by Steven Dunne
‘Will he be missed? Did you cry for the future that was taken away from him?’
Brook was unsettled. Don’t answer.
‘Did you?’
Brook drained his glass and stood to fetch a refill sanctioned by a wave of his host’s hand. Sorenson remained unmoved as Brook poured and returned to his seat. Brook stared once more into the fire that was all but out. He took another long pull at his glass and gasped at the wrench on his throat.
He swirled the warm brown liquid around the glass and watched crystals dance against the dim glow of the ashes. Anything but look at Sorenson. Eventually he spoke, in a murmur he hoped would be difficult to distinguish but which instead seemed to echo around the room like a gunshot. ‘No.’
And there they sat. Hunter and hunted, in no particular order, occasionally drinking, rarely moving or evenlooking at each other. At one point, Sorenson revived the fire with some dry fibrous logs and the two busied themselves inspecting the progress of the flames. From time to time the dull cracking of the logs would turn to spitting and Sorenson would nimbly jump up to return a hot ember to its place.
The heat blazed now and began to scorch the right side of Brook’s face so he forced himself up to stroll around the study, inspecting books and paintings and record collections again. He looked back at Sorenson whose eyes had closed. His head remained upright, however, and Brook guessed that he wasn’t asleep. Perhaps he was being invited to leave-or provoked into some indiscretion.
He drained his glass and placed it carefully on a coaster on the writing desk and picked up a piece of blank A4 paper that had been folded and stood upright. On closer inspection he saw it was a home-made birthday card, indecipherable apart from the childish crayon sketch of someone who could be Sorenson.
‘From my nephew. Very talented, don’t you think?’
‘Nephew? Your brother’s son?’ Brook asked, remembering the photographs of Sorenson and his twin.
‘Not any more, Sergeant. My brother Stefan died.’ For once Sorenson was unable to meet Brook’s eyes for fear of revealing too much. The hurt was clear in his expression.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s been two years. I’m over the worst. Losing a twin, they say, is like cutting off a limb. For once, they are not wrong. Twins are aware of each other from the moment they’re born. Did you know that? Fifty years with a different person who is in fact you. A person who knowswhat you know, feels what you feel, says what you were about to say. Fifty years.
And then nothing. No more. You’re alone. You stand by the bed and watch as your own being withers and dies. All that you took to be a reflection of yourself changes into a caricature of what you are and becomes a kind of sick celestial joke. No rats, Sergeant. Just cancer. Eaten, yes, but not post mortem. My brother, part of myself, eaten alive, from the inside, knowing it will not stop hurting, ever, until everything stops.
And, God, does it hurt. To see the agony in his eyes, fear cloaked by the lions smile, pierce you, beg you to help, to do something, to put a stop to it. Then when you don’t, when you can only stand and watch and shrug and smile back, see the look in the eyes turn to hate. Why me? Why not you? Do something. Are you enjoying this? Did you cause it? Do you want me to die? Help me!
‘That’s the worst thing I’ve seen, Sergeant. That’s what I dream about. You’re not leaving?’ This time it was a question suffused with human warmth, revealing a loneliness that mirrored Brook’s. It put Brook on his guard.
‘It’s late.’
‘Perhaps it is. I’ve enjoyed our talk. Thank you for coming.’ He rose to show Brook out. Brook watched him walk across the study to open the door. What a piece of work Sorenson was. Easy company. Brook was rarely at ease, even at home. Perhaps he was home.
‘My pleasure.’
‘You can see yourself out, I’m sure.’
‘Of course.’
Sorenson returned to his chair and this time slumpeddown in a manner guaranteed to show his fatigue. Brook wasn’t convinced. Was he really going to sleep or was this an invitation? After a moment’s thought he decided he couldn’t pass up such an opportunity.
‘Goodnight.’ Brook closed the study door behind him and clumped noisily down two flights to the front door. He opened and slammed it shut with exaggerated force.
For a few seconds he stood completely still, waiting, listening for the noise of the study door opening. When a moment later, nothing had registered he picked his coat from the rack and kicked off his shoes. He wrapped them in his coat and set off back to the first floor, all the while listening for movement from the floor above.
The first door he tried opened into a small room dominated by a large wooden chest with slim drawers, the kind used by artists and architects to store sketches and paintings. Brook flicked on the light and inspected a couple of drawers at random. They were full of neat sketches and plans separated by tissue paper and appeared to be designs for some kind of building. Notes on the designs were in a foreign language Brook assumed was Swedish. Sorenson was a dual national, Brook had discovered, and had moved to London from Stockholm in 1960 as part of his father’s chemical company expansion.
Brook extinguished the light and moved onto the next room. This time the door creaked slightly but after a moment’s panic on hearing footsteps from the study, Brook was relieved to hear the strains of music once more, followed by footsteps, presumably returning to the chair. He waited a moment longer.
No door opened but there was something-another noise, closer to home, in the room he had just entered-and the hairs on the back of Brook’s neck began to tingle. Somebody was whistling quietly, behind the door he’d just opened. Brook stiffened, assessed his alternatives, then realised what it was. The light was off. Somebody was sleeping.
He listened for a sign that he’d disturbed the occupant but the breathing remained regular and deep. Who was in there? Brook was sure from his skimpy file that Sorenson was a bachelor who lived alone. Then again the file wasn’t very up-to-date. But married? No. There was nothing in Sorenson’s manner or lifestyle to suggest that he’d recently found his soul mate.
Brook decided he had to risk a look. He inched his way further into the room and peered tentatively round the door clutching the bundle of coat and shoes in his moistening palms.
What he saw made him stand erect, relaxed, forsaking the tension of defensive readiness. A small nightlight softened the gloom and in its glow stood a bunk bed with two small children fast asleep, contorted into positions only young physiques can master.
The girl was on the bottom, her face turned to the light for comfort. Her eyes were screwed tight but her mouth lay open allowing its liquid contents to seep along her cheek and into the pillow. Her light brown hair was matted and she gripped a glassy-eyed teddy bear to her throat.
The top bunk was much darker and quieter than the girl’s. Brook fancied that its occupant was male but he couldn’t be sure. If he’d had a sister, he’d have bagged the top. The girl looked about five or six. He couldn’t see the boy but he looked smaller.
Brook felt the need to linger, to see that no harm came to them. He had no idea how long he watched the children sleep. He realised, when he thought about it later, that he had forgotten where he was for that moment in time, that he was in the house of a suspected child killer.
And as he gazed at the sleeping infants, Brook remembered that he himself was a father and for the first time the thought moved him. He had responsibilities now. And until he could get home to his own family, to protect and care for them, he felt the need to safeguard these surrogates.
Finally, he closed the door as softly as he could and crept back down to the ground floor. Either he’d misjudged Sorenson completely or he’d been set up. Was it possible that he was meant to see the children to shatter all the presumptions Brook held about Victor Sorenson-The Reaper?
Yes it was. But that still didn’t account for the fact that two young children, possibly his brother’s orphaned chi
ldren, felt so safe in Sorenson’s midst, so able to abandon themselves to sleep, under his roof.
Even if it was a set-up, Brook knew one thing had changed in his perception of Sorenson. He didn’t hate children, not enough to kill without reason, at least. That had been the hardest thing to square away in Harlesden-the Elphick boy-and it was clear now that Sorenson hadn’t killed him out of some pathological loathing for young people-if he’d killed him at all. Brook began to harbour his first doubt.
He stood by the front entrance and contemplated his next move. The front door beckoned to him. He wanted togo home to his family. He wanted to fall into the arms of his wife and make everything right. He wanted to sneak with her into Theresa’s room and watch their new baby sleep, that foolish smile, exclusively patented for new parents, deforming his face.
Instead he stepped through the door that led off the main hall, snapped on the light and closed the door behind him. He was in a spacious living room, sparsely furnished. It wasn’t as cosy as the study and Brook guessed it was rarely used. What furniture there was seemed thrown together as though this room contained all that was left of the pieces that didn’t belong in other, more organised rooms.
There was an oddment of a suite. A winged chair, in a dark blue material, sat on one side of the cold black fire grate with a two-seater sofa, in faded brown suede, on the other. There was nothing on the walls but a large mirror over the fireplace flanked by a pair of ornate wall lights. The screen he’d seen from the road on his first visit guarded the lace-curtained bay window.
Brook was already retreating through the door and was about to switch off the light when he spotted something that made his heart leap. In a corner of the room, partially covered by curtains drawn across French windows, sat a pile of sturdy boxes.
Brook put down his bundle and scampered over to examine them. The delivery note on the top box revealed that the boxes had been dispatched nearly three months ago and yet, the seal on the boxes hadn’t been broken-a brand spanking new Compact Disc player, top of the range, and not even unpacked. The most expensive new technology not even opened or examined.
Brook’s eyes narrowed. He knew. It was time. Time for No. 2 and this was the Reaper’s entrance ticket. For video recorder to Harlesden, read Compact Disc player to the next family of victims.
Brook swung round at the sound of the door handle being turned. He looked feverishly for a hiding place. He didn’t dare slip behind the curtains for fear of them moving, opting instead to leap into an alcove, where he pushed himself back against the wall and held his breath. He closed his eyes briefly, then, recognising the absurdity, opened them at once.
He listened for the door opening but heard nothing. Then he saw and his heart fell into his socks.
Slowly, very slowly, and without a murmur, the door was swinging open. He saw it, frozen, in the mirror above the fireplace, which meant he could be seen in it, by whoever walked in.
Move, his nerve ends told him. Move. Slide down the wall, pull the curtain across your face, do something.
But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t wrench himself away. His eyes were locked on the door’s progress and he could do nothing but watch, his mouth dry, the moisture having fled to his brow which had erupted in beads of sweat.
Then it stopped. The door moved no further. It hadn’t swung open and he couldn’t be seen. But what was happening? Who was on the other side of the door? Was it Sorenson? What was he waiting for? Brook’s heart was about to implode. Still no movement. The door wasn’t opening, wasn’t closing. Why?
Brook couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He could feel though, feel the springs of sweat, now galvanised intorivulets, cascading down his face. He’d had too much whisky.
The whisky? Perhaps it had been poisoned. Or drugged. His pores were trying to tell him something. He was in a bad way and if he didn’t pull himself round…
Brook made a vow at that moment. If he got out of this house with his job, his liberty and his life intact he was going to clean up his act. No more stalking, no more nights away from home. He’d get help. It wasn’t too late. He could still be a husband, a father.
With a sharp and unavoidable intake of air, which sounded like a passing steam train, Brook watched Sorenson’s bony talon reach through the aperture between door and wall and flick off the light. Brook was caressed by the darkness.
The bar of light stumbling in from the hall narrowed to a shard and Brook began to regain his senses. But a sliver of light remained and Brook could hear no sound of Sorenson moving off. Then again, he hadn’t heard him arrive either. The man’s footfall was non-existent.
Brook waited for what seemed an eternity before moving. When his lungs were functioning properly again he tiptoed to his coat and slipped on his shoes. He moved to the door and put his eye to the crack of light.
His every fibre screamed as he stared directly into Sorenson’s baleful eye and he leapt back from the door with the yelp of a startled puppy.
He reached out a hand to the light switch and flooded the room with light and grabbed the knob to pull open the door, swaying back slightly for safety’s sake.
There was nobody there. Nobody. No sound of someoneon the stairs, hurtling through the house. All was quiet save the wheezing from Brook’s overworked lungs. He must have imagined it. A trick of the light. Or the product of his over-stimulated imagination. Whatever it was, Sorenson wasn’t there. He was in his study. Brook could just hear the comforting muffle of classical music. What was happening to him? He was losing it. He had to get out.
He slipped his coat back on and, in one bound, Brook was through the front door, closing it swiftly but with only a faint click. He ran to his car without looking back, not seeing the wind, if it was the wind, ripple at the curtains of Sorenson’s study window.
Only when Brook was hurtling through the deserted streets of Kensington did his equilibrium start to return. Finally he was able to slow the car to a more respectable speed. He began to feel again, began to be aware of things, sensations, noises. With a start, he looked down at his left hand and saw the delivery note from the unopened boxes lodged there, becoming smudged from the sweat of his palms.
At the next red light, he squinted at the document. With a sigh of pleasure, he found what he was looking for and nodded. The serial number of the CD player.
Brook forgot his promise. He was safe now. He didn’t need help any more, didn’t need to go home to his family. He had all the help he needed right there in his hand. ‘Gotcha!’
Chapter Seventeen
‘What do you think?’
Rowlands shrugged and looked over at his colleague in the driver’s seat, weighing his response with care. ‘I think I need a drink.’ Rowlands closed the folder and fumbled for a cigarette, lighting it with a trembling hand which he then held out for inspection. Three times he tried to cure the shakes with no more than an act of will. He failed each time.
‘About the file, I mean.’
‘How long are you going to keep this up, Brooky?’
‘Guv…’
‘I mean it. It’s been a year now and yet you won’t face it. This is nothing. We’ve got nothing on Sorenson and we never will have. I’m sorry, lad. I can’t cover for you much longer.’
‘What do you mean? I’m not asking you to. I get my work done.’
‘Do you think I give a toss about your work? This is the Met, Brooky. No-one gives a flying fuck as long as the villains are killing each other. I’m talking about Amy, lad. Remember her and your baby. I’m talking about your wiferinging me to complain to me about your workload and me having to pretend that it’s my fault you’re never at home.’
‘Guv…’
‘No, Damen, it’s got to stop. You’ve got to give it up. You’re still young…’
‘But he lied, guv. You accept that at least. His twin brother, Stefan, we talked about him. He told me he died of cancer…’
‘So what? So he didn’t die of cancer. So he was beaten to deat
h in his home. Big fucking deal. It’s a touchy subject to some people.’
‘Guv!’
‘All right. What do you want me to say? He lied to you. What of it?’
‘So it got me thinking. Stefan Sorenson was beaten to death in 1989, two years ago, disturbing an intruder who’s never been found. Don’t you see? Sorenson didn’t want me to know that. Why? Because he found him. He knew I’d guess. That intruder was a burglar and maybe that burglar was Sammy Elphick…’
‘Maybe, maybe, maybe…’
‘It’s motive, guv. He waits for his revenge. He finds the man who orphaned his nephew and niece. He’s going to kill him and what’s more, to pay back the suffering inflicted on the Sorensons, he decides to take out Sammy’s family as a bonus. And what better way to do it than to make Sammy watch, make him suffer the way Sorensons suffered?’ Brook cast his eyes around, looking for a way to continue. ‘Do you know losing a twin is like losing a limb?’
‘I do now.’ Rowlands sighed and ran his sleeve over thecondensation on the windscreen. He stared out at the rain, avoiding Brook’s entreaties. He affected a dry cough and pulled out his flask to treat it. Brook took the offered flask and feigned a drink in his usual way.
Five brooding minutes later, Brook tried to resurrect a reasonable tone. ‘I just need two more weeks, guv. I know he did it and I know he’s going to strike again soon.’
‘Why? If he’s got his revenge.’
‘I think he’s got a taste for it,’ Brook offered weakly. ‘All I know is he’s planning it.’
‘How do you know?’
Brook pulled the delivery note from his pocket and thrust it at Rowlands.
‘What’s this?’
‘A delivery note.’
‘What’s it for?’
‘It’s for a?60 °Compact Disc player. Look at the date. It was delivered to Sorenson over three months ago. It’s still in the box in his house.’ Brook smiled at Rowlands. ‘Remember the VCR we found at Sammy’s.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That was his way in to Sammy’s flat. The CD player’s for the next victims. And we’ve got the serial number. When he leaves it there, we’ve got him.’ Brook couldn’t keep the victorious grin from his features and regretted it at once.