Chapter 28 Kate

28 KATE

NOW

Kate steps into the bathroom and runs the cold tap, watching a small dribble of blood pour from the gash on her hand into the basin. The roses cut her, the sharp, unyielding thorns plucking at the soft skin of her Luna mount when she stuffed them into the bin.

A notification pings on her phone, the sound like the chirp of a baby bird. She lifts the device, noticing at once the name of Darcy’s ex-husband on the screen. Jacob Levitt, emailing again.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Dear Kate,

Thanks for your response. I’m concerned that you and Adrian Clifton have been involved in a security breach of some software that I’ve developed. Perhaps this has been done without your knowledge…. Perhaps Darcy hired him? I have a possible phone number for him—07011 213012. Do you recognize it?

Either way, I will need to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible.

Thanks

Jacob

She clicks out of her inbox without responding, annoyed that she bothered reading it. Another email from Darcy’s ex is the very last thing she needs right now.

Darcy swore, right at the beginning, that Adrian would be their secret. Just the three of them. A week after that first, fateful meeting in the cafe, Darcy had FaceTimed her and Camilla.

“I’ve found someone,” she said. “An old school friend works for the Met. He recommended a guy who has set up a private investigation practice after retiring. Adrian Clifton.”

Kate deliberately kept her expectations low. The massacre was such a long time ago. Even if anything was to come of their hunch that Fraser wasn’t the only killer, any evidence to prove it was unlikely to be found. And at the back of her mind, she began to doubt her feelings. Fraser had taken the easy way out, after all. Effectively, he served a month in prison—a single month for killing six people. Yes, he died of cancer, but that wasn’t justice, was it? It was illness, which afflicted good people, too.

No, justice hadn’t been served. And perhaps that was the driving force behind their hunch—perhaps they wanted there to be a second killer, someone who would serve the sentence that Hugh never had to endure. And she could get the satisfaction of showing them that she had lived her life.

If you could call this living.

She hears the front door open, the whirr of her room card. Camilla has returned, looking hopeful. She left earlier to ask Nura, the resort manager, about the delivery of the roses, and the confidence in her step makes Kate perk up. She throws on her kimono and puts her phone in her pocket. Maybe, just maybe, Camilla has had some luck.

“I’ve got it,” Camilla says, her face flushed with pride. She opens the Notes app on her phone and shows Kate what she has written down. “Robin Y. Ceylon. Ring any bells?”

Kate shakes her head. The excitement that fired up when she saw Camilla returning feels hollow.

“No address, but I’m working on it,” Camilla continues, typing the name into the search bar on her Facebook app. “You leave it to me, Katie baby, I’ll find this bastard….”

Kate presses her hands to her face. “It’s an anagram,” she says weakly.

Camilla looks up from her phone. “What?”

“The letters spell Briony Conley. My real name.”

Camilla holds the phone closer to her eyes, studying the name she wrote down in excitement. “How do you know?” she says.

“It’s been the same each time, every single year. Yoni Le Corbyn. Robyn Y. Nicole. Byron I. Ceylon.” She sighs. “It’s a game. A sick, twisted game.”

She watches Camilla’s face fall, knows intimately the feeling that’s written all over it—why would someone do this?

“I paid her,” Camilla says. “A hundred quid.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

Camilla pinches the fold of skin between her eyes. “What about the payment details for the flowers? Surely we can trace the card….”

“It’s usually a prepaid debit card,” Kate says. “Or PayPal. Anyone can set one of those up, especially nowadays. Very hard to find the source when it’s a virtual account.”

“What about Adrian?” Camilla says. “I told you to ask him. I bet you he’d be able to find it.”

Kate sighs. She’s already emailed Adrian Clifton about it, to no avail. Perhaps he only works for Darcy, since she contracted him. But then, Jacob just sent her Adrian’s number….

“Hang on a moment,” she tells Camilla, plucking her phone from her pocket. She taps the screen, deciding to ring Adrian and ask for his help directly.