Knowledge surfaced. So this was Death. Falling through
space. Blackness. No sights, no sounds. No tunnels. No hopes. No bright lights. No dead relations to show him the ropes.
Then it dawned. He was on his way to Hell. There’d be no flames. No barbecued flesh. The Devil knew. Man was a gregarious animal. Perpetual loneliness was the refined torture. On your own to the end of time.
Well, the Devil was a wimp. Solitude was bliss. God was spot on. He knew how to inflict pain. Hell was other people. The Devil should have done his research. Then he’d know about the rats. Could give Brook a hard time. But maybe it wasn’t set yet. Perhaps there’d be an interview…
Brook came round with a start. There was light now. Blurred, but definite. He tried to focus but it was too hard. He couldn’t distinguish shapes but there were colours, indistinct, shimmering, but definite colours. And he could hear. A dull rushing. Constant. Punctuated by sharp notes. Traffic. Traffic and the sound of horns.
He shifted his position, aware now of his limbs. He could move his hands from under his legs. He was in a chair. The one in Sorenson’s study. He was alive. Sorenson had miscalculated. No. That didn’t sound right. Must be a mistake.
Brook tried to stand but a black hole engulfed his head and he slumped back into the pit.
‘Inspector! Inspector Brook!’ A voice he knew. ‘He’s alive!’ It was Wendy. She’d come for him.
Brook awoke to her face. He could see it clearly but
the rest was a haze. She smiled at him. An angel. Perhaps he was dead. But then where was Charlie? Wouldn’t he be on hand for the welcome drink?
As if in reply Wendy said, ‘Sir, can you hear me? You’re alive. Do you understand me?’
Brook lifted his weary eyes. He puzzled over the information as though it meant nothing then blinked his eyes at her. He gulped and tried to speak. Wendy Jones craned to listen. Brook could smell her perfume. ‘Sor…’
He passed out again.
Moments later Brook felt a jolt. He was lying down. There were people around him, carrying him. They had knocked into Sorenson’s desk. He opened his eyes. Sorenson sat at the desk. He was white. His desktop was red. Brook saw a clenched fist smudged with blood. Laura’s necklace was wrapped around the marble knuckles. Brook closed his eyes.
He knew at once he was in a hospital. The smell told him: the pungent aroma of heavy duty cleaning fluids couldn’t quite overpower the aroma of sweet dried blood and stale body wastes that permeated these places. And the low hum of misery was unmistakable. Hushed despair. As if to speak at greater volume might remind a delinquent God to attend to His roster of death.
Brook blinked and looked around and, trying to sit up, winced at the pain in his stomach. He rubbed it through the heavy cotton of his NHS pyjamas. It felt as though he’d been kicked by a mule.
He sat back and stared upwards. The ceiling was high and he had an impression of space on the other side of the screen that ran alongside his bed. He guessed he was in a large ward rather than a private room.
Beside the bed on a hard-backed wooden chair sat a large leather bag. Brook tried to reach it but was hampered by a sharp nip in his left arm. He was hooked up to a drip and had given it a nasty yank so, with his right arm, he pushed himself and his pillows right back so he could sit up properly. He rubbed the tape on his
left arm then reached over again but the bag was still out of reach.
He gave up and turned his attention to a selection of Get Well cards arranged on his bedside cabinet. Four of them. He couldn’t make out any of the inscriptions except one. The smallest card, complete with 49p price sticker and black thumbprint on the back, was the work of Greatorix. Brook couldn’t decipher any of the handwriting but recognised the large childlike B for Bob and the even larger G and X. The rest was just wavy lines.
Brook remembered something. It came to him now. He hadn’t been hallucinating. Sorenson was dead and his career was over…
Wendy Jones walked into view carrying a cup of coffee. She looked wonderful in figure-hugging white polo and tight jeans and the look of delight and affection in her expression gladdened Brook’s heart.
‘You’re back, sir,’ she exclaimed and hastily put down her coffee to grab his hand. ‘How are you feeling?’ She withdrew it after giving Brook’s hand a squeeze but there seemed to be none of the awkwardness that had characterised their encounters since their trip to London. Instead her eyes shone brightly, burning into him, eager to talk.
‘Tired.’ Brook smiled back at her. ‘Hungry.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ She moved her bag onto the bed and sat down to rummage through it. ‘You’ve been out cold for days. It’s lunchtime in half an hour but I got some things in case you came round. I’ve got a cold bacon sandwich or an apple or a banana.’ Brook raised an eyebrow and she cracked into a grin. ‘Bacon sandwich it is.’
One bacon sandwich, banana, apple and packet of crisps scrounged from the duty nurse later, Brook lay back and took a sip of coffee. ‘I’m ready.’
‘What do you want to know?’
Brook was hesitant now, doubting his memory. ‘When you found me…’
‘You didn’t imagine it. Sorenson’s dead.’
‘I see. Does Amy know anything about what’s happened?’
‘She’s knows you’re in here…’
‘But she’s not been to visit?’
Jones looked at the floor. ‘That doesn’t mean…’
‘Don’t humour me, Wendy. I tried to wreck her marriage.’
‘You confronted her husband about your daughter. That’s all you did. Any father would have done the same. You can’t blame yourself for that.’
Brook smiled at her. ‘I don’t. And Sorenson?’
‘He cut his wrists with an old razor.’
Brook found it hard to accept. A part of him was dead. He’d lived with the thought of Sorenson for so many years. Now he was gone.
‘And is there a reason why you’re out of uniform and I’m not handcuffed?’
Jones was taken aback. ‘Handcuffed? Why?’
‘A prominent citizen commits suicide in the presence of a suspended police officer. Not enough? How about possession of an illegal weapon? It’s not hard to figure out a sequence of events…’
‘What weapon?’
‘I had a gun. It was Charlie’s…’
‘There was no gun.’
‘There wasn’t?’
‘Sir. Damen. Don’t you know? You’re a hero, or you will be when this all comes out. You’ve found a killer that nobody else could. From what McMaster has been saying you’re a guaranteed DCI. And your success is our success. We’re all…’
‘Stop, stop. What are you talking about?’
‘He confessed. Sorenson. He made a videotape.’
‘What?’ Brook remembered the camcorder on the tripod in Sorenson’s study.
‘It’s true.’
‘Confessed to what?’
‘To being a killer.’
‘The Reaper?’ Brook saw the hesitation in her manner.
‘Well, no. He said he killed his brother…’
Brook closed his eyes and nodded. Of course. Closure for Vicky–the dying act of a loving uncle. But not The Reaper. He would never admit to that. Sorenson can die but The Reaper must live.
‘…there was also a girl.’
Brook sat bolt upright despite the tubes restraining him. ‘Girl?’
‘Yes. One of your old cases, from your time at Hammersmith. He had her bracelet in his hands…’
‘Laura.’
‘That’s right. Laura Maples. He confessed everything. He knew all about it.’ Brook was sombre. ‘And that poor old woman in Derby, Annie Sewell. He said he arranged it.’
Brook was deep in thought. ‘Did he say why?’
‘He claimed she killed several babies when she was younger. She was a midwife…well? Who knows? It was a long time ago. They’re looking into it.’
‘Did he say who he got to kill her for him?’
‘No. When we get back to Derby…’
‘Derby? Where the hell am I?’
‘Still in London. Hammersmith Hospital. You were too ill to move.’
‘Terminal ward?’
‘That’s not funny, sir.’
He stroked her hand. ‘No it’s not. And please call me Damen.’
‘I
can
tell you something funny, Damen.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Sorenson thinks he killed you. On the tape he said he poisoned you. Said he was sorry because you were such a brilliant detective and nobody else could have caught up with him.’
Jones smiled with pleasure but Brook was sombre. ‘Then why am I alive?’
‘He must have got the dosage wrong.’
‘I don’t think so. If I’m alive it’s because Sorenson wanted it that way. He staged it.’
‘Staged it?’
‘To convince me he was going to kill me. Otherwise it would have been phoney. I wouldn’t have believed it, wouldn’t have gone through what the others went through. It had to be authentic.’
Jones was baffled. ‘Authentic?’
‘The same as the other victims. He needed to show me things, the despair and the hope and the beauty of
dying. The joy of letting go. Of being saved.’ Brook could see he was losing her. ‘He wouldn’t kill me. I was his friend.’ Brook took a sip of water. ‘He said I was a brilliant detective?’
‘Words to that effect–what’s wrong with that?’
‘He’s trying to manipulate me, Wendy.’
‘He’s dead. How can he manipulate you?’
‘You didn’t know him. He never said or did anything without an ulterior motive. And now, being a hero, I get to stay in the Force. That’s what he wants.’
‘Sorenson. Why?’
Brook pondered how to say it. ‘Access.’
Jones was mystified but Brook showed little sign of enlightening her. ‘Access to what?’
Brook had closed his eyes and was drifting off to sleep. ‘Deserving cases.’ In a barely audible voice he added, ‘He came to Derby for me, Wendy. And dead or alive, he’s not going to give up until he gets me.’
The next day Brook demanded his clothes and insisted on leaving his sick bed despite the protests of Wendy Jones and the doctor. The toxin pumped from his stomach had yet to be identified.
‘What’s the worst that could happen, doc?’
‘You could collapse and die, Inspector Brook,’ she replied.
‘Then you better get me an organ donor card.’
‘If you died we couldn’t use them.’
‘You could if I stepped under a bus.’
‘Then take a cab.’
Having discharged himself, his first task was to recover his car from the Hilton. His bag, containing Charlie’s confession, was in the boot and Brook couldn’t risk leaving it. Jones refused to let him go alone in case he became unwell.
After picking up the car, their first call was the local police station for Brook to make a statement about the events at Sorenson’s house. Jones assured him it would be routine as McMaster had already liaised with the Met over Brook’s presence in London. The fact that Sorenson
had confessed to a murder in Derby was a plus, but Brook knew how sensitive locals were about jurisdiction and suspected the Hammersmith crew would be gearing up to give him a hard time.
Sonja Sorenson, Vicky, Petr and the nurse had already been questioned about Victor Sorenson’s state of mind. All were able to suppose that Sorenson was a potential suicide because of the nature of his illness. But nobody could shed any light on his videotaped confessions or his relationship with DI Brook.
Sonja had been questioned closely about her husband’s death but could offer up no useful leads and because of her history of mental fragility she wasn’t pushed too hard. After all, the murder was an old one and they had a confession. Case closed.
Brook believed the Laura Maples murder would be the fly in the ointment, and for that the local CID would need to speak to him. It was his case. It was unsolved. Unsolved murders spawned obsessive behaviour. And if by chance the obsessed detective found his killer but was unable to prove it…
Jones was directed to the canteen when they arrived and Brook was ushered towards an interview room once his refreshment order had been taken.
He sat down in a bare, windowless room. It was illuminated by cheerless strip lighting, had a battered table and three chairs–two on one side, one on the other. A clean ashtray sat in the middle of the table. Bad sign–the room wasn’t left over from a previous interrogation, it had been chosen for a purpose and set up with
forethought. Now he was alone with a chance to stew and coffee was being brought to maintain the pretence of routine friendliness. Brook knew what would come up–his breakdown.
The two detectives entered the room together and sat opposite Brook. One of them smiled a welcome. The senior man. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Fulbright. This is Detective Sergeant Ross.’
‘Detective Inspector Damen Brook, Derbyshire CID.’
‘Feel free to smoke, Inspector,’ said Fulbright.
‘No thank you.’ Brook wanted a cigarette but still felt queasy. He decided against it. In Brook’s experience, the guilty smoked like chimneys during an interview.
‘Given up?’ Brook turned to look at Fulbright more closely. ‘You don’t remember me, do you, Inspector?’
‘Should I?’ Brook knew he’d made a mistake as the words left his mouth.
‘No reason at all. I was just a lowly PC back then, on crowd control at the first Reaper killing. Harlesden. A family was butchered. Do you remember that case?’
‘It rings a bell. And no…’
‘No what?’
‘…I haven’t given up.’ Better. He smoked but didn’t need a cigarette because he had nothing to hide. Brook hoped that would cancel out the disrespect he’d shown.
‘Now…’ began Fulbright.
‘Before we start I think I need to see the video.’
‘So you can get your story straight?’ DS Ross had a thin wiry body and complementary mean features. He was quite small, close to minimum regulation, and Brook
had never yet met a male officer of similar height who hadn’t overcompensated with an aggressive manner.
DCI Fulbright raised a lazy hand to intervene. ‘I think we’d like to hear your side of things first,
DI
Brook.’
Brook noted the emphasis on rank and studied Fulbright’s face. Yes. He remembered him. He’d transferred from uniform and had been an untalented DC ten years ago. He could recall Charlie once tearing a strip off him for some bumbling evidence gathering. Now it was payback time.