No Cure For Love by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

definitely an eastern city, anyway. It came complete with grimy tenements, fire escapes out front, black metal railings, fading ads for Pears soap and Dr Graves high on the end-of-block walls, and even something that looked like a New York subway exit in the middle of the sidewalk. There were basement shops and restaurants, too, all of them empty.
    One corner shop, down some steps with black railings at each side, had been given signs proclaiming it as a video rental centre, and that was where the cameras, actors and studio technicians were milling around filming a scene. All around it, scaffolding had been erected to accommodate the various lights and camera angles. A couple of  TV cop cars were parked outside at sharp angles, and some of the actors were wearing Kevlar vests.
    The coffee arrived. After Stuart’s secretary had poured, Arvo sat down and asked, ‘What can I do for you this time?’ He had helped a couple of Stuart’s clients in the past couple of years, and he liked the man. Stuart Kleigman was one of the old guard, a gentleman in a business populated largely by sharks and cut-throats, and he had still managed to hold on to a good reputation. His easygoing exterior, Arvo guessed, must cover a mind like a steel trap and guts of seasoned leather.
    Stuart handed over the letter and polished the lenses of his glasses. ‘It’s the third,’ he said.
    Arvo picked up the envelope carefully and sniffed it first. You never knew. He had come across any number of enclosures in his time, from that used tampon the soap star had received to human excrement, dried oregano and even a half-eaten tuna salad sandwich.
    Nothing this time. Just a plain, clean paper smell. He took out the letter and examined the printed typeface, then he ran his finger carefully over the front and back of the single page. No indentations. Which probably meant a laser printer, most likely, or an inkjet. Very clean and impersonal.
    Arvo read the letter, then he put it down on the desk. He had seen hundreds of these things, and in most cases there was nothing to worry about; the suspect was unlikely to harm the victim, no matter how vile and terrifying his threats and fantasies looked on paper. In most cases, writing letters was about all they could manage.
    In most cases.
    But there was always the exception, the possibility. Victims had been hurt, even killed by people who started off writing letters. While Arvo couldn’t predict the level of danger, he could assess it statistically. But to do that he needed more than one letter. He needed a pattern of obsessive behaviour he could analyze and compare to the profiles already on file.
    ‘Well?’ asked Stuart. ‘You think there’s anything to worry about?’
    ‘What happened to the other two?’
    ‘She destroyed them.’
    ‘Did the subject sign a name on any of them?’
    ‘She didn’t say.’
    It was odd that the writer didn’t identify himself with anything other than the initial, M. Usually people who wrote letters like that wanted their victims to know who they were. This one seemed to want her to guess who he was, if the contents of the letter were to be believed. A big if.
    ‘Any phone calls?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘What about visits? Home or studio?’
    Stuart shook his head. ‘Not that we know of.’
    ‘Has anyone been stalking her?’
    ‘No. I mean, she did say she felt there might have been someone watching her from a distance. Through binoculars.’ He shrugged. ‘Just a feeling, though.’
    ‘Could it be someone she’s dumped lately getting revenge, trying to scare her?’ Arvo asked.
    Stuart leaned forward and rested his hands on the desk. ‘Arvo, Sarah hasn’t been seeing anyone lately. In fact she hasn’t been seeing anyone all the time I’ve known her, which is nearly a whole year.’
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘I’m sure.’
    ‘Anything like this ever happen to her before?’
    ‘Not that I know of. And she would’ve told me.’
    ‘Who’s “Little Star”?’
    ‘She