‘Lane’s got a book, you know – about the effect different words have on water – did I tell you? No. Ha!’ Isobel laughs. ‘When would I have told you? But it’s fascinating. One cup of water had horrible words hissed at it day after day, and the other had only loving words spoken to it, and guess what? The water that kept hearing the hateful words turned murky and foul, while the water in the other glass stayed clear and clean.’

‘Water can’t hear,’ Gibbs contributed from the far corner of the room.

‘You’re wrong. Lane’s got a book that proves it can. Maybe it can’t hear in the conventional sense, but … it can understand.’

‘Why the little white books to your victims, with the poetry?’ Charlie asked. Simon heard a pronounced lack of sympathy in her voice.

‘They were clues,’ Isobel directed her answer to Simon. ‘Mysteries need clues. Each little white book contained a line of poetry by an American poet whose given name began with E. My mother was an American poet whose given name began with E. Clue! Right? And … books! The clues were books, and my motive was a love of books. Pages that had lost most of their words – to evil machines. I feel like that sometimes, don’t you? Like a page that’s lost nearly all of its words.’ She sighed.

‘Do you ever feel evil?’ Simon asked her.

‘No! Me, evil?’ Isobel laughed to cover her shock. ‘I played fair with you in every possible way. You can’t accuse me of not playing fair.’

‘There’s nothing fair about killing five innocent people,’ said Simon.

She nodded as if she were about to agree, then said, ‘Liam says I’m tired more than anything else. I think I’ll sleep in prison. I’ve hardly slept since my mother was murdered by the horrible machines.’

‘I’m sorry. About your mother, about Rudolphy’s … I’ll make sure Lane knows you’d like her to keep in touch.’

Isobel didn’t seem to be listening any more. ‘Little white books,’ she murmured to her clasped hands. ‘My little white books.’

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected], [email protected]

Sent: 26 January 2015 14:28:03

Dear Ms McGuinness

It was good to talk on the phone just now, and hopefully we at Culver Valley Police and your organisation will, in the near future, find ways to work together to bring down rates of domestic violence and male violence against women and girls. I’ve passed your contact details on to Sergeant Charlie Zailer, who will be in touch with you shortly to move things along.