The Disciple (53 page)

‘It’s fine, love. They believe us, I think. I just need to stay a bit longer.’ Ottoman pressed his hands into the knots of tension in his wife’s back then held her away and looked at her tear-streaked face. ‘You go with this officer. He’ll take you home. I’ll see you soon.’

‘Don’t be long,’ she whimpered.

Brook opened his eyes and lifted his head from the desk and yawned. He looked at his watch and had to rub his eyes to see properly. It was past midnight. He hadn’t been this tired for two years and he was unlikely to get much rest any time soon. His hunch about Ottoman having come good, he was back on
the team. Charlton had already held a press conference to ‘de-emphasise’ – his very word – the significance of the arrests and to insist the Ottomans were witnesses not suspects. Denise Ottoman had been taken home and her husband would probably be released tomorrow after another interview.

Brook stood and walked around for a few minutes to stretch his legs, having already decided not to go home. Being in the house next door to Mike Drexler made him edgy and he had resolved to keep away from Hartington as much as possible until he had gone.

He sat back down at the desk and shook his flask. There was a little tea left in it so he poured it out and took a swig. It was cold.

He looked around the room and his bleary eye fell on the photo array on the boards. The sky had cleared and a full moon had cast its light onto the ghostly image of the middle-aged woman sitting in Dottie North’s bedroom – the picture that had erroneously led them to Denise Ottoman. Brook picked up his pencil and looked at the anagram again. This time he looked for a female name among the letters. After ten minutes he’d come up with only three – Pat, Rae and Petra.

One at a time, he mangled all the remaining letters into unlikely sounding surnames and one by one typed all the options into the search bar for the electoral roll on the computer. He expected nothing and wasn’t disappointed when he found nothing. However, after a dozen or so attempts, Brook keyed in ‘Petra Heer’ and was surprised to be rewarded with an address – 1b Magnet House, Derby.

His pulse began to quicken. 1b suggested a flat and Magnet House suggested a larger building. He reached for an A-Z and looked up the address. Magnet House was just down the road from the railway station and the Midland Hotel. In fact he must have passed it on his nocturnal ramble with Laura Grant.

He hastily wrote a note:
Everything you can get on a Petra Heer if she exists. Birth certificate, nationality, passport, picture of any kind, etc. DIB.

He dropped it on DS Gadd’s desk, gathered up his car keys and hurried out of the door.

Sorenson drove away from the motel, crossing 395 back towards Tahoe. Drexler reached for the keys.

‘I say we wait, Mike.’

‘What? Why?’

‘There’s somebody still in that cabin and I’d kinda like to know who.’ Drexler hesitated, poised to spark the ignition. ‘And I’m guessing Sorenson’s headed home. It’s way past his bedtime.’

Drexler exhaled and sat back. ‘Okay. We wait.’

McQuarry pulled out her cigarettes and lit up. She looked over at Drexler and on an impulse offered the pack. Drexler hesitated then plucked a cigarette and put it shamefacedly into his mouth. McQuarry lit it for him and he inhaled and exhaled like it was his first kiss.

‘Taste good?’ grinned McQuarry, opening her window. Drexler smiled back a little sheepishly. ‘I’ve not seen you like this, Mike. Not since the shooting.’ He looked over at her. ‘You really want this one, don’t you?’

‘I guess.’

‘Why?’

Drexler thought for a minute. ‘The wreckage.’

‘What wreckage?’

‘The wreckage of families. My family. The Campbells. The Baileys. Even the Ashwells. I thought when I killed Hunseth I was done with it.’ He took a large pull on the cigarette and scowled at the taste. When he exhaled he looked over at his partner. ‘I killed him, you know, Ed.’

‘I know, Mike. I was there.’

‘I didn’t have to…’

‘You saved my life.’

‘But I could have brought him down alive. Somehow Sorenson knew that. I don’t know how.’

‘You were cleared, Mike. It was a good shoot.’

‘I was cleared by the Board, Ed. I haven’t cleared myself. Sorenson’s a smart man. He told me I shot my father when I killed Hunseth. He was right. I saw Hunseth as I’d seen my father so many times, staggering drunk, carrying that bat around looking for my mom, looking for me, spitting rage and the Bible between slugs of moonshine. And Sorenson knew that, like he just reached into my mind and pulled it all out.’

‘How could he know?’

‘He just does.’

McQuarry tossed her butt into the night. ‘It’s in the past. Let’s leave it there. You had an off day.’

‘We both did.’

McQuarry looked up at Drexler. ‘What do you mean?’

Drexler looked back at her and shrugged. ‘You got careless, Ed. You got too close. And you got cut. Hard to believe, you of all people…’

‘Mike!’

Just then, the night manager came out of his office and walked down the row of cabins to the end room. He knocked on the door and waited. Nobody opened the door. A moment later the portly bedraggled man turned the handle and slipped inside.

Magnet House was no more than five minutes from St Mary’s at that time of day. A quick trip round the inner ring road and Brook was soon pulling up next to it, the building looming up out of Pride Park, the now-deserted industrial zone to the east of Derby. It was a perfect location. As well as its proximity to the train network, the area was sparsely populated and foot
traffic at night would usually be minimal, most of the bars and pubs being located half a mile to the west in the city centre.

Brook drove past the redbrick structure, unable to keep his eyes from it, and parked in the forecourt of the railway station, some four hundred yards further on. He rummaged in the boot for his small torch and a pair of protective gloves. He also extracted a bunch of keys, the size of a small hedgehog, liberated from a serial housebreaker many years before, and set off towards the building. He wondered briefly whether to call in at the Midland and wake Grant, but decided against it. She’d had a wretched twenty-four hours travelling the length of England and might not appreciate a visit at nearly one in the morning.

As he neared the darkened building he was disturbed by a noise behind him. Without breaking stride or turning, he continued walking until an unkempt hedge provided cover. He pressed himself into the body of the hedge and scrutinised the ground to his rear. It was a clear night and he was able to train his gaze on the doorways and few parked cars all the way back to the station, but he could discern no movement, not even an animal. He waited a little longer then continued on past the dilapidated buildings on his right, towards Magnet House.

He stood in the shadows of the entrance, looking up at the building. To one side there was a security gate barring admittance to the car park, which evidently snaked around the back of the block. Brook trotted over to it but couldn’t see any vehicles. The parking bays were probably under the building. He turned back to the entrance stairwell. There was a solid door and a steel grill with four shiny new buzzers at the side of a microphone. The name tag of the top buzzer was ‘PH’.

Brook stood back again. Four flats in what looked like two storeys, so two flats per floor. Assuming the top buttons were for the flats on the top floor, he pressed the bottom buzzer. Several minutes and several attempts later a female voice answered.

‘Inspector Brook, Derby CID,’ barked Brook. After a brief hesitation the buzzer sounded and Brook made his way into the entrance hall. An inside door was opened as far as a chain would allow and a young girl ran a sleepy eye over Brook’s ID.

‘Miss Jane Gadd?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Are you Miss Jane Gadd?’

The girl let out a huge sigh. ‘No.’

‘My mistake. I’ll see myself out,’ he smiled, apologetically.

‘Thanks a fucking bundle,’ she said and slammed her door.

Brook returned to the stairs and climbed to the next floor. The second door of two had ‘PH’ on its nameplate. He looked at the crack below the door but couldn’t see a light. Then he rang the bell. No answer. No sound or movement that he could detect. No shadow falling over the peephole. After a few minutes he took out his bunch of keys and selected one, then another, then another. The fourth master key turned and Brook pushed back the door and stepped over the threshold, closing the door softly behind him.

Carlson stood inside the doorway, listening in the dark. There was music coming from somewhere near the bed. Classical stuff, playing softly. Quite nice if you liked that sort of shit. He was more of a Bluegrass man.

He was tempted to turn on the light but thought better of it. Roofies or not, the girl might be half-conscious and manage to store a memory of him. Instead he took off his clothes until he stood naked in the blackness, listening for the sound of his early Christmas present sleeping. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom now and he tossed his grimy clothing on a chair and sniffed under his fetid armpit. Not great but not bad enough to waste time showering. Not with a boner like this to drain.

He had his party hat in his hand and pulled it over his
fat penis with a twinge of regret. He usually preferred to ride bareback but he didn’t want to leave behind his DNA in case the girl ever worked out she’d been screwed – which was highly likely with his massive tool. Bitch may not walk for a week, he chuckled.

He moved over to the bed, following the sound of shallow breathing and sat on the edge.

‘I hope you got plenty of the sweet stuff left for Uncle Jake, honey,’ he chuckled again. No reply. This bitch was out cold. He hesitated, assessing the risk. Fuck it. He had to see what he was drilling, made it sweeter. He leaned over and flicked on the bedside lamp and turned to the girl. He liked what he saw. Long hair, slim but with tits and young, soft skin. Her eyes were firmly closed and her firm young body was clad only in bra and panties. He climbed on the bed and prepared to remove her underclothes and mount her.