But she did like the picture of her and her mum. They were shoulder to shoulder on the wooden steps, and they were smiling, but not toward the camera. They’d clearly been talking about something amusing. Kate liked the picture because she didn’t look anxious in it (it must have been taken at the beginning of the week), and that was probably why she’d kept it and hidden it away in the pages of her favorite book. It was something she often did with photographs that she didn’t know what to do with. Put it in a book, and maybe discover it later on. Or maybe not.
Kate had a thought, wondering if Corbin put secret pictures in books to discover later, as she did, or even to hide them. And as soon as this thought passed through Kate’s mind, she knew that she would have to look through every book. It was the way she was. Once she fixated on something, she would need to see it through to the end. A year ago, she’d half recalled a quote from an Agatha Christie book, something about how all killers are someone’s oldest friend, but couldn’t remember what book it came from. Over Christmas, back in her childhood room, she’d scoured obsessively through every Christie book she had till she found it.
Kate stood and went to the television, surrounded by its wall of books. The shelves were filled with airport thrillers and business books. Here and there was a stack of coffee-table books, stacked on top of one another so they’d fit on the narrow shelves. Like the books in the living room, these looked like they belonged to Corbin’s father, not to Corbin himself. Still, she wondered what she might find if she looked through the pages. There were a lot of books, but she had a lot of time. She knew she needed sleep, but she wasn’t really tired, not since being woken up by Sanders.
She had to stand on an ottoman to reach the first book on the far left of the top shelf. It was a hardcover copy of John Grisham’s The Firm. Using her thumb she fanned through the pages, then tipped it upside down and shook it. Nothing. She replaced it and checked the next book.
By the time she’d finished going through all of the books on the den’s shelves, she’d found many bookmarks, five receipts, all from at least ten years ago, and one cut-out magazine picture of Ashley Judd in her underwear that was folded up inside a paperback copy of something called Who Moved My Cheese?
Kate sat on the leather ottoman. What was she looking for? A picture of Audrey Marshall with the words kill her in red ink across her face? No, but maybe something to prove that Corbin had some kind of personal life that he kept hidden, and possibly one to do with Audrey. So far, Kate had three accounts of that particular relationship. Corbin said they barely knew one another. Audrey’s friend said that Corbin and Audrey were casual hookups. And then there was the third account, from Alan Cherney, who claimed that Corbin was over at Audrey’s place a lot. Why would Alan lie about that? Kate believed him, or at least she believed that he believed it. He’d clearly been obsessed with Audrey Marshall, but she trusted him. And not just because she found him attractive and easy to talk to.
She left the den and walked into the living room, now filled with milky morning light. It was dawn already. She checked her e-mails. Martha had written a long detailed e-mail back about Corbin. They’d met at the Beef and Pudding, then snogged, “just a little,” on a walk back to their flats, but Corbin told her he’d been tired and went alone into Kate’s flat. Martha hadn’t seen him since. “Does he have a girlfriend back there?” Martha wrote. “E-mail him and ask him. Pretty please.”
That’s what I’m trying to find out, Kate thought. She was relieved to hear that Corbin seemed to be avoiding Martha, and that she probably didn’t need to warn her friend that the hot American might be a girlfriend murderer.
Kate needed coffee but thought she’d get a start on the books in the living room first. There were many more in here than in the den, and the shelves stretched all the way to the very high ceilings. There was a sturdy-looking desk by one of the windows, and she