Читать книгу The Disciple - Steven Dunne - Страница 10

Damen Brook opened his eyes but remained motionless in his sleeping bag. The trees near the tent were creaking under the wind’s assault and an owl hooted off in the distance, but the noise that had woken him had not been one of nature’s sound effects. He looked at his watch – two in the morning. Maybe a car at the bottom of the field had woken him – but at this hour and in the depths of the Peak District? It seemed unlikely. He felt around for his water bottle and took a short drink.

He closed his eyes but reopened them at once. Someone or something was definitely moving around outside his tent. He lifted his head from the makeshift pillow and followed the source of the noise. Beyond the mound of his feet, framed by the moonlight, Brook could see a shadow on the other side of the canvas. The paper-and-comb noise of a zip unfastening sent Brook scrabbling for his torch. Flicking it on he trained it on the tent’s flap, but this didn’t halt the unfastening – it merely hastened it.

Fully alert now, Brook sat up and cast around for a weapon. He reached for his walking boots but the mention of his name turned his muscles to solid ice.

‘Who is it?’

‘Damen. Damen. It’s me.’ Brook didn’t recognise the little-girl voice. ‘Laura.’

Brook’s heart, already working hard, went into overdrive. Sweat dotted his forehead. ‘Laura?’

The flap opened and a pretty young girl popped her head through the gap.

She smiled at him and proceeded to crawl into the tent on all fours. ‘Laura Maples. You must remember,’ she grinned. Her skin was pale and she wore nothing but the briefest silk night slip, which did little to conceal her small breasts as she climbed onto his sleeping bag. ‘I’ve come to thank you for Floyd,’ she smiled and proceeded to unfasten his sleeping bag.

‘What?’

‘You must remember Floyd,’ she said. Her smile vanished and she massaged her neck briefly, then showed her fingers to Brook. They were covered in blood. ‘I do.’ She moved towards him, recovering her smile, and climbed on top of him.

Brook shone the torch onto her unblemished peach-fuzz face. He felt a hand pulling at his sleeping bag. ‘Stop.’ He grabbed her hand – it was icy cold.

‘Please, Damen. Just once for love.’ She pushed his arms down and kissed him with her frosty lips. Brook could feel her soft flesh trembling in her too thin slip and tried to pull away, but she pressed closer to him for warmth, her tongue beginning to search for his.

A stench so foul Brook thought he might retch made him push the girl away and he swung the torch back to her face. The blackened skull and orbs of her eye sockets glared back at him and he shrank back to the wall of his tent, almost collapsing the frame. The broken beer bottle protruding from her neck glistened in the artificial light, grimy panties still dangling from its neck – testimony to her killer’s final incriminating act.

‘You’re not real,’ shouted Brook. He darted the torch this way and that, searching for her corpse. She had gone. Brook heaved a sigh. A second later he felt the movement at his feet and knew at once what it was. He scrambled to pull the sleeping bag off his legs but the seething, roiling mass of rats struggling for air at the bottom of his fetid bed gouged and scraped their way to freedom over his quivering torso.

Brook sat bolt upright and took several huge gasps of air. When his heart returned to near normal, he poked a bleary head out into the sharp, cold air of the morning. Although only wearing underpants and T-shirt, he spilled out onto the sopping grass and raised his six-foot frame to its full height, welcoming the fingers of dawn massaging their faint warmth into his face.

He closed his eyes and rubbed the fatigue from them. It had been years since he’d dreamed of Laura Maples, dreams he thought he’d left behind forever. Her killer, Floyd Wrigley, was in the ground – Brook had seen to that – and his nightmares had been buried with him. Or so he had thought. Two nights in a row. He heaved a final huge sigh. Something was wrong.

He looked at his watch and scrabbled back inside the tent, emerging with a box of matches inside a plastic bag. The first two matches he removed failed to ignite, but the third obliged, and Brook slid it under the kettle of his one-ring camping stove and made some tea.

Brook returned to the tent, dressed quickly, then packed his sleeping bag, camera and other meagre possessions into the side of his rucksack.

He then set to work taking down his quick-erect tent. He worked rhythmically, occasionally looking around as he folded, but there was no landowner or farmer to complain this early in the morning.

Brook packed his stove, kettle and mug and struck out down the path that would eventually spit him out into the small hamlet of Milldale, on the River Dove in Derbyshire’s Peak District. Forty minutes later he was standing on Milldale’s ancient footbridge, admiring a nearby heron and feeling the warmth of the low sun spread its balm.

He clambered up the steps to the municipal toilets. After an icy wash, Brook gazed at his bleary face in the cracked mirror. He then set off up the path next to the river that would eventually take him to his home in the village of Hartington. He walked steadily, ignoring the hunger gnawing at his tight belly and feeling quiet pleasure at the newfound strength in his legs and shoulders. Two weeks of wild camping, walking fifteen miles a day and eschewing alcohol and cigarettes had left Brook feeling as fit as he had in years. But the dream of Laura Maples gnawed at him. What did it mean?

Brook power-walked the last mile into Hartington and up the small hill to his front door, stopping only briefly to get a pint of milk and a loaf of bread at the corner shop. As he was extracting his keys from a side pocket, his eye wandered to the small, lavender-scented front garden of Rose Cottage next door. He noticed that the ‘To Let’ sign, which had been there for many a month, had now been taken down and laid flat along the side wall of the cottage. At the same time, he noticed that several upstairs windows had been opened to air the place out.

He unlocked his front door and stepped into the porch, kicking the large pile of unopened mail to one side. As soon as he entered the inner door he heard the urgent ping of the answer phone alerting him to messages. Two weeks away, two messages. He pressed the play button.

‘Hello, sir. Hope you’ve had a good holiday wherever you’ve been.’ It was DS John Noble. ‘I thought I’d give you the rundown on The Reaper book. It came out on Tuesday and got a fair amount of attention. Brian Burton was interviewed on East Midlands Today apparently – I didn’t see it. Surprise, surprise, he has a go at you in it, about the way the investigation went, you know the routine, and the BBC rang up to find out if you or the Chief Super wanted to be on with him. The Chief’s said no. As he doesn’t know you all that well, he’s fretting that you might get sucked into saying the wrong thing. Don’t worry, I told him you don’t talk to anyone if you can help it, least of all journalists …’

Brook smiled at this and muttered, ‘No comment!’

‘Anyway…’ The message cut off at this point but was picked up again in the next one. ‘It’s me again. Just to say I’ve taped the interview for you if you can face it. I’ve also left a text on your new mobile just in case you actually manage to take it with you, remember how to turn it on and have learned how to access your messages. Unlikely, I know. See you tomorrow. Oh, BTW,’ Brook rolled his eyes, ‘Jason Wallis was released a couple of days ago. Thought you might want to know.’

Brook’s expression hardened. ‘So you’re out at last, you murdering little coward.’ He made some tea and took a sip while glancing through the side window at the memorial to his slaughtered cat. He reflected on the night two years ago when he’d risked everything and played The Reaper, holding Jason hostage, confronting him with his crimes and threatening to cut his throat unless he turned himself in for the murder of Annie Sewell, an old woman in a sheltered home.

He looked back to the cat-shaped stone. He’d underestimated Wallis. A week later Jason and his crew had come after Brook, wrecking his down-at-heel flat and killing his cat.

Brook smiled suddenly. ‘The Reaper’s dead, Jason. Did I forget to tell you? For all you know he could be waiting round the next corner or passing you in the street. It could be anyone. It could be me. Sweet dreams.’

Brook finished his tea and deleted the messages. He took out his brand new mobile phone and turned it on, confirming there was a text from Noble, but didn’t bother to read it. He wasn’t comfortable texting but had no desire to endure the how-was-your-holiday conventions of a phone conversation so he painstakingly tapped out: ‘Jason Wallis. Did anyone inform the Ottomans?’, making sure he took the time to add the capital letters and question mark.

A few minutes later Noble replied – ‘who’ – without punctuation or a capital letter.

Brook was disheartened on two fronts. ‘A pity we don’t remember the victims as we remember the criminals,’ he muttered and switched off the phone.

Then he booted up his computer and went to take a shower.

* * *

Special Agent Mike Drexler drained his espresso then turned his attention to the orange juice. He took a long slow sip and grinned at his companion.

‘Yummy. I never imagined things could taste like this and I could feel this good on top.’

Special Agent Edie McQuarry flashed him a sarcastic smile and exhaled tobacco smoke over him. ‘A month away from the weed and you turn into some kind of goddamn evangelist. It’s sickening.’

‘I got news for you, Ed. I haven’t had alcohol for three weeks either.’

‘Well, give the man a prize. While the rest of humanity is out getting drunk and laid, you’ll be able to stay home nights and brush up on your macramé.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ve no idea but my sister says she does it on her coffee mornings.’

‘Sounds kinky.’

‘Well, if you ever get a hankering to wear a poncho I’ll hook you up.’ McQuarry eyed her partner before taking another long pull on her cigarette and twisted her mouth to exhale the smoke away from the other tables. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned sisters.’

Drexler looked up. ‘Ed, it’s been ten years now. I’m over it.’

‘Glad to hear it. So how’d it go last week?’

‘How’d what go?’

McQuarry raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s October, Mike. And I’m your partner.’

Drexler smiled bleakly into the distance. ‘How do these things usually go? You place the flowers, wipe the dirt off the headstone, say a few words. “Hey, sis, let me tell you about my year.”’ He smiled at his partner. ‘Gotta keep busy standing over the dead.’

‘You visit your mother?’

Drexler’s smile was a mask behind which words were carefully selected. ‘What’s the point? She doesn’t know who I am. I barely know myself. Since Kerry died…’ He shrugged. What else was there to say?

Opposite McQuarry, a large woman sitting next to her even larger husband and two grossly overweight boys, caught her eye to purse her lips in disapproval, before opening them to fork in a mouthful of syrupy pancakes.

Drexler followed McQuarry’s gaze to their table. ‘If anyone complains I’m going to have to arrest you.’

‘We’re outside, goddamn it, Mike. What more do they want?’

‘It’s a public place. There are laws.’ Drexler tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t maintain it.

‘My first smoke of the day ruined.’ McQuarry stubbed out her cigarette, then briefly examined her left hand.

‘How is it?’ asked Drexler.

She grinned at him, then flexed her hand more vigorously, trying not to wince at the discomfort from the scar tissue. ‘Good as new, Mike.’

Drexler nodded. A tension rose within him and McQuarry knew what was coming. ‘Listen, Ed…’

‘If you’re gonna start that crap again, Mike, we’re gonna have a problem. You’re my partner. You saved my life. I got cut ’cos I got careless, and if it hadn’t been for you I could’ve been filleted by that piece of shit. End of story.’

Drexler managed a smile. ‘Okay. You won’t hear me mention it again. But I never got to say thanks, you know, for still wanting to saddle up with me and backing me in front of the Board. I owe you.’

‘You don’t owe me shit, Mike, it was a good shoot. Just how many more times aren’t you ever gonna mention it?’

Drexler returned her grin. ‘Coupla hundred.’

McQuarry drained her coffee and they both stood in unison. Drexler counted out a few dollars and dropped them on the table. She eyed the morbidly obese family as they passed their table. ‘You know, I don’t complain about lardasses encouraging me to weigh my heart down with fat,’ she said, a little more loudly than was necessary, as she stalked away from the restaurant.

They walked down Placerville Main Street through the morning sunshine, back to their dark blue Chevy. They’d been partners in the FBI for nearly three years and were comfortable in each other’s company. Drexler was thirty-three, slender and tall with curly brown hair, a handsome face and a lopsided smile.

McQuarry was thirty-eight and two years away from being a fifteen-year veteran. She looked younger, or so Drexler always told her, and despite his occasional teasing she saw no reason to disbelieve him. Her hair was also brown, but darker and shinier, and she tied it in a ponytail when on duty. She was a foot shorter than Drexler and full-figured, though she tended to think she was overweight and had been ‘careful’ with her diet for most of her adult life.

‘Nice place, this,’ said Drexler.

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No. I can see myself living in a place like this in a few years. It’s safe, got great fishing…’

‘Safe,’ sneered McQuarry. ‘Sacramento’s not safe enough for you? It’s the most boring city in the world.’

‘You’ll never get over ’Frisco, will you, Ed?’

‘No, I never will – the most beautiful place in the world. And they got a ballpark. And another thing – the most dangerous activity in San Fran is being a tourist who says ’Frisco. It’s San Fran or SF – never ’Frisco. Got that?’

‘Go easy on me, officer, I’m just a country boy who don’t know no better.’

McQuarry threw the keys at him. ‘Amen to that. Now let’s move it, Mike. We got another hour on the road.’

Grant grabbed her small suitcase from the boot before Hudson could attempt to carry it for her. They walked from the residents’ car park to the reception area of the Midland Hotel and checked in. They found their adjacent rooms and Hudson paused at his door.

‘What do you fancy for dinner? French? Italian? Spanish?’

Grant tried not to laugh. Her superior had many qualities, but subtlety wasn’t one of them. She’d ridden this merry-go-round so many times since they’d first started working together and it always stopped at the same place. Hudson wanted a curry. He always wanted a curry, but he insisted on going through the motions of asking his sergeant for her preference before deciding.

Grant was tired and decided to shortcut the process. ‘You know what, guv? I quite fancy a curry.’

Hudson’s eyebrows rose, as if entertaining the proposal for the first time. ‘Curry? Good call. I think I can manage that.’

Grant tossed her case into her room and locked her door.

‘Going out?’

‘We’ve been in the car a long time, guv. I think I’ll stretch my legs.’

‘Scope out a curry house while you’re at it.’

Grant left the hotel and walked into Derby railway station next door. She looked around to get her bearings, saw the newsagents tucked in a corner and went to buy a local paper. She also bought a cheap baseball cap with ‘Derby Pride’ as its slogan. She fixed it on her head, briefly amused at her new cap. She’d never had clothing that endorsed one of the seven deadly sins before.

She set off along a nondescript road, on one side of which sat a row of brick terraced houses, identical even down to the colour of the paintwork on doors and windows. On the other ran a metal fence separating the pavement from the station car park.

Enjoying the cooler air, she walked on past a dilapidated railway building, which sported a ‘For Sale’ sign, no doubt trying to tempt developers to see the potential for apartments. She reached a set of traffic lights and stopped to look around. There wasn’t much to see. Across the road was a smart redbrick building developed pre-credit crunch. It had a shiny new entry phone system and several buttons next to the main door. Beyond that there was a flyover which ferried traffic in and out of Derby. As Grant stood in the gathering gloom, she was oblivious to the telescopic lens pointed at her, too distant to hear the frantic whirring of the camera recording her image.

Drexler pulled the Chevy across the highway onto the dusty forecourt of the gas station. There wasn’t a lot of room to park with all the flashing Highway Patrol cars, an ambulance and the other support vehicles squeezed into the available space. There were always more people than you’d expect to see at a crime scene. It didn’t help that the space between the gas pumps had been taped off by the CSIs to prevent the corruption of potential tyre, finger and footprints.

Drexler brought the car to a halt tight up against a patrol car and he and McQuarry both stepped into the unseasonal heat. A short and heavyset middle-aged man in brown uniform and a wide-brimmed hat walked out of the mêlée to greet them. He had a brown moustache flecked with grey and chewed mightily on a piece of gum. He stood resting both hands on his gunbelt as he watched the agents approach.

‘This is Special Agent Mike Drexler; I’m Special Agent Edie McQuarry.’

‘Sheriff Andy Dupree, Markleeville PD. Thanks for coming so quick.’

‘No problem, Sheriff,’ nodded McQuarry.

They shook hands briefly. ‘Welcome to the Ghost Road.’

‘The Ghost Road?’ said Drexler.

‘This is the Ghost Road?’ McQuarry looked around at the highway with new eyes. ‘′89, of course.’

‘S’right, ma’am. Some people think it’s haunted, some people think there’s creatures in the forest. Latest I heard, aliens are to blame.’

‘To blame for what?’ asked Drexler.

‘Unexplained crashes. Vehicles disappearing. This is like the Bermuda Triangle for cars, Mike,’ explained McQuarry.

‘Started twenty years ago this year. I was just a greenhorn trooper back in ′75. We lost a family between Yosemite and Tahoe. The Campbells. Five of ’em. Mom and Pop, two teenage boys and a ten-year-old girl. Left Yosemite on a bright breezy morning one Easter and were never seen again. They got reported missing two weeks later…’

‘Two weeks?’

‘They was on holiday, Agent Drexler. No one to report them overdue. Except the manager at the condo, but why would he phone it in? Happens all the time. He gets to keep the deposit and re-let the apartment.’

‘Right.’

‘Far as we know, other families disappeared on this road too. Last one was just a couple of months ago. Family name of Bailey set out from San Diego in a VW camper. They…’

‘What do you mean, far as we know?’ Drexler was unable to keep a trace of censure out of his voice.

Dupree took a pause and shot Drexler a lingering look, then allowed himself a thin mocking smile. ‘Well, when we can be bothered to take a break from hunkering down on the Krispy Kremes, and there’s not a Klan meetin’ or a rodeo on the tube, we sometimes squeeze in some police work.’

‘Excuse my partner, Sheriff,’ said McQuarry. ‘He flunked the diplomacy training.’

‘He’s excused, Ma’am.’

‘What the Sheriff means, Mike, is there could be other families who’ve disappeared.’

Dupree nodded. ‘S’right. My kinda vacation. Load the wife and kids into a Winnebago and set off for the horizon. Who knows how many others do the same? We don’t get notified in Markleeville if a car full of people from Alabama goes missing unless there’s a paper trail that puts ’em here. Don’t mean they didn’t drive up 89 with a pocketful of cash. Know if it was me, I’d be paying cash for my gas. Out in the backwoods that can still be the only currency.’

Drexler nodded. ‘I see.’

‘And is that why you’ve called us in, Sheriff?’

‘Not exactly, Ma’am. But I think we can rustle up a connection.’ Dupree turned and led them towards the gas station.

Drexler noted he had a slight limp. ‘So what have you got for us, Sheriff?’

‘Two bodies so far. Caleb Ashwell, owner of the gas station. The other one’s in here. Customer found him round six a.m. We figure this one was killed second, as he’s got blood spray from the first on him.’

They walked into the low building where two CSIs were going through their various procedures. A harsh striplight illuminated the dark office, but nothing else. McQuarry decided not to ask where the specialist crime scene lighting was. They probably didn’t have any and there was no sense drawing attention to it and causing further offence. She pulled her latex gloves from her pocket and put them on. Drexler did the same.

A well-built young man, seventeen, eighteen at most, hung from a steel rafter in the low ceiling.

‘Ashwell’s son Billy,’ said Dupree. McQuarry gazed up at him. His face was pale and his lips slightly parted and discoloured. Nearby a chair had been knocked over on its side and discarded plastic packaging lay on the floor. Otherwise there was order.

McQuarry clicked on a small Dictaphone. ‘White male, Caucasian, mid-to-late teens. Lips and tongue cyanosed. Probable cause – asphyxia.’

Drexler stood near the plastic packaging. ‘This is for a tow rope, Ed.’ He looked behind the counter. Several more ropes in their untouched packaging sat on the shelf. ‘Taken from the store here. The hanging was improvised. Suicide?’ he asked Dupree.

‘Homicide,’ said Dupree. Both agents were slightly taken aback by his confidence. Hangings were rarely clear cut, the majority being suicides as it was not the easiest way to kill and would usually require multiple assailants, particularly to subdue a strong young man.

‘Who found him?’

‘Old Ben Gardner called in for gas round six this morning. Says he saw the boy hanging when he got to the door. He’d had to pump his own gas, which was unusual – the boy usually ran out to serve you before your engine was off. Ben said he was clearly dead. Well, he was in ’Nam so I guess he’d know. He rang it in straightaway – didn’t touch anything, didn’t even walk through the door.’

McQuarry nodded and clicked off the Dictaphone. Until the body was cut down they wouldn’t be able to say more. She looked over at Dupree who nodded in response and led them out of the back door of the station onto a dirt track which took them to a small, functional wooden cabin.

Both agents were beginning to sweat now as the midday sun began to parch the bare track and they were relieved to dip under the cooler canopy of the trees.

It took them a few minutes to adjust their eyes to the murk of the cabin. They could see the shadowy form of Caleb Ashwell, tensed and twisted from his death throes. They could see the sinewy debris of his throat and the dark pool of drying blood on his grubby vest. They could see the handcuffs behind his back and an opened wine bottle on the table. It took a while to make out the words daubed in blood on the wall, though, as the darkening stain was nearly lost in the gloom.

‘“CLEARING UP THE GROUND”,’ read McQuarry. ‘Interesting.’

‘That’s what we figured until…’ began Dupree.

‘What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stood.’ Dupree and McQuarry turned to Drexler who smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry. Philosophy major. It’s Wittgenstein.’

‘Cute,’ said McQuarry. ‘Doesn’t change what looks like a classic murder-suicide to me. Boy kills father. Boy feels guilty and kills himself.’ She turned to Dupree. ‘But this message makes you think it was a double murder?’

‘No, Mba’am. Something else.’

Brook rubbed his eyes and took another scant mouthful of his baked potato. He washed it down with a slurp of cold tea and returned his gaze to the computer screen. He reread the FBI report and then clicked on a link to take him to the Los Angeles PD Homicide Report on the death of the Marquez family.

He read carefully: although the father and eldest son’s petty criminal background fitted the profile, several factors marked this down as something other than a Reaper killing. The timeline was fine. The Marquez family had died in 1995, at the same time the original Reaper Victor Sorenson had lived in LA, but the use of both a shotgun and several different knives on the two parents and four children pointed away from The Reaper. In addition, the two girls, one fifteen the other twelve, had both been raped at the scene, a violation to which The Reaper had never stooped. Sorenson killed his prey quickly. He didn’t want them to suffer; he just wanted them to experience beauty before they died – a piece of art, a beautiful aria, a glass of expensive wine. Then they could cease to exist, happy in the knowledge that they were leaving behind lives that weren’t worth the living, knowing the world was a better place without them.

Brook looked at his watch. It was past eleven. Three hours spent scouring the unsolved murder files of various US law enforcement agencies had left Brook feeling in need of another shower. America sickened him and he resolved never to go. What was it Sorenson had said just hours before he died? Something about a nation that called itself the Home of the Brave presiding over such appalling murder statistics? No wonder Sorenson felt The Reaper’s ‘work’ would be lost in America and had returned to England to strike in Derby. Brook had been searching for months to find cases that fitted The Reaper’s MO and wading through so much stuff had left him numb.

He logged out of the FBI site and clicked onto his Hotmail account for something to do. He cleared the usual junk and was left with nothing. Not surprising. Apart from some of the US agencies he’d emailed asking for information about families murdered in their homes, nobody even knew he had an email address.

Brook stood, stretching his legs, and went outside to his back garden, sucking in the sweet night air. He shook his head. Why was he still looking? Sorenson was dead. The Reaper was gone. What was he hoping to achieve? To unmask Sorenson to the world? Why? So he wouldn’t have to carry the knowledge alone? There had to be something else driving him. Guilt? The dreams?

A black cat dropped down from a neighbour’s wall and headed straight for Brook’s legs, purring in anticipation of the pleasure to come. ‘Hello, Basil, you little monkey. I haven’t seen you for a while.’ The cat fell onto Brook’s foot and writhed around his ankle until Brook leaned down to scratch its head and neck. After a couple of minutes, Brook extricated himself from its clutches and went back into the house. He re-emerged with a saucer of tinned tuna for the cat and a measure of malt whisky for himself and sat down on the bench, dividing his gaze between the feeding cat and the cotton-wool stars.

He was tired now, torn between the comfort and novelty of his own bed and the urge to go for a stroll, to feast on the chill air. In the end he did neither and satisfied himself with a barefooted amble around the lawn, enjoying the freshly nourished Basil’s acrobatic skills as he chased the nocturnal insects that had dared to enter his territory.

Finally Brook drained his glass, and returned to the cottage. Unusually, there was an email alert on his computer. He clicked on his inbox and was greeted by a message with the tagline ‘REAPER’ and the subject ‘CONGRATULATIONS’.