Brook glanced up at her as she stood up. She looked very good in a flowing, rain-flecked gabardine covering a dark pin-striped trouser suit and a white silk blouse, open at the neck. She opened the door and prepared to step out into the dark morning.
‘Hello.’
Brook looked at Jones. He tried to smile but could only manage a weak grimace which he felt sure was about to tip over into hysteria. It was still a good effort given that his world was crumbling around him. What would Wendy think? What would she say? Any moment a young, naked blonde would come stumbling into the kitchen wiping the sleep from her eyes.
Brook handed Jones the two folders from Dr Habib and bolted towards the bedroom. Vicky stood at the door wrapped in a sheet. She smiled and seized him into a hug. Brook pushed her away, gripping her elbows in his hands.
‘Stop! Vicky. Stop! I’ve got to go, I told you. I’m working. I won’t be back for a few days.’
‘I see. Yes I remember.’ She seemed confused for a moment.
‘Vicky. About last night…’ Brook didn’t know what to say. ‘I…you’d been drinking…’
‘Don’t worry.’ She gave him a caring peck on the cheek. ‘You were very gallant.’
Brook looked at her, a warmth burning inside him. The anvil had been lifted from his heart. ‘You said things.’
She looked away from him. ‘I always do.’ Vicky turned back to him with doleful eyes and gently covered his hand with hers. ‘Thank you for last night, for thinking of me.’ Then she smiled and the little girl was gone again. In her place, the mature student said, ‘I’ll feed the cat and put the key through the letter box.’
Brook nodded and held her eyes for a second. ‘Goodbye,’ he said, then turned to leave.
Brook walked Jones to the Mondeo in something of a daze. He didn’t notice her stare, her wish to apologise with a look. He removed the case from her car and put it in his boot. He put all the files and folders on the back seat for ease of access and backed the car out so Jones could park her car in his space.
Eventually she climbed in beside him, still trying to engage him. She removed a long blonde hair from his shoulder and tried to catch his eye with a smile. When she could stand the silence no more, she said, ‘So your daughter’s staying with you. How old is she?’
Brook emitted a tiny, mirthless laugh. ‘Daddy’s special girl?’ He paused and looked into the distance. ‘She’s fifteen.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Forget it, Brooky, you’ve got nothing. No prints, no fibres, no DNA and no witnesses. Nothing. Just a purple tart sitting in a field full of purple flowers.’
‘Fleur de Lis by Robert Lewis Reid. Oil on canvas.’
‘I thought it was a poster.’
‘I mean the original, guv.’
‘So this Professor is into art in a big way. Big deal. It won’t get you a warrant, Brooky, so put it out of your head.’
Rowlands removed his feet from his desk and inhaled deeply on his cigarette. Tobacco smoke was oxygen to him now, the essential lenitive to deaden nerves and allow him to function. A few seconds later, having spread its soothing balm, the smoke began its return journey from lungs through mouth and nose, into the flask being raised to lips. Rowlands took an urgent draught before holding it out to his subordinate. He hated drinking alone, particularly in the morning and Brook felt compelled to offer all the support he could, until his boss could put his daughter’s death behind him.
So DS Brook accepted the flask and tilted it, making sure his tongue was covering the neck. The whisky burned the tip and fell back.
Brook stared out of the window at the rooftops sprawling across West London and popped a sly mint into his mouth. He could see the snake of sighing cars on the elevated M4, sidling impatiently towards their destination, and it held him for no particular reason. So many people going nowhere.
He turned to Rowlands, summoning all the gravity he could muster. ‘He did it, guv. I know it. He knows I know it. And what’s more,’ he said, raising an impressive finger, ‘he made sure I know it.’
‘You’re talking in riddles, Brooky.’
‘He knew I was coming, guv. He played me some music. Opera. It was another calling card. He’s sending messages with art.’ Brook flinched as he said it. That which seemed so certain sounded absurd when voiced.
Rowlands shook his head. ‘People like Victor Sorenson don’t go around murdering lowlifes like Sammy Elphick no matter what they may have nicked from him. They’ve got too much to lose.’
‘But Sammy didn’t nick anything don’t you get it, guv? Sorenson took the VCR with him and left it there. Just so there’d be something to connect him to the Elphick murders. He doesn’t even have a telly.’
‘Irrelevant, old son. He might have been about to buy one.’
‘You don’t need to tell me the legal objections. I know it makes no sense and I know it’d be laughed out of court. But I know he did it. And we’ve got to stop him.’
‘Brooky.’ Rowlands paused. He didn’t want to offend. ‘Putting aside the complete absence of physical evidence, if we accept that this man…’
‘Sorenson.’
‘If we accept that this Sorenson did take his own VCR to Sammy’s as a way in, you lose the only motive you’ve got.’
Brook laughed. ‘I know.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah. There is no motive-at least not one that you can recognise.’
‘But you would?’
‘When I hear it. Look, guv, I’m not sure there even is one. That could be the point. I know it sounds flimsy. But you’ll see.’
‘I see a wealthy retired businessman with no reason to commit multiple murder…’
‘And the burglary at his house?’ argued Brook, clutching at a straw.
‘A burglary which you say never took place. According to you, this Sorenson buys a video for a TV he doesn’t have, notes the serial number, claims he’s had a break-in so he can report the thing stolen, then months later takes it to a flat in Harlesden to gain entry, kills Sammy Elphick and his family, and leaves it for us to find and return to him so he can give us a hint that he’s the killer. Flimsy ain’t the fucking word, Brooky The word is non-existent and don’t tell me that’s two fucking words, you toffee-nosed, fast-track twat.’ Brook laughed.
‘And tell me this,’ Rowlands continued. ‘Why the fuck would this guy go to all the trouble of leaving absolutely no trace at the scene of the murder and then confess to the first copper who turns up on his doorstep?’
‘He didn’t confess. He wanted me to know. There’s adifference. He doesn’t want us to prove it, guv, he wants to keep doing it. He’s laughing at us.’
‘Bollocks!’
‘It’s a classic case of super-ego. This is the first of a series, guv. He knows we wouldn’t finger him for The Reaper in a million years, unless he gives us a nudge. He’s killed three people and we can’t touch him for it. But he can’t have his fun unless he can watch us running around like headless chickens trying to pin it on him.’
‘But we’re not trying to pin it on him, Brooky.’
‘I am.’
Rowlands began to pant. His breath came quickly these days. Even the mildest difficulty enervated him. ‘Give it up, son. You’ll get nowhere with it. Our best, our only chance to catch this bastard is when he does it again. If he does it again.’ Rowlands spoke softly, deliberately. Brook saw the sign. His superior had nothing more to say on the matter, even if he could summon the necessary breath.
‘He will, guv. And when he does, I’ll be ready.’
There was an awkward silence between them and Brook wasn’t sure why. There hadn’t been many. They were friends as well as colleagues since Elizabeth’s death. Brook had nursed Rowlands through that dark time. He
