Rhyme put the rape, or attempted rape, out of his mind. He, Pulaski and Cooper returned to the parlor laboratory, where they’d been analyzing the evidence Detective Cheyenne Edwards had delivered – the finds from the crime scene at Pam Willoughby’s.

There hadn’t been much, though the unsub had left in such a hurry that he’d neglected to pick up the hypodermic needle he’d stabbed Seth with and a vial of the poison he’d presumably been about to use on the young man. The substance was from the white baneberry plant – also called doll’s eyes, because the berries resemble eyeballs. Eerie. The toxin, Cooper explained, was cardiogenic; it basically stopped the heart. Of all the poisons their unsub was using this was the most humane, killing without the pain of toxins that attacked the GI and renal systems.

Rhyme noticed Ron Pulaski looking down at his phone. His face was lit with a faint blue glow.

Checking messages or the time? Rhyme wondered. Mobiles were used as watches more and more frequently nowadays.

Pulaski hung up and said to Rhyme, ‘I should go.’

So, time. Not texts.

Ron Pulaski’s undercover assignment at the funeral home was about to begin: to see who was collecting the Watchmaker’s remains and maybe, just maybe learn a bit more about the enigmatic criminal.

‘You all set, you ready to be Serpico, you ready to be Gielgud?’

‘Was he a cop? And, wait, didn’t Serpico get shot in the face?’

Rhyme and Pulaski had spent some time that morning on a cover story that would seem credible to the funeral home director and whoever was coming to collect the man’s remains.

Rhyme had never done undercover work but he knew the rules: Less is more and more is less. Meaning you research the hell out of your role, learn every possible fact, but when you present yourself to the perp, you offer up only the minimal. Inundating the bad guys with details is a sure giveaway.

So he and Pulaski had come up with a bio for Stan Walesa, a bio that would have made credible some connection with the Watchmaker. Rhyme had noted him walking around the lab all day, reciting facts they’d made up. ‘Born in Brooklyn, has an import-export company, investigated for insider trading, questioned in connection with a banking scam, divorced, knows weapons, was hired by an associate of the Watchmaker to transport some containers overseas, no, I can’t give his name away, no, I don’t know what was in the containers. Again: Born in Brooklyn, has an import-export …’

Now, as Pulaski pulled on his coat, Rhyme said, ‘Look, rookie, don’t think about the fact that this is our only chance to fill in gaps on the late Watchmaker’s biography.’

‘Um, okay.’

‘And if you mess up, we’ll never have this opportunity again. Don’t think about that. Put it out of your mind.’