I wasn't sure whether the question was bitchy or not. Rob Ryan used to be my partner, back in Murder. I hadn't seen him in a while. I hadn't seen O'Kelly, either, or Cooper; not since I'd transferred out. This was all happening too fast and out of control. "Sends love and kisses," I said.

"Can't say I didn't suspect," O'Kelly said, and sniggered at Sam, who looked away.

The squad room holds twenty, but it was Sunday-evening empty: computers off, desks scattered with paperwork and fast-food wrappers--the cleaners don't come in till Monday morning. In the back corner by the window, the desks where Rob and I used to sit were still at right angles, the way we liked them, so we could be shoulder to shoulder. Some other team, maybe the newbies brought in to replace us, had taken them over. Whoever was at my desk had a kid--silver-framed photo of a grinning little boy with his front teeth missing--and a pile of statement sheets, sun falling across them. It always used to get in my eyes, this time of day.

I was having a hard time breathing; the air felt too thick, almost solid. One of the fluorescents was on the fritz and it gave the room a shimmery, epileptic look, something out of a fever dream. A couple of the big binders lined up on the filing cabinets still had my handwriting down the spines. Sam pulled up his chair to his desk and glanced at me with a faint furrow between his eyebrows, but he didn't say anything, and I was grateful for that. I concentrated on Frank's face. There were bags under his eyes and he had cut himself shaving, but he looked wide awake, alert and energized. He was looking forward to this.

He caught me watching him. "Glad to be back?"

"Ecstatic," I said. I wondered, suddenly, if he had got me into this room deliberately, knowing it might throw me. I dropped my satchel on a desk--Costello's; I knew the handwriting on the paperwork--leaned back against the wall and stuck my hands in my jacket pockets.

"Companionable though this may be," Cooper said, edging a little farther from O'Kelly, "I, for one, would be delighted to come to the point of this little gathering."

"Fair enough," Frank said. "The Madison case--well, the Jane Doe alias Madison case. What's the official name?"

"Operation Mirror," Sam said. Obviously the word about the victim's looks had spread as far as headquarters. Beautiful. I wondered whether it was too late to change my mind, go home and order pizza.

Frank nodded. "Operation Mirror it is. It's been three days, and we've got no suspects, no leads and no ID. As you all know, I think it might be time to try a different tack--"

"Hold your horses there," O'Kelly said. "We'll get to your 'different tack' in a moment, don't you worry about that. But first, I've a question."

"Off you go," Frank said magnanimously, with an expansive gesture to match.