A large-screen TV was commanding their attention. England was playing South Africa in a friendly and the atmosphere in the pub was rowdy, but not aggressive. Detective Inspector Jack Delaney stood at the other end of the bar and waited patiently for the young man, with short cropped hair and arms like strings of rope and the word 'WRATH' tattooed in big, black letters along the length of one forearm, to get around to serving him. Any other day he would have been simmering with barely contained fury as the barman flirted with a couple of South African girls with hair as yellow as corn and strong, bright teeth. But Jack Delaney had other things to occupy his mind that night. All things coalesce somewhere. All things come together in a pattern. He couldn't see it yet, but he knew it was there. Finding patterns was his job, after all, seeking what linked seemingly disassociated events. What Delaney did know just then, as he waited at the bar, with dark images flashing through his memory, was that he had a focus again.
