had to stand behind the victims, and the sofa where he was found unconscious would have been covered in blood spatter even if he had sat back down. It’s not.’ Noble looked round for any follow-up.
‘Our best guess on time of death is between 1.00a.m. and 1.53a.m. this morning. You’ll find out why 1.53 in a minute; obviously that’s provisional and as the three older boys were out in the cold it’ll be more difficult to pin down in their cases. We’ve already got door to door underway and we’re coordinating any relevant CCTV around the area. Hopefully we can discover how the killer arrived at the Ingham house, but for now nothing is ruled in or out until we have something solid to get our teeth into.
‘Until we get a heads up on definite leads from Forensics and the post-mortems we have to get stuck into the legwork. If the killer’s local, fine, but if not it means looking at ways in and out of Drayfin
‘Van hire firms need checking as The Reaper hired locally two years ago. Also any hotels or B amp;Bs with male guests staying last night or the night before who have checked out. Get lists and addresses and any credit card details and cross-reference those with descriptions from previous investigations on file. But remember, assume nothing.’
‘Why are we so sure it’s a male?’ asked DS Gadd. ‘The Wallis victims two years ago were poisoned before they were cut open. That’s a woman’s MO.’
Brook spoke now, pausing briefly to find a way to give nothing away. ‘That’s true but the MO’s not exclusive to women. Older, weaker men use it as well. Like Crippen.’ ‘Like Victor Sorenson’ remained unsaid. ‘And all descriptions from previous Reaper killings point to a lightly-built, middle-aged male. Possibly older.’
‘Also we’ve something concrete on that shortly,’ added Noble. Again he paused for any follow-up before continuing. ‘We also look at the victims — we look into their history, see if there’s anything in there that might have caused someone to do this to them. Two years ago we were sure the Wallis family were targeted because of their petty criminal background, specifically Jason Wallis’s sexual assault on a Mrs Ottoman, a teacher at his school. The antisocial behaviour and petty criminal background of the victims would fit with previous Reaper murders.’
‘Didn’t the Ottoman woman have a nervous breakdown and attempt suicide?’ said Laura Grant.
‘I think she did,’ said Noble. ‘And that made her husband John Ottoman briefly a suspect in the Wallis Inquiry…’
‘Then why suggest the offence was petty?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t say it was,’ answered Noble.
‘You said…’
‘How did this Wallis escape The Reaper last time?’ asked Hudson, changing the subject. ‘The files aren’t clear.’ He glanced over at Grant who read the signal and decided to leave the rest of her sentence unsaid.
‘That’s because we were never certain,’ jumped in Brook, seeing Noble hesitate. ‘At first we thought he was lucky and arrived home after the murder of his family. We assumed he’d staggered home drunk and ate some of the drugged pizza delivered by The Reaper. He was unconscious at the scene and didn’t even know his family were dead until the next day. It was only later we had to face the fact that The Reaper was probably at the scene the same time as Jason, but left him alive for some reason.’
‘What reason?’ demanded Grant, her eyes boring into Brook.
‘Like I said, we were never sure…’
‘I mean, why kill the daughter and not the Wallis boy? Sounds like a vicious little thug,’ she added.
Brook shrugged, unable to meet her eyes.
‘We asked the same question,’ replied Noble. ‘We’re open to suggestions.’
Charlton spoke up while looking at his watch. ‘I don’t think we should get too bogged down in the past no matter how much it informs the present. Anything else, Sergeant Noble?’
‘Just to remember that maybe there’s a domestic lurking in here somewhere. The Ingham boys had two different fathers, one’s out of the country but maybe there’s an ex-boyfriend in the works. Even a neighbour pushed over the edge. Who knows? You’ll get your assignments from DC Bull in a minute.’
‘Thank you, John,’ said Brook, pausing for a second to look around at the throng, some of whom were fingering coveted cigarettes in pockets. He could see in all of them that sliver of suppressed excitement that such a high-profile investigation generated; he wished he could share it. ‘There is some good news before we get back out there. DS Grant.’
Grant stood up and nodded at all the strange faces. ‘Yes, we think we have the killer’s voice on tape.’ There was an immediate murmur from the assembled officers. ‘If it’s him this would be a big leg-up. This 999 call was recorded this morning at 1.53 a.m.’
Brook looked at the floor. Around that time he’d been just yards from the killing ground. The killer had probably finished his work long before but the questions still nagged at him. Why lure him there? To make him think The Reaper was still out there? Or to try and frame him for the Ingham murders? He shook his head as minutely as he could. Surely this wasn’t another attempt at recruitment? Get him to take up The Reaper’s mantle? Is that why Jason was left alive again? Another gift for Brook. Like Floyd Wrigley all those years ago in Brixton.
Grant, with a little prompting from Jane Gadd, pressed the appropriate button on the machine.
‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’ The voice of the operator boomed out and Grant adjusted the volume. There was a pause, filled by an indistinct noise which might have been breathing, might have been the wind. Then Brook heard it, soft at first but still quite clear in the background. If he hadn’t already known what it was, it might have taken him longer to identify. Clair de Lune. The soft melody tinkling away gently, distant but audible. Then the operator tried again. ‘Emergency. Which service do you require? Hello. Are you able to answer?’
A few seconds later Brook heard the sound of a breath being exhaled into the phone, then a man’s voice, ‘They’re all dead!’ followed by a buffeting sound. Then nothing but the faint sound of the music with occasional interruptions by the operator trying to elicit further responses.
Grant waited a moment before switching off the machine. ‘Now it’s hard to distinguish from just four words, and whoever that was may have tried to disguise his voice, but you’ll agree that’s still clearly a male voice. And in the background is the music that was playing at the scene when DI Brook and the patrol car arrived to investigate.’ Grant shot a glance his way;
‘How did they know where to go?’ asked Jane Gadd.
‘The call was unbroken,’ answered Grant. ‘It was Jason’s phone, found on his lap, covered in blood and a print, which is still being processed. I don’t know Wallis but it’s not the voice of a teenager as far as I’m concerned.’
Brook shook his head. ‘It’s not Wallis,’ Noble agreed.
‘What about the music?’ asked DC Cooper.
‘It’s called Clair de Lune by Debussy,’ said Grant. ‘You may have heard it in the
‘As far as I can remember,’ he answered, without looking at her.
‘Any impressions about the voice, anyone?’ inquired Hudson.
‘Sounds local to me,’ added Rob Morton. ‘The way he said “They’re all”, like it was one word instead of two.’ Brook looked over at him with a thin smile.
‘Must be local if he’s working the same street as two years ago,’ someone said.
‘Great. All we need now is a name and address,’ grinned Hudson to induce a round of chuckles. ‘There’s a university here, isn’t there? Maybe they’ve got a language guy,’ he added quickly, suddenly aware that some might think he was having a dig.
‘Linguistics,’ said Grant, smiling — Hudson knew the correct word, she was sure.
‘That’s the one. Put that on your list, Rob.’ Hudson nodded at DS Morton before looking over at Brook.
Brook stood up from the table. ‘Before we get onto our assignments I want to give you some idea what we’re up against.’ He paused. He knew the words but he had to weigh them carefully. ‘Two years ago this Christmas, and just a few doors away on the same street, the Wallis family was executed. I’ve chosen that word deliberately because these crimes aren’t personal and, if this is The Reaper, he has no contact with his victims until he goes to take their lives. The only clues left behind two years ago, and in London twenty years ago, were what The Reaper wanted us to see. We got no weapon, no prints, no fibres or hairs or anything that might have been used to make a
