They went in silence in the lift to the second floor. It seemed Inspector Girardot was a man of few words.
‘This way,’ directed the French detective, as the lift doors opened, and they followed him down an exquisite corridor with ornate architrave, glistening chandeliers and beautiful tapestries on either side.
‘Are all the floors the same?’ Kate asked.
‘No, no.’ He stopped. ‘The second floor is the most luxurious within the hotel. It has all the private suites.’
‘And presumably extremely expensive.’ Adam glanced around him.
‘That, Monsieur O’Connor, is very much dependent on your budget, but the price would be out of reach for the average Parisian.’
‘Did Pierre come from a wealthy family?’ Kate asked.
‘No, not particularly.’
‘Any record of who paid for the room?’ Adam quizzed, as they neared their destination, Room 133.
‘I understand it was paid for in cash. Pierre Laurent used his real name, but gave a false address.’
‘Any theories as to why he did that?’
The inspector shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is possible he didn’t wish to give the address of his student quarters. An art student with lots of cash might have been considered suspicious.’
‘Was he involved in anything suspect or shady?’ Adam was pushing Girardot, doing what he did best: police work.
‘Not that we could ascertain.’ Girardot stopped outside a room. Before turning the key, he said, ‘It is unoccupied at present. You will find it very similar to how it was nine years ago. The H?tel du Maurier had a complete revamp for the millennium, investing in good furnishings. The rooms have barely been altered since.’
Kate felt as though they were stepping back in time with the room’s marbled floor, wooden parquet insert, Napoleonic furniture, ornate gold table lamps, paintings, the austere blood-red drapes, and the twenty-armed chandelier in the centre of the high decorative ceiling. While the two policemen talked, she walked around the suite, taking in as much as she could. It was only when Girardot opened the door to a smaller room off the main area, speaking about where the body had been found, that she turned her concentration back to them.
All three of them stood in what Girardot described as a dressing area, with one window, a panelled wall of mahogany wardrobes, a lady’s chair and a chaise longue, both in mahogany and upholstered in red silk with a large fleur-de-lis design. The door opposite the one they had walked through led to the en-suite bathroom. Kate stood in the viewing point, with the small window behind her. ‘The victim was laid out here.’ Girardot pointed to a rug on the floor, but Kate had already visualised Pierre Laurent’s body there, seeing the rug reflected in the framed bathroom mirror. ‘It was over here that the lantern was placed, directly beside the body. I understand from the detectives who investigated the original case, the young man looked almost as if he was asleep.’
A frame within a frame, Kate was saying over and over in her mind. This was all about form, position and proportion. ‘It was from here she created her perfect picture,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
‘I don’t understand.’ Inspector Girardot looked confused.
Kate continued, ‘The killer moved the body to the position on the rug because she wanted to frame it that way in the mirror.’ Then she pointed to the window behind her. ‘I’m standing in a frame, don’t you see? A frame within a frame. It’s where the killer stood to ensure she got the perfect re-creation of the card.’
Both men stared at her, and almost as if she was thinking aloud, she began taking small, steady steps around the room. ‘Our killer sees the world in pictures, one frame at a time.’
‘Why?’ Adam asked.
‘I’m not sure yet, but the reflection, the mirrored glass, the framing …’ She trailed off.
‘What about them?’
‘We could be looking at this the wrong way.’
‘I don’t get you, Kate.’
‘She’s doing more than re-creating the card within the framing. She’s also controlling and containing the image, almost as if she needs to perfect a different visual slant on the world, an alternative reality.’
Inspector Girardot seemed content to stand back in silence.
‘You said you didn’t think Pierre was the first victim, Kate.’
‘He was strategic in the progression, certainly, but if my analysis is correct, and we’re dealing with the aftermath of sustained early trauma, there will have been a primary event, where she first stepped over the line.’
‘When?’
‘We could be talking early adolescence. If she’s the planner I think she is, she would have been careful the first time. She wouldn’t have wanted to get caught, looking on that killing as a possible means of freedom.’
‘Are you talking about another male victim, Kate?’
‘I’m thinking parental figure, or figures, some early primary influencer.’