Tom recalled the case they had discovered with similarities to Jasmine’s death – the young woman who had been found dead on a golf course, hidden from passing view in a deep bunker. Another team had investigated her death but found nothing to indicate how she had died. Just like Jasmine, she appeared to have died as a result of hypoxia, but there was no explanation as to how this had occurred. They had assumed the woman had gone there on her own. Her footsteps were clear in the sand of the bunker, but the area around her was raked to perfection, so due to a lack of any other evidence it had been assumed that the woman had walked in alone, sat down and died.

Perhaps now they knew the identity of their hide victim – Jasmine – they could find a tangible link to the other woman. Maybe the woman on the golf course had been helped too. It could have been the same modus operandi, the evidence of the cylinder and another person’s footprints having been removed by raking the sand.

He would get Becky on to checking it out the next day, because if Jasmine was the second person to suffer death with help from an unknown third party, it suggested a pattern. And Tom had to ask himself if that meant more women were destined to die the same way.

CHAPTER 31

31

I gradually become aware of myself. I can feel my arms, my legs, and they are warm, relaxed. I don’t want to open my eyes – it seems like too much effort. I just want to enjoy the calming sensations. I can hear the sloshing of water, and I feel its heat on my chest. Something is rubbing gently on my hands, up both arms and along my shoulders. It feels wonderful, and I hear myself sigh and settle back further. I’m in water. It’s up to my neck and it’s soft and soothing.

I must be in the bath.

Vaguely I sense movement and maybe the sound of a door closing quietly, and it takes a moment for me to realise that someone is here with me, holding my arm with one hand, rubbing it with the other. I slowly open my eyes. The room is dark, lit only by two candles placed on a low stool at the end of the bath I am lying in. I look at the hand holding the flannel, and I know it belongs to Thea.

The calm evaporates in an instant.

Why is Thea bathing me? This isn’t right. I struggle to sit up, covering my breasts with my arms.

‘What are you doing?’ I mumble, my words sounding jumbled as if my mouth is full of cotton wool.

‘Shh. It’s okay, Judith. We’ll look after you.’

I don’t know what she means.