Alex Connor - Isle of the Dead

‘Good.’

She had thanked him repeatedly, until he was embarrassed and the word was worn thin. A couple of times they had even talked about that last night, Rachel remembering the wig she’d borrowed. The bad wig which had saved her life.

‘But it wasn’t really the wig, was it? It was you.’

It took her ten days to stop flinching when people passed her on the street, eleven days to stop checking behind the bathroom door, and it would probably take more than a lifetime to stop remembering.

‘I finished with Michael,’ she said, smiling and pulling a face. ‘Ouch.’

‘How does it feel?’

‘My heart? Shattered. My self-esteem? Triumphant.’

Smiling, Nino consoled her. ‘Hearts recover.’

‘Do they?’

A moment shimmered between them. It caught them out, unexpected but not unwelcome.

‘Perhaps we could go for a drink sometime?’ Nino asked tentatively.

‘Perhaps we could. But you know what they say, don’t you?’

‘No, what do they say?’

‘Never date a hero.’

‘That’s fine,’ Nino replied, smiling. ‘It was getting to be a burden anyway.’

*

In New York, Triumph Jones heard the news of the Titian being impounded as evidence. It would be held by the Art Squad of the British police until the trial of Edward Hillstone was over. After that, other arrangements would be made. Triumph Jones wasn’t interested, because he never wanted to see the Titian again. It had cost four lives, ruined a dozen others, and his devotion to the noble art of painting seemed suddenly absurd. That any picture could be valued above a life was madness. Even a Titian. Even that Titian.

Since the murders Triumph Jones had aged. To everyone’s surprise, the mugging had not been connected to Edward Hillstone. If anything, it was considered that he’d brought it on himself by publishing the Reward announcement. Whatever had possessed him? Triumph thought. How deluded had he been to think he could retrieve the Titian by inviting every criminal to try and cheat him? But he had been desperate. And men who are desperate and floundering will try anything to lessen their guilt.

He had been responsible for four deaths. And he would die knowing it.

*

The alarm went off again at two thirty, and again Jobo Kido rose from his bed and drove to his offices to turn it off. When he had done so, he paused by his desk, looking at the computer and thinking of the exchanges he had had with a murderer.

The thought horrified and thrilled him at the same time. To think that he, Jobo Kido, had been involved with a serial killer. A man who had threatened him, come to his door, sent the vile package through the mail. Terrifying and unbelievable as it was, it had happened. And it had changed the Japanese dealer.

He would never admit to anyone, least of all his wife and son, that he was exhilarated to have been – indirectly – a part of Edward Hillstone’s crimes. It thrilled him to think of it; made him believe that he had a better insight into his exhibits. That when he visited his private collection and looked at Jeffrey Dahmer or Son of Sam he was just a little closer to understanding them. Not too close, but close enough to satisfy his ego, while keeping him safe.

Of course the unfilled gap on the wall annoyed him. By rights the Titian should have been hanging there. But the Titian was never going to be his now, so instead Jobo had hung another exhibit. It was crudely framed, because he hadn’t wanted to risk asking a professional to undertake the job, but it was adequate. A frame was a frame, after all. It was what was inside that mattered.

Jobo paused, thinking of his new exhibit. A piece of skin. Part of the hide of a murdered woman. The piece which had been sent through the mail weeks earlier … At first he had intended to destroy it, but he couldn’t bring himself to commit such a violation. So he displayed it instead. Without a label, obviously. No point bringing the police down on his head. It was Jobo’s private pleasure. A reminder of his dabbling with a lunatic. A concrete image of an insane mind.

Or, to put it another way, a gift from Edward Hillstone to an admirer.

*

Having lost any chance of getting hold of the infamous Titian, Farina Ahmadi feigned total indifference. It was a weak portrait anyway, she said imperiously – in appalling condition. Not one of Titian’s finest works. And besides, who wanted the image of a serial killer hanging on their gallery wall?

The whole matter had been fucking disgusting, she told everyone. It had made her despair of the art world and the people who populated it. And besides, everyone knew that the Alim Collection would never dream of exhibiting such a painting.

She told her husband the same.

He told her she was a fool and that he was seeing another woman.

The following day Farina filed for a massive divorce settlement.

And a week later Sally Egan’s copy of the Vespucci portrait was sold at auction for an undisclosed sum.

Triumphant, Farina made a bid for the Alim Collection. The fight is ongoing.

*

The only person who really triumphed was Johnny Ravens-court. His profile escalated. He was – as he had hoped – featured on television, radio and the press as the leading expert on Vespucci. For once, his picaresque background was an advantage as he regaled the world with stories of Angelico Vespucci, The Skin Hunter. He then exhibited the portrait of Claudia Moroni and her brother, making a gargantuan profit out of their incestuous relationship. And her tragic death.

However, it was the discovery of the victims’ skins which propelled Johnny Ravenscourt into global notoriety. Lacking any morals, he exhibited them wherever they were requested – for a formidable fee. His fortune, which had always been impressive, swelled with the blood money of Vespucci’s victims, the macabre, beribboned skins displayed like Bulgari jewels.

People in numerous countries around the globe came to gawp at the flayed hides and read the stories of the murdered women. Larissa Vespucci, Claudia Moroni, Lena Arranti and the Contessa di Fattori became household names, their lives and deaths the subject of numerous programmes and articles. A film was mooted as Hollywood took up their cause, tying together the connection between The Skin Hunter and Edward Hillstone. And in the middle of all this interest, money and fame, was the burly figure of Johnny Ravenscourt.

He flourished. Lived as sumptuously as Vespucci had once done. Had no end of boys at his bidding, and the grudging respect of the art world. His smuggling days were no longer regarded as a disgrace, but as cavalier roistering, and the police watched with disbelief as their one-time irritant shimmered in the glow of public opprobrium.

And then, one morning, Johnny Ravenscourt was found dead. Apparently he had suffered a massive heart attack. But oddly, at his mansion on Eaton Square, the phone line had been cut and the burglar alarm turned off. Despite his fabulous wealth and possessions, nothing had been stolen. Silver, paintings, antiquarian books, jewellery, wine and cigars were untouched. A solid silver chess set, a Bechstein piano, a Russian malachite table and a Louis XIV commode were ignored. The Rolls-Royce, Mercedes and Bentley cars remained in the garage. There was no damage.

The day before Ravenscourt’s death the skins of Vespucci’s victims had been put on a boat to be shipped over to the USA for a controversial exhibition in New York. Later it was discovered that at the very time Johnny Ravenscourt had died the ship had been hit by freak weather and had sunk in the middle of the Atlantic. The crew was saved.

The hides of The Skin Hunter’s victims were lost forever.