The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(30)

Ryan left them to think it over and followed MacKenzie up to Isobel’s front door. They covered their hands and feet, broke the police seal and entered the silent house.

*

“The notes in the file say the needle came from behind.”

MacKenzie tried the light switch but the electricity had been turned off days ago. The darkness was complete, thick with the lingering scent of violent death and food gone bad.

Ryan stood just behind her and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

“Have you got a torch?” he asked.

MacKenzie started to say ‘no’.

“Here, take mine,” he offered. “Or would you rather I do a walk-through while you wait here? It’s pretty close quarters in there.”

She smiled in the darkness and added ‘gentleman’ to his growing list of likeable qualities.

“No, I’m okay.”

“There was no blood spatter in the hallway here,” Ryan began. “There was nothing to suggest she fought him.”

“Must have taken her by surprise.”

“Something struck me as odd,” Ryan said, and brushed past her to peer inside the tiny living room. In the dim light, they could see the outline of a two-seater sofa and a coffee table. There was a bistro table and two chairs in the corner with a television resting on top of a unit beside them. “On the floor there, by the sofa, there was a stain on the carpet. Faulkner says it was fresh and the tests confirmed it was white wine. There was a bottle open in the fridge, too.”

Ryan entered the room and MacKenzie saw his shadowy outline moving around the room, getting a feel for the space.

“What if he didn’t need to stalk her?” he said, suddenly.

MacKenzie stepped back from the doorway to allow him to pass, then followed him up the narrow staircase towards the room where Isobel had died.

“What do you mean? You think he just snatched her on the fly?”

Ryan coughed as they reached the landing and his nostrils were assailed by the ripe scent of crusted blood and bodily waste emanating from the largest bedroom.

“No,” he replied. “That isn’t his style. It looks opportunistic, but it isn’t. He wouldn’t risk being discovered so soon. I was thinking somebody could have found out her home address from hospital records, or struck up an acquaintance.”

“That’s an extreme level of control,” she replied, shining the torch light along the landing to guide their way. The little white circle of light shook, bobbing across the wall. “Amaya didn’t mention Isobel having met anybody and she was her closest friend. Surely Isobel would have told her if she’d met somebody new?”

“He’s manipulative,” Ryan said darkly, and reached for the door handle.

*

There was a half world, somewhere between life and death, where the senses no longer worked as they should. There was nothing to taste, nothing to touch, to smell or to see.

But you could still hear.

You could hear the small sounds of skin tearing and heavy breathing that might not be your own. You could hear the man whistling, everything from show tunes to classical arias.

And there was his voice, muffled behind the paper mask he always wore.

“Still with us? That’s good.”

More time passed and more confusion until nothing was certain anymore.

Was she dead?

Was this what happened when you died?

It was a slow, endless process. Like an elastic band stretching to breaking point. Only, she hadn’t broken.

Not yet.

Her eyelids flickered, and she saw a splinter of light, thought she heard a bell ringing. She gasped for the breath to speak, to shout for help, then the darkness came again.

No more pain.

*

Ryan and MacKenzie stood at the foot of the bed where Isobel Harris had been found. The light from the torch moved over the small details of the room: framed photographs of Isobel and Amaya, of Isobel as a child standing beside an older woman who might have been her grandmother or a foster parent. An enormous silver make-up case had pride of place on the shelf she’d used as a dressing table with a small stool tucked beneath. Stuffed toys sat on the window ledge, some of them worn with age.

The bed had been stripped of its mattress and bedding for forensic testing but the carpet beneath it remained, crusted with dried blood.

“Just like Sharon,” Ryan murmured. “He doesn’t like to sully his own doorstep or risk killing them out in the open. He likes to take his time and do it on their own turf.”

“Adds insult to injury,” MacKenzie said. “He invades every element of their lives.”

“What drives him?” Ryan thought aloud. “Where does this level of hatred come from?”

MacKenzie looked across at him in the inky blue darkness.

“Hatred would imply a strong emotion,” she reminded him. “It’s possible that the person we’re looking for doesn’t experience any normal human emotion. He may see them simply as bodies.”

Ryan heaved a deep sigh.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ve seen enough.”

*

Ryan knew something was wrong the instant he entered his apartment.

It was after eleven by the time he’d collected his car from CID Headquarters and driven home through the quiet streets. He’d taken a longer route along the river so he could stop and look at the bridges lit up against the night sky and clear his head. Phillips had been right when he’d issued his warning about self-protection; stepping into the mind of a killer was like suffering from a kind of cancer that could strike without warning and make a home in your heart, festering there until there was nothing good and pure anymore. He’d felt the shadow of Isobel Harris’s killer crawling against his skin when he’d entered her home. It had been an almost tangible thing, as if he’d been standing in the room beside them.