By then, it was almost eleven at night and too late to call. All the books on “How to Be a Detective” offered techniques for the care and handling of interviewees, and ringing a telephone so late in the evening was not highly recommended. She transferred lines at Oxford Circus for Victoria Station, letting the first train pass to note if any other passenger stayed behind on the vacant platform. On the following train, she moved rearward through three or four of the almost empty cars and exited just as the doors were closing at the next stop. Then she caught the next train, scanning the few passengers for any familiar face. All the standard maneuvers told her she was clean. At Victoria Station, she dropped ten pence into the turnstile that guarded the stairs down to the women’s loo. This late, it was empty of all but a few bundles of rags sleeping here and there on the ill-lit landing or against the glaring white tiles of the washroom.
