‘Where did you get that?’
‘I borrowed it from the desk sergeant, Hendrickson. The one I spoke to on the phone. He had several copies, couldn’t wait to give me one. I’ll see you in here at three. What are you going to do?’
‘Same as you — after I buy some underwear.’
Chapter Twelve
When Chief Superintendent Charlton entered the Incident Room with DCI Hudson and DI Brook, the hum of conversation stopped immediately. The room was filled with about twenty officers, some CID, some senior uniformed officers — Traffic, Community and others — whose input might initially be called upon in a potentially massive inquiry.
Charlton walked over to the table, hesitated for a second while he assessed whether he could ask everyone to sit, then, realising there wouldn’t be enough chairs, he leaned against the table. Brook was next to him, standing several inches taller.
‘Stand easy, everyone,’ he said and most of the assembled throng either sat down on chairs or sagged onto nearby tables.
Brook looked around at the crowd. As well as Hudson and himself, there were several detective sergeants, including newly promoted Jane Gadd and Rob Morton, who’d both worked on the Wallis Inquiry two years before, in addition to Laura Grant and John Noble, who were chatting in one corner of the room. Another six detective constables had been added to the team, including DCs Bull and Cooper who had also been in Brook’s previous team to catch The Reaper.
‘We don’t want this to take long because we’ve got a killer to apprehend,’ continued Charlton. ‘But I want to know that this inquiry has everyone on the same page,’ he added. ‘I can confirm that DCI Hudson and DI Brook are jointly heading up the taskforce to find this man; but this is a Derby inquiry and I will have ultimate responsibility.
‘I will also take charge of the public face of the investigation as much as possible, and will deal with the media, allowing senior detectives to focus all their powers on bringing this madman to justice. Now, this is most important. My predecessor brought me up to speed on mistakes that were made on the Wallis Inquiry two years ago. One thing beyond her control was the leaking of information to the local media and this is something I will
Unlike Brook, Hudson had a few people skills and grinned at the assembled team. ‘I’d like to thank everyone at this station for the warm welcome. I know it can’t be easy to integrate new officers into a successful CID unit overnight, especially a hand-picked and talented team like yourselves. DI Brook and I know we can rely on your support to get a result.’
Brook darted his eyes around the assembled faces — all seemed to be buying into the middle-management drivel.
‘I’ll be leaning heavily on the expertise of all Derby officers,’ continued Hudson. Brook was almost relieved to spot the expression of scepticism flash across Laura Grant’s face. ‘Because they have more direct experience of this killer and this MO. But remember, anything anybody wants to say to me or DI Brook about the direction of the inquiry, please don’t hesitate to speak. My door is always open.’
‘Where is your door?’ asked a likely-lad DC. A peal of laughter broke out around the room. Only Charlton didn’t join in.
Hudson smiled. ‘It’s a symbolic door at the moment, but we’re sorting something out.’ He glanced at Brook, who stood to address the briefing.
‘DS Noble has been organising most of the information we’ve gathered so far, but we’ll assemble again tomorrow morning to talk through further developments. John.’
It was DS Noble’s turn to stand and face the throng. ‘We’ll have hard facts by tonight for full briefing tomorrow morning at eight a.m. sharp…’ more groans followed ‘…yes, I know. You’ll just have to set your alarms.’
‘Enough of that,’ bellowed Charlton, folding his arms.
The noise subsided quickly and Noble began again. ‘Let’s deal with what we know. As we speak there are six corpses lying in the mortuary.’ He waved a hand at the crime scene photographs on the boards behind his head, as if it were necessary to prompt colleagues to examine them. As well as the crystal-clear SOCO pictures there were a couple of grainy mobile phone shots taken by PC Duffy using Brook’s phone before the ambulances had arrived. They showed an unconscious Jason Wallis on the sofa, first with the bloodied scalpel under his hand and then with his phone on his lap.
Consulting a notebook, Noble continued. ‘The crime scene is 229 Drayfin Park Road. Miss Chelsea Ingham, a thirty-two-year-old unemployed beauty consultant, was found in the main bedroom of the house. In the same bed was her current partner, twenty-three-year-old Ryan Harper, who we’ve identified from his fingerprints. He appears to be an unemployed labourer though he has a fairly long jacket of minor offences, the most serious of which was assault.’ Brook and a few others were nodding in recognition at the name. ‘Both of these victims had their throats cut. Also found dead in the bedroom was Miss Ingham’s nine-year-old son by a previous partner. D’Wayne I think it is — that’s the son, not the partner. The lad had been hung, although the pathologist is not certain that was the cause of death. He’d also had two fingers removed and placed in his pyjama pocket — a Reaper signature from the first killings in Harlesden twenty years ago.’ All parents in the room lowered their heads. The rest stared unblinking at the relevant photograph. ‘The files on all the previous killings are on the system so any spare minute needs to be spent reading up on The Reaper’s MO.’
‘Anything on the ex-partner?’ asked Hudson.
‘In the clear, sir. He’s a builder and working in Dubai,’ answered Noble. After a pause to shake out any further questions, he pressed on. ‘Also, in the backyard of 229, we have the bodies of three seventeen-year-old males. Stephen Ingham, Miss Ingham’s elder son by another partner, and Benjamin Anderson. The third body we believe is David Gretton. Those IDs are dependent on formal identification by relatives. A fourth male, Jason Wallis, is now in the Royal Derby, recovering from mild hypothermia. Most of you know his history from the previous Reaper investigation nearly two years ago.
‘The three deceased outside the house all had their throats cut in identical fashion to the two adults in the bedroom. The cuts were clean and professional, there were no signs of hesitation and the weapon used was a scalpel recovered at the scene from Jason Wallis’s hand. Provisional blood analysis would seem to suggest that, apart from the little boy, all victims were killed where they were found. Lividity would seem to confirm that.
‘The three older boys were sitting on two old sofas in the yard and had probably been consuming significant amounts of alcohol and soft drugs.’
‘What drugs?’ broke in Charlton.
‘Marijuana definitely, sir, but the post-mortems will give us a clearer picture. Now at the moment we’re assuming that whoever attacked the Ingham home is still at large.’ Grant glanced across at Brook with a raised eyebrow. ‘Jason Wallis did come under brief suspicion for the killing of his family two years ago but was subsequently cleared, and we’re reasonably sure that once again Wallis is not our killer. However, his presence at a second Reaper killing is unusual to say the least. His
‘Sarge, am I missing something?’ asked DC Cooper. ‘Why can’t Jason Wallis be our killer? Seems straightforward to me. Sole survivor. Weapon in hand.’
‘It appears the weapon was placed under Jason’s hand rather than in it.’ Noble indicated the picture on the wall showing the scene before Jason was lifted onto the stretcher. ‘Also, had Jason been the killer, he would have
