‘What did he say?’

‘Would it help catch the guy? I said no. He asked me in what universe was it a good fucking idea to show these children a photograph of Martin Heming, their mother’s killer?’

‘And what did you answer?’

‘The NYPD. It’s that kind of universe.’

‘He didn’t laugh?’

Harper shook his head.

Lafayette appeared just as Harper was about to leave. ‘How are you, Harper?’ He paused but Harper remained silent. ‘Okay, an easier question. What did Forensics find at the safe house?’

Harper rubbed his face. The whole team had been on the go all night trying to track the killer, but every lead had turned cold. ‘Look, crazy as it sounds, they’ve not been able to find a single piece of material evidence.’

‘What about the car?’

‘Nothing there either.’

‘This guy’s invisible. You sure they got nothing?’

‘They got all kinds of stuff, but it all belongs to the safe-house team, cops or the children. He must’ve tried real hard to keep things that clean.’

‘What about the leak? Someone gave the killer the location of the safe house.’

Harper looked out across at his team. They were a hive of activity even though nothing was opening up. He turned to Lafayette. ‘I’ve had all night to think about it. There’s not many cops who knew the whereabouts of those kids, but one of them, for some reason, let that information leak. I’m not saying it was deliberate.’

‘You got any ideas about this accident?’

Harper nodded. ‘The killer didn’t just know where the kids were, he knew that the second officer wasn’t there.’

‘You think it’s the second officer?’

‘I talked to him. He made a mistake. He knew he wasn’t going to make it on time so he radioed Candy Simons. He gave the street name and said he wouldn’t get there until midnight. All the killer would need was a scanner.’

Captain Lafayette shook his head. ‘Shit. I can’t believe that. You got a name? I’ve got to report this.’

‘I already told him to own up. Better it comes from him.’

‘Another fucking casualty of this thing,’ said Lafayette, and walked off down the corridor with heavy steps.

Apartment, New York

March 13, 12.14 p.m.

The killer lay on his bed holding a small fob with two keys in his hand and twisting them in the light. He smoked a cigarette and watched the smoke twirl above him. He was thinking about his next steps. His eyes flicked to the right. There was a map of New York City on the wall. He had marked each kill with a dot. Around his tour of duty was a thick black line. He knew what had to be done, but it wasn’t enough. He put the two keys into his top pocket.

This was what it felt like, at the end of things. He knew the end was coming, but it needed to be on his terms, not theirs. He sat up and poured himself another drink. He took a sip, swilled it around his gums, then swallowed. Things had changed now, people were getting close. The children were still alive. That was a mistake. He didn’t like leaving traces and the children could identify him. It cut deep, making mistakes like that. It was unacceptable.

The problem was Harper. Since he’d taken over the investigations, things had blown up all over town. The news was full of the shootings. The cops were all over his area and the Jews were walking in twos and avoiding going out alone at night. Harper was good. Harper had pieced together the attack on the children. Somehow, he had known about it. How was that?

Harper made links and connections that other cops didn’t. Other cops were dumb and mindless. Harper had clarity, he looked sideways, he knew how to think. Harper was dangerous. The killer dragged hard on his cigarette and blew the smoke out fast. A haze of blue in front of his eyes. He needed a paradigm shift. He needed to change the nature of the attacks. Patterns were what cops looked for.

The Capske shooting had thrown them off the scent and given him time. It had allowed him to tour undisturbed, to kill again, to feel their subservient hands on his feet. Glass and Cohen lying in water or flat on cold ground, a ribbon of blood from the neat wounds. An execution or a re-enactment? He blew out smoke again. He couldn’t afford another attack in the street. He needed something more substantial.

He thought about the vigil. It would be a cut right at the heart of things. But how? How to do it and how to humiliate Harper? He just had to work out a plan. The sunlight broke through a cloud and shot through his dirty window. He saw the dense blue smoke drifting in thin waves across the room, watched them for a moment — then suddenly the idea was there, in the room with him. He felt a sense of calm, as if he had finally found the door out of a prison.

The river was only half-crossed but there was no going back. His hands were thick with blood, but the species still lived on. He moved quickly to the window and looked out through the dirt and grime. He wanted the world purified, simplified, made clean. Just like the forest glade, a cut of green earth and a future for himself and others like him. Perhaps he was too confident, too clear-minded. Sometimes, it was necessary to cloud people’s minds with fear. Maybe it was necessary to kill to feel nearer to God.

He thought about the other girl again. The girl he had loved who had ripped up the future. He saw her face in his mind’s eye. Let the emotion at her memory run over his tongue. Was it love or hate he felt? He wanted to see her. He wanted to love her. He wanted to hurt her. He had to go out. He had to clean up. You couldn’t kill them fast enough. There were just too many. He needed a way to kill more, to kill effectively, to get through them all.

North Manhattan Homicide

March 13, 1.12 p.m.

Harper took some time to gather his thoughts, then brought the team back together. He looked exhausted from his sleepless night. ‘This has got to get going, now,’ he told them. ‘We’ve got four unsolved murders with a link between them and a kidnapped girl. We’ve got less certainty than ever. Let’s try to keep this organized.’

Denise looked across at Harper, indicating that she wanted to speak now. She wanted the team to understand the nature of the killer. Standing in front of them, leaning on the old table, she waited while he said to them, ‘Clear your heads. We have four crime scenes that all need re-investigating. Dr Levene is going to give us the heads-up on this killer, then we’re going to go back to basics. We’re missing something here.’ Harper raised his hand towards Denise. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Denise cleared her throat, pushed her hair back and took a breath. ‘The man we are searching for is not like you or me. He is a sociopathic murderer. He’s not concerned with his personal safety. He is solely concerned with carrying out his project. As I understand it, his project has a racial element. He uses original Nazi bullets, he makes his victims clean his boots and then shoots them in the head as they do so. He enjoys their submission, but his crimes have not, up to now, had an explicitly sexual element. That is not to say that they are not sexually motivated.’

Denise paused for a moment. ‘I happen to think that they do have a sexual element and by that, let me be clear, I mean that his control over his subjects gives him some kind of physical gratification. It may be that he is trying to stop his desires. These are crimes of hate to some degree, but they are not only crimes of hate. They are personal crimes that come from a powerful sense of inferiority that it is impossible for our killer to acknowledge. Our unknown subject believes he is hunting after Jews, after any Jew, but his victims are not just any Jews. I’ve thought more closely about the victims recently and they tell us something. Apart from David Capske, they follow a similar pattern. The women belong to a similar type. Look at this.’