by Steven Dunne
‘How could he know?’
‘He just does.’
McQuarry tossed her butt into the night. ‘It’s in the past. Let’s leave it there. You had an off day.’
‘We both did.’
McQuarry looked up at Drexler. ‘What do you mean?’
Drexler looked back at her and shrugged. ‘You got careless, Ed. You got too close. And you got cut. Hard to believe, you of all people…’
‘Mike!’
Just then, the night manager came out of his office and walked down the row of cabins to the end room. He knocked on the door and waited. Nobody opened the door. A moment later the portly bedraggled man turned the handle and slipped inside.
Magnet House was no more than five minutes from St Mary’s at that time of day. A quick trip round the inner ring road and Brook was soon pulling up next to it, the building looming up out of Pride Park, the now-deserted industrial zone to the east of Derby. It was a perfect location. As well as its proximity to the train network, the area was sparsely populated and foot traffic at night would usually be minimal, most of the bars and pubs being located half a mile to the west in the city centre.
Brook drove past the redbrick structure, unable to keep his eyes from it, and parked in the forecourt of the railway station, some four hundred yards further on. He rummaged in the boot for his small torch and a pair of protective gloves. He also extracted a bunch of keys, the size of a small hedgehog, liberated from a serial housebreaker many years before, and set off towards the building. He wondered briefly whether to call in at the Midland and wake Grant, but decided against it. She’d had a wretched twenty-four hours travelling the length of England and might not appreciate a visit at nearly one in the morning.
As he neared the darkened building he was disturbed by a noise behind him. Without breaking stride or turning, he continued walking until an unkempt hedge provided cover. He pressed himself into the body of the hedge and scrutinised the ground to his rear. It was a clear night and he was able to train his gaze on the doorways and few parked cars all the way back to the station, but he could discern no movement, not even an animal. He waited a little longer then continued on past the dilapidated buildings on his right, towards Magnet House.
He stood in the shadows of the entrance, looking up at the building. To one side there was a security gate barring admittance to the car park, which evidently snaked around the back of the block. Brook trotted over to it but couldn’t see any vehicles. The parking bays were probably under the building. He turned back to the entrance stairwell. There was a solid door and a steel grill with four shiny new buzzers at the side of a microphone. The name tag of the top buzzer was ‘PH’.
Brook stood back again. Four flats in what looked like two storeys, so two flats per floor. Assuming the top buttons were for the flats on the top floor, he pressed the bottom buzzer. Several minutes and several attempts later a female voice answered.
‘Inspector Brook, Derby CID,’ barked Brook. After a brief hesitation the buzzer sounded and Brook made his way into the entrance hall. An inside door was opened as far as a chain would allow and a young girl ran a sleepy eye over Brook’s ID.
‘Miss Jane Gadd?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Are you Miss Jane Gadd?’
The girl let out a huge sigh. ‘No.’
‘My mistake. I’ll see myself out,’ he smiled, apologetically.
‘Thanks a fucking bundle,’ she said and slammed her door.
Brook returned to the stairs and climbed to the next floor. The second door of two had ‘PH’ on its nameplate. He looked at the crack below the door but couldn’t see a light. Then he rang the bell. No answer. No sound or movement that he could detect. No shadow falling over the peephole. After a few minutes he took out his bunch of keys and selected one, then another, then another. The fourth master key turned and Brook pushed back the door and stepped over the threshold, closing the door softly behind him.
Carlson stood inside the doorway, listening in the dark. There was music coming from somewhere near the bed. Classical stuff, playing softly. Quite nice if you liked that sort of shit. He was more of a Bluegrass man.
He was tempted to turn on the light but thought better of it. Roofies or not, the girl might be half-conscious and manage to store a memory of him. Instead he took off his clothes until he stood naked in the blackness, listening for the sound of his early Christmas present sleeping. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom now and he tossed his grimy clothing on a chair and sniffed under his fetid armpit. Not great but not bad enough to waste time showering. Not with a boner like this to drain.
He had his party hat in his hand and pulled it over his fat penis with a twinge of regret. He usually preferred to ride bareback but he didn’t want to leave behind his DNA in case the girl ever worked out she’d been screwed – which was highly likely with his massive tool. Bitch may not walk for a week, he chuckled.
He moved over to the bed, following the sound of shallow breathing and sat on the edge.
‘I hope you got plenty of the sweet stuff left for Uncle Jake, honey,’ he chuckled again. No reply. This bitch was out cold. He hesitated, assessing the risk. Fuck it. He had to see what he was drilling, made it sweeter. He leaned over and flicked on the bedside lamp and turned to the girl. He liked what he saw. Long hair, slim but with tits and young, soft skin. Her eyes were firmly closed and her firm young body was clad only in bra and panties. He climbed on the bed and prepared to remove her underclothes and mount her.
‘Oh honey chile, Uncle Jake’s gonna light you up like Christmas.’ He grinned at her motionless face, but then his mouth slackened suddenly. He pulled the blanket and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Wait a minute. I know you.’
The girl’s eyes opened and her right fist emerged from the bedding and plunged onto Jake’s throat. He fell back, clutching his neck and a second later pulled the empty hypodermic from his flesh, gasping as he tried to steady himself. He glanced at the hypodermic long enough to see the plunger was fully depressed and the chamber empty. He flung it away.
He moved back towards the bed and the girl screamed but Jake staggered on the threadbare carpet and fell to his knees, sweat pouring out of him in an effort to reach her.
‘You … fucking … little … whore … I’m…’ He sagged onto his vast stomach, one arm propped on the bed. The girl had wrapped a sheet around her and cowered against the head of the bed, legs pulled up, watching him grind out every word.
The door flew open and the two agents barked ‘FBI!’ in unison. Drexler flicked on the main light and was through the door first.
‘Get on the ground,’ he shouted superfluously at Carlson, whose head was already sinking onto the floor. The two agents stared at the barrel of a man, rambling incoherently, unable to move.
‘Off the bed,’ shouted McQuarry to the girl. ‘Face the wall.’ The girl did as she was told, still clinging to the sheet to preserve her modesty.
McQuarry checked behind the door – ‘Clear’ – as Drexler headed for the bathroom. ‘You okay, honey?’ asked McQuarry to the girl, looking all around, both hands on her gun.
‘Clear,’ she heard her partner shout and he returned to the bedroom clipping his firearm back into his belt.
The girl nodded, her face set in a grimace of fear, her cheeks beginning to run with tears.
‘The girl’s clean,’ said McQuarry, holstering her own gun.
Drexler removed a pair of cuffs from his belt and went across to Jake. He placed the cuffs on him and turned him over, throwing a towel over his shrivelling manhood. The man groaned and Drexler helped him over to the wall and sat him up with some difficulty.
‘What happened here, honey?’ said Drexler to the girl. ‘Why did Sorenson bring you here? Why’d he leave you?’
The girl turned from the wall pulling the sheet tight. She was calmer now and looked back at McQuarry, who was busy rifling through Carlson’s clothes. Drexler could see she was no more than sixteen, possibly younger.
She raised her chin but lowered her eyes.
‘Jesus Christ, Mike,’ shouted McQuarry. She stood by the chair where Jake had tossed his clothes. She examined a wallet in her hand. ‘That’s Caleb’s brother. This son of a bitch is Jacob Ashwell.’
Drexler looked over at the man still groaning, blank eyes open and glassy. ‘You sure?’
‘There’s a picture of him with Caleb in the wallet. And here’s his driver’s licence.’ McQuarry handed him the dogeared snap of the two brothers, both holding guns, in front of the line of wrecked motor homes in the bowl near the Ashwell garage.
Brook tried the light switch. Nothing. He switched on his torch and swung it around the room, pausing on the lone mountain bike. It was identical to John Ottoman’s bike, though the saddle and frame sported no discernible blood stains. One of the killers had been able to use it to get back to the flat – presumably the one with the greater need to be visible the next morning. Brook nodded. He knew now who that was.
He moved towards the large curtain-free window, catching his foot on a box as he did so and causing a sharp clanging noise. Brook slipped his hand into the box and pulled out a bottle of Nuits St Georges. Same label, same year as the two bottles left at the Wallis house. He tried a couple more. They were the same.
He rose from his haunches and moved over to the window. The moon was beaming down, bestowing sufficient light to pick out the various items stored in the room. One was a box packed with two bottles of a colourless liquid. One bottle was half empty. A different box, full of hypodermic syringes still in their sealed hygienic packets, sat beside it. Brook shook the colourless liquid then unscrewed the lid and gave the contents a tentative sniff. It was odourless. He replaced the top. Brook was willing to wager that this concoction was some incarnation of the drug used on members of the Wallis and Ingham families.
He swept his torch around the walls. In one corner rested a tripod, though it wasn’t supporting a camcorder at the moment. Three doors lid off the room he was in and all were slightly ajar. Brook stepped through the first one and tried the light again. Still nothing. Perhaps Sorenson’s account had run out of funds, though that hardly seemed likely. He shone his torch over the kitchen appliances, coming to a halt at what seemed to be a large chest freezer. He stepped over to it and opened the lid. He smiled faintly; there were at least a dozen of the same blue and white striped bags found at the Ingham home, containing meats from the butcher’s in Normanton. He closed the freezer. It was working normally, the green light winking on the display. Clearly there was power in the plug sockets. Perhaps the fuse for the overhead lighting had blown.
Brook looked through several kitchen units, searching for the fusebox without success. Instead he found a set of wine glasses identical to those from the Wallis house and a small box of Swann Morton PM60 scalpels. He took a deep breath. It was all here – all the evidence they needed.
He went into another room. This was less of a storage area than the main room and the kitchen, this was somebody’s space. He couldn’t see any personal items on display, but there was a bed and a small sofa, a desk with a laptop and a shelf full of books. Brook examined them as he had Sorenson’s library two decades before. He smiled when he saw The Collected Works of Albert Camus – Drexler’s philosopher of choice. There were also a couple of slim volumes of Wittgenstein who, Brook knew from Drexler’s book, had been quoted in blood at the scene of the California killings.
He turned on the laptop and approached the small stereo, next to which was a stack of about twenty CDs – all classical. Brook ran his eye down them. Debussy, Wagner, Fauré, Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovich. How many people would die before these discs were exhausted? He opened the Debussy case. It was empty.
Brook continued his sweep. His torch alighted on a large canvas lamp on the far side of the bed and he padded round to switch it on. It worked so he flicked off his torch. Now he had light, he saw the copy of The Ghost Road Killers on the floor. He checked for an inscription but found none.
He moved to the window to look out over the flyover and beyond to the red ‘Westfield’ sign of the new shopping mall. His eye dropped to the laptop on the table beneath the window. The welcome page was waiting for a password. He typed in ‘The Reaper’, then ‘Sorenson’, then ‘Peter Hera’, then ‘Petra Heer’ in turn. No joy.
He turned back to the room. In one corner sat a pile of papers topped by a large colour photograph. Brook picked it up. It was a picture of Jason Wallis standing by a stretch limousine with several other young men. One he was sure was Stephen Ingham. He looked at the date on the back. This was taken just before Brook’s camping holiday had come to an end, the day young Wallis had been released from White Oaks. In the pile were more pictures of Wallis and friends, which Brook examined carefully. He paused before picking up the next picture. The image showed Brook stepping out of his car at St Mary’s Wharf.
And there were others – some taken at the crime scene with Grant and Hudson, some outside the Ottoman house, and several of Brook and Grant going door to door on the Drayfin. He sifted through and counted them. There were twenty-three pictures in total of Brook. The next one was taken at night and showed him walking away from the Midland Hotel towards Magnet House, chatting with Grant by his side. Judging by the angle, this photograph had been taken from the window of the flat. He turned these over and picked up the next batch, standing for several minutes examining them. He nodded. Grant walking her little circuit late at night, Grant looking up at the camera, a look of concentration on her face. He stared at the next one for a moment longer.
‘You don’t seem too surprised,’ said a voice from the doorway.
Chapter Twenty-One
Drexler looked at Ashwell. The resemblance was clear. Then he looked at the girl.
‘I don’t understand. Who are you?’ The girl set her jaw and looked away.
‘It’s Jacob Ashwell, Mike. What are we going to do?’ said McQuarry.
‘Why are you here?’ Drexler pressed the girl.
The girl’s eyes blazed back at him. ‘That man was going to rape me. He raped my sister.’
Drexler’s brow creased. ‘You’re English?’
‘It’s Jacob Ashwell, Mike. We have to do something.’
‘You’re English,’ said Drexler again, staring at her. His eyes widened when the resemblance hit him. ‘My God, you’re Nicole Bailey. You’re alive.’
‘That man raped my sister. He murdered her. He would have raped me…’
‘What did you do to him?’ said Drexler, picking up the hypodermic with a handkerchief.
‘I defended myself,’ said the girl.
‘But Sorenson said…’ Drexler ran his hand through his hair.
‘Can I get dressed?’ asked the girl softly. Drexler nodded without thinking, just to let his brain work on the problem. She stepped gingerly into a pair of jeans as though the whole of her right side was sore.
He looked up at McQuarry. ‘Nicole Bailey. What the hell?’
‘This is some kind of set-up, Mike. Has to be.’
Drexler nodded. ‘It’s that all right, but Sorenson didn’t tell me about the girl…’
‘What are you talking about, Mike?’
Drexler looked up at his partner. For a second he hesitated. ‘Sorenson offered me a deal. In exchange for my father’s whereabouts I was supposed to kill someone, someone who deserved it.’
‘Who?’
‘He didn’t say. Just that it would be soon.’
McQuarry nodded and looked over at the prostrate night manager, spittle oozing from his uncontrolled bottom lip. ‘And Sorenson led us right to him. Neat.’ She paused and turned back to Drexler. ‘What did you say?’
Drexler pulled the M9 from his jacket.
‘Whose gun is that, Mike?’
‘Sorenson’s…’
‘Mike!’
‘Don’t try and stop me, Ed.’
McQuarry held up her hands and backed away from him. ‘Easy, Mike. You do what you gotta d
o. No one’s gonna stop you, just take it slow…’
Drexler turned to her, eyes blazing. ‘Don’t talk me down like I’m a perp, Ed. Just shut up while I do this thing. We both know this piece of shit won’t be missed.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this, Mike?’
‘Course I’m sure.’
‘What are you waiting for?’ said the girl from behind him.
‘Shut up!’
Drexler raised the gun so that it was pointing at Jacob Ashwell’s temple. He took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.
Brook turned and let the picture of Laura Grant waving to the camera fall to the floor. He stared into Grant’s eyes, a sad smile deforming his face. ‘Hello, Laura.’
‘Damen. Why couldn’t you have found out tomorrow?’
‘When you’ll be far away.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You were coming here that night you saw me in the car, weren’t you?’
She smiled. ‘A minute later and I’d have been at the door. That would have saved you some time. How long have you known?’
Brook looked her over. She was dressed head to toe in figure-hugging black jeans and a sweater. No ski mask today. ‘Before yesterday it was just a vague unease.’
‘Caused by what?’
‘Oh, the coincidence of Joshua being ill keeping you in Derby the night of the murders. That was a little too neat.’
Grant nodded. ‘I didn’t like it either, but I had to be in town for the Inghams. I’d had a couple of weeks off beforehand. We’d done so much preparation. Also, we figured if Josh was ill, you’d suspect him first.’
‘I did. How did you pull that off?’