Or the maggots had eaten it.

Riker turned away, wondering if this woman had been as pretty as Sparrow. He hunkered down on the floor in front of the kitchenette sink and picked up her wallet with his gloved hand. Opening it, he stared at the photograph on her driver’s license. Yes, she had been very pretty, but Kennedy Harper had borne no resemblance to Sparrow beyond the hacked-off hair of another scalping. He set the wallet on the floor, positioned as he had found it among the spilled contents of a purse. He moved to one side to allow a crime-scene technician room to dust the jar of dead, dry flies. Even before the man shook his head, Riker knew there would be no fingerprints.

The detective looked up to see Heller standing by the door with a uniformed officer and signing a receipt for an armload of garments in clear plastic bags. After ripping the plastic away from one hanger, the criminalist held up a pale green blouse and motioned to Riker. ‘You might wanna look at this.’ Heller turned the blouse around to display a large faded X on the back. Affixed to this stain was the dry cleaner’s We’re-so-sorry sticker.

‘I’ve seen this mark before,’ said Heller, ‘on a shirt I found wadded up under Sparrow’s sink. She used hers for a cleaning rag.’

‘So it’s not a random killing.’ Mallory joined them over the body. ‘We’ve got a stalker.’

‘Yeah,’ said Riker. The Xon the blouse worked nicely with her theory on the new locks installed a week before the murder. ‘He sees the women on the street. Then he marks their shirts to make it easier to follow them home in a crowd – like tagging animals in the wild.’ Unlike Kennedy Harper, Sparrow had not complained about the stalking, the terror. Prostitutes were not given the same service as human beings.

Sparrow, why didn’t you come to me?

The East Side lieutenant had put in a personal appearance instead of sending one of his minions to the crime scene, and Mallory saw this as an admission of guilt for the mistakes made on his watch.

‘I brought her package.’ Lieutenant Loman spoke only to Riker, pretending that Mallory was not in the room. ‘The complaints started a few weeks ago. Some pervert was following the girl.’

After accepting the envelope, Riker pulled out four papers encased in plastic, each bearing the same brief message. Loman was tense, almost standing at attention, and Mallory wondered if this was a habit from the days when Riker had held the rank of captain.

‘Kennedy found those notes in her pockets.’ Loman mopped his bald head and brow with a handkerchief. ‘Pretty harmless stuff.’

Riker responded with a noncommittal nod, then scanned the paperwork attached to the evidence bags.

The lieutenant stared at the stained green blouse draped over the detective’s arm. ‘She brought that into the station house. She said the perp did it on the subway. You should find a T-shirt marked up the same way. And the notes – every time she found one in her pocket, she’d been in a crowd of people – the subway, a store. That’s why Kennedy never got a good look at the guy.’

Mallory noted the use of the victim’s first name. It was common for homicide detectives to speak of the dead with this familiarity; but Loman’s squad had only known Kennedy Harper as a living woman, one civilian complainant out of thousands. She stared at the man in silent accusation.

You turned that woman into a pet, didn’t you?

The lieutenant avoided Mallory’s eyes while he waited for Riker to say something – anything. ‘She never saw the perp’s face. What could we do?’

‘Did you put an extra patrol on this street?’

And now the lieutenant was forced to acknowledge Mallory, for Riker looked up from his reading, and he was also showing interest in her question.

‘No,’ said Loman. ‘It was that damn virus. The uniforms were spread too thin for extra patrols.’

Mallory only shook her head. It would be gross insubordination to call him a liar out loud. Kennedy Harper was dead before the virus had grown to an epidemic in this part of town. And Loman’s men had found lots of time to visit with pretty Kennedy Harper. She had even come to the attention of the squad’s commander.

Riker selected one piece of paper with dried blood on it and held it up to the lieutenant’s eyes.

It was a moment before Loman spoke. ‘That was the last note. The perp used a hatpin to nail it into the back of her neck. Kennedy walked into the station house – dripping blood – and the note was still staked to her skin.’

Mallory knew there was only one reason for a victim to go to that extreme: it was the woman’s plea for them to take her seriously – because they never had before.

Riker read the bloodied note aloud: ‘ „I can touch you any time I want.“‘

‘That was the day she snapped,’ said Loman. ‘Told us she was leaving town. Well, we thought that was a real good idea. One of my men got her some coffee and a first-aid kit. I made her plane reservation for Bermuda.’

How kind of you, how helpful.

‘Did you do anything else for her?’

‘Yes!’ Loman turned to Mallory, and he was on the offensive now. ‘The girl was in shock. I got a police escort to take her to the hospital. And then they drove her back home. After that, all she had to do was take a cab to the airport.’

You left her alone.

Mallory edged toward the lieutenant. ‘There was no follow-up?’

‘No! What the hell for? As far as we knew, she was on the way to Bermuda.’

Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope had arrived to give this case his personal attention. He knelt on the floor and rolled the corpse to expose a ruined face for the police photographer.

‘Well, this is different,’ said Heller, and everyone in the room turned to look at the dead woman. Flies crawled among the strands of long blonde hair that trailed from her mouth. The rope’s double knot had snagged on her teeth and pried her mouth open, spreading the lips in a death’s-head grin. ‘Looks like she almost got away.’

Only Mallory was watching Lieutenant Loman’s reaction. His face was pale, and his mouth was slack. This veteran of a thousand crime scenes was about to be sick. He was most vulnerable now, and she stepped closer, her shoulder touching his. ‘So then, the reporters stopped by with their murder tip… and still no follow-up? Sir?’

‘My men didn’t know about that.’ Again, he spoke only to Riker. ‘The desk sergeant never mentioned any reporters. As far as he was concerned, the lady was in Bermuda. He was going off duty, and it wasn’t worth his time to walk up a damn flight of stairs and talk to us. I promise you, his head’s gonna roll.’

Ah, too late.

Mallory perused the folder. ‘We need more men to work this case.’

‘Well, now you guys got two more. Just tell me – ’

‘Three,’ said Riker. ‘Make it three. You came up one short the last time you promised her some help.’

‘You got it,’ said the lieutenant. ‘We’re finished?’

Riker nodded, giving a man who outranked him permission to leave. Loman turned on his heel and started across the room. Mallory wondered if he would make it to the street before he vomited.

Dr Slope supervised the removal of the body, then remained behind to study a drawing of the apartment floorplan. Heller squatted next to the victim’s fallen purse and began to draw another diagram on his sketch pad, noting all the scattered items and their positions.

Mallory knelt beside him and studied the objects around the purse. ‘Looks like a struggle.’

‘No.’ Heller drew black crayon circles around the fallen items. ‘It’s a nice tight pattern. These things just fell out when she dropped her purse. The way I see it, she was standing here when something made her jump.’

Riker stared at the front door. ‘I count three locks and a chain, but no sign of a break-in. This woman was nervous as hell. I don’t see her opening the door for a stranger.’