Pippa was stung. Despite the somewhat unusual circumstances and irony notwithstanding, the woman’s comment felt unnecessarily harsh. ‘I scratched your car, too.’ She sat up straight. ‘That was me.’

  ‘Now that I am bothered about,’ Michelle said.

  Pippa blanched. The woman looked like she meant it and now she had a bottle in her hand. She didn’t take her eyes off Michelle as she walked slowly back to the island and sat down again.

  ‘Have you got any idea what happened that night?’ Michelle opened the wine and poured herself a new glass.

  ‘Not the foggiest,’ Pippa said.

  ‘I mean, I know why Adrian was there.’ She raised her hand and mimed a slap. She made a surprisingly accurate whiplash noise to go with it.

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘He had to pay for it, because I’d never do that kinky stuff for him.’

  ‘Why on earth should you?’ Pippa decided that now was not the appropriate time to admit that she had done. Or that she’d enjoyed it rather more than she’d expected to.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Michelle said. ‘I wanted to slap him loads of times, but not in a way he’d have enjoyed.’

  There had been moments when Pippa had wanted to slap Barry, too. To slap a little life into him. She felt terrible about that, now; ungrateful and profoundly wicked. She watched Michelle Cutler conjuring images of the things she wished she’d done to let Adrian know how she felt and, more than anything, Pippa hoped that her own husband had not been thinking badly about her at the end. She would never know of course, but all she could do was cling on to that hope.

  ‘I’ll pay for the damage to your car,’ she said.

  Michelle leaned across to top her up. ‘Too bloody right you will.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  As soon as Miller had fed himself and the rats – his own ‘finest’ microwaved risotto looking only marginally more appetising than Fred and Ginger’s rodent muesli – he’d set to work. He’d spread out all the case paperwork on the kitchen table, downloaded all the voice recordings from his phone to his laptop and got stuck in. That felt like a long time ago, largely because it was. Now, somewhere between stupid o’clock and sparrow-fart, even the rats had thrown in the towel, but Miller was not ready to call it a day/night/whatever just yet.

  He glanced across at Alex, who was leaning against the worktop looking bored. She opened her mouth to speak, but Miller raised a hand.

  ‘I know, I know . . . it’s in here somewhere. It always is. You really don’t need to tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m even here,’ Alex said.

  ‘Because I quite like having you around.’

  ‘Good, because I like being around.’

  ‘What, even if I whinge?’

  He stood up and flicked the kettle on to make himself another coffee, then dropped back into his chair and began to sort through the case notes and statements, having already lost count of the number of times he’d done so already.

  ‘A break wouldn’t hurt,’ Alex said. ‘Do something else for a while and the answer might just pop into your head. Like when you’re doing a crossword.’

  ‘This isn’t a crossword.’

  ‘Like you said, it’s in there somewhere. Chances are you’ve seen it by now and it just hasn’t registered.’

  ‘Do what else?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘What, flick idly through a magazine? Make a start on War and Peace? Maybe I should go next door and sit scrolling through your phone like I usually do in the middle of the night . . . clutching that stupid bit of cardboard like it’s Gollum’s bloody precious.’

  ‘How is that going to help with this?’

  ‘It might help me,’ Miller said.

  ‘I was thinking more like putting the radio on for a bit and trying to relax. Taking the mickey out of a few phone-in nut-jobs.’

  ‘I could always spend an hour or two looking at those photographs again.’ Miller turned to stare at her as the kettle began to grumble. He knew that poring over Chesshead’s pictures was exactly what he would have been doing, were it not for the fact that a solution to the hotel murders felt so tantalisingly close.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Alex said.

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because you need to focus on one case at a time, and the solution to the hotel murders is—’

  ‘So tantalisingly close, I know.’ He groaned and tried to shake away the fatigue. ‘Well, of course I know, because it’s me that’s thinking it. I’m the idiot who’s rattling away to himself in an empty house, like that’s going to help me crack a murder case. I’m the nut-job . . .’

  He stood up again because the kettle had boiled and popped a coffee pod into the machine. He stood next to Alex. He could see the soft hairs on the back of her neck and smell the fancy coconut soap she used. ‘I’m the one imagining you in that dress you never wore much, but which I always really liked.’ He pointed. ‘And with your hair a bit shorter than you normally had it, because even though I never said anything, I always preferred it that way.’

  Alex ran fingers through her neat bob. ‘It’s hugely selfish of you.’

  ‘I know . . . it’s basically me, me, me, but you’ve got to admit that’s kind of understandable, given the circumstances. Given the fact that there is no you, you, you.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Alex said. ‘I hear what you’re saying and I really don’t mind about the dress or—’

  ‘What?’

  Alex stared back at him. ‘What?’

  ‘What did you just say? No . . . what did I just say you said? I hear what you’re saying.’ Miller moved quickly back to the kitchen table. He had forgotten about the coffee. ‘ “Seen it by now”, that’s what you said before.’ He pulled back the chair and sat down. ‘Not seen it . . . heard it.’

  He snatched up the headphones that were plugged into his laptop and began playing through the voice recordings. He’d used his phone’s record function every time he’d spoken to someone and there were dozens of conversations that he’d listened to at least once already.

  Ten minutes later, Miller was grinning as he set the headphones down again. ‘I think I’ve found our hired killer.’ He got to his feet and began walking around the kitchen.

  ‘Well, they’ll definitely get you that cake now.’

  ‘But I need someone to help me prove it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘As soon as, preferably.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Well, on a magic island . . . you.’ Miller was still pacing, thinking it through. ‘That’s probably not a goer. Posh’ll be fast asleep and dreaming about vintage cars by now or shacked up with some metalhead. So . . .’

  ‘She’ll still be awake,’ Alex said.

  Miller knew who she was talking about. ‘You think?’

  ‘I can’t vouch for what state she’ll be in, mind you.’

  Miller grabbed his mobile and dialled. When the call was eventually answered there was just breath and rustling, then something between a grunt and a growl.

  ‘Hey, Finn . . .’

  ‘Christ, Miller.’

  Perhaps Finn’s greeting had not been quite as jaunty as usual, but that was understandable, given how late/early it was. Miller knew that homeless drug addicts tended to keep somewhat . . . unusual hours, but even so. He also knew that her mood could be easily improved.

  ‘Listen, Finn . . . are you busy?’ He pressed on before she had the chance to tell him what a phenomenally stupid question it was. ‘I need your help with something and there’s twenty quid in it for you.’ He waited, looking at Alex who was ready with a tentative thumbs-up.

  ‘Have you any bloody idea what time it is?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Miller said. ‘Make it twenty-five.’

  FIFTY-FIVE

  ‘Were the boxer shorts really necessary?’ Finn’s voice dripped with something that was closer to genuine horror than simple distaste.

  Stretched out face-down on the bare mattress and naked apart from the undercrackers to which Finn was referring, Miller reached instinctively back to the off-white boxers. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. Had he been able to procure a pair with penguins on, he most certainly would have been sporting them, but he’d been pushed for time.

  ‘What can’t be cured must be endured, Declan . . . so make do and mend.’

  It was an expression both his Irish aunties had been fond of trotting out, when they weren’t calling him to ask what he wanted or changing the words to classic showtunes. It was fairly anodyne compared to a few of Sally’s favourites like ‘May the cat eat you and the devil eat the cat’, which Miller had never understood. Or when Bridget was moaning about her late husband’s philandering and saying, ‘The cute hoor was lobbing the gob with that wagon next door, so I told him to go and bollox,’ the gist of which he’d eventually picked up.

  Standing in the doorway, Finn looked up from the crime-scene photos again and shook her head at Miller’s display. ‘So much . . . flesh, though.’

  ‘Accuracy is crucial,’ Miller said.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘We’re recreating a scene.’

  Finn grimaced. ‘It’s all . . . mottled.’

  Miller tried not to sound quite as outraged as he felt. ‘Mottled?’

  ‘OK, then . . . pale. Looks like you’re recreating a sack of boiled potatoes.’

  At least the boxers were clean . . .

  Miller assumed a provisional opening position. He wasn’t altogether surprised that Finn was far more disturbed by his own semi-clad form than she was by the photographs of a dead man. He guessed that she’d probably seen worse, which was one of the reasons why she was the ideal choice for the job. That, and being reasonably cheap.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked.

  ‘All I’m saying is, how am I ever supposed to unsee that?’

  ‘Finn!’

  ‘Fine, let’s get it over with . . .’

  The room in which the body of Adrian Cutler had been discovered six days earlier was much the same as it had been left, after the forensic team had been about their business. The bed had been stripped. The thin carpet was lined where evidence markers had been placed and the few pieces of furniture that remained were stained with the residue of fingerprint dust. Miller imagined that the room next door was in a similar state and, grateful as he was that the crime scene remained virtually intact, he could not understand why hotel management had not set about refurbishing them as soon as they’d been allowed the chance.

  Maybe they had no intention of doing so. There was never any shortage of ghouls, Miller knew that, so perhaps they were planning on leaving the rooms exactly as they were, in the hope of attracting guests with . . . particular tastes.

  The Sands Hotel presents: The Murder Rooms.

  £75 per person/per night (inc bloodstains and breakfast).

  ‘Right,’ Miller said. ‘Just tell me where my arms and legs need to go.’

  Looking back and forth between the various photographs of Wayne Cutler’s body and Miller’s boiled potato-ish re-creation of it, Finn began to issue instructions. ‘OK . . . the legs are good, but your right arm should be a bit more stretched out.’

  Miller stretched out his arm. ‘Straight or bent?’

  ‘Straight,’ Finn said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And your hand should be flopping over the edge.’

  ‘Like that?’

  ‘Hang on.’ Finn looked at the pictures again.

  Miller waited. ‘A bit more . . . or is that enough floppage?’

  ‘Yeah, but you need to turn your head more . . . no, right over, so your face is hard against the mattress.’

  ‘Like this?’ Miller’s voice was muffled by the mattress and he was struggling to breathe. ‘Finn . . . ?’

  ‘Yeah, close enough.’

  Miller lifted his head, irritated. ‘No, “close enough” is not good enough, certainly not when it’s costing me twenty-five quid. It’s got to be identical.’ He put his head down again and shouted into a mattress that smelled of things he didn’t want to think about for very long. ‘Now then . . . are we there?’

  After a few more minor adjustments, Finn announced that they were.

  ‘Right, good,’ Miller said. ‘Now, go outside and close the door. Then come in again and tell me what you can see. Exactly what you can see . . .’

  Twenty minutes later, Miller and Finn were walking across the hotel lobby towards the exit. The place was just coming to life. Miller saw the concierge gossiping with one of the reception staff, while a cleaner gave the bell a cursory wipe before spraying polish on the front desk. He turned to see another cleaner half-heartedly moving a vacuum cleaner around and a third pushing her trolley into the lift, as he knew Sofia Hadzic had done the morning the bodies were discovered. The same morning Miller had gone back to work.

  He was finally starting to think it had been a good idea.

  When he turned around again, he saw the hotel manager coming in through the revolving door. He watched him straighten his tie as he exchanged nods with the concierge. Miller waved, then watched the confusion spread across Paul Mullinger’s ruddy features as he crossed the lobby to meet him.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Miller . . . what are you doing back here?’

  Mullinger glanced at Finn with undisguised distaste, as if her very presence was lowering the tone of the place, though Miller reckoned it would take an awful lot of doing. Finn smiled, pretending not to notice, then ambled across to one of the sofas, turning to give Mullinger the finger once she was out of his eyeline.

  ‘It’s a random biscuit check,’ Miller said. ‘Nothing to worry about. I just wanted to see if you’d addressed the shortbread-slash-ginger snap disparity.’ He wasn’t sure if Mullinger’s blank stare was because he’d forgotten their previous conversation or had simply neglected to address the issue. ‘I’m only kidding . . . there’s actually been another murder. I’m afraid this place is getting quite the reputation.’

  Now, Mullinger laughed, albeit a little nervously.

  They talked rather more seriously for another few minutes after that and the hotel manager was very helpful, if a little taken aback by the matter Miller wanted to discuss.

  ‘I asked you the wrong question,’ Miller said, when he’d got the information he needed.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  Miller began walking across to join Finn then turned and called back. ‘That first morning. I asked you the wrong question . . .’ He didn’t bother to finish because it really didn’t matter any more and he was already composing a triumphant text to Xiu.

  I know who our ‘hitman’ is. I am king of the winklers! I am expecting cake . . .

  Finn had occupied herself rolling a cigarette and now she looked up at Miller, smiling as she licked the edge of her Rizla. ‘Twenty-five quid I think we said.’

  Miller reached for his wallet and counted out the cash. Finn snatched it and tucked it into her bag. ‘You can buy me breakfast as well, if you want.’

  ‘How about I make you breakfast?’

  Finn made a show of thinking about it, like she wasn’t starving, then stood up. ‘Better not be muesli.’

  ‘Are you high?’ Miller asked.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Miller cleared away the remains of a hearty breakfast to which the description ‘full English’ did not even begin do justice. He carried the dirty plates and cutlery through to the kitchen, put away the sauce bottles (ketchup for him, brown for Finn) and flicked the kettle on.

  Leaning against the worktop, he could all but hear his arteries screaming for mercy.

  Much as he’d enjoyed the bacon and eggs – and the sausages and the beans and the mushrooms and the fried bread – watching Finn eat had been even better. It had not been pretty and he’d tried not to stare, but he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen someone take such pleasure in devouring what was put in front of them. It made him wonder how long it had been since she’d eaten anything. It made him want to cook for her again, to do all he could to put some meat on her bones.

  When he carried the mugs of tea through to the living room, Finn was just emerging from the small toilet near the front door.

  Miller pointed to her tea and sat down. ‘Better?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Finn dropped down next to him on the sofa and nodded towards the toilet. ‘You might want to give it a minute.’

  ‘I meant the breakfast.’

  Finn slurped her tea and grinned. There was a small blob of brown sauce at the corner of her mouth. ‘Well, the bacon wasn’t quite as crispy as I like it . . .’

  ‘Everyone’s a critic.’

  ‘But otherwise it was awesome.’

  Yes, Miller definitely wanted to feed her again.

  They said nothing for a minute or two and, though the silence wasn’t exactly comfortable, it wasn’t awkward either. Miller waited and watched Finn rolling another cigarette, wanting the moment to be right.

  ‘This doesn’t have to be a one-off, you know,’ he said.

  Finn turned to stare at him.

  ‘I mean, I’m sure I can get the bacon right next time and apart from anything else, it’s going to start turning a lot colder out there soon.’ Miller was trying his very best to sound casual. ‘So I was wondering if you fancied staying here for a while.’

  Finn’s eyes narrowed across the rim of her mug.

  ‘Just for a couple of nights, you know. See how it goes.’

  ‘We doing this again, are we?’ Finn said.