East Harlem
December 4, 1.30 a.m.
Harper didn’t wait around to watch the body being bagged, humped on to a gurney and rolled over bumpy ground to the waiting ambulance. He didn’t have the heart for anything. He wanted the world to swallow him up and make it all disappear. But he couldn’t say any of it. He snarled at Lafayette, walked away from his building and felt the nausea rising in his belly. He’d never be able to go in there again.
The killer had destroyed his home. Had Sebastian meant to do that? Why did Sebastian want to hurt him so badly?
The face of the corpse had been completely removed. How, they could only half imagine. All that was left was a thin layer of bloody flesh over the bone, and the dark holes of the eye sockets, nose and mouth.
Nothing from which they could identify her until they ran all the necessary tests. The agony was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning. I want you to feel pain, Tom Harper.
Harper took himself away to the East River and sat down to think. There was a riot of painful emotion going on in his head and he could hardly cut out the noise. He was at breaking point but he knew better than to give in to the chaos. He had to do the one thing he knew would keep him together. He had to go to work.
The East River was like black ink, tilting with bright streaks of moonlight. The odd picturesque boat chugged by and anyone might presume that the man sitting at the edge was just enjoying the scene.
In his head, the discipline was at work. Harper had a ferocious capacity for work and now was the time to draw upon it. Ignore the thump and throb of emotion, ignore his self-pity. Ignore everything except the forces of reason.
Only reason would catch the killer. Harper took a piece of chalk from his pocket and on the paving stones in front of him he started from day one. He wrote the names of the killer’s victims:
Chloe Mestella
Mary-Jane Samuelson
Grace Frazer
Amy Lloyd-Gardner
Jessica Pascal
Elizabeth Seale
Nate Williamson
Lottie Bixley
Kitty Hunyardi
Rose Stanhope
Senator Stanhope
Lucy James
Denise?
He took out his notebook and went through the notes he took of each scene. The poetry sprang from the page: Every angel is terrifying; Subtle he needs must be, who could seduce Angels.
Then he wrote: Abaddon. He looked at his list. What was this telling him? Sebastian had killed the Upper East Side girls. Had he also killed Lucy James and Lottie Bixley? Why did Sebastian want Tom to feel pain now? Why? What was the connection? The marks on the pavement were barely visible in the dark but Harper just kept staring. He wanted to know what connected these victims and he wanted to know why the killer was punishing him. A half-thought appeared in his mind. It caught his attention and then waited for him to consider the implications.
His mind had starting going there already, but with it all down in front of him it became crystal clear. It was about Mo, wasn’t it? It had to be. He had gone for Denise because Tom had gone for Mo. Sebastian had loved Mo. He was seeking revenge. What for and why didn’t matter, it just meant that the link was real.
But if he was punishing Harper, he was also playing games. He played a game with Elizabeth Seale. He’d said it was ‘sealed with a kiss’. Maybe Abaddon meant something? Maybe Abaddon meant something about Mo.
Detective Harper spoke the word slowly. ‘Abaddon.’ Abaddon. He recalled something from earlier in the investigation. What was it? The phone call after they released the fake profile. Sebastian had said something about Abaddon, but then he’d said something else. What was it?
Harper flicked through his notebook. He found the transcript of the phone call. There it was. That’s what he said. ‘I’m the American Devil. I’m Abaddon — that’s where I am. I’m a pure breed devil and I was raised in hell.’
Harper had looked up the word Abaddon — it was a name for the angel of destruction and he’d thought no more about it. Now he looked down more intently at the word.
I’m Abaddon, that’s where I am…
It was a curious phrase. Tom had taken Abaddon to be a person, an incarnation of the devil.
The cogs in Harper’s mind turned and clicked. A gear shifted.
He’d gone to Maurice’s room. Harper recalled it in slow motion, trying to picture it in his mind. Yes, he was sure. There was a photograph. Two boys. Obviously connected, maybe even family. The sign was obscured. Just the letter A was visible.
Abaddon, that’s where I am…
What did it mean? And now, again, he’d written it near the corpse of a woman whose identity he dared not think about. As a reminder, maybe? As a clue?
Abaddon, the name of the angel of destruction. Was that all it meant? What was Sebastian trying to tell him? Then it came all at once. Elaine’s voice. Elaine Fittas. Just before he heard the news about the body in his basement. What did she say?
‘Maybe he loved him.’
Abaddon wasn’t a name, was it? It was a place. It was the place where he and Mo started all this. They knew each other all right. They knew each other damn well!
Suddenly, the only sound on the vast dock was the heavy slap of Harper’s running footfalls.