Its Victorian shoddiness was seeping into her, debasing her scale of values. In time she would lose the power to perceive its ugliness. She would drift away from her friends—her career would slip away from her. She no more believed all this than she believed that the ghost of WillyBee was urging her to involve herself. It was less than a superstition—being indeed a sensation of aftermath. The newspapers had ceased to headline the case—Inspector Curwen was said to have returned to Scotland Yard. The guard had been taken off the lockhouse, creating the illusion that no one now cared that WillyBee had been murdered. Stranack, she supposed, would receive her in much the same way as the other two. There would be the inescapable ritual of a drink and she would accept because it would be too bothersome to say that she preferred coffee. Nothing that Stranack might tell her could undermine her belief that Lyle Canvey was the innocent man, whether there was any evidence in support or not.
