really like. He felt a pulse throb in his temples. He looked into the mirror behind the bottles on the bar. He was handsome, wasn’t he? Not a snivelling incompetent. He was the American Devil. And he was strong and capable. He tried to calm himself but for some reason it wouldn’t stop circling in his mind. He was offended. He was also curious about the evidence left in Jessica’s apartment and how they knew what’d happened with Mary-Jane. He licked his lips. Maybe Williamson knew too much. He wanted to know. He wanted to know right now. He drank another shot and started to think.
At seven his next girl, Elizabeth, entered the bar. He knew she would: he had access to her electronic diary. She was meeting Kyra, a colleague and fellow intern. He stared at her. She was more beautiful in the flesh than in the photographs he kept of her. He’d come across her by chance at a city function three years earlier. She’d been standing by her old man, smiling and playing the pure, dutiful, all-American daughter. He’d liked her then. He liked her more now. But she’d not stayed pure, that was the problem, and now he had to act. She needed to be snuffed out. They all did.
He went up to the bar and stood next to Elizabeth. He ordered a Black Russian and turned to her. ‘Can I get you something?’
She smiled and shook her head. Polite but firm. He tried again.
‘You had a tough day?’
‘I’m just waiting for my friend. Thanks.’
He nodded as the barman put his drink in front of him, not taking his eyes from Elizabeth. She didn’t dare look up, but she knew he was staring.
‘Listen,’ he continued, ‘I’m sorry, I’m just a little nervous. I have to admit, I’ve seen you before. Your father’s the TV preacher, right? A real puritan. Just what this country needs.’
At the realization that he might be genuine, her lifelong training in good manners kicked in.
‘Hey, sorry, I just… I hope you didn’t think I was being rude.’
‘No, it must be hard — you walk into a bar and want a bit of peace and some asshole hits on you.’
‘It can be,’ she said and smiled sweetly.
His eye was watching her little silver crucifix oscillate in the beautiful dip of her neckline.
‘You wouldn’t mind… I mean, I know it’s odd, but you wouldn’t mind sharing a beer with an admirer?’
‘Of me or my dad?’ she said.
‘A little bit of both, maybe,’ he said and smiled broadly.
She was flattered. She couldn’t help it. ‘Maybe one beer until my friend arrives,’ she said.
He called the barman. ‘Can you get this woman a cool one?’ He smiled at her. It was a great smile, and she felt a little frisson of something in her stomach.
‘What do you do?’ she asked.
‘Me? I work in art. I buy and sell paintings.’ The man laughed. ‘Nothing as beautiful as you, though.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘Please. You can cut the corny lines.’
The man in the black suit watched her take her beer and sip the white foam off the top. He leaned in slightly to catch her perfume. ‘You know which painting you remind me of? Manet’s Olympia.’
‘I don’t know it,’ she said.
‘Well, maybe I’ll show you sometime. But it’s in Paris. Or perhaps you wouldn’t mind a European adventure? The thing with Manet’s painting is that it’s a nude of a prostitute. It offended the public taste. I sometimes do that myself, you know, offend the public taste. All great artists do.’
She smiled. This guy was a little too intense. ‘You’re a great artist?’
‘I do a little sculpture,’ he said. ‘I’ve not been discovered yet. But who knows.’
She smiled again. He was just drinking her in, letting his imagination run away with him. He was starting to feel slightly delirious. He needed to get away from her. It was not the right time. More than that, her friend would be in soon and that would be the end of the chase. He had to keep the lines clean. No residues. He finished his drink and thanked her, leaning in and kissing her cheek. As he did so, his hand passed quickly into her handbag. He left quickly.
He would’ve liked it to rain now. He looked up to the autumn sky. It looked good for a shower.
And now he had her entrance card, he could begin his plan. She’d change her entrance card soon, sure, but would soon be soon enough? He didn’t think so — she was girl number five and tonight was her night.
She just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Blue Team MIR
November 20, 10.30 p.m.
Down at Blue Team, the day turned into evening and everyone was waiting. Williamson had got the team to set up the big blue boards in the basement room. They had three photographs each of Mary-Jane, Grace Frazer and Amy Lloyd-Gardner, and now Jessica Pascal’s face stared out innocently alongside the others. Williamson wanted no mistakes. He wanted to hurt this guy.
Tom Harper and Eddie Kasper walked into the basement. The other detectives of Blue Team were all sitting around facing Nate Williamson, who was talking to them in low tones.
They’d been talking about the lead detective’s performance live on air. Everyone agreed that he’d done a good job. Williamson wasn’t happy with it, but that was his character. He was at least pleased that he’d fronted it. He’d insisted, he told his guys, even though Harper had offered to do it himself.
The team went quiet as Harper approached. Everyone was hoping this would work, but they all knew it was a hell of a long shot. Harper was looking tired and sat on the desk at the front. He nodded to the guys and wiped his nose with his forefinger. ‘That was a great job out there, Nate. If he’s listening, then that’s gotta sting.’
‘Yeah, well, I did what I said I would. Let’s just hope it pays off — administration want every report on these murders to go in triplicate right up to the deputy commissioner, so if this fucks up, then everyone in the fucking city knows it. How about that?’
‘High stakes,’ said Harper, ‘but I hope it pays off for you.’
‘He can only do two things, call or not call. That’s evens. This is a good bet. I’d back it myself, but I’m saving up for retirement.’
Harper felt a smile cross his lips. It was good to hear someone being less than cynical, a rare thing at Homicide.
Williamson moved off to the coffee pot at the back of the basement room, then came back with a steaming cup. He turned to the rest of Blue Team. ‘Let’s focus on our killer. How we doing out there?’
‘Still nothing on ViCAP,’ said Kasper. ‘I’ve been trying to get the FBI profile coordinator to give us something concrete, but they’re still reluctant to make a judgement.’
Lol Edwards chimed in from the soft seats at the back of the room. ‘My view, for what it’s worth, is that he’s from out of state.’
‘Opinions are fine, Lol, but we need evidence. Nothing else? What’s the autopsy report looking like, Garcia?’
‘Everyone’s got a copy. Details worthy of note are as follows: the cause of death in the case of Jessica Pascal was asphyxiation. Plastic bag was found at the scene. The wounds mostly occurred before death. The victim had recently had sexual intercourse. Traces of semen on the body. Impossible to tell whether it was rape or they had sex and then the killer went ape. Get this — there were sixty-four separate shallow knife wounds.’
Lol Edwards sniffed for attention. ‘ME called, she overlooked a bite mark on the left buttock. Pretty deep, too. We’ve got another teeth print. It’s the same mouth. And the lip print matches as much as they can tell.’
‘How did he get in?’
‘We’ve got sightings of Jessica in Joe’s Bar with a grey-haired man in his late thirties. We’ve also got an ID of the same guy at the girl’s Baptist church. We’re working them into sketches.’
‘What do you say, Tom? What are we looking at?’ said Eddie.
‘Well, don’t let the fake profile fool you. This is an aggressive sexual predator. Organized and ruthless. He enjoys hurting and humiliating. There’s a religious element that I don’t understand yet but he already likes to
