The Disciple

Sorenson smiled back and patted his pocket.

‘Where?’ asked Drexler.

Sorenson’s smile remained while the black eyes did their work, poring over every detail of Drexler’s countenance as if he was some kind of behavioural experiment. For a moment Drexler considered taking out the gun and ramming it into Sorenson’s mouth to force him to reveal his father’s address, but somehow he sensed that that would be a variable that Sorenson had already assessed and included in his calculations.

Drexler couldn’t hold his eyes and stared off into the fire. ‘What do I have to do?’

‘Not joining your colleagues for a knees-up, Brook?’

Brook, preparing to get behind the wheel of the BMW, turned to see Brian Burton’s yellow grin. ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old for all this, Brian? Up all hours, filing your copy when the rest of the world is enjoying life.’

‘I could say the same about you. Why did you walk out of the press conference?’

‘No comment.’

‘Have you got a problem with the investigation?’

‘No comment.’

‘Or maybe you’re having another breakdown.’

Brook swung onto his driver’s seat and pulled at the door but Burton grabbed it. ‘Get off or you’ll get hurt.’

‘My photographer would love to see that. He doesn’t like me!’ he shouted at a thin-lipped man hovering with a camera a few yards away. ‘You don’t like me, do you, Inspector?’

‘I don’t ever think about you. Now get away from my door.’

Burton held on. ‘I’ve interviewed the Ottomans before. Or tried to. After the Wallis thing. Charlton and Hudson don’t know them like we do, Inspector. If Mrs O trod on a spider she’d cry herself to sleep. And now we’re meant to believe that the pair of them murdered six people. Nine if you include the Wallis family.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want to know if you’re happy with the result. That’s all.’ Brook held onto his driver’s door but stopped pulling. ‘Just a couple of words.’

Brook took his hand off the door and stared off into the darkness, resisting the temptation to deploy the two words that entered his head.

Burton seemed temporarily wrong-footed. He took his own hand from Brook’s door and straightened up. Brook made no move to close it or start the car.

‘Okay. You don’t want to talk to me. But if I ask you if you think John and Denise Ottoman are innocent and you don’t reply that’s what I’ll be putting in tomorrow’s paper.’ Brook looked up into Burton’s red-rimmed eyes and held his gaze. After thirty seconds he raised an eyebrow and reached for the door handle. A smile spread across Burton’s face.

Drexler pulled up his collar against the biting wind and trudged wearily along the tree-lined drive, his mind still in turmoil from the psychological battering he’d suffered at Sorenson’s hands. Andy Dupree was right. He should have left it alone, walked away. Now Sorenson was in his head, had insinuated himself into his very DNA. Sorenson had read between the lines of the report and worked out what had happened.

But one thing Sorenson couldn’t change. In shooting Hunseth, Drexler had killed his father; he didn’t need to do it again. Not if it meant pawning his soul, his freedom, to Sorenson. The Ashwell case was over, Sorenson was untouchable. He knew that now. To continue would be to surrender his own will, to risk losing himself, to become Billy. Drexler made a decision. He’d get in his car and drive back to Sacramento that same night. He wouldn’t kill again at Sorenson’s behest.

He quickened his step, keen to be away. The lamplight was barely adequate and the moon cowered behind angry clouds, which made walking difficult. He stepped gingerly over sodden, slippery leaves and hopped over puddles. He gazed up at the bare branches of trees swaying in the wind. Their striptease done for the year, they tried to hide their blushes behind the modesty of the evergreens, but Drexler registered nothing.

Halfway back to his car he stopped cold. He peered at a patch of newly broken ground where the dusting of snow seemed lighter. He stepped a couple of metres off the tarmac for a better view. He wished he had his flashlight but had to manage with the pale yellow glow of the avenue’s lighting. He stared at the freshly-planted sapling in the gloom and touched the deep-green leaves, which were large and oily. He ran his thumb over his finger and sniffed the sappy resin on his hand. Then he rustled the horn-shaped creamy white flowers with the back of his hand.

He stood and made his way back to the car, a grim smile spreading slowly across his face.

Brook got home forty-five minutes later and turned on his computer. After clicking onto Wikipedia, he typed in ‘scopolamine’ and read for ten minutes, jotting down several alternate names for the drug. Then he jogged up the stairs to fetch The Ghost Road Killers. He turned to the index to check for hyoscine and got a hit on his first attempt. He turned to the page and read with a quickening pulse:

Victims, predominantly the adults who were driving the vehicles, were found to have ingested quantities of hyoscine, combined with traces of morphine, which would render the recipient drowsy, malleable and prone to hallucinations. It is believed that the drug was introduced to victims in the coffee provided at the gas station.

Inevitably drivers became somnolent and, if unable to pull to the side of the road, were liable to crash their vehicles. Several of the motor homes recovered from the gas station had been involved in a collision, though not usually with other vehicles and in only one case was damage more than minor. However, damage to the bodywork of their vehicles was the least of the worries for the unfortunate occupants…

Brook looked at the faded picture of a happy and grinning Bailey family on the opposite page and nodded. The parents at the back, arms entwined, the girls at the front laughing at some remark from their father, oblivious to their destiny. Unfortunate indeed. He stared at the picture longer than he should, then turned back to the index for any mention of Victor Sorenson. It was fruitless but that was hardly surprising. There was no mention of Sorenson in Brian Burton’s book either, nor any of the hundreds of Reaper newspaper stories over the last twenty years — not even in Brook’s own police reports.

Victor Sorenson only ever existed between the lines. Like The Reaper, he was a ghost. Nothing proven, nothing recorded. For years Brook had thought himself the only living person who could connect Victor Sorenson to The Reaper — and only then because the professor had wanted him to know.

But now, despite Sorenson’s death, The Reaper was back. And a former FBI agent had moved next door to write a book about a fifteen-year-old case in California. Brook was starting to read between the lines and Sorenson was there.

He threw the book aside and left the cottage. Drexler’s car was in the drive but the house was in darkness. He checked his watch. It was nearly midnight. He walked down the side path and knocked. No reply. He tried the door but this time it was locked. He considered breaking in but thought better of it. As he turned to go, however, the outside light came on, the lock turned and the door opened.

Drexler stood before him, apparently unsurprised to see him. ‘Damen.’ He made no effort to invite Brook inside.

‘Can we talk?’

‘It’s late.’

‘We’ve found a suspect.’

Drexler’s head cocked to one side. ‘The Reaper? You’d better come in.’

Chapter Nineteen

McQuarry opened her eyes at the first ring. She craned towards the clock — three in the morning — then flopped back down with a groan. A few seconds later she flicked on a lamp and pulled the receiver to her ear.

‘Ed. It’s me.’

McQuarry rested her head on her spare hand. ‘Who else? What’s up?’