Steven Dunne - The Reaper

Brook shrugged. It was the last call on the list. After this, all the long shots were played out. The enquiry was dead. It had been running on fumes for weeks, as it was. They had no forensic, no witnesses, no motive and no suspects.

Suddenly Brook could hear faint strains of music coming from the circular window. He listened. Opera. He knew it. La Wally An aria, the famous one, where Wally refuses to marry her father’s choice and announces she’s leaving. He lost himself for a moment. It was so beautiful. He’d heard it first a couple of years before, in some pretentious French film-all neon lighting, obscure dialogue and designer violence. The song was the only thing memorable.

Brook waited for it to end. When it did, he held the bell pull but remained motionless, listening for what was to come. Nothing. He yanked down hard and heard a clanging within. No music before his arrival. One song in isolation. As though the song had been played especially for him. Ridiculous. Still, Brook couldn’t suppress a feeling that his visit was…anticipated. Because a place like this and a small time thief like Sammy Elphick. It was risible.

The solid oak door swung open unexpectedly. Brook had a good ear and had listened for the noise of footstepsbounding down the stairs but there were none. A neat, middle-aged man-the records had said fifty-two-with receding red hair stood before Brook. He was medium height, about five-seven, Brook surmised, though his slight stature gave the impression of an even smaller man. He was slim to the point of being wiry, and wore the anonymous clothing commensurate with his generation: white cotton shirt with a thin check, woollen tie with a light tartan design, grey slacks and light brown suede brogues.

He was possibly the most unremarkable man Brook had ever come across. The sort of man guaranteed to sell large amounts of life assurance to the elderly. The sort not to be noticed entering or leaving a murder scene.

But one thing marked him out-the eyes, the windows to the soul. He had the blackest eyes Brook had ever seen. They were black as pitch, endless, all-enveloping black like the sea at night. So black that Brook felt himself lose his bearings in them. Their hypnotic quality held Brook. He stood gazing, locked into an absurd stupor, not knowing his purpose. For a moment he was transported back to his youth, sitting in front of the old black and white in his pyjamas, hot milk in a glass beside him, watching Bela Lugosi hamming it up as Dracula.

Whenever he looked back on this day, Brook realised that if he hadn’t known before, he knew now. The Reaper killings were not ordinary crimes and this man standing before him was no ordinary criminal. He had found his Moriarty.

Yes, Brook knew a great deal in those seconds. Not why someone like Victor Sorenson might feel the need to slaughter a family he couldn’t possibly have known but he knew withabsolute conviction that this man had murdered Sammy Elphick and his wife and son in a grubby flat in Harlesden. And he knew that he’d done it without a second thought.

Brook smiled politely, at last able to swim to the surface of those eyes. The man smiled back. His eyes didn’t join in.

‘Mr Victor Sorenson.’

‘Professor Sorenson, in fact. How can I help you?’

‘I’m a police officer, sir,’ said Brook, flashing his warrant card. Sorenson peered at it then looked back at Brook as if there’d been a mistake. ‘May I come in?’

Sorenson stared at Brook for a few moments, still unable to comprehend. ‘Of course,’ he gestured across the threshold, ‘Detective-Sergeant-Brook.’ Sorenson lingered over the middle word with distaste.

Brook stepped inside and followed Sorenson into the hall. It was dark and he had a little trouble adjusting to the gloom after the sharp winter light outside. He had to screw his eyes to see his host, who gestured for Brook to follow him up the stairs.

As he climbed he tried to take in as much as his senses would allow. He was aware of plush carpet beneath his feet and the presence of numerous pictures neatly fixed to the panelled wall.

‘It’s a couple of flights, Sergeant,’ Sorenson threw over his shoulder. For a fifty-two year old, he was remarkably sprightly and he bounded up the stairs two at a time, challenging Brook to keep up. At the top of the stairs, Sorenson strode through a bright threshold and waited, like a footman, for his guest to enter. He closed the lacquered door behind Brook and swept a regal arm at the room. ‘This is my study.’

Brook looked around the vast room, adjusting once again to the change of light. It was a festival of air and brilliance after the melancholy of the hall. The low sun streamed through the porthole window catching the orbit of dust in the atmosphere. ‘Lovely,’ said Brook before he could stop himself.

Sorenson smiled. The flattery touched off a hidden corner in his icy personality, as if he approved of Brook’s manner and, in spite of his rank, perhaps even his suitability for the task ahead.

‘That’s nice of you to say. May I offer you a drink, Sergeant? I don’t know if you indulge on duty but I’ve got a sublime Lagavulin. Double distilled. A monarch among malts.’ His manner had changed swiftly. He now seemed eager to please, attentive, as though Brook’s appreciation had ushered him into a secret brotherhood over which Sorenson presided.

‘Thank you. I’ll have a small one.’ Brook was shocked by his answer. It was out of character. He wasn’t a big drinker and never on duty. Something he couldn’t explain seemed to draw him into compliance with his host. Or perhaps he was just buying a little surveillance time, if that was what was being offered.

Brook looked around as Sorenson opened a polished walnut cabinet and cleaned two chunky glasses with a white cotton cloth. It was a beautiful room, large and airy, the longest wall of which was lined, ceiling to floor, with books. He stepped closer to gain some clue to his host’s mind.

Brook could see this wasn’t the library of an old fogey, there were no dust-encased leather tomes, no brimming ashtrays or chaotic desktops. This was the working roomof an academic, slightly dishevelled and lived in, but generally neat and ordered.

He examined the shelves trying to affect an absent-minded interest. It seemed to Brook that no book had lain untouched and he sensed that each had been read-nothing was for show. And what a variety: philosophy, religion, psychology, anthropology, astronomy, geography, metaphysics, chemistry, wine, art, music, pathology and even heraldry. All life was here. And death. Death and history. The Third Reich, The Great War, The Birth of Israel, The Spanish Inquisition, The Cultural Revolution, The Great Plague, The Vietnam War and, most intriguing of all, An Encyclopaedia of Torture.

Anyone else might have thought the possession of so many volumes on death ghoulish, but not Brook. The greatest history entailed the greatest sorrow. That’s what made it so fascinating, so involving.

Death was a given, Life a treasure, a bauble to be snatched away, a nourishing oasis but always in the distance, something to struggle for but never reach, a mirage, a chimera, a rotten trick. The legerdemain of God. Now you see it, now you don’t. C’est la vie.

Brook continued to examine without interruption. More books. All neatly clustered into subjects: languages, architecture, medicine-endless books. What impressed Brook the most was that all the books were offering some kind of knowledge. There wasn’t a single piece of fiction in the entire collection.

He glanced over at the desk. A book on Italian opera lay open on the opulent leather. Every object his eye surveyed reeked of money and carefully understated taste.

There was a ledger with a gold fountain pen beside it, beyond that a silver-framed photograph of two children in old-fashioned clothing-two boys who were almost identical. The picture held Brook for a moment. The smiles were there as you might expect, but one of them barely covered the look of anxiety on one young face. There was an atmosphere between the two, a tension visible.