Hodges scans the letter, and here it is: My imagination is very powerful.

But there were two details he could not have made up. Two details that had been withheld from the news media.

On his legal pad, below IS IT REAL?, Hodges writes: HAIRNET. BLEACH.

Mr Mercedes had taken the net with him just as he had taken the condom (probably still hanging off his dick, assuming it had been there at all), but Gibson in Forensics had been positive there was one, because Mr Mercedes had left the clown mask and there had been no hairs stuck to the rubber. About the swimming-pool smell of DNA-killing bleach there had been no doubt. He must have used a lot.

But it isn’t just those things; it’s everything. The assuredness. There’s nothing tentative here.

He hesitates, then prints: THIS IS THE GUY.

Hesitates again. Scribbles out GUY and prints BASTARD.

7

It’s been awhile since he thought like a cop, and even longer since he did this kind of work – a special kind of forensics that doesn’t require cameras, microscopes, or special chemicals – but once he buckles down to it, he warms up fast. He starts with a series of headings.

ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPHS.

CAPITALIZED PHRASES.

PHRASES IN QUOTATION MARKS.

FANCY PHRASES.

UNUSUAL WORDS.

EXCLAMATION POINTS.

Here he stops, tapping the pen against his lower lip and reading the letter through again from Dear Detective Hodges to Hope this letter has cheered you up! Then he adds two more headings on the sheet, which is now getting crowded.

USES BASEBALL METAPHOR, MAY BE A FAN.

COMPUTER SAVVY (UNDER 50?).

He is far from sure about these last two. Sports metaphors have become common, especially among political pundits, and these days there are octogenarians on Facebook and Twitter. Hodges himself may be tapping only twelve percent of his Mac’s potential (that’s what Jerome claims), but that doesn’t make him part of the majority. You had to start somewhere, though, and besides, the letter has a young feel.

He has always been talented at this sort of work, and a lot more than twelve percent of it is intuition.

He’s listed nearly a dozen examples under UNUSUAL WORDS, and now circles two: compatriots and Spontaneous Ejaculation. Beside them he adds a name: Wambaugh. Mr Mercedes is a shitbag, but a bright, book-reading shitbag. He has a large vocabulary and doesn’t make spelling errors. Hodges can imagine Jerome Robinson saying, ‘Spellchecker, my man. I mean, duh?’

Sure, sure, these days anyone with a word processing program can spell like a champ, but Mr Mercedes has written Wambaugh, not Wombough, or even Wombow, which is how it sounds. Just the fact that he’s remembered to put in that silent gh suggests a fairly high level of intelligence. Mr Mercedes’s missive may not be high-class literature, but his writing is a lot better than the dialogue in shows like NCIS or Bones.

Homeschooled, public-schooled, or self-taught? Does it matter? Maybe not, but maybe it does.

Hodges doesn’t think self-taught, no. The writing is too … what?

‘Expansive,’ he says to the empty room, but it’s more than that. ‘Outward. This guy writes outward. He learned with others. And wrote for others.’

A shaky deduction, but it’s supported by certain flourishes – those FANCY PHRASES. Must begin by congratulating you, he writes. Literally hundreds of cases, he writes. And – twice – Was I on your mind. Hodges logged As in his high school English classes, Bs in college, and he remembers what that sort of thing is called: incremental repetition. Does Mr Mercedes imagine his letter being published in the newspaper, circulated on the Internet, quoted (with a certain reluctant respect) on Channel Four News at Six?

‘Sure you do,’ Hodges says. ‘Once upon a time you read your themes in class. You liked it, too. Liked being in the spotlight. Didn’t you? When I find you – if I find you – I’ll find that you did as well in your English classes as I did.’ Probably better. Hodges can’t remember ever using incremental repetition, unless it was by accident.

Only there are four public high schools in the city and God knows how many private ones. Not to mention prep schools, junior colleges, City College, and St Jude’s Catholic University. Plenty of haystacks for a poisoned needle to hide in. If he even went to school here at all, and not in Miami or Phoenix.

Plus, he’s a sly dog. The letter is full of false fingerprints – the capitalized phrases like Lead Boots and Note of Concern, the phrases in quotation marks, the extravagant use of exclamation points, the punchy one-sentence paragraphs. If asked to provide a writing sample, Mr Mercedes would include none of those stylistic devices. Hodges knows that as well as he knows his own unfortunate first name: Kermit, as in kermitfrog19.

But.

This asshole isn’t quite as smart as he thinks. The letter almost certainly contains two real fingerprints, one smudged and one crystal clear.

The smudged print is his persistent use of numbers instead of the words for numbers: 27, not twenty-seven; 40 instead of forty. Det. 1st Grade instead of Det. First Grade. There are a few exceptions (he has written one regret instead of 1 regret), but Hodges thinks they are the ones that prove the general rule. The numbers might only be more camouflage, he knows that, but the chances are good Mr Mercedes is genuinely unaware of it.

If I could get him in IR4 and tell him to write Forty thieves stole eighty wedding rings …?

Only K. William Hodges is never going to be in an interview room again, including IR4, which had been his favorite – his lucky IR, he always thought it. Unless he gets caught fooling with this shit, that is, and then he’s apt to be on the wrong side of the metal table.

All right, then. Pete gets the guy in an IR. Pete or Isabelle or both of them. They get him to write 40 thieves stole 80 wedding rings. What then?

Then they ask him to write The cops caught the perp hiding in the alley. Only they’d want to slur the perp part. Because, for all his writing skill, Mr Mercedes thinks the word for a criminal doer is perk. Maybe he also thinks the word for a special privilege is a perp, as in Traveling 1st class was one of the CEO’s perps.

Hodges wouldn’t be surprised. Until college, he himself had thought that the fellow who threw the ball in a baseball game, the thing you poured water out of, and the framed objects you hung on the wall to decorate your apartment were all spelled the same. He had seen the word picture in all sorts of books, but his mind somehow refused to record it. His mother said straighten that pitcher, Kerm, it’s crooked, his father sometimes gave him money for the pitcher show, and it had simply stuck in his head.

I’ll know you when I find you, honeybunch, Hodges thinks. He prints the word and circles it again and again, hemming it in. You’ll be the asshole who calls a perp a perk.

8

He takes a walk around the block to clear his head, saying hello to people he hasn’t said hello to in a long time. Weeks, in some cases. Mrs Melbourne is working in her garden, and when she sees him, she invites him in for a piece of her coffee cake.

‘I’ve been worried about you,’ she says when they’re settled in the kitchen. She has the bright, inquisitive gaze of a crow with its eye on a freshly squashed chipmunk.

‘Getting used to retirement has been hard.’ He takes a sip of her coffee. It’s lousy, but plenty hot.

‘Some people never get used to it at all,’ she says, measuring him with those bright eyes. She wouldn’t be too shabby in IR4, Hodges thinks. ‘Especially ones who had high-pressure jobs.’