This isn’t your case, an inner voice warned. You’re a consultant, nothing more than a hired hand. Cool it or you’ll get bounced.

Darby walked on to the driveway and saw a silhouette out of the corner of her eye. The patrolman assigned to watch the house stood in the woods to her right, steam rising from the tree where he was relieving himself.

Darby didn’t break stride; she continued towards the house.

‘Nature called,’ he said, fumbling with his zipper as he staggered down the slope of snow. ‘You know how it is on a watch.’

Darby didn’t answer.

The patrolman chased after her. Then he darted in front of her, blocking her access to the walkway.

‘Something I can help you with?’

‘You can get out of my way,’ Darby said.

The patrolman didn’t move. He was her height but wide across the shoulders, probably in his early thirties, and he had the kind of pitted, acne-scarred skin that looked like it had been worked over by a cheese grater.

‘You can’t go in there until tomorrow,’ he said, panting, his breath steaming in the cold air. ‘Boss’s orders. He doesn’t –’

‘He in there? Williams?’

‘No. Place is locked up, remember?’

‘I know. I locked the door myself and shut off all the lights. Care to explain to me why the bedroom lights are on?’

‘You must’ve left them on by –’

‘Can it,’ she said, and brushed past him.

But the patrolman wasn’t finished with her yet. He jumped between her and the front door, and his expression morphed into a man who had just discovered his jockstrap had been spiked with Bengay.

‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he hissed. ‘This isn’t my fault.’

‘Who’s in there?’

‘Someone with the power to deep-six me with a phone call.’ His voice cracked and he had to clear his throat. ‘If I get shit-canned, I lose my pay and my medical. My wife’s pregnant and outta work. I can’t afford to get mixed up in this pissing contest between us and –’

‘What’s your name again?’

‘Nelson. Mike Nelson.’

Darby turned the doorknob. It was unlocked, and she saw that there wasn’t a police seal on the door.

‘This is what you’re going to do, Nelson. You’re going to park your ass in your car. You’re going to sit there and shut your mouth until I’m ready to talk to you, got it?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, sure.’

‘Next time you need to take a leak, don’t do it at the site of a crime scene. Now get out of here.’

Darby entered the house. After slipping on a pair of cloth booties, she picked up the clipboard holding the security log. Hers was the last name on the sheet. She put the clipboard down and climbed the steps, bright red spots flaring across her vision.

Not your case, that inner voice warned her again, only it was growing dimmer, drowning in her growing anger. You’re just a consultant, not your case …

The man standing at the foot of the bed and writing on a clipboard was rail thin and had a squared-off jaw and a chiselled profile. He wore bifocals and tan polyester slacks and a thin black tie draped across a starched taupe long sleeve shirt with epaulettes, and he smelled of cigar smoke.

He was also short. In his thick-soled Red Wing boots he stood no taller than five seven. He wasn’t wearing booties or latex gloves – the stupid son of a bitch hadn’t taken even the most basic precautions to protect the integrity of the crime scene.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, looking over her person. He had country-boy good looks and cornflower-blue eyes, and his dark blond hair was immaculately combed and parted razor-sharp.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Yeah,’ Darby said, aware of the heat climbing into her voice. ‘You can explain to me why you’re contaminating my crime scene.’

His eyebrows arched and his mouth opened and he flinched like a man who had just been treated to a surprised rectal exam. ‘Your crime scene,’ he said.

‘Who are you?’

‘Theodore Lancaster.’

The Brewster deputy sheriff, Darby thought, and then recalled what Ray Williams had said about the man, how Lancaster was angling to take the Ripper investigation away from Red Hill. Don’t give him any fuel.

‘My name is Darby McCormick. I’m –’

‘I know who you are and why you’re here.’ His tone was calm and indifferent, maybe even slightly bored. He sounded like he had been asked to impart information about the day’s weather. He used his pen to point at the evidence markers placed in the corner area the killer had wiped down. ‘Tell me what happened over there.’

‘Detective Ray Williams. He works here in Red Hill.’

‘I know who he is.’

‘Then you know he’s the lead detective and that this is his case.’

‘This is a joint investigation between –’

‘If Williams wanted you involved, he would’ve called you here. You wouldn’t have had to sneak in.’

Lancaster turned and held his arms behind his back, almost in a military stance, and gave her his full attention. She could hear the heat rumbling through the wall and ceiling vents.

‘I noticed your vehicle isn’t parked anywhere out front,’ Darby said. ‘My guess is you parked somewhere close by where no one would see you. After we left, you came over and intimidated a patrolman who’s barely out of puberty into letting you in here. Congratulations on reaching a whole new level of spinelessness.’

The skin tightened around his eyes.

Dial it down. This isn’t your zip code.

‘I need you to leave,’ Darby said. ‘Now.’

Lancaster made a clicking sound in his throat. ‘You don’t have any authority here.’

‘Neither do you. Time for you to leave, chief.’

Darby saw the beginnings of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, and it reminded her of the neighbour who had lived across the street from the house where she grew up – a widower named Stan Perry who had always watched his property with a vigilante’s energy and enthusiasm. Once a neighbourhood boy who suffered from some form of mental disability had lost control of his dog, a hyperactive black Labrador, which had sprinted across Perry’s lawn and got into his newly planted hydrangeas. The dog was in the process of relieving itself when the boy caught up with it and grabbed its leash.

Perry had darted out of the house, his cheeks and neck the colour of a fire hydrant. But he didn’t scream or yell. Instead, he leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees, and spoke rapidly to the boy. Darby couldn’t hear the exchange – she watched from her living-room window – but the boy left in tears, and what she remembered was the way Perry had smiled at having found an outlet for the cruelty that lived inside his heart.

Lancaster, though, seemed a bit slicker – the kind of man who never spoke in anger and nursed his hatred and cruelty in private, at home or at a bar, sipping a drink while he plotted ways to leave his mark on those who got in his way or denied his wishes. He looked at her with a smug complacency.

‘Well,’ he said, a smile playing on his lips, ‘far be it from me to argue with a woman so full of passion.’ He slid the pen back inside his breast pocket. ‘By the way: if you want to address your menopausal anger and mood swings, I’ve got the name of a doctor who will be more than happy to prescribe something.’

It shot up her spine like a flare. Her lips pursed and she felt the muscles in her arms tighten, her right hand forming a fist.

Lancaster walked away.

Let it go.

‘Sheriff?’

Lancaster glanced at her from the doorway.

‘Make sure you sign out before you leave.’

‘Of course. Anything else, doctor?’ His eyes flickered with amusement.

‘Yeah,’ Darby said. ‘Speak to me like that again and you’ll be taking your next meal through a feeding tube.’

14

Sally Kelly lived with six cats. An 8 × 10 photograph of each one was set in an expensive-looking matted frame, all of which were proudly displayed on her mantelpiece. Each photo had been taken on a Christmas-tree skirt, a small gold bell affixed either to a red or a green bow tied around the animal’s neck.