The right-hand door opened unexpectedly and The Secretary came out, accompanied by a man.

Today was a day of rest, between the glories of yesterday and tomorrow, between the satisfaction of what had been done and the excitement of what would happen next. He had a few hours spare so he had decided to come and look at her. Watching The Secretary was an extra, a pleasurable add-on. He had just seen her pass in front of the bow window, easily recognizable because of her bright hair. Though he had made it his business to find out her real name, inside his own head he called her The Secretary. A girl called Robin Ellacott lived on the ground floor. Two white front doors had been crammed together side by side, showing that the three-story building had been converted into upper and lower flats. This house had a small front garden, black railings and a lawn in need of mowing. A nicer place to live, admittedly, than the tiny flat where yesterday's blood-stiffened clothing lay in black bin bags, awaiting incineration, and where his knives lay gleaming, washed clean with bleach, rammed up behind the U-bend under the kitchen sink. He sucked his middle finger, happy and at peace, leaning up against the warm wall in the weak April sunshine, his eyes on the house opposite. With a thrill of excitement he reflected that nobody knew what he had done, nor what he was planning to do next. Even to know how they looked at the moment of death was an intimacy way past anything two living bodies could experience. They belonged to you once you had killed them: it was a possession way beyond sex. He felt serene and uplifted, as though he had absorbed her, as though her life had been transfused into him. The ferrous tang recalled the smell of the torrent that had splashed wildly onto the tiled floor, spattering the walls, drenching his jeans and turning the peach-colored bath towels-fluffy, dry and neatly folded-into blood-soaked rags.Ĭolors seemed brighter this morning, the world a lovelier place. After a minute's fruitless scraping, he put the bloody nail in his mouth and sucked. He set to digging it out, although he quite liked seeing it there: a memento of the previous day's pleasures.

A dark line like a parenthesis lay under the middle fingernail of his left hand. He had not managed to scrub off all her blood.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith