She led them to the room that Brook had cowered in, all those years before, waiting to be discovered by Sorenson. Then it was a bare room with only oddments of furniture, now it was warmly furnished, with plump dark armchairs and soft lighting. A blazing log fire crackled in the hearth.
Brook helped Rowlands to the chair nearest the fire. He gestured an inquiry at a decanter, warming on a table nearby. Vicky nodded and Brook poured a large measure for Rowlands and a less ample one for himself. Rowlands took a deep draught of his drink and closed his eyes. Brook took a sip and recognised the taste. All was as it should be.
Vicky threw a look at the door and Brook followed her back out into the hall.
‘Thank you.’ Her face was soft and full of invitation.
‘For what?’
‘For not saying how you know me. I don’t know Mr Rowlands very well.’
‘I’m surprised you know him at all.’
‘Uncle Vic and Mr Rowlands have become…’suddenly Vicky’s eyes filled with tears. She looked very young again, as vulnerable as Brook had seen her that first time, lying defenceless on the bottom bunk, snoring gently in the room upstairs. ‘They share a common bond.’ She gathered herself quickly and gave Brook a brave smile. Uncle Vic clearly provoked much love in some quarters. ‘So how did you know our meeting wasn’t an accident?’
‘I didn’t. Not for sure. Those ridiculous lies you told about the university gave me a hint, but that wasn’t the clincher.’
‘What was?’
‘Me.’
‘You?’
‘Me. This battered piece of mid-forties driftwood you see before you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, you may find this hard to believe, Vicky, but I’m very careful to keep my awesome sexual magnetism under wraps–and with great success. A beautiful young girl like you could never be interested in a burn-out like me. Not without ulterior motives.’
When she laughed, Vicky’s eyes twinkled like diamonds. She contemplated his sad smile then cocked her head and leant up to give him the sweetest, softest kiss on the mouth. The merest hint of Gallic penetration
aroused Brook more than a dozen skin flicks could have managed.
He felt her hot breath as she pulled back. Her eyes bored into his.
‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Daddy.’
‘I’m not your Daddy,’ he whispered.
She stiffened as if he’d flung an obscenity at her. Brook could almost smell the blood flushing her face.
‘No.’ She turned away from him.
‘I’m sorry. That was thoughtless. You still remember your father?’
When she turned back her face was streaked with tears. ‘No,
I’m
sorry. I’m embarrassing you.’
Brook put his hands on her shoulders. He could feel the tension in her frame. ‘Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘No. That’s what mum says.’
‘She’s right.’ She looked up into his eyes now, searching for comfort, for affection. ‘You must have loved him very much.’ Vicky blinked again and buried her head in Brook’s chest. He put his arm round her and patted her back in the manner required.
Incredible. All those years hadn’t healed the scars of Stefan Sorenson’s murder. And Brook thought
he
had baggage. Little wonder Sammy Elphick and family were despatched with such relish.
Suddenly Vicky drew back and fixed him with her grey eyes. ‘Why have you got a picture of Uncle Vic in your Reaper file?’
Brook stared back at her. ‘Don’t you know?’ he finally said, managing to keep bewilderment from his voice.
A door opened at the top of the house and Vicky shrank back. Suddenly she was a frightened rabbit.
‘Please. Don’t tell them.’
‘What?’
‘Please don’t say anything about us. Please! Promise you won’t.’
Brook was stunned. The closer he came to answers the more confusing things became. ‘I thought your uncle sent you…’ From the beseeching look she now gave him, he was wrong.
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’ With that, Vicky turned and scuttled away leaving Brook nonplussed. Why would Vicky Sorenson go all the way to Derby to seek him out, if not with her mother or uncle’s knowledge and approval? And who had met her at Derby Station? Not Sorenson, that much was clear. The answer came to Brook before the question was formed–her brother. The young man he’d seen that night many years before, sharing a bunk bed with Vicky. The young man with the baseball cap and the fast car–Vicky’s lift to Brook’s flat. Knowing who didn’t help. Brook wanted the why.
‘Hello again, Mr Brook.’ Vicky’s mother held out her hand.
‘Mrs Sorenson.’
She stood on the bottom step, level with Brook. He could see the similarity with Vicky more clearly now–the same sad expression, the same fragility.
‘Thank you so much for coming. You don’t know what it means to Victor.’ She stepped aside to beckon Brook up the stairs. He walked past her towards the
first floor then turned when he saw her declining to follow.
‘You know the way,’ she said. ‘He’s waiting for you.’
Brook paused on the stair and searched her face for clues to her reticence. Feeling foolish, he turned and climbed again. Past the Bosch triptych he’d been invited to interpret many years before, past the room he’d first encountered the sleeping Vicky and her brother, and on up to the study.
Brook quickened his step, keen to be there now, his trepidation replaced by burning curiosity to see his old quarry.
He held out a hand to push open the door but before he could reach it, it swung back sharply. A young Asian woman beamed at him. She was dressed in fresh white nurse’s clothes with plimsolls to match. Her hair was invisible under a net. She had an air of brisk efficiency.
‘Come in, sir.’ She ushered him into the room he knew so well then stepped outside, closing the door behind her. Brook swept his eyes around the study that was etched into his sub-conscious. He wasn’t disappointed. It was exactly the same as the day he’d first entered, except today the room was illuminated by lamps, not bathed in piercing sunlight. The only addition was a CD player next to the old stereo and off in one corner a video camera on a tripod. The books were the same. The desk was the same. The rest of the house may have changed, become friendlier under the guidance of a woman, but this was still a man’s room. His room.
Sorenson sat by the coal fire, his legs covered with a blanket–Charlie’s trick–his eyes closed, feeble hands
gripping the arms of the chair loosely. He was completely bald as he had been that final, fateful night in 1991, the night the Wrigley household had been removed from the world. He was the same, perhaps the skin was a little more yellowed, but it was the only difference.
A chair waited across from Sorenson so Brook sat quietly, not wanting to break the moment. Sorenson opened his eyes. Those black pools. He smiled. It was a warm and welcoming smile. Like a friend’s. Like Charlie’s.
‘Welcome, Sergeant Brook. But it’s Inspector Brook now, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Brook leant over to shake Sorenson’s hand. He didn’t want to shake hands. He only did it now out of suspicion. To be sure he really was wasting away.
It was only the second time Brook had ever touched the man. The first time had been in the derelict house near Ravenscourt Park. Laura’s squat. Sorenson had helped him to his feet before hinting to Brook that he would kill again that very night.
And it was true. He had the cold hand of death. It was limp, though not withered as Charlie’s were. There seemed little strength there. And the skin was almost translucent.
As they touched, Sorenson’s hand suddenly fastened round Brook’s with a strength that belied his appearance. Brook’s nerves ends tingled as though a mild electric current had been fed into him.
Brook tried to draw away. Sorenson’s smiling face pierced him. Brook tried again to remove his hand from Sorenson’s but his withered host held on, running a calloused thumb over Brook’s knuckles.
Brook pulled away. He flexed his hand to dispel the pins and needles then darted a look at Sorenson who held his gaze. Finally the old man broke away, waved a hand at the drinks cabinet. ‘May I offer you something?’
‘No. Why did you want to see me, Professor?’
Sorenson’s injured expression appeared genuine. ‘Why?’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘If you’re ready to confess to The Reaper murders, I’m listening.’
Sorenson laughed, though without amusement. ‘I wanted to see you because you’re my friend. I haven’t got long…’
‘Then tell me. Confess to me, Professor. You’ll feel better.’
‘You’ve tried it?’
‘Trust me. Then I’ll be your friend. Talk to me. Tell me why you killed the children. Make me understand at least that.’
‘My friend, still you resist. Even now, with all the knowledge you’ve acquired, you plead ignorance. You’ll never understand unless you clear away the fog that surrounds you. Society puts it there to take your sight. I thought you’d lifted the fog. I thought you saw clearly.’
‘I’m happy to disappoint you.’
‘Happy? You?’ Sorenson chuckled. ‘Let me tell you about happiness, Damen. Two weeks ago I was in the happiest place in the world. Do you know where that was? The Terminal Ward at Hammersmith Hospital.
‘You think I’m joking. I’m not. All those dying people under the same roof, not for long, by definition the population are transients. But yes, they are the happiest people
in the world. You want to know why, Damen?’ Brook shrugged. ‘Because they’re finished with this terrible world. They’ve been given their notice, they have no more cares, no reason to fear, no need to wear a mask for the outside world. Just human beings looking at themselves and saying, “Here I am. Take me or leave me. I’m happy either way.” Do you understand? You see, Damen, in that place, people on the edge of the abyss, realise something.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘That they can’t be hurt any more. Nobody can touch them. No body. No thing. Can you imagine the peace that brings?’
Sorenson suddenly laughed at a joke he hadn’t yet told. Brook, taken aback, smiled on a reflex. ‘There was a man, two beds down from me, Colin–we had no use for surnames. Lung cancer. He was dead two days later. That afternoon his wife was with him and I could hear her complaining that the car kept cutting out when she braked.
‘I remember looking over at Colin and as I moved my head, I must have caught his eye because he looked over at me and then down at his wife, blithering away.
‘And on his face–I’ll never forget it–was the most comical expression I’ve ever seen. I remember at the end, he couldn’t contain it any longer and when she’d finished prattling away, he just said, ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’ Then he looked back at me and started giggling. Then I started giggling. Then he giggled some more.
And do you know what happened next, Damen? The
most amazing, terrifying, wonderful thing. Within half a minute, every other patient in the ward had joined in.
‘Do you see? They all knew. They hadn’t heard what Colin’s wife had said, how could they? But they knew what had happened to him, it had happened to them, this absurd euphoria you’d get when a visitor sat by your bed and tried to drag you back into their mundane little world–their world of sorrow and care–and suddenly you realised you didn’t have to go with them.’
Sorenson closed his eyes and took a large breath to extinguish the laughter. But still he smiled and shook his head. ‘Amazing.’ His enthusiasm had tired him. Brook stared into the fire, not knowing what to say. He was learning nothing and wondered whether to go. This whole idea had been a mistake. Sorenson would never confess.
‘Do you still dream, Damen?’ Sorenson kept his eyes closed.
‘Sometimes.’
‘About the rats?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘About Laura Maples?’
Brook was disgusted. What was this? Surely Sorenson didn’t need leverage now. He decided there was nothing to hide. Sorenson couldn’t touch him anymore. They were both terminal.
‘Sometimes.’
Brook’s host opened his eyes to look at him. He nodded, thinking. ‘Interesting. I thought you’d be able to achieve closure in her case.’
‘I can. But I still see her. It was never her killer that haunted me. It was her suffering.’
‘Of course. Families do engender great suffering, don’t they?’ Sorenson stared into the fire. ‘My family…’ Brook waited for an indiscretion but none came. ‘How is
your
family, by the way?’
‘Never better,’ Brook replied. He wondered if Sorenson knew about the break-up. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
‘Your ex-wife remarried, didn’t she?’
‘How do you know that?’
Sorenson smiled innocently. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Yes she did. We’re still on friendly terms though.’
‘That’s good. What do you think of my niece, Victoria?’
‘She’s very beautiful–a credit to you. She’s grown a lot since I first saw her,’ Brook added mischievously.
Sorenson looked puzzled for a brief moment then beamed back at Brook. ‘Of course, you looked in on Petr and Victoria on your last visit.’
‘Amongst other things.’
Sorenson was grave all of a sudden. His sigh was suffused with tension. ‘Poor Victoria. She’s a very disturbed young girl.’
‘Oh? She seems pretty level-headed to me.’
Sorenson ignored Brook’s comment. ‘Since the death of her father. It’s not natural. Such a long time ago but she can’t get over it. She’s obsessed by Stefan’s death. What’s worse is that she seems to have got the idea that this Reaper you talk about had something to do with it.’
‘Really?’ Brook was suddenly alert. ‘I wonder how she got that into her head.’
Sorenson grunted his amusement. It was only
temporary. ‘Not from me, I assure you–a very unsuitable fixation for one so young, so much life in front of her.’
Again he stared into the hot coals, thinking the unimaginable thoughts of the killer. He closed his eyes again.
‘I’m tired, Inspector Brook.’
‘Of course.’
‘Please would you give my best wishes to Charlie.’
Charlie
was it. Brook had underestimated the bonding they’d done together in hospital. ‘And feel free to call again soon. We still have a lot to discuss.’
‘How did you know Floyd Wrigley raped and murdered Laura Maples?’ Brook stood stone-faced, waiting for an answer to a question that had haunted him for years.