Harper knew what was coming next.

‘And with a high forehead and square jaw.’

It was Ryan Gleason. But what was he playing at? Did he want to get caught?

‘We’ll need to test the letter for forensics. Have you touched it?’

‘Well yes, I didn’t think –‘

‘Please don’t handle it any more. It may offer some valuable clues. Where are you?’

‘In Guerrero Negro, Baja.’

‘Great – stay there and I’ll get someone over within the next couple of hours.’

‘Okay.’

‘And thanks for getting in touch with me. I know some guys would have wanted to take the law into their own hands and –‘

‘Well, yeah. I did think about it – for a minute or so before turning chicken. Guess I’m too much of a coward.’

‘Not at all, Paul. Not at all.’

As Harper cut the line a new sense of urgency filled the investigations room. It could be nothing – like Taylor said, nothing more than a cruel hoax – but Harper sensed that this was the one clue they had been waiting for. He still didn’t understand what the fuck was going on. The truth seemed to hover like a black shadow at the edge of his brain. Each time he tried to bring the dark shape closer it disappeared, leaving him with an all-consuming sense of dread. Soon he would have to face the blackness, he knew, but would he have the courage to acknowledge it?

The voice of Curtis broke his train of thought.

‘Okay, this is what we’ve got on Carl Reckard,’ she said, standing up from her computer. ‘Born 1971 in Kansas. Mother died when he was seven. Grew up with his father on a farm outside of Russell, in the northwest. Seems to have suffered from mental health problems as an adolescent. Ran away from home at the age of 15, but father never reported him as missing. Lived at various addresses in the Los Angeles area, where he was being treated for paranoid schizophrenia. Last known address is Irondale Avenue, Chatsworth – which is, wait for this – just around the block from the address mentioned in Taylor’s letter.’

‘Okay – check them out. Two cars. I want both places searched at the same time. And Lansing - get on to Reckard senior, see if he’s had any contact with his son.’

‘And what should we do about Roberta?’ asked Holt.

Fuck. He had forgotten about her.

‘Ask her to wait. Tell her it’s for her own good.’

‘And if she wants to leave?’

‘Stop her. It’s not safe for her to go back home now.’

53

She had just met a friend downtown for a drink and was on her way back to her apartment when her Blackberry vibrated. She tapped the screen. She had three new emails. Probably something really dull from a public relations company or, even worse, a reader. God, she hated it when the general public got in contact asking her to follow up a story. Often she was sent useless bits of gossip from malicious neighbours motivated by petty squabbles over land disputes, tree felling or illicit love affairs. Usually, if she didn’t recognise the sender’s name, she would delete it straight away. She consigned the first two messages to her trash, but there was something about the third one that immediately forced her to take notice. ‘Information regarding the killer of Sara-Jane Gable,’ it read. She had trained herself not to get her hopes up, not to get too excited, but this sounded interesting.

She clicked on the email, its contents stopping her in her tracks. If what she had been sent was true then it could lead to the scoop of her career. Signed from a well-wisher, the email provided her with the name and address of the Sara-Jane’s murderer. Most likely he was the same man who had sent the fingertips to Cassie Veringer, the tongue to Jordan Weislander and the eyes to Dale Hoban.

Buoyed up by two vodka martinis, she ran to the lot where her car was parked. She took out her laptop and searched for the name Carl Reckard. Nothing came up of any relevance. She tried again using LexisNexis. Again nothing. Who was this guy? She did another search for the address. Nada. What about the white pages? The number wasn’t listed. There was only one sure way to find out whether the tip-off was real. It was dangerous, for sure. But this kind of story was worth the risk.

She tapped in the address into her GPS and set off from downtown towards Chatsworth. This could be it, she thought. Her chance to show her bosses what she was made of. She had wowed them in the past, for sure, but she had never covered anything like this. This kind of story was big. This was the Pulitzer prize. What was it that bitch Kate Cramer had said? That she had made up that story about her mother. That nobody would ever love her. Well, after reading this particular piece all the world would stand up and take notice of her. And surely that kind of attention was just as good as love.

As she drove, she thought about calling the out of hours LAPD media office to see if the cops were on to the story. But she knew those fuckers. They wouldn’t be able to confirm or deny it. And, if the police had not already been tipped off, they would certainly get to the address in Chatsworth quicker than she could. If that was the case, by the time she arrived they would already have cordoned off the house and she would have lost the exclusive. No, in order to make this happen she would have to work alone.

By the time she had reached Chatsworth she felt alive with adrenaline. No matter what anyone said, there was nothing like chasing a story. It was something people like Cramer just didn’t understand. And what was wrong with that woman anyway? She had chosen to throw away what sounded like a really cool job piecing together dead people’s faces to work as a photographer. And not even a press photographer. She was some kind of ‘artist’ now. Yeah, right. In her book that was just another word for failure.

The GPS guided her through a network of dark streets until she came to Itasca. She slowed down as she approached number 20941. The house looked shabby, run-down, neglected, but it didn’t look particularly sinister. But how was the home of a killer supposed to appear? Like something from a horror film? No, she had enough experience of human nature to know that it was often the most respectable of facades that concealed the most extreme forms of evil.

She got out of the car and looked up and down the street. Great. There were no cops. She was going to be the first.

She grabbed the rape alarm from her purse and dropped it into her jacket pocket. If there was any hint of trouble she would not hesitate to use it; she was certain out here in the valley the neighbours would call the cops. From her trunk she took out a can of pepper spray. A last resort in case things got messy.