Last Kiss (8 page)

‘I will. It’s an interesting case.’

His words were still guarded, but at least they were on safe ground. She hesitated, then said, ‘Maybe it would be a good idea to talk through the broad outlines. I could meet you after the ten o’clock briefing at Harcourt Street in the morning.’

‘It’s probably best if you call here. Tomorrow will be manic. I’ll text you the address, but don’t expect a palace.’ He paused. ‘Let’s say in an hour.’

‘Listen, O’Connor, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ His words still sounded clipped.

Hanging up, she regretted agreeing to meet him at his place, but her guilt about not being in touch gave him the upper hand. When her phone bleeped with his text, she jumped. There was no going back now, not without making things worse.

The address in Reginald Street wasn’t far from Ocean House, located on the far side of the quays, deep in the heart of the Liberties, an area of Dublin dating back to the seventeenth century.

She had never thought about where O’Connor lived, but there was something almost desolate about the house when she reached it. The front door was painted a dark, depressing shade of green, and although all three windows to the front of the artisan dwelling had curtains, each was different. This was Flatland, she thought, a small house, subdivided into apartments the size of dog kennels. She heard him bounding down the staircase well before he opened the door.

‘Step into my humble abode.’ He was still distinctly cool.

She followed him to his flat on the first floor at the back of the house. It was small, but compact, and brighter than she’d expected, a sash window giving an attractive view of the city. ‘Nice and cosy.’ She smiled.

‘I don’t need much.’

She took in the contents of the room. A narrow kitchen, a small wooden table, two chairs, a sofa facing a portable flat-screen TV, and a walled unit with newspapers scattered across the top. There were two other doors, which she assumed led to a bathroom and a bedroom.

‘Great view,’ she commented, as he put on the kettle.

‘I’d charge people to visit, but I doubt the landlord would like me turning his place into a tourist attraction.’

‘I guess not.’ She smiled again. She needed to talk about the case, but first she had to deal with unfinished business. ‘I meant what I said – that I was sorry for not being in touch. I know I was the one who encouraged you to come clean, before the suspension.’

‘I came clean, as you call it, because it was the right thing to do, not because of anyone else.’

‘I know that, but still.’

He slammed the cups on the table. ‘It’s been six months, Kate. A phone call wouldn’t have taken a lot.’

‘That works both ways.’

‘You’re right there, but then again, you’re always right.’

He didn’t sound in a forgiving mood, she thought, as he placed a stainless-steel teapot, a carton of milk and a bowl of sugar on the table. Best to move the conversation to safer ground.

‘You know the initial autopsy report confirmed Rick Shevlin was administered sedatives prior to his death, enough to knock out a horse. They would have rendered him defenceless within minutes.’

‘So I heard from my enthusiastic replacement. I also heard that you believe the killer is female, and the connection to the Tarot cards is some kind of signature.’

‘Our killer likes to play with mirrors, duplicating the crime scene, and the image of the Hangman card.’ She took the card out of her bag and handed it to O’Connor.

‘It’s the number twelve. Is that of any consequence?’

‘It could be. Some of this is in my report, which no doubt you’ll get to see tomorrow. The card represents acceptance, renunciation and the forming of a new point of view, although a clear interpretation can only be made when it’s seen with the other cards in the spread.’

‘How many cards are in a spread?’

‘Minimum of three, but it could be more.’

He looked at the card again. ‘And we’re not talking about a novice here?’

‘Unlikely. And she is getting more out of the scene than the killing itself. The level of attack suggests heightened anger, determination and detachment.’

‘Not a pleasant cocktail, Kate.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘You sound like this case is getting under your skin.’

His tone was mellowing. Maybe this wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d initially thought. ‘There must have been an enormous level of hurt and emotional damage to drive someone to this, especially a woman.’

‘Are you still seeing the good in the bad guys?’

‘Some people are more mad than bad.’

‘Maybe so, but pardon me for feeling more sympathy for the corpse than the killer.’ He stood up from the table and went to the window. ‘Christ, I’m looking forward to getting back to work.’

‘How do you feel about working under Mark Lynch?’

‘Probably as happy as he feels about working with me.’

‘Will he look on you as a threat, do you think?’

‘The force is full of egos, Kate. Now, tell me more about this killer.’

‘Whoever she is, she’s particular. The way she sets the scene is almost as if she is creating a piece of artwork. It tells us she takes pride in what she does. She has an ego. All of this is important to her. She is precise in her goal and her disposition of it, but the attack and the aftermath must be viewed as two separate components. There was a stressor of some kind, but she has an ability to detach. Once she’d slit the victim’s throat, and released her rage, there was no remorse shown. Most likely she enjoyed
the aftermath. Rick Shevlin was no longer a person to her. He became part of the image she desired.’

‘Not someone you’d want to get friendly with, then?’

‘As I said in my report, with that level of detachment, whoever did this is capable of giving the illusion that they live a normal life, meaning they will be able to integrate socially. We’re looking at someone with intelligence in the higher percentile, ninety-five per cent or more, who has the presence of mind to calculate, to prepare, to keep her head level and be emotionally controlled when required. She is patient in completing her tasks, no matter how long that takes. As I said to Mark at the start of all this, the killer won’t be easy to find.’ She paused.

‘And he’s got nothing from any of the ex-girlfriends either?’ His response sounded like a judgement.

‘No, but now we have a new development. He thinks he’s found another victim, an old case.’

‘When did you hear that?’

‘About an hour ago, before I phoned you.’

‘Go on.’

‘The case is outside the jurisdiction.’

‘Where?’

‘Paris, nine years ago.’

I’M SURE I have her rattled now, the little wife. She’s like his face of respectability, his security, a form of adult comfort blanket. Deep down he, too, is insecure. That is why most men like to have their cake and eat it – sexual satisfaction aligned with emotional stability, but not always with the same person or at the same time.

I enjoy the feeling that we share something she doesn’t know about. It’s more intimate – being a secret. She doesn’t bring excitement into his life any more, not the way I do. I’ve learned over time to be a good receptor, knowing exactly what I want. I don’t meander.

I made another self-portrait today. I hadn’t planned to, but
I found myself in a small grocery shop close to their house and caught sight of my reflection in one of those round security mirrors at the top of the store, the kind that obscures your shape, taking in as much floor space as possible. There was a man beside me reading the ingredients on a cereal box. I usually take my images in black-and-white. Colour is a distraction. The eye, the human eye, sees the world predominately in black-and-white, with endless grey scales. You think when you take a photograph you’re capturing everything, but you’re not. Parts go missing. With the human eye, our mind fills in the gaps. I like that the camera cuts to a kind of truth, the obscurities you create when you look in the mirror exposed. Yet no camera has the capabilities of the human brain: each has its own imperfections and deceptions.

In the self-portrait, I look small in the space, the image bringing me to an old memory, a photograph taken on a trip to Dublin, another reflection in a shop window. It was in O’Connell Street. I was seventeen. When I studied the image afterwards, I was surprised because I looked happy – my cheeks glowing, my pupils alert, my lips stretching to the point of a smile. The more I stared at the photograph, the more I saw. You see, I hadn’t realised a part of me was smiling. The camera can do that: it can tell you things you didn’t know.

Last night, I stood on their front lawn looking at the house, my shape caught in shadow. Everything was quiet and utterly still. There were no lights coming from the windows. I imagined her upstairs, perhaps peering out into the dark at nothing in particular. I visualised the troubled look on her face, part of her already knowing of my presence, and I could almost taste her fear.

They have a pretty house with a stone fountain tucked away at the end of their back garden. I laughed out loud when I looked at the two figurines, a little boy and girl – I named them the stone children. He has already spoken about her being infertile. He didn’t want to talk about it at first, but then the floodgates opened. I had to fake empathy, having no interest in his whimpering. It intrigued me, though, her putting a permanent reminder of what she cannot have so close. I decided to play a little game with the fountain. I placed pebbles from the drive in the bottom of the stone basin. When I did, the water ricocheted with tiny spatters into the bowl. I enjoy making subtle changes to a place I visit. It’s like leaving a mark. She might wonder about the pebbles, do a double take and ponder on the unexplained.

When she’s nervous, she tends to get flustered, fiddling with things. She can’t help it. Depending on what she wears, she can display that pretty-girl-next-door appearance, the kind of woman many men end up marrying. The attractiveness appeals to them sexually, while conjuring up goodness and potential home-making, prize maternal qualities for their offspring – sow your seed, reproduce yourself. I don’t want children. One of me in the world is enough.

I don’t doubt that men find her attractive and, on occasions, some may have allowed their imaginations to take flight, visualising a little fun, but they would never cross the line, not with her. She’s not the type. Women see much more than men when it comes to the fairer sex. Men can be foolish in that department.

I’ve been playing other games with her too – moving things around the house, putting objects in places they don’t belong. A
few days ago I dropped an empty water bottle on their smooth lawn and placed flower petals near the front door, petals that couldn’t have come from their garden.

She might have dismissed the water bottle as something left by a passer-by. It might have caused her to complain about people being sloppy and uncaring, but the petals, I would imagine, perplexed her. The inexplicable will cause anxiety. I don’t want to frighten her too much – at least, not yet. For now, it’s a bit like stepping into another person’s life with the ability to make alterations along the way.

I have my own woman in the shadows, waiting for her time to pounce. She warns me not to get too confident and relishes my mistakes. She would have got a nice kick out of the failed Rick affair. At times I call my hunched shadow ‘the witch’. She reared me, but she wasn’t my mother. My real mother died in childbirth, aged fifteen. For a long time, I thought my life had taken hers. It isn’t easy, believing your first breaths in this world killed another – especially when she was the person who gave you your life. It sets you up for being different. I discovered later that most of what I had been told was a lie. It wasn’t me who killed her. She’d died because of abandonment, and because the woman in the shadows wanted it to be that way.

I never knew my mother, but part of me believed that she would be pleased if I killed the witch. I had thought the witch’s death would end her control. I was wrong. It gave her cruelty greater power. I still remember her laughing in my face, telling me about burning my mother’s body, calling her a whore, saying she was desperate for it, like some wild boar. I’m not looking for your sympathy. I understand the pleasures of the witch, and I
know now she will never leave me. She will always be close by – my darkest shadow.

There are some things I have in common with my new lover’s wife, one being that I cannot conceive either. Once I had a notion of having a child. I tried to visualise what they would look like. Would they have my hair, eye colouring, my high forehead? I suppose my lover’s wife asked those questions too, but that is where our similarities end. I cannot comprehend her life, and she cannot envisage mine. I’m the one having sex with her husband, the one allowing him to do the things he wants to do, things she cannot contemplate. She is alien to me, and soon she will be alien to him.

The important thing about those who live ordinary lives is that they rarely think outside the box. They feel safe, and in their safety, they are most at risk. Would you warn her if you could? Or would you wait around to see what other games I have in store? Fear is a powerful thing, you must agree. Fear is like the eye of the camera: it obscures things. You will need to remember that point. It might prove to be important later.