A sculptor of some renown in the East End, she’d been found in her studio by Thomas Simmons, a prospective buyer, who’d arrived for a scheduled showing that morning. Simmons had sauntered inside the Whitechapel studio five days ago to discover Keaton on the floor with her throat slashed. Surrounding her body were the six figurines she had planned to show him with their wooden heads lopped off.

Grant was summoned to the East End by the constable, who had made a connection between the carefully carved marks (plural, yes, because there were now two, thank you very much) on Melanie Keaton’s forehead and the one found on the Oxford don who’d met his demise on the porcelain at the British Library.

When Grant arrived on the scene, he was immediately drawn to the beheaded figurines with black-feathered wings sprouting from their backs and faces an even darker shade of ebony. One of Keaton’s employees told him they were a series of archangels the sculptor had been working on. The studio was filled with a host of carvings in the same vein, causing the commander to wonder if he’d stumbled onto a black magic cult. Grant made a note to check if the murdered Oxford don had similar tastes, then began a round of questioning that proved no more successful than the inquiries days before at the British Library.

No one had seen Melanie Keaton since she’d locked up the previous evening. Grant asked Simmons if he was familiar with the library but it proved to be a tree not worth barking up; the man had just returned from a business trip in Poland where he’d been for the past month, dousing the idea he might have been on the third floor of the British Library on the first night of December.

Grant left the studio with no sort of connection between an Oxford professor of Greek mythology and a Whitechapel sculptor of archangels. Except for the carvings in their forehead; Melanie Keaton had twice the number of Lionel Frey. Grant felt no better when the FME concluded they’d been administered postmortem. It meant the killer was trying to make a point—as if purposely egging Grant and the Yard on.

Catch me if you can.

VI

The few hours after leaving Piccadilly brought no clarity. Nor did subsequent days.

An Oxford don, an East End artist, and a washed-up rocker—what did they have in common? It was one nasty riddle—and the only person who knew the answer wasn’t sharing.