Whisper For The Reaper by Jack Gatland (best book series to read TXT) 📕

has a secret room and USBs hidden in books, so he was quite security conscious.’

The door opened and Monroe walked in.

‘I just had an enlightening meeting with our German friend,’ he announced as he placed a notebook on the table. ‘Seems that brother and sister aren’t quite brother and sister.’

“We need to call everyone in,’ Declan suggested. ‘I think our list of suspects has increased.’

Billy checked his screen. ‘Doctor Marcos and PC Davey are on their way back right now, so they’ll be here in a few minutes,’ he said. ‘Anjli, De’Geer and Jess are in the bar.’

‘Drinking?’

‘Going over every minute of CCTV that The Olde Bell has,’ Billy smiled. ‘They’re hoping that something new might turn up.’

‘Call them in,’ Monroe added. ‘It’s time for a catch up.’

It was a few minutes before everyone returned to the Library. Anjli and De’Geer had come up with nothing when visiting the Brunel family; all they had was confusion why Dotty Brunel would kill herself. They couldn’t even fathom how this was a murder case, and so Anjli and De’Geer had quietly diverted the questioning, making it sound more like a simple follow up.

Doctor Marcos also had a similar lack of news; there were no fingerprints on the ratchet, the strap, the buttons to raise the ramp or on the large spanner that had been cast to the floor, and most likely struck the unsuspecting Karl Schnitter. It was as if nobody else outside of Karl had been in there which was exactly as previous victims had been found.

Monroe had explained about his conversation with Rolfe Müller, while Declan had explained about his finding of the empty iMac in Karl’s garage, the conversation with the drugged Karl, and the appearance of the hard drive at Nathanial Wing’s house. This done, Declan walked over to the portable whiteboard that was usually provided for workshops, and had now been converted into a makeshift crime board.

‘I think we need to add a new suspect to the list,’ Declan explained. ‘We have two timelines we need to think about, and we’ve been using data from the first for the second.’ He drew a vertical line down the middle of the board. ‘On the left, we have Red Reaper cases until 2012, and my mum’s death five years ago.’ He started writing on the left-hand side.

‘We know that the killer, or at least the believed killer was male, German, brown haired. He flipped a coin before the murders happened, and that he forced the victims to kill themselves, before placing a calling card on their person, and usually removing the item that caused the death.’

‘We also know that Wilhelm Müller did a similar thing with a coin in East Berlin,’ Anjli nodded. Declan now moved to the right-hand side.

‘Now here, we have murders after my mum’s death.’

‘Why start there?’ Jess asked. Declan showed the line.

‘Because this is possibly where your granddad killed Wilhelm Müller,’ he said. ‘And if Müller was the Red Reaper, then this is where the murders by him would have stopped.’

‘You’ve got a subdivision there, then,’ Monroe added. ‘Because we can’t for certain say that Wilhelm Müller is dead.’

‘True,’ Declan wrote WILHELM on the board. ‘There’s every chance that my dad didn’t execute him, and that he was set free, given another chance. I don’t think this is that likely, though. I would have thought that he would have contacted his kids within the years between.’

‘Maybe he has,’ De’Geer offered. ‘Maybe they’re keeping that quiet.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Monroe said. ‘Rolfe Müller seemed quite adamant that daddy hadn’t been around for a while.’

‘Wilhelm aside, we have two other suspects, both under the copycat heading,’ Declan continued, writing both ROLFE and KARL on the board. ‘Rolfe could be continuing the mission, as he was in contact with Nathanial Wing and had every opportunity to kill him. He also, as Wilhelm’s son may have known about his father’s hobby, and even knew where the calling cards were kept.’

‘The reaper in Karl’s pocket was the same cardstock as Wing’s,’ Doctor Marcos added. ‘Which means it’s the same as the earlier murders.’

‘The problem with Rolfe, though, is that he wasn’t around a couple of months back when my father died,’ Declan added. ‘Which means we have a discrepancy there.’

‘I’m checking his passport right now to see if he hadn’t popped across with his sister,’ Billy was typing as he spoke.

‘Sister?’ Anjli asked, Declan nodded.

‘We’ll get to that in a minute,’ he replied, tapping at the KARL written on the board. ‘The other suspect is Karl Schnitter. Wintergreen fancied him for the original Red Reaper but wouldn’t say why, and he has his own supply of secrets. He could easily have been the killer, and could have been the person who met with my dad and arranged for his crash.’

‘Apart from the fact that someone tried to kill him today,’ Billy said.

‘True, but there’s still something going on here,’ Declan said. ‘For a start, he had what looks like my dad’s stolen iMac in his garage. And second, he met with Ilse Müller a couple of months back.’

‘Ilse was in the village before?’ Jess rested an arm on the table as she turned to look at her dad. ‘Why?’

‘Well, that’s where the soap opera aspect of this tale starts,’ Monroe smiled. ‘Seems that Rolfe and Ilse are only half siblings. One of them results from an affair between Mrs Müller and A N Other, a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.’

‘When Karl Meier worked under Hauptmann Müller,’ Anjli noted. ‘Christ, is he the daddy?’

‘Possibly,’ Monroe replied. ‘Now, Rolfe reckons they decided to not test themselves, as that way they’d never have to face who wasn’t the legitimate Müller, but to be honest they don’t seem to be best friends, and there’s every reason to suspect that Ilse might not have kept to the same memo there.’

‘Ilse visited Karl Schnitter a couple of months ago,’ Declan said to Anjli now. ‘He told me while in hospital. He