Zelda picked up her pencil again and added a few more deft strokes before passing the sketch to Mati.

“Do I really look like that?” she said.

“To me you do.”

“I seem very severe . . . very haunted.”

Zelda said nothing.

“And, seriously,” Mati went on, “I think what you should do is follow your heart, but don’t let it rule your head when it senses danger. You have survived much, perhaps so much that you think you can handle anything that comes along, but, believe me, my dear Nelia, you cannot. There’s always something else. Something worse.”

Zelda nodded. “Thank you, Mati. Let’s go see to that new girl.”

2

GHOSTLY WHITE FIGURES MOVED BEYOND THE RUNNELS of rain that blurred Detective Superintendent Alan Banks’s windscreen. As he pulled to a halt on Malden Road, at the western edge of the East Side Estate, one shape detached itself from the rest and stood by his car door.

“Just what we need,” said DI Annie Cabbot, holding a transparent plastic umbrella over her head while trying to maneuver it so that Banks could stay dry, too, as he got out of the car. The rain splattered down on the plastic and dripped down his neck. Realizing that he would have to lean so close to Annie that their cheeks would be touching, or put his arm around her shoulder and pull her toward him in order to stay dry, he edged away. “It’s OK, Annie,” he said. “I’ve been soaked before. What have we got?”

Lightning flashed across the sky, and soon afterward thunder rolled and cracked to the north. Annie handed Banks a disposable white boiler suit and led him through the taped-off outer cordon into the alleyway that ran between the backyards of Malden Terrace and Malden Close. Banks slipped into the suit and zipped it up. He could feel the rain, warm on his head. At least it wasn’t one of those cold winter showers that chilled you to the bone. A spring storm. Much nicer. Heralding a change for the better in the weather. Good for the garden.

“The CSIs have managed to put a makeshift tent up,” Annie said as they approached the square canvas structure within the inner cordon. The tent was artificially lit from within, despite the fact that it was only late morning. She held open a flap and they went inside. Rain hammered down on the flimsy roof, leaking through and dripping to the ground in spots.

At the center of it all stood a large wheelie bin of the kind the council supplied for rubbish pickup.

“We’ve had a look already,” Annie went on, “and Peter Darby’s done with the photos. I thought you’d like to see what we’ve got in situ.”

Banks put on his thin latex gloves, slowly opened the bin and recoiled from what he saw there: a boy’s body with his knees tucked under his chin, curled up, almost like a fire victim. But it wasn’t a pugilistic position, and there had been no fire; the boy had been deliberately crammed into the bin.