"Not exactly, but there was never anything good to share."

"How do you know that? Did you follow up on some leads yourself?"."Just far enough to know they were worthless. And why shouldn't we – you people never told us anything. We had a tip from Crete that was nothing and one from Uruguay that we could never confirm. I want you to understand, this is not a revenge thing, Miss Starling. I have forgiven Dr Lecter just as Our Savior forgave the Roman soldiers."

"Mr. Verger, you indicated to my office that you might have something now."

"Look in the drawer of the end table."

Starling took the white cotton gloves out of her purse and put them on. In the drawer was a large manila envelope. It was stiff and heavy. She pulled out an X-ray and held it to the bright overhead light. The X-ray was of a left hand that appeared to be injured. She counted the fingers. Four plus the thumb.

"Look at the metacarpals, do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes."

"Count the knuckles."

Five knuckles. "Counting the thumb, this person had six fingers on his left hand. Like Dr Lecter."

"Like Dr Lecter."

The corner where the X-ray's case number and origin should be was clipped off.

"Where did it come from, Mr. Verger?"

" Rio de Janeiro. To find out more, I have to pay. A lot. Can you tell me if it's Dr Lecter? I need to know if I should pay."

"I'll try, Mr. Verger. We'll do our best. Do you have the package the X ray came in?"

"Margot has it in a plastic bag, she'll give it to you. If you don't mind, Miss Starling, I'm rather tired and I need some attention."

"You'll hear from my office, Mr. Verger."

Starling had not been out of the room long when Mason Verger tooted the endmost pipe and said, "Cordell?"

The male nurse from the playroom came in and read to him from a folder marked DEPARTMENT OF CHILD WELFARE, CITY OF BALTIMORE.

" Franklin, is it? Send Franklin in," Mason said, and turned out his light.

The little boy stood alone under the bright overhead light of the seating area, squinting into the gasping darkness.

Came the resonant voice, "Are you Franklin?"

" Franklin," the little boy said.

"Where do you stay, Franklin?"

"With Mama and Shirley and Stringbean."."Does Stringbean stay there all the time?"

"He in and out."

"Did you say `He in and out'?"

"Yeah."

" `Mama' is not your real mama, is she, Franklin?"

"She my foster."

"She's not the first foster you've had, is she?"

" Nome."

"Do you like it at your house, Franklin?"

He brightened. "We got Kitty Cat. Mama make patty-cake in the stove."

"How long have you been there, at Mama's house?"

"I don't know."

"Have you had a birthday there?"

"One time I did. Shirley make Kool-Aid."

"Do you like Kool-Aid?"

"Strawberry."

"Do you love Mama and Shirley?"

"I love, um hum, and Kitty Cat."

"Do you want to live there? Do you feel safe when you go to bed?"

"Um hum. I sleep in the room with Shirley. Shirley, she a big girl."

" Franklin, you can't live there anymore with Mama and Shirley and the Kitty Cat. You have to go away."

"Who say?"

"The government say. Mama has lost her job and her approval as a foster home. The police found a marijuana cigarette in your house. You can't see Mama anymore after this week. You can't see Shirley anymore or Kitty Cat after this week."

"No," Franklin said.

"Or maybe they just don't want you anymore, Franklin. Is there something wrong with you? Do you have a sore on you or something nasty? Do you think your skin is too dark for them to love you?"

Franklin pulled up his shirt and looked at his small brown stomach. He shook his head. He was crying…"Do you know what will happen to Kitty Cat? What is Kitty Cat's name?"

"She call Kitty Cat, that her name."

"Do you know what will happen to Kitty Cat? The policemen will take Kitty Cat to the pound and a doctor there will give her a shot. Did you get a shot at day care? Did the nurse give you a shot? With a shiny needle? They'll give Kitty Cat a shot. She'll be so scared when she sees the needle. They'll stick it in and Kitty Cat will hurt and die."

Franklin caught the tail of his shirt and held it up beside his face. He put his thumb in his mouth, something he had not done for a year after Mama asked him not to.

"Come here," said the voice from the dark. "Come here and I'll tell you how you can keep Kitty Cat from getting a shot. Do you want Kitty Cat to have the shot, Franklin? No? Then come here, Franklin."

Franklin, eyes streaming, sucking his thumb, walked slowly forward into the dark. When he was within six feet of the bed, Mason blew into his harmonica and the lights came on.

From innate courage, or his wish to help Kitty Cat, or his wretched knowledge that he had no place to run to anymore, Franklin did not flinch. He did not run. He held his ground and looked at Mason's face.

Mason's brow would have furrowed if he had a brow, at this disappointing result.

"You can save Kitty Cat from getting the shot if you give Kitty Cat some rat poison yourself," Mason said. The plosive p was lost, but Franklin understood.

Franklin took his thumb out of his mouth.

"You a mean old doo-doo," Franklin said. "An you ugly too."

He turned around and walked out of the chamber, through the hall of coiled hoses, back to the playroom.

Mason watched him on video.

The nurse looked at the boy, watched him closely while pretending to read his Vogue.

Franklin did not care about the toys anymore. He went over and sat under the giraffe, facing the wall. It was all he could do not to suck his thumb.

Cordell watched him carefully for tears. When he saw the child's shoulders shaking, the nurse went to him and wiped the tears away gently with sterile swatches. He put the wet swatches in Mason's martini glass, chilling in the playroom's refrigerator beside the orange juice and the Cokes.

FINDING MEDICAL information about Dr Hannibal Lecter was not easy. When you consider his utter contempt for the medical establishment and for most medical practitioners, it is not surprising that he never had a personal physician.

The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where Dr Lecter was kept until his disastrous transfer to Memphis, was now defunct, a derelict.building awaiting demolition.

The Tennessee State Police were the last custodians of Dr Lecter before his escape, but they claimed they never received his medical records. The officers who brought him from Baltimore to Memphis, now deceased, had signed for the prisoner, not for any medical records.

Starling spent a day on the telephone and the computer, then physically searched the evidence storage rooms at Quantico and the J. Edgar Hoover Building. She climbed around the dusty and malodorous bulky evidence room of the Baltimore Police Department for an entire morning, and spent a maddening afternoon dealing with the un-catalogued Hannibal Lecter Collection at the Fitzhugh Memorial Law Library, where time stands still while the custodians try to locate the keys.

At the end, she was left with a single sheet of paper – the cursory physical examination Dr Lecter received when he was first arrested by the Maryland State Police. No medical history was attached.

Inelle Corey had survived the demise of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and gone on to better things at the Maryland State Board of Hospitals. She did not want to be interviewed by Starling in the office, so they met in a ground-floor cafeteria.

Starling's practice was to arrive early for meetings and observe the specific meeting point from a distance. Corey was punctual to the minute. She was about thirty-five years old, heavy and pale, without makeup or jewelry. Her hair was almost to her waist, as she had worn it in high school, and she wore white sandals with Supp-Hose.