Instead she leaned back in her chair, and looked across through the French doors to the sitting room. Michael Becker was perched on the edge of an armchair. Zandt was standing behind the couch. Nina had spent the entire day with Zandt without hearing more than five sentences that did not relate to the case. They had walked the ground of the disappearance early in the day, before the shopping crowds gathered. They had visited Sarah Becker's school, so that Zandt could see how it fit into its environment. He had observed the sight lines and access points, the places where someone might wait, looking for someone to love. He spent a long while over it, as if believing there was some new view he might chance upon that would enable him to glimpse a man's shadow in the daylight. He had been irritable when they left.

They had not visited any of the families from The Upright Man's previous murders. They had the files of the original interviews, and it was very unlikely there would be anything new to be learned. Nina knew he held their interviews in his head, and could have told the families things they had themselves forgotten. Talking to them could only confuse matters. She also privately believed that if Zandt was able to lead them closer to the killer, it would be little to do with something he had learned, and much more to do with something he felt.

Nina had another reason for keeping Zandt away from the families. She did not want any of the relatives stirred up enough that they might call the police or the Bureau to check how the investigation was going. No one knew she had reinvolved John Zandt in the case again. If anyone found out, all hell would break loose. This time it wouldn't just be disciplinary: it would be the end of her career. Allowing him to talk to the Beckers was a risk she had to take. The parents had seen so many police and Bureau men since the disappearance that it was unlikely they would remember one in particular, or mention him to someone else. Or so she hoped. She also hoped that whatever the men were talking about, it might spark something in Zandt's mind.

And that he would tell her about it if it did.

'I'll go through it again if you want.'

Michael Becker had already recounted his movements twice, responding quickly and concisely to questions. Zandt knew that the man had nothing helpful to tell him. He had also gathered that, in the weeks leading up to the disappearance, Becker had been so involved in his work that he would have noticed very little about the outside world. He shook his head.

Becker abruptly looked down at the floor and put his head in his hands. 'Don't you have anything

else to ask? There must be something else. There has to be something.'

'There's no magic question. Or if there is, I don't know what it might be.'

Becker looked up. This was not the kind of thing the other policemen had said to him. 'Do you think

she's still alive?'

'Yes,' Zandt said.

Becker was surprised by the confidence he saw in the policemen's face. 'Everyone else is acting as if

she's dead,' he said. 'They don't say it. But they think it.'

'They're wrong. For the time being.'

'Why?' The man's voice was dry, the breathing wrong, the sound of a man caught wanting to believe.

'When a killer of this type disposes of a victim, he usually hides the body and does what he can to obfuscate its identity. Partly just to make it harder for the police. But also because many of these people are seeking to hide their activities from themselves. The three previous victims were found in open ground, wearing the remains of their own clothes and still with their personal effects. This man isn't hiding from anybody. He wanted us to know who they were, and that he had finished with them. Finishing implies a period in which he requires them to be alive.'

'Requires them…'

'Only one of the previous victims was sexually abused. Apart from minor head injuries, the others

showed no abuse apart from the shaving of their heads.'

'And their murder, of course.'

Zandt shook his head. 'Murder is not abuse in this kind of situation. Murder is what ends the abuse.

Forensics can only show so much, but it suggests that all of the girls were alive for over a week after their abductions.'

'A week,' the man said, bleakly. 'It's been five days already.'

There was a pause before Zandt answered. During the interview, his eyes had covered most corners of the room, but now he saw something he hadn't noticed before. A small pile of schoolbooks, on a side table. They were too advanced to belong to the younger daughter. He became conscious that the other man was looking at him. 'I'm aware of that.'

'You sounded like you had another reason.'

'I just don't believe he will have killed her yet.'

Becker laughed harshly. 'Don't 'believe'? That's it? Oh right. That's very reassuring.'

'It's not my job to reassure you.'

'No,' Becker said, face blank. 'I suppose not.' There was silence for a few moments. And then he

added: 'These things really happen, don't they?' Zandt knew what he meant. That certain events, of a kind that most people just watch or read about,

can actually happen. Things like sudden death, and divorce, and spinal injuries; like suicide, and drug addiction, and fading grey people standing in a circle looking down at you muttering 'The driver never stopped'. They happen. They're as real as happiness, marriage and the feel of the sun on your back, and they fade far more slowly. You may not get back the life you had before. You may not be one of the lucky ones. It may just go on and on and on.

'Yes they do,' he said. Unseen by the other man, he touched the cover of one of the schoolbooks. Ran his finger over its rough surface.

'What chance do you think we have of getting her back?'

The question was asked simply, with a steady voice, and Zandt admired him for it. He turned away from the table.

'You should assume that you have none at all.'

Becker looked shocked, and tried to say something. Nothing came out.

'A hundred people are killed by men like this every year,' Zandt said. 'Probably more. In this country alone. Almost none of the killers are ever caught. We make a big fuss when we do, as if we've put the tiger back in his cage. But we haven't. A new one is born every month. The few we catch are unlucky, or stupid, or have been driven to the point where they start making mistakes. The majority are never caught. These men are not aberrations. They are part of who we are. It's like anything else. Survival of the most fit. The cleverest.'

'Is The Delivery Boy clever?'

'That's not his name.'

'That's what the papers called him before. And the cops.'

'He's called The Upright Man. By himself. Yes, he's clever. That may be what causes him to fall. He's

very keen for us to admire him. On the other hand…'

'He may just not get caught, and unless you find him we're never going to see Sarah again.'

'If you see her again,' Zandt said, replacing his pad and pen in an inside pocket, 'it will be a gift from

the gods, and you should see it as such. None of you will ever be the same. That need not be a bad thing. But it's true.'

Becker stood. Zandt didn't think he'd ever seen a man who looked both so tired and incapable of sleep. Unknown to him, Michael Becker was thinking the same thing of him.

'But you'll keep trying?'

'I'll do everything I can,' he said. 'If I can find him, then I will.'

'Then why tell me to assume the worst?'

But his wife came in through the French doors, with the FBI agent just behind, and the policeman did not say anything more.

Nina thanked the Beckers for their time, and promised to keep them up to date. She also managed to imply that their visit had been a formality, without direct relevance to the course of the investigation.