He knew at once he was in a hospital. The smell told him: the pungent aroma of heavy duty cleaning fluids couldn’t quite overpower the aroma of sweet dried blood and stale body wastes that permeated these places. And the low hum of misery was unmistakable. Hushed despair. As if to speak at greater volume might remind a delinquent God to attend to His roster of death.
Brook blinked and looked around and, trying to sit up, winced at the pain in his stomach. He rubbed it through the heavy cotton of his NHS pyjamas. It felt as though he’d been kicked by a mule.
He sat back and stared upwards. The ceiling was high and he had an impression of space on the other side of the screen that ran alongside his bed. He guessed he was in a large ward rather than a private room.
Beside the bed on a hard-backed wooden chair sat a large leather bag. Brook tried to reach it but was hampered by a sharp nip in his left arm. He was hooked up to a drip and had given it a nasty yank so, with his right arm, he pushed himself and his pillows right back so he could sit up properly. He rubbed the tape on his left arm then reached over again but the bag was still out of reach.
He gave up and turned his attention to a selection of Get Well cards arranged on his bedside cabinet. Four of them. He couldn’t make out any of the inscriptions except one. The smallest card, complete with 49p price sticker and black thumbprint on the back, was the work of Greatorix. Brook couldn’t decipher any of the handwriting but recognised the large childlike B for Bob and the even larger G and X. The rest was just wavy lines.
Brook remembered something. It came to him now. He hadn’t been hallucinating. Sorenson was dead and his career was over…
Wendy Jones walked into view carrying a cup of coffee. She looked wonderful in figure-hugging white polo and tight jeans and the look of delight and affection in her expression gladdened Brook’s heart.
‘You’re back, sir,’ she exclaimed and hastily put down her coffee to grab his hand. ‘How are you feeling?’ She withdrew it after giving Brook’s hand a squeeze but there seemed to be none of the awkwardness that had characterised their encounters since their trip to London. Instead her eyes shone brightly, burning into him, eager to talk.
‘Tired.’ Brook smiled back at her. ‘Hungry.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ She moved her bag onto the bed and sat down to rummage through it. ‘You’ve been out cold for days. It’s lunchtime in half an hour but I got some things in case you came round. I’ve got a cold bacon sandwich or an apple or a banana.’ Brook raised an eyebrow and she cracked into a grin. ‘Bacon sandwich it is.’
One bacon sandwich, banana, apple and packet of crisps scrounged from the duty nurse later, Brook lay back and took a sip of coffee. ‘I’m ready.’
‘What do you want to know?’
Brook was hesitant now, doubting his memory. ‘When you found me…’
‘You didn’t imagine it. Sorenson’s dead.’
‘I see. Does Amy know anything about what’s happened?’
‘She’s knows you’re in here…’
‘But she’s not been to visit?’
Jones looked at the floor. ‘That doesn’t mean…’
‘Don’t humour me, Wendy. I tried to wreck her marriage.’
‘You confronted her husband about your daughter. That’s all you did. Any father would have done the same. You can’t blame yourself for that.’
Brook smiled at her. ‘I don’t. And Sorenson?’
‘He cut his wrists with an old razor.’
Brook found it hard to accept. A part of him was dead. He’d lived with the thought of Sorenson for so many years. Now he was gone.
‘And is there a reason why you’re out of uniform and I’m not handcuffed?’
Jones was taken aback. ‘Handcuffed? Why?’
‘A prominent citizen commits suicide in the presence of a suspended police officer. Not enough? How about possession of an illegal weapon? It’s not hard to figure out a sequence of events…’
‘What weapon?’
‘I had a gun. It was Charlie’s…’
‘There wasn’t?’
‘Sir. Damen. Don’t you know? You’re a hero, or you will be when this all comes out. You’ve found a killer that nobody else could. From what McMaster has been saying you’re a guaranteed DCI. And your success is our success. We’re all…’
‘Stop, stop. What are you talking about?’
‘He confessed. Sorenson. He made a videotape.’
‘What?’ Brook remembered the camcorder on the tripod in Sorenson’s study.
‘It’s true.’
‘Confessed to what?’
‘To being a killer.’
‘The Reaper?’ Brook saw the hesitation in her manner.
‘Well, no. He said he killed his brother…’
Brook closed his eyes and nodded. Of course. Closure for Vicky–the dying act of a loving uncle. But not The Reaper. He would never admit to that. Sorenson can die but The Reaper must live.
‘…there was also a girl.’
Brook sat bolt upright despite the tubes restraining him. ‘Girl?’
‘Yes. One of your old cases, from your time at Hammersmith. He had her bracelet in his hands…’
‘Laura.’
‘That’s right. Laura Maples. He confessed everything. He knew all about it.’ Brook was sombre. ‘And that poor old woman in Derby, Annie Sewell. He said he arranged it.’
Brook was deep in thought. ‘Did he say why?’
‘He claimed she killed several babies when she was younger. She was a midwife…well? Who knows? It was a long time ago. They’re looking into it.’
‘Did he say who he got to kill her for him?’
‘No. When we get back to Derby…’
‘Derby? Where the hell am I?’
‘Still in London. Hammersmith Hospital. You were too ill to move.’
‘Terminal ward?’
‘That’s not funny, sir.’
He stroked her hand. ‘No it’s not. And please call me Damen.’
‘I can tell you something funny, Damen.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Sorenson thinks he killed you. On the tape he said he poisoned you. Said he was sorry because you were such a brilliant detective and nobody else could have caught up with him.’
Jones smiled with pleasure but Brook was sombre. ‘Then why am I alive?’
‘He must have got the dosage wrong.’
‘I don’t think so. If I’m alive it’s because Sorenson wanted it that way. He staged it.’
‘Staged it?’
‘To convince me he was going to kill me. Otherwise it would have been phoney. I wouldn’t have believed it, wouldn’t have gone through what the others went through. It had to be authentic.’
Jones was baffled. ‘Authentic?’
‘The same as the other victims. He needed to show me things, the despair and the hope and the beauty of dying. The joy of letting go. Of being saved.’ Brook could see he was losing her. ‘He wouldn’t kill me. I was his friend.’ Brook took a sip of water. ‘He said I was a brilliant detective?’
‘Words to that effect–what’s wrong with that?’
‘He’s trying to manipulate me, Wendy.’
‘He’s dead. How can he manipulate you?’
‘You didn’t know him. He never said or did anything without an ulterior motive. And now, being a hero, I get to stay in the Force. That’s what he wants.’
‘Sorenson. Why?’
Brook pondered how to say it. ‘Access.’
Jones was mystified but Brook showed little sign of enlightening her. ‘Access to what?’
Brook had closed his eyes and was drifting off to sleep. ‘Deserving cases.’ In a barely audible voice he added, ‘He came to Derby for me, Wendy. And dead or alive, he’s not going to give up until he gets me.’