Home Before Dark
by
CHARLES MACLEAN

 
Wealthy and urbane, with a thriving business and a beautiful wife, Ed Lister has all he could ever want -- except his daughter, who was cruelly murdered
while studying in Florence.Frustrated with the police inquiry, Ed sets out to discover who killed her, and why. His quest brings him ever closer to the
charming, lethal psychopath Ward -- and his website, Home Before Dark.And the closer he comes to Ward, the more apparent it becomes that there are some
things that Ed didn't tell the police. Or his wife.  

'A thriller that gripped me by the throat and wouldn't
let go for 36 tortured hours, Home Before Dark chills
the eyes as well as the spine. I have never seen such evil
leak out of a computer screen. Maclean is a master of
electronic horror.'	Ferdinand Mount

'Like the best horror stories, Home Before Dark creates
a stifling, claustrophobic atmosphere; it catches you up
so you feel you are a player in the plot, not just an
observer. It doesn't let you rest: you wake in the night
and carry on reading - and as more pieces of the jigsaw
fall into place, you begin to see the potential horror
just as the protagonists become aware of it. Marvellously
ingenious and unexpected.'	ScotchWhisky Review

'Intricately plotted and cast in understated prose, Home Before Dark kept me up long after midnight.'
Bloomberg.com

'A very well written thriller, with moments of genuine
suspense and jeopardy, Home Before Dark is a modern
horror story full of very human demons.'
Eurocrime. co. uk
About the author
Charles Maclean is married with four children and lives
on the west coast of Argyll, where he runs a small estate
and holiday cottage business. An associate editor of Travel
and Leisure magazine, Maclean spent ten years in New
York, from where he wrote a column for the London Evening Standard. He was a founder member of the Ecologist magazine and with Edward Goldsmith helped
launch 'Blueprint For Survival', which became a handbook
for the environmental movement in the UK.
He has written several acclaimed works of fiction and
non-fiction including the prize-winning classic Island on
the Edge of the World.

HODDER
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Hodder  Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
First published in paperback in 2009
Copyright © Charles Maclean 2008
The right of Charles Maclean to be identified as the Author
of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Lyrics from 'Jambalaya' by Hank Williams Sr. © SonyATV
Acuff Rose Music. Administered by SonyATV Music Publishing.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

AU rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise
circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 340 95151 4
Typeset in Plantin Light by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD
Hodder  Stoughton policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable
and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests.
The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform
to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Hodder  Stoughton Ltd
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www.hodder.co.uk

For Jeremy and Jamie
There will be days, maybe not now but in the months and even
years to come, when she happens to be on your mind and the
phone will ring and without thinking you'll pick up, wondering
if this could be her calling to let you know she's all right.
You don't stop worrying about your children when they grow
up and leave home. You don't stop even after they're not there
any more to worry about and never will be again.
If there is an end to wishing you could turn back the clock, or
to hoping you will wake one morning to discover it was all a bad
dream, I haven't reached it yet. Acceptance is harder to find, I
suspect, grief more difficult to resolve, when your family has been
violated. Since Sophie died we haven't been the same. The murderer
doesn't just murder his victim, he murders a little part of the family
as well. He murdered a little part of Laura and me that night.
I dream about him, our murderer and yours -- a human being
with no conscience, no regard for the value of another's life, who
is indifferent to the pain and havoc he leaves in his wake, who
isn't human, at least not in my book, yet is still walking around
free, still living his life.

I had advice for them, insights I felt it might be appropriate
to share with others, strangers, whose lives he destroyed. As
if my own experience had allowed me a unique understanding
of what they must have been going through. I felt so sorry for them. I felt and still feel what happened was partly my
fault. And I wondered if I should write. I wanted to write.
Something held me back me though.


Florence

When the telephone rang, Sam Metcalf was sitting, as she
preferred to sit, cross-legged on the floor in her underwear,
listening to Maria Callas pour heart and soul into Catalani's
'Ebben? ne andro lontana' and thinking she should have got
out of this damned life a long time ago.
In four days she was leaving Florence, flying home to
Boston on a one-way ticket. Her stripped-down apartment
in the Oltrarno - its ochre walls bare of pictures, most of the
furniture gone, a cardboard city of boxes and packing cases
ready to be shipped - looked like some Third World departure
lounge, but Sam still felt the wrench, giving up a place that
held so many memories.
She removed her earpiece.
There was nothing to keep her here. Federico hadn't
been in touch for almost a month and she neither expected
nor wanted to hear from him again. And yet - Sam closed
her eyes - you never knew, the prick might feel like saying
goodbye.
The phone kept ringing, starting to get on her nerves. Any
normal person would have realised by now that she wasn't
home. But what if it was important?
She dried her eyes, her plump knuckles briefly dislodging
the frame of her glasses, then squinted up at the kitchen
clock, a gloriously tasteless fixture above the ancient gas
stove - its familiar face, laminated in years of cooking grease,
was a reproduction of the Angel Gabriel from Leonardo's Annunciation.
Eleven minutes to twelve.
She would remember the exact time of the call.
Getting up on her knees, Sam looked around for the phone,
followed the lead across the floor and retrieved it from under
a pile of papers. She couldn't help herself.
Her hand shook a little. Please . . . please God, don't let
it be Federico.
'Pronto'
'Yes, hello ... is this Sam? Sam Metcalf?'
She let out her breath in stages.
It was a young voice, friendly sounding, American accent,
no one she recognised - her prayers, disappointingly, had
been answered.
'Who wants to know?'
'I was given your number by a mutual acquaintance. Ed
mentioned you were leaving town soon, and I wanted to talk
to you about Sophie . . .'
'You knew her? Wait a minute. Who is this?'
'Yes, ma'am, I had that privilege.' He gave a deep, slightly
theatrical sigh. 'An angel if ever there was one . . . Sophie
spoke, and I saw all the colours of the rainbow.'
Something was wrong here.
'Look, Mr . . . I'm sorry, who did you say gave you this
number?'
'Think of me as Ward,' he said softly, inflecting the name
upwards to sound like a question.
'Think of you as what?' She felt like laughing.
'Sam, you and I never met, but... I believe we both know
why I'm calling.'
The first jolt of alarm went through her.
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'Just that it might be better - after what happened to poor
Sophie - not to go stirring up the past. Nobody knows about
any of this. Let's keep it that way.'
Again his voice lifted the statement at the end into a
question mark.
Suddenly she knew, oh Jesus, her skin prickling - it was
the call she'd been expecting, dreading, for so long now she
thought he'd forgotten.
'What do you want?'
'I'm sure that it's what she'd want,' Ward went on quietly,
'looking down on this situation from above . . .'
Sam hung up, slamming the receiver into its cradle.
A minute later, the telephone rang again.
She hadn't moved. She stood staring down at her bare
arms, which were folded over her belly, hugging herself, rocking,
unable to stop.
It rang five more times.
In the dreams she'd been having, the caller always rang off
before she could answer; she'd wake up, covered in sweat,
one arm flung out towards the silent phone. Now that he'd
finally got in touch, Sam had a feeling the dream would never
recur.
It was, in some kind of way, a relief.

PART ONE



L

'Are you sure you want to go through with this?' Laura asked.
'Am  sure?'
'Everything is going to remind you of her.'
I turned towards my wife, but for a moment couldn't speak.
She sat staring ahead. 'Well don't say I didn't warn you.'
We were parked just off Borgo San Frediano, across from
the entrance to the atelier. The heat in the taxi was stifling.
'We're here now, we might as well go up,' I said, trying not
to let my impatience show. I was already late for my next
appointment at the Questura. 'I didn't come back to Florence
because I want to forget.'
She retaliated sharply, 'And I didn't come here to sightsee.'
I had suggested to Laura that while I was occupied with
the police later, she could always go and look at the Fra
Angelicos in San Marco.
'Sweetheart... it'll be all right. Just let's get this over with.'
I climbed out of the cab and held the door for her.
Her anxiety about meeting Bailey Grant and looking at
Sophie's drawings was understandable. Eleven months ago, when
I'd collected our daughter's portfolio from the studio, I'd found
that being shown her work (so much of it unfinished) was like
losing her all over again. Laura couldn't face coming with me
then. Now she was going to find it harder - a lot harder.
I hadn't told her everything.
The drawings had only turned up recently. One of Sophie's
fellow students had discovered a folder and a sketchbook
while cleaning out the lockers in the cast room. Bailey had

7

written to say the work it contained was quite remarkable,
but also somewhat disturbing. His words.

While I paid off the taxi, Laura stood in the narrow doorway
under the shade of a torn green awning. It was nearly midday,
I felt the sun branding my neck.

'I don't remember it all looking so . . . squalid,' she said.
The volatile fug of oils and turpentine thickened as we
climbed the steep marble stairs from the street. Waiting for
us at the top stood a slim young woman in jeans and a black
T-shirt; she was carrying an armful of small mirrors.

'It's a long way up,' she said in English. 'I'm India, by the
way, Mr Grant's assistant.' Her auburn hair was cut short like
a boy's. I hadn't seen her before. 'You must be . . . Sophie's

parents.'

I nodded and without another word she led us back through
a warren of hot dusty rooms lit by tall windows. The place had
been a church before it was converted into a studio complex.
Through an open door we caught a glimpse of a life-drawing
class in progress, the students hushed in concentration.
I took Laura's arm and gave it a squeeze.
When we first brought Sophie here to see the studio, she
was only eighteen and still uncertain about coming to Italy
to learn how to draw and paint. 'This place gives me the
creeps,' she'd said with a shudder, 'it's like an art cemetery.'
I didn't listen to her when she claimed to be afraid of
Florence, afraid of being overawed, destroyed by its beauty.
I tried to persuade her that developing her artistic talent
was a better way to spend her gap year than backpacking
through Africa or lying on a beach in Thailand. In the end
the choice had been hers, but I regret. . . no, it's more than
regret, I blame myself for influencing her decision. I even
told her - I can hear it now - that she would be 'grateful
to us some day'.

These things will haunt you forever, if you let them.

India pulled back the blackout drape that hung across the
doorway of Bailey Grant's private studio and said, 'They're
here.'

He was standing at his easel, palette and brush in hand,
Ry Cooder on the stereo. I got the impression he had hurriedly
taken up the stance - a template of the artist at work - the
moment he heard us coming. With his flowing grey locks,
white linen jacket and faded blue jeans, Bailey cultivated the
image of the hip maestro.

'Where shall I put these?' India was still clutching the hand
mirrors.

He didn't answer but went on dabbing with growing
intensity at the canvas on his easel. I wasn't altogether
surprised to see that it was the same painting - a lurid, lifesize
calvary in the manner of Titian - that he'd been working
on the last time we met. His gift was for teaching.

'Where shall I put these?' India repeated. I noticed her
portrait, a small delicate head, leaning against the wall. 'You
did ask for them.'

'Anywhere.'

She set them down noisily on the only uncluttered surface,
and left.

'Two seconds . . . and I'll be with you,' he said.

Stepping back at last, he surveyed his work and sighed.
Then, taking one of the mirrors and facing away from the
canvas, he held it up to frown over his shoulder at what he'd
done.

"77 vero maestro", Leonardo called it - the true master.
Gives you a different perspective, a fresh eye,' he explained
as he joined us. 'The mirror doesn't lie. How are you both?'

We shook hands. His was damp with sweat and it occurred
to me that our being there together might be making Bailey
nervous. This couldn't be easy for him either.

We had found no fault of any kind with the atelier over

Sophie's death. Bailey had written us a moving letter of
condolence, but he hadn't seen Laura since it happened. For
her he reserved a grave little smile of unspoken sympathy.
We talked awkwardly about this and that: the sultry weather,
the tourist problem, the scholarship my wife and I had
endowed in Sophie's name.
'Can we just get on with it?' Laura said.
He looked embarrassed for a second, then nodded and led
us over to an old leather sofa under the window. On a coffee
table lay the dark green folder that Laura's brother, Will, had
given his niece for her last birthday. It was engraved in gold
with her initials SL. I glanced at Laura, but her face gave

nothing away.
Deftly tying his hair back with a rubber band, Bailey opened
the folder and began to leaf through the drawings. They were
mostly of plaster casts of antique and Renaissance statues. It
was academic work, clearly of a high standard; I can't say
that I recognised it as Sophie's.
'Early days, but already you can see evidence of real talent,'
Bailey enthused, holding up a charcoal sketch of a Roman
mask. 'Her sfumato - the smoky transition from light to
shadow - is remarkably accomplished for a beginner. Sophie
was driven, you know. She had that passionate fury in her
eye when she drew . . .'
'Bailey,' I stopped him, 'we're a little pushed for time, you
mentioned a sketchbook.'
'Ah yes, the sketchbook.' He put the drawing back on top
of the others and closed the folder. 'We were just looking for
it before you arrived. It seems to have gone temporarily astray.'
There was a moment's silence.
'What do you mean?' Laura frowned. 'You don't have it?'
He fiddled with the ribbon-ties of the folder. 'It was on
the desk in my office upstairs. I saw it there last night. We
only discovered it was missing an hour ago.'
'Well, I expect there's been some mistake,' I said. The atelier
had a reputation for being disorganised.
'I'm sorry, but I find this unacceptable.' Laura flew up
from the sofa, walked around the coffee table and stood over
Bailey. 'Why couldn't you have just sent us the drawings?
We've come all the way out here to Florence . . . for what?
So you can tell us Sophie showed "promise"?' Laura is the
calmest person I know, but she can be formidable when
roused. 'And now you've lost the sketchbook?'
Under her stony blue gaze, Bailey wilted. 'I'm sure it'll turn
up.' He rubbed the back of his neck. 'How long are you
staying in town?'
'We fly home the day after tomorrow,' I intervened.
'Since we're obviously never going to see them,' Laura said
acidly, 'would you mind explaining what was so special about
these drawings?'
Bailey looked at me before answering.There was no conspiracy
to hide anything from my wife. I just thought it best not to
worry or alarm her until we could all look at the sketchbook
together, and then decide what, if anything, should be done.
I nodded for him to go ahead.
'The drawings are of a house,' he began hesitantly. 'Pen
and ink, mostly interiors, they're minutely, even obsessively
detailed. There are one or two human figures, but insubstantial,
more like effigies than real people . . .'
Laura interrupted. 'What house? The villa where Sophie
was lodging?'
He shook his head. 'It's a white clapboard Colonial, with
a porch, the kind you get in any affluent American suburb.
Inside, things are much as you'd expect, only in miniature.
The mood is bleak, shut-in, heavy with menace. The sense
of scale and the tension comes from the doors and windows,
which allow surreal glimpses of our own full-size world. It's
like being trapped inside a doll's house.'
Bailey paused to let this sink in.
I looked at Laura. Her face was expressionless.
'There's a drawing of the kitchen, for example, which shows
the back door standing ajar. Across the threshold lies a shadow
- the windows are dark, as though the shadow has fallen over
the whole house. What you see outside is a sliver of trouser
leg and part of what looks like a giant sneaker.'
Laura bit her lower lip. She looked down at her hands.
Watching her, I could tell she was struggling to keep her
composure. 'I suppose you think this tells us ... reveals things
about Sophie's state of mind?'
'The drawings speak for themselves,' Bailey said. 'I have
no idea what it signifies, but some of them do seem oddly
prescient.'
'If that's the case . . .' She fell silent, my poor wife. I could
see the tears welling up. When she spoke again, her voice was
trembling. 'Why didn't she call? Why didn't she talk to someone?'
'Come
and sit down, Laura,' I said quietly.

The day we lost Sophie was the day we said goodbye to the
future. With immediate effect all her tomorrows were
cancelled, and so many of ours that when we looked ahead
we realised life as we knew it had really ended.
Laura and I found it hard to talk to each other. There are
no adequate words and if there were you wouldn't want to
use them. We took refuge in the comfort that family and

friends bring, we gave each other succour, yet we remained
two people locked in separate rooms of misery and despair.
It may be every parent's nightmare to lose a child, but you
wake from the nightmare. That's when the worst part begins.
Every morning the pain of loss is there, waiting to flood
back in with returning consciousness. I grew to hate that brief
dawn of forgetfulness before it did. The visceral ache gets
less but never really goes away.
It's not that you have to go on living, it's the fact that
you do.

In the early days, at the mercy of strangers, we let ourselves
be guided through the world of officialdom like bewildered
refugees. It makes a difference, of course, when things go
wrong abroad, if you have money. We were shown nothing but
kindness by the Florentine authorities, particularly the Questura, the Italian state police. This may sound like ingratitude, but I
should have been less trusting.
I took a liking to Andrea Morelli, who headed the investigation
into Sophie's murder. He had an easy-going charm,
seemed steady rather than brilliant, but cut a reassuringly
solid figure. His promise to bring 'whoever did this terrible
thing' to justice defused for a time my own longing for
revenge.
I convinced myself that we were in good hands. There was
no reason to think that Inspector Morelli's sympathetic
manner, the sensitive way he handled Laura, his understanding
of sophisticated lives, made him any less competent or
determined to find Sophie's killer, but I'm pretty sure now
he knew from day one that he'd landed a case he wasn't going
to solve.
Our daughter was beaten and strangled to death on a night
in April, the twenty-seventh to be exact, when the temperature
dipped unexpectedly below zero. She'd been in Florence for
six months and had just e-mailed us to say she was loving
her second term at the atelier. Another couple of weeks, she'd
have been twenty.
We'd arranged for her to lodge at the Villa Nardini, where
her room looked out over the formal gardens. In the 'boscos', an area deliberately left to grow wild, there's a semi-derelict
grotto, and it was there that her body was discovered by the
family dogs on their morning rounds. Why Sophie, who hated
the cold, had gone into the garden late at night remains a
mystery.
There was little physical evidence. Nothing to indicate
whether she had an assignation, or was followed and forced
inside the grotto. No tracks or fingerprints were found, no
fibres, no bodily fluids, saliva, skin or hair samples, from
which DNA could have been extracted. Forensic tests
established that Sophie's murderer didn't assault her sexually
(which was some small comfort). She was knocked
unconscious, then strangled.
The fact that he was careful, meticulous even, in the execution
of a crime that is usually associated with ungovernable passions,
Morelli believed suggested that Sophie was murdered by
somebody she knew.
However brutal, he insisted, it was not an arbitrary act.

The investigator's office was on the sixth floor of the Questura
building on Via Zara. A small cell-like room with a combed
ceiling, it barely had space for a desk and two chairs. Under
the high window, a cluster of framed diplomas and family
photographs, haphazardly arranged, lent the only personal
touch.
'I can understand your frustration, Signor Lister,' Morelli
said, as he shut the door behind us and gestured for me to
sit. 'Believe me, I share it.'
'In other words,' I said flatly, 'you're no further forward.'

He smiled. 'We've made some progress since your last
visit.' His lightly accented English was close to faultless.
'We've widened local enquiries to a five-kilometre range.
We're concentrating now on the immigrant population. It
takes time.'
'How many people have you got working on the case?'
Morelli leant back in his chair and crossed his legs. A
balding thirty-four-year-old Genoan, short but robustly built,
he had a glow of health about him that I'd come to resent.
I imagined him working on his golf handicap, or his suspiciously
uniform tan, when he should have been finding
Sophie's killer.
'It varies, but I can assure you, Signor Lister, this is still
an active investigation. We're taking computers at random
from internet cafes all over Florence, examining the hard
drives. The Computer Crime Squad in Milan is building a
profile, which should give us a better idea of who we're
looking for.'
None of this was new. 'What evidence is there that Sophie
was stalked online?'
'If we had evidence, he'd be in custody by now. But we're
almost sure that's how he got into her life. Cyber-stalkers are
often isolated, emotionally void individuals. The immigrant
fits the profile because he may be experiencing stress or
culture shock and suffering a sense of loss of his culture of
origin.'
'Andrea, it's been over a year, you don't even have a
suspect.'
He reached for the phone on his desk, keyed in a couple
of numbers and asked in English for the Sophie Lister file.
'We haven't given up hope.'
I shook my head. It's not what you want to hear from
someone in charge of a murder investigation. Not when the
victim is your child.
Morelli had found nothing so far to support his theory
that Sophie knew her murderer. Her teachers and friends
from the atelier, her landlady, the other lodgers at the Villa
Nardini, all confirmed what she had already told us - she
was too busy with her work to get romantically involved. No
one remembered seeing her with a stranger, or noticing any
change in her behaviour. There'd been no suspicious types
hanging around the villa or the atelier in the Oltrarno.
If Sophie felt threatened, or was aware that she was being
stalked, she never spoke of it to anyone. I kept thinking
about Bailey's description of the drawings, wondering how
long she had lived in fear. Why didn't she tell us? Laura
had been right to ask. I just wasn't sure I wanted to know
the answer.
Sophie was religious about keeping in touch, calling home
on her mobile once or twice a week and e-mailing the family
(mostly her brother, George, to whom she was particularly
close) on a regular basis. She had a laptop with her in Florence,
but couldn't hook up to the internet from her lodgings the
Villa Nardini made few concessions to modern times.
Like many students, she used internet cafes to go online,
surf the Web and conduct her e-mail correspondence. It was
in one of these brightly lit anonymous places, as common in
Florence as pizzerias, that the police believed she may have
encountered her killer.
'I don't think he met her online,' Morelli said. 'At least not
in the conventional way. I think he saw her first in the real
world, then maybe afterwards they started talking and formed
an online relationship.'
There was no electronic trail. Even with their limited
resources to carry out an investigation in cyberspace, the Questura had established that much. Sophie didn't frequent
chat rooms - or if she did, it wasn't under the screen-name
she had registered with MSN. There were no recorded 
conversations in the archives of the main service providers. I'd also
done some research of my own.
'How would he have found her?' I asked.
'Let's say he spots her on the street, in a shop or restaurant
- she was, after all, striking - and follows her to an internet
cafe. She sends some e-mails. He waits until she leaves, then
slides into her seat and gets her details from the computer
terminal she's just been using. Or maybe he shoulder-surfs
her as he walks past her screen, and memorises her e-mail
address.
'Later he contacts her online, a casual friendship develops,
and she responds in the innocent belief that he's far away,
in another town, even another country . . . while, all along,
he's sitting across the room or at the next terminal, observing
her.'
The investigator paused and our eyes met as he smoothed a hand over his polished head. 'He uses the internet to gain
personal information about her, then begins a combination
of onlinereal-world stalking. One day he just turns up in her life and identifies himself as the person she talks to online.'
There was a knock at the door and his secretary entered. She handed a file to Morelli, then left again without even a glance in my direction.
He opened the folder and withdrew some photographs. 'Remember these?'
The glossy prints he spread on his desk were of a chalk outline in the paved floor of the grotto chamber. It had been drawn around Sophie before her body was removed from the scene.
I nodded. I had no idea what was coming.
He leaned forward and picked up one of the prints. The diagram, a map of the last place on earth she occupied, still filled me with revulsion and anger. I was never shown photographs
of Sophie's body.

17

'The victim's position is interesting,' he said. 'She didn't
fall, she was laid out on her back, her arms folded across her
chest. It was done with care by someone who had a desire
to show respect.'
I frowned. 'You mean remorse?'
'Signor Lister, what I have to say you may find a little
shocking. I mean tenderness ... amore. Her killer was possibly
in love with her, or considered himself to be in love. The
chief delusion of the cyber-stalker often concerns romantic
love and spiritual union rather than sexual attraction.'
'Tenderness,' I repeated calmly, though I was seething.
Perhaps any father would have reacted as I did. 'Is that
why he knocked her unconscious before he strangled her?
Is that how it goes when you love someone, Commendatore?
Tenderness!'
I could hear my voice rising.
Morelli pressed his palms together. He took a deep breath
and went on, 'With this type of individual, when his attentions
are rejected, love turns to violence very quickly. Sometimes
in an instant.'
'You expect me to feel sorry for him?'
'He may also have believed that your daughter returned
his feelings. In his eyes, you understand, they would have
been the "ideal match".'
This was all just guesswork. He really didn't have a clue.
'Studies indicate that violence is more likely where the
victim and stalker were formerly in an intimate relationship.'
'What are you saying? That they were lovers?'
'I think that is unlikely.'
I was glad that Laura wasn't with me. She would have hit
him.
'I know how hard this must be for you.' He was watching
me intently. 'If it had happened to one of my children ... I
would be the same.'
'Are you suggesting that Sophie brought it on herself?'
He shook his head. 'She may unwittingly have encouraged
him. Possibly flirted with him online in the belief that it was
harmless and safe.'
'Why is it that you people always end up blaming the
victim?'
'Signor Lister.' He lifted his hands. 'This has not been an
easy case.'
Past tense. They'd already filed her away. He'd as good as
admitted it.
There was a short heavy silence.

'Do you think Sophie knew she was in danger?' I asked. I
already had the answer, but sometimes those are the best
questions to ask.
Morelli made a steeple with his fingers and tapped them
against his chin. 'I think . . . yes,' he said gravely, 'she may
have known.'
An image floated up of Sophie aged five or six playing for
hours with the doll's house that's still in her room at home.
I'd intended telling him about the sketchbook, the drawings
that seemed to foreshadow her murder, but since I had nothing
to show I decided not to mention it.
He rose to his feet, bringing the interview to an end.
We shook hands and Morelli promised to keep me informed
of any new developments. It was obvious he didn't expect to
be getting in touch soon. The best I could hope for was a
cold-case review perhaps years from now. I was being asked
to accept that Sophie's killer might never be brought to justice.
I had one more question to put to him.
'Did you ever talk to a friend of Sophie's called Sam
Metcalf?'
'Metcalf?' The investigator seemed anxious for me to leave
now. He was probably thinking about lunch. 'I don't recognise
the name.'
'Apparently Sophie used her place sometimes to go online.'
'Leave it with me, I'll look into it.'
'She's flying home to the United States next week. For
good. I'm seeing her tomorrow. I could let you know what
happens.'
'By all means,' Morelli said, as he walked me to the door.
He stopped and put a hand on my shoulder, so that I had
to turn to face him. 'This individual, the perpetrator ... the
truth is, Signor Lister, for all we know he could have come
from the other side of the world to kill your daughter . . .
and then returned there.'
I felt like reminding him of his immigrant theory, but then
I thought, what if the sketchbook had in fact been stolen
from the atelier? Could one of the drawings have identified
her killer?
'Or he could still be here,' I said, 'in Florence.'

Laura and I sat sharing a bottle of wine on the terrace of
our hotel, a former monastery set among its own olive groves
in the Viale dei Colli. A degree or two cooler in the hills, it
still felt oppressively hot. We had the garden to ourselves and
all you could hear was the soporific murmur of doves and
the splashing of a downhill water chain that linked a series
of fountains and reflecting pools. It was peaceful at the Villa
Arrighetti, almost too peaceful. I would have preferred a hotel
in town.
I wanted to feel closer to the crowded streets and piazzas

where I knew Sophie had walked, the places where she'd
hung out. I didn't care about Florence's infernal reputation
in summer. But Laura insisted on getting away from the
locust swarms of tourists, the heat, the traffic, the noise.
She was on a different kind of pilgrimage to mine. We all
have our own ways of remembering, our own paths of
escape.
At around two thirty Laura went inside to lie down. We
had arrived late the night before and she had complained
of not sleeping well. I ordered an espresso, made some
calls, then followed her up to our suite: two high-ceilinged,
sparsely furnished rooms that opened onto a pillared loggia.
The luxury was there but understated. I looked in the
bedroom and saw that Laura was asleep. Helping myself
to a cold beer from the fridge, I took my laptop out onto
the balcony.
It was now almost ten to three and I felt a coiling sense
of anticipation, a not-unpleasant tightness in my stomach. I
logged on to the internet and listened to a Mozart piano
concerto while I checked my e-mail.
There was nothing from Sam Metcalf. I took that to mean
that the meeting was still on for tomorrow. I hadn't intended
telling Investigator Morelli about Sam - she'd asked me not
to say a word to anyone - but I felt bound to let him know
that his department's investigation hadn't been as thorough
as he claimed.
I'd encountered the same apathy in London. The way our
own police handled things had been depressingly inept. After
Sophie was murdered, two Scotland Yard detectives were sent
out to Florence to assist the Questura. Home again a month
later, they described their trip as an agreeable waste of time.
I complained and the case was duly referred to the Police
Complaints Authority. All I really wanted was to challenge the
official view that Sophie's killer was unlikely ever to be caught.
And yet, as time went on, and the weeks and months became
a year, I gradually sank into that state of inertia people try
to dignify by calling 'acceptance'. I'm not the type to dwell
on the past, I believe in getting on with life. But grief has its
own trajectory and pulls you along. The pain doesn't fade,
it goes somewhere else or lies dormant for a while, and then
it comes back when you least expect it.
Laura had found some comfort in her religion after Sophie
died. As a non-believer, I didn't have that option. I buried
myself in work - sixteen-hour days, endless meetings,
constant travel. I didn't want to have a single waking moment
when I wasn't fully occupied. I've always been a grafter
(Laura claimed she didn't notice the difference), but since
the murder I'd lost my enthusiasm for doing deals and
making money - money we didn't need. I just kept going
and going.
After talking to Bailey and Morelli, I realised that even if
I could learn to live with what happened (being in Florence
again had awakened some strong emotions), I would never
lose the sense that as her father I had failed Sophie, let her

down.
At three o'clock exactly I tapped in a password for the
instant messaging service I use. 'Adorablejoker' wasn't online.
I clicked on her screen-name and typed 'you're late', which
a touch of the return key transferred to the dialogue box.

templedog: you're late

There was no response. She must have left for work already.
I sat staring at the screen, resigned to the fact that I'd
missed her or that she'd simply forgotten, when suddenly her
name showed in bold and the button face beside it lit up
with a smile, indicating: 'I am available'.

r no, you're late... i was on my way out templedog: I can't stay long aj: so what else is new? td: hold on, lighting a cigarette aj: put it away
td: blowing smoke in your eyes aj: i swear to cheese... get that shit away from me td: just a couple more drags and I'll put it out
ay: sure you will td: damn... hold on a sec

I could hear laughter. I glanced back through the double
doors into the bedroom and saw that Laura was awake. Sitting
up in bed, pointing the remote at the TV.
There was little danger of her coming onto the balcony,
and if she did I only had to hit the minimise button and
the dialogue box would vanish. I had nothing to hide, but
I didn't feel at that moment like explaining 'adorablejoker'
to my wife.

td: unfortunately I have to go. When will you be on again
aj: i dunno, it may be a while
td: sounds ominous. I enjoy our conversations
a; you need to break the habit, mister
td: what's that supposed to mean?
aj: i have to go down to DC

td: oh really, what for
aj: visiting a friend, ill be gone a couple of weeks

I stubbed out my cigarette. Still listening to Mozart, I looked
up from the screen, squinting against the harsh sunlight as
I let my gaze follow the avenue of cypresses that ran down
the hill between the olive groves. I imagined her sitting by
the window of her studio apartment in Brooklyn - a world
away.

aj: he's just a friend, married, two kids
td: look, it's okay... you need to get out more
aj: it's not what you think, you know
td: I don't remember saying what I think. I'll be pretty busy myself
a;; well then... i'm gonna let you go
td: have fun in Washington
aj: yeah... i gotta run

I started to type something, just to have the last word, but
Jelena was gone. The little yellow icon beside her name had
faded to grey.
It was nonsense, of course - we'd been chatting online for
a few months, all perfectly innocent and above board - but
I had felt a twinge of resentment, even jealousy, which caught
me by surprise. I scrolled back and re-read what she'd said
about going to visit her 'friend' in DC. I had no business
feeling anything at all.
I waited another few moments in case she changed her
mind and decided to come back online. Then I logged off
and sat staring out over the top of the balcony at Florence
- the same view of rooftops and towers and verdigris cupolas
dominated by the pink hump of Brunelleschi's dome
that I keep pinned up on the board in my London office
and I expect always will. A card from Sophie wishing me
a happy birthday, it had arrived a week after I learnt she
was dead.
When I heard the news, I was in the middle of the biggest,
most important deal of my life - it was a gold-mining venture
in Australia I'd been lucky enough to scramble aboard. We
had just finished signing the papers and were at the shaking
hands stage when I was called to the phone. In a jubilant
mood, I barely caught the murmured phrase 'on the line from
Florence . . .' yet I knew instantly, in the pit of my stomach,
I knew something had happened to Sophie.
You don't really formulate your worst fears until the words
are spoken. I remember oddly the smell of the perfume Joy,
which Laura uses, clinging to the receiver. It was reassuringly
familiar ... for a split second I thought, no, all's well. Then
I heard the confirmation that turned my moment of triumph
and every moment of triumph, or failure for that matter, to
ashes, to nothing. Forever.
I stood up and walked to the edge of the balcony and
looked down into the hotel grounds, trying to ignore a feeling
of restlessness, almost apprehension. It may have been thinking
about Sophie that brought it on, or wondering if I'd ever
hear from 'adorablejoker' again, or the more immediate worry
that tomorrow's meeting with Sam Metcalf would turn out
to be another dead end: I wasn't sure of the reason. Then I
realised that I was being observed.
Our loggia couldn't be seen from the garden, but at the
end of the cypress avenue, the other side of some old iron
gates that give onto the Viale Galileo Galilei, I could just
make out a figure standing motionless and gazing up towards
the villa.
I swung around, almost knocking over my beer - Laura
had just wandered out onto the balcony. I said something to
her, and she smiled. When I looked back down the hill again
the figure was gone.

At the turn of the stairs, Sam Metcalf paused, leaning out
from the rail and looking up through the balusters to check
the landing above, before she climbed the last flight. It was
a precaution she always took, ever since coming home from
a party late one night to find a stranger waiting for her there.
She counted herself lucky he'd only wanted money. Sam felt
in her jeans pockets for her key.
Outside her apartment, she pushed the door all the way
open so that she could see there was nobody lurking in the
hall or the kitchen. Then, still wary, stood and listened for
any unfamiliar sounds, straining to hear over the music.
The Iranians in the apartment below were playing Sheryl
Crow's 'All I Wanna Do' at full volume. At least she knew
she wasn't alone in the building.
It was broad freaking daylight . . . what could possibly
happen?
She had to psych herself up before she could walk into
the apartment, dump her stuff, then, armed with a small knife
taken from the magnetic rack in the kitchen, look through
all the rooms. They were exactly how she'd left them.
A storm of honking rose from the street under her windows.
She came back into the hall and kicked the front door shut.
Leant her back against it, eyes closed.
She let the music soothe her, waiting for that line she liked
about the sun coming up on Santa Monica Boulevard, when
Sheryl's 1990s hymn to laidback LA suddenly cut out. In the
silence it left she could hear a car's engine idling.
A moment later, the Iranian couple's door slammed and
there was a clatter of heels on the stone stairs. From the street
a hoarse male voice bellowed ' VaffanculoF
Then, as the car moved off, the telephone rang.
In the kitchen, Sam glanced at the Leonardo clock above
the stove and went on fixing herself a cup of coffee, trying
not to think about where she should have been thirty minutes
ago. She wasn't picking up, not for anyone.
Clearing a space for her laptop, she sat down at the table
and waited for the phone to stop ringing. She knew she
should have called Sophie's father, told him she couldn't make
the meeting, made up some excuse. The last shrill note
resonated through the empty apartment. She took a sip of
coffee and scalded her lips. Shit . . . Her hands wouldn't stop trembling.
'Nobody knows about. .. any of this. Let's keep it that way.'
The voice had been seductive, fresh and faintly husky, like
a young Bill Clinton's. It was the insinuating Midwestern lilt,
the question mark at the end of a sentence where none was
needed that had creeped her out, leaving her in no doubt as
to what would happen if she talked.
Last night, at her friend Jimmy's house in Fiesole, she had
been too afraid to confide in him. He'd have insisted on her
going to the Questura. But what could she have told the
police? That she'd received a vaguely threatening phone-call
from an unknown person she thought might be a murderer?
Sam had lived in Italy long enough to know the police wouldn't
offer her protection. They'd probably just withdraw her permesso, stop her leaving the country.
She'd lain awake until four a.m. trying to decide whether
or not to keep the appointment at the Trinita bridge. She
hated the idea of letting Sophie's family down - felt doubly
guilty because she should've told them what she knew a long
time ago - but she couldn't take the risk now.
She wasn't prepared to die for people she'd never met.
It wasn't as if she'd been all that friendly with Sophie.
The girl had come up to her after a British Council lecture,
claiming to be interested in early Renaissance ceramics.
Sam, whose field it was, had taken her under her wing. A
sweet kid, beautiful, talented, innocent, and yet - Sophie
Lister had turned out, disappointingly, to be keener on
using her place for going online in private than learning
the secrets of the Delia Robbia workshop. They barely
talked.
Sam switched on her Toshiba. She used to think about the
dead girl's fingers having touched the keys, afraid her bad
karma would rub off on her, as if it were something you
could catch like a virus; but she was over that now.
It was the website she'd come across last week while weeding
her Favourites List - a website that could only have been left
there by Sophie - which, she believed, had contaminated the
machine.

Sam went in the bedroom to pack.
She was booked on a train to Venice, leaving Santa Maria
Novella at five forty - less than two hours from now. Having
failed to get a flight out that afternoon, she'd cancelled her
airline ticket to Boston and used the fifty per cent refund to
buy a rail pass across Europe. She hadn't told anyone, not
even Jimmy, she'd changed her plans. It was safer that way.
She wasn't sorry to be quitting Florence. She'd fallen in
love with the city aged nineteen on a Study Abroad
programme and ended up calling it home for nearly a decade.
But she saw herself now turning into what she despised, a
perpetual student, staying on year after year, completing one
course in fine arts, and then another, kidding herself that it
wasn't only about Federico.
At twenty-eight, still attractive with her vellum-white skin,
sheaf of dark curly hair and blue eyes - she called it her
Jewish colleen look - Sam had days when she worried that
he had stolen her best years. She'd known too many lonely,
washed-up, middle-aged American women, who'd come for
the art and the sex and had to settle for working in bookshops
or as tour guides or teaching English at one of
Florence's billion or so language schools. Even if her life
hadn't been in danger, she felt she was getting out just in
time.
Sam frowned and listened.
The faint ticking came from her travel clock on the bedside
table. She folded it into its green lizard-skin case and dropped
it in her overnight bag, then sat down on the bed with a sigh.
She knew she should strip the mildly disgraceful sheets, she
just didn't have the energy. A rumpled fold of cream silk
caught her eye. From under the pillows, she pulled out a
nightshirt that she hadn't worn for the past couple of weeks.
In hot weather she always slept naked.
Wait a minute. The act of slipping a hand between mattress
and pillows had triggered a memory of her and Federico.
Jesus . . . wait just a goddamn minute.
She pulled back the pillows, then jumping to her feet tore
the sheets from the bed. She moved the bed out from the
wall and yanked the mattress to the floor. It was gone, no
mistake, she'd have remembered packing it - her vibe wasn't
there.

She thought hard, trying to recall the last time, searching
for an innocent explanation. Unless Federico . . . but the
sonofabitch had given her back his key weeks ago, the same
day he dumped her and, with a predictability that made her
ashamed for him, returned to his Florentine wife and
children.
Her stomach heaved. She ran to the bathroom and stood
over the basin until the nausea passed. Catching sight of
her reflection in the mirror, Sam saw that her eyes were
almost black. Fear had dilated her pupils till only a thin
corona of blue was left. She needed to take something . . .
she knew she still had some Valium somewhere. Her white
face moved sideways as she slid open the door to the medicine
cabinet.
Behind it, on the glass shelf, lay her 'silver bullet'.
'Oh God, no,' Sam breathed, as she took down the vibrator
and with trembling fingers slowly revolved its chrome
shaft. Then almost dropped it. Fixed to the base was a
little red heart-shaped applique sticker she had never seen
before.
She walked back in the kitchen and picked up her cell
phone. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to key four
or five times before she got the number right.
Ward must have come for her last night, and left a keepsake.

'There's
something I haven't told you,' I said.
Her lips pursed as for a kiss, Laura leaned forward to
blow on a forkful of risotto that was too hot to put in her
mouth.
'I was supposed to meet someone earlier, a friend of
Sophie's called Sam Metcalf.' I hesitated. 'I kept the appointment,
only she didn't show up.'
Laura lowered her fork.
'I think she stayed away because she's afraid.'
'Does it make you feel better, Ed? Is that why you keep
doing this to me?'
Her voice grew loud suddenly, as if she'd forgotten we were in a restaurant. The terrace of the Villa Arrighetti was
busier than yesterday, the other tables mostly occupied by
elderly couples who talked in hushed tones.
'A week ago,' I went on, ignoring some curious looks we
were getting, 'I received an e-mail from this girl. It said she'd
found some stuff on her laptop left there by Sophie that she
thought might be of interest. Apparently Soph used her
computer sometimes to go online.'
'Why did she contact you?' Laura was instantly sceptical.
'Why not the police?'
'She was in Boston at the time of the murder. She knew
nothing about it until she got back to Florence a month later.
I'm not sure that she didn't go to the police.'
'Did you talk to Morelli about her?'
'I brought up her name, he didn't react. Sam asked me
not to tell anyone.'
'You don't think that's a little odd?' Laura frowned, then
added, 'And why wait so long to get in touch?'
'Look, all I know is what she said in her e-mails . . . we've
never spoken.'
She blew on her food again, swallowed a mouthful of rice.
'You know . . . this is really delicious.'
'Can we stay on the subject? It's important.'
'So bloody important you felt no need to tell me about it
until now.'
'I didn't tell you because I didn't want to get . . . your
hopes up.'
I had been planning to tell her, but only after I'd met the
girl and decided whether the information she had was
significant. Same as with the sketchbook, I wanted to avoid
upsetting my wife over nothing
'My hopes?' Laura smiled and shook her head.
'Anyway, I did speak to you about her,' I said quietly; the
last thing I wanted was an argument. 'I asked you if you'd
ever heard Sophie mention anyone called Sam.'
'Maybe you thought you did.'
'I want justice for her, Laura. Is anything wrong with that?'
She didn't answer, her pale unsparing eyes resting calmly on
mine. 'Well . . . is there?'
It wasn't that Laura had no interest in seeing Sophie's killer
caught. She just didn't want things to drag on indefinitely.
As I said before, we deal with loss in our own ways. She was
seeking a different kind of peace.
She kept staring at me as she took a sip of wine. 'Try not
to be late this evening. You are going to be there, aren't you?'
'What do you think? Of course, I'll be there.' I wasn't
looking forward to the requiem mass she'd arranged to have
said for Sophie (who never set foot in a church, if she
could help it) at San Miniato, but I knew Laura needed
my support.
Our main courses arrived just then. She'd ordered carpaccio, I'd chosen the roast lamb with rosemary. We ate in silence,
enjoying the food. It's an odd uncomfortable truth, but loss
doesn't dull the appetite.
Laura had changed for lunch into a light summer dress
and done something different with her hair, which is sandy
blonde and very fine. When we first met she used to favour
the Alice band and striped shirt with the collar turned up
look - she's come a long way since then. I told her how good
she looked.
'Were you thinking of taking a siesta?' I asked, when we'd
left our table and were walking slowly back across the terrace.
She sighed. 'I might lie down for a while.'
At the foot of the stone staircase that leads up to the villa's piano nobile, Laura turned to me and said in a low, feeling
voice: 'Let it go, Eddie. Leave the past alone. Nothing you
or anyone can do is going to bring her back.'
A friend offering sensible advice.

The moment we got inside the door of our suite, I locked
it. Laura stood waiting by the window, against the light.
She didn't move away when I came up behind her. I took
the initiative, but I've no doubt it was what she wanted to
happen.
There was urgency, then the shared pleasure of release.
Perhaps I felt sorry for her, or for both of us, perhaps
she took pity on me, but we came out of our separate
fortresses and for a while forgot. Laura and I hadn't made
love to each other for months. I find it difficult to write
about this.
I don't want to keep saying that I loved my wife ... I
did, but even before Sophie was murdered things had not
been brilliant between us. During the first days and weeks
after it happened, I depended on Laura to get through. We
clung to each other, literally clung to each other, but when
that no longer brought comfort, when the drug stopped
working, we retreated into ourselves, and grew further
apart.
We didn't talk, not about what we'd just done.
Laura got up from the bed and went into the bathroom.
Naked she looked vulnerable and somehow very English.
She had a nearly perfect figure, yet she moved awkwardly
without clothes on. I told her I had some work to do. She
turned and smiled at me from the bathroom door, her
lavender-blue eyes unnaturally bright, and I felt a stab of
unspecific guilt.
There was love still, on both sides, only it was dying a little
every day.
After taking a shower, I went out onto the loggia with my
mobile and laptop and checked to see if Sam had left word.
There was nothing.
The next half-hour or so was taken up with business. I
dealt with my e-mails, then spoke to the London office on
the phone. The company I own, Beauly-Lister, pioneers
developable 'land with a view' in the world's most desirable,
which usually means unspoiled, locations. Our sector rivals
worry about return on cost of capital, land prices and
margin growth. We start from the premise that a magical
view is like a great work of art, almost but not quite beyond
price.
I let Audrey, my assistant, know what time our flight got
into Heathrow tomorrow morning so that the car could be
there to meet the plane.
While we were still talking, I received an incoming-mail
alert from Sam Metcalf, and hurried Audrey off the phone.
What Sam had to say was disappointingly brief.

Look, I made a mistake . . . there's really nothing to
discuss. Please don't get in touch with me again. I'm
sorry, Sam.

The e-mail came with an attachment which I opened at
once. It turned out to be another couple of lines of text. I
wondered why Sam hadn't simply added them to her original
message. It was as if she'd had a change of heart.

You can try this, she had written, I came across it while
weeding my Favourites list. Like I said, I think your daughter
left it on my comp.

There followed, on a line by itself, the address of a
website:
www. homebeforedark. net. kg

The graphics took a long time to download. I hadn't any idea
what to expect. I was nervous that something might be
revealed about Sophie that I didn't want to know. I felt a
wave of sadness at the thought of her having had secrets.
There was no home page as such, no titles welcoming you to the site, no tags or text of any kind, only a counter in the
bottom left-hand corner. It clocked me as the 572nd visitor.
The domain name, homebeforedark, suggested something
vaguely apocalyptic, perhaps to do with religion or New Age
music. I was way off.
As the central image formed, mystified at first by the backdrop
of trees, lawn and picket fence, I felt a growing
excitement: for what was slowly taking shape in front of my
eyes was a building, a white American Colonial house in a
suburban setting.
I almost called out to Laura to come and look.
I wanted to know if she'd 'get it' too, make the same connection
I'd instantly made with the 'clapboard doll's house' that
Bailey Grant had described so vividly from his memory of
Sophie's sketchbook.
It wasn't hard to see in the stylised design of the pillared
mansion on my screen where Sophie might have found her
inspiration. The graphics had that hyper-real, 3-D-ish look
of a virtual building which, like any doll's house, can be
entered and explored room by room.
This couldn't be coincidence. I looked back into our
bedroom and saw that Laura was napping. I didn't feel like
disturbing her.
There were no instructions on how to navigate the site.
Access was certain to be protected, but that didn't mean it
wasn't worth eliminating the obvious. Moving my cursor to
the gate in the picket fence, I double-clicked on the latch
with no result. I tried the US-style mailbox; the flag was in
the up position, which looked promising, but again nothing
happened. I followed the path up to the dark-green front
door and clicked on the brass knocker.
A standard pop-up box appeared at the bottom of my
screen asking for username and password. I entered a couple
of random combinations, then gave up. I could have used
George's help - my fifteen-year-old son was into 'gaming'
and nimble at reading visual clues. Laura had wanted to take
him out of school and bring him with us to Florence, but
for a number of reasons I'd vetoed the idea.
I dialled Bailey's number at the atelier. A girl, who wasn't
India, answered and said she would see if he could be
disturbed. Then put me on hold, activating a loop of the
Eagles' 'Hotel California'.
While I was waiting, I moved the cursor slowly across
the facade of the house. The windows were all shuttered,
giving the place a deserted, rather forbidding aspect. I
clicked on each of them in turn until suddenly the shutters
of an attic dormer swung back, revealing a half-open sash
window. I let out a whoop, thinking I'd found a way in,
but the window wouldn't budge. Behind it was only blackness.
'So
this is what you call work. I've often wondered.'
Laura, a towel wrapped around her, was standing by my
side looking over my shoulder at the screen. Absorbed in my
task, I hadn't heard her come up behind me.
'You recognise it?'
Just then the Eagles cut out and I held up a hand.
'Mr Lister, I've got good news . . .'
I didn't let Bailey finish. 'And I have a question. The clapboard
house in Sophie's drawings . . . front door, left lower
panel, is that a cat-flap?'
There was silence from the other end.

'How could you possibly know?'
I looked up at Laura. I wanted to hug her.
'Bailey, say Sophie's killer knew about the drawings - was
there anything inside the house he might have seen as a threat
to himself?'
'You'll have to judge for yourself. We found the sketchbook.'
I
turned to Laura. 'Did you hear what he just said?'
She nodded coolly, her gaze held by the screen. I was still
taking in the significance of all this when I felt her touch my
arm.
'If you like,' Bailey was saying, 'I can bring it along this
evening.'
'Isn't that someone trying to reach you?' Laura asked, pointing
to a blue flashing message icon on the taskbar of my
laptop.
'Here, you talk to him,' I said and handed her my mobile.
'This could be the girl . . . Sophie's friend.'
I knew it wasn't Sam Metcalf, but the blue light kept flashing
and I had to divert my wife's attention.
Two rings, then it stopped.
When it rang again, she snatched up the receiver.
'It's me, Jimmy.'
'Wait.' Sam went over to the window and looked down
into Borgo Stella. He was on the stoop immediately below,
talking into his cell; she could see the top of his head, Raybans
set jauntily among blond curls, and the shirt he had on earlier
with the wide magenta stripes. He stepped back off the sidewalk
and, holding out his arms, called up to her, 'E Samantha,
ti amo.' Jimmy always had to act the fool. 'Amore e 7 cor gentil
sono una cosa . . .'
She leant out to check both ends of the street.
A girl in jeans walked past carrying a single sunflower over
her shoulder like a fishing pole, the base of the stem wrapped
in silver foil. She could hear Puccini's 'Nessun Dorma' coming
from an open window somewhere, the big notes struggling
to soar above the traffic. Nothing else stood out. The reassuringly
familiar smell of resin wafted from the furniture
restorer's workshop two doors down.
'Okay,' she said and hung up.
She went back out to the hall and buzzed Jimmy in. Her
building didn't have CCTV or an intercom, which was why
she'd insisted he call first. She wouldn't unlock the door until
she heard his voice outside, and could check through the
fish-eye that he was alone.
'You look a little rough,' he said right off the bat.
'Thanks.' She'd done her best, rinsed the red from her eyes,
pinned back her hair, even put on make-up, but Jimmy knew
her.
He swept past her into the hall. She bolted the front door
behind him, then turned and saw him standing there, waiting
for her. She stumbled into his arms. 'God'm I glad to see
you, you have no idea.'
'Hey, hey, hey. Take it easy.'
She was shaking.
'You're later than you said. We need to get going.'
'Get going? Where?' He blinked at her. 'You mind telling
me what this is about? Has that scumbag been messing with
you again?'
Jimmy was never a big fan of Federico.
She pulled away from him, shaking her head. All she'd said
on the phone was that she was in trouble, she needed his
help. It was Jimmy all over that he hadn't hesitated, and that
it took him damn near an hour to get here.
"There's been a change of plan. I'm leaving today, I'm
booked on a five-forty train to Venice.'
'Whoa, girl, what about tonight. . . the party? You cannot not be there.'
'Just tell people ... I dunno, tell 'em I got news from
home. I had to get back for a family funeral. You'll think of
something.'
'Come on, Metcalf, you can do better than that. This is
me, Jimmy. What the fuck's going on?'
Sam smiled and touched a hand to his face. She felt uneasy
about involving him.
She'd known Jimmy Macchado since they were at college
together. After graduating from South Bend, Indiana, they'd
lost contact for a while; then bumped into each other again
by chance in Florence - he'd just arrived to start a job at
the New York Film Academy on Via dei Pucci, teaching
cinematography - and renewed their old friendship. A year
ago he'd moved out to Fiesole, but they stayed close, getting
together or talking on the phone most days.
Jimmy was the one person in Florence she could trust.
'Look, I need you to take me to Santa Maria Novella. All
you have to do is make sure I get on the train.'
'You're crazy. I'm not moving until you level with me.'
She chewed her lip, debating.
She turned and went in the living room, navigating a path
through the packing cases to the couch. He followed and
helped her clear a space so they could sit down together. She
took his hands, searching his eyes.
'You can't talk to anyone about this ... I mean it, Jimmy.'
He drew a finger and thumb across his lips. 'Zipped.'
'Remember Sophie, the English kid who was murdered?'
'How could I possibly forget?'
'I got a call yesterday from the man who killed her.' Sam
waited for a reaction, but Jimmy just looked at her. 'He warned
me not to stir up the past.'
'What? Wait a minute, back up the truck.You know her killer?'
'Only by sight. But he knows who I am.'
'So that's why you came over last night. Why didn't you
say something?'
'Because I was too goddamned scared . . . Jimmy, I think
he's been here in this apartment.' Her voice cracked a little.
'Okay, calm down, just tell me what happened. When did
you see him?'
'About ten days before Sophie was killed. It was late evening,
I went to draw the curtains and noticed a man standing across
the street. Youngish, early thirties I guess, average height, okay
looking - I didn't pay much attention. Just assumed he was


waiting for someone. But then he looked up and our eyes met.
Something about his expression made me step back.
'Don't laugh, but I thought I had an admirer. It never
occurred to me that he might be waiting for Sophie. I didn't
think anything more about it until I got back to FLorence and
heard what had happened.'
'Did you report this to the Questura'
She shook her head. 'I started to make the call, I felt guilty
enough, but then I figured if the man I saw was responsible
for Sophie's death, he knew where I lived, what I looked like.
How could the cops stop him coming after me?'
'But he didn't, did he?' Jimmy said. 'You never saw or
heard from him again - until yesterday, right? So why does
he wait a year to threaten you? Why now?'
'How would I know? I should have got the hell out of
Florence then. If it hadn't been for work, I would have done.'
'You stayed because of Federico, don't kid yourself. Did
you tell him about the call? Did you tell anyone else?'
Tears filled her eyes. 'No, no I didn't.'
Earlier, when she realised she needed help, he'd been the
first person she wanted to call. In a weak moment she'd even
started to dial his number. What stopped her was knowing
that she would go to pieces if Federico refused.
'Samantha, honey,' Jimmy said softly. 'What's going on?
Talk to me.'
She was wondering whether she should ask him to deliver
her laptop to Ed Lister's hotel. The Toshiba didn't have a
case and she'd wrapped it in clear bubble wrap and buried
it in her L.L. Bean book bag - it was out there in the hall
with her backpack and suitcase. Sam hesitated.
'I can't... Jimmy, believe me, you don't want to get mixed
up in this. It's too dangerous. We have to go now or I'll miss
my train.'
She could guess the reason Ward had come back. He



40

must've found out somehow about the files on her laptop
- files Sophie had left behind that possibly could identify
him, and which he would do anything to recover.
aj: i got like 45 minutes to get to Penn station
td: what did you want to say?
aj: it's not important... all right, last night, i dreamt you were in some kind of
trouble, something to do with Florence, with your daughter... is everything ok?






The white clapboard house vanished from the screen, leaving
behind the text of Sam Metcalf's abrupt e-mail asking me
not to contact her again. I replied anyway, thanking her for
the information and enquiring about the username and password
to the homebeforedark website. No reference to her
change of heart, no pleas to reconsider her decision - I kept
it short and to the point. I thought that was my best chance
of preserving the fragile link between us.
The messenger light had stopped flashing. I'm not sure if
Laura had noticed my reluctance to respond, or even realised
that I hadn't. She was basically allergic to computers. Smiling
at something Bailey was saying to her on the phone, she
seemed to have lost interest. I felt relieved when she turned
away, my mobile to her ear, and wandered back through the
French doors into the bedroom.
I pulled up my contact list and saw that 'adorablejoker',
the girl from Brooklyn I knew only as Jelena (she saw no
need to tell me her full name) had left a brief message, but
was 'currently offline' - or using the invisible mode. I thought
for a moment then started to type. She didn't let me finish.

adorablejoker: can't talk... running out the door. templedog: didn't you just message me?
That gave me a jolt.
I hadn't mentioned to Jelena that I was in Italy, or said
anything about following up leads on Sophie's murder. Her
intuition at times registered borderline ESP. She claimed it
was her island blood; her maternal grandmother came from
Martinique.

td: everything's fine
aj: you're not at home are you?
td: in Florence... with my wife. We fly back tomorrow
aj: it's true then

She knew about our loss. She rarely brought up the subject,
but whenever I did she'd listen quietly. Her sympathy came
across always as warm and genuine, not overdone. Ironically
it was because of Sophie that our paths had intersected in
cyberspace. After she was murdered, I'd wasted soul-destroying
hours wandering through chat rooms, hoping to pick up
a trail that would lead to her killer. In one of the rooms - I
don't remember its name - I bumped into Jelena.
The very first online conversation we'd had, six months
ago, I warned her that I was grieving for a child who'd been
murdered; but I didn't dwell on it and I avoided going into
too much detail. I'd said nothing to her, for instance, about
the possibility that Sophie met her killer on the internet.
I didn't want to scare her away.

td: we're over here collecting some of Sophie's things. We had to come back
There's a mass being said for her this evening.
aj: i understand, i wish i could say a prayer for her
td: you don't need a dispensation
aj: but it's inappropriate... Ed, something feels wrong... be careful
td: you worry too much. I'm not in any kind of trouble
aj: what's your sign again?
td: very funny... don't you have a train to catch?
aj: yeah and i'm desperate to get out of here, you keep talking to me
td: no, other way round
aj: stop fucking lying

After Jelena - or 'Jelly' as she preferred - went offline, I sat
for a moment staring at the picture of her I'd pulled up onto
my screen. It was a head and shoulders shot - the only likeness
she'd sent me of herself- and showed a skinny, brown-skinned
mop-headed girl in an olive-drab T-shirt with a faded handprinted
logo of The Clash across the front. I hadn't told her
that I'd worked with the band in the early 80s when I was
living in New York and involved in the music business. I
didn't want to seem as if I was trying to impress her. Besides,
it dated me.
She looks absurdly young, absurdly pretty. Head to one
side, chin down, she's gazing straight at camera with canted
almond eyes (she also claimed Indonesian and Dutch
ancestry) that sparkle with mischief and a 'show-me' attitude;
she has a full curved red mouth you can see wouldn't stay
still or suffer fools for long. From one low-resolution digital
image I couldn't tell if she was strictly beautiful (she insisted
she had the features of an ant), but it was a face you had to
look at, and that I couldn't look at without wanting to smile.
'Eddie!' Laura was calling to me from the bedroom. 'We're
going to be late.'
I closed the file, then shut down my laptop.
Sooner or later, a girl as bright and attractive as Jelena was
bound to meet somebody (I half-suspected she already had)
and that would be the end of our unorthodox but harmless
friendship. She was twenty-five years old, I was forty-six, a
family man - and the differences only began there.
There was nothing shady going on between us. In the real
world, I'd have put money on a middle-aged businessman
enjoying private conversations with a woman young enough
to be his daughter being up to no good. Maybe I had a blind
spot where Jelly was concerned. But, as far as I was concerned,
she was just a charming cipher, a ghost at the other end of
a computer terminal.
In her company I escaped reality for a while. It was that
simple.

Without Jimmy's help, Sam would never have made it.
Arriving at the station just after five thirty, he carried her
bags for her as they fought their way across Santa Maria
Novella's triumphal concourse - she hadn't bargained on a
local soccer game swelling the rush-hour crowds with overexcited
fans - and out onto the track for the Venice Express.
Jimmy, pouring sweat, tickets between his teeth, helped her
board the train and find her reserved window-seat with only
minutes to spare.
'Trust you to pick the observation car,' he gasped.
She looked out the small grimy windows and pulled a face.
An old woman in widow's black nodded politely from the
seat opposite. Sam smiled at her and sank down onto the
banquette with a sigh.
She felt giddy with relief. She glanced up at Jimmy who
was trying to find room for her suitcase on the rack, when
the train suddenly jolted forward.
'Forget about that. Go, or we'll both end up in Venice.' It
had crossed her mind to ask him to keep her company. 'I'll
come to the door. I got something for you . . .' She shooed
him away.
The moment his back was turned Sam unzipped her
suitcase. The silk robe lay on the top. She'd bought it for
Federico - that didn't matter now. She wanted Jimmy to have
the robe, but there was no way she could give it him wrapped
only in tissue paper. She'd thrown away the elegant box it
came in to make more room in her case.
Sam hesitated, then emptied the contents of her L.L. Bean
book bag onto the table. She transferred her laptop to the
suitcase, covered it with clothes and zipped the lid.
Asking the old lady to keep an eye on her stuff, she ran
down the aisle with the distinctive white and black book
bag.
'Oh my God,' Jimmy went, as she handed it over, 'just
what I've always wanted . . . what is it?'
Sam laughed and leaned down from the carriage steps to
kiss him on the mouth. 'I owe you, you, big time.'
She could see the guard walking up the track slamming
doors. There was nobody else on the platform. Jimmy took
a peek inside the canvas bag and whistled. 'This must have
cost a small fortune . . .'
She heard the clatter of heels. A woman ran past.
'If it's the wrong size, you don't like the colour, whatever
. . . you can always change it. . . you know the store on Via
Tornabuoni.'
'What about this?' He held up the bag. 'I'll mail it to
you.'
The door slammed shut. As the train began to shunt
forward, Jimmy walked along beside her carriage. She
caught the chirruping first bars to 'O Sole Mio' and smiled
as she saw him reach for his cell phone and consult the
display- Sam felt another twinge of guilt at the thought that she might have exposed her friend to danger, but as
far as she could tell they weren't followed. She was going
to miss him.
She mouthed through the window, 'Look after yourself.'
Then Jimmy stepped back, gave a little wave and slid from view.

After dark the main gates of the Villa Nardini are closed and the family use a less conspicuous entrance in the ivy-covered
perimeter wall on Via Rucellai. I got there at seven. The
Nardinis were away, but I had their permission to go anywhere I liked in the house and grounds. Coming home from a party,
Sophie had let herself in this same door the night she was killed.
I'd run the sequence countless times in my head. Her murderer sees his chance and steps out swiftly from the shadows
I noticed a magnolia tree across the street that shaded the pavement. There were plenty of places he could have hidden.
But was that really how it happened? Wouldn't she have
screamed, struggled, tried to run for it? Morelli believed she let the perpetrator' into the grounds because she knew him. Via Rucellai is a quiet, well-lit residential street with a boutique
hotel on the corner and a retirement home for nuns overlooking
the villa's garden.
No one saw or heard anything.
My hand had hardly touched the bell when the nail
studded oak door swung inwards. Rutillio, the old portiere, stood framed in the doorway; his long secretive face, caught
by the light in half profile, might have been a detail from
a Renaissance painting. A gentle soul, who'd been kind to
Sophie - I'd spotted him at the requiem mass earlier Rutillio
had broken down when giving evidence at the
inquest. He greeted me with a sombre, 'Buona sera, Signor
Lister
I was glad I didn't have enough Italian to make conversation
as I followed him across a cobbled forecourt, lit by
a string of lanterns, and out onto the terrace. The formal
garden lay ahead, stretching away into a reservoir of private
darkness.
It was a warm, starless evening. Rutillio handed me a torch
and, thanking him, I took the way he indicated around a huge
chalice-shaped fountain and down some steps into the
parterre. I'd no interest in the house.
When we came before, I'd helped Laura pack up our
daughter's room and I didn't need to see it again. Sophie
was always telling us she would have preferred to live somewhere
less grand, so she could experience the 'real' Florence.
Sometimes I wonder, if we'd let her find her own level, whether
she would still be alive today. We weren't over-protective
parents, but her mother . . . no, we both felt that she'd be
safe here in this haven of privilege and tranquillity.
On that visit Laura told me about a dream she'd had of
wandering through the villa's reception rooms (all herringbone
parquet floors and gilt chairs lined up along the walls) throwing
open one set of double doors after another, calling Sophie's
name, searching for her. She insists now she had this dream
weeks before the murder. I'm not sure if her memory can be
relied on. She certainly never spoke to me about a premonition
. but then I didn't always confide in her either.
She knew I was coming here tonight. I would have liked
Laura at my side, but wild horses couldn't have dragged her
back to the place where our angel was taken from us. The
kill site, the police called it.

A procession of classical statues, time-worn allegorical figures
on marble pedestals, loomed up in the light of my torch then
fell back into darkness as I walked down the central avenue,
the gravel crunching under my shoes. It's not known if Sophie
came this way that night. The labyrinth of paths, laurel hedges,
and medulla-shaped borders didn't yield a single clue as to
which route she took, or how her killer entered and left the
grounds.
The last time I was here the police refused to let me
enter the grotto, the scene of the crime, because it was still
being examined by Forensics. I'd just come come from
identifying Sophie's body at the mortuary and I remember
standing in front of the limonaia, the colonnaded shelter
where lemon trees are kept in winter, and staring into that
dank cordoned-off opening, the white-suited figures creeping
about inside like maggots, and being overwhelmed by
a sense of utter devastation, unable to comprehend why this had happened.
I hadn't returned to lay Sophie's ghost, or to try to come
to terms with her loss (I knew I wasn't going to find peace
or 'closure', a word so false it makes me angry every time I
hear it), but the image of the grotto had become embedded
in my consciousness. It was like a black hole, a decaying star
at the centre of my existence into which I sometimes felt
everything was disappearing.
I needed to bear witness in some way to the absolute wrong
that was perpetrated here on my own flesh and blood ... I
saw this as something left undone.
Yes, I took it personally.

Outside the limonaia, I stopped and looked back, raking the
beam across the shadowy rooms of the garden. It had been
laid out long before the villa itself was built, to conform with
some now-forgotten symbology - its hidden meaning, Sophie
told me once, supposedly to do with 'a secret trail leading
from the darkness of ignorance to the light of wisdom'. I
wasn't into Renaissance gardens or the occult, but the
murderer could have been.
Taking the path I remembered leading into the boscos, the
unkempt corner at the far end of the garden, I soon came
on the mound of the grotto. It had been formed originally
to look like a natural cave with rusticated boulders piled
around the opening. A couple of straggly cypresses stood
sentry outside.
I lit a cigarette to steady my nerves. Now that I was here,
I felt a reluctance - repulsion is closer - to enter the place. I
had to force myself over the threshold of what I saw desolately
as the mouth of hell. I felt afraid for her.
The torch cast my shadow ahead of me, picking up the
carved stone benches either side of a pedimented doorway.
Beyond lay the circular chamber with domed ceiling and flagstone
floor where Sophie had been discovered by the Nardinis'
dogs, a yapping posse of Jack Russell terriers.
Just inside and to the left of the doorway the chalk outline
tracing her body was still clearly visible. Somebody had
neglected to wash it away. I could understand why not many
would want to come down here after what happened. But I
wasn't prepared for that vivid diagram, for the stillness, for
the scene to be so . . . fresh.
She looked as if she was sleeping.
The walls of the grotto were smooth and plain apart from a
stone rosette at the apex of the dome. An iron grille incorporated
into its design covered an air shaft that I imagined
would also admit a little light by day.
Advancing to the centre, I sank down onto my haunches,
then slowly revolved the beam of the torch through 360
degrees, exploring the floor and sides of the chamber; there
was nothing, not even a dead leaf or a cobweb. It was as if
the place had been swept clean, leaving only the chalk diagram.
I lay the torch on the ground pointing in its direction.
At the requiem, Bailey had told the mythical story of the
first drawing, about a young girl who sees her lover, a soldier,
asleep by the fire and longs to preserve his beauty. Taking a
charred stick from the embers, she traces his shadow thrown
onto the wall of the cave by the firelight and so makes permanent
his presence in the world.
'A simple act of love,' Bailey had said, 'but in her instinctive
urge to make a mark, to record and so stay the fleeing moment
lies an antidote to the human condition.'

I knelt forward and put my hand inside the chalk outline.
I felt the stone flags . . . they would have been colder on the
night. One theory, supported by the bruising, was that the
killer struck her from behind somewhere in the garden, then
carried her in here and strangled her. He would have had to
have been strong.
In his valediction, Bailey pointed out that we should be
grateful for the life of a young artist who 'drew like an
angel' and left something of herself behind in her work. I
disagreed, but liked him for saying it. After mass we stood
on the steps of San Miniato looking out over Florence.
Laura was crying, just barely holding it together, and I had
my arm around her. Bailey came up to us and I was afraid
he would want to talk, but he simply handed over Sophie's
sketchbook and left.
I didn't have time to do more than leaf through the drawings
on our way back to the hotel. Even a quick glance confirmed
what I already suspected: that they were inspired by the white house in the website Sam Metcalf had found on her computer.
A page had been cut out from near the front of the sketchbook.
Bailey couldn't say whether this was recent, but he assured
me that no drawings were missing.
I switched off the torch.
In the pitch dark, the rise and fall of my breathing, magnified
by the sepulchral acoustics, reminded me of a sleeping animal,
or something heavy being dragged in effortful stages across
the floor. The crypt had an earthy, not unpleasant smell.
The truth is I could never face up to the reality of Sophie's
murder - it was partly why I had to come here. I wanted to
replay the sights and sounds of what was done to my child
in this dismal spot. I wanted to confront the demon. I tried
to imagine her state of mind . . . there was a shield in the
way. Oh Jesus fucking Christ, you have to know how scared
she must have been.
I began to shiver although it wasn't cold.
I remembered the last time I saw Sophie, we were standing
on Via del Moro outside the restaurant where Laura and I
dined last night. We'd had an argument, nothing major, and
she seemed a little down. I almost asked her if everything
was all right, but Sophie brightened and the moment went
past. This was only a week before it happened, when it seems
certain she was already being stalked.
Why didn't she say anything to me? Why didn't I pick up
on the fact that she was afraid? I've asked myself often enough.
At the time I was preoccupied with work, under pressure,
putting the finishing touches to the deal that made me rich
enough never to have to worry about money again. She may
have felt I was too busy to bother with her problems I find
that hard to bear.

I reached a decision then, right there in that hell-hole where the horror caught up with her, which was as binding as a
solemn oath. After fourteen months, I didn't need to analyse
my pledge or question its legitimacy. The police, who'd
achieved nothing in all that time, had as good as admitted
defeat, closed the case. The rage against injustice which I'd
suppressed for long enough had distilled into cold clear
resolve. I've always had drive, the voice inside you that will
never, never let you give up, but from now on, I decided, I
would devote all my energy and resources to avenging
Sophie's death.
If it took the rest of my life I was going to find him.

I'd heard something: a soft, dry whirring sound that seemed
to come from above my head. Resisting the urge to snap on the torch, I held my breath and listened. The whirring noise
stopped, but for a moment longer I thought I could hear
breathing that I knew wasn't mine.
By now my eyes had adjusted to the blackness. I was
conscious of a faint glow around the vent at the top of the dome. It came from a tiny segment of the night sky that had
just grown darker. A shadow had passed over it as if someone
had moved their head into the opening and was looking down
at me through the rusted grille.
Careful not to make any noise, I reached for the torch that lay on the floor beside me and closed my fingers around the handle. Then, in one swift movement, I swung it upward and, aiming at the centre of the ceiling, hit the switch.
The beam sprang onto the target. Blinking at the sudden
brightness, I squinted along the shaft of light. I can't be sure
of exactly what it was I saw glinting back at me from behind the grille. Possibly the lens of a camera, or a pair of glasses,
or a refracting eye ... it had a metallic bluish tint.

The next instant it was gone.
It took me at most thirty seconds to scramble from the grotto's
inner chamber to the top of the mound. There was no one
there. My heart still racing, I shone the torch all around,
throwing the beam into the undergrowth, up into the trees
- it revealed nothing unusual, no movement anywhere this
end of the garden.
Searching the bushes on the mound, I found the outlet for
the air-vent easily enough. It was capped by a heavy stone
cowl. The ground round about showed no sign of having
been disturbed.
Yet I knew I hadn't imagined what happened, I knew I'd
seen something.
Just then I heard the explosive chatter of a motorino starting up the far side of the perimeter wall on Via della
Scala. I wheeled around, swinging the light up to the top
of the wall, when my mobile went off in my pocket like an
alarm clock.
Laura! I'd promised to call her before seven, and it had
gone clean out of my head. I answered without waiting for
her to speak.
'Sweetheart, I'm sorry . . . I'm on my way now. All well?'
There was a long pause.
'All well here. How you doing?'
It was a man's voice, husky, lilting.
'Who is this?' My first thought was that somebody was with Laura, but that made no sense. There was a sudden dull
thump from the other end of the line, followed by incoherent
mumbling.
I glanced at the mobile's display screen, it was empty.
'You know what?' The sing-song voice had a strained
quality, as if the caller was exerting himself. His breathing
came hard. 'This isn't ... a real good time . . . not right
now.'
'I think you must have a wrong number,' I said.


'Take it easy, Ed.'
'Wait, who is this?'
But the line was already dead.

Ward tasted a mouthful of the pappardelle and nodded. 'Molto
buono . ¦ ¦ excellent,' he said to the waiter who'd brought the
plate to his table and insisted on waiting for a verdict, 'milk
grazie, signore.'
He wanted to be left alone now to enjoy his food.
The home-made pasta and sugo di cinghiale complemented each other perfectly. He drank some wine and chased the rich musky flavour of wild boar to the back of his throat. He was relieved it hadn't triggered, as sometimes happened when
he was in a 'feeling' mood, an explosion of colour. The cuisine here was spectacular enough, he didn't want the experience
blown off by a firework display.
He was sitting where she sat that evening with her father.
He thought of asking the maitre d' about the tall quiet
English couple who dined here last night. Same table? Ward was curious, but couldn't risk drawing attention to himself.
If Ed and Laura walked in off the street right now - he'd
checked there was no reservation in the name of Lister - he
wondered how it'd feel. Would they recognise him, or sense his presence? Would he somehow give himself away? The idea of observing them at close quarters excited him.
It would be like Sophie bringing him home to meet her folks. The only reason he chose this place - one of the few
authentic Tuscan restaurants in Florence where the menu
wasn't limited to white beans, offal and steak - was because
he wanted to feel close to her again.
He cleaned the last of the dark sauce on his plate with a
piece of bread and put it in his mouth, then licked the small
graze on the knuckle of his thumb. He knew he was playing
a dangerous game coming back to Florence.
Last night he'd carried out a quick search of Sam Metcalf's
stripped-down apartment, working around but not touching
the tiers of boxes and packing cases in every room - a laptop
wasn't an item anyone would choose to ship.
He wasn't sure if he'd been right to warn her. He'd called
Sam from the airplane, out on the tarmac, as soon as the
seat-belt signs were switched off. When she realised who
he was - that was a moment to savour - he'd heard fear
tint her voice. It triggered one of his episodes, keeping him
in his seat long after the other passengers. So far a simple
phone call had achieved the desired effect. She'd lost her
nerve about meeting up with Ed Lister. But the potential
for trouble was still there - he'd been left with a situation
that could easily get out of control.
He'd seen Sam Metcalf just once, from a distance. Ward
never forgot a face. The snapshot of her he'd found in the
bathroom (her arm around some greaseball at the top of
Giotto's bell tower) matched the one in his head.
How well, he wondered, did she remember him?
Where he'd screwed up was assuming the laptop was in
the tote bag Sam gave her friend at the station. He should've
noticed from the way he held it that the weight was different;
but he was too far away. Plus Jimmy walked funny.
He'd followed him down Via Tornabuoni, cruising the
windows of the designer stores, staying just close enough
to move in quickly if it became necessary. Ward knew all
about shadowing people. When he saw the subject dive into
Ferragamo, he felt certain it was to meet Ed Lister and hand
over the laptop, but a passing glance through the window
revealed Jimbo, swathed in a Hugh Heffner-style silk robe,
admiring himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.
The canvas bag at his feet.
His main course arrived - veal escalope al limone served
with baby leaf spinach. He was going to be sitting up on a
train half the night, he didn't want to feel stuffed. He looked
at his watch: five to eight. He asked for the coffee and his
check to be brought at the same time. Then, as the waiter
turned away, he called him back.
'And, signore, a slice of your chocolate torta...' He shrugged
and gave a self-indulgent little smile. 'What the hell.'

It was in an empty courtyard off one of the narrow back
streets behind the Piazza Antinori that he caught up with
Jimmy Macchado. He was halfway in the door of the
apartment when Ward called out, 'Hi, you don't know me
. . .' Stepping from the shadows with his hands up, big
friendly smile. 'But when I passed you just then, I thought,
hey, seen that face before. Aren't you a friend of Sam
Metcalf . . . ?'
They'd taken it from there. Small world, fellow Americans
abroad, dear old Florence, everybody knows everybody . . .
and so on. He found it came naturally to him playing the
flirtatious straight guy - hesitant, sincere, butch-lite practically
irresistible to Jimmy's kind.
His mistake, the dumb schmuck, was going on about how
he'd love to invite him in, only it wasn't his place ... he was
just cat-sitting for a friend. Had to water the plants too, every
other day, for a month.
By the time Ward got to see that there was nothing in the
tote bag but the desperate-playboy robe, it was too late to let
him go.
The voice, lime-green against the blue rhombus that turned
slowly between his ears, kept asking the annoying question,
why?
Jimmy was begging for it, that's why.
C'mon, you can do better than that.
You really want to know?
You're dying to tell me . . . what didya have to kill him for,
Ward?
He was getting lime-green needles now. He picked up a
spoon and began working his way methodically through the
chocolate cake.
He couldn't let him go because, one, the little cocksucker'd
seen his face. Two, it was obvious that Sam had told Jimmy
everything. And, three, the added bonus, he'd given him an
address for her in Venice - a small hotel on the island of
Burano.
He didn't want to talk about this any more.

Ward slung his rucksack over one shoulder and set off down
Via del Moro. It had been hot and stuffy in the restaurant
and he was glad to breathe the slightly fresher air of the
streets. He crossed to the opposite sidewalk and lingered for
a moment in an unlit doorway. It was here that he'd witnessed,
it seemed like only yesterday, Sophie and her old man saying
goodbye for the last time.
The word goodbye had taste and weight ... it felt like
something oily slipping through his fingers. One day he hoped
to tell Ed about the love he felt for his daughter. Try to make
him understand that he and Soph were meant.
At the corner with Via del Sole, he looked back again and
saw that a black Mercedes cab had pulled up in front of
Garga. He waited to see who would get out.
It wasn't the Listers. He continued on his way, making a
nostalgic detour that took him past the Badia, the church
where Dante supposedly first set eyes on his Beatrice. He
had left himself plenty of time to walk to the railroad station
and still catch the night train to Venice.
Venice


'Notice anything going on in this one?' I asked Will.
The sketchbook lay on the table between us, open at an
exterior view of the house. I drew his attention to an attic
dormer with the shutters thrown back revealing a half-open
sash window.
The same dormer I'd seen come to life on the homebeforedark website.
'You may need a magnifying glass,' I said.
Will gave me a disparaging look over the top of his glasses,
then pushed them up onto his forehead and bent low to
examine the drawing.
'Isn't that someone standing there,' he said, 'a figure behind
the casement?'
I nodded. 'What was Sophie's state of mind when she drew
this?'
He sat back in his chair, considering. 'You say the drawings
are based on a website this friend of hers claims Sophie left
on her laptop?'
'A virtual house. I haven't seen inside yet, but the facades
are identical.' I'd explained to Will about Sam Metcalf and
our aborted meeting in Florence. I'd heard nothing more
from her.
'This really isn't my field, Ed.'
'I wasn't asking for your opinion as a shrink.'
Besides being Laura's brother and one of my oldest
friends, DrWill Calloway is a senior consultant in psychiatry
at the Maudsley Hospital. He put his hands together in a
prayer shape. 'Yes, you were.' Little smile. 'I get a sense of
reined-in emotions, issues of flight or concealment, fear perhaps - that comes across quite strongly. Doesn't stop
the drawings, of course, being the product of Sophie's own
imagination.
He pushed a plate of sandwiches towards me. Laura and
I had left Florence early that morning and I'd called Will on
the way in from Heathrow to ask if he could meet me for
lunch. We'd ended up ordering from the hospital cafeteria.
'What if it was a real house,' I said, 'an actual place?'
Will turned to another drawing, an interior, that showed
two empty chairs facing an ancient cabinet TV in the corner
of a bleak-looking lounge. The picture on the miniature screen
was the famous scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's where George
Peppard kisses Audrey Hepburn in the rain. I suspect Sophie
had added the tiny image as a personal touch. The movie
was a favourite of hers.
He closed the sketchbook. 'I'd like to borrow this, if it's all
right with you. I want to show these drawings to a colleague.
We need an objective opinion.'
Will was silent a moment. He'd been particularly fond of
his niece. Then he said, with a sigh, 'My guess is she knew
she was going to be murdered.'

'So what did you want to talk about that couldn't wait?'
The question, though I was half expecting it, caught me
off guard.
'Will, for Christ's sake . . .' I'd been describing what
happened last night in the grotto at the Villa Nardini. Brushing
aside his observation that I was distraught, full of anger,
possibly in a hallucinatory state, I insisted there had been
someone up on the mound peering down at me through the
vent. I didn't imagine it. Or the call to my mobile. 'I think I
actually spoke to Sophie's murderer.'
He smiled. 'I know you, normally you'd have gone straight
to the office.'
'You're not listening. I'm almost sure it was him.'
'Did you call the police? Your friend, Morelli?'
'What would have been the point?' I'd told Will earlier
about my discouraging visit to the Questura and how it made
me realise finally that it was down to me now to get justice
for Sophie. 'Don't worry, I'll follow this up. I'll find him.'
He nodded slowly. 'How's Laura, by the way?'
'She's fine, fine, I think Florence did her good. The requiem
helped.'
'And how about you? Aside from your . . . ordeal.'
I took a bite out of a sandwich, tuna and sweetcorn. The
conversation was taking a predictable turn. Before we left,
I'd told Will I had hopes of our trip bringing Laura and me
closer together.
'We're surviving,' I said, answering his next question before
he could ask it. 'I won't pretend it's any better than that.' I drank some coffee. I wanted to smoke. Will, imperturbable,
knew how to wait.
'There's nobody else ... in case that's what you're thinking.'
He
was aware that we were having problems, and that
Sophie's death had widened the cracks. I don't know if Laura
ever spoke to him about our marriage (somehow I doubt it),
but I did from time to time. Will was scrupulously careful
not to get involved or take sides. 'Never even crossed my
mind.'
He'd introduced me to his sister the spring of 1983, when
we all happened to be in New York together. Laura was over
visiting friends and I'd just come back for another bite of the





62
63
Apple after a disastrous debut a few years before had forced
a hasty withdrawal. Will, who was doing his doctoral thesis
at Columbia, helped with my rehabilitation, gave me a place
to stay until I got on my feet and put me in touch with all
the right people, including my future wife.
As he once said himself, he had a lot to answer for.
I looked around his neat, antiseptic office, the NHS-green
walls relieved only by his patients' art offerings. Maybe I was
prompted by the therapeutic setting, or by an uneasy
conscience, but I never intended to bring up the subject of
Jelena.
'I need your advice, Will, and this time I don't mean
professional advice.'
'You just hate to part with money.' He was deadpan behind
his owlish, horn-rimmed glasses. 'Fire away.'
'I met someone ... in a chat room on the internet.'
Silence. Then he burst out laughing. 'For Christ's sake,
Ed.'
'I was hoping that's how you'd react,' I said evenly.
'I can't help it . . . it's just so perfect. The last person in
the world I'd expect to hook up with an online chick. Is she
legal?'
'Maybe this is not such a good idea.'
As a rule I keep things pretty close to my chest. But if I
ever feel the need to unload I can depend on Will to take the
piss. Which isn't a bad arrangement, if you're prone (as I've
been told I am) to taking yourself too seriously. After Sophie
died, I opened up to him - as a friend, not as a shrink, though
his understanding of the psychological effects of loss did no
harm. That was different.
'Why do I get the feeling you're being defensive?'
He meant it as a joke, but I couldn't really see the funny
side.
'Until a year ago,' I retaliated, 'I had hardly any experience
of the internet. I used to warn Sophie about the dangers
without really understanding what they were.'
Will slouched down in his chair. 'I'm sorry, Eddie.'

'When the police admitted they hadn't the resources to
hunt for her murderer in cyberspace . . . well, I know more
now'
'Remember you telling me. No stone unturned.'
'I told you I was posting bulletins on MySpace and writing
on Facebook walls asking for information. What I didn't tell
you was that I began trawling the Net using Sophie's old ID,
pretending to be her, hoping the stalker might respond.
'In the end I found it too painful, but I went on haunting
the chat rooms, looking for someone who might have come
across Stormypetrel - Sophie's screen-name. I'd talk to
anybody, approach total strangers and start telling them her
story - I know, it sounds pathetic, but it helped. At least I
felt I was doing something.
'Anyway, that's how I got talking to this girl. It wasn't a
pick-up, Will. She lives in Brooklyn, she's twenty-five, single,
teaches kindergarten ... oh and she plays the piano - surprisingly
well. She doesn't think she has a hope of being accepted,
but her dream is to study music at the Conservatoire in Paris.'
Will was looking at me, not saying anything.

For a moment it was as if his sister was sitting there.
There's a strong family resemblance. He has her candid,
light blue eyes, a Calloway feature; though Will's dark-haired
and sturdily built, as opposed to willowy blonde. They have
a certain way of tilting the head, the same appraising smile
- emotional detachment, a coolness at the centre, is another
family trait.
'We got on right away. She's bright, she makes me laugh.'
'Have you met her? Seen her on cam? Spoken to her?'
I shook my head.
'But I take it you know what she looks like?'
'She sent me a photo . . . reasonably attractive.'
'How can you be sure it's her?' He sighed. 'Does she know
you're married? How old you are? Who you are? You didn't
give her your real name, did you?'
'Look, I really don't think she's interested in my money.'
'Then she can't know how much you're worth,' he said
drily. 'So what's the attraction? Sex, I suppose. But for her?'
I didn't mind being grilled by Will. It was probably what
I wanted: someone to ask the awkward, obvious questions.
He needed to get one thing straight, though.
'This is not about sex.'
Will lifted an eyebrow.
'We just seem to hit it off in some mysterious way.'
He groaned. 'Ed, I see a lot of patients who are involved
in online relationships. They all "hit it off in some mysterious
way". Strangers project their daydreams and fantasies onto
each other. It's called affective transference. But don't underestimate
the seductive power of a wishful e-mail. Cyber affairs
can cause havoc'
'It's not even close to being an affair. I can walk away from
this any time, just hit the delete switch . . . And so can she.'
He looked sceptical. 'Have you told Laura?'
'What for? I'm not playing away from home. You know I'd
never do anything to hurt Laura. I said there's no one else
and I meant it.'
'Then why are you telling me?'
'Her life is so different to mine half the time I might as
well be talking to somebody from another planet. And yet it
feels ... I don't know, I feel I can be myself with her.' I
shifted in my seat. 'She helps me to forget.'
'The analogy is opening up to a stranger on a train, someone
you know you'll never meet again.' It was the doctor speaking
now. 'You've had a rough year of it, Ed. It's not hard to see
why this happened. Only you're wrong if you think there can
be intimacy without strings. I don't like to preach, but the
person you should be . . .'
I cut him off. 'Then don't.'
'You asked my advice.'Will took off his glasses and rubbed
his eyes. I was braced for his midlife crisis lecture, but all I
got was a warning. 'She could be setting you up for blackmail,
some kind of scam. Think what would happen if this came
out.'
'If what came out? It's not even an issue,' I said calmly.
'You're flying blind, Ed. People find not what they want
on the Web, but what they wish for: that's why it can be
dangerous. Just remember you can't see the expression on her
face when she's typing to you.'
Will glanced at his watch, then leaned back in his chair
and put his hands behind his head. 'Your fifty minutes are
up. I have other patients to see.'
'Very funny.' I made a one-fingered gesture.
'So what are you going to do?' he asked as he walked me
to the door. 'How are you going to find this person?'
For a moment I thought we were still talking about the
girl.

In the car, on the way from the Maudsley to my office, I
booted up my laptop and checked my mailbox again. I'd sent
Jelena a message earlier asking if she'd arrived safely in DC.
Her reply was short and breezy - you didn't have to see the
expression on her face to know that the friendliness was
genuine.
Will had got her all wrong.

adorablejoker: Well, hi right back at ya! I'm doing ok. slept the whole way
on the train - could've used some company, it's hot as hell down here, looks
like I'll only be gone one week instead of two. I gotta go now. take it easy,
Ed. JELLY

Take it easy, Ed? I smiled.
I'd lain awake half the night rewinding and playing back
in my head those same words from the conversation on the
mound. Trying to picture the circumstances of the sinister
thuds and mumblings I'd overheard.
I wrote myself a memo: Phil to ask his diagnostic people
at Secure Solutions is it possible to trace a call made to a
mobile phone when the number has been withheld? If yes,
when can I expect a result?
The only person in Florence I'd given my number to (apart
from Bailey) was Sam Metcalf. I wasn't sure if there was a
connection, the call could have originated anywhere, but I
could see now why Sam might have had cold feet and asked
me not to get in touch with her again: she was afraid one of
us was being watched.
'Take it easy, Ed.' Had I really heard that hoarse 'Ed', or
could the last, upwardly inflected syllable have been an 'eh'?
'Take it easy, eh?' I'd told the caller he had a wrong number.
But, either way, I felt sure contact had been deliberate.
I sat back, lit an unfiltered Gauloise and, gazing out at the
rain-slick streets of Olympia, turned up the volume on Bob
Marley's 'One Love'. I thought about Jelly deliquescing in
the sultry heat ofWashington DC. It was a dangerous contrast
and the music didn't help. I found myself wishing I was over
there with her.
Take it easy, Ed . . . Had to be coincidence.


Leaning over the bridge, Sam aimed her camera at the
illustrated wake left by the vaporetto. Wanting to get the way
the lemon sky heaved and shivered on the surface of the
canal; the facades of houses that rippled along its banks until
they dissolved into shadow. You had to be an artist like Turner,
she thought, to capture the nuances of light, the broken
reflections . . . the timeless aspect of Venice.
A figure in a black shawl appeared on the landing-stage,
giving the picture the focus it needed. Sam hesitated, and
got off a shot just as the next herd of sightseers strayed into
her viewfinder.
When she looked again the landing-stage was empty, the
light gone from the water . . . well, sugar. She moved on
before anyone could ask her directions to San Marco, or what
part of the US she was from. One thing about digital - you
could always edit out the aliens later.
On the other side of the bridge, she crossed a small, tree
shaded square and ducked into a church that from the outside
looked like an ordinary house with shuttered windows. Its
dark, stone-scented interior felt deliciously cool. She sank
down on an empty pew in front of the altarpiece, an insipid
ascension attributed to Veronese, which you had to feed coins
into a light-box to illuminate.
Sam just wanted to take the load off.
She was staying out on Burano, fifty minutes by vaporetto
from the centre of Venice - a schlep, if you happened to
forget your credit card or needed to run back (as she had just
done) for a shower and to change clothes. Not that she was
complaining: the secluded little island felt like sanctuary and
her room at the Albergo Zulian, a modest hotel in a row of
bonbon-coloured fishermen's houses recommended by Jimmy
Macchado, had a view over the Lagoon.
She'd called Jimmy yesterday to let him know she'd arrived
safely. And then again this morning. So far she'd heard nothing
back, which sucked - the SOB could at least have thanked
her for the robe - but was not that unusual for him. Sometimes
he'd hole up at the house in Fiesole and go 'off the air' for
days at a time. He'd mentioned having a backlog of scripts
to read this weekend.
She looked at her watch: just after seven, plenty of time
to get to the restaurant.
Unlike Jimmy, an old Venetian hand, Sam didn't know
the city well. She'd spent the past two days sightseeing,
discovering for herself the shimmering glory of the place:
it had helped keep her mind off things. Revived by the salt
air and strong clear light of the Adriatic, she was starting
to unwind.
What happened in Florence - the creepy phone-call, the
suspicion someone had been in her apartment, her own almost
hysterical reaction - now seemed remote and unreal, like a
dream she had to make an effort to recall. Unpleasant though
it had been, the episode had allowed her to close a door on
the past. The compulsion to look over her shoulder was just
about gone.
Then, last night, a chance encounter had given Sam's still
fragile sense of security a boost. At a chamber concert in the
Chiesa San Bartolomeo, she'd found herself sitting next to a
couple from Princeton who turned out to know her parents.
Balfe and Fern Rivers were 're-doing Europe', and when they
heard that Sam was on her way to Paris, had insisted she
drive up to Vienna with them. She found their company


numbingly dull, and Balfe had a louche gleam that could
turn out to be a problem; but she saw the advantages and
didn't hesitate.
Dinner tonight was with them, and some Italians they knew.
She took off her glasses and rubbed the lenses on the hem
of her silk shirt. Then rose and with a token bow, still polishing
her glasses, walked slowly down the aisle. At the back of the
church, starting to fill now for evening mass, she noticed a
woman in a black shawl who reminded her of the figure on
the landing-stage.
As she drew closer, Sam put her glasses back on and saw
that the woman was in fact a young girl - pale, sickly looking.
Over the bench next to her was draped an empty black rucksack
that she'd mistaken, in her myopic state, for a wrap.

In the tangle of winding alleys and dilapidated squares behind
the palazzos of the Grand Canal, it's easy to become disorientated.
Sam threaded the labyrinth, her MP3 player tuned
to a local rock station, letting instinct guide her. There were
enough people around not to have to worry about getting
lost. As long as she kept the setting sun at her back, she
figured, she couldn't go far wrong.
The osteria was in Cannaregio, near the northern quays,
not far from Campo Mori. She'd looked it up on the map
before leaving the hotel, then in the rush to catch the vaporetto
had managed somehow to leave the map behind.
As she wandered deeper into the sestiere, glimpses of the
Salute's great white dome flying above the rooftops grew less
frequent until Sam could no longer rely on it to get her
bearings. She asked an elegant couple for directions; the man
smiled and made a flat-handed, chopping gesture: 'Avanti
dritto, sempre dritto.'
A block further on, 'straight ahead' was open to interpretation.
She thought of calling the restaurant, but she'd jotted down
the name and telephone number on the back of the map.
Jimmy, of course, had a theory about getting around Venice.
'Where you're going,' he'd told her in the taxi, 'does not
depend on which path you take. In Venice, there are fabulous things on every path. Don't worry about the path you choose
taking you to your destination. Your destination will find you.'
Sure. Sure it will.
She crossed another bridge into a square paved with
herringbone tiles; she noted the church with its seventeenth
century Baroque facade, the pharmacy on the corner. There
were two exits: Sam chose the calle that looked least deserted.
She started down it; the radio playing Foo Fighters' 'All
My Life'.
It had been one of Sophie's favourite songs. Yesterday Sam
had found a message from the dead girl's father on her cell
urging her to call him. She felt badly about erasing it. But
there was no way now she was getting back in touch.
One thing still bothered her: how did 'Ward' know she'd
contacted Ed Lister and that they were planning to meet?
He must have somehow intercepted her e-mail; or, if he lived
in Florence, maybe monitored her phone-calls - it was possible
he'd been keeping his eye on her since before the murder.
Sam had on her Prada sandals, white Capri pants and a
gold silk shirt tied at the waist. In Florence, she'd learnt to
dress to avoid attracting attention; here, she didn't mind if
she turned a head or two - it had been a while since she felt
good about the way she looked. She could feel sweat trickling
under her arms.
About halfway along the footpath, she saw a glimmer of
water ahead that by her reckoning shouldn't have been
there. Then, around the next bend, the calle ended abruptly
in a terrace with crumbling classical pillars looking out over
a wide, luminous expanse to the islands of the Lagoon. It
was like stepping up onto a stage. Feeling exposed and
slightly bewildered, Sam removed her earphones so she
could appreciate the serenity of the view. Somewhere a
child was crying.
The sun had just gone and she stood watching the light
drain from the long reaches of sea and sky, wondering if her
decision to leave Italy was the right one. She'd become
accustomed to being surrounded by beauty. She gave a shiver
at the thought of relocating to Pittsburgh, where she'd applied
for a job on the curatorial staff of the Sands Taylor Museum.
She lifted the back of a hand up to her forehead.
Earlier she'd spoken to her mother, who was almost
incoherent with excitement that her baby was finally coming
home.
Oh, Federico, she murmured, closing her eyes. This was
home.

He'd been in the house behind Piazza Antinori for almost an
hour before he opened the door to the fridge, hoping he
might find a cold beer, or maybe something to eat.
The job had only taken five minutes. He'd gone straight
up to the bedroom and removed the small painting in the
ebony frame from the wall above the bed. Then wrapped it
in newspaper and put it inside the plastic shopping bag he'd
brought with him. Bad Feng Shui, he remembered the old
fart saying, to hang a picture over a bed.
There was some other stuff, watches, gold cufflinks, a
Moroccan dagger he fancied, but Guido had warned him to
touch nothing.
He knew the house well enough not to have to turn on
lights. He sat in the gloom, dreaming about the new life that
lay ahead.
Until a couple of weeks ago he'd worked as a waiter at a
restaurant near Santa Croce, where he'd been eyed up by the
Englishman he knew as Daniel, the owner of the house. He'd
come to two parties here and after the last one his host had
invited him to spend the night. He'd taken the three hundred
Euros Daniel had paid him for his services and, while the
older man slept, an impression of his house keys.
Before they had sex, Daniel had told him he wanted to
see more of him when he returned from a business trip to
Phuket. He'd weighed the earning potential of an arrangement
with the portly old queen against his cut for stealing
the painting, which Guido had assured him was worth at
least a million.
Gianni Arcangeli was seventeen and wanted a Porsche.
He'd arrived at the house around six thirty, which was
about the time Daniel's American friend, Jimmy, came every
second day to water the plants and feed the cat. He knew
he'd been there yesterday - he'd watched from the alley as
he'd entered the house with another man, but hadn't bothered
waiting to see them leave. There was little risk of his returning
this evening.
If anybody asked, he was doing Jimmy a favour. He'd even
put out some food for Cesar, before settling down to wait
upstairs in the sumptuous all-white salone that smelt of dried
flowers. His instructions were to stay until after dark, when
there'd be fewer people around in the courtyard. He soon
grew bored, then hungry.
The kitchen was on the ground floor. Its bare stone walls
and high ceiling with exposed beams reminded Gianni of
his uncle's farmhouse in the Val d'Elsa, only this place had
been given the designer treatment. The fridge was an
American import, a side-by-side stainless steel Sub-Zero
600 Series, the best money can buy. It stood almost seven feet tall. He remembered it being well stocked.
Winding a dishtowel around his hand to avoid leaving
prints, he reached for the handle, noticing only now that the
trays and shelves from the fridge were piled up on a nearby
worktop. It crossed Gianni's mind he was about to be disappointed.
He
pulled open the door to the Sub-Zero. A lurid light
sprang into the room and instinctively he reared back. Folded
into the space normally occupied by provisions was the fully
clothed body of a man, one bent knee pulled upwards like a
dancer's against his blackened windpipe. He barely had time
to take in Jimmy's blond curls, the striped shirt, the shades
hanging askew, before the corpse which had been held in
place by the fridge door lurched forward onto his shoulder.
The boy screamed as the ice-cold face, a mottled orange
and blue colour, brushed his cheek in a grotesque parody of
a social kiss. His breath came in short panicky gusts, as he
tried to wrestle Jimmy back into the fridge. When he'd got
all the stray limbs tucked inside, he slammed the beautifully
engineered door shut and leant against it like someone battling
to keep out a wintry blast.
For a minute or two he couldn't move. Tears ran down his
face. All he could see in the shadows were Jimmy's bulging
eyes and obscenely poking tongue. Then he heard something
scrunch under his foot and, still sobbing, knelt to pick up
Jimmy's crushed, ice-cold sunglasses. He'd seemed like a nice
person too.
He knew the mess he was in - he wouldn't be able to take
the painting now. He needed to leave right away. Tell no one,
not even Guido, he was ever here.
It wasn't until he was out on the street, trying to kick-start
his motorino, that Gianni noticed he'd cut his finger on a
piece of broken lens.

Dusk doesn't linger in Venice. By the time Sam Metcalf had
made her way back from the waterfront to the Rio della
Sensa, it was fully dark. Crossing a humpback bridge to a
square lit by lanterns, she thought for a heartening moment
she'd found the campo near the restaurant. Then, with a dismal
flush of recognition, she took in the herringbone tiles, the
elaborate church, the corner pharmacy . . .
She'd been going round in a circle.
Close to tears, Sam felt ready to quit and head home, when
it occurred to her to call Jimmy Macchado. He knew every
bar, cafe and trattoria in Venice. She tried him first at the
Fiesole number, then keyed his cell. He wasn't picking up
on either.
She set off dejectedly down the second calle that led out
of the square and kept going until she came to a junction.
Stopping under a street lamp, she checked the display to
make sure she had the right number before trying Jimmy's
cell again.
She heard it ringing, ringing . . . and then with a frown
she slowly lowered the phone, puzzled by a brief simultaneous
chitter of electronic birdsong that seemed to come from one
of the lanes whose entrances lay ahead.
Sam stood very still, listening. She could have sworn she'd
heard close by the opening bars of 'O Sole Mio', Jimmy's
kitsch, maddeningly chirpy ring-tone.
Her heart was beating fast. There was nobody else in sight.
What if the sonofabitch was here ... in Venice? She knew
how he liked to kid around, spring surprises.
'Jimmy?' Looking up at the houses, she repeated his name,
louder.
There was no reply, no movement at the windows,
nothing.
She put the phone back to her ear, and instantly realised
her mistake. Jimmy's voice-mail had cut in - what she'd heard
was the musical intro to his recorded message. She'd forgotten
it was the same dumb jingle.
She let go her breath, feeling like an idiot.
'Hey, it's me,' she said wearily. 'I know you're there, so
please pick up . . . come on, man.' She paused, giving him
the chance.
'Listen, I'm lost. I am totally fucking lost. I followed the
path, just like you said, all that Zen bullshit ... I need you
to talk me out of here.' She gave him her vague destination
and her present position - the name of the calle she had
started down was 'The Alley of the Blind', which figured then
added: 'If you get this in the next few, call me, with a
map.'
She flipped her cell shut. Unless she heard from him, and
she didn't hold out much hope, Sam planned to make her
way back to the Fondamente Nuove and get the next boat
out to Burano. She would call the Rivers from her hotel and
explain.
The alleys and byways of Venice, the arcane circuitry of
the city, can play tricks with sound. Hearing someone coming
towards her, or so she thought, Sam waited for the echoing
footsteps to materialise. Then had to press herself against
the wall as a stout woman weighed down by shopping bags
overtook her from behind with a muttered 'Buona sera,
signora.'
Uncertain which of the two lanes ahead to choose, she
watched the woman take the left-hand fork, and decided to
follow. Around the next corner, Sam saw her guide twenty
yards ahead turn into a doorway under a balcony supported
by carved stone angels. By the time she drew level, the ancient
door had already slammed shut; from its Judas window a
square of light fell on the shopping bags left in a heap outside.
Sam was wondering why - maybe the woman dumped
them to answer the phone, or see to a child - when she felt
her cell vibrate against her hip, alerting her that she'd received
a text message.
Son of a gun . . . Jimmy.
CAN'T TALK NOW ... IN A MTG, BUT HERE'S WHAT TO
DO: TURN AROUND, GO BACK TO THE LAST Y, THEN TAKE
THE OTHER BRANCH. U WILL COME TO A PASSAGE THAT
RUNS ALONG RIO DELLE GATTE. FOLLOW TO ARCADE . . .
TXT ME WHEN U GET THERE. IT'S CLOSER THAN U THINK.
CIN CIN! J.

She laughed out loud and, relief sweeping over her, texted
him back: THANK YOU, JEEEEESUS!
Then started to retrace her steps,
His directions were easy to follow. The footpath by the
stagnant, foul-smelling rio looked singularly uninviting. On
either side of the water, decrepit houses, their windows mostly
dark or shuttered-up, drew closer together as she walked
beneath a narrowing hatchway of star-flecked indigo sky, the
path soon reducing to a point where two people couldn't
pass. But Sam had faith in her navigator.
She remembered someone, maybe Jimmy, saying, check:
if you can hear your own footsteps, it means you're on a
dead-end street.
She could hear own breathing, it was that quiet.
Her cell phone vibrated. Sam gave a start, almost dropping
the damned thing as she fumbled to get the flap open.

ARE U THERE YET?

She answered: YEP, YEP.

GO ON TO THE END MAKE A SHARP LEFTU CAN'T SEE
IT YET, THERE'S A SLIT BETWEEN THE HOUSES . . .
SHORT CUT!

Sam frowned. Something felt wrong. Ten, fifteen yards
ahead of her, the water course plunged under the arcade and
the footpath she was on stopped altogether. How could he
know how far along it she was, or what she could or couldn't
see? If Jimmy was fooling around, playing with her . . .
She hesitated, then keyed:

CAN'T GO ANY FURTHER.

Sam waited, not moving.
There was a long pause before he replied:

SEE THE CUT?

Still Sam didn't move. She let her eye travel on ahead
beyond the last house on her left, then slowly track along a
hoarding in front of a demolition site. Where the arcade cut
across the hoarding at right angles, she could make out a line
of deep shadow that might have been a passage.
U'LL FIND OSTERIA AL BACCO ON THE OTHER SIDE.
That was it, of course, the name of the restaurant!
YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING . . . SWEAR THIS ISN'T A JOKE?

Jimmy knew what she'd been through in Florence. It was
absurd to think he'd deliberately set out to trick her or play
stupid games.

HAND ON MY HEART, GIRI	AND BTW, LOVE THE ROBE!

She stood staring at the area of shadow, at the black water
of the rio that glinted where it hit a hidden reef before it
disappeared into the tunnel. She took a couple of steps
forward, then suddenly was filled with certainty that someone
was hiding there. A feeling of dread sent a cold skin-prickling
rush down the back of her neck.
She froze, her eyes fixed on the dark passage-mouth,
wondering if whoever was waiting could see her. This had
nothing to do with Jimmy. He couldn't possibly know . . .
But there wasn't time to explain. Every instinct was telling
her to go back, get out of there, turn and run, now.
Sam didn't move. She couldn't make herself look away.
She thought she saw something stir in the shadowy entrance
to the cut. Overcome by a helpless, almost sensual feeling of
inertia, she delayed long enough to key in, fingers trembling:

ON MY WAY. THANKS FOR HELP. TALK LATER, S.

She waited a few more seconds, wanting to be sure. If
there was someone there and they were going to make a move
it would have to be now.
She turned around and, the image of the dark cut still fixed
on her retina, walked quickly back along the path until she
reached the corner. She stopped and looked behind her. No
sign of movement. A light came on in one of the windows.
She almost laughed aloud with relief.
Then in the sudden brightness she saw something that
glinted on the ground, ten, fifteen yards back along the path,
where she'd been standing. Instinctively, her hand flew up to
her face - she'd dropped an earring.
Sam knelt to take off her sandals, debating whether to go
back for it. As she rose, clutching the shoes, a shadow detached
itself from the black passage-mouth.
She turned then and ran, ran like hell.

The restaurant found her. She couldn't say otherwise how
she got there. Emerging from a long winding calle into a busy,
well-lit square, Sam recognised her new friends sitting at an
outside table under a blue and white awning. Out of breath,
her heart still pumping, she tried not to let them see her until
she'd pulled herself together.
But Balfe Rivers was already on his feet, waving and smiling
at her. 'Over here, Sam! Look who's here everybody!'
Sam felt the blood from a pebble-cut squelch between her
toes as she walked over to join them. Balfe took her arm and
guided her to the only empty chair at the table. 'You had us
all worried.'
'I'm sorry, I got . . . lost track of time.'
'You look like you could use a stiff one, honey,' Fern said
drily.

It was the first party we'd given at Greenside since Sophie
died, and we were all three of us a little on edge. Laura had
seized on George's sixteenth birthday as an opportunity to
open up the house again, invite a few neighbours over, as
well as his friends, and make a start at getting back to normality,
or something like it.
We stood together on the front steps and greeted the first
arrivals. It was a warm June evening and the house, an
impeccable early-Georgian mansion of pale granite that's
been in my wife's family for centuries, looked magical all lit
up against the dark sweep of the downs. Laura had observed
the Calloway party tradition (inherited from her Virginian
grandmother) of placing a hurricane lamp in every window
of the house. A string quartet played Bach on the terrace.




At that point we were hardly speaking to each other.
Earlier, while getting dressed, we'd had an argument
about the present I'd given George for his birthday - a
toffee-apple-red Yamaha Warrior quad bike.
'You heard what happened?' She was at her dressing table,
putting the finishing touches to her make-up. 'He nearly
turned the bloody thing over.'
'He swerved to avoid the dog,' I countered, fiddling with
my cufflinks. I'd got back from London with less than twenty
minutes to shower and change before the party. 'Everyone
says he was never in any real danger.'
'It's tempting fate and you bloody know it. You promised to be here.'
I tried to persuade Laura that losing Sophie and the fact
that our son was all we had now were not valid reasons to
think he was any more at risk than any other boy his age. I
don't believe in being over-protective. But she was his mother.
'If anything ever does happen to him ...' She didn't finish,
just stared at me in the mirror, her coruscating blue eyes
judge and jury.
'You know why I had to go up to town,' I said quietly. 'It
was important.'
I'd arranged to meet Phil at Secure Solutions and deliver
the SIM card from my mobile phone in person. I wanted to
make it clear that I regarded tracing the call I received on
the mound at the Villa Nardini as a priority.
'Whatever you do, Ed, is always so "important". But what
about George? Your family? What about us'
'You're all that really matters to me,' I said.
The Yamaha provoked the outburst, but I felt it was coming
anyway. I dislike rows. I grew up listening to my parents
having at each other on a daily basis and swore never to
repeat the tedious, emotionally draining pattern in my own
marriage. Although Laura and I argued, we usually managed
to remain civil under pressure and avoid wounding fights.
There were lapses, of course, but something else had got into
her that night. She accused me of neglecting our 'only child',
never being at home, using work as an excuse to avoid my
responsibilities - I was surprised by the depth of the resentment
and even bitterness that rose to the surface. I think only
some instinct for self-preservation, or perhaps fear of the
irrevocable, prevented her from saying what was really on
her mind. The nearest she got was when she turned suddenly
and shouted at me,
'You are not present in this marriage, Ed!'
Taken aback by her onslaught,- and its unhelpful timing, I
was aware that there was more than a little truth in what she
was saying.
My defence was simply to switch off. But when we could
no longer delay going down to meet our guests, I said to her,
'Can we talk about this another time? It really isn't fair on
George, or kind to Sophie's memory. If we want to make this
a wonderful evening for them, we need to present a united
front.'
'You're good at that sort of thing. I'm not,' was her answer.

I don't think anybody noticed the tension between us.
Friends, especially those who knew and loved Sophie, still
handled us with care and made allowances. We spent most
of the evening apart, and then I spotted Laura across the
dining room, alone for a moment and looking elegant but
forlorn in a new silver-grey Nina Ricci outfit she'd bought
the last time we were in Paris.
She turned and walked through the door that leads onto the
terrace. Lifting a couple of glasses of champagne from a passing
tray, I drew a deep breath and followed. I caught up with her
before she reached the parapet, and handed her a glass.
'It's a success, Laura,' I murmured. There were other




couples out here enjoying the night air, sitting at tables overlooking
the lake.The temple had been floodlit for the occasion,
the path around the shore lined with flickering torches.
She shrugged. 'Apart from the fact George can't stand the
music'
As if on cue, a wave of sound surged up from the marquee
as the band got loud suddenly with the feel-good classic,
'How Sweet It Is'. Drums and bass echoed around the downs
like rolling thunder. I was responsible for the music.
'It doesn't seem to be stopping him from having a good
time. Maybe you would like to dance?'
'Don't think so, not right now.'
We stood there a while longer. People came up to us and
murmured their compliments about the evening. I noted that
Laura, in spite of what she'd said, played the part of gracious
hostess effortlessly.
'I'm going inside then,' I said at last. 'I have to call Phil
... he's working late tonight,' I added, answering a question
she hadn't in fact asked. 'I'll use the phone in the library.
Twenty minutes.'
'I doubt if you'll be missed.'The lights on the water shivered
to the grimy beat of a Christina Aguilera cover. I pretended
I hadn't heard what she'd said.
'Don't worry, I'll hold the fort.' She smiled, then added in
a brittle tone, 'You know what would be nice, Ed? If you
didn't always have to look like you'd rather be anywhere in
the world except here.'
I shrugged and turned away. The constant sniping was
starting to get to me. The fact was that lately I'd been making
an effort to spend more time at home with my wife and
family. I suddenly felt resentful, not just of Laura, but of all
these people who'd invaded our home. The driveway had
been turned into a glinting river of expensive cars; I could
just make out a huddle of chauffeurs leaning against their
glossy chariots, gossiping, cigarettes glowing like fireflies in
the dark.
Looking up at the house, I noticed now that, although there
was a lamp in every window, one was unlit - only Sophie's
old bedroom had been left dark. It struck me as something
more than an unfortunate oversight.
She was right, I didn't want to be here.

Four minutes till midnight.
There was no real urgency. In Washington DC, coming up
to seven, it'd still be light out... as if that made any difference.
I was seized by the irrational thought that if I hurried I might
get there in time.
I cut through the crowd, clearing a path. The long, stone
flagged hallway dissolved into a blur of flushed and grinning
faces. A blonde in a too-tight gold dress, one of our office
managers who'd helped organise the evening, playfully
captured my arm.
'Hey, you!' I blew her off, kept moving.
I was almost to the stairs when something made me look back.
Laura had followed me indoors and, from the far end of
the room, was observing my progress. She did her amused
smile, little-finger-wave thing and I had no choice but to smile
and wave back.

In the library, I closed the door and walked over to my desk.
Picking up the phone, I dialled the number Phil had given
me, then sat down at the computer.
While I waited for him to answer - I wanted to know if
he'd made any progress with tracing that call - I logged on
to the internet.
My chances of finding Jelly online were remote, but I pulled
up my friends list onscreen, planning to drop her a note,
then drew a short convulsive breath.
adorablejoker: hey ... how ya doin? templedog: I don't believe this

I left a message on Phil's voice-mail asking him to call me
back, then put the phone down.

td: I'm ... this is so weird, I mean, I just had a feeling ... where are you?
a.-still in DC
td: at your friend's house?
aj: library, in the comp room
td: the Library of Congress?
aj: sure, where else can a girl rest her feet after a hard day's shopping?
td: you know the odds against our bumping into each other...

I'm not sure if it was the coincidence that threw me, or the
exhilaration I felt at seeing her. After taking a moment, I lit
up a Gauloise.

aj: you aren't upset with me?
td: should I be? What's your address in Brooklyn?
aj: hmmm ... kinda wish you hadn't asked that
td: why? afraid I might show up on your doorstep?
aj: i'm just not that kind of girl
td: I wanted to send you something
aj: save your money, mister... hey, feel like taking a trip?
td: okay, where to this time... Marrakesh, Samarkand, Venice?
aj: what were you going to send me?
td: you'll never know
aj: boo ... so, in your mind, where are we?
td: Venice, one of my favourite hotels in the world, the Cipriani....
aj: i dunno... streets full of water, i told you i'm scared of water
td: hold on ... phone
At the same moment I picked up the receiver I heard loud
whispering in the passage outside the library. A young girl I
knew vaguely as somebody's daughter put her head around
the door and, seeing me at my desk, dissolved into giggles.
'Shhhh . . . there's someone in here.'
'Thanks for getting back, Phil,' I said, looking now at my
son, George, who was standing behind the girl in the doorway,
both obviously a little the worse for wear. I couldn't help
wondering if Laura hadn't sent him up to check on me.
'Sorry, sorry,' he slurred, grinning. 'Dad, this is ... Clarissa.'
'Here's where we are,' Phil started in without preamble. 'I
told you we had a mole at your phone company. He's been
able to trace the network the call came from, but that's as
far as he can go.'
'Nice to meet you,' I mouthed, my hand over the receiver,
'hope you're having fun,' and waved amiably at George, who
retreated with his arm around the girl's neck.
'Your caller uses Uno. Now we have to find someone there
to tell us which of their subscribers originated the call. More
difficult, but we're working on it. None of this is legal, so it's
going to be expensive.'
'I don't care how much it costs, I just want his name.'
After I hung up the phone, I took a sip of champagne, got
up and walked over to close the library door, which George
had left wide open.

aj: still there?
td: I'm sorry ... I have to go now
aj: i know, you need to get back to the party, mister
td: wait, wait just a minute... I don't remember mentioning any party
aj: well you did. you told me... it's your son's birthday
td: no, seriously, there are 150 people here, how did you know?
aj: i can 'feel' you sometimes, the situations you're in, what's on your mind, like
right now, you're thinking ... your wife must be wondering where you are
td: I was actually trying to picture the expression on your face when you typed
that. It's important, Jelly. How did you know about the party? aj: Don't you ever listen? YOU TOLD ME

I decided to check later to see if she was right. I had archived
most of our conversations. There was a pause, a longer pause
than usual, before she continued.

aj: anyway, ill be back in new york tuesday
td: good, we'll talk about it then. Look after yourself
aj: i'm in the library of freaking congress... what can happen?
td: I was just thinking, maybe we could get together for a drink sometime
aj: well, don't think it, ed ... and don't you dare say another word

I sat for a moment, staring at the screen, trying to imagine
her at a computer terminal in the Thomas Jefferson Building
on Capitol Hill. There was something thrilling about Jelly
being in a place I knew reasonably well: it connected our
footprints in the real world, brought us a degree closer. I'd
meant what I'd said about getting together. I wanted to meet
her now.
Before returning to the fray, I poured myself another glass
of champagne, then opened the music files she'd sent me
and sat back, eyes closed, listening through my headphones
to her playing the piano.
I'm no judge of musical talent (I was on the money side
of the business), but Jelena clearly had a gift and I hoped to
encourage her. She'd refused point-blank to let me interfere,
which was understandable. I couldn't see the harm, though,
in letting someone who really knew their stuff hear her play.
I'd already made a few discreet calls, which resulted in my
getting an appointment at the Conservatoire for the day after
tomorrow. I planned to be in Paris anyway.
What I told Will about our relationship was the truth: Jelly
and I were friends, nothing more. But over the last few days,
I don't know how or when exactly it happened, something
had changed. Nobody could have been more resistant than
I was to the idea of becoming involved. My life was complicated
enough, the last thing I needed was to get caught up
in some half-baked internet romance I didn't even buy that
it was possible to fall for someone on a laptop screen. But I
couldn't get her off my mind. Looking back I can see now
that there was a gradual, almost imperceptible escalation, an upping of the stakes - and that somewhere along the line,
crazy as it may seem, I'd fallen.


After he was gone, Jelly deleted the floor-plan and images
from the website of the Library of Congress that she'd pulled
up onscreen while they were chatting. Just to get a feel for
the place. She lingered over the view from an upper window
in the Jefferson Building. A wintry scene, looking out across
the Court of Neptune fountain to the Capitol and down the
snow-covered Mall, it was pretty enough to make her want
to visit Washington some day.
She hit 'close' and signed off with a little sigh. What if it
occurred to Ed that the library wouldn't be open this late on
a Saturday? She'd just have to bluff her way out of it. She
went over to the counter so she could pay what she owed.
She could hear somebody in the back office, a man's voice,
talking on the phone in Arabic.
She tried to imagine what Ed was doing right now. She
could picture the country mansion, the floodlit lawns, dancing
. . . but couldn't see him at all.
'That'll be fifteen.'
The real world drifted back into focus. It was the Moroccan
guy, Hassan, the one she couldn't stand, waving his hand in
front of her eyes like he was trying to bring her out of a
trance. 'Hello?'
'I almost fell asleep waiting.'
'Be fifteen dollars.'
"What'
'You had coffee and Danish, you were online two hours.'
'You are kidding me, right? I didn't even leave work till
after five.'
'Fifteen, sugar.'
'Fuck the sugar shit.'
She slammed down ten on the counter, then, seeing he
was still giving her the hard stare, grudgingly, another five.
Hassan was always dogging on women; but he'd done it to
her for the last time.
She presented him with her middle finger and a sweet
smile, turned on her heel and stalked out into the heat and
traffic of Flatbush Avenue.

There was a mini-mart on the corner and she had to dive
in there to get a soda, or die of thirst. Her plan had been to
go around to her mama's place after work so she could
practise the Schubert piece on her piano for Monday's lesson.
Only it was a ten-block hike and she was meeting Tachel at
seven - damn nearly that now.
It would have to wait till tomorrow.
She went by the house most days to practise and more
often than not stayed to dinner - the lure of her mama's
cooking sometimes giving her the extra motivation she needed
to keep up her music. Jelly dreamed of one day owning her
own piano - not some cheap upright, but a fine old instrument
like the Chas M. Stieff baby grand she'd grown up with which
had a tone modern pianos couldn't touch.
She walked slowly on, listening to the Andante on her MP3
player, following the score's intricate phrases in her head,
knowing exactly when to turn the imaginary pages. It was
her fingering that needed work - exercises, scales . . . not
playing around on a goddamned computer. She was still mad
at herself for blowing the fifteen bucks - half the money she'd
set aside to pay Mrs Cato, her piano teacher.
In a roller-coaster mood, Jelly felt light-hearted one
moment, down the next. She'd only stopped by the cyber
cafe to check her e-mail, but then the man had shown up,
they got talking and somehow she'd lost track of time. Shit,
the whole point of pretending she'd gone away to DC was
to give herself a break from the Ed situation, which any fool
could see wasn't healthy.
She unplugged her earphones and smiled. She'd spotted
Tachel a couple of blocks ahead, standing at the entrance to
the subway, trying to keep her distance from some Jamaican
kids playing loud dub-mix on the stereo of an old TransAm
parked at the kerb. A tall, dark-skinned woman, generously
upholstered and proud of it, 'T' had on tight white jeans and
a fuchsia halter-top, accentuating a rack that was already like see-what-happens-when-you-pray-for-boobs. She looked
sizzling hot.
As she caught up with her friend, Jelly did a little Caribbean
dance-hall routine on the sidewalk, laughing and acting crazy.
She wasn't sure why but the scene struck her as funny and
beautiful.
'What the hell's wrong with you?'
'Just happy to see you, I guess.'
Tachel rolled her eyes. 'What kept you? We're gonna be late for the show.'
'I was playing piano at Mama's, forgot the time.'
It surprised Jelly how easily the lie rolled off her tongue.
She'd been friends with Tachel since high school and they
could say almost anything to each other. She hadn't gotten
around to admitting she was still chatting to the English
guy she'd told her about early on, who wouldn't leave her
alone, who was becoming more persistent, who wanted to
get face to face now in real time - afraid T would laugh at
her - but neither of them had ever managed to keep any
secret for long.
She knew the best solution would be to delete Ed Lister,
just take him off her buddy list. Only she couldn't quite bring
herself to do it. She felt sorry for him on account of his tragic
loss and, though there was really nothing she wanted from
him - Ed had brought up Paris again, hinted at being able
to help with her musical career - she enjoyed hearing about
his glamorous millionaire life.
She told him she was going to succeed by her own efforts,
or not at all.
While they were on, she'd checked out the Hotel Cipriani
in Venice. She liked the look of the suites, even if they weren't
huge and the site didn't show bathrooms.
Tachel shot her a suspicious glance. 'If I didn't know better,
I'd say you were seeing someone.'
Jelly just shook her head, afraid a verbal denial, even though
it was the truth, would come out sounding all wrong. T could
read her like a book.
'Well, if it ain't love,' her friend observed as they descended
into the stifling gloom of the subway, 'then, girl, you need to
get laid.'
They could hear the rumble of an approaching train.
'Oh shush.' Jelly, hand on hip, took a last look round above
ground. 'It's nothing that a pack of batteries won't fix.'
The Jamaican boys and their rusty TransAm were gone,
rolled up into the sunset that was dragging its gaudy ass like
a carnival float down Ocean Boulevard.
'By the way,' Tachel announced as the doors of the
Manhattan-bound D hissed open, 'guess who's back in
town? Asking about you.'


Paris

Sam Metcalf had locked herself into a cubicle in the station
washroom so she could be alone.' Sitting on the toilet fully
clothed, laptop on her knees, she was peering at the image
that filled the screen. A classic vacation shot, taken two hours
ago in Vienna's Stadtpark, it showed Fern and Balfe Rivers
blithely assuming the waltz stance in front of the city's monument
to Johann Strauss.
They made an unlikely couple: Balfe, tall, handsome in a
hawkeyed, Sam Shepard kind of way; Fern, little and dainty,
with a scrunched-up face like a Pekingese. But Sam wasn't
looking at her travelling companions, or at the gold-painted
statue of the composer chinning a violin under an arch
adorned with twirling nymphs. Her attention was riveted by
a figure in the background.
Sam slid the cursor over the tour group standing in shade
on the far side of the monument and zoomed in on a blurred
human form moving away from the edge of the group. It
was the furtive stance that had caught her eye. At 200 per
cent, the image fragmented into unreadably large pixels; she
pulled back to 150, settling for a pointillist effect. A male
figure, half hidden by the statue's pedestal, head turned aside,
out of focus . . . she couldn't see the face.
Something about him, though, looked familiar.
On their leisurely drive through Northern Italy and into
Austria, Sam had taken tons of photographs, downloading them
each evening into files labelled 'Treviso', 'Padua', 'Asolo', 'Graz'
- all the places they'd stopped to explore along the route.
She pushed her hair back out of her eyes and clicked on
the first album and selected the 'carousel' mode. She didn't
have much time. The overnight train to Paris left in thirty
five minutes and the Rivers would already be starting to fuss.
But if someone was following her, hiding in plain sight - she
felt her gut clench and release as the slides flickered past there
was a remote chance that she'd caught him before on
camera.
If he really was there at the Stadtpark just two hours ago,
it raised the question she didn't want to think about: where
was he now?

There had been no specific incident, nothing you could
pin down, but ever since arriving in Vienna yesterday Sam
had felt tense and ill at ease. Vienna was where she and
the Rivers were due to part company - they were driving
north through the Alps; she was travelling on to Paris by
train.
She had gotten used to being looked after by the earnest,
good-hearted American couple. Semi-retired academics, they
reminded her a little of her own parents. Balfe had an irritating
habit of calling her 'kid' or 'kiddo', but it was a generational
thing and she'd been wrong about the louche gleam. He was
harmless.
Last night, as a farewell treat, they'd taken her to Mozart's Don Giovanni at the State Opera House and, transported
by the singing, the sets, the sumptuousness of the production,
Sam had had a simple revelation - she really didn't
want to go home to the USA. She'd come to Europe to
learn about art, and discovered that what was missing from
America was the layered understanding they had here of
how life should be lived - but it was too late now to change
her mind.
Supper after the opera was at Landtmann's, which Balfe
told her had been a favourite haunt of Sigmund Freud's.
Outside the landmark cafe, Sam checked to make sure there
was nobody watching from a parked car, or lurking in the
shadow of a doorway across the street. In a heightened state
of awareness, she saw the bland, jovial faces of the Viennese
as sly or even sinister, felt their eyes everywhere.
She'd left the Toshiba locked in the hotel safe.
'What better place to celebrate our last night,' Balfe said,
gallantly holding the door for her, 'with H.L. Metcalf's
daughter!'
She managed a weak smile. Her dad was a psychiatrist.
The slow, precise ceremony of dining at Landtmann's, with
its marble tables, velvet banquettes and Viennese worthies
reading newspapers under the floor-to-ceiling windows, only
increased the tension. Fern asked her if anything was wrong,
and she nearly burst into tears. She wanted to confide in
them about the Florence murder and her fears of being
pursued, but she held back. She already felt guilty enough
about using the Rivers as a shield, taking advantage of their
kindness. When Fern suggested over their Schlagtorte and melanges that she and Balfe change their plans and travel on
to Paris with her by rail, it seemed to come out of nowhere,
and was like an answered prayer.
In the morning, she gratefully let them upgrade her ticket
from a couchette to a first-class sleeper so they could stay
together.

Sam glanced at the clock on the computer's toolbar. Eight
twenty. They would be on board the train by now, fretting.
The serial trawl through her photos had produced a couple
of possible sightings, nothing definite.
Then she saw him. She halted the carousel at the market
square in Asolo. Still no face. But she was pretty sure it was
 the same guy. Sam stared despairingly at the shadowy figure
onscreen a second longer before starting to shut down her
laptop.
Under the visor of her hand, she saw the door-handle of
her cubicle being slowly turned from outside and felt a wave
of nausea rush over her.
She gave a choking cough.
A woman's voice muttered, 'Entschuldigung.' Sam heard
footsteps moving away - she hadn't heard them approach then
the door of another cubicle bang shut, two, maybe three
doors along from hers. It was nothing, she told herself, just
bad timing.
Fear made her want to pee. She closed the lid of the
Toshiba, and tugged down her jeans. The relief she felt was
only momentary. There was no escape from her instincts: she
knew now she was being followed.
Her first thought was to go to the police. She'd noticed
a booth marked Polizei in the station's main concourse. But
the reality of dealing with blockish Austrian officials, trying
to make them understand, daunted Sam. What proof did
she have that anyone was stalking her and, even if she was
able to persuade them that a couple of fuzzy images
amounted to a threat, without a description, what could
they do?
Maybe it was all in her imagination. She remembered the
panic she'd gotten into when she was lost in the calling of Venice.
Maybe she was flipping out again over nothing. She decided
to call Jimmy. He'd texted her at the restaurant later that
evening to say he was going down to the Amalfi coast for a
few days and would be in touch when he got back. She'd
heard since then from a mutual friend in Florence, who'd
spoken to him more recently. Jimmy sounded like he was
having a good time, he'd reported, a little drunk maybe, but
fine ... he had Chuck Berry's 'You Never Can Tell' going
full blast in the background.
Listening to old rock and roll? Jimmy? She'd laughed.
She keyed his cell number. No service.

Sam rode the escalator to the station's upper level, her laptop
in a shopping bag securely wedged between her ankles. Rising
up through the atrium, she scanned the crowded concourse
below, feeling as exposed as if she'd walked out of the washroom
naked. A modern concrete and glass structure, the
Westbahnhof boasts huge triple-storey windows that let in
panoramic views of the city. She realised she could also be
seen from the street.
He's here somewhere, she thought, watching.
Ten minutes before the train was due to leave, she made
her way back to the entrance to Track 14, where she'd left
the Rivers with a porter to handle the baggage and help them
find their sleepers.
The blue and white liveried engine of the EuroNight
express was standing at the buffers. It gave out a low steady
hum as Sam set off on the long hike down the platform. The
sleeping-car section of the train curved out beyond the protection
of the station roof into the thickening dusk. She measured
her progress by the hazy pools of light that fell at intervals
from overhead lamps.
Small groups hovered around the last open doors of the
ordinary carriages; the platform ahead, except for one or two
wagons-lits attendants, was almost deserted. She heard someone
moving up fast behind her and had to fight the urge to
look over her shoulder.
The running steps fell back and halted. Another train door
slammed.
Her heart thumped against her rib cage. If he let her leave
Vienna, she told herself, she would be safe. She thought about
Sophie and the way it must have felt when she realised there
was no escape.
She wished . . . wished the hell now she'd never got in
touch with the girl's father, never got involved. At the sight
of a payphone further along the platform, Sam hesitated her
instinct was not to call Ed Lister, not to trust her
cell - then she reached for her address book.
She wasn't sure what made her change her mind.
She just knew she had to tell someone, and Ed was the only
person in the world who would believe her story.


The stilted first notes of'Dreaming' from Robert Schumann's Kinderszenen filled the white audition room. I stood by the
window looking out over the futuristic, slightly run-down
Cite de la Musique campus, hands behind my back.
'Trop fort, trop fort, pardon.' Lucas Norbet reached for the
dials of the stereo system, and lowered the volume.
'She's never had any formal tuition,' I offered, sounding
almost apologetic. 'You can tell . . . she lacks confidence.
Nerves. I'm sure you take all that into account.'
'But the opening bars should be slow, Monsieur Lister . . .
lentosimo!'
He gave me a reassuring smile, then scribbled something
in a notebook. Late fifties, blue grapey eyes, a child's flawless
skin, he looked with his trademark shock of snow-white hair
exactly like a music professor should. As the Schumann
began to flow, he leant back in his chair and stared at the
ceiling.
For the next half-hour Lucas went through the repertoire,
which Jelena had reluctantly let me download from her files.
If I'd told her I was planning to share them with the tutor
for admissions at the Conservatoire National Superieur de
Musique in Paris, she would almost certainly have refused.
But her ambition, her dream, was to study here. I just wanted
to open a few doors.
There was a black grand piano in a corner and I imagined
Jelena sitting at it, head tilted to one side, long slim-fingered
hands moving over the keys. As we listened to her rendition
of Scott Joplin's 'Fig Leaf Rag', a huge grin slowly spread
across Lucas's face. Somehow hearing her play in the presence
of another brought her to life, and I felt my heart swell at
his undisguised pleasure.
The last piece on the CD was Beethoven's 'Bagatelle in A
Minor', "Fur Elise' and it was obvious from Lucas's expression
that he'd had to sit through this particular 'favourite' once
too often. A few bars in he paused the track.
'May I ask, Monsieur Lister, what age is your goddaughter?'
'She'll
be twenty-six in September.'
'Ah, I feared as much.' He gave a deep theatrical sigh. 'We
don't take anyone for piano who's over twenty-two at the
start of the school year. Some of the less popular instruments
yes, but piano is permanently oversubscribed.'
'I thought I explained,' I said evenly, 'that she was . . .
grown-up.'
Lucas shook his head. I couldn't tell whether we'd hit a
genuine snag, or if this was a tactical move. The melee of
voices and instruments from the practice rooms, a kind of
musical Babel, seemed to grow louder and more dazzlingly
virtuoso.
'If she has her DFS or equivalent diploma, we do an
"improvement" course for mature students up to the age of
thirty.'
'She has no qualifications.'
He frowned. 'You know what puzzles me? In New York,
you've the Juilliard, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, many
other excellent schools. She could get a scholarship. Why
does she want to come to Paris?'
I wasn't sure I knew the answer, but I elaborated on the
little Jelly had told me about her childhood - growing up
poor on Martinique, father never around, being taught to
play piano by a grandmother she adored, who encouraged
her dream of studying at the best school in the world . . .
and so on.
'You say she wants to be a music teacher?'
'She's young enough to be idealistic'
'On sait jamais,' he said, looking at me. 'I heard something
there, particularly with the Scott Joplin. She could go further.'
'I would like to help make that possible.'
Lucas got up and removed the CD from the stereo; taking
his time, he put it back carefully in its case, then placed it
on the desk between us.
'We do, occasionally,' he said at last, 'admit an exceptional
student who doesn't fit all the admissions criteria. Usually
they are endowed by an institution.'
He kept his gaze on me while he spoke. I'd made Lucas
aware of the foundation Laura and I had recently set up in
Sophie's memory to give talented but poor artists and musicians
the opportunity to develop their skills. I'd also explained
to him that there was no connection between the charity and
my wish to enable Jelena to fulfil her ambitions - he understood
this to be a private matter.
'In your god-daughter's case . . .'
I can't remember exactly how he put it. The French are
nast masters at this kind of delicate manoeuvre. A donation
to the school's endowment fund, I was given to understand,
would secure my 'god-daughter' an interview and formal
audition, if not an automatic place. We had a deal, though I
don't believe we could have come to an understanding if the
girl hadn't had genuine talent.
'The instrumental test before a jury can be gruelling,' he
said, I imagine just to cover himself.
I wrote out the cheque (the zeros ran a fair way to the
east) and handed it over, stressing the importance of confidentiality
I told Lucas that nobody must know, particularly
the girl herself, that she had a benefactor. I asked him, unwisely
perhaps, if I could rely on his discretion.
He glanced down and I saw his eyes widen.
'One small detail, Monsieur Lister.' Lucas touched my
shoulder as we stood waiting for the lift. 'How are we to make
contact with your god-daughter?' He gave an embarrassed
smile. 'I don't know . . . her name.'
That made two of us.
'She'll contact you,' I answered, and the doors slid open.

After leaving the Cite de la Musique, speeding along the
Avenue Jean-Jaures in a taxi, I dialled home then almost at
once rang off - I'd forgotten it was an hour earlier there and
Laura, who likes to keep to her routines, would be out walking
Jura, Sophie's old black Lab. I pictured them on the path she
always takes up onto the downs behind Greenside.
This was Tuesday, three days after George's party.
In Paris on business - Beauly-Lister has an office in
St-Germain where I usually spend a day or two every week
- I'd flown over that morning to look at a disused warehouse
in the once unfashionable part of town east of the Marais.
The views from the upper floors of the warehouse turned
out to be disappointing. The agent tried to convince me
that overlooking the backs of the railway yards at Bercy or
being able to read the number-plates of cars on the Boulevard
Peripherique were selling points. I just thanked her and
left.
The taxi dropped me off in Montmartre around seven.
With time to kill, I went for a stroll in the quiet streets to
the north of Sacre-Coeur. The sky had cleared after the rain
and the air felt fresh and smelled of lavender and wood
smoke.
I was in a reasonable mood, pleased with the way the meeting
with Lucas had gone. In a few hours, Jelly was due back
in New York and I was looking forward to 'seeing' her again
- so much so I could hardly think of anything else. There
was no question of my telling her the good news. But then
I really didn't want anything out of this. Just knowing I'd put
the wheels in motion was enough.
As I walked down the steeply stepped rue Utrillo, enjoying
framed glimpses of the city spread out below, I remembered
a corner cafe that had a genuinely local feel and decided to
stop for a bite to eat. I sat down at an outdoor table and
ordered a pression and the assiette de charcuterie with an endive
salad. I wanted something light and simple, and to get it over
with.
After I'd finished, I lit a cigarette and tried Greenside again.
I let the phone ring half a dozen times - it was now eight
thirty, Laura was either taking a bath or had gone out to
dinner. I was about to hang up, when I got a call-waiting
signal.
I clicked over. 'Ed here.'
'There are some things you need to know.'
'Who is this?'
'I don't have much time.'
I felt my chest tighten.
'Hold on.' I had never heard Sam Metcalf's voice before.
There had been no response to the message I left on her
mobile, no reply to my last e-mail. Frankly, I'd given up
hope of her getting in touch again, but I knew at once it
was her.
'Please, don't put me on hold.'
'Only for a second,' I said calmly, 'I'm on the other line.
Let me just get rid of this call.'
'No, there isn't time . . . listen.'

Rucksack slung over one shoulder, Ward stepped up onto the
night express and walked along inside the carriages, bending
his head now and then to look out through the windows onto
the platform.
He needed to be sure Sam was on board when the train
started moving.
He found his couchette in the fourth carriage, glanced in
the compartment he had no intention of using, and kept
going until he'd almost reached the sleeper section. He could
see her now, standing more or less opposite talking on a
payphone. In the corridor, he took up position just inside an
open carriage door so that he could jump off the train if at
the last moment she chose to let it leave without her.
He could tell from her body language that she was still
undecided.

Sam glanced up at the station clock. She had three and a
half minutes to make Ed Lister understand. She spoke low
and fast.
'I'm sorry about Florence. It wasn't safe to meet. I had a
phone-call warning me that if I talked to anyone ... he was
watching.'
'Who was?'
'The man who killed your daughter.'
'I see. So why are you talking to me now?' Ed sounded
cautious, almost suspicious. 'What made you decide to change
your mind?'
'I know I'm being followed.'
There was a silence. 'Where are you?'
'For the next two minutes, Vienna. Then I'll be on a train,
I'm getting the overnight express to Paris. Remember I told
you Sophie liked to come round and use my laptop? I think
there may be some other stuff on the hard drive that could
help the police find her killer ... I want you to have it.'
'How did you know I was in Paris?'
'I didn't. . .' Sam was taken aback, but the coincidence of
his being there felt like a sign her luck was turning. 'It's a
miracle, okay? My lucky day, Ed. What the bejesus does it
matter?'
'All right, I'll meet you. Tomorrow morning when?'
'Nine forty-eight, Gare de 1'Est. I'll try to e-mail you from
the train . . . just in case. I have photos somebody needs to
see. I think he may be in a couple of them. It's how I found
out he's been following me.'
'If you're worried,' Ed said, 'make yourself known to the
guard. Did you book a sleeper or couchette?'
'Sleeper. First class,' she shot back, feeling the buzz of
imminent departure.
'Lock the door. Try to stay around people.'
'I'm travelling with friends. I'll be okay. My train's about
to leave.'
'Sam, wait. You sent me the address of a website. I can't
get access without the username and password.'
'Tomorrow,' she said. 'Just please, please be there.'
"I'll be there . . .' She cut him off.
With only a minute left, Sam picked up the shopping bag
and started across the platform, then hesitated. If she was
right, he was already on board. What if she happened to miss
the train? She could leave the laptop in the phone booth and
then walk away, just get the hell out of here. There was a
chance he wasn't watching. And if he was, she felt sure it
was the Toshiba he really wanted.
Along the track she could see Fern Rivers waving at her
from the only open door on the train. She was shouting something,
but her voice didn't carry over the rising din of the
engine.
Sam watched as the uniformed guard, in a slow deliberate
gesture, as if he were moving underwater, put the whistle to
his lips.
She felt a light touch on her shoulder and spun around.
'Time to go, kid.' Balfe was there, smiling at her.

17

It was almost eight-thirty when I got back to the Place Vendome.
I walked through the lobby of the Ritz Hotel wearing an
expression I like to think makes me invisible. The concierge
on duty tried to catch my eye, but I kept going and took the
lift up to the third floor. I was in a hurry to get to my laptop.
The call from Sam Metcalf had left me wishing I'd made
more effort to find her before now.
I always stay at the Ritz when I'm in Paris. It would cost
less to rent a flat near my office in St-Germain, but I have
an arrangement with the hotel that suits me better. Hemingway
once wrote that the only reason for not staying at the
Paris Ritz is if you can't afford it. I doubt he would recognise
the joint since it was struck by the Al Fayed wand. The
opulence and vulgarity that stalk the hushed mirrored halls
are overpowering, but I hardly notice any more. I like grand
hotels. It's an indulgence, but one that pays dividends.
I poured myself a stiff whisky and sat down at the desk.
The e-mail from Sam Metcalf was waiting in my inbox a
single line directing me to her webpage. Under a photo of
a pretty, plumpish woman in gold-rimmed glasses, blue-eyed
with a lot of dark curly hair, there were the usual deliberately
vague biographical details, and a link to an image file of 'My
Vacation' snaps.
I counted eleven photographs in all, mostly crowded
street scenes, taken in different locations. The shots were
arranged serially by date and time under the headings of
towns. Some featured a dank-looking, middle-aged couple
(Americans, going by their clothes). In two images, using
a drawing tool, Sam had ringed an indistinct figure in the
background. In a third, a shot of a cobbled pedestrian street,
she had put a question mark over a blurred shadow in a
doorway.
Seeking more definition, I imported the snapshots she'd
marked to Adobe Photoshop and played around with the
images. There was very little to work with: nothing resembling
a face (the head always turned away), no identifying
features - it was a man, but height, skin colour, hair, clothing:
all were indeterminate.The only possible connection I could
see was that in one, maybe two photos, the highlighted figure
was carrying what looked like a black rucksack or shoulder
bag.
I took a sip of Scotch and leant back, reflecting on how
little I actually knew about Sam Metcalf. On the phone, her
voice had a built-in quaver that I found worrying - it sounded
like hysteria was never far below the surface. I didn't doubt
her explanation for breaking off contact in Florence. If she
had been warned not to talk by Sophie's killer, it was good
enough reason to feel afraid. But paranoia has a habit of
feeding on itself. If these photos were meant to be evidence
that he was now shadowing her through Italy, it wasn't overwhelming.
Reaching
for the mouse, I clicked on Sam's photo to enlarge
the image, so I could study her face. Hardly a reliable guide,
but all that was available to me. I recognised a serious person,
sensitive, ardent, smart . . . she didn't look crazy.
Yet I wouldn't have bet on Sam Metcalf not turning out
to be a flake, one of those lost souls who hunger for attention,
thrive on drama for its own sake.

After a quick shower, I got dressed' again in a clean shirt,
pair of old jeans and loafers. Then I checked my computer
in case Jelly had got back from DC early. There was no sign
of her yet, but while I was online an envelope fluttered into
my tray - I'd received another e-mail from the train.

Ed, hope you got the photos ok . . . There are more, but I haven't had time to upload them. First impressions?
I came across these while tidying my files. The usemame
for homebeforedark.net.kg is Boundary7. The password's
Levelwhite. Any problems try switching them around
andor alternative spellings.
The train is a dream. After boarding (with seconds to
spare) I was served iced champagne! Off to dinner now in
the restaurant car. Don't worry, panic attack over. I'll be
fine. Looking forward to tomorrow - Gare de I'Est, 9.48
a.m.
Good luck, Samantha

The bright, too-confident tone only confirmed my view of
Sam as a neurotic, but at least she'd calmed down. I acknowledged
her e-mail with a brief reply, then went straight to the homebeforedark website. Good luck? She must have meant
with accessing the site, but it struck me as an odd way to
sign off, in the circumstances.
Waiting for the graphics to load, I felt a growing sense of
anticipation. The virtual house was hardly complete (trees,
lawn and picket fence materialised first) before I dragged my
mouse up the garden path and 'knocked' on the front door.
The box asking for username and password appeared at
the bottom of my screen. I typed in the combination Sam
had given me and instantly, with a mellow 'evening bells'
chime - this felt almost too easy - the dark green door swung
back.
On entering the house, the first thing I noticed was that
the interior didn't reflect the building's elegant Colonial
facade. Behind its airy, white-pillared porch, lay another, less
wholesome world. As I walked (whenever I moved the cursor
across the floor I heard footsteps, mine) through the dim,
unwelcoming lobby into an even gloomier hall stuffed with
heavy Victorian furniture, I realised that the layout and decor
seemed familiar. Everywhere I looked there were details I
recognised from the drawings in Sophie's sketchbook.
So she had been here, inside this house. The proof was all
around me. I thought about Sophie navigating the website,
possibly afraid . . . but afraid of what?
I heard a door slam.
Involuntarily, I glanced up. In the mirror over the desk I
could see behind my back the door to my hotel room. It was
locked, but the sound had been realistic enough to give a
moment's doubt. Onscreen, using the cursor, I wheeled slowly
around and saw that the front door of the virtual house had
banged shut behind me.
I found myself now in a long dark hallway with closed
doors to left and right and a passage crossing it halfway
down. Ahead, the far side of a round mahogany hall table, a
chandelier hung over an ornately carved staircase that rose
to the first floor. I clicked on the doors in turn, but they
wouldn't open. I tried to enter the passage, climb the stairs;
nothing happened. A light switch turned the chandelier on
and off. But that was the only interactive mechanism I could
find.
I had no idea what I was looking for, or what to expect.
The carefully wrought interior of the house, the attention to
detail, the realistic graphics and sound-effects were of a higher
quality than most video games. But what was the purpose
here?
I poured myself another drink, lit a Gauloise and waited.
Presently I realised I could hear music. Very faint and hesitant,
as if somebody was practising the piano in a room at the far
end of the house, going over the same notes again and again.
I strained to catch the tune, but couldn't make it out.
Then, abruptly, the muffled tinkling ceased and, from
nowhere, the figure of a woman appeared at the top of the
staircase. Dressed in black, her hair scraped back in a bun,
the grim-faced avatar might have been modelled on the
housekeeper in Hitchcock's Rebecca. As I watched, the virtual
'Mrs Danvers' floated down the stairs and came gliding
stiffly towards the hall table. She placed something on a
silver salver, then, passing to the right, vanished along the
passage.
She had left a card, which, when I clicked on it, generated
a pop-up window in the form of an engraved invitation.

your company is requested
at a reception
live webcast
12 midnight
I barely had time to take in the message before the window
closed, the dark hallway dissolved and I found myself back
on the sunny porch outside the house. I tried 'knocking' again
with my cursor, but the dark green front door, its brasses
gleaming, remained shut.
What kind of reception, I wondered? Who would I meet there?
The formal invitation sounded harmless enough, but I
was aware that 'live webcast' often has an erotic connotation.
The nether regions of the Web seethe with party sites that
cater for unusual or extreme sexual tastes. A few are creepy,
most just silly, all sadly predictable. The idea that Sophie
might have been interested in bondage or SM dungeons
seemed to me as far-fetched as it was distasteful. From what
I'd seen so far, homebeforedark appeared to be about something
different.
In her drawings, particularly the interiors, Sophie evoked
a sense of menace I hadn't picked up from the website. Fear
permeates the house in the sketchbook, and it feels real. The
virtual experience was like visiting the set of a creaky old
horror film. But that didn't rule out something having
happened here to scare her.
I sat staring at the white mansion. I had a long time to
wait - assuming the invitation wasn't a trick - before I
could get back inside what I felt nearly certain was the
domain of the man who killed my daughter.
I got up and went over to the bar to freshen my drink. I
was thinking about Jelly, trying to imagine what could be
holding her up - she should have been back at her apartment
by now - when the phone rang.
The receptionist (I'd asked front desk to screen my calls)
told me she had Phil from Secure Solutions on the line. He'd
rung earlier when I was out.
'You'll be glad I caught you, Mr L. We have a result.'
'Hold on a second.'
There was music coming from the white house on my screen.
I lowered the phone. As before, it was somebody practising
the piano, going over the same notes again and again. I turned
up the volume on my laptop speakers and got it this time.
A tinkling melody, mournful, sweet, yet with a dark undertow
- instantly recognisable as the opening bars of Beethoven's
'Fur Elise'.
I felt a little jolt of alarm. 'You believe in coincidence, Phil?'
Earlier that evening, at the Conservatoire, I'd listened to
the familiar seesawing motif on Jelly's CD and couldn't get
the tune out of my head.

18

Andrea Morelli was standing on the balcony of his hotel
room, a towel wrapped around his waist, staring bleakly out
over the moonlit Bay of Sorrento. The famously romantic
view seemed to mock his affliction, adding insult to the worst
injury any man can sustain and expect to live, though no
longer as a man. He leaned his elbows on the rail and, pressing
both fists to his temples, groaned aloud.
'Come back to bed, liebchen,' the girl called from the room.
Her name for the moment escaped him. 'I have an idea to
try something.'
'In a minute.' He cleared his throat and said, 'Give me a
minute.'
His humiliation, he reflected, was as deep as the Mediterranean
. . . deeper, it was oceanic. He'd never failed with a
woman before, not even his wife.
'Okay, no problem.' It was Gretchen. He'd met her in the
hotel bar after returning from the conference in Naples. A
beautiful young Czech physiotherapist from Marienbad, she
was Morelli's idea of perfection - tall, blonde, well toned, the
sports-girl type. And nice with it.
She'd just smiled and told him it couldn't matter less, these
things happen ... which only made him feel worse. Beautiful,
warm, willing - it was hardly her fault.
'You need to learn to relax,' she said.
They were on the bed, trying again, Gretchen's idea starting
to work, when his mobile rang. Home number. He scrambled
up, leaving her with a surprised expression on her face and,
holding a finger to his lips, took the phone out onto the
balcony. No towel this time.
He might have seen the funny side. Morelli prided himself
on his sense of humour, which he knew was a rare commodity
among Italian men, but it failed just as miserably as his dick
had to rise to the occasion.
Only Maria would choose this of all moments to remind
him to buy a birthday present for their youngest daughter.
He reassured her, told her he loved her and got off the line.
Almost immediately, the phone rang again. He debated
whether to take the call. He'd given the detective covering
his desk while he was away specific instructions not to disturb
him unless it was important.
'Yes, Luca?' he asked wearily.
He listened to what Luca Francobaldi had to report and
his spirits sunk even lower. It wasn't his night.
'Maybe he intended eating him,' he said when he heard
where the body was found. The younger detective laughed.
'I'm not joking. You speak to the owner yet?'
'We're still trying to find him. He's on holiday in Thailand.'
'Perfect.
How long was the body in the fridge?'
'Since the weekend. Forensics say the low temperature
makes it hard to estimate the exact time of death. They found
some blood on the kitchen floor.'
'What about your informant? Think you'll hear from him
again?'
'The kid sounded pretty scared. I suspect he may know
something about the attempted robbery, so I doubt it.'
Morelli scratched his chest. 'You said there was no ID on
the body?'
'None, but I'm about to talk to the neighbours and the woman who cleans the house. There's an American who's
supposed to come and feed the cat. The animal was starving.
I'll call you back if I get a lead.'
He considered this for a moment, then glanced through
the door at Gretchen. She was sitting naked on the bed in a
double lotus position, Holy Christ . . . rubbing herself.
'Luca, I'm ... a little busy right now'
'You said to keep you informed if there was a crisis.'
'You call this a crisis?' He looked down and saw that his
own was over. 'A frozen popsicle in the fridge of a culattoniloving
Englishman, Luca, does not constitute a crisis.'
'Okay, okay, sorry to disturb you. Good night.'
Morelli snapped his mobile shut, took a deep breath.
'Liebchen!' Gretchen's eyes widened as he entered the room.

'Does the name Jimmy Macchado mean anything?' Phil
asked.
'Not offhand.' I tried to think.
The name, any name, seemed like a momentous development.
'He's
the subscriber. Domiciled at Sixteen Via Belvedere,
Fiesole.The call he made to your mobile last Friday originated
in Florence. Since then Jimmy's been on the move. Do you
want a list of his calls?'
'I want everything you've got.'
'I thought you might. We got unrestricted access to the
network's logging system, but there isn't much. Saturday, he
was in Venice. He made three calls that evening to the same
mobile. On Sunday he rang the Hotel Marini near Asolo
from somewhere in northern Italy. Then Monday, that would
be yesterday, he turns up in Vienna . . .'
'The railway station.'
There was a slight pause. 'You're ahead of the game, Mr
L. Sleeper reservations office at the Westbahnhof. The call
was made at six thirty-nine p.m., local time.'
'Shit.' I closed my eyes. 'Anything else?'
'That was his last showing. Jimmy's been off the air ever
since. We tried to reach him. The SIM card's no longer in
service.'
'What was the mobile he called in Venice?'
'Hold on . . .' He read out a number I began to recognise
halfway through as Sam Metcalf's. 'You want the subscriber's
name?'
'It's okay,' I said grimly, 'I already have it.'
A pulse had started to beat in my head. I needed to warn
Sam at once, tell her she was right about being followed, and
that there was a high probability the man had boarded the
EuroNight express in Vienna.
While still talking to Phil, I keyed Sam Metcalf's number
on my mobile. An automated voice said her Vodaphone was
'currently switched off. I brought up Sam's last e-mail
onscreen. It was sent at 8.46 p.m., which meant she'd been
in the dining car for the last ten minutes or so. She would
be safe there. I just hoped she was with others and that they
lingered over dinner.
'Phil I have to go. I may need to get back to you.'
'You know where I am.'
I hung up the hotel phone, hit redial on my mobile. This

time I got a 'No Signal' message. The express would be more
than likely in the mountains by now.
It was doubtful she'd have internet connection either, but
I e-mailed Sam anyway, advising her that the murder suspect
- possibly using the name Jimmy Macchado - was on the
train. I urged her to contact the attendant or guard immediately
and make sure she was never at any time alone.
Then I called the front desk and asked them to get me the
Surete.

19

Ward waited for the corridor to empty before knocking softly
on the door of 2122. He'd seen Sam leave the compartment
five minutes ago when the old couple, all spruced up, came
by to take her to dinner. But he needed to be sure: she
might've forgotten something, or slipped back for another
reason.
He knocked again, this time putting his ear close to the
panelling.
'Yes? Who is it?' a female voice answered. 'Que voulezvousT

He jerked his head back sharply. What the hell? Somebody
was in there . .. not Sam. He could've sworn he'd overheard
the Rivers promise her she wouldn't be sharing. He listened
to her stable companion rustling around.
'Just a minute.' She was coming to the door.
He had to think fast. This wasn't in the plan. It had the
potential to complicate things. He looked up and down the
corridor. Still clear. He could easily make it to the corner
without being seen. He hesitated for a half-second.
What do we do now, Ward? It's make-up-your-mind time,
buddy.
'Ma'am, I'm sorry to disturb you ...' The words just came
right out. 'This is Balfe Rivers.' He paused, trying not to
sound rushed. A wagons-lits attendant had appeared at the
far end of the car. Ward kept his back turned. 'My wife and
I are travelling with Sam Metcalf. We're dining together in
the . . . restaurant.'
There was a click and the door cracked a few inches - a
soft hazel eye giving him the once-over - then opened wider
and he saw a big blonde girl, clutching the lapels of a black
kimono to her chest.
'Okay.' She seemed dazed, as if she'd been napping, but
now she caught the look of urgency on his face. 'Is everything
all right?'
'Fern, my wife, isn't . . . feeling well.' He tried to affect
Balfe's snobby Ivy League drawl. 'Nothing to worry about,
Sam is with her . . . she just asked me to get some Tylenol
from her bag. We usually carry an ample supply, but we . . .
ran out'
The girl nodded slowly, then, accepting it, broke into a big
friendly smile. She was a little heavy but not unattractive.
'No worries. Come on in and help yourself She sounded
Australian or Kiwi or something. 'I'm Linda, by the way.'
She retreated towards the window to let him enter and
share the narrow space. She had a T-shirt on under the
kimono and not much else judging from her thick bare legs.
He shut the door behind him and quickly glanced around,
taking in the twin bunks, the ladder, baggage racks, a mirror
on the door leading to the toilet. He kept his hands in his
pockets, his rucksack slung over one shoulder.
There was no sign of the Toshiba.
It was possible Sam had taken it with her to the restaurant.
He'd only caught a glimpse of her leaving the compartment.
But if not, it had to be here somewhere. He noticed the
window blind wasn't pulled. He could see the lights of a small
town hurrying by behind his and Linda's reflections in the
dark glass. Where would she have hidden it? He wanted to ask which bunk was Sam's.
Linda stood, not saying anything, big ass swaying in the
window.
'Sam said the medication is in the bag with her laptop.'
'You mean like a plastic shopping bag?' Linda looked
puzzled. 'She had the bag with her when she went out.'
'You sure about that?'
'I'm positive.' She frowned. He saw doubt flit across her
open good-natured face. 'Shouldn't you be like . . . older?'
'I don't know. Should I be?' He tried on the charm.
What's wrong with you? We need to get this over with, man.
'It's just that she told me she was meeting some friends of
her parents . . .' Linda gave a little laugh. 'Would that be
you?' But her voice betrayed her.
She tried to sneak her eyes past him, as if he wouldn't
notice she was looking for ways of escape. He really didn't
have a choice.
It would go fast now. 'You mind if I use the bathroom?'
'What? Look, I think you better leave, mate.' She moved
towards the door, but he was barring the way. 'Right now.
Get out or I'll . . .'
'Maybe I should, ' Ward said, reasonably, as he removed
his hands from his pockets.You could hardly tell he was wearing
gloves the latex was so fine. He pulled the shower-cap
over his hair, checking in the mirror and tucking away stray
wisps.
'What on earth are you doing Please leave ... oh God!'
'I'm sorry.' His arm shot out sideways.
He liked the way that little whimper sounded coming from
such a strapping girl: aqua and blue, swimming-pool colours.
One hand clamped her mouth, the other her throat. Her
kimono fell open.
'I can't leave you like this, Linda.'

20

After nine and still no signal from Sam's mobile.
So far I'd got nowhere with the Paris Surete and I felt
increasingly worried I wasn't going to be able to persuade
the police to take her story seriously. If the killer was already
on the train, it was now just a question of time before he
found a way to be alone with Sam. Somehow I had to reach
her first.
I rang Andrea Morelli in Florence.
A bored-sounding detective from Criminal Investigation
informed me that he was Out of town until tomorrow. I
explained that I was Sophie Lister's father, which met with
the telephonic equivalent of a blank stare. Investigator Morelli,
he said, was attending a police conference in Naples. He
suggested I ring back in the morning.
'I need to speak to him urgently.'
'I'm afraid that won't be possible. The officer who knows
the name of the hotel where he's staying . . . has just gone
off duty.'
'Then call someone else. His wife must know how to get
in touch with him.'
'Ah no, no ... at this time of night, impossible.'
'What about his mobile?' I said, doing my best to keep
calm.
'I'm not authorised to give out the number...' He hesitated,
and I thought he was about to offer to call Morelli himself.
'There's a chance the ispettore will ring in later. If he does I
will be sure to tell him.'
It was the same story with the Austrian Bundespolizei.The
desk sergeant at their GHQ in Wiener Neustadt listened
politely to my concerns for the safety of a passenger on the
Vienna-Paris express, but seemed more interested in asking
about my connection with the young woman - how was I
related to her, what was the nature of the perceived threat,
and so on. I realised I had little hope of cutting through the
red tape to reach the right people in time.
All the while I kept ringing Sam's mobile. Afraid I might
already be too late.
As a last resort, I tried to contact the train direct. An automated
helpdesk connected me eventually with a representative
of the Austrian Federal Railways, who regretted he could do
nothing because the sleeping cars were managed under
contract by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.
He gave me a number to call, in Paris. I began to dial the
twenty-four-hour emergency hotline, but didn't complete on
the last digit I hesitated, then hung up.
Something about this didn't feel right.
Sam's own account and the mobile network evidence
had convinced me that she was being followed, yet I had
a small niggle that I'd pushed to the back of my mind. The
problem was simply that when Sam rang me from the
station, she had said nothing about Venice. Why didn't she
tell me that after he'd threatened her the killer had been in
touch again?
I rang Phil back. He was still at the office.
'I'm on my way out the door. Can it wait?'
'One more piece of information. Those calls Jimmy made
to Sam Metcalf's mobile in Venice . . .'
'They were text messages.'
'How far apart?'
'Inside an hour.'
'Did she reply to any of them?'
'All three.'
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She had exchanged
text messages with the man she believed was stalking her
across Europe.
'Check if he spoke to her any time last week.'
'I already did. I have the sheet in front of me. Up until the
weekend, he was calling her every day.'
'What?' It took a moment to sink in.
'They were calling each other . . . sometimes three, four
times a day.'
I had to laugh, mostly with relief. 'I think I've been done.'
It seemed pretty obvious that Sam Metcalf and Jimmy
Macchado were friends, possibly more than friends. Which
might account for her strange behaviour.
'All right,' I said in a measured tone. 'This changes things

'Mr Lister?' Phil cut me short. 'You know what? I've been
here since before breakfast. I'm off down the pub. Cheers.'
After I hung up the phone, I went over and checked my
computer for message alerts then, lighting a cigarette, paced
the room. It looked now as though my first instincts about
Sam being unreliable were right. More than likely she was
running away from some messy domestic situation, pursued
by a lover who wouldn't let go rather than the man who
murdered my daughter.
I decided that before raising the alarm I needed to have
another talk with Sam Metcalf. As far as I was concerned,
the pressure was off.
Just then a blue message tab on the taskbar of my laptop
started flashing. The second I saw who was trying to reach
me, everything else went out of my mind.

21

templedog: I was beginning to think you couldn't make it adorablejoker. i'm a little late is all... the train was late td: you're here. That's what matters

I said the words 'you're here' out loud as I typed them. Still
wound up tight over the whole Sam business, it gave me a
sense of release. I felt exhilarated, almost light-headed, I was
so pleased to see Jelly. It was as if she'd just walked into the
room and lit up the entire damned Ritz.
We hadn't talked since the time at the library in DC and
I'd missed her. I'd been looking forward to this moment counting
the days, the hours.
td: aj: td:
the aj: td:

you know, I had a dream last night that we met

hmmm ... and what happened?
what do you think? The room spun around, the walls and ceiling vanished,
earth melted away... we kissed
hush... you know I wouldn't have stood for that kinda nonsense
but you did
all right, Mister... so let's say we kiss
so hard it takes your breath away
ay.
okkkayyyy ... then let's say i have to hold on to you
or ill fall... damn you
I glanced up from the screen of my laptop, which was set
out on the repro Louis XVI dressing table, and for an instant
saw not my reflection in the gilded mirror but Jelly's. I had
to stop myself reaching out my arms to catch her.

You can't recreate the spontaneity, the anticipatory thrill of
words appearing on a laptop screen. When I read the above
now, an exchange that at the time seemed full of charm,
humour, even a kind of empafhetic magic, I'm struck only
by its banality. The beguiling sizzle of Web 'convos' doesn't
survive translation to the cold medium of print. With instant
messaging, not being able to see the person you're talking to
(neither of us had a cam) adds mystery - it also allows plenty
of scope for misunderstanding. Which, as Will warned me,
is where the danger of the Net conversation lies: you fill in
what's missing with what you want to believe.

aj: it isn't real, ed

td: when you went to Washington, I was afraid I'd lost you
aj: you shouldn't even be thinking like that

But I was thinking like that, and suddenly I understood that
the rules of the game had changed. Maybe I was fooling
myself, filling in the gaps with what I wanted to believe, but
something happened with that virtual kiss that I hadn't reckoned
on. I should have seen it coming, should have known
in whatever region of my mind this obsession was growing
that a line had been crossed.

td: what the hell is happening to me
aj: you'll figure it out
td: just now... I couldn't distinguish between being in my head and yours...
like we were one for a moment. Does that make any sense to you?
She didn't answer. I waited, resisting the urge to type something
more. I wanted to hear her say, yes, she felt it too. A
pause stretched into a complicated silence. It was as if the
distance between us had suddenly grown immense. I must
have sensed what she was going to say next.

a:eddie... i have to tell you something you're not gonna like
aj: i have to go
td: you have to GO? You only just got here
aj: wish i had more time to talk. But really i have to go... i mean like right now
td: no wait... wait, I need to tell you something
td: surely you can stay... just a little longer... hey, come back!

She'd vanished. I reached out in disbelief and touched the
screen with my fingertips. How could she just take off like
that? How could she do this? I felt a tide of resentment sweep
over me. Didn't she realise something extraordinary and quite
wonderful had just occured?
What the fuck's the matter with you, I shouted, as one might
after somebody who has just walked out of a room, letting
the door slam behind them, but really asking the question
of myself. What had got into me? How could it possibly
make the slightest difference whether I ever 'saw' Jelly again
or not?
I slumped in the chair, staring at nothing. The dull ache in the pit of my stomach wouldn't let me consider that
there might be an innocent explanation for her sudden
departure. I was furious with her, devastated by her leaving,
and at the same time I felt embarrassed by the way I'd
reacted.
Here's your chance, a voice inside me said, to put an end
to this nonsense: hit the delete button, forget her, walk away
. . while you still can.
I remembered Will's warning that internet obsessions can
be as powerfully addictive as cocaine use or compulsive
gambling. But I knew that wasn't it.
I needed to get some air.

Wandering aimlessly along the Quai des Tuileries, I followed
some steps down into an underpass and came out on the
waterfront opposite the Musee d'Orsay. It's always a little
cooler by the river and I find the old cobblestoned quays, lit
at regular intervals by green-shaded lamps fixed to the
embankment wall, a peaceful place to walk at night.
I stopped near the Pont des Arts to light a cigarette. Looking
upstream to where the Seine divides around the prow of the
tie de la Cite, I glimpsed the twin towers of Notre Dame
through an arch of the bridge. The over-familiar picture
postcard view struck me as new and somehow different.
Patchy swells of music drifted across from the Left Bank and
suddenly the city seemed more alive, more full of beauty and
interest than I'd ever known it before. When I walked on, I
imagined Jelena at my side, her arm in mine, and I was showing
her Paris for the first time.
There could be no mistaking these symptoms, yet the
spectacle of a middle-aged Englishman mooching along the
banks of the Seine obsessed with a young girl he's never
laid eyes on, who doesn't in any meaningful way exist, escaped my usually keen sense of the absurd.
I tried to dismiss the whole thing as a patch of internal turbulence.
Maybe it had to do with losing Sophie, or my decision
to hunt down her murderer. But more likely I was just searching
for what had gone missing from my marriage. I had to remind
myself of the consequences for Laura and our family, everything
I'd worked for, if I allowed this ludicrous infatuation to develop.
The potential harm it could inflict on all concerned. In my
head, I could hear myself sounding like my wise and provident
brother-in-law. Only I lacked Dr Calloway's conviction.
On my way back to the hotel, crossing the Jardin du
Carrousel in front of the Louvre, I paused for a moment
under a street lamp and called Sam Metcalf.

Satisfied now she wasn't in grave danger, just running
around Europe playing games with her boyfriend, I needed
to be sure our meeting tomorrow morning at the Gare de
l'Est was still on. I might have written Sam off as a flake,
but her computer remained potentially a vital source of
information.
Still no signal from her mobile. Maybe Jimmy had finally
caught up with her and they were together now on the Vienna
Paris express, sorting things out over a glass of champagne.
I kept walking, and then a minute later tried her number
again.
This time, I heard it ringing.

22

'Listen to me!' He spoke low, enunciating the words clearly
into the headset mic positioned half an inch from the corner
of his mouth. He saw the little green light turn on at the toolbar.
The mic had picked up the command that returned the
system to recognition mode.
So far, so good. Now for the sound check.
'New paragraph!
'Greetings,' Ward said, dictating the first thing to come
into his head. 'Capitalise that, capitalise Jimmy, exclamation
mark, new line, capitalise hope you can join us for ice cream
and cookies to celebrate Linda's capitalise that birthday
delete that funeral on capitalise Friday at eleven o'clock full
stop.'
He followed the blinking insertion point on the screen of
his laptop, where after a small delay each word magically
appeared. He had the technique down now, speaking naturally
in continuous phrases without pausing between words. A
train was hardly the ideal acoustic environment for the Talk
master, but it could have been worse, the sleeper could have
been right over the wheels.
He smiled at 'funeral' which struck him as pretty funny. You saw the slate wiped clean, the innocence come back to her
face - a flash of how she must have looked as a child - you heard
her asking, the way Sophie did, asking for her Mom . . .
Yes, he felt a twinge of regret, sure, but it was ... unavoidable.
He stretched his fingers inside the latex gloves, opening
them, closing them.
Still a kid really, in her koala bear panties, Ward. A sudden lurch of the train rolled one of the dead girl's
limbs against his foot. He pulled it back as if he'd been
scorched. He hated being stuck with her in this stinking
sardine can of a bathroom; it felt now like the air con was
on the fritz.
He'd searched every inch of the compartment, and found
nothing. Sam must have taken the Toshiba with her. What if
she'd given it to the Rivers for safekeeping? Ward knew he
was taking a big risk waiting here for her. The situation was
all screwed up. A lot of unpredictable factors, a lot of shit
that could go wrong.
He sat on the toilet seat with his laptop perched on his
knees, trying to figure out the best place to be stationed when
Sam got back. He'd managed to drag her friend into the tiny
shower cubicle and draw the curtain so he didn't have to
look at her eyes, but those big bare legs stuck out from underneath.
Something smelled bad.
He wasn't getting pool colours any more.
'Stop UsteningF he commanded, pausing the hands-free
system. He reviewed the trial text, picking up a couple of
spelling errors, but nothing serious, no multiple-word
misrecognitions, no gobbledygook.
Timing was the real problem.
What if they took too long over dinner? What if Sam didn't
come straight back to her compartment? He looked at the
screen clock: 21.53. The train would be arriving at Linz in
thirty-five minutes. If Sam didn't walk through that door in
the next fifteen, he would have to let it go, abort the mission.
Then Linda's sacrifice would have been for nothing.

23

'Say all goes to plan,' Balfe Rivers asked, as he signalled the
waiter, 'where do you see yourself five years from now?'
'On a beach?' Sam gave him her innocent look, then broke
into a grin. 'Five years ... I'd have to think about it.'
'What kinda question is that, honey?' Fern said. 'Married
with a houseful of rugrats, is that what you want her to say?
Sam is going places, she'll end up curating one of our finest
museums, you wait.'
'Let her answer.'
Sam thought she had answered the question. But now they
were both looking at her expectantly. 'I want to go back to
Italy someday. To live.'
'Back to Florence? Frenzy . . .' Fern was a little drunk.
'Yes, Florence.' Sam hesitated. After tomorrow they
wouldn't see each other again. She said simply, 'I left my
heart there.'
Fern raised an eyebrow but neither one of them made any
comment. The waiter brought the check and the subject of
her future was dropped.
'Well, how was dinner, kiddo?' Balfe sat back and rubbed
his hands.
Sam had been hungry. She'd chosen the pate de campagne, then poulet a Vestragon followed by tarte tatin. Standard Paris
brasserie fare, but the glamour of the first-class dining car
made everything taste better.
'Wonderful, thank you.' She sighed, then shook her head.
'Listen, I want to . . . thank you both for everything'
'The Orient Express,' Fern muttered, 'it sure wasn't.'
'You're more than welcome, Sam.' Balfe smiled at her,
ignoring his wife's ungracious remark. 'It's been a delight
having you with us.'
'He's going to miss you,' Fern said with a dangerous glint,
then after a shade too long added, 'as will I.'
'We happen to be on the Orient Express,' Balfe said, 'the
direct descendant of the original train that left Paris in eighteen
eighty-three. It has a genuine pedigree, unlike the VeniceSimplon,
which is just vintage rolling stock restored for the
high-end tourist market. This is the real deal.'
'Well, isn't that interesting,' Fern said. 'Are we done here?
I'm sure Sam's heard quite enough about the goddamn
train.'
'Why don't I order another bottle of rouge?' Balfe suggested.
'Then we can hang out together till we get to Linz.'
'I don't know . . .' Sam glanced at Fern.
'Hey, it's our last night, guys, let's live a little.'
'You two can do what you want.' Fern pushed herself up
from the table, the marionette lines around her mouth set in
a tight little smile. 'I'm off to bed.'
Sam felt uncomfortable. She wanted to stay in the restaurant
car. As long as she was with the Rivers she believed
nothing could happen to her, but the last thing she needed
was to get mixed up in their marital squabbles.
'I think maybe I should . . . too.' She rose with her.
'You sure?' Balfe looked up at Sam. He was sitting with
one arm across the back of the banquette. 'You know, Linz
was Adolf Hitler's home town.' He turned over the palm of
his hand and smiled.
'For its sins.'

Andrea Morelli was in two minds about whether to wake the
girl and escort her back to her room, or let her stay. She lay
curled up beside him, snoring lightly, a slim bronzed arm
flung across his chest.
The wine had made him drowsy. If he left it much longer
he'd fall asleep himself and he didn't really want her around
when he woke up in the morning. On the other hand ... his
eye followed the glinting line of white-gold hairs that divided
her smooth belly. The investigator sighed.
Why would anyone choose to cram a body into a fridge?
Presumably so that it wouldn't be found for a few days
... in hot weather, no smell. Or just to keep it fresh. Was
this a gay cannibal thing, he wondered, or had Macchado
interrupted a crime in progress? He couldn't get over Luca's
nerve in calling him again (after being told not to disturb
him) with a name that meant nothing. Lucky for him, the
little figlio di puttana, it hadn't been at a critical moment.
But maybe it wasn't all his fault. Ed Lister could be
persuasive.
He was too tired now to return Lister's call. What could
be so urgent that he needed to speak to him at this time of
night? It could surely wait till tomorrow now.
'I need to get some sleep, baby,' he murmured, leaning
over to jog Gretchen's magnificent shoulder. But then he
caught her scent, a mixture of new-mown Alpine grass and
apples, and thought of a compelling reason to let her stay.
One change of mind prompted another.
He sat up against the pillows, reached for the hotel phone
and dialled the number of the Hotel Ritz in Paris. As he
asked, in his barely adequate French, for Edward Lister, he
had a feeling he would regret both decisions.
'Merci, monsieur . . . ne quittez pas'
The operator came back, told him the line was busy.

Outside the door of 2122, they stood in the swaying corridor
and chatted a while longer. Sam was in no hurry to go
inside. The girl she was sharing the sleeper with was friendly
but a talker, the kind who insists on telling you their life
story.
'I wonder . . . could you and Fern maybe look after this
for me?' She was holding the shopping bag that contained
her laptop. 'Just for tonight.'
'Be glad to, Sam.' Balfe beamed at her. 'I think it says quite
a lot about our friendship ... I mean the fact that you trust
us with such precious cargo.'
They were used to her lugging the computer everywhere,
never letting it out of her sight. She'd told them it contained
ten years of her art history research, not all of it backed up.
Which wasn't far from the truth.
'It's just you hear stories, you know, about robbery on trains.'
Balfe caught her eye and nodded. She had accepted, on
Fern's insistence, his offer to escort her back to her compartment.
It was time now, she sensed, to call it a night.
Sam was about to hand him the bag when she heard above
the clatter of the express the familiar ring of her cell phone.
She put the shopping bag down, pulled her cell from her
waist band and flipped it open.
She held up a hand to Balfe to wait.
'Ed?' She recognised Ed Lister's number on the screen.
'I've been trying to reach you since . . . the train . . .'
It wasn't a good connection. She thought she heard him
ask if she was okay. 'I'm fine,' she answered, 'fine.'
'Somehow I expected you would be. Look, I'm not sure
what's going on with you, Sam, but I don't like being messed
around.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Whoever called you in Florence and threatened you . . .
that is, if you really did receive such a call. He's not the
person who . . .'
'You think I invented that?'
'.. .the figure in the snapshots. Can you hear me? They're
not the same person.'
'How can you be sure?'
'You should've told me about your friend, Jimmy
Macchado.'
'You know Jimmy? Wait, has anything happened to him?'
'Somebody has been following you, Sam ... he may still
be following you. He could even be on the train. If I told
you it was Jimmy, what would you say?'
'Jimmy'' She gave a shout of laughter. 'That is so crazy.
Why would Jimmy follow me, for Christ's sake? Anyway, the
last time I heard of him he was lying on a beach in Porto
Ercole.'
'When was that?'
'I dunno . . . day before yesterday.'
'Sunday. Well, according to my sources, on Sunday, your
friend . . .'
But she never heard the rest of the sentence. There was
no warning, just an implosive whoosh as the train plunged
into a tunnel. The noise in the corridor grew suddenly much
louder.
'I didn't get that . . . Hello?' She flattened a hand over her
free ear, moving away from Balfe to the window. 'Hello?'
The connection was dead.
Her gaze fixed on the tunnel's safety lights as they rushed
by in a continuous white line. She thought about Venice and
wondered if Jimmy could possibly . . . no, there was no way.
He'd have called first.
Sam felt a light touch on her shoulder and was conscious
of Balfe standing right behind her, close enough for her to
feel his breath on her neck. She shut her eyes, thinking shit,
this is all I need, but saying nothing yet as she gave him
another second to take his hand away.
When he didn't, she knew there was a problem.
'The tunnel's eight and a half miles long,' he said.
'It's what' She turned to face him.
'I'm crazy about you, Sam.' He tried clumsily to grab her
around the waist, but she stepped back out of reach.
'Jesus, Balfe.' Sam burst out laughing. 'You are kidding,
right? You know, this is really really not a good idea.'
'Isn't it?' He was looking at her with shiny, hungering eyes.
'You know it isn't. And nothing's going to happen. So calm
down, and let's just forget about it, okay?'
'I'm crazy about you. Have been from the first moment I
saw you.'
'No, you're not,' she said firmly. 'All you are is a little
frisky.'
She picked up the heavy shopping bag and went over to
the door of 2122. As she worked the card-key, her back
turned, she felt apprehensive that Balfe might pounce, try to
force his way in behind her.
She needn't have worried.
'What about the laptop, Sam?' he asked. 'Still want me to
look after it for you?'
The resignation in his voice made her soften. He looked
so pitiful, standing there in his natty bowtie and blazer, she
almost relented.
'Nah, that's okay. I guess I'll hang onto it. But thanks
anyway.'
'We could always go back to the bar for another glass of
wine . . .'
He was sweet, really, just a harmless old guy.
'G'night, Balfe.' She smiled at him.
'Yeah.' He nodded and turned away.
It was strange though, Sam thought, as she cracked open
the door, worried now that she'd acted petty and ungrateful,
if he had kissed her she wouldn't have minded all that much.
She hesitated, then stepped inside the darkened sleeper.

24

I wasn't thinking clearly when I finally got through to Sam
Metcalf from the Jardin du Carrousel. It was reassuring to
hear her voice - she sounded all right, in high spirits even but
instead of wasting precious time accusing her of playing
games, I should have been asking about Jimmy Macchado.
With hindsight, I regret that I didn't try harder to find out
when exactly she had last spoken to him. It would have revealed
that something was wrong and surely led to my asking Sam
whether she thought Jimmy's mobile might have been stolen,
and the person following her impersonating him.
I was about to ask when we were cut off.
I sometimes wonder, if I'd caught on sooner, if I'd been
more on the ball, perhaps, and not drifting around Paris in
some kind of altered state, whether it would have made a
difference. It might have gained a little time, I tell myself,
but that's about all. I believe the outcome was always
inevitable.
When Sam didn't call back, I just assumed it was because
she had no interest in continuing our conversation. Walking
across the Place Vendome, I kept dialling her mobile until I
reached the doors of the Ritz, then gave up. It was now a
few minutes past ten. In less than half an hour, the Vienna
Paris express would be making its first halt at Linz on the
German border. I decided to try again then.
As soon as I got back to my hotel room, I checked my
laptop. I thought there was a chance Sam might have replied
to the e-mail I'd sent earlier when I was trying to reach her
urgently, when I was convinced the shadowy figure in the
photographs had followed her onto the train. Then I saw the
note in my system tray, and who it was from.

I tried to tell you this before, but couldn't ... it looks like I
won't be online again for a while. Look after yourself, k?
Jelena

Her status was 'currently offline'. The message had been
sent at 21.35, ten minutes after Jelly bailed out of our last
conversation and perhaps five after I left the hotel. It was a
depressing little wave goodbye, but it explained the abruptness
of her earlier departure and confirmed what I'd begun
to suspect about Jelly's response to the new situation we
found ourselves in.
If she wanted to break things off now, it was probably
because she was afraid to face up to her true feelings. I
sympathised, I was still busy resisting my own: I also knew
she couldn't keep running from them forever.
I tried typing a casual 'see you around' reply, but failed
to get the tone right. A second attempt sounded resentful
and angry. I decided to sleep on it, leave the whole thing till
morning. Good plan, but not workable.
I messaged her back that we had to talk.

Oh, so the music's too loud for ya is it?

She could hear Lazlo Kaloz, her neighbour in 4B, thumping
on the partition wall. Jelly reached for the volume dial, turned
it down, and screamed at him to mind his business. Crazy motherfucker]
Then cranked it back up. Beyonce's 'Irreplaceable'.
With a glance at the screen to see if Ed had typed anything
more, she went over to open the window, letting in the roar
of rush-hour traffic on Lexington Avenue. She lit up a Marlboro,
puffed on it nervously a couple of times, then stubbed
the cigarette out in the window box.
She felt ashamed about yelling at Lazlo. He was a fruitcake,
always talking to himself, carrying on long conversations in
different voices, but he meant no harm. And better the crazy
you knew . . . Lazlo was a small price to pay for having her
own apartment right in the middle of Manhattan, a rent
controlled studio walk-up she'd been lucky enough to inherit
from a friend.
She had told Ed she lived out in Brooklyn, just to be on
the safe side.
This is hopeless . . . Shaking her head, Jelly came back in
the room, naked under the towelling robe hanging open. Her
hair was one big mess, she hadn't showered yet and she didn't
know what the fuck to do about the Ed situation.
She only knew it was getting out of hand. Why did they
need to talk?
God, all they ever did was talk. TALK!
As long as they'd known each other, Jelly had never quite
understood what it was he saw in their friendship. It beat the
crap out of her why someone like Ed, who could have anything
or anyone he wanted, would choose to spend time chatting
with a nobody like her ... on a damned computer. He was
beginning to scare her.
What the hell was his problem?
She took a deep breath, sat back down at the desk and
started typing.

Sam Metcalf closed the door to the compartment quietly
behind her. She could just make out her companion's silhouette
in the upper bunk. Mercifully, the girl seemed to be
asleep. The last thing she felt like was having to listen to her
gab all night.
As her eyes adjusted to the dimness - the overhead cabin
and reading lights were off, leaving only the blue nightlight
to see by - Sam realised that the lump under the blankets
wasn't Linda. It was her whale of a backpack.
A narrow strip of white light appeared under the bathroom
door. Or had the light always been on and she simply hadn't
noticed? She heard plumbing noises, then the sound of water
running.
The girl was in there, taking a shower.
Jeeesus . . . Sam sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. It
occurred to her that Linda could be up and down that ladder
all night long.
She threw the shopping bag onto the lower berth. The
bedclothes were not the way she had left them. Her first
thought was that the girl had been sleeping in her bunk, which
was not only a little weird but totally unacceptable. Then, as
Sam locked the door to the corridor and hit the switch for
the overhead lights, she saw something that made her almost
cry out in surprise.
Suspended from a fixed coat-hanger on the back of the
door was the silk Ferragamo robe she had bought for her ex-
lover and then given to Jimmy as a reward for helping her
get away from Florence.
Her heart leapt into her throat and, for a split second, even
though she knew it made no sense at all, she wondered if it
might not be her Federico who had been pursuing her across
Europe.
'Jimmy?' Sam asked aloud, hoping.

25

The text of our last conversation was still onscreen, along
with Jelly's photograph, and for a while after she'd gone I sat
there under her sharp, amused gaze, trying to absorb what
she'd just said. It had been a revelation.
I imagined her at home, still at her desk between the
windows, the framed print she'd bought at a thrift shop, a
Braque still-life of musical instruments (she'd described her
Brooklyn apartment to me in detail) hanging on the wall
above her head. I looked at her face on the screen and smiled.
No, this changed everything.
My whole world had been turned upside down.
I kept scrolling back to that moment, as brief and unexpected
as a shooting star, when Jelena admitted that I meant
more to her than just a friend.

templedog: what you just... the loving me part. Did you mean it?
: no, i only said it for my health

I'd laughed out loud when I saw those words.
I tried to mask my true feelings, agreeing with her when
she suggested we both needed 'distance', could use a break,
should maybe 'take it easy' (that phrase again) for a while Jelly
couldn't have made herself any clearer - but it made no
difference. I was euphoric.

td: I know it's crazy... people are not supposed to fall in love like this
aj: you're not listening, Ed... i said i'm NOT in love with you
td: it's all right, it's ok,.. I understand
aj: look, let me lay it out for you so there's no confusion, i do love you, but i'm
not in love with you... and that ain't gonna change
td: I can't explain what's happened to me. I've never felt like this about anyone
aj: do i need to remind you... you have a wife and son?
td: it's as if all my life I've been waiting for you
aj: will you stop with that shit! my father walked out on us when I was ten...
I'm not going to be the reason you do the same to your family
td: you're a good sweet person, Jelly... how could I fail to love you
aj: ohhh... don't, please don't

It might take a while before she saw things exactly as I saw
them. But there was no hurry, we had all the time in the
world. I was ready to go along with her inclination to step
back and not contact each other for a week or two, because
I knew now that deep down she felt the same way.
I wasn't completely blind. Over the moon, maybe, but
aware of the risks I was taking. I recognised that anyone
looking at my behaviour from the outside might see it as
aberrant, delusional, even leading down a dangerous path,
but it really didn't feel that way - I wasn't crazy, I was
simply in love.
I was considering whether I should e-mail Jelly again - just
to let her know I hadn't stopped thinking about her, not for
a single moment, since we signed off - when an electronic
chime alerted me to incoming mail.
Due to unforseen (sic) circumstances the hour of the
Reception has been brought forward. The show is due to
begin imminently. Please join us.

The stilted, mock-formal announcement was signed 'Ward'.
I hadn't forgotten about the house on the homebeforedark website, or the invitation to a live webcast at midnight. I may
have been distracted by the commotion over Sam Metcalf
and my own inner turmoil, but an ability to cut off, compartmentalise,
switch from one subject to another with relative
ease has served me well in business and in life. The secret,
I find, is to keep the lines between things clean: I don't like
pictures that bleed into each other.
I'd put the 'Reception' to the back of my mind, but still
had hopes that it could lead to some kind of contact with
Sophie's murderer. There was no hard evidence of a link
between the website and the person who killed my daughter.
I knew Sophie had made sketches of the white mansion,
inspired by some vague or perhaps real dread, and then left
the web address on Sam's computer. That much was clear.
But, when I thought about it, I couldn't establish a definite
connection between Sam's first getting in touch with me and
her subsequently claiming that she was threatened, possibly
followed. Or with the coincidence of my being in Paris when
she contacted me again. There was a blurring of the lines, a
shifting of the boundaries between what was real and what
was not that made me uneasy.
Yet I couldn't help feeling, as the invitation to the
'Reception' beckoned, that somehow it must all tie together and that the answers I was seeking were waiting for me inside the white mansion. Since gaining access to its dismal interior
- apart from the discovery that one of the inhabitants was
an amateur musician, a struggling pianist - I'd really learnt
nothing more.
The difference was that now the website was aware of my
existence. It didn't occur to me till later to wonder how the
sender of the note knew my e-mail address.
Whoever or whatever 'Ward' was, we were in touch.
I logged on to homebeforedark.net.kg.
The site was slower to download than usual; or maybe it
just seemed slower because the familiar setting had changed
from day to night. The mansion rose up between dark trees,
its picket fence and long pillared porch bone-white under the
only visible source of light, a patch of stars that twinkled
rather too strenuously over the slate roof.
The scene looked peaceful enough and it occurred to me
that I might have been wrong about the environs of the virtual
house: as a nightscape, certainly, it appeared more rural than
suburban. The stillness was broken by the occasional cry of
an owl.
I typed in the password, Levelwhite, then 'walked' up the
garden path and knocked at the front door. It didn't open.
Waiting for something to happen, I wondered what time
it was there. The shutters were all closed, the windows
behind them dark, giving the impression that the household
had retired to bed. The place couldn't have appeared less
welcoming. I'd been invited to a reception, a party. Where
was everybody?
Then I heard the music. As before, very faint and hesitant.
I had to strain to catch the familiar notes, but someone in
the house was playing 'Fur Elise' on the piano. I knew it was
only an effect, but it made the hair stand up on the back of
my neck.
The phone began to ring. For a moment, I wasn't sure
which one.
In an upstairs window a light came on behind the shutters.
I saw a shadow cross the louvred casement as if somebody
was going to answer it, then whoever cast the shadow
turned and started pacing backwards and forwards in the
room.
I snatched up the receiver. It was the hotel switchboard
asking if I wanted to speak to Andrea Morelli.

26

Sam stood inside the compartment, listening for the soft
patter of the shower to stop. There were other small sounds
coming from the bathroom that she preferred not to try to
identify. Then, whoever it was in there turned off the water.
In case they hadn't heard her the first time, she repeated,
louder, 'Jimmy?'
Again, no reply.
More tentatively, she said, 'Linda? You okay?'
Silence, something was wrong.
Sam started to back away slowly towards the door to the
corridor, keeping her eyes on the bathroom. As she reached
behind her, fumbling for the handle under the folds of the
silk robe, she noticed her Toshiba lying on top of the bunk
where she'd just thrown it down and hesitated.
There wasn't time.
Her hand found a switch and she cut the overhead lights.
A second later she saw the seam of light around the bathroom
door go out. Her heart racing, she turned down the handle
and pulled. It wouldn't open, she'd engaged the lock.
'Oh Jesus, Mary, God,' Sam breathed. She was still tugging
at it frantically when the door to the bathroom opened
inwards.
On the threshold stood the figure of a man drenched in
blue. His wet clothes made it look as if he'd been painted
that colour; but the blueness came from the nightlight in the
ceiling and the illuminated screen of a laptop, standing open
on the wash-basin behind him, casting a livid glow over everything.
'What
are you doing here?' Sam challenged him boldly,
trying not to show she was frightened. She couldn't make
out a face. He wore dark rimless glasses and a shower cap
pulled low over his forehead and ears, held in place by headphones
with mini antennae. His eyebrows were taped. He
looked like an insect in a track suit.
She knew this could only be Ward.
Her voice shook. 'Where's Linda?'
The feculent smell drew her eye down to the soaked floor
of the bathroom behind him. He didn't answer, but took a
step forward, and she caught a glimpse of the Australian girl's
bare legs sticking out from the shower stall.
Sam started to scream but the sound never left her throat.
As she turned away from him he lunged, throwing an arm
around her neck from behind and clamping his other hand
over her mouth. The speed and power of his assault overwhelmed
her and made resistance pointless. He loosened the
choke-hold long enough to tear a strip of silver duct tape
from a roll he wore like a bangle on his wrist and seal her
mouth, then wrap it a couple of times around her head. His
face was an inch from hers, she could feel his warm breath
on her ear.
'Listen to meP he commanded. For a moment Sam thought
he was talking to her, but then she realised he was speaking
into a mic on a boom close to his lips.

'Open quote capitalise glad you could make it comma FRIEND upper case exclamation mark close quote!
'How can I help you, Signor Lister?'
He sounded wearily patient, leaving me in no doubt that
by returning my call at this hour he was doing me a favour.
'Thanks for getting back, Andrea. I know it's late, but there's
been a development. You remember Sam Metcalf?'
'The girl from Boston who let your daughter use her
computer? You were going to meet her and keep me informed.'
'She never showed up.'
'Any idea why?'
'She claims she received a warning. I heard from her again
this evening.'
He sighed. 'Go on.'
I quickly told Morelli about the phone call I got from Sam
in Vienna before she boarded the overnight train to Paris;
how she was convinced that she was being followed by
Sophie's killer. I mentioned the photos, then filled him in on
the calls to her mobile which I'd had traced to a friend of
hers, Jimmy Macchado.
'She could turn out to be just paranoid. In which case, I'm
sorry to have bothered you. But I felt I ought to let you
know.'
There was silence from the other end.
Morelli said, 'Excuse me one moment.' I heard female
laughter in the background, then a muffled exchange and
what sounded like a smack. He had cupped his hand over
the mouthpiece, but not very effectively.
He came back. 'Signor Lister?'
'I'm still here.'
He cleared his throat and said, 'Jimmy Macchado was found
murdered this afternoon in a house near the Piazza Antinori.'

'Jesus Christ,' I breathed. 'When did it happen?'
'Sometime over the weekend. Indications are he's been
dead three days. I'm not in Florence, as you know, so I haven't
seen the report yet. It looks like he was killed when he interrupted
an art theft.'
'You realise what this means?'
'I know what you're thinking. It doesn't necessarily follow
that whoever killed him also stole his mobile.'
'Perhaps not, but the point is somebody made the calls
from his number. And more than likely that person has been
following Sam Metcalf and is on the train with her now.'
'It's a possibility, but from here . . . there's not a lot I
can do.'
'Listen to me,' I said as calmly as I could. 'This girl has
information about whoever murdered my daughter. If he is
on the train, then he's going to kill her too. The Vienna-Paris
express stops at Linz in eleven minutes. What you can do is
contact the Austrian police now and get them to meet the
damned train.'
'I'm afraid, Signor Lister, it's not so simple.'
'Then bloody well make it simple,' I shouted.
'There are certain protocols . . . there isn't time.'
'If you do nothing, Andrea, another innocent young
woman with all her life before her will die. It's still your
case, isn't it?'
Even before I put the phone down, I started keying Sam's
number on my mobile. I could hear it ringing, but there was
no answer. I kept trying, hitting redial every thirty seconds.
My hands sweaty, shaking.
I was so tense I failed to notice there'd been a development
onscreen. What got my attention was the music; as if announcing
a dramatic event, the tinkling reprise of 'Fur Elise'
suddenly grew louder, more insistent.
I looked up at the house. The shutters with the light behind
them swung back and, like an advent calendar, revealed a
man and woman standing at the upstairs window, locked in
what appeared to be a passionate embrace.
The silhouetted couple twirled slowly. I couldn't make out
many details. From certain angles it looked as if they were
kissing; from others, as if the woman was resisting, trying to
get away.
Then, at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, a
dialogue box opened and a prompt advised that 'Ward' was
typing a message.

m: glad you good make it, FREND
mrjest in time four the show ... all live, all action
m: stay tuned, and taste the realty ...

'Who are you?' I tried typing back, but there was no space
available for a reply. It was a one-way conversation.

27

In the mirror above the wash-basin, darkly entwined, they
looked like one person. Ward stood with his feet planted apart,
shoulders braced against the top bunk to counter the swaying
motion of the train. Sam couldn't move unless he did. Almost
a foot taller, he held her tightly between his thighs with one
arm around her neck and the other wrapped around her
chest, pinning her arms to her sides. When he spoke (in that
hoarse cadenced whisper she heard first in Florence), she
felt the rise and fall of his diaphragm against her upper back.
They faced the open bathroom door, Ward talking into the
mic and following his utterances as they appeared after a
brief delay on the screen of his laptop.
He seemed totally engrossed, not taking any notice of her.
In her terror, barely able to think, Sam knew she had to
find some way to attract attention. The steward had removed
her and Linda's passports so they wouldn't be disturbed in
the middle of the night - he wasn't coming back, but if she
could just reach the bell he'd said to use in case they needed
anything.
She tried to recall its exact position on the wall above the
bed; it was by the light switch. But she needed to be sure.
She remembered groping for the door-handle, the silky folds
of the robe she'd given Jimmy getting in the way ... oh
God, no.
A stifled sob of despair brought a flux of vomit up into
her mouth. It had just struck her: Ward must have killed him
too. The spew swilled against the back of her teeth and met
the duct-tape barrier. Afraid of choking, she swallowed,
siphoning air through her nose in panicky little snorts.
She felt Ward's hold on her neck relax, then tighten again.
Her breathing returned to normal, or near enough. She
wanted to cry but then her nose would run and block her
sinuses. Jimmy wouldn't have stood a chance. He only thought
the best of people. Fighting back tears, knowing she should
never have involved him, Sam felt a surge of anger. She was
damned if she'd let this sick fuck do the same to her. She
was going to get out of here, beat the odds, survive.
The train would be arriving at Linz any moment now. She
just had to hang on a little longer.
'Open quote I want you to imagine comma close quote,' Ward
said into the mic in a flat emotionless monotone, 'open quote that your hands are my hands comma as I undress her comma unhooking her bra and new line releasing those big playful
puppies comma new line sliding her panties over her hips dot
dot dot damn comma but she's hot exclamation mark close
quote.'
He paused and sucked his teeth.
Dislodged in the struggle, Sam's glasses were still hanging
from one ear; if she tilted her head, she found she could read
the text on the screen of Ward's laptop. She realised he was
using voice recognition software - with limited success judging
from the mangled phrases that scudded across the page but
she had no idea why, or for whose benefit he was recording
this garbage, or where it was heading.
He cleared his throat and continued in the same dull tone,
'Open quote lower my mouth to her tits comma teasing
the nipples new line mmmmm yes comma kneeling before
her comma new line pressing my face into her wet kitty new
line breathing in that musky scent new line oh god dot dot
dot I don't know how long I can hold it new paragraph open
quote!
'Capitalise hard yet comma good buddy question mark close
quote!
What if this were a prelude to rape, Sam thought? It would
at least buy her some time. But as she listened and watched,
waiting for the ordeal to begin, she realised it wasn't going
to happen. The lewd descriptions her attacker was dictating
to his laptop didn't match what he was doing. Ward wasn't
touching her in any sexual way. He wasn't aroused. It was
just talk.
She didn't know whether to allow herself to hope, or prepare
for the worst.
'Stop UsteningP he said.
When he spoke again close to her ear, addressing her for
the first time, the words did not appear on the screen.
'You wouldn't listen, Sam,' he said softly. 'I can appreciate
your wanting to help Sophie, see justice done. But this isn't
what it seems. I warned you not to go stirring up the past.
You just wouldn't listen.'
Sam made a gagging sound, rolling her eyes and jerking
her head sideways towards the bunk where her Toshiba lay
in the shopping bag.
He was watching her in the mirror.
'I know, honey,' he said, 'I know what you're trying to say.
We've become close these last few days, haven't we? Friends
almost. Believe me, I'd love to just take the damned thing
and leave, but we're too far down the road now for turning
back.'
He lifted the end of the sentence into a question.
Sam shook her head violently, made incoherent pleading
noises for him to remove the gag and let her speak. He didn't
react. She felt the vibration of her cell phone again against
her hip and wondered if Ward had felt it too through her
bones.
'Sam, I'll let you in on a little secret ... I truly loved her.
Does that surprise you? You have any idea what it's like to
love someone? Her daddy can take some credit for bringing
us together. But, you know, I do believe we were always
intended.'
As the train leaned into a curve, the driver braked suddenly
and then accelerated, throwing them off balance. Ward reached
out to steady himself and for a second let go her arms. Long
enough for Sam to tug her cell from her belt and press Talk.
She barely got the phone up to her taped mouth before
he caught her wrist and prised it from her fingers, sending
her last link to the world spinning to the floor.
She screamed. Inside her head it sounded more like a high
pitched moan. Please God, she prayed, let someone hear me.
He crashed a latex-gloved fist into her face.
Sam fell sideways onto her bunk. Her glasses came off and
a gush of hot blood flooded her nose. Ward grabbed a handful
of her thick hair and dragged her spluttering back up onto
her feet.
She fought him, trying to get a knee to his groin, stamping
down on his foot with a kitten heel, scrabbling at his hands
as they closed around her throat. He didn't flinch, but steadily
pushed his thumbs deeper into the soft hollow of her trachea.
She looked up at Ward's face, her frantic eyes beseeching
him now, but saw only the twin blue squares reflected in his
glasses. The tiny cursors blinking.
He was back in front of his laptop screen.
'Listen to me . . I

I came and went from my desk, unable to stay still, my heart
thumping in my chest. I was getting an intermittent signal
from Sam's number, but no answer. The only hope was that
she'd gone back to the restaurant car, or maybe the bar for
a nightcap, and left her mobile in the sleeper compartment.
All the while I kept a watchful eye on the white house.
The reception I'd been invited to attend hadn't materialised.
Not that I knew what to expect. There was nothing 'live'
about the webcast. I was aware of Ward as a controlling presence
at the other end of the terminal, but all the signs pointed
to the show having been pre-recorded. By now I was too
worried about Sam to care.
The misspelled obscenities read like dispatches from an
adult chat room and barely held my attention. But the familiar,
insinuating way Ward spoke to us (I assumed there were other
viewers), the 'my hands are your hands' business, gave me
an unpleasant feeling.
It never crossed my mind that he was speaking to a
computer, or I might have guessed sooner what was really
going on. I just thought the clumsy mistakes were deliberate,
as if he wanted to make the subtitles for the shadow-play in
the upstairs window sound authentic and urgent.
The silhouetted avatars were now engaged in lovemaking
explicit enough to give spectators the frisson of virtual
voyeurism. As the commentary turned into dialogue, I got
the inescapable feeling from the action onscreen that something
terrible was about to happen.

fc oh god, help me
fc i'm almost there
m: pushing back the hood and flicking the little pink pearl fast and hard so it
feels like ... the rush of fluttering wings
k: oh my god
fc i'm almost THERE ... starting to tighten
m: rolling you over so now I'm on top
fc please just... DO IT TO ME
m: fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkinggg bitch i let go now and fuck you with all i've got
... pounding into you... biting your tits, neck, ear... wild as a fox
fcoh god just a little more
m: slip my hands around your neck
m;you ... like ML, you little slut?
fc oh god ... oh my god yes
m: she's got the GLOW on her... eyes shut, rosy mouth hanging open, nostrils
flared... hasn't a clue what's coming next
m: feel my hands around your neck start to tighten...

I jumped up and walked away from the desk, my mobile
clamped to my ear - Sam's number was ringing. I willed her
to answer, but while I concentrated on the sound, faint and
drowning in static, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.
I lost the connection and hit redial.
I came back, sat down heavily in my chair and lit a cigarette.
I tried to reassure myself that what I was watching was just
fantasy, a game of make-believe - that it wasn't real. But the
dialogue had left the comparatively innocent actions of the
couple in the window far behind. I followed the subtitles onto
the screen with growing revulsion and then horror because
suddenly I knew that the words represented what was
happening now, live, right in front of my eyes.
It was as if to read was to become complicit in the act.
Sam's number started ringing again.
Come on, pick up, I said aloud, you must pick up.

m: i want to see your face, look at me
m;you dare turn away... look at me, bitch
fc what are you doing... no, don't... your hurting!
m: her sift white neck, mmmm, oh boy, lak a swans. . . I tell ya she is dee
licious.. .ya smeel the feer in her? you kin jest taste it...
m: pressing my thumbs into your throat... lok in my eyes
fc please stop ... no, I can't breathe
m;the gates of heaven... open... taste... words with an iron shape
fcNO, PLEASE ... JESUS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING ... DON'T

Sam's mobile answered.
Under the pounding and clatter of the express I heard the
elusive sounds of a struggle, punctuated by a muffled whinnying
squeal that sent shivers through me. I was too late.
There was a sharp thud, more scuffling, and then a dreadful
sucking gurgling noise like a dentist's aspirator drawing off
saliva, after which everything went quiet.
He was strangling her, strangling her to death.
I started yelling into the phone ... I don't even know what
I said, or if anyone heard me. I felt as if something precious
was slipping from my grasp and nothing I could do was going
to stop it hitting the floor and smashing into a thousand pieces.
I was still yelling after we were cut off. I remember thinking
this is what it must have been like for Sophie.
The hotel phone rang. Morelli didn't identify himself, he
just said the Austrian police would be boarding the train at
Linz in two minutes. I was almost certain of what they'd find,
but I couldn't tell him.
I kept hoping they might get there in time.
Her vision became blurred before she started to black out.
Sam imagined she could feel the train slowing down. Saw
the street lights of a town flicker by behind the blind at lengthening
intervals, as if they were stopping, coming into a station.
Then realised it was only the darkness steadily gaining.
In the last moments of consciousness, she retrieved an
eidetic memory of childhood, a colour-saturated snapshot of
herself, Samantha, aged seven, standing between her parents
on the sunny veranda of their vacation home near Lake
Michigan .. . Mister Bluebird on her shoulder . . . everything
satisfactual.
Absolutely sure this is the freest moment.

I glanced at the screen and saw the woman give her lover a
tender kiss before withdrawing from the window. The man
lingered, leaning out over the sill and looking up at the night
sky, as if admiring the stars, then with a lifelike yawn he
closed the shutters. The party was over.
A few moments later the light in the bedroom went out.
Softly, the piano (having fallen silent earlier) struck up
again, this time playing the accompaniment to Brahms'
'Lullaby', a female voice singing in the original German, 'Guten Abend, Gute Nacht . . 
The front door of the darkened house swung open.
I moved my cursor into the entrance, double-clicked and
instantly found myself in the parlour with the two armchairs
in front of the cabinet TV that Sophie had drawn in her
sketchbook. Only here the little screen was live and, instead
of the love scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's, showed the
interior of a sleeping car.
I watched in fascinated horror as the jumpy, grainy picture
drifted in and out of focus while the video camera panned
down from the top to the lower bunk. Then, as the second
half of the haunting lullaby filled the room, the cam pulled
slowly back to reveal Sam's body sprawled on the floor of
the compartment.
She was fully clothed, just as Sophie had been, lying with
her head resting on her shoulder, one bare arm extended
towards the window. It looked as if she'd been trying to reach
her mobile, which lay under the ladder to the upper berth
only inches from her outstretched fingers.
'Morgen friih, wenn Gott will,Wirst du wieder geweckt.'
The grotesque irony of the lyric was no doubt intentional.
'Tomorrow morning, if God is willing, you will wake again
. . .' The angelic voice dipped and' soared while the cam
closed in on a glazed eye, the protruding tongue, then cut
to a dark stain on Sam's dress. I turned away.
It was then I noticed that there was somebody in the parlour
watching TV.
The only light came from the flickering screen, but it was
enough to show that one of the chairs was occupied. All I
could see was the back of the viewer's head and his hand
on the armrest. I realised with a dazed, sickened feeling that
the figure was meant to be me - sitting there, enjoying the
show.
I tried to move forward but the cursor wouldn't let me.
Then, as if he'd seen enough, 'Ed Lister' aimed the remote
at the cabinet and switched off the TV.
My laptop screen faded to black.

28

Ward took a last look around the compartment as the night
express, with a long sigh of the brakes, pulled into Linz
station. He'd already tidied up, retrieved Sam's cell phone,
stuffed her shoes (one of the heels had scraped his shin)
along with his laptop and headset into his rucksack, then
dragged her body into the bathroom. He'd had to heave it
on top of Linda's before he could shut the door.
He picked up the Toshiba. He only had seconds to make
up his mind.
He could slip out into the corridor, walk back along the
train to the couchettes and join everyone else getting off here.
The risk was someone might notice him leave the compartment,
and then the CCTV cameras on the platform . . .
Or else, go out the window. It opened inwards from the
top, creating an eleven-inch gap. Tight, but not impossible.
He'd already checked the angles. The express was coming
into the platform on the starboard side; he could see that the
sleeper cars would end up overlooking the tracks out beyond
the main station. He assessed the risk of sprain or injury . . .
the drop was a good twelve feet.
He had the rope. If he could just get that damned tune
off his brain.
He chose the window.
Ward never understood what people saw in music. The
lullaby had left him with a raw, savage feeling inside ... pale
green needles line-dancing on the cylinder of blue glass that
revolved slowly inside his head. Music did things to him;
even the sweetest melodies could tear up his head with jagged
shards, blinding white, sometimes red. The food of love made
him want to throw up.
But he knew how to . . . hell, he could imagine the impact
the soundtrack must have had on his audience. He smiled as
he pulled on a pair of leather gloves over the latex ones. But
there wasn't time to think about that now.
Ward lowered his rucksack and the shopping bag containing
the Toshiba first. The other end of the half-inch nylon rope
was tied to the middle rung of the aluminium ladder, which
he'd jammed under the window. He climbed up onto the
table and, with the grace of an acrobat, posted himself headfirst
through the opening.
The night air tasted yellow.
Outside the train, facing downwards, he descended hand
over hand by the rope until his feet were clear of the window,
then flipped his legs over his head in a neat somersault. But
didn't complete.
Instead of abseiling to the ground, Ward pulled himself
back up the rope and, clinging to the window frame, untied
the hitch from the ladder; the rope slipped away between his
knees, the ladder fell back inside the sleeper. As he hung
there a moment longer, trying to close the hinged part of the
window with his free hand, he heard knocking at the door
of the compartment.
A woman's voice said, 'Polizei. Machen She bitte aufF
Ward let go and dropped straight to the track. Ed Lister
must have been working the phones, his money doing the
talking. He'd got out just in time.
He landed awkwardly catching his ankle bone on a timber
railway tie. A sharp pain shot up his left leg, but when he
stood and put weight on it the ankle didn't give way. As far
as he could tell he hadn't broken or twisted anything. He
didn't bother to coil the rope or detach it from the bags. Just
bundled everything together under an arm and, keeping his
head low, started to walk fast alongside the train.
Ahead the broad swathe of silver track and overhead cable
ran through a built-up section with houses on either side. He
hadn't reckoned on the station being so close to the centre of
town. An area of darkness lay out beyond the front carriages.
Too far to risk without cover.
At the first gap between the carriages,Ward hunkered down
and crawled forward under the coupling gear so that he could
look through to the other side of the train. The end of the
platform was thirty or forty yards back, but right across from
where he crouched he could see some freight-cars standing
in an unlit siding.
He heard a commotion in the carriage behind him; a deep
voiced man was shouting orders in German - they must have
found the bodies. It wouldn't be long now before they were
down on the track with dogs, searching for him. As he weighed
his chances of reaching the siding without being seen, a storm
of sirens and flashing blue dome lights announced the arrival
of reinforcements.
Ward looked at his watch. From the train he'd called 'Willy's
Reisen', a taxi company he'd found on the internet, and
arranged for a cab to meet him on Klosterstrasse in fifteen
minutes. He could still make it if his ankle held.
Then he saw the searchlight coming towards him. Dazzled
by the beam, it took Ward a moment to realise it wasn't part
of the police operation. The light was on the front of a
through-train hurtling down the track on the south side of
the station.
He crawled out from under the coupling and stood up.
The pain in his ankle rose to another level, the adrenaline
boost worn off by now. Relying on instinct to judge speed
and distance, and which set of rails the train was on, Ward
darted away from the shadow of the stationary express.
He could hear shouting as he ran towards the light. Hurling
himself into the warm buffer of air a few yards ahead of the
engine, he felt the shining rails tremble under his feet before
the enormous noise of the train engulfed him.
He fell into the arms of the night, tumbling over and over
until he found himself on his back looking up at the deep
blue-black sky, safely through to the other side. The long
goods train, still running, would give him time to seek shelter.
A few stars were showing, their little fat faces, terrifyingly
plump, watching him as he picked himself up and limped
towards the deserted platform.
He needed to find someplace quiet where he could settle
down to work on the Toshiba. Now that the laptop was in
his hands, no one was ever going to find him. He thought
about Ed Lister in Paris and couldn't help smiling, shaking
his head at the nerve of the guy .. . all my life I've been waiting
for you. Sounds familiar, Ed. It was up to him to make sure
'Templedog' didn't get away with it this time.
Ward already had the name and address of the girl in
New York.
London

29

I used to know her mobile number by heart. It faded quite
a few months ago, yet even how I can't bring myself to take
it off my speed-dial or any of my address books. I read somewhere
that it's not healthy to hold on to these empty reminders,
but I like seeing her name every time I bring up the contact
list on my computer.
I find the link a comfort, like keeping a candle burning.
All morning my head had been full of thoughts of Sophie.
It wasn't just knowing that I'd be talking to the police later
about Sam's murder and that Sophie's case was bound to
come up; a host of little things kept reminding me of her.
I kept seeing an image of her as a child - I'm not sure that
it was a genuine memory - standing outside in the dark
throwing pebbles up at the window to attract my attention.
Sometimes I 'feel' Sophie the way an amputee feels the
familiar shape and weight of a phantom limb, but this was
different - almost as if she were making her presence felt
deliberately, at a critical moment.

'You said she was being strangled.'
'How did you know?' the other one asked.
'I didn't . . . it's what it sounded like over the phone. I
could hear her choking.'
'Let me get this straight. You heard choking, then she grew
quiet. Do you remember what time it was?'
I took a sip of coffee. My hand shook a little, enough for
the cup to rattle when I put it back down on the saucer. 'Ten
fifteen. I know because I was counting the minutes before
the train was due to arrive at the station.'
There were three of them - Chief Inspector Edith Cowper,
Andrea Morelli and Detective Constable Daniel Ince from
the National High Tech Crime Unit. We were in the conference
room of my offices on Tite Street. They sat like a tribunal
on one side of the mahogany conference table; I faced them
on the other.
'Investigator?' Cowper turned to Morelli, creased, unshaven,
heavy-eyed from lack of sleep; the strain of the past thirty
six hours showed in his unusually subdued manner. He had
flown over from Linz that morning.
'Both women were strangled.' Morelli cleared his throat
and, looking down at a piece of paper on the table, read
aloud,'" ... deep bruising either side of the voice box, well
marked signs of asphyxia in the lungs and over the heart.
Scratches on the neck probably made by the victim as she
tried to loosen her attacker's hands."
'The autopsy notes for Linda Jack, the occupant of the
upper berth in the cabin, are almost identical to Sam Metcalf's.
No evidence of sexual assault ... in either case.'
I shifted in my chair. The explicit language of the webcast
had more or less convinced me that Sam was raped. I wanted
to ask Morelli to elaborate, but this wasn't the moment. We
exchanged a glance and he went on. 'According to the
coroner's pathologist, Sam died between ten and ten twenty.'
'Which would seem to support Mr Lister's statement.'
Cowper smiled, let it fade.
She was in control here, doing most of the talking. A thin
snip of a woman, ash-blonde, about my age, Edith Cowper
of the Wiltshire Constabulary was the senior police officer
in the UK with a continuing interest in my daughter's murder.
She wasn't heading a new investigation; Cowper had been
instructed to look into my allegations of police negligence
against the Met - an appeal for justice which hadn't won me
many friends at Scotland Yard.
'Do you think you could have misinterpreted the sounds
you described?'
I wasn't sure where this was leading, but there was a hostile
edge to Cowper's questions which I did my best to ignore.
'I can only tell you what I heard.'
'The sounds of a struggle? Choking?'
I nodded. There was a silence.
'Did he leave any evidence this time?' I asked, wanting to
bring the focus back where it belonged, on the murderer.
'They're still searching for identifiers.' Morelli made a
steeple of his fingers. 'It's unlikely he left no trace. Every
criminal, Signor Lister, leaves something of himself and takes
something with him from the scene of the crime.'
'I seem to remember hearing that one before,' I murmured.

'If you don't mind, sir,' Cowper said crisply, 'We'll ask the
questions. How did you come to know Jimmy Macchado?'
'I didn't. I already told you. Somebody using his mobile
rang me in Florence. I found out it was his phone because
I had the number traced.'
'Is that something you do routinely, Mr Lister? Have
people's numbers traced?'
'I got an anonymous call. I thought there might have been
some connection with Sophie.'
'You never had any contact with Macchado when you were
in Florence?'
'No. The caller said he had a wrong number. I'm fairly
certain now it was the person who murdered my daughter.'
Any idea how this person knew your number?'
'None whatsoever.'
'You gave your mobile number to Sam Metcalf.'
'That's correct.'
'Not your e-mail address?'
I shook my head, no.
It was starting to feel like an interrogation.

In Paris, still not certain that Sam was dead, I'd sat up most
of the night with a bottle of Scotch, waiting for the phone
to ring. I kept going back over our last conversation. I could
hear her voice, breathless, straining to be heard above the
din of the train, her whoop of laughter at my suggestion that
Jimmy was following her - she'd sounded lively and relaxed, happy even. If we hadn't been cut off then, I told myself,
things might have turned out differently.
Around three thirty a.m. I got word from Andrea Morelli
confirming that the events I'd witnessed remotely had really
happened. I could give up hoping that the webcast had been
a game, a sick fantasy. It was almost a relief.
Later, on the way out to the airport, numb and exhausted,
I made a detour by the Gare de l'Est. I had the driver wait
outside the north entrance, while I walked through the ticketing
hall into the main concourse. Sam's train was still on
the arrivals board - under the automated display I saw the
special announcement.

Information Voyageurs: Suite a une prescription
d'accident de personne a Linz le train 262, Orient
Express Rapide 1er, Brriwee: 9h 48, Uenant de: UIEN
MUHCHEN STRASBOURG, Vote: 24 est annonce agec du
retard indefini.'

It was the name Linz and the circumspect phrase 'indefinite
delay' that made it final. I went over to Track 24 and stood
looking at the empty platform, the concrete buffers, the weeds
growing up between the gleaming rails ... I hung my head.
The image of her body sprawled on the floor of the sleeper
came back. Sam had died trying to bring me information
about the man who killed my daughter, and I'd doubted her.
Lost precious time thinking she was lying or playing games.
I knew deep down I could have done more to save her.

The story of a double murder on the EuroNight express was
already breaking on CNN and Fox as I left Paris.
Two hours later, stuck in traffic on the way in from
Heathrow, I rang my office and discovered the police had
been trying to get in touch. I returned Edith Cowper's call
from the car. When she'd finished with me, I took a few
moments to think things over. Then I got on the phone to
Phil at Secure Solutions.
'You want to be careful, Mr Lister,' Phil said, after listening
to my account of the night's events. 'They could decide to
make life difficult for you. Wouldn't say too much about live
webcasts, if I were you.'
'Cowper's bringing a computer and internet crime expert,
a man called Ince.'
'That's a joke. I know Dan Ince. Ginger-haired prat from
Dulwich, he couldn't find bleeding Viagra on the Net. From
your description, whoever's behind the snuff-house site has
advanced hacking and programming skills. You need someone
who can play the game at his level, an adversary.'
'You think the police can't handle this?'
'After the cock-up the Met made of your daughter's case?
You're asking me?'
I didn't comment.
You've been given another chance here, you don't want
to waste it.'
'What if they ask to look at my laptop?'
I'd told Phil that I'd managed to save the text of the webcast
and thought there might be other information stored on my
laptop which could help trace Ward.
'We need to move fast or he'll vanish again. Sooner you
get the machine into the right hands, the better. Not that I'm
advising you to withhold evidence, Mr L.'
'Of course not. You have somebody in mind?' I thought
he was going to offer his company's services, which would
have been understandable. We already had a working relationship.
'Somebody I can trust.'
He didn't hesitate. 'Campbell Armour. He's not one of
ours, but he's clever, straight, and probably the fastest gun
for hire in the business.'
'So why isn't he working for you?'
'I tried to recruit him after he did a security review and
another internal job for us, both highly sensitive. Didn't want
to know. He's the young maverick type, but if anyone can
smoke this creep out, he will.'
'Where's he based?'
'Only drawback. Tampa, Florida.'
I felt that could be an advantage. 'Anything else?'
'I'll send you his CV. He's a naturalised American, from
Hong Kong originally, Scottish-Chinese background - grandfather
worked for Jardine and Mathieson, married the
housekeeper and stayed on. His parents came over to
London in eighty-nine after Tiananmen Square, opened a
restaurant in Wapping, then emigrated to San Bernardino
in Southern California. Campbell won a scholarship to
Stanford at sixteen, and it goes on from there summa cum
laude all the way.
'One flaw. He likes to gamble, or used to. Narrowed his
options for a while, but he seems to have got the problem
under control. He chooses the client, by the way, not the
other way around. He can be an arrogant little sod.'
'What do I have to do to qualify?'
'Don't worry, I had a quiet word. Told him what happened
to your daughter. He's interested, and he's got some ideas . . .'
'You already spoke to him? When, for Christ's sake?'

'The moment I heard the girl on the train didn't make it.
I knew you'd be in a hole, Mr L, so I took the liberty. What
time's your meeting with the Old Bill? I'll make sure you talk
to Campbell first.'

'What took you to Paris?' Edith Cowper asked.
'Business. I have an office there.'
'So you just happened to be in town when Sam called?'

I nodded.
'Do you usually stay at the Ritz?'
'I don't see how any of this is relevant, but yes.'
'When she called you from Vienna, were you surprised to
hear from the victim again? After the way she stood you up
before?'
'I accepted her explanation for what happened ... she was
afraid.'
'Didn't she tell you she was still afraid?'
'She thought she was being followed. I felt it was possible
she was just imagining things. Later I became concerned . . .'
'You felt there was a connection with your daughter's death.'
'I told you,' I said quietly, 'I was approached by Sam
Metcalf. She claimed Sophie had left some stuff on her laptop
that could identify her killer. She was going to hand it over
to me in Paris. If no computer was found in the sleeping
compartment, doesn't that tell you something?'
'Assuming she had the laptop with her in the first place.'
I felt a surge of exasperation. 'I know she did--' I cut
myself off just in time. 'Why do you think her friend Jimmy
Macchado was killed?'
I appealed to Morelli, who was doing an impression of
Napoleon in exile, frowning at the furniture and saying
nothing. 'Andrea?'
He turned up his hands and shrugged.
Cowper said, 'We only have your word for all of this. Did
Sam Metcalf ever communicate with you by e-mail?'
'You already asked me that.'
'It's a slightly different question.'
'We spoke on the phone . . . that was all.' Daniel Ince leaned forward. The only one in uniform, he
had a face that was too small for his head, reddish hair and
an uncomfortably direct gaze. He'd been taking notes on a
yellow legal pad.
'Any objections, Mr Lister, to our forensic retrieval division
examining your laptop? It's a routine procedure.'
I hesitated, though I'd been expecting the question. 'Now
that my daughter's murderer has killed again,' I said, 'I imagine
you'll be reactivating her case.'
Cowper answered. 'I can't comment, not in the middle of
an internal enquiry.'
'If he'd been caught a year ago,' I kept on, looking at
Cowper and Morelli, 'Sam Metcalf and two other innocent
people would still be alive.'
'Sir, the question DC Ince asked you,' she said, unruffled,
'was will you allow access to your computer?' She stared at
me across the table. 'Or do we need to get a search warrant?'
I didn't doubt Edith Cowper's dedication and integrity, but
if a civilian blows the whistle on the police in this country and
I had publicly accused the Met of gross incompetence
- they close ranks faster and tighter than the teeth of a zip.
I held her gaze and said, 'That won't be necessary.'
I don't make a habit of lying to the police. I consider myself
a reasonably honest, law-abiding citizen. But I couldn't just
stand by and watch them screw up all over again. Sam's
murder had left me shaken and angry (at myself as much as
others) and I felt I owed it to her not to squander the lead
she had given me. Not to accept that she died for nothing.
'I'd like to help any way I can,' I murmured, as I let
Detective Constable Ince take the wrong laptop into custody,
meticulously write out a receipt for a machine that I use
purely for business.
Perhaps I was guilty of obstructing the course of justice,
or taking the law into my own hands, but I didn't look at it
that way. I saw my deception simply as a means of buying
some more time; and, into the bargain, making sure that Ince
didn't find out about Jelena - for her own protection as much
as mine.
I trusted Phil's opinion that acting independently we could
respond quicker and be more flexible than the police - I had
the financial resources, and I was driven in a way that they
would never be. Sworn to track down Sophie's killer, I wasn't
prepared to let this one last chance, as I saw it, slip through
my fingers.

30

After they'd gone, I stayed on in the conference room, staring
out of the window at the river, wondering now if I'd made
the right decision. After all, the police had the authority, the
manpower, the wide reach. But I was still angry enough about
the way they'd handled Sophie's murder to feel justified in
being a little grudging with the truth. Besides, it was too late
for second thoughts.
I thought about the information I'd withheld. Images of
Sam's body on the floor of the sleeper came flooding back
and I wondered if Sophie's last moments had also been filmed,
set to music, sent out live from the grotto at the Villa Nardini
for the enjoyment of God knows what kind of audience.
Watching the water pile up white against the stone piers
under Albert Bridge, I pictured her lying there alone in that
hellish place, and shivered.
It opened the door to a memory of when I first lived in
New York, far enough in the past now for me to recall the
incident more as a dream than something that actually
happened. I find myself, in this New York dream, looking
down at the body of a girl sprawled at the bottom of a black
pit - a recurring image that because of Sophie will always
haunt me now - unsure of what to do and having to decide
whether or not I can trust the police. I closed my eyes and
the door slammed shut.
The interview had run over by more than an hour.
'Don't ask,' I said abruptly.
'I've no intention of asking.' Audrey, my assistant, had
returned from showing them out with a what-was-ffort-all
about look on her face. 'You were helping the police with
their enquiries.'
'Something along those lines.'
'They took away your old laptop.'
'I lent them my only laptop.' I gave her a significant glance.
'In case anyone wants to know.'
'You'll be lost without it.'
I smiled. 'They didn't say anything to you?'
She shook her head. Audrey had provided loyal support
when I raised my formal complaint against the Met. I didn't
like involving her. I try to keep a degree of separation between
business and my personal life, but where Audrey is concerned
it's not so easy. We've been together too long; we know each
other too well. What she had to deal with last year when
Sophie was killed went far beyond the call of duty. But then
Audrey had watched Sophie grow from a small child. She
adored her . . . everyone who knew her did.
'You're meeting Campbell Armour in five minutes.'
I took my time before saying, 'I won't be taking any calls.'
She set up the video link with his office in Ybor City,
Tampa, then lowered the window blinds.The sun was washing
over the wide plasma screen built into the conference room's
only solid wall. Presently the image of an untidy desk staked
out by a miniature American flag on a plastic log shimmered
into view.
She waited hand on hip, one eyebrow raised. 'Cuppa?'
I thanked her no and turned my chair to face the screen.
On her way out, Audrey said, 'Well, at least they didn't march
you off in handcuffs.'
'Not this time.'
I could hear someone coming.
Campbell Armour entered left of the screen and stepped
quickly around to the front of the desk. His back to the
camera, he swept aside piles of paper to clear a space, then
turned and hoisted himself up on the edge, swinging short
bare muscular legs as he tore the ring-tab off a can of
Mountain Dew.
I took in the oversize blue Dolphins T-shirt, baggy white
trunks and sweatband with 'Search Engine' on it that pushed
his thick black hair into a spiky crown. He was small,
compactly built, with a wide, flatfish face and, behind rimless
lenses, light tawny eyes that drew your attention. He looked
about fifteen years old.
He threw his head back, took a long chugging drink, then
held the frosted can to his cheek and said, 'Hey.'
It struck me with some force that I was putting a lot of
faith in Phil's judgement. 'You must be Campbell.'
He raised the can in greeting. Wry grin. 'Breakfast.'
'Have you looked at the material yet?' I was keen to get
down to business. On the phone, last night, Campbell had
asked for any information I had - names, website addresses,
passwords, e-mails, documents. There wasn't much.
'All except for the photos ...' He hesitated. 'They're gone,
Ed.'
I frowned. 'Gone? Are you sure?'
Campbell took another swig of Mountain Dew. 'Just came
from Sam's webpage.' He wiped his mouth. 'You didn't
happen to download any?'
'I imported a couple to take a closer look on Photoshop.'
'I'd like to see them - now, if that's okay.'
I reached for my laptop - the one I'd chosen not to hand
over to the police - and with a couple of clicks brought up
the relevant sub-folder.
They weren't there. I felt Campbell's tawny eyes on me.
'Hold on a second.' I checked the Recycle Bin. Nothing.
Shit, I said under my breath. I looked up and saw that he'd
moved to the chair behind his desk. He was rocking back
and forth, hands clasped behind his neck.
'I must have scrubbed them by mistake.'
'You know what a Trojan is, dude?' Campbell asked.
He was referring to the horse, an electronic version of the
original wooden stratagem dreamed up by the ancient Greeks
to penetrate Troy, not the condom -I had a feeling Campbell
had used the line before.
I managed a smile. He had an irritating voice, a soft Dixie
drawl that didn't quite sync with the vestigial sing-song of
South China.
'It's a program with a hidden agenda,' he continued. 'Once
inside your computer, it runs like an ordinary server, while
secretly opening a back door to your system . . .'
'I've a rough idea what it does,' I interrupted him, closing
down the lid of my laptop. 'You think someone hacked into
this machine and deleted those shots? That would imply Sam did catch him on film.'

'I'd need to check out your system to be sure.'
'If it was Ward, how would he have got access?'
'There are only two ways. Either through your floppy disk
or CD drives, or via a connection to the internet.'
'I really rather doubt anyone having tampered with this.' I
tapped the shell of my laptop. 'It's rarely out of my sight.'
'Then the attack most likely was remote.'
'If it happened at all . . .'
'Sure, Ed, we're just speculating. You asked me how. Okay,
he could have introduced a Trojan to your computer on the
back of information that you requested from a website - a
website he controls. I haven't had a chance to explore the
mansion yet, but it's the obvious link.'
'I take the usual precautions,' I said, sounding defensive.
'Talk to Phil.'
'You mean you run a couple of anti-virus scanners? You
installed a firewall, the latest Spyware? Not much help against
a player like Ward. He inhabits a world where things are
almost never what they seem. It can be a dangerous place.'
'I think I'm aware of the dangers,' I said.
I hadn't hired a cyber-sleuth to tell me the internet was a
murky old hall of mirrors. I remembered Will's owlish expression
when he warned me that I was 'flying blind' over Jelly.
I'd heard nothing from her since the night of the murders,
the night I told her I was in love with her. But that was what
we'd agreed.
Campbell was looking at me intently.
'You need to get your laptop swept, Ed. If it turns out to
be dirty, you could be in more trouble than you know'
'Isn't that why I'm talking to you?'
He was already starting to get on my nerves. I didn't want
to give him the impression I had something to hide, but I
was uncomfortable with the idea of Campbell reading my
personal conversations (even if I could rely on his discretion)
and no doubt asking questions about Jelena. She had nothing
to do with any of this and I intended to keep it that way.
'Let's say Ward planted a Trojan inside your laptop.' He
leaned forward, slowing his delivery right down as though
he were talking to a child. 'Every time you go online, it sends
him your temporary IP address, which allows him into your
computer. He can open ports and emplace software where
and when he needs it. He can read your data stores, contacts
list, diary, e-mail and document folders. He can become a
'blind copy' addressee on every e-mail you send and snoop
on any other internet traffic you initiate. Equally, he can
examine every reply packet you receive. All undetected. He
can do virtually anything he likes with your system, Ed, and
that includes creating and deleting files.'
I nodded slowly as the implications sank in.
'He gains control over your life.' Campbell locked his eyes
on mine as if he wanted to be sure I understood. 'He becomes
you.'
'I think I get the picture. Thanks.'
'You bet.' He gave a lopsided grin that I didn't find particularly
engaging. 'You can either send your laptop over here
by courier, or take it to Phil and let his diagnostic team at
Secure Solutions do the job.'
There was no contest. I'd trusted Phil before on confidential
issues. He was also a man of the world. 'I'll messenger it
round to him this afternoon.'
'Excellent. Just one other thing, Ed. You know how the text
of the murder webcast is all garbled and misspelled? Did it
occur to you the killer might have been using speech recognition
software?'
'I was afraid that what I was reading onscreen was actually
happening. He said the "show" was live. I only knew for sure
when I finally got through to Sam on the phone and I heard
her fighting for her life.'
'He strangles her, runs a commentary over the mic . . .
sharing the experience. All live action. That's one sick dude.'
I shook my head. 'I use one of those dictation tools myself.'
'You never had a hope of saving her, Ed.'
There was a silence. I gestured at a row of trophies arrayed
in a glass-fronted cabinet behind his head. 'What are they
for?'
'Tennis,' he said. 'You play?'
'Used to, until my son started beating me.'
'We should have a game. I might even let you win a point.'
We both laughed, a little too loud. 'Let me ask you something,
Campbell,' I said. 'I know about your IT skills - Phil
tells me you're the best - but what is your experience of
tracking cyber-stalkers in the real world?'
'I've been involved in a couple of investigations.'
'You're not licensed as a private detective. You don't carry
a gun.'
He cleared his throat. 'Nope, I mostly help law enforcement
agencies and legal firms find people. I don't do collars. Just
get the information.'
'You're being hired to track down ... a killer, a monster.'
'Maybe so, but he's not going to look like one, Ed. He
won't be easy to recognise. He'll be as ordinary as you or
me.'
'We haven't talked about money yet.'
'I get five hundred a day plus expenses.'
'Sounds reasonable. I'd like to offer you double and a bonus
. based on results.'
Campbell grinned, then ducked out of sight behind the
desk. He resurfaced holding a limbless Barbie doll. 'My daughter
Amy's. Comes through like a tornado leaving her stuff
every place. What kind of bonus are we talking about here?'
'A million dollars. If you bring in the man who murdered
Sophie.' I'd offered rewards before, but they'd produced no
leads, only raised false hope.
'A million.' The detective frowned and looked down at the
Barbie torso. 'By the way, did Wimbledon start yet?'
'Monday.'
'Any chance you could throw in centre-court tickets for
the men's final?'
His face broke into a smile. 'Just kidding. Later, dude.'


31

I had agreed to meet Will Calloway at a pub near Lancaster
Gate. One of those anonymous watering holes that cater mostly to tourists staying in third-rate hotels overlooking the
park - air-conditioned, airport lounge music, menu in five
languages - it was a typical Will choice of venue. He's always
had a mutinous taste for the dreary, the nondescript.
I got there around seven and found him sitting in a booth
at the rear with a gin and tonic, reading the sports pages of
the Evening Standard. Beside him on the velour banquette
lay a large padded envelope.
'I expect you've seen this,' he said as I joined him, pushing
the newspaper towards me. The front page ran a shot of the
'murder carriage' in a siding at Linz.
I'd skimmed the article, which included an interview with
Sam's travelling companions, an American couple called
Rivers. There was nothing about Sophie.
'The police here aren't even admitting a connection.'
Will shrugged. 'They may have their reasons.'
'I just want them to reopen Sophie's case.'
'You could always prime the pump.'
'And have the media crawling all over us again?'
The only other person I'd told about what happened in
Paris was Laura. She had been appalled, frightened, but
mostly angry with me for going over to meet Sam Metcalf
without letting her know. She assumed that Sam was the
reason for my trip and I didn't disillusion her. I just said: 'I was afraid you'd try to talk me out of it.'
Will was watching me. 'I understand why you might want

to keep a low profile, Ed, but you can't have it both ways.'
I cleared my throat. 'That's . . . well, no longer an issue.'
'What is?' He looked blank, but he knew perfectly well.
'The person I met online I told you about. We decided to
take a break and not see each other for a while.'
'Oh, you mean Island Girl.'Will chortled. 'She dump you?'
I let that go. 'You were right, it was becoming a distraction.'
'Well, I'm glad you've returned safely to your senses - for
everyone's sake.'
And that was Jelly dealt with. I was relieved in one way,
but also a little put out that Will didn't seem interested in
asking more searching questions about her.
'So what did Dr Wass make of Sophie's drawings?'
'You ready for another?'
I looked at my watch. I didn't have to be anywhere, I just
wanted him to get on with it. 'No thanks.'
'Mind if I do?' He got up and went over to the bar, came
back with a fresh gin and tonic and the double whisky that
I had refused.
'Will?' I was starting to get impatient.
He took his time answering. On the phone, all he'd told me was that his colleague had looked at the sketchbook and made some comments.
'You're going to be disappointed,' he said. 'Elna Wass feels
the drawings have no bearing on Sophie's murder, or events
leading up to it. At least, that's how I interpret her observations.
I didn't tell her the story behind the sketchbook, who the artist
was or what happened. I wanted an unbiased reaction.'
'Did you explain about the website?'
'I felt that would only complicate things.'
He was silent for a moment.
'So? What were her impressions?' I had to drag it out of
him. 'Did she think the drawings were of a real or imaginary

house?'
'She assumed it was the family home.'
'Greenside? Laura would love that.'
'But it wasn't important . . . from a diagnostic point of

view'
'She's a shrink. I suppose she took your line that Sophie
was trying to express through her art what she couldn't talk
about in real life.'
'Something like that.' He looked uncomfortable. 'Elna
picked up on the strong, very dark feeling of oppression from
the interiors, as we all did. She said that it jumped off the
page at her. And the fear.'
'Fear of what? I thought you said Wass didn't get a sense
from the drawings of an exterior threat.'
'She feels the threat came from within.'
'From inside the house.'
'Ed, listen, I don't want to get into the jargon.' He looked
at me over the top of his glasses. 'You're not going to like
this in any language. Elna believes that the exciting cause,
the inspiration for the drawings, is the artist's troubled relationship
with her father. He is her oppressor, the one she's
afraid of . . . you.'
I took a deep breath and just sat there staring at him. Then
I burst out laughing. 'For fuck's sake.'
'I know, I know what you're going to say . . .'
'No you don't.' I was still laughing, just. 'I can't believe
you even pretend to take this crap seriously.' I shook my
head. 'You really think that I oppressed Sophie? For Christ's
sake, Will, my daughter, your niece, was strangled and bludgeoned
to death by some lunatic and this woman is going on
about father complexes?'
'I didn't say I agreed with her. But I have to respect her
view as a doctor. Maybe you should think about it.'
'Think about what? You know how close Soph and I were
. . . you know how much I loved her. All right, I may not
have been the perfect father. I was away a lot, probably I
didn't pay her enough attention, but we had a healthy, loving
relationship. The idea that she was afraid of me is not even
worth discussing.'
I took a swallow of the Glenlivet, grateful for it now.
Will held up his hands. 'Look, I'm sure you're right and
the facts don't support Elna's theory. But you can see how
she might have come up with the idea. The shadow over the
house, the Alice-in-Wonderland tricks of perception and scale,
the figure in the chair staring at the box.'
'I don't remember a figure in a chair.'
Removing the moleskin sketchbook from the envelope and
placing it on the table, Will leafed through the drawings until
he found the one of the gloomy lounge with the cabinet TV
in the corner, Breakfast at Tiffany's paused on the screen, two
empty chairs ... Only now somebody was sitting in one of them.
Just as there was the night of the live webcast.
'What the hell is this?' I pulled the sketchbook around. I
could see the back of the viewer's head, his hand on the
armrest. It was the same likeness I'd encountered inside the
virtual house; only here, I was more recognisable - a gaunt
and somehow sinister effigy, watching Peppard and Hepburn
doing their thing in the rain.
Sophie's favourite movie. I could feel Will looking at me,
not saying a word.
For a moment I thought I was losing my grip. I reached
out and ran my fingers over the drawing, peering closely at
the pen strokes, the fine cross-hatchings in ink that in places
had the density of an engraving. I wanted to make sure the
figure hadn't been superimposed later, the sketch tampered
with in any way.
I couldn't understand - I still can't - how I'd once seen
those chairs as empty.

It's three hundred and seventy-five yards from the Pizza
Express on the south side of Notting Hill Gate to the front
door of our house in a cul-de-sac off Holland Park Avenue.
I know because I used to take Sophie and George there when
they were small and on the way home I'd make them play a
game of counting footsteps. The useless number stuck in my
brain.
Sometime after eleven Will and I left the restaurant. We'd
gone on to another pub, then ended up having a bite together
and, unavoidably, too much to drink. I steered him into a
taxi and decided to walk the short distance back to the house
to clear my head. It was hot for a night in June, a muggy
tropical kind of heat that doesn't suit London yet. I took my
jacket off and slung it over my shoulder.
About halfway home, I had to stop for turning traffic at
the corner of Campden Hill Road, where the strip of shops
and restaurants changes into the residential area of Holland
Park and the way becomes quieter, less well-lit. When I walked
on I heard a footfall some distance behind me. I didn't pay
much attention.
There were still a few people about and I was too busy
worrying about Campbell Armour's theory that someone had
maliciously accessed my laptop. The concern was neurally
wired to a bundle of other anxieties - about the police, Jelly,
Laura, Dr Wass's disturbing interpretation of Sophie's sketchbook,
the figure in the chair.
I paused to light a cigarette, using my jacket to shield the
flame of the lighter from the warm wind gusting up Holland
Park Avenue. As I continued on my way, I heard the footsteps
resume, keeping pace with mine. I stopped again, they
stopped. I glanced over my shoulder, back up the hill, but
now there wasn't a soul in sight. I had the pavement to myself.
I started to pick up speed, staying close to the high wall
on my left which protects the front gardens of a row of imposingly
tall houses from the street. I heard the echo of an accelerating
tread behind me, then inexplicably it faded to nothing.
I ducked into a doorway let into the wall and waited while
a surge of traffic coming from both directions at once drowned
all other noise.
When the roar died down I walked on again. A young
couple bodied up out of nowhere and overtook me in silence.
I noticed they were wearing matching trainers and, for no
good reason, I smiled at them as they strode past. I admit I
wasn't exactly sober. But I was sure I didn't imagine those
footsteps.
The barrier with the 'Private Byway No Thoroughfare'
sign was in the up position as I turned into Campden Hill
Place and climbed the single-track road to its hidden enclave
of three detached houses. A white stucco four-bedroom with
a pillared porch, ours stands at the top of the loop. When I
came within range, the outside security light snapped on.
Laura had gone down to the country that morning: there
was nobody home.
In a pool of brightness, searching my pockets for the key
to the front door, I became aware that I was being watched.
I'd sensed movement, off to my right by the wooden paling
that separates our house from the next door block of flats.
I turned my head and saw that the branches of a privet
bush in front of the fence were trembling: I could have
sworn an area of deep shadow had just been displaced by
something darker. Suddenly I knew I wasn't alone in the
cul-de-sac.
In my inebriated state, heart thundering in my chest, I was
having difficulty getting the key into the lock, when I heard
the sound of a light footfall. It came from inside the house.
Before I could turn the key, the door swung open.
'What the . . . what are you doing here?' I almost shouted.
Standing before me in a cotton dressing gown, barefoot
and holding a glass of wine in her hand, was my wife Laura.

Ybor City

32

'What is it now, Luca?' Investigator Morelli said, without
looking up from the file on his desk. He rubbed his temples,
trying to massage away a nagging headache. He wasn't in
the mood for Francobaldi.
'This arrived for you.'The assistant detective sounded hesitant.
'A fax from the Stirete in Paris. You should perhaps take
a look.'
He went on reading. 'All right, all right, just leave it.'
'Anything you need to know that isn't covered by the report
... I'll be next door. We made some good progress while
you were away.'
'Is that what you call this? Progress?'
The way he felt was partly the result of too little sleep - he
got in from London late last night, then had a blazing row
with Maria, who claimed to have smelled a woman's scent on
his clothes. She'd banished him to the living-room couch.
'With respect, Ispettore, yes. We picked up the Arcangeli
kid. We're talking to the mobile phone networks, interviewing
the Englishman's neighbours. The CCTV footage shows
Jimmy Macchado seeing the girl off at the station and coming
away with the canvas bag we found at the house.'
'For Christ's sake.' Morelli sank his head in his hands.
Luca kept going. 'The Ferragamo wrapping tissue clearly
ties in with the robe that was left on the train. Originally
'
purchased by Sam Metcalf but changed that evening by
Macchado for a smaller size . . .'
'Forget all that, he wasn't killed for some poncy robe, or
his mobile phone.'
The young detective shrugged. 'Unless it was just meant
to look that way. You came up with cannibalism as a possible
motive.'
Morelli groaned. He'd attended a meeting earlier that
morning with the US consul, a humour-free zone called
Avis Chance, who wanted to know what the Questura was
doing to find the killers of Sam Metcalf and Jimmy
Macchado. He'd explained to her that, though the investigation
was at an early stage and they were waiting for results
from the Violent Crime Analysis Unit, the Austrian police,
and so on, it had top priority. Dr Chance made it clear she
wasn't impressed.
Since then the day and his headache had only grown worse.
He'd just had Commissario Pisani on the line telling him he
was getting heat from his superiors at the Ministry of the Interior.
Pisani had passed on their concerns. 'Open season on Americans
in Florence, mio caro, not good for tourism.' They seemed to
have forgotten about the English girl, Sophie Lister.
Morelli felt like saying there were too many tourists in
Florence, they could do with thinning out. But he kept that
one to himself. He'd been asked if, in his opinion, this was the
work of a serial killer. Nobody had mentioned it, but the homegrown
'monster of Florence' who terrorised the city in the 1970s
and 80s still haunted the memories of police and politicians
alike. A fictional Hannibal Lecter might be an exploitable visitor
attraction, but the return of the real thing, real fear rising like
a poisonous mist off the Arno, was not. Morelli had said no,
he didn't anticipate any more deaths - not in Florence.
'I think we can drop the gay lunch angle, Luca. What else?'

'Our rent-boy thief, Gianni Arcangeli, may have seen the
murderer when he was scouting out the house Saturday
evening. He recognised Jimmy Macchado talking to someone
in the courtyard, but was too busy trying to stay out of sight
to get a description. Gianni doesn't speak English. He said
both voices sounded American.'
'All down here.' Morelli sighed. 'Tell me something I don't
know'

'You think the murderer thought Sam Metcalf's laptop was
in the canvas bag?'
Morelli nodded. 'Obviously.'
'And when he discovered it wasn't?'
'He decided to ice Macchado anyway.'
'Is that another of your jokes?' Luca gave a sly grin. 'So
why did he take the robe, then leave it behind on the train?
'What is it with you and that fucking robe?' He laughed.
Morelli had never understood why his effete young assistente with the long hair, trendy glasses and elegant manners (he
was from an old aristocratic Florentine family) wanted to be
a cop in the first place. But the truth was he found Luca
Francobaldi more intelligent and better company than most
of his colleagues. If he was hard on him at times, it was partly
for me younger detective's protection.
'Well, you're always saying that every murderer leaves something
of himself at the scene of the crime and takes something
away . . . Here.' Luca slid the fax from the Surete in Paris
over the desk and stood up. 'Ispettore.'
'On your way out, do me a favour - ask Theresa to bring
some coffee.' He glanced over the sheet. 'Why didn't I get
to see this right away?'
'I've no idea.' Luca shrugged and closed the door behind
him.

The fax was from an Inspecteur Touchanges of the Surete
and concerned Ed Lister's visit to Paris a week ago. What
had caught his eye was a reference to the Conservatoire
National Superieur de Musique, where the subject had spent
an hour Wednesday afternoon, apparently enquiring about
the eligibility of his god-daughter to study piano there. It
struck Morelli as odd that Lister had left the visit out of his
account of his movements the day of the train murders.
Maybe he just forgot, or possibly it was deliberate. The
meeting at Lister's office in London: he remembered the way
the man had reacted when he reported they'd found no
evidence of sexual assault, as if it surprised him.
He'd seen something in his eyes then, something veiled.
Morelli thought for a moment, then picked up the phone
and, reading his number off the fax, rang Professor Lucas
Norbet, the Conservatoire's tutor for admissions.

33

Jelly glanced sideways at Mrs Cato sitting in her gold wicker
chair next to the piano stool and caught 'the look' on her
teacher's face. She knew how badly she was messing up;
dropping notes, floundering in the fast scale runs, dampening
too hard on the soft pedal; her expression sucked,
her touch was elbow-heavy. She couldn't make the damned
thing flow.
On a crash of thirds she stopped playing, the sound bouncing
around the walls of the basement studio. What the hell
was wrong with her?
'I know, I know, I know . . .' Jelly hung her head.
Mrs Cato hadn't said a word. A tiny, scrunched-up old
lady, still glamorous in her long satin gown, silver hair twisted
into a sort of conch-shell on top of her head, she didn't have to say anything - just give her that look.
'We can do better, Jelena dear,' it said. She felt like bursting
into tears. She hadn't practised enough was all it was.
She regretted now taking on the piece she was meant to
play at the Performing Arts Center next Thursday. A Chopin
Nocturne, technically it was a big jump for her. But she had
chosen something challenging, so that if she pulled it off it
would make both her and her teacher look good.
Pleasing Mrs Cato was her highest motivation. The old
lady had been telling her since high school that she saw a
brilliant musical future in her stars, always on her case to
audition for the Juilliard or the Brooklyn Academy. She hadn't
applied because she didn't quite trust Mrs C's glowing
appraisal of her talent, and was afraid that if she failed to get
accepted she would never recover what confidence she had.
There were days when she wasn't even sure she wanted to
devote her life to a discipline so demanding it left room for
little else.
Music, her teacher liked to say, should be in everything
you think, feel and do. If you apply yourself through consistent
practice, Jelena, you'll find the order and harmony you yearn
for in your playing and in life. It'll make you strong enough
to overcome every trial and difficulty. But it has to be your whole life, or nothing.
Lately Jelly had seen music more as a place of refuge. She
just had to sit down at the piano and instantly she'd forget
all the daily bullshit. Immersed in her tunes, cocooned in
sound, she'd feel protected, enriched, safe from every harm.
Then there was Paris. Still the impossible dream.
'Play it over, angel,' Mrs Cato said gently. 'Only this time
try to imagine you're having a conversation speaking to someone
you care about through music rather than words.' She
gave an airy little flourish with a jewelled hand. 'Play as if
you want passionately to connect with that person. Let them
hear your heart and soul shine through the music'
What the hell . . . was she talking about?
She loved Mrs Cato for not getting mad at her, for being
the best teacher in the whole damn world, but to be told to
switch on the emotional current, put more juice, more 'soul'
into her music was not the advice she felt like hearing right
now.
'There's somebody in your life, young lady, isn't there?'
Jelly laughed and shook her head. 'Makes you say that?'
She couldn't be picking up on him, surely? Ed didn't count.
Besides, after the last time they talked, she had deleted his
name from her Friends List, cleared her archives of their
conversations, removed his photo and all associations of their
virtual acquaintance from her computer. It was like a weight
had lifted. The past few days he'd been on her mind, but he
was starting to fade there too.
'I'm not seeing anybody,' she said truthfully.
The old lady just looked at her with her grey witchy eyes.
When she wasn't giving music lessons, Mrs Cato moonlighted
as the Church Street neighbourhood psychic, reading palms
on Thursdays, the Tarot (by appointment only) on Fridays
in her front room.
Sometimes she got her antennae crossed.
Shit, look at the time . . . Jelly was meant to be meeting
Tachel and the others at eight fifteen. It was gone seven
already.
She took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry, Mrs C, but I really
gotta run.'

Morelli didn't feel like going home. He'd called his wife a
while ago now and told her he was catching up on paperwork,
not to wait up. He knew that meant he'd be sleeping on the
couch again. His back was still aching from last night. But
the investigator had another reason for being at his office
after hours.
He sat staring at the telephone on his desk, debating whether
or not to get in touch with Gretchen, his miracle-working
Czech physiotherapist. Before him, scrawled on a napkin
from the Hotel Sorrento, was her number in Marienbad encircled
by the coral-pink lipstick imprint of a kiss.
He'd been thinking about her on and off all day. In the
middle of the interview with the US consul, Dr Chance, he'd
fallen into a lustful reverie, remembering the blonde's enthusiasm,
her delicate tact, the line of little white-gold hairs
marching down her firm stomach . . . the treasure trail. He
sighed. Gretchen had only been a one-night stand, but she
was a nice person - that's what made the difference.
Once upon a time Maria had been a nice person. What
happened?
He looked around the walls of the tiny room, which Francobaldi
insisted had been a padded cell in the days when the
Questura building housed a mental institution. His eye
stopped guiltily on the constellation of family photographs.
Resisting temptation, Morelli stuffed the napkin back in
his jacket pocket. He booted up his computer, typed 'Ragtime'
in the Google search-bar and hit the return key. Selecting
one of several websites that listed Scott Joplin's compositions,
he went through his oeuvre until he found 'Fig Leaf Rag' the
piece in the repertoire of Ed Lister's god-daughter that
had impressed Professor Norbet.
Morelli highlighted the audio option, then leaned back in
his chair, hands clasped behind his head, and listened as the
syncopated piano he associated with Prohibition-era gangster
movies filled the room.
The giveaway, surely, was Lister's reluctance to name his
gifted American protegee. God-daughter, my ass. It was obvious
he was playing around, but so what if he had a lover or
kept a mistress? He could afford the luxury - even one with
an expensive musical talent. Norbet had finally admitted that
'Monsieur Lister' had made a generous donation to the
Conservatoire's scholarship fund.
Morelli felt exhausted suddenly, ready to go home. He
yawned and stretched his arms above his head, briefly waving
them in time to the music. The rag had lifted his spirits. He
might be under pressure to get results but, as he'd reminded his boss, Pisani, the most promising crime scene lay outside
their jurisdiction. He was pinning his hopes on the forensic
results from the train - when they became available - giving
them a lead, a breakthrough even.
In Linz, he'd interviewed an elderly Swiss couple who'd
had the sleeper next to Sam and Linda's. The wife claimed

to have heard noises of an 'amorous' nature through the
partition wall, then, as the train arrived at the station, music,
the sound of a piano playing- something classical, she thought
it might have been Mozart.
Her husband said, never . . . Brahms.
It was a stretch, probably way off the mark, but in a case
where evidence was in short supply, every little piece of information
helped - Morelli wondered if piano music might be
a link. He picked up the phone and dialled Marienbad.
Gretchen answered. 'Did I wake you?' he asked.
'Andrea? No, you didn't wake me.' She was lying, he could
tell by the delicious thickness of her voice.
'I would very much like to see you again.'
She laughed and said, 'I've been waiting for you to call.'
After he put the phone down, Morelli turned up the volume
on his laptop and played the 'Fig Leaf Rag' over again. The
irresistible gaiety of the tune made him laugh out loud and,
Gretchen on his mind, want to dance around the room. He
got to his feet and tried a few steps with his eyes closed,
holding his imagined partner.

'How late is late?' Tachel wanted to know, as Jelly banged
open the door to her studio apartment. 'Fifteen minutes?
Twenty? An hour?'
'What's wrong with you? I can't help it if the local . . .
forget it.'
Cell to her ear, Jelly heeled the door shut behind her, slipped
her shoes off and immediately started to strip, leaving a trail
of clothes across the polished wooden floor to the bathroom.
Sitting on the edge of the tub, looking at her toenails, she
laughed at Tachel's fussing and said, 'Calm down, I'll be
outside at eight thirty.'
She turned on the shower, brushed her teeth while the
water got hot, then climbed under the jet, worrying about
what the hell she was going to wear, briefly interrupting the
flow of her thoughts to remind herself to feed the cats and
tidy the place before she left in case . . . in case what?
She was nervous about seeing Frank Stavros again after
so long and not at all sure how she was going to feel or if
she was doing the right thing. She tried to remember, turning
her face into the needle spray, what Frank looked like without
clothes on ... a lot of body hair ... oh hell no, there was
no fucking way.
Four of them, a double date. Safety in numbers. The others
were supposed to be picking her up and then driving out to
Coney Island in Bernardo's car for dinner at this really great
Italian place, Gargano's on Surf Avenue. The clam linguini
there was out of this world. It was going to be wild, Tachel
promised.
Jelly knew her friend was behind the plan to get her together
with Frank. But at least he'd had the decency to call Tuesday
and let her know he was back in town and wanted to meet
up. They'd already had the awkward convo, so there wouldn't
be issues hanging over the evening. They were ancient history
anyway.
Their two-year affair hadn't survived Frank's being transferred
to LA. He'd asked her to move out to the coast, but
when she'd joined him for a trial weekend she discovered he
was playing around. A stuck-on-himself music video producer
with Warner, Frank claimed he was just lonely, the other girls
meant nothing, she was the one he really loved . . . what an
asshole. After Jelly got over the hurt, mostly to her pride,
she'd felt nothing but relief. In the year since they broke up,
she'd been on a few dates, but not with anybody she wanted
to see again, let alone sleep with. Never one to put herself
out there, she found she preferred being on her own. She
was enjoying her new freedom and, until now, her friendship
with Ed hadn't gotten in the way. Why would it? Jelly had
told no one about him, apart from Tachel - and she deliberately
hadn't gone into detail. It was only when Ed started
acting crazy, saying he was in love with her and all mat bull,
that she decided her oldest friend should know the whole
story.
Tachel's reaction was unexpected. She didn't laugh or even
crack a smile. After hearing about the older English guy with
stacks of money whose daughter had been killed by a stalker,
she made it clear she thought it was a bad situation.
'Even if he's telling you the truth, which I doubt, you know
nothin' about him. He could be the stalker . . . Why you doin'
this to yourself, girl?'
Jelly was defensive. 'He just wants someone to talk to, really,
he's . . . harmless.'
Tachel had rolled her big eyes and sighed. 'Please.'
She'd followed her advice, though, heeded her warning,
and typed Ed Lister out of her life. But from the very first
moment they met, waved to each other across a crowded
chat room, she knew. She saw this trouble coming, she should
have walked away a long time ago.

When the intercom buzzed, Jelly was dressed and ready. She
had on her favourite dark blue low-rise jeans, a black babyT with 'The Mexican Airforce is Flying Tonight' scrawled
across the front in white sky-writing letters and her Old Navy
flip-flops. No make-up, hair in a ponytail, minimal lip gloss.
She didn't want her ex getting the idea she'd made a special
effort. A quick check in the full-length mirror on the back
of the door. She looked . . . well, it would have to do.
She took a last drag of her Marlboro and stubbed it out.
Frank wanted to know if she'd quit. As if it was any of his
damned business.
On the phone earlier Tachel had reminded her of their
mission, which was for Jelly to flush 'Colin Firth' out of her
system, and get laid. One hot night with her old Greek lover,
Tachel totally swore, she'd feel like a new woman.
Jelly wasn't so sure, it sounded to her like a pretty desperate
remedy, but in spite of her misgivings she couldn't help feeling
a little tingle of excitement as she ran down the stairs.

34

A thousand miles south, Campbell Armour slapped dead a
mosquito that had been feasting on his ankle while he sat
out in front of the pro-shop at Cypress Lake Golf and Country
Club, basking in the glow of victory.
He'd annihilated his old rival Touch Kendal in straight
sets.
Towel around his neck, vaporising sweat - the temperature
was still up in the high seventies - Campbell was
rerunning highlights of the match (he'd asked a spectator
to shoot it with his cam-corder) on the laptop perched on
his bare knees.
He smiled at the way it really did look an impossible
return - he'd broken TK's serve in the seventh game of the
opening set. Fast-forwarding to match point, he watched
himself power a massive backhand into his opponent's rear
right corner that made the poor guy shake his head in
bewilderment. A killer shot.
'We had a battle, dude, always do,' he'd said to Kendal as
they walked off court together. 'You have no idea how much
I needed that.'
His euphoria didn't last. Starting to come down from the
endorphin high that had briefly helped take his mind off a
frustrating day, Campbell stared gloomily at the clouds of
bugs floating around the powerful court lamps, then let his
gaze drift off into the stifling darkness beyond.
He was getting nowhere with the Lister case.
He'd spent the last two days fruidessly trying to track down
the website Ed had given him. His attempts to resolve the
domain name homebeforedark.net.kg had yielded an obscure Internet Service Provider in Kirghizstan, which meant he had
little hope of locating the IP address. He'd run a WHOIS on
the site and come up with alternative contact details that were
impractical to trace and probably false. After following looping
trails of fake IDs, fictitious addresses and stolen SIM and
credit cards, he'd come to a dead-end. Ward had vanished
into the smoke.
He hit rewind for one more morale-boosting glimpse of
his historic backhand, then pulled the virtual mansion up
onscreen. It was starting to get to him that he hadn't yet
succeeded in putting a foot across the threshold.
Campbell didn't like being shut out of anywhere.
Earlier he'd gotten the lab report on Ed Lister's laptop
back from Secure Solutions in London. It had received a
clean bill of health, which surprised him. As requested, they'd
scanned the hard disk for viruses, internet worms and prevalent
malware, looking out in particular for Trojan Horse
programs. They'd checked the boot sector to make sure it
hadn't been hijacked and found it was clear of infection. They
seemed to have done a pretty thorough job.
How then did the photographs Ed claimed to have imported
from Sam's webpage disappear from his laptop? There was
no evidence on the deep scan that he'd ever downloaded
them; maybe he just thought he had.
He wondered about his client. Somehow he got the feeling
Ed wasn't telling him everything he knew. Campbell had an
idea that trust might be part of the problem, which was
understandable in the circumstances. Ed Lister was a wealthy

man.
The million-dollar bonus wasn't the only reason Campbell
had taken on the job, but he knew he'd been thrown a lifeline
and it influenced his decision. He couldn't see any other way
out of the deep hole he'd dug for himself.
Campbell owed money, and this time to people who didn't
play around. They'd given him a week to come up with the
sum, principal and interest, or he could expect a visit from
'Cholly' in debt collection. A smiley old cracker in glasses
and lizard-skin cowboy boots, 'Cholly' was the most feared
enforcer on the Gulf Coast.
Already depressed by his lack of success, when he thought
about how much he personally had riding on this case, the
detective's spirits slipped even further.
He had to find Ward. Seven days wasn't that long.

The virtual mansion looked deserted. The only change since
his last visit a couple of hours ago was that darkness had
now fallen, which supported his theory that the daylight
and night-time modes on the site corresponded with the
cycles of the Eastern Time Zone. It probably meant nothing,
but there had been other indications that Ward might be
operating somewhere on the east coast of the United States.
In a global hunt, he consoled himself, it was at least a start.
He tapped in the password Ed had given him.
A gust of raucous male laughter blew across the teak decking
from the clubhouse, where some of his tennis buddies
were kicking back, guzzling Coors and yee-hawing like a
bunch of rednecks. Campbell, who'd exiled himself to his
own private Siberia out by the soda machine, found their
down-home stories and jokes (often of a sexual or racist
nature) not so much offensive as beneath his horizon.
'Hey, Campbell!' one of them yelled across. He'd been
doing his best to ignore a suggestive discussion about the
Williams sisters and their domination of the women's professional
circuit.
'Y'all hear the one about the two lesbian frogs?'
'Excuse me?' He looked up from his laptop as if he hadn't
caught the question. He knew they were just out to make fun
of him. But the others weren't willing to wait for a punchline
they'd heard a thousand times.
There was a collective groan, followed by a male chorus
of: 'IT REALLY DOES TASTE LIKE CHICKEN.'
Campbell nodded and gave a bemused smile as the laughter
swirled about his ears. What had this got to do with him? He
held up his palms in mock surrender, then went back to his
laptop. He'd already tried all the conventional ports of entry
to the house - doors, windows, garage, cat-flap. Nothing.
The password still didn't work; he could only assume it had
been deliberately changed by Ward.
It really does taste like chicken . . . He failed to see how
anyone could find that funny. He didn't consider himself a
prude, but Campbell felt the comparison was vile and
demeaning, as well as untrue; he'd eaten frog legs . . . and
then from out of nowhere, or rather from this unlikely source,
an idea came to him. The crude, pointiess joke had reminded
him of something.
Something Ward had said.
He brought up the text of the murder webcast and quickly
scrolled down the dialogue between 'm' and 'k' until he found
what he was looking for.
At the moment where he starts to strangle her.

m: i want to see your face, look at me
n».'you dare turn away ... look at me, bitch
fcwhat are you doing... no, don't... your hurting!
i, J.' "i;
m: her sift white neck, mmmm, oh boy, lak a swans . . . I tell ya she is dee
licious... ya smeel the leer in her? you kin jest taste it...
m: pressing my thumbs into your throat... lok in my eyes
k: please stop ... no, I can't breathe
m: the gates of heaven... open... taste... words with an iron shape
k: NO, PLEASE ... JESUS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING ... DON'T

It was the unusual phrase, 'words with an iron shape', that
had stuck in his mind. Was it meant to describe sexual arousal
- the musky metallic flavour arising from . . . well, the act
of cunnilingus the murderer wanted to give the impression he'd performed on his victim - or the rankness of her terror?
Or both?
It could be just a mistake, a word or two left out, making
nonsense of an already garbled text. But her fear, even in
transcript, was palpable.
Campbell had to remind himself that her killer didn't molest
Sam sexually. It was only a fantasy, possibly reflecting what
he would like to have done to her, which would make sex at
least part of the motive; or maybe included simply for the
enjoyment of an audience that he knew got off on that sort
of thing.
Either way the guy was a sick one. He'd found other examples
of vivid yet incoherent imagery used by the murderer
in his webcast that suggested there might be something odd
about Ward in the realm of the senses, something out of
whack.
The idea of a specific pathology would come from his wife.

Kira was still awake when Campbell got home. A light showed
under their bedroom door; he could just hear the soft rattle
of laptop keys.
He put his sports bag down quietly in the front hall, hooked
his rackets over a peg in the closet, then went straight in the
kitchen and took an ice-cold can of Mountain Dew from the
refrigerator. When he'd quenched his thirst, he let out a long
sigh. He still wasn't used to living in a box.

It was a year since they'd moved to 'Wild Palms Manor',
an upscale gated community in the historic suburb ofYbor
City, Tampa's old Latin quarter. They got a deal on an
attached townhouse with a two-car garage and, the clincher,
a tiny backyard for Amy to play in. Campbell still preferred
the down-at-heel section of Tampa across the river where
they'd rented a rambling apartment in an old Deco building
until Kira started work at the hospital. But this was the
first home they'd ever owned, bought with the help of a
soft loan from his wife's family in San Francisco. He wasn't
in any position to complain. Especially not now, when he
didn't even know how much longer they could afford to
live here.
He climbed the stairs barefoot. Kira was sitting up in bed
propped against the pillows typing out the paper on molecular
something-or-other which he knew she had to hand in by
tomorrow.
'Hi hon,' he said, almost meekly.
She glanced up at him and waved but didn't speak.
After taking a shower, he looked in on Amy, who was fast
asleep in her cot, one tiny arm draped around a teddy bear
nearly as big as she was. Campbell stood for a moment, letting
the picture of trusting innocence deepen the guilt he felt for
having let his family down, compromised their security, maybe
their whole future through his own stupidity. He'd lost a lot
of money, all their savings, and more.
He hadn't had the nerve to tell Kira yet.
Gently removing the stuffed animal from his daughter's
embrace, he bent down to kiss her forehead, then went into
the master bedroom.
Kira didn't look up. A wing of black hair curtained her eyes.
In awe of her discipline, her limitless capacity for work his
wife was studying for her masters in biochemistry and
psychology at USF while putting in four days a week as a
research assistant in the Clinical Neurophysiology Laboratory
at Tampa General - Campbell knew better than to interrupt,
especially when he'd spent the evening playing tennis at the
club. He sometimes felt Kira drove herself too hard.
In his own work, he valued her occasional psychological
input and liked to think of them as a team. He waited until
she had turned out the light before bringing up the subject
of Ward, whose profile she'd helped him put together, and
abnormal sexual imagery. He needed her opinion.
She listened without a word as he struggled to tone down
descriptions there was really no way to sanitise. When he had
finished, her prolonged silence and the regular sound of her
breathing made him think she'd fallen asleep.
'You know what this reminds me of?' she said at last. 'Auras.'
'You mean like invisible colours around a person?'
'No, I'm talking about the sensations that immediately
precede an attack of epilepsy. All the senses can be affected
and vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch sometimes get
confused.The patient may suffer from emotional disturbances
too.'
'What are you saying? That this guy could be an epileptic?'
'Just a thought. Another possibility is that he's a synaesthete.
You know how some people can hear colours or see sounds
... often they're like artists or musicians? Synaesfhetes' brains
are cross-wired, probably due to a mutated gene, so that one
sensory experience can trigger another. The weird associations,
the flashes of light, confusing the taste of her vaginal
secretions with a visual image, the engorgement of her clitoris
with the sound of rushing wings ... 'If you like I can mention
it to the director of the programme.'
It wasn't a thing you could control - he blamed it on Kira's
solemn use of the word 'engorgement' - but Campbell was
dismayed to feel himself becoming aroused. He coughed,
then said, 'Won't that be kind of awkward, honey?'
Kira laughed in the dark. 'Why? Because I'm a woman?'
'This is a murder investigation,' he said sternly, for no
reason other than he suspected his serious-minded wife was
aroused too.

35

A few minutes past six the next morning, Friday, Campbell
was at his desk explaining to Ed Lister via video link with
his office in London that, while he hadn't had much luck so
far tracking the homebeforedark website, he'd managed to put
together a psychological profile on Ward.
He could see Ed was not impressed.
'I've a busy day, Mr Armour,' he said in a clipped, businesslike
tone the detective hadn't heard before. 'I was hoping by now
we might have got beyond profiling. What happened to following
the electronic trail? I thought that was your expertise. It's
what I'm paying you for.'
His client was standing by the window with his back to
the monitor. Wearing a dark suit, striped shirt and tie, he
looked lean and important with a sheen of elegance about him that Campbell found intimidating.
'Still working on it,' he said and took a sip of his coffee.
'The website's been inactive since the train and it may turn
out to be untraceable. You asked for an update. Well, this is
where we're at, dude.'
'AH right, all right.' Ed made an impatient gesture, a slashing
motion with his left hand. 'And please don't call me that.'
Campbell shrugged. 'What little we have on Ward seems
to fit the profile of the delusional stalker. A loner, most likely
unmarried, low self-esteem, has had few if any sexual relationships.
He yearns for intimacy, but at the same time feels
threatened by it. So he picks a victim who is unattainable in
some way. A likely factor in his choosing your daughter . . .'
'Look, I don't mean to be rude.' Ed cut him off, swivelling
his head to look at him on the monitor. 'But I've heard all
this before.'
'Just stay with me, you'll see where I'm going.' Campbell
held Ed's gaze. 'He comes from a background that's an
emotional wasteland, as often as not abusive, and grows up
in isolation with a poor sense of his own identity. He's not
crazy, but let's say predisposed to psychosis. A delusional
stalker cannot by definition be reasoned with. In his mind
he has created a "real" relationship with the power to transform
his own lonely life - he refuses to accept that his victim
is not interested in him.
'Now, here's the key, Ed. The guy believes that he and his
victim are meant for each other. His conviction that they are
destined overrides any fear he might have of consequences.
Initially, he can't see that he's being threatening, or frightening.
He can't appreciate that his actions are hurting others, he
doesn't regard what he's doing as wrong. To him this is "true
love", it's just that the object of his love doesn't recognise it
yet. With enough persistence he believes he will eventually
win her over.'
Campbell watched his client turn away from the window
and come and sit down in a chair beside the table. He could
see he had his attention now.
'The stalker,' he went on, 'who already has difficulty separating
reality from fantasy, will blow up the least reaction

from his victim into a delusion of intimacy. What he cannot
achieve in reality he makes up for in the fantasy world he
has created and it's precisely the imaginary element that makes
it so hard for him to let her go. He can't understand the word
"No". Why would he, since he believes it's in the stars for
them to be together? When he realises finally that it's not
going to happen, he may decide that if he can't have her,
then no one else will either.'
'He kills her,' Ed said flatly, looking straight at him.
'And gets what he wants which is absolute control over his
victim.'
'What about Sam Metcalf and the others?'
'Often with cyber-stalker cases, particularly "love obsessionals",
it's not only the target who is in danger, but also
those around her if the stalker perceives them to be in his
way, or a threat to his own safety.'
'You think my daughter was his first victim?'
'Serial stalkers tend to be disturbed individuals who choose
their victims at random. I don't think that's the case here.
Ward is too smart and there's too much about him that doesn't fit the profile. He's different. I get the feeling that he still
wants something . . . maybe from you.'
Ed frowned. 'You mean money?'
'If this was about money, he'd have been in touch before
now. The fact that he's left some teasing hints and clues, while
carefully covering his tracks, suggests a common sociopathic
trait - he feels the need to tantalise the authorities and show
how much cleverer he is than his pursuers. At some level,
they all want to be caught, but in Ward's case ... I don't
know.'
'Then what does he want?'
'When you were watching the webcast, did it ever occur
to you that you might be the only one - watching, I mean?'
Ed shook his head. 'I assumed I was part of an audience.'
'You didn't get a hint when you entered the house and
found your effigy sitting in front of the TV? That you'd
been singled out? That the whole show - leading up to the
clip of the body laying on the sleeper floor - was for your
eyes only?'
'At the time, no.' He glanced at his watch. 'I've wondered
about it since.'
Campbell smiled a little. 'He planned it all. The second
e-mail you received from Sam Metcalf on the train, the one
giving you the username and password, was a forgery. I've
no doubt the source was Ward. None of this proves that he
put on the "show" just for your benefit, but he wanted you
to be there.'
Ed leaned forward. 'All right, but why? Why me?'
'He wants to involve you. It's part of the stalker mentality.
He wants you to react. I was thinking about it last night... I
guess you've already considered the possibility that whoever
killed your daughter was really trying to get at you.'
'It was one of the first questions Morelli asked me. I can't
think of a single reason why anyone would want to hurt me,
or my family.'
'Still, you could have missed it. You need to go back over
the last ten years, maybe more, and think about people who
might hold a grudge. You could've done a deal, bought a
chunk of land or developed a site, and without knowing it
ruined someone's life . . . that type of thing. Let somebody
down.'
'I don't let people down, Mr Armour.' He stood up and
reached for the control panel. 'When can I expect your next
report?'
'Give me a couple of days. Just remember, Ward may turn
out to be a delusional, or hiding behind the mask of a stalker
to disguise his real motive. Either way it doesn't mean he's
accomplished his mission.'
'I'll bear it in mind.' The screen faded to black.
Campbell sat for a moment. He tried to think what it was
about Ed Lister that didn't quite gel. The guy was obviously
sincere, but too smooth - and he had something else going
on. He couldn't get past the impression his client was holding
out on him. If he was right, it was going to make his job
more difficult.
He let his thoughts wander, listening to the sounds of the
Armour household stirring. He could hear Kira in the shower,
Amy singing to herself in her cot.
He wasn't going to be able to put off telling them much
longer.

Reaching out a bare arm, Jelly groped for the radio alarm
on the bedside table and opened one eye. Five more minutes.
She groaned, pulled the comforter over her head and lay
there listening to the traffic on Lexington under her windows
barrelling downtown at stop-go intervals. Last night had been
a total, total disaster.
What had she expected That a year in LA might by some
miracle have changed Frank Stavros? He'd started pawing
her in the back of the Jeep before they'd even gone half a
block; and then acted loud and obnoxious all evening,
reminding her why they broke up in the first place.
She'd never felt so relieved to get home and lock the door
of her apartment behind her. Checking her inbox last thing,
she'd discovered an e-mail from Ed saying it was important
she contact him - something had happened.
Obviously just a ploy. She'd ignored it and gone to bed.
The alarm went off and Z-100 FM brought Missy Elliott
bouncing into the room like sunlight. Across the hall her
neighbour's door slammed. She could hear Lazlo muttering
to himself out there, jangling his keys.
You think I don't know they're watching?' he was saying,
'I seen 'em on the corner, right across from the Cuban
Mission, looking up at my window'
Then, as he lumbered past her door and down the stairs,
putting on a high squeaky voice to reply, 'Why would anyone
want to spy on a pathetic tub of lard like you?'
'It's a stakeout. You think I don't know . . .' Lost the rest.
She only ever heard the craziness. Whenever she bumped
into him on the stairs or in the street, Lazlo was always polite
and as sane-seeming as anyone. Jelly yawned and turned up
the music, then got out of bed and headed straight for the
bathroom.
Ten minutes later, showered and dressed, she was sitting
at her desk between the windows, one of the cats, Mistigris,
on her lap. Leaving her breakfast (half a toasted bagel and
a glass of OJ) untouched, she lit a Marlboro and brought up
the text of Ed's e-mail on her computer. She knew she should
stick to her guns, but it couldn't hurt to reinforce her position,
let him know she wasn't changing her mind.
She typed her answer:

OUT OF THE QUESTION.

Hesitated, then hit send. Oh shit . . . she took a furious
drag of her cigarette. What are you doing there? Waiting for me?
She hadn't expected him to reply - at least, not instantiy.

templedog: there's something you need to know

He'd gotten back to her on Messenger, which only made it
worse. She debated for a second, staring at the screen as if
mesmerised by his words.

td: Jelly, I wouldn't be contacting you if it wasn't serious adorablejoker: hold on a sec... doorbell
She stubbed out the Marlboro she'd just lit and leaned back
in her chair, raking both hands through her hair; then, lacing
her fingers behind her neck, her bent arms sticking out like
wings, she rocked back and forth. What the hell was going
on here?

aj: back
td: are you at work
ay; on my way... running late
td: ok, I'll get to the point. What's happened is that a girl my daughter knew in
Florence has been found murdered on a train
aj: oh my God ... my God
td: it looks like she was stalked by the same person who killed Sophie. It's dreadful
news, I know. But the fact he's killed again may make this monster easier to track
down. The police seem to think so. Jelly, listen, I don't believe for a moment that
you're in any kind of danger I wasn't even sure whether to tell you.

He couldn't possibly be making this up, could he?

aj: this is so shocking ... i don't really know what to say. i'm sorry, it must be
hard for you... i really have to go now
td: we may need to talk again
aj: i don't know ... i meant what I said about taking a break
td: look, I'm not trying to scare you, I just think because of the present situation
we ought to stay in touch.
aj: let me think about it, k?... I gotta run

It was so clear to her he just wanted an excuse to go on
talking that Jelly forgot for a moment the gravity of what
she'd just heard and smiled to herself.
Only later, on the LL train coming out into daylight on the elevated track at Prospect Park, did she remember that
the story had been on the Fox Report . . . two girls, wasn't
it, though, murdered on a train in Europe?
What exactly had Ed meant by not in any danger? What
had made him think of the opposite of that? He wasn't trying
to scare her?
Well, you could have fooled me, Mister.

36

I knew something was wrong the moment I saw Peter Jowett,
our gardener and handyman, standing out in the middle of
Little Meadows Lane. Just before we turned in the gates of
Greenside, he stepped forward and flagged the car down.
'Hold on,' I said into the phone, and told the driver to pull
over.
'Andrea, I hate to do this to you.' I was on the line to
Morelli in Florence. 'It looks like we've got a problem here.
Let me call you back.'
He gave an exasperated sigh. 'Signor Lister, I've been trying
to have this conversation with you for two days now.'
'I'm sorry but I can't talk now' It was Saturday morning
and I'd left word for him that I could be reached on my
mobile between ten and twelve, when I knew I'd be driving
down to the country alone.
'I only have a few more questions. You were saying about
your god-daughter . . .'
'I told you, she really has nothing to do with this business.'
'Maybe not, signore, but she had a bearing on your movements
in Paris. A music student, I believe. She plays the
piano? '
'Yes ... I thought we'd covered the subject.'
Morelli had obviously spoken to Lucas Norbet at the
Conservatoire and assumed, as any Italian male would, that
I was having an affair. I felt like telling him to stop wasting
his time and mine - as usual - on an irrelevance.
'What is your god-daughter's name, Signor Lister?'
'Andrea, I really have to go now' I cut him off.
I was still thinking about what he'd said and the potential
fallout if he pursued this line of enquiry as I lowered the
window and Peter Jowett blurted out that Jura had been run
over and killed by a vehicle that didn't stop.
I stared at him, not really taking it in.
The details followed, more or less coherentiy. The accident,
I gathered, had happened around ten that morning. Peter's
son, Andrew, who works for us as a part-time stable lad,
found her lying in the ditch. Nobody saw or heard anything
- no screech of brakes, no sound of an impact. The old black
Lab had gone missing earlier. It was raining hard, Peter told
me. I caught the smell of wet fur that still hung about his
hands and waterproof jacket.
All I said was, 'How did she get out on the road?'

'Why didn't anyone think of calling my mobile?'
Laura, barely audible, mumbled something about not
wanting to break the news to me over the phone; she knew
I was coming home for the weekend and it seemed better to
wait. George just stood.
The boy has always been closer to his mother. Although
physically we look a lot alike - tall, loose-limbed, angular,
eyes grey-blue, hair dark - I'm not sure how much else we
have in common. We find it hard to communicate.
I couldn't get anything more out of them. They were numb,
but I was not invited to share their misery. I felt like an
outsider. It made me realise that they regarded my presence
there as almost irrelevant.
Later that afternoon, I took my son with me to help dig
Jura's grave. We chose a spot on the Downs behind the house
where Sophie had liked to walk her dog when she was at
home. She'd doted on the animal. George drove the body up
there in a small trailer attached to his new quad bike, while
I walked behind carrying the pick and spade. The hole had
to be dug deep enough to deter foxes.
Jura was wrapped in a tarpaulin, but I wanted to see her
before we put her in the ground. I told George to look away.
Her injuries were not as gruesome as I'd feared. A flap of
skin had been torn from the bow of her chest, leaving a
crimson rosette mat stood out against her damp black coat;
a dewclaw had been ripped off and her muzzle had been
lacerated, a small section cut away exposing her gums and a
blood-speckled eye-tooth - it looked as if she was smiling.
There was no other damage that I could find. The fatal
injuries, I assumed, were internal.
When I removed her collar, I noticed Jura's name-tag was
missing, but didn't attach any significance to its disappearance;
she could have lost it at any time. I folded the corners of the
tarp back over her like a parcel.
Digging the grave took us the best part of half an hour;
we were both sweating and grimy by the time the job was
done. We piled some rocks on top of the low mound of earth
to mark the place and talked about a headstone and what it
might say. I suggested a cairn with a simple inscription. 'It
would be nice if it could be in memory of both of them,
don't you think?'
George's reaction was unexpectedly vehement.
'No . . . she'd hate that,' he burst out. 'It's so totally unSophie.
She hated any kind of sentimental . . . just because
it was her bloody dog . . . sometimes I think it's like . . . you
never really knew her ... at all.'
He soon became incoherent, and then with a hoarse moan
his scrawny frame convulsed and he broke down. He hung
his head and just stood there, heaving with sobs. Heartbreaking
to witness, but I'm not sure it wasn't healthy for
George to vent his feelings. He never talked about what
happened, about his sister's death.
At least, not to me. I walked over to where he was standing
and awkwardly tried to put an arm around his shoulders. I
couldn't see his face, but his hard scarecrow body immediately
stiffened, as if programmed to resist and repel any attempt
at affection. He wouldn't let himself be hugged. I was the
same with my own father. We weren't demonstrative either.
'It's all right, George,' I said. If you want to talk about her,
if there's anything at all you want to ask me . . . I'm always
here.'
He turned away. I thought I heard him say under his breath,
'No, you're not.' But I could have been mistaken.

It was my father who gave the dog to Sophie as a present
for her ninth birthday. I'll never forget her reaction - she was
just young enough to show unaffected delight. I can still see
her eyes widen, still hear her laughing for joy, when he
conjured the fat little puppy from his bulging coat pocket.
Everything connects, if you think about it.
My father was a stonemason, a 'gentleman' builder
(although he disliked the term), who ran the family business
from a small yard around the farmhouse where I grew up
nearTisbury. A meticulous craftsman, specialising in the care
and preservation of old buildings, Charlie Lister never
approved of what I do for a living - property speculation,
by his lights, was not a real job. He wasn't impressed by my
material success or by my marriage to a Calloway (which
raised more eyebrows among my family than hers), but he
was hugely proud of his granddaughter. He died, mercifully,
a year before Sophie. His last words to me in hospital, where
they could do nothing to slow and little to cushion the final
gallop of pancreatic cancer, were about her. He'd always
believed in her talent and her future as an artist. He told me
he saw Sophie as the one who would keep the flame of Lister
artisanship burning.
The reality, just two years on, is that as a family our sense
of who we are and where we're going has become fractured,
and diminished.
In an oblique way I'm sure it was what George felt, what
provoked his outburst. For all of us, Jura's death meant that
a living connection with Sophie had been severed. I think he
felt he was the only one left.
We cry, they say, when we feel unprotected.

I went for a walk later that afternoon, taking a route I know
well that leads up onto Cranborne Chase and across the
Wiltshire-Dorset border. It's wonderful striding country, a
terrain of gentle swelling hills and steep-sided hollows that
gradually flatten out towards the coast. On Win Green Hill
you can usually see across four counties and I always get that
exhilarating feeling of being on top of the world. Not today.
The rain had stopped, but it was still muggy and overcast.
Oblivious to landscape or weather, I tramped along head
down, listening to Elgar's Variations on my iPod, avoiding
reflection. I just wanted to wear myself out.
Sometime after six I got back to Greenside, having made
a detour by the lane where the accident happened. I felt I
owed it to Sophie to visit the actual spot and recreate in my
mind's eye how Jura met her end. I also needed to satisfy
myself that it really was an accident. Her wounds hadn't
looked right somehow.
Crouching down, I examined the surface of the road. Any
blood, hair or animal tissue, I realised, would have been
washed away by the rain. But I thought I might find a glass
splinter broken off a front-light assembly, or perhaps a flake
of paint from a wing of the hit-and-run car. There was
nothing, no sign of the missing name-tag, no evidence of any
land that there had been an incident. It was only when I
explored the ditch that I noticed a shred of what looked like
black bin-liner caught on a hawthorn stump. I retrieved it
and, opening it out, saw that there was blood in the folds of
the plastic.
In an instant, I went from vague suspicion to unshakable
conviction that the dog was killed elsewhere, brought back
here and dumped.
Whoever did this, did it "deliberately.

37

Laura had prepared an elaborate dinner that we ate in the
kitchen, as we always did when it was just us. It had been
her way of dealing with things after Sophie died - keeping
busy, observing small family rituals, putting a brave face on
it. I knew how upset she really was about Jura. Nobody had
much appetite. Even after my long walk, I felt only a gnawing
ache in my stomach that I tried to deaden with alcohol.
Sitting in grim silence, we were all relieved when the ordeal
came to an end and the three of us could go our separate
ways.
We didn't discuss the incident. I got the feeling that Laura
wanted to believe I was somehow to blame for the dog's death
 just as I'm sure that deep down she held me responsible
for Sophie's. She never came out with it and said, 'This is
all your fault.' But her eyes whenever they caught mine had
that accusing look.
I decided not to tell her about the evidence I'd found in
the ditch that indicated Jura was killed intentionally. It would
have only caused more anguish. I didn't want to alarm Laura
either, in case I was wrong and it had been a random, isolated
incident - unconnected with the uneasy feeling I'd had last
night of being followed home from Notting Hill Gate, an
experience that in the end I'd put down to paranoid feelings
or too much to drink.
The irony was that this miserable crisis had come at a time
when the ice between Laura and me had begun to melt a
little. That sounds misleadingly hopeful. We were carrying too much baggage for anything more than a short truce. But
finding her at Campden Hill Place when I believed her to be
in the country, once I got past the idea that Laura was
checking up on me (I even wondered if she was having me
tailed), had been somehow a comfort.
It's odd how a person you think you know as well as it's
possible to know anyone can become such a mystery again.
When we talked now it was more like a conversation between
strangers than husband and wife. We stayed up late watching
an old Robert Altman movie on TV, Short Cuts, which we
first saw together in New York. The parallels in some scenes
with our own slowly dissolving marriage were hard to miss,
but neither of us made any comment.
In bed later, strangers there too, Laura's enthusiasm caught
me by surprise; she seemed recklessly uninhibited, almost
wanton. It wasn't like her and it didn't feel right: as if someone
else had taken her place while the real Laura was on leave
of absence. In return, I made love to my wife with the ardour
of a man guilty of unfaithfulness. In the midst of all that
sweaty ill-founded threshing, I had the sensation again of
observing us, the Listers, from a distance.
But last night seemed an age ago now.
I took a tumbler of whisky upstairs to the library, watched
the news, then went online and dealt with some e-mails. There
was one from Campbell Armour with a six-page attachment
titled 'Synesthesia'. I wrote back letting him know what had
happened to Jura, describing her injuries and suggesting that
the dog had been deliberately killed, then run over to make
it look like an accident.
Since I last spoke to Campbell, I'd given careful thought
to his theory that I was being targeted by somebody. I was
pretty sure he would see the cruel, senseless execution of
Sophie's old Labrador as part of their campaign. But I'd failed
to come up with a single name.
The room felt airless. I got up from the desk, walked across
to the bay windows that overlook the garden and opened one
of the sashes. It was too dark out to see anything. I lit a
Gauloise and stood contemplating my reflection in the panes
of distorting antique glass. I decided to take a look at the
synaesthesia material Campbell had sent me later. It was just
an excuse really for leaving my computer on standby on the
off-chance that Jelly might sign in.
I thought about her all the time. Couldn't stop myself.
Although we'd agreed to take a step back, give each
other some space for a while, as she put it, I'd insisted on
keeping open the link between us for her security. But the
desire to talk to her and 'hear' her voice was more powerful
than ever. As I turned to stub out my cigarette, the ash
falling on the polished wooden floor before I could find
an ashtray, I suddenly felt an overwhelming need to get
in touch.
I sat back down at the computer and, just as I was about
to click on her name, a dark blue message tab on the toolbar
started flashing. It seemed such an extraordinary fluke - or
yet another example of Jelly's powers of ESP - that I laughed
aloud. It was the kind of gleeful sound nobody makes unless
they are alone.
She must have sensed that I wanted to see her, and come
online: I could only assume because she wanted to see me
too. Then, on the point of answering her, I noticed the name
that had lit up was not in fact Jelly's. I stared at the screen
in disbelief, reluctant to accept my mistake until I looked
more closely and realised that what I saw didn't make any
sense. It had to be a mistake.
The letters 'ST' on the blue flashing icon stood for
Stormypetrel - Sophie's screen-name. The air went out of
me in a short reedy gasp.
I knew what was running through my head to be impossible,
but I could hear my heart beating faster as I checked my
contacts list. It showed a yellow smiley face beside the screenname
I'd never been able to bring myself to delete. It indicated
that my daughter was online.
I just sat there, afraid to answer, afraid that if I didn't, the
ghost in the machine would vanish. It was clearly an error, or
else someone 'out there' was playing a trick on me, and yet. . .
I picked up the phone and tried Campbell's number in
Tampa, but only got his voice-mail. The little girl's voice on
the recording.
Then the blue flashing light went off. I hesitated for another
moment before bringing up the saved messages.

Stormypetrel: DADDY? Stormypetrel: WE YOU THERE?

That was all.
I felt the impact of those words as a psychic attack. My
gorge rose. It was like suddenly I was at sea standing on a
wildly pitching deck. I knew, of course, this wasn't Sophie.
For one thing, she never called me 'Daddy'.
And yet, and yet . . . you don't stop hoping.
'Who are you?' I typed back. The feeling of queasiness had
quickly turned into anger. 'What the hell do you want?'
There was no reply.
I heard a scraping noise outside, then a small crack, like a
branch or a twig snapping underfoot. I quickly turned off
the desk lamp, the only light I had on in the library, and went
over to the windows.
As I peered out into the garden, I couldn't help thinking,
if only for a warped, gut-wrenching second, 'She's come back.'
Then, glancing over at the screen behind me, I saw that
whoever it was had written something more.

Stonnypefre; WHY DID YOU KILL HER?

38

I left the house quietly by the side door that leads onto the
terrace and walked down the sloping lower lawn towards the
lake. The sky was overcast, but I knew the way well enough
and my eyes soon adjusted to the dark. I followed the path
around the edge of the lake, an area of blackness that seemed
to absorb what little light there was, trees and clumps of
bushes barely standing out against the water.
Every ten yards or so I stopped to listen, convinced that
Sophie's killer was somewhere in the grounds; nothing
stirred. All I could hear was the distant mutter of the TV
in George's bedroom. Under one arm I carried a loaded
shotgun.
I don't know how long I stayed out there, tense and alert,
waiting for the prowler to reveal himself, for something to
happen. I was startled once by the loud croak of a bull-frog
that came from the direction of the island, but the hush of
the summer's night soon returned, deeper than before.
After a while, I gave up and wandered slowly back to
Greenside, accepting that I'd probably over-reacted. The sense
of threat eased but never really went away. Those messages
from Stormypetrel had left me feeling shaken and exposed.
Whoever sent them knew how to cause maximum anguish.
'WHY DID YOU KILL HER?'Who was I supposed to have
killed? What did they mean, why
Before going indoors, using a torch now, I checked the
stables and the outhouses. In the garage I pulled the tarp off
George's quad bike and the sight of its gleaming chrome and
red bodywork made me think how easy it would be to tamper
with. I decided that even if this had been a false alarm, I
needed to do more to protect my family.
On the steps outside the front entrance to the house, making
one last check, I swung the torch beam down the long meandering
driveway. I could just make out the stone obelisks that
flank the gates to Greenside. About fifty yards further along
the road, where Jura had been found earlier, I saw the red
tail-lights of a car winking between the hedgerows. I knew
instantly it was him.
I wanted to jump in the Mercedes and drive off in pursuit,
but it had been put away in the garage. The keys were in the
hall. I wouldn't have had a hope in hell of catching up. In
seconds, the car's lights were out of sight.
Then it struck me, as I pushed open the front door, that
while I'd been searching the grounds, hunting for prowlers
down by the lake, he could have been here in the house. I
left the shotgun on the hall table and sprinted upstairs.
The television was off in George's room, but I could hear
water running, the sound of a bath being drawn. I spoke to
him through the bathroom door, trying not to let him hear
I was short of breath. I had to stop myself saying, 'Are you
all right?'
When I looked in on Laura, she was sitting up in bed
reading. I couldn't think of any way of asking her if she'd
seen or heard anything, not without causing panic.
She glanced up from her book. 'Where have you been?'
'I had to get a breath of air,' I said, then promising I
wouldn't be long, I went back downstairs. There was nothing
out of place in the main rooms, no sign anywhere of an
intruder. More than once I picked up the phone to call the
police, but I knew there was little point. The truth was I
hadn't actually seen anything. Couples often parked in the
lane on a Saturday night.
In the library, I poured myself a stiff whisky and went back
to my computer. I didn't touch the keyboard, just sat there
staring at the screen.
The dark blue message tab for ST was flashing. I had
another message.

39

'You know what gives me cause for concern?' Campbell said,
talking to Ed Lister on his cell phone from a deckchair at
the beach. It was Sunday.
'I'm listening.' Ed sounded a little stressed.
'Hold on a second.' Campbell adjusted the umbrella to
keep the sun off Amy who was playing in the sand next to
the ice box. After church he'd driven the family out to Sand
Key Park, their favourite spot on the Gulf Coast, halfway
between Clearwater and St Pete. His client had called him
at ten to twelve by his watch.
'Don't go away, Ed.' He put a hand over the mouthpiece
and said to his wife, 'Honey, you feel like taking Amy down
to the water?' He didn't want the little girl to overhear anything
she shouldn't.
Kira lay on her back on a mattress a few yards away. She
had on a black bikini and black sunglasses. Her skin, startlingly
pale, slathered with high protection sun-block, glistened like
alabaster. No response. He came back to his client.
'Listen, whoever messaged you last night may or may not
have known that Sophie's screen-name was still on your
contacts list. What concerns me is the fact they knew you were
online. That means either they have remote access to your
computer, which we know is not the case, or they were nearby,
watching you.'
There was silence the other end.
Campbell glanced at his wife, who hadn't stirred. He
covered the mouthpiece again. 'Dish?' It was his pet name
for her, but it didn't do the trick. He knew how tired she
was and felt guilty for asking.
Amy, already on her feet, said, 'I can go swimming by
myself
Campbell shook his head and mouthed 'No' at her.
'I got the feeling somebody was prowling around outside.
I heard a noise, went out and searched the grounds. There
was nobody there.'
Amy was pouting now, digging a toe in the sand and
hopping around it on one leg, trying to get his attention. She
looked cute in her pink and navy polka-dot swimsuit with
matching ribbons on her pigtails. He signed that he would
take her in a minute.
'But I could've been wrong, just imagined I heard something.'
'You
were on edge, dude, it's understandable. "Why did
you have to kill her" That was it, nothing more? You think
she was referring to the dog?'
'She? For Christ's sake, it was my daughter's screen-name.
I assumed the message came from Ward and that he killed
the dog.'
'A bitch, right?'
'Yes. She belonged to Sophie.'
'Well, pets and cars don't mix. We lost a dog once when
I was a kid in Hong Kong, a springer spaniel called Run
run . . .' Campbell looked at Amy and tailed off. 'Why did
you try to call me last night?'
'I wanted you to trace the user while he was online.'
'If it was Ward he'd have covered his tracks, but you were
thinking along the right lines. Sooner or later he'll make a
mistake.'
'I wish I could share your confidence.'
He smiled a little. 'So you grab a shotgun and run out of
the house. After a half-hour or so you hear a car taking off.
And when you get back?'
'I made sure my wife and son were all right.'
Campbell frowned. He looked over at Kira and Amy,
instinctively checking on them, then let his gaze drift down
the sand to a group of adults and children milling by the
water's edge. Out in the Gulf two tankers and a white cruise
ship stood motionless on the horizon. He wondered how
many miles apart.
'No messages from Stormypetrel?'
'Nothing more, no.' He heard the slight hesitation in Ed's
voice. 'I'd really like to know where you think this investigation
is heading.' Getting off the subject a little too fast. 'And, by
the way, I never killed anybody.'
Campbell stood up and stretched his legs. He walked over
to where Kira was basking on the mattress. He could tell by
the rise and fall of her chest that she was asleep. He bent
down and touched her burning shoulder, still talking into his
cell. 'You had a chance yet to read the stuff I sent you on
synaesthesia?'
She didn't move.
'I glanced through it. Even if you're right and Ward does
have the condition, I wouldn't exactly call it narrowing the
field.'
'Wait till you hear this,' Campbell said, giving Kira a little
nudge. He saw a frown of annoyance cloud her forehead.
Wake up, Dish.
'Okay, yesterday I spoke with Claudia Derwent at Yale she's
the leading authority on synaesthesia in the US. She
told me something that got my attention. It seems that when
synaesfhetes taste a word or feel a sound or see numbers as
colours - to them it's real. These are sensed phenomena, not analogies or metaphors, okay? The theory is they've kept the
extra neural connections we are all born with but most of us
lose in childhood. But get this - a synaesthete's inter-sensory
associations remain constant over a lifetime. In other words, if
the word "ocean" is clocked by the subject as, say, a bunch
of flowers, he or she will never experience it any other way.
For a person with coloured hearing, a certain sound will always be blue, green or whatever. It's like a signature, dude
. . . you can't fake it.'
He crouched down beside his wife, thinking now about a
swim before lunch. In the cooler they had cold shrimp,
marinated chicken, mixed salad and a bottle of Chablis.
'I still don't see how that reduces the odds.'
'It doesn't. . . until you find other examples of a particular
signature. Sight and hearing are most commonly involved in
cross-over sensory experiences. The majority of synaesthetes

"see" words and numbers as colours and shapes. But there
are many different permutations in the linking of the senses
and a few that come close to being unique. Derwent believes
our guy may belong in the last category.'
'I see.' Ed sounded doubtful. 'Did she happen to explain
how she reached that conclusion? Or is she just guessing?'
Lister could be such a pompous jerk.
'It's stronger than guesswork. I sent Professor Derwent the
text of Ward's webcast. She called me back yesterday evening
from home to discuss the material. What she said kept me
awake half the night.'
There was a pause. 'You better tell me about it then.'

The neurologist had been guarded at first, understandably
perhaps, given the unsavoury nature of the webcast. Campbell
had told her he was investigating a case of cyber-harassment
for WHOA (Working to Halt Online Abuse) and that any
information she volunteered would be treated in strictest
confidence.
'There isn't enough evidence,' she'd begun hesitantly, 'to
establish beyond doubt that "M" is a synaesthete. Having
said that, I don't believe the examples in the text can be read
as allusion or metaphor - a phrase like "words with an iron
shape" is not a rhetorical trope - which to me suggests a
neuropathic disorder.'
What interested Professor Derwent was that if M's brain
was indeed cross-triggered so that one sense fired another,
then he belonged to an unusual category of synaesthete.
'Among the various synaesthetic pairings,' she went on, 'where
sight, for instance, induces the sensation of touch or sound
a perception of colour, it is extremely rare for taste to be
either a trigger or the response.'
The significance of this was not lost on Campbell.
Nationwide surveys showed the incidence of synaesthesia
in the general population to be around one in a hundred
thousand - the chances of 'M' being part of any sample were
no better than fair, but the fact that he'd left such a distinctive
'print' on the webcast, in theory at least, dramatically narrowed
the search. In the twenty-five years since she'd started collecting
data, Derwent told him, she had only come across a handful
of cases where taste induced a secondary sense experience
of colour and shape.
Claudia Derwent had records of just three 'tasters' in her
files, two female, one male. The latter had been referred to
her in the early days of her research, when she was collecting
cases of synaesthesia in the northeastern United States. Her
correspondent was a country physician from Norfolk,
Connecticut, a village in the Berkshire foothills that was once
popular with society folk as a summer resort.
The subject, unusually, was a nine-year-old boy. She'd
never met the child, only receiving his case-notes in 1990,
ten years after the doctor had lost touch with him. There had
been no follow-up.
His mouth dry with excitement, Campbell had asked for
the boy's name, which Professor Derwent had been unable
to supply - her survey had been conducted anonymously but
she'd seen no reason why she shouldn't put him in touch
with Dr Joel Stilwell in Norfolk.
It was possible he'd still have some record of the 'taster'.

Ed was silent for a moment.
'When do you plan to go?'
Campbell moved a little way along the beach so that Kira
wouldn't hear his answer. She wasn't too happy about his taking
off and leaving her with Amy at such short notice. They'd got
into a big fight over the childcare issue, which made it impossible
now to have that talk he needed to have with her before he left.
He still hadn't told Kira about the money.
He had just five days left to come up with the full amount,
before 'Cholly' would be stopping the clock. He said quietly
into his cell, 'I'm booked on a Southwest flight tomorrow. I
should be in Norfolk late afternoon.'
Kira propped herself up on her elbows and said, 'Where's
Amy?'
'Call me when you get there.'
Campbell turned his head and took in at a glance their
little encampment under the green and white shade umbrella
where until a moment ago Amy had been playing.
For an instant panic surged through him as he scanned
the beach, then as quickly melted into relief when he spotted
a blur of fluorescent pink moving between the tan bodies
down by the water's edge.
'Looking for cowry shells.'
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, thinking he was
getting jittery over nothing; then throwing a reassuring 'I got
it covered' grin in Kira's direction and, still talking into his
cell, he strolled towards the Gulf.
'We may not have a lot of time,' he said.
Ed had already hung up.

40
. if you're all right

templedog: I need to talk to you adorable joker. wj what happened? aj: you better make it quick, i'm at work
td: nothing happened, I just wondered ..
ay- look, i'm fine, okay?
td: obviously not a good moment
aj: is this hard for you, Ed?
td: only because we're talking for the first time in a week
aj: we shouldn't be talking at all... and it's been two days
td: don't worry, I'm not trying to pressure you
aj: i can't help worrying, mister

Ward frowned and reached for his glass of wine. It was
Sunday, how could she be at work? She lied to him all the
time, about almost everything - it was one way to keep him
at arm's length. And the big chump is too besotted to notice.
They were something else these two.
'You just wondered if she was all right, Ed?' he jeered at
the screen. 'You "just wondered" . . . hell, I bet you did.'
The guy won't let go. He's got it pretty bad, and she knows
it. this hard for you?' ... I mean, really - she loves the
hold she has over him, the little piece of work. She'd be crazy
if she didn't. He took a sip of the wine, a very reasonable
Sancerre, and yawned.
A wave of tiredness rolled over him.
He couldn't make up his mind whether he was hungry
enough to go out for something to eat. There was nothing
in the refrigerator. A walk might help him to stay awake; his
body was still on Greenwich Mean Time. If he went to bed
now, he'd only wake up again in a few hours and have to lie
there till dawn listening to police sirens and garbage trucks
painting the town every colour but red.
Seemed hard to believe that only last night he was sleeping
under a hedgerow in the Wiltshire downs. He brought up the
pictures he'd taken of Greenside, the leafy deer park with its
six-acre lake, the magnificent old house where his Sophie
was raised. Shame about her black Lab - there it was now
plodding along the lane - but he couldn't risk the animal surprising
him and barking its head off while he loaded the program.

He still had the taste in his mouth. The last bewildered look
from Jura's filmy seal-pup eyes had released the flavour and
texture of candy floss - it wouldn't have been so bad if he
had a sweet tooth.
Out of respect for its owner, he'd kept the dog's name-tag,
adding it to his key-ring for good luck. It was working already.
When Ed Lister left the house, he'd successfully installed
another Trojan in his laptop, replacing the program he'd
ordered to self-destruct after Paris.
He liked the library at Greenside, the smell of whisky and
tobacco, the worn, over-stuffed chairs, all those leather-bound
books - it reminded him of his grandmother's old home. At the
foot of the stairs, he'd stood and listened to the others moving
around on the bedroom floor above, and thought of Sophie.
He'd been in and out of there in three minutes.
It felt good though to be back in the city. The apartment
had been vacuumed while he was away; the bathroom and
kitchen left spotless, which suggested Mrs Karas had been
in, at least twice. The tidiness of his three featureless rooms,
glazed partitions under the stamped-tin ceiling of a modest
loft, was comforting to him. Everything in its place, as Grace
used to say, and a place for everything.
He sat in his work-space, the horseshoe-shaped network
of banked computers, monitors and electronic boxes that
he called home. The custom-built set-up, which included
mail and file servers, switches that routed incoming traffic
to the correct ports, and an impenetrable firewall on a
Linux computer with packet-filtering rules he'd written
himself, all tightly screwed down, was Ward's listening post,
his flight deck, his cybernaut's module - gateway to the universe.
He retrieved the text and scrolled down through a tedious
section of dialogue where Ed comes on to the girl as a patron
of the arts - he wants to help her study piano in Paris, no
strings attached, he's doing this because he believes she has
talent, etc, only she gets all fired up and righteously tells him
she could never accept his charity. What crap! He's got the
cash, she's basically a hustler . . . where's the problem?
But then they get into something a little more interesting.
In what has to be a calculated move, Jelena lets him know
she's been seeing someone . . . and, surprise, surprise, Ed
doesn't take it too well.

adorablejoker: remember i told you i broke up with my old lover when he
relocated to LA? Well he's back in the city and we went out the other night
templedog: I see ... how did it go?
aj: we had a lot of catching-up to do
td: you sleep with him?
aj: it's too soon for that, but who knows... i think there's a reasonable shot of
us getting back together...
td: you know I still feel the same about you
ared, please... all i'm doing is getting on with my life
td: and you feel it too, you're just pretending
aj: no, I don't. I meant what I said, it's not real... moving on, you told me i
wasn't in any danger. What made you think i might've been?
td: It was only if someone was trying to get at me and it ever came out that you
and I knew each other
a:ahhh, okay... so it's your reputation you're worried about.
td: no, I meant they could use you

Ward leaned back and closed his eyes.

He knew what Lister was going through. He remembered
the exact moment when Sophie, his princess, had told him
online that she had someone she cared about back in England.
The shock and hurt stayed with him, the empty feeling, the
nothingness, the rage at being rejected ... it never went away.
The boyfriend, he found out later, didn't in fact exist, but
that was beside the point.
It might seem strange that a person of Ed's intelligence,
who stank up any room with his aura of money and power,
could become infatuated with this nobody from nowhere,
could be so deluded. A powerful man flirting with self-destruction
was not an edifying sight, not even tragic. But Ward
couldn't say it altogether surprised him.
Anyone could see she was playing him for a sucker anyone
but Ed, that is. He had to believe that deep down his
little cyber-whore was in love with him and that in time she'd
come to realise that the two of them were meant. There was
only one place this was heading. He wasn't going to accept
that the relationship was over. He wasn't going to take no
for an answer.
What the girl didn't know was that Ed Lister had been
here before.
It felt like a stroke of luck, if not entirely unexpected, when
he discovered that Ed was pursuing a woman half his age
on the internet. He was intrigued by the way their paths were
converging. But Ward could claim at least some credit for
enabling and enhancing the process. Like the ESP connection
that Ed was under the impression he enjoyed with Jelly. The
only reason she knew about the party at Greenside was
because he had told her. And the next time Ed checked his
archives he would find the conversation that proved her right.
YOU TOLD ME . . . yes, well, let's call it a joint effort.
If Ward looked hard at the situation there was a symmetry
here, a kind of poetic justice in the range of possibilities it
opened up. He wondered if Ed had any idea how much they
shared, how close they were getting.
Soon, he thought, no one will be able to tell us apart.

Norfolk

44

'Mr Armour?'
A thin hunched figure reading a book on the terrace lifted
a hand in greeting as Campbell pulled into the driveway of
the fieldstone farmhouse and cut the engine of his rented
Toyota. The old man rose and shuffled slowly forwards to
meet him.
'You found the way all right. I'm so glad.' Bent nearly
double from osteoporosis, Dr Stilwell was the same height
sitting or standing.
It had taken Campbell an hour to drive out from Bradley
airport, following the doctor's precise directions that brought
him up through the samey small white towns, the rolling hills
and never-ending woods of Litchfield County. Approaching
Norfolk, he'd spotted a dead brown and gold bear lying curled
up in the ditch like a worn couch somebody had thrown out,
and suddenly felt a long way from Tampa. It was his first
foray into the Yankee heartland.
'Great place you got here, doc' Campbell said, looking
around him, as he stepped from the car. The old house and
its barn were set back on an oak-shaded rise in a half-acre
of scrupulously tended grounds.
'On a day like this . . . well, I can't think of anywhere I'd
rather be.' Stilwell spoke with a soft New England accent,
squinting up sideways at Campbell through half-moon glasses
perched on his nose; he was wearing, despite the heat, a heavy
tweed suit and bowtie. They shook hands and the doctor led
him over the terrace of uneven flagstones to a circular cast
iron table and chairs.
'Can I interest you in some iced tea?' A tray had been laid
out with a pitcher, silver spoons, and two glasses filled with
ice and mint. 'My wife's secret was to add a little ginger ale.
She was from the south . . . like you.'
The doctor filled their glasses, letting him know that Mrs
Stilwell had passed away three years ago and that he'd given
up general practice soon afterwards. It occurred to Campbell
he must have worked on" well past retirement age. He had to
be eighty, at least. There was a silence. He was wondering
how to bring up the subject he'd come here to discuss, when
Stilwell asked, 'What can I do for you, Mr Armour? I don't
see patients any more and you don't look to me like a medical
man.'
On the phone, he'd been careful not to say too much about
the purpose of his visit or what he did for a living. He
suspected that a private investigator nosing about up here in
the backwoods would not be made to feel welcome.
'I'm a computer analyst.' Campbell cleared his throat. 'I was
given your name by Claudia Derwent at Yale. I believe you sent
her some notes on a patient of yours - This was way back - a
boy suffering, if that's the word for it, from synaesthesia.'
Stilwell nodded slowly. 'Sure, Derwent published a letter
in the New York Times inviting anyone with the condition to
take part in a sample. I wrote her partly to have her confirm
my diagnosis. But also because the case had some exceptional
features.'
'The boy claimed he could "taste" music. Is that right?'
The doctor's eyes met his and held them in an open and
friendly gaze. 'What exactly is your interest in the subject,
Mr Armour?'

Campbell had prepared his answer. There was no sense in
talking at this point about a murder investigation, when it
might not even be relevant.
'It's really my wife who's interested. She's doing research in
clinical neurophysiology at Tampa General. They have an
epilepsy programme there and she's studying parallels between
temporal lobe seizures and the synaesthetic experience.'
It wasn't so far removed from what she actually did.
'I see.' The doctor's eyes were still friendly, but the lines
around his mouth had tightened. Campbell feared he could
see right through him.
"I'm just running errands for her.' He gave a little grin that
would have infuriated Kira. 'I thought maybe if I was able
to trace your patient . . .' He tried to make it sound like a
casual enterprise. 'You wouldn't happen to know what became
of him, doc, would you?'
'Last time I saw him he was a little boy ... must be twenty
five years ago, more. I wouldn't even know where to start
looking.'
'What about your patient files?'
He laughed. 'No doctor keeps 'em that long.'
'Do you remember the name of the boy?'
'Of course. He was Ernest Seaton . . .' Stilwell paused,
studying Campbell over the top of his reading glasses, as if
waiting for his reaction. He frowned. 'I take it then you don't
know the story?'
Campbell shook his head.
'I'm surprised Professor Derwent didn't warn you.'
The doctor, not to be hurried, leaned forward and took a
sip of tea.
'Ernest was the sole survivor of a family tragedy, Mr
Armour.' He put the glass down and went on. 'The Seatons
lived out of town over towards Colebrook, big place up on
the ridge called Skylands. It happened during the heatwave
we had here, summer of nineteen seventy-nine. One night
after a drunken argument, the father cut the mother's throat,
then shot himself with a twelve-gauge. Hell of a mess. Their
bodies were discovered by the housekeeper when she came
to work next morning.'
'Jesus.' Campbell tried to hide his excitement. 'I had no
idea.'
'The level of violence was . . . extreme. Some people felt
June Seaton had it coming to her, but he butchered her, literally
slashed the poor woman to ribbons.'
'What about the kid? Was he there?'
'He was found alone in the house, hiding in a broom closet,
his face finger-painted with his mother's blood. The murder
weapon was a kitchen knife, one of those curved blades with
twin handles. What do you call 'em . . . ? Italian word ... a
"mezzaluna". It's not known whether the boy witnessed the
crime.'
'Oh man,' Campbell said, turning his head from side to
side. He felt a pulse start up in his neck. 'He must have been
. . . Jesus, I dunno.'
Stilwell gave him a look. 'Ernest was nine at the time. An
only child. He didn't speak about what happened; not to the
police, not to me, not to anyone.'
'Did you know his parents? Were they patients of yours?'
'This is a village, Mr Armour, everyone knows everyone.
I wasn't their family doctor and we moved in different
circles, but we were on friendly terms. Gary Seaton had a
dental practice in Torrington. June, his wife, came from a
higher social milieu - she had artistic leanings. Ran an
antique clothing store here in town that kept her amused
for a while. Skylands was hers. The house had always
belonged to her mother's family, old-money Norfolk
grandees.'
'Why did people say she had it coming?'
'I guess there were rumours she was unfaithful to him.
June was quite a beauty, high-strung, with an aura of big
city glamour about her, you know - she had dash. She was
on a different level to Gary. His drinking could also have
been a factor. Sad business, but at least no one else was
caught up in their troubles. The inquest established no third
party involvement.'
'Except for the boy.'
'Yes, of course, Ernie.' He paused. 'The reason you're here.'
Campbell said, 'What kind of a person would do that to
his own kid?'
'You know, Mr Armour, the tragedy was not exactly hushed
up, but it was contained locally. You might have expected the
story to draw a reporter or two from New York, but luckily
no. This isn't the sort of place that revels in notoriety.'
'Sure, I understand. I'm only interested in finding him.'
It was easier for Dr Stilwell to talk with his head bowed.
But he made an effort now to prop himself up, resting his
chin on a hand so that he could maintain eye-contact with
his visitor.
'Were you called to the scene?' Campbell asked.
'As a doctor, you mean? No, I wasn't involved professionally.
At least, not until later on. The boy's grandmother Nancy,
Mrs Calvert, was June Seaton's mother - brought
him over to see me a month or two after it happened. I'd
treated her husband once for depression and she wanted my
opinion. She had taken Ernest to a big child psychologist in
Manhattan for counselling. It was suggested to her that as
well as being severely traumatised, her grandson might be
schizophrenic'
'Hard to imagine going through what he did and not being
driven crazy.'
'Children on the whole are remarkably resilient,' Stilwell
said. 'I examined the boy. He was maybe a little withdrawn,
but I found him pretty well-adjusted, all things considered.
I saw him three or four times.
'We sat over there, the two of us, in my summer office.'
Campbell glanced at the converted barn the doctor had
pointed out to him earlier, a listing white clapboard shack
with tall windows overlooking the pond and bog garden. He
knew he was jumping the gun, but he felt almost certain now
that this was where it all began. The emotional wasteland out
of which 'Ward' had arisen.
'I remember the exact moment I realised Ernest wasn't ill,
but different. I had some Mozart playing in the background
and he asked me to turn it off. I was curious to know why.
He said the notes tasted bad. "Like flies when they get in your
mouth!"
'I'm not a big fan of Mozart either, but man . . . that is
harsh.'
Stilwell gave a little smile. 'I thought so too.'
'But you knew what it signified.'
'There were other signs. I got him to do some drawings.
One of them, which I couldn't decipher, he explained was
a drawing of the sound a helicopter makes. We looked at
letters of the alphabet and he instantly put a colour to each
of them.'
'Then you didn't share the psychologist's view?'
'I told Mrs Calvert I thought Ernest was synaesthetic and
that his condition most likely had become more pronounced
because of the trauma, but she just said, Oh, the boy's always
been a dreamer. She looked after him for a while longer, but
it was too much for her to handle. She packed him off to be
raised by a cousin out West somewhere, I think it was
Wyoming. He never came back.'
'Is the grandmother still alive?' Campbell asked.
'She died in New York two years ago.'
'What about the cousin who raised him? Any other relatives
or friends of the family who might know what happened to
the kid?'
Stilwell shook his head. The detective, who'd been leaning
forward to catch the old man's sometimes barely audible
voice, sat back in his chair.
A silence grew between them, not uncomfortable this
time, restoring the peaceful drowsy hum of the garden.
Campbell was about to try a different approach, when he
heard Stilwell say softly, 'Don't make any sudden movement,
Mr Armour.'
The doctor was staring intently at something behind him.
'We have a visitor. Turn around very slowly. There's a
hydrangea bush to your left. Look among the top trusses and
you'll see one of our humming birds. Iridescent green with
a black throat patch?'
Reluctantly, Campbell did as instructed. 'Okay, I got it.'
'Keep your eye on the black patch and watch what happens
to it when he moves into the sunlight. There!'
There was a flash of deep ruby red. Campbell had never
seen anything in his life so intensely red before. Then it was
gone, leaving a whitish after-image that quickly faded against
the sky. As always, when he experienced something new or
beautiful, he thought of Kira - the experience incomplete
unless he could share it with her.
The doctor beamed at his delight. 'He was a big favourite
with my wife. It tickled her that only the males have that
gorgeous colouring. She named him "Beau".'
Campbell sensed he was about to go into reminiscence
mode, but the old man became quiet. Taking the hint, he
stood up. 'It was good of you to see me.'
'Sorry I couldn't be of more help.' Stilwell held out a hand
for him to shake. 'Have you a place to stay in town, Mr
Armour?'
'I booked a motel online. The Mountain View.'
'Never heard of it. You'd be more than welcome to our
guest room.'
Campbell smiled. 'I already used up enough of your hospitality.'
The
doctor insisted on walking him back to his car. At the
end of the terrace, he stopped and put a bony hand on
Campbell's arm. 'You could always try talking to Grace Wilkes.
She was housekeeper at Skylands. She might be able to tell
you more.'
'Grace Wilkes,' he repeated, wondering what had made
him change his mind.
'Had a rapport with the boy. She'll be in the book for
Winsted.'

A long white strip of joined-up cabins tucked into a fold of
wooded hills, the Mountain View motor inn was just across
the state line into Massachusetts, twenty minutes by car from
Norfolk. Campbell parked his silver Toyota Camry outside
number fifteen and sat for a moment, listening to the radio.
He remembered Ed Lister saying the murder webcast had
a classical music soundtrack . . . and that there was someone
who played the piano in the virtual mansion. He made a note
to ask him if the repertoire included any Mozart. The taste
of dead flies, he guessed, would be a constant.
His room was ski-lodge basic, faux-pine panelling widi an
oil painting of Alpine pastures over the bed and a single
window on the back that looked out on another parking lot.
It would do for a night. He had a shower and changed his
clothes, then called Grace Wilkes, only to learn she was out
of town visiting her sister in Waterbury. Campbell left his
numbers for her to call.
She'd be back Wednesday. Three days from now. He sat
down on the king-size bed and thought about how he was
going to break the news to Kira. As of this morning she
hadn't been able to find anyone to mind Amy while he was
away, which meant she'd have to stay back from her job at
the hospital all week.
On the way to the airport, he'd tried to explain to Kira
how important it was that he follow up the synaesthesia lead
that after all she'd given him. He reminded her about the
huge bonus Ed Lister had promised to pay him if he found
Ward. But she just said she had 'a bad feeling' about this
case and begged him to drop it.
He felt sure she already sensed the storm that was about
to hit them.
It was only luck that Kira hadn't found out yet about the
money he owed. He'd managed to intercept the last bank
statement, but if she happened to look in their joint savings
account she'd know at once they were cleaned out. He decided
not to call her just yet. It wasn't a conversation he wanted
to have on an empty stomach.
A couple of miles back on Route 44, Campbell had seen
signs for an 'authentic' diner in East Canaan. He found the
old caboose without any trouble in a disused railway yard.
Sitting up at the black marble and stainless steel counter (the
interior had most of its original 1940s fittings) he ordered a
cheeseburger deluxe with a side of chilli. They didn't have
Mountain Dew so he drank Seven-Up.
When the food came he ate slowly, enjoying every mouthful.
He finished off with a slice of cherry pie and coffee, and
only then - not wanting to let the image of the blood-spattered
mezzaluna spoil his dinner - let his thoughts drift back over
the Skylands tragedy and the conversation he'd had with Joel
Stilwell.
He was pretty sure the old doctor had seen through his
story about epilepsy research. Maybe he'd made it too obvious
that his interest in Ernest Seaton didn't stop at the boy's
medical history. In a small, tight-knit community he had to
assume news of his curiosity to learn what had become of
him would travel. On the other hand maybe that was no bad
thing.

By the time he got back to the Mountain View, it was too
late London-time to get Ed Lister on the phone. Sitting on
the floor in a lotus position, the TV tuned to the sports
channel so he could watch the highlights from Wimbledon,
Campbell wrote up his notes and e-mailed his client a
cautiously optimistic progress report of his investigation. He
described briefly the horrific events at Skylands and suggested
that the nine-year-old Ernest Seaton's story certainly fitted
the background of a delusional stalker - he could be the
person they were looking for.
Campbell knew there was a strong possibility his e-mail
would be intercepted and read by Ward. The recent contact
the killer had made with Ed - using his daughter's screen
ID to send him cryptic messages - was probably just a
decoy so that he could gain access to his computer at
Greenside. He suspected that Ward had always had some
kind of electronic surveillance in place.
It was a risky strategy, one that for tactical reasons he
couldn't share with his client, but if Ward discovered they
were onto him it might just force him into making a mistake
and flush him out into the open.
He reached for his cell to let Kira know he'd arrived safely.
He wanted to tell her about the humming bird, the flash of
red lightning at its throat. But then the thought struck him,
what if the loan sharks hadn't believed him when he told
them he had to leave town for a few days on a job? What if
they figured he'd made a run for it, and decided to send
Cholly round to Wild Palms Manor? The nice old guy in the
lizard-skin boots ... ringing their doorbell. He imagined Amy
letting him in.






240
241

I
I
For a moment Campbell felt tempted. At the diner, he'd
picked up a brochure for Foxwoods, 'the world's largest
casino', just down the road in southeastern Connecticut - he
could jump in the car, be there in an hour, hour and a half
tops. 'With your credit score? They wouldn't even let you
play the slots,' his Gamblers Anonymous voice mocked. 'You
can eighty-six that idea, pal' Campbell let out a groan and
flipped open his cell.
He had until Friday to get the hundred thousand.

42

Ward lay in the dark with his eyes open. He heard a long
screech of brakes in the distance, and imagined a car speeding
downtown going through a stop light. He waited for the
sound of impact that never came, trying to find a way back
to sleep.
It was 4.45 a.m., the sky just starting to lighten, when he
gave up. He got out of bed and pulling on a robe, made his
way barefoot through the dark divisions of the loft guided
by a faint ultramarine glow coming from the mail-server
computer, which he kept on 247. He sat down at his workstation
and stared for a moment at the monitor, following
the procession of sea creatures across its full-size LCD screen.
He watched as the manta ray swam across his screen and
flapped off into the murky depths, then dismissed the graphics
with a touch of the mouse. After rapidly performing the
necessary functions, using keyboard shortcuts, he checked
his mail.
Or rather, he checked Ed's mail. Quarter to ten in London,
Monday morning. He'd be at the office by now, most likely
online.
From a list of accounts, each one identified by a different
username, Ward brought up the mailbox titled pops.homebe foredark.net.kg,
which was currently dedicated to receiving
blind copies of any traffic in and out of Ed Lister's computer.
There were altogether six intercepts - three outgoing e-mails
which looked like business, two website requests of little interest
and one incoming from Campbell Armour, the private
investigator hired by Ed to find out who killed his daughter.
No' contact so far with 'Adorablejoker' - her screen-name
made him cringe. He wondered if Ed realised she had others.
Ward had seen a copy of Armour's 'progress' report and
on the whole it made reassuring reading. The attempt to
profile him as a cyber-stalker, 'just reeking with symptoms'
was laughably inept, and could only work to his advantage
- the diagnosis was so wide of the mark, it meant they had
to be looking for someone very different. He took exception
though to one comment Armour had made. He'd described
him as 'damaged goods'. Ward never liked the phrase and it
irked him that some geeky wunderkind with no qualifications
outside computing science could make that kind of assumption.
He detected Kira's hand.
He opened Armour's message, sent last night at 11.01 p.m.
EST, and downloaded the attached document headed
'Update'. He read the first paragraph and felt a sudden tightness
at the centre of his chest. It announced the detective's
safe arrival in Norfolk, Connecticut.
Ward became very still.
He had been expecting a tap on the shoulder sooner or
later. But how could Armour have gone, almost overnight,
from knowing nothing about him to getting so close he could
feel his breath lift the hairs on the back of his neck?
The little slope had snuck up on him . . . Jesus, he hated
that.
He rolled out of his seat, wincing as he put weight on the
ankle he'd twisted on the railroad track at Linz, and limped
over to the windows; he stood staring out at the livid sky.
The rooftops thrown into silhouette, left the caustic taste of
battery terminals on his tongue.
Without warning, the cloak of invisibility, which had
protected him all his adult life, had been snatched from his
back. How the hell had he found Joel Stilwell? The report
didn't mention why the detective had flown up to Norfolk
to see the old man, which suggested he'd already discussed
the reason with Ed Lister. Yet, in his brief reply to the e-mail
- 'Thrilled by your news. Congratulations on a remarkable
breakthrough. Just to be able to put a name (and soon, let's
hope, a face) to the monster changes everything' - Ed makes
it clear this is all a revelation to him. He's never even heard
of Skylands.
Well, of course the sonofabitch would deny all knowledge. He read the note again and felt another surge of anxiety,
as he realised the extent of his exposure. Doc Stilwell,
Skylands, the Seatons, Grace Wilkes . . .
Relax, buddy. There's no way in the world they can bring
it back to you. Ed Lister's the one walking the tightrope here.
You need to assess the situation calmly, then plan your next
move. Ward? Are you even listening?
He stretched his fingers, opening them, closing them.
This was the price he was always going to have to pay for
rejoining the world. He took several deep breaths, went over
and sat back down at his work-station. Before he could make
any decision he needed to verify that the detective was where
he said he was when he sent the message.
After extracting the IP address from the header on
Campbell Armour's e-mail, Ward fed the numbers into a
Traceroute program, which would tell him where the message
originated. In a second he had the route path, the city and
country location of the servers the message had passed
through on its way from Armour's computer to its destination
point in the UK. The map on his screen gave him the information
he needed. When he sent the e-mail, the detective
had been hooked up to a network provider in the town of
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, not far from the border with the
northwest corner of Connecticut. Less than twenty miles
from Norfolk.
The program couldn't pinpoint an address, but it only took
Ward a few seconds to Google 'accommodation' in the
Norfolk and Stockbridge areas and run off a list of local
motels, inns and BBs. Then he swung around in his chair
and picked up the printout of Armour's e-mail. The contact
number he'd given Ed Lister matched the third motel on the
list - the 'Mountain View' in Great Barrington.
A lid-muscle started to dance in Ward's left eye; he trapped
it under a finger like an insect and held it till the tic stopped.
It only happened when he was tired.

There were no windows in what he called his quarters. A
curving wall of green-tinted glass tiles separated the sleeping
area from the rest of the loft, allowing some daylight to
filter through. It gave the bedroom, meagrely furnished
with a chest of drawers, wooden chair and an antique press
- all reclaimed from the street, out of choice rather than
necessity - a permanently sickly hue. Ward slept on a narrow
single bed that wouldn't have looked out of place in a
monk's cell.
He tasted soot on his tongue, the bitter and indelible taste
of the past.
He had misgivings about going home again, revisiting the
historical location of images and events that never faded.
What happened a quarter of a century ago remained as vivid
for him as if it was yesterday. Ward had the synaesthete's
not-always-lucky gift of total recall. He could remember
conversations he'd had as a child, prose passages he'd read
only once, the precise location of objects in a room, floor
plans and furniture arrangements, the order of books on a
shelf, where every kitchen utensil 'lived' and had to be put
away in its proper place.
He had a picture in his head of the mezzaluna lying on
the draining board.
The next forty-five minutes he spent in the bathroom working
out with weights until the sweat began to bead and the
veins stand out on his forehead and shoulders. He doubted
Ed Lister was as strong as he was in the arms. In London,
Ward had watched him leave the house every morning to
run in Hyde Park. Ed had looked a little stringy. But he liked
the fact that the man who could have become his father-in
law kept himself in shape - it was one more thing they had
in common.
Showered and shaved, Ward chose from his conservative
wardrobe a faded oatmeal and rust madras shirt, tan chinos
and an old pair of Timberland hiking boots - clothes that he
thought would blend in with the rural Connecticut he remembered.
Then he repacked the rucksack he'd taken with him
to Europe.
He ate slowly a light breakfast of kefir and fruit with a
book, The Soul of the White Ant, by Eugene Marais, propped
in front of him. He'd decided to drive, hire a car and drive
up there, following the Taconic Parkway north - he knew the
way.
He would be home in a couple of hours.

43

Waiting for the Norfolk Library to open its doors, Campbell
Armour sat across the street in his parked Toyota, observing
a scene that was familiar to him mostly from watching old
Hollywood movies as a boy growing up in Hong Kong. The
quaint, prosperous little New England town nestled in a green
bowl of hills, trees full of blossom and birdsong, smiling
natives going about their day as if they had all the time and
not much of a care in the world - it looked almost too good
to be true.
Apart from the cars and clothes, Campbell thought, the
town would have appeared much the same - just as peaceful
and wholesome with its white-spired Congregational church,
clapboard Colonials and old-fashioned stores - on that July
day twenty-seven years ago when Ernest Seaton was found
cowering in the broom closet at Skylands, his face smeared
with blood as if he'd been anointed in some savage rite of
initiation.
A mid-brown police cruiser with the windows down crawled
past for the second time, the bulky state trooper at the wheel
throwing a glance his way from behind a pair of Aviator
shades and nodding. Campbell raised his can of Mountain
Dew to the dude, took a sip. He could see what Dr Stilwell had meant about this being the kind of place that would have
done its best to 'contain' the Seaton tragedy. It had an air of settled exclusivity that made him feel uncomfortable.
In town he'd sensed people looking at him as soon as his back was turned.
At a few minutes to ten, a battered Ford pick-up pulled
into a parking space outside the ornate red barn that had
been purpose-built as a library in Victorian times. A tall
woman wearing blue jeans and an expensive linen jacket with
a rope of grey hair hanging down her back, got out and
trotted up the steps to the entrance porch, keys in hand.
Campbell gave it some time, then followed her into the
building.
'How can we help you today?'
The girl with the grey plait was sitting behind the front
desk. Up close she looked younger than he'd imagined. Her
name-tag read Susan Mary Billetdeaux.
'You're welcome just to browse, if you like.'
He glanced around the library's lofty wooden interior with
its stone fireplace and armchairs and paintings of wildlife
scenes on the walls over the bookshelves; a solitary computer
in an alcove the only concession to the modern age
Campbell cleared his throat. 'I dunno. You have microfiche?
I'm looking for back issues of the Litchfield County
Times for nineteen seventy-nine, July and August.'
Susan Mary smiled. 'Anything in particular you're looking
for? We don't keep complete sets so you might do better
searching by subject.'
He thought for a moment. He'd failed to find the archives
of the local paper online. He saw no reason not to be upfront
with her.
'You could try under murder or suicide,' Campbell said,
watching her face for a reaction. 'The family was called
Seaton. He was a dentist, killed his wife then shot himself.
They lived out near Colebrook.'
'Well, that should narrow it down.' She smiled again slowly,
as if she was amused by him, or by his unusual request. It
was obvious she hadn't heard of the story.
'You're not from around here, Susan, are you?'
She shook her head and the plait switched. 'New York.'
"Me neither.'
'I sort of figured that.'
They both laughed. He followed her over to the reference
section and watched her pull one of a dozen cloth-bound
scrapbooks from the shelves and open it up on a reading
table. Flipping through pages of yellowing press cuttings, she
found what she was looking for and swivelled the book around.
'Here you go.'

MURDER SUICIDE VERDICT IN LOCAL TRAGEDY

'Did you know that dentists,' Campbell said, as he skimmed
the text, 'have the highest suicide rate of any profession?'
Under the headline there was a photograph of Skylands.
A white Colonial mansion on top of a wooded ridge. It was
a distance shot taken from below and off to the side - Campbell
felt the thrill of recognition.
He was looking at the house on the homebeforedark website.
'Dentists? Are you kidding?' Susan Mary said. 'They always
seem so dull and boring. Maybe that's what it takes.'
The article added little to what Dr Stilwell had told him.
He wasn't surprised that the inquest failed to offer a motive
for the homicide. There was an inset picture of June and
Gary Seaton; a mention, but disappointingly no photograph
of the boy.
'I'd like to get this scanned . . . now, if possible.'
'Not a problem. I'd be glad to take care of that for you.'
He watched her disappear with the scrapbook through a
door marked Private and couldn't help wondering what her
silver-grey hair would look like loose, how far down her back
it would reach.
At ten thirteen, Campbell e-mailed Ed Lister from the
library computer a copy of the article with a circle around
the picture of Skylands, and a note: 'Look familiar? Let me
know what you think. Taking a run up there now to check it
out. C
As he left the building, starting to feel as if he was really
getting somewhere at last, Campbell stopped at the desk to
thank the librarian for her help.
'You wouldn't happen to know directions?'
'To Skylands? Sure. Take the mountain road out of Norfolk.
Over the second ridge turn right up Deer Flats Road . . .
last driveway on the left.'
He looked at her, bemused, as if this needed an explanation.
Susan Mary smiled. 'You're not the first person to ask.'

44

adorablejoker: what are you doing here? templedog: waiting for you aj: don't fucking lie

I wasn't lying I was at the office, checking my e-mails before
going into a meeting. All right, I'd only logged on a few
moments earlier. But lately I'd taken to loitering online in the
hope of bumping into her, tormenting myself with the idea
that, though invisible to me, she was there, talking to someone
else.
Then I saw the little grey face beside her screen-name light
up and any negative or jealous feelings I might have had
instantly evaporated; it was as if the sun had burst out from
behind the clouds. Was it just a chance meeting? Jelly insisted
she'd deleted me, taken my name off her buddy list, and so
had no way of telling when I was online, but I had my doubts.
I think she'd seen that I was there and had chosen the 'I'm
available' option.
She wanted to get in touch.

td: where are you?
aj: at the beach staying with friends
td: I thought you hated the ocean... your friends in Westhampton, right?
aj: at least it's cooler out here than Brooklyn
aj: hey, guess what? i bought this outfit for a party tonight and omg, it has the
cutest top. it's a V-neck and a gold kinda color... now i just have to find a pair
of shoes to go with it and...
td: I'm sure you'll be the belle of the ball

I glanced over the top of the screen through the door of my
office into the conference room where the team had gathered.
I had called an in-house meeting at two o'clock with the
accounts department. It was now a quarter past.
Audrey caught my eye and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

aj: yeah, right... it's at a club in town called Scarlett's
td: I remember, used to be a disco ... you want to be careful about giving out
that kind of information. I could hop on a plane and be there by midnight
aj: ummm... maybe that wouldn't be such a great idea... look, i wasn't gonna
tell you this... but there's a chance my ex might show up
td: I see... so rather than listen to your heart
aj: please, ed, don't do this
td: you choose to be with someone you never loved and never will
nj: oh jesus... do I really have to spell it out for you?
td: hold on a second

I had incoming mail from Campbell Armour.

I quickly opened the attachment and felt my stomach flip
over as the clipping of the Skylands story filled the screen.
There was no question it was the same house.
I glanced at the other photo, the one of the Seatons. In
their wedding outfits, they looked like any young American
couple from that graceless era, though a hint of stylishness
about the bride made me look closer. It was nothing definite,
but June Seaton reminded me a little of someone I met once
a long time ago.
I dismissed the thought instantiy.
My attention was focused on Skylands. It gave me a strange
feeling to be looking at the childhood home of the person
who killed Sophie. I enlarged the image and pored over the
details, excited by the possibility that the old white house clearly
the model for the virtual mansion on the homebeforedark website and the drawings in Sophie's sketchbook - could
soon lead us to him. It was a hugely significant development.
I looked at my watch.
Campbell would already be on his way there.
AJ
i slept with him
td:
congratulations... what do you want me to say, I'm happy for you?
td:
it means nothing and you know it
AJ
why are you doing this? Why can't you just let me go?
TD
: because I believe we are meant to be together
AJ
: oh god, will you stop
TD
: i fell in love with you, Jelly ... is that a crime?
AJ
not with me, with your idea of me
TD
you can go on denying it, but it's so obvious you feel the same way
AJ
no, you got that wrong, mister... and this is the end of the line

I watched her leave - that is, I waited until the grey pop-up
flag confirmed, 'Adorablejoker is now offline' - then I leaned
back in my chair and closed my eyes. My chest hurt, I couldn't
breathe, my stomach was tied up in knots; and yet, I felt
strangely elated by the encounter.
We'd been here before. All our conversations now seemed
to end with Jelly saying she didn't want to talk to me again,
but this was different.
I thought about her reaction when I had suggested flying
over to see her that evening. It had been surprising, hadn't
it - I scrolled back to make sure I wasn't just fooling myself
- that she didn't reject the idea out of hand?
In a way she seemed to be saying, come.
Why else reveal where she was going to be? She was using
the boyfriend to make me jealous, to make sure I did hop
on a plane. It was clear that she felt the same way I did she
just wasn't ready to admit it yet.
Then, when I least expected it, she messaged me back.

aj: could you do me a favor?
td: depends what it is
aj: could you look this way... look at me for a sec?
aj: just for one second before you go?

When she wrote that I felt my heart jump and beat faster
for a few seconds. I pulled up Jelly's photo. Her face filled
the screen and I could hear the thumping in my chest like a
metronome racing ahead of the song I was listening to on
my iPod - it was Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'.

td: ok, I'm looking
aj: i lean in and kiss you softly on the lips
td: damn you
aj:. you're right, i think maybe this was a mistake, I should go

to: only after I return the favour
aj: haven't you got work to do, people to see?
W: they can wait...
ay: well... if it's just a kiss
td: you've got me confused here aj: i'm confused my damned self aj: i don't know if it's the heat or what
td: glad I'm not the only one feeling it aj: yeah ... what can you do?

'Any chance of your joining us sometime this week?' Audrey
asked.
I hadn't heard her come into the room. She was standing
in front of my desk, hand on hip, a few feet away from my
laptop.
The picture of Jelly still filled the screen.
I quickly closed it down and removed my earpiece. 'Are
we all set?'
Audrey just nodded. I could hear the guitar riff from
'Superstition' leaking tinnily from the white earphone. Then
it struck me that something about that last suggestive
exchange with Jelly didn't ring right. When she came back
on a moment ago, I'd noticed that there was a slight delay
on her side of the conversation that hadn't been there before.
I wasn't a hundred per cent sure - and there could have been
another explanation - but I had a suspicion (it still makes
me queasy to think about) that after saying it was 'the end
of the line' she'd sent no more messages.
I had been talking to someone else.
'You feeling all right?' Audrey asked. 'You look like you've
seen a ghost.'
'Change of plan,' I said quietly, as the implications began
to sink in. If it was Ward pretending to be Jelly, I realised,
then he not only knew of her existence but almost certainly
had found out her identity, her phone numbers, where
she worked and lived. She was in real and immediate
danger.
'I have to go to New York . . . tonight. I want you to cancel
all my appointments and book me on the last flight.'
I stood up and started to clear my desk, wondering how
often I'd talked to Ward under the impression that I was
having a conversation with Jelly - and, vice versa, if she had
ever spoken to the murderer thinking he was me.

48

'Grace?' Ward said into his cell phone. 'Grace Wilkes?
'Who wants to know? Who is this?'
'You don't recognise my voice?'
Silence the other end.
'I guess it's been a while. Ernest Seaton, Grace.'
There was a wheezy intake of breath.
'Ernie? I don't believe it. Ernie ...' she croaked, then started
to cry. It was the first time they'd spoken since he left home.
Ward held the phone away from his ear. 'Oh my ... oh my
Lord. Ernie, is it really you?'
'You haven't forgotten,' he said, adding, once she became
halfway coherent again, 'There's no need for anyone else to
know.'
'It's okay, I'm alone ... on my own now.' She stopped the
boohooing long enough to let out a heavy sigh. 'Earl passed
away last year.'
'I'm sorry to hear that.' It wasn't news, but her saying it
brought back memories of a tall, lean man with tired sunken
eyes in a red and black plaid Woolrich shirt, sweeping leaves
in the yard. 'I'll get to the point, Grace. I'm in a situation.
There's this guy, some kind of a detective, trying to stick his
nose where it has no business.'
'Would that be the same one called here last night asking
questions? I told him I was out of town till tomorrow.'
'You always knew what to do.' He let her hear the sound
of his laugh.
'Where are you, Ernie?' she asked, still snuffling.
'Up at the house.'
He was standing on the front porch, looking down at the
ruin of the garden; he'd been shocked to see how far the
place had gone back.The terraces were so densely overgrown
he could barely distinguish the bones of the original layout.
Boulders from the retaining walls had spilled out and rolled
down the hill, coming to rest against the roots of trees and
shrubs. The white fence had gone, the garden gate, the
gravel circle where he used to set up his armies and reenact
historic battles.
Ward put everything back exactly the way he remembered it.
He didn't need to rearrange the view. You could still see
for sixty miles clear across to the Berkshires, the forested
ridges overlapping and getting fainter and fainter till they
faded into blue mist on the horizon.
Unspoiled, the kind of view Ed Lister would have appreciated.
'I
could meet you there,' Grace said.
In the distance he heard a car coming up the road. He
jumped down from the porch and walked quickly to the edge
of the terrace, where he knew there was a gap in the trees.
Below he glimpsed the little silver Camry hesitating before
it swung off Piper Hill Lane and then continued up the dirt
track towards the house, towing a cloud of dust.
Ward turned and looked up at the one window on the front
of the building that wasn't shuttered. The blue of the sky
reflected in its panes tasted of rusty nails.
'No, there isn't time now. I'll get back to you.' He let himself
in the front door with the key and locked it behind him.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. The
round table was still there at the end of the hall, covered in
a dust sheet; beyond it the rising stairs. A shaft of light fell
across the floor from the cracked door leading to the kitchen.
The air felt cool on his face. Ward realised he was sweating.
His feet made no sound as he crossed the bare pine floor.
He recognised a few pieces of furniture coated in thick dust,
but the house had mostly been stripped of his family's
possessions. Then through the door into the parlour he
glimpsed the old upright his mother used to play. An indefinable
smell, somewhere between dried flowers and mildew,
became a sword in his hand. He had to fight off the memories
that crowded in, jostling for his attention as he climbed the
stairs.
On the landing, following the spore of filtered daylight,
Ward entered the guest room and went over to the single
unshuttered window just as the Toyota pulled up in front of
the house, radio blaring. He watched Campbell Armour,
wearing a red tracksuit with a double white stripe down the
side, get out of the car and look around; then, satisfied he'd
found the right place, lean back in to cut the ignition.
'Son of a gun, we'll have big fun . . .'
The abrupt muting of the old country standard left a silence
deeper than before, stirring unwelcome echoes of his childhood
and being forced to play musical statues in the front
parlour. His father would always yank the needle on 'Jambalaya'
just before Hank Williams sang the words '. . . on the
bayou', and behind the boy's pale eyes the orange lattice shapes
that shivered to the beat dissolved, throwing him off balance.
Saw you move, son.
Orange being his default colour for pain.
Ward drew back behind the faded chintz drapes as the
detective, using his hand as a sun-visor, squinted up at the
second-storey windows. He'd seen him around the village
earlier, at the library and the real-estate office, overheard him
asking dumb questions - the guy was an amateur. He might
know computers, but he was way, way out of his depth here.
Ward just hoped, for everyone's sake, that little Jackie Chan
wouldn't try something stupid now like breaking into the

house.
It wasn't ready for him yet.
What if he does come in, though, uninvited? You thought this
through, Ernster? What you do? Hide in the broom closet again? Short even for a Chinese, the kid had a wiry athletic build.
It wasn't that Ward didn't think he could take him. Just that
once he entered the premises, he couldn't let him leave. His
eye fell on a lead sash-weight lying on the window ledge. Now wait . . . wait just a goddamned minute. No, YOU pick

it up . . .
Gripping the foot-long lead in one hand, Ward went quietly
downstairs.

'How long will you be gone?' Laura asked. She was waiting
for me in the bedroom when I came out of the shower.
'A day or two ... I won't really know until I see what's
involved. We're looking at a couple of potential sites, maybe

more.'
'I don't understand. This just happened?'
I used the towel to dry my hair, rubbing vigorously. 'Al
called me two hours ago from New York. He's got an inside
track on a deal that could be spectacular. I have to move fast,
or risk missing out.' I smiled at her. 'You know how it goes.'
'Why don't you let him handle it, or send someone else?'
'It's an old estate in Connecticut. Al said the view from
the house is "America before the Fall". Not that I don't trust
him, I just like to see what I'm buying.'
I dropped the towel and reached for the clean shirt I'd laid
out on the bed and slipped it on. Laura stared at me for a

moment, then went over to the sofa under the window and
sat down. 'I suppose you've forgotten we're meant to be
having dinner with the Rentons tonight. Shall I ring them
and cancel, or will you?'
'Why don't you go?' I said lightly. 'It'll be fun.'
'You know I can't face dinner parties on my own.'
She frowned and looked down at the floor. There was a
silence. I felt she knew that I was keeping something from
her. I got dressed, selecting one of the dark blue suits I always
wear when I travel on business. Betrayal hung in the air, but
I could only think about Jelly and the fact that I needed to
find her before Ward did.
Laura seemed lost in her own thoughts.
'There's another reason,' I said hesitantly, as if I was about
to reveal the real purpose of the trip, 'in case you were wondering.'
After Paris, I'd been expecting her to question my 'work'
pretext for flying to America; in fact, I was almost hoping
she would. 'I'm going to meet up with Campbell Armour
while I'm over there ... the private detective I told you about.
It looks like he's made real progress.'
'I thought he lived in Florida.'
'He's planning to be in New York on Thursday.'
She rose and walked slowly over to the door, then turned
and stood there for a moment; dressed in all white, she looked
ominously serene. 'I take it I've heard all I'm going to hear
from you on that subject.'
I shrugged. 'I know you disapprove, so ... I spare you the
details.'
There was another difficult silence.
'By the way, that policewoman rang . . . Edith Cowper.
She must have just missed you at the office.'
With a heavy, wound-tight feeling I went on packing, folding
my clothes into a small suitcase. 'I'll call her when I get
- back.'
'She said it was important.' I sensed Laura's eyes on me
waiting for some reaction, but then she gave up. 'If you need
me, I'll be downstairs.'

The front door to Skylands was locked.
Walking slowly around the porch, Campbell tested the shutters
for all the ground-floor windows in case one had been
left unfastened. At the back of the house he came to a glassed
in section and, behind a torn screen, another locked door.
He could see into a mud room with snow shoes and an old
pair of wooden ski poles hanging on the wall; beyond it lay
what looked like the kitchen.
He wandered through the backyard taking pictures - he
might need up-to-date evidence that the virtual mansion was
a recreation of Ernest Seaton's old home.
The afternoon was hot and still and what remained of the
garden gave off the rank smell of overgrown vegetation.
Behind an abandoned berry patch, Campbell came on traces
of enclosure wire for a tennis court that had long ago reverted
to scrub. Hidden away lower down the slope, there was a
pond choked by rushes and yellow iris with an old swimming
platform half sunken in the weeds. A heron standing on a
dead tree flapped off over the water.
Looking back up at the white house on the hill, framed
by live oaks and hemlock, he could see what Skylands must
have been like when the place was lived in and cared for the
sun catching its hipped slate roof, smoke rising from
the end-chimneys of glazed dusty pink brick, the black
green shutters thrown wide open, and in the violet shadow
under its long white-pillared porch, a suggestion of movement,
the promise of a cool drink ... it was like a house
in a dream.
For a nine-year-old boy, growing up here, Campbell
imagined, it must have seemed like paradise. Then, one hot
summer's night, a kitchen knife snatched up in God-knows
what kind of murderous rage turns it into hell on earth,
and the dream that was Skylands is gone forever. The only true paradises are the ones we have lost. Was there a clue
there to what made Ernest Seaton tick? He wondered if
there were any childhood relics, toys and other stuff in the
house that might help him trace the man Ernest grew up
to become.
The shrill jangling of his cell phone startled him.
Half expecting it to be Ed Lister, he glanced at the display.
Unfamiliar number, but the 941 area code covered a fair
chunk of Southwest Florida: the loan sharks worked out of
Sarasota and Venice. Campbell hesitated, then switched off
his cell and, sweat breaking out at his temples, walked slowly
back towards the mansion.
The interior of Skylands, he'd learnt from a local realtor,
was pretty much intact. The present owners, an elderly New
York couple, bought the estate as an investment in the early
'90s, then retired to Hawaii. They'd never lived there.
'Nobody knows their plans for the property,' Hersey Dodds
had confided in him, loosening up once she realised that
Campbell wasn't interested in moving his family to Norfolk.
'It's not on the market, hasn't been rented out or occupied
for fifteen years, you can guess why... great potential though.'
He thought about Susan Mary at the town library: when
he'd asked her who else had wanted directions to get here,
she'd just said, oh, some developer from New York who
seemed interested in buying the place. Even though it wasn't
for sale.
Sitting on the front porch, removing tares that had become
entwined in the laces of his trainers, Campbell considered
his options. It would be simple enough to force his way into
Skylands. The problem was half the town, including the fat
deputy, had to know he was up here. Jail-time for breaking
and entry - there were no-trespassing signs posted on the
trees along the driveway - wouldn't look too good on his CV.
On the other hand, he might not get another chance.
A faint creaking of timbers came from somewhere deep
inside the house. He kept still for a moment, but the sound
wasn't repeated and he put it down to heat expansion or
settlement. When he thought about the trouble he was in, the
money he owed, the huge bonus his client had promised he
didn't have a choice.
He went over to examine the front door, remembering that,
when searching for a hidden access to the virtual house, he'd
tried the cat-flap. He hadn't noticed it before, but the bottom
left-hand panel of the door had been overlaid by a thin sheet
of ply secured by light nails, then painted. Hunkering down,
Campbell used his pocket knife to lever off the veneer and
found the cat-flap behind it, still intact.
The hinged plastic lid wasn't locked and with a squawk of
resistance it swung back as he pushed his hand through the
small opening and felt around inside, looking for a key. Then
his arm, up to the elbow. There was nothing.
Wanting to be sure the key wasn't there but just out of
reach, he changed his position and, holding the flap back
with one hand, put his eye up to the hole. He could only see
a few feet into the dim hall, but it was enough for him to
register that the thick layer of dust covering the floorboards
had been disturbed - how recently it was impossible to say.
He could make out footprints going away from the door, and
coming back. He tried turning his head, straining for a better
view.
He let the cat-flap go and it rocked briefly on its hinges,
then was still. All he could hear was his own slightly raised
heartbeat.
His hands shook a little as he closed the pocket knife.
Off to the left, in the far corner of his limited field of vision,
he had seen a pair of tan hiking boots . . . somebody was
standing there, motionless, just inside the door.
Backing away slowly, he stepped down off the porch, then
forced himself to walk not run across the terrace to his car,
the katydids falling silent ahead of him, then starting up fheir
racket again in his wake.
Campbell resisted the urge to look back at the house until
he was safely behind the wheel, doors locked and the motor
running.

46

'How would you feel,' I heard Laura say behind me, 'about
my coming with you?'
I was standing at our bedroom door, looking around to
make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. 'Coming with me?' It
was so unexpected I didn't understand at first what she
meant. 'You mean to New York? Tonight?'
She'd just run up the stairs and was a little out of breath.
I turned to face her, a suitcase in each hand, afraid of seeing
something in her eyes that said, I know.
Laura smiled. 'Don't look so stricken, Ed.'
'It's just that I'm surprised. You're not a last-minute sort
of person. I mean . . . you don't have a ticket, you're not
even packed.'
'Those are details.' Her voice unnaturally bright.

'Otherwise,' I recovered enough to add smoothly, 'I can't
think of anything nicer.'
'We haven't been to New York together in ages.'

'I know, but why now? I'll be busy all the time.'
'I just thought it might be an opportunity to see Alice. You
know how she's been on my conscience and, while you're
working, I could go out to La Rochelle and spend some time
with her.'
Alice, old Mrs Fielding, was Laura and Will's grandmother.
In her late eighties, frail and befuddled, but with a tenacious,
independent spirit she attributed to her Virginian ancestry, she
lived more or less alone at Gilmans Landing on the Hudson.
'It's a wonderful idea. Just a pity you didn't think of it
sooner. Laura, I have to leave now or I'll miss my plane.'
Audrey had found me a seat on the 8.30, the last Virgin
Atlantic flight to JFK. I had under an hour to get to Heathrow.
'I didn't know that you were going until an hour ago.' Laura
stood there at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister,
blocking my way down.
'We'll do it another time, I promise,' I said, trying to resist
the undertow of remorse, but knowing full well I was destroying
the trust of someone I'd shared my life with for twenty
three years.
'You could at least suggest I get a flight tomorrow and join
you.'
'Sweetheart, I was going to ... I just don't think it'll work.
We'd hardly catch a glimpse of each other. Listen, if it's any
comfort to you, I'll go out and check on Alice, make sure
she's all right.'
'Would you? She'd really appreciate a visit. You know how
she adores you.' Laura started to smile, then bit her underlip.
'Sure you can spare the time?'
No doubt she was being ironic, but I'd talked her out of
coming: that was all that mattered. I caught a look of regret,
or maybe just resignation in her eyes. 'Listen, when I get
back, it might be a good idea if we had a talk.'
'About?'
'I dunno . . . Sophie, our marriage, us.'
She gave a little laugh. 'What is there to discuss?'
I knew what she meant. We couldn't seem to connect any
more, so why waste time talking when it could only make
things worse? I'd imagined a different kind of conversation,
one perhaps where we agreed amicably that we'd reached the
end of the road. Only we weren't there yet. 'I've never told
you this before,' I said. 'I don't think you realise how much
I loved her. Sophie, I mean.'
Laura sighed. 'Still all about you, isn't it?'
'All right, if that's the way you feel . . . forget it.'
'Ed, I'm sorry.' She came forward and put her arms under
my jacket around my waist. I lowered the cases. We said goodbye
with a clumsy embrace, hugging each other more tightly
and for longer than usual, clinging to the wreckage I suppose.
I sensed that Laura had more that she wanted to say, but
I didn't really have time to listen. The Mercedes was waiting
outside the front door. I could hear Michael, my driver, fidgeting
in the hall below.
'If we ever find who did this to us . . . maybe then we can
start to rebuild our lives.'
She pulled away and I saw she was crying. 'I don't know.'
I had no idea what was really on Laura's mind, but I suspect
that at this point neither of us believed we had a future
together. I just knew I was flying to New York to protect the
girl I'd fallen in love with, whose life I'd unwittingly placed
in danger - and, as focused as I was on tracking down Sophie's
killer, I could think about nothing else. The two aims, anyway,
were now intimately intertwined.
My last online conversation with Jelena, unsettling as it
had been, had let me see that while she appeared to be saying
'come', it could equally well have been Ward who'd invited
me over to the party at Scarlett's.
Somebody had a lucky escape.
What about you? Relieved? Or are we just the tiniest bit disappointed?
There
you were waiting for him behind the door like some
psycho in a splatter flick. Ernie, I warned you about getting a
taste for this shit.

Ward closed his eyes. He'd let a whole ten minutes elapse
since he heard the detective's car engine fade away at the
bottom of the hill. Just to be sure he wasn't coming back.
Now for the hard part. He started to climb the stairs.
On the landing, he stopped outside the third of four
identical panelled oak doors, the door to his parents'
bedroom. Ward reached out a hand, hesitated. He could
hear it already. The banging gradually getting louder and
more insistent, swelling to a relentless pounding beat. It
sounded like it came from downstairs, but he'd checked
the screens and shutters, they were all securely fastened,
and there wasn't a breath of wind.
He'd come across his mother's packed suitcases in the hall. . . He turned the handle and the din stopped; he cracked the
door, pushed it all the way open. Before him lay the scene
that had greeted him that night.
His bewildered eye had fled at first to a reproduction of
the painting Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth hanging
crooked over the bed, unable to meet the freeze-frame stillness
of the devastation below - then something splashed to the
floor and the room rushed out at him.
The colours, shapes and tastes flowing through him in a
giddying swirl he had no way of controlling. He felt the heat
rising - a night-time heat, muggy and close - as a solid obelisk
he could see and touch. He heard a high-pitched whine that
felt like a hand around his heart. His senses were cross-firing
at will, going haywire.
The images that followed came with an emotional intensity
he found almost unbearable: his mother's head hanging off
the bed, her pearly teeth glistening through the mask of blood
that had the smell of an eraser . . . her open eyes, staring at
him upside down, searing his tongue with the bitter inky taste
of quinine . . . the grey and pink matter of his father's brains
spilled on the rug, on the ceiling . . . smoke clearing, the
scent of cordite, green apples, the dry rustle of a million
insect wings.
He couldn't cross the threshold, couldn't move, couldn't
see who was in there with them. But there was someone . . .
He was sure of it now.
The vision cleared, leaving the room empty, yet when he
tried to close the door, it seemed to stick halfway, as if there
were an obstruction on the other side. He put his shoulder
to the frame and pulled with all his strength, then the resistance
suddenly gave way and he fell back. The door banged shut
and for an instant, marooned on the bare, silent landing,
Ward felt the rapture of complete certainty.
He knew he was justified.

Not everyone is lucky enough to find the path. You have to
learn first to appreciate and accept the irony that lies at the
heart of all progress, which says that in the end there's no
such thing. He only discovered his life's true purpose when
the past he'd been encouraged to forget finally caught up
with him.
He understood now that however hard you try to become
another person, you never will. You can shuffle the cards
all you want and believe you have changed the hand you
were dealt; you can adapt to changing circumstances and
imagine that you've grown emotionally, morally, spiritually.
You can chase after wealth and happiness, follow gospels
of self-improvement and rebirth, you can wrap your faith
in a flag - but you'll be deceiving yourself. You will remain
who you are and always were from cradle to the grave.
The only goal is becoming that individual. You know what I think? I think the need to seek revenge was
always there, always part of you . . . you just couldn't admit it,
not while you were someone else.
Until two years ago he had another life - a low-key, reasonably
successful existence founded on a lie. He was invisible.
Nobody knew his real name, or the true story of his origins.
He had never spoken about what became of him in the
aftermath of his parents' deaths; how he'd gone in what
seemed like an instant (the break was so complete) from
an idyllic boyhood in the bosom of a loving family to the
guardianship of a cold, childless couple. The way his new
'folks' handled his arrival in their midst had been to make
a bonfire of the past. He could bring nothing with him from
his old life to the new. No photos of his former home or family, no books or letters, no toys ... no reminiscences
allowed. He was forbidden to speak about what happened,
or grieve.
Something died in you that night . . . I know, buddy, I was
there and I heard it all before. Now can we get the hell out of
this mausoleum?
When his grandmother was dying two years ago, he'd
thought about flying over to New York to say goodbye (he
was living in Europe at the time), but in the end couldn't
see the point. Why rake up memories that he had reassigned
to someone else? He spoke to her on the phone and, after
she passed, leaving him enough money to make a difference,
wrote to Grace Wilkes, who posted on to him some of his
grandmother's personal effects.They included an unsent letter
in his mother's hand, which the old lady had kept safe all
those years.
The letter changed his life.
Under the stairs, Ward shone his key-ring light inside the
broom closet where he hid that night. A brush and pan, a
pile of old Life magazines, some gap-stringed wooden tennis
rackets . . . the blue cone of light threw the dusty objects into
relief in turn. He placed the lead sash-weight just inside the
closet, leaving the door ajar.
The letter was a wake-up call. It gave him a new sense of
direction, showed him the way back to his long-lost self. It
called him home.
Crossing the hall, Ward entered what used to be the lounge.
The old cabinet TV in the corner was gone, but the two
armchairs hadn't been moved. He stripped off a dust sheet
and sat in the one nearest the door, running his hand down
behind the seat cushions, searching for the remote. There
was nothing there.
Hey, guess what I found out.
The schwartze mentioned a disco, Scarlett's, right? Well,
according to the Westhampton Beach Chamber of Commerce,
Scarlett's stopped trading way back in the 80s? I mean, really,
how funny is that?
He removed his cell phone from the breast pocket of his
shirt and used it to mime pointing a remote control at an
imaginary screen, then turned his head sharply to his left,
looking at where the playhouse had stood, under the
window.
He called Grace back.

I caught a glimpse of Laura watching from the front porch
as the car turned left out of Campden Hill Place and slipped
into the westbound traffic on Holland Park Avenue, heading
towards Shepherd's Bush. Michael said, over his shoulder,
'Marloes Road looks like our best bet.' He glanced up at the
rearview mirror.
'Okay with you, Mr Lister?' Trying to catch my eye.
He pulled into the turning lane and slowed down. I removed
my earphones and keyed my brother-in-law's number on my
mobile.
'Mr Lister?' When I didn't respond, he threw the heavy

Mercedes into a U-turn.
Will, who was expecting my call, answered on the first
ring. 'Where are you?'
'On my way to the airport.'
'You sure this is wise?'
'You know why I'm going. I told you, Campbell has found
the house the drawings and website are based on - Ward's
old family home in Connecticut.'
'That's not what I'm talking about.'
When he first heard about the synaesthesia connection,
Will was sceptical of being able to identify a psychopath
though a little-understood neurological condition. But he had
to give Campbell credit for the fact that in a week we'd gone
from 'he could be anyone, anywhere on the planet' to a name,
a location, soon perhaps a face.
'You're right, there is something else.' I took a deep breath.
'I'm concerned about the girl. I think she could be at risk.
Because of me.' I didn't elaborate. I didn't feel like going into
it with him.
'All the more reason, I'd have thought, for leaving her well

alone.'
There was a silence. I imagined Dr Calloway sitting back
in his office chair, hands clasped behind his head, studying
the ceiling.
'Okay, I know how this must sound to you.'
I'd already admitted to him that my feelings for Jelena had
evolved.
'You say you're "in love" with someone you've never met,
never laid eyes on? It sounds exactly like what it is, I'm afraid
- an imaginary experience.'

'Maybe so, but it feels . . . like we've always known each
other. We know each other's thoughts. I only have to think
about her, Will, and . . .'
'Ed,' he cut me off, 'the sensation of being inside someone
else's head is one of the commonest illusions in online relationships.
The internet has given "soulmates" a new dimension
that's entirely consistent with the nebulousness of the
concept.'
I gave a rocky laugh.
'Does she feel the same way about you?'
'She won't admit it, but . . . yes, I believe she does.'
'It's easy to be misled by the strength of one's own feelings,'
he said quietly. I could tell that my answer worried him. 'The
less you know about the other - the person you project your
idealised desires onto - the deeper the infatuation. Say you
find Island Girl, the danger is you won't be able to see that
you've nothing in common.' He hesitated. 'Or know when to
take no for an answer.'
It was a gentle warning and the closest Will came to suggesting
that my love for Jelly might be obsessive, verging on the
pathological. I realised then that I didn't really want or need
his advice.
Neither of us spoke for a while. Then he said in a different
tone, 'You know what I think? I think this has got very little
to do with the girl - it's about losing Sophie. You're still
grieving for her, Ed. Go home to your wife and family and
try to work things out. They are the only ones who can
help you. They need your help as much as you need theirs.'
I felt a pang of guilt that would stay with me after I hung
up; but it didn't change anything. I'd already made up my
mind and I had complete certainty that it was the right, the
only possible decision.
'I need to find her, Will,' I said grimly, 'before he does.'


47

Campbell Armour ignored the call-waiting signal.
Sitting with his laptop between his knees on the floor of
his room at the Mountain View, he dragged the cursor through
the gate and up onto the porch of the virtual mansion and
clicked on the front door.
Still nothing. He tried again. He was on auto-pilot, repeating the procedure every half-minute or so while he talked to his
daughter on the phone and watched live coverage of the
second day at Wimbledon.
His visit to the real Skylands had left him feeling badly
shaken. He'd been expected up at the old house and, when
he thought about the hiking boots behind the front door they
could only have been Ward's - and how close he'd come
to attempting to break in, it made him sick to his stomach.
The strange part was that he even felt uneasy now about
trying to access the homebeforedark website, as if he knew he
was expected here too at the virtual house.
'Hold on, honey,' he said.
The ding-dong door-chime had startled him, drawing his
attention away from the centre-court action. He saw the front
door swing open.
'Yessss!' Campbell punched the air, as if he'd hit a winner.
Pointing the remote at the TV, he pressed the mute button,
and said to Amy, 'Daddy has to go now, darlin'. Love you.
Tell Mommy I love her too, and I'll talk to you both later.
See ya tomorrow.'
He flipped his cell shut and, stuffing a handful of Doritos
into his mouth, for the first time entered the virtual
Skylands.
The photos he'd taken earlier had established that the house
on his screen was an exact scaled replica of Ernest Seaton's
childhood home. The graphics were not just impressive, they
were uncanny: confirming what Campbell had read about
the synaesthete's gift for memorising spatial information. As
he crossed the threshold, activating the 'footsteps' sound
effect Ed had told him about, the door closed behind him
and he found himself walking down the gloomy hall that he
had peered into that morning through the cat-flap. No dust
here though, or hiking boots. The interior of Skylands was
spotless. As it must once have been.
Not knowing how much time he had, Campbell dragged
the cursor swiftly towards the back of the hall, his footsteps
quickening as he did so, and positioned himself at the
bottom of the staircase. The 3-D image swivelled around
to meet him and there, straight ahead, rose the first flight
of stairs.
The program would only permit him to climb slowly, step at a time, until he reached the first half-landing. Then, as he
turned and continued upwards, the perspective changed and
his impression of the rising stair in front of him was replaced
by an overhead view, as if his eye had soared to the chandelier
hanging from the ceiling, and he was looking down on himself
from above.
There was something about the scene that was both familiar
and menacing, yet he couldn't quite place it. He could hear
music now - the soft tinkle of a piano drifting from another
part of the house - as he climbed the second flight to a
galleried landing with four doors evenly spaced around the
central well.
He moved the cursor along the landing and paused outside
the door nearest to the stairhead. Reaching for the bag of
corn chips, he glanced over the top of his screen, watched
Federer serve another ace; then, smiling at himself for feeling
even mild apprehension, clicked on the handle.
The door swung back to reveal what could only have been
Ernest Seaton's bedroom. As he took in the virtual contents
of the narrow room - the Yankees All-Stars poster over the
bed, baseball mitt on the foot-locker under the window, stacks
of Marvel comics, a first generation Star Wars light-sabre
propped in a corner, toy soldiers and cars, all neatly arranged
- Campbell realised this was more than he could have hoped
to find inside the real Skylands. But apart from the austere
tidiness (another synaesthetic trait) there was nothing unusual
or revealing here - it was typical of any nine-year-old boy's
room from a quarter-century ago.
The detective walked on around the landing, his footsteps
softened by a rug now, but here and there causing a floorboard
to creak. The second and third doors were locked. He was
about to try the handle of the fourth, when a light snapped
on inside the room and gleamed under the sill and around
the edges of the door-frame.
Campbell cracked his knuckles. He had a feeling he was
about to find out why Ward had finally decided to admit him
to the house. As he watched, intently now, a shadow darkened
the strip of light under the door. It was as though someone
had stepped up close to it on the other side.
He was waiting for the door to open, when his cell phone
rang.
'I'm in the departure lounge at Heathrow.'
'Can I call you right back?'
'This won't take long. I'd like to meet up Thursday afternoon.'
'No
problem, I should be through here by then.'
'I have to go out to my wife's grandmother's place on the
Hudson for lunch, but with any luck I'll be back by two . . .'
'Ed, I'm kinda tied up right now.'
'Okay, I'll e-mail you the details. I take it you're still in
Norfolk.'
'Yeah. Haven't been lynched yet. It's the house all right.'
'You're doing a really great job, Campbell.'
'Big old place, all shut up, hasn't been lived in for years.
Any chance of an advance on the bonus? Just kidding.' He
thought of mentioning his possible encounter with Ward at
Skylands, but decided against it. Still watching the screen,
Campbell asked his client. 'By the way, the Seatons look at
all familiar to you?'
'No. Why would they? I thought I said that in my e-mail.'
He sounded a little defensive. 'We're still trying to find a
connection, Ed.'
There was a pause. He could be lying, but what for? 'Did
you talk to the housekeeper yet?' Ed asked.
'Holy . . . shit.' Campbell froze, staring at the screen.
The fourth door was slowly being inched open. 'Hold on.'
'Is everything all right?'
The door opened all the way and out of the blaze of light
something emerged crawling on all fours. It lifted its head
and he thought for an instant it was a burning child, then
with startling speed the fiery icon scuttled across the hall
and, before he could be certain what exactly he'd seen, dived
into the boy's room.
Campbell jogged his cursor and from nowhere the thin
black figure of 'Mrs Danvers' appeared. He watched her
go forward and close the door to what he guessed was the
master bedroom, turn and come gliding past him along the
landing.
Campbell laughed. 'You caught me at a good moment,
that's all.'
As a piece of theatre it was an anti-climax, perhaps intentionally
so, but as he watched, still absorbed, the hatchet-faced
avatar smoothly descended the stairs. At the half-landing she
stopped, looked back up and beckoned him to follow.
'Ed, I gotta go.'
'Just be careful.'

The avatar had disappeared down the hall that led to the
rear of the building. He heard the screen-door bang shut and
went after her, navigating with the cursor the twists and turns
of a labyrinthine kitchen region. The walls echoed the simulated
clatter of his running footsteps.
He found Danvers waiting for him on the back porch, in
the dark.
It had been daylight when he entered the house (in real
time it was still the middle of the afternoon); now suddenly
Campbell found himself looking at a sky full of stars, a slither
of moon above the roof, fireflies winking from the high banks
of mountain laurel.
His guide withdrew a flashlight from her pocket and, pulling
a shawl over her head, set off through the grounds, taking
the path between the barns that he had explored that morning.
Looking back he saw that there were no lights showing in
the house. She led him out of the garden and soon they were
deep in the woods.
A grove of dark arrowy pines loomed above them. The
beam of the flashlight shivered and dipped as Danvers' silhouette
came to a halt at the gate of a small cemetery encircled
by a wrought-iron fence.
He heard the cry of an owl - standard for a night-time scene,
but always effective - as the beam passed over the half-dozen
headstones, came back and lingered on an elaborate winged
monument for June and Gary Seaton (later Campbell would
learn that the Seatons were buried separately - June in the
Colebrook cemetery, Gary in Danbury), then fell on two
newer headstones. The first gave him an unpleasant shock;

it was inscribed with the name of Sophie Lister, her dates,
nothing else.
The second stone, unmarked, stood above a freshly dug
open grave.
The beam played over the pile of earth, the yawning pit
. . . they were in B-movie territory now. Come on, dude,
Campbell thought, you can do better than this. Then Mrs
Danvers turned towards him, swinging the flashlight around,
and he found himself staring into the concentric rings of a
'blinding' shaft of light.
As a crude attempt to intimidate him, it failed. The reason
he'd been given access to the website wasn't so that Ward
could warn him that he was slated to be his next victim. In
cyber-land, his own mantra chimed in, things are never what
they seem.
No, he was sure the killer had another motive ... something
he'd missed.
Campbell lifted his eyes to the TV. He reached for the
remote and released the mute button. Federer was sprinting
from the net to the backcourt, chasing down an unreturnable
lob. He saw the champion miraculously hit the ball between
his knees with his back to the net and win the point. The
crowd went wild.
He watched the avatar's diminishing silhouette weave
between the trees and lose itself in the darkness - nice touch.
He smiled, then closed down his laptop and gave his full
attention to the tennis.
He had arranged to meet Grace Wilkes up at Skylands in
the morning - he would be able to ask 'Mrs Danvers' about
a family plot in person.

48

'You look like you wished you weren't here.'
Jelly turned her head too fast and the dance-floor swam.
She saw the blurred figure of a man standing behind her, his
hand resting on the back of one of the empty chairs at the
table.
'What you say?' The music was loud enough to pretend
she hadn't heard.
'I said you look as if you'd rather be some place else.'
The man, in focus now, was wearing a dark blue polo shirt,
chinos and loafers. Tall, not exactly good-looking, okay though
. . . sort of preppy but not. If he had a type, she couldn't
quite place it.
'Yeah, right. I'd rather be locked up for the night in an
undertaker's parlour.' She squinted up at him. 'Do we know
each other?'
'Not yet.' It was an open, friendly face. 'But I was hoping.'
'I bet you were.' She stubbed her cigarette out in an overflowing
ashtray and reached for her glass.
'I'm not trying to hit on you. I just noticed you sitting
alone and, well . . . you seemed a little lost.'
He got that right. The party was beyond boring - a stuffy
older crowd, mostly white, nobody she knew. She'd even
caught herself earlier wondering what it would be like if Ed
Lister did show up.
'I don't need rescuing, mister.' Nudging the straw and little
umbrella aside with her nose, she drained her fourth Long
Island Iced Tea. She was ready to go home.
'No, I meant ... I just thought . . . what the heck, you're
an attractive woman, I'd like to make your acquaintance.'
'What the heck?' She arched an eyebrow and smiled. He
was polite, seemed likeable enough and, after her, had to be
the youngest person in the room. She was going to be stuck
here another couple of hours at least.
'Mind if I sit?' This couldn't be him ... oh my God,
could it?
'I'm with friends... this is their table,' she said, still sounding
hostile though she didn't mean to now. The others were all
up dancing. She waved at Ronnie and Steve, nostalgically
'getting down' to Natalie Cole's 'This Will Be' (the party's
retro theme was 70s and 80s RB), and suddenly felt in a
better mood. 'Hey, wanna dance?'
'I'm not much of a dancer,' he said. 'I could use some air
though. How about we get ourselves a couple of drinks and
go out on the terrace . . .'
Jelly nodded, not crazy about the idea. She stood up, and
the room started to sway. She held out her arms and got her
kilter back by moving with the music.
'I just have to hear the end of my song.'

Jelly came out of the washroom and with exaggerated care
- even before she'd had a drink, the gold sandals with the
three-inch heels she'd found at the Shoe Inn had her tottering
like a newborn giraffe - made her way around the edge of
the dance-floor and out onto the terrace.
He was leaning on the rail looking at the ocean.
There was no way, no way this could be Ed Lister. For
one thing he was too young, early to mid-thirties. Plus she
knew what Ed looked like; she had his picture. But
then all she really knew about him was what he wanted her
to know. What if he'd made everything up? What if Ed
wasn't who he said he was? What if this guy was him after
all? Just waiting for the right moment to declare himself?
The thought made her skin prickle.
He turned around to meet her and she noticed something
about his face. It was a perfect oval - ears small and flat to
his head, hair cut short like a cap - too perfect for a man.
There was nothing cissy, though, about his strong jaw and
brow, the deep-set eyes so pale they looked like a mistake.
She was beginning to see him as almost handsome.The moonlight
on the water thing going on in the background.
Jelly had never really thought Ed was serious about flying
over to meet her at the party. Just to be on toe safe side she'd
given him the name of a disco that no longer existed (Scarlett's
had gone out of business before she was born). The trouble
was there were hardly any night clubs in Westoampton, and
it wouldn't take much to find this place, right on the beach.
'I'm Guy, by the way . . . Guy Mallory.' He smiled and
she saw how his thin lips receded until there was just face
around his teeth.
'Jelena.' She held out a hand. 'Nice to meet you, Guy.'
She wasn't getting any vibes off him. No way was this Ed.
She felt the surge of panic start to retreat. And another thing,
Guy spoke with an American accent, a cheesy Midwestern
twang that made her think he'd be calling her 'ma'am' next
- Ed was English. She'd never heard his voice, but she could
tell by the language he used, those quirky little phrases that
it would be difficult to fake.
She said, 'When you first came up I thought you were

someone else.'
He kept the smile. 'You know, I get a lot of that.'
'I was doubly wrong.' She shook her head. 'You don't
remind me of them at all.' Then she asked in a tone she
wouldn't normally have used with someone she'd just met,
'You ever been married, Guy?'
'No.' He looked at her. 'Have you?'
She nodded. 'Once. I got married online. You go to this
website and type in stuff and then by the Law of the Internet,
da-dah, you're married ... I did it when I was like seventeen.'
'Who's the lucky guy?'
'Colin Firth. But we're legally separated. Any time I want
I can go back to the site and get a divorce.'
Ed had 'laughed out loud' when she'd told him. She studied
Guy's bland face for a reaction. He just smiled politely. It
was obvious he hadn't heard it before, which was all she
wanted to know.
She found talking to him easy. When conversation slowed,
it didn't feel in the least bit awkward.
 They sat looking out
at the summer lightning over the ocean, listening to the surf
crash on the beach, the music - grooving on an old
Temptations song, 'I Can't Get Next to You' - all of it good.
At some point, Guy said, 'I'll understand if you say no,
but I'd like to see you again ... I mean, after tonight.'
His voice went up at the end of the sentence, making it a
question.
Jelly shrugged. 'Sure, why not?'
New York

49

She was all I could think about during the flight. I tried to
catch up on some work, I tried to watch a movie, read - I
couldn't concentrate. My mind kept slipping back to the
thought that in a slowly reducing number of hours we were
going to meet. Sleep was out of the question.
Looking down, as we made landfall over the northeastern
tip of Long Island, I felt my heart give a lurch when I thought
I had briefly identified below us the lights of Westoampton
Beach. On the tarmac, as soon as they opened the cabin
doors, in that first lungful of warm night air reeking of jet
fuel and electricity, I could almost taste her presence she
seemed so near, so nearly within reach.
By the time, though, I got through customs and immigration,
any hope of catching up with Jelena that night had evaporated.
After standing in line for a couple of hours (an earlier security
alert at JFK had resulted in a backlog of arriving passengers),
anger and frustration had curdled into weary acceptance.
'The Carlyle,' I told the driver, as I climbed into the waiting
limousine. It was well after midnight now, too late to drive
out to the Hamptons. The party would be over before we
even got there.
Manhattan bound, I poured myself a Scotch and water
and sank back into the grey leather upholstery, brooding over
the likelihood I'd missed my best and perhaps only chance
of tracking the girl down. As the glittering skyline rose above
Forest Hills, it suddenly hit home that I'd come to this vast
metropolis to find someone without an address, a telephone
number or even a name - it might have seemed funny, if the
stakes hadn't been so high.
But this was New York, I reminded myself, a place I knew
well. I'd lived here, after all, nearly half my working life. It
was where I got my first break in business, made my first
million, where Laura and I met. For me it will always be the
city on the hill. If you've hit rock bottom in the Big Apple
(as I did a couple of times) before climbing back up and
finding success, you know that nothing is impossible.
The limo driver was listening to James Brown on the radio.
I asked him to turn the music up and began to make a plan
of action for tomorrow.
As we dipped down into the Midtown Tunnel, I thought
about Ward and the clipping Campbell had e-mailed me on
the Seaton tragedy. I'd told the detective I didn't recognise
the boy's parents. But since then I'd begun to wonder if something
about the couple in the blurry wedding photo didn't seem familiar - if there might not after all be some connection
there with my own past.
I couldn't be sure, but June Seaton had reminded me a
little of the woman in that dreamlike incident, my New York
dream, where I'm looking down on her half-naked body
sprawled on the murky floor of a black pit.
It occurred to me that I never knew her name either.

Ten minutes after I got to sleep, it felt like, I was woken by
the telephone.
I asked Campbell Armour to call back when I'd had some
coffee, but he was in a rush, on his way to interview the
housekeeper, Grace Wilkes, in a town called Torrington - at
the last moment she'd changed her mind about meeting him
at Skylands, told him the house brought back too many
memories.

I thought of coming clean with Campbell then about Jelena.
It was always my intention to share my concern that Ward
knew of her existence. Even if I was wrong about his
impersonating her online and I'd exaggerated or imagined
the threat to her safety, I could have used the detective's
help in finding her. But it wasn't something I wanted to
explain over the phone. We firmed up on the plan we'd
already made for getting together the next day. It would have
to wait till then.
After I'd showered, and had breakfast in my room at the
Carlyle - I have a similar deal there to my longstanding
arrangement with the Ritz in Paris and regard the place as
another home from home - I got down to business.
Without the usual credentials, I was forced to work from
the little information I had about Jelly: I knew her e-mail
address, I knew she took piano lessons with a teacher she
called 'Mrs C, not far from where she lived in Brooklyn, and
I knew she was some kind of supervisor at a local kindergarten.
She'd always been careful not to say what the kindergarten
was called, but the other day she had inadvertently - or maybe
it was deliberate - revealed the nearest subway stop.
I went online and googled 'childcare' in the Prospect Park
area of Brooklyn. It didn't take long to get a result. Using
Mapquest I was able to narrow the search down to three
possible nurseries within a five-minute-walk radius of the
Church Avenue subway stop on the Coney Island line.
I must confess this wasn't the first time I'd tried to find
her. Soon after we first met I made a half-hearted attempt
to trace 'adorablejoker'. Out of curiosity, I gave her e-mail
address to one of those Net detective agencies that supposedly
can find anything out about a person (even their health plan
details and credit rating) for a few dollars. When they failed
to come up with the goods, I just let it go. I was afraid that
if she discovered I'd been checking up on her, she might get
the wrong idea.
The situation was very different now. I'm not sure if I was
driven more by the need to see Jelly, or to protect her - but
I felt a growing sense of urgency.
From the Carlyle I cabbed down to Fifth and Fifty-Third,
where I caught the F train out to Brooklyn. Entering the
subway station, assaulted by the familiar oven-waft of stale
piss and pretzels, I felt a nostalgic twinge that carried me
back twenty years to when I was Jelly's age and didn't always
have the price of a cab-fare.
On the elevated section of track, as I watched the Manhattan
skyline recede over a harsh, unappealingly flat cityscape of
low-rise buildings, bill-boards and decaying, sun-baked
streets, I began to have misgivings - not just about leaving
civilisation behind. I had on an old pair of jeans, black polo
shirt and dark glasses, aiming for a look that wouldn't stand
out; but the thought occurred to me that in my rush to find
the girl before Ward did, I could be leading him to her.

'You're wasting your time,' Grace Wilkes said. 'I haven't the
first idea what became of the boy, couldn't even tell you if
he's still alive.'
'I'd like to hear your side of what happened.'
'How did you get hold of my name?' Grace frowned, narrowing
her eyes at Campbell Armour over her raised coffee cup.
'The local paper,' Campbell said, which was close enough
to the truth. He felt it might be unwise to let her know he'd
talked to Dr Stilwell. 'It said the bodies were discovered by
yardman, Earl Wilkes and his wife, Grace, housekeeper . . .
so I did a little investigative work, looked you up in the white
pages.' He smiled.
She just stared at him.
'Mrs Wilkes,' he added solemnly, I'm real sorry about your
recent loss.' The way it came out sounding gauche, but not insincere.
Her eyes looked as if they were drowning. An unnatural
puffiness about her face, possibly the result of cortisone
treatment, had erased once pretty features. A small woman,
otherwise delicately trim, maybe sixty-five, seventy, she wore
avocado velour sweats and trainers with pom-pom laces; a pair of crutches, gaily wrapped in tangerine and yellow chiffon
scarves, lay beside her in the booth.
He found it hard to imagine a more unlikely Mrs Danvers.
She lowered the cup and stirred a sachet of sweetener into
her coffee, taking her time before saying slowly, 'Earl was a good man. He had a lot of pain at the end. Never a word of complaint. Lemme ask you something, Mr Armour . . .'
He nodded. 'Sure, anything.'
'Why open this sorry business all up again? It happened
a long time ago and I told the police back then everything I
knew. I've put it from my mind. Had to.'
'I can appreciate that, ma'am,' Campbell said, tasting a forkful of the special - macaroni cheese with pepperoni sauce
- and wishing he'd played safe and ordered the fried chicken
basket. 'But I don't know where else to start. The police were
no help, none at all.'
Earlier, Campbell had considered dropping by the sheriff's
office in Canaan, but without an investigator's licence he knew he wouldn't get far. Just draw attention to himself. The
sheriff involved in the Seaton case had died a few years back.
'You don't look to me like a private eye.'
'No?' He smiled, unsure whether it was his youth or
ethnicity that was giving her a problem. 'Then I'd call this
an effective disguise.'
The interview wasn't going the way he'd hoped. More
comfortable talking to a plasma screen than face-to-face,
Campbell was reluctant to admit his lack of experience might
be telling against him.
They were sharing a booth in the family section of Annie's
Grill in Torrington, a run-down blue-collar town ten miles
south of Norfolk. White-tiled from floor to ceiling with a
magnolia trim, the coffee shop had been Grace's choice of
venue.
She wasn't eating. 'I don't see how I can help you.'
'You knew him, Mrs Wilkes,' he said, leaning forward.
'You're the only one left who has a real connection.'
'I guess. But what exactly does your client want with
Ernest?'
He sat back and waited a moment, toying with his food.
'There's a confidentiality issue.' He put on an official
sounding voice, looking at her over the top of his glasses. 'I
can only reveal that it concerns a bequest.'
She thought for a moment. 'You said on the phone it might
be worth my while to get in touch. How does that work?'
'My client is offering a substantial reward for any information
that leads to the discovery of Ernest Seaton's whereabouts.'
There was a silence. He watched Grace reach for the pink
clam-shell cell phone that lay beside her cup and move it
closer to her. Then he said, 'Maybe we could begin with you
telling me what happened that night?'

The receptionist at All Saints Preschool and Daycare Center,
a heavily pregnant Indian woman in a sari called Joy, informed
me in a hushed sing-song that they had no vacancies till next
spring.
'I'm not interested in enrolling a child,' I explained patiently.
'A friend of mine works here.' I looked around. 'Where is
everybody, by the way?'
The place seemed unusually quiet for a kindergarten.
'Nap time,' she said. 'Please speak softly.'
I showed her Jelly's photo, which she barely glanced at
before handing it back, shaking her head. 'Haven't seen her.'
'I think she might be a supervisor. She ... plays the piano.'
Joy cut her cow-like eyes to a roster of staff faces on the
wall beside her desk, the 'All Saints' team presided over by
'mother hens', Mrs Quinn and Mrs Arbogast. I could see
Jelly's was not among them.
'What did you say she was called?'
'I don't know her last name. It's really important. Look, I
wonder if I could talk to some of the other members of staff?'
'She doesn't work here, I tell you.'
Her tone firmer now' and not all that friendly.
It was the same story at The Leapfrog Center and Precious
Littles. Nobody recognised Jelena from her photograph, the
only one I had of her, or from my notional description. I
spent the next hour trudging around in the heat checking
with the other local kindergartens I'd marked on the map as
'possibles'. They were no help either. I realised that Jelly
might've misled me about where she worked, but I couldn't
give up on the idea that she was somehow connected with
the area. The subway stop was all I had to go on, my only
point of reference.
Disheartened, I retraced my steps through the drab tree
lined streets. A mixed, lower-middle-class neighbourhood of
narrow clapboard houses, white-brick apartment buildings
scarred with graffiti, the odd run-down mini-mart on a corner,
it was a long way from the Hotel Carlyle. By the time I'd got
back to the main intersection with Macdonald Avenue, my
shirt was soaked with sweat. I began to feel the sidewalk sucking
at the soles of my feet, every step becoming more difficult,
as if I was wading through quicksand.
It should have been a warning.
I remember standing in front of the Astoria Federal Savings
Bank, debating whether to go inside - Jelly had told me she
once worked at a bank - when a jet fighter passed low
overhead making the sound of tearing paper. I looked up at
the pulsing white sky and suddenly my head started to spin.
When I tried to walk on I could no longer see the sidewalk
or feel my legs. There was a hand at my elbow.
We only just made it through the door of a Carvel's icecream
franchise that was next to the bank before everything

went black.
I thought I was going down, but the moment passed. I
heard a female voice ask, 'You okay? Want me to call an
ambulance?'
'I could use a glass of water,' I said.
The girl came from behind the counter and helped me to
a chair. There was no one else in the ice-cream parlour. 'You
don't look so good, mister.'
Had I imagined the guiding hand?
'I'll be fine. Just not used to the heat.' I shivered. I could
feel the air conditioning turning the wet shirt on my back
clammy.
'Yeah, you want to be careful, it's hot as balls out there.'
It seemed an odd thing to say. She was a fresh-faced high
school kid, blonde and freckled, not more than sixteen.
Revived by the iced water, I thanked her for 'saving my life',
left her a tip that made her eyes light up, and headed for the
door.
I turned and asked, 'Did somebody help me in here?'
She looked blank. I saw her remove a white earphone. 'I'm
sorry?'
I repeated the question.
'I wasn't really looking. You take care now.'

50

'It was too quiet, even for a Sunday,' Grace began, nervously
flicking the flap of her cell phone open and shut. 'I got a bad
feeling the moment I walked in the front door . . . the house
was silent, and there was this smell I didn't recognise.'
'You remember the time?' Campbell asked.
'Sunday mornings we'd get there late, like around nine.'
'You didn't live on the place?'
She shook her head. 'Moved out when I got married.'
Campbell dropped his gaze. 'Okay, you entered the premises
. . . then what?'
'There was no sign of anyone, so I called Earl in from the
yard and made him go up . . . just to check they were all
right... I waited at the foot of the stairs. It was too damned
quiet - little Ernie was always up and about.'
She paused, and he could see her trying to filter the memories,
not to let them swamp her. 'I could hear the clock ticking
in the hall, and then him tapping at their bedroom door,
calling out their names . . .'
He steered her past the moment of discovery. 'The boy
was hiding in the broom closet under the stairs?'
'We thought at first he was dead too:
Campbell nodded. "I read about the blood.'
'We woke him ... he didn't know where he was, couldn't
barely talk, trembling all over. I wrapped him in a blanket
and gave him some hot tea.'
'You think he was hiding from someone?'
She squinted at him. 'Ernie hated it when his parents
fought. He'd crawl in there sometimes just to get away. It
was like ... his special place.'
'Where had all the blood come from, Grace?'
'There was some blood. You know how the papers

exaggerate.'
'Yes, but how did it get there? On his face and hands. You
think he witnessed what happened, or only went in the room
after the event?'
'How the hell would I know?' She flared suddenly. 'I didn't
want to think about it then - what that poor kid might have
seen or heard - and I damned sure don't want to think about
it now.'
'I understand,' he said, backing off.
Campbell pushed his plate aside. He looked at Grace's
moon face that in repose gave little away and wasn't sure
whether he should try to win back her confidence, or start
putting on the pressure.
He shifted down a tone. 'How did he get on with his

parents?'
'Ernest? He may only've been young, but he saw Gary
Seaton for what he was - a small-town loser whose one idea
of a good time was to get smashed at the Gin and Chowder
Club. They didn't relate. He was a lot closer to his mother.'
Campbell nodded. 'I've seen her photograph. An attractive
woman.'
'June had something about her ... an energy, you know,
she was full of life, made everyone feel good. She had plenty
of admirers, but she was such a needy soul, always craving
excitement.' She hesitated. 'It got her killed.'
'You mean she couldn't find what she wanted at home?'
'It wasn't a happy marriage ... all they ever did was fight.'
Grace gave him a distracted look, her attention somewhere
else, focused on the past. 'They were fighting that night . . .
I was up at the house, fixing their dinner. Gary had been
drinking and the two of them started screaming and hollering
at each other until it got so bad I thought of calling the cops.'
She gave a heavy sigh. 'In the end, well ... I just left them
to it as usual.'
'What was the fight about, do you remember?'
'Same, same old story. June had been at a party in New
York City and stayed out all night - only this time she ended
up in hospital down there. Nothing serious, she had a fall
and knocked herself out, but Gary had to go and bring her
home.'
'She was cheating on him.'
Grace nodded. 'He found a letter she'd written some fella
she'd taken a shine to I guess she forgot to mail it, or didn't
have time.'
'You saw the letter?'
'He confronted her with it . . . accused her of planning to
run off and leave him. June denied everything, said it was
just a fantasy. Then Gary forced her to read part of the letter
out loud . . . about falling in love. She started crying.'
'You don't know who it was addressed to? Was a name
mentioned?'
She turned her head slowly from side to side. 'Not that I
heard.'
'What happened to this letter?' Campbell asked. 'There
was nothing about it at the inquest. Did you mention it to
the police?'
'Gary could have tore it up, I guess, thrown it in the garbage;
maybe it just got lost in all the confusion. I told them everything
I knew. What does it matter now?'
A whole lot, the detective thought, but decided to let it go.
A more experienced interviewer, he felt, might have pushed
harder: he was afraid of losing her.
'You think June was really going to leave him?'
'She told me once she only stayed for the boy's sake. Said
she felt trapped up there in that big house, bored out of her
mind, her life draining away. He kept her under kind of a
curfew. Whenever she went out, Gary used to warn her, "Don't
forget now, Junebug, home before dark.'"
'Home before dark,' Campbell repeated.
'And June would always finish for him, you know, like
mocking his authority, "Or there'll be the Devil to pay.'"
'It must have been quite an ordeal for you, Grace,' he
said calmly, though he could feel his heart racing. 'I mean,
you were more to the family than just the housekeeper,
right?'
'You could say so. June made a big deal about being friends
with the help, but she never let you forget your place. There's
always a line.'
She sighed. 'I was fond of her though.'
'And the boy?'
She lifted the back of a wrist to her forehead. 'Like one

of my own.'
'After his grandmother took him to live in New York, did
you see Ernest again?'
'I tried calling a few times,' she said. 'Then I got a note
from Mrs Calvert saying that he'd gone to live with some
relatives out West I think she said Wyoming. She thanked
me for my loyal service, but felt it would be best for all
concerned if we let him forget the past and start a new

life.'
'You never heard any news of him - like where he went
to school out there, if he graduated college, got a job ... he
never tried to get in touch?'
'How often do I have to tell you? No.'
He took a long drink of his soda. 'You must have wondered,
though, over the years, how the boy was getting on, what
direction this new life had taken?'
She looked away, her troubled eyes scanning the parking
lot through the window. 'I always felt somehow he'd be all
right, and after everything he'd been through the good Lord
would take care of him.'
There was a silence.
'I still put flowers on June's grave every Sunday.'
In his mind, Campbell saw 'Mrs Danvers' coming out of
the upstairs room in the website house, leading him down
the stairs and out into the dark woods. The beam of her flashlight
slashing through the trees.
'Was there a cemetery at Skylands, a family plot?'
She shook her head.
'Did somebody else ... you think maybe someone else came
to the house that night?' he asked in the same casual tone.
Observing her closely, he caught the involuntary flicker in
her eyes.
'I heard Gary Seaton threaten his wife. I heard him say, if
I can't have you, I'll make damn sure nobody else can. Gary killed June, then shot himself. If my husband was still here, he'd be able to tell you . . .'
She clammed up then, as if she realised she had said too
much.
'Tell me what, Grace? Did somebody come to the house?'

In the subway, waiting for a train back to Manhattan, I thought
about what had happened on the street. It was nothing really,
a combination of not enough sleep and mild heatstroke. The
whole incident had lasted a couple of minutes and I was now fully recovered. It was just the hand at the elbow that bothered
me - a firm, intimate grip that I could still feel.
I imagined Jelly coming down here at rush hour. She must have walked along this platform thousands of times, perhaps even sat on this same bench - that is, if she really did use the Church Avenue stop, if I could trust anything she had told me.
I remembered asking her once if she'd read Truman
Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and being surprised by her
sharp, indignant reaction. 'You think I'm like the girl in that
book? You really think I'd lie about important stuff?'
I wondered what the expression on her face had been when
she typed that. Maybe Will was right and the only reliable
assumption about the internet is that everybody tells lies all
the time. A worldwide tissue of lies.
I was still thinking about Jelly when the Sixth Avenue
local trundled into the southbound platform on the other
side of the station. Half paying attention, I watched a dozen
people get off and make for the exits. The train pulled out
and then I noticed, across the tracks, a young woman left
behind in the middle of the platform, lost in concentration
while she fiddled with her cell phone. She was no one I'd
ever seen before, and yet something about her seemed
familiar.
She was standing in profile, her head slightly bowed. Tall,
slim, elegant just in the way she held herself- at that distance,
I couldn't be certain. Then she turned towards me, laughing
into the phone.
She was taller than I'd pictured her, or it may have been
that her hair looked different - it was lighter and frizzier and
tied up in some elaborate sort of way. She turned and the
instant I saw her face, I knew.
It was strange how it affected me, how unprepared I was
for a moment I'd anticipated often enough. I was struck not
so much by her appearance - though I could tell she was
everything I'd dreamed - as by the simple fact that she existed,
that she was really here in the world. It confirmed what I
already knew in my heart to be true. I recognised her as the
same person that I loved.
At the time it had the overwhelming force of revelation.
Jelena hadn't spotted me yet. I didn't know whether to
wave to her, call out her name, or run back up the stairs,
cross the street and approach her on the far platform. I was
mesmerised, afraid that if I made any kind of move the spell
would be broken. Somebody walked through my line of sight.
I saw them only as a blur.
I don't remember hearing the train until seconds before it
came hurtling through on the middle track. I stood up then,
Jelly looked across the rails, and for a brief instant our eyes
met.
She didn't smile; as far as I could tell her face never changed
its expression. I just saw her shoulders stiffen as if in shock
or fright. . . that's the only way I can be sure she recognised
me. The next moment we lost each other.
The train that had suddenly come between us, a Coney
Island express, seemed to go on forever. I tried to keep eye
contact with her through carriage after carriage of brightly
lit windows as they streaked past, but it was hopeless.
When the far platform came back into view, I was already
sprinting for the Macdonald Avenue exit. Jelly had vanished.

'You said there used to be a piano up at the house.' She was
protecting someone, Campbell thought, or else afraid.
Grace nodded. 'An old upright in the parlour . . . it's still
there. June loved to play. She was such a talented, creative
person.'
It occurred to him that Ernest Seaton might have got to
her first. In which case, every word would likely find its way
back. He was tempted to tell Grace about the more recent
murders he was investigating and that he believed were
connected with what happened at Skylands. But it was too
soon. He asked her instead if the boy had inherited his
mother's musical gift.
'Ernie?' Grace smiled. 'He didn't care at all for music,
when he was little, if anyone so much as hummed a tune
around him, he'd clap his hands over his ears and howl. They
had his hearing checked, turned out to be perfect.'
He recalled Dr Stilwell's description of the orphaned boy
comparing Mozart to the taste of dead flies. Grace didn't
seem aware of StilweU's diagnosis.
'He must have had difficulty coping with everyday life.'
'Some,' she said, hesitating. 'He was a solitary child. Ernie
didn't make friends easy, but that's how he preferred it. The
other kids just thought he was weird.'
'I meant because of the way he was affected by music'
'I know what you meant,' she said. 'Anyone put on a record
or played the radio around him, he'd get upset... his father'd
say, "Boy's just seeking attention" and turn up the volume.'
'But you knew it caused him genuine distress.'
She nodded. 'I remember one time June was in the parlour
practising, playing the same tune over and over, when all a
sudden I heard this almighty crash. I ran in to find her bowed
over the closed piano-lid. The notes still jangling. Ernie was
standing by her, his face kind of a dusky red, glowering out
from under his brow with a look that . . . well, it scared me.
I could guess at what had happened, but June acted like it
was an accident. She covered up for him.'
An outsider born and bred, Campbell thought, smart not
crazy, yet predisposed to psychosis, unlikely to feel remorse
or understand the feelings of others . . .
'Do you remember the name of the tune?'
'You've got to be kidding.'
Campbell glanced around the empty coffee shop. Then he
leant forward and started to whistle for Grace, slightly off
key, the opening bars to 'Fur Elise'. He saw her eyebrows
crawl towards each other, her mouth fall open in disbelief.
'How in the name of Jesus did you know that?'
He didn't answer, letting her think about it for several
seconds.
'You have to help me find him, Grace.'
Her eyes filled with tears. 'I've already told you everything
I know . more than I should have done.'
'Does the name "Ward" mean anything to you?'
'No.' She didn't hesitate.
'I think there's a chance that the Ernest you raised and
loved has become a danger to others. Grace, you'd be helping
him '
'I never raised him. Did I say that?'
She broke down then, sobbing quietiy, shielding her eyes
with her hands. He waited until she recovered, then he asked,
'Has he been back in touch?'
'I'm sorry, I can't... I have to go now.' She swept up her
pink cell phone, then reached for the gaily decorated crutches
and clumsily got up, her mouth set in a straight line like a
stubborn old pony's as she manoeuvred her way out of the
booth.
He just sat there, knowing he'd blown it, feeling a kind of
pity for her.

Campbell paid the check and followed Grace Wilkes out to
the parking lot. She was trying to put the key in the door of
a black late-model Taurus, her hand shaking so much she
was having difficulty.
'Here, let me get that for you,' he said.
She reluctantly handed over the key. 'Are you married, Mr
Armour?'
He smiled and held up his left hand with the gold eternity band on the ring finger. 'Four years in August. We have a little girl, Amy.'
He opened the car door for her. She threw the crutches
in first and swung herself into the driver's seat. Reaching for a pack of Newport Lites, she tapped out a cigarette and lit UP- She blew a thin stream of smoke out of the corner of her
mouth, directing it away from Campbell. 'Then go home,'
she said, glancing back up at him, 'go home to them. Leave
this alone.'
'I have to find Ernest Seaton first,' Campbell said, leaning
through the car window. 'And when I do, I plan to ask him
about the murders of Sophie Lister and Sam Metcalf. If you
change your mind, you have my numbers, call me.'
She took another drag. 'I should have never talked to you
in the first place.'
'Before somebody else gets hurt, Grace. He might listen

to you.'
Staring ahead through the windshield, she exhaled noisily
and then waved her hand to disperse the smoke; her face
half in sunlight had an unhealthy sheen. Cigarette between
her lips, she turned the key in the ignition and, without
looking at Campbell, said in a small flat voice, 'He doesn't
know.'

51

Investigator Morelli was standing in the middle of Sam
Metcalf's empty living room, thinking about lunch. This
was day three of the diet and he was looking forward to a bistecca fiorentina and salad at a family-run trattoria he liked
near the Porta Romana. At home, the challenge of sticking
to a low-carb regime was complicated by the fact he hadn't
told Maria yet he was trying to lose weight.
He could expect, when he did, a narrowing of her black

eyes.
He wasn't sure what had brought him back here. He just
happened to be in the Oltrarno, driving past Sam's door, and
decided to take another look around. He'd know it when he
saw it, he told himself, as he threw open a window to let
some air into the hot, stuffy apartment.
He thought about the young American woman he'd first
encountered on a slab in the morgue in Linz choosing to
call a dump like this home for most of her adult life. Her
belongings had been shipped last week. The few remaining
sticks of furniture belonged to the landlord. Even her absence
had started to fade. You really had to know Sam's story,
Morelli thought, to get the melancholy feeling that hung
about the three bare rooms. A new tenant moving in on
Saturday.
He was reminded of the painful telephone conversation
he'd had with Sam's parents in Boston. His colleagues
claimed it was the worst part of being a cop, informing the
next of kin, and never got any easier. In Morelli's experience,
talking to those who knew and loved the victim best helped
him do his job. He'd hoped to give the Metcalfs positive
news about the way the investigation was going, but the
forensic report on the train from the Austrian police wasn't
encouraging.
The murderer had left the sleeper inexplicably clean; just
as he had the grotto at the Villa Nardini. Not a ghost of an
identifier. When he considered what the creep had got away
with on that train, he could understand the Viennese media
branding him 'the Master of Death', but it really didn't help
matters,
Morelli went through to the bathroom. He looked under
the old-fashioned claw-foot tub and inside the medicine
cabinet; then removed the top of the cistern and felt behind
it before flushing the toilet. His men had crawled all over the
Place. They wouldn't have missed much.
He frowned at his reflection in the mirror-fronted cabinet
while he washed his face and hands, going into a daydream
about Gretchen. On the phone, she had suggested meeting
up for a romantic weekend in Paris. Maybe it wasn't such a
bad idea. If he could find a way of linking the trip to his
work. He needed to have a talk with Laura Lister, which
might qualify as a valid reason for foreign travel. There was
a question mark over her husband and Paris.
He wandered into the kitchen and sat at the table listening
to the wall-clock above the stove ticking away in the stillness.
He felt depressed. Sam Metcalf had been dead a week and
he had nothing, not a single lead. His suspicion that Ed
Lister was having an affair with a woman half his age hardly
counted as a development. Morelli sank lower in his chair,
considering the Listers and the damage done to their
marriage; something told him that the secret to solving the
case still lay with their daughter, Sophie. He'd been looking
at what happened here from Sam's perspective. He needed
to go back to the beginning and try a different path - focus
on Sophie Lister coming to the flat to use her friend's
computer.
He had to assume that she never confided in Sam about
the stranger he was convinced she was chatting to online, or
Sam would surely have mentioned it to Sophie's father? Yet
the drawings in the artist's sketchbook suggested that she knew
there was reason to be wary. Maybe she was embarrassed to
talk to the older girl, or afraid, or intended doing so but left
it too late - Sam flew back to Boston to visit her family the
week before the murder. If Sophie had been intrigued enough
to meet up with the stranger in real-time, which Morelli felt
sure was what happened, it made it less likely she would have
spoken to anyone.
But say Sophie did agree to meet her killer, she was bound
to have been somewhat concerned about safety. She might
have taken precautions; left a note perhaps, or some clue to
the man's identity, even a description, as insurance in case
something happened to her. The trouble was that, other than
his screen-name, it was unlikely she'd have known much about
him - unless she saw him again.
With a gloomy sigh he looked up at the Annunciation clock,
the one obvious place he hadn't checked during his
perfunctory search. The Angel Gabriel's outstretched arm
stirred a memory of his wife, after they got married, offering
her bridal bouquet to the Madonna in the church of
Santissima Annunziata for good luck.
He rose from the table and, pulling a chair over to the
ancient stove, climbed onto the hob. Balancing precariously
on the cast-iron grills, he reached up to the clock and felt
behind the laminated panel of its long rectangular face: the
angel's stubby wings, the orchard trees, the loggia where Mary
sat at a lectern. Oily dust and grime stuck to his fingers; there
was nothing there.
He lifted the clock away from the wall and revealed some
suspect-looking electrical wiring, but that was all. He heard
his stomach growl.
Time for that rare bistecca fiorentina and, sacrilege, a glass
of water.

The investigator pulled Sam's old front door shut behind
him. As he removed the yellow crime-scene tape, bundling
it up and tossing it in a corner of the landing, he noticed
with irritation how filthy his hands had become.
He hesitated - he could hear rock music blasting from the
Iranians' apartment below that struck him, unreasonably
perhaps, as disrespectful - then he unlocked the door, went
back inside.
In the bathroom he washed his hands for the second time.
Consulting his image again in the mirrored doors of the
cabinet, he patted his cheeks and thought, Yes, maybe you
do look a little thinner, Andrea.
He smiled, and then he got it.
'Ma stai scherzando,' he said aloud. It was staring him in

the face.
He opened the cabinet, quickly removed the internal glass
shelves and worked a hand behind one of the doubled-up
sliding doors. Nothing. He slid the mirror shut and tried its
twin from the other side.
Mother of God, he felt something there, taped to the back
of the glass.
He tugged carefully and it came away in his hand - a twice
folded A4 size sheet of white Ingres sketch paper, the kind
artists use.

52

They had arranged to meet at six thirty. It was nearly that
now and here he was still stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn
Queens Expressway. Ward had offered to pick Jelly up at her
apartment but she'd insisted on going straight to the restaurant
from work.
She was being cautious, understandably. On the phone
he'd caught the note of surprise in her voice at hearing from
him so soon. As the line of vehicles inched forward, Ward
thought about how nervous she'd sounded; but that, he
suspected, had nothing to do with his asking her out to dinner.
Then the southbound lanes cleared and he was off again in
his rented VW Golf, on his way to their first date.
It was nearly six forty-five when he walked through the
foyer of Renchers Crab Inn on Myrde Avenue. He had chosen
the place because she'd told him she loved seafood, and he'd
never been there before.
'Guy Mallory. I have a reservation.'
The hostess consulted her clipboard and crossed off his name, then led him through to the bar where he spotted Jelena sitting on a stool apart from the crowd. She waved and smiled at him, looking relieved to see a friendly face.
'I was beginning to think I'd got the wrong place,' she said, as he joined her. He apologised for being late and ordered some drinks. A Sea Breeze for Jelly, a glass of the house white for himself. He noticed that her hair was different to last night, pulled back off her face into a tight chignon, and she had on less make-up. She was wearing a matching beige linen jacket and skirt with a plain white blouse. Work clothes.
'I wouldn't have recognised you,' he said.
'Well, buddy, this is the real me.'
'You're with Morgan Stanley, right?'
She laughed. 'What on earth gave you that idea? I work the phones for a shipping company in Flatbush. You heard
of McCormicks?'
He shook his head. 'You look great anyway'
'You think so?' Her face lit up for a brief second.
Almost as soon as they got the drinks, the hostess came back and told them their table was ready. He let Jelly walk in front of him and was conscious of the other diners looking admiringly at her as they passed, which made him feel both pleased and uncomfortable with the attention.
The blue rhombus was turning slowly inside his head.
You don't have to worry, I'm not gonna spoil this . .. I swear
I won't breathe a word about how you spent your day. Not a word.
At the table, watching her deliberate over the menu, taking
forever to make up her mind, he smiled when finally Jelly
chose the butterfly shrimp - he couldn't help smiling. She
picked up on his reaction and flashed him a challenging look.
'That okay with you, mister?'
'I'm just amused because, well.. .'Ward hesitated. He was
amused because he knew from eavesdropping her online
conversations with Ed Lister that shrimp was her favourite

food.
'Because it's right up there next to fried chicken and sex
and us black folks just can't get enough of that shit?'
'No, no,' he protested, taken aback by her prickliness. 'It's
just that I always have to resist choosing the shrimp myself.'
'And here I'm thinking racial slur. Shame on me.' She
laughed. 'Damn, now I'm gonna have to let you taste one.'
Her face was prettiest when animated.
He had the wine list in front of him and ran his eye down
the whites before selecting a decent Meursault. He was having
the grilled swordfish.
Over dinner the mood changed and keeping the conversation
going became an effort. Jelly grew quieter and seemed
more subdued than last night. At the party, she'd been bubbly
and talkative to the point where he'd wished she'd shut up.
He was dealing here with a different person - like she said,
the real me. He knew he'd have to tread carefully if he wanted
to bring her out of her shell.
Ward had done his homework. From her high-school
yearbook entries to the amount of back rent she owed her
landlord, from her social security number, health insurance
plan and favourite colour to the name of her mother's dog
- there wasn't a whole lot he didn't know about Jelena Madison
Sejour.
He got her talking about her love of music, coaxed out of
her that she had a 'scholarship' to study piano at the Conservatoire
in Paris.

'I'm impressed,' he said. 'They only take the best.' He was
about to tell her that his mother played the piano, not very well, then decided that the less she knew about his family the
better. 'When do you go?'
'I haven't decided yet if I am going. I've always dreamed of living there, but now ... I dunno, it seems like a big step.'
'So what's holding you back?'
She shrugged. 'Never been abroad before. Don't know a soul in Paris. Not sure that I'm good enough musically. I'd be leaving behind two hopeless dependants, my cats, and then there's Mom . . . take your pick.'
'I spend quite a bit of time over there,' he said. 'So you'd have at least one friend, Jelena. A friend who'd love to show you Paris.'
'Always good to know' She nodded, but didn't return his
smile.
You nearly called her 'Jelly' then, didn't you? It was on the tip
of your tongue. She didn't invite you to yet, or even mention that
others call her that. A slip-up now, Ernster, and you could blow
this whole thing clean out of the water . . .
Their desserts came and they ate in silence. He studied her without making any attempt to conceal the fact: sometimes she'd glance up and catch him looking at her, and he'd just
smile. He didn't care if his gaze made her uncomfortable.
He could see now that Jelly was more than pretty, she was beautiful. She had those wild-creature eyes set almost too far apart, the wide mouth and long graceful neck to go with them and a flawless honey-coloured hide. He didn't desire her. He might have done, but Ward was no slave to his sexual impulses. He considered himself lucky to have gotten that monkey off his back early on in life. He could see that the girl had at least half a brain - charm, and warmth too - which helped him to understand how someone like Ed Lister might have fallen for the package.

The perfume she was wearing, fresh and unsophisticated,
had for Ward the shape and texture and heft of a glass paperweight.
He let the silence between them grow beyond
awkward, then asked Jelly if everything was all right.
She frowned at him and said, 'Why do you ask?'
'You don't seem quite yourself.'
'Compared to? How I was last night? It was a party, dude.'
He nodded. 'We had a good time, didn't we?'
'Not too good I hope.' She arched an eyebrow. "I'd had a

skinful.'
'You think I'd take advantage of you?' He smiled and looked
down at his hands. 'You said you were drinking to forget.'
'I did? The drama queen talking.' She gave a laugh, then
took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'No, you're right. I
guess I am feeling a little down . . .'
He could tell she wanted to confide in him. He'd been
grooming her, using his knowledge of her likes and dislikes
to make it seem like they had a lot in common. He just hadn't
expected her to drop her guard so quickly. 'You feel like
talking about it?'
She shook her head. 'Not really.'
'Still raw ... I understand. You don't know me that well.'
He sat back in his chair and smiled. 'Sometimes it's easier to
talk to a stranger.'
He saw her hesitate, considering his offer. 'You seem like
a nice person. Really you do, but. . . oh, what the hell.'
It was familiar stuff, only interesting for what she chose
not to disclose. She didn't use Ed's name, but told him she'd
been having trouble fending off the attentions of an older
married man. If he hadn't known the truth he wouldn't have
believed it possible she was talking about somebody she'd
never met.
Ward was a good listener, he knew how to put her at her
ease, when to ask questions, when to hold back. He told her
he could relate because he'd been down a similar road himself
- he was 'still getting over someone'. She showed concern.
He'd had to learn how to do empathy, but Ward found it
came easily enough; it was, like an old movie star once said
about the profession, just a question of reacting.
'Where did the two of you meet?'
She said, 'I know this is going to sound crazy.'
'Don't tell me.' He smiled, touching two fingers to his temple,
as if the idea had just occurred to him. 'You met online.'
'What the . . . how did you guess?'
'Isn't that where you got married to Mr Darcy?'
'And divorced him.' She made a face and wiped her brow
with the back of her hand. 'As from this morning, I'm a free
woman.'
'May I be the first to congratulate you.' He raised his glass
in a mock toast and they both laughed. Now that they had

established a rapport, he felt confident that she wouldn't
refuse the offer of a ride back to Manhattan.
After that, Ward decided, he'd just have to play it by ear.

53

The intermittent creak of a rusty hinge coming from his
laptop was beginning to get on Campbell Armour's nerves.
It reminded him of toose screensavers with irritant sound
effects like bubbling noises or fanfares or lonely static from
outer space. The creaking - from the homebeforedark website
~was caused by a screen-door on the back porch of the
virtual Skylands swinging gently in the breeze.
The laptop was on the table under the window of his
room at the Mountain View, half-hidden by the styrofoam
box containing the remains of the cheeseburger deluxe he'd
brought back from the diner in Canaan. It was now almost
nine thirty and pitch-dark out. Campbell had tried several
times during the course of the evening to get back inside
the replica Seaton home, but without success. Ward must've
decided to block him again, probably just for the hell
of it.
A loud sudden banging startled him. He glanced around
the room - he hadn't forgotten the hiking boots in the hallway
of the real Skylands - as the screen-door effect on his laptop
escalated to a more persistent screech, slam ... screech, slam.
He wondered how safe he was here at the motel.
Maybe Ward could read his thoughts. Shaking his head,
Campbell aimed the remote at the television to kill the competing
sound of Wimbledon, then went over to investigate. Since he
last looked, twenty minutes ago, the homebeforedark graphics
had caught up with real-time and gone over to nightscape
mode.
Pinned to the listiess screen-door was a note that said,
'COME'.
Campbell cleared the table-top of debris and sat down. He
clicked on the invitation and found himself inside the dismal
mansion, instantly transported to the second-floor landing.
He gave a little grunt of satisfaction.
Ahead of him stood the four identical doors. He tried each
of them in turn, directing the cursor by the dim light of the
chandelier hanging over the stairwell. As before, only the door
to Ernest Seaton's bedroom opened.
It swung back to reveal a small boy in pyjamas, curled up
on the bed with his hands over his ears, tossing from side to
side as though in torment. Campbell imagined at first that
'Ernie' (the boy's avatar, a generic snub-nosed, freckle-faced
lad) was trying to block out some loud noise or music that was odious to him.
But there was no sound - at least, not on the soundtrack.
Then Campbell noticed, seeping onto the landing from
under the door of the adjacent bedroom, what looked like a
wisp of fog or smoke. As he watched, the whitish mist billowed
and transformed itself magically into a solid 3-D word-shape
- LYING - quickly followed by another that spelled out,
BITCH. He caught on that the boy was trying to escape the
ugly din of his parents arguing.
The graphics floated out over the stairwell, silently filling
the screen with'snatches of June and Gary Seaton's venomous
dialogue, their words making phrases and broken sentences
that jostled and bumped against each other in a syncopated
collage of hate.

YOU LYING BITCH You're
just  NEVER LOVED YOU YOU CAN'T EVEN GET IT UP GARY SEATON
trash ... you little cock-sucking whore . . . WHORE I'M LEAVING you really think I give a shit?
fucking any guy even looks at you GOD, YOU PATHETIC LITTLE MAN MR FLOPPY, HA-HA Can't live without him? You're so in lovel You're planning to leave us, Junebug? Lets see how I can NO . . . GARY, YOU'RE TOO DRUNK help with that. Here, try some of this you cunt

It was so effectively done, seeing him bury his head under his pillow, Campbell felt almost sorry for the boy. Suddenly,
as if he couldn't take it any longer, 'Ernie' jumped up off the
bed and ran out onto the landing. Walking right through the
floating words and coming out the other side, he tiptoed past
the door to his parents' room. Then, avoiding the telltale
floorboards, crept downstairs.
Looking over the banister, Campbell (grudgingly admiring
of Ward's technical skills) saw the boy get down on hands
and knees and crawl into the broom closet and pull the door
shut behind him. He used his mouse to try to follow, but found himself barred. The fragments of dialogue dissolved,
suggesting that in the master bedroom, where he had no
doubt the night's traumatic events would soon unfold, things
for the moment had quietened down - the house was still.
All he could hear was the ticking of the clock in the hall.
He thought of calling Ed Lister and telling him to log on
to the website, so they could both witness what was about
to happen. When they'd spoken earlier, he'd updated his client
on the interview with Grace Wilkes and his suspicion that
she was covering up, either out of loyalty or fear. Ed had
seemed distracted, almost uninterested. He remembered him
saying he was going out for the evening.
A whirring sound drew his attention to the hands of the
hall clock. He watched them fly around the dial, the speeded-
up chronology reminiscent of how they showed time passing
in old black-and-white movies. The hands slowed and came
into land at precisely four thirty-six. The regular ticking
resumed.
Using his cursor, Campbell looked around the hall. A
couple of suitcases had appeared by the front door. He could
hear music, the faint ominous strains of 'Fur Elise' - and, as
the piano notes carried through the house, other noises now,
coming from the bedroom, hard to identify at first. He recognised
the sounds of furtive but urgent lovemaking, the gasps
and whimpers of a man and woman approaching climax then,
in the midst of their stifled paroxysms, a sudden change.

There was a single cry, no other sound, no movement,
nothing-
By the hall clock, a full sixty seconds passed before

By the hall clock, a full sixty seconds pass
Campbell heard on the soundtrack the hysterical voice of a
woman, presumably June Seaton, sobbing and pleading with
someone not to hurt her and, in counterpoint, what he guessed were the incoherent mumblings of her drunken husband.
At that moment the boy, sleepy and bewildered, emerged from his hiding place in the broom closet and, frowning at the suitcases in the hall, stood at the foot of the stairs looking up. He hears his mother begging,
NO, PLEASE

. JESUS! WHAT ARE
YOU DOING... DON'T

DON'T

Despite knowing the effects were simulated, Campbell gave an involuntary shudder as volley after shrill volley of screams rang through the virtual mansion. Interspersed with dull thumps, loathsome slithering and scrabbling noises, he heard June's desperate pleadings grow fainter and more seldom under the onslaught of her attacker; the tearing sound of the
victim's skin and flesh (like a zipper being yanked over and over) suggested repeated frenzied slashing.
There was a brief interval, an island of calm, before the hollow explosion of a gunshot in an enclosed space rocked the house. As the reverberations died away, Campbell leaned closer to the speakers on his laptop, straining to catch if that was still the soft plinking of a piano in the background, or something dripping.
A car pulled into the parking lot behind the motel. He looked up from the screen to the blue-curtained window
beyond, his gut contracting in sudden alarm, saw the lights
cut off and then heard the reassuring sound of doors slamming
and laughter. It broke the spell. Realising how tense he'd
become, Campbell joined his fingers together and turned
them inside out, cracking the joints.
He found it hard to believe that a re-enactment of something
that happened a quarter-century ago, an electronic
puppet-show of memory, could have the power to chill an
old gamer like himself. He removed his glasses and, breathing
on the lenses, cleaned them on a paper napkin. He wondered
what had motivated Ernest Seaton to recreate his parents'
violent deaths in such .. . the phrase that came to mind was
'loving detail', but somehow it failed to capture the harrowing
intensity an unsparing child's-eye view had brought to the
production.
A blur of activity drew his myopic gaze back to the screen.
Hastily hooking the stems of his glasses over his ears,
Campbell was just in time to see 'Ernie', who'd kept the same
rigid pose all through the mayhem upstairs, turn towards him
- horror and grief now crudely etched on his wooden avatar's
face. Tears as fat as cartoon raindrops rolling silently down
the boy's cheeks.
Then, in the oppressive stillness (he recalled the doc saying
it had been an unusually hot, airless night), Campbell heard
a sound that made his heart hammer in his chest. A floorboard
had creaked overhead.
He didn't stop to think, but moved his cursor directly to
the foot of the stairs and tried to go up. Only to find his
access blocked. From where he stood, Campbell could se
part of the landing above him. Below the lintel of what he
judged was the door to the master bedroom, a crack of light
had appeared and was slowly growing wider.
A shadow fell across the threshold.
In the hall below, the boy, whose perspective Campbel
now shared, had heard the creaking too and understood what
it meant. Caught out in the open, 'Ernie' looked back with
a panic-stricken expression towards the broom closet, as if
undecided whether or not to return to his old hiding-place.
At the sound of footsteps steadily descending the stairs, he
darted across the hall and into a darkened doorway only
seconds, it felt like, before the light snapped on revealing the
bleakly furnished TV room. The detective, following behind,
swung the cursor around the four walls - the room was
empty- Then everything froze.
Campbell slowly lifted his eyes from his immobilised
laptop screen to the curtained window. He'd heard something,
someone moving around in the parking lot right
outside his cabin.

54

Jelly said, 'Would you like to come up for some coffee?'
They were sitting in front of her building in Guy's car,
parked near the corner of Thirty-ninth Street and Lexington.
She was staring ahead through the windshield, impatient to
get in the house so she could have a cigarette. 'And I mean
coffee. Don't go getting any ideas, bub.'
She turned her head and saw him smile. 'I'm not that sort
of person,' he said, then hesitated. 'Well, okay, but I can't stay
long. I have to take a run out to Jersey to check on my grandmother.
She hasn't been well.'
Oh, I'm sorry.' Her face clouded. 'I don't have decaff and
I warn you the place is a mess. Is she gonna be all right?'
'She's an old lady, she gets a little confused. It's nothing
serious. Half the time grandma doesn't know if it's night or

day.'
As they got out of the car, Jelly looked up and down the
street in case there was anyone waiting for her. She was almost sure that it had been Ed in the subway, staring at her across
the tracks. Scared the shit out of her.
Guy offered her his arm as they crossed the street, the old
fashioned gesture somehow reassuring. When he'd called
earlier, she hadn't recognised the name, Guy Mallory - she
barely even remembered meeting him at the party, giving
him her cell number. She'd taken a chance accepting an
invitation from someone she knew almost nothing about, but
the evening had turned out better than expected. They'd got
on okay at dinner. She liked him - he was a bit stiff, didn't
have a whole lot of personality, but he seemed kind and
considerate.
If it had been Ed Lister she'd seen earlier, and he showed
up again, she felt Guy might be some kind of protection.
'Promise not to be shocked?' she said as she opened the
door to her apartment.

She had cleared a space for him on the old rattan couch
where he sat now drinking his coffee while Jelly stood by the open window that overlooked Lexington, smoking. She could
tell that Guy disapproved, but who cared? Tachel was always
on her to quit. Maybe she would when this business was
over. She'd given Ed the impression that she didn't approve
of his smoking . . . and why not? Why not tell him how to
save his goddamned life? She smiled as she saw Mistiggie
jump onto Guy's lap and start purring loudly.
'Push him off if he bothers you,' she said, moving toward
the stereo. 'What kind of music do you like, Guy?'
'You know something?' Guy turned his head and she saw
the muscles of his neck stand out like rope. 'Why don't we
just sit and talk?'
'Sure,' she said, and for no reason she felt a mild unease
about his being there, 'let me check my mail and I'll be right
with you.'
Ever since walking in the door - no, before that, only she
couldn't admit it to herself - she'd been itching to get to her
computer. It was like the craving for nicotine only a thousand
times stronger. In spite of herself, and everything she felt
about the situation, she was curious to see if Ed had left a
message.

She sat at her desk, a Marlboro dangling from her lips,
and went to her inbox. It was empty, no e-mail from him,
nothing.
She clicked on the Messenger tab and instantly felt an
unwelcome fizz of excitement run through her body.

templedog: I'm at the Carlyle. We should meet.

Shit! As she watched, her stomach turning over and starting
to cramp, another message flashed up on her screen. The
crazy sonofabitch knew she was online. He'd been watching
out for her, waiting for her to come home.

td: Jelly, we have to see each other

She hesitated, glancing over at Guy, who was leafing through
one of her old Vogue magazines. She started typing and, at
the soft chatter of the keys, he looked up with an enquiring
expression.
"This won't take long,' she said.

Then what would be the point?
* we need to talk things over
aj: it's not gonna change anything
td: your life could be in danger. I came here to warn you.
aj: don't start with that shit again... anyway, i'm out of town
td: you were still here this morning. I saw you, in Brooklyn.
a': it couldn't have been me, but if you say so
td: I know it was you, and I know you saw me too. When are you coming back?
online. It may not be safe, here's my cell - 917 775 2998.
aj: don't know
td: listen, we can't talk
Pick up the phone and call me now
aj: not possible, i'm with someone
td'. then just say you'll meet me... steps of the public library, tomorrow at 10
aj: don't you listen? i'm out of the freaking state
td: where are you going to be tomorrow?
aj: you really want to know?
a: ANYWHERE YOU'RE NOT
td: you have to come back sooner or later. I'll wait for you ... I'll be waiting
Jelly couldn't breathe, her hands were shaking, she felt like
she was about to cry. How could he be so goddamned stubborn?
She needed to go to the bathroom, but there was no
way she could with Guy sitting there and no music. why
didn't he just leave? She pressed the heels of her hands
into her temples and half stood, as if to back away from
the computer, the source of her misery, then sat down
again.
She closed her eyes and took several slow deep breaths
the way she did before getting ready to play the piano, her
fingers poised an inch over the keyboard.
Jelly knew what she had to do. It wasn't as if she hadn'
been expecting this. She'd thought about it long and hard.
Ed

aj: i think you need to know the truth
She felt
: bad about laying this on him now, shattering his
illusions after what had been a long and mostly positive
connection, but he hadn't left her any choice.

aj: there is no Jelena, no 'Jelly', there never was
td: what do you mean? What are you talking about?
gj: i made her up, ed. she's just an invented character, the person you think you
fell in love with doesn't exist
td: I don't get it
aj: it was all a game, i had a bet with Tachel that i could make you fall for me.
i'm sorry, i tried to tell you before, only things... got out of hand.

There was a silence. It felt like an age he didn't type back.

aj: are you still there? eddie... I'M NOT HER
td: But I saw you . . . this morning, you were at the Church Avenue subway
station, in Brooklyn. You were there.
aj: i've been in Pittsburgh since last night, the person you saw in the subway
was Tachel. The snapshot i sent you of 'Jelly' was really her...
aj: she's beautiful, i'm not
td: but we recognised each other. I know we did
aj:Tachel said she noticed someone staring at her across the tracks, she guessed
it was you from the photo you sent me - i showed it to her
td: I don't believe you... not one word of what you're saying
aj: look, i'm very sorry for what i've done, i started to tell you so many times...
goodbye
td: no wait, it's not true, you can't do this

'Hey, buster, do you mind? This is a private conversation.' Jelly swung around in her chair. She had just become aware
of Guy Mallory standing behind her watching the screen over her shoulder.
He held up both hands in a gesture of mock surrender but Kept looking anyway. 'Sorry, I didn't mean to snoop ... it was just that you seemed kinda upset.'

321
1
She turned back to the screen and with a click of the mouse closed the Messenger window. The page of dialogue disappeared.
She could see the blue IM tab flashing on her toolbar,
which indicated that Ed was still typing, but she ignored it
and switched off the computer.
'Was he the one you were talking about earlier? Templedog?
The English guy you're trying to get away from, who won't
let go?'
She nodded miserably and, as if she felt obliged to explain
what she had written, said, 'I finally had to tell him . . .'
Jelly didn't finish and burst into tears. 'It was the only way
I could get him to leave me the hell alone.'
'Here, don't cry. I'm sure you did the right thing.' Guy
produced a folded white handkerchief from his pants pocket
and handed it to her. 'I know it's none of my business, but
he's obviously crazy about you.'
She blew her nose. 'Fool thinks he's in love with me.'
'I can imagine how that might happen,' Guy said with a
little smile she didn't much care for. 'Let me guess. He told
you that you were his destiny, you were meant for each other
it was written in the stars?'
Jelly didn't answer; she used Guy's handkerchief which smelt
of patchouli to dab at the tears running down her cheeks.
'What about you?' he went on. 'You believe in all that
baloney?'
She frowned. 'How do you know he said those things?'
'It's classic.' He smiled again at Jelly, but avoided meeting
her eyes. 'Your friend may be genuine enough, but there are
plenty of creeps out there who prey on innocent women
online. Don't get me wrong. I just feel I should warn you
that his behaviour is consistent with a stalker's. They all say
the same things.'

.':¦

'Look, I know him . . . pretty damned well. He's a good
person. He wouldn't do anything to harm anyone. Besides,
we're not talking about some nobody here, he's a respected,
high-profile businessman.'
'But you've never met him, Jelena, have you?'
'Wait a minute . . . back the truck up. How do you know
we haven't met? Did I tell you that?'
'Because it's obvious to me what's going on here,' Guy said
quietly. 'The only thing I find hard to understand is why a
smart, beautiful girl like you would let him into her life. How
can you be sure this guy's who he says he is?'
'I told you he suffered a tragic loss. It was in all the papers.
He was devastated by his child's death. You can't fake something
like that.'
'Did you know that loss is often a trigger for stalking?
Relationship termination, job loss, loss of a child - usually
within seven years of the stalking behaviour - it's a common
catalyst.'
She pictured Ed this morning in the subway; tall, thin . . .
the faded jeans, black polo shirt and sunglasses. She'd been
so shocked, so overwhelmed by all kinds of feelings that she
could hardly think, but it was like she'd seen him before
somewhere.
Jelly felt the first shadow of a doubt.
She asked Guy, who was putting on his jacket, getting
ready to leave: 'How come you know so much about all this?'
'I did a spell once at the National Victim Center in
DC ... I was between jobs. We had to deal with a lot of
harassment and stalking cases.' Guy glanced at his watch.
'Are you gonna be okay, now? I'm afraid I really have to go.'
She tried to give him back his handkerchief, but he gestured
for her to keep it. 'And thanks for the coffee.'
At her front door, in the confined space of the lobby that
doubled as galley kitchen, Guy turned to Jelly with a
concerned look that made his light grey eyes seem soft and
luminous.
'Listen, I don't want to alarm you, but what happens next
he finds out where you live. I've seen situations like the
one you're in ignored until it's too late. You might want to
consider contacting the police.'
Jelly shook her head. 'I could never do that.'
'I'm only thinking about your safety.'
'Thanks, appreciate it.'
He stared at her for a moment. 'Well, any trouble, you
know how to reach me.'
He leaned in towards her and she awkwardly brushed her
cheek against his before stepping back and unlatching the
door, letting him out onto the stairs. Halfway down the first
flight, Guy stopped, as if he'd forgotten something, then
turned to look back up at her.
'Hey, if you're not doing anything tomorrow night, maybe
we could get together again.'
'I was thinking of leaving the city for a few days,' she said.
'Wise move.' He held up a hand. 'Take it easy, Jelly.'

55

'You can't do this to me'
rapidly keying codes in.
but his screne was frozen solid.
 but that wouldn't have caused his system to crash. It had to be just coincidence the server had gone down at the same time.
His cell phone rang and he snatched it up. 'Yes?'
'Hey, it's me,' Kira said brightly.
Campbell closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He'd checked outside the window. There was nobody there. He was a little tense, that's all.
'Dish, I'm sorry, honey ... I can't talk right now. You caught me . . . I'm right in the middle of something.'
'At this time of night?' He heard the disappointment in her voice, the crushed note she didn't try to hide that let him know she'd called hoping to make up. 'You okay? You sound kinda stressed.'
'Everything's fine, I just . . .' He realised that whatever he said now she was going to take the wrong way.
'You just felt like biting my head off. Amy's refusing to go
to sleep unless you tuck her in. You have time to talk to her?'
On the phone with his daughter, cell clamped under his
chin, Campbell logged off, rebooted, then tried to get back
into the crashed website. He kept trying.
'Let me speak to your mom again, petal,' he said, after he'd promised her he'd be home tomorrow in time to read her a bedtime story.
He understood now why Ward had wanted him to watch the re-enactment. He wanted him to know someone else was in the house that night. This was his answer to the question he put earlier to Grace Wilkes - which probably meant that since their meeting she had talked to Ernest Seaton. He was getting closer. 'What is it, Campbell?' 'Nothing ... I miss you.' She hesitated. 'Just don't take any chances.' I'll make it up to you when I get home, I promise.'

'Oh really. And when's that likely to be?'
'Soon,' he murmured, as he watched the silhouette of Skylands
loom up on his screen. 'I love you but I have to go now.'
He was back in.

In a dark, cramped place, peering out through the small
window at a square of swirl-patterned rug, Campbell took a
moment to get his bearings. The familiar graphics had
dissolved, transposing him from the porch of the virtual
mansion to what appeared to be an interior within an interior.
By moving the cursor, he discovered that the space now on
his screen was filled from floor to rafters by the pyjama-clad
limbs of the boy, crouched motionless in half-shadow, a bent
elbow blocking the miniature front door - he was sharing
Ernie's hiding place.
When he followed him into the TV room, he'd noticed the
playhouse, an old wooden model of a Cape Cod cottage,
pushed up against the wall. He'd dismissed it as a possible
sanctuary, thinking it too small, too delicately made. The boy
must have climbed in under the shingle roof.
The soundtrack came to life with a soft footfall. The interior
of the playhouse grew darker and suddenly the view was
obscured as someone walked slowly across the front, very
close to the house, then stopped. All Campbell could see now
from the tiny window, looking through Ernie's eyes, was the
flare of a light-fawn, blood-spattered pants leg breaking over
an old black and white hi-top sneaker, also bloody.
It was like the foot of a giant.
Arms folded over head, head tucked between knees, the
boy remained still, hardly breathing. In the tangle of limbs,
Campbell detected the glitter of an eye alert with terror that
listened now rather than saw. On the soundtrack he could
hear Ernie's heart beating so loudly it seemed certain that it
would give him away.
Presently the sneaker moved off and the view from the
little window extended across the sea of carpet to a man's
legs as he sat down in one of the easy chairs opposite the
cabinet television.
Seconds passed and nothing happened. Campbell waited.
He knew what was coming next. He'd seen the drawings.
Some of the detail might be different (the copies Ed had sent
him were on file and he would check them later for artistic
licence), but it was clear that the boy's taking refuge in the
playhouse, the sense of being trapped in a small space while
menace lurks outside, the predatory sneaker made to seem
enormous by deceptions of scale, had been the source and
inspiration for Sophie Lister's sketchbook.
She must have watched the re-enactment to catch the fear
that permeated the drawings. He wondered if she'd known
that it was based on real events and not just some dark Web
fantasy. He wondered too if she'd noticed (although the view
from the playhouse window was limited) that the lanky figure
sitting in the armchair, the author of the boy's terror, looked
like a younger version of her father.
Campbell felt a lead weight tug at his intestines.
He had never met his client in person, but the resemblance
was unmistakable. He remembered Ed telling him about Sam
Metcalf's murder and being invited to the TV room to watch
a cam of the girl lying dead on the floor of the sleeper . . .
and how shocked Ed had been to discover that from behind the figure in the chair had looked like him. It didn't make
the revelation now onscreen any less disturbing.
He knew the dangers of letting himself be seduced by a
website, but however little sense it made, one thing was certain
-Ward wanted him to know that the person who came to
the house that night was Ed Lister.
The figure in the chair raised his hand from the armrest,
pointed the remote and the little TV came to life. Not, as
Campbell had anticipated, with a love scene from the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany's. The tranquil image showed a girl in a
summer dress sprawled in the grass and looking wistfully
towards a house on a hill.
A long red smear running west from above her hip.
The cam pulled back to reveal the famous Wyeth painting
hanging crooked on a wall above a bed, and started to track
slowly downwards. Past the splatters of blood and organic
matter dripping and sliding at a slower pace. Then, as if Ward
had decided that the viewer had seen enough, the picture
disintegrated into static.
Campbell looked away from the screen, shaking his head.
What had Grace meant when she said, 'He doesn't know'
The suggestion that Ed had been at Skylands the night of
the killings might be the truth, or just part of a game Ward
was playing that moved between cyberspace and real-time,
an elaborate attempt to throw him off the trail. Why hadn't
he shown the figure in the re-enactment full-face? Was it
because he wasn't sure it was him? Or did Ward have 'real'
evidence to back up his version of events that he wanted to
share with somebody? Was that the reason 'Ernie' had come
home?
In the morning, he decided, he would take another run
out to the house.
Jelly lowered the shades before getting undressed for bed.
Then, turning out the lights, she walked around the apartment
- as she always did on hot nights, last thing - raising the
shades again to get maximum air from the wide-open
windows.
She lay naked on top of the sheets listening to music
through her earphones, waiting for sleep. She held out for
almost an hour.
Jumping up at last, she went over to check her computer
to see if there was anything more from Ed. In the dark, the
glow from the screen illuminated her body and put the notion
in her head that she needed to cover herself. He wasn't online,
but she felt Ed could see her through his words, as if they
had been cut into the screen and he was standing on the
other side peering at her through the little incisions.
He'd sent her an e-mail.

Since this morning, my world has changed and nothing in
it will ever be the same. After you ran away I spent the
day searching for you. I went to all the places in the city
you've ever mentioned. I looked for your face in every
crowd, expecting to find you again at any moment. I don't
care how crazy this sounds.
Jelly, just say you'll see me. I know you're afraid of
what will happen if we meet. But the love, the destiny we
share, isn't just something . . .

She stopped there. Wait just a minute . . . what the hell! The
way he was still going on about wanting to meet, it was as
though Ed hadn't taken in a single word of what she'd told
him. She was in Pittsburgh, out of the state, she didn't . . .
EXIST!
She read on, shaking her head. He was making all these
assumptions when he damned well knew she didn't feel that
way about him.

I'm as certain as I've ever been of anything that this was
meant to happen, that we are intended. I can only guess
at what was going through your mind in the subway, but
when our eyes met it was as if I was encountering for the
first time the other half of my being. For me now ... for
both of us, Jelly, there can be no peace no rest no happiness
no life until we are together.
Was he crazy or just being dense? Her throat felt dry. She
got up and went to the refrigerator and, standing in front of
the open door to get the chill on her legs, drank Tropicana
straight from the carton.
When she came back to her desk, she finished reading Ed's
words and felt humbled, even a little ashamed.

Even if you refuse to see me, I will never stop loving you.
You say we can't be together. But if you don't take risks
in life, my angel, the price can sometimes be far higher. I
can't begin to describe what I feel for you, or what you
mean to me.
I love you, Eddie
PS. I got back to the hotel half an hour ago. It's now
nearly 8 pm. I'll wait here till I hear from you.

When she read the postscript she understood. She checked
the header and saw that the message had been sent at 19.56
- an hour and a half before their last conversation. Jelly frowned.
She was almost sure her in-box had been empty when she'd
checked earlier. But she often got delays and glitches with
her e-mails.
She needed to think about changing her Service Provider.
At least now she wouldn't have to reply - she did that
already. She'd given him her answer. And the fact that he
hadn't tried to get in touch since could only mean Ed had
accepted her story about being someone else.
She sat staring wretchedly at the screen. Nobody had ever
written to her like this before . . . shit, it wasn't even what
people wrote or said or were supposed to feel any more. All
the talk about destiny and how they were 'intended' reminded
her of Guy Mallory's warning. Maybe Ed was acting a little
crazy and obsessive, but his words were sad and beautiful to
her. She knew that he really was in love with her. She wasn't
going to take that away from him. She didn't see him as a
threat now. What she felt was his pain and longing.
Later, in bed, Jelly kept turning the whole mess over in her
head, trying to figure out what she should do. She hated to
admit there was even a possibility that Guy could be right.
But if Ed had been able to find her in Brooklyn, it was only
a matter of time before he tracked her down here to Thirty
ninth Street.
Maybe she should leave town for a few days.
It was tearing her apart.
She said her prayers, including Ed in them as she had done
for a while, asking for guidance in a situation that filled her
with uncertainty. Just before she drifted off, she wondered
what he'd meant by,

'If you don't take risks the price can sometimes be far
higher ..."

It reminded her of something Guy had said earlier when
they were driving back into Manhattan across the Brooklyn
Bridge.
Her eyelids were closing. She was floating out of her depth.
What the hell was it?
She saw him on the stairs, looking back at her to wave
goodbye. Some off-colour comment he'd made about the
Twin Towers and then, here in the house, warning her that
you couldn't risk showing a stalker - he meant someone like
Ed - the slightest kindness, or he would take it as a sign his
feelings were returned.
Did she just imagine he'd called her 'Jelly'?


Thursday morning, after checking out of the Mountain View
motor inn a quarter before seven, Campbell Armour drove
up to the diner he liked in Canaan, where he ordered his last
Early-Bird special. He was booked on a ten thirty flight into
La Guardia, New York, which meant he needed to be at
Bradley Airport in Hartford by nine at the latest. He had a
meeting with Ed Lister that afternoon in the city.
He doubled back into Litchfield County on the WinstedNorfolk
road - slowing down a couple of times to make sure
he wasn't followed - then, keeping in his head the route he
needed to take to the airport, made a detour via Skylands.
It was almost ten to eight when Campbell pulled up in
front of the derelict mansion. He killed the engine and sat
for a moment, weighing the situation. What had seemed like
a reasonable plan last night - returning to the house to look
for evidence to support the website re-enactment - struck
him now as a seriously bad idea. Letting himself be lured
out here into real B-movie territory ... he had to be out of
his mind. He glanced up through the windshield at the front
door, getting the same unpleasant feeling he'd experienced
before. Nothing you could pin down, but he felt almost
certain Ward was watching from somewhere.
If it weren't for the money, and his inflexible friends in
Sarasota, he'd have turned right around and kept driving. He
knew he was pushing his luck, but as a gambling man
Campbell never could resist playing one more hand, taking
that final throw against dismaying odds. It got him in trouble
every time, and yet . . . you never can tell. He got out of the
car and stepped up onto the long empty porch.
He reached for the brass doorknob and gave the front door
a tentative shove. He wasn't surprised when it yielded. He
pushed again and the front door to Skylands swung inwards.
His palms felt clammy with sweat.
He stood quite still, the morning sun throwing his shadow
ahead of him across the threshold, and listened. The low
gear grindings of a truck climbing the hill rose from the
valley below. There wasn't a sound from inside the house.
Squinting at the dim hall beyond the front porch, Campbell
noticed that the pattern of footprints in the dust he'd seen
through the cat-flap had been scuffed over. Someone had
been here since, tidied up and, conveniently, left the front
door unlocked.
He might as well have found a welcome note.
He hesitated, turning to look behind him and out across
the ridge to the distant view of the Green Mountains. After
witnessing the re-enactment last night, Campbell wasn't so
taken with the beauty of the place.The landscape felt haunted.
He could only see it now through the dark prism of the
website, and the terrible events that took place in that room
upstairs. He caught the fresh summery scent of mountain
laurel and wild thyme on the blue warming air.
Ignoring the thumping of his heart and a voice telling him
it wasn't too late to change his mind, he entered the house
and closed the door behind him.

He walked slowly down the central hallway, noting that the
layout was identical to the interior of the virtual mansion.
On either side of him, the rooms he could see into were
empty apart from a few pieces of shrouded furniture. At the
foot of the staircase, he stopped and looked up at the landing
with the four doors.
He climbed a couple of steps, wavered, then decided first
to check out the broom closet under the stairs where the boy
hid that night.
A glory hole now, it contained nothing of any interest. But
it gave Campbell the answer to a question that had puzzled
him. The squeak of hinges when he opened and closed the
closet door suddenly brought Ernie's dilemma alive. Maybe
the boy couldn't go back in his old hiding-place because he
knew he'd be heard.
Campbell stood for a moment, as Ernie had done, keeping
his eyes on the landing above - nervously watching the lintel
over the door to the master bedroom. In case the crack should
suddenly widen. Then, retracing Ernie's footsteps, he crossed
the hall and entered what used to be the TV room, or the
parlour, as Grace had called it.
It felt strange to walk on the blue-green carpet with the
swirling pattern of waves breaking that he'd seen from the
little windows of the Cape Cod playhouse. In the gloom, he
could make out the two bulky armchairs covered in dust
sheets still facing the corner where, he supposed, the console
TV had once stood.
There was no sign of a playhouse either.
The dank cheerless room had a fusty, shut-in smell. He
went over to the window embrasure opposite the door and
pulled open the shutters to let in more light. When he turned
around, he noticed the only other piece of furniture. Against
the inner wall, under a long panelled mirror with glazing bars
that made it look like a second window, stood an upright
piano. Drawn towards the instrument by a powerful, almost
morbid curiosity, Campbell lifted the lid.
The piano reeked of mildew and, judging from its warped
keys speckled with orange mould, hadn't been played in years;
a few of the white notes had lost their ivory and looked like
missing teeth. The empty music stand made him think of
June Seaton endlessly practising the nerve-racking 'Fur Elise',
never to improve.
He imagined little Ernie standing beside his beautiful
mother . . . and lowered the lid again, careful not to make a
sound. Then, glancing up at the mirror over the piano, the
detective saw something in its darkly foxed panes that made
him swing around, heart pounding. It wasn't some ghost from
the past, or a trick of the low light. In the armchair nearest
the window, under the folds of the dust sheet, he could discern
the outline of a human form.
He waited for a moment to be sure the person slouched
in the chair wasn't moving; then, approaching warily, he
pulled back the cloth.
Campbell recoiled and at the same moment, somewhere
around the back of the house, he heard a screen door bang
shut.

For a long time I stood under a cold shower, letting the icy
needles hammer down on my bowed head until I was numb
all over. When I finally stepped out of the cubicle, I no longer
felt allergic to daylight, but the pounding inside my skull
hadn't stopped. I went over to the bathroom mirror, cleared
the condensation and, razor in hand, confronted my bedraggled
reflection.
Last night, I'd gone down to the hotel bar for a couple of
drinks and ended up drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Jack
Daniels Green Label at some dive on Second Avenue. The
result was a storm-force hangover, aggravated by the imagined
sound of Will's laughter as he welcomed me back to the real
world
Well, what did you expect? You didn't seriously believe that
she'd turn out to be the genuine article, did you? You made
her up, Lister, she was just a fantasy, an invented character,
an exotic figment of your imagination - the person you fell
in love with never even existed. Hate to rub it in, Ed, but
didn't I tell you?
There was Will Calloway peering over the top of his glasses
and letting fly with the caustic comments. I'd been duped,
taken for a ride, made to look a complete prat. No fool like
an old fool... and on and on. Just count yourself lucky there
was no scam involved and that Island Girl finally did you
the favour of pricking your bubble. I closed my eyes. How
could I have been so stupid?
I thought back to the moment, last night, when I learned
the truth about Jelena. I still couldn't quite accept it. I tried
to convince myself that she was lying, or in denial - afraid
to meet me because she couldn't admit that she felt the same
way as I did - or just playing hard to get, saying no when
she meant yes.
In the mirror, while I shaved, one by one my arguments

fell apart.
The only positive outcome I could see was that, since the
girl only existed in my dreams, it seemed reasonable to assume
she was no longer in any danger.

The way she was sitting, it looked as if Grace Wilkes had
been there all night.
She had on the same clothes she'd been wearing when they
met at Annie's Grill yesterday afternoon. The avocado velour
sweats, the white hospital sneakers with the pom-pom laces
- Campbell wondered what had happened to her crutches.
She couldn't walk without them.
Ernie would have helped her, would have offered her his

arm.
There was no sign of fear or other emotion in her grey
bloated face. He must have struck without warning, hit her
from behind with the foot-long lead sash-weight which lay
now in her meagre lap, its business end encrusted with dried
blood, strands of hair stuck to its surface. She wouldn't have
known what was coming, he thought, wouldn't have had any
reason to suspect the child she'd nurtured and loved was
capable of harming her. Her skull had been split open and
the matted wound, showing bone under the scalp, had bled
into the headrest of the chair, leaving a dark stain the shape
and size of an antimacassar.
Campbell had to fight back waves of nausea. He'd never
been close to a dead person before. Grace looked smaller
than he remembered, as if she'd shrunk. His revulsion was
mixed with pity and fear. He felt ashamed of his failure to
see this coming, convinced it was his talking to Grace - the
only person perhaps who knew what really happened here
that night -- that got her killed.
After checking the backyard from the window, unable to
see anything moving out there, his first thought had been
to call the police. But then reflecting on how they might
view this situation, he'd felt a cold flush of panic run through
him. He understood now what Ernest Seaton's intention
had been in using the website to lure him back to his old
home.
He'd been set up. The cops were most likely already on
their way.
Campbell started backing slowly from the room, uncertain
whether he was alone in the house, or whether Ward was still
nearby - he just knew he had to get out fast.
It was something about the way Grace was bent forward
in the chair, the position of the old housekeeper's hands, that
made him hesitate. In one hand, she was clutching her lighter
and a pack of Newport Lites. The other, empty, was turned
palm-up with the rigid thumb and forefinger raised in a
supplicant gesture. It suggested that at the point of death
she'd been asking for something, begging perhaps. Her last
request, it looked like, to smoke a cigarette.
Every instinct was telling him to leave - leave now - but
a natural stubbornness made Campbell resist the sensible
course of action. What if he was wrong about Grace not
knowing she was about to die? What if her killer had
confronted her?
He came back and stood directly facing the chair, closer


than before.
He'd no idea what he was looking for until he moved his
head a fraction and something caught the light. He looked
again and saw that the glint had come from a pink, metallic
object stuck down the side of the chair. Crouching before
her splayed arthritic knees, trying to avoid touching any part
of her, he slid his hand between the upholstered arm and the
chair cushion and, feeling around, retrieved a cellular phone
identical to the one she'd had with her at the coffee shop.
The sweet whiff of old lady perfume, masking - or so he
imagined - incipient corruption, invaded his nostrils.
Gagging, Campbell rose to his feet, slipped the girl-pink
cell in his pocket and retreated towards the door of the lounge.
He remembered Grace's story of coming to work that Sunday
morning twenty-seven summers ago and the unfamiliar smell
through the silent house sending her back out onto the porch,
hollering Earl.
She didn't deserve this.
Her eyes seemed to follow him, then he turned and ran.

I called room service and asked them to send up a jug of
espresso.
In an attempt to get my equilibrium back and regain a
little self-respect, keeping my promise to Laura, I'd arranged
to go out to Gilmans Landing and have lunch with their
grandmother, Alice Fielding. The car was picking me up in
half an hour. I needed to clear my head.
Waiting for the coffee, I booted up my laptop and checked
my mail. No word from 'Jelly'. I'd half-expected an apology
or some kind of explanation. I still felt angry and troubled
by what had happened. But mostly I just wanted to put the
whole humiliating business behind me and concentrate now
on what really mattered. Campbell Armour's investigation
had reached a critical stage.
Before leaving for the airport, he'd sent me an e-mail
confirming our meeting later that afternoon. In a brief update,
he mentioned having no luck finding a photo of Ernest Seaton
- apparently Grace Wilkes was unable to help - but he had
managed to dig up a couple of better-quality snaps of the
boy's parents at the Norfolk public library, which he wanted
me to take a look at.
I opened the attachments. The photo of the father, posing
in his dentist's whites with a 70s-style mop of hair and a
wispy Zapata moustache, reminded me a little of the actor
Bruce Dern when younger. Gary Seaton had that weak,
querulous, slightly aggressive stance of the born loser. I'd
never seen him before.
The other image, for some reason, took longer to download.
The doorbell rang. The maid entered, carefully placed a
tray on the table under the window, then turned to me and
said, 'Is there anything else I can get you?'
I didn't answer, or even look up. 'Enjoy your day, Mr
Lister.'
I was riveted by the likeness that had finally appeared on
my laptop.
The portrait of June Seaton, the dentist's wife - blonde
China-cut hair and dark eyebrows, very pale, almost translucent
skin, black captivating eyes - brought her back to
life. I got a flash of full nervously kinetic lips breaking over
slightly imperfect teeth and at once recalled their dangerous
allure.
The photograph no longer left any room for doubt. June
Seaton didn't just look like someone I thought I once knew
... it was her. Our paths had crossed only briefly in what
seemed now like another life. But it had been long enough
to make me wish they hadn't. A bohemian rich girl, she was
as neurotic and unpredictable as that twitchy little smile promised.
I felt suddenly afraid that everything was going to unravel
now and in ways I couldn't foresee.
The last time I saw June Seaton she was lying unconscious
in an empty cargo container down on the West Side waterfront.

Without touching the brakes, Campbell swung the silver
Camry out into Deer Flats Road and accelerated downhill
until the needle was nudging sixty, sixty-five. As the first
curve came up, he cut his speed and, glancing in his
rearview, caught a glimpse of a mid-brown police cruiser
a quarter-mile behind. Emerging from a shady hollow, it
appeared to hesitate before turning its nose into the
Skylands driveway.
Campbell felt sweat break out over his forehead. If the
patrol car hadn't been coming from the other direction, the
Colebrook side, he'd have run straight into the sheriff's
deputies. He'd got away just in time. Keeping an eye on his
rearview - he couldn't be sure yet he hadn't been spotted he
drove on until he reached the junction with Route 44, the
Winsted-Norfolk road, then turned sharp left.
Nine minutes later, neck and shoulders still rigid with
tension, he came back off the highway onto the two-lane
blacktop that would take him all the way out to Bradley
Airport. He had a little over an hour to get there before they
closed the gate for his flight. If he wasn't stopped first.
Campbell felt certain that Ward had tipped off the police,
which meant that by now there'd be an APB or even a full
warrant out for his arrest. Every mobile unit in Litchfield
County would be looking for him. Up here in the boondocks
he was going to be hard to miss. He thought about surrendering
and simply telling the cops the truth. He was an
amateur cyber-sleuth from Tampa, Florida investigating a
string of killings ... forget it, there was no way they'd believe
him. Just throw his oriental ass in jail and that would be the
end of any chance of finding Ward and claiming the million
dollar bonus his client had promised him.
He had until tomorrow to deliver the man who murdered
Sophie Lister, or his own life wouldn't be worth living. He
was due to meet Cholly at the Regency Hyatt in downtown
Tampa at five o'clock, bringing the money - principal and
interest.
The blacktop began to climb into rolling, thickly wooded
hills. Campbell kept on checking his rearview and side mirrors,
but couldn't tell whether he was being followed. The trees
grew so close to the roadside that their branches met overhead,
forming an unending twisting green tunnel that rarely let him
see more than a few car-lengths back. Then the traffic thinned
out and he started to breathe more easily as the empty road,
after cresting a series of piny ridges, fell in gradual serpentine
sweeps towards the Farmington River.
Coming down into the river gorge, he drove across a rusty
iron-girder bridge and pulled into a viewpoint parking area
used by local fishermen. He waited until he was satisfied that
he didn't have a tail, then cut the engine. From the car he
could see the anglers in their buff waders spaced out at regular
intervals along the banks.
His hands shook a little, post-adrenal rush, as he took
Grace's pink cell from his pocket, flipped it open and quickly
ran through the phone's memory and address book. There
were pathetically few numbers.
Campbell thought about the moment when she must have
realised that Ernie was going to kill her. It would have been
almost a reflex action, but he was convinced she had shoved
her cell phone down the side of the chair on purpose, in the
hope someone would find it and retrieve whatever information
was stored there.
With any luck one of the numbers would be Ernest Seaton's.
She had wanted to tell him something when they met at
the coffee shop in Torrington, only fear or loyalty had
prevented her. Her Little Ernie clearly didn't believe in taking
any chances. Campbell wondered again what Grace had
meant by her parting words, 'He doesn't know.'
He frowned at the readout on the screen. It seemed almost
too simple. There was a number - the last but one she had
called - which looked out of place only because it wasn't
local. Area code 201 fell within the state of New Jersey. He
hit the redial button and, after what seemed an age, a female
Hispanic voice answered,
'Fielding residence. This is Jesusita speakin', how may I
help you?'
Campbell hesitated. The name Fielding sounded familiar
to him, but that couldn't be right, surely? He remembered
Ed mentioning that his wife's grandmother, Mrs Alice Fielding,
lived in New Jersey, somewhere on the Hudson.
He tried the longshot first. 'Is Ed Lister there?'
'Meesta Leesta.7 Not yet, but we expectin' him.'
'Okay,' he said, letting the implications sink in, thinking
this isn't possible, there has to be some mistake. But the proof
was in his hand.
'You wanna leave a message?'
He thought of telling her he'd arranged to meet his client
at the house, and asking her for directions, but then changed
his mind. He'd get the address later from one of the Web
directories, using Reverse Lookup.
'Thanks, I'll try his cell,' he said, and ended the call.
A shout went up from the river below. One of the anglers,
a fat lug in desert camouflage, beer-gut hanging over his
waders, had hooked a fish. There was a flash of silver as the
salmon leapt clear of the water, shaking its head to spit out
the lure before it splashed back into the jade-green torrent, its
dorsal fin briefly visible at the surface as it raced off upstream.
The unlucky angler, reeling in his empty line, yelled something
Campbell didn't catch and laughter rippled along the bank.
They'd be waiting for him at the airport, he thought. His
best chance was to double back to Winsted, abandon his car
and find other transport.
There was a tap at the window. Startled, he spun around
in his seat.
A bandy-legged kid in a nylon T-shirt and blue-jeans was
standing there with a cheap suitcase, smiling shyly at him
through the glass. Letting out his breath in stages, the detective
lowered the window. The kid asked him in a rough Hunanese
dialect he barely understood if he was going to New York.
'Hey, man,' Campbell answered irritably in English, 'You
can get yourself killed in this country creeping up on people
like that. Can't you see I'm busy?'
The boy bowed apologetically, turned and moved away.
Where had he come from? They were in the middle of
the goddamned wilderness. What was he doing here in
Connecticut, in the USA? He looked too poor and too
dumb to be a tourist. Campbell was aware that the prejudice
he'd inherited from his parents against the mainland
Chinese was at least a generation out of date. Kira would
have been appalled.
'Wait a minute,' he called after him.
'I don't speak American,' the kid said, holding out a Bonanza
Bus Line rover pass. 'I'm a stranger here. You can help me.'
'Maybe,' Campbell said in his rusty Cantonese, as it
occurred to him that this peasant with the bowl-cut hair and
teeth like leaning tombstones could be his ticket out of here,
'we can help each other. Hop in, dude.'

57

'It reminds me of a sculpture.'
'A bust of one of your ancestors, perhaps.' Morelli said
mockingly, as he pinned the drawing he'd found in Sam
Metcalf's apartment on the wall of his office. 'Anything else?
You notice what he's wearing?'
'Looks like a polo shirt.'
'Ralph Lauren. What does that say to you, Luca?'
The younger detective's gaze stayed fixed on the drawing.
'American?'
'It's a global brand, copied everywhere.'
'He has an American look, though. Something about the
eyes. Like a cowboy staring into the distance.'
'You know how bent that sounds? There aren't any eyes,
Luca. That's why it reminds you of a statue. She didn't draw
the eyes. Why do you think that is?'
Luca shrugged. 'Maybe she didn't get a good enough look
at him.'
'If this is the man who murdered Sophie Lister, then she
must have met him more than once. She saw him again,
Luca.' He came back to his desk and sat down with a heavy
sigh. 'Despite the fact. . . she was afraid.'
'It could be anybody.'
'I think that's exactly what the artist was trying to tell us.
Her murderer looks like everyman. He becomes invisible in

a crowd.'
'Well, you have to start somewhere.'
'Are you trying to be funny?' Morelli gestured towards the
pile of paper in front of him. 'Look at the response we're
getting.'
After his discovery of the drawing yesterday afternoon, he
had gone straight back to the office. No time for lunch he'd
grabbed a sandwich from a paninoteca on the corner of
Sam's street. By three o'clock the head and shoulders sketch
of a male Caucasian, aged twenty-five to thirty-five, had been
copied, scanned and circulated by e-mail and fax to the relevant
police departments in Italy, Austria and further afield;
and then to every hotel, restaurant, pension, youth hostel and
internet cafe in Florence.
In twenty-four hours, besides the usual crank calls, they'd
received nineteen replies to their appeal for information. The
most significant came from an old waiter at Garga, a trattoria
in the centre, not far from the Piazza Antinori where Jimmy
Macchado had been murdered. He'd served an American
tourist two weeks ago who looked like the man in the drawing.
Paid in cash, left a good tip, no reservation. He couldn't
remember much else about him. Of the other respondents
being followed up, Morelli had to admit, none of them so
far sounded all that promising.
Luca said, 'If the girl was afraid, why didn't she just give
the drawing to someone or post it home or leave it at the
atelier?'
'She may not have had time.'
'You think the killer was aware that she'd sketched him?
Maybe that's what was on Sam Metcalf's computer.'
'Unlikely since Sam was in Boston. She took her laptop
with her.' Morelli tipped his chair back. He steepled his fingers
under his chin. 'What else have we got?'
'A phone-in this morning from a woman who wouldn't
say why she was calling. The moment I started asking
questions she made some excuse and hung up.'
'You traced the call?'
'Jennifer Ursino. Lives at number fifty-nine Via dell'Erta
Canina.You know that little street off the Viale Galileo, below
San Miniato? I called her back and she finally admitted it
was about the drawing.'
'She's English?'
'Yes. Speaks Italian with an atrocious accent. She's a
widow, lives alone. Her husband died two years ago of a
heart attack. He was a Fiorentino, in the leather business,
had his own company. I was thinking I might look in on
her tomorrow.'
Morelli asked, 'How did she come to see the drawing?'
'She takes in lodgers, but she said something about noticing
our flyer at the bar of the Hotel Dante. She thinks the subject may have stayed with her . . . and, this is the interesting part,
in the spring of last year.'
'Do we know if she was interviewed then?'
Luca shook his head. 'She's not a registered landlady. I
would imagine that's why she was reluctant to contact the Questura'
'What's the name of the pension?'
'Doesn't have a name. She just rents out a small flat and
the occasional room when she feels like it. She said he was
very quiet, she hardly ever saw him.'
'Well, what the Christ are we waiting for then?'
Morelli swung himself out of his chair and stood.
'You have a meeting with Commissario Pisani in fifteen
minutes.'
'Get a dick, Luca.'

On the Westside Highway, speeding north towards Gilmans
Landing, I sat back in the glare-free, air-conditioned limousine
and closed my eyes, letting the waves of Beethoven's Ninth
crash over what Dr Calloway would have called my bruised
psyche. I still had a thumping headache and was hardly in
the mood for small talk with an eighty-five-year-old being gently wooed by Alzheimer's.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fond of Alice Fielding. She once
played a central part in our lives and her place on the Hudson,
La Rochelle, is full of memories of Sophie and George when
they were young. We used to go out there in summer as a
family to escape the heat of the city and swim in the pool,
or Alice's husband would take us sailing on the river. They
were golden days.
Looking out at the Hudson, I tried not to think about the
girl, the nonexistent girl, I'd made such a fool of myself
over. If I'd more or less come to terms with being taken for
a ride - the bottom line is that Will did warn me about Jelly,
and I'd refused to listen - I still had feelings for her. It
doesn't make sense, I know, but I hadn't stopped being in
love with her - or, as she put it, with my idea of her. I was
beginning to see that 'Jelly' and I had both had a lucky
escape.
There was no question of my going on trying to find her.
You can't protect someone who doesn't exist and, whether
or not Ward knew that Jelly was just a made-up person, I
didn't feel her inventive friend was at any risk. I had to wonder
now if it really had been him impersonating her online. But it
was time to let go, get over my mid-life hallucination and
move on.
I still hadn't replied to Campbell Armour's e-mail. I'd put
off doing so partly because I didn't appreciate the way he
seemed to be insinuating that I knew more about what
happened at Skylands than I was telling him. I'd never heard
of the place, or the name Seaton, until he went and dug them
up in Norfolk.
He was coming to the Carlyle at six. Before we got
together, I thought it best to clear up any misunderstanding
by sending him an account of that chance meeting I'd had

years ago with a woman I now realised must have been
June Seaton.
I had nothing to hide. I felt it unlikely that our casual and
fleeting liaison could explain anyone holding a long-standing
grudge or wanting to hurt me or my family. But I knew there
had to be some connection.

We met at a party, a society gathering I'd been swept along
to by friends of friends, in a grand penthouse apartment on
Fifth Avenue. I was twenty at the time, flat broke, an ambitious
young Englishman on my maiden visit to New York.
Suitably enthralled, I remember going out onto a roof
garden with my hostess, who had one of those letter-names
like KK or CC, and being shown Central Park, a dark
mysterious gulch below the diamond-studded skyline - and
then suddenly, right next to us, there was this girl leaning
daringly against the parapet with her back to the magical
view, looking at me.
She was wearing a black cocktail dress with a string of
pearls, flute of champagne in one hand, cigarette in the
other - I can't trust my memory, the description would
have fitted quite a few women there. But she was bewitching
and, I thought, the last word in sophistication. She must
have been at least seven or eight years older than I was.
We got talking and ended up spending the rest of the
evening together. We hit all the spots - Xenon, Studio 54,
the Mudd Club . . . she paid - then wandered around
Lower Manhattan, looking for after-hours joints. Just before
dawn, on one of the West Side piers, we got caught in a
violent rainstorm.
Forced to run for it, we found shelter in an empty cargo
container that had an open hatch in its side. We were soaked
to the skin, breathless and laughing. After doing a line or two
of cocaine, we made love standing up in the hatchway because
the floor was filthy. It was exciting. The rain hammered on
the roof, and didn't stop.
She told me her name - I'm quite sure it wasn't June
Seaton. She was all for meeting up again the next night, and
the night after; but I held back in a cautious, typically British
fashion. I was flying home to London in a few days and I
wasn't so green or so smitten that I couldn't sense she was
trouble, possibly a little unstable. It was the decade of the
crazy chick.
I suggested getting a cab and taking her home, at which
point she became clinging and slightly hysterical. Then
suddenly she announced she was going to leave the person
she was with so that we could be together. I had no idea that
she was married with a nine-year-old son and lived in rural
Connecticut. She threw her arms around my neck, mapping
out our future between desperate kisses. I tried to disentangle
myself, gently at first and then firmly - in the end, I had to
push her away. I shoved her harder than intended. She slipped
and fell and, as she went down, struck her head on a steel
bench.
I still feel ashamed of what I did next. I checked her pulse,
and was relieved that she didn't seem that badly hurt, but I
realised I had no desire to be there when she came around.
She was crazy enough to charge me with assault and all I
could think about was being put in jail or, worse, deported.
I left her lying unconscious and walked away. I called an
ambulance from a nearby payphone, told the dispatcher how
to find her - and that was that.
I didn't hear from her, or of her, again. I fled back to
London the following day. News never reached me of the
ghastly tragedy which overtook the Seatons very soon afterwards.
When I returned to New York to live a couple of years
later, she was not on my list of people to look up. I never
told anyone about what happened.
My memory of the encounter, like one or two others from
that wilder period of my life, gradually faded, but I have no
doubt the woman was June Seaton.

I started to e-mail Campbell, sharing my recollections of June
for the first time with another person; then realised it was
too much information and shortened the message to:
'Husband, definitely not. . . but the wife looks like someone
whom I met briefly in New York, summer of '79. Can't
imagine how Ernest could have known I once spent an evening
with his mother, but it's a possible connection.'
I looked up and saw the towers of the George Washington
Bridge looming above the highway. Just then my cell began
bleeping.
'You don't know me.' It was a young voice, soft, hesitant,
'I'm Jelena's friend.'
I didn't answer for a moment. 'How did you get my
number?'

'She gave it me. This was her idea to call, you know.'
'What's your name?' I was Instantly suspicious.
'Tachel . . .'
'I'm sorry, what is it you want to speak to me about?'
'Look, mister, we don't have to do this.'
'Do what exactly?'
'Do shit.'
I thought she was going to hang up then. But the conversation
went on in this punchy, semi-hostile vein until Tachel
said that if I wanted to talk, if I had any questions I'd like to
ask, she was willing to get together and try to explain things
from her girlfriend's point of view.
The little speech sounded rehearsed and I thought about
telling them both to go to hell. I'd accepted that I was never
going to meet 'Jelly' and, frankly, I had no particular wish to
now. But I was curious and, however contradictory this may
seem, I couldn't resist the chance to talk about her with someone
who knew her. I still felt I was owed an explanation.
It would mean putting off seeing Alice Fielding till later
that afternoon, but she wasn't going to notice if I was a couple
of hours or, for that matter, a couple of days behind schedule.
'All right. When are you free?' I asked, signalling the driver
to pull over. She said give me fifteen minutes.

58

Luca Francobaldi pressed the bell in the peeling stucco wall
of 59 Via dell'Erta Canina for the second time, then took a
step back into the narrow street and looked up at the villa's
shuttered windows. The sky over Fiesole was black.
'You sure she's expecting us?' Morelli said wearily, turning
up his collar. It was starting to rain. 'Ah!' He could hear footsteps
approaching.
'I really have to go now.' Jennifer Ursino was talking into
her mobile as she opened the front door. She snapped the
lid of her phone and apologised to the detectives for making
them wait. 'Fa molto afoso,' she murmured.
A pretty silver-haired woman in her early forties, baggy Tshirt,
drainpipe black jeans, Prada loafers, she led her visitors
through a dark hall into the lounge, where she'd been watching a game show on a huge plasma TV. She picked up the remote and switched it off. 'Drink anyone?'
Both men politely declined. She poured herself a gin and tonic, carried it over to the sofa and curled up among the
cushions, tucking her long legs underneath her.
'So, how can I help you gentliemen?'
They sat opposite her on straight chairs. Morelli took a
copy of Sophie's drawing from his pocket and spread it on
the coffee table.
'I believe you can identify this face, signora.'
Jennifer nodded. 'It reminds me of someone - I wouldn't
put it more strongly than that. David. He might have stayed
here last April.'
'Is that why you hung up the phone earlier . . . because
you weren't sure?
She shrugged. 'Something like that.'
'David? What was his other name?'
'I don't remember. He was an American, living in
Paris ... I think he said he was doing academic research.'
'Don't you usually ask your guests for some kind of identification, signora' Morelli frowned. 'Passport, permesso, driving
licence?'
She gave a little laugh. 'I really should, I know. But I like
to treat my guests as friends. I try to avoid bombarding them
with questions.'
'Did David mention where he was from in the States?
Where he called home?'
'I don't remember. Do you mind telling me what this is about?'
'We're trying to trace the subject of the sketch as part of
a criminal investigation.' Morelli cleared his throat. 'Do you
have any record of his stay?'
She shook her head. 'I leave a guest book in the flat, but
not everyone bothers to sign it. He didn't. He paid in cash,
gave me the whole amount up-front.'
Luca asked, 'Signora, do you happen to remember his
movements on the night of the twenty-seventh of April?'
'I've really no idea.'Jennifer stiffened. 'The flat has its own
entrance on the back. He came and went. I hardly ever saw
him. I sleep . . . very soundly.'
Morelli shot Luca an I'll-do-the-talking glance and went
on. 'How do you find your guests, signora?'
'Word of mouth mostly. I get a lot of artistic types, fashion
people and so on.'
'And this . . . David?'
'He just rang up out of the blue.'
'Did you know Sophie Lister, by any chance?'
'The girl who was murdered? No.'
'Ever think about him in connection with her murder?'
'No . . . Christ no, never. He seemed rather a shy, gentle
person.'
'How else would you describe him? Did he smoke, drink?
Any unusual habits? Did he have visitors?'
'I just said, he was very quiet, very neat and tidy. I never
saw him with another person. In fact, I hardly heard a peep out of him. The ideal lodger.' She laughed.
'You say you like to treat your guests as friends, signora, yet you seem to have had very little contact with this man.'
'David was different. He made it clear that he wanted to be left alone and I went along with his wishes.'
'You never heard from him again?'
Jennifer shook her head, no. Morelli could tell she was lying. He went over to the window and stood looking out at the rain.
'We know that he was in Florence recently. You're quite sure he didn't come back here? You didn't speak to him?'
"I'm quite sure.'
'Signora,' he said gravely, turning to face her, 'I must warn you that if David is who we think he is then we are dealing with an exceptionally dangerous individual. You really need to tell us everything you know.'
Jennifer blinked as she reached for her glass. Her hand trembled and Morelli wondered if she had a drink problem, or was just frightened.
'Did he use a computer when he was here?' Luca
asked.
'All right, all right!' she blurted. 'I didn't speak to him but
he did get in touch. A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail
from him asking if his old room was available. I replied that
it was already rented.'
'Was it?'
She looked at Morelli. 'I didn't want him back.'
'Why not? I thought you said he was the ideal lodger.'
She hesitated. 'He made me uncomfortable.'
'Why are you afraid now?'
'I didn't say I was afraid.'
'Signora, tell me what happened.' Morelli's tone was gentle,
more concerned than probing. 'Did he try to contact you
when he was here?'
Jennifer looked down at her glass. 'I thought I saw him,
that's all. I was out walking the dog on the viale one evening,
and as I passed the old iron gates to the Villa Arrighetti' Morelli
glanced at his subordinate, but Luca was busy
taking notes - 'I saw a man standing there among the trees,
who looked like David. I felt sure he'd been watching me.
By the time I could cross the road he'd vanished.'
'He might have been staying at the villa, or somewhere
nearby.'
'Yes, I thought of that. I was worried in case he'd found
out the flat was unoccupied and knew that I lied to him.'
Morelli didn't want to alarm her more, but he felt she probably
had a narrow escape. 'Was that the only time?'
'I never saw him again.'
'I'm still not clear what made you change your opinion
about him.'
'I don't know. It was just a feeling.'
'Did you happen to save the e-mail, Signora?'
'Think she slept with him?' Luca said as he accelerated into
a hairpin curve on the Viale Galileo. 'She's a good-looking
babe.'
'Babe? I know you've got a thing about older women. But
that's because basically, deep down, Luca, you're a mama's
boy.'
'She's young to be a widow'
'So what does that mean? She has to be dying for it? She
screws her lodgers instead of charging rent? I know how your
mind works. No, she's covering up, but it's nothing like that.
How long will they need to trace the URL and get an address
from the e-mail header?'
'I don't know. I told Milan it was urgent.'
'You realise the Villa Arighetti was where the Listers were
staying when they were here? Slow down or we're going to
get stopped by some Carabinieri arsehole.'
Luca spun the wheel of the Fiat and shrugged. 'Coincidence.'
'You may be right. Florence is a small place.'
An hour after they got back to the office on Via Zara,
the information Morelli had requested was on his desk.
The Computer Crime Squad had traced the Internet Service
Provider and obtained the telephone number 'David'
used to make a connection when he e-mailed Jennifer
Ursino.
The number had been decoded to a name and address in
Paris - David Mallet, 20 rue Mabillon, Place Saint-Sulpice.
Something about the address looked familiar. Morelli
picked up the phone, punched two numbers and asked for
the file on the Villa Nardini murder. He opened the folder
the girl brought him.

'I was afraid of this.' He leant back. 'David Mallet, it
seems, lives a couple of doors down from Ed Lister's office
in St-Germain.'
'What?'
'Still think it's coincidence?'
Luca laughed. 'Maybe too much of one.'
Morelli thought for a moment. 'I may need to go to Paris.'

It was only after she hung up the phone that Jelly realised
she'd just heard his voice for the first time and that he didn't
sound anything like Colin Firth. Every word he'd spoken had
irritated her. Hard, mean, mistrustful, bossing her around.
She pictured him now as some white-bread, gelled-down,
corner-office geek. No more Mr Darcy. The weirdo in the
subway must have been his damned ghost.
Do you know the Frick Collection? What a jerk! She was
doing Ed a favour, trying to be nice and he had made her
feel like she was bothering him. She'd had to take a twenty
dollar cab ride over here.
This was without doubt the dumbest idea she'd ever had,
and all because the sonofabitch had made her feel guilty.
She just wanted him to understand it could never have
worked. She had to talk some sense into him. She had to
be crazy.
Jelly was sitting on a marble bench in the garden court
watching the glass doors that gave onto the south colonnade.
Why had he suggested meeting here? So that she would feel
intimidated? Did it mean he'd seen through her little game
already? Her stomach was churning. The splashing of the
damned fountain kept reminding her she needed to go to the
bathroom. She was so nervous.
Oh hi, "I'm Tachel. . . you must be Ed. I've heard such a lot
about you.
She didn't have a hope in hell of pulling this off. She
couldn't stop shaking. Suddenly she had to pee. She knew if
she moved away from this spot now he was bound to show
up and then they'd miss each other. Shit, maybe that would
be the best solution. It wasn't too late.
Jelly stood up to leave at the very moment she heard
footsteps behind her; she turned her head and saw that he
was already there.
She gasped and started babbling like a fool. 'Hello, I'm
... you must be ...' She had a mental block, couldn't remember
their names.
'I'm Ed,' the man said quietly. 'Sorry, I'm late.'
Oh Jesus . . . she just wanted to run away and hide.
She held out a hand. 'TaChel. Nice to meet you.'
He smiled, reached over and ... what the fuck? ... touched
her face.
'Reality check,' he said.

59

'So you're her millionaire,'Tachel said with a half-smile, leaning
back in her chair and looking me over.
'Was,' I corrected her.
'Unhuh.' She nodded. It was the same oblique, slightly
mocking smile I knew from the photograph of 'Jelly' on my
computer that I still hadn't got round to deleting. I couldn't
read what was behind it.
'I didn't think money came into this.'
'You're kidding, right?' She sat forward, leaning her chin
on her hand. 'Do us both a favour, Ed. You know that money
comes into everything. You were her rich guy fantasy.'
'Well, if I was, she didn't exactly make the most of it. She
never asked for a penny. At one point I'd have given her the
world.'
'What the hell is your problem?'
'I'm sorry?'
'Forget it.' Tachel shrugged. 'Okay, tell me what you want
to know'
I turned my hands up. 'You're holding the cards.'
I'd taken her to lunch at 21, the former speakeasy and
venerable New York landmark on Fifty-second Street. A haunt
now of hedge-fund managers and well-heeled tourists, it's
the kind of place I normally go out of my way to avoid. I
chose it because I wasn't known there and I thought, patronisingly,
that the girl might be amused but not overwhelmed
by its mellow clubby atmosphere.
'You do realise,' she said with a frown, 'there wasn't one
word of truth in anything she told you?' She paused, as if to
let that sink in, biting her lower lip.
'All right.' I let out my breath slowly.
'Jelena made it all up. She lied to you about everything the
way she looks, dresses, does her hair, where she lives,
about her job at the kindergarten, going to DC that time, her
two cats . . .  have two cats. I don't know what all else she
told you, but you can be damned sure she was either talking
about me, or it was bullshit.'
'I don't remember hairstyles being discussed,' I said, just
to see if it raised a laugh. Not a flicker. 'Why did she pretend
to be you?'
'You'd have to ask her that.'
'I thought you were her deputy.'
She smiled then. I felt I'd missed the point somewhere.
'She had this dumb idea she could get anyone to fall in
love with her online. When I found out Jelly was using my
photo and ripping off my life - it wasn't lack of confidence,
just plain theft I got mad as hell at her. She's my best friend,
but that girl's always had a tendency toward getting into
drama . . . online and off
I thought of asking her about Jelly's old boyfriend, the one
she'd told me she was sleeping with again, but it would have
sent the wrong signals.
We were sitting in the Bar Room at a table hidden away
behind the door. I ordered whisky sours and '21' burgers for
both of us. Once the food came and she began to relax,
Tachel turned out to be engaging company. I did my best to
put her at her ease and keep things light. I even made her
laugh a few times, but I can't pretend that it was plain sailing.
There were gaps in the conversation and all through lunch
the situation remained exquisitely awkward. It wasn't until
the coffee stage that we really got around to talking about
why we were there.
'What did she say to you about us?'
'Us?' Tachel raised an eyebrow. 'She never loved you, if
that's what you mean. It was just a game to her, trying to
make this super-straight, white, RICH, older English guy fall
for her. She boasted that she had you crazy in love with her
ass.'
I nodded, watching her face closely. I have to say I don't
think of myself as 'super-straight'. But I was getting an
education.
'I warned Jelly she was messing with real people's lives. I
don't think she meant to let things go as far as they did. She
said she lost count of the times she tried to tell you, but that
you . . . you refused to listen. Then I think she got scared.'
'Scared? Scared of what?'
'That you might be, you know, a psycho or something . . .
stalking her ... stuff like that. She still worries that you could
be a stalker, maybe without knowing it.'
'I see.' I felt my chest tighten. It was upsetting to hear how
my feelings for her were misconstrued. I wanted to defend
myself, but I just said, 'Well, I'm not.'
There was a silence.
'Jelly said to tell you she's sorry if she hurt your feelings.'
I smiled and made a brushing-aside gesture with my hand.
'I always knew at some level it wasn't real. Do I seem to you
the kind of person who'd lose their head over... well, nothing?
What it feels like is waking from a dream.'
'Sure it was just a dream,' she said slowly, looking at me
with serious eyes, 'but that ain't no excuse for what she did;
saying it's not real don't make a wrong right.'
'Forgiven.' I gave a laugh. 'She should forget about it now.
I have.'
'All I can say is that I know she's sorry she hurt you.'
'Tell her I'll live.'
It was difficult, in fact almost impossible, for me not to
think of the person sitting across the table as Jelly. In one
sense it was her, but I was equally convinced (I'd asked Tachel
a few carefully baited questions, and never caught her out)
she was a complete stranger. She wore glasses. I hadn't been
ready for that, but it helped.
Naturally it had occurred to me that this could be a double
bluff and that Jelly could have switched identities with her
friend to protect herself from the threat I seemed to represent.
But, if that were the case, if she had done it to get rid of me
- why was she here?
'And you just happened,' I pressed her, 'to be in that subway
station yesterday when I was looking for Jelly?'
'Hey, I work in the neighborhood. It's not that big a deal.
Plus, you may not have known it then, but you were really
looking for me.'
We both laughed and our eyes met. Suddenly I didn't
know what to believe, or how I felt about the situation.
She reminded me of 'her' and how beguiled by her I had
been when she was someone else and only existed in my
imagination.
I looked down at her slim brown hands, the long tapering
fingers I'd often pictured making music, and asked if her
friend played the piano.
'Nope, she based all that stuff on me,' she said modestly.

Outside the restaurant, she paused on the steps in front of
the famous '21' facade with its painted jockey statues and lit
up a Marlboro.
'What's wrong now?' she said, blowing a cloud of smoke.
She'd caught the puzzled frown I had on my face. 'You know
I get this all day long from people who suspect us smokers
have a better time than they do because for one thing . . .
we don't give a shit'
'It's just that Jelena hated it when I smoked.'
'Yeah, well, I'm not her and I'm full of surprises.'
'So that's something she didn't base on you.'
She shook her head. 'Doesn't approve. Always on me to
give up. How far is this place? I need to get back to work.'
'A couple of blocks.'
The music store I had suggested we visit, Frank  Camille's,
had a showroom on Fifty-seventh Street. I'd told Tachel I
was thinking of buying a piano as a gift for a friend and
needed some advice. I didn't say the friend in question had
been Jelly, which meant the expedition was no longer relevant,
but it must have been pretty obvious.
I just wanted to hear her play.
We started wading up Fifth Avenue. The sidewalk was
thronged and whatever path we took we seemed to be
against the flow. We hadn't gone more than half a block when she stopped and, putting a hand on my arm, said, 'You know what, this is going to take too long. I really have
to go.'
'Some other time?'
'I don't think that would work, do you?'
'No, I suppose not,' I said. 'Well, I enjoyed meeting you.
And thanks ... I don't quite know what for, but I'm very
glad you called.'
She laughed and started to back away. 'Thanks for lunch.'
'Can I get you a cab? '
She shook her head, then turned smartly and walked off.
I stood and watched her go, trying to ignore a small chafing
voice inside my skull telling me that I needed to stop her. It
took a moment for it to sink in that once I lost sight of her
I wouldn't see her again.
'Wait a minute,' I called out, rather half-heartedly, 'I don't
know how to get in touch.' But she'd already been swallowed
up by the crowds. 'There was something else I wanted to ask
you.'
It must have looked as if I was talking to myself. When I
started to run after her, yelling at her to wait, people weren't
slow to clear a path.
I caught up with her at the light. 'I was wondering,' I said
too loudly, coughed, then lowered my voice as she turned
her head, 'if you had plans for this evening.'
She looked less surprised than I'd expected. 'As a matter
of fact I do.'
'You couldn't change them?'
'Out of the question.'
'It's just that I have a couple of tickets ... for the ballet.'
I had to think fast. 'I know this sounds pretty stupid, but I
was hoping to take Jelena.'
She sighed and crossed her arms. 'That girl doesn't even
like ballet.'
'I should have guessed.' I smiled. I remembered Jelly saying
online that she was a huge fan of classical ballet. 'If you really
want to know, I don't either.' A look came into her eyes then
that made me think she might be open to persuasion. 'But
what I'm asking is, do you?'
'I dunno.' She shrugged. 'It depends which one.'
'Sleeping Beauty ... her favourite.' I had read somewhere
that a revival of the Kenneth MacMillan staging for the
American Ballet was opening at the Met.
She rolled her eyes. 'That girl.'
She started laughing but in a different way. 'Hey, I gotta jet.'
'Will I see you tonight?'
'I dunno ... I doubt it.'

60

It was nearly four thirty when Campbell Armour walked
through the arrivals hall of the New York Port Authority
bus terminal keeping an eye out for anyone looking at him
the wrong way. In his traffic-cop sunglasses, long Army
Green shorts, a Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball shirt and
Nike Air force trainers, he could have passed for a tourist
or a college kid on vacation. His fears of being hauled
off the bus in handcuffs or stopped at the gate hadn't
materialised.
Maybe his stratagem had worked and 'Chen' had already
been picked up in his place behind the wheel of the silver
Toyota. But as he crossed the busy concourse, he felt a prickly
sensation between his shoulder blades that he knew wouldn't
go away until he was clear of the building.
On the bus ride from Torrington, he'd had guilt issues about taking advantage of his wandering countryman. But the way he looked at it, fate had offered him a chance it
would have been wrong to turn down. As well as handing
over his rental car, he'd paid the kid a hundred bucks over
the odds for the bus ticket. Worst case, he might have to
spend the night in jail while the authorities tried to find an
interpreter. What Campbell had bought was more time.
The two cops at the Eighth Avenue exit barely glanced at
him as he sauntered out onto the street, chatting on his cell
to his wife in Florida, and headed downtown. He hadn't eaten
since breakfast and suddenly realised he was ravenous.
'What time is your flight?' Kira asked.
He hesitated. 'It's looking more like tomorrow.'
'You promised Amy.'
'Dish, this is really important. I'm getting close.'
There was silence the other end.
'He's starting to show himself. He made his first mistake.'
While he walked, Campbell gave his wife an update of the
investigation. He told her about the re-enactment of the
Seaton tragedy he'd witnessed on the homebeforedark website
and Ward's extraordinary revelation that Ed Lister was at
the house the night it happened. Then, careful to downplay
the possibility that he might have been in any danger himself,
he gave a brief, censored account of going back to Skylands
that morning and discovering Grace's body.
Kira wasn't fooled, not for a moment.
'You call your client,' she said quietly when he was done,
'and you tell him that you've taken this as far as you can,
now it's over to him and the police . . . then you catch the
first plane HOME.'
'It's not that simple, honey.' He laughed and tried to make
a joke of his being a murder suspect on the run. 'I need to
bring him in so I can prove I was framed . . .'
'Bring him in? My God, Campbell, if you could just hear
yourself. You think you're so smart, acting out your little
private eye fantasy as if this was a movie, or one of your
damn video games.'
'Before someone else gets hurt.'
'You're behaving like a child. Drop the case. You don't
know what you're getting into . . . baby, please.'
'I have to do this.'
'Why? What for? So you can get yourself killed?'
Campbell said nothing.
'What are you trying to prove?'
'Have you checked our savings account lately?'
It was Kira's turn to be silent. He hadn't intended telling
her until tomorrow, but he'd kept it to himself long enough
and the truth just came out. Kira knew about his 'little weakness'
- he'd had a gambling habit before they married. There
had been a few slip-ups since, but nothing major. She didn't
comment now when he confessed that he'd lost nearly
200,000 playing poker in a private online game. It was only
when he told her that he owed another hundred k to some
people in Sarasota that she said softly - he was sure she was
crying: 'Campbell, how could you do this to us?'
He started to tell her he was going to pay it all back with
the bonus Ed Lister had promised ... all he had to do was
find Ward.
With a despairing moan, she hung up on him.

'I've been trying to get in touch with your husband, signora' Investigator Morelli put her on speaker phone and looked
across his desk at Luca, who mimed blocking his ears as
Laura Lister's strident English voice overwhelmed the small
room.
Morelli said, 'Yes, I know he's in New York. I've left messages
¦ He smiled into the transmitter. 'I was hoping you could perhaps save me from bothering him. It's a small thing.'
'I really can't talk now. I was just on my way out.' She sounded as if she'd run back to get the phone.
This will only take a moment, signora. I need to find the address of your husband's office in Paris.'
'Try the phone book under Beauly-Lister.'Then, as if she'd
realised how rude that sounded, she said quickly, 'It's 24 rue
Mabillon, near the Boulevard St-Germain.'
He didn't write it down, but glanced at Luca. 'Thank you.'
'Is that all you wanted to know?'
Morelli cleared his throat. 'Does your husband live at that
address when he goes over on business?'
'It's an office, not a flat. Ed always stays at the Ritz . . .'
She hesitated. 'I thought you knew that. Didn't you speak to
him there?'
'Has he ever . . . yes, I did, foolish of me . . . considered
getting a pied-a-terre in Paris? Somewhere more convenient
perhaps for his work?'
'He might have done. I honestly wouldn't know'
'He's never discussed it with you?'
'We don't feel the same way about Paris. Not my favourite
city.' He heard the soft clop of a hand briefly muffling the
receiver. 'Look, I really have to go now.'
'Signora Lister,' Morelli said, 'there's been a development
in our investigation of your daughter's murder.'
There was a pause. 'What kind of development?'
'It's too soon to speak of a suspect, but we have a promising
lead.'
'Then I think you had better talk to Ed.'
'Of course. I'd just like to ask you about something.' She
gave an exasperated sigh. 'Signora, if it's inconvenient, I could
call back at another time.'
'Oh, for goodness sake, get on with it.'
He'd never established a rapport with Laura Lister. She'd
made it clear early on that she regarded him as incompetent
and untrustworthy, probably just because he was Italian.
Morelli felt belittled by those scornful blue eyes, and yet,
oddly, he admired her - found her attitude brave, not unsympathetic.
The last time he saw her, at the requiem mass for
Sophie at San Miniato, she had barely acknowledged his
presence, had seemed more haughtily remote and isolated
than ever, as if her grief, instead of starting to heal, had cut
her adrift. The father, he suspected, had been too wrapped
up in his own sorrow - or his little ragtime piano-player
perhaps - to notice. Morelli had to remind himself that this
was a fishing expedition.
'Your husband mentioned that you set up an arts foundation
in Paris after Sophie died ... in her memory'
'It's a small charity, based in London.'
'Ah . . . nonetheless a wonderful idea, if I may say so, to
give the talented but not so fortunate the opportunity to
develop their skills.'
'We felt Sophie would have approved.'
He frowned and shook his head at Luca, who was showing
signs of wanting to interrupt. 'I was wondering . . . has your
charity ever helped send anyone to The Conservatoire de la
Musique in Paris?'
'Not that I'm aware of.' Her voice sounded strained, or
had he just imagined it? 'Try asking Ed. He looks after the
music side.'
It was possible she already suspected or even knew that
her husband was screwing around. But if that were not the
case, he had no particular wish to drop Lister in it. Having
just spoken to Gretchen in Marienbad and arranged to meet
his magnificent flaxen-haired physio tomorrow in Paris, he
felt inclined to be generous.
'He's a difficult man to reach.' He considered for a moment
telling the signora about the drawing, but decided he'd already
given her enough to encourage her husband to return his
calls. He was looking forward to informing Ed Lister himself
of the Questura's breakthrough on the case; he also wanted to get his reaction in person to the coincidence of David
Mallet living on the rue Mabillon.
'What did you have to say,' he asked his assistant as he
put down the phone, 'that was so urgent it couldn't wait?'
'You're going to miss your plane.'
'Not if you drive, Luca.'

There was no signpost anywhere for Gilmans Landing.
A cluster of hidden-away, old-money properties overlooking
the Hudson, it was the kind of time-warp community that
would never have had much interest in advertising its
existence. The driver turned at Dearwater Road, rolled down
the steep lane under a canopy of stately trees towards the
river, then spent the next five minutes crawling around the maze
of narrow lanes and cul-de-sacs before they found the gates to
La Rochelle.
Campbell paid the cab-fare and walked up the long private
drive towards the Fielding home. A stone-built Victorian, not
huge but right on the water, it reminded him of his grandfather's
place in Hong Kong, which he knew only from faded
family photos but regarded with mixed feelings as his imperial
heritage. Startled by the hiss of lawn sprinklers coming to
life, the detective looked behind him and saw, gliding between
the trees, a blue triangle of sail halfway across the Hudson.
He thought of Kira's silent tears, the shame he'd brought on
them, as he crossed the gravel circle in front of the house.
He'd been half-expecting to find his client still here at La
Rochelle - on the phone the maid had said Mr Lister was
expected some time that afternoon - but it seemed unlikely
now. The place was too quiet. Inside the porch, the interior
stained-glass French doors stood slightly ajar. He flipped
open his cell and punched in Ed's number. Before they finally
got together, he needed to find out why the dead woman,
Grace Wilkes, had the number of La Rochelle on her cell
phone. Why she called here yesterday - he could only assume
it was to talk to Ed Lister.
He felt relieved when he got his client's voice-mail. He left
a message to say he couldn't make the meeting in the city
and suggesting they reschedule.Then rang the doorbell.There
was a television on somewhere, but nobody came.
After a minute or so, Campbell let himself in and followed
the sound down a narrow wood-panelled hall. At the door
to the front parlour, he cleared his throat and said tentatively,
'Mrs Fielding? Anyone home?'

61

He found her in a small flower-filled conservatory extending
beyond the parlour into the garden. A screen door gave onto a flagstoned patio shaded by a wisteria arbour with views of the river. Alice Fielding was sitting on a chintz-covered recliner
with a plaid lap rug over her knees watching an 'I Love Lucy' re-run.
Without looking up, she said, 'It was nice of you to come all this way. How do you find New York? Hot and dirty as ever, I imagine.'
'Yes, it is,' Campbell said. 'Mrs Fielding, I'm--'
'I hardly ever go up to town now.'
He hesitated. 'I'm sorry to barge in on you like this. I tried the bell.'
'But aren't they a riot?' she chortled, still gazing at the screen. 'You know, the Desi Arnazes were good friends of °urs when we lived in Los Angeles after the war. They were so much fun.'
'Really? I'm a big fan myself.'
Are you delivering something?'
'No, ma'am, I'm supposed to be meeting Ed Lister. I was
wondering if maybe you'd seen him recently?'
With a little sigh of irritation, she aimed the remote at the
TV and killed the sound, then turned and looked at him with
arresting sage-green eyes. Crisply dressed in black pants and
a grey silk shirt, she wore her hair cut short and pinned on
the side with a mother-of-pearl barrette that gave her a girlish
look. He put her in her late eighties, frail and clearly a little
spaced, but not beyond reminding the world that she'd been
a knock-out in her day.
'Who did you say you were?'
'Campbell Armour, ma'am. I'm doing a job for him.'
'Oh well then . . . Eddie has just gone down to the village
to get some groceries. He should be back soon.You're welcome
to wait.'
'Thank you.' Campbell hid his surprise. 'Was Ed Lister
here last night?'
She gave him a puzzled look. 'Yes, he was here. Why do
you ask?'
'It's just that . . . we've been missing each other.'
'He always was hard to pin down. A strong attractive man,
though, even if he can be a bit of a stick, you know, stuffy
in that buttoned-up English way.'
He nodded, but didn't say anything. Alice had a direct
personal manner that Campbell found a little disconcerting
'And since the tragedy . . .' She sighed. 'He simply adored

her.'
His eyes flickered away from hers. 'Yes.'
He wanted to give Ed the benefit of the doubt. But his
client's admission that he'd known June Seaton had turned
everything on its head. Why had Ed kept quiet about it until
now? He must surely have realised, the moment the link withl
Skylands was established, that it had to be relevant? The fact
that he knew her wasn't proof of wrongdoing, but it made
Ward's claim that Ed was present at the house the night his
parents were killed seem a little less outlandish.
It was only a small step from there to speculating that
June's love letter had been intended for Ed Lister and that
he was the person she'd met and fallen in love with at a party
in New York. What if Grace had lied when she told him the
unsent letter was never found? It might help explain why she
had spoken to Ed Lister here at his grandmother-in-law's
house sometime the day before she died. It was the penultimate
call she made from her cell phone.
The more he thought about it 'the worse things looked for
his client. Campbell felt afraid suddenly that he was getting
out of his depth.
'Would you like a glass of wine?' Alice enquired. 'I usually
have one about this time.' She picked up the phone at her
side and pressed an extension key. 'It'll be interesting to
see if anyone comes. Jesusita's never around when I need
her.'
'You're very kind. If I could make that a soda . . .'
'He's bringing a friend up here for supper later. A special
friend he wants me to meet.' She leaned forward suddenly
and then said in a low confidential voice, 'He told me he's
madly in love with her.'
'I'm sorry . . . who are we talking about?'
'Who do you think? Eddie, of course.'
'Oh . . . okay.' He nodded, trying not to look bemused.
'I believe he said her name was Laura.'
Campbell felt lost. 'You mean his wife, Laura . . . your
grand-daughter? '
'No, no, not her, stupid. I know her.'
'I haven't been working for Mr Lister very long.'
"Then you don't have a clue,' she said, mysteriously, 'do
you?'

Not sure what to make of this, Campbell just kept nodding.
He felt his eye drawn uneasily to a silver-framed photograph
of the Listers on the mantel. A happy family group shot of
Ed and Laura with the children when they were young, it
looked as if it had been taken here in the grounds. There
were several photos of Sophie when she was older, almost a
little shrine to her on top of the writing desk. In one he found
striking, she was trying to hold her hair back off her face on
a windy day, laughing for or with whoever was behind the
camera.
'Such a beautiful child, don't you think?' Alice Fielding
said with an unreadable smile; she had caught the direction
of his gaze.
'I was about to say, ma'am, there's a strong family resemblance.'
She waved away the compliment with an impatient gesture.
'Well, I guess that girl has awarded herself another night off.
She's got a new boyfriend, Carlos, wouldn't you know it. Her
head's permanently in the clouds. But with a name like Jesusita
. . . isn't it simply too divine?'
Campbell was uncertain if she meant it as a joke. 'Where
I live inYbor City near Tampa,' he said solemnly, 'we have
a large Hispanic community - it's quite a common name
there.'
'Why, I'm sure it is, Mr . . . now I've gone and forgotten
yours.' She gave a merry tinkle of laughter. 'One forgets everything
at my age.'
'Campbell.'
'Campbell, would you mind going back to the kitchen and
fetching the wine? You'll find what you need in the refrigerator.'
I
didn't have tickets for the ballet. That was just something
I came up with on the spur of the moment because I wanted to see the girl again, whoever she was.
The problem took a little fixing and, yes, it helps to have
money (I didn't think twice about blowing nearly two thousand
dollars on tickets I wasn't even certain I could use), but
I put it down to luck that I was able to score a dress-circle
box for a sold-out performance at the last minute. It was
tempting to regard it as a favourable omen, as I waited for
her on the steps of Lincoln Center.
I'd arrived an hour early and hung about the front of the
esplanade, keeping an eye on the subway exit and drop-off
point for buses and taxis on Columbus Avenue. As dusk fell
and curtain time crept nearer, every five minutes or so I'd
walk back across the plaza, "joining the streams of people
converging on the Metropolitan Opera House - in case she'd
come from another direction.
Wandering up and down the grand marble peristyle trying to spot her in the crowd, I got caught up in the first-night
mood. I couldn't help being affected by the growing buzz of
excitement. Then I'd go back to my original position on the
steps and anxiously watch the traffic, the long line of taillights
on Broadway.
Even if she did come, I told myself, and I was beginning to think it unlikely now, it would prove nothing.

The kitchen, neat and antiseptically clean, didn't look as if
it saw much cooking action. At the far end there was a breakfast
bay flooded with evening light from floor-to-ceiling
windows. Campbell went over and stood looking out at the view, wondering if Mrs Fielding wasn't perhaps as tightly wrapped as he'd first thought and if he could rely on anything she'd told him about Ed Lister. She had got it into her head that he was coming back any moment with her groceries, but more than likely he'd long since returned to the city.
There were long shadows now stretching over the terraced lawns that stepped down at the back of the property to a
wilderness area of wetlands and marshy reed-beds. On a
pale sand bar that ran out from under the cliffs into the
wide golden basin, he could see wading birds silhouetted
against the water. Set ablaze by the low sun, the Hudson
looked more like a lake or inland sea than a river. It was
hard to believe they were only thirty minutes from midtown
Manhattan.
He discovered where the glasses were kept and put them
out on a tray. Then he filled an ice bucket from the automatic
ice-dispenser. He decided he might as well wait an hour
and see whether Ed showed up. If the maid had gone out,
he wondered, who was going to fix supper for the old lady?
A word with Jesusita at some point might be useful.
It was only after he closed the refrigerator door, holding
a bottle of Chardonnay in one hand and a can of Diet Pepsi
for himself in the other, that Campbell noticed the fridge
magnets. They were the usual miniature suspects - bear with
a balloon, the Statue of Liberty, a classic Coca-Cola bottle,
watermelon slice, the Little Mermaid and so on. Maybe a
dozen in all. A few were holding memos, telephone numbers,
and one, a modest shopping list. What caught his eye was
the way the magnets were arranged. They'd been herded
together in the centre of the fridge door to form an elongated
heart shape or, seen from another angle, the Nike logo swoosh
- a wing of the Greek goddess of victory.
It didn't look like something Mrs Fielding would do. Campbell
wondered if Ed Lister could have been responsible for
creating the pattern. It felt like it was there for a reason, as
a reminder or a message perhaps. He remembered Ed telling
him about the body in the fridge in Florence . . . but he was
letting himself get carried away here. He decided the cluster
of magnets most resembled a heart and imagined a bored Jesusita daydreaming about her Carlos. He thought no more
about it as he carried the tray back to the conservatory.
'There you are at last, Eddie,' Alice Fielding said. 'It was you who gave Jesusita the night off. I remember now.'
'It's Campbell,' he said.

At eight o'clock, the time when the performance was due to
begin, there was still no sign of her. I made one last sortie
to the lobby of the Met which, apart from a few scurrying
late arrivals, had emptied like an hourglass.
I had no right to feel disappointed; the girl said herself she
doubted she would make it, and yet I felt both let down and
slightly resentful. Turning away, I loosened my tie, unbuttoned
my shirt collar and wandered slowly back to the steps.
I gave her another five minutes. Let that stretch out to ten.
Then, finally resigned to the fact that she wasn't coming, I
descended to street level, looking for a taxi back to the hotel.
An elderly couple grabbed the first cab. The second that
pulled into the area was still dropping off a passenger as I
approached. I held up a hand to get the driver's attention.
She was the passenger.
I recognised her a few seconds before she saw me. I can't
say that my pulse quickened or my heart missed a beat.
Mostly I just felt irritated as I watched her rummaging in her bag for the fare, until I stepped in and thrust some notes
at the driver. She turned around then and with a harassed 'I
know, I know . . . I'm late' shot me a defiant glance, as if
somehow her lateness was my fault.
I let out a sound, something between a laugh and a gasp
of exasperation, which masked the sense of wonder I felt she
looked so incredibly beautiful - as well as my secret
delight in knowing now for certain that it was Jelly.
'What the hell kept you?' I asked.
'I'm here, aren't I?'
Gilmans Landing

62

It was after eight now, dark out, still no sign of anyone.
Campbell got up from the desk in the parlour where he'd
set up his laptop and went through to the kitchen to get
another cold drink. Mrs Fielding had told him to make himself
at home before she went upstairs to take a nap, still insisting
Eddie would be back shortly from the village. That was over
an hour ago.
He returned to his laptop and, taking a sip of Diet Pepsi,
squinted at the screen. He scrolled back and re-read their
last conversation - the one where 'Adorablejoker' politely tells
'Templedog' it's over, there's someone else; and he's not really
listening, refusing to take no for an answer. She stands firm,
makes it clear that she's not 'in love' with him, never has
been, but he either can't or won't see it.
' know you feel the same way ... you just don't realise it yet.'
The first warning signs.
The girl seems aloof, increasingly reluctant to talk, which
makes him only more persistent. The tone of his e-mails and
instant messages changes, becomes not so much threatening
as creepily affirmative; and, in the irrational, hopeful spin he
puts on every word he writes to 'Jelly', every thought he
shares with her, there's coiled aggression. The classic stalking
scenario of 'the guy who can't let go'.
Campbell had seen it all before. He took off his glasses
and knuckled his eyes, then rolled the cold can of soda across
his brow.
He'd come across the material almost by accident. Exploring
the house earlier, he'd wandered into the study and out
of professional nosiness had gone through the desk. In an
unlocked drawer, he'd found a bunch of CDs, mostly business
correspondence, with Ed Lister's name on some of the files.
It was no surprise to learn that Ed looked after the old lady's
affairs. One of the CDs caught his eye.
Under the general label, 'Insurance', he'd noticed a subheading
titled, 'For Keeps'. Maybe it was meant to stand out,
he wasn't sure, but it had made him curious enough to boot
up his laptop and open the folder. The moment Campbell
realised what he'd stumbled upon, he downloaded the files,
carefully put the CD back where he'd found it, then took his
laptop into the parlour.
Just in case Mrs Fielding was right and Ed did show up.
Where he was sitting he would see the lights of a car coming
up the driveway.
He'd spent the past hour and a quarter wading through
the chronicle of a cyber-relationship gone bad - nearly two
hundred conversations, messages and e-mails over a six
month period from the recorded instant that Ed and the girl
met online, until a couple of days ago, when he arrived in
New York. He understood now why his client had been
reluctant to let his laptop be swept by the police. Why he'd
been scathing about the profile he'd put together of Sophie's
killer as a 'love obsessional'. Why he hadn't seemed in any
great hurry to meet up.
He tried Ed's cell again; it was still switched off. He decided
to wait until the old lady reappeared, then order a taxi back
to New York. He thought about calling Kira, just to tell her
he loved her, but decided to put it off till he was done here.
Campbell had no qualms about reading Ed and Jelly's secret
history. It was like discovering a cache of old letters in an attic
trunk. Some of the language Ed used Campbell felt he'd seen
before, recently. He cross-checked with the dialogue in the text
of Ward's webcast, but could find no connection. Looking out
for the vivid, incoherent runes of synaesthesia identified by
Professor Derwent, he ran searches of Ed's documents for 'words with an iron shape' and other examples of Ernest Seaton's
unusual condition. They failed to yield a result.
He felt relieved, but not all that surprised. The idea that
his client and Ward might be the same person Campbell had
considered and rejected early on in his investigation. He was
the wrong age, wrong nationality, wrong background, didn't
have the IT skills. Plus, if Ed Lister was Ward, why would
he have hired him? He'd thought about Sam Metcalf 's murder
- Ed couldn't possibly have been on that train.
And Sophie, his own daughter? Forget about it.
Either his client was being set up or the links between
things were not what they seemed. Even after reading the
telltale correspondence, Campbell found it hard to get his
head around the idea of Ed Lister as a stalker.
Then he discovered the letter.
He was searching the folders for image format files, in case
Ed had stored the girl's photo somewhere on the disc, when
he came across a jpeg file named 'Casebow'. Again it
happened almost by chance, but this time he felt sure someone
was meant to find and open the file.
It contained a single scanned image of the letter, dated July 29th 1979 which June Seaton wrote her lover but never got
to mail.

Darling dearest,
We can't wait any longer. I'm so afraid I won't be able
to hide my feelings and he'll know. Last night, when we
talked about destiny bringing us together, your words lit a
fire in my heart that will never go out. I realised then that
you are the other half of my being as - yes, my darling -- I
am yours.

He had an image of June Seaton, weeping and terrified, being
forced to read the passage aloud to her drunken husband.

It feels as if I've always known you, Eddie, but now that
we've found each other we mustn't let go. The boy already
senses change coming. You were right when you (word illegible)
that if we don't take risks in life, the price can sometimes
be far higher. I understand now.
I'm leaving him. Come tonight, June

The facsimile letter, written on blue Skylands notepaper in
a backswept feminine scrawl, appeared authentic enough with
its passionate underlinings, scorings-out, ink-smudges and
what might have been bloodstains. The letter didn't prove
that Ed Lister was June Seaton's lover or that he had been
at the house the night of the tragedy, or that he killed her.
But the arrows were all pointing one way.
What bothered Campbell was how Ed came to have a copy
of a letter he supposedly never received. Did he find the original
at the murder scene years ago and remove it then? Or
had it been in Grace Wilkes's possession all this time? He
could understand his wanting to destroy what might be seen
as incriminating evidence, but why keep a copy? And then
leave it lying around? Every question led on to three more.
There were too many variables.
Yet there was no doubt about the similarities between what
June Seaton reported Ed as saying to her in 1979 and the evangelical
tone he uses with the girl, 'Jelena', when he tells her
about his love for her. At one point, word for word. 'If we don't
take risks in life, the price can sometimes be far higher .. '.
Jesus. Campbell wiped the sweat from his face.
Everything in the 'For Keeps' folder made it look like Ed
Lister had stalked and possibly even killed before. He thought
about Jelly, and wondered if she had any idea what kind of
danger she was in - it was textbook that where the victim
and her stalker once had a relationship, violence was the likely
outcome.
But was he on the right track here? The evidence could
have been tampered with - it could all have been fabricated.
And where did Ernest Seaton come into this now? Campbell
knew he had to resist the obvious interpretation, respect his
own mantra: online nothing, but nothing, is ever what it
seems.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes felt tired. He
could have happily closed them for a while, taken a nap,
which reminded him that he didn't have a place to stay in
New York. Focus.
In the moment-to-moment unfolding of the 'love story',
he'd caught glimpses of a cyber-stalker at work, yet there was
nothing to show Ed had been gathering information about
his victim - usually a key sign of obsessive behaviour. Jelly's
personal details would have been simple enough to obtain
without alerting her. He had her photo, he knew what she
looked like. Still, Campbell would have expected him to ask
more questions about her life, work, family, friends, her activities
outside their relationship - he shows interest in her musical
ability and offers to help her study in Paris, but doesn't
even bother to ask her her real name.
Ed seems perfectly content to keep things at the level of
an online friendship, safely apart from his real life. He fails
to realise he's let her under his skin until the moment he's about to lose her and, then . . . boom, he falls madly in love. She rejects him and now, suddenly, he's obsessed, he can't
be without her - at least, that's how it looks from Templedog's
files - so he comes over to New York to find the girl, track
her down . . . and then what? Kill her?
It occurred to him that Ernest Seaton could have been
trying to warn him about his client all along. It would explain
where Skylands came into the picture, why the son might
want to let him see that Ed Lister had murdered his mother
- and was getting ready to repeat the performance.
This could be about some delayed form of revenge.
Campbell stood up suddenly and walked over to the
window.
He'd heard a noise, a light scraping sound, coming from
the terrace. He held up a hand against the room's reflection
in the glass and peered out, but it was too dark to see anything.
Raccoon most likely. The idea that Ed Lister could still be
on his way back here was making him jumpy.
Another thought struck Campbell then: if what he'd just
found out about his client was even half true, he could forget
about getting paid, let alone the bonus.
He had just become expendable.
He returned to the desk, went online and quickly pulled
up the homebeforedark website. He entered the password and,
as soon as the graphics loaded, found himself on the back
porch of the virtual mansion.
There were lights on in the house. Waiting for 'Mrs Danvers'
to come out to meet him, he remembered poor Grace Wilkes
sitting in the chair in the TV lounge with her skull split open.
When the avatar failed to appear, he set off alone on the path
through the woods to the graveyard.
It was a moonless night. No owl to be heard. Without a
flashlight he could just make out the arrowy pines, the cast
iron ornamental fence around the cemetery, but not the
graves. Looking back through the trees at Skylands, he
noticed the house seemed brighter, glowing in the darkness
like a ship at sea. Then he saw smoke billow from an upper
window and the next instant orange flames were licking
the eaves of the roof. Within seconds the fire had spread
and the whole mansion was ablaze. Campbell realised at
once that he wasn't just witnessing a simulated disaster, the
encrypted self-destruction of Skylands suggested that the
murder-haunted website had finally come to the end of its
useful life.
This was Ward signing off.
With a feeling of dread, the detective dragged his cursor
away from the burning house and back over the little cemetery
in the woods. By the lurid flickering light of the fire, he was
able to confirm his fears.
A name had appeared on the third headstone.

Jelena Madison Sejour

Her dates hadn't yet been carved into the stone, and the
grave was still open. But for how much longer? He had just
watched his paycheck go up in smoke, and knew only too
well what that meant as far as his future was concerned;
but Campbell couldn't stand by and let this prediction be
fulfilled.
He had to find the girl before Ed Lister did, or else she
was going in the ground.
A girl who could be anyone, anywhere.


63

'You were someone else earlier,' I said. 'It made things easier.'
She took a sip of wine and looked at me over the rim of
her glass. 'You really didn't know?'
'I couldn't be sure. Not until I saw you get out of that

taxi.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. I enjoyed having lunch with the person in your

photograph.'
Jelly smiled. 'I wasn't checking you out, you know.'
'It's okay, even if you were. We met as total strangers . . .
well, maybe you had a slight advantage there.'
'It was the only way I could go through with it.'
'I understand. I'm glad you changed your mind.'
'Our souls had already met.'
'What?'
She laughed. 'It's what people say who get to know each
other online before they meet in real-time. You know, like
their relationship grew from the inside out.'
'I imagine it leads to a lot of disappointment.'
'Are you disappointed?'
'Not yet.'
She made a face and stuck out her tongue - I saw its
glistening pointed pink tip and felt a sudden shiver of desire.
'Well, you're about to be.'
I wondered if Jelly really meant that, or if she was just
teasing. She must have known it was, potentially, a dangerous
statement.
I sat staring at her across the narrow table lit by a candle.
We were in a restaurant downtown that's meant to have the
best Italian food in New York - not that I remember what we ate. I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I tried not to make
it too obvious by holding my gaze below the level of hers
_ focused on a shoulder or a bare arm, her hands, those
long beautiful fingers, a stretch of throat. All evening her
physical presence had an effect on me that was to say the
least disconcerting.
I'm trying to keep this account dry and plain. Two hours
of sitting beside her in the dark listening to Tchaikovsky had
raised the temperature.
She wore a thrift-shop dress of black tulle - an ironic reference
to the ballet, I imagined - put together cleverly with
other items of inexpensive clothing and jewelry themed on the colours pink and black, so that she looked modern and
old-fashioned at the same time. She had the bones and the
verve to carry it off. Her hair was a frizzy cloud. The effect was original and utterly enchanting.
'I can't tell any more what you're thinking.'
'The old ESP letting you down?' I smiled. 'I'm thinking if
I touched your hair I'd get an electric shock.'
'Nope, definitely not working. When we were online I
always knew what was on your mind.'
'It's like blind people who recover their sight. Their other
senses, which became heightened to compensate, go back to normal'
'Is that really true?'
I shrugged and reached over suddenly and touched her hand and the shock went through us both. If we'd lost the knack of knowing what the other was going to say next, almost
of being inside each other's heads, something else had taken its place. A sense of connection that I think we both found
a little overwhelming.
There was no effort involved. We got along as if we'd always
known each other, picking up a conversation that had been
going on forever. We talked among other things about music
and her place at the Conservatoire in Paris (there was still
resistance there) and, of course, Sophie. She asked me if
they'd caught the person who killed her and those poor girls
on the train. I said, not yet.
She understood that I didn't want to discuss it and we
moved on.
'You don't work in a kindergarten?'

'Nope.'
'You don't even live in Brooklyn?'
She shook her head. 'Manhattan. I work a boring job
answering phones in an office in Flafbush. My mom lives
near there.'
'Why did you lie about those things?'
'Why do you think? I didn't want you to find me.'
I thought for a moment and said, 'If you hadn't called
me this morning I wouldn't have come looking for you. I'd
given up.'
'You sure about that, mister?'
'Well, I don't really know. Now that I'm with you it's impossible
for me to imagine . . . Jelly, you have to take some
responsibility for this.'
She laughed. 'Let's just say we were drawn together.'
Another of those shivers ran through me. When I looked
at her I could hardly avoid having certain thoughts - the
chemistry was there and bubbling over - but I felt inhibited
by her modesty, her seriousness. She had already said nothing
was going to happen and I believed she meant it.
And yet she was the one who kept bringing up the subject
'We were meant to find each other,' I said.
Campbell Armour put down the phone, and listened.
He could hear movement upstairs which suggested the old
lady had woken from her nap. As soon as she came down, he'd thank her for her hospitality, ask her to get Ed to contact him if he happened to show up later - then he was out of
here.
He picked up the receiver and dialled his client's cell again. The concierge at the Hotel Carlyle had told him that Mr
Lister was out for the evening - he had tickets for the theatre, he believed - which would explain why he hadn't been able to reach him on his cell. It was still switched off. He left
another message.
Closing his laptop, Campbell went through to the kitchen.
He tossed his empty soda cans in the garbage and began
jotting down the number of a local taxi company on the
refrigerator door, when a hot blast of salsa cascaded into the room from the floor above. It didn't sound like Mrs Fielding's kind of music.
He walked to the end of the kitchen. Beyond the breakfast nook a short passage led through an archway to the back door. On his left there were two internal doors. The first opened directly onto the garage - he glimpsed a station- wagon covered in a tarp and an empty space for another car with a dusty tennis ball dangling on a string to act as a parking guide. He remembered Mrs Fielding mentioning that she let the maid, Jesusita, have the use of her runabout.
The second door revealed a narrow wooden staircase. He hit the light switch. The music got louder as he went up. He guessed Charlie Cruz or Tito Puente.
At the top of the stairs, Campbell paused, one hand on the banister, and called out, hello. The door facing him was cracked a couple of inches. He could just see the foot of a single bed, the room in darkness.
A smooth male voice glided in over the music, startling
him for a second before he realised it was a commercial. He
called out again, this time in Spanish; then, knocking at the
door, pushed it back.
Campbell put on the light and walked over to the bedside
table. The radio-alarm clock, tuned to WPAT AMOR, a 24*
hour Latin station, showed the time as 07.30. He touched
the snooze bar and the nerve-racking din ceased, the red
display numerals stopped blinking. It made him wonder about
Jesusita.
Apart from the unmade bed, the small hotel-like room was
tidy enough. A black-velvet painting of the Virgin Mary in a
jungle setting above the bed was the only wall decoration.
There were a few personal effects: stuffed animals, a miniature
licence plate with JESUSITA engraved over the New Jersey,
Garden State logo, make-up and toiletries on the vanity and
in the bathroom. Oddly, no photographs. He'd have expected
some of her family in Guatemala or wherever - maybe one
of Carlos. A maid's white housecoat, white pantyhose and
slip were folded and laid out on a chair, white shoes
underneath.
He looked through her modest pile of CDs. Campbel
wasn't sure what he was doing here now. He tugged open
the louvred doors to the closet and got a whiff of gardenia
masking stale sweat. There was a spare housecoat hanging
on the rack, some laundered blouses and a pair of jeans, a heap of dirty clothes in a corner showed Jesusita in a less
appealing light.
The rest of the hanging space was taken up by a collection
of old suits and dresses in zippered dust bags, probably belonging to Mr and Mrs Fielding. He parted them and
noticed on the floor at the back of the closet, half buried
under a down comforter, a black rucksack. Campbell felt his
gut tighten.

He remembered his client's story of how Sam Metcalf
became convinced she was being followed through Europe
and had tried to photograph her elusive shadow. Campbell
hadn't seen the results himself. They'd been wiped off the
victim's webpage before he got the chance, but the common
identifier in three of the shots according to Ed Lister had
been a black rucksack.
He reached in and lifted the bag out by its straps; it was
a Berghaus day pack, half full, heavier than he'd expected.
He owned a similar pack himself, only made by Tekbag
USA, with a special padded compartment for a laptop. He
checked the side-flap first. The cushion-lined pouch
contained a cell-phone charger cord and, tucked inside the
flap, a name tag.

DAVID MALLET, PO BOX 117,
RAPIDS CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA.

Campbell frowned. If the rucksack belonged to Sam's
murderer, the name and address were probably false, but the
choice of'Mallet' was interesting. It was one of the placeholder
names in the 'Alice and Bob' dramatis personae - archetypal
characters used instead of letters of the alphabet in cryptographic
protocols and computer security for the sake of clarity.
More commonly known as Mallory, the 'malicious active
attacker', Mallet could modify messages and substitute his
own, which made securing a system against him the ultimate
challenge.
There was no way that a hacker like Ward could have taken
the name as an alias and been unaware of its significance. It
was the kind of in-joke he seemed to enjoy. But if the rucksack
belonged to him, then what was it doing here in the maid's
closet at La Rochelle? Campbell withdrew the little card from
its Perspex window. On the other side was the address of Ed

Lister's office in Paris.
He was filled suddenly with a deep uncertainty, close to

panic.
It had already occurred to him that the online conversations
he'd read between his client and 'Jelly' might not be safe. It
would have been simple for Ward to alter them to make it
look as if Ed was stalking the girl. But that didn't mean he wasn't stalking her, or that she was in any less danger.
He sat back on his haunches and thought. Rapids City,
South Dakota . . . Mount Rushmore. A teasing Hitchcock
reference from Ward perhaps? The movie North by Northwest hinged on a case of mistaken identity, a man wrongly
suspected, framed for something he didn't do. Or did it just
seem that way?
He didn't know who or what the hell he was looking for,
He felt afraid now, not just for the girl, but for himself. As
he loosened the drawstring that secured the neck of the rucksack,
Campbell's cell phone vibrated against his hip.
Kira said, 'Listen, I'm sorry I hung up on you before.'
'Heyyy!' He laughed out loud with relief, the warmth of
her voice close to his ear flooding over him. 'I was just about
to call you.'
'Where are you? Please say the airport.'
He cleared his throat. 'Dish, you're not going to believe
this . . .'

The lights of a car coming down the hill off the highway
flickered across the window. He watched to see if it would
turn up the driveway, but the beams swung south away from
La Rochelle.
It reminded Campbell that he hadn't ordered the taxi
They'd been chatting for twenty minutes, mostly discussing
the case. Kira had told him quietly they'd talk about the
money when he got home. Still trying to justify his following the trail out here to Gilmans Landing instead of calling the
cops - she wasn't really buying it - he started going through the contents of the rucksack.
It contained little of interest. Light blue check cotton shirt, change of underwear, socks, an old pair of Adidas trainers, size ten; there were two books - a paperback of Thoreau's Walden and a cloth-bound copy of Giuseppe di Lampedusa's The Leopard. Inside the flyleaf of the novel was the ex libris
of Greenside, Ed Lister's home in Wiltshire.
He'd asked Kira for a psychological perspective, talking motives now. She was explaining to him how fantasies of revenge sometimes conceal a darker truth, when Campbell interrupted her and said, hold on. Reaching the bottom of the rucksack, he pulled out an oblong box wrapped in a carrier bag from Bowery Kitchen Supplies, a professional cookware store on West Sixteenth Street. His eye skimmed the manufacturer's description on the label.
'Forged from a single blank of high carbon steel, the 11"
cambered blade echoes the moon's shape in the midpoint of its
cycle . . .'
He felt the flat white box grow heavy in his hands. He tore it open. Inside was a new single-edge mezzaluna still in its protective plastic sleeve.
'Jesus,' he breathed. 'Oh Jesus.'
It was an exact replica of the weapon used to kill June Seaton.
'What's wrong?'
He didn't answer. In the distance, he heard a truck shift gears.
'What is it . . . Campbell?' 'Nothing, honey.'
"Then why did you say that?' Kira said, 'Campbell, I know you. I have a really bad feeling about this. Please . . .'
'Relax, Dish.' He laughed as he shut the lid. 'Tell me about your day,' he said, though he felt a different sense of urgency
now.
With his cell clamped between his cheek and shoulder, he
swept the boxed mezzaluna and everything else into the rucksack,
buckled the main flaps, then threw it in the back of the
closet and closed the doors.
He took some comfort in the knife still being here. At least
it hadn't been put to use yet. Whoever bought it was clearly
planning to do more than chop up herbs.
He turned out the light and started down the stairs. He
was about halfway, still talking to his wife, when he heard
the front door slam.
'Honey, I have to go now. Kiss Amy for me. I love you.'
'Why are you whispering?'
He cut Kira off, flipped his cell shut and stood, listening.
Another door banged, the rustle of shopping bags, a man's
voice floating up from below.
'Grandma, I'm home.' He wasn't sure whether or not to
feel relieved.
Then he heard the clip of confident footsteps returning to
the front of the house, followed by low muffled conversation
Campbell imagined the old lady telling Ed Lister she'd had
a visitor. He thought of slipping out the back door.
In the kitchen hallway, tiptoeing towards the exit, he remembered
that he'd left his laptop and sportsbag in the front
parlour.
'Campbell?'
He froze, then turned slowly around.
The figure standing under the arch, smiling at him as if
they knew each other, wasn't anyone he'd seen before. He'd
caught the look of surprise in the stranger's eyes, but it was
quickly masked. A young open face, friendly and pleasant
'Not leaving without saying hello?'

64

'What would you say if I told you I lied about sleeping with

my ex?'
'I don't know. I mean, for Christ's sake, Jelly, I took you
at your word.'
'Well . . . that was kinda the point.'
'Yes, but why would you lie about something like that?'
She smiled slowly, as if she was amused by my innocence.
She had a deliciously sly, sweet-tempered smile that was hard
to resist.
'About sleeping with Guy?'
'Guy is your old lover? You never mentioned his name.'
'Guy Mallory.'
'Okay, so you didn't sleep with Guy. Did you come close?
I mean, was there a situation where you could have done, but didn't?'
'I told him I was in love with someone else.'
I felt a thud in my chest. 'Someone else. I see . . .'
'Yes.'
'I'm just taking this in.'
'It isn't the only thing I lied to you about.'
'No, I think I realise that now.'
'You feeling okay?'
'I don't know.'
'Let me ask you something.'
'Can it wait?'
She shook her head. 'No. It's the reason I'm here, Ed. I couldn't let you go away not knowing how you make
me feel. You really meant those crazy things you wrote?'
'What are you talking about?'
She lowered her eyes. 'Your last e-mail. You said if we didn't
meet, it would be like a denial of the reason the two of us
were put on this earth . . . but that, no matter what, you
would never stop loving me.'
A little surprised because, as I remembered, my last e-mail
had been an emotional but rather terse affair, I said, 'I meant
every word.'
There was really nothing else I could say. I could hardly
tell her that I had reason to suspect Ward must have intercepted
and edited what I'd written.
'Still feel the same? Now that you've had a chance to
inspect the merchandise?'
'I wish we were alone right now.'
'Well, so do I.'
She put an elbow on the table and leaned her cheek on
her hand, her head tilted to one side as she looked in my
eyes. Hers, aslant, darkly melting, shone with that open-heart
radiance we all hope to see at least once in our lives. I wanted
to kiss her.
"This is it, isn't it.. . Jelly?' I could barely get the words out.
'Yes it is.'
There was a silence that I imagined the whole restaurant
must have heard because it seemed for a moment the room
had grown quiet too.
'Can't you say something . . . tell a joke or something?'
'I think we should go now. I need to go home.'
'No wait, I am just. . . trying to adjust to the new reality
... I mean, I knew this all along. I knew you felt the same
way.'
"I lied about Guy to put you off, mister,' she said in a low
sure voice. 'Because you were . . . the whole situation was
getting out of hand. I just felt I had to end things.'
'And look what's happened.'
I smiled and reached for her hand again across the table.
'Yeah,' she said, drawing her hand away, 'but that doesn't
make a wrong right. Nothing's changed here. You're still
married. You still have a family, Ed. As far as I'm concerned that makes you unavailable.'
'Circumstances change.'
Her eyes filled with tears. 'No they fucking don't.'
'I can't let you go,' I said.

'You know, for a moment I thought you were him,' Campbell
said, as he followed the stranger into the kitchen, spinning a line about how he'd arranged to meet his client out here at
La Rochelle.
'Mrs Fielding told me she's expecting Ed, any time now.'
Ward waited politely for him to finish, then looked at his
watch. 'Ed Lister is in New York. It's getting kinda late, friend.
I doubt he'll be coming up tonight.'
'New York?' Campbell echoed. 'She said it was okay for
me to hang out till he got back, but I tell you I was beginning to wonder.'
'She takes a liberal view of time.'
He managed to smile. 'In fact, I already called for a taxi,
about fifteen minutes ago. I was just going out there to check.'
'We'll know when it comes. They always honk. I'm Guy,
by the way. Can I get you a beer or something, while we
wait?'
He opened the refrigerator door and held up a couple of Millers.
'I'm good, thanks,' Campbell waved the offer aside; he could hear his heart beating faster. 'Campbell Armour.'
He hadn't liked the sound of that 'we'.
The man came forward to shake his hand, wiping his own first on his jeans; it was cold and wet from holding the chilled
glass bottles. He stared at him, unblinking, until the detective
met his eyes.
He knew this couldn't be anyone but Ernest Seaton.
Ward pulled out one of the wooden chairs from the breakfast
table and sat down. He appeared taller in the chair, and
older than he'd first thought - Campbell guessed his mid
thirties, which would be about right. He noted the long
muscled trunk and powerful shoulders under his washed-out
green denim shirt. When he moved, it was with the natural
economy of an athlete. Guy looked in serious shape, sitting
there, relaxed, swigging beer from the bottle, acting like this
was home.
'You don't mind my asking,' Campbell said easily, 'where
exactly do you ... fit in around here, Guy?'
'Where do I fit in' He smiled and shook his head. 'Oh I
get it, you heard me call her "grandma". Everyone calls her
that. Al Fielding was one of my grandmother's oldest friends.
They kinda grew up together in West Virginia. I look in on
her from time to time, you know, see how she's doing. She's
great, though, isn't she?'
Campbell hadn't heard a car pull up. He wondered if he'd
been right here in the house all along. 'So that's how you
know Ed Lister?'
'You could say.' He nodded slowly. 'We never actually met.
Have a seat, and I'll tell you something about your "client"

and me.'
Campbell saw his opportunity. 'Maybe another time. It's
okay with you I'll just grab my stuff now and I thought I'd
walk up the driveway to meet the taxi.'
'I don't think so.'
Campbell laughed. 'Excuse me?'
The man set the beer down, wiping his mouth with the
back of his hand.
'Campbell, let's not dick around any more. They're at the
restaurant now. When they leave he's going to offer her a ride
back to her apartment, and then most likely she'll invite him
up for a drink.'
Campbell stood and just looked at him.
'I tried to warn her.' He sighed, locked his hands behind
his neck and tilted his chair back. 'She told me he's been
stalking her online for months. Now the creep's turned up
in New York. I advised Jelena to go the police. She wouldn't
listen.'
Calmly admitting he knew the girl. Campbell felt sweat
running down his temples, over his forehead. WardErnest
Guy - whatever his name was - had set the whole thing up.
This was all his work.
'You saying you're afraid my client might harm her?'
'I think we both know that's a real possibility.'
"Then why don't you call the cops?' Campbell said.
Ward smiled slightly. 'What would be the point?'
'None ... I guess.' Campbell nodded. He didn't like the
sudden turn the conversation had taken; the more Ward told
him, the more he acknowledged, the harder it was going to
be for him to get out.
'You realise, don't you, he's going to kill her?'
'Jesus. You really think so? He doesn't seem capable . . .'
'Just like he did my mother.'
Campbell hesitated. It was like a door slamming shut, the
bolts being thrown. He swallowed, his mouth dry. 'You really
believe Ed Lister had something to do with June Seaton's
death?'
'You're still fucking with me,' Ward said, shaking his head.
"You saw him at the house that night, Campbell. You were there, or as good as. What I showed you on the website is
exactly the way it happened. It may seem like a long time
ago, but not to me and I don't invent.'
'Ed told me he met someone once at a party who looked
like your mother - he was twenty years old, never knew her
name.'
'Is that right? She knew his. It was on the goddamned
envelope. She wrote him a letter begging him to come for
her.'
'The letter was never mailed.'
'Doesn't mean he didn't go up there.'
'But why would he want to kill someone he'd just met?'
'I don't buy that they just met. I think the affair had been
going on for some time. Maybe she changed her mind about
taking off with him, decided she wasn't going to leave her
family after all. Maybe he got mad at her . . . the guy's a
stalker, Campbell, a psychopath.'
Campbell felt the sweat stinging his eyes. He knew he
couldn't appear too ready to agree, he would see right through
him. 'My client insists he never went near your house, he
wasn't even in this country at the time of the killings. He
swears the first he heard about what happened was just a
couple of days ago.'
'And you believe him?'
Campbell hesitated. 'I don't know.'
'Bullshit you don't know.'
The truth was he did still have lingering doubts about Ed
Lister, but he had a feeling it didn't matter now one way or
the other. His priority was to warn the girl that she was in
danger from one of them. 'You know what?' A slight tremor
in his voice. 'I think I'll give that dispatcher another call, see
what's keeping the cab.'
'Where's the rush?' Ward said. 'I'm heading into the city
later. I'll give you a ride. Sit down, for Christsakes, take the
load off
Reluctantly he pulled out a chair across the table from
him. Up close, Ward's wholesome country-boy looks - regular
features, clear pale eyes, unblemished skin - seemed to radiate
good health and an inner calm. Campbell had to remind
himself why he should feel afraid.
'You look like you're burning up, buddy, sure you won't
change your mind about that cold one?'
He needed an exit strategy, not a beer. He thought about
the CD he'd found so conveniently in the study, the online
conversations, the copy of June Seaton's love letter ... the
contents of the black rucksack in the closet upstairs. All set
up to make the murder look like a repeat.
He asked Ward about the letter, how it had led him to Ed
Lister.
'Grace Wilkes sent it me after my grandmother died. I
guess she thought I had a right to know.'
'So you decided to track him down.'
'He wasn't exactly hard to find.'
'You planned to avenge your parents' deaths. Was that the
idea?'
'I wanted justice for them.'
'On the strength of one dubious piece of evidence.'
'I did my research.'
Campbell nodded. He could still back off, pretend to go
along with Ward's purposefully warped view of the past not
that he was convinced it would guarantee his safety. Kira
would never forgive him for this, but he had another idea.
'Is that why you beat and strangled Sophie Lister to death?'

There was a long silence. Ward just looked at him with a little fixed smile. Campbell could hear the hum of the refrigerator.
A distant peak of canned laughter rose from the TV
the old lady had turned on in the lounge. He knew that if
Ward confessed to the murder, he was dead.
'I was in Florence,' he began. 'I planned to use her as leverage
on her father, but then . . . let's just say, things didn't
Work out.'
'What happened? You fell in love with her?'
He shrugged. I don't feel the need to discuss it.'
'She reject you? Tell you to get lost?'
He didn't answer. The little smile faded.
'You know what occurs to me? I don't think you really
believe Ed Lister had anything to do with your parents' deaths.
I think you made up this whole thing.'
Ward sat very still, staring at him.
'Grace was the only one who knew what really happened
that night at Skylands. Isn't that why you killed her? Because
she told you something you didn't want to hear? Couldn't
bear to hear?'
He just kept on looking at him, expressionless.
'What is it you can't handle? She tell you what she told
me - that your mother was a spoiled, neurotic brat, who'd
go with any man looked at her twice? Your daddy just a
pathetic drunk? You couldn't stand the way they argued and
fought all the time, was that it? How they tore pieces out of
each other?'
He paused, wanting him to get angry. 'Or is there something
else?'
He saw into the blankness of Ward's eyes then. It was as
if some basic human constituent was missing. It could be he
was in denial, or just unaware - Campbell wondered if this
was what Grace had meant by 'he doesn't know' - but what
he sensed above all was a flat chilling absence.
He tried to reason with Ward, told him he was sick, he
needed help.
'Do I look like someone who needs help to you?'
Campbell insisted, 'You don't have to do this.'
All he got back was that long cold empty stare. He saw no
way of reaching him.
'Have you eaten yet?' Ward asked, getting up and going
over to the counter, where he'd left the shopping bags. He
pulled out a head of celery, tore off a stick and started
crunching it. It was as though the conversation had never
happened.
'I was gonna fix supper, but . . . what the heck? I know this pizza joint near the bridge where they do a great pepperoni
pie. We can pick up a couple of slices on our way into
town.'
Campbell's mouth dried. He was staring at Ward's hands.
He hadn't noticed before how unnaturally pale they looked. The cuffs of his western shirt covered the wrists. It was only
where the rubber flattened the hairs on the backs of his hands that it was obvious. They were sheathed in surgical gloves so fine the latex seemed transparent. He must have been wearing them earlier when they shook hands, only they were wet and cold from holding the beers and he hadn't noticed.
Ward caught the direction of his gaze and smiled. He
stretched his fingers, opening and closing them.
'I have a skin condition. Relax, it's not catching.'

'You go ahead, friend. I'll get the light,' he said.
Instinctively Campbell braced himself as he stepped down into the unlit garage, Ward following right behind him. A static dread hovered about his unprotected neck and shoulders.
He heard a click as Ward pulled the string light switch and a fluorescent strip flickered on overhead. He had to fight the urge just to run.
He quickly scanned the room, taking in the shrouded wagon, the bay for a second car, the automatic garage door; and, over the workbench that ran one side of the garage, a rack of tools nobody had touched in years. There was a dusty Weber barbecue in a corner, an old set of golf clubs hanging from a hook, oars and canoe paddles among the rafters - he was looking for any kind of weapon.
He knew he hadn't got a prayer against Ward's strength, but his tennis training had made him quick-footed - over a
short distance he might have the advantage. He didn't think
Ward was carrying a gun.
His eye travelled back along the workbench and stopped
at what he guessed was the wall switch for the door opener.
It was a screw-drive Chamberlain, wall-mounted; same model
as the one he had in Tampa. He knew exactly how long the
garage door would take to open.
He'd noticed that Ward hadn't touched the switch when
they came down the steps. Either he had a remote on his
key-ring, or he wasn't planning on leaving just yet.
'How do you like this beauty?' Ward said, as he pulled the
tarp off the station-wagon, a vintage Buick Electra Estate,
white with wood-effect panels. Campbell hadn't a clue what
year. Before he was born.
'Does it run?' he asked, glancing inside the passenger
window. On the back seat there was a rucksack identical to
the one he'd just seen in the closet up the back stairs. He felt
like he wanted to vomit.
'Like a bird,' Ward said, dropping the bundled tarp at his

feet.
Then, in the trunk space, Campbell saw the roll of garden!
refuse sacks, the pick and shovel. 'We're not going to New
York, are we?'
Ward stepped around the front of the wagon, holding a

rope.
Campbell didn't hesitate. He'd been planning his move
since they entered the garage. He spun on his heel, ran back
to the workbench, hit the wall switch then darted towards
the garage door. He started to dive even before he heard thej
whine of the electrical door opener, throwing himself flat and 
as soon as the space was wide enough rolling under the dooti
and out into the night.

65

We were walking uptown, crossing Washington Square, when
I stopped to point out a building on the north side where I used to live back in the 80s, my first New York apartment that wasn't a sublet. Jelly made some remark, then carelessly dipped her arm through mine and said she was in the mood for dancing. She knew this place, a Cuban cafe in Hoboken where the music was so hot everyone had to get up.
'Don't worry, mister.' She saw the way I reacted and smiled.
'Half the people there are at least twice your age ... at least.'
'Thanks.' I laughed, conscious of her warmth, her slim

body suddenly so close to mine. 'I don't care about making
a fool of myself. I'm just not much of a dancer.'
'Never expected you to be. I still wanna dance with you.'
'You don't think that would be asking for trouble?' I said

stiffly.
'I'm not ready to go home yet, that's all.'
I suggested finding some quiet place where we could sit and talk. I didn't trust myself. 'I'd rather spend the time we have left alone with you.'
She frowned. 'Do you need to be somewhere?'
I shook my head.
'You make everything sound so serious ... so, I dunno,
life or death.'
She seemed very young then. I said, a little sharply, 'You've obviously forgotten what you said earlier in the restaurant. . .'
She cut me off. 'What the hell's the matter with you?'
You said, nothing's going to happen.'
'What exactly is it you want from me, mister?'
'What do I want, Jelena?'
She withdrew her arm to look for a cigarette. I stood and
watched her light up, then I took the cigarette from her lips
and kissed her.
Fresh air filled his lungs and suddenly Campbell felt there
was hope.
He came out of the body-roll running. He didn't even
glance back. His heart pounding, fear pistoning his legs, he
sprinted for the sheltering darkness at the end of the driveway,
He must have put thirty yards between him and the house
before he realised he should have run the other way, into the
grounds.
Just as he decided to change course, Campbell became
aware of an unfamiliar swishing sound rising on the air. The
next instant he felt an explosion of pain, as though a gigantic
fist had struck him in the small of the back. The breath went
out of him in a single whoosh that he heard as the roar of a
crowd. His knees buckled under him and he fell forward.
Then only numbness.
Campbell tried to get up. His legs wouldn't respond. No
feeling at all below the waist. He groped for his glasses
that had come off when he hit the ground and hooked
them back over his ears. Almost useless now, one lens out,
the other shattered by the fall, they let him see what had
brought him down. The head of a heavy ball-peen hammet
gleamed at him from where it had spun off its target and
landed in the ditch a couple of yards away. There wasn't
time to reach it.
He worked his cell phone out of his pocket.
He could see Ward walking purposefully towards him, head
lowered. The strip of light from the garage seesawing between
his legs. He flipped the cell open and hit 7, Kira's speed-dM
number. He needed to tell her to get in touch with Ed Lister, call the police. He heard it ringing.
C'mon, Dish, pick up. Still ringing as he dragged himself
towards the hammer. He crawled forward on his elbows and made a lunge for it, letting go his cell as Ward's boot came
down hard on the wooden handle, trapping his fingers underneath.
Ward
bent down, picked up the hammer.
'Hello?' Amy's voice.
What was she doing up this late? Let me speak to Mom,
sweetheart.
He tried to answer her, but all that came out was a feeble croak as Ward stomped the cell phone into the tarmac. Then he put his foot on the back of the detective's neck, pinning his head to the ground.
Out of his right eye, Campbell saw him heft the hammer a couple of times, tapping the head against his palm as if he was making up his mind about something.
'Jesus, no, wait . . . don't do this,' he gasped. 'I already talked to the cops. They know who you are. They're on their way here.'
'Campbell, Campbell,' Ward said, shaking his head.
'You left some . . . they found skin cells on the train.' He was making it up as he went along, sounding frantic now. "They'll be able to match the DNA samples.'
'With what? They need to find me first.'
'The Questura in Florence . . .'
Ward gave a little snort. 'Morelli? That jerk-off Do me a favour.'
'There's a warrant out for your arrest.' His chest hurt every breath he took. 'Jesus, I think you broke my back.'
'You'll be all right. No tennis for a while. But you'll be just fine.'

An international warrant . . .'
'Sure it is. Under what name? After they fish the girl out
of the river the cops may want to talk to somebody. My guess
is they'll be looking for the guy who's been stalking her, who
wouldn't take no for an answer - your client, Ed Lister.'
'You don't have to kill her,' Campbell wheezed. 'Why you
doing this? You got to like the way it feels, is that it? You can't
even see how fucked up you are, you crazy sick sonofabitch.'
'I stay with the programme, buddy. If that makes me
resolute - a man of courage and independent spirit, you
might say - well, so be it. I may not have a forgiving nature,
but disturbed? Crazy?  don't think so.'
'You're not really looking for revenge . . . you know it's
just a fantasy'
'Dish put that one in your head?' Ward laughed. 'Out of
interest, how did you find me? It wasn't through my network,
or the website, was it?'
He could think of no good reason to tell him. He wouldn't
be willing to trade for the information. He just said, 'You
made it too easy.'
He wasn't ashamed to ask Ward to spare his life, remind
him that he had a family, a wife who loved him, a young
daughter. He could plead for them more easily than himself.
He just knew he'd be wasting his breath.
But he said it anyway. 'Please, I have a family.'
'You weren't meant to come here, Campbell.'
'I know ... I see that now.'
He wasn't afraid of dying, but the timing . . . Campbell
wanted to explain to someone: look, I think there's been a
mistake, you got the wrong person, I'm not done with the
world yet. There's this money I have to find by tomorrow . ¦
oh God.
Ward said, bending over him. 'Campbell, I guess your luck
just ran out. As you know, better than most, there's not a  thing
anyone can do about that.'
The detective struggled and the pressure from the boot
increased.

He lifted an arm to fend off what couldn't be escaped as
he saw the hammer rise, the blunt ball-peen end coming
down in a flashing arc.
The first hammer blow didn't kill him.

We walked on a few blocks without saying much. She had
broken away, slipped quickly out of my arms, and now it was
as if the kiss had never happened. The tension was still there,
though, not very far below the surface. I found it difficult to
accept that after tonight we weren't going to see each other
again.
Maybe that's why I started talking about Sophie. I just let
go and poured out my heart to Jelena. I told her things that
I'd never said to anybody, not even Laura. We crossed over
to Park Avenue and stopped at a bar in the twenties with
tables outside.
After I'd ordered drinks, I said, 'I'm sorry, that was a real
downer.'

'No, I always wanted you to tell me about her.'
"The last time I was in Florence,' I said, holding her gaze,
'I lit a candle for Sophie in a church near where she died called Santa Maria del Carmine. Then I wrote our names in the visitors book . . . yours and mine.'
Jelena looked away. 'You must have loved her very much.'
'I don't know why I did it. I just realised that I missed you.'
'It's not because I remind you of her, is it?'
'No. You don't remind me of anyone.'
She didn't say anything. I heard her stomach rumble. It seemed a curiously intimate and endearing response. Jelena
furrowed both eyebrows. She laughed and a wisp of hair fell across her face.
I said, 'I'm going to arrange things so that we can be together.'
'We can't be together, so don't talk foolishness.'
There was a silence that lasted several seconds.
'How about another drink?'
'You know something?' Jelena said. 'It isn't the difference
in our ages or even the fact that you have another life . . .
it's because you're hurt, Ed, you've been through the worst
thing that can happen to a person. That's what separates us.
Around you I feel I don't even exist.'
When she said that it felt like she was surrendering herself.

66

Aiming for the temple where Campbell's hair grew unusually
thick, Ward struck lightly again and again. He didn't want
blood all over the driveway, and nothing bleeds quite like a
head wound. He kept tapping the same spot until he saw the i
whites of the little Chinese's eyes craze over as the capillaries'
burst and a red glaze lacquered the corneas. He shone his
key-ring light into a dying pupil and got back his own reflection,
a face peering over the edge of a well.
In the singular way Ward experienced the world there were
no correspondences, no analogies, no metaphor, things
weren't 'like' each other - they were each other. He was afraid
that seeing the image of his face in the well might have a
deeper unwished-for meaning. He was afraid it meant some
change in him.
Picking up Campbell's shattered cell phone, he hurled it
into the bushes.
Then he slid the sticky shaft of the hammer through his
belt, and looped the rope he was carrying under the detective's
shoulders. Dragging the body back to the house, he had to
stop to retrieve a Nike Air Force trainer he hadn't noticed
had slipped off one of Campbell's heels. Rather than attempt
to put the shoe back on, he removed its pair, tied the laces
and slung them both around his neck.
It was a reflection in an untenanted eye . . . not his face at
the bottom of a goddamned well. He banished the image with its hidden potential to dilute his sense of purpose, subvert the course of justice.
Let's just get the job done.
Ward backed the Buick estate out of the garage and ran it back a short distance past the fork in the driveway. Then
he rolled forward and, taking the rougher track that led around the rear of the property, drove down to the river.
Earlier, when he was scouting for somewhere to bring the girl (in case things didn't go according to plan), he'd discovered
an old 1930s boathouse on a marshy backwater. The building was overgrown with trees and too dilapidated for what he had in mind, but he could see another use for it now.
He stopped opposite the walkway and cut the engine.
He made no move to get out of the wagon. Just sat and let things settle, hands at ten to two on the steering wheel, staring out at nothing. The far side of the boathouse he could hear the river go by in a silver rush.
Find that one a little tougher than the others, Wardo? With the young wife and kid down in Florida? This isn't the time for vegrets. We're falling behind schedule.
He wasn't meant to be here that was all.
There was always a risk that Campbell would find Grace's body before the Caanan sheriff's department got a patrol car
out to the house, but his turning up at La Rochelle had
caught him off guard. He had no regrets about what he'd
done. The detective might have been more useful to him
alive, as a witness turned against his client; on the other hand,
his murder would be seen now as Ed Lister's work.
The taste lingered, acrid as asparagus water, a blue-green
triangle with spike-sharp corners. Was that how Campbell
found him? Had he revealed some aspect of his synaesfhesia
online? If there'd been more time, he'd have got it out of the
little slope exactly how he traced him to Skylands. He wasn't
too worried about the police. That was just desperation talk.
It niggled him, though, that he could have let something
slip.
His fingernails splayed on the wheel were giving him harsh,
disapproving looks. So now what's your problem? Ward resented
their smug critical personalities.
He opened the Buick's tail-gate and pulled Campbell out
onto the dirt track. The ground was softer here. Ward had
put on an old pair of deck shoes he'd found in the house
belonging to Ed Lister; they pinched a little, but at least he
didn't have to worry about footprints. He dragged the detective's
body across the planked walkway to the boathouse. A
derelict wooden structure with a swayback roof and gaping
holes in its walls where sections of the clapboard siding had
collapsed, it leaned alarmingly out of true.
You know, before she came out to the house, Grace had her
hair done at First Impressions, finest salon in Norfolk, specially
for you . . . her little Ernie.
Spare me the violins. I was there, remember? Told her how
nice she looked - she appreciated the fact someone had

noticed.
The door had settled on its hinges. Ward had to shoulder
it open, then pull the body after him. Inside, the blackness
seemed at first impenetrable; he stood still for a moment,
getting used to the dark and the brackish smell, listening to
the hollow, restless slapping of confined water against the
piers.
He could just make out the outline of an opening the far end.
Ward heaved on the rope. He heard the joists groan and
felt the floor shift under his feet. He'd gone far enough. Not
trusting the wooden platform to support their combined
weight, he decided against his plan of dumping Campbell in
one of the boat slips. He left the body where it lay, head
propped against a fallen beam, staring out through the framed
inlet at open river. .
He wasn't sorry to get back to the station-wagon.

'I have to go into New York,' he told Alice Fielding after
they'd eaten. 'I'll take the Buick, if it's okay with you.' He'd
found some soup in the refrigerator - Jesusita's home-made
gazpacho - which he'd poured into bowls and brought
through to the lounge on a tray with Ritz crackers and the
open bottle of Chardonnay.
'You look nice, dear,' she said, as if she was his mother.
He'd cleaned up and was wearing one of Ed's old suits,
which he'd borrowed from the closet in the guest room. He'd
helped himself to a shirt and tie too.
'I have a date with a beautiful girl. I'm going to show her
the town, then I thought maybe I'd bring her back out here
to the Rock.'
'There was a man earlier asking for you. What kept you
so long?'
'I'm sorry,' he hesitated. 'We caught up with each other in
the end.'
She nodded. 'Does this beautiful girl have a name?' 'Jelena.'
* 'You know what you're doing isn't right, Eddie. One of the
first royal princesses of Montenegro was called Jelena. Do
you love her?'
'We love each other,'Ward said distractedly. He was looking
at the collection of framed photos of Sophie Lister on top
of the desk, getting the sweet chalky taste of candy cigarettes.
'Until she came along, I was nobody.'
She smiled. 'How romantic'
'You're nobody till somebody loves you.'
'Did I ever tell you Dean Martin sang that for me once?
Do you plan to marry?'
'I'm already married . . . remember?'
'Oh Eddie,' the old lady chuckled reprovingly.
The phone beside her rang. She reached out for it with a
shaky hand.
'Don't answer that? The tone of his voice made her shrink

back.
He strode over and put a hand on the receiver. She looked
up at him with bewildered eyes while he waited for the ringing
to stop. When it did, she said, 'You're not really Eddie, are
you?'
Ward smiled. 'What makes you say that?'
'You think I don't know?'
She lay back in her rattan recliner and closed her eyes.
T think you may be a little confused that's all.'
'Yes, possibly.' She gave a sigh. 'You're very alike.'
He watched her nod off, then after a few moments startle
awake as if alarmed by her own involuntary absence. He
hadn't decided yet what to do about Alice.

A perfect edge does not reflect light.
Ward held the curved blade of the mezzaluna up to the
fluorescent strip above the workbench. He tilted it back and
forth and saw how the polished arc scintillated. Like any new
knife it had come out of the box factory-sharp, which for his
purposes was nowhere near sharp enough.
With a felt-tip pen he drew a quarter-inch black sttipe
along the blade's convex edge, then clamped the mezzaluna
in the bench vice. Holding the steel in both hands at a twenty
degree angle and using a circular motion, he worked methodically
from one end of the crescent blade to the other, keeping
the angle of his stroke constant by watching the ink dwindle
evenly up to the edge. Once the ink was rubbed away, he
turned the blade around in the vice and repeated the process
on the other side. Then he concentrated on smoothing the
cutting edge . . .
You know better than to interrupt when I'm busy.
I realise this may not be the best time to bring it up, Ernie,
but memory reconciliation is something we really need to address.
Memory reconciliation? What are you, my head doctor
now?
The butcher's steel, bonded with a fine diamond abrasive,
both sharpened and honed at the same time. As the edge
became thinner, he could see it bend away from the steel
leaving a long metal feather. It was a sign he was getting
close. He flattened the angle of the steel to about ten degrees
and, using a lighter down-stroke, removed the burr. When
he was satisfied it was smooth as he could possibly get it,
Ward held the blade up again to the fluorescent strip, looking
for reflections from the edge.
This time there were none.
He slipped the plastic sleeve back onto the blade, wrapped
the mezzaluna in a cloth and placed it in his rucksack. He
was all set. With the pack slung over one shoulder, he hit the
door-closer switch and walked out of the garage to the parked
station-wagon. The sweet night scent of nicotiana plants growing
around the porch swarmed up his nostrils. He touched
the car door-handle and the contact sparked off a highresolution
memory of the parlour at Skylands.
He saw Grace sit slightly forward in the armchair to keep
her candy-floss hair-do from flattening against the dusty
headrest as he walked up behind her. Grace telling him, her
Lil'Ernie, that he didn't need to worry, his secret would
always be safe with her. Well, it would now . . . whatever 'his
secret' was.
You shoulda let her finish, buddy. You shoulda let her finish.
You shoulda ...
Should I? Ward stood motionless, staring out across the
river towards Wave Hill. In the distance he could see the cable
lights of the George Washington Bridge glinting through the
tops of the trees. He looked at his watch: 11.42.They'd have
left the restaurant by now. He wasn't counting on them going
on somewhere else before returning to her place, but it would
help if they took their time.
He couldn't imagine Ed inviting her back to the Carlyle. 
He glanced up at the house. The old lady's bedroom was 
dark. He'd reminded Alice before they said goodnight to
be sure to take her sleeping pills. She was on two 2mg tabs
of Lunesta - he'd checked the prescription notes on the
label - which was a strong enough dose to put out Mike
Tyson's lights. In the morning, all she'd remember would
be that her grandson-in-law came to supper, then drove
into town, saying he'd be returning later with some girl.
Her last words to him were, 'I promise I won't tell, Eddie.
Not a soul.'
If she got things muddled, her wires a little crossed, Ward
thought, as he swung the Buick around and headed down
the driveway, it couldn't do much harm.

67

They were so natural with each other, that was really the
thing.
Her feet hurt like hell, her favourite pair of Jimmy Choos that cost her a month's pay were as good as ruined, but any
time Ed suggested getting a cab, Jelly insisted, no, no, she was fine, she loved to walk.
All she was doing was delaying the moment when they would reach the corner of her street. She kept thinking ahead to what she was going to say when it came to crunch time: there was no way she could risk inviting him up.
They were on Third Avenue, a couple of blocks from home now, talking as they went along, the pace getting slower and slower the closer they got to Thirty-ninth Street. Ed was busy telling her he'd decided he wanted to change his life - give away his money, help the poor, save the planet and all that hilarious bullshit. He explained how his feelings for her had made him see the world in a new wonderful light.
Then he started going on about leaving his wife and coming back for her. 'It'll take me a month to arrange things, maybe less.'
God, the fool really was serious.
'Why even say shit like that when you know you won't do it and if you did that I wouldn't be able to love you? You're not free, you have a family who need you . . .'
He halted middle of the sidewalk and swung her around by the arm, forcing her to look at him. 'I can't live without you, Jelly,'he said.

'You're crazy, you know that? We've known each other for
how long, five hours? And you want to give up everything
for . . . you haven't a fucking clue!'
People passing by were giving them odd looks.	
'Seven, if you include lunch. I'm going to cancel my flight,
stay over a couple more days. We can get to know each other
better.'
'Oh Jesus.' She pulled free, twisting her head away. 'Why
do you have to be so goddamn stubborn? You know something?
You're really starting to scare me.'
Jelly marched on ahead and then, wiping her eyes, turned
to him. 'Anyway, I won't be around this weekend. I'm going
down the Jersey shore with Guy . . .'
'Guy? What do you mean?'
'Some friends of his have a rental right on the water. It'll
be fun, you know, just hanging out . . . He's got tickets for
a Mary J. Blige concert in Asbury Park.'
'I thought you told him you were in love with someone

else.'
'Yeah, well, we're still friends. We're cool around each other.'
She was afraid he'd see through her attempt to pass Guy
Mallory off as her old boyfriend. But how could Ed possibly
know? She wasn't even sure why she'd mentioned Guy's
name at the restaurant. Maybe she thought of him as a kind of insurance. A safeguard. Guy had turned up at the right
time, they seemed to get on okay, but she had no idea if she
wanted to see him again. 'I just want to move on with my

life.'
'You think maybe if you do decide to go to Paris . . . ?'
'Eddie, we have to give this up,' she said gently, taking his
hand as they turned into her street. 'We both know I'm not
what you really need.' It was a line she remembered from
some movie.
He nodded slowly, working his frown into a solemn little
smile as he said, 'I think it's more a case of I'm not what you
need.'
'I'm sorry, Eddie.' She couldn't look at him.

Ward pulled into the kerb on the south side of Thirty-eighth
Street and Lexington Avenue, a block away and diagonally
across from Jelena Sejour's apartment building. An old
Murray Hill walk-up, it was one of the last hold-outs against
the flashy high-rises that had overwhelmed the once sedate
residential neighbourhood.
He was driving his Golf rental, having left the more conspicuous
and less reliable Buick station-wagon across the river
at the Huyler's Inn parking lot in Alpine, NJ - he planned
to collect it on the way back after picking up his passenger.
He looked through the windshield at the fourth-floor windows.
No lights were showing.
Still out gallivanting, as Alice would say.
He turned on the car stereo, tuned it to a wide band of
static between stations, then cranked up the volume - the
way he used to when he was a kid to drown out the sound
of his parents arguing.
Then he settled down to wait.

On the stoop of her apartment building, I stood and watched Jelly fumbling for her keys, angling her open purse to catch
the light over the door. I could see how badly her hands were
shaking.
'Can I help you with that?' I offered.
'Thanks. I got it.' She snapped her purse shut and held

up the keys.
'Well then.' I stuffed my hands in my pockets, took a step back onto the sidewalk. 'I don't suppose we'll meet again.'
'You understand I can't invite you up,' she said.
'No, I understand.' She was busy fitting the key to the lock.
'You take care, Eddie.'
I bowed my head, not trusting myself to speak, then turned

away.
The next second I heard her keys clatter to the ground. I
swung around and ran up the steps and caught Jelly as she
turned to face me, her arms already open. I held her tight
and she gave a weird little cry, part sigh, part whimper. Then
our lips touched and almost immediately I felt the tip of her
tongue seeking mine and when they met I felt a warm electric
shock that became a series of warm electric shocks.
I don't know how long we stood there, as deeply entwined
as it's possible for two people to become with clothes on. It
was a kiss that carried a lot of dubious freight and belonged
in some way to another age. But was probably none the worse
for it.
After a while, she pushed me away. I stumbled down the
steps. I don't remember seeing her bend down to pick up
her keys or run inside. Suddenly she was gone and the door
had banged shut behind her.

Ward couldn't quite believe his luck.
He watched Ed Lister come to the corner of Thirty-ninth
Street and walk slowly out into the traffic holding up a hand
for a taxi. He wasn't sure what had gone down, but the display
he'd just witnessed on the doorstep was clearly a farewell
scene.
He might have had to wait all night.
A yellow cab screeched to a halt at the Englishman's feet.
Ward slid low in his seat, then opened a window. He was
pretty sure he overheard Ed say to the driver, 'Hotel Carlyle.'
The radio was off now.
He waited ten minutes: in case either one of them had a
change of heart. Then he started the engine and drove around
the block, crawling up Thirty-ninth Street. He gave a 'yesss'
of satisfaction when he found an empty parking space right
outside her front door, things still going his way.
In the outer lobby, he looked down the list of names beside
the mailboxes and rang the bell for SEJOUR. There was no
reply. He hit it again impatiently.
The intercom crackled. 'Jelena?'
'Go away, Ed,' she said, 'please just go away.' Her voice
cracking with emotion reminded him of half-melted sugar
crystals at the bottom of a coffee cup.
'Hey, it's me, Guy ... Guy Mallory?'The CCTV obviously
was broken.
'Guy?' He heard her confusion. 'What you doin' here?'
'I was in the neighbourhood, I just thought I'd see if you
wanted to go out for a nightcap ... if you're not busy.'
'It's kinda late, isn't it? I'm sorry, I've a really bad headache.'
'Can I get you something? Would you like me to come

up?'
'No, I'll be fine.'
'Have it your own way.'
'What?'
'Nothing. Get some sleep.'
She let it go. 'Listen, call me, okay?'
She hung up before he got the chance to say goodnight.
Ward stood there, head lowered. He felt his face getting
hot. He was a little disappointed in Jelly not wanting him to
come up. She sounded pretty upset. He would have offered
her his shoulder to cry on.
In a sudden eruption of rage, he kicked at the door and
cursed loudly and viciously enough for a couple walking past
to turn their heads.
Then he took off the rucksack, swung it to the ground by
the straps and hunkered down beside it. He found a way to
 sit on his heels without getting Ed's suit dirty, resting his
back against the tiled wall under the mailboxes.

Ward knew he could easily force the lock and get into the
building, but he preferred to wait for one of the other residents
to come in or out. He wanted to be seen heading up to Jelly's
apartment by someone who would remember him.
He'd give it twenty . . . half an hour max.

70

The telephone in my hotel room was ringing when I got off
the elevator.
I was so certain it was Jelly, I began rehearsing what I was
going to say to her as I hurriedly swiped the lock, pushed
open the door, then ran to pick up the extension on the
bedside table.
'You're a hard man to find, Signor Lister.'
'Andrea.' I fell back to earth. 'It's you.'
'Did you receive my e-mail?'
'Hold on.' I went back and kicked the door shut. 'What
e-mail? I'm sorry, I just walked in.'
'Then you haven't heard from your wife?'
'No.' I felt my insides tighten, afraid he was going to tell
me something had happened to Laura, or George. 'Is everything
all right?'
'She sounded in good spirits when we spoke earlier. I asked
her to pass on a message, in case she found you first.'
'I've been out a lot. I had my mobile switched off.'
'My spies tell me you were at the opera.'
I didn't bother correcting him. Still in another world, I
wasn't in the mood for Morelli' s suave, easy-going banter.
'Andrea, it's late here. I need to get some sleep. What can I
do for you?'
'We have a suspect.' He cleared his throat importantly. 'I
want you to open the attachment I sent you. Can you look
at it now?'
I put the phone down and went over to the desk; it took
seconds to boot up my laptop and retrieve Morelli's e-mail
from my inbox. The attached image file downloaded as I
carried the laptop back to the bed.
'You know the face?' the investigator asked.
It was a pen and ink portrait of a man, head and shoulders,
no one I'd ever seen before - at least that was my first
impression.
'Where did you get this?' I demanded, my heart beating
faster. The portrait was in the same intense, meticulous style
as Sophie's drawings.
'Sam Metcalf's apartment. I found it in the bathroom,
tucked behind the doors of the medicine cabinet.' He sounded
pleased with himself. 'I believe your daughter may have hidden
it there.'
The missing page cut from her sketchbook.
'I don't recognise him,' I said, still staring at the screen.
'You think this is the person who killed her? Sophie actually drew her murderer?'
He didn't answer.
I looked closer at the head. A Roman bust - the kind
students at the atelier are encouraged to draw - wearing a
Ralph Lauren shirt. I could see the little polo player emblem
on the breast pocket. The effect was smooth, bland, sinister
- I had no doubt that was what Sophie had intended. She
must have done the sketch from memory (it seemed unlikely
he'd have sat for her, or let himself be photographed) as a
kind of predictive Identikit. She knew.
I felt proud of her and at the same time devastated.
It was a good-looking face, instantly forgettable. I was determined
to memorise every loathsome feature.
Morelli said, 'We've been trying to get in touch with her
art teacher. Bailey Grant is in Tunisia and not contactable. I
was hoping you might have an opinion . . .'
'Yes, it's her work,' I said impatiently. 'And if you'd followed
up the connection with Sam Metcalf when I told you about
her ...' I stopped myself. It was pointless getting angry. 'You
said you had a suspect.'
'Your daughter's drawing has led us to someone we are very
interested in talking to ... Un secondo.' In the background I
could hear a disembodied Italian voice squawking over a PA
system. 'Forgive me, Signor Lister. They finally announced my
flight. Does the name David Mallet mean anything to you?'
'Mallet? No.'
'He was staying in rented accommodation near San Miniato
on the night your daughter was killed.The landlady recognised
him from the drawing as one of her lodgers. He was there
for a few weeks, very quiet, kept himself to himself, doing
some kind of research; she thought he might have been writing
a book.'
I was stunned into silence.
'She was pretty sure it was him,' Morelli said. 'He's American,
lives or was living in Paris. It could be a false trail, or
just coincidence, but the address David Mallet has been linked
with is interesting - 20 rue Mabillon, I believe, is a couple
of doors away from your office.'
'What the hell does that mean?
'I don't know. But my advice is be careful. I'll be in Paris
in a couple of hours. I've asked the Surete to run some checks.
When do you get back to London?'
'Tomorrow . . . maybe.'
'By then I may have more.'
There was nothing from Laura on my voice-mail, which
didn't altogether surprise me; she wouldn't have paid much
attention to anything Morelli said and she hated leaving
messages. But still, I thought, she must have realised this
could be important.
Campbell Armour had called twice - at 5.47 p.m., to say
he couldn't make the meeting; then again at 10.38 p.m., leaving
word that he needed to talk to me urgently.
It was now after one. I called him back at the number he'd
left; dialled it without thinking. There was no reply. Five rings,
then the recording cut in and I recognised my own voice on
the tape. I'd reached Laura's grandmother's house, La
Rochelle. I checked the number again, it was right. Just didn't
make any sense.
I wasn't worried about Alice Fielding. I wouldn't have
expected her to answer the phone this late - the old lady was
usually in bed and asleep by ten. But I couldn't understand
what the detective had been doing at her house. Why on earth
would Campbell have gone out there? How did he get the
number, the address?
It had to be some kind of mistake. I tried Campbell's cell, then I called his home number in Tampa and left a message.
I fixed myself a large Scotch and water, drank it down and
poured another.
The discovery of Sophie's drawing, leading so swiftly to the identifying of a suspect, should have raised my spirits, but it had left me feeling depressed and uneasy. I wasn't sure
what to make of Ward living near my office in Paris. It
sickened me to think I must have passed him on the street and not known.
I couldn't stop thinking about Jelena.
Her scent was on my hands and face, my clothes. I could still taste her, feel the warmth of her skin. I kept going back
to the moment at dinner when she admitted she felt the same
way I did. Maybe I was still wrong, but it seemed to me obvious
that she didn't really want me to leave. I had to force
myself to walk away. I just knew it was up to me to do the
right thing, and that meant thinking about what was best for
her. I so nearly went back and rang her doorbell.
I carried my drink to the desk and sat down with my laptop
to study the sketch of 'David Mallet' more closely. I made
an effort to imagine the man's face in different guises, different
contexts. I pulled up the photos of Ernest Seaton's parents
and looked for some family resemblance. I couldn't see it,
couldn't see either Gary or June in those neutral features; yet
there was something about him.
I began to wonder if I hadn't caught a glimpse of the face
recently - possibly even tonight, here in New York. It was just
a vague impression, the memory of it lodged at the back of my
mind like an itch I couldn't reach. But I felt there was a chance,
if it had happened this evening while we were out together,
that Jelly might have noticed whatever it was I'd missed.
I dialled her cell.

Wake up, Wardo, company.
Ward rose to his feet. A young mother, maybe not so young,
pushing a baby in a Maclaren stroller and dragging a fouryear-old,
turned in at the entrance to the building. What was
she doing out with the kids this late? As if it was any of
his business. With a friendly smile he went to her assistance.
'Here, let me give you a hand with that.'
She let him, didn't even question what was he doing there,
hanging about the lobby after midnight. As he helped her up
the steps with the stroller, Ward explained: he'd left his frontdoor
key in his girlfriend's apartment and she wasn't back
yet. He charmed her with the little story he'd prepared.
'I'm Eddie, by the way. Eddie Lister.' He hesitated. 'Jelena's
friend?'
He looked neat and respectable enough in Ed's dark blue
suit from Brooks Brothers. Ward had been waiting three
quarters of an hour.
She gave him a blank look.
'Jelena Sejour in 4A . . . the coloured girl?' He used the
non-PC label to give her something to remember.
'Oh . . . oh, yes. Sure, I know who you mean.'

He held the front door wide open for them, then picked
up his rucksack and followed mother and children into the
building. Outside their ground-floor apartment, he said goodnight
and started to climb the stairs.

71

Jelly hadn't moved from the bed where she'd thrown herself
down when she came home. She'd kicked off her shoes, what
was left of them, then couldn't be bothered to change out of her clothes. She always predicted that if they ever met it would be a total shambles. Now her only satisfaction was
knowing she was right.
The apartment was as she'd left it when she ran out make-up,
underwear, rejected clothes, towels everywhere, like it had been hit by a hurricane. The look she'd taken so much trouble putting together seemed stupid and pointless now. The ashtray on the glass coffee table beside her was choked with half-smoked butts, various shades of lipstick on the filters. World go away, she thought.
Mistigris was glaring at her from his favourite spot on the top shelf of the closet. She couldn't see Minou, her other cat. She needed to pee, but wasn't ready yet for any "Iteration to the state his kiss had left her in. She still had
that dumb schmalzy waltz from the ballet twirling in her

head.
Jelly didn't recognise the number when it came up in the display window of her cell. She just knew it was him. She
removed her earphone, waited till the fourth ring, then with
a sigh hit Talk. 'Yes?'
Ed said quietly, 'Whatever you do, don't hang up. Just listen

'Why are you calling? You got three seconds.'
'It's not about us, Jelly. Check your e-mail. I've sent you
a drawing of somebody. It's important you look carefully at
his face. If you remember seeing him anywhere tonight, maybe
at the Met, or walking back from the restaurant . . .'
'Oh my God! How dare you pull this shit on me?'
'It's not what you think. I'm not trying to scare you, really
I'm not.'
'Eddie, don't do this to me, please. PLEASE . .. just leave
me alone.'
She switched the cell off and threw it down, then with a
loud wail burst into tears. After a while, she got up from the
bed and walked over to her computer. The little envelope
was laying there in her intray. If she opened it, she'd feel
bound to answer and that was exactly what he wanted. She
highlighted Ed's e-mail and moved the cursor to the delete
option, then hesitated.
What if he wasn't messing with her?
She heard a sound outside her door. Her eyes swivelled to
the kitchen and entrance hall a second before the doorbell
rang.

A little drunk, I poured myself another whisky, then went
over to the corner windows and stood gazing out at the
East River. I was thinking about Jelly, the way she'd reacted
just now. She'd more or less accused me of using the threat
of Ward as an excuse to keep talking to her, as a way of
holding on. Maybe she was right. If we were followed
tonight, the truth is, I hadn't noticed. But still ... I still
needed her to look at the face in the drawing. Just to be
sure.
The phone rang. I walked unsteadily across to the desk
and picked up.
'Where's Campbell?' The detective's wife, Kira, returning my call. 'I haven't heard from him and I'm worried.'
'If I knew where he was, Mrs Armour, I wouldn't have
troubled you, but I'm sure he'll be in touch,' I said, trying
to sound more confident than I felt.
'He called me from some place in Jersey. That was over
two hours ago.'
'Did Campbell say what he was doing there?'
'Waiting for you.'
'Mrs Armour,' it was an effort to speak without slurring
my words, 'I never told your husband or anyone that I was
going out to La Rochelle.'
'He got the number off Grace's cell phone.' ; My head swam. 'Grace Wilkes? The housekeeper at
Skylands?'
I heard her hesitate. 'Campbell didn't tell you?'
A tremor of alarm ran through me.
'He went back out to the house this morning before he
left Norfolk and found her dead. She'd been murdered.' I sat
down heavily in the chair.
'Jesus.' I was sobering up fast. 'Are you sure?'
'Am I sure?'
'I'm sorry, I'm just taking this in.'
I heard her stifle a sob. 'Oh God.'
I felt at a loss. 'Look, I'm sure he'll be okay'
'Then why am I getting nothing from his cell?' she asked,
her voice rising and shrill. 'I warned him. I tried to stop him
getting involved with this case. He knows about computers
. . . not psychopaths.'
There was a silence. I thought I could hear her weeping.
'It's all your fault. You got Campbell into this. He would
never have taken the risks, if you hadn't offered him ... so
much. He didn't tell me he was in trouble, he had debts he
needed to pay. Oh God, I just know something's happened
to him.'
'Mrs Armour, I promise you your husband has more than

earned--'
'I don't care about money she screamed.
'You have to help me,' I said quietly. 'You'll be helping
Campbell. It could even save his life.' I paused. 'I need to
understand what's going on inside Ward's head right now,
what he thinks I did to him.'
There was another longer silence.
'His head is the website. He believes you came to the real
Skylands . . . came for June. He wants the world to know
you killed her, and his father.'
'I've never even been near the place. Look, I met June
Seaton once at a party in New York. We spent an evening
together. That was it. I never saw her again.'
'Maybe, but in his mind you were there.' She hesitated.
'He may have blocked out what really happened that night'
I thought about the boy's face and hands covered in his
mother's blood.
'What are you saying? My God ... he was nine years old.'
'Campbell asked me if I thought Ernest could have
murdered his parents and suppressed the memory. There
are precedents. If he had reason to fear his mother was
going to run away, abandoning him to an abusive father it's
possible.'
'But what's this got to do with me? With my family?'
'June Seaton wrote you a love letter she never mailed.
it came to light two years ago, the letter could have triggered
a response in Ward. Awakened feelings of remorse he can never
admit to himself. So he transfers his guilt onto you . . .'
'Then why didn't he come after me? Why Sophie?'
'To make you suffer. He wanted to "avenge" his parents'
deaths and destroy your life. He used your daughter, but
wouldn't have bargained on falling in love with her ... which,
I suspect, only created more unresolved conflict.'
'Love? Didn't you just tell me the guy's a psychopath?'
'I think he's going through a psychological purge that he
doesn't fully understand - or rather it's going on in him.' She
paused. 'It's not over yet.'
'What do you mean?'
'Campbell found evidence that Ward may be getting ready
to kill again. We were on the phone, he was going through a
closet, I think he said it was in the maid's room, when he
came across ... a computer bag or rucksack.'
'Jesus Christ.'
'I don't know if I should be telling you this. There was a
name on the pack with an address Campbell said looked the
same as your Paris office. He thought you might have been
Ward . . . only he wasn't sure you weren't being set up. I
called the police. I didn't know what else to do.'
'You did the right thing. What was the name?'
*	'He read it out to me. David something or other.'
'Was it David Mallet?'
'Mallet. . . Mallory. Mallet, yeah that's it. He knew it was
made up because it's one of the placeholder names we both
*se in our work.'
I heard myself ask, 'Did you say Mallory?'

*	rang Jelly back on her cell. It was switched off. I tried her
"ndline and got a recorded message - she had Call Intercept.
A female robot asked me to identify myself before the call
could continue. I gave my name and added (before I remembered
the system wasn't designed to recognise a message)
that this was a matter of life and death.
'Thank you. Please hold.'
After what seemed an eternity, measured out on an instrumental
version of 'Mr Bojangles', I heard the same recorded
voice say, 'The person you are calling is not available. Thank
you. Good bye.'
I cursed, waited a moment, then punched the redial
button.

72

Jelly walked over to the door, her bare feet making no sound
on the stripped pine floor. She eased the tiny security flap
over the peep-hole to one side and put her eye to the fisheye
lens. Guy Mallory was standing in the hall, his back half
turned, looking down the stairwell.
He swung around then, as if he'd heard something, and
she saw he was wearing a suit and tie, which looked odd with
the rucksack slung over one shoulder. He took a step closer
to her door and she straightened up, thinking fast.
'Jelena, I know you're there.'
Too late to pretend otherwise. 'Guy? What are you doing
here?' She tried to sound groggy, as if he'd just woken her.
'I told you, I don't feel like seeing nobody.'
She peered out again. His face, distorted by the wide
angled lens, had a wooden, almost mask-like expression. 'Are
you all right?'

'Yeah, I'm fine,' she said. 'I took some Tylenol. Now please
go away. Lemme get back to sleep.'
'I had to make sure you were safe.'
'Safe? I'm okay, really.'
'It was just that when you wouldn't let me up before, I
thought maybe it was because your stalker friend was there
with you. And you couldn't talk, you know? I just wanted to
check you were okay.'
'He's not here, Guy. I'm fine, thanks.'
'You haven't heard from him then?'
She hesitated. 'Not really . . . he . . . well, okay, I did see
him briefly. He took me out to lunch, we discussed the situation
and that was it. No plans to meet again.'

'I find that hard to believe. Stalkers are very persistent.'
'Look, if there's one thing I'm sure about. . . I'm sure he's
not a stalker.' But she didn't sound sure.
Jelly thought about Ed calling her, e-mailing her, calling
her back again - she'd refused to take his last call . . .
maybe it was her fault for giving him the wrong idea. The
next thing he'd be round here. Now he knew where she
lived.

'It's just that I saw this guy earlier hanging out in the lobby
downstairs, he looked a little crazed.'
'Yeah? So what else is new? This is New York, Guy.'
'He could come back. All I'm trying to do here is protect
you.'
Behind her the phone started ringing. Jelly let the flap fall,
turned and leaned her back against the door. Shit. She raked
her fingers through her hair and closed her eyes, uncertain
what to do.
'Are you going to get that?' she heard Guy say through
'tiie door.
"Oh what the fuck. She twisted the lock.
Brushing past the girl as she held open the door to her
apartment, Ward made straight for the telephone on the glass
table and picked up.
He stood listening, looking back at Jelly, taking in her
barefoot deshabille, the disordered room, the bleak ammoniac
smell of cat-litter - a pewter rectangle with blunted edges.
He had to close off his senses.
'You know an Ed Lister?'
She nodded miserably.

'You want to talk to him?'
Jelly shook her head. 'I don't want to talk to him.'
He pressed the number two key, declining the call. 'Didn't
I tell you? This guy's just not gonna let go.'
He watched her open a pack of Marlboro and light up a
cigarette as she came back into the room. She sank down
onto the edge of the bed and he saw the tears.

'Hey, it's okay. As long as I'm around, I won't let him hurt
you.'
'You don't understand,' she said, exhaling smoke.
'You have feelings, I know,' he said gently, 'but they're not
real. You don't even know him. Jelena, none of it's real. Mind
if I sit?'
Ward slipped his rucksack off his shoulder and lowered it
onto the rattan couch, then cleared a space and sat down.
'A stalker,' he went on, same soft voice, 'however sincere
he may seem, is a natural liar. All that sweet talk he laid on
you about true love and destiny, it's written in the stars - all
lies. The fact he was hanging around downstairs, don't be
surprised if he tries to come back now and "rescue" you
from danger.'
She frowned. 'Why would he think I'm in danger?'
'You're not in any danger . . . except from him. It's a
common stalking fantasy. He dreams of proving his love for
you by an act of chivalry. Another one is turning the tables;
where he'll claim he's the victim and that you are stalking him, the stalker stalked. You see what we're up against? If you
don't give him what he wants your friend is going to turn
violent. You need to tell the authorities about Ed Lister, report
him to the police or the FBI. Don't wait.'
She laughed. 'Go to the cops? Are you kidding?'
'It happens very fast. With someone like Ed, love can turn
in the blink of an eye to a deep hatred that's every bit as
consuming. If he can't have you, believe me, he's going to
make sure no one else can either.'
He lifted that straight from his own 'profile', the one
Campbell wrote, with a little help - no doubt - from his
widow, Kira.
'What's up, Mistigris?'Jelly smiled. 'He only goes to people
he knows don't like cats. His name means "joker" in French.'
'I like his name.' He kept a neutral expression as the animal
jumped up on his lap and started purring. 'You need to call
somebody.'
She shook her head. I couldn't do that to Ed. Anyway, I
happen to know he's flying back to London tomorrow.'
'You forgive my saying so,' he leaned back, stroking the
cat's ears, 'but you don't know that. You don't know squat
about Ed. It's not safe for you to stay.'
'Hey now, wait just a minute . . .'
'When I leave here I'm driving out to my grandmother's
house in New Jersey.' He spoke with an urgency he needed her to feel. 'There's plenty of room. If you want it, you got
a bed for the night. No strings.' "Thanks, I'll be fine.'
Still acting stubborn. Dumb of her, but only to be expected.
He could see she was rattled now, trying to put on a brave face.
'Your life is in danger, Jelly. Where else can you go?'
"'¦* She took a deep drag on her cigarette, screwing up her
eyes and choking a little on the smoke, then stubbed it out
in a full ashtray that he couldn't look at without seeing a
dark tunnel, widest at this end and narrowing down to
nothing.
'You said Jelly just then.'
'Other people call you that?'
She glanced at him. 'Yeah, it's my nickname.'
He shrugged. 'We don't have a lot of time.'
'Okay, okay.' She sighed. 'There's my girlfriend, Tachel. I
guess I can stay at her place tonight. You could drop me off
there. She lives not far from the expressway - you know
Woodside?'
Ward smiled. 'Not a problem.'
'I need to change out of these clothes.'
'You want I'll wait outside.'
'Stay there. I'll use the bathroom.'

As soon as he heard Jelly lock the door behind her, Ward
opened a side pocket on his backpack and took out a small
pair of pliers. He gave her thirty seconds, then rose from the
couch, spilling the cat off his lap, and went over to the window
where the phone line came into the apartment. He cut the
wires.
Then, using a pair of Jelly's discarded pantyhose, he picked
up the telephone receiver and wiped it clean of potential
prints. Just to be sure, he polished the cradle too and the
surface of the glass table.
He sat back down, undid the top flap of the backpack and
brought out an oil-cloth bundle. He unwrapped the mezzaluna
and laid it carefully across his knees; then, holding the knife
by one of its handles, peeled off the plastic shield that guarded
the edge. He shoved the cloth and shield back in his pack)
unzipped a long side-pocket and placed the naked blade inside
it with the handles facing outwards. Instead of the zipper, he
used alternative Velcro fasteners to close the pocket again, so
that when he wore the backpack the weapon would be easy
to get at.
He had practised the 'draw' - left hand reaching across
the body and under his right armpit - until he was satisfied
he could respond to any given situation in about a second
and a half.
Ward donned a fresh pair of rubber gloves. He blew into
the fingers of each hand before pulling it on, then stretched
and snapped the latex to get rid of any air bubbles. He heard
the thick doggerel rhythms of rap music coming from behind
the locked bathroom door and guessed the girl had switched
on the radio because she wanted privacy. He found her
modesty becoming.

73

Jelly sat on the toilet, hunched forward, holding onto the edge
of the tub with one hand, the other clamped over her mouth
to stop herself from crying out. A minute ago, less, she'd
called Tachel and heard the number ringing and then suddenly the line had gone dead.
. She'd understood at once what that meant.
Something had felt wrong the moment she let Guy in the
apartment. She should have run then, when she got that first
ajbad vibe, when she had the chance. What could have possessed her to open the door to him? She stared at the wall-phone
slowly unwinding at the end of its corkscrew cord.
She grabbed the receiver and tried again, this time dialling
911, just to be sure. Nothing. He must have cut the line. Her
mobile was in the other room. She'd meant to bring it with her
but couldn't find the damned thing and then Guy had said
hurry, they needed to hurry. He must have took it. Oh Jesus
God.
Why was he doing this? What did he want with her? She
thought about Ed's e-mail attachment, the one she'd deliberately
neglected to open, and felt a sick rush of fear. She
hadn't seen anyone following them tonight, had she? Anyone
that looked like Guy? How could she have been such a fool,
almost letting him convince her that Ed was the danger? It
was Guy . . . who killed people. But she couldn't think on
that now. She had to try to stay calm, focused, find some
way out of this situation.
The bathroom window was not an option: too small to
climb through, too high above the street to call for help. And,
if she started yelling and screaming, he could just bust down
the door. It was ridiculous how badly her hands were shaking.
She joined them, closed her eyes. Then, through the fear, an
idea came to her.
There was one person she could contact - her next-door
neighbour, the weirdo in 4B. He never went out. She hadn't
thought of him before because he was crazy and they weren't
speaking on account of the music issue. But if Lazlo wasn't
asleep - and even if he was - she knew how to get his
attention.
Jelly climbed into the tub and turned on the shower-radio.
She put an ear flat to the tiles under the nozzle and listened.
She could hear someone moving about in there - thank God,
he was still up. Then the muttering started. Two voices, one
high and whiny complaining about the noise, the other getting
angry.
She heard Lazlo lumber into his bathroom, still talking to
himself, and start banging on the party wall.
She cranked the volume for Jay-Zee as loud as it would go-
'I wouldn't be speaking to you if this wasn't an emergency.'
'I'm sorry, sir, but without knowing the subscriber's override
code I have no way of reaching them. I cannot over-ride
Call Intercept.'
'Then do me a favour, operator, try the number yourself.
Maybe they'll accept your call.'
'Please hold.'
Several moments later the operator came back and said
she'd been unable to get through because there was a fault
on the line. I knew then for certain that Jelly was in immediate
danger. It meant 'Guy Mallory' was already there.
'He's going to kill her.'
'Sir, I suggest you call emergency services.'
'There isn't time,' I shouted.
'The number is ringing for you now,' she said wearily and
signed off with a meaningless 'Thank you for using ATT'
I slammed the receiver down, stunned by the enormous
urgency of the situation.
In the ten minutes or so I'd wasted on the phone getting
nowhere, I could have been halfway to Thirty-ninth Street.
I grabbed my jacket and was already out in the lobby, waiting
for an elevator to come, when the phone rang again.
I hesitated, then ran back for it.
'Mr Lister?' It was Eve-Louise on the front desk. 'There's two detectives here from the NYPD would like to talk to
you.'
'Tell them I'm on my way down.'

Ward knocked on the bathroom door. 'Time to go, sugar.'
She didn't reply. He could hear the loud music, the banging
-On the wall - he knew now what she was up to in there. 'Let's
go, Jell.'
; 'Jelena?' He tried the handle, then stood back, ready to kick in the door, when the noise stopped - she'd turned off
the radio. He heard the toilet flush, then the door opened
and Jelly emerged carrying an old Lord  Taylor shopping
bag stuffed with her overnight things. She'd changed into
jeans and a T-shirt and Ward caught a whiff of the perfume
she'd worn for him the other night at dinner.
A green glass paper-weight, smooth and cool against his
cheek.
'I'm ready,'Jelly said. He noticed her hands were trembling.
'I just have to leave some dry food and water out for the
cats.'
'AH right, but we don't have all day.'
While she was taking care of the menagerie, Ward looked
through the peep-hole into the hallway. The coast was clear.

Nobody else lived on their floor apart from her and Lazlo.
As she turned from locking the door to her apartment, down
the hall on the right Jelly saw 4B's crack open and her neighbour's
glittering eye appear above the door chain. Then the
eye withdrew and she heard Lazlo talking to someone at his
back. She recognised his other voice, the high-pitched one
that sounded like a woman nagging.
I can't take another minute of this. You know what time
it is? You gotta do something, you gotta shut that bitch up.'
'Enough, already,' Lazlo bellowed.
Then he hollered through the crack at Jelly, 'This time you
went too far. You little cock-sucking whore. Yeah, you heard
me, slut. I'm gonna put a stop to your dirty little game once
and for all.'
He'd pulled this crazy shit before, but never to her face.
Jelly shouted back at him across the hall, 'You don't like it,
why don't you call the cops, asshole?' She felt Ward put an
arm around her shoulder and guide her towards the stairs.
'We don't need to get involved here.'
'You crazy motherfucker,' she kept going, 'you should be
in Bellevue. If you don't call Emergency Services, I will.'
The door slammed shut. Jelly prayed Lazlo had got the
message, but she didn't hold out much hope. She heard the
rattle of a chain and the next moment a flab mountain in
matching royal blue robe and pyjamas shunted into the hallway.
Lazlo looked huge, but hardly intimidating.
'I've had just about as much as I can take,' he roared, his
distended jowls pink and wobbling with fury.
'Back off, bozo,' Guy warned him.
'Who the fuck are you?' He advanced on them. 'Who the
fuck are you to tell me jack-shit? You fuck.'
Then abruptly, as if some switch had been thrown in his
head, the rage seemed to pass. Without a flicker Lazlo changed
modes, reverting to the way she'd seen him act in public polite,
considerate, harmless.
'Are you all right, Miss Sejour?'
Guy answered for her, 'I never say anything twice.'
'Is this man bothering you?' He took another step.
It was only now that Jelly understood what she had done, the danger she had put him in, involving him in her troubles.
She gestured frantically at Lazlo to leave it alone, go back
inside. But he kept coming.
Guy said quietly, 'You just crossed the line, fats.'
The menace in his tone made Jelly glance down. Some kind of curved blade had materialised in Guy's hand. A
gleaming metal extension of his arm which he held straight out and close to his side.
She screamed, 'He's got a knife.'
,:.. Guy let go her shoulder to concentrate on the big lunk bearing down on them. This was her chance to create a diversion, her
fine shot at breaking free. Jelly ducked behind him as he swung the knife in a rising backstroke aimed at Lazlo's unprotected throat, then launched herself off the top of the stairs.
She levitated, taking three steps at a time, stumbled and
fell at the bottom of the first flight. A retching noise from
above, something between a cough and a gasping, choked
off cry, made her convulse with fresh horror. She kept going,
though, afraid that if she looked back and saw Guy coming
she would freeze. Jelly got to the second-floor landing before
she heard him behind her - the few heavy thumps made it
sound like he was leaping whole flights - easily gaining.
He caught up with her as she reached ground level.
'I'm parked right outside,' Guy said calmly, taking her arm
as if nothing had happened. 'We're going to walk out of here
together.'
He wasn't even breathing hard.
Something splashed on the tiled floor. Jelly looked up. He
covered her mouth, catching the scream before it left her
throat. Blood was dripping ... gushing now down the narrow
shaft of the stairwell. She felt a warm whip lick across her
bare toes, unprotected by her Old Navy flip-flops, and grew
faint.
'If you're smart,' Guy said, tightening his grip on her upper
arm, 'you'll just get in the car and not say a word.'

The elevator had passed the tenth floor, halfway to the lobby
where the detectives were waiting, when my cell rang.
'Yes?' I could hear a car engine, traffic.
A man's voice said, 'Tell him we're going for a ride.'
'Who is this?'
'Tell him we're taking a run out to the house, he knows
the way. Oh I'm sorry, sugar, you can't talk with my dick in
your mouth.' There was a sound of tearing tape and then a
cry I recognised. 'That better?'
I heard Jelly sobbing.
'Tell him if he calls the cops, I'll kill you.'
I knew the voice. Last time I heard it was in the garden
of the Villa Nardini in Florence, standing over the grotto
where Sophie died - a husky, lilting Midwestern drawl that
signed off with, 'Take it easy, Ed.'
She burst out, 'Please don't hurt me, oh God . . .'
Then they were gone.

74

About halfway across the George Washington Bridge, I leaned
forward and told the cab driver I'd changed my mind, when
we got to the New Jersey side I wanted him to turn right
around and take me back to the city.
He caught my eye in his rearview, but didn't say anything.
We were on the bridge's lower level, heading out to the
house at Gilmans Landing, where I could only guess Ward
had taken Jelly. The last couple of miles I'd started to have
doubts. I knew how to get there, of course - he knows the
way - but what if it wasn't the house? Could he have meant
Skylands? What if this was some kind of trick? I could hear the tyres singing out: bad call, wrong decision.
My mobile rang. The phone lay beside me on the back
seat of the taxi where I'd just thrown it down. I'd been speed
dialling Jelly every few minutes.
I snatched it up and hit the answer button. 'Ed Lister.'
Nothing. I could hear some kind of faint background music, the brassy fanfares of a Mariachi band it sounded like, but
nobody spoke. I glanced at the display screen and saw the
message alert for an incoming video feed.
The little screen lit up, went black, then an image formed
of an unmade bed, tangled sheets, pillows piled against the
headboard. Slowly the camera tracked to a picture on the
wall. I recognised it from Jelly's description, a Braque still
life of musical instruments. It had to be her room, her studio
apartment on Thirty-ninth Street.
The picture froze. I thought, no, Jesus no, they're still there.
I'd fallen right into the trap. He was going to kill her right
there in the apartment ... if he hadn't already. The video
was probably a recording of her murder, which he wanted
me to witness.
I waited for it to restart, sick with apprehension, trying to
prepare myself for the horror I believed was about to unfold.
We'd been here before, only this time I'd let it happen. My
mind raced back to my headlong exit from the Carlyle, bailing
out of the elevator on the fifth floor and taking the service
stairs down to the hotel's side entrance, giving the detectives
the slip - then, for ages, not being able to find a cab. In the
end I'd decided against checking Jelly's place first. I'd calculated
Ward was fifteen to twenty minutes ahead of me, I didn't
have a moment to lose.
The screen on my mobile came back to life.
Different picture. In place of the Braque still-life I was
looking at a gaudy painting on black velvet of the Virgin of
Guadeloupe. Different room. It was like an instant reprieve.
I'd only ever glanced in the door but I recognised the maid's
quarters at La Rochelle. They were already at the house.
Then the camera panned down and I knew the feed was live.
At the foot of the bed, I saw a hunched figure on a chair,
arms and legs roped together, head wrapped like a mummy's
in silver duct tape (the eyes and nostrils alone were visible).
As far as I could tell, Jelly was still conscious. It wasn't too
late, I told myself.
A flurry of movement in front of the lens briefly obscured
my view. When the image cleared, the camera had closed in
on her masked face and I caught the look of sleepy terror in
her eyes. Jelly was reacting to something coming towards her
I couldn't see what it was, only the twin arcs of light reflected
in her dilated pupils. Then the screen went black.
I said into the phone, 'How much do you want?'
'You know this isn't about money'

'We can work something out . . . whatever it is, I'll do
anything.'
Ward laughed. 'You still don't get it, Ed, do you?'
'Just let her go. You can explain when I get there, but killing
another innocent person won't help you.'
'Help me? Land sakes alive, Ed, they're gonna say you killed her. That's the whole idea. And, you know what? They'll
be right. I'm going to hang up now.'
'Wait, there's one thing you should know--' But he'd already
cut me off.
I looked out of the window and saw that we were coming
into the bridge's toll plaza. The driver went through the EZ
Pass and I told him to take a right onto Pallisades Parkway
- I'd changed my mind back.
He squinted at me in the rearview and I held up a couple
of hundred-dollar bills, then pushed them under the plastic
grille. 'How fast can you get there?'
'I could lose my licence,' he said.
I showed him two more.
It was hot and stuffy in the wheel-well of the station-wagon.
Jelly lay curled up like a question mark, unable to move, the
floor of the trunk above her weighted down by the displaced
8pare wheel. Every breath she took she had to suppress a
panicky, claustrophobic fear something could prevent her
from taking the next one. What if she sneezed and her nasal
passages became blocked? What if her nose started bleeding,
spontaneously, which it sometimes did? As a teenager she
used to worry that her nostrils were too big. Now she wished
they were the size of Ohio.
She lay in the seamless dark, feeling faint and dizzy, afraid
of losing her balance even though she had nowhere to fall.
Some instinct told her she must at all costs stay awake. She
tried to remember poems, lyrics, jokes; anything to keep her
mind active. She had to fight a deep longing to close her eyes.
She switched to music. In her head, she played the Chopin
Nocturne she'd been practising for the recital, and drifted
off into a daydream that was about people having a conversation,
talking and arguing in musical phrases. Her attention
began to wander. Perhaps this was all a dream. In his car,
something happened . . . she had an idea that Guy had put
a needle in her arm. But she could have dreamt that too.
She had no clue where they were, except it felt like a long
way from Manhattan. A needle! It was too quiet for the city.
She remembered a sign that said, Atrium of Tenafly ... what
the fuck was that? A deserted parking lot. Guy helping her
out of the Golf and making her lie down in the back end of
an old station-wagon. Was that the plan? Maybe he'd given
her a roofie shot, the forget-me pill... She must have blacked
out. Did he do it yet?
Jelly couldn't remember, couldn't think straight.
She made another attempt to move her arms and legs.
Nothing happened. It wasn't just because they were tightly
bound, or because the shape of the wheel-well forced her to
lie a certain way, her muscles weren't responding. The smell
of gas and oil made her want to throw up. Then, out of
nowhere, the image of a curved blade flashed before her eyes
and she felt Lazlo's warm blood splash her foot. She gagged,
sucking air in through her nose. What had happened to Guy?
She'd heard the wagon door slam shut, a while ago now, or
was it only a minute - she'd lost all sense of time. She didn't
have a sound picture of him coming back.
Jelly listened, straining to hear. Her ears were covered by
the tape he'd wrapped round and around her head. It was
like listening to the roar of the ocean inside a shell. Beyond
the constant surf, she imagined she could hear the sound of
lapping water.
The station-wagon was at a slant. Maybe that was why she
felt like she was falling all the time. It must be parked on a
slope.

I went slowly up, one step at a time, not even trying to keep quiet. If they were here, then Ward was bound to have heard
the taxi in the driveway, seen the headlights. I just kept my
eye on the door to the maid's room on the landing above
me, wishing now I had a gun or some kind of weapon.
I still didn't know if I'd made the right decision. Arriving
at La Rochelle a couple of minutes earlier, I hadn't noticed
any vehicle parked outside. The house was all lit up, which
gave me some encouragement, but there was no sign of
anyone. I'd walked straight through the kitchen, down the
back hallway and stopped at the foot of the stairs and listened.
The door to Jesusita's room was locked. Picking up a fire
extinguisher that stood on the landing, I smashed the doorhandle,
then used the heavy canister to batter the door open.
I took in at a glance the unmade bed, the empty wooden
chair, the length of rope tangled up in its legs. They'd been
here and gone. Light was coming from the bathroom. A pool
of water glistened on the threshold under the half-open bathroom
door. I shouldered it all the way back.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The tiled floor was
wet, as if somebody had taken a shower recently. A pile of
used towels and a sodden bathmat lay under the wash-basin.
The plug had been left in the bathtub and an inch or so of
soapy water. I felt the temperature, cold.
I turned off the light, came back into the room and threw
the fire-extinguisher down on Jesusita's bed. I stood for a
moment, trying to think. Why had Ward sent me the live
video feed, then taken Jelly and locked the door to an empty
room? Why go to all the trouble? Unless he needed to delay
me for some reason. He must surely want me to find them?
I wouldn't have been invited out to La Rochelle unless his
plan depended on my being here.
Then I saw how this was supposed to work. The empty
chair, the rope, the twisted sheets, I realised now - if Kira
Armour was right in her analysis of Ward's motives, his crazy
insistence that I killed his parents - would become part of
the evidence against me, the trail I left behind as I prepared
to kill again. My fingerprints were sure to be everywhere.
It was all a set-up. I remembered the drowsy frightened
look I'd seen in Jelly's eyes, and felt a rush of anger at the
thought of anyone wanting to hurt her, and because of me.
I was the one Ward really wanted to destroy. I closed my eyes
and saw his mother sprawled on the floor of the cargo
container, soaked to the skin, a trickle of blood at the corner
of her mouth. If it hadn't been for that single ill-fated night
I spent with June Seaton, none of this would have happened.
The past had come back to haunt me, and in retributive
ways that seemed out of all proportion to anything I did
wrong. The irony was that my determination to avenge
Sophie's murder had blinded me to the possibility that I had
set the desperate sequence of events in motion. That it was
my fault she died.
If true, if only even partly true, it was pretty hard to bear.
But I had to let that go now. There was no time to waste
on regretting what couldn't be changed. I thought about
Jelly and the obsessive love I felt for her that had put her
life in danger and, unless I could find her before Ward
carried out his sick threats, was about to become the cause
of her death.

'They're gonna say you killed her . . . And, you know what?
They'll be right'
He didn't really need my help to execute his plan, make
her my victim. I was afraid Ward would decide not to wait,
just go ahead without me, and I would be unable to prevent
the horror from repeating itself.

It took only a minute to search the other rooms and establish
that they were no longer in the house. Relieved to find Alice
Fielding unharmed - the old lady was in bed, propped up
against the pillows, sound asleep I looked in the garage and
saw that her Subaru and the vintage Buick station-wagon
were both missing. They might have driven off in either one
of them, but something told me that Ward and the girl hadn't
left the grounds.
There weren't many places he could have taken her. I grabbed
a flashlight from the table in the front porch and ran down
through the garden, across the terraces towards the pool area.
Without a key to the enclosure, I could only shine the beam
through the chain-link fence into the changing pavilion and
pool house. Nothing stirred among the fugitive shadows. The
pool itself, empty and overgrown with weeds, had been fenced
off to prevent accidents. A memory surfaced of one blazing
August weekend years ago when I first taught Sophie how to
dive and swim lengths underwater. The area was deserted.
I switched off the light and stood for a moment in darkness,
listening. I could hear the distant hum of city traffic, but
closer by the only sound and movement came from the
Hudson, which I could see glinting between the trees in changing
patterns of black and silver. A foreboding, some sense of
the inevitable, drew me to the river.
I started jogging along the shore road, swinging the beam
of the flashlight up and down the riverbank, calling Jelena's
name - afraid now that I'd got there too late. It was the kind
of trick Ward would enjoy playing, offering false hope, letting
me believe she was still alive, when the worst had already
happened. It would give him a sense of ultimate control. I
thought about phoning the police. He'd warned me not to,
but I couldn't see now it making much difference.
Drawing level with the boathouse, I stopped to get my
breath. I called out to Jelly again, if only to let Ward know I
hadn't given up looking for them, and waited. The darkness
gave nothing back. Then I heard a noise from the trees and
bushes growing at the river's edge that sounded like the cry
of a bird, a night heron, perhaps. I heard it again. Only this
time the cry registered as human.
Very faint but quite distinct - a cry for help.
It was a man's voice, coming from somewhere nearby. I
turned the light on the derelict boathouse, which loomed
above me narrow and gaunt against the starless sky, and
brought the beam down to the open door, letting it play
into the inky interior, then back along the walkway that
crossed the marshy ground between the boathouse and the
track.
Halfway over I spotted a figure crawling towards dry land.
Campbell Armour didn't look up or react when the light
fell on him. He didn't stop either. His glasses had gone, his
face and hair and sweatshirt were caked with blood, but he
kept inching forward elbow over elbow, dragging his short
crippled legs behind him. I knelt down and put a hand on
his shoulder.
'Campbell,' I said close to his ear. 'This is Ed Lister.'
He flinched at the sound of my voice, then turned his head
and I saw his eyes were full of blood. 'He's got the girl, Campbell.
Do you know where they went?'
I thought you were ... him.' There was a long silence. He
barely had enough strength to speak. 'I need you to call my
wife, tell her . . .' He faded.
'I'm going to get help, then you can talk to her yourself.
Where are they?'
He didn't answer and I was afraid I wouldn't get anything
more out of him. 'Campbell, he's planning to kill her ... we
don't have much time.'
'I heard the wagon go past . . . other side of the bay.'
I knew where he meant. The shore road winds around a
pocket wilderness area of wedands and tidal shallows to a stony
point that juts out far enough to catch the main currents of
the river. The track ends in a private launch ramp, where we
used to put the Fieldings' sail-boat in the water every summer.
It wasn't hard to imagine why Ward might have taken her there.
I pulled out my mobile, punched 911 for emergency
services and after I'd spoken to the dispatcher, handed the
phone to Campbell.
'Stay where you are. They'll find you.'
'I'm not going anyplace,' Campbell said. I caught the flicker
of a smile. 'This wasn't in the plan, dude.'
'You brought him in, Campbell . . . you'll make it,' I said,
though I couldn't tell how badly hurt he was. 'The million
dollars will be in your account tomorrow.'
'In case I don't. . .' He asked me then, agonisingly slowly,
to do him a favour - it was a business matter, which I promised to take care of for him. I gave his shoulder a squeeze, got
up to leave.
'Ed, wait. He's got a knife . . . it'll look like you used it on
her.'
'I know,' I said and started to run.
After a short distance, I turned off the track and plunged
into the reed-beds, parting the dense bulrushes that rose like
a solid wall before me. When I sank down into the muddy
Water they reached well over my head.
As the crow flies the boat ramp lay only a couple of hundred
yards across the marsh. The way round by road is a lot longer.




75

Ward stood on the slipway close to the water's edge watching
the river take on the changing mood and temper of the night
sky. The cloud cover had broken over the cliffs of the Palisades
and a handful of stars were showing on the smooth gliding
surface of the deep-water channel out in midstream.
The light-speckled river flowed through him and he saw
it twist and turn into the single continuous plane of a Mobius
strip. On his tongue it had a silky texture and tasted bitter,
metallic, thick - somewhere between dandelion milk and
blood - the taste of perpetual sorrow.
He was thinking about the girl in the trunk of the wagon
and decided that he couldn't wait any longer. It didn't really
matter whether Ed Lister was there to witness the end or
not. Either way this was going to destroy him. He would have
liked to share the moment, but now he just wanted to get it
over with.
Wait a minute . . . 'get it over with'? Do I detect a certain
reluctance? Don't tell me you got feelings for the chocolata,Ward.
Ward??? Oh hecko, you do, don't you? My advice is stick with
the programme, bud, wait until he gets here. Listen . . .
There were crackling sounds coming from the marsh.
No, he felt nothing for Jelly. She'd been pleasant enough
to him, she was cute enough, in another life they might even
have become friends, but so what? He felt calm about what
he had to do.
He returned to the Buick, opened the tail-gate door and
pulled the spare wheel out onto the concrete ramp. He gave
it a shove that sent it trundling down towards the river. He
watched the tyre jink as it hit the water and topple over on
its side with a splash; then lost sight of it as the longshore
current bore it swiftly away.
He shouldered his rucksack.
Where's the rush? Ed shouldn't be long now. Why not wait? Ward lifted the flooring of the cargo bay. In the dark he
could just make out Jelly's form curled up in the wheel-well.
He took his key-light from a pocket (the wagon's interior
lights were disabled) and shone the sapphire beam in her
face. She blinked and he smiled down at her.
'Don't be afraid, Jelena. I won't let anyone hurt you.' You want to give Lister the treatment, the full wax, don't you?
It'll stay with him longer if he's a witness, if he takes part. Maybe
forever. Cm'on, man . . .
He tried not to let her see the blade in his other hand, but
she had to know what was coming. She started to squirm
and shake her head, making a moaning, gagging noise as she
attempted to wriggle up out of the well. He saw the frantic
pleading in her eyes, showing too much white now as they
rolled around in her skull. He grabbed an arm and pulled
her upper body out onto the tail-gate so that her head was
hanging off the edge, her throat exposed.
'Make it easy on yourself, sugar. Lay still for me.'
She wouldn't though, and she wouldn't stop the moaning
either, which got on his nerves. Ward placed a hand over
Jelly's eyes so he didn't have to deal with her looking at him,
beseeching him. He could feel her wet eyelashes tickling his
palm as he raised the gleaming mezzaluna above his head,
,gripping one of its horn-like steel handles in his fist.
He was about to do it, swing the curved blade - in his
mind it had already begun its downward flashing trajectory -- when he met resistance. He wasn't getting the usual 'this Js it' feeling, no ecstatic sense of revelation, no deep conviction
of his own higher authority. Yes, well . . . didn't I try to warn

you?
He found himself back at Skylands, waiting outside the
half-open door to his parents' bedroom. He could see the
mirror on the vanity, reflecting a detail from the painting
over the bed. He moved and the door swung back to reveal
the wider tableau, life stilled by carnage ... his mother's
upside-down eyes staring at him, bitter-tasting as quinine . .
. the grey pink ooze of his daddy's brains on the walls, the
ceiling . . . the dry rusde of a million insect wings.
It never changed. He heard the high-pitched whine that
felt like icy fingers closing around his heart. Then the eraser
smell hit him ... the blood.
He couldn't step across the threshold into the bedroom,
couldn't see who was in there with them. In the medullar
centre of his brain he felt a sudden blaze of heat as if some
synaptic or neural circuit had shorted out. But there was
someone ... in the mirror, bloodied, small of stature. The
mirror never lies.
Grace's voice calling you, 'Ernie, Ernie.' Like smoke the picture cleared; the bedroom, the dusty
landing, Grace's sobs echoing through the silent house, all
evaporated; leaving him raw and trembling, glad to be reunited
at last with his family, with himself. Glad to be home.
He could hear Ed blundering through the darkness.
Ward lowered his weapon and looked up at the sky, the
cluster of stars.Their little fat faces, terrifyingly plump, watching
him. All right, all right. He pushed the girl back into the
wheel-well. Then slammed the tail-gate shut. He walked
around to the driver's door, leaned in to pull the gear shift
into neutral.
'When the water reaches you, don't struggle,' he said softly,
coaching her over the back seats. 'Just let yourself be one
with the spirit of the river.'
Then he released the handbrake and closed the door.
The station-wagon rolled down the slope, the heavy vehicle
slowly gathering momentum. Ward could see already that it
wasn't going to be enough. The surface of the single-width
boat ramp had crumbled in places leaving pitted sections of
concrete and gravel which impeded its progress. The Buick's
front wheels caught in a rut and the wagon had barely entered
the water before it came to a standstill.
He could hear the splashing getting closer. He looked over
towards the reed-beds, expecting Ed to appear at any moment,
and felt the blood rise to his face.
A furious agitation, almost panic, seized him.
He thought about going under the hood and adjusting the
throttle cable, but there wasn't time. Ward jumped down off
the launch ramp and searched the beach for a decent-sized
rock. He found one right away close to some old pilings - it
felt heavy enough and was the right shape.
He carried it back to the wagon, climbed into the driver's
seat and started the engine. The big V-8 turned over but
wouldn't catch. The whirring getting weaker, the battery dying
on him. Ward cursed and switched off, then twisted the key
in the ignition. Nothing. He repeated the process, trying it
again and again until the engine suddenly gave a cough and
spluttered into life.
He pinned the accelerator pedal to the floor with the rock,
jamming it so it wouldn't budge, then put the automatic shift
in drive and jumped clear as the old Buick lurched forward.
The wagon planed along like a hovercraft, the water up to
its wood-grained side panels, then swung around with the
current and sank.
Ward stood and watched it go down. He thought he saw the girl's head framed for a moment in the tail-gate window,
but it was too dark to be sure.

The going was harder and slower than I'd expected. Wading
through the marsh, I could see little beyond the high wall of
rushes immediately ahead. I had to keep stopping to realign
myself by the city-glow of Yonkers on the further shore or
the lights of the George Washington Bridge behind me. I
could hear the river flowing off to my right, but it was easy
to become disoriented.
About halfway across, turning inland to avoid a ring of
deeper water, I heard a car engine come to life, then high
engine revs, followed by a heavy splash. I knew at once what
it meant. I raced on, praying I would get there in time.
Emerging at last from the reed-beds, I ran barefoot - I'd
lost shoes and socks in the marsh - along the pebble beach
towards the slipway. I couldn't see anyone, but the beam of
my flashlight soon picked up the station-wagon lying ten
maybe twenty yards offshore, half-submerged. There was still
hope.
It had beached itself on a sandbank that at low tide sometimes
gives boats trouble along that stretch of the Hudson.
I knew that the deep-water channel lay just a little further
out and that the current would want to drag the wagon that
way. I took it as given that Jelly was on board. Stripping off
my jacket, I plunged back in the water and started to make
for the Buick, when I heard a voice behind me call my name.
It could only be Ward.
I thought of ignoring him and carrying on, but I realised
I wouldn't get far. I looked back and saw a figure standing
motionless on the edge of the ramp, the glimmer of a curved
blade swinging rhythmically from his left hand.
I switched off the flashlight as Ward jumped down off the
ramp and came loping towards me, splashing through the shallows.
I could feel the sweat rapidly cooling along the length
of my spine.
He was on me so fast I had no time to think how I was
going to defend myself. Instinctively I ducked and heard the
mezzaluna whistle past my head as Ward's shoulder rammed
into my chest and knocked me over. I scrambled up at once,
before he got his balance back, and grabbed his arm, the one
holding the blade, from behind. He hit me with the back of
his free hand hard across the mouth, but I clung to his arm
as he swung around. He was in better shape than I was, and
much stronger. It was just luck that I was able to stay close;
I knew if I let go now I wouldn't get another chance. He hit
me again in the head, this time with his fist, and I went down.
I felt my grip on his knife arm loosen and then I was on
my knees in the water and he was standing over me with the
mezzaluna raised above his head. I struggled to get up. He
kicked me in the ribs and I felt a jagging pain in my side
and collapsed.
I waited for Ward to deliver the coup de grace. But instead
he let the blade fall to his side. I was still holding the flashlight
and I swung the beam up into the eyes of Sophie's murderer.
If I'd been thinking clearly I'd have realised that he had no

interest in killing me, he just wanted to stop me from reaching
the station-wagon.
'Go ahead, take a good look.' He was smiling down at me.
'You see a family resemblance? I've been told I have a lot of
June in me.'
'I met your mother once, a long time ago,' I wheezed, as

I got up on all fours. I really don't remember much about
her.'
'Well, ain't that a shame. Because you seem to have made
quite an impression on her. I like hearing about my mother,
Ed. By all accounts June - Junebug, my pa used to call her

;- was a charming and intelligent woman.' : 'I do remember her as being pretty fucking crazy. There's
a trait you may have inherited.'
¦,,': He laughed.'You took advantage of her then.'
"I didn't kill her.'
He was silent for a moment.
'What would you say, Ed, if I told you I don't believe you
did ... kill her? I got it wrong.' He lifted his shoulders. 'Hey,
we all make mistakes.'
He wanted me to react, get angry with him. I shone the
light at the Buick lying offshore like a stranded whale. I could
see it moving a little now as the strong current tugged at its
hidden bulk.
'Are you trying to say that Sophie died for no reason, for
nothing?'
'Someone has to pay.' He smiled, shaking his head. 'If it's
any comfort, your daughter never knew what was coming. I
followed her into the garden, and you know those sheds where
they keep the lemon trees in winter? I snuck up behind her
. . . she felt no pain. None at all.
I loved her, Ed. She just didn't feel the same way about

me.'
'You're the one who's going to pay,' I shouted at him.
'You know what Dante has Virgil say in the Purgatorio "Love is the seed in you of every virtue and of all acts deserving
of punishment.'"
'What the hell's that supposed to mean?'
'You still owe me, buddy.' Ward shrugged. 'See, it doesn't
matter whether you came to the house that night or not. June
was planning to forsake her family, dump us . . . for you.
You were the one.'
'You think I knew anything about that?'
'We all do things in our lives, Ed, that have unforeseen
consequences or repercussions we never intended and mostly
never even get to know about. You may not have killed my
ma, but you damn sure caused her death, you were the catalyst
- you kindled the fire inside her wayward heart - and that
makes you as guilty as if you'd wielded the knife.'
'But I didn't wield the knife . . . somebody else did.'
He went right on. 'You probably think I'm being too hard
on you because you were young, strange to the city, out of
your depth? Well, just consider the mayhem that resulted
from your night of passion with June Seaton.'
'Oh, I've thought about it.'
'I blame you for the damage you did, Ed, for wrecking
my life, for taking everything that was mine, everything I
loved.'
You need to turn that around,' I said quietly. 'You're the
one who wrecked our lives. When you murdered that beautiful
innocent child ... it was for nothing. You just couldn't face
up to what you did . . . you knew damn well, you always
knew, what really happened to your mother and father.'
He gave a short puzzled laugh. 'Help me out, Eddie.'
'You killed them, you sick bastard.'
Ward was silent a moment.
'Let's try to be rational here. I don't remember everything
that went down that night, but a nine-year-old kid slaughtering
his parents, the two people he loved most in the world? In cold
blood? Now does that make any kind of sense?'
'I thought your kind never forgot.'
'My "kind"? You learn that from Dish Armour too?'
I could hear the station-wagon bumping and scraping along the bottom. I shouted, 'We need to get the girl out of there.'
'You're a little late, hotshot. But let me tell you, for the
record, Jelena was one sweet piece of ass . . . man, was she ever up for it.'
He waited a beat. 'Just messin with ya, Mister.' Without warning he lashed out with his left foot, aiming a kick at my head that missed but caught the flashlight and sent it spinning from my hand. I grabbed his foot and at the Same time stood up fast. Ward toppled back and went down
to the darkness. I sprang on top of him and, forgetting he
still had the knife, hit him as hard as I could, connecting with
what felt like nose and cheekbone.
I got up and tried to wade back out to the wagon.
I'd hit him nowhere near hard enough. Already on his feet
and, out for blood now, he came after me with a low roar. I
could hear him surfing my wake, steadily gaining. Imagining
at any moment the mezzaluna splitting open my back, I
weaved and changed course, then suddenly swung back
towards land. A dark shadow shot past me. I heard a curse
followed by a heavy splash. Then silence.
I didn't see what happened, but guessed he must have
slipped and smacked his head on a submerged rock. I put
my hand down in the water and felt around in the mud and
shingle and almost at once came on an arm, a shoulder. He
was still semi-conscious and groaning as I pulled him up
onto the beach.
I wrenched the mezzaluna from his grip and, kneeling
over him, brought the razor-sharp blade up under his chin. I
couldn't see Ward's face, or know how badly he was hurt, but
it occurred to me that I'd only saved his miserable life in order
to kill him. This was the moment I'd dreamt about, lived for.
Here at last I had my chance to avenge Sophie's death.
I held him by the throat, enjoying the voluptuous feeling
of my fingers digging into the cold stringy muscles of his
neck. All I had to do now was draw the blade swiftly across
his windpipe. It should have been simple.
But it wasn't. I needed more than this. I needed to hear
Ward say he was sorry and mean it, I needed him to confess
and then beg my forgiveness for what he did to Sophie. He
started to choke and for a second I eased the pressure. I
don't know what made me relent, whether it was because his
own crazy sense of grievance had stolen my appetite for
revenge, or because I had come to understand that whatever
he'd done, however horrific his crimes, he was still a human
being. Or maybe I just wasn't capable of deliberately killing
anyone. In the moment I hesitated a slow grinding sucking
sound from the river brought Jelly's plight urgently back into

focus.
I looked up and saw the bone-pale outline of the station
wagon stand on its front end and slide beneath the water. I
hurled the knife away and, leaving Ward semi-conscious on
the beach, waded and then swam out to where I thought the
wagon had gone down.

76

In the river, treading water, it was more difficult to judge
distances than from dry land. I quickly scanned the surface
for a vortex or stream of bubbles from the submerged vehicle,
but there was nothing. Then, taking several short breaths,
followed by a deep one, I dived down and kept kicking hard
until I touched bottom. I wasn't afraid, I've had plenty of
scuba experience, and I knew what to do. I set about trying
to locate the station-wagon, staying close to the dive point at
first, then gradually expanding the area of search by swimming
in ever-widening circles. It was so dark it made no difference
whether I kept my eyes open or shut. I had to feel my way
over the shifting riverbed. Very soon I lost my bearings.
After forty seconds or so, unable to find any trace of the
sunken Buick, I came back up for air and, again treading
water, looked about for some kind of turbulence. In every
direction all I could see was the dark gliding mirror of the
Hudson. It added to a growing sense of desperation. I could
feel the strong current bearing me downstream and suddenly
my hopes of finding the wagon and reaching the girl in time
seemed negligible. I knew I had to concentrate on the task,
not the person I was trying to rescue; yet it was only the
thought of Jelly and how terrified she must be right now that
gave me strength.
I'd convinced myself she was still alive down there, still
conscious; but with every passing second I was aware of that
becoming less and less likely. Then, a few feet away from me,
as I turned my head towards the shore, I noticed a telltale
eruption of bubbles troubling an otherwise smooth stretch
of water.
I took another deep breath and plunged again.
One thing I've learnt from years of diving is the importance
of staying calm underwater. I knew that from the moment
the Buick went down, unless the windows were open, it would
take at least three minutes - maybe more - to become fully
submerged. It didn't necessarily mean the person trapped
inside had that long. But panic is the enemy. I estimated Jelly
had been down there just over a minute.
I made two more dives before I found the station-wagon
lying on its side in about fifteen feet of water. Moving quickly
over the top of the front wing and windshield, I pulled myself
along by the roof rack until I reached the rear passenger door.
I got the door open and managed to hold it against the current
long enough to swim inside before gravity and the weight of
the water swung it shut behind me.
The interior was already flooded. One of the windows resting
on the riverbed could have been open or shattered, but
whatever the cause it reduced the odds of Jelly's having
survived. I felt around the cabin, methodically sweeping the
front and back seats in case she was trapped by a seat-belt.
There was no sign of a body.
By now I'd used up most of my air supply. My lungs felt
ready to implode (Ward's kick in the ribs hadn't helped) and
I was resorting to every trick I knew for conserving breath,
releasing little bubble streams of air and working my jaw at
the same time. Soon, I realised, I wasn't going to have enough
juice left to get out. I scrambled through into the trunk space,
ignoring the small sensible voice that was urging me to leave
now, immediately - while I still could.
Then the wagon made a sudden lurch, slid a few feet and
settled at an angle with the front end lower than the back.
I wasn't sure how far we'd drifted from the shore, but I
guessed the Buick was lying close to the edge of a deep
channel where the water at high tide runs forty to fifty feet.
If the current took it over the ridge, I knew the chances of
anyone surviving would be minimal. On the plus side, the
tipping of the wagon had given me an idea - it was really
my last hope. I kicked upwards and, in the highest corner
of the cargo bay, found what I was looking for - a small
triangular pocket of trapped air.
I broke the surface, mouth and nose first, and after the
relief of that first violent intake of breath, gulped several lungfuls
of what tasted like pure oxygen. It took a moment before
I realised in the pitch dark that the rapid effortful breathing
I could hear wasn't my own. I felt something move against
my side underwater and knew I was sharing the trunk space.
I couldn't tell what state she was in.
All that mattered was that she was alive.
I touched Jelly's face and discovered her mouth was still
sealed with duct tape. She moaned as I felt around the back
of her head, trying to find some way to loosen the tape. There
wasn't time. I could feel the water in our temporary air cave rising. A voice inside my skull, frantic sounding, was saying
we had to get out now.
'You'll be okay,' I shouted at Jelly, holding her chin up to
keep her nose above the surface. Her arms were tied behind
her back. 'We're going to stay calm and swim out of here
together . . .'
The water had reached my mouth.
I had planned to go back out the same way I came in, but
realised that maneuvering a disabled person through the gap
between the top of the back seats and roof with zero visibility
would be impossible. I felt for the lever that opened the
Buick's tail-gate on the inside (remembered from when Sophie
and George were little and liked to ride in the back), found
it and pushed the heavy door down with my feet. The hinges
were on the bottom so it stayed open. I instructed Jelly to
take several short breaths, followed by a deep one, then linking
one of my arms through hers, pulled her back under the
water.
As we swam out through the open door, I kicked down
for both of us and pushed off hard from the tail-gate to get
clear of the wagon. I shot upwards, but Jelly stayed behind.
I swam back and tugged at her arm, tried again to drag her
with me, but she didn't come. Something was keeping her
there, preventing our escape.
I could only think that her feet had become entangled, or
that Ward had tied them in some way to the frame of the
Buick. I knew I had just seconds to free her. Letting go Jelly's
arm I dived down and felt around her legs for any obstruction.
Reaching under the floating hem of her jeans, I ran my
hand down her bare calf, finding nothing until I touched a
familiar shape that for a second didn't register because it had
no business being there. I touched it again, felt the contours
of bony limpet fingers clamped to her flesh and realised that
it was a hand - a hand around her ankle, holding her fast.
The shock went through me and I reared back, hitting my
head on the Buick's bumper. I opened my eyes into the murk
and for a moment all around me was light, a sparkling
turquoise blaze, as if I was staring at a swimming pool on a
summer's day. I had no idea where I was, or which way was
up or down; it occurred to me I'd started to swallow water
and was hallucinating. I knew the hand belonged to Ward
and that he must have followed me down here, willing to go
to insane lengths to make sure the girl drowned. I thought
of him then not as human but as some kind of implacable
monster pursuing us into the abyss.
I should have killed him when I had the chance.
In a frenzy of rage and loathing I lashed out with my bare
feet at where I thought Ward's head would be. I couldn't see
him at all, not even a darker shadow. I just felt my heel
connect with something that yielded and that could have been
a face and I stomped on it again. I had an arm around Jelly's
legs, still trying to pull her free, but there was no give. Ward
must have attached himself to the wagon somehow. I imagined
him holding the trailer hitch with one hand, his lower body
wrapped around a back wheel, the way a Moray eel winds
its tail around a projecting rock or part of a wreck to keep
its prey until it drowns.
As I kicked down again and again, desperation set in and
I started to black out. I remember thinking it was all over,
we were both going to die, when I became aware of a change
in the water around us. I could feel the current eddying
strongly on the downstream side of the Buick and then,
suddenly, the wagon started to move.
I don't know if Ward felt it too, but something made him
let go his grip on Jelly's ankle. I had just enough strength left
to grab her arm and swim her out of the way as the heavy
car flipped over on its roof and, tyres up, fell off the edge of
the underwater ridge and slithered away towards the bottom
of the deep channel.
We rose to the surface. I don't remember the relief of
my first swallow of fresh air or rejoicing at seeing the night
sky again or feeling grateful to be alive - only an irrational
primitive fear that Ward could still attack us from beneath
as I turned on my back and struck out for the shore, struggling
to keep Jelly's head above water.
I knew even before I carried her up onto the beach and
lay her on her side that she'd stopped breathing. I went through
the procedure, placing my cheek close to her face, checking
for airflow; looking for the rise and fall of her diaphragm.
Nothing. I grabbed a wrist to feel her pulse, gave up and
slammed my ear to her chest. There was a faint heartbeat.
She was alive, it seemed, but only just.
There wasn't time to unwrap her head. I scrabbled at the
duct tape that covered her mouth, got my fingernails under a
seam and tore it away, making a slit of an opening. Then I
tilted her head back and, pinching her nostrils shut, took a
deep breath and blew it slowly and gently into her mouth.
After a couple of seconds I broke away, counting one thousand,
two thousand . . . On five thousand, I bent down again to
repeat the kiss of life, when she made a choking sound, river
water came up, she started coughing and then her eyes opened.
It was a while before she could speak.

We sat up on the launch ramp, exhausted and shivering, arms
around each other just trying to get warm. I could hear the
sound of sirens in the distance and saw to my relief the blue
flashes of rotating dome lights right across the bay, making
their way slowly towards us along the shore road from the
old boathouse.
The approaching police and emergency services meant
that Campbell had been found alive and in a fit enough state
to have pointed them in our direction. Although she seemed
all right now, I knew Jelly would also need medical attention.
'This doesn't change anything,' she murmured.
'What are you talking about?'
There was a silence. I said, 'I came back for you, didn't I?'
She laughed. 'Yeah, took your time about it too.'
Earlier, soon after we scrambled ashore, I'd heard faint
splashing out on the river. There was no way of knowing if
it was Ward, but it made me wonder what had persuaded
him to come after us in the water. Perhaps he realised there
was a chance I might succeed in rescuing Jelly from the
submerged station-wagon; and decided it was too risky for
him to wait on the beach.
The police report concluded that he probably drowned in
the Hudson that night and his body was swept out to sea. I
went along with the theory, if only to give Jelly some peace
of mind, but no trace of Ward was ever found.
'He's gone now,' I said quietly, 'gone for good.'
'But what if--' she began.
'Jelly, from now on I promise--'
'Don't.' She put a finger across my lips. 'Just because you
saved my damned life ... oh Jesus, Ed, I let him in.' She
started crying. "I let him in.'
'It's all over now.'
'Is it?'
'Try not to talk,' I shushed her.

Paris

I waited until the recital had begun and the ensemble had
almost completed the Chopin section of the programme
before quietly opening the door near the top of the auditorium
and stepping inside.
It was early evening and the Salle de l'Orgue was dark
enough for the back rows to be almost invisible from the
stage. I found a pillar to lean against and partly conceal myself
behind - there were plenty of empty seats in the small subterranean
amphitheatre (it was an informal concert by the
students), but I didn't want her to know I was in the audience.
On stage, sitting very straight at the concert grand, Jelly
looked thinner and older, a little more drawn about the face,
than I remembered, but still just as beautiful. Since we last
saw each other in New York we'd stayed loosely in touch, but
had let the old connection between us drop. She'd e-mailed
me that she'd taken up her place at the Conservatoire and I
was pleased to know that at least something good had come
out of the nightmare I'd put her through.
After I got back from the States, I gave Laura a full uncensored
account of everything that had happened. I was honest
and open with her because, frankly, I had no reason not to
be. Her reaction was unexpected. When I'd finished, she just
smiled sadly and said, 'This doesn't make it any easier to say
what I have to say to you, Ed.' Then she broke the news that
there was someone else in her life, and that it had been going
on for some time - from even before Sophie was murdered.
Laura wanted an annulment, the Catholic way of divorce, on
the basis of clandestinity - which strikes me now as a little
ironic - meaning that our union was invalid because we were
not married before a priest.
I am still coming to terms with all that that entails.
The ensemble reached the end of a Chopin Polonaise, the
strings pulling back to let the last gliding notes of the piano
hang on the air. The audience showed its appreciation as the
violinist and cellist stepped forward to take a bow. Jelly
remained seated while the applause died down and the other
two musicians left the stage.
She waited for the audience to settle, then began her solo
piece. It was a Schubert Impromptu, slow and melancholy,
with a flowing melody line that soared high above the darker,
more passionate phrases, which she played with such delicacy
of touch and feeling, it was impossible not to be moved. I
listened more or less spellbound until I realised I'd lost track
of time and was going to be late for another engagement. I
slipped out, closing the door soundlessly behind me.
I lingered for a moment in the dark hallway. A tightness rose
up through my chest and formed a hard knot at the back of
my throat. I thought of waiting till the end of the concert and
just saying hello, perhaps asking her out for a drink.
It would have been simple to change my plans. But something
in me resisted. I felt a reluctance to get involved again,
even though my feelings for her hadn't really changed, even
though the situation at home had. Irrevocably. I don't know
why, I just decided it was best to leave things as they were.
I could hear muted but enthusiastic clapping from the
auditorium. For an encore she struck up a bright Scott Joplin
rag - one I hadn't heard before. The tumbling, relentlessly
cheerful barrelhouse sound made me smile. I turned then
and began to climb the shallow stairs that curved upwards
between walls of black slate and exited into the main hall. I'd
almost reached the top when I noticed someone standing
there, a tall familiar figure.
The clothes he was wearing - suit, shirt, tie, even the shoes
- were either mine or identical to mine. Then I saw his hand
reach for the rail at the same moment I did and realised my
mistake; there was no one there. I was simply walking towards
my own reflection in a full-length mirror on the back of the
half-open door.

I sent letters of condolence to Sam Metcalf's parents and the
family of Linda Jack, the other girl on the train. I found it
easier to write now that I could tell them that justice of a
kind had been done, the murder of their children avenged.
Vengeance stirs primitive emotions. I'm not proud of the
satisfaction it has given me, but I can't pretend that I don't
rejoice in the removal of Ernest 'Ward' Seaton from the face
of the earth. The person who best understands and shares
that sentiment (he told me once he had a Sicilian grandmother)
is Andrea Morelli. I underestimated Morelli. If it
hadn't been for his quiet perseverance and a tough but
compassionate nature, the outcome might have been very
different. He received a citation for his role in tracking down
the murderer of three foreign residents of Florence and I've
heard is in line for a promotion.
I also found a way privately to express my gratitude.
Campbell Armour made a full recovery from his injuries.
He was lucky and, when it really mattered, his luck held. The
beating he took from Ward's hammer left him with a fractured
skull and an epidural haematoma (an accumulation of blood
in the lining of the brain), which required emergency surgery.
His wife and daughter flew up from Tampa and I arranged
for them to stay at La Rochelle so they could be near the
hospital in Englewood. The other day I received an e-mail
from Campbell saying it felt good to be home, debt-free and
hoping to be playing tennis again by Christmas. His claim
to have been permanently cured of his gambling habit I found
less convincing.
I still have dreams about Sophie's murder. I haven't stopped
grieving for my daughter and doubt that I ever will. Just as
I don't expect to get past the idea that I was in some way
responsible for what happened. But life goes on, and the fact
that it does seems less cruel, less unfair now. I can't say I'm
at peace with myself, I neither expect nor want 'closure', but
I have at least found a degree of acceptance.
I'm sure that Jelena with her 'get over it, move on' philosophy
has been a positive influence - I have her to thank for
helping me find the way to a new life.
The night of the concert, when I got back to the hotel,
there was a note from her in my system tray. She had spotted
me at the back of the Salle de l'Orgue, lurking in the shadows,
as she put it, and was furious that I'd had the nerve to drop
by and then sneak away without even telling her. She said that
she'd looked everywhere for me after the recital but I'd already
left. I replied with a brief apology, explaining that I'd had
other plans.
When I returned to Paris a week later I called Jelly up, and
the next evening took her out to dinner at a restaurant called
L'Ami Louis.
It felt a little uncomfortable at first being together again.
Maybe it had something to do with finding ourselves at last
in circumstances that could be described as nearly normal.
Strangers but not strangers, we weren't so much awkward
with each other as reserved and a little wary. It was like
picking up the old conversation where we'd left off, and yet
at the same time starting over from scratch. We didn't mention
Ward during dinner, or at any point that evening.
After leaving the restaurant, I had the taxi drop us off at
the Pont de la Concorde and we walked back to the Ritz
along the banks of the Seine. More or less as I had once
imagined. We stopped at the same spot where months ago
I'd stood and, looking upriver at the illuminated towers of
Notre Dame through an arch of the Pont des Arts, wished
Jelly could have been at my side. Now she was.
I walked on, taking her arm, and maybe fifty yards further
along the riverbank paused again. It was then something
occurred that I have no explanation for.
We were standing on the quayside by an empty landing
stage, sharing a cigarette (she had switched to smoking
Gauloises) and talking. I have to say it was neither peaceful
by the water's edge nor particularly romantic. It had just
started to rain and we could hardly make ourselves heard
over the blaring tourist commentary from a passing Bateau
Mouche; but then, as the river grew quiet again, cutting
through the slapping of the boat's wash against the quayside,
I detected a faint thin sound that sent a shiver through me.
It was impossible to tell where the music was coming
from. I looked around but we were between bridges and
there was no sign of anyone on the embankment above.
The quay was deserted.
'Is that your cell?' Jelly asked with a frown.
I shook my head, unsure whether it was a ring-tone I could
hear or another kind of recording or just somebody whistling
the tune, but we'd both recognised the first limpid seesawing
notes of 'Fur Elise'.
It didn't last more than a few seconds. As the melody began
to pick up the pace and swell into the graceful flourish of
arpeggios that modulate back to the main theme, the music
suddenly cut out.
I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs as I stood
very still, gripping Jelly's arm, determined not to over-react.
I wanted to run up the stone steps to the Tuileries in case
he was there somewhere, watching us, but it would only have
scared her. She was unaware of the significance of what we'd
just heard and I couldn't possibly enlighten her now. I made
some flippant remark about how in Iran garbage trucks play
the tune to warn people to bring out their trash.
There was nothing more. And there's been nothing since.
I'm not a great believer in coincidence, but it was almost
certainly just that. Nevertheless, I've had to accept that as
far as Ward's demise is concerned there will always be the
shadow of a doubt.
Jelly and I see quite a bit of each other now, mostly when
I'm in Paris. I don't know what the future holds for us. She
believes in taking life a day at a time. I have plans to take
my life in new directions that I can't easily envisage her fitting
in with. There's a lot to work through, and we may never
resolve our differences, but it seems at least possible that I
wasn't wrong when I told her that this was always 'meant to
happen'.
In fact it was Ward who wrote those words, as Jelly was
quick to point out. But then she smiled and said it didn't
make them any less true. Which made me think about the
moment when I saw her step out of that taxi at Lincoln
Center and knew somehow that it was really her.


The End.