THE LALLYBROCH MURDERS

CHAPTER 27

‘So what did you do with his clothes?’ Liam asked her.

‘I put them in a carrier bag, took them into work and threw them in the hospital incinerator. James hated that job so he generally left me alone to get on with it.

Apparently he had some metal pins in his leg from a bike accident and the heat caused trouble with them so he avoided going anywhere near it. I knew I would be safe and no traces of them would be left behind.’

‘Wow.’ Liam was impressed with not just her thought process, but her easy going attitude of all of it. ‘Ok so that brings us to the second victim Travis Peterson.’

Clair let out a little chuckle at that. ‘Do you know what?’ she told him.

‘I had never intended to attack him at all. I actually had someone completely different in mind but the opportunity arose and I took it,’ she said. ‘Most of the others I had targets for and they had been carefully planned and thought out but Travis, well he presented himself and it just fitted so well with the plans.’

‘So you had a plan then? A pattern? For the victims?’ Liam queried raising a brow.

‘Oh yes,’ Clair continued.

‘You see, in mind’s eye, I had planned to go for the academic types.

Those who were at the top of their classes and those who would have excelled in life. But Travis just made it too easy.

Everyone around here seemed to think he had a big feature so I figured why not?’

‘And how exactly did he make it easy?’

‘Well I was down by the park one day, rather ironically. I was compiling some notes on the person I had intended to go for and Travis was there playing soccer with a few other guys. He was flirting something chronic and I decided to have a little fun with him so I played along with it. After the others had gone, he had come over to me and flirted some more. I asked him if he had a condom, he said no so I challenged him. Asked him to go and get one and then meet me there at midnight. I didn’t think for a minute he would actually turn up but sure enough there he was.’ Liam watched her, watched as her gaze narrowed to something on the wall and then flicked back to him, almost as if she was remembering that.

‘Please, go on,’ Liam told her.

‘I asked him to show me what he had for me and he took his pants off there and then.’ Clair smiled at that, almost but not quite raising a laugh. ‘At least with David I had to flirt with him, make him think he was getting something but Travis pretty much did half the job for me,’ she chuckled but the laugh was humourless.

‘I had the syringe in my pocket, so I grabbed it then I put my arms around his shoulders and injected him in the back of the neck.’ Liam just nodded, the scene playing out in his mind and then cleared his throat.

‘So number three then, Katherine. I’m guessing that was the one you had intended before Travis had…’ Liam paused for a moment not really sure how to finish that sentence.

‘Actually no,’ Clair told him. ‘I had originally targeted a girl named C.J.’ Liam’s mind turned to the notepad they had found at Clair’s apartment but he decided to keep that information to himself for the time being allowing Clair to continue.

‘Right, do go on,’ he told her, waving for her to keep on talking.

‘She should have been second really but then Travis … well we’ve covered that. Anyway I was determined to remove any links to the previous one before I continued onto the next.

You see, unless they have a usual amount of waste the hospital only fires the incinerator twice a week so I had a few days to wait before I could get rid of Travis’ stuff.

‘By the time I had done that C.J had gone away; she was in Amsterdam working for some fashion show. Apparently she had already done some freelance work for one of the major fashion labels and they wanted to meet her so they paid for her to fly over and then put her up for a week or so.

Sounded like an audition for a permanent role to me. Anyway I had already collected quite a bit of information about Katherine who I was planning for number four so it kind of made sense to do her first and wait for C.J to get back.’

‘I see,’ Liam said with a slight frown. ‘But then C.J was never number four either?’ he asked.

‘No, that was born out of necessity really,’ Clair told him. ‘Tania must have had some serious journalism skills. I’ve no idea how but she found out about the sedative. She was down at the hospital poking her nose around. I was transporting a patient around when I overheard her asking questions about it. Thankfully for me she didn’t get the answers she was looking for but it was probably only a matter of time before she did.

‘The following day the newspapers were linking the attacks together saying it was the same person responsible for each of them. I felt as though she would soon connect all of that to the sedative as well so she became dangerous.

I had to take her out of the equation before she stopped me completing my mission. I heard she was going to see a band that night so I went along a tried to befriend her. I even offered her a ride home afterwards and then injected the sedative into her leg while she was looking out of the window. I guess you probably know what happened after that?’ Again, her face was showing nothing but boredom, as if going all of this just seemed too mundane of a task for her.

‘Quite,’ Liam responded.

‘You mentioned your mission?’ He asked looking slightly puzzled.