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

little strained until mum died. And after that, although we spoke, he didn’t talk business.’

Wintergreen pulled the folder on the table closer, but didn’t open it. ‘A dozen people died between 1990 and 2012,’ she began. ‘None of them had any kind of defensive injuries, all seemed to take their own lives in a variety of different ways. Hanging, shooting, injecting, slashing at their throats. The only thing that linked them together was a single white card with this image on.’ She pulled a business card sized piece of card in a small, clear plastic bag out of the folder, showing it to Declan. One side was blank, but the other side had a small red man, wearing a hat, arms outstretched, one hand holding a red scythe.

‘Every one of them had this. And every one of these had only the victim’s fingerprints on it, right here.’ She held the card through the plastic by the corner, with her thumb and index finger.

‘As I said, a sick suicide cult,’ Declan repeated. ‘I remember something; weren’t they all people with secrets, or who’d done wrong too? The one in Hurley was a rapist, right?’

Wintergreen pulled a file from the folder, reading it.

‘Craig Randall,’ she said, holding up the image of a fifteen-year-old boy. ‘Visited Hurley with his parents every weekend. Believed to have assaulted a fifteen-year-old girl at the campsite, but nothing was ever proven. Found dead in the woods, having slashed his own throat. No sign of a struggle, blood spatter proved it was a self-inflicted wound.’

‘But my dad believed it was murder,’ Declan replied, remembering snippets of the case. ‘Something about the blade never being found.’

Wintergreen nodded at this, opening the folder and scattering other files across the table. Women, men, all ages and sizes faced Declan. All dead, all found with the Red Reaper card.

‘None of them were found with the item that caused their death,’ she said, showing them. ‘The ones that hanged themselves had the noose but at the same time didn’t show what the victim could have stood on to gain the height.’

Declan worked through the files, arranging them into chronological order.

‘First one is in Berlin, in 1990,’ he said, reading through them. ‘Then Bruges, then Paris… The rest are all in Britain from 1996, and over a sixteen-year period.’

He considered this.

‘If it was a killer, then they came from Germany to the UK, most likely settled…’ he stopped, and then nodded.

‘This is why you have an issue with Karl.’

‘How much do you know about Karl Schnitter?’ Wintergreen asked, as if confirming this.

‘Not much,’ Declan admitted. ‘Came from East Berlin when the wall fell, was an apprentice to a mechanic, worked in London for a bit and then moved to Hurley, opened up a garage in Marlow, with a smaller one in the village.’

‘What would you say if I said that Karl hadn’t just been a mechanic?’ Wintergreen watched Declan. ‘What if I told you that before the wall fell, he’d been a border guard on the East Germany side?’

‘I’d say it wasn’t my business, and if my dad vouched for him, then so did I.’

‘And how do you know your father vouched for him?’ Wintergreen raised her eyebrows as she asked this, giving the impression of an elderly schoolteacher, asking a question that she already knew the answer to. Declan bit back his immediate reply and considered this. How much did he know? He knew that as a child they’d been friendly, but in the last twenty years he’d only visited home a scattering of times, even less after his mother had died. Karl was always around, but never there. And it was only after Patrick Walsh’s funeral that Karl attempted to befriend Declan.

‘No,’ he replied staunchly. ‘I’m not playing this game. This is what spooks do. Make you doubt yourself. If dad had believed that Karl was a potential murderer, then he’d have damn well proved it.’

‘Maybe he did,’ Wintergreen smiled, ‘and placed it on an encrypted USB drive?’

The room was silent for a moment.

‘Look, this is interesting, but still circumstantial,’ Declan continued. ‘And I’m still waiting to see what this has to do with me.’

‘Everything,’ Wintergreen said, looking to Marlowe, who passed her a second folder. ‘The victims, because that’s what they were, they were never given justice. They were simply classed as strange but acceptable suicides.’ She picked up the card with the red image and tossed it across to Declan. ‘What do you make of this?’

Declan picked the clear bag up, but the moment he turned it around, Wintergreen raised a hand. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Right there. If you were holding the actual card, how many fingerprints of yours are now on it?’

Declan considered this. He’d turned it, using two fingers and his thumb. He’d held the corner, but now the thumb was along the side.

‘Every card,’ he intoned. ‘Every card had the same placement of the fingerprints?’

Wintergreen smiled, as if watching a student coming to the same conclusion.

‘Yes,’ she replied, pulling out of the second folder a blank business card; the only things visible on it were two fingerprints, one on each side at the corner, as if she’d placed ink on her index finger and thumb to create it. ‘Just like this.’

She watched Declan.

‘You’re the detective, and Patrick always said you were a better one that he was. So tell me, DI Walsh. What does your gut, your detective instinct, say now?’

Declan worked through the files in front of him, slowly checking the details of each before moving on.

‘Going on the hypothetical situation that these are all murders, and that these are all by the same person, we have someone who’s male, or at least an incredibly powerful woman.’

‘Why?’

‘The bodies,’ Declan replied, still reading. ‘They’re positioned. Also, the killer has to stay with them throughout the death.’

‘Why?’

‘The fingerprints,’ Declan continued. ‘Sure, there’s a chance that they could make the victims hold the card while alive, but this is too precise. Far easier to wait until the victim is