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with his bland expression and uninflected voice. Like most of the safe-house staff, he had been trained to keep his distance. But he had red hair and a red face, and his eyes were a deep, vivid blue.
    Even in his mud-brown suit, he struck a cheerful note.
    ‘Sure,’ he said, when asked if the office computer was available. ‘But I’m on duty, right now. I have to stay here while you’re using it.’
    ‘Feel free,’ was Saul’s somewhat acid rejoinder. He allowed Angus to insert Saul’s disc into the appropriate disc drive. But once this simple task had been carried out, Angus was promptly banished to the other side of the room.
    Cadel soon found himself peering at a list of seven files. Each file bore a tag incorporating a date, a time and a location, as well as more obscure number groupings that were harder to interpret. He wondered if they might refer to camera specifications, or network protocols.
    ‘Each file is a different sighting,’ Saul explained, motioning at the screen. He was standing behind Cadel, who had laid claim to a wheeled typist’s chair. ‘They’re listed in order of appearance.’
    ‘Starting three days ago?’ said Cadel. And Saul pulled a face.
    ‘Yes. We’ve been a bit slow off the mark, unfortunately.’
    According to the list, Prosper had been filmed in Hornsby, Bankstown, Campbelltown, Bondi Junction, Parramatta, and Sydney’s Central Business District. In other words, he’d been all over the place: north, south, east and west. There didn’t seem to be a uniformity of times, either – mornings, afternoons and evenings were all represented.
    ‘As you can see, he’s been getting about a bit,’ Saul continued. ‘But there’s been a double sighting in the CBD, so we’re hoping that might have some significance.’
    ‘It all has some significance.’ Cadel planted his fingertip on the third line down. ‘Look at this. An early start at the railway station. Was he heading in or out?’
    ‘In. Definitely. We’ve been checking the schedules, and there are three trains he might have caught.’
    ‘Yeah, but where did he
come
from, at 5:48 in the morning? That’s got to narrow your search parameters.’ Cadel spun around in his chair, lifting his chin until he was looking Saul straight in the eye. ‘You know what you need? You need a mathematician. You can apply mathematics to a problem like this. Bayesian theory … maybe a Markov Chain model. You can look at where Prosper’s been, and work out where he is now. If you’ve got enough data.’
    There was a brief pause. When Cadel didn’t go on, the detective finally asked, ‘
Have
we got enough data?’
    ‘I dunno.’ Cadel hesitated, before adding, ‘Maybe not. I’d have to give it some thought.’
    ‘No.’ Suddenly Saul shook his head. ‘No, that wasn’t the deal. You should keep your distance. We’ll find someone else to do it.’
    ‘Sonja could.’
    ‘Possibly. But I don’t want you asking her. Your job is identification, pure and simple.’ Saul reached for the mouse, then clicked on the first listed sighting. Immediately, a dim, grainy view of concrete and steel enveloped the computer screen. ‘Now, what we’ve got here is a car park,’ he announced. ‘And this figure here, on the left,
appears
to be Prosper English. We think.’ He indicated a blurred shape moving briskly past the suspended camera. ‘Do you want to run it again? We can pause it, if you like.’
    ‘Yes, please.’
    The frozen image showed a tall, thin, middle-aged man wearing sunglasses. His hair was brushed back off his high forehead like a lion’s mane; he was clean-shaven, with a long nose and dark eyebrows.
    Though the picture wasn’t very clear, it sent a cold dart through Cadel’s guts. He had to swallow and lick his dry lips before he was able to speak.
    ‘That’s Prosper,’ he mumbled.
    ‘Are you sure?’ Saul was frowning again. ‘Because you can’t really see the face very well –’
    ‘That’s him,’ Cadel