“Now,” she said, “this is what I recommend. Incredulity.”

Hillier didn’t reply at once. Isabelle could feel her heart beating-it was slamming, really-against her rib cage. She reckoned it could have been seen in the pulse on her temples had she worn her hair differently and she knew it probably was evident on her neck. But that, too, was somewhat out of Hillier’s view, and as long as she said nothing more, merely waiting for his reply, obviously communicating to him nothing but confidence in the decisions she’d made…She merely needed to keep her eyes on his, which were icy and rather soulless, weren’t they, and she hadn’t actually noticed that before this moment.

“Incredulity,” Hillier finally repeated. His telephone rang. He snatched it up, listened for a moment, and said, “Tell him to hang on. I’m nearly finished here.” Then to Isabelle, “Go on.”

“With?” She made it sound as if she assumed he’d followed her logic, all surprise that he needed her to clarify.

His nostrils moved, not a flare so much as a testing of the air. For prey, no doubt. She held her ground. He said, “With your point, Superintendent Ardery. Just how do you see this playing out?”

“With our astonishment that someone’s mental condition-unfortunate though it may be-would ever trump the safety of the general public. Our officers went to the site unarmed. The man in question panicked for reasons we haven’t yet ascertained. In our possession is hard evidence-”

“Most of which was gathered after the fact of his accident,” Hillier noted.

“Which is beside the point, of course.”

“The point being?”

“That we have our hands on a person of serious interest who can, as the phrase goes, ‘help us with our inquiries’ in a fashion that no one else can. What we’re looking for, good people of the press, is-might I remind you-whoever is responsible for the brutal murder of an innocent woman in a public park, and if this gentleman can lead us to that party, then that’s what we’re going to demand he do. The press will fill in the blanks. The last thing they’ll ask is the order in which events occurred. Evidence is evidence. They’ll want to know what it is, not when we found it. And even if they unearth the fact that we found it after the accident on Shaftesbury Avenue, the point is the murder, the park, and our belief that the public might prefer we protect them from madmen wielding weapons rather than tiptoe round someone who might or might not be hearing Beelzebub muttering in his ear.”

Hillier considered this. Isabelle considered Hillier. She wondered idly what he’d received his knighthood for because it was odd that someone in his position would be given an honour that generally went to the higher-ups. That he’d been knighted spoke not so much of a service to the public heroically rendered but rather to Hillier’s knowing of people in high places and, more important, knowing how to use those people in high places. He was, thus, not a man to cross. But that was fine. She didn’t intend to cross him.

He said to her, “You’re a wily one, aren’t you, Isabelle? I’ve not missed the fact that you’ve managed to swing this meeting your way.”

“I wouldn’t in the least expect you to miss that fact,” Isabelle said. “A man like you doesn’t rise to the position you have because things get by him. I quite understand that. I quite admire it. You’re a political animal, sir. But so am I.”

“Are you.”

“Oh yes.”

A moment passed between them during which they were locked in an assessing look. It had about it the air of the distinctly sexual, and Isabelle allowed herself to imagine going at it with David Hillier, the two of them locked in an entirely different kind of combat on her bed. She reckoned he imagined much the same. When she was as certain of that as she could be, she dropped her gaze.

She said, “I assume Mr. Deacon’s waiting outside, sir. Would you like me to stay for that meeting?”

Hillier didn’t reply until she raised her eyes. Then he said slowly, “That won’t be necessary.”

She rose. “Then I’ll get back to work. If you want me”-her choice of verb was deliberate-“Ms. MacIntosh has my mobile number. As, perhaps, do you?”

“I do,” he said. “We’ll speak again.”

SHE WENT DIRECTLY TO THE LADIES’. THE ONLY PROBLEM was that she hadn’t thought to bring her bag with her to Hillier’s office, so at the moment she was without resources and she was left relying on what was available, which was water from the tap. This was hardly an efficacious substance for what ailed her. But she used it for want of anything else, on her face, her hands, her wrists.

Thus she felt little improved when she left Tower Block and made her way back to her office. She heard her name called by Dorothea Harriman-who for some reason seemed incapable of referring to her in any terms briefer than Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery-but this she ignored. She closed her office door and went directly to her desk, where she’d left her bag. Upon opening it, she discovered in short order that she had three messages on her mobile phone. She ignored them as well. She thought, Yes yes yes as she brought forth one of her airline bottles of vodka. In her rush to have it, she dropped the bottle onto the lino floor. She scrambled on her knees beneath her desk to fetch it, and she downed it as she rose to her feet. It wasn’t enough, of course. She emptied her bag on the floor to find the other. She downed this and went for the third one. She deserved it. She’d survived an encounter that by all rights she shouldn’t have survived at all. She’d avoided the participation of Stephenson Deacon and the Directorate of Public Affairs in that encounter. She’d argued her case, and she’d won, if only for the moment. And because it was only for the moment, she bloody well needed a drink, she bloody well deserved one, and if there was anyone between here and hell who didn’t understand that-

“Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery?”

Isabelle spun towards the door. She knew, of course, who’d be standing there. What she didn’t know was how long she’d been there or what she’d seen. She snapped, “Don’t you ever come into this office without knocking!”

Dorothea Harriman looked startled. “I did knock. Twice.”

“And did you hear me reply?”

“No. But I-”

“Then do not enter. Do you understand that? If you ever do that again…” Isabelle heard her own voice. To her horror, she sounded like a termagant. She realised she still had the third airline bottle in her hand, and she closed her fingers round it in a concealing fist. She drew a breath.

Harriman said, “Detective Inspector Hale’s rung from St. Thomas’ Hospital, ma’am.” Her tone was formal and polite. She was, as ever, the consummate professional, and her being so at such a moment as this reduced Isabelle to feeling like a scrofulous cow. “I’m sorry to disturb,” Harriman said, “but he’s phoned twice. I did tell him you were with the assistant commissioner, but he said it was urgent and you’d want to know and to tell you the moment you returned to your office. He said he’d rung your mobile but couldn’t reach you-”

“I’d left it here, in my bag. What’s happened?” Isabelle said.

“Yukio Matsumoto’s conscious. The detective inspector said you were meant to know the moment you returned.”

WHEN ISABELLE ARRIVED, the first person she saw was DI Philip Hale who, she mistakenly presumed, was pacing down the pavement to meet her. As things turned out, however, he was instead on his way back to the Yard, having reached the infuriating conclusion that he’d followed her orders sufficiently by remaining at the hospital until their principal suspect had regained consciousness, whereupon he’d made the call to inform her. He had gone on, he told her, to bring in two uniformed constables to stand guard at Matsumoto’s doorway. Now he was heading to the incident room to get back to the checks he and his constables had been making on-