‘No, Lieutenant, it doesn’t sound fair.’

‘So, what was it you objected to, Harper? You didn’t like my insinuations?’

‘I didn’t like any part of it at all,’ said Harper, ‘or your tone of voice.’

‘Really. My tone of voice. Hey, guys, he doesn’t like my beautiful voice.’

They laughed like eager sycophants. Harper looked around quickly. This wasn’t good news. These four guys were all strong, and people fighting together tended to get all excited like a pack of hounds and do real damage. They could bust him up pretty bad. He couldn’t see a way out. There were too many of them. He let his arms hang down by his sides.

‘These your men, Lieutenant?’

‘These guys are just visiting the city. They stopped by and offered me a helping hand.’

‘Let it go, Jarvis. I hit you because you called my wife a whore.’

‘I still say she’s a whore. She’s shacked up with a lawyer over in New Jersey. She made that move real quick. Makes you think, doesn’t it, Harper? I heard the reason she left is because you used those fists of yours once too often. Well, me and my boys are going to make it hard for you to ever use those fists again. In the name of public safety and women’s liberation.’

Harper bristled. But it was just what Jarvis wanted. The bad cop throwing a punch.

‘Didn’t you hear me, Harper? Lisa Vincenti was fucking every guy in the department while you were out all night chasing Eric Romario. She got real lonely. Liked it every which way, I heard. Now she’s done with the department and has moved on to the courts.’

Harper’s two hands were fists now, and the anger was rising. He took a step forward. Then stopped. ‘I ain’t gonna rise to it.’

‘You don’t need to,’ Jarvis spat.

One of the three gorillas stepped forward, then another. They grabbed Harper at each elbow and shoulder and marched him down the alleyway. The third gorilla opened a long canvas bag that was sitting by the dumpster and took out a serious-looking sledgehammer. Harper was held fast as Jarvis moved in.

‘You know what this is, Harper?’

‘I know what it is and I know what you are - a fucking coward. You do this, Jarvis, and I’ll hunt you down.’

‘With what? You going to slap me with your big flat hands?’

‘I’ll hunt you down, Jarvis, and every one of these monkeys.’

‘You do that. I just want you to remember the last person you hit with those fists and what a stupid thing that was.’

‘Jarvis, this is way beyond necessary. I’m working the case because they need me. There’s a killer out there.’

‘Put his arm on the dumpster,’ called Jarvis.

Harper resisted and strained with all his strength as the three men held him and prised his arm from his side, but they were too strong. Against three of them he couldn’t do anything, not with his hands held firm.

They held his wrist down on the lid of the dumpster, so that his fist was lying ready to be mashed to pieces. Jarvis picked up the big carbon-steel sledgehammer. ‘Let this be a lesson you don’t forget.’

He pulled the long handle up over his head and then held it for a moment. ‘Ready?’ The hammer flew down at speed. Harper’s skill, learned from hours in the ring, wasn’t just in the extra pound per inch he could force down those four knuckles, it was in the ability to keep his eyes open when facing danger and to make split-second decisions.

As the hammer fell, the three gorillas closed their eyes and leaned away from the point of impact. It was the natural thing to do. The gorilla holding his wrist even moved his hand up Harper’s forearm.

It was a tiny miscalculation on their part, but enough. Harper watched the sledgehammer fall and twisted his wrist and hand about three inches to the right. It was enough to move out of the line of the hammerhead, which thudded with a massive shock into the steel dumpster, the loud bellow of sheet metal against carbon steel echoing both ways down the alley. The four assailants flinched in the aftermath and gave Harper enough of an opening. Harper pulled his left arm free. He already had his targets mapped out. Four blows. He could get four shots off in under two seconds. Trained to do it.

At his best, Harper could throw a punch at around ten metres per second. None of the four guys was more than a metre from him, which gave the first about a tenth of a second to see the straight left coming at him and parry or duck. He had barely clocked it when the full force of Harper’s 300 kilograms of pressure burst on to his jaw in the form of a clenched fist. His head flew back, his neck jolted and he was flat on his back, out cold.

The second guy had a little longer, but Harper turned with a right hand uppercut which hit the point of his jaw and lifted him to the tip of his toes.

The third guy was now backing off, which was a damn good thing because Harper hadn’t held back with the power and was pretty sure he’d broken bones in both his hands. He turned to Jarvis.

‘This time I’ll forgive you out of respect for your stupidity, but play a trick like that again and I’ll hurt you. Do you understand?’

‘Fuck you,’ said Jarvis, picking up the sledgehammer. It was about as stupid a move as he could’ve made. With both hands wielding the hammer, he was a sitting duck. Harper moved his torso out of the way, bounced back on to his front foot and gave Jarvis a repeat performance, this time with the full force of his elbow. Jarvis’s jaw shattered like glass for the second time and the sledgehammer clattered to the ground.

Chapter Eleven

Precinct House

November 17, 6.20 a.m.

After a four-hour sleep in the bunkhouse and a trip to the department doctor, Harper took his bruised but unbroken knuckles back up to the precinct house. His role in the investigation was to find a way into the case, which meant getting to know the killer, and he had some catching up to do. He wanted to see the crime scene for Mary-Jane’s murder and called Eddie Kasper at home. ‘You need to take me through the reports of victim number one. I know the basics - I’ve got the autopsy protocol right here. I know what he did to her, I just want to see how it happened. This first kill triggered off the next two, that’s my thinking.’

‘It’s six a.m., Harper. Don’t you sleep?’

‘We got a case to crack. Eddie, I expected a little more commitment from you of all people.’

‘Fuck that, I’m kinda busy on a different kind of commitment here. Can’t it wait?’

‘I’m back on the case, Eddie, and that means you’re mine. Now get over here.’

On the other end of the phone, a woman’s voice came on the line. ‘There’s only one woman in Eddie’s life and she’s lying next to him, so who the fuck are you?’

Eddie and Harper agreed to meet in the Upper East Side residential street where the first victim was found. Eddie drove up with a look of disapproval on his face. He jumped out of his car and threw the door shut.

‘It’s no good you smiling, Harper, you don’t have to face her. She’s not a woman you want to displease. Especially not when it comes to her conjugal rights.’

‘It was six a.m. You two were fast asleep.’

‘It don’t matter to her. I need to be right there on tap, should she have any such need.’

‘Well, she’s a lucky lady.’

‘That’s what I tell her. Shit, man, what the hell did you do to your hands?’

Harper started walking. ‘I got them caught in a door.’

‘Both of them? That’s a hell of a door.’

Harper kept Kasper walking towards the first crime scene - a four-bed apartment in a luxury building. Mary-Jane had been found dead in the hallway of her own home.

Harper opened the door to the apartment. The family had since moved out. They’d never move back, either. Their lives had been destroyed. Mrs Samuelson had come home, opened the door and seen her daughter, exposed and bloody on the floor. Harper held up a photograph of the scene.