wants us to know that they were killed because of what they did to George Bailey and his family. George Bailey is the key to this. Where did you say he worked?’
Stepping out of his car in Hartington sometime after seven, Brook realised with a sinking feeling that his new neighbour was clearly the outdoors type. Framed against the dark sky, he could see the glow of a fire in Rose Cottage’s small back garden and knew that he would have to stay indoors unless he wanted to endure an evening of tedious chitchat. With winter fast approaching, Brook had wanted to maximise use of his garden while he still could, and this impediment was a nuisance.
When he reached his door, however, he found the situation far worse than that. A note stuck out of his letterbox.
Brook hovered over the note for a minute before screwing it into a ball and binning it. At least when the tenants had kids they didn’t have time to bother him. He went into the house and neglected to turn on any lights, without quite realising why. Eventually he flicked on a small lamp next to his computer and immediately began to feel self-conscious. He kicked off his leather shoes and squeezed his feet into a pair of deck shoes before padding back into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. It was empty except for a carton of milk, a baked potato skin, an opened can of beans and a bottle of champagne left over from his last night with Wendy Jones the year before.
After a moment’s contemplation he closed the fridge door, but not before plucking the champagne from its cradle. He strolled next door, remembering to take a full pack of cigarettes with him. Despite his infrequent attendance at social functions in the last fifteen years, Brook remembered sufficient misery when plentiful alcohol and tobacco was not at hand.
As he knocked on the front door, Drexler came to greet him from the side path.
‘Damen! Good to see you. How are you doing?’
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘I’m good,’ nodded Drexler, unaware of the tic of annoyance his grammar caused Brook. ‘Champagne. Thank you. That’s thoughtful,’ he added.
Brook managed a smile as he followed Drexler round to the back. ‘The least I could do. Settling in okay?’
‘Pretty good.’ Brook looked around the garden of his new neighbour, half an eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah, it’s just us, Damen. Tom’s been and gone.’
‘Great,’ Brook muttered under his breath.
‘And Basil, of course.’ Brook spied the black cat gnawing away at some blackened meat on the tiny lawn. He looked up briefly to be sure Brook wasn’t about to steal his food, then returned to his meal. ‘Please sit. Wine or beer, or would you like champagne?’ smiled Drexler.
Brook was aware now that his host was slurring slightly. ‘Not champagne, beer or red wine if you’ve got it,’ he said cracking open his fresh pack of smokes.
‘As you’re still in the job, how about both?’ asked Drexler, with a grin. Brook shrugged his assent and Drexler disappeared into the tiny kitchen of Rose Cottage, re-emerging moments later with a cold bottled lager and a large glass of red wine. He trotted back into the kitchen and returned with a plate of raw burgers. He slapped two of them onto the grill of the barbecue then put his feet up on a spare chair and tapped his bottle against Brook’s. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ Brook braced himself for a conversation and went over his mental checklist, but Drexler satisfied himself with staring into the hot coals, punctuated with the occasional bout of burger flipping and organising the salad. When the burgers were nearly done, Drexler dropped a square of processed cheese onto one of them, and when that wilted he began to assemble Brook’s massive double cheeseburger.
When his plate was plonked down, Brook tucked in with more gusto than he thought possible. Since leaving the city, Brook’s meagre diet had consisted of baked potatoes, beans on toast and the occasional takeaway. The unexpected pleasure of flame-grilled meat left him purring.
When it was finished, Brook licked the ketchup, mayonnaise and grease from his fingers, wiped his hands with a serviette and sat back with a sigh.
‘Mike. That was the best burger I’ve ever had. Thanks.’
‘My pleasure. Another?’
‘That was plenty for me.’
Drexler nodded and took a pull on his beer, then turned back to stare at the dying coals. When the coals began to lose their heat, Drexler pulled out a small pot-bellied garden stove and lit the newspaper protruding from beneath a pile of dry sticks. It sparked into life instantly and they both got to work examining the spitting flames and taking the occasional chug on their drinks.
‘So you’re a writer,’ ventured Brook.
Drexler bent his head towards Brook and smiled without parting his lips, then scrunched up his nose in an expression of scepticism. ‘Not really.’
‘I thought Tom said you were.’
‘I’m getting there. It’s a second career of sorts. It pays the rent.’
‘What was your first career?’
‘Same as you, Damen — law enforcement.’
Brook looked up sharply. He waited for a moment but Drexler didn’t expand, either on his own career or how he knew Brook was a policeman. He was on the verge of asking him when he realised that Tom must have told him on the drive from the airport. Of course. Ask about the new neighbours. It was the most normal thing in the world to do, assuming you weren’t as dislocated from the norm as Brook.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘California. Sacramento. It’s the state capital, just north of San Francisco.’
‘I’ve heard of it. But you flew in from Boston.’
‘That’s right. I moved to the East Coast in?01 after my book became a hit.’
Brook nodded. ‘What was it about, your book?’
Drexler looked away. Brook had nearly given up on an answer when Drexler said, ‘A case I worked for the FBI.’
‘You were in the FBI?’
‘That I was, Damen. A long time.’ Drexler stared into the flames intently, before adding under his breath, ‘Or maybe it just felt like a long time.’
Brook took another pull on his beer and wondered whether to further pick at what looked like an open wound. ‘I’ve got to take my hat off to you, Mike. I mean, you deal with things in the States that we just don’t see over here.’
‘Plus the bad guys have guns.’
Brook smiled, now more forgiving about the quirks of sharing a language with another country. ‘Plus the bad guys have guns,’ he echoed. Interested now, Brook racked his brains for a way to probe further but then decided against it. He had a sudden flash of sitting with Sorenson in his study all those years ago, plied with drink, a fire nibbling at his toes, being similarly dissected.
‘What’s the book called?’ he finally asked.
‘And should I not ask you what it’s about?’
Drexler turned to Brook with a bitter smile. Suddenly he chuckled. ‘In case I’m scarred by it, you mean. In case I wake up every night screaming, sheets damp, brain on fire.’ He chuckled again. ‘No. You can ask me. I dare say you get people tiptoeing round you when it’s not necessary. You being The Reaper Man and all.’ Brook raised an eyebrow as Drexler laughed. ‘Sorry. You mustn’t blame old Tom. You know how it goes. It’s our job to pull this stuff out of people, and we do it even when they don’t want us to. Tom was a pushover once he’d let it slip. Besides, you’re even famous in the States — in police circles, at least.’
