Forest Park, Brooklyn
March 9, 9.55 a.m.
Denise Levene stayed in the taxi for a few minutes, staring across the road at the unremarkable suburban house in a row of other unremarkable suburban houses. She had coped better than she’d expected with the ordeal in Brownsville. Maybe Mac was helping, but she wasn’t feeling sorry for herself; she was feeling angry. She wanted to do something. She needed to.
The driver didn’t speak English too well, but he was happy to keep the meter running. She looked down at the note in her hand. Detective Gauge had provided her with the home details, but had warned her that it wouldn’t be easy. No one coped well, and Dr Goldenberg was worse than most.
She noticed that the drapes were shut in every room. Maybe he was sleeping. Sometimes it was the only way if the worry and the strain kept your mind whirring all night long.
She’d called a colleague at Columbia and heard that Dr Goldenberg hadn’t gone back to work. He was on compassionate leave. Since Lukanov’s arrest, she had tried not to imagine what might have happened to Abby. But she felt the sadness deeply. There was nothing here to hate: a small suburban lot and a divorced man bringing up his daughter. Now it was shot to pieces. He was in hell because of racists like Leo Lukanov.
Denise had spent the morning reviewing the case with Harper, gleaning what she could from the new information. Abby was the golden girl by all accounts — a grade-A student with charisma, musical ability and an independent mind. It was terrible to imagine that people like Lukanov could take it all away for nothing, for some messed-up sense of history.
Denise handed a twenty through the Plexiglass and got out. She steeled herself, walked to the door and rang the bell.
Dr Goldenberg answered quickly, almost as if he was expecting Abby or news about Abby at every moment. Behind him, the house was in darkness. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light.
He was dressed in a plain blue two-piece suit. His hair was almost completely gray and he wore dark-framed glasses. Denise recognized him as the colleague from Columbia University, but a changed man.
He was shrunken by a few inches; his shoulders dipped forward and his clothes looked baggy. His skin was gray. His eyes were creased so badly that he looked like a victim waking up from major surgery. They were rimmed with red and there was a strange depthless quality to his stare, as if his body was going through the motions, but his soul or heart, or whatever it was, had flown.
‘Hello, Dr Goldenberg.’
His hand reached out and grasped hers. It was soft but it gripped her hand tightly and didn’t let go. His eyes rose, almost as if he’d seen a glint of hope.
‘Dr Levene,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much for coming by. On the phone, you said you had news?’
Denise stood with her hand gripped by his, looking into his eager eyes. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some news, but it’s not necessarily positive.’
‘What is it?’
‘Please, could we go inside?’
‘I understand, of course,’ said Dr Goldenberg. His eyes were now trying to read hers. ‘Tell me, please.’
Denise pulled her hand from his. ‘I wanted to say how sorry I am. I just want to say it.’
‘I appreciate it,’ he said. ‘We can talk all about it later, but just tell me, what have you got?’
‘Of course.’
Dr Goldenberg’s mouth creased with some memory of his daughter. ‘Abby is…’ He stopped mid-sentence and Denise watched as his whole face contorted in silent pain.
He brought himself under control.
‘Please — come in, Dr Levene.’
They walked through the house. It was quiet and felt unlived in. Goldenberg switched the light on in the living room and motioned impatiently towards a seat.
‘What have you found?’
Denise pulled out a folder. ‘Nothing conclusive. Last night, the NYPD arrested four men. Leo Lukanov, Patrick Ellery, Thomas Ocksborough and Raymond Hicks.’ She showed him the photographs.
‘The four men who attacked Abby?’
‘Yes. I went to speak to them.’
‘You?’
‘I thought they might know something. They came after me.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Were you hurt?’
‘No. I was frightened,’ said Denise, ‘but I wasn’t hurt. The cops got there real quick.’
‘Have they told you where Abby is?’
‘No. We can’t even be sure they’re involved, but something spooked them. Why come after me, try to frighten me, if they didn’t have some connection to Abby?’
‘Could you try to tell me what happened?’
‘I went to see these four men with officers from the Hate Crime Unit. Next day, they came after me.’
‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘I heard the news.’
‘There may be a link.’
‘With the murderer of David Capske? Please don’t tell me that.’
‘Lukanov bought the barbed wire that was used in the murder of David Capske.’
‘You think my Abby could have been a victim?’
‘There’s going to be an investigation. Homicide will look into it. It means that she’s going to get more time.’
‘That is something.’
‘Not much, I know.’
‘I appreciate it, Dr Levene. I know this is not easy. Do they know why these men might have been targeting people?’
‘It could be something to do with anti-Semitism,’ said Denise. ‘But we can’t be sure, yet. I’ll keep you informed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Could I see Abby’s room?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Anything specific?’
‘No, I just want a sense of her.’
Inside Abby’s room, Denise felt the horror of her disappearance again. Life was made up of the tiniest fragments. Memories, loves, events. Denise saw the pop posters, the half-naked men, her wide-ranging intellectual interests, her passion for music, her adoration of her father, her love of her mother, her independence, her eccentricity, her karate skills, riding skills, ballet.
Denise sat down in Abby’s room, the drapes drawn, and opened her diary from a year earlier. She had no idea what she was doing or why, but she felt unable to leave without engaging as much as she could, for an ex-colleague she barely knew and a girl called Abby, whom she knew even less, but for whom, for some reason, she felt responsible.
North Manhattan Homicide
March 9, 11.12 a.m.
Harper left the interrogation room and slumped down in the darkened observation room. Denise watched him closely. ‘We need more time,’ she said. ‘That’s all. He’s tough. You should’ve seen Abby’s room. She’s just a kid, Tom. If Leo killed her, we’ve got to find out where she is. The question is, if.’
‘You don’t seem convinced?’ said Harper.
Denise moved across to the window. She prodded it with her forefinger. ‘I hate him, Tom, I hate everything about him. He’s a vicious little racist, a bully, a coward. He’s everything I hate about people wrapped up in one ugly package, but he’s not bright, is he? He’s not got an organized mind.’
‘I’ve been thinking the same thing.’
‘We’ve got to find another way to get him to talk.’
Harper nodded. They both stared into the small interview room as two more detectives entered and started going through the routine. One prowling, one sitting. One getting close, the other keeping in the background with threats chipping away at the nerves.
Harper leaned on to his elbows and stared into the room. Eddie entered the observation room, carrying three coffees. ‘He’s a hard nut, this one,’ Eddie said. ‘A real thick skin. Or maybe just real thick.’
Harper took his coffee. ‘Thanks, Eddie. Anything more from his apartment?’
‘Shitloads of racist crap. Shitloads of it. But nothing to tie him to Capske. Not yet anyway. Forensics will be days going through all his stuff.’
‘He’s part of some organization, though. You find anything?’
‘He’s definitely part of something, but it seems he’s a pretty small cog within it. We’ve got the other three guys locked up in the cells. They’re all scared of something, so no one’s saying anything. I don’t know who’s leading this operation, but they are real spooked.’
‘Lukanov hasn’t given you a single name,’ said Denise.
‘Why do you think it is, Denise? Maybe he’s just as scared as the rest.’
‘Could be. We’ve all seen it before. Gangs don’t dare rat people out. I think he knows he’s got to stay quiet.’
‘There’s plenty of vicious hate gangs in prison. He talks, gives people up, they’re going to hurt him bad.’
‘Yeah, maybe, but I think it’s something else,’ said Denise.
‘What?’ said Harper.
‘There’s someone pulling the strings. Someone he’s really terrified of.’
‘That’s my thought too,’ said Harper. ‘Which leads me to something I’ve been thinking since the arrest.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Eddie.
‘Read Lukanov’s record. Every time he’s been arrested, it’s for some group attack. He’s one of those men who get brave when it’s five to one. I just don’t see him as a lone wolf, which means that it’s unlikely he killed Capske. Denise, what do you think?’
‘It’s difficult to call, Tom. He could be capable of operating alone, but I’d agree with you. Most likely scenario, Lukanov is only violent within the group.’
‘Another thing. He didn’t want to get involved in the alley. He kept back.’ Harper stood up. He drank down his coffee and took another look at Leo Lukanov through the glass. Lukanov was unshaven and tired. He’d taken off his denim shirt and was wearing a white tank top.
Harper pointed at Lukanov. ‘Look at his arms and hands. There isn’t a single scratch mark on his skin. You ever tried to work with barbed wire? The killer was working with barbed wire in the dark with a victim. It’s not evidence, but if it’s not Lukanov, then whoever it is, he’s still out there.’
Harper took Eddie to the side of the investigation room. ‘I want you to look into something for me.’
Eddie forced a smile. ‘What?’
‘There’s no match on any of our databases or ViCAP for this kind of MO. The barbed wire, the torture, the point blank gunshot. We came up with nothing. Denise, how long before a serial killer gets so deluded, they think they can do anything?’
‘Can happen after one kill in some cases,’ said Denise. ‘There’s a moment when every repeat killer is sitting in their apartment thinking about what they’ve done, when they suddenly realize that no one’s come calling for them. They’ve done the worst thing they can and they’ve gotten away with it. They get to think they’re immune or invincible. Or, they get angry, because they wanted to be noticed and they wanted to be understood.’
‘Eddie, our killer could’ve killed before, got no reaction, so upped his game with Capske.’
‘And this time, he made sure he had an audience. He called them,’ said Eddie. ‘So we’ve got to find that kill. If it’s Lukanov, then it’ll only help to link him.’
‘Leo Lukanov’s linked with two attacks, both of Jewish victims. If we count Denise as well, that’s three attacks. Eddie, I want you to search out every crime against anyone even remotely Jewish. See what you get.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ll find something.’
‘Denise, I suggest we take a walk in Forest Park.’
‘You serious?’
‘It’s a material link to this case. You were looking into something and Lukanov or someone connected to Lukanov wanted to hide that so much, they were willing to attack you.’
‘God, I’d hate to think what guys like that would want to hold someone like Abby for,’ said Denise.
‘Try not to think about things like that.’
‘I’ll stay here and search ViCAP,’ said Eddie. The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program was a database of all recorded crimes across the States.
‘If we get something from ViCAP or Forest Park, it’s going to be easier to give Leo Lukanov a hard time,’ said Harper.
Forest Park, Brooklyn
March 9, 10.10 p.m.
They stood at the end of Park Lane South and looked across the street to Forest Park.
‘Do you have any idea what the connection might be?’ said Harper.
‘At the moment, the only connection with Abby is circumstantial,’ Denise told him. ‘These Nazis seem to have chanced across Abby and hassled her. She complained and then the graffiti appeared and they showed up near her home. I don’t know how it links with Capske or even if it does.’
‘No, the only connection is that Leo Lukanov was involved in both, and both victims were Jewish. The MO is very different,’ said Harper.
‘We don’t know that. Abby might have been murdered in the same way.’
‘True, but there’s no evidence that either the disappearance of Abby or the murder of Capske was because they were Jewish.’
‘No, there’s no evidence yet, but that’s what we’re here for.’
‘So talk me through it,’ said Harper.
‘Abby crosses the road here. She was nearly knocked down by a delivery truck. The drivers came forward. They say she gave them the finger.’
‘Spirited girl.’
‘Yeah, she actually is pretty tough. A Black Belt in karate too.’
‘What happened next?’
Denise led them across the street. ‘She was heading this way and then she disappeared. A dog walker found her clothes and books carefully stowed in a tree in the woods.’
‘You said it was raining that night?’
‘Yeah, but not when she left.’
‘So let’s imagine she’s off to meet some secret boyfriend. She fakes a study session with a friend, hides a short skirt under her top. She takes off, changes in the woods and heads up to Myrtle Avenue. From Myrtle she takes the bus to wherever she’s going. So far, it’s pretty normal for a sixteen year old, right?’
‘Yeah, except she doesn’t get to the bus stop. None of the drivers remember her and she’s a pretty striking girl.’
‘So she didn’t make it to the bus,’ said Harper. He pointed. ‘Whatever happened to Abby probably started in those woods. Have they been searched?’
‘There was a community search. Mainly friends, family and volunteers.’
‘They would’ve been looking for a body, not evidence of what happened. Let’s take a look.’
‘Any evidence would’ve been washed away by now, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily. We don’t know what we’re looking for yet.’
Harper and Levene clambered up the small bank into the woods and started to walk.
They walked up the whole path and back, then through four other routes. The site of the hollow tree where Abby had left her books and clothes indicated the main path she’d taken between Park Avenue South and Myrtle. It would’ve been very dark under the canopy that night.
‘Let’s suppose she ran off the path. Where would she go?’ said Harper.
They tried several different routes off the path but didn’t find anything. Then they traveled back up to Myrtle. Harper started walking in and out of the trees, trying to imagine where he would hide if he was an attacker. He stopped at one tree that gave him cover from both the road and the path. It also gave a perfect sightline. He smoothed his hand over the bark.
‘What’s this?’ Harper said, staring at the tree trunk. Denise moved over and looked at the carving. ‘88,’ said Harper. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Denise.
‘I’m going to get Crime Scene to look at this. Someone needs to check the Capske crime scene again. Maybe this killer likes to leave a signature.’
‘If it’s his.’
‘So, look, if it is his, then he’s waiting here, right by Myrtle Avenue. You know why?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, Denise. Why doesn’t he go deeper into the woods?’
‘He needs to be near his vehicle.’
‘That’s right. There was no body found in the woods, so dead or alive, he took the body someplace else. But there’s no sign of a struggle. Let’s imagine he meets her right here. Let’s imagine she manages to escape. Where does she go? Let’s play it out.’
‘Just like old times,’ said Denise.
‘Go and get ready. You play Abby.’
Denise walked down the path and turned. She walked back towards the tree. As she approached, Harper jumped out. ‘Now, let’s imagine I’m right-handed, so this arm comes out here and grabs you. What do you do?’
‘I pull away.’
She pulled away and broke his grip. Her body flew off to the left.
‘Okay, where now?’
Denise looked. She only had two options. ‘I wouldn’t take the path. He’d catch me. If I’m familiar with these woods, I’d chance this overgrown path.’
They both looked into the path. Harper walked slowly along it. ‘It gets thick here. Look, broken thorns and twigs. Not too fresh.’
Denise peered around. ‘She could’ve come this way.’
They followed the half-track. It opened out at one point. Harper pointed to the ground. ‘Look at that root. In the dark, would you see it?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Denise.
Harper knelt. ‘She may have stumbled. Then what?’ He looked around, spotted something about three meters away. There was a tiny glint of some unnatural color. He got up, walked towards it and knelt again, taking out a pocket-knife. The object was bright pink. He scraped away enough of the mud with the knife and read the label.
‘Denise, come over. There’s something here.’ Harper pointed at the small pink cylinder. ‘The brand name is Hot and Pink.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a girl-friendly brand of pepper spray — eighteen grams. The safety lid is open. It’s been used.’
‘You think it might be hers?’
Harper stood up. ‘I don’t know if your guy, Dr Goldenberg, knew whether she carried pepper spray?’
‘She did. Pepper spray and a rape alarm. He made her.’
‘I’ll call CSU — this might be a crime scene. You call Dr Goldenberg, see if Abby used Hot and Pink.’
‘How long before you can get a print?’ asked Denise.
‘If there’s one on there, we could have this case opened in under an hour.’ Harper walked Denise away from the scene. ‘Keep off the evidence. How long has she been missing?’
‘Nine or ten days.’
‘For nine days whoever took her has been getting his kicks, thinking that this girl is never going to be looked for. He’s probably feeling good about himself. This is going to change things for him. Suddenly, the game shifts. We’re hunting a potential killer here. If he hasn’t contacted the family, this doesn’t look good for Abby.’
‘What odds do you give her?’
‘Someone took her with minimum hassle. He either killed her after he raped her and put her body somewhere safe, or he’s got her somewhere.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘Shake the tree, Denise. Shake the tree. Make him do something. If he’s listening and if she’s out there, let’s tell the media that it’s a murder enquiry and see if he wants to change our minds about that.’
Forest Park, Brooklyn
March 9, 3.06 p.m.
Aaron Goldenberg opened the door. His eyes were already red. He saw Tom Harper behind Denise Levene. He was just the kind of big, brutal cop that he’d expected. Since Abby had disappeared, Aaron Goldenberg had imagined the moment he was told about her death.
In fact, he rehearsed it every day. He imagined that it was about to happen every time the mailman called, every time the paperboy came by, every time visitors rang the bell; and every time the phone went, he waited for the news that would tear him to pieces. He knew that he would never get up again after he heard; that his body would sink and die. As it should. He’d make it his duty never to allow himself to get up again.
He heard Denise Levene say something. He tried to listen. She repeated it.
‘Sit down, please, Aaron,’ she said.
‘Please tell me. If you have bad news, please be quick.’ Aaron stared up at Denise, imploring her, desperate with fear.
‘I need you to keep calm, Aaron.’ She leaned in and took his arm, sitting with him on the couch. He glanced across to Harper.
‘Is he the one? You’re only a psychologist. It has to be a cop to give the bad news, right?’
‘This is Tom Harper. I told you about him. He’s a very good cop. The best. He said he’d help.’
‘Thank you, Detective Harper. Thank you for helping.’
Harper nodded and stayed quiet.
‘Aaron. You told me when we first met that you made Abby carry pepper spray and a rape alarm,’ Denise said.
‘Yes, for her protection. What else can a father do?’
‘Do you remember the brand of pepper spray?’
‘Brand? No. It was pink. I bought her pink. I thought she would be more likely to carry it.’
‘Detective Harper here thought Abby might have cut through the woods to get to the bus stop.’
‘Why would she try to get to the bus stop?’
‘I’m not saying she was trying to run away, sir, only that she was going somewhere she didn’t want you to know about.’
‘I see.’ Aaron lowered his head.
Denise took his hand. ‘We searched the path. We found a discarded canister of pepper spray. Pink.’
Aaron’s eyes glanced rapidly between the two cops, trying desperately to make sense. He couldn’t. ‘What does it mean? She is dead?’
Harper stepped forward. ‘Sir, we got a clean thumbprint off the lid of the spray. It matches Abby’s.’
The man’s eyes seemed wild with pain and anguish. ‘Is she dead?’
Denise shook her head. ‘We don’t know. But it means that it’s unlikely that she ran away. It looks like she was heading through the woods and somebody came across her.’
‘Was the spray used?’
‘Yes. The whole canister.’
‘She’s a fighter, Abby. She wouldn’t just let someone take her. She would fight.’
Denise and Tom Harper stared on, unable to speak or help the man.
‘We’ve got the woods closed off now. We’re doing a full search,’ said Harper.
Aaron’s lips stared to tremble as dark thoughts clawed through his mind.
‘It doesn’t mean she’s dead, sir.’
‘No? What does it mean?’
‘Keep hoping, Aaron. There’s no saying what will happen,’ said Denise.
Harper pulled out his sketchbook. ‘We found these symbols on a tree near to the entrance to the park. They mean anything to you?’
Aaron took the sketchbook. ‘It’s used by neo-Nazis,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m Jewish, I was brought up in Brooklyn. I’m a Holocaust specialist. Nazi graffiti is a perennial flower.’
‘So what does it mean?’
‘Eighth letter of the alphabet.’
‘H?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So what does H mean?’
‘It’s double H, as in HH. Which stands for Heil Hitler.’
Harper drew breath. ‘It’s unbelievable. Do they not know what the Nazis did? What they stood for?’
‘I doubt it. Or they find it powerful because they feel weak. Evil has that capacity to captivate those who feel hard done by in life.’
‘Could this symbol be traced to anyone?’
‘No,’ said Aaron. ‘It is too common.’ He watched Harper closely. He felt there was something more. He stood up.
‘What is it, Detective? You want to say something.’
‘I want to go public with your daughter’s disappearance. I want to call it a homicide.’
‘But you don’t know that she’s dead!’
‘You have to trust me, Dr Goldenberg. My feeling is that it plays into his or their hands to have Abby labeled a runaway. That way, the cops don’t make these links. If we call it a homicide, he just might have to prove she’s alive.’
‘If she is alive,’ said Aaron.
North Manhattan Homicide
March 9, 4.49 p.m.
Lafayette sat on the desk. ‘Where you been, Harper?’
‘Collecting symbols.’ He threw down two photographs. ‘We found these 88 symbols at the woods where Abby Goldenberg was taken. So I went back to the Capske crime scene — and guess what? He left an 88 on the corner of the alleyway.’
‘Might not be him.’
‘No, but it’s another link, Captain, between Capske and Abby. We could have a Nazi killer on our hands. An 88 Killer.’
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
‘I won’t. How did things go at your meeting with the Feds?’
‘They want us to keep them informed.’
‘So they backed off?’
‘They backed off. Your print and link to Lukanov was enough.’
Harper hit the desk. ‘That’s good. Now I need another favor.’
‘What?’
‘Abby Goldenberg. Can you swing it under our jurisdiction on the evidence of these 88 symbols and the Lukanov link?’
‘I think I can pull it off Missing Persons. They don’t want it, but she’s not necessarily dead, is she?’
‘We’re hunting a killer and she’s linked, let it be enough for now.’
‘Okay, Harper, but keep me right up to speed on this.’
Harper agreed and headed down to the investigation room. He met up with Eddie. ‘What you got, Eddie?’
‘We’ve got nothing,’ said Eddie. ‘We cross-referenced homicides with reported hate crime and Jewish identity and we got nothing. Sorry.’
Harper sighed. ‘You go take a break. I’ll give it a go.’
Eddie pushed back from the desk and swung his legs out. ‘Thanks, I need to eat. You want something?’
‘Yeah, anything you can get.’
Eddie left and Harper sat in his seat and looked at Eddie’s searches. He’d tried everything. There were four murders highlighted. Two more drug shootings involving Caucasian victims, one Brooklyn murder and one Brooklyn mugging-homicide. Harper read the details. The two drug shootings belonged to the Bronx. The two white kids had been dealing under the noses of the suppliers. They were punished.
Harper stood up and walked around the precinct investigation room. The killer had killed before, so what were they missing? Maybe he had killed and taken the bodies like he might have done with Abby.
Harper logged in again. He tried to cross-reference missing Jewish girls with the MO. Harper looked down list after list. He felt the thud each time the unimaginable crimes flickered to life on his screen. Faces of the dead, bodies photographed in harsh light from every angle. No crime scene on TV could ever convey the banality, the lack of humanity. But there was no link.
Harper trawled through, going through month after month, not knowing what he was looking for, feeling like he was struggling through the darkest jungle, with predators all around. People shot, stabbed, battered, crushed, raped, torn, slashed. Words mingled in Harper’s mind with the images and he had to bat them all aside to keep the emotion away.
A thought hit him as he went through each murder. What if it wasn’t an unsolved murder? What if someone had been put away for the murder? Miscarriages of justice weren’t all that rare.
Harper realized that they hadn’t searched solved homicides, only cold cases and open cases. He put in his search parameters. Single gunshot wound, Jewish victim, writing on the body. He was seven victims down the search results, when he stopped.
Her name was Esther Haeber. She’d been killed in Brooklyn two months earlier. Esther Haeber, possibly the first victim of the 88 Killer, now resting in the Records Office with someone else paying for the crime. He noted the Investigating Officer and signed off.
East New York
March 9, 5.06 p.m.
She’d hidden it well from Harper and the team, but the attack in Brownsville had gotten to Denise, no question about it. Her pulse had hit dangerous levels, she had felt the panic drain her legs, but she hadn’t looked away. She had run through Brooklyn on her own towards her own crime scene. She had been terrified as they blocked her in that alley. She hadn’t panicked, though. She’d fought back and held it together. The session with Mac had helped.
She’d been tough on Tom, but she didn’t want to be a victim, not in her personal or professional life. She wanted to say what she thought and avoid getting herself caught out. Hard as it was to say it, part of the reason Abby was attacked was that she made herself an easy target by straying away from other people. Just as she herself had done.
Now she was back, sitting at the front of Mac’s class, listening intently. Mac stood front and center, his fingers jabbing the air.
‘Okay, people, this is for real. You’ve got to know some techniques so that you can go back to living your lives. These techniques are not here to frighten you or make you into some terminator. But they will save your life and they will prevent you from becoming a victim ever again.
‘In every event, the key is to avoid ever getting into a situation when you are in close contact with another predator, but sometimes it happens and someone has got close to you. Now there are two main problems with your behavior — passivity and non-aggression.
‘These are social aspects of your character. They are appropriate when ordering a pizza or waiting in line at the bank. But when someone grabs hold of you, all bets are immediately off. No more social behavior. You got to dig down under that superego and find the id. Inside you is an animal, so find it. Inside you is the will to live at all costs, find it. And I’m going to teach you how.’
Mac stood and stared at the crowd of women. ‘Levene, stand up.’
Denise stood. She walked towards him.
‘You know I’m stronger than you, right? I look stronger, I can probably hurt you in a few seconds so you also believe I’m stronger — but am I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wrong. It’s not a question of strength but of what you’re willing to lose. If you’re willing to fight to the death, you will fight very differently and you will be stronger. Your attacker will not be willing to fight to the death. Your attacker wants to rob, rape or hurt. He does not want to injure himself. He’s probably got a wife and a mother he has to go home to. You must fight as if every fight is your last. So, you need to be a predator, and the moment your attacker realizes that, you’ll have bought yourself enough time to get away. If we’ve both only got our lives to lose we’re equals. Okay?’
Denise looked around. Seven other women sitting in fear.
‘So let’s try,’ said Mac.
Mac lunged at Denise and held her. They struggled. She tried to nip at him with her teeth, scratch at him, kick him and elbow him. Mac stopped and stood back.
‘If I’m stronger, taking that number of different approaches only strengthens me. Each time your change your strategy, I feel stronger. And none of them actually hurt me.’
‘So what can I do, if you’re stronger?’
‘Intention is what’s terrifying. Find one thing, choose it and go for it. Whatever that is, it doesn’t matter, but if you want to unhinge your opponent or make him think twice, it is the fear of the intention. I want you to choose something. One thing, then to try to get me. Think — he can do what he wants, but I will gouge his eyeball. Or I will bite off a piece of his cheek. And then go for only that one thing. Make it your entire goal.’
‘Okay,’ said Denise.
Mac waited for a second and then lunged. Denise had one thing in mind and that was to bite him. They wrestled hard, but every time Denise had a half-inch of space, she lunged her teeth towards him. The fight went on longer and longer.
Mac finally pushed her away. ‘How did that feel?’
‘Better,’ she said, breathing hard.
‘You have a target, you think less about your pain, your passivity, his strength, or how tired you get. The predator always has a single target. It is what makes him a predator. Even under attack, never play the victim, always play the predator. When you have confused him or frightened him or made him question himself, you’ll have the opportunity to get away. The predator needs to remain intact. Intend specific hurt. He has that in mind, which makes him dangerous. Have that in mind too.’
Denise walked back to her seat and sat down. Her body was still thrilling from the fight, tingling with adrenalin that felt more positive than usual. She suddenly realized why: she was not using it to defend but to attack. She was becoming a predator.
Denise felt the power of the session. Somewhere inside each of their minds, they were beginning to remember those events, those terrible events, but now, they were facing them not with the terror of being unable to defend themselves, but with the questions: What could I have done? How and when?
Apartment, Lower East Side
March 9, 6.07 p.m.
The walk up Essex was unremarkable. It was an ugly stretch of road with a huge municipal parking lot opposite the retail market. The sidewalks were busy with young Asian students and the odd guy with seemingly nothing better to do. Harper crossed Rivington and Stanton and found Detective Jack Carney’s building opposite a bright public-school playground. The kids were all at home and the playground stood empty.
Jack Carney worked Brooklyn Hate Crime and had lived on the Lower East Side for most of his life. The city had changed a great deal since he grew up on the streets of Lower Manhattan, but Jack insisted that there was nowhere else that felt like home.
Harper took out the address, which was scribbled on a small scrap of brown envelope. He looked up at a dirty black building. Under all the grime it was quite an ornate piece of architecture. But the carbon emissions had brought it down to earth.
Tom Harper pressed the buzzer. He had called Jack in advance, to let him know he was coming by. Jack was off shift for two days, but didn’t mind helping out an old colleague. He waited and pressed again. Then he checked the address. After a couple of minutes, a voice came through the speaker.
‘That you, Harper?’
‘This is me, Jack.’
Jack Carney laughed. His voice was deep and filled the tinny speaker until it crackled. They’d never been close, just went through training together, remaining aware of each other, the way two lions are.
‘You know it all comes flooding back. Come on up.’
Harper pushed the door and found his way to a small elevator. He reached the fifth floor and walked down the dark corridor to Jack’s apartment. The door was open.
‘Come right in, buddy.’
Jack Carney and Tom Harper were of similar height, but apart from that they were about as different to look at as you could get. Harper was big, strong in the shoulder and with strong features. Carney was like a dark wiry animal you’d find surviving some terrible arid landscape on scraps. He was hardened Brooklyn stock.
‘Jack.’
‘Tom.’
‘I could’ve met you somewhere.’
‘No need, I don’t want to put you to any trouble. How’s Dr Levene?’
‘She got pretty shaken up by those four thugs.’
‘They don’t play by normal rules,’ said Carney. ‘Been dealing with them for years and they continue to surprise. We’ve got all our ears to the ground down at Hate Crime. Is that where your investigation is heading?’
‘Lukanov is involved. We also got an 88 moniker at the crime scenes of David Capske and Abby Goldenberg. You ever seen that?’
‘Sure, neo-Nazis use it. Means Heil Hitler.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I understand. We’re going to need your help, Jack.’
‘Any way we can.’
Harper looked directly at Jack. He looked good. Still sharp. ‘Shit, you look ten years younger than me.’
Jack’s blue eyes searched Harper’s face. ‘You think? Maybe it’s just because you look like shit.’
‘I got my ass kicked in the ring.’
‘You could handle yourself better than that — what happened?’
‘Shit happened.’
‘I guess. Was he that good?’
Harper smiled. ‘No, he wasn’t. I was that bad.’
‘Now that’s what I’ve been telling people all over. There’s something up with the world. The strong are being ousted by the weak, you know. Who was it, Tom?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone took the focus and fight out of you — who was she?’
‘There wasn’t anyone, just had a bad night.’
Carney smiled. ‘Sure. I’ve had bad nights like that plenty of times. You want a drink?’
‘No, thanks. I want to find out about these fucked-up groups. These neo-Nazis.’
‘They come out of the woodwork. America has lost its confidence, right? An economic ecosystem, just like the dust bowl — you take too much and the whole thing turns to desert. People are losing their livelihoods out there. So they find someone to blame.’
‘You notice it in Hate Crime?’
‘Sure do. The economy goes down, hate crime goes up. Being rich is the only way to fight against racism.’
‘Horrible thought.’
‘The worse things get, the more scary the politics get, the worse it is on the streets. Low-level frustrations tipping over into full-scale turf wars. Poverty and desperation are only half of it.’
‘And the other half?’
‘Politics. The rhetoric from the government, the ruddy-eyed American dream. People on the streets hear it and it creeps into their blood, but it’s nowhere to be found where they live, so they get to think that someone stole it from them.’
‘Understandable.’
‘Leo Lukanov. People like that. They’re told that the Mexicans or the Koreans or the Jews have taken their dream. You need to look carefully at dreams, Tom. Yours too. The dream is always a fake, and the man who sold it to you is long gone, so you need someone to blame.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘Someone once told you that you’d be happy, didn’t they? But it went belly up, right? The girl left, the world became gritty and real. It’s called waking up. Hardest thing in the world is waking up.’
‘Waking up isn’t hard, it’s keeping clean once you see how things are.’
‘Damn right,’ said Carney.
Harper looked around the apartment. ‘You push two ends of a piece of metal and at some point, it buckles. That’s all it is. We’re the buckle.’
‘Hey, I like that, Tom. Look at us. Old buddies.’ Jack laughed. ‘Where the hell did it all go wrong? You married, Tom?’ And when Harper shrugged: ‘That’s what I’m talking about. The dream didn’t turn up, did it? I’m living in this tiny room and working my ass off for less than 40K. Happy? When did the pursuit of happiness get so fucking hard, Tom?’
Harper shook his head. He felt it too. It was hard. Life had fragmented — communities blistered and split apart in the heat of poverty and need. Everyone was on their own. There was no community.
‘If I could afford it, you know what I’d do?’ Jack went on.
‘No.’
‘Buy a plot of land and farm the soil.’
Tom laughed. ‘I just can’t see you as a farmer, Jack.’
Jack smiled. ‘Maybe you’re right. All dreams are bullshit.’
There was a silence. ‘Enough of that,’ Jack said finally. ‘Let’s talk about your case.’
‘We’re not sure about Lukanov.’
‘You’re not sure it’s him or you think there are others involved?’
‘He attacked Abby and Denise, there’s no question about that, but we’ve got nothing on the Capske shooting. And it seems a different crime altogether. Much more brutal.’
‘Except the barbed wire? That’s a physical link between Lukanov and the crime scene, right?’
‘Not quite. The print was on the post, not the barbed wire. It wouldn’t hold up in court. We’re trying to match up some fibers.’
‘What kind of fibers?’
‘Looks like wool. Left on the barbed wire. Probably from the killer’s coat.’
‘You ransacked Lukanov’s place?’
‘Yeah. He’s a member of this neo-Nazi group. We haven’t got the name.’
‘They’re called Section 88,’ said Carney. ‘They’re new or it’s a new set-up. We’ve not got much on them.’
‘But there’s something more. Lukanov’s scared.’
‘What of?’ asked Carney.
‘Something, someone — not sure. Maybe the organization itself. Any evidence they hurt their own?’
‘It happens, yeah. Usually in prison, if word gets around that someone’s talked.’
‘No big player out there frightening these lowlifes?’ asked Harper.
‘Unless it’s the leader. But we’ve not been able to infiltrate the hierarchy. They’ve kept themselves hidden and they never talk even if they get caught.’
Harper stood up and walked about the small apartment.
‘There’s something else,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘I want to talk about Esther Haeber.’
‘Who?’
‘Esther Haeber. Two months ago, you were involved in the investigation. I spoke to the Investigating Officer, Hilary McCain from Brooklyn Homicide. She’s a tough investigator, but she’s not stupid. Far from it. She got a prosecution out of it, but she wasn’t a hundred per cent on it. She said you knew the case. The perp was one of your regulars.’
‘That’s right. So what’s the problem?’
‘I don’t think your man did it. I think it’s one of our guys. You know what else? I went to see the crime scene and guess what I found?’
‘I don’t know, Tom.’
‘An 88 scratched into the concrete, about twenty yards from the body. This killer can’t help himself.’
‘Come on, Tom. An 88 that could have been scratched there by any lowlife. The perp was good for this.’
‘I don’t buy it. Esther Haeber goes walking late at night wearing gold jewelry in a part of Brooklyn that she should’ve avoided. Just like Capske. She’s carrying five hundred dollars that’s not taken from her purse. And yet, the story is, this killer follows her, then tries to rob her. She struggles. Maybe she screams. He gets scared and pulls out a gun.’
‘He panicked.’
‘Panicked? He left five hundred dollars on the body and before he shot her, he cut off each of her fingers, one by one. That’s not panic, Jack, that’s fucking pathological.’
‘I remember. He cut off her rings. They were worth something.’
‘Then he shoots her. The bullet goes right through her carotid artery, shatters her seventh cervical vertebra and lands in a beautiful brand new Porsche Carrera on the side of the street.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. The owner was sick — that’s an eighty-thousand-dollar car,’ Jack Carney said.
‘Detective McCain didn’t find any leads to anyone else, but this guy fell into her lap.’
‘It was a homicide. Wasn’t my case.’
‘Why did they bring you in?’
‘Homicide wanted to see if there was evidence of hate crime. Someone heard some racial slurs about a half-hour before the murder. We looked into it. Impossible to get anywhere, and by the time we’d done the rounds, they had their man.’
‘Was there any racial motive?’
‘The killer was a racist, but he seemed to want money more than anything.’
‘How confident were you that the suspect was the killer?’
‘He had a history. They found her jewelry in his apartment. Still blood-smeared.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been through the case. Careless to keep that kind of thing.’
‘Damn right.’
‘But the crime scene left nothing. No prints, fibers, nothing. The bullet was in no shape to be analyzed. Seems incongruous.’
‘Mind that can cut someone like that isn’t thinking straight,’ said Carney.
‘Anything odd about the crime scene?’
‘I wasn’t at the crime scene, Tom, I was just advising. I was looking for evidence of hate crime.’
‘The killer who worked on David Capske wasn’t new to the game. He’s killed and hurt people before. I think Esther Haeber was one of his kills.’
‘Shit, you really think they jailed the wrong guy?’
‘I can’t be sure. But if you can remember any more detail, Jack…’
‘I’d need to revisit the case-files, try to jog my memory, see what I can come up with,’ said Carney.
‘I’d appreciate it.’
Jack nodded. ‘You’re either inspired or you got too many bumps to the head, Tom. Not sure which it is.’
‘Me neither. But Esther Haeber is supposed to have been mugged — yet the killer cuts off her fingers for some cheap jewelry and takes a fur coat, but he leaves her purse. I read the report, it doesn’t add up.’
‘He got spooked maybe. It happens.’
‘I’ll tell you what’s bugging me about this case. Simple as this — staging.’
‘What?’
‘This woman is staged to look like she’s been mugged but she hasn’t. But the cops look around, there’s no other motive so they’ve got nothing else to say. So they guess she struggled or he got scared and didn’t get to finish the job.’
‘She fought him, he reacted.’
‘I looked at the report. No scuff marks, nails unbroken, hair wasn’t even messed up. No sign of a struggle or fight. She must’ve been unconscious when he cut off her fingers. Else, there’d be more to see.’
Carney shrugged.
‘He had Capske out cold while he rolled him in wire. One more question. Did she have anything tattooed or written on her chest?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I just want the truth, Jack. The truth.’
‘You look long enough into the abyss, it starts to look back at you.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You seem wired. Keep things in perspective, Harper. You’re under a lot of pressure here and nothing’s breaking. Lukanov’s been found. Don’t go looking for the extravagant theory, when you’ve got your man in the can.’
‘I know, I know, I’ve had all those doubts myself, but I can’t stop thinking that there’s more to it.’ Harper pressed his hand on Carney’s shoulder, then headed out the door.
Midtown, Manhattan
March 9, 6.43 p.m.
They had not found her yet. The thought pleased him. She was still there, tied to the post and dragged by the currents. He had submerged Marisa in the East River in the dark night, sat by her side as the cold water stripped away her body heat. He had read much about these experiments, he had absorbed every detail, every statistic, but nothing compared to the cold reality. He had kept his stopwatch close to his eyes as her lips turned blue and her head shook above the water. She wanted to submerge herself, to drown, but he wouldn’t allow it. Death belonged to him, not her. How long would she last? Would she die first or ask for salvation?
Under forty-five minutes. It had surprised him. She hadn’t lasted as long as he had anticipated. Hypothermia was a curious death. Dying while fully clothed as the traffic roared by on FDR Drive. He could still remember the distinctive sound of her teeth chattering above the water.
It was his need, to take these people apart, to absorb their life as they died, to feel them slip away as he grew stronger. She managed only minutes before she was blue with cold. Then he fished her out, revived her on the wooden platform until she showed signs of life. Then he put her back in.
It took three submersions until Marisa was nearly unconscious with the cold. He smiled as he shot her through the top of her head. Orders were orders.
The smoke twirled in his car; he stared out, excited by the experiments, the slow precision of his deaths, the fear that grew as the knowledge that there was no escape ripened in their minds. These inferiors wanted you to want something — sex, revenge, money, something tangible. They couldn’t conceive or cope with the glaring eye of impartial observation, or the brutal logic of the fanatic. They were not human to him, they needed to suffer as a means to his own survival and to the growth of knowledge.
He watched the people pass him on the street. Small-minded people living limited lives. They had no purpose. The next victim hadn’t arrived yet. She had been harassed by the bottom-feeders of Section 88. A series of minor attacks. She had informed the police. It was her only mistake to try to use the police. He was the force in power, not the NYPD. He didn’t like to be undermined. It was ironic that her attempt to find help was the reason she would die slowly and without pity.
What was startling to him was his own capacity for death. His appetite was growing and his hunger came back every day. He knew the police were closing in, too. He felt their proximity; he felt harried. Perhaps that’s what it was, an awareness that time for the project was short. He needed more to die.
She had children, two of them. They would be orphans soon. He would take her and continue his experiments. How much pain can someone stand? He himself had borne much. Much more than they had and he was still alive. But they were weak.
He could see Rebecca Glass laughing and joking as she walked along the street, swinging arms, singing a song with her two children. Recently divorced, after her husband’s affair was discovered. She seemed to be coping, but he suspected she cried at night and wondered if she would always be alone.
Crimes were crimes, though, thought the killer, and no amount of forced happiness would protect her from the necessary — the arrest, interrogation, torture and execution. It was what was required and he would not fail in his duty.
He had to wait until she was alone, that was all. He had read about a new experiment for this victim. Then, when she had suffered all she could suffer, when he had wrung her out like a wet cloth and all that was left was a soulless carcass, then and only then would he allow her to die.
Lower Manhattan
March 9, 6.58 p.m.
Harper stopped on his way to Ballistics. He parked his car and got out to look over the river. He put his binoculars up to his eyes and started to scan the bridge and the nearby rooftops. It was nesting time for the winged predators of the city. He looked out across the sky for peregrine falcons. The city was now home to over a dozen pairs. It’d taken years to reintroduce these raptors but they’d taken to the city well. Strange as it seemed, it was a home away from home for the birds — except these cliffs and mountaintops were made not of rock but of concrete, iron and steel.
As he watched, he could hear the chorus of dawn song against the sound of traffic already making its way into the city from Brooklyn and beyond. Harper moved slowly across the ramp and down towards the water.
After a couple of hours, he spotted a peregrine swoop across from a building on Dover Street to the vantage point on one of the Gothic pylons of the bridge. It might even have been nesting there on the makeshift cliff face.
Harper focused on the bird, its head making rapid movements left to right, its dark glossy eye alert, its body holding an imperious pose. The peregrine — known as The Wanderer.
There were no other birds in flight — the presence of the falcon had scared them all away. The falcon was the supreme predator. It could dive at speeds no other animal could reach — up to 240 m.p.h. had been clocked by a diving falcon. The impact of those claws at that speed, taking out a pigeon mid-flight, was something to behold.
Harper’s cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out quickly, thinking it might be Denise Levene. It wasn’t. He put the cell to his ear. ‘What is it?’
‘Man,’ said Eddie Kasper, ‘you really got to work on that phone etiquette.’
‘I’ve got a Ballistics report to pick up.’
‘I got something.’
‘What is it?’ Harper repeated.
‘You ask nicely and I might tell you.’
‘Sorry, I’m outta polite.’
‘You’re your own special category of impolite, Harps.’
Harper put his binoculars to his eyes as the falcon rustled its feathers, flexed its wing muscles and pushed off from the pylon. It was a magical sight, watching it climb higher and higher above the river.
‘You found us a new body?’
‘I didn’t say it’s a homicide,’ said Eddie.
‘I don’t get any other kind of calls, Eddie.’
The falcon rose higher with an effortless beat of its wings, its head scanning the air below, looking for prey.
‘I got wind of a homicide down in South Manhattan with some similarities to our case. I thought you might want to hustle your way in.’
‘What are the connections?’
‘Female. Single gunshot wound. Name’s Marisa Cohen.’
‘She’s Jewish?’
‘She’s called Cohen.’
‘It’s not Lukanov.’
‘Or it’s not only Lukanov,’ said Eddie.
Harper picked up the falcon riding a thermal, silent, with wings outstretched. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and his fingertips tingle. His case had jumped back to life.
‘This is escalating way too quickly. I’m at the Brooklyn Bridge,’ he said. ‘Get right over here, Eddie.’
Harper put his phone back in his jacket and looked up at the sky. The falcon was focused. It had seen its prey.
In Lower Manhattan, Eddie and Harper drove up to Downing Park where the body had been found. South Manhattan Homicide was already on the scene in numbers. Harper got out of the car and looked at Eddie.
It was getting gloomy. The two detectives squinted into the bright lights of the crime scene. Another body meant that Lukanov wasn’t the killer or that there was more than one.
Harper walked across. The crime scene was next to the park, in the courtyard of a haulage company working right on the river. Up above, they could see traffic all the way along FDR to the Brooklyn Bridge and beyond.
‘This road never gets quiet, not even at four a.m.,’ said Harper.
‘What’s your point?’
‘The point is, if this is the killer, it’s something I didn’t consider from the first kill. He might get excited by the idea of getting caught, so he commits crimes close to where people can see. Esther and David were both murdered in public places. He might like the risk. I think he might get off on it.’
‘I don’t know what you got in that head; all I see is the world’s dullest haulage lot.’
Harper walked over to the entrance to the haulage park. He signed them both in on the crime-scene log and wandered to the edge of the platform. There weren’t any boats tied to it. Maybe they didn’t use this place any more. The water was sparkling in the dark. Ink black and flecked with gold.
Harper found Detective Johnny Selinas walking the perimeter, kicking up dust as he shuffled his feet across the ground. Harper shook his hand. Selinas was a veteran. Twenty years in Manhattan South, in which time he’d expanded from 150 lbs to 300 lbs.
‘What you doing here, Harper? Don’t you get a nosebleed if you come this far south?’
‘I try to avoid it, but I think we’ve got something for you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We’re investigating the David Capske murder uptown. Gunshot to the head, Jewish victim. Thought I’d check out any similarities. Let you know what we have.’
Selinas led Harper over to the body. ‘I don’t know what this is, Harper. Her name is Marisa Cohen, if her purse is hers. She’s been in the river a day maybe. Can’t tell much about the COD. Maybe she drowned, maybe she was strangled and thrown in. Who knows, but she’s also got a gunshot wound right on the crown of the head.’
Harper looked down over the edge of the wooden platform into the water. Her body was hanging about a meter and a half below the platform. Both hands were tethered to the upright wooden stanchion. The wrists were bruised and the flesh torn, the wounds black against her white skin.
‘What else have you got?’ he asked.
‘Nothing yet. It’s early days.’
‘She married?’
‘Yeah. But separated. He’s with someone new, they were together.’
‘You have suspicions?’
‘Wife found bound and drowned, and the husband off with his new mistress? Who knows?’
Harper got down flat and peered at her head wound. It was difficult to tell through the matted hair, but it was a neat little hole. Close range.
‘When do they think they can get her out?’
‘Two boats are on their way. Coroner’s also coming. Couple of hours.’
‘The Capske killer liked to look down on his victim,’ said Harper. ‘Shot him through the forehead from above.’
‘What else you got for me?’ Selinas said.
‘Look for dirt under her fingernails. If it’s boot polish then we might have a match.’
‘What’s your theory?’ Selinas wanted to know.
Harper looked at her hands. It looked like she had the same black dirt under her nails. ‘Someone likes to torture his victims. He likes to draw it out. He goes through some ritual with boot polish. We guess he makes them kneel and clean his boots. There’s writing too. Our guy had the word Loyalty written on a card that was left on his chest, and some unreadable scratches that looked like a homemade tattoo. Put it all together and you’ve got some sociopath with a lot of hatred in his blood. It might be linked to a series of neo-Nazi assaults. Check if she reported any hate crimes.’
‘Marisa Cohen fits most of your killer’s MO,’ said Selinas.
‘Look at her hands,’ said Harper. ‘She’s been tethered. I don’t think it’s to prevent the body floating away. I don’t think he cares about the body once it’s dead. As if it’s meaningless then, like a piece of garbage.’
‘Then why tie her there?’
‘She’s hanging there, isn’t she, with her head just out of the water. He didn’t want her to drown. In fact, he’s tried to prevent it. She’s tried to struggle. Why?’
‘To get away?’
‘Look at the rope marks. She’s tried to pull downwards. That would take her closer to the water.’
‘What for? To escape?’
‘No, I think it was because she wanted to die. She wanted to drown. Because he was keeping her alive for as long as he could.’
‘Sick bastard. Why?’ said Selinas.
‘Because that’s his thing. That’s what excites this maniac.’
The two men let the thought dwell in their minds for a moment.
‘When did you get to the body?’ asked Eddie.
‘We had a team here yesterday afternoon in the area but we didn’t find her until this afternoon.’
‘Why were you searching? Someone call it in?’
‘She called a friend just before she disappeared. The friend missed the call, but she listened to the voicemail and then called the cops. We got another call from some building by the park. They heard screaming.’
‘So what, patrol searched the area?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Then he wanted us to find her. He’s getting even more fearless,’ said Harper. ‘He’s taking risks. He might have taken her out by the park and transported her here. Pretty risky.’
Harper let the thought take him. Marisa was different. She hadn’t been staged to look like something else. Not this time. Maybe the killer was feeling the urge and losing his control. Maybe he was feeling the pressure mounting.
‘I hope you find a slug in her body somewhere.’
‘No doubt,’ said Selinas.
‘Listen, get it to Ballistics, tell them to give me a call.’
‘Will do.’
Harper looked down at the brown-haired woman at their feet. ‘If the bullet and the boot polish match up, then I’m going to ask to take this over. Sorry to butt in like this.’
‘Reckon you might need to,’ said Selinas.
‘I’ll get Lafayette to square it with your squad.’
Harper moved in and sat on the platform by the body. His mood changed. He wanted to reach out, put his hand on her, pull her out of that horrible painful position. Even though she was dead, you still empathized with the body. It still hurt to see it cold and in a position of pain.
Why had the killer gone for Capske and now Marisa Cohen? Were they randomly chosen? What if Abby Goldenberg was linked somehow?
Harper wasn’t sure. Even if Marisa Cohen was also the victim of some hate crime, David Capske hadn’t been. Or, Harper suddenly thought, he hadn’t reported it. The link was Leo Lukanov or someone connected to Lukanov. He called Eddie across.
‘Eddie, see if you can talk to Lucy Steller and any friends of David Capske. Ask about hate crime. Did he ever get targeted?’
‘I’ll get on to it,’ said Eddie.
Harper looked at the hands again. The marks of someone thrashing about for freedom. The water must’ve been so damn cold. How long would a body last? An hour at most.
Harper stood up. He turned to Eddie. ‘He was here for an hour, sitting by the water’s edge as she froze to death. Tell Crime Scene. He might have left something.’
Harper looked down and shone a flashlight into the dark water. ‘Eddie, I don’t think she’s got a blouse on. Tell Selinas to keep a look out.’ Harper leaned out further and tried to peer through the water. The woman’s bra was dark against her white skin. He felt intrusive, like a voyeur, but he leaned in closely. ‘Come on, you bastard, what were you doing? Did you tattoo her too?’
Harper walked along the sea front, trying to locate the position the killer would have watched from. He knew that the killer liked the excitement of getting seen, so he presumed he’d sit somewhere he could see the floating body and the road. Harper moved right to the edge of the platform, out to the last raised post. He knelt and looked. It didn’t take long. This killer wasn’t hiding his mark. There it was, a small, neatly carved 88 on top of the post.
Interrogation Room, North Manhattan Homicide
March 9, 8.41 p.m.
Harper sat with Blue Team watching Garcia interrogate Lukanov. ‘It’s not him,’ said Harper. ‘He might be a little cog in this wheel, but he was in here when Marisa Cohen was killed.’
‘How tight is the link?’
‘I followed the body to the morgue. Dr Pense looked it over. Three similarities. The boot polish, the same caliber bullet with a close head-shot, and she had something tattooed on her chest.’
‘What was it?’
‘88.’
‘Shit.’
‘And then something indecipherable.’
‘No idea what it says?’
‘We don’t know yet, but it’s our guy.’
‘So Lukanov is out of the picture.’
‘For now,’ said Harper. ‘Denise is working on this new information. She says that the writing on the corpse is important to him. He does it before they’re dead. It might dehumanize them.’
‘What about Esther? Did she have a number on her?’
‘No, there’s no record of it. I’ve got the autopsy photographs coming across, so we’ll have a look ourselves. Seems that they ignored the overkill once they had evidence linking this mugger to the crime.’
They looked through the two-way. Garcia slapped the table and stood up. A moment later, he appeared in the observation room.
‘He’s trained,’ said Garcia. ‘No other explanation. They’ve trained him. I’ve seen it before. No answer is the only answer. Or else you just tie yourself in knots. Martin Heming is their lead, right? He might have a military background. We should check it out, find out what we’re up against.’
Harper looked across. ‘You’ve got no subtlety, that’s the problem.’
‘Fuck you,’ said Garcia. ‘You going to do better?’
Harper went to the wall and picked up a big file of information. ‘The game has changed. If Lukanov didn’t do it, then we need information from him, not a confession. Information needs a different approach. I got a lot of background on this Leo Lukanov from Eddie and you guys. We got plenty of stuff on him. Let’s draw him out.’
Harper stood at the door of the interrogation room and stared at the sad figure before him. He sat opposite the big man as Eddie slipped in behind and leaned against the wall. ‘You remember me?’ said Harper.
There was no response. Harper nodded. ‘You fought well in the alley. Hit me hard. You got the build. Could be a fighter if you put your mind to it.’
Leo Lukanov continued to stare at the table. Harper pushed a packet of cigarettes across to him. ‘Take one. You’ve had a tough night.’ Harper paused. ‘They set us up when we’re useful, then abandon us, don’t they? This is what they do.’
Lukanov looked up. Harper caught his eye. ‘I’m talking about bosses. People in charge. People who think they know better. You know the kind of people I’m talking about, Leo. People with all the orders — but you know what? Where are they when the shit hits the fan? Where are they, Leo?’
Lukanov reached out and took a cigarette. Harper waited. He needed the man to engage. Harper withheld the matches and stared up at the wall. Finally, Leo looked up. ‘You got a light?’
‘Sure,’ said Harper. He leaned forward and struck a match. Lukanov dragged hard on the cigarette.
‘People like you are in the front line. You’re taking all the risks, while someone sitting back there is drinking a cold one. I tell you something, Leo, if I could have my way, I’d get rid of bosses and orders. The reason they give orders is because they’re too scared to do the job themselves. Look at this. Will you take a fucking look at it.’
Leo looked up, as Harper flicked through a sheaf of paper. ‘You know what this is? This is paperwork. They want us to go out and risk our necks and they want fucking paperwork.’
‘It’s bullshit,’ said Leo.
‘It is bullshit. But if I don’t do it, I get canned. You don’t follow orders, what do they do? Smash your car? Beatings?’
Leo turned his head away.
‘I know about the beatings, Leo, and the threats — they told me.’ Harper watched. It was a bluff, but not a big one. ‘Think about this, Leo. When you joined up, did they ever tell you that they wanted a fall guy, someone to go down, while they escape? I bet they didn’t sell it like that, did they?’
‘No.’
‘Let’s just complete this paperwork and get you out of here. Far as I can see, you didn’t lay a finger on anyone until things got intense. You hit me, but you could argue you didn’t know who the fuck I was. I didn’t show any ID, right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Any lawyer with half a brain could get you off. So let’s just get this done right now.’
‘How so?’
‘Ticking boxes, Leo, that’s all I’m doing. I’m a trained fucking box ticker. You think cops are thick? Now you know why.’
Leo laughed.
‘That’s right, Leo. We’re a bunch of sheep. No one’s independent. No one’s operating from personal integrity. I bet it feels like that with you, doesn’t it? You don’t call the shots any more.’
‘I just get told.’
‘That’s right, you get told, like you’re some fucking ninth-grader. Tell them to go fuck themselves, Leo.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re taking this shit because some asshole told you to do something you didn’t choose yourself. I tell you, I bet if you’d done it yourself you wouldn’t have got caught, either.’
‘No damn way.’
‘Let’s get ticking,’ said Harper. ‘Then you can go focus all that energy on something worthwhile. Make something of yourself while you can. You’re still young.’
Leo Lukanov’s head nodded a little. Harper looked at him. Lukanov was listening. Harper was trying to feed him a story, a way to understand his behavior, then he wanted to give him a door. The door would come later; first, you had to prime people. He continued, ‘We all get angry, Leo, but you don’t want to spend your life in jail. It’s a shit place to be. You don’t want that. So here we go.’
Harper spent ten minutes going through all the information he already knew. Age, date of birth, conviction records, alias, known associates. Leo just agreed as things progressed.
‘Okay, next question. What’s the name of the other guys you were with?’
‘I’m not giving no names.’
‘Shit, Leo, I’m trying to get you off here. I’ve got the fucking names written right here. Look!’ Harper showed Leo the three names. ‘I got all this information. We’re just signing it off to please the Captain.’
‘Okay.’
‘So again, who were the three guys you were with in the alleyway?’
‘Ray Hicks, Tommy Ocks, Paddy Ellery.’
‘Right, we’ve finished another page. Well done. We’re nearly there. Okay, now this bit is tough. We need to know how to explain the barbed wire, or else you’re going to go down for the murder of David Capske.’
‘I didn’t kill David Capske.’
‘I know that — you know that — but my guys upstairs want to pin it on you. Your guys out there are pinning it on you. They’re all just looking out for themselves.’
‘No, they’re not,’ he said. ‘Not my guys.’
Harper opened the file. ‘Oh no, big man? Well, in that case, they didn’t tell us that it was you who received the black card for the Denise Levene attack. Yeah, Leo, that’s what they said. That’s how the operation works. Your so-called buddies told us. The lead guy gives out a black card with a name on and you do the person on the card. Is that right?’
‘Yeah,’ said Leo.
‘So, as far as this goes, I got to say here who was the lead. At the moment it was you. As far as your guys are concerned, it was you. If you’re the lead, Leo, then this looks ten times worse. If you’re the lead on this operation and it’s premeditated, that’s a very serious fucking crime. The lead is responsible. So, Leo, let’s check this box. You weren’t the lead, were you?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I wasn’t the lead.’
‘That’s right, Leo, you weren’t the lead. Smart boy.’
Lukanov swiveled in his seat and dragged on the cigarette.
‘Next up, who’s the lead?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘If it’s not you, it’s got to be someone. Just give a name, Leo. The name of the guy.’
‘There is no guy. I got the card. The card just comes.’
‘Fuck that. No one goes and fucks people over for a card through the mail.’
Lukanov breathed deeply. Harper shifted in his chair. ‘I just need to get this signed off. The thing is, Lukanov, I’m in a hurry.’
‘I got all the time in the world.’
‘You do?’
‘I got nothing on.’
‘Eddie, give me an update.’
‘She’s already been found. The media are all over her.’
‘You need to go home, son,’ said Harper.
‘What do you mean?’ said Leo. ‘Who’s been found?’
‘Media got your name, Leo. We tried to keep it quiet, but the Capske thing is fucking major. I mean, everyone wants to know. So now your name’s out there. They’ve got your home address, Leo. And now they’ve found your mom’s address.’
‘What the hell does this have to do with her?’
‘The press don’t give a flying fuck for you or your mom.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘They’ll be hounding her, raking through her trash, searching records, speaking to neighbors, work colleagues, phoning, knocking, hour after hour. She’ll be a prisoner too, Leo. All on her own, I understand.’
Leo rose; the handcuffs clinked taut. ‘Let me go.’
‘Give me the name, Leo.’
‘No.’
‘Be a fucking man, you coward. Be a fucking man, for once. Look after your family, right? Your mom. Look after her, not some lowlife who set you up.’
‘What do you mean, set me up?’
Harper tried his trump card. ‘I think this scumbag set you up. How the hell do you think we got to that alleyway? He set you off, then called us. He probably wants you to go down for the Capske murder.’
‘He fucking called you?’
‘He killed David Capske but he wants you to burn for it. He chose the barbed wire because you bought it.’
Leo bent over and hit his head on the table. ‘I need to go see my mom.’
‘Leo, be smart. You let this asshole put this Capske killing on you and you’re the number one hate figure. Even if the evidence doesn’t stack up, by then, your mom’s life will be fucked to pieces. Her life is hell. They’re going to hunt her in packs until she tells them something. Then they’re going to hunt down your ex-girl friends, friends, brothers, sisters, until they’re painting ugly pictures of you all over. Fair trial? Not a chance. Unless you act smart and speak, you’re going down for stuff you didn’t even do, Leo. And in prison, they’re going to smash up a poor white racist like you.’
Leo stared at Harper. He was breathing heavily. ‘You’ll let me go?’
‘I’ll do my absolute best. We’ll try to spring you and you can walk free, go see your mom. You’ve got to trust me, Leo. I don’t want you locked up in here, but you bought that barbed wire and that barbed wire killed David Capske.’
‘I give you a name, I walk?’
‘You give us what we need to nail Capske’s killer, and we make sure you’ve got a way out.’
Leo paused. ‘I didn’t kill no one. We were building fences. That’s what the barbed wire was for.’
‘What fences?’
‘Upstate. At the compound.’
‘What compound?’
‘He bought five acres.’
‘Who bought it, Leo? They’re going to come in here in ten minutes, bag you up, shove you in a truck and send you off to the state penitentiary. They want someone for this, Leo. They don’t care who it is, they just want someone.’
‘We were fencing off our land.’
‘What land?’
‘We just want a place we can call our own. A white homeland.’
‘I want that name.’
Leo Lukanov looked up. His eyes wide and open. ‘I get off? That’s for real?’
‘You get off the Capske murder. You walk.’
Leo Lukanov stared at Harper. ‘What about protection?’
‘From whom?’
‘I just need to know. If he finds out, I need to know.’
‘Who, Leo? Give me his name and we’ll look after you.’
Leo Lukanov twisted his hands into a hard knot. The fear was visible in his eyes. ‘Heming,’ said Leo. ‘Martin Heming.’
North Manhattan Homicide
March 9, 9.09 p.m.
Harper sent out word to the team. They were hunting a man who went by the name of Martin Heming. He called Jack Carney with the same information. An hour later, Jack Carney turned up at North Manhattan Homicide carrying a box.
‘Jack,’ said Harper. ‘I didn’t expect a personal call.’
‘I needed to come, there’s so much shit on Heming.’
‘What have we got? Is he someone?’
‘We’ve got a pretty substantial file on him,’ said Carney. He dumped the box on Harper’s desk. ‘He’s a long-time agitator. A neo-Nazi. He’s got his own set-up — website, blog, pamphlets and publications. He even self-published a book called The Desire of the Will.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Evolution, social science, politics, history. But in a nutshell, it’s about how bad the Jews are and why it’s true that they really are trying to destroy America.’
‘I get so angry at this stuff, Jack. This is hateful shit. How do you stand it?’
‘Same as you. We hate it, so we try to clean it up.’
Harper nodded. ‘Associates?’
‘He’s clever, Heming. He seems to be in charge of operations but there’s no direct link. He’s been arrested a couple of times, but for low-level offenses.’
‘Addresses and haunts?’
‘Yeah, a couple of places he goes to, and the apartment in Crown Heights.’
‘Thanks for this, Jack, I appreciate it.’
‘Listen, Harper, it’s not all altruistic. I want to jump into bed with you on this one.’
‘Your knowledge is going to be useful. What are you after?’
‘You’re going to be getting to the heart of some of these neo-Nazi groups. This could crack open a lot of our cases. And we might be useful to you. I can put the Hate Crime team at your disposal.’
Harper shook Carney’s hand. ‘Let’s find this sick bastard,’ he said.
The teams went out searching for the leader of Section 88, Martin Heming. They tried all the known haunts and addresses. Everyone came up blanks. There was no question about it, Heming knew and had gone into hiding.
Harper returned to his desk and received a report from Forest Park. They’d found blood on the bushes. Abby’s blood. Harper put the report down.
His plan was simple, but dangerous. He walked to Lafayette’s office, thinking it through. The Captain beckoned him in.
‘Any news?’ said Lafayette.
‘Denise has gone across to see Dr Goldenberg. We found Abby’s blood on the bushes.’
‘What about this Heming guy?’
‘The thing is,’ said Harper, ‘we’ve got this guy on the run. He knows we’re chasing him. We’ve got his place under surveillance and all known haunts, but he’s gone. He’s going to be difficult to find.’
‘You think he might have gone out of state?’
‘Denise and I think that he’s still here, and that Abby is somewhere close. I think he needs this. He killed Marisa after we arrested four of Section 88.’
‘What are you suggesting, Harper?’
‘We don’t sit and wait. We set a trap.’
‘What kind of trap?’
‘We release Lukanov and follow him. Either the killer will come to him or he’ll go to the killer.’
‘You think?’
‘Heming will know that Lukanov has said something. The killer’s got to be worried about these guys being inside, talking to us.’
‘You got a point. You think it’ll flush him out?’
‘They’ll make contact. Even if by phone or email, but that might be enough.’
Lafayette stared at Harper for a moment, then nodded. ‘Okay, get it done.’
Forest Park, Brooklyn
March 9, 9.17 p.m.
Denise Levene sat next to Aaron Goldenberg. ‘You wanted to speak to me,’ she said.
Aaron tried to appear calm, but his eyes were anxious. ‘Have they found anything in the woods?’
‘They found a small amount of blood on one of the thorn bushes. It’s Abby’s. Looks like she crawled into a bush, scratched herself.’
‘Who would do this? Who’d want to hurt her?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Denise. ‘There’s nothing on the attacker. The rain hasn’t helped and the time.’
‘But at least you’re investigating. You said you wanted to shake him out of the tree.’
‘Yes, we released a story that this was being looked into as a homicide investigation.’
‘I think you shook the tree well.’
‘What do you mean?’
Aaron stood up and walked to an antique bureau in the window. He took out an envelope. He returned to Denise.
‘What is it?’
‘The kidnapper wrote to me. I received it this morning.’
‘The kidnapper?’
‘She may be alive,’ said Aaron.
Denise put her arm around him. ‘Yes, she may be, that’s good.’
He placed the envelope on the table. Denise looked at it. ‘Aaron, you know sometimes sick people get involved in crimes they had nothing to do with.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean this could be a hoax. Until we get it analyzed, we can’t be sure.’
‘Oh, I am sure,’ said Aaron. ‘I am very sure.’
‘Have you called the cops?’
‘No, I called you.’
‘Munroe or Gauge?’
‘They’ve moved on, passed their information to Homicide.’
‘Let’s take a look,’ said Denise.
Aaron nodded. He went to take the letter, but she held up a hand.
‘Don’t touch it any more. It may contain evidence. They can find a lot from a letter.’
‘And what about you? What does this tell you as a psychologist?’
Denise took out a set of latex gloves and put them on. ‘It tells me that he needs to be caught.’
‘But what else?’
‘I think he’s escalating. I think he’s changing. He started this as a secret and private thing. He went to some lengths to hide what he’d done with Esther and Abby, even changing the MO. Then things exploded with Capske. He went public and he started to show how dark he was. The barbed wire was a particularly evocative touch.’
‘It fits.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He hates Jews. He imagines himself part of some powerful Nazi project. They work in groups. They need each other to keep the delusion going. That’s why they come together. It is difficult to be a lone Nazi, because there is nothing but madness in it. But they need more than a group. They need the ideology, the symbols, and the dress. With all this paraphernalia, they can believe that their hatred is real. Then they need to focus all that hate and all that delusion on an object. On a Jew or a homosexual or a gypsy or an immigrant. They get reactions, they get to feel the excitement of hurting others. It begins to feel like their project is more real than anything else, so real that the rest of the actual world disappears. But even this is not enough. They need to kill and hurt as Nazis. They need to scrawl Nazi images on sacred buildings. They need, in this case, to use barbed wire, the image of the Holocaust, to hurt someone Jewish. A double attack.’
Denise picked up the letter. ‘You see this in Esther, too?’
‘Yes,’ said Aaron. ‘Cutting fingers off to get gold rings. This is how they treated people in the death camps.’
Denise stopped. ‘Marisa Cohen was found half-drowned.’
Aaron stood up. ‘I have thought about that too,’ he said.
‘And?’
‘Whoever this is,’ said Aaron, ‘he may be copying Nazi experiments.’
‘Go on.’
‘They used Jewish prisoners to test how long soldiers could last with hypothermia. They put these poor people in iced baths and timed them until they died. They wrote the results down in charts, as if what they were doing was simply scientific.’
Denise held his hand. ‘Your knowledge will help solve this, Aaron. We need to tell Harper. But, first, this letter. When did it arrive?’
‘This afternoon.’
Denise picked up the letter and opened it. She read it once through. It was short and to the point. Her nerves crackled as she read.
Report 1: March 8 Subject: Abigail Goldenberg Number: 144002 Initial weight: 120 lbs Initial blood pressure: 114/64 Week 1 weight 108 lbs Week 1 blood pressure 109/60
Denise re-read the letter. ‘She’s losing weight.’
‘Maybe she’s refusing to eat. Maybe something else. I don’t know.’
Denise suddenly understood. ‘You know what he’s doing, don’t you, Aaron?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ he said.
‘How do you know this is from the kidnapper?’
He looked Denise straight in the eye. ‘It has a lock of her hair in the envelope.’
‘Is it hers? Can you be sure?’
‘It smells like her.’
‘We’ll get it tested.’ Denise stood up. ‘I’ve got to take this back, right away. Keep thinking, Aaron. I’ll be in touch.’
Once outside the house, she called Harper. ‘Go ahead,’ said Harper. ‘Dr Goldenberg thinks the killer is copying Nazi atrocities and experiments. I’ll explain when I get back. There was something else.’
‘Go on,’ said Harper.
‘Tom, the killer wrote to Dr Goldenberg. I’m bringing the letter over.’
‘And?’
‘If we can believe it, then there’s some good news. It indicates that Abby’s alive.’
‘And the bad news.’
‘It also seems to indicate that he’s starving her to death.’
North Manhattan Homicide
March 9, 10.15 p.m.
Harper stood up in front of Blue Team. ‘Let Lukanov go. Sign him out, tell him we’ve got nothing.’
The rest of the team looked up. ‘What’s the story?’ said Garcia.
‘He’s giving us nothing.’
‘He’s our prime,’ said Swanson. ‘Let’s get the judge to give us some extra time. We can break him.’
‘He’s a foot soldier,’ said Harper. ‘Maybe he bought the barbed wire, maybe he took it to the compound, but he isn’t our guy. He gave us Heming. We need to concentrate on finding Heming.’
‘What about the compound?’ said Garcia.
‘We checked it out. It’s been torched. Presumably because of the heat on Section 88.’
‘What makes you so sure Lukanov wasn’t part of it?’
Harper looked across at Denise Levene. She nodded. ‘He’s part of the organization, all right, but he’s not the killer. Marisa Cohen was killed after he was arrested.’
‘He attacked Denise and you. We don’t let some sick racist scum out for nothing. He’s still the only suspect we got.’
‘He’s our only link to Heming. We got to take a chance.’
‘There might’ve been a few guys. This guy might’ve been there, watching.’
‘Eddie, give them the low-down.’
‘His girlfriend puts him at home all night.’
‘His fucking girlfriend. The bleach blonde in the hot pants with the Nazi tattoos? Like she’s a good fucking alibi.’
Harper nodded and looked across. ‘There’s enough to discount him. But listen up. He’s involved somehow, he’s just not the main man. And I want the main man. He’s our lure. Leo Lukanov will lead us to the killer.’
Harper set the surveillance operation going. The team set up the rota for a tail on Lukanov. They would let him go before midnight.
At 11.57 p.m., Leo Lukanov was released and left standing on the steps of the precinct in a state of confusion. He looked like he wasn’t sure whether it was a sick joke by the cops or just luck. He went straight home to his apartment. Behind him, just out of sight, Swanson and Greco kept up the tail.
Twenty minutes later, Lukanov took off. He got the bus to his mother’s place. Ratten and Garcia were already sitting outside in a car. No doubt he was surprised to find that the media hadn’t been anywhere near his mother.
Ten minutes after arriving he left and visited his girlfriend’s place. Harper and Kasper were sitting right outside.
Lukanov made several phone calls from his girlfriend’s house. The cops couldn’t trace them, but they could be used in evidence later.
After four hours, in the dead of night, Lukanov left his girlfriend’s building and walked home. It took him an hour to walk the streets. Harper and Kasper had to get out and follow on foot.
He entered his own apartment building for the second time at 5.08 a.m. Harper returned with Kasper to their car and headed back to the bunkhouse. Likewise, Garcia and Ratten. Swanson and Greco were the unlucky ones. They sat outside his apartment, with an unmarked police car at the service entrance at the back. At 5.42 a.m., the lights in Lukanov’s apartment finally went out.
Apartment, Crown Heights
March 10, 5.10 a.m.
Lukanov wasn’t stupid. He knew he had a tail. Anyhow, even if he had missed it, Heming had told him he was being tailed. They had a routine. He called a cell number three times, waited forty minutes then called a public booth from his girlfriend’s place. By that time, Heming was there to answer the call. Heming had told him to keep his mouth shut, go home and stay put.
Lukanov intended to follow the instructions. He opened the door to his apartment. The lock had been busted, so he only had to push it. He pulled off the remnants of the police security stickers pasted across the frame. The cops must’ve kicked the door down, fucking assholes.
He entered the room for the second time that morning. Most of the room was wrecked. Everything was tipped out, the floorboards ripped up, wallpaper torn down. A note from the police department had been left, with details of how to get compensation. Assholes. This was what Heming had told them all about. The cops were part of the problem.
Lukanov stared at the mess and then heard a noise in his kitchen. He turned. He suspected cops. Maybe they were going to get in a reprisal for attacking Denise Levene or for punching Detective Harper.
He called out, ‘Who’s there?’ No one replied. Was it just rats? The cops had left food and shit all over the floor with the door open. Could even be cats. He hated cats.
Lukanov heard a low cough from the kitchen. Not cats, then. An open apartment in this kind of building with the door kicked in would be quite a temptation. It might be kids or some hobo.
Lukanov picked up his baseball bat from the floor and headed towards the kitchen.
He pushed open the kitchen door and peered in. Someone was there, staring out of the window. A figure.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ shouted Leo, and he raised his bat.
The man spoke. ‘How long does it take you to find someone in your own apartment?’ He turned. ‘Hello, Leo.’
Leo let the bat fall. ‘Is that you, Martin? You scared the shit out of me.’
Martin Heming stood tall and powerful in front of him in a suit. He was clean-cut and had shaved. ‘I look a little different. I had to be careful. Police are tailing you and they’ve been hunting me. They’re searching for some tank-top-wearing, unshaven thug, so I just put on a suit, carry a briefcase and wander around Manhattan.’
‘That’s a great idea, Martin, but why are they tailing me?’ said Leo. ‘They let me out.’
‘They let you out to lure someone else out. I can’t think of one other fucking reason, Leo, why they’d let kike-hating scum like you out of the slammer. Why would they? You raced down a cop. You hit a cop. You got caught. Ellery pulled a knife.’
‘I didn’t hurt anyone.’
‘It doesn’t seem right to me, Leo.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I just got a nose for it. What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing. But they told me something, Martin. Told me you set us up.’
‘You think I’d do that? Why?’
‘To pin Capske on us.’
‘Like they’re going to believe you lot could kill Capske. You can’t even rough-up a woman.’
‘They found us, somehow.’
‘They probably tailed you.’
‘I promise, Martin, I said nothing to them.’
‘You lying piece of shit.’
‘No, Martin. Not a thing.’
‘You fucked up. You had the operation. Your first independent and you fucking embarrassed us.’
‘The cops knew.’
‘So that’s what they told you?’
‘How else did they get there so quick?’
‘They got there so quick, Leo, for two fucking reasons. The first is that you didn’t wear gloves transporting the barbed wire. The second is that you fucking emailed your squad and left the black card in your apartment.’
‘I needed the team quick. I couldn’t get hold of them on the forum.’
‘What’s the problem with email?’
‘It’s traceable.’
‘Right, the forum is anonymous.’
‘Sorry, man, sorry.’
‘You going to be sorry to me or you going to tell me?’
‘What?’
‘You tell them about Sturbe?’
‘No. You think I’m stupid?’
‘He’s in the fucking bedroom, waiting. He thinks you told them. He’s going to be coming in here and pulling your teeth out one by fucking one.’
Lukanov went pale. ‘Fuck you.’
‘You want me to call him out?’
‘No.’
‘Sturbe’s angry.’
‘I took a hit for you.’
‘You’re out, no one else is. Not Paddy, Ray or Ocks. Just you. You know what that tells me?’
‘I didn’t get caught hitting someone.’
‘You hit Harper. No, Leo, it means that you gave them some information.’
‘No, sir, not me.’
‘You know what that’s called, Leo?’
‘No.’
‘High fucking treason.’
‘I did nothing. No treason, nothing.’
‘You’re not safe, Leo. You’re like a weak point in a wall and the thing is, the weak point is the point where the wall breaks.’
‘I’m not a weak point, I swear.’
‘I’m going to go in the bedroom, talk to Sturbe; we’re going to decide what to do with you.’
Leo watched. ‘Fuck you, Martin. There is no Sturbe. You fuck. You’re just trying to spook me. We all know that Sturbe’s just a fucking game you play. You can fuck off and die, Martin.’
‘Really? You think that, do you? You think that this has no one behind it? Really? You think this is just me?’
‘Fuck you, Martin. We’ve all been up to the compound this Sturbe wants us to build and none of us have seen him.’
‘You’ve got to watch yourself, Leo.’
‘Do I?’
‘Sure you do, kiddo.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘You know what happens when you stop believing in the bogeyman.’
‘What?’ said Lukanov, his head twisting to look over his shoulder.
‘The bogeyman comes to pay you a visit.’
Apartment, Yorkville
March 10, 6.45 a.m.
The autopsy on Marisa Cohen found a third bullet. Harper had it in his hand. He needed an answer soon. Even if they caught Martin Heming, they’d need some evidence to link him to the murders.
Each bullet was too mangled and, without a cartridge, there was no way of matching it to a gun. But Harper wanted to know more.
Eddie was working with Hate Crime, conducting interviews with friends and relations of Marisa Cohen. So Harper brought Denise with him.
Denise sat in the car. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I need someone to look over the three bullets. Ballistics have nothing much, but I gave them to someone who used to work with us. He’s retired, works the odd case with the FBI. He’s one of the best. Hans Formet.’
‘What are you looking for?’
‘These bullets look different to me — so do the entrance wounds they leave. They’re tight, no expansion. Look, Hans is a genius. If anyone can find something, he will.’
‘Anything on the tail?’
‘No, he’s still in his apartment. Sleeping. He didn’t get back until after five a.m. What about Abby?’
‘We’re working on the note. Nothing yet. What am I here for, Tom?’
‘You’re here to certify I’m of sound mind and let me know if I’m not.’
‘But if you’re not, you wouldn’t believe me.’
‘Then get me to a psychiatrist as soon as you can.’
They both smiled.
‘I want to hear more about what Aaron said. You can talk on the drive over.’
Harper pulled out. Denise filled him in on the Nazi symbols used in the three murders and Harper listened intently. ‘It makes sense,’ he said. ‘You’re beginning to understand him.’
‘With Aaron’s help, I am.’
Harper and Levene arrived at the home of ballistics expert Hans Formet and walked up the steps.
‘What did the CSU find on the Capske bullet?’ asked Denise.
‘The initial ballistics report was inconclusive. They carried out some ballistic imaging on the bullet, but nothing came up on the National Network. There was too much damage.’
‘No way to tell if it was the same gun that fired both bullets?’
‘If the gun that shot this bullet had been used before, we wouldn’t be able to tell from the mangled slug we’ve got. We didn’t find the cartridges. They’d tell us more.’
‘So what the hell can Hans Formet tell us?’
‘I don’t know, but we’re going to find out soon.’
Harper rang the bell and waited. After a long while, Hans Formet appeared.
Hans was of Austrian origin. A short, balding man with small intense eyes, he was in a white coat, the picture of the anti-social scientist. Harper said hello. Hans smiled and stared at Denise.
‘How you getting on?’ said Harper.
‘Who’s this? Some inspector?’
‘Dr Levene. Psychologist. Working on the case.’
‘Don’t try to read me, Dr Levene, okay?’
‘We’re interested in bullets, not therapy,’ said Denise.
Hans eyed her for another second, then seemed to let it go. He turned to Harper. ‘I found something interesting,’ he said. ‘Something very interesting. You should come in.’
‘Thanks,’ said Harper, and the door opened.
Hans stared at Harper for a moment longer than was comfortable. ‘If you want something done properly, you come to me. Those new recruits at CSU are full of techniques, but they have no depth of knowledge. Everything is from a computer. No real-world experience.’
Hans smiled thinly and led Harper and Levene down to his lab. He waited for Harper to say something. Clearly Harper was supposed to acknowledge his old-school brilliance. Harper didn’t. He looked around at the images on the walls — all of them bullets and cartridges. ‘You like bullets, Hans?’
‘Yes, I like bullets. That’s called dry humor, isn’t it?’
‘If you ever got caught up in a murder investigation, you’d be a prime suspect,’ said Denise, staring at the obsessively neat closeups of bullets.
Hans led them past the workbenches to a desk with three computer screens side-by-side.
‘So this is where you get to play now?’ said Harper.
‘Since I retired, yes. Anyway, I like to do my own work out here away from those new guys with their smart shirts. I don’t like bright colors, you see. What did they find in these bullets?’
‘Nothing,’ said Harper. Denise watched from a distance.
‘Nothing is correct, Detective. But what did I get?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Harper. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘What have I got for you? Here,’ said Hans. A picture came up on the screen.
Harper looked at two close-up photographs of the twisted gray bullets. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘It didn’t take long — not long at all, considering that no one else spotted it. There is something unusual in your bullets. Your instincts were right, Detective.’
‘What did you spot?’ said Harper. ‘Come on, he could’ve murdered again in the time you’ve taken building up to the show.’
Denise Levene felt her interest growing as she stared at a magnified picture of a used bullet. A bullet that had passed through Esther Haeber’s body.
‘Look, here’s the Capske bullet. And here’s your bullet from Esther Haeber. They are both badly damaged. Much more deformed than you would expect. You can see that right away. I presume that is why the young technical specialists at the CSU labs could not identify them. They only know modern bullets. But even for me, this is not something I’ve seen outside of museums and I’ve seen everything post 1961. So that led me to believe that this was older.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. This, Detective Harper, is, as you know, a 9mm Parabellum. But it is an unusual 9mm. Firstly, the metal is different from usual and so is the color.’
‘Looks like it got burned.’
‘It’s a different metal. Not a metal anyone uses to make bullets.’
‘What is it?’
Hans Formet put his hand on top of Harper’s. He whispered, ‘This, Detective, is an iron bullet.’
‘An iron bullet — what does that mean?’
‘Very rare in this size of ballistics. Very rare. So rare, in fact, that you have a connection between your apparently unconnected murders.’
Harper put the third bullet down on the desk. ‘This came from our next victim, Marisa Cohen.’
Hans pulled it out of the bag with forceps and turned it under his eye. ‘It appears the same,’ he said. He dropped it into a small dish and squeezed some droplets on it. They changed color. ‘Iron,’ nodded Hans.
‘But an iron bullet isn’t conclusive, is it?’
‘Iron is made strong by the addition of various impurities. Pure iron is very soft, whereas iron with the right mix of impurities becomes steel. So I had the iron content analyzed. The proportion of iron, carbon and other impurities.’
‘Okay, I get iron, Hans, but what does it tell us?’
‘Well, guess what I found? An exact chemical match. Not only are these bullets of a similar type, they are from the same batch.’
‘Is that admissible?’
‘Who knows what the DA would accept, but for a detective, knowing there is a real link is worth something in its own right. Correct?’
Harper’s skin was tingling. Hans was a showman all right. This was the first piece of real physical evidence, providing a link between the three murders.
‘The bullets might not be from the same gun, but they were manufactured in the same factory, at the same time, is that right?’ said Denise.
‘Yes.’
Harper caught Denise’s thinking. ‘A munitions factory must make a million bullets of the same type at the same time. How does this give us a link?’
‘It’s not absolutely conclusive. I never said it was. But who makes iron bullets, these days? And iron is different from lead. This match is not close, it’s identical. Same batch. How many killers are there in New York using old iron bullets?’
‘You’d say not many,’ said Harper.
‘One. No more,’ said Hans.
‘Can you tell me anything more about these bullets?’ said Harper.
‘I have to continue my work. At the moment, I don’t know what they are or where they were made. I will try for you, Detective.’
Harper stood up and let the idea swim in his mind. It was a material link between the cases. And that meant that he now had evidence linking three Jewish murders. It was potentially explosive.
North Manhattan Homicide
March 10, 8.04 a.m.
Harper’s head was full of iron bullets as he ran up to the investigation room with Denise. She put her arm out, touched his. ‘What do you think it means?’ she asked.
‘Our killer is not new to this game. He’s tried before.’
‘What else?’
‘He’s not politically motivated. He’s killing people because they’re Jewish.’
‘Can we be sure? There’s just three murders.’
‘Each killed in similar ways with iron bullets. He doesn’t want to get caught, does he?’ Tom said. ‘If we’re right, then the man in prison for killing Esther Haeber is the wrong man.’
‘And that adds something vital to our profile. He’s stalking these people, killing them, then setting up other people and staging it to avoid us joining the dots.’
‘Intelligent, strategic, psychotic,’ said Tom.
‘Add brutal and determined. He wants to carry on. He really enjoys this. Like some… necessity, you know.’
‘A religious killer?’ asked Harper.
‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. It has that visionary zeal about it.’
‘God help us, then.’
‘Or just avoid helping him, if at all possible.’
Harper left Denise and marched into Captain Lafayette’s office. ‘I got a link for you.’
Lafayette stood up. ‘Really? Evidence?’
‘Yes, real evidence.’
‘Go on, tell me.’ Lafayette moved round the desk. ‘We’re getting busted on this by the hour. They want to know why Lukanov walked. I need some good news.’
Harper produced a printout of Hans Formet’s photographs. ‘We’ve discovered a link between the bullets found at the Capske scene and the Esther Haeber and Marisa Cohen scenes. It links each murder.’
‘What’s the link?’
‘The bullets are all made of iron,’ said Harper.
Lafayette looked at the pictures. ‘What’s the significance of that?’
‘Iron was used to manufacture bullets at some times in the past, but it’s rare. These bullets are very rare, therefore linked, Captain.’
‘Coincidence?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, what you got? Three bullets made of iron, separated by four months, one on a case with a conviction? You know, Harper, even your fans wouldn’t buy this.’
‘It’s a link.’
‘Could it be contamination?’
‘Please, Captain. This is a breakthrough. I nearly choked. There’s some animal on the loose, taking these people out because they’re Jewish. I think we’ve got a serial killer at work.’
‘It’s not a complete picture, Harper.’
‘Complete enough. I need to take these homicides together. We need a task force. I’ll want a liaison with Brooklyn Homicide. We have to reopen the Esther Haeber case.’
Captain Lafayette sat back down and directed one of the fans on his desk towards his face. ‘Are you sure it’s enough? I know you want this, but we’ve got to be sure, Harper.’
‘Captain, I need some authority here. I need to take this forward. You’ve got to trust me on this one.’
‘The iron’s not enough. I need more. Go and check out this guy who got jailed for the Haeber murder.’
‘I’m on my way soon as we’re through here. But you’ve got to understand that the iron matches. There’s an exact chemical fingerprint to iron. These three bullets were from the same batch.’
‘You got anything that matches that bullet to a particular gun?’
‘No, it’s mangled all out of shape. But the chemical properties are identical.’
‘Bullets are made in big batches, Harper. Big, big batches.’
‘But this is not what bullets are made of now. No one uses iron today. These are incredibly old bullets. Possibly antiques.’
Lafayette pushed his chair back and stared up. ‘Okay, Harper. I’ll take your word. We’ll get some help. Run with it. But we got to talk to people about how to handle this. You know what this is.’
‘Of course I do. Some psychopath is killing Jews.’
North Manhattan Homicide
March 10, 11.05 a.m.
Eddie and Denise nodded silently as Harper talked through his visit to see Bruce Lyle, the man imprisoned for the murder of Esther Haeber.
‘So you’ve got nothing to show for your efforts?’
Harper shrugged. ‘He’s not the guy, in my opinion, but we need evidence to get the case re-opened and that means catching the real killer. He says he was framed — that someone planted the rings. I think our killer chose an easy target. They found illegal firearms and cocaine in his place, so he’s got three violations to serve.’
‘But he’s no killer?’
‘No.’
‘What else you got?’ said Eddie.
‘We’ve got something on the note from the kidnapper. It’s got mildew on it, so it was written somewhere damp. But the main thing is the typeface and ink. It’s strange.’
‘How?’
‘They’ve got a pretty full database of typewriters and fonts down there. They tell me this is something unusual.’
‘Just like the bullets.’
‘Right,’ said Harper. ‘They say this is from an antique typewriter. German make, around 1934. They are pretty sure it’s a Torpedo Portable Typewriter. It was designed for military use and only wrote in black. Not red ink.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’ said Eddie.
Denise nodded to herself. ‘This guy is delusional. Aaron noticed the Nazi symbols in the way he kills. Now an antique German typewriter. He’s not a neo-Nazi, Harper. He thinks he is a Nazi, one of the originals.’
‘It’s a very rare model,’ said Harper. ‘Not many people deal in these. We might be able to track something.’
‘Give me the printout,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He got up and walked towards Gerry Ratten.
Harper’s cell phone rang and broke the somber mood. It was Hans Formet.
‘You need to come round,’ said Hans. ‘You need to come round now.’
‘What for?’
‘I know what your bullets are. I know where they come from. And this is strange.’
‘That’s great, Hans, we’ll be there as soon as we can.’
Within the hour, Harper and Denise were back in Hans Formet’s homemade lab, with a cup of coffee each, listening to the long rambling story of the man’s genius.
Hans clearly had not moved much since they’d last been there. He was bleary-eyed, with his hair sticking out in every direction. He sat on a stool with his computer screen to his side.
‘An iron bullet is rare — a 9mm Parabellum made of sintered iron is extremely rare. Take a look at this.’ Hans brought up a photograph of a bullet with a cartridge. The cartridge was black.
‘Looks like there’s a tux on a bullet,’ said Harper. ‘Like a bullet going to the Oscars.’
Hans laughed. ‘That’s a very good joke, Detective. A good ballistics joke.’
‘Come on, Hans, spill.’
‘So I sent the information across to some people I know, then I put it up on the web and got a hit. They said it might be an antique bullet. Something from the Second World War.’
Harper and Denise felt the thoughts rushing through their heads. ‘Tell us more,’ said Harper.
‘The Parabellum itself was introduced for the German Service revolver, the Luger Pistole. It’s one of the most popular cartridges in the world now. But back then, it was new.’
‘So this is a German bullet?’
‘Oh, yes. Manufactured in Poland, probably.’
‘Go on.’
‘Okay, well, sorry for the history lesson, but the Parabellum originally had a lead core. A better bullet, of course. An iron bullet is too hard. The purpose of a bullet is to cause damage in the flesh. An iron bullet can zip right through the body with no expansion. It is the expansion that brings someone down. However, in about 1942, war-time lead supplies were running low so they started making the Parabellum with an iron core. Miteisenkern. They had stocks of these bullets left over after the war. Quite often, if you try to buy a bullet from that time, it will be an iron-cored bullet.’
‘Always the pragmatists, the Germans.’
‘Yes, indeed. Now, the bullet with the iron core was given a black jacket to differentiate it.’
‘So what more do we know? Why is someone using antique bullets?’
‘Come on, Harper,’ said Denise. ‘They’re not just antique bullets, they’re army supplies. These are Nazi bullets, Harper — original Nazi bullets. He’s playing the whole part, he is the whole part.’
Harper felt the hair on his neck rise.
Apartment, Crown Heights
March 10, 2.10 p.m.
Denise Levene headed off to see Aaron Goldenberg. He was a curator at the Museum of Tolerance. If anyone was going to know how to source Second World War artefacts, it would be him. He had also been working on a couple of other pieces of information. The number on the kidnapper’s note and the words Loyalty and Valiance on the black cards.
Harper found Eddie and headed out to Lukanov’s apartment. He called Swanson and Greco.
‘I’m on my way. Any movement?’
‘No one in or out. He’s probably still sleeping.’
Harper and Eddie drove over. Eddie explained what he’d done so far. He had passed the information about the typewriter to Ratten, who had gone out over eBay and two or three Internet groups asking for a 1934 Torpedo Portable Typewriter. He’d already had two hits. Someone who had one and someone who might have one soon.
‘He’ll have a list of dealers by the time we get back.’
‘Good. But I doubt we’ll be able to trace it. If this guy’s really delusional, he could’ve bought it years ago.’
They turned into the street and saw Swanson and Greco’s car. They pulled up and got out. Greco and Swanson drove up to them.
‘Good luck,’ said Swanson.
‘Which is his room?’ said Harper.
Greco pointed. ‘Third-floor corner.’
Harper stared up. ‘Windows open all night?’
‘Yep. Lights went off at 5.27 a.m.’
‘Strange,’ said Harper.
‘Why?’
‘People close their drapes to sleep.’
‘His bedroom is at the side,’ said Greco.
‘I know,’ said Harper, ‘and the drapes aren’t drawn.’
‘Maybe he sleeps heavy,’ said Swanson.
‘You see anyone come and go?’
‘Not a thing. Just other residents.’
‘How many?’
‘Several. We got pictures, if you want.’
‘You kept an eye on the back entrance?’ Harper asked.
‘Sure. There’s two cops there.’
‘They say they saw anyone come in or out?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Anyone else?’ said Harper.
‘A cop.’
‘What cop?’
‘The guys at the back saw him. They didn’t see him go in, but a cop came out with a perp in cuffs this morning.’
‘One cop?’ said Harper.
‘Yeah, one cop. Suppose the second cop was in the car.’
‘You said he was leading a perp?’
‘Yeah.’
‘They get a good look at that perp?’
‘No. He had a hoodie on.’
‘Fuck,’ said Harper.
‘What? It was a cop.’
‘Maybe it was a cop, maybe it was Leo and one of his crew.’
‘No, they were sure it was a cop.’
‘You don’t know that. Let me ask you.’
‘What?’
‘How many cops do you see making arrests from the projects on their own?’ The two detectives shook their heads. ‘Is that never? Or do you want more time?’
‘Hardly ever,’ said Greco.
Harper sighed. ‘Come on, he’s gone. Somehow, he’s fucking gone.’
Harper and Eddie ran up to the house, Swanson and Greco behind them. They entered the building, raced up the stairs to the third floor.
Harper stared at the door. ‘Who’s done this? Who kicked this in?’
‘You did,’ said Swanson.
‘I barged the door. The Crime Scene team bolted the door. It’s been kicked open. Careful, there might be prints.’
Harper pushed open the door. He called out, ‘Police.’
Not a sound came back. They stopped still. Were hit by the smell of urine.
They opened the door fully. ‘Looks like he’s gone,’ said Eddie.
‘How fucked up do we want to be? We lost our one lead,’ shouted Harper. He moved through to the bedroom, pushed open this door in turn. ‘Shit,’ said Harper. ‘I don’t think he’s gone.’
‘What? He’s sleeping?’
Eddie joined Harper. There was Lukanov, lying naked on the bed. Gunshot wound to the head. Feathers everywhere, a pillow marked black with residue. His torso was ripped across with the number 88 in large bloody tracks. A small black and white cat was licking at the wounds. It paused and stared at them.
Harper turned and pushed past the two detectives. ‘They killed him,’ he said. ‘He didn’t come or go, you fucking imbeciles, but someone fucking did.’
‘Who? We were supposed to tail the guy, not fucking nurse him. We weren’t looking for someone going in, were we?’
‘I guess not. Another fucking dead end.’
The body was pale, the blood dried black. Covered with Nazi tattoos from neck to ankle. The red calling card ripped across it.
‘A foot soldier,’ said Harper. ‘Dispensable. Someone they knew had betrayed them.’ He turned to Eddie. ‘We’re getting close.’
‘How do you figure?’
‘Serial killers who attack random victims according to type are difficult to trace because there’s no connection between the motive and the victim. There’s only the unlucky fact that the victim was the type.’
‘I know that.’
‘But this is no random victim — this man was killed because he knew, because he was a threat.’
‘So what?’
‘We’re in his lair, Eddie, we’re right in the heart, in the control center, with links and evidence.’
‘That’s good, right?’
‘Sure, that’s good.’
‘You don’t have the face of a man who thinks it’s good.’
‘No. He’s playing a different game now. Either he’s going to pack up, go quiet, move town and hope we never catch up with him, or…’
‘Or?’
‘Or he’s going to feel our breath on his neck and start enjoying it, like it’s some game, and then things are going to escalate fast. So fast, I’m scared.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, Eddie, these people think they’re right, and if he feels he’s pushed into a corner, if he feels that there’s no way out, he’s going to start thinking about doing some permanent damage, maybe on a different scale.’
‘A kill spree.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I’m worried about. Three kills in three days. He’s not just a pattern killer, he’s a deluded soldier who thinks the war’s fucking started. And he’s in New York.’
Lock-Up, Bedford-Stuyvesant
March 10, 5.05 p.m.
The door was yanked open and he stood in a rectangle of moonlight. The darkness of the garage made him pause for a moment. The smell of mold on clay bricks, the human smell somewhere in the background. His hand moved out and flicked an old plastic switch. Lights flickered dimly in the gloom below.
The killer stepped into the garage. He moved sideways past piles of bricks and scaffolding poles. At the side of the room stood an old desk facing a mirror. An old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder sat on the desk with a small square-headed microphone attached.
The killer put his notebook beside the tape recorder and stared into the mirror. His hair was slicked flat to his skull, and he was wearing a uniform, a full uniform, with the blue eagle on the arm. The uniform made him feel stronger.
He stood in front of the mirror and tried not to look at his face. His uniform couldn’t disguise his features. He was no Aryan, but in the low light he could believe it more than usual. There had never been, to his knowledge, a connection between the expression on his face and the feelings and thoughts beneath.
His whole life he had played a calm game, smiling and getting by, but everything was conditional, nothing was absolute. Perhaps it was just like that with some people. Even as a child he experimented with faces, hiding the feelings below with a mask. With the uniform and the formality of the army, it was different. You were what you appeared to be.
He appeared to be an SS officer because he was an SS officer. He could kill when he liked. When Jews were in the ghetto, when they were out of the ghetto, during the day, during the night. If they broke the rules by being out after curfew or by wearing fur coats or gold rings. All of this was illegal. He could dismiss a Jew with a ragged bullet-hole in an instant. Feeling was action. The manifold between the two worlds had never been complete until now.
He loved this new life he had created. His reanimated life. The life of the past, of past certainties, of past glories, of power, hunger and the Third Reich.
He sat, awake and alive from watching himself in the mirror. He had a small and simple Anglepoise lamp on his desk. This too was an authentic 1940s build. He opened his notebook and looked ahead.
One night, many, many nights ago, he had run away from a persecution of sorts. A beating by some other boys who were supposed to be his friends, who thought beating a Jew was all the more fun for its sudden and unexpected nature. But he wasn’t a Jew, they were mistaken. He had taken on the suffering of a race of which he was no part. He had felt the blows, he had heard the insults. ‘I am not a Jew!’ he shouted.
He ran from them that night. By the time he turned for home, he found he was lost. What happened that night in the dark, alone and terrified? Did the anger and frustration pass into his bloodstream then, at the height of fear? Did the man who now made him feel warm and safe find him in the dark wood? A boy, alone at night, shivering and terrified by every insect and breath of wind. The Jew who shouted out aloud that he was not a Jew.
Out of his pocket he took a scrunched-up piece of white cotton and placed it on the oak table-top. Then he produced a small square of paper. There was a paragraph of writing on it. He pressed the cotton to his nose as he read it. There were 88 words on the piece of paper. He read them as if he needed their power.
He reached down to the right-hand drawer; it pulled easily on its old worn runners. The desk was made in 1933, the year Hitler became Chancellor. He fumbled around inside for a bottle. He lifted it out and looked at it under the light. He peered through the bottle, three quarters empty. He put it on his desk and stared ahead. His fingers were grubby and oily. He continued to stare as he unscrewed the top of the bottle. He removed the cotton from his nose, swigged and then stroked the cotton. He then pushed it from his desk on to the bare ground.
Somewhere behind him, there was a moaning sound. He listened, then walked across the ground and switched on another light. A brick cupboard with a wooden door was suddenly illuminated from the inside. The light shone out through gaps around the door. Inside was a girl. He leaned against the wall and felt the stirring of desire. She was the most beautiful of all. He had to destroy her, day by day, to watch her body turn to gray sacking, to watch her teeth fall out. He wanted only to find her disgusting.
His hand pressed flat on the wooden door. He picked up a chart from the wall. Looked at it. ‘144002. No food at all. You are still alive. You are strong.’
He opened the door and looked down. The body was lying on its side, barely moving.
‘You will not last more than another week or so. You are the lucky one.’
She groaned. Over the past few days, he had conducted several experiments on her. He had noted down all the results.
He knelt down and put his hand on her skin. He still felt the desire. ‘I shouldn’t feel like this, you know?’ he said. ‘It burns inside me. I must fight it.’ He stroked her arm and then pulled back. He felt the disgust at himself rise and merge with a strong sense of guilt and failure. ‘The flesh of a Jewess. It is base. It is vile to want you but, Jewess, my whole body yearns for it.’ He grabbed her head and pressed his lips hard against her mouth. Then he pulled back and spat at her. ‘Your sickening seduction must end.’
He moved back across to his desk, took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘You’re a filthy whore, Abby, you understand? A filthy whore!’
Desire was hard to control. Desire needed to be destroyed. He sat down in his seat and looked over his shoulder towards the dark corner of the room where he could hear the faintest shuffle. Then he turned back, opened another drawer and took out an apple. He peeled it and ate it slowly. He clicked the tape recorder, moved the old tape round and clicked it again.
The spool ran, caught up with itself and slowed. He rewound, then pressed another lever and spooled by hand to a small chalk mark. He stopped. He breathed, and then clicked the recorder. He watched the whole mechanism move and the tape start to run on the rollers through the pick-up.
He raised his head again and cleared his throat.
‘Josef Sturbe reporting for duty. I have conducted the third day of the survey. I have much to report. Marisa Cohen is dead. She was found out after curfew. I conducted a rudimentary experiment on her, which is all in my written report. The woman Rebecca Glass is next on my list.’
He turned the page of his notebook; continued with his list of details from the tours. He coughed then turned another page. He leaned to one side and picked up the cotton underwear from the floor. He flattened it on his desk, smoothing it back into shape. It was stained all over with the dirt from his boots. They all cleaned his boots with their own underwear. Destroy desire. Belittle it. But it excited him. He shot them because he must not desire the thing he hated. He knew that things must happen more quickly now. The desire was destroying him, but he had to win and he could only win by destroying desire once and for all. He turned back to his report.
‘New York City, I saw four complaining Jews this week. One target is still outstanding. She will be punished, but today the opportunity did not arise.’ He paused. ‘The powers are rising in opposition. They are all here. It is as I have read and all on our streets. The filthy disease-carrying parasites, the greedy, lazy perverts worshipping their God and money with trickery and deceit. Deviants, rats — spreading their Jewish secrets. The Jew is the parasite of humanity. A demon in flesh. We must start to consider a more devastating solution. A bigger solution.’ His face strained. The light clicked off. He felt her underwear again. He was embarrassed. He desired her and despised himself for it. He turned to the door in the corner. He knew the pamphlet word for word. He pressed his face to the wooden door and whispered through the cracks: ‘“Jewry undermines every people and every state that it infiltrates. It feeds as a parasite and a culture-killing worm in those lost people. It grows and grows like weeds in the state, the community and the family, and infects the blood of humanity everywhere.
‘“It is the pestilential nature of Jewry against which every people, every state, every nation must and should want to defend itself if it does not want to be a victim of their bloody plague.” Do you hear me, Abby?’