Detective Superintendent Bruce Grant, head of the city’s Central Division C.I.D., stood at the window of his office drinking a cup of tea and stared out morosely at the driving rain. He had a slight headache and his liver was acting up again. He was getting old, he decided – old and fat through lack of exercise and the stack of paperwork waiting on his desk didn’t help. He lit a cigarette, his first of the day, sat down and started on the In-tray.

The first report was headed Found Dead – Unidentified. Grant read it through, a slight frown on his face, and pressed the button on his intercom.

‘Is Sergeant Miller in?’

‘I believe he’s in the canteen, sir,’ a neutral voice replied.

‘Get him for me, will you?’

Miller arrived five minutes later, immaculate in a dark blue worsted suit and freshly laundered white shirt. Only the skin that was stretched a little too tightly over the high cheekbones gave any hint of fatigue.

‘I thought you were supposed to be having a rest day?’ Grant said.

‘So did I, but I’m due in court at ten when Macek is formally charged. I’m asking for a ten-day remand. That girl’s going to be in hospital for at least a week.’

Grant tapped the form on his desk. ‘I don’t like the look of this one.’

‘The girl I pulled out of the river?’

‘That’s right. Are you certain there was no identification?’

Miller took an envelope from his pocket and produced a small gold medallion on the end of a slender chain. ‘This was around her neck.’

Grant picked it up. ‘St Christopher.’

‘Have a look on the back.’

The engraving had been executed by an expert: To Joanna from Daddy – 1955. Grant looked up, frowning. ‘And this was all?’

Miller nodded. ‘She was wearing stockings, the usual in underclothes, and a reasonably expensive dress. One rather sinister point. Just beneath the maker’s label there was obviously some sort of name tab. It’s been torn out.’

Grant sighed heavily. ‘Do you think she might have been put in?’

Miller shook his head. ‘Not a chance. There isn’t a mark on her.’

‘Then it doesn’t make sense,’ Grant said. ‘Suicide’s an irrational act at the best of times. Are you asking me to accept that this girl was so cold-blooded about it that she took time off to try to conceal her identity?’

‘It’s the only thing that makes sense.’

‘Then what about the chain? Why didn’t she get rid of that, too?’

‘When you habitually wear a thing like that you tend to forget about it,’ Miller said. ‘Or maybe it meant a lot to her – especially as she was a Catholic.’

‘That’s another thing – a Catholic committing suicide.’

‘It’s been known.’