Frune had some results already, which meant she had worked quickly. Even if the adventure was over for the Astronomy Club, at least Linua would hear what Frune had found out, and be able to share it with the others. It would be a satisfying conclusion, Linua thought. All she needed was some way to call Frune without being overheard. She would never hear the end of it if Grandmother found out she was talking to a journalist.

Helged saw that Linua was frozen in thought.

“Is Solly going to be there tonight, lovey? Maybe he’ll bring it with him.”

Linua wrenched her thoughts away from Frune, and instantly saw the right excuse she could use to make the phone call and ask.

“I’ll call him and ask.”

Linua stretched the telephone into the library, hoping that neither Grandmother nor Helged would think it was odd that she wanted a private conversation in order to make arrangements to return a fictitious scarf.

When the journalist answered she said, “It’s me. Linua.”

Frune obviously didn’t believe in wasting time on courtesies when they weren’t needed, for which Linua was grateful.

“Your little friend was right,” Fune said, without preamble. “There is a series of unexplained deaths. You thought the police hadn’t noticed a connection, but in fact there is a long-running investigation by the Violent Crimes Unit. It’s been going for years. They think it might be a cult.”

“A cult?”

“Because of the pattern of the burn marks. They think it might be related to some kind of ritualistic activity. But they don’t have any suspects. There’s a limit to what they can find just by looking at the bodies. Usually they’ve been in the sea for some time—in fact, the bodies that washed up intact are the exceptions.”

Linua felt a churn of nausea at the thought. Frune swept on, not waiting for a response.

“What your friend found is just the tip of the iceberg. The site where the victims went into the sea potentially covers a huge area along the Panathelo coast, and may not even have been the location where they were killed.”

“How can they find who did it, then?”

“By working the opposite angle, and concentrating on the victims. It’s as I said the other day—these are all vulnerable people, living life on the margins. Teenage runaways, prostitutes, beggars, the homeless. The problem is, though, that the unsub doesn’t even recruit them directly himself anymore.”

“What’s an unsub?”

“Unknown subject. It’s police talk for the perpetrator. He uses a gang of loyal subordinates, probably former recruits who have been indoctrinated into his cult. He did recruit some of the very early victims personally, but it’s so long ago there aren’t any reliable witnesses.”

“What about Kala? Or Leofryn?”

“Kala was the unsub’s first victim, they suspect Leofryn was his second. The police investigation at the time was poor, so they don’t have much to go on. The VCU think she was at a beach party and left voluntarily with the unsub. There are indications that Leofryn was attempting to find her killer on his own. That may have been why he was targeted.”

“The only thing they’ve been able to establish is that he’s a man in his late thirties or early forties. Given how long he’s been operating, they think he must be early forties, but he could be younger if he started killing in his late teens.”

He could have started in his teens? Linua tried to imagine someone of her own or Eret’s age turning into a serial killer and couldn’t wrap her head around it. Why would anyone do something like that?

And how was it related to the missing artefact? Was it related at all? Maybe the perpetrator—the unsub—had stolen the artefact, then Kala had found out and he’d killed her. And it would make sense, in twisted sort of way, that he would kill Leofryn if Leofryn tried to find out what had happened to Kala. But then why had the unsub gone on to recruit a gang of cultists and start killing random people?

Maybe the missing artefact wasn’t related to the killings at all. Maybe it was just a random madman who had started with Kala for no reason, and escalated from there.

Frune’s voice tugged Linua back to the conversation.

“I attempted to interview Dr de Halven,” she said.

Who was Dr de Halven? Oh, yes, that was Horn.

“However, the university told me he was on a personal trip. I have contacts at various airlines so I attempted to trace where he was going, and I was able to find out that he flew to Herkow. He arrived this afternoon. Do you know why he’s here?”

Linua felt a jolt of unease.

“I don’t know. We only spoke to him a couple of times—well, Solly called him once and didn’t get anywhere, and Anith called him a second time.”

“What did she tell him?”

Linua tried to remember.

“About the missing artefact. We didn’t know about the serial killings then.”

“Can you think of any reason why he would interrupt his schedule—he was due to attend a university function this evening—in order to fly to Herkow without any notice?”

“I don’t know. Do you think he’s involved?”

“I couldn’t say. I’ll try to interview him this evening.”

Linua thought about the things Anith had said. Horn hadn’t seemed the type to be involved in thefts and killings.

“Anith said he was nice. Very kind and polite.”

“Politeness has nothing to do with niceness,” Frune said acidly. “Politeness is just a way of covering up what you really think.”

Weela Frune was the sort of person who would think that.

“It means you have no idea what people are like underneath,” Frune went on. “De Halven could be an utterly amoral sociopath for all you know.”

She did have a point. Just because Horn acted nice and said nice things didn’t mean he was nice inside.

“Thank you for telling me all this,” Linua said.

Frune gave an exclamation of disgust.

“I didn’t tell you because I was trying to be kind or nice. I told you so you can pass it onto your friend. He did a good research job, considering the tools he was working with. His effort should be rewarded. And I told you as a warning. There’s a very dangerous man involved in this who won’t hesitate to kill anyone in his way. You need to stop looking into this.”

“Would you do that if you were me?” Linua asked, genuinely curious.

There was silence on the other end of the line. Eventually Frune gave a snort.

“Go to university and get a degree in journalism first, kiddo. Then you’ll be old enough and wise enough to run around poking your nose into other people’s business and risk getting killed over it.”

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“I want to be an archaeologist.”

“That has a lower life expectancy even than investigative journalism. But it’s your life, you can mess it up any way you want.”

“Thanks,” Linua said, dryly.

“No problem.”

The phone clicked and the line went dead. Linua stared at the bookshelves opposite, deep in thought.

The first thing she wanted to establish was whether the missing artefact and the killings were, in fact, related. But she didn’t know what the artefact did, or why it had been stolen in the first place. The last time she’d checked with Pickle, he still hadn’t had any replies on the archaeological forum. However, it would be an awful coincidence if the artefact had been stolen by one of the four students, and then Kala was randomly killed by a completely unrelated serial killer.

Maybe Kala had stolen the artefact for the perpetrator, and he had killed her for it. Maybe it was related to his cultist activities somehow. Maybe the perpetrator had dared her to steal it, and killed her when she tried to put it back, or to prevent her from identifying him when he took it for himself.

That was a huge leap of logic, but it felt right somehow.

The next question was: could one of the three remaining students be the killer? The Violent Crimes Unit thought that Leofryn had been looking for the killer, and that he might have become a victim himself. That would explain why Pickle and Anith hadn’t been able to find a record of him anywhere after his graduation day.

That left Bead and Horn.

Linua felt instinctively that Bead couldn’t be the perpetrator. It was hard to explain why. Horn had said Bead was a plausible fellow, implying that he was easy to believe, and he was. He had a rough outer exterior, but it had seemed like he meant well. He’d felt genuine.

But in that case, why had Bead disappeared when the police had wanted to talk to him? Maybe he hadn’t been guilty—maybe he’d been afraid of something. Had he helped Leofryn look into Kala’s death? Had he tried looking into it himself? Maybe he’d known something that would lead to the perpetrator.

In retrospect, his warning to Linua and Eret had seemed heavy-handed, given what they had known at the time. They’d been chasing an artefact that had been missing for twenty years, not a series of murders. But if Bead had known about the murders, that would fit with the warning he had given Eret.

If Bead had been the murderer, would he have warned them like that? Maybe he had just done it to frighten them away. Had he sent the intruder?

Was the intruder involved in this, or was he simply an ordinary thief who had been paid by someone to warn off Linua and Eret, or maybe search their computers to find out what they knew?

Maybe that was what had scared Bead off, enough for him to disappear.

Maybe … maybe Bead had been killed.

It was an awful thought. No, surely Bead was still alive, and just lying low somewhere. Linua really hoped he was. She would mention it to the rest of the Astronomy Club, and see what they thought.

Linua moved onto Horn.

Bead had said Horn was a nice guy. On the phone call to Solly he had seemed one of those polite, mild, hesitant middle-class types. Anith had said the same thing. She’d found him so unassuming and easy to talk to that she’d told him a lot of the things that the Astronomy Club had found out about the missing artefact.

Linua thought about what Weela Frune had said. Just because someone was polite and friendly on the outside didn’t mean that’s how they felt on the inside. She remembered being summoned to speak to Great-Grandfather Yi, and how she had bitten her tongue and been polite all the way through the meeting. She knew perfectly well what it was like to feel strongly about something on the inside and not show it.

What if Horn was someone like that? Could Horn be the killer?

After all, Horn was the one who was interested in a career in archaeology. Bead had said that he wouldn’t have risked his career to steal an artefact. But what if he thought the artefact was so valuable, or so useful that it was worth it? Or what if he had persuaded Kala to steal it for him?

It was possible, but didn’t explain why he had killed Kala. If you were worried about your career, killing someone was a lot more serious that simply stealing an artefact. Maybe killing Kala had been an accident.

But then Linua remembered the burn mark in Kala’s palm. That wasn’t the kind of thing that happened by accident. Her death seemed deliberate somehow.

It might be that neither Horn nor Bead were the perpetrator—the unsub, as Frune had called him.

But in that case, why had Horn suddenly decided to come to Herkow? Was it because of the artefact? It must have been something that Anith told him. Linua thought back to the conversation Anith had had with Horn. She had told him about the investigation into the missing artefact, Leofryn being missing, the visit to Bead, the subsequent break in, the involvement of the police…

Wait, Anith had said that Horn had been surprised to find out that Leofryn was missing. Why? Surely Horn would have known that already. Leofryn had been his friend. How could he not have noticed that he had been missing for twenty years?

Or did Horn already know about Leofryn and had pretended to be surprised, because he was the unsub.

Why would Horn suddenly decide to come to Herkow? Maybe he was worried about what Bead had said. Maybe Bead knew something that was the key to everything. And Bead had known something, because he had warned Linua and Eret that what they were looking into was dangerous.

There was one place Horn might go if he really was the murderer.

Linua slipped out of the library, dialled Eret’s number, then stretched the phone cord all the way back into the library again.

“Hi, it’s me,” she said, when Eret answered the phone. “Can we change where we’re meeting up tonight?”

They met at the ice cream shop, where Linua bought a round of hot chocolate and ice cream—she now only had thirty-six of her precious shekels left—and explained her reasoning. Pickle frowned thoughtfully, Solly slurped at his floating blob of ice cream, Eret’s eyebrows creased at the idea that Bead might not be the unsub, and Anith sat with her arms crossed.

“Horn isn’t a murderer!” she declared.

“In that case,” Linua said, “you won’t mind if we patrol past Bead’s Boats and keep a look out for him.”

“Do we even know what he looks like?” Pickle asked. “That old student photo isn’t very clear.”

“No, but if a man comes up to Bead’s Boats then it’s probably going to be Horn.”

“I don’t know why I bother warning you about this stuff,” Anith said.

“Anith, it’s busy right now,” Linua pleaded. “It’s completely public. And you said yourself, you don’t think Horn is really a murderer. We can just go and sit on the beach, like any other bunch of teenagers, and keep an eye out. No-one can kidnap us there.”

This plan was immediately scuppered when they traipsed onto the sand and saw that Bead’s Boats was open. Did that mean Bead was back?

Linua and Eret’s hastily formed plan to go up and talk to him was only delayed by Anith’s insistence on various precautions. Anith would stand next to the phone box, while Pickle and Solly stayed near the doorway, in earshot but not obviously with Linua or Eret. If Pickle or Solly saw anything wrong, they would signal Anith immediately, who would call the police. If Linua and Eret took more than fifteen minutes in the boathouse, Anith would call the police.

“What should we ask him?” Linua said, as they ploughed their way through the sand to the open door. The interior was a little too dark to be able to see anything clearly.

“Why he disappeared for several days,” Eret said decisively. “Did he have anything to do with the break in?”

“Those are good questions.”

Eret insisted on going through the door first. Linua followed him, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the lower light level. Bead stood at the far end with his back to them, coiling up ropes in a business-like sort of way.

“We’re back!” Eret said.

Bead turned and saw them, then rolled his eyes.

“Not you two again! I thought I warned you off before.”

“Why did you warn us off?” Linua asked.

“And why did you disappear?” Eret added.

Bead huffed a huge sigh.

“You kids…” he began, and then he did a double take, staring past them at the doorway. Linua and Eret turned.

Standing in the doorway was a mild-looking man wearing jeans and a shirt, with receding hair and glasses. He had ‘academic’ written all over him. He stared at Bead with his mouth open. Bead grimaced.

“Horn.”

Horn opened and closed his mouth several times.

“Leofryn?” he asked incredulously. “Leo, is that you?”

Linua and Eret’s heads swivelled to Bead. No, to the man they had all thought was Bead, who said, “Ahh, crap.”

“Your name isn’t Bead? You’re Leofryn?” Linua asked, still trying to process the revelation.

“Thanks, dummy,” Bead said to Horn. “Yeah, yeah, okay, I’m Leo.”

Linua and Eret glanced at each other.

“Why have you been pretending to be Bead all this time?” Eret demanded.

Bead—or rather Leo—rubbed his hands furiously through his hair, making it stick up in all directions.

“I came to see Bead—the original Bead—when I was, well, it was after uni. This used to be his dad’s place. It was locked up when I came, and I found out that his dad had died. Couldn’t find Bead anywhere at first. Needed somewhere to stay, so I broke in and found it was a mess. Started tidying up. Stayed here for a bit. I was at a loose end because…” Bead-who-was-really-Leo hesitated. “Well, anyway. People started asking to hire the boats, so I sorted started doing it, and everyone sort of thought I was Bead and I didn’t bother correcting them, and you know…”

“You’ve been doing that for twenty years?” Horn asked incredulously, advancing into the boathouse. “Just…” he looked around him. “… just sitting on a beach, pretending to be Bead?”

“I wasn’t just sitting around, I was running a boat business, you know.” Leo sounded annoyed and defensive. “I like it. Or I did, until…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Eret interrupted. He pointed at Leo. “If you’re Leofryn, where the hell has Bead been all this time?”

“And that seems like the perfect opportunity to introduce myself,” a new voice said.

They all turned and looked at the boathouse entrance. A man stood there, wearing a smart, well-cut suit, with an expensive gold watch on his wrist, a signet ring flashing on a finger, and his hair swept into sculpted waves. He had sharp features, intensely blue eyes, and a wide smile filled with even, white teeth.

Horn said, hesitantly, “Bead?”

Leo swore violently.

“I don’t call myself that anymore,” the man said pleasantly. “Nowadays I’m Tuwa Shone.”

Linua realised, disbelief and horror burgeoning inside her, that he must be the unsub.