The Turin Shroud Secret

1

There are many reasons why he kills. Why, right at this moment, he is about to kill again.

It is a need. A craving. An aching, gnawing compulsion. Like sex. When he’s not doing it, he’s thinking about it. Fantasising. Planning. Rehearsing. Killing to him is as necessary and inevitable as drawing breath. Only more pleasurable. Memorable.

This one is going to be easy. Perfect. The best yet. The unkilled always are. That’s what he calls them. Not the living. Not the next victim.

The unkilled.

A quiet neighbourhood. A woman living alone. One not even aware that while she busied herself in that pretty rear garden he slipped into her life and home.

He’s been lying in wait for hours, unnoticed like a dog in a favourite hiding place, his ears twitching as he follows her sounds around the darkening house, his furtive mind imagining her every movement.

There’s a thin clattering noise — she’s tidying up after her dinner for one.

A soft thump — shutting the dishwasher.

Tumbling clunks. Ice from the dispenser on the tall fridge by the kitchen door. A glass of water to take to bed.

Click, click, click. Turning out the lights. Closing doors.

Bump, bump. Bump, bump. Footsteps. Coming upstairs. Heavy footed. Desperate to lie down on her big soft bed and sleep.

A soft click. A bedside lamp warms the big bedroom with a buttercup glow.

Running water. A shower. Nice and hot. A warm soak to make her clean for bed.

Fresh for death.

He waits. Counts off the seconds and minutes. Seven hundred and twenty seconds. Twelve long minutes. Now the whirr of a hairdryer. Best not to go to sleep with wet hair. Most unhealthy. The television mutters. Music. A film. News. She’s zapping. Searching for something to distract her from the rigours of the day. The Tonight Show. Conan. House.

Click. The crackle of static on the plasma screen.

Silence.

A final click. The lamp.

Darkness.

He lies there. Beneath the bed. Savouring the floating echo of the last sounds — like a sliver of communion wafer dissolving on the tongue.

Soon he hears the whisper of her breathing, faint sighs rising like soft light breaking the dawn sky. Sleep is gently preparing her for God and for him. He rolls out from his shelter. Slow. Graceful. Careful. A deadly animal emerging from cover. Exposed in the wild. Closing on its prey. Tingling with anticipation.

He puts one hand around her throat and places the other across her mouth. Her eyes flash open with shock. He smiles down at her and whispers, ‘Dominus vobiscum — the Lord be with you.’

2

It’s November but still ninety out on the dunes. California does that sometimes. A golden fall to make up for a poor summer. Thirty-year-old homicide detective Nic Karakandez makes a visor out of his right hand and strains his blue-grey eyes at the sparkling diamond swirl of the Pacific. Dressed in faded blue jeans and a black leather bomber jacket, the big cop stands out on top of the sands.

He’s staring hard and seeing more than anyone else. Certainly more than the sand-crusted stiff that the ME and CSIs are bent over. Way more than the bobbing heads of swimmers gawping from the waves.

Nic sees the future.

A month from now to be precise. His boat heading out to sea, wind billowing in the sails, a reel or two hanging over the back and a time when jobs like this sorry floater are nothing but distant memories.

‘Nic! Get your ass down here.’

There’s only one woman in the world who speaks to him like that. He drops his hand and squints at his colleague and boss, Lieutenant Mitzi Fallon. ‘I’m coming — give me a chance.’

The thirty-nine-year-old mom of two is twenty yards ahead of him, down a dip in the soft Californian sand. ‘Hey Big Foot — are you the fast-moving murder police I taught you to be or have I got you mixed up with some pale-throated sloth?’

He can’t help but laugh. ‘I’m the fast-moving murder police, ma’am. What exactly is a sloth?’

‘Short-necked, fat-assed mammal. Sixty million years old and spends most of its time sleeping.’

‘I wish.’

Mitzi’s been breaking his balls since his first day in the department more than five years ago. He pads alongside her as they head towards the fluttering tape ten yards from the ocean’s edge. Pretty soon the crime scene will be gone. Washed away by Lady Tide, that ancient accomplice to so many murders.

They badge the uniforms guarding the area, slip on shoe covers and join the ME, Amy Chang, a second-generation Chinese medic with a brain as big as the state deficit.

‘Afternoon, doc,’ breezes Mitzi. ‘Any chance your poor lady there died of natural causes? I gotta be at a soccer game tonight.’

The pathologist doesn’t look up. She knows them both well. Too well. ‘Not a chance. Not unless it’s considered normal to go swimming fully dressed after you’ve just had two teeth pulled out, an eye removed and your throat slit.’

‘Man, that’s some careless dentist.’ Nic leans over the body.

‘Obama’s got a lot to answer for,’ adds Mitzi. ‘He never should have messed with the health care.’

‘He got Bin Laden, though — that gives him a Get Out of Jail Card as far as I’m concerned.’

Amy looks up and shakes her head in mock disgust. ‘You two jokers got a single ounce of respect for what’s going on here?’

Nic catches her eye. There’s a spark between them. Small but it’s there. He blows it out before she can even blink. ‘Tons,’ he says. ‘We just hide it well. Black humour is the only way we know to protect our fragile constitutions.’

Amy stares him down. ‘Sick minds are more like it.’

The lieutenant rounds a CSI sifting sand for anything that might have come off the body and got buried or trodden on. She circles the corpse, staring at it from different angles, like it’s a piece of modern art that doesn’t yet make sense. ‘Any ID on her?’

‘None,’ says Amy. ‘Surely you knew you weren’t going to get that lucky?’

‘Just hoping.’ She circles again. Slower this time, stooping to study the vic’s hands and feet. ‘Any idea how long she’d been in the water?’

Amy looks up again. ‘C’mon, Mitzi, I need to check body temperature and tides — you’re way too early to get a polite answer.’

Amy forces a thermometer through the eye socket into the brain. It will give her a window of about three hours on the time of death. She glances up at the pull and push of the waves beside her. Once she’s consulted a tidal expert, she’ll have a good idea of where and when the vic met her end. She notes the body temperature then uses scissors to cut off the fingernails and bags the clippings.

Mitzi is still hanging over her and she feels obliged to give the cop something. ‘We’re talking hours in the water, less than a day. That’s all you’re getting for the moment.’ She straightens up, brushes off sand and beckons two orderlies who’ve been waiting with a marine body bag, the type that lets water out but keeps any evidence in. ‘Okay, parcel her up.’

‘What kinda freak could have done this?’ Nic’s eyes are scanning the raw, mutilated flesh.

‘No mystery there.’ Amy pulls off purple rubber gloves and snaps her metal case shut. ‘Some bad son-of-a-bitch kind of freak — you know, the type that’s done it before and will soon be doing it all over again.’

3

The food corner in the mall is a free-for-all. Shoppers and office workers jostle like cattle at feeding troughs. Stressed-out servers bark orders in the soupy air and pound labelled till keys.

An olive-skinned young man in his mid-twenties with dark hair and even darker eyes waits patiently in the thick of it all. An island of calm caught in a raging river of inhuman rudeness. Indifferently, he waits his turn, then pays for miso soup, a box of sushi and black coffee. It’s a diet that renders him more slim than muscular — lean, if you want to be kind in your description — too small and skinny for women who like big broad-shouldered guys to hang on to. It’s also landed him with the nickname ‘Fish Face’ at the factory where he works.

‘Let me help you.’ He moves quickly to clear chairs and tables so an old man can push his wife’s wheelchair through the dining jungle and lay their food tray at a free table.

‘Very kind of you.’ The senior nods a thank you as they settle.

‘No problem, you’re welcome.’ He takes his lunch to a table a few yards away. He smiles at the couple as he mixes fiery wasabi paste with soy sauce, stirs it with chopsticks and dips a tuna roll, then turns his attention to the tide of people flowing past. They fascinate him. All of them. No exceptions.

A teacher leads a crocodile of foreign schoolchildren, Chinese he thinks, in a two-by-two line, little cherubs all holding each other’s hands. All wearing the same orange tops and caps and looking like dolls fresh off a production line. He remembers seeing a poster somewhere proclaiming that there are five times as many people in China learning to speak English as there are people in England. The world is changing. So is he. He can feel it. Sense it.

His eyes swing to a mature blonde in a business suit scrambling for a ringing cell phone in her small black leather bag. A cougar past her prime. Smart clothes and a good diet can’t hide what age and the Californian weather do to your hair and skin. She finds the iPhone in the nick of time but doesn’t look pleased. Not a call from her husband or lover, he guesses. More likely a wail of despair from a colleague — a cry for help from the workplace she’s just left behind.

The young man smiles as she passes him. There’s something familiar in her eyes. He snaps his fingers as he realises what it is. She reminds him of the woman he was with last night.

The one he murdered.

4

The ME’s heavy morgue wagon, a white Dodge van with shaded windows, ploughs ruts in the litter-free sand as it disappears with its sad cargo. Crowds of rubbernecking bathers return zombie-like to towels and loungers as though nothing had happened. Life goes on — even after death.

Nic Karakandez steps out of the taped-off crime scene and walks the amphibious tightrope between sand and sea, the line where the dark water washes onto the white sand then mysteriously vaporises in a fizz of outgoing wave. A north-easterly wind is kicking up as he looks to the glittering horizon.

He’s done with being a murder police.

Done with being any kind of police for that matter. His notice is in. The well-muscled six-footer made the decision years back, following an incident he doesn’t talk about — the kind that would make most good cops quit. Since then he’s been treading water, going through the motions, marking time until he got enough money together, nailed down his skipper’s licence and finished the repairs on his little sloop. Thirty days from now he’ll be sailing into the sunset to start a whole new life.

Mitzi looks back towards the disappearing tape and the uniforms she’s just briefed to start canvassing the gawping zombies. ‘How d’you think Mr Freak dumped her? I mean, I didn’t see any tyre marks back there and the sand’s as soft as my gut.’

Nic points east to a band of black running from the coast road across the beach and out to a squat building some way off in the sea. ‘Over there’s the Roundhouse. I guess he drove down the pier as far as he could then popped his trunk and simply slid her body over the side.’

‘I can see how that would work. From the looks of her, she didn’t weigh more than eighty pounds. It’d be an easy drop.’ Mitzi gazes out towards the end of the pier with its marine lab and aquarium, a big draw for the rich locals and their kids. Not hers, though. Her twin daughters are allergic to anything academic. They’d rather chase a soccer ball, play video games or bait the boys next door.

As she and Nic trudge towards the jetty, Mitzi gets a mental flash of the dead woman. ‘You notice our Jane Doe was still wearing jewellery?’ She twists the tiny wedding ring that’s been on her finger for close to two decades and waggles it for Nic to see. ‘She was carrying a rock big enough for boy scouts to camp on.’

‘Certainly wasn’t a robbery,’ observes Nic. ‘Given the brutality of the other injuries, our perp wouldn’t hesitate to cut off her finger if he wanted that sparkler.’

‘So what then? A kidnapping gone wrong?’

‘Maybe, but I would have expected a ransom demand. Even if the husband — presuming there still is one — had been frightened into keeping us out of it.’

Mitzi thinks back to the corpse. ‘Yeah, it doesn’t follow. Kidnappers stiff their victim when the money talks are over, not before. By then the family’s jumpier than Mexican beans and always come running to us. So if it was an abduction, we’d have heard something.’

As they climb the last stretch of beach to the pier Nic’s thinking the kill bears the mark of a professional — albeit a crazy one. ‘Last time I saw anything like this, it was Italians out in the valley,’ he says. ‘They cut up one of their own after he crossed them. Revenge, pure and simple.’

Mitzi frowns. ‘You think she was mixing with organised crime?’

‘Could be. Imagine, for a minute, that she’s a mob wife and her old man finds out she’s cheating on him.’ He puts out his hand and pulls Mitzi up. ‘At first she refuses to name the guy banging her, then, finally when she gives it up, said lothario turns out to be hubby’s brother or best friend. Boom.’ Nic slaps his hand. ‘The boss gets all emotional. He feels he has no choice but to have someone mess her up and finish her off.’

‘You’ve got one sick imagination.’

‘It’s how you taught me.’ He looks beyond her, down the wide pier leading to the red-tiled angular building at the end. A four-bar metal rail runs either side, out over the water. It comes up to his chest. He was right. Drive a car out here, it’d be easy enough to tip a body over the side.

Mitzi drops into a squat. ‘Lots of tyre treads down here.’ She sweeps an indicative hand over the area just in front of her. ‘And, thank you God, a nice layer of sand that’s printed just about everything that’s recently come and gone.’

‘I’ll get uniforms to tape off the pier and have CSI do the treads.’ He pulls a cell phone and sits up on the rail while he makes the call.

Mitzi takes out the small camera she always carries and snaps off some shots. Sometimes the techies turn up too late and the evidence has gone. Better safe than sorry.

Ten minutes later a red-faced, overweight cop in a sweat-stained uniform arrives with a young crime scene photographer. While Mitzi briefs them, Nic wanders a few yards away to watch the surf breaking around the legs of the pier. There are pictures in the bubbling white froth. Abstract images, open to interpretation. Some people see galloping horses or Vikings or sea gods.

Nic sees the wife and baby son he lost.

They’re lying in a sea of their own blood. Eyes rolled back like rancid scallops.

And every time he sees them — when their unexpected appearance breaks his heart — he does nothing to block them out, nothing to divert the blame from himself.

Carolina had wanted him to leave the apartment and push the pram a while. Max was crying and a stroll around the block always seemed to settle him. But Nic got stuck on the phone — a work call on his day off. She’d grown bored waiting and finally gone without him. Two blocks later she stopped at a grocery store. Had Nic been there it would have been different. He’d have known right away what was going down — the crackhead robbing the register, jittery and paranoid, a human timebomb bound to explode; the dope of a store owner playing hero by grabbing a gun taped beneath the counter and the shoppers panicking and screaming, ratcheting up the mayhem.

It had been Armageddon.

After the weapon came up from behind the counter, the junkie slaughtered everyone. Then he just stood there in a daze. He was still staring at the carnage when the cops came. One lowlife’s moment of madness ended a dozen good people’s lives and created a lifetime of misery for their families.

‘If this was the killer’s drop spot, he’s not a local.’ Mitzi is pacing again.

‘What?’ Nic’s thoughts are still three years back.

‘The ocean.’ She points over the rail to get his attention. ‘The water here is too shallow. The perp probably thought it was deeper. When he dumped her over the side, he must have believed the body would be gone for ever.’

‘The tide might have been in,’ says Nic, his brain and body finally reunited in the same time zone. ‘Or else the guy didn’t care. Could be he was only bothered about her being hidden long enough for him to skip town.’

‘You’re good,’ she says with a smile that hints at why ten years ago every cop in the precinct made time to walk by her desk. ‘I’m going to miss you when you’re working as a crabber on Deadliest Catch.’

He laughs. ‘Does the Discovery Channel have any other shows than that damned thing?’

‘Not worth watching.’

They walk single file down the edge of the pier, close to the rails, so as not to disturb any more tyre tracks. He makes a slow circuit of the aquarium and marine lab, shielding his eyes and looking skyward. Eventually he finds what he’s looking for.

‘Surf cams.’ He points out two small cameras at the tip of long poles. ‘You can watch shots from these things online in real time.’

‘Kill me before my life becomes so boring that I would even think about doing that.’

‘Each to their own, Mitz.’ He points to another steel pole, one topped with a security camera. ‘Now this is more your taste.’ He palm-gestures like a teleshopping host showing off some pile of crap that can only be bought in the next ten minutes. ‘A channel exclusively available to good-looking and talented LAPD cops, featuring — hopefully — all the once-in-a-lifetime footage of Big Rock Lady’s killer.’

5

Amy Chang suits up, snaps on latex gloves and enters the newly equipped morgue. It’s a cold vault of stainless steel, illuminated by pools of limpid green and blue lights. Steel body-fridges, sinks, carts, tables and tools crowd the central autopsy table with its inelegant taps and cruel draining holes, portals for the last of the deceased’s blood and body fluids. There’s far too much dull and deathly metal for Amy’s liking. Another world away from the thirty-two-year-old’s elegant bachelorette home, steel-free except for the knives in the pretty picture-window kitchen overlooking a small but well-ordered garden.

Less than a week old, the morgue already smells of Deodorx and Path Cloud cleansers. Amy looks sympathetically at the flesh and bones laid out on the slab. To her, the remains are still a person, a desperate woman in need of her expert help. ‘So who are you then? What can you tell me, honey? What secrets do you have for us?’

Even at first glance it’s obvious the victim suffered excruciating pain before she finally died. The injuries are all pre-mortem. Lips are split, teeth are missing and then there’s the awful cavity where her left eye should be — a terrible testament to the level of torture she endured.

She clears space so she can work. Adjusts the ceiling-mounted dissecting light with its dual beams and slips on a tiny, head-mounted video camera for the close-ups. She wants to capture everything she says and sees during the examination.

‘The victim is a well-nourished woman in her late forties or early fifties. She has extensive pre-mortem injuries to her face including the loss of her left eye and two upper middle teeth. There is evidence of recent plastic surgery, nip and tuck scars still healing around the ears and neck.’ Her voice grows more sombre as she realises how the deceased must have hoped a more benign encounter with a blade would keep her looking younger and more desirable. ‘Less cosmetic are the injuries to the left and right cheeks — these are consistent with a series of blows, probably from front- and back-handed slaps. She’s suffered powerful blunt trauma to the left cheek, possibly from a fist. It’s split open and the flesh exposed to the bone.’ Amy moves down to the neck. ‘The deceased has bled out through a horizontal three-inch wound that severed the vessels in the carotid sheath. A fatal cut. She’d have died from an air embolus even if she’d survived the wound.’ Amy can’t help but notice its precision. No hesitant stab. Just a confident and ruthless action.

She picks up the deceased’s manicured hands. It’s not the first time she’s touched them. Back on the beach she clipped the nails for trace evidence and toxicology and then had fingerprints taken. ‘No signs of major defence wounds but there are marks around the wrists, indicating she may have been tied up.’ Amy uses tape to lift what she’s sure are small fragments of rope twist from the grey skin. She stands back a little and surveys the whole torso, paying particular attention to the feet, knees, elbows and hands. ‘No friction or abrasion marks on normal surface contact points. No indications of the body being dragged across any kind of surface.’

Next she examines the empty, red, raw eye socket. The killer used something to lever out the victim’s eyeball.

What?

There are no gouge marks inside the cavity to indicate where any metal might have been forced in. She realises what has happened. He used his fingers. The attacker pushed his thumb into her eye socket and forced it out. He then cut through the exposed muscle and nerve attachments. It takes a special kind of monster to do something like that. She grimaces — something Amy Chang seldom does. In the corner of the woman’s thin purple lips are abrasion marks, tell-tale signs that a tight gag stifled her screams.

A phone on the wall rings and flashes — then trips to the message service. Amy moves on. She considers the missing teeth. These probably had been extracted prior to the eye damage. She looks again into the woman’s mouth. There are marks on her back teeth and upper pallet. Something was jammed in there to keep her jaws open while the guy went about his work. Amy angles the deceased’s head back and swings down the overhead light. She uses tweezers to extract small traces of white plastic from the inside of the upper and lower back molars. Unless she’s mistaken the killer forced a golf ball in there to be able to get at the front teeth.

Amy’s seen a lot of nasty stuff on her table but her tummy turns every time she sees something like this. Something she recognises as the unique work of the worst kind of predator in the world — the serial killer.

6

The dark-haired man with thick eyebrows and olive-coloured skin makes sure he’s locked the front and back doors and secured the windows. Burglary is not something he wants to fall victim to — the irony would be unbearable.

He walks through to the Spartan kitchen and opens an old larder fridge that only ever contains three things: UHT milk — the type that lasts six to nine months — a box of eggs and a tub of low-fat spread. If he’s really hungry, he’ll use everything and make omelettes. Otherwise, like tonight, he just drinks milk. Fish and soup for lunch, milk and eggs for dinner. That’s his entire diet.

He feels somewhat strange as he moves through the house drinking straight from the carton. Edgy. Off balance. Nervous. Not that any of that surprises him. The day after is always like this — contradictory and confusing. It’s a period of anxiety and elation.

The mood swings used to throw him but not any more. He’s experienced now — understands that with every kill comes an aftershock. Like the physical recoil of a firearm. The bruising kick of a rifle against a shoulder muscle. Take a life and your psychological muscles take a pounding. The purple bruise of guilt surfaces first, then the yellow fear of capture and finally the ruddy red flush of conquest.

He’s spent the day like he normally does, holding down a job that’s beneath him, working for people who don’t appreciate or understand him. Not that anyone does. Still, routine is important. A change of habit attracts attention if the police go nosing around. Besides, he’s learned that right after a kill it’s good to be with people, to stay in the stream of mindless fish flowing to and from homes and jobs. He likes the distraction, the filling of time. And he appreciates the camouflage of commonality, the necessary disguise that dreary everyday life gives him.

But now it’s the night time. And the night is different. He feels different. Is different. It is a time of energy and power. A time when kills can be savoured. Darkness brings with it a justification, a validation of what he does and who he is. Throughout the day he longs for the dipping sun and the rising of the raw energy within him.

The rented house where he lives is plunged in blackness. It always is. The thick curtains are forever drawn. There are no bulbs in any of the light sockets. No electricity or gas. Instead, he uses an open fire for both warmth and what little cooking he does.

Pale light flickers from candles in his bedroom, as he strips naked and prepares for sleep. There is no bed. No quilt. No pillow. In the corner of the room are the few things he treasures. He opens up the folded handkerchief and removes the sacred wafer of honed steel and crosses his chest with it, then he criss-crosses the tops of his thighs and arms. Before the blood can really show, he wipes the blade. He kisses it and holds it aloft, like a priest showing the blessed host to his congregation. As his chest fills with red, he returns it to the handkerchief and refolds it in precise squares.

Flat out on his back, he presses his feet against one skirting board, his left shoulder and arm square to the other. Carefully, he tucks a single bed sheet under his heels and wraps it tight around himself until he’s completely covered from the head to toe.

Snug. Tight. Secure.

Like he’s wrapped in a shroud.

7

The squad room stinks of late-night burritos and looks like a summer-long frat party’s just finshished. Mitzi Fallon’s government-issue metal desk is an OCD island in the endless sea of male debris.

‘More coffee.’ Nic puts down the lieutenant’s ‘World’s Best Mom’ mug, bought for her two Mother’s Days ago by her twins. ‘What’s with the hand?’ He nods to the strapping around two fingers.

‘Fat oaf of a husband fell on me when we were fooling around.’ She tries to wriggle it. ‘Celibacy might be a good idea after all.’

‘Too much detail.’

She manoeuvres the mug to her lips. ‘This has to be my last caffeine of the morning, don’t let me have any more.’ Her eyes swing back to the surveillance footage running on a flatscreen monitor at thirty-two times normal speed.

‘You seen anything yet?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, my will to live — it went psycho and threw itself off that pier about three hours ago.’

Nic settles into a chair next to her. ‘I just checked with the uniforms. They came up with diddly squat.’

‘And that’s news?’

‘Guess not. I swear some of those guys down there are too young to cross the street on their own.’

She laughs. ‘Listen to you — already the great veteran. You need to mind your manners, you’re still too wet behind the ears to be calling the rookies.’ She glances at the big clock on the wall near the captain’s office. ‘One more tape then I’m going for food. You comin’?’

‘Sure, but no pizza. I need to start getting into serious shape for the big trip.’

‘You are in serious shape — take a swim when you’re out at sea and those momma whales are gonna come courtin’.’

‘Funny ha ha.’ He slaps the small dome where his six-pack used to be. ‘Cut the carbs, hold the beer, skip pizza and I’ll be okay. Famished and bored but o-kay.’

‘O-kay’s not a good place to be. O-kay’s no man’s land. You’re caught in the crossfire between pigged out and happy and starved but gym-body hot. Only settle on o-kay when you’re married.’

‘You forgot — I’ve been married.’

‘It was good for you once — it’ll be good a second time.’ She looks up at him, eager his old pain doesn’t surface. ‘I’m just jerking your string. You’re still a catch. And not just for the whales. Don’t worry about it.’

The phone on Nic’s desk rings. He glides his chair back and reaches over an exploded volcano of paperwork to grab the receiver. ‘Karakandez.’

Mitzi sips her coffee and watches him. Shame he won’t start dating again. He’d make someone a good catch. Kind, modest and as honest as the day comes. Good looking but not so much of a pretty boy that he’s gonna get hung up when things really slide south. She smiles. Yeah, when Nic Karakandez finally drags himself out of his shell some gal’s gonna win the lottery.

He hangs up, takes the notepad he’s been scribbling on and rolls back to her desk.

She nods to the pad. ‘What you got?’

He holds it up. ‘Look who our vic is.’

Mitzi stares at his spidery scrawl. ‘Tamara Jacobs.’ She shrugs. ‘I’m supposed to know her?’

‘Clerk in fingerprints said you might. She’s a film writer. Some kind of a hotshot. Does big historic costume dramas — romantic stuff too, about ancient Romans and British monarchs. Is that your kind of thing?’

‘You kidding me? Harry Potter is as close to British costume drama as I get.’ She pulls over her keypad and Googles ‘Tamara Jacobs’.

A page from the Hollywood Reporter comes up with a head-and-shoulders shot of the deceased and a big block of bold text beneath it.

Nic leans back as he reads her screen. ‘Her new picture’s called the what?’

‘The Shroud,’ says Mitzi. ‘She was working a flick called The Shroud. Maybe I’m gonna like her kind of movies after all.’

8

Stepford wives and Mad Men husbands watch from the safety of grand doorways as LAPD cruisers crash the calm of the quiet cul-de-sac where Tamara Jacobs lived.

The uniforms are locking down what could well be a crucial crime scene — one where the victim met her killer, was abducted or even murdered.

After an eternity of bell-ringing at the writer’s six-million-dollar mansion Mitzi gets a couple of cops to bust open the back door. She and Nic step cautiously into a vast kitchen full of mahogany carpentry and marble worktops. Both have their guns drawn, even though they’re 99.9 per cent certain the place is empty. Plenty of cops have been killed by that 0.1 per cent.

‘Clear,’ shouts Mitzi from around a corner.

‘Clear,’ echoes Nic as he moves through the living room.

The perp’s been here. Nic knows it. Feels it tingle his blood.

They sweep the downstairs rooms first. There’s no sign of a struggle. Next they check all five upstairs bedrooms, accompanying en-suites and a separate dressing room full of clothes, shoes and handbags. Nothing seems obviously out of place.

Mitzi slides open a wardrobe as big as a wall and stands back in shock. ‘Jeez, Bloomingdales has less stock than this. I mean, how many clothes can one woman wear?’

Nic turns his back on the expanse of dresses, tops, skirts and blouses. ‘I’m going down to the study. Writers are strange creatures. Let’s see what’s in her natural habitat.’

Mitzi takes one last envious glance at the glamorous gowns then follows him. A forensic team and photographer are in the kitchen. There’s nothing to suggest a break-in before the cops forced their own entry. No jimmied frames, no drilled-out locks or broken glass. Maybe the killer wasn’t ever here.

The study is even more of an indulgence than the upstairs dressing room. Ceiling to floor oak, a purpose-built desk, plush brown leather chair — antique by the look of it — shelves packed with every kind of reference book. Nic guesses Tamara was old school, the kind who only relied on published books rather than internet sources, the type who wanted substantial proof behind her work.

It takes him a second to work out what’s missing. There’s a printer, scanner and a whole host of tidied cables and chargers.

But no computer.

That instinctive tingle that he felt grows a whole lot more as he pulls open a cupboard. No tower unit for a desktop PC either. Okay. Not so surprising, writers often favour laptops — they’re slimmer and better suited to jotting down weird and wonderful thoughts as they travel. But there are no spare cables or docking station. He searches more cupboards and finds installation disks and guarantees for an eleven-inch MacBook Air. Nice. Much cooler than the old Dell buckling the legs of a table in his apartment. But something’s still irking him.

Writers back things up. Professional ones back everything up. All the time. On multiple sources.

Nic searches but can’t even find a single USB stick, let alone anything heavyweight or professional like an Iomega or Tandberg.

He’s been here. He’s cleaned her out.

‘Nic — come see this.’ Mitzi sounds more sad than excited.

Whatever she’s found he knows he’s not going to like it. He leaves the acres of oak and makes his way into a pasture of thick, white living room carpet.

‘The cat’s dead.’ Her face just about betrays the fact she had one as a childhood pet. ‘Been killed by the looks of it.’

Tom Hix, a forty-year-old bearded CSI in a Tyvek suit holds the white Persian out at arm’s length. ‘Its neck’s been broken. There are ligature marks beneath the fur and its eyeballs are dilated. I’d say it’s been strangled with some kind of noose — maybe even swung around some.’

Mitzi shakes her head. ‘Sick bastard.’

‘But an interesting sick bastard.’ Nic looks closer as Tom lowers it into a large paper bag. ‘There aren’t many people who carry rope with them and know how to kill with it.’

The CSI labels the bag. ‘We’ll pass it to our forensic vet, he’s top notch. If there’s any trace evidence or offender DNA, he’ll find it and he’ll figure out exactly how it died.’

Nic moves on and searches through a pile of mail, then checks a small cordless phone on a base by the window ledge. The display says there are fourteen missed messages. He lifts the silver phone from its cradle, examines the icons on the main body and finds the contacts book function. There are 306 entries, all listed surname first. He punches in Jacobs and it comes up with only one — Dylan. His eyes flash back to the mail stack and an envelope addressed to Mr D. and Mrs T. Jacobs. He picks it up and sees it’s been opened. Inside is a hard white card filled with flowery gold writing inviting them to a charity ball. Nic holds the phone and card aloft for Mitzi to see. ‘Looks like we’ve found Rock Lady’s hubby.’

She drifts away from the CSI, the dead cat now forgotten. The husband of Tamara Jacobs is either her killer and knows she’s dead or his life is about to be ruined. ‘If you’ve got a number, call it.’

Nic picks up the phone again, finds the entry and presses call. The room falls silent. All eyes are on him as he listens to the dial tones roll out across the airwaves. No number is displayed, just the name Dylan Jacobs — he could be a mile or a whole continent away. Nic’s heart thumps with anticipation.

The tones stop.

A deep baritone voice speaks. ‘This is Dylan, I can’t talk at the moment, leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I’m free.’

Nic kills the call. ‘Went to messages. I’ll try again from the office where I can record it.’

Mitzi nods. ‘Okay. Take that home phone away with you, check the callers and process it. I can do the rest of this search without you.’

He unplugs the telephone and waves a hand as he heads for the door. A thought stops and turns him. ‘No pictures.’

She throws a frown across the room. ‘Say again?’

‘There are no pictures around the house of husband and wife. Not in the study, not in the bedroom or anywhere.’

Mitzi casts her mind back to the rooms upstairs. ‘You’re right. There were no male clothes in any of the closets either, no shaving gear or toiletries save female stuff. In fact, no trace of Dylan Jacobs ever being here.’

9

Twenty-seven-year-old Viktor Hegadus shifts uncomfortably on the edge of the sun lounger only feet from the private pool.

He has a lot on his mind.

No wonder he has a headache. The kind that will become a migraine. He just knows it will. His only hope is to take a snooze for a while — a little power nap — but he can’t. Not with so many things troubling him. The builders arrive tomorrow and he’s wondering if he should put them off until he’s had another think about the plans for the extension — a separate guest wing complete with its own pool and courtyard.

The midday sun creeps over his feet. He gets up and adjusts the parasol so he’s safe in the shade. He’d hate to burn. It would be awful to have red and dry skin.

The cell phone under the lounger next to him rings. He tries to ignore it, as he’s done for most of the morning. A twinge of guilt finally makes him grab it. ‘Dylan’s phone, who’s calling?’

There’s no answer. Just a click and a clunk, like the call is being transferred.

‘Hello,’ Viktor scowls into the phone.

‘Is Mr Jacobs there please? I need to talk to him.’

‘Not possible. Who is this?’

‘My name is Karakandez, Nic Karakandez. I have some important business to discuss with Mr Jacobs. Can you please put me through to him or tell me what number I can get him on?’

‘He’s meditating at the moment. He doesn’t want to be disturbed.’ Viktor abruptly finishes the call, turns the phone to mute and throws it angrily beneath the lounger.

If Dylan can’t spare the time to be with him, then he’s certainly not going to let him spend it talking to strangers.

10

The Trakscan software on Nic’s terminal generates a pop-up window showing the call was received at a private villa off Tower Street in Gordon’s Bay, New South Wales. He searches the computerised Interpol directory and finds details for the New South Wales police. He toggles through until he pinpoints the area covering Gordon’s Bay and then dials the contact number.

‘Chief Superintendent Hawking — how can I help you?’

Nic tells him exactly how.

Thirty minutes later, armed police slip into position around the multi-million-dollar villa overlooking the tropical waters of the Tasman Sea and Nic receives a call back.

‘You’re good to go, Detective,’ says the Chief Super. ‘Your fella hasn’t left in the past half-hour and now he has nowhere to run but into the welcoming arms of my officers.’

11

The dark-haired young man zaps open his old Ford Explorer and dumps his tired frame behind the well-worn steering wheel. He’s just finished a full day of hard work. Factory work. Good honest labour. His place of graft is ten miles from his last kill site — his home even more miles in a different direction. He thinks of these things and is comforted by them as he starts the engine and heads off for a long drive before turning in for the night.

Driving is good. He likes to get to know new neighbourhoods — study the unkilled walking around with their children, dogs and loved ones as he cruises past.

He imagines what their lives are like. What their deaths would be like. How sweet and merciful he could be to them — given the chance. Some years back a cop on the TV news described him as a reptile, a cold-blooded killer with no feelings, no emotions and no morals. The cop couldn’t have been more wrong. What he does is out of love. God’s love.

He turns on the radio and tunes in to the news as he drives. Listens out for himself. There’s nothing. He’s relieved. It means no manhunt, no interference in his work. Anonymity is his protective shield, God’s way of showing approval — a blessing, if you like. He puts it down to his MO. Modus Operandi — his method of operating. Strange how Latin phrases still exist in the modern day. Fragments of a past civilisation blown across the centuries and continents, turning up on the blood-soaked streets of the City of the Angels.

The young man slows as he passes his local church and makes the sign of the cross. Instinctively, he mutters more Latin: ‘In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.’ The rhythm of the words comforts him. He turns them over and over like a fascinated child might with a smooth stone in his palm. And then his favourite, Dominus vobiscum — the Lord be with you. He says the phrase differently.

The words have to be pronounced softly, clearly, slowly, reverently. After all — they’re the last his victims ever hear.

12

When Nic makes his next international call, it’s 8 p.m. Friday night in California and 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon in Gordon’s Bay, Sydney. As he dials, he taps up a Google Earth map. On the screen he zooms along the beautiful Australian peninsula, past the striking ocean frontages around Dunningham Reserve and Bundock Park and then down the northern headland that showcases the select homesteads of multi-millionaires.

This time Dylan Jacobs answers his own phone and it doesn’t sound like the meditation and sunshine have done much to relax him. ‘Jacobs,’ he snaps, irritably.

‘Nic Karakandez, Mr Jacobs.’ The cop’s voice is calm and friendly. ‘Just to be clear, you are Dylan Jacobs, the husband of Tamara Jacobs the Hollywood writer?’

‘Why do you want to know, Mr Karikeez?’

‘Karakandez — Lieutenant Kar-a-kan-deez of the LAPD.’

‘I am Dylan Jacobs. Tamara is my wife.’ The aggression has gone from his voice. ‘Why are you ringing me, Lieutenant?’

‘I’m afraid the body of a woman has been found at Manhattan Beach. From photographs we’ve obtained it appears to be that of Tamara.’

‘Dear God. It can’t be—’

‘Mr Jacobs, I apologise for calling you like this, but I’m a homicide detective and we’re treating the death as suspicious.’

Jacobs struggles to speak. ‘This isn’t real. It just can’t be. You’re certain it’s Tamara?’

Nic weighs up the voice down the line and decides the shock is genuine. ‘We’re as sure as we can be without next-of-kin identification.’ One thing is bugging him, though, something he just has to mention. ‘Mr Jacobs, I’ve listened to all the messages on your wife’s home answerphone and despite her being missing for more than twenty-four hours, none of them are from you.’

Jacobs lets out a long sigh. ‘We don’t talk much, Detective. Maybe once a week. Sometimes less. We’re estranged, have been for years. I have a home out here in Sydney with my partner — I believe you spoke to him earlier.’

Now Nic gets the picture — a rich married man approaching the autumn of his life comes out of the closet. Probably, for his wife’s sake he agrees to maintain a veneer of heterosexual respectability for as long as possible. ‘Mr Jacobs, in a moment an officer from the New South Wales police will knock on your door and show you a photograph we’ve scanned and emailed to him. We need you to officially confirm it is your wife — do you understand?’

‘I do. Is there, then, a chance you could be wrong?’

‘We really don’t think so. The ID is more of a formality.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m very sorry for your loss and for the fact that we have to do this. I’d also like the policeman to ask you a few questions, to see if you can help us find whoever was responsible for your wife’s death. Are you able to do that for us?’

Your wife’s death. The words stun Dylan Jacobs into silence. He and Tamara have been apart for some time but he can’t imagine never seeing her again. Never wondering about her. Never hoping she’s forgiven him and is having a good life without him.

‘Mr Jacobs, did you hear me?’

He’s still struggling as he nods at the phone. ‘Yes,’ he manages finally, ‘I heard you.’ He places the receiver back on its cradle feeling hollow.

His world has changed. His wife is dead. He is no longer a married man.

13

Eight a.m. and Nic rolls out of bed more tired than when he got in. He crashed in the early hours then woke four or five times. Insomnia has been habitual since Carolina and Max’s deaths. He turns on the TV as background noise — virtual company — and because his apartment is so small he can still listen in the shower.

He’s towelling dry when his cell phone rings. Without looking he knows it’s Mitzi. She’s the only one who ever calls at weekends and as it was too late last night to update her on his conversation with Jacobs. She’s probably itching for info.

‘Morning,’ he says, still rubbing his wet hair. ‘I’m fresh out the shower and was going to make coffee then call you.’

‘You mean I caught you naked? Lordy lordy. Please answer yes, even if it’s not true. You know how us married women need a little harmless fun.’

‘Butt naked and in all my athletic glory.’

‘Enough, now I’m having flushes. How’d it go with Jacobs?’

He drops the towel and dresses with one hand as he talks. ‘Husband turns out to be gay and living with a partner half his age in Sydney, Australia.’

‘No way.’

‘Every way, by the sound of it. Aussie cops tell me he and his wife split several years back after he admitted to his homosexuality, but they never divorced.’

‘Why so?’

‘Bit vague. Dylan said Tamara didn’t want everyone laughing at her and as he always worked away a lot he just went along with the story that he was always travelling and working.’

‘But now he has a home in Australia?’

‘Yeah, and the South of France and Bali. He’s a property guy, sells top-end stuff to the rich and famous, gets a few bargains for himself along the way.’

‘Sweet deal.’

‘Cops in New South Wales were really helpful. I wired a photo that one of our CSIs recovered from Tamara’s house and Jacobs ID’d it as Tamara.’

‘Where was Mr Property Tycoon when she was killed?’

‘Sydney, where he’s been for the past month. His story checks out. He couldn’t have done it.’

‘No motive?’

‘Don’t think so. He gave us his lawyers’ details so we called them. Dylan Jacobs signed an agreement more than a year back giving his wife the LA property and dividing stocks, shares and savings. Seemed a strange but amicable affair.’

The sound of teenage girls shouting at each other spills down the phone. ‘Keep it quiet!’ Mitzi with a hand over the receiver. ‘Don’t go annoying your father, he’s trying to sleep.’ She waits for them to shut up then speaks to Nic again. ‘Sorry, I gotta go, they both have parties today and they’re wound up already. You heading boatward?’

‘You read my mind.’

‘Have a good one.’

‘You too. Hope the girls have fun.’ He hangs up and pictures Mitzi bundling Jade and Amber into the family’s beat-up station wagon while her lazy no-good bum of a husband stays in bed and sleeps off another Friday night bender. She could do so much better.

Nic makes instant coffee and thinks a while more about Mitzi’s old man. She said he hit her once. Slapped her after he saw a male neighbour coming out of the house when he rolled home drunk from a bar crawl with the boys. The idiot put two and two together and made five. Mitzi had kicked his ass back and that had been it. But Nic wonders now if the strapped-up fingers he saw in the office were really the result of another fight. He pours OJ and eats a cup of granola without any milk — a quirk dating back to bachelor days when he was always running out of everything except cereal. If Mitzi’s in trouble, she’ll tell him. And if she is, then it’ll be his pleasure to go and straighten her husband out.

It’s a little after nine when Nic shuts his front door and begins the thirty-minute drive to Terminal Island, just east of San Pedro and west of Long Beach. The Al Larson Marina on Seaside Avenue is leased from the Los Angeles Harbor Department and has more than a hundred slips, for vessels between twenty and fifty feet long. Slap bang in the middle is Officer Karakandez’s pride and joy. The one thing that’s kept him sane.

Reunion isn’t a yacht that turns heads. In fact, the nine-ton Hillyard sloop is a real Ugly Betty of a boat. No bikini-clad supermodel or playboy prince will ever be seen near her, let alone on her. But after his wife and son’s deaths, Nic fell in love with the rust bucket and saved its cast-iron keel and white oak ribs from the breaker’s yard. The process of renewing something was good for his soul, if not his pocket. Every spare dime he’s made has gone on repairs — reframing and caulking, a new centre cockpit with wheel steering, three cabins refurbished in mahogany, fresh fibreglass over thick pine decks.

Nic passes the morning tending her thirty-four-foot mast and adding varnish to the back decking. Around 1 p.m. he steps ashore to get a bite of something hot. Across the quayside he catches sight of someone he thinks he knows. It needs a double-take, though — he’s never seen her dressed in anything like jeans and a sweater.

‘Dr Chang?’

Amy Chang turns from the water’s edge. Her jet-black shoulder-length hair bounces, there’s a flash of ice-white teeth beneath soft pink lips and a sparkle in her green-brown eyes. ‘Detective Karakandez.’ She says his name warmly as she walks towards him, hands in front pockets, a gentle rock of the hips against a large camel-coloured bag slung over her shoulder. ‘Little birdie told me you had a boat down here.’

He tracks her way. ‘Little birdie’s right. But I’m certain you don’t sail. Do you?’

‘No, not at all. Never been to sea in my life. Unless a ferry ride in San Francisco counts?’

‘It doesn’t. So what brings you to the water?’

She smiles. ‘Fresh air. Clear my head. Forget work for a while.’

‘It sure is a good place for that.’ He nods towards the metal whale occupying the slip to his right. ‘That’s mine. Quite a looker, eh?’

She smiles ironically. ‘Distinctive may be a better word for it.’

He laughs. ‘I’m going to grab coffee and a sandwich. You got time to do that?’

‘Sure.’ She falls in comfortably by his side as a flock of seagulls break from the deck boards and scatter skywards.

He turns to her as they walk. ‘That little birdie who told you I had a boat down here — its name wasn’t Mitzi, was it?’

Amy puts a finger to her lips. ‘Detective, you know better than to ask someone to betray their sources.’

They’re both still smiling when they walk into The Deli on the Deck. It’s as busy as hell on Judgement Day. Filled with families drawn out by a splash of decent weather and the lure of a weekend by the water.

Fortune smiles on them and they grab a newly vacated table right at the back, from where they order coffees, tuna melts and a bowl of fries to share. Despite Amy’s stated desire to get away from work, it’s the only common ground they have, so she can’t help but update him on his case. ‘I called a tidal expert. Turns out your lady on the beach went into the ocean in the early hours of Thursday morning. He reckons around 2 or 3 a.m.’

‘Any idea where she went in?’

‘From the pier. Perp probably thought she’d be dragged out to sea.’

‘Could you fix a time of death?’

‘You know how these things work, Nic. TOD isn’t a precise call. From the body temp I get about a three-hour window, so you’re looking at one, one-thirty, to four, four-thirty. Given the tidal pull and where she ended up, I’d say we’re nearer the one-thirty mark.’

He pulls off a string of browned cheese from the edge of the melt. ‘She’s a writer from over in Beverly Hills.’

‘Was a writer.’

‘Was.’ He licks grease from his finger and points to the heavens. ‘Maybe still is. Perhaps she’s working with Shakespeare and Orson Welles as we speak.’

‘Be nice to think so.’ She dips a fry in mayonnaise and ketchup. ‘Was she killed at the house?’

Nic holds off on his food. ‘Living room, by the look of it. I couldn’t see any trace when I was there but criminalists found blood spatters on the ceiling.’

‘Same type?’

‘They’ve not run DNA but it’s the same grouping.’

Amy gives a knowing nod. ‘But no spatter on the furniture, floor or walls?’

‘Apparently not.’ He can read her thoughts. ‘Yep, we guess the killer came prepared.’

‘Whoever invented plastic sheeting has a lot to answer for.’

‘You’re telling me.’ He sips coffee. ‘We found her cat; the perp had wasted that too. Did they send it your way?’

She nods and picks another fry from the bowl. ‘In the freezer. Something for the forensic vet to look at first thing on Monday.’

‘Tell me, does all the death ever get you down?’

‘Sometimes. Aside from your writer, I got another seven bodies this week. Three road fatalities, a suicide, a drive-by shooting, a rape-murder and a homicide that could be part of a serial.’

He wipes his fingers on a paper napkin. ‘I can’t wait to get away from these slimeballs. Get all those serial killers, gangsters, dopeheads and rapists a million miles out of my life.’

She studies him more closely. ‘So it’s true. You’re really handing in your badge?’

‘Already done. End of the month I’m history. Then me and that big lumpy boat you saw back there, we’re off to get married and start a new life together.’

‘I hope you’ll both be happy.’ She smiles softly. ‘Shame, though, I always thought I’d date someone who didn’t work in the job.’

He shifts uneasily. ‘Doc, when I’m not in the job I hope I may be ready to respond differently to a line like that. Right now, I’m still…’ He struggles for the right words.

She says it for him. ‘Screwed up. I know, the little birdie told me.’ She puts her hand on top of his. ‘No pressure, Nic. Just remember me — if and when that time comes.’

14

It’s still early but neighbours are already out in Renton Street. They’re washing cars and windows, cleaning blown trash off lawns — making the most of what little they’ve got.

The man in the rundown fixer in the corner of the cul-de-sac takes the short walk from his front door to the rusty green mailbox at the end of the drive. It’s a chore he does just once a week. Always straight after breakfast on his way to church.

The mail in the box is addressed to John James. It’s the pseudonym he changed his given name to legally. James is the most common Christian name in the US, followed by John. With his desire to blend in, it seemed appropriate to combine the two.

JJ lives alone and is a creature of habit. Habit is important. It is close to ritual and akin to sacrifice. He never misses work and never misses Latin Mass on Sundays. Dedication and devotion are two of the most important things in his very strange and unusually private life.

St Patrick’s is one of the few churches where the traditional Catholic service can still be heard. He always sits in the same place. Centre aisle. Right at the back. It’s the perfect place. He can be last in and first out from there. Gone before the others mill around him and block his way.

For a moment he sits in his car and watches the unkilled mixing and talking to each other, kissing and shaking hands, waving and smiling as they go their separate sinful ways.

Liars. Cheats. Deceivers. He sees them for what they are.

JJ starts the Explorer’s engine and drives away, scripture rolling round his mouth, like a child with a hard-boiled sweet he’s trying to make last for ever: ‘Hóstiam puram, hóstiam sanctam, hóstiam immaculátam — a pure victim, a holy victim, a spotless victim.’

The neighbours are still cleaning and washing when he gets back. He ignores them, goes inside and upstairs to the bedroom. Straight to the razor blade. He stands naked. Naked before the eyes of God. Slowly, he cuts the skin of his chest, legs and arms in an intricate pattern of crosses. The steel slices deep enough to draw blood but not so far that it opens a wound that needs stitching.

It wasn’t always like that. During the early days of his devotion he caught a femoral artery and almost died. Now he’s more practised. More careful. It would be awful if he died before his time. Died before he’d completed his duties. In front of a long mirror screwed to the back of the bedroom door he inspects the patchwork of bleeding wounds. ‘Omnis honor et glória — all honour and glory.’ He whispers the words over and over. Deliberately. Slowly. Heavy pauses between each one.

As the mantra fills his mind he takes a long white sheet and wraps it tight around himself. It’s a divine feeling — the crispness of the cloth, the smell of the soap, the sight of blood soaking slowly through the heavenly whiteness.

JJ curls up on the bare wooden floor and imagines that he’s dying — that he’s going straight to heaven.

15

Ten a.m. and the Californian sun is comic-book bright. An end-of-the-world ball of blistering orange energy that’s already scorching everyone and everything beneath it.

Nic is giving ‘little birdie’ Mitzi a hard time as they drive to the film studio where Tamara Jacobs worked. ‘I don’t need matchmaking. It was so embarrassing her turning up out there.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’ Mitzi flags a hand at him. ‘You’re an idiot. Amy’s single and likes you enough to have travelled across town on an off-chance. You won the lottery then ripped up the ticket rather than collect. You’re the dumbest asshole I know.’

‘You shouldn’t mess with me like that.’

‘Apparently.’ She glances his way and shows her disappointment. ‘Nic, wake up and smell the beans — Amy Chang is nice and bright — beautiful — and available. I’ve known her since she came here. She’s a friend, a wonderful woman, believe me there aren’t many like her around.’

‘Look — I know she’s nice, but plee-eze just leave me be.’

‘By the time you’ve reached “be” you’ll be past your sell-by date and too old to be anything or be with anyone. You need a good push — that’s my job. I’m your pusher.’

‘Not out of work it isn’t.’ He almost says she’s the last one who should be dispensing relationship advice but stops short. Mitzi means well, no matter what she says or does, her heart is always in the right place. ‘Three weeks.’ He slaps a hand on the dash. ‘It can’t go fast enough. Three weeks and I’m a civilian.’

‘Thanks,’ Mitzi takes it personally. ‘I’ll miss you too.’ She’d lay into him some more, point out what an ungrateful SOB he is, but they’re already at the lot. She lifts her shades and shows her badge to the gate guard at Anteronus Films Inc. He raises the red-and-white-striped security pole and waves them in.

The two cops park and wait in the bone-warming sunshine, thinking about how much they need a quick end to a case that’s already threatening to do the unthinkable and turn itself into a major inquiry.

A uniformed security guard turns up and breaks their concentration. He ushers them into a cream-coloured electric kart and drives to a corporate red-brick building surrounded by immaculate lawns.

A shiny elevator of polished brass and streak-free mirrors takes them to the plush blue carpet of the executive floor, where they’re shown through a set of hand-carved walnut double doors to meet the company CEO.

Brandon Nolan is a sixty-something Hollywood exec who made his name thirty years ago as a fierce agent and brilliant film financier. Barely five-six in his stockinged feet, he’s one of the biggest names in Tinsel Town. The media make much of the fact that he never dates women more than half his age or less than five inches taller than him.

‘Detectives, come in, sit down. How can I be of assistance?’

‘Mr Nolan, one of your writers turned up dead on Manhattan Beach.’ Mitzi curses her bandaged fingers as she drags out a copy of a photo they took from the vic’s house. ‘Tamara Jacobs.’

Nolan seats himself behind a giant desk, steeples his hands together and looks thoughtfully at the picture. ‘I didn’t know her.’

Mitzi raises an eyebrow. ‘How can that be?’

‘We make fifteen, maybe twenty pictures a year. All the directors I know — all the stars I know. The writers? Only the clerks in accounts know who the writers are.’ He puts his hand on a telephone. ‘Were you offered coffee?’

‘We’re fine.’ Already Mitzi can tell the guy doesn’t care about anything other than the bottom line. ‘Articles we pulled says she was working a movie called The Shroud — what’s that about?’

‘Ah, okay, that’s hers, is it?’ Nolan replaces the phone. ‘It’s a religious thriller, set around the Turin Shroud.’

Nic’s interested. ‘What’s the plot?’

Nolan smiles. ‘Buy your ticket and popcorn, you’ll find out.’

‘Not much chance of me doing that. Will it still get finished without her?’

‘Sure. Writers are a dime a dozen. It’ll get finished.’

‘Did Tamara have an office here?’ asks Mitzi. ‘Any desk she worked from? Any place she kept research notes, diaries, that kind of thing?’

Nolan scratches an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know. I’ll get someone from Human Resources to talk to you.’

‘Only she had no computer at home,’ adds Nic. ‘I guess a writer has to have a laptop, or tablet, or netbook or such like.’

The CEO nods. ‘I’d expect so. Anything else?’

‘We’d like a copy of the script she wrote,’ says Mitzi. ‘Plus copies of any more footage that’s already been shot.’

‘Is that really necessary?’

‘I don’t know, not until I’ve seen it. Might be a complete waste of time, might be a big break for us. Please just make sure I get it.’

He lets out a disgruntled sigh. ‘Very well.’

‘And her colleagues,’ adds Mitzi, like she’s remembering things for a shopping trip. ‘We need to interview any work colleagues she had. I guess the director and entire cast.’

Nolan grimaces. ‘Is there any hope you can do all this discreetly and in the staff’s own time? Maybe after work so the picture isn’t disrupted?’

Mitzi smiles. ‘Sure there is. There’s Bob Hope and No Hope. Which do you prefer?’

16

An uncomfortable fifteen minutes pass before there’s a knock on the CEO’s door. A pencil-thin young woman in a light-brown suit steps in and looks to Nolan, who nods towards the two cops. ‘Sarah Kenny,’ she says. ‘I’m from production and I’m here to take you to the set.’

As they walk out, Mitzi sees she’s red-eyed and guesses she’s been told the news. ‘Did you know Tamara well?’

‘Not before the movie. She was always very nice to me.’

The well-dressed graduate doesn’t say much more as she drives them half a mile across the lot to a security barrier, where she shows her ID to a guard. They drop the kart and walk towards what she proclaims is the studio’s biggest stage — a vast space the size of three aircraft hangars, housing an historic landscape.

‘Sheesh, it looks like the whole of the Middle Ages just fell through a time tunnel and ended up here,’ says Mitzi, feeling like a tourist.

‘Thirty-three AD to be precise,’ says Sarah, still sounding sad. ‘You’re looking at Pilate’s house in Jerusalem. Mr Svenson had a team of historians in here for weeks supervising the build just to ensure accuracy. He’s such a perfectionist.’

Nic reads the signs. ‘You got a thing for him?’

‘No.’ She blushes a little, then motions off-stage to an area filled with drapes, dead-eyed lights and unmanned cameras.

‘Sure you have,’ Mitzi insists. ‘Honey, be careful what you do. Tongues wag like you’ll never believe. Things you do, people you do, right at the start of your career — they have a nasty habit of coming back and biting you in the ass.’

Sarah turns bright red. She reaches across a table filled with scripts and pulls over a copy each for her guests. ‘The scene about to be filmed is just after the execution of Christ.’

They hear a male voice shout ‘Action!’ and dip their heads to the script.

This is what is possible. You may have your crucified Jew, but he must remain in your tomb until a year has passed. Only then may his family take his body.

‘Okay — cut. Cut there!’

The instruction comes from an unseen male with a Scandinavian lilt in his voice. ‘Tack själv — thank you. Stand down, please.’

Sarah Kenny looks like she’s just witnessed a real-life miracle. ‘I’ll get Mr Svenson now.’ She bounces away, chasing the Swedish echo.

‘Look at her, Little Miss Bright Eyes.’ Mitzi’s gaze tracks the assistant. ‘So loved-up it almost hurts.’

Nic fakes a frown. ‘I thought you were on a quest to get everyone loved-up?’

She glares at him. ‘Not everyone — just dumb partners who are living too much in the past.’

17

Twenty-four-year-old Emma Varley stares in the mirror over the row of cracked and filthy sinks in the staff washroom. Like a zillion women before her, she wishes things were different.

She peers in particular at a thumb-sized strawberry birthmark in the middle of her left cheek. Her mom always told her it looked like a cute dimple. If she ever earns any decent money, she’ll have surgery. Until then she does her best with cheap concealers and powder.

Now that she’s been tricked into looking at herself, she finds other things to hate. Thick brown hair that won’t grow a decent length without frizzing and eyes that are so damned short-sighted they need itchy contacts or bottle-lens glasses. She wishes her nose were smaller, her chin longer, her cheeks less fat.

Even retreating from the mirror has its dangers. As she stands back she’s reminded that her breasts are too small, her waist too big and legs too short. Her mom says looks aren’t everything — but in LA it sure as hell feels as though they are.

The girls at work bully her, make her life unbearable. They’re such douchebags they even make the manager’s life hard. They flirt with him and mock him, tease him with flashes of breasts and legs then ask him about the girlfriend they know he doesn’t have, possibly never has had. They call him Fish Face.

Emma leaves the washroom the way she always does — angry and depressed. Head down and hand self-consciously over her birthmark, she veers towards the exit and the prospect of some fresh air.

‘Hey, watch what you’re doing!’

She’s barged into Fish Face and made his day as bad as hers. She’s knocked a cup of piping-hot black coffee over his pants and shoes. Now he’s dancing like a scalded cat.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry!’ She takes the cup from his left hand and a soggy clipboard and papers from the other. ‘I’ve got some tissues. Sorry.’ She puts his things down and pulls a wrap pack of Kleenex from her purse. ‘What a mess. I’m so—’

He turns and walks away. Leaves her hanging. Strides angrily towards the men’s room.

‘God almighty!’ Emma stamps her feet. She’d scream the f-word and pull her ugly hair out if it was in her character to do that. But it isn’t. That’s not how she’s been brought up. She takes deep breaths and tries to calm down. If she gets fired, she gets fired. It’s a crappy job anyway.

18

When Matthias Svenson appears, Mitzi immediately understands why Sarah Kenny and probably every other female on the film lot has fallen for him. Late thirties, he has a thick mane of sandy hair, stands a good six-three and was undoubtedly a Norse warrior in a previous life. His glacial blue eyes and amazing white teeth have clearly evolved from a stealthy predator, a wolf-like beast with primeval sexual needs that she’s sure he indulges regularly.

‘I’m Matthias,’ he extends a warrior hand and well-learned Hollywood smile. ‘I’m the director.’

Mitzi loses her fingers in his cavernous palm. ‘Lieutenant Fallon — LAPD. This is my partner, Detective Karakandez.’

Nic just nods.

Mitzi looks at the director with heightened curiosity. ‘Are you European, Matthias? I couldn’t quite place your accent.’

He laughs. ‘Most people can’t. I am Swedish but my name is German — it means “Gift of the Lord”.’ He reads her thoughts. ‘It’s not a name born out of vanity. It is because my parents lost several children before birth and had me late in life.’

Mitzi could warm to this guy. Oh yes. Given a time machine to take her back to a pre-marriage epoch, a chalet in the snow-capped Scandinavian mountains and a rug in front of a log fire, she could warm to him in a very special way. She glances towards Sarah. A sisterly look of approval. Female consent for her to feel free to make a fool of herself in whatever manner she wishes.

‘I’m afraid we have some very bad news, Mr Svenson,’ Nic cuts in, anxious to get to the purpose of their visit. ‘Your writer, Tamara Jacobs, is dead.’

‘Tammy?’ Svenson looks genuinely shocked. ‘Dead? How?’

Mitzi adds some detail. ‘Her body was found in the ocean, down on Manhattan Beach.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘Do you know if she has any close friends, family?’

He pauses to think. ‘She and her husband split up some time ago. That’s confidential. Amicable break from what I know.’ He struggles for the words. ‘I think he spends a lot of time out of the country — with his new partner.’

Nic notes the emphasis. ‘When did you last see her, Mr Svenson?’

‘Me?’ He looks puzzled. ‘Wednesday, I think. Yes, I’m fairly sure it was.’ He glances from one cop to the other. ‘I remember now, it was early afternoon and we sat outside the set with a coffee and talked about the script.’

‘What time exactly?’

‘Of that, I’m not sure.’ He holds out his bare wrists to indicate he doesn’t wear a watch. ‘I’m an artist, I don’t believe in being manacled like that. It was after lunch. Maybe three, four o’clock.’

‘We broke for lunch at one,’ says Sarah, eager to assist.

‘Then it was nearer four,’ adds Svenson. ‘I was late getting off set. I had lunch with the studio publicist, then I looked at some rushes with the assistant director. After that I met Tammy and we decided to grab coffee outside in the sun and talk about the end.’

Mitzi needs him to be clearer. ‘The end of what — the movie?’

‘That’s right. She still hasn’t delivered the final scenes. We have a fallback of course, but there was an agreement that she could keep the ending secret. All I know is that it is set in the Holy Land.’

‘That’s a lot of scenery to build.’

‘It is indeed. Thank God for green-screen technology.’

‘Were there any on-set problems, Mr Svenson? Arguments between Tamara and any of the characters?’

‘The actors, you mean? No — not at all.’ He seems almost amused. ‘Tammy wasn’t interested in actors, just words and screenplay. The only time she came on set was to see me and offer rewrites.’

‘Who did she have most contact with?’ asks Nic.

Svenson nods to the assistant. ‘Me and Sarah. When I wasn’t around she’d pass notes through Sarah and she would help her with much of her admin.’

‘There’s lots of it,’ says the assistant with a smile.

‘I really have to go now — is that all right?’ Svenson motions to the set behind him.

‘Sure.’ Mitzi pulls a contact card from the inside of her jacket. ‘But I need a full copy of the script — or at least the fullest that you’ve got — and please don’t leave town without calling me first.’ She smiles at the delivery of the corny old line.

Svenson takes the card and crinkles his cool blue eyes. ‘I won’t, Lieutenant. You can bank on it.’

19

The wall bell rings.

Clocking-off time. A cheer rolls like a wave across the factory floor. Raucous female voices replace the relentless rumble of old machinery. Emma stays at her machine and keeps her head down as the coven file out.

‘Blotchy, hey douchebag.’ The shout comes from Jenny Harrison, the worst witch of all. ‘Bring my limo round the front, I’m ‘bout ready to split.’ She draws giggles from her cronies.

Varley tries to ignore her. Bullies bully more when they see the pain on your face — she learned the lesson a long time ago.

‘Useless bitch, I oughta sack your blotchy ass.’ Harrison clips Emma’s head as she struts past.

It takes several minutes for the room to empty, the mocking laughter and insults to disappear.

Silence. Peace. Dignity.

‘Emma.’

She looks up. Her boss is stood there. Fish Face. The man she spilt coffee on.

‘Time to go.’

‘I hate them.’ She doesn’t mean to speak, the words in her head just tumble out. Her face contorts. ‘I wish Jennifer Freakin’ Harrison would get caught in one of these machines and—’

‘She’s not worth it.’ Fish Face walks past her. ‘Forget about her and go home.’ He starts to check all the machinery has been turned off.

Emma clears her things and heads to the door. A thought hits her. She turns around and walks back to him. ‘I just wanted to say sorry again for this morning.’ Her eyes drift down to the dark stain on his trousers. ‘I’ll pay for cleaning — if they need it.’

He looks away from her. ‘They don’t.’

‘Okay. Well, if they do — if you change your mind — then I’ll pay. You can dock it from my money.’

He turns off the banks of strip lights covering the factory floor. ‘They won’t.’

‘Right. Goodnight, then.’ She still feels bad as she visits the restroom. It’s a long way home, two buses and a twenty-minute walk. She doesn’t want to get caught short. She hates the winter months. It’s dark at six when she leaves and dark at six when she gets up. One day she’ll have enough money for a car — like her mom says, only the poor in LA have to walk. She clocks out at the front door and fastens her coat against the chill.

‘Hey, hold up.’

She turns on the steps and sees Fish Face behind her, door keys in hand.

‘You want a lift? I go right past your place.’

Normally she’d say no. Most nights she’d be too shy to accept. Tonight she’s exhausted and needs the company. ‘That’d be great. Thanks.’

He smiles and finishes locking the door.

Maybe spilling coffee on him wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

20

Away from the snarl of rush-hour traffic, Emma’s boss takes Harbor Freeway south until the Gardena junction then the western slip to Artesia Boulevard. She doesn’t say much and neither does he. Mostly they listen to the radio channels he keeps switching between.

She breaks one of several awkward silences. ‘You like to listen to the news and talk stations?’

‘Sometimes. Good to know what’s happening in the world.’

‘Bad stuff. That’s all you hear on the news.’

He almost argues the point but instead hits search on the radio again. It rolls off the news and parks in the middle of a talk show.

‘KKLA 99.5. This is a Christian station.’ There’s a laugh in her voice. ‘I come across it sometimes. You’ll find this funny, but late at night, when I find it, I leave it on. It’s just nice to hear folk talking kindly to each other rather than shoutin’ and swearin’ like shock jocks.’

‘You just like the station or are you Christian as well?’

‘I’m not sure how to answer that.’ She gives him a quizzical look. ‘Suppose I am. Let’s put it this way, I ain’t a Muslim or Jew, so I guess I must be Christian.’ She points through the windshield. ‘You need to pull a right here, straight after the warehouse store on the corner.’

He flicks on the indicators and turns the Explorer into South Normandie Avenue.

‘You can drop me here, if you like. I’m only a couple of blocks down.’

‘It’s not a problem.’ He smiles at her. ‘Would be unchristian not to take you to your door.’

She smiles back. ‘Thanks, it’s West 169th. You’ll see it coming up on your left.’

There’s a line of working trucks, old motor homes and campers parked out on the blacktop, early signs of the kind of neighbourhood he’s driving into. She’s obviously dirt poor and from dirt-poor stock. These days it’s tough to own anything but clapboard unless someone’s given you a headstart up the ladder.

‘I’m just after the telegraph pole.’

He slows and pulls over outside a wooden throw-up that’s more shack than house. A scrub of weeds and bald lawn lie in shame behind a tiny fence of rotting, bare wood.

Emma can read his face. ‘Not much but it’s still home. I rent it. No point spending money on what’s not yours, right?’

‘Right. Mine’s the same. Needs paint and money that I haven’t got.’

She unbuckles and grabs her bag from beneath her feet. ‘Thanks for the ride …’ She almost calls him Fish Face ‘… Mr James. You wanna come in?’

Instinctively he scans the street. Out of sight, somewhere else, he can hear the siren of an LAPD cruiser.

A bad sign.

‘Not tonight, maybe some other time?’

Emma is disappointed. He seems a nice guy. Would be good to have a friend at work, especially one who’s your boss. ‘Then thanks again. See you tomorrow.’ She leaves him with a smile and swings the door closed.

‘Sleep well,’ he says to her retreating back.

He watches her through the gate and smiles when she looks back and waves at him. The houses around are all jammed in tight — there must be a hundred windows for people to watch from. She’s safe here.

For now.

21

By 11 p.m. the Homicide and Robbery squad room is close to deserted. Only the dregs remain. Nightshift rookies working their way up and weathered old wasters who’ve fallen so far down they’re stuck in the sediment of the system.

Nic Karakandez is stuck too. Stuck in front of footage from the security camera at Manhattan Beach. It’s his turn at the monitors. Not much of an ordeal really. He’d rather be here than home alone with the memories that won’t go away.

He drinks cold coffee and watches the speeded-up images as noise boils in the corridors around him. Women’s voices. Coarse. Shouting. Swearing. Hookers pulled in by vice being milked before being processed then cut loose to start all over again. He’s seen it all during his time here — the girls get arrested and fined then returned to the streets where they have to turn tricks to earn the money to pay off the fines. The proverbial vice circle. He heard someone once worked out that if the women all got handouts of $500 a week, they wouldn’t need to sell themselves, could avoid pimps and the state of California would be more than a million dollars a year better off. He doesn’t know if it’s true or not but he wouldn’t be too surprised to find out that it was.

He glances at his watch. Another hour and he’ll call it quits. Leave just after midnight, maybe by then he’ll be tired enough to sleep a little when he gets home. The screen in front of him shows the black of night at the beach, faint ocean waves crashing unheard on the silent footage. Yellow security lights vaguely illuminate part of the aquarium and marine lab where he and Mitzi looked around. He watches a few couples walk down the approach and lean against the rails to fool around a little. A couple of drunks turn up to light a cigarette and one takes a leak in the ocean. The other is so wasted he curls up in the lab doorway and starts to sleep.

Nic speeds the images up some more, thirty-two times normal speed, then a flash of light on the screen makes him take notice. He glances at the time log. It’s just after two in the morning — 02.09:15 to be exact.

The hood of a car comes slowly into shot and he feels his heart jump. No way should a vehicle even be down there and the driver knows it. The headlights aren’t on — the flash Nic saw was of security lighting bouncing off the vehicle. He leans close to the monitor and watches every pixel as it comes to a halt. He can’t see the front or back plate, nor can he work out the make. It’s an SUV of some kind. Not a big one like a Land Cruiser or Range Rover, something smaller.

The security lights are so yellow and the camera lens so poor it’s impossible to guess whether the car is black, blue or green. The driver’s door opens. A thin shadow of a man slips out. Nic recalls the height of the rails around the pier edge and where they came up to on him. The driver looks about his size. Six foot, no more. He goes to the back of the car and pops the hatch.

Nic almost bangs his nose against the screen.

The guy leans into the vehicle and lifts something out of the back. The shot’s not close enough or clear enough to see what he’s carrying in his arms but it’s draped across them and looks long enough to be a body.

What else could it be?

The shadowy figure struggles to the end of the pier and slides his heavy burden into the dark waves of the Pacific.

22

Mitzi never makes it to work before Nic. That’s the agreement they have. She takes Amber and Jade to school while he gets in early and checks what has come in overnight and been thrown in their tray. If something big is going down, he calls her. Otherwise she usually rolls into the squad room somewhere between nine and nine-thirty. In return, she brings coffee from Starbucks and on Tuesdays donuts or muffins. Today it’s muffins.

‘So my little night owl,’ she waggles a paper bag from her bandaged hand as she approaches his desk, ‘did you come up with anything to deserve your treat? I have a choice of stem ginger or skinny blueberry to go with your steaming Venti Americano.’

Nic doesn’t even look up. ‘What I’ve got for you deserves much more than anything you’ve got in that little bag of yours.’ He taps a printout of timecodes and notes made from viewing last night’s footage. ‘We have a lead.’

‘You serious?’ She puts the bag on his desk, slips her jacket and shoulder bag over the corner of her chair. ‘You got lucky?’

Now he turns to her. ‘Luck had nothing to do with it. I watched every damned frame of that footage.’ He cues up the material on his monitor. ‘This is just before ten past two, the light flash is a car coming into shot. Watch what happens now.’ He sees her drawn to the screen, hypnotised just as he was by the shadowy figure getting out of the vehicle, going to the rear and then carrying something heavy to the far side of frame and dropping it over the rails.

‘Yes!’ She slaps the desk with excitement. ‘Play it again.’

He hits rewind and uncaps his coffee.

She watches even closer the second time. ‘Any other footage? Any idea of what make that car is?’

‘It’s a Lexus hybrid. A four-by-four. Security cameras picked it up travelling east towards the pier.’

‘Plate?’

‘Don’t be greedy. These are night-time shots, ma’am. You should be grateful for what I’m giving you.’

‘Women always want more — especially ones my age.’

‘Four-door plus hatch, no sunroof. RX 450h in Argento Ice.’

She frowns. ‘In what?’

‘Argento. I looked it up on the car company’s website. It’s a kind of pearly creamy white that’s really hard to make out beneath sodiums. Came up clean, though, on some of the wider footage.’

‘How many Lexuses — do you say Lexuses, or Lexi, are there in LA?’

He pulls a face. ‘You’re looking at America’s bestselling luxury crossover in the SUV market. Close to a hundred thousand a year.’

She tilts her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Why God, why us? We’re good people — we just seek to serve.’

‘This is the latest hybrid. There are fewer of those around.’

‘How many fewer?’

‘Lexus shifted ten thousand across the country last year. Figures down badly after the quake and tsunami in Japan snd of course the recession back home.’

‘Oh, that makes life much simpler,’ she says, sarcastically.

‘Only a couple thou’ in LA and just a few hundred in this spec.’ He glances at his watch. ‘I’ve begged a little extra manpower.’

‘Let me guess, Sandra and Denise in Robbery?’

He smiles. ‘They seem willing.’

‘I’m sure they are.’

‘Listen, with their help, come midday we’ll have covered body shops, rentals and insurance claims.’

Mitzi thinks of another angle. ‘You sure it’s not the vic’s own car? Tamara’s second vehicle?’

‘I checked that already. No.’

She rips open the paper bag and hands him the stem ginger muffin. ‘You’re getting good, you deserve this.’ She shifts to her own desk with her coffee and blueberry muffin. ‘I’m going to finish this shitty low-cal apology of a treat then head back to the film studio to see the archivist. You wanna come or you gonna need to stay here?’

‘You go.’ His eyes are fixed to data searches coming up on his monitor. ‘I want to finish the Lexus trawl then I’ll catch you later. Okay?’

‘Fine. Trace that hybrid before our debrief with the captain at the end of the day and you could maybe take Sandra and Denise for a drink.’

He laughs. ‘We’re going to fall out if you keep this up.’

She raises her palms in surrender and pulls open the cake bag. ‘Just saying, that’s all.’

23

The thirty-seat executive viewing room is the most luxurious cinema Mitzi Fallon has ever been in. The place is bathed in a perpetual twilight, the temperature is T-shirt warm and it’s so acoustically perfect you feel like you’re wearing noise-cancelling headphones.

Executive Assistant Sarah Kenny rides a stream of super-soft blue carpet down rows of calfskin leather reclining chairs. Mitzi caresses the tops of the chairs as she follows. ‘Jeez, this is so plush I could live in here.’ She looks up and halts as the screen flickers into life. ‘What’s that? They going to show something?’

Everything’s moving backwards. A tape is being rewound in vision. ‘It’s a sequence from The Shroud.’ Sarah points beyond the screen, to the side of the auditorium. ‘There’s a projection room back there — it’s where we’re headed. The archivist must be preparing your footage.’

Mitzi dips into a row and with all the enthusiasm of a small child on a party outing takes a seat. ‘Let’s watch a minute.’

The assistant gives her a disapproving look.

‘Just this bit.’ Mitzi sinks down in her recliner and snuggles her head against the top cushion. ‘C’mon. Take the weight off.’

Sarah has no choice. She tucks her stylish white midi dress around her tanned model legs and flips a muting switch on the end of her armrest. Giant recessed speakers engorge with a torrent of rich sounds — rolling thunder and a crack of lightning against a pale sky. The camera cuts to a hillside and slowly zooms in to two centurions standing sentry by the rock face.

She rolls the volume knob down to a more comfortable setting and leans close to Mitzi. ‘Remember the take of Joseph of Arimathea asking for Christ’s body to keep in his family tomb? Well, this is the next scene — at the tomb in Golgotha.’

A male narrator’s voice speaks over her — ‘ When it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene to see the sepulchre.’

‘That’s just a guide track. The words are from Matthew 28,’ whispers Sarah, proud to add the religious insight.

‘And behold there was a great earthquake,’ continues the narrator. ‘For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, rolled back the stone and sat upon it. His countenance was as lightning and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men.’

The screen fills with fleeing centurions and blinding light. The camera cuts to a close-up of a broken Roman seal lying in the dirt besides the giant rock and the open entrance of the tomb. Sarah points a perfectly manicured finger at the screen. ‘The seal is significant because it bore the authority of the Emperor of Rome. It was a really big thing back then. Breaking the seal on the tomb of a crucified felon was showing disrespect to the Emperor and running the risk of execution.’

‘My boss is the same with his coffee mug — anyone uses and breaks that, they may as well hand in their badge and go kill themselves.’

Out of the swirling dust two frightened women appear. They huddle together. Mourning robes are pulled tight around their bodies and faces. An angelic voice is heard off camera: ‘Fear not you, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he is risen.’

Mitzi shrugs. ‘Takes a similar miracle to raise my old man.’

On the big screen, a naked and shapely angel appears. Her long golden hair and feathered wings just enough to pass the scrutiny of censors. She beckons the terrified women. ‘Come and see the place where the Lord was laid, then go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen.’

‘Jeez, why don’t they do something original and have fat angels for once?’ Mitzi turn to Sarah. ‘Or a black angel, or Hispanic or Mexican — why always the naked white chicks?’

The film freezes and saves the assistant trying to answer. It goes into high-speed rewind and then the screen turns black. ‘They’re changing spools,’ she explains. ‘After this Mary goes into the tomb and finds the sepulchre is empty. There’s just the burial cloth lying there.’ She stops abruptly, almost as though she’s said too much already and gets to her feet. ‘We should go now and collect your copies.’

Mitzi struggles out of the comforting hug of the seat and follows her. ‘What happens next?’

‘We go through the back — to the rooms behind the screen — I’m taking you to meet the archivist.’

‘I know that. I meant in the movie. What’s next?’

‘I’ve been instructed only to talk to you about what’s been shot and what you are being given copies of.’

‘Say what?’

The tone is enough to add speed to Sarah’s stride. She pushes through a soundproof back door into a passage with restrooms off to the left and a storeroom to the right. In front of her is another heavy door marked ‘John Kaye Snr, Chief Archivist’.

‘Hang on,’ protests Mitzi.

Sarah escapes into a large, cool room almost entirely filled with ceiling-to-floor shelves stacked with cans of film. She gestures towards the far end, to a worktop desk and a tiny old man perched on a stool in front of three viewing monitors. Big headphones are wrapped around his completely bald head. ‘That’s Mr Kaye,’ she whispers. ‘He suffers from dwarfism and his hearing is not good — but he’s a really nice guy.’

Mitzi grabs Sarah’s arm as she sets off again. ‘Be sure of one thing, when we’re done here, Miss Smarty Pants, you will tell me everything. Even if I have to drag you by your slim little ankles across the parking lot and haul you downtown.’

The young assistant is shaking as she takes the final steps to where the archivist is working. ‘Hello — Mr Kaye,’ she says loudly. ‘This is Detective Fallon.’

‘Lieutenant Fallon,’ Mitzi offers a hand.

Kaye shakes it but looks away. He’s either embarrassed or more interested in the screen than the policewoman. ‘You’ve come for the rushes. I’m just copying them.’ He glances at a clock high up the wall in front of him. ‘There’s about twenty minutes left to go on the transfer.’

‘We’ve burned them onto DVDs for you,’ explains Sarah trying to build a peace. She dips into her large Gucci shoulder bag. ‘There’s also an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, for you to sign.’ She fumbles with two copies of the document. ‘As the material has not yet been transmitted it makes you responsible for ensuring it isn’t copied, pirated or lost.’

Mitzi takes the paper and looks it over. It’s full of legal mumbo-jumbo that make her and the LAPD responsible for zillions in damages. ‘I’ll sign when the copies are done.’ She peers at the desk monitors. ‘Is this the movie?’

He nods. ‘What there is of it. They’ve only cut together thirty minutes — about a quarter.’ He points to the footage. ‘These are rough cuts made by the assembly editors, they won’t make a master cut — a fine cut — until the entire film has been shot and the director has had time to consider any changes.’

The screen shows modern-day Italy. A busy street crammed with cars and scooters, Italian signs, shops, stylishly dressed men and women.

‘What’s this? What happened to Pilate’s house and all that old stuff?’

The assistant doesn’t answer.

‘It’s Turin,’ explains Kaye. ‘It’s where one of the contemporary protagonists is introduced.’ He glances towards Sarah, unsure if he should say anything more.

She tries to pull off the impossible task of not too obviously shaking her head.

‘C’mon,’ snaps Mitzi. ‘Why all the secrecy?’

Sarah colours a little. ‘Truth is, we all signed confidentiality clauses specifically prohibiting us from talking about the movie, its content, or anyone associated with the creation of it, and we’ve all been issued with memos reminding us of the pledges we took.’

‘I’m a goddamned police officer,’ fumes Mitzi. ‘Confidentiality doesn’t apply to me, especially when I’m investigating the death of the person who wrote your damned movie.’

‘Please understand, we could get fired,’ says the archivist.

‘You could get arrested long before you get fired.’

There’s a mechanical click and beep from under the worktop. ‘They’re done,’ he says, apparently thankful for the distraction. ‘Your copies are ready. I’ll case and bag them for you.’

‘The NDA, Lieutenant Fallon, could you sign it now, please?’ Sarah holds out the papers and a pen.

Mitzi draws a giant cross through each page of legal text, flips a sheet over and scribbles on the back: I promise to do my best not to lose or show this movie film to bad people. Honest. She scrawls her name and shoves the paper back in Sarah’s hand. ‘Now cut the secret squirrel shit and tell me exactly what’s going on.’

24

Force Press Officer Adam Geagea perches on the edge of Nic’s desk while the detective finishes a call. He knows he’s an unwelcome guest. Cops like to keep cases quiet and his job is to tell the world what’s happening. Chalk and cheese.

Geagea is nearly fifty and would love to have been a cop. The only things that stopped him were a shortness of height and a dubiously foreign surname. If he had a dollar for every time he had been forced to spell it out or tell people it’s pronounced Zhar-zhar, he’d be a billionaire. Only the well-educated recognise he shares the same family name as Samir Geagea, the notoriously ruthless Middle-Eastern Christian freedom fighter. It’s not something he draws attention to.

Nic finishes his call and stares accusingly at the man sat on his desk.

Geagea is fiddling with a flip-over calendar. ‘What is this, Detective, some kind of IQ question?’

Nic’s not in the mood for small talk but tries to be pleasant, ‘One a day — it’s a vitamin supplement for the brain.’

The journo examines a sheet and reads it aloud. ‘What do the following have in common — Chairwoman, Peruse, Anomalies, Antiperspirant?’ He looks across the squad room as he thinks. ‘I give up, what’s the connection?’

‘It’s for clever people, Adam. Best you leave alone. What do you want?’

Geagea takes the insult in his stride. ‘I’ve had Variety and the Hollywood Reporter on the phone after quotes on Tamara Jacobs’s death.’

‘How do they even know she’s dead?’

‘They’re reporters. It’s their job to know things like that.’

‘I get it, but how? I mean, it’s got to have come from someone — so who?’

‘Not me.’

Nic smiles. ‘Didn’t say it was. Then who?’

‘Morgue. Coroner’s office. A dozen people on the beach when she was fished out. Colleagues at the studio. You want me to go on?’

Nic surrenders. ‘There’s no statement prepared. Mitzi is over at the studio right now. Tell the media the usual — we’re awaiting the ME’s report, no comment until then.’

‘These flies won’t blow away so easy, Detective. In LA, dead film writers are newborn celebrities.’ Geagea shrugs. ‘Hollywood press doesn’t give a damn about them when they’re alive, but dead — well, that’s different, they become saintly.’ He says the word with irony as thick as grease. ‘The hacks are going to be swarming tomorrow.’

Nic’s desk phone rings. ‘Tomorrow’s tomorrow. Are we done for now?’

Geagea levers himself off the desk as Nic snatches the phone from the cradle. ‘Karakandez.’

‘Nic, Tony Peach. I’ve got news on your car tyres.’

He reaches for his notebook, eyes flicking back to Geagea who’s still hovering near his desk. ‘Shoot.’

‘You’re looking at Maxxis MA-S2 Marauders. High-performance tyres, not cheap, probably around a hundred and fifty bucks a pop.’

‘They fit a Lexus Hybrid?’

‘Sure would. They’d go on standard eighteen-inch wheels. From the pattern, tread width and depth, we’re talking new shoes here. These babies haven’t run more than two to three thousand miles.’

‘Time-wise, how does that translate to a normal amount of motoring, T?’

‘Average Joe does twelve thou a year, not as much as they used to because of gas prices. So these babies would probably have been levered on back in September, maybe mid-August. Could be they were a production-line fit or a recent change up. For a rental car, story’s different. Rents can easily burn a thousand miles a week. One other thing — you don’t usually find these treads on a rep’s car, so you maybe want to push salesmen to the back of your filter.’

‘You’re a star, buddy. I’ve got some cops in Robbery doing a little phone-bashing for me. I’ll get them to hit rental companies first, run down new Lexus hybrids or ones with tyre changes in the last month. I owe you.’

‘I’ll hold you to it. You fixed your leaving drinks yet?’

It’s something Nic hasn’t even thought about. ‘TBA. I’ll come back to you.’

Peach laughs. ‘Better still, I’ll call Mitzi. Take care, man.’

‘You too.’ Nic hangs up and stares at Geagea, who’s still there.

‘Sorry, Detective,’ the press officer points to the quiz-a-day calendar. ‘Before I go, give me the answer will you? Otherwise, it’ll eat me all day.’

‘Okay. All the words hide countries — Chairwoman contains Oman, Peruse Peru, Anomalies Mali and Antiperspirant …?’ He pauses to give the hack one last chance to grab a little respect.

Geagea looks blank.

Nic shakes his head. ‘It’s your part of the world, buddy. Iran. As in Ante-persp-Iran-t. Now get out of here.’

25

Sarah Kenny makes her wisest decision of the day. She takes Mitzi to a quiet corner of Plunge, an in-studio coffee franchise, where she starts to spill the beans on The Shroud. ‘Tamara was very secretive about the script. Not even Mr Svenson knew what the ending would be.’

‘How can that be?’ Mitzi looks confused. ‘I mean, the actors have to know, don’t they? How can they play their parts unless they have the lines to learn?’

‘They were all given an outline script—’

‘Which I’m still to get a copy of by the way.’

Sarah ignores the pointed remark. ‘All the cast were warned the ending would be rewritten. They were told it was so secret a copy wouldn’t be circulated until the day before the shoot and even then only to the few actors taking part.’

‘Why? What’s all the fuss about?’

She scans the coffee shop nervously. ‘Tamara had a contact in Turin in Italy — someone called R. Craxi and he’d given her certain facts about the Shroud that have never been disclosed publically.’

‘And this film discloses them?’

‘The studio’s marketing department expects all the film’s final publicity to be driven by public disclosure.’

‘Disclosure of what? What are the certain facts you mentioned?’

‘I really don’t know. I haven’t seen anything scientific of any kind. I guess they’re to do with the authenticity of the Shroud.’

‘The ending that was circulated — what did it say about the Shroud?’

‘It didn’t commit. The whole modern-day section — the reveal, if you like, was missing. I heard Tamara telling Mr Svenson he would need a scientific setting, a CSI-style lab for some scenes.’

‘For carbon dating or DNA testing?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe both.’

‘But there were no results in the script?’

‘Not in any version I’ve seen.’

Mitzi thinks it through. The best outcome for the writer would be the most shocking. So Jacobs’s new ending would have had to be explosive — something that rocked church or country to the core. Which is fine — providing it’s only fiction. But what if it was based on fact? That would be different. Totally different.

Suddenly, the death of Tamara Jacobs starts to make some sense.

26

The sixty-year-old estranged husband of the dead writer is dressed in a black suit with white shirt and neatly fastened black tie. Dylan Jacobs’s hair is silver and cut elegantly short and despite crossing continents, he is clean-shaven and alert. His partner Viktor is sat beside him in the police reception area reading a day-old newspaper. He is wearing cream jeans, a glittering Dolce and Gabbana T-shirt and gold silk jacket.

Nic clicks open the security door and looks across to them. ‘Mr Jacobs?’

Tamara’s husband rises wearily to his feet. ‘Yes.’

‘Nic Karakandez.’ He extends a hand. ‘My sympathies for your loss.’

‘Thank you.’ Jacobs shakes and motions to the man next to him. ‘This is Viktor. I believe you spoke on the phone?’

‘We did. Please both come through.’

They follow him up a couple of sets of stairs and into a dull interview room that has a table, six chairs and a wall bearing a large blue LAPD crest, complete with American flag, scales of justice and the motto ‘To Protect and to Serve.’

Nic motions to the seats. ‘Can I get you drinks? Coffee, soda, water?’

‘Black coffee, thanks,’ Dylan Jacobs settles in a chair with his back to the crest.

Viktor takes a seat alongside him and holds his hand under the table. ‘Just water, please.’

Nic ducks outside for drinks then returns and shuts the door. Hands out the coffee and water. ‘When did you get into town?’

‘Yesterday.’ Dylan rests his elbows on the table and rubs tired eyes. ‘We went to the morgue and then finalised the funeral arrangements. We’re told Tamara’s body can be released now.’

‘That’s right. The ME has concluded her examinations.’

Jacobs grimaces. ‘We’ve fixed a cremation service for next week—’

‘I didn’t go to see her,’ interrupts Viktor. ‘Tamara and I didn’t get along that well. I don’t think she approved of me.’

Nic can’t begin to think how she possibly could have. ‘Mr Jacobs, we’re trying to pin down a reason for your wife’s murder. Is there anything you can tell us that may be of assistance?’

He looks a little confused. ‘She was a writer, Detective — not a gangster or a drug dealer. Tammy mixed with good people, mainly of our age and of artistic and gentle natures.’

‘Good people sometimes carry grudges or harbour hatred. Rich, educated people are every bit as capable of doing bad as poor, uneducated ones. It’s usually just a question of motivation, morality and means.’

‘I take your point but I’m sorry, I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to hurt her.’ Jacobs suddenly looks much older than his sixty years. His voice breaks a little. ‘Tammy’s face was partly covered when I saw her and the medical examiner said she’d suffered some deep wounds. What had been done to her?’

It’s the kind of question only innocent men ask. Nic measures his answer carefully. ‘We’re not certain, Mr Jacobs. We’re still piecing things together.’

‘But you must have some idea, something to go on?’

‘We’re working hard on that. What I can tell you is that your wife was not randomly murdered. She was deliberately targeted.’

Dylan Jacobs looks from the cop to the table, then down to the floor. He can’t help but imagine Tammy in her open-plan kitchen with its black granite tops and biscuit-coloured wood units. He can see her cooking her favourite salmon and linguini, a glass of crisp white wine at hand and piano jazz playing from her favourite radio station.

He looks up and his eyes are wet. Viktor takes his hand and holds it openly on the table now. ‘Thanks,’ Jacobs says and pats the comforting hand. He looks at Nic. ‘My life is with Viktor now but Tammy and I were once very close. We spent fifteen years together as man and wife, trying to make things work. Even when it didn’t, we remained good friends, the very best of friends. She was a wonderful, kind and loving woman. Even when we split up, she tried to be understanding.’ He looks at the wall, remembering for a second when he told her he was leaving her not for another woman but for a man. ‘I think she knew about my homosexuality even before I did. She had an instinct, a way of picking up on things. I guess that’s what made her such a good writer.’ He manages a half-laugh. ‘Of course, all her compassion didn’t stop her and her lawyers taking me for a fortune.’

‘You paid her too much,’ interjects his new soul mate. ‘Much more than you needed to.’

‘It’s only money, Viktor, only money.’

Nic takes a sip of coffee. ‘Mr Jacobs, if you and Viktor could take some time and list your wife’s acquaintances for me — maybe with a short note saying how long she’d known them and how she was connected to them — that would be a real help.’

‘Now?’ Jacobs looks troubled.

‘No, not now, but it would be good to have it some time tomorrow. Do you know anything about this movie that Tamara was working on, The Shroud?’

‘Oh, that thing?’ says Viktor, his tone sniffy. ‘Is that what she was in the middle of?’ He gives Jacobs a strained look.

‘Yes, I think she was,’ Dylan answers, wearily.

Nic spots the tension between them. ‘What about it, Viktor?’

He hesitates.

‘Go on,’ says Jacobs. ‘You might as well say it.’

‘Well, it was asking for trouble, wasn’t it?’ He lets go of Dylan’s hand and becomes animated. ‘I mean, suggesting that the Shroud didn’t come from Jesus, it’s bound to upset all those extreme groups in the church, isn’t it? It’s blasphemous really.’

‘Viktor was brought up a Catholic,’ explains Jacobs, patiently. ‘He reads too many mystery books and imagines hooded killers are running around everywhere.’

‘They are,’ he insists.

‘Not in Hollywood, Viktor, not in Hollywood.’ Jacobs pats his hand. ‘Isn’t that so, Detective Karakandez?’

‘Well,’ says Nic. ‘I’ve seen plenty of hooded killers, but they were interested in drugs, guns and two-hundred-dollar sneakers, never religion.’

Dylan Jacobs manages a smile. ‘Find him, Detective. Please give me your word that you’ll catch whoever did this.’

Not likely.

The detective doesn’t say it, but it’s the truth. Because a month from now he won’t even be around to take a progress call. Instead, he does what he’s always done, what he’s always delivered on. ‘I give you my word, Mr Jacobs. I’ll find him.’

27

Captain Deke Matthews isn’t the kind of cop you want to keep waiting. He’s a big guy in every sense of the word. Big physically. Big in the department. Big on making his detectives’ lives hurt. He sits behind his office desk waiting impatiently for Fallon and Karakandez, his barrel stomach wrapped in a blue shirt battened down with braces as red as his jowly face.

‘Sorry boss.’ Mitzi breezes in with Nic in tow.

‘Fifteen minutes late, Lieutenant. D’you have any idea how burned good food can get in nine hundred seconds? How mad Mrs Matthews will be if I am the reason said good food is burned?’

‘I get the message, boss.’

The captain drums all ten of his chubby fingers on his desk, like he’s waiting for a plate at Thanksgiving. ‘So what have you got? Let’s be having it, with luck I may still make it before the charring starts.’

Mitzi thumps down a thick wad of folders and pulls out some photographs. ‘Tamara Jacobs, screenwriter, mid-fifties, found dead in the water at Manhattan Beach. Unsub had tortured her — taken out her left eye and some teeth, ligature marks around the wrists. To finish, he cut her throat. Kill scene seems to be her home, nice spread in Beverly.’

‘Why so?’

‘Forensics matched blood spatters on the living room ceiling to the victim.’

Matthews glances at the post-mortem pictures then picks one up between finger and thumb like he doesn’t want to be dirtied by what’s on it. ‘What we have here, lady and gentleman, is something straight from the sewers.’ He slaps it down on his desktop. ‘Why didn’t the perp leave the old girl in her own home after he’d killed her? Why drive out to the beach and dump her in the ocean?’

‘Buying himself time.’ Nic slides over a pack of surveillance-camera shots from the beach. ‘He was most probably an out-of-towner and the driver of this rented Lexus.’

‘This one of those 4×4s?’

‘Yeah, pricey metal, a hybrid.’

‘Nice.’ He takes the photograph. ‘What pins your guy to this car?’

‘Tyre treads in sand on the pier match those of one rented from LAX. Could be he flew in for the hit then flew straight out again.’ Nic gets out the documents his helpers from Robbery traced.

‘Our flyer got a name?’

‘Agne.’ He passes over a rental agreement.

Matthews frowns. ‘Agnes — a girl?’

‘No, Agne — that’s the last name the driver entered on the paperwork. First name “Abderus”. Take a look.’

‘Abderus?’ He stares down at the photocopy. ‘This for real?’

‘Probably not. I Googled both names. They’re Greek and common. Abderus was an ancient hero, of dubious parentage.’

‘It figures.’ Matthews pushes the copy back. ‘Nothing good came from the Greeks. Their economy is down the pan. Their food is crap. There’s a reason you don’t see Italians smashing plates at the end of meals.’

‘Civilisation?’ suggests Mitzi. They both frown at her. ‘I hear rumours that came from the Greeks.’

He ignores her. ‘So we got a Greek hitman — possibly flying in to torture and kill a writer from LA. This make any sense to you two dinner-spoilers?’

Mitzi pushes over a copy of the script she finally prised from Sarah Kenny. ‘This is the movie Jacobs was working on. It’s about the Turin Shroud and we believe it makes some startling claims about whether it really was the burial cloth of Christ.’

Matthews glances at the clock. ‘Do people really give a shit about this?’ The comment stuns his detectives. ‘I mean, have you even seen a good movie with religion in it?’

‘The Exorcist,’ says Nic.

‘Bruce Almighty?’ suggests Mitzi. They both frown at her. ‘That was sort of religious.’

The captain shakes his head. ‘Okay, I concede God can be box office. But tell me, who in real life cares so much about this Shroud? Catholics? Greeks?’

‘Them and maybe others.’ Mitzi sifts through the stack of folders as she talks. ‘An assistant at the studio we spoke to said Jacobs paid researchers in Italy to work for her — maybe provided data on the Shroud.’

‘What data?’

‘Can’t be sure. There was going to be a lab scene, so perhaps scientists do carbon dating or take DNA from blood on the Shroud. Maybe they come up with proof of whose body was under it.’

The captain wags a finger at the files she’s still rifling through. ‘Are you just spitballing or is there something in there that makes you look smart?’

She finally finds the papers she’s looking for. ‘These are copies of confidentiality agreements that everyone working on the film had to sign.’ She passes several over. ‘And here’s a copy of a memo from the publicity department to Tamara Jacobs, asking if she wanted New Scientist and National Geographic added to the press day launch. These kind of publications would never normally be at a movie bash.’ She opens another folder. ‘And here’s an IBAN number of the bank account of an Italian Tamara was paying in Turin. It belongs to an R. Craxi.’

‘Excellenti, it sounds like you have several leads already.’ Matthews pushes his chair back and glances again at the clock as he walks to his jacket hung behind the door. ‘I’m off for dinner. You two had better get yourselves to the canteen — you’ve got a long night ahead.’

28

Dust motes billow in the yellow light from the desk lamp as Crime Scene Investigator Tom Hix drops his report on Mitzi’s block of wood in Homicide. He’s just heading back out as she and Nic roll in from Matthews’s office. ‘Little treat,’ he says, as she approaches.

‘What’s that, Tom?’

‘The vet finished examining the Persian cat from the Jacobs house. Kitty scratched someone deep and it’s not her owner’s flesh.’

‘Really?’ Mitzi reaches for the file.

‘He found traces on the left claw and ran DNA. It’s definitely not from Tamara Jacobs.’

Nic asks the obvious question: ‘So who is it from?’

‘The eponymous Unsub. Nothing on Profiler or the other databases. Whoever the cat clawed doesn’t have a record.’

‘At least not in the US,’ Nic qualifies. ‘We linked the perp to a rental car from LAX.’

‘Driver hired it under a Greek name,’ adds Mitzi, ‘and there are Italian connections too. We’ll check international record systems.’

Hix takes this as a good moment to exit, ‘All yours now.’ He musters a fresh smile for Mitzi. ‘If you want to grab coffee and talk about the case, you know where to find me.’

‘I sure do.’

They watch him leave. Nic gives her a knowing look. ‘You do realise that coffee is not all he wants you to grab?’

‘Shut up! He’s harmless. Besides, a little attention never hurt anyone.’

‘So, how are we going to divide the pain? You do forensics, I chase down Tamara’s family and friends — see if there are skeletons in the closet?’

‘Deal.’ She flips open the report that Hix just left her. ‘You think the killer is European? Flew in, flew out — left us with only a false name and a speck of DNA that doesn’t ring bells in any law-enforcement office on the planet.’

Nic lets out a long sigh. ‘We’re in trouble if he is.’ He corrects himself. ‘You’re in trouble, that would make for a really long job — and I’ll be long gone.’

She tries not to think about him leaving and focuses on her growing hunch. ‘Makes sense, though. Kill and run. Cross a continent and just vanish.’ She looks up from the DNA report. ‘You think Matthews would sanction a trip to Italy to find this guy Craxi, the researcher getting wired money from our dead lady? He always says that if there’s money involved in a murder, you should chase the dollars.’

Nic muses on it. ‘Clear-up rate is down. He needs a result on a high-profile case like this. Why, d’you fancy a trip?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. But you do.’

29

JJ is surprised to see Emma Varley hanging back as the shopfloor clears at the end of the day. She smiles when she spots him. Looks him straight in the eyes with her baby blues. ‘You locking up?’

He jangles the keys in his hand. ‘That’s what they pay me to do.’

‘Want some help?’

He figures she’s angling for another ride home. ‘Sure, I’m always in the market for unpaid overtime.’

‘Well, there’s a surprise.’

He waves to the rows of distant machines: ‘Can you just check that they’re all off? Operators usually leave one or two on. They don’t realise, or don’t care, that it burns out the motor. Wastes a lot of energy as well.’

Emma doesn’t give a damn about energy. All that crap about greenhouse gasses and ozone layers doesn’t affect her. You don’t worry about stuff like that when you haven’t got enough money to run a car or put the heating on if you’re cold. Given the chance, she’d burn three times as much energy as she does.

JJ turns off the lights and for a moment the two of them stand in a quiet darkness broken only by the pale spill and hum from overhead tubes out in the corridor.

‘How romantic,’ jokes Emma.

Too many random thoughts are trying to connect in his mind. The darkness — a woman alone — the excitement he feels rising inside him. He has to control himself. Mustn’t get carried away.

She senses his arousal — goes with her impulse and leans close. The kiss is gentle, hesitant, uncertain. She’s giddy, treading the tightrope between rejection and acceptance.

JJ feels strange. Magnetised to her. Physically unable to pull away. Her sexuality has a powerful hold on him.

She shuts her eyes, takes his face in her cool hands and kisses him more deeply.

He feels his heart jump as he breaks for breath. Without thinking, without censoring his thoughts, he finds himself pulling at her sweater, lifting it over her head. He must have her naked. Her hands fall to his belt and pull at the buckle. ‘Stop.’ He puts a hand to her face — thinks of covering her mouth — then he gently touches the strawberry birthmark with his thumb. ‘Wait. Let me lock up. I don’t want anyone to walk in on us.’

Emma Varley kicks off her shoes and smiles as he disappears in the darkness.

She leans back on the long workbench behind her and gets ready to offer herself to him.

30

Mitzi has the same bedtime ritual every night. She goes into the girls’ room and turns out their light. And usually the TV, which they’ve fallen asleep watching, even though they’ve been told not to. She kisses them and pulls their quilts up snug, kisses them again and slips out the door, making sure she leaves it open just enough for Amber and not too much for Jade. Sometimes she wonders if boys would have been less fussy.

She uses her own en-suite bathroom, slips into a modest black nightdress and then sits at a small dressing table with a tiny book-sized mirror and takes off what little make-up she ever wears.

The blow to the back of her head sends her sprawling face down on the bedroom floor. It catches her by surprise, even though it wasn’t totally unexpected.

‘Do you think you can treat me like shit? Like I’m one of your bum collars?’ Alfie bends low and throws another sweeping right-hander that smacks her ear and sends bells peeling through her shocked brain. ‘I oughta kick some respect into your cheap fat ass.’

The attack is her husband’s response to a scolding she gave him an hour ago. A bawling out for not finding work or doing anything around the house other than sinking beers. He slides the leather belt from around his waist and lashes wildly at her. ‘You don’t think I’m a man, do you?’ He’s slurring his words. ‘Cos I can’t get work doesn’t mean I’m still not a man.’ He folds the belt in two and this time when he hits her raises a crimson welt on her thigh.

Mitzi tries to get to her feet but he lays into her with the leather, slashing hard at her arms and legs, his anger fuelled by her cries and the sight of the deep red marks he’s creating. Finally, she catches the belt. She slides towards him as he pulls, and slams her left foot into his ankle. He tugs harder and she drives the flat of her right foot into his balls.

Alfie drops the strap. Staggers backwards. Falls.

She’s standing and he’s flat out now. There’s no room to aim a kick at his head. No way to land a meaningful punch in his face without him getting hold of her. Mitzi grabs the chair she’d been sitting on, flips it and jams the top of the seat across his windpipe.

Alfie clutches at the wood. She can see fear in his eyes. She leans down on the chair and watches his face redden. Alfie gasps for air. She presses harder. Knows what she’s doing. Knows that within a minute she can end it all. End Alfie.

He kicks with his legs. Thrashes for his life.

‘Mommy!’

Amber at the door. Watching her mother choking her father to death. Mitzi drops the chair like it’s electrified.

‘It’s all right, baby.’

The look in her child’s eyes says it isn’t — it never will be again.

‘Come on.’ Mitzi pushes her daughter towards the bedroom. ‘Go back to bed. Mommy will be there in a minute.’

Alfie’s still on his back. He’s holding his throat, making gasping, choking sounds, struggling for breath. Screw him. Mitzi sweeps a hand under her side of the bed and pulls out her force-issue Smith and Wesson. She checks the magazine, points it at her husband and looks down the barrel. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get your shit together and get out of here. Come into the girls’ room or even still be here when I come out and I’ll blow your damned head off.’

31

JJ feels unusually excited.

He’s never brought a woman home before. Never even considered doing so until Emma came along and boldly suggested they go back to his place. He could tell from the sparkle in her eyes that she was the one he could take a chance on. Full credit to her, she’s special. More than special — she’s blessed.

He closes the front door and carries her carefully up the dark stairway. He’s crossed a threshold, created a spiritual bond. Breathless, he reaches the top of the stairs and the creaking wooden boards of the landing. Being with Emma, ‘Em’ as he’s going to call her from now on, has made him realise that he’s been lonely, isolated, cut off from the big wide world. It’s not healthy. Not what God would want.

In the flickering candlelight of his bare bedroom his thoughts run fast as he tenderly undresses her, his excited fingers drifting over her smooth, cool skin.

Em is beautiful. Even more beautiful dead than she was alive. God had told him it was her time but he can’t leave her yet. Can’t be without her. His mouth greedily finds hers. The hot breath of passion passes from space to intimate space until he breaks for air.

She lies still beneath him, her eyes shut, lost in another world, as he marvels at her. His attention falls on her distinctive birthmark and he smiles. It’s not a blemish. Not a fault, not a mar of perfection as the rest of the world may see it. It’s nothing of the sort.

He knows what it is. He alone understands its importance. She had been marked out. Chosen for him. JJ’s never felt anything like this before. Never felt so complete. In the calmness and silence that follows he reaches to one side and pulls a long linen sheet around them both. He makes sure she’s well tucked in. He doesn’t want her getting cold. Not colder than she already is.

He leans over her and kisses her neck, then whispers in her ear, ‘Dominus vobiscum, my sweet darling. Dominus vobiscum.’