‘But I got something extra to offer our readers,’ said Erin.

‘I wish you were mine, Erin.’

She smiled and rose. ‘I’ll consider your offer very carefully.’

‘Which one?’ he asked and let his hand slide down over her dress as he kissed her cheek.

Erin raced back to the Daily Echo and started to write up the story. It was another terrific exclusive, and on the basis of her recent track record her editor took the decision to run it without further verification. It was too late for any detailed checks and Erin’s source had been reliable so far. It was too good to miss. The latest news would sell thousands of papers. Murder was big business.

Erin filed her copy at 9.30 p.m. and then took a moment to think about her future. This was the time she had to make a choice. It might not come again. Which way was she going to go? She smiled. It was nice to have a choice for once; she’d never really had that kind of luxury before.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Blue Team

November 24, 4.00 a.m.

Tom Harper was unshaved and smelled like he looked. He hadn’t washed since the arrest and didn’t intend to. He’d worked until midnight interrogating the suspect, reviewing the CCTV images, putting together the team report and briefing his senior and executive officers. He finally laid his head down on the grey blanket of the precinct bunk at 2 a.m. and slept in his clothes for two hours. He woke suddenly at four with a terrible premonition that the killer had escaped him and disappeared down the subway tunnel, laughing like a madman in a film.

He sat up on the edge of the bunk. His head ached and his big hands were still stinging. He looked down at the deep cuts running across both palms from the struggle in the subway and tried to close his fists, but the wounds had started to crack open. He could hear it now - the footsteps in the dark, his own heavy breathing. His hands were still dark with dust and soot. He could even smell the tunnel fumes in his hair and see the arch of light ahead and the silhouette of the killer moving towards it. He sighed long and hard. In the bunk room, four other officers lay flat out, snoring and stinking. Tom pushed himself to his feet and dragged his body towards the coffee pot.

There was no one around in the large investigation room. It glowed pale and ghostly with pre-dawn light. Tom’s eyes scanned the five blue boards with their photographs of pointless slaughter. There wouldn’t be another. Thank God for that. He felt the emotion rising from his thoughts and breathed in quickly. Hundreds of officers had slugged through these past days, working overtime and trying to do something about these killings in their muted, sarcastic, smart-assed but none the less caring way - enough to go home empty, with no energy or emotion for their own lives and families. He nodded his thanks and respect to the empty room. They’d nailed the bastard and now he was sitting in a cell some fifty feet below him, surrounded by cold steel and concrete.

In his right hand, Harper picked up the previous day’s New York Daily Echo. The headline was ‘Serial Killer Turns Cop Killer’. Harper had been right. Erin Nash had been told about the Williamson murder by someone on the team. One day he’d find out who it was and that person would be very sorry. Underneath the headline, there was a composite image of the five female victims with Detective Williamson in the middle, looking more like the killer than one of his victims. Erin Nash didn’t need to try to make this sensational; the grainy print of the photographs was enough of a headline - it gave the faces the aura of tragedy.

Tom walked up to his profile board. Denise Levene had constructed her vision of the killer. He read slowly, sipping scalding coffee slowly over his lips so it burned the tip of his tongue. She’d written seven single traits: High school educated, White, Mid-thirties, Self-controlled, Police/military background, Living with someone, Employed in sales.

Tom took up a blue marker pen and circled two words: White, Thirties. He looked at the rest and crossed a line through the other five traits. It was hard to get a profile right when the killer was as deranged as someone like Winston Carlisle. Even though Denise had been so sure and he’d been convinced himself, it wasn’t a perfect science. It was all guesswork really and profiles were often hit and miss. He took a cloth and scrubbed the profile off the board. No need for recriminations: they had their man.

Harper took the stairs down to the cells. His shoes tapped out a quick beat on the concrete steps.

He walked down the corridor, past the thick steel doors painted in cream enamel, as if this touch of softness could disguise the need to incarcerate untamed human evil. He stood outside the cell. His heart was beating hard in his chest. He read the board. Carlisle, W. He pulled back the bolt, which clinked loudly in the quiet of the cell. He lowered the flap. He felt like a man in a fairground who’d paid to see a monster. He put his eyes to the gap and stared in at the figure sitting on a bunk, staring silently at the floor. This was the Devil - this grey-haired snivelling piece of humanity was the American Devil, but it just didn’t feel right.

All of a sudden, out of the silence Harper heard Captain Lafayette shouting. He listened but couldn’t make out what was being said. He shut the steel flap and hurried upstairs.

Captain Lafayette was sitting in the investigation room. The rest of Blue Team were struggling in from the bunkroom. Lafayette looked deadly serious. He had been woken himself forty minutes earlier when the first copy hit the street. The mayor’s office had been in touch directly. Their words were to the point - ‘What the fuck is happening?’

The men looked at each other in the dark room. Lafayette looked at his men. All of them looked tired. Well, they were going to feel a lot worse in a minute or two. Lafayette threw down a copy of the New York Daily Echo.

‘Read it for yourself.’

Harper moved towards the table and turned the paper round so that the headline faced him. The byline name under the subheading was Erin Nash. He took up the paper and read the report out loud.

AMERICAN DEVIL STILL AT LARGE

PSYCHO SLAUGHTERS BLONDE HEIRESS AS COPS CLAIM CAPTURE

Manhattan’s notoriously sadistic pattern killer, the ‘American Devil’, struck again on the Upper East Side yesterday evening as cops were interviewing the man they believed to be the killer, a source said.

The stripped and mutilated remains of the rubber heiress, Katrina Hunyardi, 23, were found in her apartment an hour after she had been released by the NYPD. She had been raped and stabbed repeatedly with a thin-bladed knife.

The American Devil, who poses his dead victims in macabre and artistic ways, again left his horrifying signature. Kitty Hunyardi was posed like an angel and covered with cherry blossom. As with all his previous kills, the Devil took a trophy - this time, he removed the victim’s hands.

The NYPD yesterday were confident that they had the killer behind bars. So confident, in fact, that only hours after being identified as a target for the killer, Kitty Hunyardi was left without police protection. That mistake cost her life.

Lafayette stared at the team. ‘What the fuck’s going on? I thought we had Katrina Hunyardi? She was in the fucking station yesterday afternoon. Two cops took her home. She ID’d Winston Carlisle. What’s going on?’

Blue Team had no idea. They looked around at each other. ‘It’s got to be some prank,’ said Eddie. ‘Or maybe a copycat.’

‘Have we had any reports? Any homicides yesterday or last night?’ asked Harper. ‘Have we called Kitty? What do we know?’