‘Now. And make sure it runs at the beginning of the interview.’

Levine nodded encouragingly. ‘Agent Hoder told me,’ he said. ‘Let me know when you’re ready.’

‘I’m ready.’

The cameraman spoke from behind the lights. ‘In five, four, three, two, one.’

Darby looked directly into the camera, knowing this was going to be her final stab at the case, a Hail Mary pass to catch the Ripper. She spoke slowly and deliberately, in order to hold the killer’s attention and, hopefully, add some much needed time for the computer trace. She made false statements and the sort of claims no reasonable investigator would ever say in public, and she deliberately baited him.

‘My name is Dr Darby McCormick. I want the people of Red Hill to know I will turn over every rock and exhaust every single lead and work every piece of evidence until I find the individual responsible for these murders. I am a forensic specialist, and I have dedicated my life to studying and apprehending this type of deviant criminal. A sexual pervert like the Red Hill Ripper will not be an exception. He is a lonely and impotent man who, like every other sadist, is a moral coward. He is hiding in plain sight somewhere in your neighbourhood. You have seen him at church and at social gatherings, in stores and in restaurants. When I find him, justice will be served, either in handcuffs or in a body bag.’

I’m about to call Sarah when I notice my burner only has a couple of minutes left on it. I pull over to the side of the road, my hazards flashing, and after I remove the battery from the phone and wipe everything down with a handkerchief, I step out of my car and toss the pieces deep into the woods.

The roads have been pretty quiet on account of the storm, which, at the moment, seems to have paused to catch its breath. The wind is no longer howling but the snow is still coming down hard and fast, my windshield wipers working double-time to clear it away. Five or so inches cover the lot belonging to the Happy Valley Auto Garage. Its windows and the lights for the gas pumps are dark. I’m alone and, having had my cars serviced here many, many times in the past, I know I don’t have to worry about a security camera recording me.

The payphone is to my far left, next to the coin-fed air hose and vacuum. I leave the car running and the headlights on so I can see. I thread a couple of quarters into the slot and dial Sarah’s number.

‘Thank God,’ Sarah says when she answers. Her sigh reminds me of pressure being released from a hot-water tank on the verge of exploding. ‘Oh, thank God, I’ve been worried sick about you.’

‘I’m fine. I –’

‘It’s been hours. Are you okay?’

‘I just said I’m fine. Everything’s fine.’

‘When I didn’t hear from you I thought –’

‘WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LISTEN.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and her voice sounds so small, so hurt and lonely, it triggers a memory of the first time I held her hand in mine. The moment her skin touched mine I knew I had found my home.

My anger dissolves in my throat, but my heart is still beating furiously.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m tired and it’s been a long day.’

‘Please tell me you’re coming home.’

‘Not yet. Not for a while. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got some things to take care of and didn’t want you waiting up for me.’

‘I heard about the FBI. On the news.’

‘TV?’

‘No, the radio. I have the portable with me.’

‘What are they saying? On the news?’

She doesn’t answer, and for some reason it makes me want to run back to my car. The briefcase with money and passports and everything else is sitting on the passenger’s seat.

Leave now, an inner voice urges me. Save yourself.

‘If everything goes right tonight,’ I say, ‘we’ll be fine.’

‘Did you make a mistake? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

For some reason I’m thinking about my mother, how she collected quotes from famous historical figures and philosophers. She could recite them from memory, thought it made her sound like an intelligent and educated woman of substance and sophistication instead of the person she was, that corn-pone little girl who’d grown up on a farm and wore her older sister’s hand-me-downs and ran away from home at fifteen and never finished high school.

‘Tell me,’ Sarah says, her voice so soft and gentle and understanding it makes my heart ache. ‘You know you can tell me anything.’

‘I know.’

‘Did you make a mistake? Is that what you want to tell me?’

And then I’m thinking of St Augustine, of how much my mother liked to quote him, especially that line about truth being like a lion you could let loose because a lion could defend itself. But St Augustine left out the part about how the truth, like a lion, is capable of mauling and maiming, leaving its victim for dead. The truth is a hunter. The truth doesn’t care.

And yet I still want to unburden myself. But, once I set my lion free, I’ll no longer have control. I can’t call it back, make it return to its cage.

‘Baby?’

‘I’m still here,’ I say.

‘I’ll love you no matter what. You know that, right?’

And then I tell her. Everything.

41

Darby finished the interview in less than an hour. The cameraman had stopped recording after each question to give her time to confer with Hoder. They did multiple takes and the cameraman shot from multiple angles, pausing each time to fiddle with the lighting. Coop watched from a corner.

The video footage would be compressed into ten minutes. The statement she’d made at the start of the interview; the reporter’s questions about her background and experience hunting serial killers like Traveler, who had successfully evaded law enforcement; and her summary of the Red Hill Ripper case – those items would run at the start of the interview and hopefully catch the killer’s interest.

In order for the trace to work, the Ripper needed to watch the video for at least two minutes. During that time, the program embedded in the video would determine the operating system – Windows, Mac, Android or iOS – install the appropriate software and then broadcast its location back to the RCFL guys in Denver. They assured Hoder the program wouldn’t be detected by antivirus or malware-prevention software.

To entice the Ripper to keep watching, Hoder had provided ‘exclusive’ and ‘never before revealed crime scene photos’ – close-up pictures of the plastic cuffs and ligature marks. Hoder believed the Ripper wouldn’t be able to resist wanting to see his handiwork on display. The photos would be spliced into the video somewhere after the two-minute mark – more than enough time for the tracking program to install itself. Anyone watching the video from Red Hill, Brewster and the surrounding towns would be moved to the top of the search list. All information would then be forwarded to Hoder, who would analyse it, along with Otto and Hayes, inside the MoFo.

While the cameraman edited the video footage under Hoder’s watchful eye, Darby left the squad room to speak to the police chief. Neither Robinson nor Williams had entered the room at any point during the interview.

Robinson’s office was dark, the door locked. She moved around the corner and saw the light on in Williams’s office, but he wasn’t there. She searched the station for him, and when she didn’t find him she used his office phone to call his cell. It went straight to voicemail. Then she remembered he’d left his cell in his trunk.

Darby left the office, a nagging feeling worming its way through her stomach. If the Red Hill Ripper were skilful enough with computers to use malware that automatically installed itself on their cell phones, would he also have installed safeguards while using the internet?

A patrolman she recognized from this morning’s debrief stepped into the lobby with a tall and slender woman dressed in tight-fitting designer jeans, over-the-knee black leather high-heel boots and a dark fur coat that ended at her waist. It had an oversized shawl collar and an open front; she wore a cream-coloured and Henley-inspired blouse with a split-neck and a deep V that proudly displayed an ample amount of surgically enhanced cleavage.