She opened the Sunday paper over her coffee and toast, and discovered the twelve-letter-word answer to the previous weekend’s word quiz—melodramatic. Of course. She didn’t look at the new puzzle in case it became a habit. The thought of measuring her future Sundays in word-puzzles made her heart sink. Instead she dug out her swimming costume and a towel and took the tube into town. She went first to the offices at Queen Anne’s Gate, for which she now had a key. As she made her way through the building she could hear the sounds of other people, but there was no one from Brock’s team in the basement, nor any messages to indicate new developments. She thought of Gentle’s puppy-dog smile and of all those unnamed women’s faces in his files, and she felt restless. She sat down at a computer and called up, once again, the Sexual Assault Index, this time concentrating on cases within the Metropolitan Police Number Five Area, covering south-west London and the Esher suburban rail line, and Number Three Area, for the Sevenoaks line.
