Reaching the car, he flung himself inside the passenger door and snapped the headset against Lowerson’s ears.
The younger man yelped, rubbing at his ears.
“Hey!”
“Try answering your phone, dipshit,” Ryan snatched up the mobile, which had fallen to the floor on the passenger side.
Lowerson reddened.
“Sorry guv. I got carried away.”
“At least you’re paying attention,” Ryan muttered, before connecting his own headphones to the mobile radio unit. “How’s the doc, this evening? Let’s hope he’s feeling chatty.”
Seated inside Donovan’s study, MacKenzie took another tiny sip of red wine, surveying him over the rim of the crystal glass.
“If you could meet this man, what would you say to him, Denise?”
MacKenzie recognised the change in Paddy Donovan. His eyes were no longer calm and faintly paternal, but feral, their pupils dilated in sheer anticipation of the kill. She imagined that she felt much the same as a deer in the wild, sensing that a lion waited to pounce from somewhere out of sight.
She fought to remain at ease, even while he moved around, somewhere behind her head.
“I don’t know what I would say, really. He’d probably think I was beneath him,” she said, coyly. “I would love to hear how he did it.”
“Come, come,” Paddy tutted. “You’re a bright, lovely woman. What man wouldn’t be flattered?”
MacKenzie looked away, modestly.
“I’m not his usual type,” she continued with a trace of disappointment. “I’m older, for a start, with the wrong hair …”
She shook out her hair, so that it fell around her in soft folds. He watched the action and began to tremble.
“Nonsense, Denise,” he said softly, moving towards a tall mahogany cabinet he kept in the corner of the room. Quietly, he retrieved the key, but didn’t open it yet. First, he locked the door to the study, which turned smoothly. “Exceptions can always be made. But what about Phillips?”
MacKenzie trod carefully, now.
“He’s a wonderful man,” she said, honestly. “I care about him very much but I can’t help wondering …”
“What? What do you wonder?” He was eager now.
“I can’t help wondering if the real killer has been searching for someone who might understand him. Someone worthy.”
Donovan paused in his selection of a syringe and looked across to where Denise was seated with her back to him. Was she genuine?
“You believe you understand him?”
MacKenzie laughed and folded her arms, bracing herself. She judged that he was two, or three, paces behind her right shoulder.
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me,” she fluttered. “I could hardly hope to understand him, not straight away, but I could try. All the other women, maybe they didn’t appreciate him.”
“It’s possible, of course,” Donovan agreed, sucking a massive dose of Lorazepam into the syringe. “Where are the others now, Denise?”
“Who? Ryan?”
“Yes.”
She lifted a slim shoulder.
“Still up at Sycamore Gap, I imagine,” she lied, glibly.
“Did you tell them you were coming for … a debriefing session?”
Looking guilty, she shook her head.
“I needed to see you, Paddy. I really did,” she turned and looked up at him with large, green eyes. It was difficult, but she hoped that she looked submissive enough to tempt him. “I know I should have told Ryan, or Phillips, but I suppose I didn’t want them to know. It’s embarrassing, having to admit that I needed help.”
He smiled slowly, moving across to place a broad-fingered hand on her shoulder. She felt the weight of it pinning her down.
“I’ve got a surprise for you, Denise.”
“Oh? You’re not going to tell me you killed those women, are you?” She asked innocently, clenching her jaw against what she knew was coming.
His arm swept downwards in an arc and she snapped her own arm out to brace against it, diverting the needle from connecting with the artery in her neck. Unfortunately, with some added force, Paddy rammed the needlepoint into the soft tissue of her upper arm and she felt the sharp sting penetrate through her shirt. MacKenzie clutched at it while her body began to slump, the neural pathways in her brain clogged by the sedative, no longer allowing her to control her limbs. He took the glass from her nerveless fingers, murmuring that there was no sense in causing a spillage.
While he replaced the syringe inside the cabinet, dunking the needle into a cup of strong medical disinfectant, her body slid gracefully off the chair. Her legs twisted beneath her and the back of her head thudded against the side of the coffee table, hard enough that she saw stars.