Whisper For The Reaper, Jack Gatland [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

‘In here,’ Trix said, knocking on a door. A moment later she opened it, bringing Declan into what seemed to be a windowless boardroom, sound insulation panels along two of the walls, as if to deaden the noise made in the room, ensuring it didn’t leak out to the outer offices. Declan hoped this wasn’t so that people outside didn’t hear screaming.

‘Sit, please,’ Marlowe pointed to a chair at the table as he walked to a coffee machine on a side cabinet, one of the posh ones that took small plastic pods, nestled beside one of the walls. ‘White, no sugar, right?’

Declan nodded. He didn’t need to ask how Marlowe knew this; Trix had made enough coffees while pretending to be a part of the Last Chance Saloon. Reluctantly, he sat at the table and waited.

He didn’t wait long, as a minute later a door at the other end opened and a woman entered. In her late sixties she was slim, attractive and wore her white hair short. Declan laughed. She did indeed look like Helen Mirren.

‘Something amusing?’ The woman asked, her voice showing the slightest twinge of an accent. Maybe Scouse. Maybe Geordie.

‘I was told you looked like Helen Mirren by a friend,’ he replied. ‘It amused me to see that he was right.’

‘Ah, the elusive Karl Schnitter,’ the woman said as she sat across the table from Declan, placing a folder on it beside her. ‘I assumed he’d been watching me. Old habits and all that.’

Declan didn’t ask what she meant; instead, he pulled out the USB stick with WINTERGREEN on and pushed it across the table at her.

‘Here,’ he pointed. ‘I’m guessing that’s for you.’

Emilia Wintergreen took the USB, nodding as she looked at it. ‘Did your father leave a note with it?’ she asked. Declan shook his head.

‘Didn’t even know you existed until I was researching the Angela Martin case,’ he replied. ‘Learned then about a Detective Sergeant who took money from the Lucas Brothers.’

In a similar fashion to when Declan didn’t reply to the comment about Karl, Wintergreen didn’t reply to this, instead taking the USB drive and rotating it in her hand as she examined it.

‘You’ve seen what’s on it? she asked. Declan shook his head.

‘Can’t,’ he replied. ‘Don’t know the password.’

Wintergreen frowned. ‘Well, I don’t know it either,’ she muttered, sliding it across to Trix, standing near the other door. ‘See what can be done with this.’ As Trix took the drive and left the boardroom, Wintergreen looked back at Declan.

‘You have questions, I’m sure,’ she said. Declan shrugged.

‘Not as many as you might think,’ he replied. ‘Trix alluded to me who she was working for when she came by about a week back. I’m guessing that you moved from the Met to Whitehall, from Detective Sergeant to, well, ‘M’, in the process scrubbing your past, turning you into a ghost. How am I doing?’

‘It’s Control, not M,’ Wintergreen smiled. ‘But you’re pretty close.’

Declan nodded at this. ‘Was my dad a spook?’

‘What makes you ask that?’

‘Secret studies with bookcase doorways and cryptic USB drives are a bit of a giveaway,’ Declan replied.

Wintergreen didn’t reply for a moment, as if weighing up how much she could really say.

‘He helped us, but he wasn’t an agent, nor was he an asset,’ she simply stated. ‘To some, he was a threat, even.’

Declan looked around the windowless room. ‘And which am I?’ He asked. ‘An asset? Or a threat?’

‘That depends on you,’ Wintergreen replied. ‘If you’re an asset, we’ll discuss whatever you want, you’ll be shown where you really are, and then you’ll be taken home by Tom there. If you’re a threat, this ends now and it’ll be the hood and the van again.’

Declan leaned back in his chair, considering this. ‘If my father trusted you, then I suppose I should,’ he said. ‘So why don’t you tell me what this is really about.’

Wintergreen mimicked Declan, leaning back in her own chair. ‘You wanted to speak to me, remember,’ she smiled. ‘I have nothing to gain here.’

‘Yeah, not buying that,’ Declan leaned forward now, steepling his fingers together as he rested his elbows on the table in front of him. ‘You could have used Trix as a middleman and never seen my face. You could have taken your time, decided whether I was a threat before bringing me in. Instead, you kidnap and drug me, to ensure I’m here right now. So how about we cut all the spy bullshit and get to the point? If you hadn’t gathered, I’m having a pretty rotten day right now. I’ve buried a friend, had a fight with her husband, I’m likely fired from my job and I’m still seen as a terrorist by half my village, no matter what BBC News says right now. So lady, friend of my father or not, my patience is really running thin right now.’

Wintergreen went to reply, then stopped, nodding.

‘You’re in an office in Seven Dials, in London,’ she replied. ‘Just off the Donmar Warehouse theatre and down from Cambridge Circus, where the original Whitehall spies used to work. And you’re right. I brought you in for a reason.’

She paused before continuing, as if worried what the answer to her next question would bring.

‘What do you know about the Red Reaper?’

2

Cold Red Cases

Of all the things that Wintergreen could have asked, Declan hadn’t expected that question. He thought for a moment as he tried to dredge through his memories for something. He remembered snippets, partly from the television, but also through conversations later with his father.

‘Some kind of sick suicide cult,’ he replied. ‘All linked by a card with a red man, in the shape of a cross, holding a scythe. Dad ran the case about ten years back.’

‘Did he ever talk about it?’

Declan shook his head. ‘I’d just started in Tottenham with DI Salmon,’ he explained. ‘Derek and dad didn’t get on that well, as you probably know. Things were a