White Death. Daniel Blake

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      Kieseritsky showed Patrese into her office and told him what they’d got so far. It didn’t take long. She’d had little news for him yesterday, and she didn’t have a whole lot more for him today.

      No joy with the fingerprint they’d found on Showalter’s chest. There were millions of fingerprints on the Bureau’s database, most of them belonging to various shades of scumbag, but none of them matched this one.

      The Liberzon knife company had sent over a list of their US retailers. These were being checked to see if anyone connected with the victims had purchased the hunting knife in question: though if that person had used cash rather than a card, they’d be none the wiser.

      Still waiting on any other possible clues from forensics.

      Still no one who’d seen anything strange on the Green at that time of night.

      Still no idea how Regina had gotten to New Haven in the first place. They’d checked every hotel within a ten-mile radius of the Green, and she hadn’t stayed at any of them.

      Still no joy on the provenance of the tarot cards. They’d managed to establish that the cards were made by US Games Inc., who had copyright over the Rider-Waite design in the United States; but US Games Inc. sold hundreds of thousands of sets a year, all pretty much identical. The set the killer was using could have been bought in any state in the union, not to mention online. Where would they start?

      And, as far as could be ascertained, still absolutely no overlap whatsoever between the lives of Regina King and Darrell Showalter. A single mom from the projects and a monk teaching at a private school in one of Massachusetts’ most upscale areas: it wasn’t as though they’d have had much in common to start with.

      Showalter seemed to have lived a pretty blameless life; not even a speeding ticket or a parking fine. Regina, on the other hand, had been a bit of a firebrand. Remember how they’d got her fingerprints from the arrest docket at the Iraq War protest in 2003? Well, that hadn’t been the end of it.

      She’d sued the NYPD for bodily harm, alleging that the officer who’d arrested her, Howard Lewis, had used excessive force, which had damaged ligaments in her shoulder and neck. The case had dragged on a couple of years before being settled for an undisclosed sum; which was to say that the NYPD had worked out the minimum they’d have to pay her to make the problem go away, and had done precisely that.

      Settlement had been reached about six months before Kwasi had won his world title, which had made his fame and earnings go stratospheric. Patrese wondered whether Regina would still have accepted the NYPD’s offer had she known the financial windfall around the corner. Principles were good; eating was better.

      When Kieseritsky finished, Patrese told her kindly but firmly that this was now the Bureau’s case, and that the incident room must be transferred lock, stock and barrel to the Bureau field office a half-mile up State Street.

      Kieseritsky was disappointed but not surprised. She knew the rules of federal engagement as well as Patrese did; but any detective worth their salt doesn’t like giving up a case that has been theirs from the outset.

      ‘You know this is no reflection on you personally,’ Patrese said.

      Kieseritsky shrugged. ‘You sure? It’s not like we’re about to catch the murderer any minute now, is it?’

      ‘Some cases just don’t fall that way. As far as I can see, you’ve done everything exactly as you should have done. I appreciate it.’

      ‘Don’t be kind.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘It makes it harder for me to hate the Bureau.’

       13

      If there was a prize for the most striking building in New Haven, Patrese thought, he was standing outside the runaway winner right now.

      It was a rectangular box without windows. In their place were panels of white, lightly veined marble framed with pale gray granite. It stood in the middle of a quadrangle on the edges of which glowered edifices in Gothic and Classical styles, as though this box was an alien spaceship that had dared to disturb the old-world tranquility around it. It was Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and a sign by the main door informed Patrese that this was the largest building in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books and manuscripts.

      Anna Levin, the curator, was waiting for him inside. Patrese was expecting some tweedy old dame with reading spectacles dangling from her neck, and so he almost walked straight past her. Only when she put her hand on his arm did he realize who she was. She had the bright eyes and deep tan of someone who spent as much time as possible outdoors – no mean feat if you worked in this place, Patrese thought – and, like an athlete or a dancer, she walked on the balls of her feet. He’d never have put her as a librarian in a million years. She was this side of dotage, for a start.

      When they’d introduced themselves, Anna gestured around her, at the inside of the library. ‘Whadd’ya think? Quite something, huh?’

      Quite something indeed, Patrese thought. The marble panels, which from out in the quad had appeared solid, were now revealed to be translucent, almost like blank television screens. They let in a small amount of filtered light: presumably to allow rare books to be displayed without risk of damage.

      And in the middle of this enormous space, rising six stories like a monolith from Atlantis, was a glass tower full of books: a shrine to volumes bound in leather of olive green, Mikado yellow, burnt umber, carmine and a hundred other colors besides.

      ‘I think they’re the most beautiful things in the world,’ Anna said. ‘Books.’

      Her office was two stories below ground. She couldn’t offer him coffee or tea, she was afraid – no food or drink allowed, because they couldn’t risk damage to the books. That was fine, Patrese said. Too much caffeine gave him a weird St Vitus dance.

      ‘I’ve got a whole heap of things to do,’ he said, ‘so I can’t spend too long here. Nothing personal. You know why I’m here?’

      ‘Something about tarot cards being found at those dreadful murders yesterday.’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Well, listen …’

      ‘I need hardly tell you that anything I say to you is confidential. We keep a tight lid on information from crime scenes: helps weed out the tons of crank callers you always get.’

      ‘Sure. Do you know which cards were found?’

      ‘There were two victims. Regina King, who’s been all over the news …’

      ‘I know. My sister …’

      ‘… and a monk from Cambridge, Massachusetts named Darrell Showalter. The Empress was found by her body, the Hierophant by his. Both in the Rider-Waite design.’

      Anna nodded. ‘And you want to know what they might mean?’

      ‘Exactly.’

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