‘He was trained to be a pro, that’s what kept him in the game.’

Eddie Kasper came over to them. ‘My favorite pair,’ he said. ‘I got to congratulate you two. How you feeling?’

‘Good, Eddie,’ said Harper.

‘You going to wash some time soon?’ asked Eddie.

‘Some time soon.’

‘That’s good. I like my heroes clean, Detective Harper. Nice and clean.’

‘Why did he do it, that’s what I’d like to understand?’ said Harper. ‘We all grow up with problems and we learn to fight them, right?’

‘The absence of love, Tom, that’s the breeding ground. Hated and abandoned at an early age. It makes self-hatred turn into something deeply damaged and vicious. And yeah, he’s also an alpha male, isn’t he? So he’s got all that capacity to be something but inside, he feels like a loser, a man who’ll never fit in. Such men turn to Nazism because it’s such a strong image. They need that cloak to cover up all the pain and anger. For a while, the hate makes them feel normal, like all that anger has a purpose. Self-hatred needs a hell of a lot of power and glory and murder to convince it that it’s worthwhile.’

A hand appeared on Harper’s left shoulder.

‘Sorry, Detective, sorry, ma’am, we need to talk to you both.’ Harper and Levene looked up.

‘You need to talk to us now?’ said Denise.

Harper blinked into the sunlight. Two guys stared down on him, both over six foot, both wearing shades and dark blue suits.

‘Come on,’ said Harper. ‘They want the paperwork.’

Harper checked his annoyance. It was no good getting riled. He’d done his fighting. He had, Denise had, and they’d both come up good. Not Jack Carney, though. He’d been fighting something else. Some deep, dark inheritance. His own personality, the abuse he had suffered — his own failures, of course, but it was something bigger than that: the state-sanctioned evil that he’d inherited from reading about it in the past.

The attraction of evil had caught Jack Carney; it had caught and tangled up all the hatred he felt for himself and forced all that hatred on to another target. His life was over, but the forces that animated him were not dead. Harper looked at the blackened walls of the buildings along the street. The battles were still out there to be fought and won.

Harper stood, feeling the downside of the adrenalin kick, and let himself be led away from the chaos, still holding Denise’s hand.

He saw Captain Frank Lafayette running across, his face red and heaving. Harper smiled. ‘I got to debrief,’ he said. ‘Can the disciplinary hearing wait?’

‘Fuck that, Tom. I just wanted to… I just wanted to see my best cop. You did us proud.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Harper. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘Which part?’ said Lafayette.

‘A cop — that part, the part that destroys the faith in the system.’

‘Cop or anything else, this isn’t about his day job. This is about a sick man who sought out the job to allow him to hunt as he worked. You don’t get much more cynical than that.’

‘You think he thought about it from the start?’

‘Yeah, I do. He abused the system, sure. He got through, sure. He’ll provoke a whole barrage of “it must never happen again” thoughts and articles. There will be outrage, disgust and pain. From the Jewish community especially. A cop who’s meant to protect, who does the opposite. The powerful using their position to abuse and murder.’

Harper glanced at Denise. ‘It’ll take decades to undo this kind of betrayal of trust. You’d think this would be a stark message to all those racists and extremists, but a few years down the line, it will happen again. We always say we’ll never forget and we always fucking do.’

‘Not everyone forgets,’ said Denise. ‘Not you. Not me. Not the vast majority.’

‘The vast majority aren’t going to bring up Becky Glass’s two kids,’ said Harper.

‘No, but they pay to keep cops like you on the streets so that degenerates like Carney get taken down.’

‘I hope they’re okay, that’s all,’ said Harper. ‘Ruth, Jerry and Abby. I just hope they can get through this. You got to have hope, right?’

‘You’ve given them more than hope, Tom. You’ve given them an ending.’

‘I’m hoping I’ve given them something else as well,’ he said as he turned to her.

‘And what’s that?’ asked Denise.

‘A new beginning,’ said Harper as he smiled.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone out there who has read my books. I’m grateful for all your reviews and comments which always make me want to write more and try out new ideas. I hope you enjoy them.

Thank you to my wife. For everything — from just putting up with me to continuing to inspire the best in me, and of course for reading draft after draft and for all the great suggestions and necessary corrections. Thanks to my children. You’re just the best. I feel very lucky to be able to write surrounded by such support. Thanks also to Laura, my American adviser, for all her help. A huge thanks to my whole family who continue to forgive me for neglecting them!

Thank you to my agent, Andrew Gordon, for his continued enthusiasm, good sense and clear guidance. His knowledge of what’s right and what works has helped to make this book as good as it possibly can be. Thank you to the whole team at David Higham Associates who have helped get this book to print.

Thanks to the brilliant team at Headline, who manage to make everything about book publication feel personal and important. Thank you to all those in Marketing, Publicity and Sales who have done such a brilliant job in getting this book out there. I am most indebted, of course, to my editor, Vicki Mellor. Vicki has incredibly good judgement and her intuition and guidance have helped shape and form this book and me, as a writer. Thanks, Vicki.

Every book involves a struggle, but this one has also been a thrill to write. I hope you enjoy it. All of us had great fun in the creation but we’re having even more fun now it’s done.

About the Author

Oliver Stark has been writing for as long as he can remember. As a teenager, he was an avid fan of American detective stories and made his first attempt at crime fiction at the age of sixteen. Needless to say, this never reached publication.

After trying a wide variety of jobs, from working in a bookies to managing a pub, he finally gave in to his passion for reading and went on to study and then teach literature. 88 Killer is the second book in Oliver’s crime series featuring Tom Harper and Denise Levene. His debut novel, American Devil, was published in 2010. Oliver lives in London with his wife and children.

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