The youth chuckles in response. He pulls up a file, hits the Play button, and reaches for a crisp.
A giant bed emerges on-screen. Its white sheets, duvets, and pillows are pristine. A man walks by with a briefcase in hand, on the left-hand side of the screen. He’s wearing a dark suit and a slate-gray tie. A beribboned parcel fills his left hand. He sets his briefcase down next to the bed before moving out of the camera’s view.
“Picked this up from Harrods earlier,” a male voice says. Its tones are familiar; I heard the same clipped inflections merely a few hours ago.
“Early Christmas present, my darling.”
The sound of ripping paper is followed by a small squeal of delight.
“Gorgeous.” A woman speaks, breathless and husky. But a hint of cynical amusement colors her tone.
“Scarlet’s your thing, isn’t it?”
“Oh, you spoil me, baby,” she says. Her voice has turned into a gushing dulcet ripple, but I detect a note of insincerity in its depths. “I love Agent Provocateur. Especially if it fits.”
“Model it for me, darling.”
A woman appears and begins walking past the bed, her back turned to the camera. She is wearing a kimonolike robe; her peroxided hair is swept up in a bun. A swath of red lace dangles from the box in her hands. She vanishes beyond the camera’s view. Several seconds later, a disembodied hand tosses a black wallet onto a side table, then flings the gray necktie onto the bed. The fabric unfurls as a long gash on the sheets.
The man emerges into view again. His jacket has vanished; the top two buttons of his shirt are unfastened. He steps in the direction of a cupboard next to the bed and pulls out a bottle of Champagne bedecked in gold foil. He moves towards the camera, then falls out of range again. A cork pops several moments later, followed by the trickle of liquid.
The woman is now stepping back into the screen, minus the kimono. Her body is sheathed in a sheer scarlet bra and barely there knickers. Her thighs are encased in black garters and stockings.
I can finally see her face. Most of it, at least. Its upper part is covered by an eye mask crafted from black lace. The exposed lower half is familiar, albeit with a few minor differences. The chin I saw at the Paradise nature reserve was a ghastly shade of white, while the one on Peter’s screen is flushed with sultry determination. The face in the recording is also more angular; she’d put on a bit of weight since the video was filmed. And while the lips I saw this morning were twisted in the contorted rictus of death, a dangerous-looking smile is playing on the lips on-screen.
They are also painted a murderous red.
“You look stunning,” the male voice says.
The woman does not reply. Instead she sashays to the bed, positioning herself in the middle of the screen. She settles on the sheets, draping the unfurled gray tie around her neck. She raises a hand to release the bun on her head; blond hair ripples around her shoulders seconds later. Fixing her eyes at a point beyond the camera, she flicks her hair back with a coquettish toss. She runs her tongue between her lips before licking her thumb all the way to its hilt.
“You little minx,” says the man as she begins sucking her thumb. His voice is taut with desire.
The woman still does not speak. Instead she parts her thighs and lowers her well-licked thumb to the scarlet-laced cleft below.
“You can guess what happens next,” Fiona says in a dry voice.
Young Peter, however, is gulping at the screen.
“She knew a trick or two,” he says, cramming another crisp into his mouth.
Fiona rolls her eyes.
The man on-screen hurls himself at the woman, shirt still undone, choosing to dispense with seductive foreplay. He has not even bothered to remove his trousers; they’re scrunched up in a heap below his knees. The entrance he makes is abrupt, even brutal.
“I think you get the picture, Hans,” Fiona says, rolling her eyes again.
“It’s explicit,” I say. “Are there more videos on the stick?”
“Six in total. Two in the same place, while the remaining ones were filmed in a different bedroom.”
“Featuring other props and positions.”
Fiona nods.
“A French maid’s uniform, a paddle and whip, and some vigorously vibrating things. She’s wearing a mask in all the videos. He must have a fetish for lacy eye coverings.”
The man on-screen removes his tie from around the woman’s neck and binds her wrists. He pushes her back onto the bed before resuming his thrusts. His groans are accompanied by a chorus of high-pitched, exaggerated gasps from the woman.
“I wonder who he is,” says Fiona, pushing her horn-rimmed spectacles up her nose.
Young Peter turns round to look at her, half-eaten crisp sticking out of his mouth.
“He’s Mark Evans,” he says. “Someone shoved a propaganda pamphlet under my door two mornings ago. He looked much better in his photograph, I must say, than the candidate in the Labour leaflet did.”
“I brought him in for a little chat earlier,” I say. “He behaved like a canary that refused to sing. I need to figure out a way to make him talk.”
The man on-screen is flipping the woman over.
I wince.
“But why did she film these videos?” asks Fiona.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I say. “To destroy him.”
I return to my office with a large cup of coffee in hand only to discover that Hamish has parked his arse on my desk. He’s slipping something into his breast pocket. I stiffen, narrowing my eyes. Was my deputy snooping around in my office just now, hoping to obtain concrete evidence that I’ve been masquerading as a Duo?
Probably not. I should stop being paranoid. Hamish is merely brimming with information, judging from his puffed-up chest. But this is, unfortunately, the only redeeming feature of his reappearance.
“Hans,” he says, not budging from my desk. “I dropped by twenty minutes after Evans’s press conference, but you weren’t in, so I decided to have lunch.”
“Ah, yes,” I say. “I ran into him soon afterwards. He was burdened by blooms. Also looked frazzled. What really happened at the Guildhall?”
“They quizzed him about all sorts of things. Including your chat with him earlier this morning.”
“How on earth did they know about that?”
“Beats me.” Hamish throws his hands up. “Bruce Bernard from ITV sniffed that one out. He’s the guy with the large quiff who kept getting in our way at the nature reserve this morning.”
I groan before settling down in my chair and swallowing the coffee in one gulp.
“They must have wanted to know why I brought him in.”
“He tried to deflect the question. Even had the chutzpah to say that he wished to help us with Ayling’s psychological profile. Added that she’d been institutionalized for seventeen years and was only released two years ago. This created quite a stir in the audience.”
I suppose I have only myself to blame for telling Mr. Evans those little snippets of information.
“The press will be hounding us for more,” I say, sighing. “If they aren’t already.”
“Bernard proved a real pest when I left the Guildhall.”