forty-four

Troubled, I left an hour later, none the wiser. My mother might have left a false trail, blacked out her past, or recall it with painful clarity and vow to share it with nobody. Innocent until proven guilty, at least that’s what I told Luke on the phone.

“Do you think she’d tell me?” he said.

“I have absolutely no idea.” I sounded as weary as I felt.

“I’m hoping to catch a flight end of next week.”

I did the mental equivalent of putting up the bunting and hoisting a flag. “Can you give it your best shot? Unless she opens up I’m afraid the police will beat us to it.”

“You think she did something criminal?”

“She’s not in the system.”

“No report, no crime.”

“Doesn’t mean to say that a crime wasn’t committed.”

“What’s your take?”

“She’s guilty but I don’t think of murder.”

After my late-night call, I slept the deep sleep of the exhausted. With Luke around, my burden would shift if not lift.

Waking insanely early, I assembled a cold box of instant food and packed a bag for Devon with the same enthusiasm as if I were zipping over to Monaco for the weekend. Appointments finished early on Fridays, which would give me enough time to drop in to Windsor Street and talk to Ashley Mason.

The day passed with a grinding gait made a thousand times worse by Jim. I’d made a mental note to quiz him about psychopaths but I could hardly squirrel a word into the conversation. Diverted by a conference in London the day before, he couldn’t wait to crash into my office, pent-up with the fire of nervous energy.

“So what were the cops doing here?”

I sketched out the headlines. Jim dug for the detail.

“This must not go any further,” I confided.

He placed the flat of his hand against his chest and looked suitably solemn. “Of course.”

I gave him a sketchy, highly edited account. “Whoever killed Martell mutilated him,” I said.

“In what way?”

Fighting a wave of panic, I described the crime scene shot.

Jim’s hairy eyebrows combined in one single frown line. “A display,” he said. “Like a modern-day Jack the Ripper. Carried out before he was dead or postmortem?”

“Christ, Jim, how should I know?”

“Was it anatomically correct?”

I gaped. “I’m a clinical psychologist not a bloody surgeon.”

“Roughly done by a butcher, or skilfully carried out by someone with surgical skills?” He sounded exasperated by my dull thinking and lack of detailed recall.

My mind went blank. “There was so much blood …”

“Think. What did you intuit?”

I saw ribs and internal organs and a tongue cut out. I told him this. “The police thought the perpetrator knew what he was doing,” I said, quoting Strong.

“So whoever did it went prepared and armed.”

I agreed. “That’s my take, too.”

“Bearing in mind the tongue cutting exercise, and the message that contains, odds-on the victim knew his killer. Any sign of sexual assault?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Was there anything missing?”

“Like a trophy?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t answer that.”

“And the location of the kill was a derelict pub, you said?”

“Yes.” I paused. “What type of individual would carry out something like that?”

“Mutilation indicates that the perpetrator was, himself, a victim of extreme violence, possibly in childhood. He’ll be someone who has never learnt to control his anger and develop the usual social skills to control it.”

“A person driven by rage and bitterness?” Like one of those Japanese ghosts, I shuddered.

“Extreme rage and bitterness. Although that might not be the image he projects to the outside world. Superficially charming and manipulative, he’ll be blistering with resentment and a sense of entitlement. The kind of guy who feels that the world owes him.”

“You say him.”

“Statistically, it’s more likely. It would be a highly unusual act carried out by a woman. Not impossible, but …” He drifted off, a sagacious expression on his face.

“Right,” I said, sobered and reminded of another time and another conversation in which I’d been assured that my stalker was bound to be male.

“This is a man who, deep down, feels worthless. He’ll have absolutely no concern for how his behaviour impacts on others. He won’t take responsibility for his actions even when it affects family members. Maybe he was jealous of someone like Martell who appeared to have the perfect body and perfect lifestyle. Simply because there was no sign of sexual assault doesn’t preclude the possibility of a sexual element.”

“As in the killer getting his rocks off when cutting up his victim.”

“Exactly. He’s probably built up to this moment. He won’t have a clean rap sheet even if he has never been caught for his crimes.”

Nicholas Vellender materialised before me in crashing vivid colour.

“What I don’t understand is how you got involved.” Jim gave me a searching look.

I trawled him the same line I’d sold the police. From the expression on his face, Jim wasn’t buying. “You have to rate as the most unfortunate person I know,” he said suspiciously.

“At least my name isn’t Vellender.”

“True. It’s as if someone put a hex on them.”

I didn’t disagree. With what was going on with my mother, I was feeling fairly jinxed myself.