‘He’s got the common touch, has he?’ smiled Brook.
‘I thought you two knew each other?’
‘Hardly at all. Mainly through a mutual colleague — Charlie Rowlands.’
‘His old boss.’ She nodded.
‘And mine.’
They walked in a large circle through the darkened city centre of Derby for another twenty minutes, neither talking, simply walking and enjoying the freshness of the night air now that the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. Brook felt comfortable in Grant’s presence and she apparently felt the same.
They arrived back at the Midland’s entrance. As Grant prepared to go inside, Brook said, ‘If you love walking, Sergeant, you should come up into the Peaks. There’s some wonderful scenery.’
She turned back to him and for a split second Brook thought he might have said the wrong thing, might have implied she come to his home and spend the night.
But a moment later she smiled.
‘I’d like that.’ She turned to go and Brook, already heading for his car, turned back at his name. ‘Inspector Brook. Call me Laura.’
He smiled and continued on the way to his car. Laura. Beautiful name.
Forty minutes later, Brook pulled the BMW up to the door of his cottage and got out. Drexler’s hire car was on the small drive next door and the house was in darkness. He held the car door open for a second then slammed it hard and locked up. He ran his eye over Rose Cottage to see if his lack of consideration had registered. It appeared not. Brook stepped softly onto the neighbouring drive and put his hand onto the bonnet of Drexler’s car. It was still warm.
He resisted the urge to bang on Drexler’s door and ask him why he’d been at the crime scene. Instead he crept back to his own house and poured a small whisky before heading upstairs. He fell asleep before he’d taken a sip.
Noble led the way to Pathology, Laura Grant beside him. Brook and Hudson brought up the rear, trudging in exhausted silence. They made their way to Dr Habib’s office. It was seven o’clock, barely light, and after the last twenty-four hours, no one was much in the mood for small talk.
Habib was a short stocky man, in his early sixties and wore round pebble glasses. His unlined chubby face cracked into a soft smile when he saw Noble, though the sight of Brook chilled his cheery welcome somewhat. He hadn’t fully forgiven Brook for giving him a hard time during the Wallis investigation.
However, he beamed at Laura Grant with undisguised pleasure. ‘And who is this pretty lady you’ve brought for me to meet, Sergeant?’ he said, grasping her hand and shaking it warmly. Grant, well used to the Jurassic outlook of men over a certain age, accepted his gushing with good grace.
‘This is DS Grant, DCI Hudson.’
‘Ah yes. You’ve taken over our CID, I hear,’ said Habib, finally able to let go of Grant’s hand to chortle conspiratorially.
‘It’s called liaison, Doctor,’ insisted Hudson.
Habib grinned with pleasure. ‘Indeed it is so. Let’s hope you have more luck catching this killer than we had last time,’ he added, completely oblivious to the implied insult to Brook and Noble. ‘Bad business, bad business.’
‘What have you got for us, Doc?’ asked Noble.
‘Well. It could almost be the Wallis family again it’s so similar. It is the same gentleman, is it not?’ he asked with a brief sweep round all their faces, in case of correction.
‘We’re jumping to no conclusions,’ said Grant. ‘What you tell us will help determine that.’
‘Yes, yes. I see. Well. Let’s start with the three boys. Very straightforward really. All killed the same way. In each case the trachea was severed by a very sharp instrument — a scalpel, I gather. Makes sense. As with the Wallis case you’re looking for a right-handed individual as the cuts sweep from near the left ear and finish at the right ear. You won’t be surprised to hear the wounds were inflicted from behind — that’s standard with this kind of slaying. What else? Yes, all three victims were seated and lividity confirms that they died where they were found. I imagine the blood dispersal will show the same.’ Habib reached to consult a manila folder. ‘Ah yes. Can’t be as sure about the killer’s height, but no reason to suggest it’s any different from the Wallis murders. Below average certainly.’
‘Remind us, Doctor,’ said Hudson.
‘Between 1.70 and 1.74 metres. Five seven or eight for the dinosaurs among us,’ he added, with a cold glance at Brook.
‘Were they drugged at all?’ asked Brook.
‘Not by the killer, I think. Plenty of other drugs though. Marijuana, amphetamines. And an enormous quantity of alcohol in the blood — to give you some idea, they were at least five times over the legal driving limit. But the boys, I assume, had self-administered, so perhaps he needed no drugs to control them.’
‘So their food hadn’t been doctored in any way?’
‘Not the undigested meats they had in their stomachs.’
‘What about the couple and the boy?’
‘That’s different. Or rather the same.’
‘Same as what?’ asked Noble.
‘The Wallis family, John,’ nodded Brook.
‘That is so, Inspector. The Wallis family were poisoned with scopolamine and traces of morphine — our old friend Twilight Sleep. Although I can find nothing in the males, it was injected into the woman and the child.’ Habib turned to Grant and Hudson with an apologetic gesture. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know about Twilight Sleep. Let me…’
‘Actually we do know about it, Doctor,’ smiled Grant. ‘It was used in a murder in Brighton only recently.’ She resisted a sideways peep at Brook.
‘Indeed? How interesting. Then you’ll know the history of the constituent drugs…’
‘And that we’re looking for a 150-year-old medical man, yeah, Doc,’ smiled Hudson, throwing his joke into the mix again, but with less success than before.
‘Did the woman’s partner not get a dose?’ asked Brook.
‘No. Only the woman and the little boy — the man had taken a similar cocktail of drugs to the boys outside. The other two had only drunk a little alcohol…’
‘Even the kid?’
‘Oh yes. He would have been quite intoxicated, but he hadn’t taken any of the other drugs, just the alcohol. Very strict some of these parents, you know.’ He chuckled guiltily. ‘There are differences though. The woman and the child received a much bigger dose than the Wallis family. Both would have died regardless of any other injuries; indeed the boy was near death before being hung. There’s not enough trauma and bruising around the neck, which you’d expect from a hanging, what with all that struggling. Also there was no sign that his wrists or hands were bound. If the boy had been hanged anywhere near consciousness, the hands would have needed to be immobilised.’
‘So the fingers were removed post-mortem,’ added Grant.
‘Indeed.’
‘After he’d been hung?’
‘From the angle of the cuts, probably. But you’ll be able to determine that from the scene. Any spots of blood where he was hung would point to that.’
‘Would a scalpel get through bone that easily?’ asked Hudson. ‘I mean, wouldn’t the killer need some sort of saw?’
‘In an adult, maybe. But the boy was only small. The bones in his fingers were young and thin. They wouldn’t take much cutting with a precision instrument.’
‘Right.’
‘As for the adult male and the female in the bed, they were still alive when their windpipes were cut. They had very powerful blood dispersal. But the other difference is the male was killed with a backhand slash.’
