Lynch paused, twisting his neck as if it was stiff, while everyone in the room kept their attention on the overhead screen. ‘Slide number three may look somewhat ambiguous, but the dressing table,’ he pointed to the slide, ‘was repositioned, and you can clearly see the victim reflected in the glass. As with the attack and the tying up of the body, this was done by the killer,’ he looked out to the gathering, ‘one of the reasons being to form a replica of the Hangman card from the Tarot deck.’ He smiled. ‘The creation of the crime scene gave the killer some kind of payback.’ He flicked back to the earlier slide. ‘One last note on the eyes. The corneas are cloudy and opaque, escalated because the eyes were left open. It is believed a drop in temperature added to the progression. Roughly translated, our killer opened the window while they were getting through the task in hand.
‘Forensically, we have very little right now. The hotel room was like the aftermath of a clinical operation. Our killer came prepared. The clean-up, unfortunately for us, was impeccable. Again, as many of you know, we did a full overview of the hotel’s other rooms, sending in two separate tech teams, and have come up with nothing conclusive. All hotel staff are going to be re-interviewed, as are the victim’s ex-girlfriends or known female associates. A recent development in the investigation has been Anita Shevlin’s belief that, prior to her husband’s death, she was stalked. I’ll get back to that later. For now, I’ll continue with the slides for all new personnel on board.’ Pointing to the overhead slide, he continued, ‘There was a lot of blood found at the scene, but none belonged to our killer. Examination of the victim’s organs revealed some female tissue, which was matched to the escort, who is not a suspect at this time. Other forensic details include lipstick residue found on the victim’s lips. We’ve got a full list of its properties, but not enough to produce a DNA profile. We do know that it’s an internationally produced brand. The shade is known as Carmine, and it has been available throughout Europe, including Ireland, for many years. We certainly believe it could be part of the killer’s signature.’
Flicking a number of slides forward to close-up shots of the slash and puncture wounds, he continued, ‘As I said, the weapon used was large, and the trajectory of the wounds indicates our victim was weakened and attacked from above. Before I go through any more of the slides, we are now of the strong belief that this killing isn’t isolated, and has potential connections with earlier crimes in Rome and Paris. We’ll be working directly with our counterparts in both jurisdictions over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours to expedite any fresh information there.’ He loosened his tie, opening the top button of his shirt. ‘We know from his wife that Rick Shevlin stayed in town because of a late dinner meeting. We cannot find any reference to a meeting scheduled through his office. Either it was personal, or Mr Shevlin didn’t want others to know about it. Despite extensive examination of CCTV footage, we’ve been unable to pinpoint the victim’s movements earlier in the evening. He had his phone off from around seven p.m., turning it back on to book the escort, and then around midnight to phone his wife from the hotel. Our victim wasn’t squeaky clean. There is evidence to suggest he was involved with a number of shady dealings, but whether they influenced events or not, we simply do not know. His credit cards have no record of him paying for dinner, but then again, they don’t record him paying for the escort either.’
‘Thank you, Mark.’ Gary Egan took over. ‘This is going to be a multi-faceted investigation and it will stretch our resources to the limit. There is nothing new there, guys, but I’m hopeful that, with more manpower, we’ll get closer to our killer. Detective O’Connor will be handling the Europol links, going directly to both locations. Dr Pearson, whom many of you know,’ he pointed to Kate at the back of the room, ‘will continue working with us on the profiling and behavioural analysis of the killer. Dr Pearson, have you anything to add before we move on?’
‘My report will be finalised once I get an update from Detective Lynch on the Europol developments.’
‘Good. But I’d like you to give us an overview at this point, specifically on the signature of the killer and the framing of the crime scene. I believe Mark has the next slides ready for you to talk us through.’
Bravo for communication, thought Kate, making her way from the back of the room to the top table. ‘Thank you, Chief Superintendent.’
Lynch loaded a double slide, one depicting Rick Shevlin in the framed mirror at the Earlbrook Hotel, the other from the Parisian location. ‘If you look closely, you can see the victim, Rick Shevlin, reflected within the wooden frame of the mirror in the room.’ Then she pointed to the image of Pierre Laurent. ‘Again, the victim is reflected in a mirror, this time the one in the bathroom. The reflection of both dead men is not accidental, and neither are many aspects of these crimes. We can make a number of inferences from this. The killer is careful, analytical, highly intelligent and specific. She – and there’s sufficient evidence to believe we’re dealing with a female killer – is capable of enormous anger, is more than willing to inflict pain, including torture, and does not suffer extensive remorse for her actions. It is not surprising that we’re dealing with multiple crime scenes as this level of violence and intent is progressive.’