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seen the photos,’ Bailey was saying as they walked back to Ryan’s car. ‘Seen better, seen worse, but Damien Flood wasn’t killed by any nineteen-year-old kid who lost at pool. Or his friends. Come on, Ryan, come on.’
    â€˜All I could find,’ Ryan said.
    Bailey did not sigh any more than he ever looked at his watch or opened his mouth without purpose.
    â€˜Shame,’ was all he said as they pulled away from the cliff face of Bevan House. ‘Bloody shame.’ Ryan knew at least the half of what he meant.
    H is footsteps padded down the corridor, tripped on the curled edges of carpet tile and moved on with less assurance. He opened the door, sidled his way inside, closed it behind him and breathed deeply. Now he had her. Half-past lunch and not back at work. Bull’s-eye. Brian Redwood, Branch Crown Prosecutor, Helen West’s boss, among other problems, a man of ferocious timidity, lowered his large behind into her chair, puffed out his chest, shook his head, drummed his fingers on the table and still looked like a man who bore the imprint of the last person who had sat on him. Then he began to prowl.
    Mess was what he found. No evidence whatever of the clear-desk policy he advocated, less evidence still of respect for rules. A towering in-tray, nothing in the out, two dead plants and a packet of sticky mints in the top desk drawer. Redwood huffed, ate one absent-mindedly while continuing his researches. Old birthday cards, a shopping list, a pair of shoes requiring mending, nothing more personal than that. Perhaps she hid things, these days. His eyes fell on the paper sack in the corner of the room. Confidential waste, the place to put litter with no destination other than the shredder, cleared once a fortnight. Hmm. The brown paper crackled at his touch accusingly, and the contents were revealing. Policy manuals, vital memos from himself, delivered daily, part of his own attempt to rule by written words. It was faintly shocking to find that in Helen’s case, his efforts represented nothing but the shortest route between the in-tray and the bin.
    Redwoodgazed out of the window and found, to his horror, someone gazing back. The office was separated by the mere width of a narrow street from other offices over the road, where a comely woman stared, and then waved. Redwood, a guilty thing surprised, felt as if he had just lost his trousers, and ducked out of sight still clutching a bunch of paper. He was on his hands and knees with his bottom pointing towards the door when Helen opened it. Just as she always did, he reflected later, she turned the tables on him.
    â€˜Something you wanted, sir?’
    She dropped the file she carried under one arm. The paper spilled out and the photo of Shirley Rix’s injured features lay uppermost on the floor. While Redwood looked at it without interest, Helen neatly hid her shopping bag behind the desk.
    â€˜You’re late,’ he barked, scrambling to his feet. ‘Where have you been?’
    â€˜You should know. North London Court. Battered wives society. You’ve had me doing nothing but battered women for six months. Another no-show this morning.’
    She was thinking of the contents of her bag. Of how she had substituted the vexed question of whether it had been right to ask for a witness summons for the woman in the photo with the search for yellow paint. Thinking of the various hues of silk emulsion paint, so delicious looking in little sample pots, she could have grasped them out of the hidden bag, peeled off the plastic lid and eaten one like a fruit yoghurt.
    â€˜Weneed a policy,’ Redwood barked, ‘about what to do when these women don’t turn up. When to give up and when to carry on. Write it.’
    â€˜Write what? What’s wrong with deciding what to do in each case as it comes? Each one’s different. Sometimes you should give up, sometimes not.’
    â€˜You might get it