Lydia stretches out her arms, pale hands gripping the leather steering wheel, squinting to focus on the road ahead as the vein in her temple throbs like an electric current. Driving usually helps ease the pain, clear her mind and cleanse the pulp that clogs the cortex.
Either side of her people walk the streets, going about their daily routines, getting coffee, Christmas shopping. Ordinary people. Mediocre. She will never understand why people settle for lives like this when they have the potential to be so much more. How can they be happy with so little? In Lydia’s mind they have succumbed to a vicious circle; they fail to care about themselves, and as a consequence the world stops caring about them. Would it really matter if the Krimson Killer knocked off a few more? They are just the extras in life’s story. In her story.
Lydia knows she is a narcissist. When you know what you truly are, it is easier to make a mask that fits well, and Lydia wears many masks. One for the world, one for her family, one for her friends, at least when she had any. But she never shows anyone her true face. Few people do.
Her thoughts drift back to what Alex said about daydreaming, and she realises that she doesn’t have a clear idea what happiness looks like to her. That she’s never been able to picture it. Her goals were always linked to her career, to her success. She just assumed that by the time her story was over, it would all have been worthwhile because she had faith in her work. But seeing Alex again after all these years, spending time with him, enjoying his company, has made her question her approach to life.
As if summoned by her thoughts, a family crosses the road in front of her when she stops at a red light. Mother, father, two kids – a boy and a girl. The typical nuclear family, wrapped up in coats and scarves and carrying bags laden with gifts. The Christmas theme makes Lydia balk, but then she sees their faces. They are so happy, smiling, laughing, faces pink and creased with genuine joy. She realises with a pang that she has never known that feeling. Could it be that she never will? Would that mean that her life had been wasted? Perhaps she deliberately doesn’t think about such things because she knows deep down that she will want them, as everyone else does. They all want to be loved. Is that what she wants?
Lydia’s troubling train of thought is cut short as her phone rings. She pulls over into a space outside a quaint little shop to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Miss Tune?” asks a voice she recognises from earlier in the day.
“Nurse Maggie?” Lydia replies, confused. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s Evelyn Devere,” says the nurse, sounding shaken. “She passed away this afternoon.”
“Oh my god. How?”
“That’s the thing,” Maggie whispers, “it’s being written up as heart failure, but her eyes were bloodshot and she had skin under her nails.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It looks like she was smothered,” Maggie says urgently. She sounds scared.
“Surely you don’t think that I—”
“Of course not,” says Maggie quickly. “I saw her after you left, she was fine.”
“What do the police say?”
“There are no police. She was an old lady with a broken leg. There’s nothing to go on, besides anyone could have just walked in.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” says Lydia, surprised at her own genuine concern for a woman she barely knows. “Everyone deserves justice, no matter how old they are.”
“Like I said, they have nothing to go on,” says Maggie, a note of despair in her voice. “There’s no working security cameras except the ones out front; budget cuts as usual, and we get thousands of people coming and going every day. Be like looking for a needle in a haystack. That’s why I’m telling you. I know about your books, you know, how you get to the bottom of things. Maybe you can figure out who did this.”
“Oh,” Lydia sounds surprised. “This isn’t the kind of thing I usually—”
“If you can. Like you say, it isn’t fair. Look, I have to go.”
“Okay. Listen, I’m sorry about all of—” There’s a click. The line is dead.
Lydia sits quietly for a moment, in her car, in the snow, outside the little shop. She feels sad about Evelyn. She seemed like a kind old lady, and nobody deserves to die alone and afraid. But already Lydia’s mind is moving past that, trying to figure out how she can use this situation to her advantage. Have the hospital called Mortem yet? Have they told Jason? Perhaps there is a window here to crack this beast’s back and finally get to the dark heart of his story.