The green apron he wore sported dark stains as did the cranial blade of the saw he carried slightly behind his back, having just realised it wasn’t the done thing to greet people holding an implement for cutting heads.
‘Inspector Brook. And the faithful Sergeant Noble,’ he exclaimed, removing a face mask. He went to shake hands before realising the potential hygiene risk and withdrew with a shrug. ‘How are you?’
‘As well as ever, doctor.’
‘Oh dear. I’m sorry to hear it, Inspector,’ he replied with a glint in his eye. ‘Still no improvement, eh?’
Brook let out a polite laugh. The jokes didn’t get any better. ‘What have you got for us, doc?’
Habib tossed his bloodstained gloves into a disposal bin and turned into a small office. He washed his hands vigorously in a small sink before turning to rummage through a sheaf of papers. ‘The Wallis family. Bad business. Bad business. Do you want to see the bodies?’
‘It can wait until the formal ID unless you’ve something you need to show us,’ answered Brook.
‘Not really, not really. Fairly straightforward.’ He picked up some papers and skimmed through them before glancing up at Brook. ‘I think maybe you’re looking for an Asian gentleman for this, no?’
Brook looked across at Noble and turned back to Habib. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Just a thought, Inspector, but these killings seem to me very ceremonial, like the Halal ritual slaughter.’ Habib pierced him for a reaction.
‘It’s not figured in our profile yet. Interesting thought though.’
‘Statistically speaking, the majority of serial killers are white males, doctor,’ offered Noble.
‘So they are,’ nodded Habib. ‘Just an idea. Well, let’s see.’ Habib peered up from the manila folder. ‘Hmm. You’re not going to like it, Inspector.’
‘Try me.’
‘This gentleman must be the cleanest killer in history. He knows what he’s doing. It’s too early to be conclusive yet, we’re still working on some things,’ he said, shooting an apology towards Brook. ‘We’re not exactly overstaffed, don’t you know?’ Brook smiled his understanding.
‘But, let’s see. Assuming it was a man,’ Habib glanced
up at Brook in case of a rebuttal, ‘we’re looking at a right-handed individual. Difficult to assess height as none of the victims were standing, though from the angle of the incisions on the two adults, I’d say the killer was medium height at best. No more than 1.72, 1.74 metres. Around 5-8 if you prefer old money. Possibly smaller.
‘The weapon was very sharp with a thin blade, probably a scalpel because the incisions are too precise for most knives.’
‘Could it have been an old cut-throat razor, doctor?’
‘Indeed yes, Inspector, as long as it was well maintained. Now if I can just show you,’ he said, adopting the posture of the killer. ‘He cut from behind each of the victims from the left ear, through the trachea–the windpipe,’ he beamed at Noble, ‘and finishing at the right ear. Only the girl’s windpipe was completely severed. The parents would have taken several minutes to lose consciousness as they still had partial breathing.
‘There is…no sign of any sexual assault in either female or the male for that matter.’ Brook caught the hesitant note in Habib’s voice and narrowed his eyes. ‘Interesting thing. There was no struggle from the victims at point of death and yet they weren’t restrained or struck unconscious–I’ll come back to that in a minute–and nothing under the nails, unless you include enough dirt to grow a field of potatoes.’
‘Most of us don’t feel compelled to scrub up every fifteen minutes,’ observed Brook.
‘Indeed it is so. What else? There were no alien fibres on any of the victims, no skin, no foreign hairs. He’s
been very careful. Assuming he has hair. Lots of people don’t, you know.’
‘Most people have skin though,’ Noble chipped in.
The good doctor could only shrug. ‘Maybe your own forensics people can find something on the clothing. The parents had drunk a little wine before they died, if that helps. The killer must have drunk the rest. Not a surprise, it looked expensive…’
‘How do you know he had a drink?’ interrupted Brook.
‘Because of the bottle.’ Brook and Noble showed no signs of enlightenment so Habib continued. ‘There isn’t enough wine left, Inspector.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Noble.
‘I’m guessing, of course. I saw the bottle at the scene. Going by what was in the glasses and the minute amount ingested by the victims…’
Brook nodded. ‘If we add what’s in the glasses to the bottle, some will be missing. More than Bobby and Mrs Wallis can account for.’ Habib smiled his assent. ‘Just because he left no trace of having drunk any wine, doesn’t mean he didn’t raise a glass of his own to celebrate then take it with him.’
‘Christ,’ muttered Noble.
‘Only a small one. He wouldn’t want to contravene Her Majesty’s drink driving laws,’ added Habib, with a guilty chortle.
‘No,’ agreed Brook. ‘He wouldn’t want to get himself in
too
deep.’ He was pleased to see Noble taking offence. ‘Go on, doctor.’
‘Well. Let’s see.’ Habib adjusted his glasses. ‘The blood
on the wall, the writing, is from the girl I think, AB negative, quite rare. Your lab people will have to confirm that as well but the smears on her neck indicate that someone has pushed their fingers into the wound.’
‘Have you got anything we can use to catch this man, doctor?’ asked Noble impatiently.
Dr Habib smiled back at him. ‘Yes, yes. Of course. Two things, don’t you know?’ Habib removed his glasses and looked grim. ‘Bad business, bad business,’ he said shaking his head. ‘How old was the girl, Inspector?’
‘Eleven. Why?’
‘Well, when I said there was no sign of sexual assault that wasn’t strictly true.’
‘You mean she was raped.’
‘Oh no. I mean. Well yes. How can I put this?’
‘Any way you like, doctor. As long as it’s quick.’
‘The girl’s hymen was no longer intact.’ Again Habib turned to Noble to spell it out for him. ‘She wasn’t a virgin, Sergeant.’
‘The bastard raped her!’ said Noble, through gritted teeth.
‘Yes, Sergeant. As a minor, legally speaking, she must have been raped. But…’
Brook nodded. He knew where this was going. ‘But not last night.’
Habib pointed his forefinger at Brook. ‘Exactly, Inspector Brook. It is just so.’
‘You mean…?’ Noble was taking his time. He hadn’t been around as long as Brook.
‘Yes, John. That’s what he means.’
‘Who could do that?’
‘Assuming the girl wasn’t in a consensual sexual relationship…’
‘She was eleven years old, for Christ’s sake,’ pleaded Noble.
‘Well then.’
‘You mean her father…?’
‘It fits. There was a girl in one of the Reaper killings in London. The father was a pimp. She’d been sexually abused. Fathers and daughters, John–it’s an old song.’ Brook thought of Terri and just as quickly pushed it out of his mind. ‘And it would explain where Jason gets his own violent inclinations.’
‘I suppose,’ agreed Noble softly.
His incomprehension touched Brook, reminded him how young he was. ‘What was the second thing, doctor?’
‘The second thing?’ Habib had been momentarily distracted by the bad business. ‘Yes. You’re looking for a medical man. An older, medical man, I would say: someone who may have access to a dispensary and has a sophisticated knowledge of drugs. Remember there was no struggle? There was a good reason. All the victims were poisoned–Scopolamine, sometimes called Hyoscine. It’s a narcotic and mydriatic. It induces sleepiness and dilation of the pupil…’ he added for Noble’s benefit. ‘…in the eye.’
‘There are also traces of morphine. Doses are very difficult to get right so he’d have to know what he was doing. We’ve found traces ingested by all the victims. It could have been administered in powdered extract on top of the pizzas. It would look a bit like parmesan cheese
or salt. From the stomach contents I’d say the girl ate from only one pizza, the parents had pieces of them all–they had pepperoni, prawns, ham–in their stomachs.’
‘Anything else?’
‘There was enough to kill, which is rare with Scopolamine, but I’m supposing this wouldn’t be too big a problem for him. They wouldn’t have been able to ingest it all before they started feeling unwell, so the parents didn’t receive a fatal dose. However, it would take a lot less to kill the girl and she would probably have died whether her throat was cut or not.’
‘And would it paralyse them?’ asked Brook.
‘Most likely. If conscious they’d find it quite difficult to move, though not impossible. They’d be seriously disorientated, somnolent and delirious.’
‘Why do you say an older man?’ asked Noble.
‘Because of the history of the two drugs. Scopolamine used to be combined with morphine as an anaesthetic but that was many years ago, before the Second World War. It induced an effect known as Twilight Sleep. The same procedure was used in childbirth in the sixties but it fell out of use because the patient would be conscious but unable to feel or move which often caused complications. The parents had a larger dose than the girl. It’s almost as if he knew which pizza they were going to eat.’
‘He did,’ said Noble. ‘He rang to take their orders.’
‘Blimey! This gentleman’s very good.’
‘Would it affect the vocal chords?’
‘Indeed it is so, Inspector. How would you know that?’
‘They weren’t gagged.’
‘That’s right. They would have been suffering from laryngeal paralysis.’ Habib turned to explain himself to Noble but was halted by a raised hand.
‘I understand,’ he countered.
‘Quite so, Sergeant,’ Habib nodded. ‘Although in this case, suffered is the wrong word.’ Brook was broken from his thoughts. ‘They wouldn’t have felt much. A mild discomfort, perhaps, even when they were cut open.’
‘They didn’t suffer?’
‘Very unlikely.’
‘Well done Wendy…PC Jones,’ Brook muttered in appreciation before glancing covertly at Noble to see if his carelessness had registered. It appeared not. ‘Anything else, doc?’
‘Not for the moment. I’ll let you have my report as soon as it’s typed up. We’re short-staffed…’
‘Thank you, doctor. We’ll take a break before the ID. Let you get on with things.’
Brook started to follow Noble before turning back to the doctor. He hesitated and looked to the retreating Noble, who held the door for him before realising Brook wasn’t behind him.
‘Get me a coffee, would you, John? There’s a machine round the corner.’
Brook waited for him to disappear before facing the expectant Habib. ‘Doctor.’ He hesitated again. He was about to commit a severe breach of protocol. If he wasn’t careful he wouldn’t have any friends left in the Force. ‘Inspector Greatorix asked me to run my eye over the Annie Sewell case, if it’s ready. I know you’re short-staffed…’
he interjected to forestall yet another airing for Habib’s favourite topic.
‘Bad business, Inspector. Bad business. Do you want to give him the report? I’ve got it here,’ he said, rummaging for another folder.
‘Well no. He said to take a photocopy and to be sure not to tell him that I’d got one.’ Brook spoke as emphatically as required and lifted his eyebrows into a quizzical half-smile. Dr Habib stopped and looked at him carefully to make sure he hadn’t misunderstood. Then he broke into a broad eighteen-carat grin.
‘Inspector Brook, you’re such a naughty boy, very naughty indeed. Take this one,’ he said, shaking his head in amused disbelief. ‘I have other copies. But if he finds out…’ he shouted at Brook’s back.
Brook raised a hand to acknowledge.
‘Problem, sir?’ Noble gingerly held out the hot liquid in the too-thin cup.
‘Not at all, John. Just thought I’d better tell the good doctor not to suggest looking for an elderly Asian medical expert in his final report. We wouldn’t want him ending up in a cell, would we? Throw that garbage away, John. Are you trying to give me heartburn?’
They walked back to the main entrance and stepped outside. The rain had stopped for the moment though the sky was still leaden. Brook looked at his watch. ‘Young Wallis is due in half an hour. Who’s with him?’
‘DC Gadd, sir.’
‘Right. And Mrs Harrison?’
‘Coming under her own steam. She knows the way, she’s a nurse.’
‘Fine. We’ll wait. There’s a chuck wagon in the car park. We’ll have a proper cup of tea. My treat.’
Brook walked next to Habib, followed by DC Gadd, petite and pretty with short, bobbed blonde hair and pert features, guiding a handcuffed Jason Wallis with one hand. His aunt, a portly woman in the mould of her dead sister, walked on the other side of Jason. She seemed preoccupied but, being a nurse, was inevitably calmer than most faced with such an ordeal. Noble brought up the rear, next to the social worker, Carly Graham, and the duty solicitor who had picked up Jason’s case.
Brook glanced over his shoulder at Wallis with a mixture of satisfaction and pity. The cockiness was gone and he was concentrating hard on the floor. The baby was back, trembling below the surface, ready to bawl.
Carly Graham detached herself from the back and quick-marched to speak to Brook. ‘Inspector…’
‘Nice to see you again, Miss Graham.’ He held out his hand to shake hers.
‘Inspector, can I speak to you?’
Brook slowed to listen. ‘No problem.’
‘Is it necessary that Jason be handcuffed?’
Brook looked aghast then smiled appreciatively at Miss Graham. ‘Miss Graham, I hadn’t realised. Thank you for mentioning it. Constable Gadd, why is Jason handcuffed? I don’t think that’s necessary. He’s not going anywhere.’ DC Gadd raised an eyebrow and looked over at Noble who looked away. Then she removed the handcuffs from Jason who massaged his wrists in time-honoured
fashion. ‘I’m sorry about that, Miss Graham–crossed wires somewhere along the line.’
‘Thank you, Inspector.’
‘No thank
you
for pointing it out, Carly. May I call you Carly?’ She flushed and Brook beamed at her. ‘Sometimes official procedures can be quite heartless.’
Brook turned and caught Noble’s amused eye. Then he looked at the boy and felt a pang of guilt. This was tough on him. Perhaps, no matter what he was or what he’d done, he didn’t deserve what had happened to him. Then Brook remembered the face of hate from the hospital, remembered the ordeal of the teacher threatened with rape. Unless something was done, Jason Wallis would end up like his father.