“I’m Rose,” she said. “Rose Barlow. You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I know who you are,” said Banks. “What can I do for you?”

Rose carried on snooping around the office, taking books off the shelf and riffling through the pages, putting them back, adjusting the calendar so it was square with the filing cabinet. She wore a short, sleeveless top so that, Banks presumed, the rose tattoo on her upper left arm and the collection of jewelry dangling from her navel showed to best advantage.

“It’s more a matter of what I can do for you,” she said, sitting down and giving him what he was sure she thought of as an enigmatic look. It came across as vacant. She must be a handful for her father, he thought. It seemed so often the case that the daughters of authority figures—vicars, head teachers, chief constables—were the first to rebel, and he could only think himself lucky that Tracy, a mere chief inspector’s daughter, seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. She must have got it from her mother, Banks thought, then veered away from thoughts of Sandra, showing now, no doubt, glowing with the joys of coming motherhood. Well, good luck to her and Sean; they’d need it.

“And what can you do for me?” Banks asked, deciding to let her get to her reason for coming before asking questions of his own.

She turned her nose up at the radio. “What’s that?”

“Vaughan Williams.”

“It’s boring.”

“Sorry you don’t like it. What can you do for me?”

“Do you know who killed Luke?”

“I thought you could do something for me?”

“Spoilsport. Why won’t you tell me?”

Banks sighed. “Rose. Miss Barlow. If we’d found Luke’s killer you’d have read about it in the papers by now. Now, tell me what you came to say. I’m busy.”

Rose didn’t like that, and Banks realized that letting his impatience show was a mistake. She probably got that sort of response from her father all the time, the way Tracy and Brian had often heard the same thing from Banks. Rose craved attention because she didn’t feel she got enough. Banks wondered if his children felt the same way. Did Tracy try so hard and do so well academically because she wanted attention? Did Brian stand up on stage in front of an audience night after night and bare his soul because he craved it, too? And had Luke Armitage craved the same thing? Perhaps. In his children’s cases, though, the response to the need was a pretty healthy, creative one. Banks wasn’t sure to what lengths Rose Barlow might go to get the attention she felt she deserved.

“I’m sorry,” he went on, “but I’m sure you understand that we’re in a hurry to find out who killed Luke, and if you know anything that might help us…”

Rose leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Why? Do you think he’s going to kill someone else? Do you think it’s a serial killer?”