“Four weeks,” the woman said.
“Just imagine,” Sylvia said, “all those lovely nights ahead of you. I’m jealous.”
Mac pulled the Englishwoman to him and whispered something in her ear. She let out a laugh.
Sylvia smiled. “Mac can keep going for ages. Shall we try to beat them? I think we can.”
She leaned over and nibbled at the man’s earlobe. She noticed his eyelids were already drooping. The Englishwoman giggled, a low, confused sound.
“Only a minute or so now,” Mac said. “We’re close now.”
Four
SYLVIA SMILED AND SLOWLY UNDID the man’s shirt. She
managed to get his shoes and trousers off before he collapsed on the bedspread.
“Clive,” the woman slurred. “Clive, I love you forever, you know that…”
Then she, too, fell asleep.
Mac had managed to take all her clothes off - apart from her underwear. He removed the underpants now, carried her to the bed, and laid her down next to her husband. Her hair, a little shorter than Sylvia’s but more or less the same color, spread out like a fan.
Sylvia picked up her purse. She riffled quickly through the credit cards, then looked more closely at the passport.
“Emily Spencer,” she read, checking the photo. “This is good, we look similar enough. That makes it easier.”
“Do you think she’s related to Lady Di?” Mac said, as he pulled off her wedding ring.
Sylvia gathered together Emily Spencer’s clothes, valuables, and other important belongings and stuffed them in her backpack. Then she opened the bag’s outer pocket and pulled out latex gloves, chlorhexidine, and a stiletto knife.
“Mona Lisa?” she asked.
Mac smiled. “What else? Perfect choice. Help me with the cleaning first, though.”
They pulled on the gloves, got some paper towels from the bathroom, and set about methodically wiping down everything they had touched in the room, including the two unconscious figures on the bed.
Sylvia stared at the man’s genitals.
“He wasn’t that big after all,” she said, and Mac laughed.
“Ready?” she asked, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. They took off their own clothes and folded them and put them as far away from the bed as possible.
Sylvia started with the man, not for any sexist reasons, just because he was the heavier of the two. She sat behind him and hauled him into her lap, his slack arms flopping by his sides. He grunted as though he were snoring. Mac straightened the man’s legs, crossed his arms over his stomach, and handed Sylvia the stiletto, which she took in her right hand. She held the man’s forehead in the crook of her left arm to keep his head up.
She felt with her fingertips for the man’s pulse on his neck and estimated the force of the flow.
Then she thrust the stiletto into the man’s left jugular vein. She cut quickly through muscle and ligaments until she heard a soft hiss that told her that his windpipe had been cut.
Five
UNCONSCIOUSNESS HAD LOWERED THE BRIT’S pulse and blood pressure, but the pressure in his jugular still made the blood gush out in a fountain almost three feet from his body.
Sylvia checked that she hadn’t been hit by the cascade.
“Bingo,” Mac said. “You hit a geyser.”
The force of the flow soon diminished to a rhythmic pulsing. The bubbling sound as the air and blood mixture seeped from the severed throat gradually faded away until finally it stopped altogether.
“Nice work,” Mac said. “Maybe you should have been a doctor.”
“Too boring. Too many rules. You know me and rules.”
Sylvia carefully moved away from Clive, propping him against the cheap headboard. She got blood on her arms when she arranged the man’s hands on his stomach, right on top of left, but didn’t bother to wash it off yet.
“Now it’s your turn, darling,” she said to the doped-up Englishwoman. Emily Spencer was thin and light. Her breathing had almost stopped already. Her blood scarcely spurted at all.
“How much champagne did she actually drink?” Sylvia asked as she arranged the woman’s small hands on her stomach.
She looked down at her bloody arms and went into the shower. Mac followed her.
They pulled off the latex gloves. Carefully they soaped each other and the stiletto, rinsed themselves off, and left the shower running. They dried themselves with the hotel’s towels, which they then stuffed into the top of Sylvia’s backpack.
Then they got dressed and took out the Polaroid camera. Sylvia looked at the bodies on the bed, hesitating, deciding if the look was right.
“What do you think about this?” she asked. “Does it work?”
Mac raised the camera. The brightness of the flash blinded them momentarily.
“Works pretty damn well,” he said. “Maybe the best one yet. Even better than Rome.”
Sylvia opened the room’s door with her elbow and they stepped out into the corridor. No security cameras, they’d made sure of that on the way up. Mac pulled his sleeve down over his fingers and hung the DO NOT
DISTURB sign outside the door. The door closed with an almost inaudible click.
The sounds of the night faded into silence. The gentle patter of the shower inside the room could just be heard above the hum of the ventilation system.
“Stairs or elevator?” Mac asked.
“Elevator,” Sylvia said. “I’m tired. Murder is hard work, darling.”
They waited until the doors had closed and the elevator was descending before they kissed.
“I love being on honeymoon with you,” Sylvia said, and Mac smiled brilliantly.
Part One
Chapter 1
THE VIEW FROM THE HOTEL room consisted of a scarred brick wall and three rubbish bins. It was probably still daylight somewhere up above the alley, because Jacob Kanon could make out a fat German rat having itself a good time in the bin farthest to the left.
He took a large sip from the mug of Riesling wine.
It was debatable whether the situation inside or outside the room’s thin pane of glass was more depressing.
He turned his back on the window and looked down at the postcards spread out across the hotel bed.
There was a pattern here, wasn’t there, a twisted logic that he couldn’t see. The killers were trying to tell him something. The bastards who were cutting the throats of young couples all over Europe were screaming right in
