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Leo’s visits froma distance or standing in adjoining rooms with a tumbler of brandy until he left. His head was bright red, and Leo suspected he’d interrupted an argument. He was dressed more crisply then Maggie – polo shirt, chinos and canvas shoes and it was obvious from his previous visits that Joe was the designated stay-in-control party of the relationship. Joe still ran Opallios but Leo assumed he now held it together on his own.
    ‘Sorry about the mess. I seem to be getting clumsier,’ Maggie rasped as she breezed past her husband. Joe rolled his eyes at her as she passed and it was obvious that she had given him a look. ‘Coffee?’
    ‘Please.’ It seemed like a good idea if he was to attempt the drive back.
    ‘Futile for me to offer you something stronger…’ Maggie put the spout of the kettle under the tap.
    ‘Coffee’s fine.’
    Joe dumped the shards of crockery in the bin but didn’t beat his customary retreat.
    ‘We’ve got Fox News on in the lounge. They’re giving it more coverage.’ She clumsily plugged in the kettle and flicked the switch, then picked up a large tumbler of amber liquid and ice. She’d never drunk alcohol in front of him before. ‘Have you seen any of it yet?’
    ‘I came straight here.’
    ‘Come on then.’ The words scratched at her throat as Maggie chinked into the lounge. Leo followed and was surprised to hear Joe behind him.
    The Allan-Carlins’ lounge was decorated with impractical coral carpets and white showroom furniture showing inevitable signs of neglect. Surely they had people coming in to clean? To his right the floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the acres of land that lay beyond the covered swimming pool, now coated by a crust of dead leaves. But as always their attention was focused on the enormous flat-screen TV that hung on the back wall; it was permanently turned on during his visits.
    The three of them stood in front of it and waited, watching a report about Egyptian troops being deployed along the Gaza-Egypt border and eyeing the crawler at the bottom of the screen. Although he’d only just got out of the car, Leo’s knees sagged from exhaustion and he had to keep snapping them straight to prevent him from tipping forward.
    ‘I’ll sit if that’s OK.’ He pulled out a high-backed chair from the dining table display and awkwardly spun it round so it faced the screen. It took more effort to sit in it than to stand.
    Joe moved into his line of vision to close the curtains, then Bonsignore’s elongated features filled the screen. Fox were still using the same photograph of Bonsignore that every news station had throughout the trial; the one that had been taken of him with his fishing buddies, the face of the person standing next to him blurred out. A floppy blue denim hat sat at the top of his extendedforehead. His eyes were slits, squinted against the sun and he was grinning.
    Howard Bonsignore, otherwise known as the Vacation Killer, died in Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility today after being assaulted by fellow inmate, Jacob Frank. Bonsignore, serving twelve life sentences for a spate of brutal killings which he carried out across seven US states as well as two corroborated European locations, was treated at the Brooks Medical Centre but died from brain trauma after he was stabbed in the eye with an unspecified weapon. With only months of his sentence served, relatives of Bonsignore’s victims are asking how this could have happened when the convicted killer should have been housed in a segregated unit. Jacob Frank was only midway through serving four consecutive sentences for aggravated assault.
    The picture changed to a circling helicopter’s view of Baraga.
    Warden Greg King has spoken only to confirm details of the event… Bonsignore never revealed the locations of most of his victims’ bodies and was still key to ongoing investigations.
    Leo estimated Bonsignore to be nearly forty now. He’d confessed to killing twelve women and