‘He says it was all a misunderstanding,’ Striker said, and they both laughed. After the moment had passed, he continued speaking. ‘This is all excellent insight, but it’s also all circumstantial.’

Felicia shivered and took another sip of Striker’s coffee. ‘Circumstantial, fine. But how much do we need?’

‘What we need here is motive.’

Felicia nodded. ‘That’s what interrogations are for.’

Striker didn’t disagree. ‘You’re bang-on right about that – but not just yet.’

‘Why not? Now’s as good a time as any.’

Striker only smiled at her. ‘You don’t go big-game hunting with a mag that’s half full of bullets.’ He took back his coffee cup and sipped it, then let out a long breath that fogged the air under the street lamp. ‘No, we’ll finish our investigation first, gather as much evidence as we can on Ostermann, and then we’ll go after him fully loaded.’

‘Guns a-blazing,’ Felicia said.

Striker smiled back.

‘I never fire blanks.’

Sixty-Three

The Adder entered the Special Room. He had been in here over a dozen times in his life. And every time for his reward.

The room was different from the others. Certainly different from his own dwelling. Thick silk drapes, blood-red in colour, framed the bay window at the far end of the room. The glass of the window was tinted – easy to see out, impossible to see in. Flanking the window was a pair of high-backed leather chairs, red-brown in colour, matching the mahogany bar that was set at the opposite corner. On the countertop of the bar were several bottles of booze. Twenty-five-year-old Bowmore. Fifteen-yearold Grey Goose. Forty-year-old Rémy Martin. And types of hard liquor the Adder did not even recognize. There were also several bottles of mineral water, all for him.

He touched none of it, just as he never had.

Sitting in the centre of the room was a king-sized bed. A fourposter, covered with thick heavy sheets of high-count cotton thread and big puffy pillows that were so deep, you fell right into them.

The Adder stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. His eyes flitted to the old bronze lamp on the desk, then the luxurious chandelier above, and then the mirror on the far wall. These were all beautiful items.

And all perfect for secretly hiding a camera.

He looked around the room but found none. He never did.

He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall to the thick white carpet below. Then he did the same with his jeans and underwear. When he saw the image in the mirror before him, it was bony thin and terribly white. There were scratch marks all down its arms – from the well, he knew – and two of the fingernails from the left hand were broken off.

The sight was interesting, and for a moment it stole his attention.

Then the door behind him opened and shut. And the Adder knew that she was there. She came up behind him, wrapped her soft hands around his ribs, and his body automatically tightened.

‘You’re cold,’ she said.

Then her body pressed into him from behind. He could feel her firm breasts against his back. Her flesh on his flesh. Her warmth invading his body.

He turned around and met her eyes, and was sucked down deep into their stare. She kissed him with an open mouth, her tongue slipping on his. Touching, tickling, caressing. And then she gently pushed him back to the bed.

He let her. He fell back on the thick cotton sheets. And then she climbed on top of him. Her hips straddled his, her long dark hair spilling all around him like heavy thread. She stared deep into his eyes.

‘Did the Doctor put you in the well again?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re cold.’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me warm you.’

She reached down between his legs and grabbed hold of him, squeezed him, made him stiff. Then she lowered her hips and took him inside her. And the Adder did what he thought he was supposed to do – though his thoughts were still far away, where they needed to be. Not here, not now. But on Larisa Logan.

‘Warmer now?’ she asked.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the immediate.

The Girl let out a soft sound, a moan that escaped her thin bluish lips. And she tightened down on him; he could feel it. A throbbing sensation was pulsating through him. Because of her. She was warm and wet and wonderful.

‘I love you,’ she said, again and again.

The Adder did not reply. Did not even try.

I love you . . .

He wished he understood that.

Sixty-Four

Striker and Felicia went to meet Noodles at the Ident Lab at 312 Main Street. As always in this city, there was no parking to be found, so Striker left their car on Cordova Street in the Patrol Only parking – an action which always drove the road cops crazy, but Striker couldn’t help it.

Things had to get done.

He and Felicia walked down the laneway which divided the main building from the annexe. Once inside, they made their way to the Ident Lab. The unit was old and run-down and screamed of makeshift necessity. On the left side of the hall sat the Blood Drying Room, where all soaked materials were tagged before being swabbed. Up ahead they saw the chemical lab, where Noodles had undoubtedly applied the ninhydrin to bring up the print.

To the right of the chemical lab was the main Ident office, where most of the paperwork got done. In this area, it wasn’t all that different from Homicide. Rows and rows of thrown-together cubicles cluttered the office, each one seeming far too small for the amount of clutter the desks owned.

In the last one was Noodles.

The portly Ident tech was sitting far back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and a frozen gel pack laid across his eyes. When Striker got close enough to him, he gave his chair a kick.

‘Trying to get rid of the wrinkles there, Princess?’

Felicia laughed at this. ‘Botox works better.’

Noodles just removed the bag from his eyes and blinked a few times while trying to get used to the light. He threw the cold-pack on the desk, sat forward in his chair, and rubbed his eyes.

‘Been reading prints all damn day,’ he said. ‘My eyes are seeing stars.’

‘Any news on the print you found on the can of varnish?’

‘It’s being sent through the database as we speak. I’ll let you know if there are any hits.’

‘And the DNA?’

‘Swabbed from the gun, the can, the pill bottles, the windows – God, you name it. I’ll let you know if we get any hits on those too, but that’ll take a few weeks, as I’m sure you already know. As for the palm prints, well, take a look for yourself.’

Noodles pushed his chair out of the way and showed Striker the two samples. Both were palm prints, and only partials at that. One from the Mandy Gill crime scene, one from the apartment across the street from Sarah Rose’s unit.

The first print, from Mandy’s crime scene, was well detailed, with lots of good ridge detail and areas where the bifurcation and endings were easily apparent. But the second print, the one from Sarah’s crime scene, was indistinct, blurry – as if the hand had been dragged across the window surface, catching only the barest bit of skin.

Striker stood back and changed the subject. ‘Any news on the gun?’

‘It’s a Browning 9-mm pistol.’

The news made Striker’s hopes drop. The Browning nine-mil was standard issue in the army. Good for close-quarters combat; quick and easy to draw. Plus the mags held thirteen rounds. All in all, it meant the same damn thing to him.

Another dead end.