Fiona sat down, leaning forward so her shoulder-length chestnut hair curtained her face. Steve opened his mouth to speak but Kit urgently waved him to silence, mouthing, ‘No!’ at him. Steve raised one shoulder in a half-shrug.
Eventually, Fiona sighed deeply and pushed her hair back with both hands. ‘Fuck it, I’ll do it,’ she said. Catching Steve’s delighted grin, she added, ‘No promises, remember. Bike the stuff round to me first thing in the morning and I’ll take a look.’
‘Thanks, Fi,’ Steve said. ‘Even if it’s a long shot, I need all the help I can get. I appreciate it.’
‘Good. So you should,’ she said severely. ‘Now, can we talk about something else?’
It was after midnight by the time Fiona and the Rough Guide finally made it to bed. When Kit came through from the bathroom, he eyed her reading material with a curious frown. ‘Is that a subtle way of telling me it’s about time we started planning a holiday?’ he asked, slipping under the duvet and snuggling up to her.
‘I should be so lucky. It’s work, I’m afraid. I got a request today from the Spanish Police for a consultation. Two murders in Toledo that look like the start of a series.’
‘I take it you’ve decided to go, then?’
Fiona waggled the book under his nose. ‘Looks like it. I’ll have to speak to them in the morning about the practicalities, but I should be able to get away at the end of the week for a few days without too much difficulty.’
Kit rolled on to his back and folded his arms above his head. ‘And there was me thinking you were planning a romantic break to Torremolinos.’
Fiona put her book down and turned to face Kit, her fingers curling the soft dark hairs on his chest. ‘You could come along for the ride if you like. Toledo’s a beautiful town. It’s not like there would be nothing to occupy you while I’m working. It wouldn’t do you any harm to have a break.’
He dropped one arm to her shoulder, pulling her closer to him. ‘I’m way behind with the book, and if you’re not around over the weekend, that’ll be a good excuse for me to lock myself away and work straight through.’
‘You could work in Toledo.’ Her hand strayed down his stomach.
‘With you to distract me?’
‘I’d be working all day. And probably half the night, if past experience is anything to go by.’ She settled herself more comfortably into his side.
‘I might as well be at home, by the sound of it.’
‘You’d like it.’ Fiona yawned. ‘It’s an interesting city. You never know, it might inspire you.’
‘Yeah, right, I can see myself writing the definitive Spanish serial killer thriller.’
‘Why not? It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. I just thought you might like a bit of a break somewhere that does spectacular gourmet food…’ Fiona’s voice tailed off sleepily.
‘I do think of other things than my stomach,’ he protested. ‘Isn’t it Toledo that has all the El Grecos?’
‘That’s right,’ Fiona said. ‘And his house.’ Her eyes were closed and her voice was a mumble as she slithered down the dreamy slope towards sleep.
‘Now, that does sound worth the trip. Maybe I will come after all,’ Kit said. There was no reply. An early rise and ten miles of Derbyshire moorland had finally taken their toll. Kit grinned and reached out with his free arm for the James Sallis paperback on his night table. Unlike Fiona, he could never sleep without supping his fill of horrors. But then, he reasoned, he knew that what he was reading was fiction. It didn’t matter if he hadn’t solved the crime when it was time to turn the light out. The killers he was interested in wouldn’t be killing again until he was ready for them.
The flight to Madrid was half-empty. Without having to be asked, Kit left Fiona with a double seat to herself and moved across the aisle, where he flipped up the screen of his laptop and started work as soon as they were in the air, his Walkman rendering him oblivious to any outside distractions. On the way to the airport, he’d nagged her about making a start on the thick bundle Steve had had delivered to the house, which Fiona had been studiously ignoring for the past two days. She’d been hiding behind the necessity of familiarizing herself with the material from Toledo, but if she was honest, she’d been as thorough with that as she could be. Now she had no excuse, and the flight was just long enough to get a flavour of what she had to digest.
The first section began with a page of personal ads from Time Out. During the course of his lengthy police interviews, Blake had admitted that although he had a long-term relationship with an air hostess, he also replied to women who advertised in the lonely hearts column. He’d said that he went for the ones who seemed insecure, because they were always grateful to meet a good-looking bloke like him. He’d admitted he was interested principally in sex, but insisted that he didn’t want to waste his time on brainless bimbos. From what Fiona remembered of the original interview transcripts, Blake had seemed confident, even arrogant about his capacity to attract women; a man who knew what he wanted and didn’t doubt he could get it. He certainly hadn’t come over as weak or inadequate.
Based on his interpretation of the interviews, Horsforth had constructed several ads that he felt would appeal to their suspect. The first attempts had produced plenty of responses, though none was from Blake. ‘So much for getting inside the head of the killer,’ Fiona muttered under her breath. But the second round snared their target. He had responded to: ‘SWF, 26, slim, new to N. London, seeks male guide for conversation, meals, movies and an introduction to the bright lights and good times. GSOH. Pictures please.’
Blake had described himself as a professional man of twenty-nine with an interest in cinema, reading, walking in London’s parks, and enjoying female company. Under Andrew Horsforth’s guidance, Detective Constable Erin Richards had written the reply.
‘Dear Francis,’ it read. ‘Thanks for your letter, it was easily the most charming of all the ones I’ve received. I must confess I’m a little nervous about this because it’s not the sort of thing I normally do. Would it be OK with you if we exchanged a couple more letters before we actually meet?
‘Like you, I’m interested in going to the cinema. What kind of films do you like best? Although I know it’s probably not what women are supposed to enjoy, I love all those wonderful dark thrillers like Seven, Eight Millimetre and Fargo, and Hitchcock films like Psycho. But they’ve got to have a good plot to keep me going. As for reading, I don’t get to read as much as I should. I like Patricia Cornwell, Kit Martin and Thomas Harris best, and I sometimes read true crime too.
‘I don’t really know London well enough to know where it’s safe to go walking. You read about such terrible things sometimes in the papers, people being mugged and raped in parks, that it makes me a bit nervous because I’m a stranger. Perhaps you could show me some of your favourite walks sometime?
‘I work in the civil service. Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid. I’m a clerk at the Ministry of Agriculture. I moved here from Beccles in Suffolk after my mother died. There was nothing to keep me there, because my father passed away a couple of years before her, and I’ve no brothers or sisters, so I thought I’d come looking for adventure in London!
‘I’d love to hear from you again if you think we might have enough in common to enjoy each other’s company. You can write to the box office number