She trailed off again and Michael wondered if she ever did finish a thought out loud. They were closer now to the group, and he found his eyes going to a couple on the edge of the circle; the man had his hand up the woman’s jumper, and she was yawning, not quite paying attention to him. All at once he realized that the girl was looking at them, too, and when she glanced up at him he saw something in her eyes—fear, excitement. The white length of her neck seemed to shine in the morning light, and he felt a powerful surge of emotion toward her; protectiveness and lust, all tied up and tangled. She is the hare that lays down for the teeth, he thought, abruptly dizzy.
“I should go back,” she said doubtfully. “It’s my turn to wash out the breakfast pans.”
“What’s your name?” His voice seemed to come from very far away.
“Colleen,” she said.
CHAPTER27
THE DOORBELL RANG just as Heather was finishing typing up her notes from the last few days. Standing up, she moved down the hallway as quietly as she could, her eyes rooted to the panel of warped glass in the center of the door. There was a figure standing there, and she was fairly sure it wasn’t Lillian. Feeling half foolish and half sick, she snatched up a heavy wooden ornament from the side table and, holding it to one side, peered out the peephole. The figure outside shifted, and she caught sight of messy sandy hair and an unbuttoned collar.
“DI Parker?”
He looked pained as she opened the door, as though he’d been half hoping she wasn’t home. Smiling sheepishly, he held up a bottle of wine.
“I know. This is all kind of wrong. But it’s been a rough day and …” He shrugged. “If I tell you I looked up your mum’s address now, will that save you throwing me out later?”
“Come in.” Heather stepped to one side, settling the wooden ornament back down on the side table as she did. “You’re bloody lucky, as I ordered takeaway about twenty minutes ago and I habitually order enough for six people. Can you eat three people’s worth of Chinese food?”
“I’d consider it an honor and a challenge.”
Later, when the Chinese food was largely demolished and they had started their second bottle of wine, the conversation had moved inevitably back to the Red Wolf copycat. Parker threw his disposable chopsticks into the plastic carton.
“Another body today. I didn’t tell you, but …” He shrugged. “This is escalating. The original murders took place over the course of several years, but this bastard? Four women in what? Just over a month? We’re sweating bullets over it.”
Heather shifted in her seat, blinking rapidly. They were on the sofa, having dragged the coffee table over to put the dishes on, and it was very tempting to slip into the doziness summoned by a stomach full of noodles, but Parker was mildly drunk and suddenly talkative.
“Was she … the same as Elizabeth Bunyon? And Fiona Graham?”
For a long moment Parker didn’t say anything, and she felt a pang of sympathy at the expression of sorrow that passed over his face. Eventually he nodded. “Their hearts missing. Mouths filled with flowers. Graham was found by a dog walker out before sun up. When we got there, the grass was still frosty, and it was like … like she was made of ice. Her blood all crisp on the grass.” He shook himself. “The new girl was a junkie called Abi. That’s terrible isn’t it, reducing her to that? But that’s what happens. Victims become a line of summary while we trip over ourselves trying to figure out who he is. Abi was cut here,” he slid his hand across his stomach, “severing her in half. And there was a hole in her chest, soil inside it, things buried. The photos are something else.”
Heather shivered, thinking of the terracotta pot on her mother’s doorstep. She wanted to ask if they had found anything heart-shaped near the body, but that would be coming too close to revealing her own thoughts.
“Christ. I’m sorry, Ben. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to see that stuff, and just carry on with work. Did you find anything on Fiona yet? I mean, forensics stuff?”
She expected him to shut down at this; to realize that he was sharing too much. But instead he shrugged and sipped at his wine.
“Nothing useful yet. Whoever this bastard is, he’s careful not to leave anything of himself behind. But the other stuff—the flowers, the insects … Back when the original killings were happening forensic entomology wasn’t such a big deal. I’m hopeful something will come out of that, some clue as to where he’s based perhaps …” He trailed off, then said, blankly, “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”
“Hey, better than keeping it all bottled up.” Heather leaned forward and began stacking the empty plastic dishes, and together they carried them into the kitchen and began dumping them in the bin.
“Even so,” he leaned with his back against the counter. He’d taken off his blazer and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, which had revealed a thin white scar on his forearm. “It’s the last thing you need.”
Heather shrugged. She was wondering what Ben would think if he knew why she had lost her job in the first place—or that she used to be a journalist. Her stomach turned over slowly—he wouldn’t be here, getting cozy with her on the sofa, that was for certain.
“What’s your gut feeling?” she said suddenly. “You’ve studied serial killers, you’ve spoken to Michael Reave before. You’ve had access to everything, all the files and photos. If you had to
