It was the same noise he had dismissed as the wind a moment before, louder now, and clearly made by some corporeal creature.
Brook noticed a pile of tattered clothes by the bed that the girl had removed or had removed for her. Perhaps some animal had made its home there. He peered at what looked like a shirt and a sweater. They weren’t scattered and torn but dropped into a pile implying that the girl was able to take them off on her own. Whether this was under duress or not, Brook couldn’t say.
He moved the light down. The shard of a beer bottle protruded from the girl’s throat at a right angle. Marksshowed where several attempts had been made by the killer to force it in. He’d finally succeeded to such a degree that the neck of the bottle was nearly level with her chin.
A pair of grimy panties dangled from the bottle. The killer’s final act had been to wipe off his prints with them. Such presence of mind would guarantee Life if they ever caught him. If.
The fluttering again. Brook swung his torch sharply onto the pile of clothes. Nothing. No movement. Perhaps he was imagining it.
He continued his appraisal but the noise returned. He looked around now for something to work with. He found a stick and crept closer to the body and the pile of clothes. He had to put his handkerchief away to have two hands free but the smell wasn’t as bad. He’d acclimatised.
He took the stick and, holding the torch in front of him, gingerly stabbed at the material. Nothing.
He stepped back, troubled. He turned to the body and moved his light over the lower half of the girl’s torso. The knees were together and the legs were raised into the foetal position, presumably in a futile gesture of self- defence. Brook imagined a noise behind the girl and guessed there could be something nestling in the mattress.
He moved round and shone the light on the girl’s legs. Immediately the noise increased. It was the sound of animals panicking and though he tried to withdraw the light, the damage was done. A flurry of activity drew his attention and he saw something furry and quick move under the girl. As it did so, her right leg, which had been locked into the rigor mortis of sexual prurience, swung away from its neighbour.
A dozen wary eyes returned Brook’s horrified gape butwouldn’t be deflected from their meal. The rats were big, bigger than when they’d started their meal. But they were still hungry.
Brook was appalled. Appalled at this desecration, yes, but more by the attention the rats were suddenly paying him. He wanted to run but was frozen, unable to break away from the feeding rodents, cloaked in blackened viscera. He couldn’t move, he dare not move and to point the beam elsewhere would mean not knowing, not being sure where the rats were. Would they continue to gnaw at the humiliated corpse or transfer their interest to him?
Hours passed in a few seconds. Still Brook was rooted. After what seemed an age, the rats seemed to lose interest in Brook as they became accustomed to the beam. They liked its unexpected warmth and bathed in it. And they became blase about the threat posed by Brook.
One by one they returned to their business, no longer munching with their eyes darting at him, but ignoring him so completely that Brook decided it was time to take his chance.
He reversed through the doorway into the outer room, still not daring to turn the beam onto his exit. Nearly there now. He was being an idiot. Rats didn’t attack human beings unless they were stricken in some way, and then only in the most extreme circumstances. It would be like a shoal of mackerel having a go at a shark.
Finally Brook came to a halt. He couldn’t look any longer at the girl. The more he’d drawn away, the more he could see the bigger picture. This girl had died. Here in this hell. And what was left, what her parents would want, would need to take away for proper grieving, was being defiled by these monsters.
A panic washed over him and his breath seemed to be rushing from his body. He had to get out. He turned and fixed his torch on the entrance but as he did so he heard a terrible screeching from the direction of the girl. He wheeled round and caught the full horror of the rats tearing out of the torso towards him.
He dropped the torch, hoping that was all they wanted, and ran. He ran for all he was worth, no longer caring what he stepped in or kicked over. To be outside, in the clean night air, was all Brook wanted from life now.
Nearly there. He was quicker even than the filthy animals. But as he got to the entrance, to his horror he found his way barred. He’d gone the wrong way. Or something had fallen across the makeshift door and Brook was unable to shift it. He tried again but it wouldn’t budge. He was trapped.
Brook span round in terror to see the pack of slick-haired rodents teeming past the rocking beam of his torch towards him. Then he couldn’t see them, he could only hear the scratch of their claws on the concrete, tearing closer and closer. He tried to speak but could make no noise save for a gentle whimper of despair.
Brook pushed against the wall and braced himself. All he could do was look to the ceiling, try to block out what was happening. Then maybe he could protect his face, his eyes.
The first one was on him, then another and another. He screamed and kicked out wildly, but it was no use. They were on his trousers, ripping at the material. Then one was on his ankle, his sock. It must have smelt the fetid gust of heat wafting down Brook’s leg because it squirmed into thenarrow opening of his trouser leg and began hauling itself up towards his crotch, slicing through his flesh as it went.
Brook put his arms to his thigh to prevent access but realised that he was being driven nearer the ground so he stood up straight. If he went to ground he was done for.
But the rat was in his pants now-Brook could feel its snout nuzzling away at the gusset.
And then the pain. Pain like he’d never felt before. Searing, blinding. ‘Please get them off me, get them off me, get them off me.’
‘Get them off me!’ DS Brook woke with a start and took a deep breath. His face was drenched with sweat, his hands clammy. The drone of police chatter on the radio brought him back and he sat up to open the window and adjust the driver’s seat. The cold night air revived him. He drained his Styrofoam coffee, now cold, and began breathing normally again.
Soon he was flipping his notepad open and shut to stave off boredom. He knew all the tricks to enrich his life.
He glanced at the crossword on the passenger seat but decided against it. His brain was overheated enough. Instead he closed his eyes to ease the sting of too little sleep.
His shift had finished hours ago. He could have been at home now, with his family, arm round his wife, enjoying a spot of synchronised gaping at their brand new daughter, a small pink parcel of helplessness and need, the better part of him poured into that vulnerable vessel.
Brook thought of baby Theresa and smiled briefly. But then he saw the Maples girl. Her empty eye sockets glaredat him. Black holes that pulled in all Brook’s happy thoughts, all his hope for the future.
He remembered her face, a contortion of pain, that strange grin of pleasure that sudden death can bestow on lifeless features. But she wasn’t lifeless. There was movement…
Brook shuddered but kept his eyes shut tight. It was no use. He couldn’t separate them. He couldn’t think of little Theresa without the girl, Laura, intruding. Theresa, who came into the world as Laura was being butchered. They were the same in Brook’s mind. Indivisible. To Brook it was a rebirth, the girl had been reincarnated, savagely taken from the brutality of the world to start again as Brook’s daughter. But it was no second chance. Brook knew the world now. His daughter was doomed. Doomed to repeat the cycle of innocence corrupted. And it was all Brook’s fault. He’d brought another victim into this terrible world.
Brook wanted to open his eyes but the ache endured so he focused on the case. Forget little Theresa, think of The Reaper-Brook’s name for him. How to catch him? How to win?
The lure of detection calmed him, drew him away from those immobilising minefields of emotion and allowed him to go on.
The moisture too returned to soothe pupils that felt as if they’d had a vigorous rubdown with a harsh towel. A tapping on the window jolted him back.
‘It’s Sergeant Brook, isn’t it?’
The mocking tone irritated Brook. He wound down the window and contemplated Victor Sorenson’s expression of forced bonhomie. If anything his demeanour seemed even more triumphal than it was the last time they’d met.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’ Brook replied with just the right amount of feigned respect.
‘It’s an unpleasant evening. I thought you might like a drink. Unless, of course, you’re on a case.’
