‘Start with the vic.’

She’s more than a victim, Rhyme, Sachs thought. She has a name. Chloe Moore. She was a twenty-six-year-old sale clerk in a boutique that sold clothing with loose strands escaping the stitching. She was working for near minimum wage because she was intoxicated on New York. On acting. On being twenty-six. And God bless her for it.

And she didn’t deserve to die. Much less like this.

Sachs slipped rubber bands on her booties, the balls of the feet, to differentiate her footfalls from those of the perp and the first responders – whose footgear she would photograph later as control samples.

She walked closer to the body. Chloe lay on her back, her blouse tugged up to below the breasts. Sachs noted that even in death her round, pretty face was distorted with an asymmetrical grimace, muscles taut. It was evidence of the obvious pain she’d experienced, pain tapering to death. She’d frothed at the mouth. And vomited copiously. The smell was vile. Sachs mentally moved past it.

Chloe’s hands, under her body, were secured in cheap handcuffs. With a universal key Sachs removed these. The victim’s ankles were duct-taped. With surgical scissors Sachs clipped the tape and bagged the gray, dusty strips. She scraped beneath the young woman’s deep-purple fingernails, noting fibers and bits of off-white flecks. Perhaps she’d fought him and if so bits of valuable trace, even skin, might be present; if her killer was in the CODIS DNA database, they might have his identity in hours.

Rhyme said, ‘I want to see the tattoo, Sachs.’

Sachs noted a small blue tattoo on Chloe’s neck, right and near the shoulder, but that had been done long ago. Besides, it was easy to see which one the killer had done. She knelt down and trained her eyes, and the camera, on Chloe’s abdomen.

‘There it is, Rhyme.’

The criminalist whispered, ‘His message. Well, part of his message. What do you think it means?’

But given the sparse letters, Sachs realized, his question had to be rhetorical.

CHAPTER 6

The two words were about six inches long and ran horizontally one inch above the woman’s navel.

Although he’d presumably used poison, not ink, the inflamed wound, swollen and scarring, was easy enough to read.

‘All right,’ Rhyme said, ‘“the second.” And the border, the scalloped lines. Wonder what those are about?’

Sachs commented, ‘They’re not as swollen as the letters. Maybe there was no poison in them. They look like wounds, not tattoos. And, Rhyme, look at the characters.’

‘How well done they are?’

‘Exactly. Calligraphy. He’s good. He knows what he’s doing.’

‘And another observation. It must’ve taken some time to do. He could’ve written them crudely. Or just injected her with the poison. Or shot her for that matter. What’s his game?’