his voice giving away his reluctance to admit this.
‘Really?’
‘We’ve found three witnesses to her balcony stunt who confirmed she seemed distracted by something just before she toppled over.’
I punched the air. ‘Wow. What was it? What distracted her?’
‘No one seems sure. Two witnesses said it was as if someone had taken a photo with a flash, but no one owned up to doing so and no one was seen with a camera or a phone during those crucial moments. Another witness said the flicker of light wasn’t as bright as a camera flash…’
‘So it was some kind of light that disturbed her – a flash of some sort…’ I muttered, mulling it over out loud.
‘Hmm.’
I heard myself utter the words I’d been bursting to let loose. ‘So you’re treating it as a suspicious death now?’
He wouldn’t be drawn. ‘We are looking into it very closely. As we would be doing anyway.’
I was glad he wasn’t in front of me. I would have given him a glare sufficiently scorching to set fire to his lapels.
He went on. ‘Using your new-found knowledge on grandiose delusions, what can you tell us?’ The hint of sarcasm in his voice didn’t go unnoticed.
‘In spite of the broad time frame, these murders look like the same person to me. The signature method is identical – around five or six centimetres of hair cut off at neck level each time.’
‘The police don’t like serial killers,’ he grumbled. ‘We avoid going down that route at all costs. It causes public panic, speculation, hoaxes, false leads. You name it. It’s a minefield.’
I didn’t mention Emily’s stalker. I didn’t want to cloud things. Besides, it may not have been the same man in the pub. It wasn’t enough.
‘What’s the hair-cutting about, do you think?’ Fenway asked, sounding genuinely intrigued. ‘Is it purely to spoil the women’s looks? Is it to perform some deeper ritual?’
‘I’m not sure yet. It could be linked to some religious belief or a myth that already exists or is created by the killer.’
‘Okay. So you have no leads on that yet.’
‘No.’ I wanted to consider a different angle. ‘From the case files it looks like there’s no sexual interference. Am I right?’
There was a hiatus while he looked up the records.
‘I agree. No sexual overtones at all.’ He took a breath. ‘How come these women didn’t know someone was cutting their hair? Wouldn’t you feel it?’
‘I think whoever did it knew what they were doing.’ I knew from Tamsin that Hazel had worn a thick scarf, pulled tight around her neck, on the bus when she thought she’d been targeted. It must have been something similar with Charlotte and Lorna. ‘In each case, the killer must have made sure there was some reason they wouldn’t feel it.’
‘Hmm. They’d have made a fuss straight away if they had, I suppose.’
I sent my eyes to the ceiling, glad he couldn’t see me. ‘I think hair colour is irrelevant,’ I added. ‘Two of the women, including Hazel, were blonde, Charlotte was dark. The hair lengths and type are different too: sleek, curly and kinked. For me, this removes a “lookalike” scenario. As in, I don’t think the killer is finding women who remind him of someone from his past – such as his mother.’
‘So, just a bloke obsessed with hair?’
‘No. More than that. We need to look at the difference between obsession and delusion. The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, killed thirteen women, claiming the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. Many believed he was responding to a grandiose delusion.’
I could imagine Fenway scratching his head, trying to figure out what I was talking about. I put him out of his misery. ‘Okay, briefly: delusions are imaginary, unshakeable beliefs, that persist regardless of how illogical they are or how much evidence there is to the contrary. They can manifest in patterns of behaviour, such as this ritual of haircutting. Obsessions are similar on the surface. The difference is with an obsession you have some level of awareness that you’re doing it.’
‘Like obsessive tidying or cleaning, you mean – you’re aware of it? But a delusion is ingrained and subconscious?’
‘Good way of putting it.’ I tried not to sound patronising. ‘And a grandiose delusion involves power; it includes the impulse to act in some way to take control over another person.’
‘How do people get grandiose delusions? What causes them?’
‘They’re often developed after a deep-rooted trauma compounded by emotional instability, stress, insomnia, isolation.’
‘Sounds like me,’ he