Steven Dunne - The Reaper

Given that, it was a surprise to Brook that he’d managed to hang onto life for more than a decade since. He’d been expected to keel over within six months. He wasn’t exactly a health nut. He smoked and drank heavily off-duty-and on, for that matter.

‘Good riddance. And he did all of ’em, did he?’

‘All he could lay his hands on but the son got lucky and didn’t turn up and he left the baby.’

‘Okay. Dad had form, did he?’

‘Minor stuff but he was a thug.’

‘That’s a comfort then.’ Rowlands sounded sober now. He was moving into the stage of melancholy clear thinking. ‘Signatures?’

‘Music. A picture. And expensive wine.’ Brook knew what was coming, though Rowlands was putting it off.

Eventually he said, ‘Was there a message?’

‘SAVED.’

‘In blood?’

‘In blood.’ Brook was now scarcely audible so keenly did he feel the need to monitor Rowlands for signs of strain.

For what seemed an eternity the two men listened to each other breathing before Rowlands, with a huge sigh, said, ‘Come when you like. I’m never out.’ Brook confirmed the address and prepared to hang up. ‘Damen,’ said Rowlands. He rarely called him that. ‘Sorenson’s a goner.’

The line clicked and Brook was left with the receiver in his hand, lost in thought until the whirring from the ear-piece brought him back. He replaced the receiver and went into the kitchen. He needed a drink. Actually he needed a drink in a public place to satisfy himself that a normal world still existed but he decided against it in case Terri tried to ring.

He rooted around in the kitchen. He knew he had booze somewhere. Eventually he pulled a dusty bottle of sweet Martini-won in a raffle a couple of years before-from the highest cupboard. The cupboard had sixties sliding glass doors caked in grease and Brook kept everything he never wanted to see again in there. He glanced at the photograph albums but resisted.

He cracked the seal on the bottle and examined the rust-coloured liquid. He’d only kept it in case of female visitors. Fat chance. There’d only been the one night with Wendy…WPC Jones, and she’d asked for a beer. Nobody but winos drank this garbage any more. Brook poured a large measure and drank it down with a grimace. He poured another and sat back down at the table to nurse it. He turned back to the yellowing file. Like it or not it was time to think.

He put his hand in the folder and pulled out the necklace again and draped it around his fingers. The silver hearts glistened in the half-light and Brook stared at them, seeing the face of the girl who’d worn it all those years before-what was left of it, after the rats had eaten their fill.

He returned the necklace to the folder and began to organise reports and photographs from The Reaper killings into one chronological pile.

It was cold. Very cold. The air above the duvet was crisp enough to blue the two noses peeping out from the cocoon like a pair of stunted periscopes.

Amy Brook flinched at the intrusion of the phone and uncoupled herself from her groaning husband. She didn’t need waking in the middle of the night in her condition; she woke plenty with no disturbance.

Delicately, trying not to take the full weight of the mass in her womb onto her stomach, she swivelled towards the offending noise.

‘Sorry to wake you, love. Can I speak to him?’ Detective Inspector Rowlands, soon to be a DCI, spoke with unusual gentleness, as though a lowered voice was less irritating. To hear him, Amy Brook was forced to concentrate even harder, pushing sleep further away.

‘It’s for you,’ she droned, jabbing the phone into her bleary husband’s huddled form. She swung her legs onto the floor without breaking the crust around her eyes. ‘Tea?’

‘Don’t bother, gorgeous,’ Damen Brook replied, hand over the mouthpiece, his eyes resolutely closed.

‘No bother, I’m suffering for two now.’ She rose gingerly, supporting her large belly in her forearms, clambered to her feet and waddled down to the kitchenette, yawning and shivering in equal measures.

‘What’s up, guv?’

‘Murder. A bad one. Meet me at 67b Minet Avenue, above the launderette.’

Brook scribbled furiously. He’d soon learned to keep pad and pencil by the phone. ‘Where’s that?’

‘Harlesden.’ The phone clicked. Brook swung his legs onto the cold floor and dressed, though not as quickly as usual. The inclement weather had provoked him into wearing pyjamas for the first time since his early teens and he fiddled with the outsize buttons and starched material, unaccustomed to such a test of dexterity.

Having dressed sufficiently he crept downstairs and cast around for the A-Z, sweeping it up as he clambered into his overcoat.

Amy stood by the door, one arm supporting their first child-their only child as it turned out though they’d planned four-one holding out a mug of tea.

Brook looked at her eyes, virtually closed save for a glimmer of pupil which shone between the lids. He took the outstretched mug and turned away, stifling a tic of horror. It was the same face, the death mask of a butchered prostitute he’d seen the year before. He’d noticed the face. She’d been stabbed repeatedly in the vagina and the killer had tried to cut off her breasts.

Brook took a sip of tea and kissed her on the forehead.

‘Go upstairs before I go out,’ he said, one hand on the doorknob. ‘Don’t want the baby catching its death.’

‘His or her death,’ she corrected him, obeying like arobot. Brook looked after her, aching to follow. He blinked at his watch. Gone three. A fine night to leave your warm bed and milky soft wife. She’d long since stopped asking him what time he’d be back. He’d long since stopped apologising.

Brook hurried through the spitting wind to his temperamental Triumph Stag, the usual will-it-won’t-it knot pulling on his gut. He’d need something more practical in a month, he reflected not without regret. Another expense though. Another temptation to give in to the Kick Back Squad.

‘It’s only fifty quid. Everybody else is in. You don’t have to do anything illegal.’

‘What do you call this?’

No, they’d manage. He wasn’t going to put himself at the whim of crooked businessmen and seedy night club owners. He’d joined the Force to catch criminals, not become one. The Brooks would get by without brown envelopes.

Besides, he was a graduate. He knew his Economics. He’d seen the way things were shaping. After the stock market crash, property in London was cheap-but not forever. If they could afford to hang onto the flat when they moved into their Battersea house, they’d clean up in a few years. Fulham was up and coming. There was money to be made. Not that he cared about money. Not as much as Amy. Brook worried more about choice, that’s what money bought: freedom to choose. That was something they might need soon, especially as it was becoming clear to both of them that his current choices weren’t making him happy.

He shook the worries from his mind and turned to more practical matters. He drained his cup and placed it ontothe passenger seat with the others, before pulling on his carefree face and patting the leather-clad steering wheel with affection.

Then he rotated the ignition key nonchalantly as though expecting no resistance. ‘Come on.’ The engine coughed a haughty response, complaining in injured tones at being disturbed at this ungodly hour. ‘Come on,’ he pleaded a little more insistently.

‘Start please,’ he ordered with a hint of teeth beginning to grind. The Stag decided it had made its point and spluttered into life on the fourth turn and Brook swung off the kerb and north onto Fulham Palace Road, towards Hammersmith. Traffic was light though London was never deserted, even at three in the morning, something which never ceased to amaze Brook. His hometown, Barnsley, became a ghost town after what local publicans, without irony, called Happy Hour.