‘Tell me.’
Brook looked into the fire and remembered. It hadn’t been that long since they’d found her. Six months. Less maybe.
Brook hesitated then set off. Perhaps he could offload his burden onto someone who deserved it. ‘There was a girl. Laura Maples. She died a few months ago.’
‘Ah yes. Not far from here. I read about it. Ravenscourt Park. Who was she?’
‘Who was she?’ Brook was unprepared for the simplicity of the question. He spoke as though he hadn’t been thinking about it constantly. ‘She was nobody. A routine murder victim. Another street girl meets a sticky end.’
‘But she was more than that.’
‘She was a…No. To her parents perhaps.’ Brook stared blindly at the bright eyes and toothy grin of the schoolgirl smiling up at him from the fax tray-everything shiny and young. Her hair, her skin, her silver necklace with little hearts on it, strategically placed over her shirt and school tie to flag up her gentle rebellion.
‘She was seventeen when she arrived in London, and quite pretty in a fresh-faced kind of way. She’d left her comfortable, stifling existence in the country and headed for the golden paving stones of London. No reason. No family strife, no abusive father, no lack of love or prospects. It was just that, for some, that’s not enough. For some’-Brook managed not to add ‘of us’. Sorenson had enough psychological crowbars-‘the sheen of optimism, the embrace of life departs early.’
‘So she headed for a better life.’ Sorenson’s smile didn’t offend.
‘No. Just a shorter one. You know the story from here. She’s homeless, her money runs out, she ends up on the streets. She’s young and healthy, she can make good money. Only the street isn’t a shopping mall for the exchange of goods and services. It’s a jungle. She stands out a mile. It’s her first time.’
Brook stared into the fire, unable to blink. His eyes began to complain once more. ‘She’s picked up by a punter who goes back with her to her squat in Ravenscourt Park. She’s got an old mattress and a small camping stove and a few candles…’
Brook took a sip of his drink. ‘We can’t tell if he ever intended to pay but once they’re inside it becomes clear he doesn’t have to. He’s in a derelict house with a naive girl. It has a piece of urine-soaked hardboard for a door. There’s nobody to stop him. Nobody.
‘And what can she do? This pretty, nervous girl with little idea of the rules. So he decides. Why pay when it’s more fun to take?’
‘He rapes her.’
‘Why not? He’s a strong man. She’s a powerless girl. It’s an old formula. But it doesn’t stop there. Maybe she’s crying, she gets upset and provokes him in some way, he’s hurt her, violated her, torn off the necklace she’s been wearing for years, a keepsake of his conquest. It cuts into her neck and she starts to scream.
‘Or maybe, finally having such power over someone, even this gauche, stupid girl a long way from home, awakens something in him.
‘He’s never had power before, he’s nothing, no-one respects him, no-one is in awe of him, no-one is aware he even exists. But this girl knows. She sees his power, fears it and he revels in it. He sees her fear and feels his power over her and it feels good. He wants more. He has the power. He feels it welling up inside him, the ultimate power over life and death. Suddenly he’s a god. He is God. He can choose. He has the power to transform her into something else: a lifeless monument to his power.’
Brook halted on that crescendo and took a moment before going on. ‘And so, that night, her insignificant life ends. There’s an old beer bottle on the floor. He breaks it and uses it. Gently does it. Don’t rush it. Feel the fear, her fear, feeding into him, leaving her weak, making him strong…’
Brook screwed his eyelids shut again, having forgotten to blink for a while-that, and the fire, has desiccated his eyes. If he keeps them closed perhaps he can imagine himself in the light and the warmth of an empty place- empty of all but Amy and little Theresa. And the girl Laura-shiny, full of life and hope.
‘And you haven’t caught him?’
‘No. And we won’t.’
‘How long was she there before you found her?’
Brook looked at his host. Bulls eye again.
‘At least a month, maybe six weeks. We found her in summer. The smell…’ Brook couldn’t hold Sorenson’s gaze. His mouth tightened around the rest of the story. Sorenson’s eyes probed, waiting. Waiting until Brook became uncomfortable, not long. He felt obligated to finish but couldn’t get past, ‘There were rats…I…’
‘I see.’ Sorenson nodded in contemplation but little evident sympathy. ‘And was your horror confined to your visceral disgust at what the rats had done to her soft young flesh?’
Brook blinked as though smelling salts had been administered. ‘Sorry?’
‘Yes, but for whom?’ Brook looked into the fire, seeking solace. Sorenson continued to bore into him. ‘Regrettable though the death of Laura Maples may be, the horror that you feel is not for her ordeal but the physical desecration inflicted post mortem. Am I right?’
‘Perhaps.’ Brook continued to gaze at the fire, aware of the mistake he’d made. Sorenson couldn’t be affected by anything Brook, or anyone else, had seen.
‘Surely the greatest pain or humiliation or mental torture has to be dispensed while still alive, while able to feel, to sense. The dead don’t suffer, my friend.’
Brook raised his eyes to engage Sorenson’s, fighting the triumphant smile beginning to crease his lips. Suddenly he was close. ‘Or cry.’
Sorenson smiled back, unperturbed at the excitement in Brook’s eyes. He looked away and nodded, then back at Brook. ‘Did you cry for Laura?’
Brook stared back. ‘I will.’
Sorenson emitted a sharp laugh. Brook saw that his host was pleased with the reply. ‘And did you cry for Sammy Elphick?’
A pause. ‘No.’
‘Because there were no rats?’
‘Because he was nothing. A blight on the planet.’
‘But did that mean he deserved to die?’
‘No. But it means he won’t be missed.’
‘And the child, Sergeant?’
‘Who?’
‘Sammy Elphick’s son.’
‘What about him?’
‘Will he be missed? Did you cry for the future that was taken away from him?’
Brook was unsettled. Don’t answer.
‘Did you?’
Brook drained his glass and stood to fetch a refill sanctioned by a wave of his host’s hand. Sorenson remained unmoved as Brook poured and returned to his seat. Brook stared once more into the fire that was all but out. He took another long pull at his glass and gasped at the wrench on his throat.
He swirled the warm brown liquid around the glass and watched crystals dance against the dim glow of the ashes. Anything but look at Sorenson. Eventually he spoke, in a murmur he hoped would be difficult to distinguish but which instead seemed to echo around the room like a gunshot. ‘No.’
And there they sat. Hunter and hunted, in no particular order, occasionally drinking, rarely moving or evenlooking at each other. At one point, Sorenson revived the fire with some dry fibrous logs and the two busied themselves inspecting the progress of the flames. From time to time the dull cracking of the logs would turn to spitting and Sorenson would nimbly jump up to return a hot ember to its place.
The heat blazed now and began to scorch the right side of Brook’s face so he forced himself up to stroll around the study, inspecting books and paintings and record collections again. He looked back at Sorenson whose eyes had closed. His head remained upright, however, and Brook guessed that he wasn’t asleep. Perhaps he was being invited to leave-or provoked into some indiscretion.
He drained his glass and placed it carefully on a coaster on the writing desk and picked up a piece of blank A4 paper that had been folded and stood upright. On closer inspection he saw it was a home-made birthday card, indecipherable apart from the childish crayon sketch of someone who could be Sorenson.
