I step out of the car. Everything is happening in slow motion. I don’t have a plan for getting inside, but somehow I know I will. I think again about the mystery woman coming back, finding me there, and for a moment I hesitate.
Before going into the garden, I glance up and down the street. And, as if I’ve done it a million times, I walk to the back of the house, turning the handle on the door. It’s locked. Then I notice two large ceramic pots planted with lavender and mint. The smell is intoxicating. I lift the first pot, the smaller of the two, and worms wiggle underneath. I lift the second, the one with the lavender, and find a key. It all feels too easy.
As I turn the key in the lock, my heart is pounding, like an internal warning system. If you do this, there will be no going back. I don’t know what I’m most afraid of, being caught, or the feeling that, for some unknown reason, I might be doing exactly what others want me to do.
Inside the house, I feel like a stronger person, having crossed the line. I’ve broken in. I’ve done something completely out of character. It’s almost like a kind of freedom. I tell myself to remain calm, but walking through the house, the deeper I go, the more the fear is coming back.
I open the door onto the hallway from the kitchen, and when it creaks, I have the strangest feeling that I’m being watched. Standing in the hallway, my fear intensifies. There is a narrow table with claw legs, and overhead, a small glass chandelier. For a moment, I think about it crashing down, breaking the dead silence. Looking at the staircase, I wonder if the house has an alarm system. I hadn’t heard any bells going off, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t protected. Sometimes the alarm bells go off elsewhere, at a security station. At any moment the place could be surrounded, and I would be caught, like a common criminal, having broken into someone else’s home.
I think about getting out of there fast, visualising myself running towards the back door, firing the key into the shrubs, not having time to replace it under the garden pot, getting into the car and driving somewhere else, perhaps to Alice’s house, confronting her with Lori’s suspicions. If she isn’t at home, it could be proof that she’s with Edgar. I’m so fixated that I’m surprised to find myself on the bottom step of the staircase, as if it’s challenging me, urging me to go further into her domain. Taking another step, I hear a whine, a cat wailing as if in pain. It’s coming from outside, but it unsettles me. I realise I’m experiencing déjà vu, a feeling of something familiar, before I understand why. It’s the smell.
HARCOURT STREET STATION, SPECIAL DETECTIVE UNIT
AS KATE MADE her way to Chief Superintendent Gary Egan’s office, she figured that, if he wanted to talk to her directly after the incident-room briefing, the prospect of her visiting the international crime scenes had increased, and she would be carrying the white flag to Declan.
‘Thanks for waiting, Dr Pearson.’ Egan was practically bursting up the hallway, Adam and Lynch in tow. Once inside the office, it was Egan who spoke first. ’It looks, Dr Pearson, as if the link to the cold case from Rome, in 2006, has got stronger. Apart from extensive wounds to the face and body, the cause of death was also similar to Shevlin’s, exsanguination – and, like Shevlin and Laurent, the victim had a chequered sexual history.’
‘By chequered, Chief Superintendent, you mean what exactly?’
‘Michele Pinzini had numerous affairs, used prostitutes regularly, and a whole lot more, if you get my drift.’
‘I see.’ Kate could tell Egan was uncomfortable, so she didn’t push the point, knowing she would get more out of the others later.
‘The crime scene had other variables too.’ Egan turned to Lynch. ‘Why don’t you fill Dr Pearson in?’
‘Certainly, Boss.’ He smiled at his superior, then turned to her. ‘As I’ve mentioned to you already, this time the crime scene wasn’t confined to one victim. The fire could have killed both the victim and his wife. Even with the hotel maid raising the alarm, the room was ablaze by the time the emergency services arrived. As the chief super has already noted, despite the fire we do know the actual cause of death, something that would have been difficult to determine if the blaze had advanced any further. The wife was found unconscious. She had suffered smoke inhalation. It was she who filled the police in on the victim’s sexual history. She was pregnant at the time. Her unborn child also survived.’
‘What else did she tell them?’
‘That she suspected her husband was deeply involved with another woman before the murder, but this time, it was different from the others.’
‘Because of the suspected stalking?’
‘And because her husband’s moods had grown darker, a lot darker. Before the killing, she was concerned about his well-being as well as her own.’
‘Why didn’t she report the stalking beforehand?’
‘She had mentioned it to a few close friends but, like Anita Shevlin, she couldn’t put her finger on anything concrete.’