Once in his apartment, he had a fixed routine. He used chloroform, which meant you could bathe them without having to restrain them.

He opened the case and the curled body of Lucy James lay inside like a little snail in a shell. Maurice stroked her cheek. She did look different from his previous girls. She looked younger, and clean too. Much more healthy than the others. Maybe she was new to the game. Still, it didn’t matter much to him. She’d be just as nice to take care of and hug up to.

He picked her up and put her on the bed. Lying flat out, she was probably only just five foot three inches tall. A real little ’un, he thought. He liked her, though. He liked her little button nose and her straight shiny hair. Her skin smelled of cream.

He was light as air as he tiptoed into the bathroom to run a bath. He put in some special nice bubbles that he bought from the store and opened his bathroom cabinet. It was stocked with things he thought his girls might like. Anything a girl could want.

He returned to the girl with a bottle of disinfectant and some cotton wool. He dabbed the dried blood from her head. There was an inch-long gash from the cosh, but it would heal real soon.

Then he undressed her, took her denim skirt off, her black pantyhose and black panties. Her jacket came next and a large pink woolly sweater and a T-shirt. No brassiere. That was new, but it was good if she didn’t wear one. Buying brassieres was not easy. The girl lay naked on his bed. Mo looked on, scared by his own trembling excitement.

Maurice took her clothes to his little desk and took out a notebook. He flicked through the pages. He came to the next blank page. He wrote her name real neat. It was Lucy. He liked that, too. Lucy with the button nose. Yes.

He took each item of clothes one at a time and wrote the details in his notebook. The size, the colour and anything else. He just liked to know so that when he went to the department store he could get something right for her. He wanted to keep her for a good long time.

He wrote down:

Skirt - blue, denim, short, petite

Sweater - pink, wool, small

T-shirt - orange, cotton, Jeff Beck logo, petite

Pantyhose - black, opaque

Panties - black, size six, polyester and cotton

Now he knew the girl liked different colours and was size small or petite. It felt good to know a little more about her.

The trickle of water from the hot faucet had filled the bath and Maurice lifted the girl into it. He liked the washing and cleaning and looking after. He soaped her all up with a sponge and got her all clean and soft. Then he put her in a nightdress and laid her back on the bed.

The restraints were not strictly necessary as the room had no window and the only door was locked with a single key Maurice kept on a string round his neck. But still, it was best at the start in case they went crazy at you.

He had a really good set of bed restraints straight from a mental hospital that a guy gave him for nothing. The bracelets were leather on the outside and a soft material inside so it didn’t hurt their wrists and ankles. There were four body restraints but he left these untied. She was only a little thing. He couldn’t imagine she’d need them.

When the job was finished, Maurice sat and turned on the TV. He liked TV. He liked to watch it with his girlfriends. It was like being married, sitting there together with the TV on, and it made him feel safe and happy.

He couldn’t wait to go to bed and hug up close to her and smell her hair. He reckoned she might be a stayer if only he could keep her alive. It was hard to keep them alive, just like the rabbits he used to be allowed to keep. Sometimes they just died on you. Maybe it was the cold, maybe they were scared or maybe Mo just wasn’t feeding them right.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Harper’s Apartment

November 27, 6.14 a.m.

The red display on the bedside clock in Tom’s apartment read 6.14 a.m. A crumpled cotton quilt lay half across his outstretched body. The room smelled of sweat and whisky. In the hour-before-dawn stillness, a sharp knock rang out. Four hard and fast raps on the apartment door.

Harper stirred slowly and listened. Again, he heard four short knocks. He flicked the lamp on. He certainly wasn’t expecting visitors. Whoever it was knocked again. Tom stood up and nearly reeled over on unsteady legs. The room was still coming together out of hazy grey dots. He didn’t like this. Who wanted him at this time of day? Perhaps it was just Eddie with a new story to tell him. He hoped.

In the living room, Harper quietly pulled on his jeans and stared out into the darkness. He could see the light in the hallway under his door. He could see the shadow of two feet. He edged round the room, keeping out of the line of the door, and took up a position low to the floor. The knocking continued. It was a careful, precise knock. He suddenly imagined it was Lisa standing in the corridor and felt his heart hammer in his chest.

‘Who is it?’ he called out.

‘It’s me,’ replied the voice quietly. It was Denise. Harper felt his anxiety begin to recede. He’d left Denise hours earlier. Plenty of time to get drunk. He remembered slow-dancing long into the early hours. He pulled on a T-shirt and opened the door.

She stood there in a long black coat. It had snowed again on her way over. Her hair was wet and she was holding a black and red notebook.

‘Denise.’

‘You can’t give up on this one, Tom. Not just yet. Not now. Listen, I went through my notes. I’ve been working on the profile. I know you say you’re not working the case, but we can still help. We’ve already done some good work, but there are some errors and our analysis doesn’t go far enough.’

‘Denise.’

‘If we use my earlier profile, we’re looking for a married salesman with a high school education. Too many people. We need to be more precise. Until we’re precise, no one’s going to recognize this guy.’

‘Denise,’ he said for the third time.

‘I know who I am, Tom. Now put some coffee on, we’ve got work to do here. You and I could get somewhere on this one. We can pass our profile to Blue Team and see if it helps. Then we leave it, all right? We can call it quits and walk away. But we’ve got to give them what we know.’

Harper smiled. She was sure determined and he liked it. And what’s more, she was right. He went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. He stood at the door and watched as she took off her coat. It sparkled with melting snowflakes.

He put the coffee on the table and she sat down. ‘I’ve been up all night, but we’re going to have to go through this line by line. I want a perfect picture of the killer. By the time we finish, we need to be able to determine where he buys his socks. You ready?’

‘I’m ready,’ Harper said. He had a sceptical smile on his face but Denise was more than ready for his attitude.

She opened her notebook. ‘My profile was all right, but it’s general. I’ve tried to add some specifics. Let’s see what you think.’

Tom nodded.

‘To begin with,’ she said, ‘we’re dealing with an SSSK: a sexually sadistic serial killer. That tells us one important thing - SSSKs don’t stop until they’re caught or killed. The ultimate fantasy for the SSSK is control. The collection of trophies is an example of possession and the expression of the fantasy. The taking of the body parts indicates a need to possess the dead as well as the living. The killer needs trophies because he does not feel adequate with women. And we’ll see this in his work and home life.’

Tom sat down next to her. She was a scientist, but she was homing in on the kind of person the killer might appear to be from the perspective of his wife or colleagues. It was promising.