The man watches him dress. “I thought we could get breakfast together?” he says. He has that annoying habit of letting his voice go up at the end of every sentence, turning statements into questions.

“I have work.”

The man smiles. “Another time.” This time it stops just short of a question.

Tyler tries, just for a moment, to summon up their future: trips to IKEA to pick out furniture, lazy Sunday mornings with the paper listening to the kids playing, brunch with the lesbians. It’s a what if dream that doesn’t quite take shape. Someone else’s dream. “Look,” he says, “this was great but, well . . .” He shrugs and leaves it there.

“I’m Oscar,” says the perfect man with his rich blackberry voice. He doesn’t seem in the least perturbed by the knock-back.

“And I’m out of here.” Tyler leaves the man smiling at him from the bed and lets himself out without another word.

—

He has been at his desk for no more than a few moments when he realizes something’s wrong. It’s too quiet. He’s used to working alone by now. His desk is tucked at the end of a small cul-de-sac formed by the plasterboard wall of the inner office used exclusively by the Murder Team. It faces the outside wall. There’s a partially frosted window to his right that lets in a small amount of natural light, but all that can be seen out of it is the painted brick of the co-op building opposite. He has to turn almost 180 degrees and crane his neck round the corner just to see another human being, let alone talk to one.

And it isn’t as though many are queuing up to talk to him anyway. There’s another barrier that separates him from his colleagues, something more robust than the flimsy plasterboard of the Murder Room. It isn’t always a lack of evidence or suspects that leads to a case being shelved; sometimes it’s simple incompetence. More than once he has been responsible for sending one of his colleagues to stand in front of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It makes him less than popular, but then, he’s not here to win friends.

There’s usually background noise, though, a hum of conversation that accompanies his working day that’s conspicuous in its absence today. He stands up and moves along what he has heard certain droll colleagues refer to as “The Tyler Wing” and back into the office proper. There are one or two industrious types tapping away at keyboards, and in the Murder Room a young detective constable whose name he can’t remember—Linda? Brenda?—is wiping down whiteboards with the enthused energy of someone given a minor responsibility. He’s considering the best way to approach her—Carla! Yes, he’s sure it’s Carla—when his mobile rings.

“Adam?”