pressed play. The tray returned to the body of the machine. Brook waited for the music. Nothing. The display told Brook that fifteen seconds of the first track had elapsed. He located the volume control and moved it round to the right. At once the low strains of Mahler’s melancholic lament could be heard. He held the circular button and turned it further round. Shuddering horns filled the room.

  Brook turned it to full blast and everybody stopped what they were doing and turned to the source of the annoyance. The sound was distorted. Brook returned the volume control to its original position with an apologetic smile then turned off the power.

  As he looked round the room for the last time, Brook knew the killer was a man, the man. It couldn’t be a woman. Course it couldn’t. It wasn’t just statistical. Women give life-at least biologically-men take it. No need for offender profiling to tell him that.

  Chapter Three

  As the pale light of a December dawn broke over the city skyline, Brook’s weary eyelids began to close. Odd the way he always felt more tired when he was denied his eight hours of solid insomnia. He could lay awake reading and thinking-all night sometimes-and still feel viable in the morning, but if he wasn’t horizontal it drained him.

  For the second time that morning the phone shattered his fragile peace. It was Chief Superintendent McMaster, before eight in the morning no less. She wasn’t usually sighted before noon, what with all the courses, seminars and consultations she had to attend. She had an endless timetable of heavy-duty liaison to get through, but here she was, in her office, at the end of the criminal rush hour, wanting to speak to him.

  Brook hadn’t spoken to the Chief about a case in months, so little was she involved in criminal matters. The last time they’d spoken at all, McMaster had dialled the wrong extension. Brook knew that wasn’t the case this time. Local TV and radio had already been sniffing round and she had to have basic facts to release.

  ‘DI Brook?’ She had a mellifluous voice, a crucial selling point at her promotion interview.

  ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘Can I see you right away, in my office, please? I need to pick your brains about last night.’

  ‘Right away, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank God, you were on call last night, Damen. We can hit the ground running. I’ll have a coffee waiting.’

  Brook replaced the receiver with a smile. Even at half past seven in the morning she felt able to play him like a violin.

  Brook picked up his preliminary report and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was a mess. He knew he had a good excuse but he also knew that the Chief Super would be immaculate, even at this early hour.

  Brook stood outside her office, hand raised to knock, when Noble turned the corner carrying a plastic beaker of coffee. He had a large envelope under his arm. He hadn’t slept either but at least he wasn’t wearing a tatty polo neck.

  ‘Are those the SOCO photos, John?’

  He nodded. ‘I put a rush on them.’

  ‘Good. I’m going to brief the boss. You’d better join me.’

  Noble examined his watch and raised an eyebrow. ‘She’s actually here?’

  Brook hesitated. He was sensitive to snipes at the Chief Super. They were alike-outsiders against the rest-and a dig at her was a dig at him. He decided to say nothing, then knocked and entered.

  ‘Morning ma’am. DS Noble’s with me to fill in some of the blanks.’

  If McMaster noticed Brook’s dishevelled condition, she didn’t let it show. ‘Fine,’ she beamed, emptying a cafetiere into two solid French coffee cups, complete with matching saucers. The woman’s touch-a little strategy to make her male colleagues feel subliminally masterful and at ease. Brook knew the routine. A
t some point she’d feel compelled to water her spider plants. ‘I hope he’s brought his own. Black with sugar isn’t it, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes ma’am. The bitter and sweet,’ he said after a brief pause. She glanced slyly back at him and Brook felt he saw the ghost of a smile crease her 45 year-old features.

  Evelyn McMaster was short, with wavy blond cropped hair and a tidy figure. And yes, her general appearance, make-up and all, was immaculate. She was what the politer elements in the division referred to as a handsome woman. To the less polite elements, this meant that while her looks wouldn’t make you vomit neither were they likely to induce an erection.

  Brook liked McMaster. He enjoyed seeing somebody beside himself stir the simmering pot of resentment bubbling away in the division. But it was more than that. He admired the strength of the woman: not just the character she needed to drive her way to the top despite the Force’s inbuilt sexism-but also the will and the energy required to keep her mask in place, to play her role to the hilt, all day, every day.

  Everybody wanting to speak to you, soliciting your thoughts, goading you into newsworthy errors, forcing you to discipline every word and tunnel your vision to their agenda. Dealing with people who don’t respect you, who don’t want you there yet still retaining the self-possession to treat all comers in an even-handed way, was something Brook had to applaud. The effort would have consumed him. Brook’s mind needed vast lumps of downtime, even during the day, to uncouple his thoughts from their moorings and set them adrift from the images of his past that tried, too often, to clamber aboard.

  McMaster sat down and invited Brook and Noble to do the same.

  ‘Well, gentlemen. A busy night. DI Greatorix picked up a murder as well.’ Brook managed to exhume an interested expression. ‘Annie Sewell. Poor old dear killed in her so-called sheltered house, though I doubt it’ll knock yours off the front page.’ She nodded sadly at the horror of it all. ‘Is that for me?’ she said, indicating the sheaf of papers in Brook’s hand. He handed it to her and watched her read it quickly and without emotion.

  ‘Three deaths?’ she enquired. ‘I heard four.’

  ‘No ma’am,’ Brook returned evenly. ‘You know how these rumours start-the first impression of the neighbour.’

  Brook and Noble exchanged a glance when McMaster resumed reading.

  ‘Windpipes severed. Time of death between eleven and midnight. I assume that’s preliminary,’ she asked with a glance at Brook. He nodded. ‘Very unpleasant,’ McMaster concluded. ‘At least from these bare facts,’ she added with perhaps a suggestion of criticism. ‘Thoughts gentlemen?’

  ‘The only suspect we have is the Wallis boy, Ma’am. Jason.’ Brook offered. ‘He was drunk and may have been on drugs. It’s just possible he may have gone berserk. He’s still unconscious in hospital. We’ll be seeing him later to question him and hopefully get the results of any tests.’ Brook sipped at his coffee.

  ‘But you don’t see him as our killer?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Why so sure?’

  ‘The scene isn’t disorganised enough for that kind of chemically fuelled slaughter,’ said Brook.

  ‘And his clothes and hands show no visible blood stains, ma’am,’ added Noble.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Also there’s no weapon. If Jason’s our killer we have to accept that in his drunken and/or drugged stupor he killed his family, turned on loud music to attract attention, stumbled out to hide the murder weapon and stumbled back in to munch on a leftover pizza before keeling over.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened on drugs.’

  ‘True but there are a couple of other factors that diminish the likelihood.’

  ‘And what are those, Damen?’ she asked.

  Whenever she called him Damen, Brook knew she was trying to convey approval. He accepted it without ego. It was a compliment to his powers because it was her way of coaxing the most, and best, information from him. As she saw it, the more she knew, the better her ability to outflank any criticism from below or, more importantly, above. An in-control bad leader looks like a good leader under almost all scrutiny. Not that she was a bad leader.

  ‘Well, Forensics will have to confirm this, but it’s clear from the blood patterns that the family were killed where they were found. Even if we assume that Jason was in full control of his faculties, we then have to accept that he walked into the room and cut his sister’s throat where she lay, without father or mother moving a muscle to intervene. Then he did the same to his parents, in which order I don’t yet know, though I suspect it was ladies first. Again, little sign of physical struggle.’

  DS Noble’s face betrayed a caveat to Brook’s theory but he had trained himself, after several painful lessons, not to lay himself open to ridicule. That applied doubly in the presence of the Chief Super.

  ‘Couldn’t he have overpowered his father first, taken him by surprise?’ asked McMaster.

  ‘The mother as well? No, we checked. Again, subject to forensic confirmation, there are no marks on any of the victim’s wrists or ankles. They weren’t tied up. There were no injuries or contusions on the parents’ skulls so he didn’t creep up and knock them unconscious.’

  ‘What’s the second reason?’ asked McMaster.

  ‘Sergeant?’ asked Brook, fixing Noble with a stare. He couldn’t let him have it too easy.

  Noble hesitated but knew not to wait too long. A swift error would pass notice much easier than a long anticipated one. ‘The baby?’ he offered, trying to keep the question mark out of his response.

  ‘Right. The baby completes the family. Its…’ Brook looked at Noble for a prompt.

  ‘It’s a girl, sir. Bianca.’

  ‘…her presence on the scene is part of the killer’s strategy. The baby was brought from her bed as part of a logical choice, as was the decision not to kill her. If Jason had done this under the influence of narcotics or alcohol, why bring the baby down? Surely, if it’s a drunken mindless act, he would have killed his baby sister upstairs, where he found her. It doesn’t make sense. Our killer sees it differently. He wants the baby in the family portrait but chooses not to kill it. Her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s showing us he has the intelligence and humanity to feel mercy. God knows. But he needs the baby there to fulfil his need.’

  ‘What need?’

  ‘Maybe he’s a Barnardo’s boy, an orphan in search of a family. Whatever that is,’ Brook added, with an unexpected trace of bile that surprised even himself. ‘It’s difficult to say.’

  After a suitable consoling pause, McMaster ploughed on. ‘What about writing SAVED on the wall and cutting it on the girl? What’s that all about?’

  Brook looked at the wall behind her head as though he were casting around for a solution to a question he hadn’t yet considered. It didn’t do to over-egg the pudding. ‘Some kind of religious claptrap I imagine. Maybe crowing that he’s saved her soul from a life of sin and packed her off to Heaven.’

  ‘A God squadder,’ she nodded. ‘Why he?’ she queried.

  ‘The usual reasons,’ replied Brook.

  ‘Statistically sound, I know,’ she countered, with a more confident edge in her voice. She was on her own turf. ‘But why so sure?’ She stood and picked up a small water jug on her desk.

  ‘Do you want the classic profile of the serial killer?’

  She turned sharply from her spider plant, spilling a little water on the floor. ‘Is that what this is?’

  ‘I think so. This has been planned for a long time. All that was missing for the killer were the right victims.’

  ‘And if it is a God squadder we’re looking for a middle-aged male,’ nodded McMaster, ‘which rules out the Wallis boy.’

  ‘Why middle aged?’ asked Noble before he could stop himself.

  ‘Jason’s too young to be appalled by the moral cesspool of society,’ said Brook. ‘That’s more a function of my age group.’

  ‘Are you sa
ying that whoever did this has picked the Wallis family out at random?’ Noble asked.

  ‘No. Our killer has sound reasons for wanting this family dead.’

  ‘Well,’ said Noble, deciding to risk humiliation in the hunt for brownie points, ‘if they weren’t selected at random, surely the killer must know the family, or some members of it.’

  ‘I don’t think so, John. He just thinks he does.’

  ‘This is idle speculation,’ rejoined McMaster, deciding she’d learned all she was going to learn. ‘I’m cancelling my course in Birmingham. I’ll be briefing the press this afternoon so I’ll need your CID/57’s as soon as possible. I think DS Noble has a point. I don’t like the idea of serial killings, Damen. This isn’t London.’

  ‘That’s what the Yorkshire Ripper team said. One of the reasons he was free to kill for years.’

  ‘Point taken,’ said McMaster, adopting her non-threatening, conciliatory body posture, ‘but I want all other avenues explored first. Use whatever resources you need. Bobby Wallis was a nasty piece of work-with previous. I want to know about enemies, neighbourhood feuds and so on. And check out this Mr Singh who found the bodies. Maybe he took his complaint about the noise too far. Maybe there was an argument about something. Who knows what people will do under stress? Have you run the MO through CATCHEM?’

  CATCHEM, Central Analytical Team Collating Homicide Expertise and Management, a computer database introduced in 1992 which could build an identikit profile of any serial offender from the distinctive characteristics of the offence, one of the fruits of the review carried out after the Yorkshire Ripper debacle and an overdue response to the American violent crime profiling system, VICAP.

  ‘We will but it won’t yield anything new,’ said Brook.

  ‘Why so sure?’ she flashed back at him.

  ‘Because this isn’t a murder, it’s an execution. This family’s been punished.’ There was silence. Neither McMaster nor Noble understood his meaning and they waited for Brook to elaborate. He failed to take up their invitation. ‘Anything else, ma’am?’ he offered finally.