wages. The cream linen shirt was French Connection, the ribbed grey cardigan from a chain store men's department. Carol picked a few black cat hairs from the cardigan and caught Nelson's reproachful stare.
"You know I love you. I just don't need to wear you," she said.
"You'd get a shock if he answered you," a man's voice said from the doorway.
Carol turned to face her brother, who leaned against the doorjamb in his boxer shorts, blond hair tousled, eyes bleary with sleep. His face had a strange congruence with Carol's, as if someone had scanned her photograph into a computer and subtly altered the features away from the feminine and towards the masculine.
"I didn't wake you, did I?" she asked anxiously.
"Nope. I've got to go to London today. The money man come th He yawned.
"The Americans?" Carol asked, crouching down and scratching the cat behind the ears. Nelson promptly rolled over on to his back, displaying his full stomach to be stroked.
"Correct. They want a full demo of what we've done so far. I've been telling Carl that nothing looks very impressive right now, but he says they want some reassurance that they're not just pouring their development money into a black hole."
"The joys of software development," Carol said, rumpling Nelson's fur.
"Leading-edge software development, please," Michael said, self-mockingly.
"How about you? What's happening down the murder factory? I heard on the news last night that you'd copped for another one."
"Looks like it. At least the powers that be have finally admitted that we've got a serial killer on the loose. And they've brought in a psychological profiler to work with us."
Michael whistled.
"Fuck me, Bradfield police enter the twentieth century. How's Popeye taking it?"
Carol pulled a face.
"He likes it about as much as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. He thinks it's a total waste of bloody time,"
Carol said, dropping her voice and affecting Torn Cross's Bradfield accent.
"Then when I was appointed liaison officer with the profiler, he perked up."
Michael nodded, a cynical expression on his face.
"Two birds with one stone."
Carol grinned.
"Yeah, well, it'll need to be over my dead body." She stood up. Nelson gave a small miaow of protest. Carol sighed and headed for the door.
"Back to work, Nelson. Thanks for taking my mind off the bodies," she said.
Michael swung out of the doorway to let her pass and gave her a hug.
"Take no prisoners, sis," he said.
Carol snorted.
"I don't think you've quite grasped the principle of policing, bro."
By the time she was behind the wheel, the cat and Michael were forgotten. She was back with the killer.
Now, a couple of hours and a stack of overnight murder team reports later, home seemed a memory as distant as her summer holiday in Ithaca. Carol forced herself out of her chair, picked up the paperwork and walked into the main CID office.
It was standing room only by the time she arrived, detectives normally based in other stations jockeying for position in the crowd.
A couple of her detective constables shifted to make room for her, one offering his chair.
"Fucking brown nose," a voice said audibly from the other side of the room. Carol couldn't see who had spoken, but recognized it wasn't one of her own team. She smiled and shook her head at her junior officer, choosing instead to perch on the edge of his desk beside Don Merrick, who nodded a morose greeting. The clock read nine-twenty- nine. The room smelled of cheap cigars, coffee and damp coats.
One of the other inspectors caught Carol's eye and started to move towards her. But before they could speak, the door opened and Torn Cross barrelled in, followed by John Brandon. The superintendent looked disturbingly benign as he marched in. The troops parted automatically before him, leaving a clear path for him and Brandon to walk to the white board at the far end of the room.
"Morning, lads," Cross said genially.
"And lasses," he added as an obvious afterthought.
"There's nobody here that doesn't know we've got four unsolved murders on our hands. We've got IDs for the first three bodies Adam Scott, Paul Gibbs and Gareth Finnegan. So far, we've not made any progress on the fourth victim. The lads down the path lab are working on him now, trying to come up with a face that won't frighten the horses when we release the picture to the press."
Cross took a deep breath. If anything, his expression became even more benevolent.
"As you all know, I'm not a man given to theorizing ahead