‘Looks like it,’ said Harper. He opened the brown file and read out the report from the hospital. ‘He was a patient at Kirby Psychiatric. He’s got a long record of treatment for paranoia. Get this. Numerous counts of attempted rape against young women going back a long way.’

‘Sad little bastard,’ said Eddie.

‘It’s not what I expected,’ said Harper. ‘It’s nothing like Dr Levene’s profile. She had him down as a successful guy living with someone. This is a no-self-esteem loner with a history of mental illness. Shit. He must have gone haywire. Probably stopped his medication or something. He was released from the Kirby a month before the first murder. Jesus, we should’ve checked this.’

‘That’s too cruel, man. Someone should’ve been monitoring this guy,’ said Kasper.

Harper pulled back an orange curtain that formed a makeshift wardrobe. The two detectives looked at the hoard. A tin bucket with four bloody knives. Clothes covered in blood. Enough evidence to condemn the man. It was all so casual, so pointless. So fucking avoidable.

‘He wasn’t the clinical, terrifying mastermind I’d suspected. He was a lowlife,’ said Harper. ‘How did we miss this one? Somehow, this man went under the radar. Who was checking out recently released prisoners and patients? They should’ve interviewed this man in the first few days of the investigation. What was Williamson playing at?’

Catching a killer never felt great, but it usually felt good. But this felt really bad. It just seemed so empty. Harper stood at the threshold of the room staring at the bookshelf.

‘What you thinking?’

He looked across at the graphic novels and airport trash and shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, no poetry, no art, nothing.’

‘Well, at least the women of the Upper East Side can sleep easy.’

‘Yeah,’ said Harper. ‘Did anyone make contact with Kitty Hunyardi as yet?’

‘Yeah, we got her off the subway train. She’s being debriefed by Victim Support. She’s fine, just shaken. It’s good we can tell her we’ve got the killer behind bars. She’ll be going home soon.’

‘Good work, Eddie.’

‘Press are all over the precinct, Tom. You need to avoid the front entrance.’

‘What did Lafayette tell them?’

‘We’ve arrested a suspect, nothing more, but they’re hungry as wolves out there so they’re running with any comment they can get from us.’

‘As long as that’s all they’ve got, that’s fine until we charge him.’

Harper and Kasper walked out of Winston Carlisle’s room. The forensics team were there ready to collect the evidence that would condemn him.

They were all exhausted by the events of the day as they headed back to the precinct. Most of the detectives would go home, but not Harper. He wanted to interrogate this killer until he understood what the hell had happened over the past few weeks.

It was the end of November and the team were all ready for a break. Catching the devil felt hollow now, but in a day or two the feeling of relief would come, the blondes would emerge from the shadows and New York would start to glimmer again. Glimmer and forget the horror.

On his return to the precinct, Harper got straight down to the darkened observation room. Denise Levene had been called in and she stood there with Lafayette and a couple of Blue Team, all crowding round the window watching the interview room and Winston Carlisle through the mirror. Two detectives were still going at him. Soon, it would be Harper and Kasper’s turn again.

‘Hard to believe when you get them in captivity, isn’t it?’ said Captain Lafayette. ‘He’s admitting he followed the girl, but he says he didn’t hurt anyone. He’s smart.’

Harper’s eyes found Denise. ‘What do you think, Doctor?’

‘My profile said seven things about this killer. This guy only ticks two boxes, so you know what I think. He doesn’t fit the profile. You sure it’s him?’

‘I’ve just been to his room in the halfway house. We found bloody knives in his room, the girls’ bloody clothes. Looks like it was him, Denise.’

‘Well, he doesn’t fit the usual pattern. Either I’m way off or this guy is not who he appears to be.’

‘He’s got a history of sexual assault but no murders. This seemed to come out of all those years inside Kirby.’

‘Minor sexual assault and long periods of incarceration doesn’t make a killer, does it?’

‘It could’ve been in his head a long time. You just don’t know what’s inside these guys.’

‘I do,’ said Denise. ‘I’ve spent ten years finding out.’ She walked closer to the glass and stared into the frightened face of Winston Carlisle. It wasn’t nice to be wrong, and ten years of interviewing killers was telling her she wasn’t.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Downtown Restaurant

November 23, 8.28 p.m.

Across town, Erin Nash of the New York Daily Echo was sitting in a plush restaurant dining with a deputy editor from a rival paper. Short-haired, slim and wiry, Erin was pure-bred New York stock. Her father was still a barber in Brooklyn. Her favourite colour was gunmetal grey; her favourite drink was a shot and one day she would be an editor. For now, she was intent on just getting up the first few rungs of the ladder. The editor sitting opposite thought she looked cute, like an angry little elf with big brown eyes. The Daily Post had been impressed with her crime coverage. The Echo’s circulation was up 32 per cent on the basis of her exclusives and this impressed the editor even more.

Jed Brown was leathery-skinned but his hands were soft from daily moisturizer. He looked across at Erin’s fierce concentration. ‘What do you make of the arrest? You got any inside information?’

‘No, just what everyone’s got. Some guy was pulled out of the subway and they’re interrogating.’

‘Could be it’s him.’

‘Could be. We’ll have to wait and see.’

‘If it is, that means your little goldmine comes to an end.’

‘There’s a book in this, if I can get access to the killer.’

‘How will you do that?’

‘Give up my source to the NYPD in exchange for access. If they’ve got the killer, I don’t need my source any more.’

‘You’re quite a determined player,’ Jed said, and smiled. ‘Who is he?’

‘A cop on the homicide team with a liking for reporters.’

‘You’ve got no scruples about that?’

‘I do what I got to do,’ she replied, her spoon about to enter the little bowl of Roquefort and asparagus soup.

‘You want to play a numbers game?’ asked Jed. His blue eyes were clear and attractive, but he was too old for Erin. And she’d never gone for the perma-tan look.

‘No harm playing,’ she replied.

Jed let his top lip crinkle up into a reptile smile and wrote six figures on the linen napkin in blue biro.

‘Want to wipe your mouth on that?’

Erin picked up the napkin and moved it to her mouth. She read the number. ‘My,’ she said. ‘That’s a big one.’

Jed laughed with an overexcited bullet-like rattle and nodded. ‘Is that a yes, Miss Nash?’

‘A yes to what?’ she replied. God, this was so easy.

She didn’t have time to hear his answer. Her cell phone lit up with a flash and she picked it up. She listened to the voice on the line, her face bright and animated as the caller revealed his story. As she listened, her face drained of colour. Jed watched with interest as she wrote down everything in her notebook and ended the call. She looked up at her host. She needed to get back to the office.

‘Sorry, Mr Brown. That was my friend in the NYPD. I’ve just had a real interesting breaking news story on this American Devil and I’ve got some urgent copy to file.’

‘What is it? Everyone’s waiting for confirmation that they’ve caught him.’