Harper sat down at the computer in the store’s back office. He called Denise. ‘You been getting on with our young profiler?’

‘He thinks this was a group attack. That’s going to go to the Captain and he’ll lap it up and pass it to the Chief of Detectives. I need to stop him.’

‘So what do you think?’

‘Single male, early- to mid-thirties, delusional fantasies, but nothing that would prevent him from operating successfully. You want your type, think controlled, obsessive, and this guy’s got hooked on a clean-up.’

‘Like a prostitute killer — a moral cleaner?’

‘There’s something in that, something of the cleaner, but it’s strange. Like a military operation, taking out numbered targets.’

‘Ex-military?’

‘Not possible to say right now. But could be. How’s it going up there?’

‘Time is short, the work is slow.’

‘Well, let’s hope for something.’

Harper hung up and wandered out of the small office and into the aisle. He walked up to the team, slowly taking prints off every surface. ‘How’s it looking?’

‘We’re getting so many prints, Harper, we’ll be here all day and then it’ll take all night to get them uploaded and checked.’

‘We haven’t got all night.’

‘There ain’t no short cut.’

Harper walked away. He sat down. Another hour slipped by, his mind going over the case, detail by detail.

Eddie came through at 6 p.m. He was nodding.

‘You got something?’ Harper asked.

‘Come see.’

Harper and Eddie sat together in the security room. Eddie pulled the tape back and then played it.

‘We’ve got a guy here coming out with a cart three days ago.’ He froze the tape. ‘Can you see it?’

The grainy still was difficult to read. Harper moved closer. At the edge of the man’s arm was a cross of wood. ‘That’s the barbed wire spool?’

‘Looks like it.’

They watched the man push the cart across the parking lot, until he was nearly out of sight behind two other cars.

‘Problem is,’ says Eddie, ‘we don’t see his face or his car.’

‘You looked back and forth?’

‘Sure have and it’s empty. Sorry.’

‘You must have quite a few guys buying barbed wire — why’d you focus on this guy?’

Eddie smiled and then pushed in another tape. ‘This is from the camera on the checkout.’

Harper watched. ‘He keeps his back to the camera, the whole time. Like he wanted to keep his identity hidden.’

‘And he pays cash,’ said Eddie, as the man leaned across the counter to hand cash to the guy on the register.

‘That’s it?’

‘He’s pretty suspicious for a man in a hardware store, but no, that’s not it. Look at this.’ Eddie moved the tape back and zoomed. There was a close-up of the man’s forearm.

‘What is it?’

‘The words.’

Harper looked down. ‘Loyalty, Valiance, Obedience. The word Loyalty, you mean?’

‘That’s what it said on the Capske black card, right?’ ‘That’s right.’

Harper watched the tape again. He stopped it. ‘It’s got a time and date here. Does that cross reference with the man at the car?’

‘Yeah, two minutes later.’

‘Go speak to the manager and find out who was serving on the cash registers at that time and then get him here and get a description from him.’

Eddie stood up. ‘I’m on it.’

Harper took the sequence back to the beginning and watched it. He repeated it three more times. There was nothing to go on. Then he took out the disk and put in the film from the parking lot. Again, there was nothing to tell him who this guy was. A blue hooded top, white sneakers, blue jeans. The man could have been anyone. He went through it again, right to the point when the man was only distantly visible by his car.

Then Harper stopped the tape. He zoomed in and peered into the grainy image.

‘Eddie!’ he shouted. There was no response. Harper moved across to the door. ‘Eddie, get back here.’

Eddie ran back in. ‘What is it?’

‘Come here.’ Harper’s finger touched the screen. ‘You see?’

‘No. What is it?’

Harper pulled back the tape. ‘Just describe what he does.’

Eddie watched. ‘He wheels his cart between two cars, and then stops. He leans forward. He’s unlocking the car, maybe. He picks up something from the cart. Can’t see what, puts it in the trunk. He stops, leans up against the street lamp, does something with his foot.’ Eddie stopped. ‘Aha!’

‘You see it?’ said Harper.

‘I see it. Hell, man, that’s good. That’s very good.’

Harper ran across the store and shouted up the aisle, ‘Ingleman, I’ve got something for you!’

Ingleman moved away slowly from his team. ‘I hope you don’t want the whole store dusted, Harper.’

‘No, but I think I’ve got you a print.’

‘Where?’

Harper led Ingleman into the security room and ran the tape. ‘See there?’ said Harper. ‘He puts his arm up and leans on that street lamp. High up. You think he might have left a print?’

‘I like that,’ said Ingleman, nodding. ‘That’s good thinking. How do you know this is our man?’

‘We don’t. It’s not a hundred per cent but it’s all we’ve got.’

‘Okay,’ said Ingleman, ‘let’s see if we can get a clean print.’

Within the hour, the print had been lifted from the street light in the center of the parking lot. The team traveled back to Manhattan and went directly to the Latent Prints labs. In the meantime, the print had traveled electronically to the crime lab and was being enhanced and analyzed.

The prints team worked fast and the print was soon scanned into the national print database. Within a few minutes, a match had come up on screen.

By the time Harper and the team arrived, it was all completed. The team saw two prints sitting side-by-side, green on a black background. The red hieroglyphics of the points of comparison showed an identical print.

‘That’s what I call a breakthrough,’ said Harper.

‘We’re lucky he’s in the database.’

‘So who is he?’

The technician clicked on to the personal file. ‘His name’s Leo Lukanov.’ A photograph of a muscular white man in his early twenties came up on the screen. He was covered in tattoos.

‘That’s our guy?’ said Eddie. ‘Like Frankenstein in jeans.’

‘Shit,’ said Harper.

‘What?’

‘Where’s Denise?’

‘She’s gone home.’

‘Try her for me, Eddie.’

‘What is it?’

‘Leo Lukanov was involved in an attack on Abby Goldenberg. Denise went to question him yesterday with Hate Crime Unit. If he’s involved, then Denise is in danger.’

‘I’ll call,’ said Eddie. He left the room.

‘What’s his record?’ asked Harper.

‘Assault, robbery… small-time stuff.’

‘He got an address?’

‘Yeah, here it is.’

Harper took the address and rose from his chair. ‘Get moving on a warrant, but we haven’t got time to wait for it. Let’s go.’

East 1st Street, Manhattan

March 8, 7.05 p.m.

The man in the long gray coat walked down First Avenue, close to the gutter. He kept his head low and peered out from under a heavy brow. Fourteen minutes into his tour, no sight of his target.

On the corner of East 1st Street, he saw the preacher emerge from a doorway. The old man was draped in a torn coat that was stained brown from sleeping on wet ground. His nose was broken. One of his nostrils was missing. The wounds were fresh.

The preacher pushed a sign high above his head. It read Jesus Loves You. He started to speak. ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.’

The man stopped. His fingers flexed in his leather gloves. He hated weakness. He wanted to puncture the preacher’s lung with a sudden blow. He wanted to watch him cough out his last sermon. Weakness, filth and arrogance. He hated it all.

‘It has happened before,’ the preacher shouted. ‘And it will happen again. The beast will appear. A righteous beast. He will destroy the unrighteous. And he will take down the innocents with him.’