Wendy's head pounded as she tried to comprehend the situation. Over dinner that night her taste for red wine returned as, somehow, she and Michael managed to demolish two bottles between them.
She had found it difficult to know how to approach the situation, but she knew that somehow she needed to put her mind at rest.
‘Did you find anything odd about Robert, Michael?’
‘Odd? No, why? You gone off him already?’
‘Not exactly, no. I just have one or two concerns.’
‘About what? Don't tell me. He wears Y-fronts. Farts in bed? Picks his nose? Honestly, Wend. No-one’s perfect. You’ve got to realise that you can’t just keep discarding people over silly little things.’
‘No, nothing like that. I'm worried that... Oh, don't worry. It's silly,’ she replied, waving the conversation away.
‘Come on, Wend. If you can't confide in me, who can you confide in? Remember what we said? We’ve both got to be completely open and honest with each other. It’s the only way to strengthen the relationship again.’
Wendy sighed. ‘You have to promise that you won't tell a single soul, Michael. I mean it. I could lose my job over it.’
‘Your job? Wow, you think Robert is involved with some sort of illegal activity? Got to watch those accountants, you know!’ What is it? Tax evasion? Cooking the books? Inflicting paper cuts with malice?’
‘It's not funny, Michael. Listen. Those three girls were all killed in a very particular way. They were strangled with ropes. Not the same rope each time, but the same very specific knot. It's known as a bowline knot. It sounds stupid saying it now but Robert has a number of books on knots and I found two of them open on pages about bowline knots when I was at his house last night. He claimed it was something to do with a favour for a friend but I don't know. Now I think about it, he's been taking a very keen interest in the case and has been asking a lot of odd questions. I don't know why, but something doesn't quite seem right.’
Michael sat in silence for a few moments. ‘And you think he could be the killer?’
‘I don't want to think that.’
‘But you do think it?’
‘Oh, I don't know what I think right now. All I know is that I'm in a very sticky situation to say the least.’
Later that night, as Wendy tried to drift off to sleep, recurring visions kept flashing in front of her eyes. First the face of Ella Barrington, then Robert's books. Then Maria Preston, then the books. Then Nicole Bryant. Then the books. How could she have been so foolish? I should have spotted the signs earlier, she surmised. Some detective. Her heart juddered as a sudden thought entered her mind. What if Ludford had intended her to be the next victim? What if that was still his intention? What if he was completely mad? How could Culverhouse insist that she carry on seeing a potential serial killer? Was he mad? Or was she mad for thinking that a completely innocent man, the first man she'd let get close to her in years, was a serial killer? As she tried to comprehend her thoughts, the phone rang.
‘Yes?’ she said, picking it up.
‘Culverhouse here. Listen, Knight. We've got a bit of a problem on our hands now. There's been a fourth murder.’