earlier at the gas station below. From his rucksack he also removed a half-bottle of red wine and, using his recent purchase, opened the bottle. ‘Needs to breathe,’ he said to Caleb with a grin.
‘You ain’t answered my question, you sick son of a bitch. What the fuck you think you’re doing? This is kidnapping. You can get twenty years for that in California.’
Brook smiled at him. ‘You’ve researched it, have you?’ Ashwell didn’t answer. Brook pulled out a CD of Faure’s Requiem and looked over at Ashwell with a look of regret on his face. ‘I don’t suppose you have a CD player?’
‘A CD player? That what this is about, you bastard? No, we ain’t got no CD player.’
‘Pity. Then again, you’re a few notches up from my usual clients. The things you’ve done … maybe you don’t deserve beauty.’
‘Beauty. What the fuck?’
‘I could always hum it for you.’
‘Hum it to me? Fuck you, there’s a TV there. Help your goddamn self. You want the key for the gas station? There’s maybe two hundred dollars in the till. That’s yours but that’s all we have. Sooner you get what you want, sooner we can all get on with our lives. But do me a favour, leave the keys to these goddamn bracelets in the station so I can get my hands moving again, will ya?’
Brook eyed the overweight Ashwell. He’d certainly belied first impressions. The man was smart. His tone had changed now, was almost friendly as he tried to normalise the situation, tried to present Brook with a vision of how things should end. A finale with all three lives intact. Brook decided it was time to up the stakes.
‘I’m not here for your money, Mr Ashwell. I’m here to extract payment of a different kind. I’m The Reaper and my currency is life.’
DCI Hudson hurried back to the car with the two coffees as a heavy shower began to pelt him. Grant leaned over and opened the door for him and he sat down awkwardly with the cellophane-wrapped sandwiches under his armpit.
Grant took her chicken salad from him and peeled the lid from her Americano.
Hudson took a swig of his tea. ‘Bloody weather. You get north of Watford and you’re straight into the next ice age. You’re not going to need those,’ he said, nodding at her sunglasses.
Grant removed them with a smile. ‘My eyes get tired at the moment.’
‘I hope you haven’t come back to work too soon, luv. You know what these viruses are like.’
‘I’m fine, guv. But I’d feel better if we weren’t going up to Derby,’ said Grant, giving her protest another airing.
‘I thought you liked the idea.’
‘Until I realised that Brook should be coming down to our turf. That’s how we pressure him.’
‘With what? Look, darlin’, he isn’t back at work until tomorrow morning. I know you think this is a courtesy too far but, trust me, it’s best we make the effort.’
‘You think we’ll catch him off balance?’
‘It’s worth a try. If he thinks he’s got away clean he won’t be expecting questions, never mind a visit — it gives him less time to think.’
‘I don’t know. On his home ground he might be more at ease. And we’ll be outsiders.’
‘Home ground,’ smiled Hudson. ‘No such thing. Damen Brook is the outsider wherever he is.’ Hudson took another mouthful of tea and swilled it round his mouth.
‘You sound like you know him.’
Hudson cocked his head. ‘I do sort of, though mainly by reputation — I only met him twice.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Brook doesn’t make friends easily, or go out of his way to earn the respect of colleagues. He was a DS to one of my mates when I was up in the Smoke. You remember I told you about DI Charlie Rowlands? A legend and a fantastic copper. When he died, Brook was at the funeral. He gave a reading. We shook hands. No more.’
‘So he won’t remember you, guv?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘What did Rowlands think of Brook?’
‘Charlie was in charge of the first Reaper inquiry in North London in 1990. Harlesden, it was.’
‘Sammy Elphick, Mrs Elphick and their son.’
Hudson smiled at her. ‘I see how you spent your evening. No wonder you’re tired.’
Grant shrugged. ‘We need to be ready.’
Hudson nodded. ‘Well, Sammy was small time, a petty criminal like the other victims. They found him and his wife tied up with their throats cut. But before they died they watched their son die — he was only ten but The Reaper strung the boy up from the ceiling and cut two of his fingers off and the parents cried while they watched. Then there’s the blood message on the wall.’
‘SALVATION!’ nodded Grant. ‘Religious nutter?’
‘Seems like.’
‘So what went wrong with Brook?’
‘Brook was Charlie’s DS but Charlie told me Brook ran the entire thing. He said he was the most brilliant detective he’d ever worked with and he’d worked with a few. But the problem Brook had was getting on with ordinary coppers, coppers who weren’t as good as him. He came across as arrogant and condescending, and they despised him for it. Still do. And when The Reaper came along … well. It was his first failure.’
‘What happened?’
‘You’ve read the files.’
‘He had a breakdown after Brixton in?91. It doesn’t say why.’
‘From what I can gather, Brook started to take it home with him, started brooding about the stuff he’d seen. His marriage started to suffer.’
‘Not unusual.’
‘No. But there was another case…’
‘Not The Reaper?’
‘I can’t remember it very well, luv. It was after the Elphick killings had died down. There was another murder, not related. Some runaway schoolgirl called Laura something — Laura Maples. That was it. She’d been raped and murdered in some grubby squat. Brook found the body but not before the rats had been at her.’
‘And that tipped him over the edge?’
‘Who knows? By the time the second family were killed in Brixton…’ Hudson looked across at Grant.
‘Floyd Wrigley, common-law wife and daughter,’ she answered hesitantly. ‘Throats cut. “SAVED” written on the wall.’
Hudson nodded. ‘By then Brook was starting to veer off the rails according to Charlie. Soon after he had some kind of breakdown and a couple of years later he put in for a transfer to wind things down and get some peace. In 1993 The Reaper killed in Leeds but Brook got nowhere near that. Roddy Telfer, a smalltime drug dealer, had his head blown off and his girlfriend was strangled.’
‘Different.’
‘Very. There’s still a thought that it may have been a copycat because of the MO.’
‘Sounds completely wrong for The Reaper.’
‘It was, but the perp wrote “SAVED” on the wall after the killings. So…’
‘And then nothing for over fifteen years until two years ago in Derby.’
‘No. And nobody knows why. But it was all there in Derby. The parents, Mr and Mrs Wallis, and their young daughter had been drugged. The Reaper had delivered some food. It was doctored with scopolamine and morphine…’
‘Twilight Sleep.’
‘Right. He delivered the food and came back when they were out cold and cut their throats. The parents had cried so it looks like he made them watch the girl bleed out. It’s a signature. “SAVED” was on the wall again and some art poster. And there was some classical music playing while they died. Another signature.’
‘What’s that all about?’
Hudson shook his head. ‘No idea. Something to let us know The Reaper’s a cut above your average killer, I
