‘Ray in his office?’ the patrolman asked Darby. He had broad shoulders and the thick and callused hands of a bricklayer. His nametag read L. GRIFFIN.

‘No, he’s not there,’ Darby said, and shifted her attention back to the woman. She was Saks Fifth Avenue pretty, and had the air and appearance of a successful young cosmopolitan woman or trophy wife who whiled away her days at luxury spas and shopping at Nordstrom. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘Maybe you can help me, then. This lovely young lady is Ms Rita Tuttle. Rita, meet Dr McCormick. Rita lives in Brewster, works in the … what did you call it again, Rita? The gentlemen’s services industry?’ Patrolman Griffin’s eyes crinkled in humour.

Rita Tuttle pulled back her coat sleeve and glanced at her watch, a rose-gold EBEL with a sapphire-crystal face encrusted with diamonds. ‘I’ve got to catch a flight at nine in Denver,’ she said. ‘How about we get to it?’

‘She’s going to Barbados,’ Griffin said. ‘With a friend.’ He smiled coyly. ‘I’ll take you to our luxury interview suite. This way, ladies.’

The small interrogation room had white-painted walls and overhead fluorescent lights. A pair of folding chairs were placed on either side of an office-furniture store-bought desk made of particleboard.

Rita declined Griffin’s offer of coffee. She took a seat and crossed her legs.

‘I’ll let you two get acquainted,’ Griffin said. ‘Be a good girl, Rita, and tell the good doctor here everything you told me.’ Griffin winked at her and shut the door.

Rita stared after him. She didn’t take off her jacket or her thin black leather gloves. Her dirty blonde hair had been cut into a stylish bob, and she wore a trace amount of makeup. Given the smoothness of her skin, and the lack of crow’s feet around the eyes and mouth, Darby had the woman’s age pegged somewhere north of twenty-five but no older than thirty.

Darby took the opposite chair. Rita wet the pad of her thumb and rubbed it across a smudge on her leather boots.

‘Nice boots,’ Darby said.

‘They’re Jimmy Choos.’ Then Rita Tuttle sighed like a child who had been confined to the principal’s office. ‘Go ahead, ask your questions.’

‘How about we start with what you’re doing here?’

‘That walking dildo who brought me here thinks I might know something about this guy you’re looking for. You know what edge play is?’

Darby nodded. ‘Sexual play involving the serious risk of harm or death.’

Rita smiled brightly, as if she had encountered a kindred spirit. She had capped teeth, the veneers so startlingly white they reminded Darby of a porcelain toilet.

‘What sort of flavour are we talking about?’ Darby asked.

‘Erotic asphyxiation. What we call breath play. The gentleman in question would tie me up to a chair and –’

‘Sorry to interrupt, but tied you up to a chair using what?’

‘Plastic ties. He’d put them on my wrists and ankles. After I was trussed up, he’d take out the rope. This guy was really into knots.’

42

‘What kind of knots?’ Darby asked, reaching for her notebook.

Rita stared at her from across the table. ‘I look like a sailor to you? They were, you know, knots. Complicated ones. Intricate. He tried all different kinds on me.’

‘Name?’

‘Timmy. At least that’s what he called himself. Never gave me a last name. Most of ’em don’t.’

‘The rope this guy used,’ Darby began.

‘Not rope. Ropes. He used the same two pieces every time we got together.’

‘We talking about the kind of rope you find on a clothesline?’

‘No. This was thicker. Blue, I think.’

Darby opened her folder and rooted through the pages, stopping when she found the sheet depicting a surgeon’s knot. She showed it to Rita.

‘That one was his favourite,’ Rita said.

‘Why?’

‘Because that was the one he used to make me pass out.’ Rita stifled a yawn. ‘The nooses he made with some of the other knots – they required him to stand behind me and, you know, apply constant pressure until I passed out. This one, though,’ she said, tapping a fingernail against the sheet of paper. ‘With this one, when he pulled the rope the knot stayed right where it was. It didn’t, you know, come undone or anything. The knot did all the work, maintained constant pressure around my neck. He could control the tension, which is what gets these kinds of guys off. He’d give the rope a good, hard yank, then move round the chair to watch me choke and pass out.’

Rita spoke dispassionately, as though being tied down and nearly strangled to death not once but over and over again was a normal, everyday occurrence, like brushing one’s teeth.

‘I kind of liked passing out,’ Rita said. ‘Gave me a break from the stench.’

Darby felt her scalp prickle. ‘What stench?’

‘Guy was a BO factory. He had some sort of skin condition that made him smell like he’d spent his nights rolling around in a bed of rotting fish. I don’t know what it was, and I never asked. I got round it by dabbing some of that Vicks VapoRub under my nostrils. My clothes? Had to put them in the wash the second I got home. Had to scrub my hair too. This guy had an Olympic-grade stink.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Over a year ago? Maybe longer. We got together four, maybe five times.’

‘Why did you break off it off?’

‘I didn’t. He just stopped calling. Which is too bad, because this guy paid really well. He told me he lived here in Red Hill, but I never went to his house or anything. We always met at the Beacon. That’s a hotel in Brewster.’

‘How did he contact you? Phone? Email?’

‘Phone,’ Rita said. ‘I don’t do email or Facebook or any of that stuff. My line of work demands discretion. I can’t have you police types sticking your noses where they don’t belong, harassing my customers.’ The woman grinned broadly. ‘He always called me from different numbers – payphones, a burner. All my clients usually do. Don’t like their wives or girlfriends finding out about their particular needs.’

‘You remember anything flashing up on your caller-ID?’

‘Nothing came up on my caller-ID except a number.’

‘You didn’t put his name and number into your contacts?’

‘I don’t record any of my clients’ details in my phone.’

Darby leaned back in her seat and tapped her pen against the notepad. ‘Timmy was into some rough stuff. Guy like that, I’m assuming you’d ask around, look into his background.’

‘Jeannie vouched for him. Jean Derry. She’s a dominatrix. Or was. She did some BDSM work with him until she had to move back to Arizona. Her mother was sick, lung cancer or some shit, so she referred him on to me.’

‘Where in Arizona?’

‘No idea. She used to live in Brewster. That’s how we know each other. My mother lived there. When she croaked, I inherited her shitty two-bedroom ranch. But it was paid off, no mortgage, and the property taxes here are chump change. I’m rarely home – I’m always travelling – so I decided to sublet my two-bedroom in Manhattan to a yuppie couple for five gees a month. Sixty grand a year for doing absolutely nothing.’ Again, she pulled back her coat sleeve and checked her watch.

‘There a local BDSM scene here?’

‘I’m sure there is; every place has one. But I’m not tied into the local scenes. They don’t pay as well and can’t meet my price.’

‘Why’d you make an exception with Timmy?’

‘Because Jeannie vouched for him, and because he parted with a grand for an hourly session.’

‘What’d Timmy do for a living? Was he married? Single?’

‘No idea, and no, I didn’t ask. I was there to get paid, not help him on his Facebook or match.com profile. I got the feeling his junk didn’t work.’

‘He was impotent?’

‘No clue. He never pulled it out. Most guys who are into this stuff, the second you start choking they start beating their meat like it owes them money. Don’t get me wrong; Timmy got all hot and bothered, but he always kept his clothes on. He was pretty normal for a guy who was into this stuff. He never pranced around in women’s clothes or anything weird like that, and he never tried to film me.’