‘Lafayette offered. I declined. I want to work free, you know. Follow my instincts. I’m better working with one or two people. I’ve even tracked down the five locations in the city where you get winter-flowering cherry blossom and have got some ideas to work on.’

Denise smiled. He was a good guy, for all his faults. He wasn’t just honest with others, he was honest with himself.

Alone in a booth opposite, the man who’d hit on Denise sat and watched, sipping his bourbon quietly. He twirled Denise’s keys in his hand. It was so easy to slip a hand into someone’s bag while they were trying to avoid your cologne. He had what he wanted now: a way to give Tom Harper more pain than he could imagine. He was just waiting for the right opportunity. Sebastian leaned back. He felt sure the right opportunity was just on its way.

Chapter Eighty-Five

Denise Levene’s Building

December 2, 9.30 p.m.

Sebastian sat in a hired green Ford. The window was down, the night air cold on his face as he watched the world go by. There was a creased photograph of Mo stuck to the centre of the dash, and every few seconds Sebastian looked at his little brother and his feelings of injustice swarmed over him. He’d never felt so alone. He needed Little Mo. Without Mo, what was it all for? He wanted to hurt now. Just lash out and hurt. He needed to kill. He looked up at Denise Levene’s apartment. It was time to get inside and give Tom Harper ’s little city girlfriend a shock.

Sebastian knew he wasn’t wrong, just different - what did Freud say about it? ‘A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.’

That’s all he was, a man in tune with his complexes. A legitimate search for happiness, no different from all such searches. No different at all. Pain would make him happy.

He looked out again. Denise would be saying goodnight to the good Tom Harper across at the bar. Denise would be thinking of getting home. The concierge would soon go to the bathroom again to snort some more low-quality cocaine and Sebastian would slip inside and find a nice warm corner to sit and wait. He wanted to disembowel her and tie her intestines round Harper’s neck.

He opened the car door and stepped on to the sidewalk. He watched the concierge take a furtive look round and then head off down the hall. It was simple. Sebastian opened the lobby door with the key pass and walked to the stairs. Denise lived on the fourth floor. Within three minutes, he was standing outside her apartment. He felt the tingle that he always felt, just like the first time when he had stood in Chloe’s house. He put on a pair of latex gloves and slipped the key into the lock. He turned it and felt the mechanism click.

Sebastian knew he could’ve made a great detective. He would be able to catch anyone and destroy them too. But the NYPD had turned him down. He’d failed the psychological assessment. Not good enough for them. His character was deemed unfit. He was not worth an NYPD ID card. Well, he was now, right? He was beating the whole of the NYPD and now he was going to take their best detective’s profiler. How ironic.

Denise’s apartment was not what he’d expected. She came across as a controlled and ordered thinker. Her apartment was a mess. Sebastian didn’t like mess at all. It was a turn-off. He liked his women to be princesses. He didn’t like to see discarded clothes and pantyhose all across the floor, empty coffee cups and books scattered on every seat.

He walked through each room in turn. ‘You’re a slut, Denise Levene. I had no idea.’ He opened the bathroom door. Hundreds of products cluttered every shelf, all of them without their lids. On the floor, a bath towel was lying damp and discarded. Sebastian shook his head. He would have to teach her how to behave properly, like a real princess. Then he would kill her.

Chapter Eighty-Six

Denise Levene’s Building

December 2, 10.50 p.m.

Denise Levene was about a hundred metres up the road, walking towards the apartment. Tom Harper was at her side. She felt they’d made a connection at the bar. Harper was lightening up. She’d enjoyed herself, too.

‘It’s nice to walk where there are no TV stations and microphones being thrust in my face,’ said Tom, looking around.

‘Well, you’re always welcome: my street’s nice and friendly.’ They reached the steps to her building. ‘This is me,’ she said and looked up at him. ‘I’d like to do that again sometime.’

Tom nodded. ‘Me too. I enjoyed it. Good to talk.’

‘Yeah, good to talk.’

Tom waved at her and wandered away down the road. Denise watched him for a second or two and then went up to the door. The concierge buzzed the door and waved, and Denise walked through to the lift. She stood there thinking about Tom. About how far he had come in such a short amount of time, and how far he had to go. Lisa or not, she knew that he was still a long way from being ready to move forward with his life.

Out of the lift Denise wandered down the hallway to her apartment. She stood outside the door and opened her bag. She searched for her keys for a moment, but she couldn’t find them. ‘Shit,’ she muttered. She was just about to walk right back down to the lift to fetch the concierge when she reached out for the door handle. It wouldn’t be the first time that Daniel had shut their apartment door without locking it. She turned the handle and it opened. She shook her head.

Inside her apartment, she switched on the light and winced at the mess. Daniel needed more housetraining. Another job for her list. There was an unusual smell in the air, faint but strange. Denise hung up her bag, took off her coat and placed it on a hanger. She pulled off her shoes and pressed the door shut with her backside. It clicked shut and she turned and bolted it. Daniel had taken Fahrenheit to keep him company up at the senator’s cabin in the hills. No doubt he’d ring later and say he’d lost his keys somewhere. She’d have to find them, but looking at the apartment she realized that would not be easy. Maybe tomorrow she’d find the time to clear up the mess.

Denise walked through to the bathroom and turned on the shower. She undressed where she stood, folding her suit on the chair and putting her blouse and underwear into the linen basket.

She stepped into the shower and closed the glass door of the cubicle. The water was as hot as she could stand it and cascaded in heavy, thick streams down her body. Her eyes closed as she flushed the city grime from her pores. It was the only way to end a long day.

Sebastian listened to the falling water. It made a lovely sound. Water was special to Sebastian. He’d grown up by the river. Water was his friend. He opened the bathroom cupboard and emerged from his hiding place beside a stack of towels and un-ironed clothes. He saw Denise through the glass, the water running down her body, her skin shining and clear. He felt a surge of heat and moved into the room. He took the wooden seat from beside the door and pushed her suit to the floor. Then he sat down to watch.

Maybe it was a noise, or maybe she saw shadows flicker across the ceiling. For some reason Denise opened her eyes and turned. The shock was like a well-placed thump to her solar plexus and she gulped, physically doubling up against the shower wall. Her whole body danced with the flood of adrenalin. The stranger from the bar sat just outside the shower cubicle on a wooden chair, his legs wide apart, leaning back as if relaxed and staring with wide eyes. He was staring directly at her. And he was smiling broadly. She cowered and tried to scream, but the sound was a trembling wheeze rather than a loud alarm. Her legs weakened and buckled and her arms covered herself as if it was her modesty that she needed to protect. It wasn’t. The man had one of her bath towels in his hand and was shredding it into long strips with a knife.