Whisper For The Reaper: A spine tingling murder mystery (Detective Inspector Declan Walsh Book 4)

by Jack Gatland

  ‘It’s annoying the hell. Not it is.’

  ‘I don’t get you,’ Billy looked to Anjli, to see if she understood where Declan was going with this. Declan, undeterred, carried on.

  “Look,’ he pointed at the sheet sent to Maidenhead. ‘I am not taking no for an answer.’ Now compare that to the suicide note. ‘I wanted to honour my father, but I’m not the man he was’. And here, ‘But I’ve also had the urges’, while on the report he says ‘But I have decided to pursue.’ Even here, where on the note he says ‘I can’t go back now’, in the report he says ‘I cannot be stopped in my belief’. They’re contractions. It’s. I’ve. I’m. All the way through the suicide note, but not the request to Maidenhead.’

  ‘It’s because English is a second language,’ Anjli exclaimed. ‘You learn it correctly. Contractions like these are like slang. They’re corruptions of the language, something you pick up over the years.’

  Declan thought back to his first conversation with Rolfe Müller, when he introduced his sister.

  ‘Ilse is here because she has a much better grasp of your language than I have. She is here to ensure I make no communication mistakes when talking to your police.’

  ‘Ilse was better at English than Rolfe was,’ he muttered.

  ‘And she always spoke in contractions,’ Billy nodded. ‘I remember that.’ He stopped as an idea came to him. Moving to the side of the keyboard, he rummaged through a small pile of discarded papers, eventually pulling out the note that Ilse had given him after their lunch together.

  ‘It’s the same paper source,’ he said, comparing it to the one on the screen. ‘Same lines. Joanna will have to confirm that, but—‘

  ‘But Ilse had access to the same paper stock that Rolfe used for his suicide note, and spoke and wrote English in a style that fit the language in it,’ Declan replied. ‘And I’m assuming she could have learned how to mimic his style, especially if she’d spent days up in her room alone.’

  ‘Okay, so let’s say that Ilse wrote this note,’ Anjli leaned back as she considered this. ‘How does that help us? She was in the Snug with Karl when Rolfe died. We have CCTV of them.’

  ‘Unless there was another killer out there,’ Billy suggested. ‘We’d already mentioned that Müller senior could still be around.’

  ‘There’s an easier answer,’ Declan slammed his hand on the table as realisation hit him. ‘Billy, when you got down there during the fight in the bar, did Dave suggest the Snug, or did Karl?’

  ‘I think it was Dave,’ Billy thought back. ‘But that said, I can’t be sure. They were talking about a quiet place. Out of the way. Dave mentioned the Snug… they could have led him to suggesting it though.’

  Declan rose from the table. ‘Both of you, come with me,’ he said. ‘It’s time to see if an old legend is true or not.’

  Johann Hoffman was a grumpy old man with no hair, a thick handlebar moustache and an arrogance that made him almost insufferable to speak to, as Monroe and Bullman faced him across a table in a small, dank and well past its prime local bar.

  ‘I am here because Peter vouched for you,’ he grumbled. ‘I will not be coerced by you though.’

  Monroe nodded. Peter Banisch had warned them about Johann; although he was a friend, possibly the best friend of Karl Meier, he was also a staunch believer in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, believed that the fall of the wall was a mistake, and more importantly believed that Berlin post-wall was a joke, an eyesore and a shame for the whole country. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who still believed this, and ten years earlier had moved to a small community in the north-east quarter of Berlin, where he and many others around him mourned the collapse of the SED, discussed leaving this weaker state, and worked as volunteers for the far-right Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or National Democratic Party of Germany.

  Monroe hated Hoffman from the moment they met.

  ‘We only have a couple of questions,’ Bullman smiled as she spoke, as if a woman smiling might actually help Hoffman warm to the two detectives. It wasn’t working so far.

  ‘You want to speak about Hauptmann Müller,’ Hoffman replied. ‘He was a good man. A misunderstood man. And Karl took advantage of that.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘By having an affair with his wife,’ Hoffman replied haughtily. ‘He was not even careful about this. He openly mocked Müller.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be like brothers?’ Monroe responded. ‘This doesn’t sound brotherly.’

  ‘Brothers don’t have to think the same way,’ Hoffman retaliated. ‘I loved him, but Karl was a fool, right until the very end.’

  ‘The end?’

  ‘The fall of the wall,’ Hoffman replied. ‘It was a terrible day. There was chaos. People in the streets cheering. We were the villains of the story. We were hunted, beaten. And debts were settled.’

  ‘What sort of debts?’ Bullman wrote in her notepad as she spoke. ‘Debts between Müller and Meier?’

  Hoffman nodded. ‘That is what people believe.’

  ‘Hold on laddie, I think we’re going a little off piste here,’ Monroe muttered. ‘We were told that Karl Meier ended up buying a new identity from Müller. So what do you mean when you say people believe?’

  ‘Karl was given a new identity by Müller, that is correct to say,’ Hoffman chuckled. ‘But it was not the identity he wanted.’

  ‘Because he was named Reaper?’

  ‘No, because his identity went from alive to deceased!’ Hoffman laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘They found him dead outside a small warehouse, half a mile from the watchtower!’

  Monroe and Bullman stared at each other for a moment.

  ‘Karl Meier is dead?’ Monroe replied, slowly.

  ‘Yes!’ Hoffman almost shouted this. ‘Are you stupid? Deaf perhaps? Protesters killed him during the riots that followed. He was stabbed through the heart, right here.’ He tapped his chest. ‘Right through the Reaper badge we were all made to wear. Sure, people wondered whether it was Müller that did this, that perhaps he learned that the small child he called son was a bastard, but we would never know.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he disappeared the same day, too.’ Hoffman crossed his arms as he finished. ‘He had friends in the Stasi. I believe that he feared retaliations from families of dead border crossers, and so he forced the Stasi to give him a new identity, so he could leave.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ Bullman frowned. ‘Surely they’d want him close by, to ensure his silence?’

  ‘The Stasi had no say in what he did by then,’ Hoffman replied. ‘As soon as he was away from them, he turned on them all. Made a deal with other people, Americans in grey suits.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘We all saw them during the fall,’ Hoffman spat. ‘Trying to put out the flames of the folders the Stasi burned. People like Müller, who’d saved many files, were a Godsend to them. To the CIA.’

  ‘He turned informer? Made deals with Langley?’ Monroe was surprised. Hoffman sniffed.

  ‘He gained privilege,’ he replied. ‘Wilhelm Müller was immune to all prosecution. He could have stayed under the name, but although the people he now allied with were happy to give him a kind of… what do you call it? A Diplomatic Immunity, the families would still hunt him down. His marriage was over after the news of the affair came out, and so he had nothing to stay for. And meanwhile, we buried Karl Meier at Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde.’

  Monroe pulled out his phone, already typing as he spoke.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Mister Hoffman,’ he said, still typing as he rose from the chair, nodding to Bullman to follow him out. And, once on the street, he took a deep breath.

  ‘Christ,’ he muttered.

  ‘What kind of case is this?’ Bullman asked, reading her notes. ‘If Karl Meier is dead, who the hell is Karl Schnitter?’

  ‘I think, Sophie, that Declan’s friend Karl might be the given, new i
dentity of Wilhelm Müller,’ Monroe replied. ‘And if that’s the case then everything we’ve ever been told about the Red Reaper case is a lie, in particular how Karl and Patrick were supposed to have captured and killed Müller several years ago. But there’s something worse at stake.’ He stared at the buildings around him as he worked through the issue in his head. ‘If Wilhelm Müller is found guilty of any crimes in the UK, he could call on the CIA, reminding them of old debts, and they could have him out of the cell and disappeared within minutes. He could literally get away with murder. No wonder Emilia wanted us on this. It’s some kind of spook pissing contest.’

  ‘Who’s Emilia?’ Bullman asked, slightly behind the curve here.

  ‘Ex-wife. Long story,’ Monroe sighed. ‘We need to let everyone know that we’ve been going the wrong bloody direction here.’

  The Snug was empty when Declan brought Anjli and Billy into the room, making his way over to the corner under the CCTV camera. There was a small table with two chairs there, and the wall beside it was half panelled with mahogany.

  ‘There was a legend about this building,’ Declan said as he moved the table away from the wall. ‘That there was talk of an underground tunnel being used during the Bloodless Revolution of 1688, when the anti-Catholic Lord Lovelace helped William of Orange to take the throne. They said that Lovelace would plot this in the crypt at Old Ladye Place, and his fellow aristocratic conspirators would enter through underground tunnels that led from the river and the Olde Bell to the crypt to avoid detection. ‘

  ‘Stories, or facts?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Definitely facts,’ Declan pulled at the wood panelling. ‘They even had people go down and look into it, but it was unsafe and boarded back up.’ The panelling came off with a crack, and Declan faced a small cubbyhole in the wall above a crudely made hole into the ground.

  ‘Looks like someone didn’t get the message,’ he said as he pulled out his torch and, with a small grin slid his legs into the hole, sliding through, landing in the rough hewn beginning of a small, stone tunnel only four feet in height. Doubled over, Declan shone the torch down the tunnel itself.

  The fallen rubble seemed to be removed.

  ‘According to the old folk tales, this leads directly to the crypt,’ he said as he climbed back out of it. ‘We need to get forensics to check this before I contaminate any more of it.’

  Billy was looking at the camera as Declan climbed out. ‘We kept seeing Ilse as she walked around the room,’ he said. ‘She was distracting us, pretending to have a conversation with Karl while he slid into the tunnel, made his way to the crypt, killed Rolfe and then returned, blocking up the hole before we arrived at the door.’

  Declan nodded.

  ‘Rolfe didn’t kill himself,’ he replied. ‘Karl Schnitter and Ilse Müller worked together to kill him. The question, though, is why?’

  Jess was in the living room when the doorbell rang. Rising from the sofa, she walked to the door, opening it to find Ilse Müller standing in the doorway.

  ‘Is Declan Walsh here?’ Ilse asked. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘No,’ Jess replied. ‘I could call him if you want?’

  ‘I’ve already tried, but the phone goes to voicemail,’ Ilse said. ‘May I come in? I’m… Well, I think I’m being followed.’

  Jess thought for a moment as she looked past Ilse, out into the street. At the end of the opposite row of houses, she could see a shadowed figure watching them, half hidden behind a hedge.

  ’Sure,’ she said as she stepped back, allowing Ilse to enter the house. ‘And I’m sorry about your loss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ilse said as she closed the front door.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ Jess asked. Ilse smiled at this.

  ‘That would be very kind,’ she replied, looking down at the laptop on the coffee table. ‘I hope we didn’t interrupt you from something important?’

  ‘I’m just writing up some notes for dad,’ Jess walked into the kitchen. ‘Actually, you might be able to help. I spoke to a friend of Nathanial Wing today, and they said that it was you, and not your brother, that contacted him to unlock—‘

  She stopped as Ilse’s last line pinged a warning bell in her head.

  ‘I hope we didn’t interrupt you…’

  Carefully, and making no noise, Jess reached for her phone, cursing when she realised it was still on the table, next to her laptop. Changing tack, she pulled open a drawer, turning back to the living room.

  ‘Sugar?’ she shouted out, using the sound of her voice to muffle the slight clatter of cutlery as she pulled a carving knife out of the drawer.

  ’No, please,’ Ilse replied. Jess, now armed, moved to the door carefully, worried that the slightest sound would give her away. She opened it, moving into the living room—

  To find nobody there.

  Knife still in her hand, Jess stared in shock for a moment, but it was a moment too long as, from behind, an arm clamped around her shoulder as she felt the pinch of a needle entering the side of her neck. Pulling away, she turned to face Ilse, an empty syringe in her hand.

  ‘Please, be calm,’ Ilse said softly, pointing at the sofa. ‘You should sit down, before you collapse.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Jess slurred, staring at the blade in her hand as her fingers, no longer able to grasp onto it, loosened, the carving knife tumbling to the floor. ‘Why are you doing this? Your brother just died…’

  ‘I know,’ Ilse nodded. ‘I helped kill him. Now please, sit on the sofa before I do the same to you, Miss Walsh.’

  Jess went to reply, but found that her vocal cords weren’t working. The room was spinning slightly, fading away into blackness, as she stumbled around the room, knocking items to the floor with her flailing arms, unable to control them as she sunk deeper into darkness…

  Ilse stared at the unconscious girl on the floor of the living room and smiled.

  There was one last Red Reaper card in the deck.

  And tonight, one last person would face the coin as it flipped.

  24

  I Can See Clearer Now

  Declan stared at the phone in his hand as the call ended. He couldn’t connect the dots that he’d just heard; he couldn’t fathom the news that he’d just been told, the revelation that the entire room had just heard through the speaker. Slowly, he disconnected the call and stared out across the table at Anjli and Billy.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, his voice cold and emotionless. Anjli nodded. They’d all listened to the call from Monroe. And the information he’d gathered from Johann Hoffman actually helped them understand what had happened that day.

  Karl Schnitter wasn’t Karl Meier, for he was dead.

  Karl Schnitter was Wilhelm Müller.

  ‘Well, at least that clears up the issue we had with Rolfe and Ilse,’ Billy muttered. ‘Ilse was Müller’s kid. Rolfe was the bastard child.’

  ‘Which means that technically she didn’t lie, because if he is Müller, then she was correct when she told us that Karl was her dad.’

  ‘Bullshit. We’ve been bloody well lied to every step of the way,’ Declan stated. ‘They used us, Anjli. They played us. We were even set up for their bloody alibi, knowing that we were watching them. Her entire conversation with you, last night? Purely aimed at placing us in the line of fire. She knew you were a detective,’ Declan now said to Billy. ‘Karl knew you were part of the Last Chance Saloon team, so I think we can assume that Ilse did.’

  ‘Does this mean that I never have to be undercover again?’ Billy asked hopefully. ‘I can live with that. What I can’t live with is the two of them using us to kill a police officer.’

  Declan nodded. Rolfe might have been a right royal pain in the behind, but he was a police detective, and in the end was killed by the murderer he was hunting. And that was a debt that needed to be paid.

  ‘So what now?’ Anjli asked. ‘We bring them in? How do we convince Freeman to reopen this? All we have is a border guard who changed his
name. If there’s no evidence at the crime scene, then Karl, or Wilhelm, or whatever his bloody name is will just walk away again.’

  ‘Nobody’s walking away from this,’ Declan hissed. Anjli walked over to him, turning him to face her.

  ‘I know he killed your parents, and that alone deserves vengeance, but you need to back down here. We need to find a way to arrest him. It’s the right thing.’

  ‘Why?’ Declan snapped back. ‘Just under two weeks ago you were saying the same about Malcolm Gladwell for killing Kendis. And what happened there? Nothing. His solicitors are trying to arrange a deal for him. He’ll be in the cushiest cell possible, he’ll write his memoirs, and then he’ll sell them for a seven-figure deal, and do a bloody TV redemption tour when he’s released. Karl’s killed sixteen people—‘

  ‘Seventeen,’ Billy interrupted. ‘He most likely killed Meier too.’ His face brightened.

  ‘Hey!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s why Nathanial Wing was on the sixteenth green! Meier’s death makes it correct!’

  ‘Read the room, Billy,’ Anjli snapped.

  There was a moment of awkward silence in the room, interrupted when the door opened and De’Geer entered.

  ‘Something I missed?’ he asked as he looked at the faces that turned to him. As succinctly as he could, Declan explained how Karl Schnitter had used an ancient tunnel under the pub to kill Rolfe Müller, how he wasn’t Karl Meier but was instead Wilhelm Müller, and how this meant that not only did Patrick Walsh not kill him five years earlier, but that the whole story that Karl had told them, a story that they’d been led to believe as gospel, was likely to be nothing but lies and stories invented to keep Declan away from the truth. And that the moment he was arrested, there was a whole legal can of worms that opened on whether Karl, once outed as Wilhelm Müller could be charged with any crimes, or whether he’d simply be extracted from a police cell by whichever CIA department owed him the most and given a new identity, or extradited back into Europe by whichever German politicians he had blackmail information on.