Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven #3)(87)

The framed portrait was taken for a Christmas card when the twins were seven and I was nine and Elias fifteen. Mum made us wear matching sweaters with elves on the front and Dad has a Santa hat, tilted at a cocky angle. The only one of us not smiling is Elias, who participated under protest and adopted a defiant glare that he probably thought was rebellious, but just looks sulky.

Mum has a fixed smile and gritted teeth, having threatened to cancel Christmas if we didn’t sit still and ‘stop mucking about’ because the photographer was costing money, even though she’d won the session as a lucky door prize at a school trivia night.

Unlocking my desk drawer, I take out two different photographs – one of Maya Kirk and another of Daniela Linares. I put them side by side on the desk. Light and dark. Blonde and brunette. Salt and pepper. Former colleagues. Nurses.

I am starting to understand this crime. The details have been floating in front of me like snippets from a film that needs to be edited into a story. The person responsible is no longer a mystery. I can see the world through his eyes. He’s not a collector. This possession is about revenge, not ownership. It is about the yearning for a lost child; or a life that could have been.

Taking a large piece of paper, I concertina-fold it as though creating a road map that can be unfurled. On the first fold, I write the names of the three nurses. Maya Kirk. Daniela Linares. Lilah Hooper. On the second fold, I list the families: Rennie and Thompson.

Next, I create a timeline that begins with the tragedy at the hospital. Lilah Hooper was attacked seven months after the death of Oliver Rennie and six days after the manslaughter charges against her were dropped.

Eight years then passed before Maya Kirk was taken from her home. In that time, both families received compensation payments from the hospital, which settled without admitting liability; and none of the nurses were convicted of negligence or wrongdoing.

Although the world is naturally chaotic and unpredictable, there are cycles and patterns in nature that go beyond the passing of seasons and rise and fall of the sun; the petals of a flower, the notches on a pine cone, the Fibonacci spiral on a snail’s shell, the fractals of frost crystals. There are countless examples of logic and order rather than randomness, but that does not mean that our fates are preordained.

Some people can see the world in patterns. In 2002, a middle-aged furniture salesman named Jason Padgett was attacked from behind and knocked unconscious as he left a karaoke bar. He suffered concussion and post-traumatic stress, but also, quite literally, he began seeing the world in a different way. Familiar scenes now had discrete geometric patterns superimposed on his vision. He saw fractals everywhere: in trees and clouds, in drops of water, in the number pi, or when he turned on a tap, or dipped his toothbrush. Padgett became a mathematics genius who could draw these fractals by hand.

As a psychologist, I look for the fractals in human behaviour. The things that are repeated or can be predicted. I can see one now. A man in his forties with a formal education to secondary level, and possibly a degree. Above-average intelligence, with strong geographical connections to Nottingham. He is a planner, who has made attempts to misdirect investigators and camouflage himself, hiding in plain sight. Some of the mistakes were genuine and others were manufactured to misdirect and deceive.

This is a man who has been frustrated at some point, who believes he deserves much better than life has given him. He has prepared for this, but not everything has gone to plan. When he slipped a drug into Maya’s drink, he didn’t expect Anders Foley to take her home. And he didn’t realise that Rohan Kirk was in the house.

Foley didn’t lie to the police about leaving Maya on the sofa. He covered her in a duvet and put a bowl next to the sofa in case she vomited. Yes, he took advantage of her stupor and masturbated on her dress, and stole underwear from her bedroom, but he didn’t murder her father.

Somebody was waiting outside, watching him leave. He rang the doorbell. Maya struggled to her feet and answered. She would have seen her visitor through the reinforced glass, but she was groggy and disorientated. She turned the latch. He shoved her backwards. The door slammed against the wall, leaving a mark in the plaster. Her father heard the commotion and came downstairs. He interrupted the intruder, who panicked and picked up the closest weapon, the fire-poker. Blows rained down.

The killer was covered in Rohan Kirk’s blood. Traces were found in the hallway, on the kitchen floor, and in the sink. He took off his clothes. He washed his face and hands. Then put his clothes in the washing machine and cleaned them, spending up to an hour in the house before taking Maya. That takes remarkable, almost sociopathic, calmness.

He took Maya to a waiting vehicle and kept her somewhere for forty-eight hours. Mortar was found embedded in her knees and paint flecks beneath her fingernails. It was somewhere old, an historic building, or an abandoned one.

I hear a creak on the stairs. Elias appears. He’s dressed in baggy pyjama bottoms and an old T-shirt.

‘Has something happened? Evie isn’t in her room.’

I wonder how he knows, but her door is probably open.

‘She stayed with a friend.’

He blinks at me. ‘She doesn’t like me, does she?’

‘She doesn’t know you.’

DCI Gary Hoyle has a regular court booked at the Nottingham Squash Rackets Club in Tattershall Drive. He plays with his brother-in-law, who is younger, fitter and a better player, but Hoyle makes up for his shortcomings by cheating. Whenever he’s about to lose a point, he charges into his opponent, calling a foul. His brother-in-law doesn’t complain. If anything, he seems to enjoy toying with Hoyle, missing a few easy forehands to make the score appear less lopsided.