‘It’ll be in a capital city,’ Louisa replied, thinking back. ‘Harriet had been travelling – I didn’t know why then, but she said she had something to find out in London or New York.’
She rushed on. ‘Maybe we could contact this Rachel woman? Or put out a search for her? God knows, there’s enough in the media to catch her interest. She must know about the killings and Vespucci now. So why hasn’t she come forward?’
‘Maybe she hasn’t made the connection,’ Nino replied. ‘People write about the Boston Strangler and Jack the Ripper all the time – it doesn’t mean that they expect someone to come after them—’
‘But she must have read about someone copying Vespucci.’
‘She may have done, but so what? They make films, plays, books about murderers constantly. There’s an industry out there thriving on serial killers. Rachel won’t be overly worried. She probably thinks she’s just another person interested in the Italian. Killers don’t go after everyone who reads about them, otherwise half the population would be wiped out.’
‘You’ve got to find her,’ Louisa went on, her agitation obvious. ‘You have to find her.’
‘I will. Unless—’
‘He’s already got to her?’
‘Or she’s somewhere remote.’
‘You think she’s hiding?’
‘She could be,’ Nino agreed. ‘She might have taken fright. Or she might be spending the holidays away from home. Gone for a break somewhere quiet, away from people.’
‘Perhaps …’ Louise’s voice was questioning, ‘we should go to the police?’
‘And tell them what? They’ll know all about Vespucci now – the press have seen to that. And they must have made the connection between the murders. That last entry on the website made it clear what the killer was up to. He’s even advertising his next performance on the first of January.’
‘But—’
‘I can’t tell the police anything they don’t already know.’
‘Except what we know about the next victim.’
‘And what do we know?’ Nino countered. ‘She’s called Rachel, and she’s involved in a play about Vespucci. That’s all.’ He sighed. ‘The police have plenty of manpower, but they don’t understand what this is all about. I do. I was in it from the start. I’m ahead of the police. I’ve been in contact with the killer—’
He could hear her take in a breath. ‘You know who he is?’
‘I know who he was. Who he is now, I have to find out.’
‘So do it,’ Louisa said firmly. ‘And find Rachel – before he does.’
59
After finishing his conversation with Louisa, Nino went back into the sitting room. Harold Greyly was still sleeping, his breathing drugged, his neck bent awkwardly over the back of his chair. Worried that he might choke if he vomited, Nino slid a cushion under his head and turned off all but a single lamp. As the room darkened, the dogs woke and followed him out into the back garden. Cautious, Nino glanced down the lane. It was empty. He locked the gate, walked back into the house with the spaniels, and bolted the front and back doors.
The freezing winter air had revived his senses, his head clearing as he helped himself to food from the fridge and checked his mobile. Hearing the message left by Patrick Dewick, he immediately rang him back – only to get his voicemail. Disappointed, Nino walked into the sitting room and stared at Harold Greyly. Obviously he wouldn’t be waking any time soon, which gave Nino a welcome opportunity to search the house further. He might have lost the hidden books – and the killer’s notes – but the question uppermost in his mind was why they had been hidden in Courtford Hall in the first place.
Someone had taken a great deal of trouble to conceal the books. Someone with intimate knowledge of the house. Someone with access and time to move the shelves, create their hiding place, and disguise it. No stranger could have pulled off such a coup. It would have taken time and effort. The work of an insider … Nino frowned. Perhaps Hester had investigated Vespucci herself. Or had it been Harold Greyly? He wasn’t the killer, that much was obvious now. He had been unconscious when Nino was attacked. So what was the connection? Simply the relationship between Claudia and The Skin Hunter? The hidden taboo in a respectable family’s past? Or her terrible murder?
The blood was drying on his head. Nino could feel it crusting over and realised how it must look against the pure white of his hair, making him even more conspicuous. But what did that matter now? The killer knew who – and where – he was. In a remote place, with a drugged man, trying to understand why a murderer had chosen to hide his notes in a country house in Norfolk.
But why hadn’t he killed him when he had the chance?
Was this his home? Was this where he had been hiding out? Was he a member of the Greyly family? If so, was that why Harold Greyly had been so much on the defensive? Moving over to the desk under the library window, Nino searched the drawers, finding nothing more than stationery and bills. The centre drawer opened without resistance. Apparently there were no locks in Courtford Hall. Even feeling behind the desk, and beneath it, gave up no secrets.
If he was going to hide something, Nino asked himself, where would he put it? The room gazed back at him impassively as he searched, pulling the cushions off the seats to check that there was nothing hidden underneath and looking behind every painting. Curtains were shaken, linings examined, shutters opened and closed, window seats plundered, rugs lifted and shaken – but with no result. He drew a complete blank.
So perhaps there was a safe?
Moving back to the sitting room, Nino bent down towards the stupefied man and shook him awake. ‘Have you got a safe?’
‘Whaaat?’
‘Where’s the safe?’
Greyly’s lips were furred with saliva. ‘What safe?’
‘You have a safe. Where is it?’
‘No safe!’ he slurred.
‘All right, let’s try another tack. Who came here today? There was someone here – I heard them. They left, then came back and attacked me.’ Nino shook Harold violently. ‘Wake up! I need you. Who came here today?’
He could see a shift in Greyly’s expression, from slackness to unease.
‘No one! I’ve told you. No one … No one comes here any more …’
Nino didn’t believe him. Someone had been there. Someone Harold knew and feared.
‘Was it a member of your family?’
‘They’ve gone …’
‘You said you’d sent the staff home for Christmas,’ Nino persisted. ‘Did one of them come back? Did they try and rob you?’ He shook the man urgently. ‘Wake up! I need your help – you let them in. There was no break-in, so you knew them. You opened the door to them, so you must have trusted them. If not now, once. Who was it?’ He jerked Harold upright, holding him by the lapels of his jacket. ‘Look at me! Concentrate. Tell me the names of your staff.’
‘Let me sleep!’
‘Tell me their names!’
‘Let me sleep!’
‘You can sleep after you’ve told me.’
Harold’s eyes tried to focus, but failed, his voice a mumble. ‘Mr and Mrs Harrison, the cook … the gardener, Len … Len Owen … All been with me for years … All bloody old, on their last legs.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘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.