Mann went back home to think. Somewhere, amid all these images on his lounge floor, there was the answer. He had to get Georgina back. He had to find out who killed Helen.

He stared hard at Roxanne’s photos. The person who had killed Roxanne was walking around now. This wasn’t two years ago, or twenty, this was now.

He closed his eyes, leaned back in the chair, took a large swig of his vodka tonic and let his mind drift.

Roxanne: the picture he had in his mind was electric-blue eye-shadow; short, stumpy legs; permed frizzy hair. She wanted fame at all costs, but she was a tough little woman. She had put up with a lot of abuse in her life and had come out the other side. She knew that she was lucky compared to others. She also knew you had to make your own luck.

Mann reread the notes on her – on her death. The autopsy was more detailed than the others because she was the most recent and hadn’t been frozen. What had she had to eat on that last meal again? He read that she’d had steak and potato. That wasn’t a Chinese meal. He’d been starving her up to that point, then he gives her steak. Did he make her eat it with him? She had heroin and a trace of Rohypnol in her urine. Someone wanted Roxanne to look like she was enjoying it, or at least not to care. Someone wanted her to last the distance. Why?

Electric-shock torture? A cattle prod? He must have neglected to put something in her mouth because she bit her tongue, and that was careless. Dressing her up? Role play? Why? The fantasy aspect of the death was important to him. Serial killers tended to re-enact the same fantasy, look for the same type of victim. Were all the others dressed as cave girls, like she was? It didn’t appear so. Only Roxanne had traces of calf skin on her. Maybe the fantasy was broader than that, maybe the calf skin wasn’t the crucial part of this fantasy? Maybe it wasn’t always the same man?

All this time that Mann contemplated Roxanne’s death he couldn’t look at Helen. Her photos remained at the top of the room, obscured from his view. He would take time to come to them. He wasn’t ready to know what Helen had to tell him.

He looked again at Roxanne and imagined her last minutes. He saw her dressed in a calf ’s hide. Cave girl … She died by a ligature applied around her neck. She was hung, most likely. Mann closed his eyes for a few seconds and imagined the scenario. He saw her dressed up, rope around her neck, but she wasn’t hanging. No – she wasn’t. Roxanne was lassoed. The cave girl was dressed in an animal skin to become an animal. She was cattle-prodded and she was lassoed and she was dressed as a calf because that’s what she was to someone, an animal to be branded and slaughtered … branded with an F. Who or what did the F stand for?

71

Ng was in the office when Mann arrived the next morning.

‘What did you come up with, Genghis?’ Ng asked as Mann walked in.

‘Roxanne Berger.’

‘Me too. Cave girl. Hung and electrocuted. We want to look at the others again – they may all be the same.’

‘She was dressed like an animal, she was treated like one, not a cave girl. The person who did this, he gets off on pretending she’s one of his herd. She wasn’t hung either, she was lassoed. The more she struggled, the tighter the noose got. But he didn’t let her die. He kept bringing her to the point where she passed out. He brought her round with the cattle prod, that’s how she came to bite her tongue. He raped her in between. She must have been submissive with the Rohypnol.’

‘Why did he give her that?’

‘It has the effect of making a woman become sexually abandoned, but at the same time it is a powerful sedative. I haven’t had one case of it here before. The drug is just becoming known here.’

‘Not a thing your average rapist or murderer would bother to get, even if he knew how to source it.’

‘Or your ordinary pig farmer. This man takes his pleasure very seriously and he’s willing to pay for it.’

‘Any news on your friend? Has she turned up?’

‘No. Georgina’s not going to turn up, Ng. This may represent a new twist, but she is definitely a victim of the Butcher. CSI have been around to the flat to see if they could find anything. I am going to visit Lucy again later. She has an infinite ability to lie, and I think that’s what she’s doing now. Haven’t figured out what’s in it for her yet, but I presume it has something to do with money.’

Ng picked up his papers and tidied them into a pile. ‘What about the other women? What about Helen?’ He didn’t look at Mann as he asked.

‘I’m working my way through them. I haven’t looked at Helen’s case yet. Have you?’

‘Just briefly. I think it should be done urgently. We only have two complete victims, after all. She is one of them.’ His eyes finally met Mann’s. ‘We have to get as much information from her death as we can.’

‘Of course. I am going to look at it tonight. Definitely.’

Li walked into the office. He’d been out in the clubs all night, but he’d still had time to think about the way the women died.

‘Any more on any of the others, Li?’

‘Gosia. The cigarette burns on her. They form a pattern.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They look like the Islands – Lantau, Lama, Cheung Chau.’ He pulled out the photo and set it on the desk. ‘See!’ He traced the outline of the Islands.

Ng squinted at the photo. ‘Well, what’s that? A passing ship? A shoal of tuna? And that? What is that?’ asked Ng. ‘You need to get some sleep, Shrimp, you’re hallucinating.’

Li blushed and giggled, embarrassed.

‘Anyway, Shrimp, you’re sure there are sixty-eight, right?’ said Mann. ‘Keep working on it – there is something significant about these burns. Some role play, some clue. Some fucking game or other. It’s good to keep looking at it and trying out ideas. Even if some of them are shit.’

Ng patted Li on the back. ‘What else?’ He could see Shrimp was bursting to tell.

‘I was with a girl last night. She said she’d seen a film. She said it was a snuff movie. She said it had a white woman in it.’

72

‘Did she say where she’d seen it?’

‘No. She wouldn’t say. She disappeared on me after that.’

‘Okay, Shrimp. Concentrate on finding these films. Ng – get every officer we can spare out there looking for these tapes. Any more results through from the path lab?’

‘I have them, boss. They just came through a minute ago. Victim six … Helen … definitely asphyxiated, probably with a bag … no obvious signs of pressure or crush injuries. Traces of metal in the wounds across her body, definitely looking at a metal-tipped instrument of some kind.’

‘What else?’

‘Nothing else,’ Li mumbled.

‘Say it, Shrimp.’

‘She was sexually mutilated.’

‘How?’

No one spoke. Li looked at Ng, but Ng couldn’t save him. He was treading water in the middle of the ocean and he was about to drown.

‘How, Li?’

‘Her uterus and ovaries are missing.’

‘Give me the file. I’m going home – call me if you need me.’

Mann took the file from Li and left the office. He had to face the photos, and he had to face Helen.

They were still waiting for him, spread out over his lounge floor. They hadn’t moved. His eyes scanned all the pictures but missed out Helen’s. He stood in the middle of them: Roxanne, Gosia, Beverly, and the three others – two still without a name.

He stood and forced his eyes towards Helen’s pictures. He focused on her face. He loved that photo. He had taken it himself. It was a black and white shot. The sun was on her face; she was laughing. The wind had blown her hair across her face and she’d put up a hand to brush it away. Her eyes were sparkling and her whole face was full of love, of happiness. She was looking right at Mann.