of his own ghostly city skin. She’d been crying. Her eyes were pink and rimmed bright red. She wasn’t crying now. It was a long trip from Devon. Had she run out of tears?
She began to stand before Sean or Sally could stop her. Her sore eyes darted between them. Sean had seen that look on the faces of other victims’ loved ones. Fear, disbelief; desperate for information.
She spoke first. ‘Hello. I’m Debbie Stryer. Linda’s sister. Stryer’s my married name.’
Sean nodded that he understood. Sally held out a hand. When Debbie Stryer took it, Sally gently pulled her hand forward and embraced it with both of hers.
‘I’m Sally Jones. I’m a detective sergeant. I’ll be helping to catch whoever did this to your sister. I’m so sorry for your loss. Everybody tells us Linda was such a good person.’ Sally waited for a reaction. The tears began to fall in heavy drops from Debbie’s eyes. Real tears, like those of a child in pain. ‘You need to know we’ll catch the person who did this to Linda,’ Sally promised her.
Sean looked on in admiration. His plan to take the lead just hadn’t happened. If he tried to emulate Sally now, he would sound clumsy. He would introduce himself and help explain any procedural matters Debbie might wish to know, but little more.
He waited for Debbie Stryer to take her hand away from Sally. It was a long wait. She was struggling to speak clearly through her grief.
‘Thank you,’ she told Sally. ‘Thank you.’ She turned to Sean. The awfulness of the day was beginning to break her. She seemed to be visibly shrinking.
He held out his hand. She accepted it. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in charge of this investigation.’ He wanted to say more, but couldn’t find the right words.
Debbie almost immediately stopped crying. She looked at him strangely. This was not what he had expected. He’d only introduced himself. Just said his name. He couldn’t have said the wrong thing already.
‘She told me about you,’ Debbie said. She couldn’t help herself checking Sean’s left hand. She saw his wedding ring and almost smiled. ‘She didn’t tell me you were married. That’s typical of Linda.’
Sean and Sally simultaneously turned to each other, confusion and surprise etched on their faces.
Sean had briefed DI Townsend on the meeting with Debbie Stryer. She had listened almost without speaking. The only thing she said was that there must have been some mistake. Sean knew better. He was being played. Hellier was laughing at him.
But Hellier was taking an unnecessary risk in doing so. Showing off came with a price. Debbie Stryer was able to tell them he had approached her sister close to her home, sometime between eight and nine, maybe a little earlier. Christ, he’d even had a conversation with her in the middle of the street. He was beginning to think he was uncatchable. His sociopathic arrogance was matched only by his violence.
Sean and Sally donned forensic suits and entered Linda Kotler’s flat. It looked very different to how Sean remembered it, forensic examiners going about their work making it seem full of life. They went directly to the living room, where Sean had seen the docking unit for Linda Kotler’s home phone. He examined it without touching and saw traces of aluminium powder on both the phone and the base. ‘Has this phone been dusted yet?’ he asked a middle-aged woman, shapeless in her paper suit. They all resembled workers in a nuclear power plant.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I did it.’
‘Have the messages been listened to?’ Sean asked.
‘No. We’ll do that back at the audio lab, for continuity.’ But Sean had had enough of waiting. He pressed the message playback button and hit the ‘speaker on’ switch. ‘I don’t think you should be doing that,’ the woman protested.
‘DI Corrigan. I’m in charge of this investigation.’
The machine beeped long and shrill. A ringing tone could be heard. Linda Kotler’s voice filled the room. Everyone stopped and listened to the woman who had been murdered only two plaster walls away.
They listened as the sisters chatted. This was it. Sean’s heart was going faster and faster. He knew what was coming, but he didn’t want to hear it.
‘And does this man have a name?’ Debbie asked.
He could see Sally watching him out the corner of her eye.
‘Sean,’ Linda’s voice said. ‘Sean Corrigan.’
The middle-aged forensics officer was staring at him now. ‘Haven’t you got work to do?’ he snapped. She moved quickly away.
Sean stood and led Sally to the bedroom, where they found Donnelly wearing a forensic suit. Sean also recognized the slim figure of Dr Canning, kneeling over Linda Kotler’s lifeless form. A number of labelled specimen jars and exhibit bags were spread across the floor close by, within easy reach of the pathologist. DC Zukov was doing his best to assist Canning.
‘Anything interesting yet?’ Sean asked.
Dr Canning was stony-faced. ‘Inspector Corrigan. I shall assume you are responsible for dragging me halfway across London.’
‘Sorry, but I felt it was necessary.’
‘Because you believe you have two connected murders. Sergeant Donnelly here filled me in on the details.’
‘Three murders,’ Sean corrected him. The pathologist frowned. ‘There was another. The first of the series occurred about two weeks ago. Post-mortem’s already been done, but I’d like you to cast an eye over it.’
‘Very well,’ Canning replied. He went back to work. He talked as he examined the body.
‘So elaborate. Probably the most elaborate bindings and ligatures I’ve ever encountered.’
‘Why?’ Sean asked. ‘What’s the purpose?’
Canning pointed to the knot on the stocking that ran along the victim’s spine. ‘That’s a slip knot. My best guess at this time would be that it’s a type of harness.
‘He positions the victim face down on the bed, then by pulling the slip knot up and down he can control the tightness of the bindings around her throat and legs simultaneously. Quite the instrument of torture.’
‘Anything else?’ Sean asked.
Canning scanned the body, wondering where to begin. ‘You’ll have to wait until the post-mortem before it’s confirmed, but I’m sure the cause of death will be strangulation.’ He pointed to the victim’s neck. ‘You can see the ligature’s sunk into the flesh quite deeply. Far more deeply than was necessary to kill her. Quite a surprise the skin didn’t break. There’s other severe bruising too. Probably all caused by the same ligature.’ Canning took a deep breath. ‘This is a strong man you’re looking for, Inspector.’
‘What caused the other bruising around the neck?’ Sean asked.
‘I believe the killer repeatedly tightened the ligature around her neck, but released it before death.’
‘And before
