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unobserved.
    ‘The doctors say he’s in a coma,’ Clemente said, almost guessing his thoughts. ‘And yet he was immediately intubated by the ambulance team that came to his rescue. As it happens …’
    ‘What?’
    ‘By a twist of fate, one of the team was the sister of JeremiahSmith’s first victim. She’s twenty-seven years old and she’s a doctor.’
    Marcus looked surprised. ‘Does she know whose life she saved?’
    ‘She was the one who reported finding in the house a roller skate that had belonged to her twin sister, who was killed six years ago. There’s another thing that made this more than just a routine intervention.’
    Clemente took a photograph from the folder. It showed the man’s chest, with the words
Kill me
. ‘He was walking around with that on his body.’
    ‘It’s the symbol of his divided nature,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s as if he’s telling us that we have to look beyond appearances. We usually stop at the first level, the level of clothes, to judge a person, when the real truth is written on the skin. It’s within everyone’s reach, hidden and yet close. But nobody sees it. In the case of Jeremiah Smith, people brushed against him in the street without imagining the danger, nobody saw him for what he really was.’
    ‘There was a challenge in those words: Kill me, if you can.’
    Marcus turned towards Clemente. ‘And what’s the challenge now?’
    ‘Lara.’
    ‘What makes you think she’s still alive?’
    ‘He kept the others alive for at least a month before killing them and dumping their bodies.’
    ‘How do we know he was the one who took her?’
    ‘The sugar. The other girls had also been drugged. He took them all in the same way: approaching them in broad daylight under some pretext and offering them a drink. In each case he dosed the drinks with GHB, better known as the date rape drug. It’s a narcotic with hypnotic effects that inhibits the ability to reason and choose. It seems to be his signature.’
    ‘A rape drug,’ Marcus said. ‘So the motive is sexual?’
    Clemente shook his head. ‘There were no signs of sexual violence on the victims. He tied them up, kept them alive for a month, then cut their throats.’
    ‘But he took Lara from her own home,’ Marcus said. ‘How do we explain that?’
    ‘Some serial killers perfect their modus operandi as their sadistic fantasies evolve. Every now and again, they add a new detail, something that increases their pleasure. Over time, killing becomes a job, and they try to get better at it.’
    Clemente’s explanation was plausible, but didn’t totally convince Marcus. He decided to let that go for the moment. ‘Tell me about Jeremiah Smith’s villa.’
    ‘The police are still searching it, so we can’t go there yet. But apparently he didn’t take his victims there. He has another place somewhere. If we find it, we’ll find Lara.’
    ‘But the police aren’t looking for her.’
    ‘Maybe there’s something in that house that’ll connect him to her.’
    ‘Shouldn’t we put them on the right track?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’ Marcus asked, incredulous.
    ‘That’s not the way we operate.’
    ‘Lara would have more chance of being saved.’
    ‘The police might get in your way. You need complete freedom of action.’
    ‘Freedom of action? What does that mean? I don’t even know where to begin!’
    Clemente looked him straight in the eye. ‘I understand you find it daunting, because it all seems new to you. But this isn’t your first time. You used to be good at what you did, and you can be good again. I assure you that if there’s anyone who can locate that girl, it’s you. The sooner you realise that, the better. Because I get the feeling Lara doesn’t have much time left.’
    Marcus looked over Clemente’s shoulder at the patient – attached to a respirator, hovering over the final border – then at the reflection of his own face in the glass pane, superimposed over that image, as if in an