Stevie was a detective; she was paid to be curious. She spent most of her days and many of her nights seeking answers and solving puzzles. With a strange sense of unease she realised she was being drawn into the mystery of the profiler as much as the mystery of the case itself.

She watched as he pulled at his billowing overcoat, doing up the buttons as he walked from the photographer’s studio towards the bus stop. He came to a sudden stop and pivoted to his right, peering at something that looked like a bottle lying in a wall alcove. He produced a miniature cassette recorder from his coat pocket and started to speak into it. What was he saying? He put the recorder away and stooped. With his pen inserted into the neck he picked up the bottle, still clad in the brown paper bag in which it was sold. What was its significance? Could the killer have been standing in the alcove drinking, then grabbed Linda as she passed by?

De Vakey acknowledged Stevie with a heavy wave and approached the car with the bottle still on the end of his pen. He was pale and seemed sapped of energy. Despite the cold, a light sheen of sweat glimmered on his forehead.

‘What day’s rubbish collection here?’ he asked as she buzzed the car window down.

‘Tuesday.’

‘Street sweeping?’

‘Tuesday evening.’

‘Did SOCO search the scene?’

‘Of course.’

De Vakey nodded to the bottle. ‘This was in the wall alcove, tucked to the side. It could easily have been missed by SOCO, and the garbos.’

‘You’re a detective too?’

Undeterred, he continued to hold the bottle out to her.

It was her turn to play devil’s advocate. ‘Then again it could have been missed by the garbos for weeks in a row, or it could have been left there yesterday.’

‘True, but the light coating of dust and the absence of any insect life suggest it’s only been here a few days. Humour me?’ he said, raising an eyebrow.

She shrugged. ‘I guess there’s no harm examining it for prints.’

‘My feelings exactly.’

Stevie extracted an evidence bag from the glovebox and De Vakey dropped the bottle into it. She twisted around to place it in the back while he got into the passenger seat. He stretched the seatbelt across him then leaned forward and rested his head in his hands.

‘Are you okay, would you like some water?’ she asked him.

He sighed. ‘I’m fine, drive on.’

This sudden show of vulnerability surprised her and she paused before putting the key in the ignition. Bugger me, she thought. Perhaps he is human, after all.

***

Again Stevie was left in the car to observe as De Vakey walked the pristine courtyard fronting the bank where Linda’s body had been discovered. The stone tables and benches with their trendy conical umbrellas made this a lunchtime magnet for office staff in summertime, but now it was almost deserted. An old woman pushed a shopping trolley past De Vakey, head bent against the wind, her limbs struggling as if walking through mud. Behind the woman a silent curtain of water shimmered down from a ledge in the decorative wall without even making a splash. A group of straw-haired surfer youths entered the bank through the revolving doors, laughing. Monday’s horror was already forgotten.

Stevie watched as De Vakey craned his neck to look up the length of the tall building. Then he took the crime scene photos from the file he’d been clasping. They flapped in his hand as the wind threatened to tear them away. She resisted her instinct to rush out and help; again he’d made it quite clear that she wasn’t wanted.

He squatted and rested the photos on his knee, tapping at the top one with a finger. After identifying the bench on which the body had been posed, he straightened and walked towards it, stopped and stared at it for a moment, his lips moving in silent monologue as he stood where the killer had stood.

She shivered, not only from the cold that cut at her through the open window. As he made his way back from the bank and into the street where she was parked, he surveyed the parking bays and clearways.

‘What now?’ Stevie asked, noticing his returning pallor.

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands as if he trying to erase unpleasant images. ‘Now, we go and get some lunch,’ he said.

She waited for more. When he remained silent, she shrugged and turned the key in the ignition.

***

They sat in a faux English pub, at a table close to a roaring wood fire. He’d slid off his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. He was dressed less formally than yesterday, but his grey cord trousers and fine-knit turtleneck still spoke of understated elegance. Stevie regretted removing her bomber jacket, even though she was wearing her favourite blouse. She liked the casual look, but this was so casual it could qualify as comatose. Izzy had a habit of sitting on her knee and picking away at the bright appliqué designs and one was now peeling like old wallpaper.

She saw De Vakey looking at it and folded her arms, diverting his attention with a barrage of questions about the case, all of which he skilfully circumnavigated. It soon became evident that he would impart his information when, and only when, he was ready.

‘You’ve got a pretty small team working on such a high-profile case,’ he said. It seemed as if he was keener to discuss the team sent to catch the killer than the killer himself.

‘The people whose notes you read are just the primaries. We have access to other detectives and uniforms when the need arises.’

‘An elite team, no one under the rank of detective sergeant.’

She nodded, not sure where he was going with this.

‘I notice that you are often partnered with Angus Wong. What’s he like?’

‘Angus is a great guy and an excellent investigator. He told me once that his mother always wanted him to be a concert pianist—he’s very good, I’ve heard him play. She didn’t speak to him for years when he joined the force.’ She smiled; she liked Angus. There seemed no end to his patience, to his kindness, to his ability to accept people for what they were without prejudice. He never seemed to feel the need to prove himself to those who sought to find fault with him.

‘He’s a musician,’ De Vakey said. ‘That might explain his intuition. His character profile of the victim has been most helpful. The other two, Wayne Pickering and Barry Snow, also strike me as being very thorough. Pickering is obviously the dominant member of the partnership, not that Snow is a toady, he can clearly think for himself. I thought they were a bit heavy handed with their interview of the photographer, though.’

Funny, that came as no surprise. ‘You watched the video tape?’

‘Correct.’

‘What do you think? Could the photographer have done it? His wife backed him up, but in my experience you can never trust spouses.’

James De Vakey shook his head. ‘Too timid; we’re dealing with someone who is supremely confident, someone who is intelligent, who enjoys playing games and someone who, above, all needs to be in control.’

She felt herself flush, as if something in her subconscious had been pricked. She picked up her glass of water and took several gulps, seeing De Vakey’s wavy image through the water.

‘Is something bothering you, Stevie?’ he asked softly.

She put down her glass and bit at her bottom lip. Knowing her lies would be as transparent as the water she’d been looking through, she settled for the truth; some of it.

‘I find this case disturbing. I’ve never handled a murder like this before.’ There, she’d said it, and it had been surprisingly easy.

He looked back at her with an understanding that provoked in her a sudden urge to pour it all out. She clamped her jaw to stop herself.

‘Can that be because you see yourself as the victim?’ he asked.