What the hell was he saying? A gap of thirty-eight from two to forty. And why the switch from ordinal to cardinal? Rhyme mused, ‘Smells like a place to me, an address. GPS or longitude and latitude coordinates. But not enough to go on yet.’

He gave up speculating and turned back to the evidence she’d collected. Sachs selected a bag and gave it to Cooper. He extracted the cotton ball inside.

‘The poison,’ Sachs said. ‘One sample’s gone to the ME’s Office but I want a head start. Burn it, Mel.’

He ran the materials through the chromatograph and a few minutes later had the mass spectrum. ‘It’s a combination of atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine.’

Rhyme was staring at the ceiling. ‘That comes from some plant … yes, yes … Hell, I can’t remember what.’

Cooper typed the cocktail of ingredients into the toxin database and reported a moment later, ‘Angel’s trumpet: Brugmansia.’

‘Yes,’ Rhyme called. ‘Of course that’s it. But I don’t know the details.’

Cooper explained that it was a South American plant, particularly popular among criminals in Colombia, who called it devil’s breath. They blew it into the faces of their victims and the paralyzing, amnesiac drug rendered them unconscious or, if they remained awake, unable to fight their assailants.

And with the right dose, as with Samantha Levine, the drug could induce death in a matter of minutes.

Coincidentally, at that moment, the parlor landline rang: the medical examiner’s office.

Cooper lifted an eyebrow, looking toward Sachs. ‘Must be a slow night. Or you scared them into prioritizing us, Amelia.’

Rhyme knew which.

The ME official on call confirmed that devil’s breath was the poison that had been used on Samantha Levine’s abdomen in the tattooed message. He added that it was a highly concentrated version of the toxin. And there was residue of propofol in her bloodstream. Cooper thanked him.

Sachs and the tech continued to examine the trace she’d collected. This time, though, they found no variation from the control samples, which meant the residues found on her body and where the unsub had walked in the crime scene had not been tracked in by him; they were all indigenous to the underground stockyard pen.

That, in turn, meant the substances wouldn’t lead to anywhere the perp might have been.

‘Ergo,’ Rhyme muttered, ‘fucking useless.’

Finally, Sachs used tongs to pick up a plastic bag containing what seemed to Rhyme to be a purse. ‘Thought it was a rat at first. Brown, you know. And the strap seemed to be the tail. Be careful. There’s a booby trap inside.’ A glance at Cooper.

‘What?’ Rhyme asked.