Two Graves

18

THE MAN CALLING HIMSELF ALBAN LORIMER SAT BACK ON his haunches and wiped one leather-gloved hand across his forehead. He was breathing heavily—dejointing a body of this size with the relatively small tools at hand was hard work—but he was in good shape and he relished the exertion.

This one had been the best yet. The hotel—the Royal Cheshire—was glorious indeed, with its sleek, beautifully understated lobby clad in whites and blacks. It had a very intimate feel, which made his job more difficult but at the same time more of a challenge. The hotel’s personality was a little harder to describe than the first two. A member of the peerage, perhaps, the product of a great many generations of breeding and refinement, with money and style but without the least need for vulgar display. This particular fifteenth-floor suite was tasty indeed.

And the young woman—he’d made sure it was a young woman—had proven most satisfactory. She had struggled valiantly, even after he’d opened her throat with the penknife. In turn, he’d rewarded her efforts by taking particular care this time around, arranging the body parts into a likeness of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, with various organs arranged at the compass points of the circle and the pièce de résistance laid carefully on the forehead. Now he fetched a deep breath, dipped a gloved finger into the fresh blood ponded beneath the body, wrote the brief message across the bare midriff—tickle, tickle!—then wiped the fingertip dry on a clean section of carpeting.

Alban wondered if he had guessed who was committing these murders. It was, after all, such a delightful irony…

Suddenly he looked up. Everything was silent—and yet he instantly understood he had only a second or two to act. Quickly, he collected his tools, rolled them up into the leather bundle, stood, darted out of the suite’s bedroom into the living area, then ducked into the bathroom, hiding behind the door.

A moment later there came the click of the room’s lock disengaging and the creak of the door opening. Alban heard the muffled sound of footsteps on the carpeting.

“Mandy?” came a masculine voice. “Mandy, honey, are you here?”

The footsteps receded, moving across the living area toward the bedroom.

As quietly as possible, Alban tiptoed out of the bathroom, opened the room door, stepped out into the hallway—and then, after a moment’s hesitation, nipped back into the bathroom, hiding behind the door once again.

“Mandy…? Oh, my God!” A sudden shriek came from the bedroom. “No, no, no!” There was a scuffling, thudding sound, as of a body falling to the floor on its knees, followed by gasping and choking.

“Mandy! Mandy!”

Alban waited, as the crying from the bedroom dissolved first into hysteria, then cries for help.

The door to the suite burst open again. “Hotel security!” came a gruff voice. “What’s going on?”

“My wife! She’s been murdered!”

More thudding footsteps retreating past the bathroom, followed by a gasp, a sudden burst of talk into the radio, more tiresome cries of horror and disbelief from the bereaved husband.

Now Alban crept out of the bathroom, scurried silently to the door, opened it, stepped out—paused—then closed the door softly behind him. Walking easily down the hallway to the elevator bank, he pressed the DOWN button. But then, as the floor indicator above the elevator showed it beginning to rise, he stepped away again, moved farther down the hall, opened the stairwell door, and descended two flights before emerging again.

He looked down the empty hallway with a smile and headed in the direction of the elevator.

Two minutes later, he was walking out the service entrance of the hotel, hat brim low over his eyes, gloved hands deep in his trench coat pockets. He began sauntering casually down Central Park West, early-morning sun setting the pavement agleam, just as police sirens began sounding in the distance.