by Steven Dunne
Brook was about to bring things to a close when DS Gadd ran in carrying a laptop.
‘Got something, sir.’ She opened her laptop to show a series of indistinct images similar to those PC Duffy had taken with Brook’s mobile phone camera at the crime scene.
‘What are we looking at?’
‘We’ve uploaded everything from the phones of the three deceased teenagers. These images were shot on Jason’s phone the evening they died. About seven hours before. I’ve compiled them in chronological order.’ She clicked her keyboard to start a slideshow.
Brook and the other officers watched intently as the pictures showed a young Asian boy on the ground, clearly in distress and surrounded by the Ingham boy, Gretton and Anderson, who were kicking and taunting him while adopting the poses glorified by American gang culture. The shots continued until Ingham bent over the victim and dragged something across his face. The final shots showed the three Drayfin boys laughing as the Asian boy covered his face with bloodstained hands.
Gadd froze the slide show and dropped a clear plastic bag onto the table. It contained a Stanley knife. ‘This was recovered from Stephen Ingham’s room, sir. There’s human blood on the blade and none of it is a match for any blood found at the crime scene. It looks like he used it to cut this boy’s face.’
‘Happy slapping,’ said Noble. ‘What a shame three of them are dead.’
Grant nodded. ‘It’s a turf thing. Keep out of our territory or get marked. Gangs like to cut the cheek. There’s more blood.’
‘So we have another motive,’ observed Brook. ‘The waters are getting muddier. Good work, Jane. Take DC Cooper and check the hospitals. It shouldn’t be too hard to track this lad down. Everyone not manning the phones hits the streets again.’ Groans followed. ‘I know. But you heard the Chief Super’s briefing. We have more questions for Drayfin’s good citizens. Just think of the overtime.’
Brook pulled his coat tightly around him. November was underway and at this time of night, with a moonless sky, the estate was dark and forbidding. Every door he and Grant had knocked on had opened only after a lifted curtain and a shout through the door.
‘Mrs Patel? DI Brook.’ Brook smiled reassuringly at the face squinting through the inch of open door. ‘Do you remember me?’
‘Ah, yes, Inspector.’ Mrs Patel pulled the door open and stood before them in a magnificent gold and purple sari. ‘From two years ago. Hello.’ Her smile faded as she stole a glance at the Wallis house over Brook’s shoulder. ‘How could I forget? Is it about that man loitering outside?’
‘It is.’
‘You’d better come in.’
‘Thank you. This is DS Grant.’ Brook and Grant stepped over the threshold into the spicy warmth of the brightly decorated hall. Mrs Patel stepped back and pulled a door closed to block out the sound of the family meal.
‘You’re eating,’ noted Grant. ‘We can come back.’
‘Not at all. I eat afterwards anyway. Helping the police is more important.’
‘Thank you. We just want to go over what you told my officer about the suspicious man outside your house. My officer said it was around ten o’clock…’
‘No, it was exactly ten o’clock, Inspector. The news was just starting.’
‘And what did the man do?’ asked Grant.
‘Like I told the other officer, he just stood there. He seemed to be staring across the road for some reason. I didn’t know at the time-’
‘Towards the Ingham house?’
‘Yes. He seemed to be waiting for something. Or someone.’
‘How long was he there?’
‘About five minutes.’
‘You’re sure it was a man?’ asked Grant.
‘As sure as I can be. He looked quite big through the shoulders — like my Sanjay — but he wasn’t tall.’
‘And how was he dressed?’
‘It was very dark, Inspector. He was dressed all in black or at least very dark clothing, with a balaclava.’
‘And which way did he go when he left?’
‘To the Ingham house.’ Brook and Grant looked at each other. ‘To the gate, I mean, what there is of it.’ Her voice betrayed a sliver of disgust.
‘But he didn’t go in?’
‘No. Just tried to peer into the yard … then he walked away.’
‘He walked. You didn’t see a car or a bicycle?’ Grant prompted.
Mrs Patel shook her head. ‘He walked.’
Brook nodded and signalled Grant to the door. ‘Once again, thank you for your vigilance, Mrs Patel. One more thing.’ He pulled a picture from his coat pocket. ‘Do you know this young man?’ He held up the clearest picture of the young Asian boy they had been able to come up with.
‘Oh dear.’ Mrs Patel put a bejewelled hand to her mouth. ‘No, I’m afraid not. What are they doing to the poor boy?’
‘The last bad thing they’ll ever do to anyone, Mrs Patel,’ said Grant.
Mrs Patel looked at her, a little startled, then she seemed to nod, satisfied. ‘Good.’
When they were outside, Brook and Grant exchanged a look. ‘Is there anyone on this estate upset about these murders?’
‘Scum in fear, The Reaper’s near,’ Brook replied.
Chapter Sixteen
McQuarry eased her chair back and rubbed her neck. She closed her eyes for a second and began to drift off with her arms resting on the wheel. She roused herself and looked at the clock on the dash — five before ten — then glanced across the road at Sorenson’s wrought-iron gates and beyond, down the drive towards the lake.
The main highway was dark and deserted now. In summer, lakeshore tourists would’ve have been moving around the resort to bars, restaurants and casinos, although most of the traffic would’ve been on the east side of South Lake Tahoe, across the state line. Tahoe was never empty; it was also a winter resort with skiing in several locations around the lake, including Heavenly in South Lake Tahoe itself. But if any time of year could be described as downtime for Tahoe it was this shoulder period between summer and full-blown winter.
On the California side things were a good deal quieter. Residents were wealthier, their houses grander, and the blending of the architecture with the landscape more thoughtful. But travel into South Lake Tahoe and cross into Nevada, across a road in town, Stateline Avenue, and the high-rise gaudiness of the gambling palaces reached up to the sky the second you hit the sidewalk on other side. South Lake Tahoe was the Jekyll and Hyde of American resorts.
McQuarry looked at the clock on the dash again. It was Drexler’s shift. She leaned over to wake him but hesitated. Drexler had taken the day shift today while McQuarry had slept at the motel — they alternated each day and took the night shift together. He’d been pushing himself hard these last few weeks. The case had clearly gotten to him. The tenth anniversary of the death of his younger sister Kerry hadn’t helped.
In 1985 Kerry had been found at the bottom of a ravine near their home in a burned-out car. Drexler’s mother had collapsed at the news and had been in an institution ever since; she hadn’t said a word to anyone from that day to this. A double whammy if ever there was one. McQuarry looked over at her partner. She couldn’t imagine how a person might deal with that. She decided to let him sleep a little longer.
She opened her window to inhale the pine-scented air and began to shake out a cigarette. She paused over the pack, distracted by a light reflecting on the trees, and turned to see a car travelling from Sorenson’s house towards the highway.
‘Mike, we’re up.’
Drexler let out a deep sigh and looked blearily out of the car. The gates across the highway opened noiselessly and a small black convertible emerged. A blond-haired woman was at the wheel but didn’t even glance towards Drexler and McQuarry.
The car turned left towards the resort, sweeping its lights across the Chevy. Both Drexler and McQuarry instinctively ducked to avoid the headlights, though their car was easily recognisable as the one that had been parked in the same spot fo
r much of the last two weeks. In that time they had seen Sorenson come and go maybe four times. He hardly ever left the place. People came to him though. His groceries were delivered and a nurse visited three times a week. Apart from that, they hadn’t logged a single visitor to his house since they’d been staking it out. Sorenson was a virtual recluse.
‘It’s the nurse,’ said Drexler, sitting up. ‘She didn’t even look over at us,’ he added.
‘I told her better not to acknowledge us at all.’ On a solo shift a few days before, McQuarry had reported following the nurse and interviewing her when she stopped for gas. After certain assurances from the FBI agent, the nurse had revealed she was treating Sorenson for a minor lung complaint.
Drexler nodded. ‘She okay with it?’
‘She’s fine, Mike. I told her it was a financial investigation and just to carry on treating him. She’s in no danger but obviously she’s not to mention our interest to Sorenson.’
Drexler lay back down on his reclined seat.
McQuarry was halfway down her cigarette when Sorenson’s red Toyota drove through the gates towards the highway a few minutes later. This was the first time Sorenson had left his home at night in the two weeks they’d been watching him. McQuarry tossed her butt into the wet undergrowth and reached for the ignition. Sorenson turned left and, after a suitable interval, McQuarry turned the Chevy across the highway to follow.
She and Drexler were pleased to see that a slight crack in Sorenson’s driver side taillight meant they could drop back without losing their prey. They tracked the Toyota towards South Lake Tahoe on the Emerald Bay Road, which was technically still the same State Highway 89 that ran past the Ashwell gas station forty miles away.
On they drove towards Tahoe Airport, passing Fallen Leaf Road, which skirted the lake of the same name, not once nosing above thirty miles per hour.
‘Think he’s trying not to lose us, Ed?’
‘Could be.’
Soon after the lonely road entered a more populated area, Sorenson turned east onto US 50, towards downtown Tahoe and the state line. A few minutes later, the high-rise hotels and buildings on the Nevada side of the line rose up like teeth in a shark’s mouth and the garish lights adorning each casino left no one in any doubt as to where they should come to part company with their cash.
On they travelled into the night and back into the enveloping darkness, following US 50 along the lakeshore, past Elk Point and Zephyr Cove and towards Glenbrook where the road headed inland towards Carson City.
Some forty minutes later, Sorenson came to an intersection and turned north onto US 395. He pulled off the highway into a lot and parked in a bay outside an unremarkable, low building with a sign that said ‘Golden Nugget Motel’.
McQuarry and Drexler pulled in just before the exit and watched their target step out of his vehicle. Sorenson seemed to examine his watch in the gloom. It had taken just over an hour to get here. He spent five minutes walking up and down the front of the motel, lingering for a moment outside the room farthest from reception. He appeared to write something in a notebook then walked back to the bright lights of the office. He disappeared for a moment then re-emerged, returned to his car and crossed the highway back towards Tahoe.
McQuarry pulled out to follow but as she drew level with the office, Drexler jumped out of the car.
‘Back in a minute, Ed.’
Brook drew up outside his cottage before midnight. He parked with some difficulty as Drexler’s recycling bin was out on the street for tomorrow’s collection. His neighbour was home and, judging from the lights, clearly still up. Brook resisted the urge to call and trudged into his house. The whisky he’d poured for himself yesterday evening was the only thing in the fridge, save a half-pint of milk and an opened can of beans. He examined the beans but plopped the rusted tin in the bin and closed the door.
‘First impressions, Damen,’ he muttered to himself, his mantra since the Wallis investigation when his blossoming relationship with PC Wendy Jones had been threatened by his inability to see how out of control his life had become. For Brook, an empty fridge was the litmus test of a mind in turmoil, and he vowed to set matters right the next day.
And he was hungry. That was a good thing. At the height of his obsession with work, his stomach had never grumbled and Brook had needed reminders to take on food. He wagered that Josh Hudson’s life never became so chaotic that he forgot to eat.
Brook sat down in his armchair and flicked on a small lamp. He pulled out the photocopy of Laura Maples’s picture that he’d removed from the Wallis house and unfolded it. He looked into the clear eyes of the schoolgirl, now dead nearly twenty years, the thin necklace with the heart-shaped links winking up at him. He placed the picture reverentially in a drawer.
He took a sip of his chilled whisky and looked across at his neighbour’s house, remembering the delicious burger of a few nights ago. He flicked the lamp back off and sat motionless in the dark, eyes closed, enjoying the momentary sensory deprivation. It didn’t last. The sight of the Ingham boy was upon him before he could slam the sluice gates on the flood of gore — stretched out before him, head pulled back, throat twisted like a gargoyle. He saw the other boys as well, smelled them, reeking of blood and fresh, steaming urine and excrement. Finally Brook saw Drexler’s face in the dying flash of the camera at the crime scene. He opened his eyes, downed his whisky, left the house and walked down the side path of Rose Cottage.
‘Hi there.’ Drexler stole a glance at a folded handwritten sign on the desk — T.J. Carlson, Night Manager. ‘Say, Mr Carlson, did I just see my old buddy Vic leave a second ago?’
The manager looked up evenly at Drexler, removing a well-chewed cigar butt from his mouth but showing no inclination to answer. He was an overweight figure with grey whiskered jowls and a mass of unkempt greying hair swept incongruously into a minute ponytail at the back of his neck. He scratched at a flabby bare arm. ‘Do you need a room, fella? It’s thirty dollars for the hour or forty-five for the night.’ He returned his gaze to a small TV, showing a college football game.
‘So that wasn’t Vic?’ Carlson returned his disinterested eyes back to Drexler and cocked his head. The penny dropped and Drexler fumbled in his trousers for a five-dollar bill and handed it over. ‘See, he’s my best man and he’s cooking up something for my bachelor night and I’d as soon know what it was.’
‘Took a card. Wanted to know what our quietest night of the week was.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Tuesday.’ ‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah. He wanted to know if I’d be working Tuesdays because he wanted someone he could rely on. Someone with discretion.’
‘That all?’
The manager gave Drexler a cryptic smile. Drexler fished in his pocket for another five-dollar bill.
‘He gave me a twenty.’
‘That’s what I got, friend.’
Carlson shrugged and wrapped his podgy fingers around the money. ‘I told your friend I’m on every Tuesday. He booked all the cabins for a week Tuesday.’
‘All of them? He say what for?’
‘Nope. And I didn’t ask. I got…’
‘Discretion. I get it.’ Drexler turned to leave.
‘For another fi’ dollars I can tell you his name.’
Drexler turned. ‘It wasn’t Victor?’ The manager returned his interest to the football. Drexler pulled out his diminishing roll of bills. ‘All I got is three ones.’
The manager glared at him and muttered something which sounded like ‘Cheap motherfucker’, then gestured with his chubby hand. Drexler handed him the notes which he pocketed before answering.
‘Reservation’s under the name Hera. Peter Hera.’
The small pot-bellied stove was still giving out heat but the embers were dying. The kitchen door was open and Drexler was sitting at the tiny kitchen table, cigarette in hand, looking at a bunch of papers strewn across the surface. Brook watched him from the shadows, debating
whether to turn on his heel.
Suddenly Drexler looked up and for a split second Brook imagined he saw fear there.
Brook stepped out of the dark. ‘Mike. I saw you were up.’
Drexler found his Californian grin and stood, casting a sly glance around his tabletop as if to check the sensitivity of the documents, before coming outside. He closed the door behind him, extinguishing much of the light.
‘Damen. Quite the stranger.’ He gestured towards a chair in the garden and brought out a pair of blankets, tossing one to Brook. He then busied himself feeding wood and newspaper into the small stove; the air was distinctly chilly now and both men were glad of the flames that began to catch.
‘Work, I’m afraid.’
‘I’ve been reading the papers. Six people. I won’t ask you about the case. I’m guessing you need to get away from it.’
‘You can ask me.’
Drexler studied him for a moment, but let the opportunity pass. ‘So what can I do for you?’
Brook hesitated, a little embarrassed to be scrounging for food. ‘I saw the light.’
‘God be praised!’ grinned Drexler, throwing his arms in the air.
Brook smiled politely. ‘We have a lot to talk about.’
Drexler’s smile disappeared. ‘Yes.’
Brook decided to deflect him until he was ready. ‘Your book for one thing.’
‘I thought you’d have questions. Hungry?’
Brook nodded, as if to suggest the idea hadn’t occurred to him. ‘I could eat.’
Drexler returned to the kitchen and Brook fancied he was using the time to hide his papers. But it also allowed more time for Brook to finalise his side of the ensuing conversation. Drexler returned with a ham salad sandwich and two bottles of beer. They clinked bottles and Brook ate in silence as Drexler chugged on his bottle.
‘That was good. Thanks.’
Drexler nodded, but his good humour had dissipated. He stared into the fire, waiting, but Brook wouldn’t be hurried.
Finally Brook was ready. ‘When did you arrive in England, Mike?’