Close Your Eyes Read Online Free PDF

help you,’ I whisper.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I’m a clinical psychologist. You need someone who handles cases like this – someone who understands them. Call Broadmoor or Rampton.’ I’m already turning away, walking along the hallway, seeking fresh air.
    ‘I don’t want anyone else,’ says Cray, an edge to her voice now. ‘Trust me, Professor, I don’t want you here, but this goes beyond friendship or whether you have the stomach to look at those photographs. I don’t understand it either. It’s beyond my comprehension. But I’ve seen you do this. I’ve seen you piece together a crime. You can read minds—’
    ‘I
can’t
read minds.’
    ‘Motivations then, stimulus, impulses, whatever you want to call it – I need your help.’
    I don’t respond. I can’t find any words. Cray is waiting. She suddenly looks much older than when I saw her last. Exhaustion has pouched the skin below her eyes and deepened the wrinkles on her forehead.
    Every fibre of my being is screaming at me to walk away. Just go. Get in the car. Don’t look back. Today has been a good day for me. Julianne has asked me to come home. She would hate me even being here. She’ll blame me. Yet almost without thinking, I am collecting details and picturing events.
    Taking the photographs from Cray, I stand in front of the fireplace, holding up individual images, positioning myself where the photographer did, looking through his lens and trying to recreate that morning. Elizabeth was naked except for a light dressing gown. Urine stained the front. How is that possible? The first stab wound severed her carotid artery. Arterial blood sprayed the armchair nearest her head. She lost control of her bladder. He laid her down gently, before going berserk.
    This is what I do – I look at the scene and imagine the act, replaying it in my mind, identifying the psychological markers that underpin each element of human behaviour. I have seen and heard many disturbing things in my consulting room. I have treated the sad, the lonely, the disconnected, the angry, the anxious, the jealous, the suicidal and the murderous. I have plumbed the depths of human misery yet I know that there is always another layer, darker and more dangerous.
    ‘Were there traces of blood in any of the bathrooms?’ I ask.
    ‘In the laundry,’ says Cray.
    ‘What about upstairs?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Latent prints?’
    ‘Forty-eight full or partial prints from the house – most of them match with the family. A concentration of blood was found inside the front door, along with a smeared shoe print.’
    I walk along the hallway into the kitchen. There are twin cups draining beside the sink next to a single wine glass. Rubber gloves are hanging on the tap. The Aga stove is cold.
    Cray is still talking. ‘Forensic services collected fibres from the rug. There were old semen stains on the daughter’s bedding. The DNA results match her boyfriend. The mother had multiple semen stains on the front seat of her car, but none on her sheets. We’ve run the DNA through the database. Nothing yet.’
    ‘Was the mother seeing someone?’ I ask.
    ‘Not exclusively,’ says Cray, grimacing slightly.
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Do you know what dogging is, Professor?’
    ‘I have come across the term, but maybe you should enlighten me.’
    Cray lowers her eyes, uncomfortable with the topic. ‘Some people get off on committing sexual acts outdoors in semi-public places. There’s a whole subculture around it – rules of engagement, etiquette, websites…’
    ‘And Elizabeth Crowe was into this?’
    ‘That’s our belief. We have at least one statement that puts her at a dogging site performing a sexual act in public and we have the semen stains in her car.’
    ‘So her killer could have met her or watched her?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘That makes it more difficult.’
    ‘Tell me about it.’
    Cray runs through the hours preceding the murders. ‘Elizabeth had told her sister she was staying in for the