tucks it into his hand. ‘If you hear anything, you give me a call, right?’ And they’re off, ready for the next friendly little chat.
Not a flicker of doubt. Not a breath of suspicion. He fooled them. They were talking to an assassin and they had no idea. So who’s the thickie now?
Carol eased the door shut, not wanting to disturb Michael and Lucy. She was aware how even slight noises carried in the high-ceilinged loft. She slipped out of her shoes and padded through to the kitchen at one end of the open-plan living space. The concealed fluorescent strips that cast light on the worktop were turned on, revealing her cat Nelson sprawled on his side, soaking up the warmth. He twitched one ear as she approached and let out a low rumble that the charitable might have interpreted as a welcome. Carol scratched his head, then noticed the sheet of paper he was half-obscuring. She slid it out from under him, ignoring his wriggle of protest. ‘Hi, Sis. Lucy’s doing an armed robbery in Leeds tomorrow and Thursday, we got last-minute tickets for the opera so I’m staying over there with her tonight. See you Thursday night. Love, M.’
Carol crumpled the paper and tossed it in the bin, allowing herself to be momentarily wistful about the prospect of a night at the opera in good company. Anything was better than thinking about a night alone in the apartment. Opening the fridge to take out the half-eaten tin of cat food, she was drawn irresistibly to the bottle of Pinot Grigio sitting in the door. She took both out, fed the cat and contemplated the wine.
In her battle for restoration, Carol had resisted the easy comfort of drink, nervous of its easy promise of oblivion. She’d told herself she didn’t want to sleepwalk through the aftermath of the rape. She wanted to deal with it, to unpick its effects and put herself back together in something approximating the right order. But tonight she wanted erasure. She couldn’t bear the thought of closing her eyes and seeing the images she’d brought home from the mortuary. Without anaesthetic, there was no way she was going to sleep. And without sleep, there was no way she could effectively lead the hunt for Sandie Foster’s killer. Carol raked through the cutlery drawer for the corkscrew and hurriedly opened the bottle. Full glass in hand, she leaned against the worktop and buried her fingers in Nelson’s fur, grateful for the beat of his heart against her skin.
Before last night, she’d had nothing in common with Sandie other than their gender. But what had happened to the prostitute had given her a sort of kinship with the woman charged with hunting down her killer. They both possessed a victimhood that had been conferred because they’d both been guilty of being female in a world where some men believed they deserved never to feel powerless. Sandie hadn’t merited what had happened to her any more than Carol had.
Carol drank steadily, topping up her glass whenever it fell below the halfway mark. She understood the terror Sandie must have known as she realized there was no escape from her attacker. She knew that sense of utter helplessness, knew the absolute fear of the prey that has no defence against the predator. But in one crucial sense, perverse though it sounded, Sandie had been luckier than Carol. She hadn’t had to find a way to live with what had been done to her.
Tony stood by Carol’s side, his eyes focused on Sandie Foster’s lifeless face. He didn’t mind being present at post mortems. If he was honest, it intrigued him to watch the pathologist uncovering the messages contained by the dead. Tony read corpses too, but his was a different text. What they had in common was that they both received communication from the killer via the conduit of his victim.
The body lay in a pool of halogen light, the surrounding room a collage of shadows. Dr Vernon, the pathologist, stooped over the body. It offered a gruesome illustration in contrast. Below the waist, Sandie’s body was still caked in blood, a study in scarlet. Above the waist, she was apparently untouched. The plastic bags covering her hands partially obscured the bruising at her wrists, allowing the illusion of wholeness to persist. ‘Poorly nourished,’ Vernon said. ‘Underweight for her height. Signs of intravenous drug use–’ He pointed to the needletracks on her arms.
He leaned forward and gently probed her mouth open. ‘Slight bruising on the inside of the mouth. Most likely as a result of the gag we removed earlier. Some indications of long-term amphetamine abuse.’
‘I know you hate it when we jump the gun,’ Carol said. ‘But can you give me any indication on cause of death yet?’
Vernon turned and gave her a wintry smile. ‘I see you haven’t acquired patience in your time away from us, Carol. So far, I see nothing to contradict the obvious. She bled to death as a result of injuries inflicted vaginally. The tissue in the area is macerated almost beyond recognition. Not a pleasant way to go.’
‘She didn’t die quickly?’ Carol asked. Tony could feel anxiety vibrating from her. He could also smell stale alcohol on her breath. He’d only managed four hours’ sleep himself; God alone knew how little sleep Carol had managed to squeeze in between the bottle and the morgue. It certainly hadn’t been enough, judging by the bruised smudges under her eyes.
Vernon shook his head. ‘No. No arterial bleeding. This was slow exsanguination. She would have been alive probably for an hour or more, in terrible pain and shock.’
There was a long silence as they absorbed the information. Tony hoped Carol was not contemplating Sandie’s suffering too closely. He gave himself a mental shake. He had to stop concentrating on Carol. He had a job to do, and while that job might be easier if he could help Carol on a personal level, he had to keep enough distance to allow himself to do what he was paid for. Mapping the mind of a murderer was never an easy task, and he couldn’t afford to ignore an opportunity as good as this for finding a way in.
A long, slow, painful death. ‘He watched her die,’ he said softly.
Carol’s head jerked round. ‘What?’
That’s the whole point of a lingering death. The killer wants to savour what he’s created. He’ll have recorded it as well. Video, probably. But you might want to check the room for fibre-optic cameras. It’s possible he wanted to watch the discovery of the body too.’
‘He stayed around till she was dead?’
Tony nodded. ‘High risk. He’s confident, this one. He knew enough about Sandie’s routines to feel safe that they weren’t going to be disturbed. He’s probably paid her to have sex before so he could check out the lie of the land. He won’t have been able to manage intercourse, but he’ll have wanted to talk, to find out her regular patterns. You should ask around, see if she mentioned anything to any of her mates.’
Carol filed the information away for future action. Vernon unpeeled the plastic bags from Sandie’s hands and began taking scrapings from under her nails. ‘Any thoughts on time of death?’ Carol asked.
‘An imprecise science at the best of times,’ Vernon said drily. ‘My best guess would be somewhere between midnight and eight yesterday morning.’
‘No way to tell if she had sex before she was attacked, I suppose?’ Carol asked.
‘No chance. The damage to the surrounding tissues is so severe it will be impossible to tell whether there was any ante-mortem bruising. If it’s any comfort to you, there’s no apparent sign of any gross anal penetration.’
Before Carol could respond, the door behind them opened. Tony glanced over his shoulder. That single look told him the woman who had entered was a police officer. There was something unmistakable about her casual air of authority in this context. She wore a long black leather coat, the collar turned up against the blustery weather outside, making her look as if she was auditioning for a feminist version of The Matrix. She barely glanced at the body on the table before crossing
