pen cases the most recent ones. They were delivered yesterday teatime. What we're supposed to be working on while we wait for the next big thing."

Carol felt her blood stirring. At last, something she could focus on. Something that might just lay her demons to rest. Or at least shut them up for a while.

Aidan Hart studied the man sitting opposite him with a degree of wariness. He knew many of his colleagues thought he was too young at thirty-seven to be clinical director of Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital, but he was confident enough of his skills to write off their disapproval as the product of disappointment and envy. He knew that none of them presented any professional challenge to him.

But his latest appointment was in a different league. Dr. Tony Hill came with a reputation for both brilliance and awkwardness. The only rules he observed were the ones that mattered to him. He wasn't a team player, unless the team in question was one he'd chosen. He'd won loyal respect and engendered fury in equal measures among those he'd worked with. When Tony Hill had applied for a part-time post at his hospital, Aidan Hart's first reaction had been to refuse. There was room for only one star at Bradfield Moor, and that was him.

Then he'd had second thoughts. If Hill was only there as a part-timer, his work could be carefully channelled. His successes could be parlayed into more credit for Hart himself, the visionary clinical director who had tamed the maverick. It was a tempting prospect. He could portray himself as the man who persuaded high-flyer Tony Hill back into clinical practice. He had convinced himself that while the patients might benefit from Hill's famous empathetic skills, the ultimate beneficiary would be Aidan Hart himself. His second thoughts had been reinforced when he'd met Hill in the flesh. Aidan

Hart knew all about dressing to impress, but within seconds he realized Hill had obviously missed that particular tutorial. The little guy in the chair opposite with the bad haircut, brown shoes with black trousers and greenish tweed jacket with frayed cuffs wasn't going to make ripples in the sort of pond Hart intended to swim in. Hill had seemed embarrassed by the high profile his work with the police had earned him and had stressed that he didn't want to find himself in the public eye ever again. Whatever profiling he did in future would be behind closed doors and beyond distant borders. Hill's eagerness to get back into harness at the sharp end of clinical practice was almost pathetic.

At the time, Hart had been smugly satisfied that taking a chance on Tony Hill would be the best possible decision. Somehow he'd missed the penetrating intelligence of the eyes, the unmistakable charisma the man wore like a well-cut suit. Hart wasn't quite sure how that had happened. Unless, of course, Hill had deliberately disguised it in order to make a quite different kind of impression. And that was a very unsettling thought. He liked to think of himself as the analyst. He was uncomfortable with the idea that this time, he might have been played by a higher master in the art of reading human behaviour. He couldn't help wondering whether he was the latest object of scrutiny for those startlingly blue eyes that seemed to absorb every nuance of his body language. He didn't like the thought that he'd have to monitor his every word and movement in his newest employee's presence. Aidan Hart had his secrets, and he didn't want Tony Hill probing too closely into them.

He didn't think he was being paranoid. Hill had only been in the building for an hour, but already he'd played a blinder. He'd found out about the latest admission and now he was sitting opposite Hart, one ankle casually propped on the opposite knee, making an irresistible rationale for first crack at the new patient. It was the sort of case that led to published papers in well-respected peer-reviewed publications, and already Hill was staking a claim to territory Hart wanted for himself. "After all," Hill said, 'since we've got a new admission, it makes sense for me to take the case on. That way I won't have to go over-old ground. And nobody's nose gets put out of joint because I'm taking over their patient."

"It's a pretty extreme place to start," Hart said, affecting concern. "And you have been out of the field for a while."

Tony's mouth twitched in a half-smile. "Extreme is my comfort zone, Aidan. And I do have very direct experience of dealing with people who kill for reasons that most people dismiss as madness."

Hart shifted in his chair and spread his hands, as if discarding responsibility. "So be it. I look forward to seeing your initial report."

Carol leaned against the white board and waited for her new team to settle down. Then she moved closer to them and perched on the edge of a desk. "Before we get down to business, there's something I have to say to you," she said, trying to sound more relaxed than she felt. "I know how rumours spread in this job and I expect you've all heard some version of my recent history." She could tell by the way the men all found something more interesting to study that she'd hit the target.

Don Merrick gazed at the floor. "Nobody here's interested in gossip," he muttered. "Just results. And your record speaks for itself on that."

The shadow of a smile crossed Carol's face. "Thank you, Don. Nevertheless, if we're going to make this unit work, we need to have an open, honest atmosphere. What happened to me happened because of secrets and lies. I'm not prepared to work in an environment like that again." She looked around, saw she had their attention and continued.

"I was selected for an undercover operation that left me in a very exposed position. Because I wasn't thoroughly briefed by my bosses, I couldn't cover my back properly. And as a result, I was raped." She heard a sharp intake of breath but couldn't identify its source. "I don't expect to be handled with kid gloves. What happened to me won't affect the way I do my job. Except that it has made me very sensitive to issues of loyalty. This squad can only function if we all put teamwork first. I don't want any glory hunters here. So if any of you has a problem with that, this is the time to ask for reassignment." She looked around at her group. Stacey and Evans looked surprised, but the others were nodding their acquiescence.

Carol stood up straight and picked up the top file. "Good. Now, until we land our first job, we're supposed to be looking at unsolved open cases. They've given us two murders, a rape, two armed robberies, a serial arson and a pair of child abductions. Over the next few days, I want you each to go through three separate files. Don, work out a rota so all the cases get looked at. Include me in it since we're one light, I'll make up the numbers. On each file, I want you to list suggested actions for moving the case forward. Then, when you've all made your lists, we'll sit down together, look at what you've come up with and see which cases offer the most promising prospects for further investigation. Any questions?"

Kevin raised a hand. "Is this a non-smoking office?"

Paula groaned. "It's a non-smoking building, Kevin."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can't have smoking areas, does it? I mean, what is the point of air conditioning if you don't make it earn its keep?"

"It's bad for the computers," Stacey pointed out.

"We could have one corner," Evans said. "Under the air-conditioning vent."

As the discussion rolled over her, Carol felt the first twinges of homecoming. Never mind the adrenaline of working a case,

this was the kind of argument that told her she was back where she belonged. Pointless wrangling about the small issues that made life bearable, that was the hallmark of the police service. "Sort it out among yourselves," she said with an air of finality. "I don't care. I've got a door I can close. Oh, and I've got a job for you, Sam .. ."

He looked up, surprise on his face. "Guv?" He shifted in his seat, turning slightly to one side. It was the movement of a man unconsciously reducing his target area, assessing the situation before committing himself to fight or flight.

"Pop out to the shops and buy us a kettle, a cafetiere and a dozen mugs." His eyes hardened as Carol's words sank in. "Tea and some decent coffee, milk and sugar. Oh, and some biscuits. We're not going to win any popularity contests in the canteen, digging over what other officers will see as their failures. We might as well entrench ourselves here."

"Can we get some Earl Grey tea?" Stacey Chen's contribution sounded more like an order than a request.

"Don't see why not," Carol said, turning away and heading for her office. She'd learned something already. Evans didn't like what he saw as menial work. Either he considered it to be women's work or he thought it was beneath his capabilities. Carol stored the information away for future reference. She had almost reached the door when Merrick's voice reached her in a protest.

"Ma'am, do you know why the files on Tim Golding and Guy Lefevre are in here?" he demanded indignantly.

Carol swung round. "Who .. .?" She was aware of a sudden stillness in the room. Paula's stare was wary, while the others' expressions varied from surprised to incredulous.

Merrick's genial face had tightened. "Tim Golding's the eight-year-old who went missing nearly three months ago. Guy Lefevre vanished into thin air fifteen months before. We turned the city upside down looking for them. We even got Tony Hill to draw up a profile, for all the good it did."

It was Carol's turn to feel surprise. Tony had said nothing to her about profiling, never mind profiling in Bradfield. But then, he had been uncharacteristically quiet since they'd discussed whether she should take up John Brandon's offer. He'd encouraged her to accept the job, but since she'd told him of her decision to go ahead, his emails had been curiously bland and noncommittal, as if he was deliberately making her stand on her own two feet. "What's your point, Don?" she asked.

"Tim Golding was my case," he said angrily. "And I was the bagman on Guy Lefevre. There's nothing we left undone."

"Now you understand why we're going to be the station pariahs," Carol said gently. "There are another half-dozen SIOs out there smarting because cases they couldn't close have been passed on to us. I wouldn't be surprised if Tim Golding's case had been put in deliberately to keep us on our toes. So even though I have every confidence that you did all you could, we're still going to treat this case just like the others."

Merrick scowled. "All the same, ma'am .. ."

"There are people in this organization who would probably be very happy to see us fail. If you let this wind you up, Don, you're playing into their hands." Carol gave him her warmest smile. "I trust you, otherwise you wouldn't be in this room. But we're all capable of missing something, no matter how much we think we've covered all the ground. So I don't want the officers reviewing this case to keep their thoughts to themselves for fear of offending you. Like I said earlier: no secrets or lies."

Carol didn't wait for a reaction. She walked into her office, leaving the door open. Was this the first sign that someone was out to undermine her squad and, by extension, their new Chief Constable? She knew she fell too easily into mistrust these days, but she'd rather be too cautious than blithely oblivious to someone putting the shaft in. After all, it wasn't paranoia if they really were out to get you.

She'd barely settled behind her desk when Don Merrick appeared in the doorway carrying a file. "A word, ma'am?"

Carol gestured towards the visitor's chair with her head. Don sat down, holding the file to his chest. "Tim Golding," he said.

"I hear you, Don. Hand it over."

He pulled it even closer to him. "It's just that .. ."

"I know. If anybody's going to poke their nose into your case, you'd rather it was me than one of the new faces." Carol reached a hand out.

Reluctantly, Don shifted forward in his seat and extended the file towards her. "We couldn't have done more," he said. "We just kept hitting brick walls. We couldn't even give Tony Hill enough to go on to make a profile worthwhile. He said himself it was a waste of resources. But I couldn't think of anything else to try. That's why it's ended up as a cold case this early on."

"I wondered about that. It seems very soon to consign it to the back burner."

Don sighed. "There just wasn't anywhere else for us to go with it. We've still got a couple of DCs keeping an eye on it, feeding the press whenever they decide to take another crack at it. But nothing active's happened for at least a month." Don's misery was written all over him, from the hangdog eyes to the slump of his shoulders.

It provoked a sympathetic echo in Carol. "Leave it with me, Don. I don't expect I'll see anything you've missed."

He got to his feet, a rueful look on his face. "Thing is, ma'am, I remember when I was working the case that I wished you were around. Just so I could run it past you. You always had the knack of seeing things from a different angle."

"What is it they say, Don? Don't wish too hard for what you want because you might get it."

Tony Hill leaned forward and gazed intently through the observation window. A neat, balding man sat folded in the chair bolted to the floor. He looked somewhere in the region of fifty, though his placid expression went some way towards erasing the lines etched into his face. For a fleeting, incomprehensible moment, Tony thought of a child's lollipop, tightly wrapped in cellophane, Sellotape wrapped around the stick.

His stillness was preternatural. Most of the patients Tony encountered had difficulty with immobility, never mind tranquillity. They twitched, they fidgeted, they chain-smoked, they fiddled with their clothes. But this man he checked the notes this Tom Storey had an almost Zen-like quality. Tony glanced through the notes again, refreshing his memory from the previous evening's reading. He shook his head, fighting his anger at the stupidity of some of his medical colleagues. Then he closed the folder and headed for the interview room.

He felt the spring in his step, even in that short journey. Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital wasn't generally associated in people's minds with the notion of contentment, but that was precisely what it had given Tony for the first time in months. He was back in the field, back in the world of messy heads, back where he belonged. In spite of his constant efforts to assume a series of masks that would help him blend in, Tony knew he was an outsider in the world beyond the grim institutional walls of Bradfield Moor. It was a feeling he did not care to examine too closely; it said things about him that he wasn't entirely comfortable with. But it was impossible to deny that the exercise of empathy was what gave meaning to his days. There was nothing quite like that moment when the tumblers of someone else's brain clicked into place for him and allowed him to penetrate the knotted logic of another mind. Really, truly, nothing.

He pushed open the door to the interview room and sat down opposite his latest challenge. Tom Storey remained immobile, only his eyes shifting to connect with Tony. In his right hand, he cradled a heavily bandaged stump where his left hand had been until a few days previously. Tony leaned forward and arranged his face into an expression of sympathy. "I'm Tony Hill. I'm sorry for your loss."

Storey's eyes widened in surprise. Then he gave a small snort. "My hand or my kids?" he said sourly.

"Your son and your daughter," Tony said. "I imagine the hand feels like a blessing."

Storey said nothing.

"Alien Hand Syndrome," Tony said. "First recorded in 1908. A gift for horror-film scriptwriters: 1924, The Hands of Orlac Conrad Veldt played a classical pianist who had the hands of a killer grafted on after his were destroyed in a train accident; 1946, The Beast with Five Fingers, another pianist; 1987, Evil Dead II the hero takes a chain saw to his possessed hand to stop it attacking him. Cheap thrills all round. But it's not so thrilling when you're the one with the hand, is it? Because when you try to explain what it feels like, nobody really takes you seriously. Nobody took you seriously, did they, Tom?"

Storey shifted in his seat but remained silent and apparently composed.

"The GP gave you some tranquillizers. Stress, that's what he said, right?"

Storey inclined his head slightly.

Tony smiled, encouraging. "They didn't work, did they? Just made you feel sleepy and out of it. And with a hand like yours, you couldn't afford to relax your vigilance, could you? Because there was no telling what might happen then. How was it for you, Tom? Did you wake up in the night struggling for breath because the hand was round your throat? Did it smash plates over your head? Stop you from putting food in your mouth?" Tony's questioning was gentle, his voice sympathetic.

Storey cleared his throat. "It threw things. We'd all be sitting eating breakfast, and I'd pick up the teapot and throw it at my wife. Or we'd be out in the garden and the next thing I'd know, I'd be picking up stones from the rockery and throwing them at the kids." He leaned back in his chair, apparently exhausted from the effort of speech.

"I can imagine how frightening that must have been. How did your wife react?"

Storey closed his eyes. "She was going to leave me. Take the kids with her and never come back."

"And you love your kids. That's a hell of a dilemma for you. You've nothing to fight back with. Life without your kids, it's not worth living. But life with your kids places them in constant danger because you can't stop the hand doing what it wants. There's no easy answer." Tony paused and Storey opened his eyes again. "You must have been in complete turmoil."

"Why are you making excuses for me? I'm a monster. I killed my children, that's the worst thing anybody can do. They should have let me bleed to death, not saved me. I deserve to be dead." Storey's words tumbled over each other.

"You're not a monster," Tony said. "I don't think your kids are the only victims here. We're going to run some physical tests. Tom, I think you may be suffering from a brain tumour. You see, your brain comes in two halves. Messages from one part reach the other across a sort of bridge called the corpus callosum. When that's damaged, your right hand literally doesn't know what your left hand is doing. And that's a terrible thing to live with. I can't blame you for being driven to the point where you thought killing your children was the only way to keep them safe from whatever you might do to them."

"You should blame me," Storey insisted. "I was their father. It was my job to protect them. Not kill them."

"But you couldn't trust yourself. So you chose to end their lives in the most humane way you could. Smothering them while they slept."

Storey's eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head. "It was wrong," he said, his voice choking. "But nobody would listen to me. Nobody would help me."

Tony reached across the table and laid his hand on the bandaged stump. "We'll help you now, Tom. I promise you. We'll help you."

Carol arched her back and rotated her shoulders, swivelling round in her chair to stare out of the window. Across the street stood a white Portland stone building with a fine neoclassical portico. When she'd last been in Bradfield, it had been a bingo hall. Now it was a nightclub, its cold neon tubes spelling out "Afrodite' in fake Greek script. Buses rumbled past, advertising the latest movies and console games. A traffic warden stalked the metered parking, his computerized ticket machine held like a truncheon. A world going about its business, insulated from the unpleasantness that was her stock in trade. She'd read the material on Guy Lefevre and now she was close to the end of Tim Golding's file. The words were starting to blur. Apart from a half-hour break for lunch, she'd been reading solidly all day. She knew she wasn't the only one. Every time she'd raised her head, the rest of the squad had been equally engrossed. Interesting how their body language seemed to reveal so much more of their personalities than the slightly awkward and guarded conversation over the lunchtime sandwiches Stacey had fetched from the canteen. Don sat hunched over his desk, one arm round the file like a kid who doesn't want anybody copying his work. He wasn't the quickest wit Carol had ever worked with, but he made up for it with his stolid persistence and total commitment to the team. And if there was one person whose loyalty she could depend on without question, it was Don. He'd proved himself in the past, but she hadn't realized until this morning how important that knowledge was to her.

Kevin's wiry body sat erect in his chair, papers neatly aligned. Every now and again he would pause and stare into the middle distance for as long as it took to smoke a cigarette. Then he would scribble something on the pad next to him and return to his reading. Carol remembered how he'd always seemed so buttoned up. It had made it all the harder to believe when he'd gone off the rails. But like most repressed individuals, when he had finally broken the rules he'd been more reckless than the wildest risk taker. And it had led him into betrayal. Carol told herself that he'd never make that mistake again, but she was still reluctant to trust. She hoped he couldn't see that in her eyes.

Sam Evans was hunched in the chair opposite Kevin, his jacket carefully arranged on a hanger hooked over a filing-cabinet drawer handle. His shirt was crisp and white, the careful creases of the iron still clean cut on his sleeves. He and Kevin had staked out smokers' corner on the opposite side of the room to Stacey and her computers. Evans' reading style seemed almost nonchalant, as if he were drifting through the Sunday papers. His expression gave nothing away. But occasionally his hand would snake into his trouser pocket and emerge with a mini disk recorder. He'd mumble a few words into it then slip it back out of sight. Carol didn't think much was getting past him.

Paula, conversely, was a spreader. Within half an hour of starting, the whole of her desktop was covered in stacks of papers as she sorted through the file in front of her. But in spite of the appearance of untidiness, it was clear she knew where everything was. Her hand moved, apparently independent of her eyes, confidently picking up the next piece of paper she needed. It was as if she had a mental map of her arrangement, a neat grid stamped firmly on her brain. Carol wondered if that was how she worked interviews; slotting every piece of information into its own socket till the connections linked together and lit up like a completed circuit.

Stacey couldn't have been more different. Even her dress style was at odds with Paula's casual T-shirt and jeans. Stacey's suit fitted as if it had been made to measure, and the fine polo-neck sweater beneath it looked like cashmere to Carol's eye. A surprisingly expensive outfit for a detective constable, she thought. When it came to work, it was almost as if Stacey resented the presence of paper. She'd balanced the file she was studying on a pulled-out desk drawer to leave her work surface clear for interaction with the machine. The twin screens of her computer system held most of her attention. She would swiftly scrutinize the file material, then her fingers would fly over the keys before she cocked her head to one side, ran her left hand through her glossy black hair and clicked a mouse button. Manipulable virtuality was seemingly what she craved over reality.

It was, Carol thought, a group with enough variety in their skills and attributes to cover most of the bases. The key question was whether she could get them to bond into a unit. Until they felt part of a team, they would be less than the sum of their parts. She sighed. Somewhere in her near future, she could see a night out with her officers. On balance, she'd rather have spent a day in the dentist's chair without benefit of anaesthetic. She hadn't been out on the town since she'd come back from Germany. Even going to familiar restaurants with friends had been beyond her. The idea of raucous, crowded pubs and clubs curdled her stomach. "Get over it," she muttered angrily to herself as she turned back to the Tim Golding file.

She reread the statement given by the organic vegetable deliveryman. My, how Harriestown had changed in the few years she'd been gone. The previous occupants of the area would have been interested in organic vegetables only as potential missiles. So engrossed was she that the sharp rap of knuckles on her door jamb made her start. The pages she was holding fluttered to the desk unheeded as Carol pushed back in her chair, heart thudding, eyes wide. This was new,

she thought. The old Carol Jordan was a lot harder to startle.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to creep up on you." The woman in the doorway looked more amused than apologetic.

It was Carol's habit to form descriptions of new encounters as if she were registering their details for the National Criminal Intelligence database. Medium height; wiry as Carol herself. Straight shoulders, full breasts, narrow hips. Wavy brown hair cut in a tousle that had been fashionable a few years before, but which she'd probably hung on to because it suited her incongruously cherubic face. The cast of her features made her look as if she was perpetually on the verge of a smile. Only the eyes gave her away; she had the long flat stare of the cop who'd grown weary of the variety of human viciousness and misery. She wore black jeans, a black silk T-shirt and a leather jacket the colour of creme caramel. Whoever she was, Carol was certain she'd never met her before. "I was miles away," she said, getting to her feet.

"And who wouldn't be, given half a chance." The woman's eyes crinkled in an easy smile as she moved forward, extending a hand. "Detective Sergeant Jan Shields. I work Temple Fields."

"DCI Jordan," Carol said, accepting the warm, dry handshake. She gave a wry smile. "You're the Vice, then?"

Jan groaned. "Oh please. One bloody TV series and we're back with a label from the bad old, sad old days. Yeah, I'm the Vice. That'd be why we get the scuzzy office and you get the management suite. How are you settling in?"

Carol shrugged, slightly uncomfortable with the assumption of camaraderie from an officer junior in rank though probably roughly equal in years. "We're feeling our way. So, Sergeant Shields, is this a social call? Or is there something I can help you with?"

"I think it might be me that can help you." Jan waved a slim manila folder, this smile a tease.

Carol raised her eyebrows, moving back behind her desk. "Really?"

"Your team's working cold cases till you hit a fresh jackpot, right?"

"We're taking a look, yes."

"And one of those cases would be Tim Golding?"

"You're well informed,. Sergeant."

Jan shrugged. "You know how it is. Gossip travels faster than a speeding bullet."

"And we're today's hot news." Carol sat down. She wanted to give the impression of confidence. "So what is it you have for me?"

"It's a bit of a long story." Jan gestured to the chair opposite Carol. "May I?" She sat down and crossed her legs with easy confidence.

Carol leaned forward. "Let's have it, then."

"When you were here before, I was on secondment to a Home Office team working with the FBI on a long-term investigation into paedophiles using the internet. You've probably heard of Operation Ore?"

Carol nodded. The news media had leapt on Operation Ore with the avidity of a starving coyote in a meat-processing factory. The investigation had netted thousands of potential arrestees on both sides of the Atlantic: men who surfed the net and used their credit cards to buy access to sites where they could download child pornography. But the sheer scale of the results had made Operation Ore a victim of its own success. Overstretched law enforcement agencies looked at the mountain of evidence and threw their hands up in despair. Carol had heard one colleague estimate that with the officers at his disposal it would take nine and a half years simply to interview all the names from his patch, never mind to seize and analyse their hard drives. "You were involved in that?"

"In the early stages, yes. I've been back here two years now, and most of what I've been doing since then has been prioritizing our hit list, in between the usual shit on the streets. In the last six months, we've started pulling in our prime candidates. What we do is kick their doors down and seize their computer equipment. After a preliminary interview we usually release them on police bail till the analysis is done."

"Which can take weeks, I imagine?"

Jan's mouth twisted in a half-smile. "If we're lucky. Anyway, I got a stack of stuff through yesterday from the techies. They'd stripped out a pretty rich seam from a guy we pulled in a couple of months ago." She shook her head. "You'd think I'd be used to this by now. The guy's a senior NHS manager. You need a hip replacement or a new knee at Bradfield Cross? He's the one you blame for the length of the waiting list. Respectable house in the suburbs, wife's a teacher, two teenage kids. And his computer's like a fucking sewer. So, I'm wading through his shit and I find this' She flipped open her file dramatically and pulled out a print of a digital photograph, blown up to cover most of an A4 sheet. She passed it across to Carol. "I recognized the kid from the media blitz."

Carol studied the photograph. The background showed a dramatic rock formation. Slender birch branches crisscrossed one corner. A skinny child stood naked and hunched in the middle of the frame. Sandy hair, Harry Potter glasses. Features she'd memorized in the course of her long day's reading. There was no room for doubt: this was Tim Golding. She felt the familiar rush that came with a fresh lead and hated herself for it. This wasn't something to rejoice over. Carol understood that now better than she ever had before. "Are there any more?" she asked.

Jan shook her head. "I've been right through the archive. Nothing."

"What about the other missing kid Guy Lefevre?"

"Sorry. That's the only one. And it doesn't mean my guy is the one you're looking for. These sick bastards swap shots all the time. The fact that there's only the one pic of the Golding boy would suggest to me that my target wasn't the photographer."

"I'm inclined to agree with you. But I want to talk to him nevertheless." Carol met Jan's eyes in a long, measured stare. "I'd like his file now and I'd like him in an interview room first thing in the morning. Do you want me to clear that with your senior officer?"

"Sorted already. My guvnor agrees you get first crack. Full house beats a flush."

"Thanks, Sergeant. I appreciate it." Carol slid the print back towards Jan. "This background any idea where it might be?" She pointed to the unusual rock formation.

Jan shook her head. "Not a clue. I'm a city girl, me. I get the shakes if I'm more than five miles from Starbucks."

"It looks pretty distinctive to me. But for all I know, there could be rocks like this from Land's End to John O'Groats."

"Yeah. But there's only one Tim Golding."

Carol sighed. "Wrong tense, I think."

"Sorry?"

"Looking at this, I think we should be saying there was only one Tim Golding."

His hands are sweating. They slither and slip in spite of the thin layer of talc inside the latex gloves. It makes the preparation difficult. He's not really used to anything that requires finer control than rolling a joint. When his fingers fumble and a blade nicks him through the glove, he swears out loud at the beads of blood that ooze from the wound.

He's glad the Voice isn't here to see him fucking up. And that reminds him that he has instructions about what to do if his blood gets on the stuff. "Put anything stained with even the smallest drop of blood to one side. Replace it and start again. Only one blood, that's what we want. Only one blood." The words echo in his head and he does what he's told. He pulls a page out of that evening's paper and places the bloody blade on it. Then he strips off the gloves and adds them to the pile. He doesn't have an Elastoplast, so he tears off a corner of the newsprint and sticks it clumsily over the place where the blood is seeping. Then he takes another pair of gloves from the box. And starts again.

He really wants to get it right. He knows that if he gets it right, this will be the best thing he's ever done. He knows because that's what the Voice told him. And everything else the Voice has said has been right.

All day, he's been thinking about what's to come. All day, his mind's been in a spin. Though he tried to keep it hidden, people noticed. But they don't expect much of him at the best of times, so they didn't notice in a way that they'll remember afterwards. Mostly, they just made a joke of it, although one or two used his slowness or stupidity as an excuse for giving him a bad time. But he's used to that too. Until the Voice came along and said he deserved better, that was how it was for him. The tree every dog pissed up. The one who was so crap everybody else looked good next to him.

Tonight, he's going to prove them wrong. Tonight he's going to do something none of them would dare. And he's going to do it right.

Isn't he?

The car park was a place of shadows, hemmed in by high brick walls topped with razor wire. When it had been built, nobody could have anticipated the explosion in car ownership, so it was always over-full, double-parked and a source of irritation to those who had to use it.

It was also supposed to be secure. A sturdy metal barrier had to be raised to permit entry or egress, and the officer in charge of it was supposed to monitor each entrant carefully. But the man leaning on one of the cars understood how to circumvent systems. When he'd been here before, he'd made allies of the security team, aware that there would probably be a time when he'd want to come back without the necessary authority.

That time was tonight. He'd been waiting for the best part of an hour, resting against the bonnet of the silver saloon, reading steadily through the papers he'd stuffed into his briefcase, his peripheral vision alert to anyone leaving the tall building in front of the car park. But the light was fading fast and the air held the crisp promise of winter. Waiting was becoming less attractive. He glanced at his watch. Just after six. He'd give it half an hour, then he'd slip away into the night. He didn't want to lurk in the darkness, for a variety of reasons.

A few minutes later, he saw what he'd been waiting for. A gleam of blonde hair caught in the security lights by the back door, and he was on the move. He shoved the file back into his briefcase and stood upright, moving towards the back of the car to cut off his target before she could reach the driver's door.

She looked over her shoulder, calling out a farewell to a colleague. When she turned back, he was only a few feet from her. Shock and astonishment shot across her face and she stopped dead. Her mouth formed an exclamation, but no sound emerged.

"Hi, Carol," Tony said. "Fancy a curry?"

"Jesus," she exhaled, her shoulders dropping. "You nearly gave me a heart attack. What the hell are you doing here?"

He spread his arms wide, a parody of innocence. "Like I said, inviting you out for a curry."

"Freaking me out, more like. What are you doing in Bradfield? You're supposed to be in St. Andrews."

He raised one finger in admonishment. "Later. Now, are you going to unlock the car? I'm freezing."

With an air of bemusement, Carol obediently popped the locks and watched him walk round to the passenger seat. She couldn't help smiling. There was, she thought, nobody quite like Tony Hill.

Twenty minutes later, they'd found a relatively quiet corner table in a cheap and cheerful Bangladeshi cafe on the fringes of Temple Fields, the area of the city centre where the gay village sat uneasily alongside the red-light district. Their fellow customers were a mixture of students and individuals poised to go looking for love in all the wrong places. Carol and Tony had discovered the cafe when they'd first worked together on a case centred on Temple Fields, and it seemed the obvious place for this reunion.

"I can't believe you're here," Carol said as the waiter departed to bring them a couple of bottles of Kingfisher.

He held out his arm. "Go on, pinch me. I'm real."

She leaned forward and gave his shoulder a gentle punch. "OK, you're real. But why are you here?"

"I jacked the job in. I was a fish out of water there, Carol. I needed to get back to the work I know I'm good at. I'd already got an offer of consultancy work over in Europe. And when John Brandon told me you were coming back to Bradfield, I got on to Bradfield Moor and asked for part-time clinical work." He grinned. "So here I am."

"You came back to Bradfield because of me?" Carol's expression was guarded. "I don't want your pity, Tony."

"It's nothing to do with pity. You're the best friend I've got. I have some idea of how hard this is for you, Carol. And I want to be around if you need me."

Carol waited for the waiter to deposit their beers, then said, "I can manage, you know. I've been a cop for a long time. I'm capable of catching villains without your help."

Tony took a long drink from the bottle of Indian lager while he considered how to deal with her wilful misunderstanding. "I'm not here to help you do your job. I'm here because that's what friends do." He gave a crooked smile. "And besides, it suits me to be here. You should see the nutters they've got locked up in Bradfield Moor. It's a dream come true for a weirdo like me."

Carol snorted, spraying the paper tablecloth with beer. "Bastard! You waited till I had a mouthful of beer to make me laugh."

"What do you expect? I'm trained to provoke reactions. So, where are you living?"

"I'm camping in Michael's spare room while I look for somewhere to rent." Carol studied the menu.

Tony pretended to do the same, though he already knew he'd choose the fish pakora followed by the chicken biryani. The lack of commitment implied by Carol's decision to rent rather than to sell up in London and buy in Bradfield was understandable. She wanted to leave herself an escape route. But it troubled him nevertheless. "That must feel strange," he said. "It having been your flat in the first place."

"It's not ideal. I don't think Lucy's crazy about having me there. She's a barrister, remember? She does a lot of criminal defence work, so she has a tendency to regard me in the same light as a chicken farmer regards a fox." The waiter returned and they ordered their meals. As he departed, Carol met Tony's eyes. "What about you? Where are you living?"

"I was lucky. I sold my cottage in Cellardyke practically overnight. I've just bought a place here. Near where I used to live. A Victorian semi. Three bedrooms, two receptions. Nice big rooms, very light."

"Sounds good."

The waiter plonked a plate of poppadums and a tray of relishes in front of them. Tony took the opportunity to busy himself with something other than Carol. "Thing is, it's got a cellar. Pretty much self-contained. Two big rooms, natural light. Toilet and shower. And a little box room you could easily turn into a kitchen." He looked up, the question in his eyes.

Carol stared at him, clearly unsure if he was saying what she thought. She gave an uncertain laugh. "What would I do with a kitchen?"

"Good point. But it does give you somewhere to put the washing machine."

"Are you seriously offering me your cellar?"

"Why not? It'd solve your accommodation problem. And having a copper on the premises would give me a sense of security." He grinned. "More importantly, Nelson would keep the mice away."