‘Is everything okay?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She hadn’t expected his touch. Maybe she had forgotten what it was like to be touched by a man. She and Declan were barely on speaking terms, she procrastinating about their official separation for weeks. Bury your head in the sand, Kate, like you always do. Damn him, she thought. Concentrate. She stepped forward and away from Lynch. Thankfully, he took the hint.
Staring at the corpse, she thought again about the positioning and application of the ropes – those at the victim’s ankle and the ties behind his back. If Morrison was correct, and the ropes were applied after death, there was some kind of payback in the ritual for the killer. Was it dominance, a fetish or a means of re-enactment? Whatever the reason, it reinforced something. The man’s nakedness and the whip marks implied a level of sexual activity, but there was more to this, she was sure.
‘Mark,’ she called.
If he was irritated by her summons, he didn’t show it. This investigation, she thought, was putting the detective on a positive high.
‘You said Rick was an art dealer. What else do we know about him?’ she asked, lowering her voice as he got closer. ‘Had he any priors?’
‘His record is clean.’
‘No sexual history on the PULSE database?’
‘Nothing on file, but as I said earlier, he used an escort service – at least the once.’
‘How do you know?’
‘His mobile-phone records – we traced the last few calls. The second last was to an escort company called Connections. I’ve already spoken to the madam.’
‘You’re sure the escort arrived?’
‘Yeah – the guy on Reception spotted her around eleven, shortly after the booking was made, but she left well before midnight. Rick then rang his wife at twelve fifteen. Probably a guilt call.’
‘And the guy on Reception, did he see her go to Rick Shevlin’s room?’
‘No, he didn’t, but the timing fits. I have the escort waiting at Harcourt Street. It’s always good to get the information while it’s fresh.’
‘I’ll join you if that’s okay.’ Whatever plans she’d had for the rest of the day would have to be put on hold.
‘No problem.’
‘Did you find anything else like this on PULSE?’ She took a couple of steps closer to the bed.
‘Nothing with this MO.’
Her mind began working overtime. If Rick Shevlin had engaged an escort, and then phoned his wife, who had been the next visitor to his room? A jealous lover or someone else? She leaned in closer to the victim’s face. ‘What’s that on his lips?’
Morrison took a few moments to consider. ‘It could be lipstick.’
‘A deep purplish shade of red if it is,’ she replied, as if thinking aloud.
‘It could belong to the escort,’ Lynch added.
‘Or the killer,’ she replied. ‘If Rick was drugged before death, and considerably weakened, we can’t discard the possibility …’ she hesitated ‘… that a woman did this. The physical balance of power would have been on the side of the killer, even if they had been physically smaller.’
‘A woman?’ Lynch also leaned in closer. ‘We’ll take a swab and send it to the lab.’
‘What then?’ Kate asked.
‘If we’re lucky, we’ll get enough to produce a good DNA profile. If not, it’ll be a long path ahead.’
‘How so?’
‘For a start, there isn’t a lipstick database. Assuming we can get a full breakdown of the lipstick’s properties, it will mean contacting the manufacturers individually. We can email them the results of the sample, but if we do find a match, there’s no guarantee it’s not a worldwide product.’
‘A wide net?’ She raised her eyebrows.
‘We’ll start with the probability that as the crime happened in Ireland the lipstick was bought here too. Although it’s unlikely it will be matched to a particular batch number, you never know. Either way, if we find the killer, we’ll be looking for a match.’
He directed his next question to Morrison. ‘I assume you’ll be doing the full works?’ He glanced down at the victim’s genitals as the body bag was zipped up.
Morrison frowned, as if the detective’s last remark was the only surprising thing about his morning’s work. ‘You assume right, Detective, and I’m sure your superiors will be proud of your investigative know-how.’ A broad, sarcastic smile was etched across the pathologist’s face.
Lynch didn’t rise to the bait. ‘We’re all here to catch the bad guys – or girls, for that matter.’
Kate gestured to the en-suite. ‘Have the techies found anything in there?’
‘Find anything, guys?’ Lynch bellowed.
The techie nearest the door turned. ‘It’s looking very clean.’
‘Surprising,’ Kate muttered, but Lynch heard her.