There was no denying his arousal, and as he pulled me to him, I kicked off my shoes. He unzipped my dress, which fell to the floor.
‘Leave the pearl necklace on,’ he said. ‘I like it.’
Desire is important: with it, normal rules no longer apply. I mentioned taking risks: when safeguards are abandoned, we are at our most primal. All relationships carry a note of warning that ultimately things will change, especially if others choose to meddle. I make a point of carefully studying my lovers’ lives, especially those nearest and dearest to them.
MERVIN ROAD, RATHMINES
KATE CHECKED THE wall clock in her study for the umpteenth time: 11.55 a.m. The morning incident-room briefing was due to finish at midday. It was day two of the investigation and she knew a lot would ride on Morrison’s autopsy report. They had already received preliminary results for the substance found on the victim’s lips. Further tests would be done, but it was lipstick and, despite Annabel’s extensive number of shades, none of them looked a likely match.
Having made the decision to work from home, primarily so she wouldn’t be disturbed, Kate began flicking through her morning’s notes. Mark Lynch might still have reservations about the killer being female, but the more she thought about it, the more the evidence pointed in that direction. Standing up from the desk, she began recording her notes into the phone.
‘Hands tied behind victim’s back, right ankle tied to bedpost, with a double-knotted rope, left leg bent at the knee, placed under the right leg at a ninety-degree angle. Head positioned at the bottom of the bed, eyes open, looking towards the windows. Extensive puncture and slash wounds to the body, indicative of a frenzied attack. Details of autopsy report to confirm exact cause of death, the existence of toxins in the bloodstream, and whether toxins were primarily sedative in nature. Potential sequence: sedation, slitting of throat, attack while victim immobilised or deceased. Initial pathology examination indicating ropes were applied after death. Require final confirmation as to whether puncture, slash wounds and whip marks were also post-mortem. Other areas of note: analysis of lipstick for its properties and DNA. Potential DNA profile from lips, under eyelids and other areas of contact.’
Kate thought about what she had said the previous day to Mark Lynch, that poisoning or drugging a victim was associated with women. She was well aware that things had moved on significantly over the last decades, primarily with women’s changing social roles. Internationally, the methods of killing now included guns and knives, and had in some cases become more phallic, less associated with a woman’s role as a nurturer. For male and female murderers, killing was a way of creating an illusion of control, but if the killer was female, the control might also derive from a history of abuse, a form of triumph over the past.
She pressed the record button again. ‘The nakedness of the victim, exposure of genitals and the tying up of the body, before or after death, is likely to have been engineered by the killer, possibly creating an element of reward, and an act of post-death humiliation.’