‘A slight chill.’ She hoped he would take the hint. ‘You were saying about the images …’
‘The victim was younger than Rick Shevlin. He was also laid out differently, and with a different cause of death. The slash and puncture wounds to the body, unlike Shevlin’s, were concealed, and if there was any lipstick residue on the lips, either it was missed or it had deteriorated due to the delay in finding the body. Having said that, there is plenty to link the two deaths – a capital city, the murder taking place in a hotel room, the frenzied knife attack, a suspected female killer, a tentative art association, an inclination for kinky sex and, of course, the potential Tarot card connection, which led us to tie them together via the Europol database in the first place.’
‘And the level of detail,’ she added. ‘Don’t forget that. You were about to tell me what irked you.’
‘Although the images are different, I can’t shake the notion there’s something else about the two scenes that unites them.’
‘Like the images are telling you more than you actually see.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I felt the same way, Mark, about the photographs from the Earlbrook Hotel.’ She pulled her chair in closer, flicking through the images on the screen, including those from the morgue. She finally ended up where she’d begun, on the wide shot from the hotel bedroom. Knowing what she was looking for this time made it easier. ‘The scenes from the Earlbrook Hotel look savage in comparison. These images take on the appearance of something serene, and again, a practical replica of a Tarot card. The killer is re-creating the images to the point of obsession. Even though they depict different scenes, they have a visual hallmark.’
‘Do you mean like an artistic style?’
‘Exactly, but there’s more than that. Remember how Rick Shevlin’s image was re-created in the dressing-table mirror?’
He nodded.
‘Look at this,’ she pointed to the screen, ‘the image with the opened bathroom door.’ There was no denying Pierre Laurent’s clear reflection: it perfectly framed the corpse, and again, as if it was part of a Tarot-card image.
‘Look at the room,’ she continued. ‘It’s small. There isn’t a lot of floor space.’
‘Meaning the options for creating the image would be limited.’
‘And only one likely spot from which the image we’re looking at could have been taken.’
‘At the window again. Are you saying the killer is taking photographs?’
‘Perhaps, but even if she isn’t, she’s setting up the potential shot. The position of the body looks like it was determined by the position of the mirror and the potential viewing point.’
‘You do realise how big this could be?’ he asked, almost rhetorically.
‘Tell me why the Paris police believed the killer was female.’
‘Similar reasons as in the Rick Shevlin case, although no lipstick was found.’ His words were coming out fast and furious. ‘The victim had engaged in sexual activity before death. He had been tied up, this time, presumably, willingly. A witness statement said they heard a woman’s voice coming from the hotel room that evening, and the killer, despite inflicting severe wounds to the victim, never touched his face. The investigating team believed the killing had all the hallmarks of a crime of passion.’
If I could read his mind, she thought, Lynch is thinking this thing could be even bigger than his wildest dreams. She didn’t have a problem with his ambition: it was his absolute hunger for success that troubled her – the greater the prize, the more lethal the fall.
He was pacing around the room now, becoming more energised. ‘Kate, there is no roadmap for something like this. We need to move fast and efficiently.’ Then, standing close to her, as she had seen him do with the escort, he asked, ‘How high is the risk of the killer acting again soon?’
‘That’s impossible to say. The time span is nine years between the Shevlin and Laurent murders, and we’re still in the dark as to more possible victims. I’m still not sure about that other case you mentioned, the one in Rome. The burning is putting me off, unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless she was re-creating the Tower card – it depicts a burning tower, but the wife being present deviates from her pattern of the victims being alone. If the case is connected, the stalking element is worrying. It illustrates a desire to get close to people in the victim’s life.’
‘And her motivation?’
‘Probably to infiltrate and control.’
‘Okay, Kate, if you can’t tell me when, do you think she has already moved on to another victim?’
‘Very probably – her level of motivation is high. Assuming, for now, the case in Rome is connected, it means the gap between killings can be short. If she has turned her attention elsewhere, the potential victim, and those closest to him, are certainly in danger.’
EDGAR