At 8 p.m. I send my last team member home, and most of the cold chicken and boxes of pasta salad Maggie sent over have been eaten. Eddie looks disappointed to leave, but I need him firing on all cylinders tomorrow. I have one last duty to complete before meeting Liz Gannick at the hotel. The phone line crackles with static when I dial my boss’s number in France. DCI Madron listens to my update in silence. If he’s disappointed to learn that another victim has been attacked, he keeps his opinion to himself. There’s a murmur of approval when I describe our efforts to protect the island community and find a common link between victims, but he’s less impressed to hear about Isla’s one night stand with Sabine Bertans. His position only shifts to consent when he learns that the Cornish Constabulary have endorsed her position. He offers to come back from his holiday early, but I refuse. The man’s tendency to micro-manage would only slow the investigation down.
The muscles across my shoulders are aching when I say goodbye, the day’s tension locked inside my body. I write a character reference, confirming Isla’s right to stay on my team, then catch sight of my reflection; a scowling, black-haired goliath staring back at me from the dark window, hunched over a pile of witness reports. Sabine Bertans’ murder has generated hundreds of sheets of paper in the three days since her death, but we’re getting nowhere. I peer out at the houses opposite, where porch lights shine through the dark. The killer may be hiding in plain sight; he could even be married, with a psychopath’s ability to lead two separate lives.
Sabine’s killer waited just forty-eight hours before finding a new victim, and a lecture I attended during my Murder Squad training returns to haunt me. A forensic psychologist explained that the intervals between attacks reveal a killer’s mental state. A short time span denotes confidence, and a strong compulsion to inflict pain. I rub the back of my neck to massage the tension away, but my head is pulsing with information. I can’t forget that the killer is probably relaxing at home, feet up, in front of the telly.
I walk back to the hotel at speed, but the journey fails to relax me. Liz Gannick’s music has changed when I tap on her door. Yesterday’s Motown has been replaced by an English ballad, Scott Matthews’ haunting voice echoing down the corridor. Gannick is hunched over her microscope when I push her door open, too distracted to look up. She peers at her slide for another minute before muttering a greeting.
‘There’s wine on the table, but leave some for me.’
‘I’ll try not to neck the whole bottle.’
I prefer beer, but tonight that doesn’t matter. The first mouthful of Rioja is tart and acidic, but I knock it back like medicine, then sink into a chair. When Gannick finally abandons her work, she uses her crutches to swing across the room, her physical agility putting me to shame. It’s almost 10 p.m. but the woman still looks wide awake, as if sleep is an activity only lesser mortals require.
‘I hope you’re bringing me good news,’ she hisses out the words.
‘Why?’
‘Liam Trewin’s hire car was valeted straight after it was returned. The hire company said there was nothing unusual when he dropped it off. A simple valet job wouldn’t necessarily remove the kind of traces I can find, but there are hardly any stray fibres in the boot, and the interior’s clean as a whistle, as you know.’
‘How about his room?’
‘My UV beam didn’t pick up anything. But he could have killed her elsewhere, couldn’t he?’
‘He’s only spent a few weeks here. How would he know about secluded sites? Someone took ages getting her into the wedding dress, then making up her face. It would be a struggle outdoors.’
‘What about abandoned farm buildings?’
‘Most of them have been turned into holiday lets. You’d need local knowledge to find an empty one.’
‘Gareth Keillor gave me Sabine’s toxicology results. There was nothing in her blood except trace amounts of alcohol; she probably had a glass of wine while she was serving behind the bar. There are no indicators for Vicodin. I was hoping for skin cells under her nails, but there’s no sign she fought her attacker. I think she was bludgeoned from behind, then her hands were bound while she was unconscious.’
‘Trewin sees women as prey to be hunted down.’ I rub the back of my neck again, trying to relieve the tension. ‘But that doesn’t make him guilty of murder.’
‘There were a couple of stray hairs on the carpet in his room. They’re long and dark like Sabine’s, but I’ll need a DNA test to check.’
‘That won’t catch him. The hotel staff have different duties each day: she worked as a maid most mornings.’
She gives a loud sigh. ‘The managers take their pound of flesh, don’t they? I bet those kids are all on minimum wage.’
‘Did you find anything else?’
‘Four different sets of prints in Sabine’s room. They’re being checked for matches on the national database.’
‘I’ll take fingerprints from the hotel staff tomorrow. We already know at least one of her friends hung out there after work, but it’s worth checking.’ I knock back the last of my wine. ‘A friend of mine asked the victim out to dinner soon after she arrived. She turned him down, so that’s a new lead.’
‘What are you doing about it?’
‘Monitoring him, for now. Paul’s respected by the islanders; he’s in the lifeboat crew, and he’s been a special constable for a year or so.’
‘Even heroes commit crimes.’ Gannick’s pixie-like face looks older when she speaks again. ‘There’s bad news on the wedding dress too, I’m afraid. The iodine treatment exposed some prints, but they’re too blurred to read. I’ve only had the chance to check five of the cars on your suspect list for blood traces. So far they’re clean; I’ll crack on with the rest tomorrow.’
‘We’ll get him, Liz. Your immaculate track record won’t be tarnished.’
‘It’s on your slate, not mine.’ She manages a laugh. ‘Did you have any luck finding her phone?’
‘The signal’s dead. We’ve swept the Garrison area twice now, without any joy, so I’m focusing on the evidence in front of us.’
‘That makes sense.’ She gives an abrupt nod, before pointing at the door. ‘Now bugger off and let me finish my wine. That bloody microscope’s sent me cross-eyed.’
‘Order some food or you’ll feel like crap tomorrow.’
‘Don’t nag, for God’s sake. You sound like my husband.’
Personal revelations from Gannick are so rare, I do a double take. ‘I didn’t know you were married.’
‘The poor bastard’s coped with me for fifteen years.’
‘Where’s your ring?’
‘Who needs one? My marital status is no one else’s sodding business.’
‘You’re such charming company, Liz.’ I give her a parting grin. ‘Your husband must thank his lucky stars.’
Scott Matthews’ voice drifts through the wall that separates us, each note purer than the last. Working together has forced me and Gannick to exist in close proximity, just like the Keast brothers. They seemed to enjoy their closeness as kids, but cracks are starting to show, Paul’s anger surfacing at last.
I throw open the window, hoping to release some of the day’s frustrations, along with the room’s odour of furniture polish and new carpet. There’s no sign of Shadow when I scan the hotel grounds. The creature annoyed the hell out of me at first, after my old work partner died, but I couldn’t bring myself to abandon him at the nearest shelter. He’s grown on me since then; even though his high spirits can be annoying, I like his company. He’s never kept his distance for so long, until now.
‘Where the hell are you?’
I lean out of the window, watching the lighthouse draw a new white line across the sea every ninety seconds. Shadow may be stranded on the beach by the rising tide, after digging up fish carcasses and scrounging from picnickers all day. I pull on a sweatshirt and head back downstairs. A walk along the shore will kill two birds with one stone, releasing today’s pent-up energy and hunting for Shadow at the same time.
The stairway from the hotel gardens down to the beach is lit by electric lanterns, but darkness engulfs me once I reach the shore. There’s hardly any light pollution in the Scillies, giving me a clear view of the heavens. The night sky looks like a skein of dark blue velvet, pinpricked by a million stars. They cast a pale glow over the headland, where the tide has claimed most of the shore, leaving only a ribbon of shingle. There’s no sound when I yell the dog’s name, apart from breakers shattering on the beach and the in-drawn breath of the tide receding, but footsteps echo behind me when I come to a halt. Someone is pacing across the gravel. The hotel’s lights have faded, making the darkness thicker than before. All I can see are whitecaps cresting in the distance, silvered by moonlight.
‘Who’s there?’ I yell out.
Silence resonates back from the wall of rock overhead. I may have imagined it, my nerves on edge from making so little progress. But when the footsteps start again they’re quicker than before, fleeing across the beach; they’re so light and rapid, it must be someone in good shape. I can’t see a thing, so there’s no point in giving chase.
‘You fucking coward!’
I shout the words into the black air for my own benefit. I’m certain that whoever was tracking my movements chose not to attack. My giant scale may have worked to my advantage for once: if the killer planned to knock me out, like his female victims, it would take a long reach. My eyes have adjusted to the dark by now, picking out the sharp peaks of Serica Rocks on the horizon, but my pursuer has left nothing behind, except my growing certainty that Sabine’s killer knows this landscape like the back of his hand.