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silence for a moment then pulled over in front of the West Block, just before the security checkpoint.
    Sophie was weeping into her tissue, hunched over, her tiny shoulders shaking.
    Ashton put her hand on her shoulder.
    “I know this is hard,” she said.
    Sophie choked and sputtered and pulled the tissue away from her nose, trailing a long string of snot.
    “I’m so scared,” she said.
    “I know,” said Ashton, thinking, Jesus, this never gets easier. Then she remembered, it does get easier. During her first nights, years ago, walking a beat in the Byward Market, she’d often hauled hopeless drunks and addicts to the drunk tank, so pained by their misery that she had to struggle to let go at the end of a shift. To survive in the job, she had had to grow thicker skin, and she now observed the pain of others with professional detachment. Aware of her detachment now, with a crying girl in the car next to her, made her feel a pang of guilt, as though she had somehow let Sophie down. She squeezed Sophie’s shoulder again.
    “You’ve got to be strong right now, though, OK? For Ed. He’d want you to help the police. We’ve got to find out what happened. OK?”
    Sophie nodded and Ashton took another tissue from the package in the girl’s bag. She thought about wiping her nose, but couldn’t manage that level of intimacy. She handed Sophie the tissue.
    “I want to go to the hospital,” Sophie said, drying her eyes and sitting up straight. “I want to see him.”
    Ashton put the car in gear. As they turned from the Hill onto Wellington Street, Sophie was staring ahead, her face rigid.
    “When is the last time you saw Ed?”
    “Last night. We had dinner at the pub, at D’Arcy McGee’s. I had work to do, so I went home, but he stayed on with a friend for more drinks.”
    “Who was the friend?” asked Ashton.
    “Jack Macdonald,” Sophie said. “A reporter.”
    “Were you expecting him home last night?”
    “Yes, of course,” said Sophie. “But I expected him late. When he goes out with Jack, they usually stay out late. When he wasn’t home this morning, I thought he’d crashed at Jack’s.”
    “Do you have contact information for Macdonald?”
    Sophie pulled out her phone. “What’s your email?” she asked, and sent the officer Jack’s co-ordinates.
    “Sophie, would you say Ed was a binge drinker?” asked Ashton.
    Sophie started crying again. “You said ‘was’ like he’s dead.”
    Ashton grimaced. “I’m sorry, Sophie,” she said. “I spend a lot of time investigating homicides, so it’s a bad habit. But no. Ed is alive. You’re going to see him soon.”
    Sophie choked back her tears. “He is a drinker,” she said. “He likes to drink. Yes. And sometimes he gets drunk. Yes.”
    “I don’t want to upset you,” said Ashton. “But we have reason to believe somebody might have tried to drown him. We can’t be sure of that, but it’s possible. Can you think of anybody who would want to kill him?”
    Sophie shook her head vehemently. “No. Everybody likes him. Nobody would want to kill him.”
    “Okay,” said Ashton. “I suspect he had too much to drink and fell in the canal, but we have to check out all the possibilities.”
    They were getting close to the hospital.
    “I have one more question,” she said. “When he was pulled out of the canal, his BlackBerry was missing. Did he have it with him when you saw him at D’Arcy’s?”
    “Yes,” said Sophie, “and I know that he had it with him later because he used it to send me PINs.”
    “PINs?” said Ashton.
    “Private BlackBerry messages,” said Sophie. “We exchanged PINs all night.”
    Ashton pulled up in front of the hospital.
    “I need you to send me a copy of all the PINs he sent,” she said. “Okay?”

    Jack ignored the vibration in his phone holster as he made his way to his seat in the jammed gallery overlooking the House of Commons. Thanks to the leaked news, there was a full house of reporters today –