And that other voice on the phone was nagging at me. Sam is the only detective I know who doesn't have a partner. He likes flying solo, working every case with a new team--local uniforms who want a hand from an expert, pairs from the Murder squad who need a third man on a big case. Sam can get along with anyone, he's the perfect backup man, and I wished I knew which of the people I used to work with he was backing up this time.

Outside the village the road narrowed, twisting upwards among bright gorse bushes, and the fields got smaller and rockier. There were two men standing on the crest of the hill. Sam, fair and sturdy and tense, feet planted apart and hands in his jacket pockets; and a few feet from him, someone else, head up, leaning back against the stiff wind. The sun was still low in the sky and their long shadows turned them giant and portentous, silhouetted almost too bright to look at against skimming clouds, like two messengers walking out of the sun and down the shimmering road. Behind them, crime-scene tape fluttered and whipped.

Sam raised his hand when I waved. The other guy cocked his head sideways, one fast tilt like a wink, and I knew who it was.

"Fuck me briefly," I said, before I was even off the Vespa. "It's Frankie. Where did you come from?"

Frank grabbed me off the ground in a one-armed hug. Four years hadn't managed to change him one bit; I was pretty sure he was even wearing the same banged-up leather jacket. "Cassie Maddox," he said. "World's best fake student. How've you been? What's all this about DV?"

"I'm saving the world. They gave me a lightsaber and all." I caught Sam's confused frown out of the corner of my eye--I don't talk much about undercover, I'm not sure he'd ever heard me mention Frank's name--but it was only when I turned to him that I realized he looked awful, white around the mouth and his eyes too wide. Something inside me clenched: a bad one.

"How're you doing?" I asked him, pulling off my helmet.

"Grand," Sam said. He tried to smile at me, but it came out lopsided.

"Oo," Frank said, mock-camp, holding me at arm's length and eyeballing me. "Check you out. Is this what the well-dressed detective is wearing these days?" The last time he had seen me, I'd been in combats and a top that said "Miss Kitty's House of Fun Wants YOU."

"Bite me, Frank," I told him. "At least I've changed my gear once or twice in the last few years."

"No, no, no, I'm impressed. Very executive." He tried to spin me round; I batted his hand away. Just for the record, I was not dressed like Hillary Clinton here. I was wearing my work clothes--black trouser suit, white shirt--and I wasn't that crazy about them myself, but when I switched to Domestic Violence my new superintendent kept going on at me about the importance of projecting an appropriate corporate image and building public confidence, which apparently cannot be done in jeans and a T-shirt, and I didn't have the energy to resist. "Bring sunglasses and a hoodie or something?" Frank asked. "They'll go great with this getup."