Nine Lives Read Online Free PDF Page B

went to her funeral, of course, and was saddened by the poor turn-out. Most of the congregation were police officers hoping for clues. They had expected perhaps that her patients would attend – they’d scoured her list and interviewed them all – but no patient would publicly declare himself as one who needed to be seen to. There was a modicum of shame attached to that need. Neil had already been ‘outed’ as the patient who had discovered the body, so he had no qualms about his presence at her funeral. He had had little respect for her, but the little that he had he would pay, and as her coffin sailed into the fire he felt an unmanufactured tear on his cheek.
    He followed the progress of the police investigations in the papers. There had been house-to-house inquiries, but no witness had come forward. Miss Mayling lived in an area favoured by the retired who were wont to lie abed, and at seven-thirty in the morning, the time the coroner hazarded she had met her death, the milk bottles still sat on the doorsteps and the papers and post still jutted from the letter boxes. The paperboy and the milkman had madetheir calls at six-thirty, while Miss Mayling was still in the land of the living. Her regular patients all had confirmed alibis at the time, and the police drew a blank. Eventually, the murder of poor Miss Mayling slipped off the front pages and eventually did not merit even a back page reference. Neil Clarkson too lost interest and noted, with some delight, how much money he managed to put by. His father’s ‘Hello’ still interrupted his dreams, and in the small hours he stifled a longing to hold Miss Mayling’s helping hand.
    On hearing of Miss Mayling’s passing, DI Wilkins, like Neil Clarkson, was hopeful. He had immediately travelled to Birmingham, convinced now that he was dealing with a serial killer. The pattern was the same. Psychotherapist; untraceable patient; garrotting with a guitar string. None of these factors was easy to investigate. Especially the last. There were thousands of guitar players all over the country and even a non-guitar player could have access to strings. He wished the murder weapon could have been a string from a zither, a viola da gamba or even a harp. That would have narrowed the field a little. So he could not count on the guitar string as a reliable clue. Neither could he rely on finger- or fibre-prints. There simply weren’t any. Neither was there any sign of forced entry. Poor Miss Mayling, like the previous victim, had invited her assailant into her own home. The similarities were hard to ignore but his serial-killer theory was only a hunch. He had nothing to substantiate it. And even less when, a week or so later, a prostitute in Soho was found murdered in a similar manner, a guitar string looped around her neck. But that could have been a copy-cat murder, Wilkins thought. He would not so easily abandon his serial theory. But he left Birmingham withlittle evidence that supported his opinion. The usual call for witnesses went out, but with no reliable response, and Wilkins’ dreams were orchestrated with chords from a plaintive guitar.
    Me again …
    Me again.
Ver-ine.
I went straight to the glass partition and waited for him. I put my hand on the glass, spreading my fingers. I wanted him to see it as a sign of welcome, one that he could match with his own. He smiled as he sat in front of me, and I knew his first words.
    â€˜I am innocent. You know that, don’t you?’
    I nodded my head even before he had finished. It would be his eternal prologue, and I wondered if my nodding could last as long.
    â€˜How are they treating you?’ I said into the machine.
    He placed his hand to match my own. ‘I miss you,’ he said.
    I could have done without that so early on in the visit. If he had to say it, he might have saved it till last when our time was up and I would only have had to say, ‘Me too,’ and leg it