Read In the Name of a Killer for Free Online Page B

and red, laid in a rack where the kitchen cabinets ended. All came from California.
    The bedroom was at the end of a corridor. The door was half open: Danilov used the spatula to push it further, so they could enter. The bed was in chaos, most of the covers on the floor, the sheets crumpled into kicked-aside rolls.
    Pavin indicated the pillows and said, needlessly: ‘Both indented.’
    Danilov called back into the lounge for the evidence experts. When they reached him he said: ‘I want this room checked everywhere for prints …’ He nodded to the bed. ‘Search it, now, for fibres or hair. Then take it all to the laboratory. I want any stains checked, for blood, semen, anything.’
    Perfume, skin-care creams and cleansers were ordered along the glass top of the dressing-table. In addition there were three framed photographs. One was of Ann Harris taken in Moscow, against the background of the onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral. The second was of the couple whose picture had been in her handbag. The third was of a man standing in such a way that the Capitol in Washington was in the background: the photograph had been taken low, but even without that trick for elevation the man appeared large. The dressing-table drawers held carefully folded underwear, sweaters and scarves, each in allocated places. Danilov sifted through, with the spatula: nothing was concealed between the folds of the clothes. The closets were just as carefully arranged, first suits and then dresses and finally separate skirts. There were twelve pairs of shoes, in a rack at the bottom of the closet. Danilov guessed there were more clothes than Larissa or Olga owned between them. Reminded, he thought he would have to contact Larissa sometime: she’d have to be told how difficult it was going to be for a while. How long, he wondered.
    There was another framed photograph of the large man, this time with Ann Harris beside him on Capitol Hill, on top of a cabinet to the left of the bed. The upper drawer held a blank pad of paper and a pencil, a jar of contraceptive cream, a packet of contraceptive pessaries and Ann Harris’s American passport. The larger cupboard beneath held only a padded silk make-up bag. With some difficulty Danilov eased the zip open with the tweezers. It contained a battery-driven vibrator and a small jar of lubricant jelly. Danilov’s fresh discomfort was neither from surprise nor criticism but once again at the intrusion: this had been her business, her intimate pleasure, something to which she’d had the right of privacy. Invariably there were secrets, he reflected, recalling his mental promise to the dead girl in the alleyway. I’ll go on trying, he promised again.
    He found her correspondence in the cabinet on the other side of the bed. She had kept her letters in their envelopes and held packs together, about ten at a time, with elastic bands. At the back – he couldn’t decide whether they were intentionally hidden or not – was a thicker bundle, different-sized sheets of paper without envelopes.
    ‘Everything,’ decided Danilov. Pavin offered one of the largest exhibit bags.
    The adjoining, American-style bathroom was as well kept as the rest of the apartment. There was an abundance of chrome and glass with more cleaning creams in tight lines. The cabinets contained analgesics and shampoos and hair conditioners, a proprietary brand of American cough linctus and, surprisingly, a small phial of mosquito repellent.
    Back in the bedroom Danilov said to the fingerprint expert: ‘There are a lot of good surfaces in the bathroom. And in the kitchen cabinet there’s a vodka bottle I want checked. Anything so far?’
    ‘Two different sets on the glasses back in the lounge. On the door here and the dressing-table, too.’
    ‘I’ll get her elimination prints from the pathologist later today,’ undertook Danilov. To Pavin he said: ‘We’ll take the glasses.’
    ‘There are a lot of shoes,’ the Major pointed