Last Kiss (5 page)

False bravery, thought Kate.

‘So Rick was a perv, was he? What was his speciality?’ Lynch seemed to be enjoying himself.

Annabel didn’t answer immediately. Eventually she said, ‘For the most part, he wanted the usual stuff: sucking his prick, licking, teasing, but he liked having the upper hand as well, dishing out his fair share of pain, slapping me about, a bit of rough stuff, you know what I mean.’

‘Do you like the violent pervs?’ He leaned over, as if to intimidate her.

‘Detective, take it easy,’ Kate said, with a look that said, ‘Back off.’

He took a couple of steps away.

‘I seem particularly attractive to pervs.’ Annabel perked up slightly. ‘I’m told they like me.’

‘What’s your secret?’ Lynch still looked as if he was relishing the conversation.

‘They like the way I dress. You don’t think I wear this gear for comfort, do you?’

He turned to face her. ‘What are your special tricks?’

‘Do you fancy some, Detective? Looking to do a few turns on the side?’

Kate could see his irritability bubbling under the surface. He hadn’t taken kindly to Annabel’s last remark.

‘Listen, you,’ his voice was filled with venom, ‘a man has been murdered, and you happen to have been the last person we know to have seen him alive. Don’t waste your time with any sideshows for me. I’m not interested.’

‘And I don’t have time for this shit.’ She folded her arms again. ‘As I told you, I don’t know anything.’

‘You managed to get very close to Rick Shevlin,’ he retorted.

She stared at him. ‘I have rules, you know. He wanted me to do stuff, but I wasn’t having any of it.’

Kate hoped a less intimidating approach would get more answers. ‘And what are your rules, Annabel? What did he want you to do?’

‘No kissing. I don’t do anal. No fingers or anything other than his prick goes inside. If it does, it costs a lot extra.’ Then, looking directly at Kate, sensing an ally, she stood up. ‘Listen, as I keep saying, I don’t know anything. I need to get back.’

‘You’ll go when I say so.’ Lynch’s tone was controlled but harsh. ‘Dr Pearson asked you what the punter, Rick Shevlin, wanted. Now be a good girl and answer. I don’t need to remind you that you’ve broken the law so let’s try to be civil to one another.’

‘I wasn’t the only one in the hotel room. Rick was there too. Remember, he booked me.’

‘But he didn’t do anything illegal, did he? And now he happens to be dead.’ Lynch wasn’t going to let her off easily.

‘Looking to be fucked isn’t illegal, but me fucking him is. That’s sick.’

‘I don’t make the rules, Annabel. Now, who owned the whip, you or him?’

‘Me.’

‘Do you have it here?’

‘No. I only bring it if I’m asked.’ Then, in a flirtatious tone, ‘Are you specially requesting it, Detective?’

Again, Lynch didn’t bite, but it was obvious to Kate that the girl used her flirtation as a false shield.

‘We’ll need the whip when we finish here. I’ll get a female officer to accompany you. I don’t want you disappearing on us.’

Kate looked directly at Annabel. ‘The victim had whip marks on his buttocks. Did he ask you to whip him?’

‘As I said, he liked to inflict pain, so it surprised me when he wanted to be punished too – it was as if he couldn’t make up his mind.’

‘Outside of the rough stuff and the whipping,’ Kate continued, ‘did he look for anything else?’

Again Annabel stalled.

Kate took another approach. ‘Had you agreed terms before you arrived?’

‘Yeah, but it didn’t stop him looking for more.’

‘So tell me, Annabel, what did he want you to do?’

‘He was into the hard stuff, cutting and the like. He said he liked the sight of blood, really got going when he saw it. I don’t do cutting. I told him that.’

‘What happened then?’ Kate kept her tone soft.

‘I distracted him. He slapped me about for a bit – he even got
hold of the whip at one point – but when I started stripping, he let me take over. Then there was more of the usual stuff: pulling at my clothes, biting me – my tits were killing me after. Look, I’ve bruises everywhere, the wanker.’ She pulled up a sleeve to show a bruised arm. ‘When he got into the swing of things, it meant I could get out of there faster.’

‘What then?’ Lynch asked.

‘After he came off, I told him to have a shower. I said the wet would add to the turn-on when he came back. The egotistical bastard actually thought I was enjoying myself. When he went to the bathroom, I checked under the bed and the pillows. That’s where they usually hide the knives.’

‘Find any?’ Lynch leaned in closer again.

‘No, but it didn’t stop him wanting it. He said he would pay me a hundred euros extra if I did the cutting on him. He brought out a shaver blade – desperate to see blood, he was, but I wasn’t having any of it.’ She shuddered.

Kate looked at Lynch and wondered briefly if Annabel’s distaste gave him pleasure.

‘Well, Annabel,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘Rick’s got plenty of blood on him now – not that it’s capable of giving him a hard-on.’

He was enjoying the power struggle, Kate noted. The more vulnerable the girl became, the more pleasure he got out of it. If Annabel defied him, he came across the heavy, putting her where it suited him best: inferior to him.

It surprised her when Annabel went to the victim’s defence: ‘The guy wasn’t the worst – I mean, he didn’t deserve to die.’

‘So when his time was up with you, what happened then?’ Kate kept her tone measured.

Annabel lowered her voice. ‘Like most of them, he wanted rid of me as fast as he could, as if I reminded him of shit.’ Then her tone sharpened: ‘Nothing new there.’

‘Had he booked you before?’ Kate pressed her.

‘It was the first time.’

‘What about ropes?’ Kate continued. ‘Did Rick Shevlin have any, or did you bring any with you?’

‘No, there was nothing like that.’

Kate smiled then, hoping to put her at ease. ‘What’s your real name, Annabel?’

‘Victoria.’

‘Meaning “to conquer” or “conqueror”.’ Kate’s response was gentle.

‘I don’t like them using it – the punters, that is.’

‘I can understand that.’ She gave the girl a reassuring look.

Lynch interjected, ‘You’re wearing a very distinctive pink lipstick. Do you ever wear red?’

‘Sure.’

‘We’ll be confiscating your lipsticks along with the whip.’

‘What? All of them?’

‘It’s a murder investigation.’ He smiled.

If he heard Annabel mutter, ‘Wanker,’ he chose to ignore it. Stopping the recording and closing the interview, he said to her, ‘Wait here until I send in your escort.’

When they stepped outside, he asked Kate, ‘What do you think of her?’

‘I think she’s telling us the truth. Rick Shevlin wasn’t a novice in this area. He behaved like someone who’d hired escorts before. If the toxicology tests tell us sedation was
used, drugs and poisons aren’t unusual where a female killer is concerned.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Sometimes because it’s less messy?’ She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Are you serious?’ He didn’t attempt to hide his surprise.

‘I said sometimes, but not always. Also, some women prefer not to be around when their victim dies, but, obviously, neither is part of the MO here. Most likely if we find sedatives in his system, it will be because the killer wanted him weakened, and they may also have wanted him conscious when the wounds were inflicted. Assuming Rick Shevlin doesn’t swing both ways, I doubt a man tied his naked body up like that.’ She could tell he had reservations about it being a female killer, but she continued, ‘I would press the madam on whether or not Rick had hired any of her other girls. Maybe someone else was happy to give him what he wanted, and sought revenge. Either way, we now know the reasons for the smaller incisions on the victim’s body. If someone else was prepared to experiment in the cutting department, they could have been emotionally closer to Rick Shevlin than Annabel – I mean Victoria.’

‘Emotionally?’ Lynch sounded sceptical.

‘Contrary to common belief, there’s a whole host of reasons why men use escorts, and I’m not talking dinner guests. The physical violence here, the whipping, but especially the desire for cutting, to see blood, tells us a lot about him.’

‘That he was a perv?’

‘There was certainly a control and power element to his preferences, but the real answers are not always obvious. If
someone had got close to Rick Shevlin emotionally, we might have the first key.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘When Victoria left, Rick obviously had another visitor. He, or she, may have been watching him. There are too many prearranged elements for this attack to have been random. Rick was chosen, but right now, we don’t know why. The sooner we have the answer to that, the better.’

‘We’ve checked out the wife’s alibi and it’s rock solid. She was at home with the children and Rick’s mother when Rick was done in.’

‘As I said, Mark, the killer didn’t arrive at this juncture overnight. When you start digging, take into account all the elements you’ve seen, and don’t necessarily restrict your search to murder. Often, there are signposts early in an offender’s cycle. We need to build up a picture, and right now all we have are fragments of something a whole lot bigger.’

AS I MENTIONED, the new man in my life is married. He hangs on my every word, utterly attentive, but then again, they all are when their needs are aroused.

He could be the one. Love can be transient, and my survival is on the line. This is life or death for me. If I choose unwisely, I’ll pay a high price.

When he was younger, he used to paint, abstract mainly, oils on large canvas. He says he was angry back then. Later, when the anger of youth faded, he became disillusioned, doubting his craft. I’ve seen it before, creativity limited by fear, or by living with those who fail to understand you. I know his wife. She has a role in all this. He says, when he looks at the art work he
did back then, that it’s as if it belongs to someone else. I detect a note of regret behind his words and that intrigues me too.

I have a weakness for men with an appreciation of artistic endeavours. You see, there is always a hook that goes beyond physical appeal. Part of it is his manner, solid without being forceful, projecting a form of knowingness, almost as if he had lived on the earth before. I am drawn to that increasingly, surprised by it, not having noticed it before now. With fresh desire, there is often obsession and fear. The last time he kissed me, I bit him hard on the lips. They bled, and I tasted him. Afterwards, when he had come inside me, he slept like a baby. The afterwards is a test too. Sometimes they act entitled, or the adoration changes and you are like leftover food on a plate, discarded and unattractive. The very thing they wanted to devour becomes despicable. There was a time when I allowed this type of rejection to hurt me. Now I don’t give them that satisfaction. It is best to learn this early on. Life is too short to waste your time on dogs.

But my new man is lovely. When he woke, he kissed my forehead, checking that I was okay. We made love again, and after he fell back to sleep, I took one of my photographs. Not of him, of course. I only do self-portraits.

I locked the bathroom door behind me. My skin was still slightly flushed from having been with him. After showering, I put on my sleeveless black dress. It was simple and modest, but tight and shapely. I closed the clasp of my pearl necklace and stood back. The large mirror above the wash-basin took up most of the wall, with two smaller side panels. I posed with my
camera facing one of the panels: the larger reflection held my profile, and a small panel captured the back of my head.

The bathroom, with its small blue and white tiles, reminded me of a water fountain I’d once seen in a travel book, the white ceramic basin simple in comparison. It is important to get the balance right, the intricate mingled with the plain, the light with the dark.

The reason I like that photograph is the knowingness in my eye. I pressed the camera button like a marksman taking a shot. I had a knife in my bag too. Does that surprise you? You can’t be too careful.

There is another detail about the photograph that I like: as I held the camera to my left eye, I pointed the tip of the blade below my right in absolute alignment to the centre of the pupil. It gave a perfect focal point.

When I left the bathroom, my new man was sitting up, the bedclothes covering his lower body. He didn’t ask what had delayed me, not wanting to waste time on trivia. I wondered – Does he already know there is something strange about me?

‘Did you have a nice sleep?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but I woke alone. It’s a big bed. Why don’t you come back in?’

I pointed to my fully clothed body.

‘Don’t mind that – I’ll enjoy undressing you.’

I smiled. ‘What if I told you I had a knife in my bag? Should I bring that into the bed too?’

He looked startled. ‘Do you feel the need for protection?’ he asked, his voice calm. I liked that too.

‘I feel safe around you,’ I said, more to flatter him than
anything else. I still haven’t fully worked him out. Some people are more complicated than others.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘part of me likes a sense of fear.’

There was no denying his arousal, and as he pulled me to him, I kicked off my shoes. He unzipped my dress, which fell to the floor.

‘Leave the pearl necklace on,’ he said. ‘I like it.’

Desire is important: with it, normal rules no longer apply. I mentioned taking risks: when safeguards are abandoned, we are at our most primal. All relationships carry a note of warning that ultimately things will change, especially if others choose to meddle. I make a point of carefully studying my lovers’ lives, especially those nearest and dearest to them.

KATE CHECKED THE wall clock in her study for the umpteenth time: 11.55 a.m. The morning incident-room briefing was due to finish at midday. It was day two of the investigation and she knew a lot would ride on Morrison’s autopsy report. They had already received preliminary results for the substance found on the victim’s lips. Further tests would be done, but it was lipstick and, despite Annabel’s extensive number of shades, none of them looked a likely match.