The Death Messenger (Matthew Ryan Book 2)(16)

‘She’s been watching too many movies,’ Ryan said.

‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’

Something Ryan had seen prompted him to freeze the image.

Where there was detail, there was evidence.

He took his time scanning the screen. An old tea chest doubled as a bedside table, various items on top: a digital radio-alarm clock, a notepad and pen, a landline telephone. Next to the unmade bed was a dining room chair. A dark shirt lay over the back of it. Ryan’s eyes seized on the blue-and-white lanyard that hung beside it, a white, plastic credit-card-sized ID or access key attached.

‘Could we be that lucky?’ He zoomed in. ‘Can you make out the writing?’

Pushing her specs up onto the bridge of her nose, O’Neil sat forward, peering closely at the screen. Because of the angle of the thing and the light reflecting off it, it was impossible to read.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Can you go in further?’

Ryan’s efforts only served to blur the image. Zooming out again, he moved on, hair pricking the back of his neck and arms. What was on camera was bad enough. It was what he couldn’t see that scared him the most.

They replayed each disk, made notes independently on each run-through, then played them again, this time with the narrator’s voiceover audible. When they’d finished, O’Neil put down her pen, took off her glasses and threw them on Ryan’s desk.

‘Are we any the wiser?’ she asked.

‘I think we are.’ He turned to face her. ‘She’s staging the scenes, particularly the last one. She placed that knife where it would catch maximum light, no doubt about it. She certainly knows what buttons to press.’

‘Yes, but why?’ O’Neil looked at him. ‘Staging usually occurs when an offender is trying to throw us off or redirect the investigation. She’s doing the opposite. She’s drawing our attention to it.’

Ryan agreed. ‘It’s like she has a compulsion to record the scene, not as it is, but how she wants it to be, rearranging things with artistic merit in mind. It might not be logical to us. We’re dealing with a fruitcake. It probably makes perfect sense to her. Seriously, her view of the world is through a lens. If she doesn’t like what she sees, she changes it.’

‘Isn’t that what we all do?’

‘To a lesser extent, yes, but most of us aren’t permitting some scumbag to get away with murder or conspiring with one. I appreciate that my observation doesn’t take us anywhere, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was an art graduate or professional photographer with a sideline in snuff moviemaking.’

‘You think this is sexual?’

‘I have no clue what it is yet. It’s odd that they should choose a different setting altogether – and a lot more risky.’

‘You think she’s getting more confident?’

‘I don’t know. There’s a slight tremor in her voice on this one. That could be because her target didn’t come to her – she went to them. She walks up, knocks at the door. Bang. The victim is a goner.’ Ryan angled his head one way and then the other, trying to ease the tension in his neck. Ford wanted answers – in relation to one victim in particular – more than that, he wanted them yesterday. That was unrealistic. There would be no quick fix here. Whoever was taunting them was on a mission and they weren’t about to stop.





7


O’Neil disappeared into her bedroom. Seconds later, Ryan heard her muffled voice through the door. She was talking to someone on the landline. He wondered why the secrecy, what had brought about her sudden change of mood. They had agreed to share all intelligence and yet there were obviously things he wasn’t party to, unless of course it was personal, in which case, why didn’t she say so?

Along with her specs, her mobile was still lying on his desk. His eyes seized on it, his brain toying with the notion of checking the ID of the person who’d interrupted their conversation.

He glanced at the device again.

He couldn’t do it.

Well, maybe a peek.

Keeping an eye on the door, he snatched it up. Accessing the calls list, he scrutinized the name at the top. Hilary. The display indicated that she’d rung from home.

Ryan felt terribly guilty.

Maybe O’Neil had got closer to Jack’s widow than he was aware of. Perhaps taken over from him as the go-to person for advice and friendship. Who could blame her? Ryan had been crap as Jack’s protector. The two women probably shared the same interests. That was a good thing. Something he should be grateful for. Still, O’Neil appeared on edge in the short time she was on the phone.

Why had she asked him how Hilary was if they were in touch?

Puzzling over it, he was about to put the mobile down when it rang in his hand. The caller was the controller who’d sent her the text when they were at the crime scene. In O’Neil’s absence, Ryan took the call, a good way to explain, should he ever need to, why his paw prints were all over it.

‘Stan, my guv’nor is tied up on the other line. Can I help?’

‘You need to take this.’ He kept it brief. ‘It’s her. I’m tracing the call.’

Ryan was already reaching for his digital recorder. Acting quickly, he switched it on and put the phone on speaker. The line clicked before the call went live. ‘O’Neil’s phone.’