ground, a ribbon of blood from the neat wounds. An execution or a re-enactment? He blew out smoke again. He couldn’t afford another attack in the street. He needed something more substantial.
He thought about the vigil. It would be a cut right at the heart of things. But how? How to do it and how to humiliate Harper? He just had to work out a plan. The sunlight broke through a cloud and shot through his dirty window. He saw the dense blue smoke drifting in thin waves across the room, watched them for a moment — then suddenly the idea was there, in the room with him. He felt a sense of calm, as if he had finally found the door out of a prison.
The river was only half-crossed but there was no going back. His hands were thick with blood, but the species still lived on. He moved quickly to the window and looked out through the dirt and grime. He wanted the world purified, simplified, made clean. Just like the forest glade, a cut of green earth and a future for himself and others like him. Perhaps he was too confident, too clear-minded. Sometimes, it was necessary to cloud people’s minds with fear. Maybe it was necessary to kill to feel nearer to God.
He thought about the other girl again. The girl he had loved who had ripped up the future. He saw her face in his mind’s eye. Let the emotion at her memory run over his tongue. Was it love or hate he felt? He wanted to see her. He wanted to love her. He wanted to hurt her. He had to go out. He had to clean up. You couldn’t kill them fast enough. There were just too many. He needed a way to kill more, to kill effectively, to get through them all.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Harper took some time to gather his thoughts, then brought the team back together. He looked exhausted from his sleepless night. ‘This has got to get going, now,’ he told them. ‘We’ve got four unsolved murders with a link between them and a kidnapped girl. We’ve got less certainty than ever. Let’s try to keep this organized.’
Denise looked across at Harper, indicating that she wanted to speak now. She wanted the team to understand the nature of the killer. Standing in front of them, leaning on the old table, she waited while he said to them, ‘Clear your heads. We have four crime scenes that all need re-investigating. Dr Levene is going to give us the heads-up on this killer, then we’re going to go back to basics. We’re missing something here.’ Harper raised his hand towards Denise. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’
Denise cleared her throat, pushed her hair back and took a breath. ‘The man we are searching for is not like you or me. He is a sociopathic murderer. He’s not concerned with his personal safety. He is solely concerned with carrying out his project. As I understand it, his project has a racial element. He uses original Nazi bullets, he makes his victims clean his boots and then shoots them in the head as they do so. He enjoys their submission, but his crimes have not, up to now, had an explicitly sexual element. That is not to say that they are not sexually motivated.’
Denise paused for a moment. ‘I happen to think that they do have a sexual element and by that, let me be clear, I mean that his control over his subjects gives him some kind of physical gratification. It may be that he is trying to stop his desires. These are crimes of hate to some degree, but they are not only crimes of hate. They are personal crimes that come from a powerful sense of inferiority that it is impossible for our killer to acknowledge. Our unknown subject believes he is hunting after Jews, after any Jew, but his victims are not just any Jews. I’ve thought more closely about the victims recently and they tell us something. Apart from David Capske, they follow a similar pattern. The women belong to a similar type. Look at this.’
Denise pointed at the women on the board. They all had different hair color, different faces. No one could see the connection. ‘I don’t get it,’ said Garcia. ‘They’re all different.’
‘Yes, they seem so, don’t they?’ Denise walked across to the boards and put the crime-scene photographs of each woman side by side. ‘Do you see it now?’ she asked.
The team stared at the three women. Esther, Becky and Marisa.
‘They’re all thin with long hair,’ said Mary.
‘Yes,’ said Denise. ‘That’s right, they’re all thin. He’s not just after Jews. He’s after a type. This is not just political, it’s personal.’
‘What about Capske?’
Harper replied. ‘I think that’s what the investigation has to ask itself. Why Capske?’
‘I think I might know why,’ said Denise. ‘Did you ever interview Lucy Steller? I’ve been feeling I’ve been missing something and it suddenly came to me. Abby Goldenberg was the type, but so was Lucy Steller. Thin, with long hair. Maybe he wasn’t after Capske, after all. Maybe he couldn’t get the girl he wanted, so he took it out on Capske. Maybe Lucy was his target. He’s full of desire and hatred for himself.’
‘What do you think, Eddie?’ said Harper. ‘You spoke to Lucy.’
‘It’s interesting. Lucy certainly fits the type. He was watching them both. Lucy said that. She was sure about that.’
‘Yeah, but Capske took her all the way home. He didn’t have a chance,’ said Harper.
‘So, instead, he followed Capske. Maybe frustrated with not being able to get to his target.’
The team seemed buoyed by the idea. They hadn’t had a lead for days and the new information seemed to open some doors.
‘I call it a psychological fingerprint,’ said Denise. ‘He’s leaving his ID all over these kills, we just can’t read it yet. But we’re getting closer.’
‘Let’s check it out,’ said Harper. ‘We’ve got to go back to Lucy. He could’ve been stalking her for a while and if so, then she might have seen him.’
‘And if she was a target…’ said Denise. She stopped. All eyes were on her. She wasn’t sure whether she should say it or not. She looked at the floor and then back up. ‘If she was a target, then she still is — and that means she’s possibly still in danger.’
‘We’re already on it,’ said Harper, pointing at three members of his team. ‘Let’s move!’
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Lucy Steller sat alone in her flat. She had been too scared to go out ever since the morning after David’s murder. She couldn’t forgive herself for falling asleep as he was being tortured.
She had slept in a warm bed, safe and comfortable as the man she loved was being tortured and murdered. She hated herself so much, she couldn’t bear to see or speak to anyone.
She took the razor, looked coldly down on to her own arm and steeled herself. The razor lightly touched her arm, a delicate but unmistakable sting. Not pain, but painful. She pulled the razor across her arm, watching the trail appear — a red tail to a steel mouse. The stinging deepened and intensified. She raised her hand. It was a cycle. She would cut, then the white fear would come and she’d feel depressed, scared and lost. Then she would have to cut until the fear stopped. Hurt made sense. The line of blood collected into a glistening red ball on her wrist. The tipping point was reached and the ball of blood rolled down her arm. Seeing herself bleed, she relaxed a little, a physical relief from her emotional pain.
Her hand moved down to the cut; she drew a second line across the first line, forming a red cross. The pain from the second line mingled with the dying pain from the first. Emotional pain was layered too. Layers and layers of harmonic pain, shouting, screaming, grieving, crying.
Blood was dripping off both sides of her arm. She cut again as the pain dulled. Each time, the dulling came more quickly, until Lucy was slicing herself every few seconds. She continued for minutes. A hundred bloody cuts, a hundred red lines spreading out in every direction like marks on a butcher’s chopping block.
Then it stopped. The tension and anger vanished and she was left sitting on the small couch, staring ahead, her pale face gaunt and drawn from a lack of food and sleep and iron.
