Angel of the Dark

That was the other problem. Lisa never spoke about the night of Miles’s murder or her rape. As if by refusing to talk about it, she could make it go away. And much to his shame, Matt saw himself colluding in that silence. He wanted to forget the past as well. But this killer was not just a part of the past. He was out there, somewhere, watching and waiting, planning his next kill.

Matt had come to Bali looking for clues, clues that might help him unearth a serial killer, but he’d allowed his love for Lisa and his happiness in her company to distract him. Watching Lisa sip her tea now, he forced himself to remember:

The man I’m looking for raped and terrorized Lisa. If his past crimes are anything to go by, his next step will be to kidnap her. To have her “disappear” like Angela Jakes, Tracey Henley and Irina Anjou.

Lisa was in danger. And Matt still had no idea how, or where or when that danger might strike. The thought crossed his mind that his own prospects looked none too rosy either. This man, whoever he was, had a pretty gruesome track record of dispatching the men involved with his female victims. But it was Lisa’s safety that tortured him inside.

I can’t lose her. I can’t lose another person I love. If I do, I’ll lose my mind.

INSPECTOR LIU TURNED ON HIS TAPE recorder as Jim Harman began to speak.

An Englishman who had grown up in Hong Kong, the son of well-to-do expat parents, Jim ran his own security and electronics business on the island. He had personally overseen the installation of the alarm system at the Baring estate on Prospect Road.

“I’ll tell you this, mate,” he told Inspector Liu firmly. “There was nothing wrong with that alarm system.”

Tall and skinny, with a face like a weasel and small, widely spaced eyes, Jim Harman was prepared to defend his reputation vociferously.

“I installed it myself, with more fail-safes than the fucking White House, pardon my French.”

Liu asked calmly, “Then how do you explain the fact that Mr. Baring’s killer was able to get around it?”

“He didn’t ‘get around it,’” Jim Harman said matter-of-factly. “Someone let him in.”

“And why would they do that?”

Harman shrugged. “I’m a systems guy, not a detective, Inspector. You tell me. But the only explanation is that someone deliberately disabled the system and let the guy in.”

“And who knew how to do that?”

For the first time, the weasel-faced Englishman looked perplexed. “That’s the thing. No one. Mr. Baring and myself were the only ones who knew how to work that security system. It makes no sense.”

The interview over, Inspector Liu hopped on the DLR to Wan Chai, in the northern part of the island, in search of some lunch. The underground trains were clean and ran on time, a rarity in Hong Kong. Taking them calmed Liu and helped him to think.

“It makes no sense,” Harman had said. But it did make sense. Indeed, the possibilities were clear and satisfyingly finite: either Miles Baring had given his wife instructions on how to disable the security system, or Miles had disabled it himself, unwittingly opening the door to his killer.

Was it someone he knew?

Was it Lisa’s lover?

Was Lisa’s lover a friend of her husband’s?

Stranger things had happened.

Inspector Liu emerged from the subway blinking into the Wan Chai sunshine like a reluctant mole. His phone rang the very same instant.

“Liu speaking.”

“Sir.” It was one of his surveillance team, a small, elite group who’d been dispatched to Bali to keep an eye on the beautiful, headstrong Mrs. Baring. “We got some better shots of the villa today from the long-range cameras.”

“She still hasn’t left the property, then?”

“No, sir.”

Villa Mirage, the Barings’ Balinese retreat, was so secluded as to be almost completely inaccessible and extraordinarily difficult to photograph. Liu had tried to have the place bugged, but Mrs. Baring’s private security detail was excellent. None of his men had been able to get near her. He’d hoped he might have more success if, by a piece of luck, she should venture out of the place by car, but so far she had lived as a virtual recluse. It was as if her every action, or inaction, had been specifically designed to frustrate him.

“We do have some good news, though, sir. It appears there’s a man staying at the house with Mrs. Baring.”

Liu almost choked. “A man?”