Alex Connor - Isle of the Dead

‘Edward.’

‘Edward? Who’s Edward?’

His head was rolling, his voice blurred.

‘Edward Hillstone. My assistant …’

Letting go of him, Nino stepped back. The memory returned, sharp and clear. When he had first come to Court-ford Hall, Harold had wanted him to make an appointment with his assistant . And that assistant had been Edward Hillstone. A diffident young man in the background. Edward Hillstone. Eddie Hillstone. Eddie Ketch … Dear God, Nino thought, was he the killer? Vespucci’s impersonator? Had he found him? If so, Hillstone would have been ideally placed. The Greyly family had a connection with Angelico Vespucci: an ancestor murdered by the Venetian. At Court-ford Hall the killer would have access to the library, would be able to read the books on Vespucci and hide his own notes where no one would find them. Harold Greyly wasn’t interested in the collection – he would have left Hillstone to his own devices, left him to his research and plotting, to his immersion in the legend of The Skin Hunter.

Moving fast, Nino left the room, making for the upper floors. He found the master bedroom, guest rooms and bathrooms, then followed a narrow corridor which led to the servants’ quarters in another wing. He was running, only pausing when he reached a door on the third floor. The only one locked. Kicking at the handle, he broke the lock and entered.

The bedroom was cramped and extended a long way, half of its floor space under the sloping eaves. All the available wall surface was covered with bookshelves and a copy of the Vespucci painting loomed above the narrow bed.

The room was Spartan, neat, without character apart from the books and portrait. In the wardrobe were a few pairs of jeans and some T-shirts, a couple of fleeces neatly folded. On the bedside table was a copy of The Book Collector and an alarm clock set to eight a.m. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unlike a thousand other bedrooms occupied by single men.

Frowning, Nino glanced around, opening some of the books and shaking them to see if there were any loose pages. Nothing. He continued his search, looking behind the books and under the shelves. Again, nothing. Wondering if he was suspecting the wrong man, he turned back to the wardrobe and opened it again. A long mirror on the back of the door caught his attention, a tiny edge of paper poking out at the corner. Pulling the mirror off the door, Nino stared at the collage in front of him.

The photographs told him he was on to the right man. There were some of Edward Hillstone, others of a young woman – a slim woman, dressed casually. But in every one her face had been blacked out with a felt-tipped pen. He thought of Patrick Dewick’s message. Was this the woman who had broken the killer’s heart? Or was this the next victim? Was this Rachel?

One thing was certain: Edward Hillstone had picked his lair with skill. Courtford Hall was the perfect place from which to operate. It was remote, with a pompous employer unlikely to fraternise with the staff. Hillstone would have been a faultless employee – quiet, efficient, determined not to draw attention to himself. And all the time he was working as Harold Greyly’s assistant, he would have had access to the prodigious and arcane library.

Had Hillstone already known about Claudia Moroni when he first came to Courtford Hall? Or did he find out later, when his fascination with Vespucci grew? For an experienced researcher, it wouldn’t have been difficult to discover that Claudia Moroni had once been a member of the Greyly family. And in researching Claudia, Edward would have researched the three other victims. Stoking up his obsession, probably enjoying the added frisson of living in a family who had experienced The Skin Hunter’s deviation first hand.

Nino could feel his heart pulsing as he flung back the mattress on the bed, hoping to find another selection of photographs. But that would have been too obvious for Hillstone. Hurriedly, he looked around, then tapped the floorboards. Nothing loose. He walked to the window, pulled back the shutters – but there was nothing to be found. There were more photographs, Nino knew it – but where? Then another idea came to him and he moved over to the door. It had been repanelled and he levered apart the space between the original and the façade. The photographs fell at his feet . Some were of Venice, horribly familiar – the exact place where the body of Seraphina had been discovered. Other prints were of a woman he recognised as Sally Egan. Some had been taken through her kitchen window, others were snaps of her walking home, a solitary figure under the dismal street light. And then there were the photographs of her skinned body.

He had taken the shots from all angles, her flayed corpse laid out on a plastic sheet, her skin placed neatly beside her like a lover. Repelled, Nino hurried through the other photographs, hesitating when he came to a shot of the airport in Tokyo and another image, of Harriet Forbes, sitting alone at a café window. The last prints were of Greenfield’s Hospital, where Eddie Ketch had worked. Only it wasn’t Eddie Ketch any more, it was Edward Hillstone.

Moving over to the desk, Nino looked for a computer, but there wasn’t one. Hillstone wasn’t that stupid. He had taken the most incriminating evidence with him. He might have been rushed, but he had made sure he took the laptop and the notes. As for the photographs he had left behind, perhaps he thought he would be able to explain them away. Or maybe he didn’t care any more. Maybe being recognised as the killer was what he wanted.

But Nino knew one thing: Edward Hillstone wasn’t going to let himself be caught yet. Not until after the last murder. Then he might even give himself up, surrender to the notoriety which would be his by rights. When Rachel was dead – when he had mutiliated and killed her – then he would stop. In the meantime he was deliberately raising the price on his head. Putting up the Titian as a reward for his capture. Tainting the world with his promise of the bloodletting to come.

Of course there was no sign of the Titian portrait. Edward Hillstone would hardly risk having that in his possession. The painting was somewhere else entirely. Glancing around the bedroom, Nino looked at the upheaval he had caused – the overturned bed, the photographs scattered over the floorboards – and then he leaned forward, taking a closer look.

His gaze fixed on one of the pictures in which the face of the young woman had been blacked out. But across her chest was written one word:

JEX

He recognised the name at once. It was the name used by the creator of the Vespucci website. But it wasn’t the name that caught Nino’s eye, it was the background of the photograph. The image was grainy, hard to make out, but he could decipher a few letters on what seemed to be a hoarding. The last word was THEATRE. The first word was half blocked by the woman’s figure, only the first syllable visible – HA.

Nino held his breath. He was certain that the woman in the picture was Rachel, and that he was now looking at a part of the name of the very theatre where she worked. HA … THEATRE. How many theatres had names which began with HA? Not that many. Nino’s hopes lifted for the first time in days. He had a lead, a chance to find the last victim.

He had a week.

A week to save her.

A week to stop Hillstone.

60

Ginza, Tokyo, 27 December

That morning there had been a new entry on the website angelicovespucci.1555.com. It read:

Angelico Vespucci’s triumph is close. Only five days left. Only one victim remains.

As he had done repeatedly over the previous nine days, Jobo Kido entered the chat room of the site, trying vainly to conjure up a reply.