‘These are my profile notes,’ said Denise, and handed him her notebook. Tom flicked over the pages.

‘He’s a man with two sides, a kind considerate man who has violent mood swings. He might even hit his wife, but be overly sentimental with children. He has a fixation with being loved because it’s the only way to fulfil his needs, but he will not be sexually active with his wife.’

Tom smiled. ‘You’re describing Average Joe, Denise. He’s a good guy who sometimes gets angry, he loves his wife but loses his temper, and they’ve lost touch with each other.’

‘It’s not Average Joe,’ said Denise. ‘Listen carefully. His mood swings are violent. He will be sentimental with his wife at times and then get angry. He will enjoy hurting her. Enjoy it because it allows him to control how she thinks and feels. That’s what he wants. He wants to own the narrative. He sees himself as a martyr who loves too much, too intensely, who is not loved enough in return. The unusual feature of this case is that he’s gone for sophisticated victim types - maybe prostitutes as well, but we’ll leave that for now. These high society girls are the unobtainable angels. Either this is because he’s got this whore/ Madonna thing going on or it’s something practical. My thinking is that he indulges himself with these girls to prove he’s not the loser he inwardly knows he is. He’s living out some fantasy life in which he is a part of these women’s lives. If Lottie Bixley is his, then it indicates that there is a strong need to feed the impulse to kill. He might have two modes - an organized mode and a disorganized mode. I’ve never seen that in the same killer before.’

‘Or he’s just trying to fuck with the profilers,’ said Tom, sipping coffee.

‘It’s not out of the question after what he did to set up Winston Carlisle. Or it could be more banal than that. If I’m right about Lottie Bixley, then he also had access to a house for four days in November when the family were away. He might have been alone at home and needed someone quick - so he took a hooker.’

Harper nodded. ‘The Lottie connection is very slight, but you might have something, Denise, so go on.’

‘Okay. He drives a car, possibly a blue car. He’s in his late thirties or early forties and is clean shaven with dark or greying hair. He has an interest in poetry and art, again because it makes him feel like less of a loser. He likes going to museums like the Frick and MoMA. They make him feel intelligent and sophisticated. He lives somewhere off the Triborough Bridge, possibly in the North Queens area, and works in and around North Manhattan, but he’s on the move. That’s why he’s less worried about being identified. I think he sees lots of different people all the time. He owns a garage or workshop of some sort and is often away from home for extended periods in the evening. He needs to be in East Harlem and on Ward’s Island more frequently than other locations. There’s a reason for that. I don’t know what it is, but it needs looking at. He buys expensive fashion gifts for his wife. Shoes, scarves, jewellery. She will not know where these items come from. His childhood was somewhere rural, but he will rarely speak about it. He also has a problem with the police. He wants to prove himself better than all of you, so I would suggest that at some point he will likely have applied for the police department, either in New York or elsewhere. He will have been rejected at the psychological assessment. He will sometimes come home in different clothes from the ones he was wearing in the morning. He may leave items of women’s jewellery or underwear in his car. In the last month his strange behaviour will have escalated rapidly. His family will have noticed his preoccupation. He will clean his car thoroughly at the weekend. He will vacuum the boot of the car and shampoo the interior. His shoes will sometimes have mud on them. There may be small scratches on his face, neck or hands. He may come home with a smell of unfamiliar perfume. He will have dirt under his fingernails. He has hunted and skinned and gutted animals before, so he’s not afraid of cutting. My guess, Tom, is that his wife will know who he is. She must know.’

Harper listened intently. Denise was wired. This was far beyond anything she’d done before. And it was compelling. ‘Where did it all come from, Denise?’

‘It takes a while to come together. It’s all based on evidence. Your evidence. All the stuff that came back from each team. I just painted a picture - the kind of picture that his wife would see. You were wrong about my interests, Tom. I don’t care about his psychology, I care that he gets caught. This might help. What do you think?’

‘It’s very good.’

‘Even though it’s written by a civilian?’

‘Even so. It reads good. Shit, Denise, it’s very good. You’ve brought him to life.’

‘You’re not going to call this a load of psychobabble?’

‘Not this time.’

‘You think they’ll use it?’

‘I guess that they will.’

‘So,’ said Denise, ‘do we know where he buy his socks?’

Tom looked at her. ‘Yeah, we know. He doesn’t buy them - his wife does.’

Chapter Fifty-Seven

The Met

November 27, 10.35 a.m.

Straight after they agreed all aspects of the profile, Denise and Tom left his apartment and continued their conversation over breakfast in a coffee house for another couple of hours. By the end of that time Tom was convinced he should do something with Denise’s profile.

He called Eddie Kasper. He couldn’t meet him at the station house, so they agreed to meet on the steps of the Met, a short walk from Harper’s apartment and a shorter walk to the murder sites on the Upper East Side.

When Denise and Harper arrived at the elegant steps leading up to the stone façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art they stood for a moment and looked at each other in the winter sunlight. Tom was preoccupied. He felt guilty about his late night dance, the subsequent kissing. It was supposed to show him he was over Lisa, but it had just brought her back to life. He still felt connected. He needed to get out of the deep tracks in his own mind and there was only one way he knew - Denise Levene’s way: an elastic band. He snapped it hard against his wrist and looked up at the cool grey façade of the museum. A text message interrupted him.

‘It’s Eddie,’ he said.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s inside pretending he loves art. It’s a surefire way to get a date.’

‘What happened to the last love of his life?’

‘Like a firework - they burn bright, but die out quick.’

Tom and Denise waited in the lobby until Eddie Kasper drifted across in a sports jacket. He was smiling.

‘Look the fuck at this,’ he said, holding up a small piece of paper. ‘I got three numbers here inside of ten minutes. This place is like some secret garden of available hotties. Why you never tell me about this place, Harps?’

‘Just as long as they didn’t ask you about the paintings,’ said Tom.

‘Fuck that, I’ve got that critical look down to a fine art. I suck my cheeks and say, well, you know, you got to ask yourself, what was the artist trying to say, you know, we got to throw our minds way back to understand all of this.’

‘Nice threads,’ said Denise, smiling at the jacket.

‘You offering your number too?’ Eddie held out his scrap of paper.

‘Only when you need therapy, which is going to be soon.’

They walked across the polished stone floors until they found a quiet room, where they sat in a line on the bench.

Harper shuffled for a moment. ‘Thanks for hearing me out a moment. Denise has been researching and working up a profile.’

Kasper nodded, ‘Least someone has. FBI profilers say that our pattern killer is too indistinct. They won’t give us a line in case it’s wrong and we point the finger their way. There’s nothing they say we can go public on. And we’ve got nothing new on the case down at the station house. The new lead, Detective Lassiter, is still clearing his throat.’