Osborne moved his sticky hand over her hair. “Did they hurt you?”
She didn’t reply. Big tears were forming on her pale cheeks.
“I’ll kill them,” he murmured to the moon. “I’ll kill all of them.”
Down below, a wave collapsed.
Amelia looked straight at him. “Forget about that. Just let me live.”
* * *
His hands clamped on the wheel of the Chevrolet, Osborne drove. In the distance, the lights of Auckland flickered like candles. He had just returned from the garbage dump where he had buried the bodies of the two cops—no doubt about it, he was building up quite a mass grave over there. It didn’t matter, now wasn’t the time to think about the fact that he had become a serial killer. He had checked the last few numbers Dowd and Mertens had called from their cell phones: Timu.
So it was Timu who had sent them to Amelia’s house to look for him. Did they know about their relationship? And why had they been so violent?
He had now reached the suburbs of the sleeping city. It was a risky thing to do, but he couldn’t leave Amelia in that situation. Osborne placed the badges of the two special officers, Tagaloa’s patu and the address of Nepia’s tattoo parlor outside the door of Chief Medical Examiner Moore’s house in the posh neighborhood of Devonport, a package for the attention of Captain Timu. That ought to create an impression, and confuse the issue: Moore was in cahoots with Gallagher and Timu, the two badges and the club would make it clear that they had been killed, and the trail would take them to South Auckland, in other words a long way from Amelia. If she was questioned eventually, she would deny they had paid her a visit. In the meantime, she would have time to finish the postmortem on Tagaloa. Traumatized or not by what had happened, she had insisted that she wanted to finish the job. Osborne didn’t know if it was hate that gave her the courage, or love.
Something had happened last night, in her bed. He couldn’t forget it. What was Amelia’s place in their story? Until now, Hana had always been his one obsession. She was the one he loved, she who devoured him body and soul. He had looked for traces of her in the bodies of other women, he had created fleeting doubles of her for himself, certain that without her there was no future for him. He had never dreamed that there could be another way out.
Two women. That was one too many.
* * *
It was four in the morning by the time James and Andrew O’Brian left the Phoenix.
The twins had paid their usual Friday-night visit to the swankiest swingers’ club in the city. The mayor’s sons were content to ogle those bold enough to exhibit themselves under the subdued lighting, particularly the girl who, as she had tonight, accompanied them on their nocturnal excursions: Melanie Melrose.
Donkeyskin.
Osborne hadn’t recognized her behind the mask she’d been wearing that night, but she was the scrawny girl he had seen being sodomized by several men. He didn’t know what drove Melrose’s daughter to seek that kind of humiliation, although he had his own little theory on the subject.
Osborne had been sitting at the wheel of the Chevrolet, waiting for them to come out.
According to Julian Long, Ann Brook had been in the habit of visiting the Phoenix on Fridays, always accompanied by Melanie Melrose and the O’Brian twins. Despite the murder of their friend, they didn’t seem to have changed their habits. Osborne was ready to intercept them, but, rather than go back to their cars, they scooted off in the opposite direction, to a hotel at the end of the street. They immediately went inside.
Osborne waited a moment before following them. It was an upmarket hotel, with a security camera at the entrance. He rang. The night porter soon arrived, a man with a spongy, acne-ridden face. Osborne stuck his .38 and his badge under his nose, and pushed him inside.
“Nothing will happen to you if you obey and keep your mouth shut.”
The man retreated to the desk. The lobby of the hotel was deserted.
“Are you alone here?”
The man nodded. Osborne pulled out the phone wires.
“The two young guys and the girl who just came in, do they come here often?”
“From time to time,” the night porter replied, uneasily.
“What room?”
“122,” he said. “It’s a suite.”
“Where’s the pass key?”
“There,” the man stammered. “On the rack.”
Osborne grabbed the key. “Close the hotel, go behind the desk and don’t move until I come down again.”
The night porter nodded and obeyed without a word. Osborne climbed the stairs. The corridor was dimly lit. Horrible wallpaper. He got to 122 and stuck his ear against the door. Silence. No light under the door. He slid the passkey into the lock and slipped noiselessly inside. The first room was in darkness but there were beams of light coming from the doorway of the small adjoining room. He crept toward it. At last he saw them: the twins were standing by a polished wooden table on which they had tied Melanie, who lay on her back, arms and legs spread.
Nick Melrose’s daughter was naked, a scarf tied around her mouth. The O’Brian twins were directing a beam of light on her body as it writhed on the table. “Slut, whore, bitch,” they muttered at the sight of her exposed labia, at the same time masturbating themselves with all the frenzy that twenty-year-olds could muster.
In spite of her gag, Melanie was miming an orgasm and her small white breasts wriggled in the torchlight. The twins were inspecting her through every orifice, while pleasuring themselves with ever greater intensity, clearly very aroused by her muffled moaning. Osborne let them continue. They came almost simultaneously, over Melanie’s face. Judging by their groans, it must have been great.
It was then that he turned the light full on.
The boys turned, stunned. Osborne was standing in the doorway with a gun in his hand, smiling wickedly. Spread-eagled on the table, covered in their sperm, Melanie gave him a pathetic look, the kind you turn away from quickly. The boys stammered something or other but he cut them short.
“Shut up!”
