Chapter Thirty-Five
THIRTY-FIVE
I watch Izzy carefully lay out her project on the living room floor. She brought it home because she’s stressing about not being finished on time, and we’re currently listening to one of Dad’s random records while she works and I stare at the ceiling from my prone position on the sofa.
“Has Jake texted the group yet?” Izzy asks. I check my phone, even though I already know there’s been no activity since this morning.
“Nope.”
“What about your dad?”
“His last text was when they boarded at the airport in Malé, so they’re in the air as we speak.” I try not to think about our failed attempt to buy paint for my bedroom wall on the way home—hopefully Kim will forgive me. I’m actually looking forward to seeing them both tomorrow.
I just hope nothing happens in the meantime.
I push myself up to check Izzy’s progress. It’s really starting to look like a piece of fabric now, and I can see how carefully she has woven the different colors to form a zigzag pattern. “That’s beautiful, Iz.”
“Thanks.” She beams. “I’ve got so much left to do on it before the end of the week, though.”
She starts alternating between the different-colored strands as I sit up and fish around in my bag for my notebook.
I should probably get on with my project too—maybe I could start scouring census results for Frances.
I settle back on the cushions and open my notebook to the table of information when something catches my eye: the dates.
I sit up straight. The first two BBK murders happened seven days apart.
He waited four days to commit the third, then only three days until his final kill.
This isn’t unusual—serial killer timelines often escalate once they get into their groove.
I think back to Helen’s and Jen’s murders and realize they happened four days apart.
Whoever is copying the original murders hasn’t copied the timelines.
He’s practically halved it.
I compare the dates again. If I’m right, and my gut is screaming that I am, then best-case scenario, he might wait another four days—and two of those have passed already, so the next one could happen sooner than I thought.
Tonight, even.
“Iz…” I say her name slowly, and she pauses what she’s doing. “I need to tell you something.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” She sighs, but she puts her project down and looks at me expectantly.
“I know you don’t want to think there’s any real connection between Helen and Jen and The Four, but look at these dates…” I trail off as Izzy refuses to move closer.
“Fliss, I can’t do this again. I know you’re into all this stuff, but you’re not a detective. You’re seventeen. And look, the police are making enquiries—we saw that much this morning. I’m sure they’re on top of what’s been happening.”
“But I don’t think they’ve made the links I have!” I say, the frustration seeping into my voice.
“Can you hear yourself, Fliss? It’s literally their job to make the links you have.
If there is something to your whole copycat killer angle, then I’m sure they’ve worked it out too,” Izzy argues, and I close my mouth.
We sit in silence for a few moments before Izzy lets out a loud, dramatic sigh.
“Fine, fine! Just tell me what you’re thinking.
Get it off your chest. Maybe you’ll feel better after and you’ll be happy leaving the police to do their jobs. ”
I pick up the tarot deck and hesitate. “Are you sure you won’t get angry at me again?”
“Maybe I will, but I’m your best friend. It’s my job to listen to you, at the very least.”
I take a deep breath and begin.
“Well, I thought Helen’s death looked posed, so I looked at the pictures of Jen to compare them,” I say hoarsely, and Izzy’s cheeks blanch, but she lets me continue.
“She was tied to a park bench. And with Helen, the person didn’t just kill her, they kind of draped a belt round her shoulders.
They blindfolded her, but did it after they killed her, which doesn’t really make sense.
” I lift a hand to my throat, remembering the bloody scene.
“No, it doesn’t. But how do you know they did it after?” Izzy asks, and I can already hear the regret in her voice.
“Because the blood hadn’t soaked into the belt yet,” I say, wincing apologetically as I remember the conversation I had with Detective Romig.
“If it had been used to restrain Helen, it would have been covered in blood, wouldn’t it?
Because the belt would have been there before she was…
you know.” I don’t need to remind Izzy that the blood was everywhere.
“But there were just little splashes on it. I think she was killed first and then tied up. Like an afterthought.”
“But what’s the point in that? Surely the killer would have wanted to restrain her?
” Izzy groans. “God, I’m starting to sound like you.
What I mean is, wouldn’t whoever…did all that…
want to get the hell out of there once they killed Helen?
It was risky as it was—people had been milling around the gallery all evening! ”
“Exactly. The only purpose the belt serves is to send a message. It was a messy scene, though, and the killer didn’t bring the belt with them. They took it from a coat already in the room. It might not have been planned at all.”
“Okay, fine. Sounds like this person was an opportunistic psychopath. So why are you so convinced that it’s a copycat killer?”
“Look.” I remove the portraits from my notebook and shuffle through the tarot cards until I find the Eight of Swords and the Strength card and place them all on the coffee table. “This is The Four, right? Look at them.”
“The first one is blindfolded,” Izzy says, her voice low.
“And bound, I think.” I point at the faint crisscrossing lines below the shoulders. “It’s hard to tell because of the way the painting fades out, but comparing this to Helen, they seem to be depicting the same idea.”
“So someone copied the painting? Why? Because they were inspired by it?”
“I think the killer was triggered when I found the self-portrait. They must have wanted to re-create The Four.” I point at the others. “You see the different elements in each painting?”
“Yeah, the first woman is wearing a blindfold and the second has, what…? Flowers?” Izzy grips my forearm in realization and her face drains of color. “Oh my god. Jen.”
“Exactly.” I look at the second painting.
Like the other portraits that make up The Four, the woman is in a three-quarter profile, so you can see most of her face.
It’s tilted toward the top right corner, as though she’s looking at something beyond the canvas.
Her hair is dotted through with the small red flowers, and her expression is one of horror.
The way Jen was posed is so eerily similar that I have to be right about this.
I pick up the Eight of Swords and Strength cards and pass them to Izzy.
“So what’s with the tarot? You weren’t interested in them a week ago.”
“I know, but I figured out Professor Williams’s notes, and he seemed to think that the artist who painted The Four was creating his own version of these tarot cards. I think he was right, and I also think this copycat killer is doing the same thing now. They’re both using tarot as inspiration.”
“Fliss, that’s…I don’t know. A stretch?”
“Maybe. But look at everything together. It’s too similar to be a coincidence.
” I lay the two cards beneath the portraits, and Izzy sucks in a breath.
It’s undeniable. “I can try to profile potential victims based on what I know. That’s what the FBI do before they catch the bad guy.
If I can nail the victimology, then I can try to figure out who’ll be next. ”
“You sound nuts,” Izzy says softly, but she’s staring at the last two paintings now.
I study them too. The individual elements are a little more abstract and harder to decipher.
The third portrait is wearing a headdress of some kind, but it’s spiky and appears to slice into the woman’s flesh.
Maybe thorns? The last one seems almost pleasant in comparison, as the woman is surrounded by a halo of light.
Dad would say that these two are almost religious in their imagery.
“They’re all so upsetting, aren’t they?” Izzy whispers.
“Yeah,” I agree. “They really are.”
“So you think that because the killer copied the first two paintings, they’re going to copy the others? Kill two more women?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I say. “Iz, what if someone else dies and we could have stopped it?”