CHAPTER 18
“Jack Reese.” The inspector shook hands with Paget and invited him to sit down. Reese was tall and thin, and round-shouldered from spending too many hours hunched over a desk. His dark features were sharp and well defined, suggesting a Middle Eastern background, but his speech was that of a true Londoner. “Superintendent Bellamy told me to expect you,” he said when they both were seated, “but he was a bit vague about what it is you’re looking for. Something to do with an attack on you in Shropshire having a connection with our Tessa Knowles case?”
Paget smiled. “I’m afraid he thinks I’m some sort of crackpot, and perhaps he’s right. But when I heard that the weapon used in your case was a razor, I felt it wouldn’t hurt to find out if there was anything else about the case that might have a bearing on mine. Still, you can judge for yourself,” he concluded, and spent the next few minutes sketching in the details of the attack in Broadminster.
Reese shook his head emphatically. “If you’ll permit me to be blunt, Chief Inspector, I don’t think you have a hope in hell of connecting the two cases,” he said. “You said yourself that the only thing they have in common is the type of weapon, and even though we don’t see many razor attacks, they are used from time to time. Besides, you said the person who attacked you said it was because you were to blame for the death of your wife, so how do you connect that to the Knowles murder? How did your wife die?”
“It was an accident. She was killed in an explosion in Crighton Street. A gas leak in one of the shops. She went in to rescue someone, and—”
“Off-duty policewoman?” Reese put in sharply. “She was a DS at Bethnal Green. I remember that because I was at Stoke Newington at the time, and I attended the funeral. Full honours. Just about everyone in the Met who could go was there, weren’t they? It was a good turnout. So, she was your wife? You must have been proud.”
Proud? The word struck him as incongruous, but Reese had meant it as a compliment. He nodded mutely.
“So, what’s the connection?” Reese asked again. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m beginning to think that either it’s a red herring, or that what I believe I heard was wrong,” said Paget. “But I am sure he spoke of others being responsible in some way, and he spoke of it being ‘my turn,’ and one way of interpreting that is that there were others who had either been killed or would be killed. I know it sounds weak—it is weak—but I have nothing else to go on. So I’m asking you to indulge me and let me see the file on the Knowles murder. I know it’s a long shot, but I might see something that means nothing to you, but might mean something to me.”
Reese was sceptical. If one of his own men had come to him with such a half-baked idea, he would have told him to get his head examined and stop wasting his time. On the other hand, what harm would it do to let Paget see the file? If the DCI wanted to waste his time trying to tie the killing of Tessa Knowles in Richmond to the attack on himself in the depths of Shropshire, good luck to him.



Paget knocked lightly on Reese’s open door. “Got a minute, Inspector?” he asked.
Reese lifted his head from a report he was studying and motioned for Paget to come in. “Any luck?” he asked perfunctorily.
“Nothing yet, but perhaps you can help me with this.” Paget laid the open file on Reese’s desk. “It’s down there at the bottom of the statement Dr. Braun made the day following her partner’s death.” He pointed the passage out to Reese. “It’s where she volunteers the information that she received a phone call early the next morning following the murder. She claims the caller said, ‘Now you know what it feels like to lose someone you love.’ Do you know if that was ever followed up? I can’t find any further reference to it.”
Reese didn’t look at the page. Instead, he closed the file. “It was followed up,” he said coldly, “but we could find no evidence of Braun ever receiving such a call.”
Paget frowned. “She was at home, was she, when she claims to have received the call?”
Reese shook his head impatiently. “We were treating the entire house and garden as a crime scene, so she spent the night of the murder in a hotel. That was where she claimed to have received the call. Naturally, we followed it up, but we found no evidence that the call had ever been made, and quite frankly, we didn’t expect to. Make no mistake about it, Chief Inspector, it was Braun who killed her lover, and she knows we know it. She made up that call to divert suspicion, but no one believed her for a minute.”
“Still, the wording is unusual.”
“The woman’s a psychologist,” Reese reminded him. “She wouldn’t be satisfied with just any old message; she had to give it that extra bit of a twist. Take my word for it, she made that story up.”
Paget gave a non-committal shrug, and rose to his feet. “Thanks for your help, Inspector,” he said. “I’ll be leaving in the morning, but just in case something does come up that you think might be of interest to me, I’ll leave you my card. And if there is ever anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”
Reese gave a wry smile as he half rose from his chair. “Not much chance of that, is there, sir? Not with you being in a place like Broadminster.”



Krista Braun slipped off her reading glasses, slumped back in her chair, and rubbed her eyes. She was having trouble staying awake; understandable, of course, considering she had hardly slept at all these past weeks—six weeks to the day, she reminded herself. She’d done everything she could to keep her mind occupied; she’d taken on new clients, worked right through the weekends, and gone to bed exhausted, only to lie there staring into the darkness as the memories flooded in. As always, her eyes were drawn to the spot where Tessa had died. She’d had the carpet taken out and another one put in, but she couldn’t erase the image of the fragile body surrounded by a dark and ugly stain.
She tasted salt, and realized she was crying.
The doorbell rang. Krista Braun wiped the tears from her face and looked at the time. Eight o’clock. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Unless … ? Surely not the police again. But who else could it be? She pushed herself out of the chair and made her way to the front door, switched on the outside light, and pressed her face to the peephole in the door.
She’d not seen this one before, but there was no doubt in her mind that the man who stood there was a policeman. Still, it didn’t hurt to be cautious, not after what had happened to Tessa. Braun pressed the button on the newly installed intercom. “Who are you, and what do you want?” she demanded.
She saw him turn to the unit on the wall beside the door, then push the Press to Talk button.
“My name is Paget,” he told her. “Detective Chief Inspector Paget from Broadminster in Shropshire.” He held up the now familiar warrant card. “I am not associated with the local investigation into the death of Miss Knowles, but I would like to talk to you about the telephone call you received at the hotel the night following her death. May I come in?”
The telephone call! He’d said “the call you received,” not “the call you allegedly received,” the way Superintendent Bellamy and Inspector Reese referred to it—if they referred to it at all. On the other hand, it could be just another ploy. Broadminster? Shropshire? But if it was a ploy, it was certainly a very different approach, and she didn’t think the locals had that much imagination.
She pressed the button again. “You sound more like a Londoner to me,” she said.
“I am,” he replied, “or was before transferring to Broadminster a few years ago.”
He could be lying, but what would be the point? “I’m going to open the door on the chain,” she said. “Hand me your ID when I do. I can’t see it well enough out there.” She undid the bolts, top and bottom, slipped the chain on, and opened the door.
Paget passed the card through. A moment later the chain was removed, and the door opened.
“Thank you, Doctor,” he said as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “I can’t say I blame you for taking precautions after what happened here. The intercom is a good idea.”
Braun eyed him neutrally. “Broadminster?” she said with a rising inflection. “What possible connection does it have to the telephone call I received that morning, Chief Inspector?” She glanced once more at the warrant card before handing it back.
There had been several photographs of the doctor in the file he had studied so assiduously that afternoon, but none of them did the woman justice. Striking and handsome were words that came to mind, yet neither quite described the woman whose dark eyes appraised him now. Eyes still moist from crying, if he was not mistaken.
“To be honest, Doctor, I don’t know,” he told her frankly. “Which is why I’m hoping you can help me. Do you mind if we go inside?”
The doctor led the way into the large front room overlooking the street. It was a pleasant room, comfortably untidy, but welcoming. “Please, sit down,” she said, indicating a well-worn armchair beside the hearth. She sat down facing him, crossed her legs, placed her elbows on the arms of the chair, and laced her fingers beneath her chin. A natural yet professional pose.
By rights, he thought, he shouldn’t be there at all. Not only was the doctor a suspect in a murder investigation, she was the prime suspect, and he could be severely reprimanded for unwarranted interference in the case. At the very least, he should have told Reese what he had in mind, but he’d known the inspector would have balked at the idea, based as it was on such flimsy evidence. For that matter, it wasn’t even evidence; it was little more than a gut feeling that there might—just might—be a connection between the murder of Tessa Knowles and the attack on him.
He said, “I’ve read the police reports and your statement about what happened here, Doctor, but I’d like to concentrate on the telephone call you received the morning after Miss Knowles died, and the wording of the call itself, as near as you can remember.”
“Why this sudden interest in that call?” she asked. “No one seemed interested when I first told them about it. In fact, they as good as told me I was lying.”
“Believe me, Doctor, there is a reason,” he assured her, “but I’d rather not tell you what it is until I’ve heard what you have to say. My reason for being here has nothing to do with the local investigation, and the reason I’m holding back is because I don’t want to influence what you might tell me. So I would appreciate it very much if you’d bear with me for the moment.”
Krista Braun had spent much of her life judging whether people were telling the truth or not, and she felt that this man was being straightforward. On the other hand, he was a policeman, and it was her belief that they would go to any lengths to build a case against her. Still, she didn’t see how the truth could harm her, so why not tell him what had happened?
The house, she told him, had been cordoned off by the police, and she was told she must find other accommodation until they had concluded their investigation. “Not that I could have stayed here that night after what had happened,” she explained, “but, since I had nowhere else to go on such short notice, I took a room at a small hotel not far from there.”
“Littlewhite’s.”
“That’s right. As you might imagine, I slept badly, but I was asleep when the phone rang just after six in the morning. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was, and I was still half asleep when I picked up the phone. Even so, I remember thinking that the only people who knew I was there were the police, and they might have some news for me. But when I answered there was silence for a moment, then someone said, ‘Dr. Braun?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and as soon as I said that, they said, ‘Now you know what it feels like to …’” The doctor’s voice grew husky, and she took a deep breath before she was able to continue. “‘ … to lose someone you love.’ Before I could reply or even get my breath, I heard a click and the caller had gone.”
“Man or woman?” Paget asked.
Krista Braun shook her head. “I’ve puzzled over that for weeks,” she said, “and I still don’t know. It was an odd voice; harsh, hollow-sounding, rasping. It’s very hard to describe.”
It had to be the same person! Different words but essentially the same message, and Braun’s description of the voice was uncannily like the one he’d heard himself. But he needed more.
“What about the caller’s accent?” he asked, recalling how she had picked up on his own.
“Definitely a local,” she said promptly.
“A Londoner like myself?”
“Not quite as well educated, I shouldn’t think, but yes, a Londoner.”
Paget let out a long breath. “That’s what it sounded like to me,” he said, and went on to tell her about the attack on himself, and the telephone call he’d received. “Which, when I put it together with what you’ve told me, suggests either a highly unlikely coincidence, or a connection between the two cases. Assuming for the moment it’s the latter—and I realize that is a very big assumption—what is the link between us? In my line of work, threats are not uncommon, but what about you? Have you ever been threatened by anyone? Perhaps by one of your patients?”
“Clients,” Dr. Braun corrected automatically, then shook her head. “No, not by a client,” she said, “at least, not by any I have now, but there was a time when I would get the odd threat.” She shrugged. “But then it was all part of the job, as it was in your own case.”
“Which job was that?”
“I used to prepare psychological assessments of suspects, sometimes for the prosecution, sometimes for the defence, but that was years ago. Other than that, I don’t see a connection.”
For the next half-hour, Paget and Krista explored other possibilities. They compared where they had lived in London, where they had worked, organizations to which they had belonged, but there was nothing to show where their paths might have crossed. “Except in court,” Paget concluded. “That seems to be the most likely place. I wonder … ?” He broke off and stared into space for several seconds. “Do you know if anyone was ever convicted on your testimony alone?”
Krista Braun smiled. “I think you know better than that, Chief Inspector,” she chided. “Psychological profiles are treated with deep suspicion in a courtroom, so at best—or worst—my testimony might help tip the scales in the minds of some jurors or judges, but I think it’s fair to say that no one has ever been convicted or let go on my testimony alone.”
Paget nodded. He knew all too well how such reports were treated in the courtroom. “Do you still have records of those assessments you presented in court?”
“Even if I do, the contents of those files would still be confidential.”
“I’m not so much interested in what’s in the files as I am in the names of the people you assessed, and when you gave that assessment in court. That information will be in the public record, but sifting through thousands of cases to find the ones at which you testified would be a monumental task. It would save so much time if you could compile a list of those people, and the dates they appeared in court.”
“Assuming I have such records, how do you intend to use the information?”
“Compare it with records of my own appearances in court,” Paget told her. “All I would need from you are names and dates.”
Dr. Braun nodded slowly. “I’ll have to think about the names,” she said, “but if I give you dates, and locations of the courts, that should give you what you want. I do have records, so I will see what I can do. Are you staying here in Richmond?”
“No. I think it might be best if I return to Broadminster as soon as possible and begin a computer search from there. I have the feeling that I might run into trouble if I asked the local people here to do it. I don’t think they would approve of my visit here tonight. I’ll leave my card.”
“A computer search? For what exactly, Chief Inspector?”
“For cases similar to yours and mine,” he said. “Because if our two cases are linked, as I now think is possible, there may have been others who have been killed. Not only that, but there may be others yet to come.”