‘He was an actual Nazi?’

‘Yes. A member of the SS. Of the feared Totenkopf — Death’s Head Division. According to reports, he believed he was fighting only for the Führer. He was fascinated by Hitler’s Mein Kampf — obsessed by eighty-eight words from its text. “88” is not just a code for Heil Hitler,’ said Aaron. ‘It also refers to the following passage. Let me read it to you: What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the Creator of the Universe. Every thought and every idea, every doctrine and all knowledge, must serve this purpose. And everything must be examined from this point of view and used or rejected according to its utility.’

‘He was into eugenics? What was he?’

‘A curious case. After the war, they could not find Josef Sturbe. The Nazi Hunters had him on their wanted list but he didn’t turn up. Many Nazis, members of the SS, went to South America after the war. There was a Network, ODESSA. It helped members of the SS to escape. They think Sturbe went to Argentina and ended up in America.’

‘Was he ever found?’

‘No. Never.’

‘What was he famed for?’

‘He was a murderer. Very vicious. A serial killer in the ghetto. A man who was so desperate to prove his loyalty to the Führer that he hunted in the ghetto after dark. He kept a record of how many he had killed. He conducted experiments, trying to emulate men like Dr Joseph Mengele. But he was an amateur. In SS circles, he was mocked. Sturbe had a secret, though.’ Aaron paused. ‘He was a Jew.’

‘What!’

‘The son of a young Jewish girl who had got herself into trouble, he was adopted by a German family. The Sturbes pretended the baby was theirs. His papers proved he was a German, but he looked Jewish. All through the 1930s he was bullied and mocked. He joined the Hitler Youth, but they could see he was no Aryan. He tried to change his appearance. He bleached his hair, but it made them ridicule him more. He joined the SS when they only allowed pure Aryans. He was obviously not, but they accepted him based on the ancestry of the Sturbes. It was on the eve of his acceptance into the SS that his father told him the truth.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He never spoke to his father again. But this knowledge was like a canker inside him. It was as if he could never outstrip his own identity. He hated the Jews even more than the other officers did. He started to murder in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was insatiable, proving his hatred every day.’

‘And no one knows what happened to him?’

‘No. The SS all had their blood group tattooed on the inside of their upper arm. After the war, the Nazi Hunters found a man in Boston who they claimed was Josef Sturbe. He was recognized by someone who lived in the ghetto. But he had no mark under his arm, so they let him go. Fifteen years ago, the Sturbe myth surfaced. Someone found Sturbe’s notes and in it, he stated that he never allowed them to tattoo him, because he feared that they would be able to detect his Jewish ancestry in his blood.’

‘He was insane?’

‘Yes. He was insane. I doubt he was the man in Boston, but we shall never know.’

‘So what do you think this has to do with our 88 Killer?’ Denise asked. ‘Josef Sturbe would be about eighty-seven if he was alive.’

‘I expect our killer has taken him as a model.’

‘Our killer feels the same? A fraud? A fake?’

‘I think it might be something like that,’ said Dr Goldenberg, ‘but we must continue to search.’

‘I think our killer is afraid of Jews. I think he’s deeply afraid of them. It’s why he caged Capske, it’s why he’s starving Abby. The Jew has a hold over him, a power. In his imagination, it is a terrible power. He’s trying to reduce it, to lessen the power, the anxiety.’

‘Maybe not a terrible power,’ said Dr Goldenberg, ‘but a terrible secret.’

North Manhattan Homicide

March 12, 7.14 p.m.

Harper walked into the investigation room with Denise Levene. They had to share what they had. They’d both worked through the night, hadn’t slept at all and looked ragged and exhausted. Harper had received a call from Jack Carney. The Hate Crime Unit had picked up some information. The remaining members of Section 88 and a couple of sympathetic organizations were planning a night of attacks to show solidarity with Leo Lukanov. His death was being treated as a martyr’s sacrifice. They also heard that Martin Heming might try to turn up to soak up some of Lukanov’s martyrdom.

Carney and Harper had set a night of joint surveillance between Homicide and Hate Crime. Harper wanted the whole of the task force to get out on the street, trail the Hate Crime Unit and their usual targets and see what these neo-Nazis were capable of. He wanted to help Hate Crime to cut out this terrible cancerous growth of anti-Semitism.

Harper looked across the room at the blank faces of the team who had been working flat out for days. Garcia wasn’t around. He pulled up a chair and sat down in the center of the room. ‘Guys, close in a minute. We’ve got in touch with Becky Glass’s husband. He’s been out of town speaking at a conference with a thousand delegates. He can’t tell us anything.’

Denise sat near the front. There was a freshly printed profile on her knee that she needed to share with Blue Team.

The team turned to face Harper. Harper spoke slowly, conspiratorially. ‘Listen, this is going to take a while to settle. We’ve found some new information about the killer. Denise has been working with Dr Goldenberg. It’s quite unusual stuff, but stick with it.’

Denise filled the team in on the background of Josef Sturbe. She gave his life story and then walked up and down the room. ‘In summary, gentlemen, our killer has assumed an identity. His identity is strange. It is of a man who is so ashamed of his origins and his race, that he becomes an extreme version of those he wants to impress.’

‘What can we use?’ said Swanson. ‘You think our killer is an eighty-seven-year-old man?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Denise. ‘I think he is a deluded narcissist. He wants power, he wants accolades but he’s got a big secret. Perhaps he’s like Sturbe, someone who feels his identity is fake. I’d say we ought to work from two assumptions. The first is that the killer is adopted. The second is that he was adopted from a Jewish to a non-Jewish family.’

‘He’s a modern-day Sturbe?’

‘It’s just a theory. I don’t know what he is. I’ve got a couple of other Nazi elements,’ said Denise. ‘The 88 moniker is code for Heil Hitler, but it’s also a reference to a passage from Mein Kampf, Hitler’s ruminations on power and eugenics. It’s not his name, it’s a salute after his kills, and it’s his mission statement. We’re looking at a man driven to kill by hatred, because somehow he’s got the idea that Jews are the cause of his problems, that they are less than human. But I think it’s himself he feels is inhuman. That’s why he identifies with the Nazis — because he thinks he’s subhuman himself. I think that he’s killing his own identity.’

‘He’s a Jew?’

‘Most serial killers attack their own kind. I’d say, yes, he’s Jewish.’

The room was silent. It was a complex idea to take in. They didn’t know how to respond.

‘We can’t go around saying that the Nazi Jew Killer is a Jew, Denise. We’ll be pulled apart as racists.’

‘You know the Atlanta Child Killer case?’

‘Remind me.’

‘A number of black children were killed over a period of time. Same kind of outrage, and everyone thought it was a racial crime, except that there was no political statement or claim by any group. In the end, they found him. He was a black man. He was attacking his own. That’s what a serial killer is, someone attacking their own identity; that’s why they repeat — it’s a process. It’s themselves they’re killing.’