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nothing came out of her mouth.
    ‘Hello Number Five,’ Adam whispered.

8
    The bar at the Cosmopolitan Hotel was sleek and completely devoid of character. Lots of polished wood and polished chrome and smooth, shiny leather. Artfully placed lights created strange shadows and made the leaves of the fake plants glow. Computerised versions of Christmas classics played quietly in the background. The sparse scattering of Christmas decorations wasn’t worth the effort. There was a piano tucked away in the corner. According to the sign behind the bar, Tuesday night was jazz night.
    Half a dozen customers were scattered among the tables, two pairs and two singles, mostly business people whose schedules had meant they were stranded here for a night or two. Plenty of laughter and chat, and plenty of drinking. The blonde girl behind the bar was pretty and bubbly and smiled a lot. Early twenties with an Eastern European accent. I ordered a whisky and sat down at the nearest empty table, rattled the ice cubes around the glass and took a sip. The alcohol made my throat burn.
    One of the singles stood out because she kept stealing glances in my direction. She’d been here when I arrived, sitting quietly on her own at the table that gave the best view of the room. I drank my whisky and watched her from the corner of my eye, waiting for her to make her move. She gave it another five minutes before she stood up and made her way over.
    She was an inch or so shorter than me, somewhere around the five-eight mark in flat shoes, and she moved with the self-contained, fluid grace of a dancer. She was absolutely stunning. Long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Her body was to die for and whether this was the result of good genes or regular, vigorous workouts, I neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was the end result, and that end result was spectacular.
    She put her glass on the table, pulled out the chair opposite me, then sat down and got comfortable. Head tilted slightly to the left, she checked me out. She made no attempt to disguise what she was doing. She started at my head and worked her way down to the tabletop, her eyes moving from left to right, like she was reading a book.
    ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
    ‘I’m thinking you’re not a businesswoman.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And I’m wondering why the hell you’d want to be a cop.’
    She smiled at that. ‘My dad was a policeman, and his dad, and his dad. I was supposed to be a boy.’
    ‘I take it he got over his disappointment,’ I said.
    ‘He’s very proud of me.’ She looked at me again. ‘You’re not what I expected.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Your file says you’re thirty-three.’
    ‘I’ve got a file?’
    A nod. ‘You’ve got a file.’
    ‘I am thirty-three.’
    ‘You look older. It’s probably the hair. You didn’t have white hair in the file photo.’
    ‘That’ll be all the stress and worry,’ I said.
    ‘You could do with a haircut and a shave, too.’
    ‘And I guess I should be wearing a suit and shades. Once a G-Man always a G-Man. Is that it?’
    ‘Something like that.’
    ‘Did Hatcher send you to babysit me?’
    There was a slight hesitation. She broke eye contact and glanced left, a classic tell that indicated she was accessing the part of her brain where lies and half-truths were made. ‘Not exactly,’ she said.
    ‘So why are you here?’
    Her blue eyes locked onto mine again. ‘Curiosity. I’ve heard a lot about you.’ A wry grin. ‘Jefferson Winter, the big-shot American profiler.’
    ‘How did you know I’d be here?’
    ‘Hatcher’s told me a few war stories about the time he spent out at Quantico. Based on that I figured the bar of the hotel you were staying at was as good a place as any to start looking.’
    ‘Good call.’
    ‘Aren’t you going to ask my name?’
    ‘I already know it.’
    She raised an eyebrow.
    ‘You’re Detective Sergeant Sophie Templeton,’ I said.
    Her