It was a journalist from the Daily Tribune called Connor McCaskell. He’d been the one who’d started sniffing around my life in the weeks after I’d completed the case at Christmas, but unlike other journalists who’d pursued me in the aftermath, McCaskell hadn’t been interested in the case itself. His interest was in me, my life, my background, my history, and it had eventually led him to the cottage in Devon and to questions about the man called Bryan Kennedy who was living there. McCaskell was the whole reason the cottage was empty now, why we’d shifted Healy out of there so quickly and then begun the process of changing his name for a second time.

He hadn’t called me since early January, he hadn’t left any messages, or sent any emails. I’d hoped he’d forgotten about me, or decided my life wasn’t actually that interesting. I’d even started to believe that might really be the case, to the point where – when Healy had asked me about him in our weekly calls – I’d assured him everything was fine. I’d floated the idea we might be in the clear.

But now I knew we weren’t.

McCaskell was still after me, and still after Bryan Kennedy.

He still had the scent of a story.

The Motel

1985

Los Angeles | Tuesday 23 July

The entrance to the Star Inn was off Santa Monica Boulevard, although nothing of the building was visible from the street. The parking lot was accessed via a ramp, itself small and easy to miss, and only then – once you’d passed under part of the second-floor corridor – did you even realize you were in a motel. The courtyard was narrow, with five parking spaces on either side, and kicked out in an upside-down L-shape, with rooms all along the right and directly ahead. Now, though, there was no access for potential guests, if anyone would ever, truly, choose to stay here: instead, everything was cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape and the lot was filled with vehicles from the Sheriff’s Department, a van with a blue stripe along its flank that belonged to the county coroner, and a Dodge Charger driven by Dan Chen, a pathologist from the medical examiner’s office. Jo levered down her window, showed a waiting, uniformed deputy her badge, and then pulled in alongside Chen.

The moment the a/c died and she opened the door of the Oldsmobile, hot air rushed her. She left her jacket in the car and, as she moved across the lot, looked up to her right, where – on the second floor – she could see activity in a room at the end.

She rolled up her sleeves and took the stairs.