Didn’t it?

Sellers put Isobel’s Twitter ID and Halliday’s into the search box together. They’d never communicated directly on Twitter. Though perhaps Halliday would target Isobel now and lay into her. It was something she’d done before: attacking those who’d favourited tweets she disapproved of.

Sellers had spent a couple of hours today studying her Twitter timeline, and he’d found it genuinely terrifying. One poor person was accused of being ‘rape apologist scum’ for politely putting forward the view that transgender women ought to be able to use women’s changing rooms. Hard as he tried, Sellers couldn’t see the connection between that and condoning rape. Transgender women could hardly use the men’s changing facilities; they’d be liable to get beaten up. Plus, they weren’t men any more, were they? Wasn’t that the whole point? In fact, many of Halliday’s detractors on Twitter pointed out – every day, it seemed; did none of these people have jobs? Did they never feel in need of a day off from savaging one another? – that women born with male bodies had been women from the start. The problem was that their bodies hadn’t matched the people they knew themselves to be.

All this might be interesting, thought Sellers, if it weren’t so vicious. Here was Sondra Halliday calling someone a ‘malevolent shitbag’ further down her timeline. Her unfortunate victim had favourited a tweet addressed to Halliday from one of her opponents, exactly as Isobel Sturridge had. The tweet in question said, ‘So genitals shouldn’t be life-limiting at all until white m/c Aga feminists decide they’re all that matters, amirite?’

Sellers puzzled over that last word for a few seconds before realising it was Twitter language for ‘Am I right?’

Many of Sondra Halliday’s Twitter friends had names that included ‘womon’ – probably because some radical feminists objected to ‘man’ being part of the word ‘woman’ when spelled conventionally.

Sellers shook his head, mystified.

‘Everything all right?’ Gibbs had appeared beside him. ‘You look worried.’

‘I am, about humanity.’ Sellers closed Twitter with a sigh.

‘I’ve got something.’ Gibbs was trying not to smile and failing. ‘Two pretty fucking big somethings.’

‘Go on.’

‘Have you seen the sarge in the last hour?’

Sellers shook his head.

‘So you don’t know the Snowman’s bookshop story?’

‘No. What story?’

‘Never mind. It can wait. Rudolphy’s, the bookshop where Isobel Sturridge told you she worked—’

‘Funny you should mention her …’

‘—but that in fact closed down in 2013—’

‘What?’

‘Yeah. Before it closed, its owner was an Elise Rudolphy. When I Googled her, pages and pages of results came up. She ran the family bookshop, but she was better known for being a widely published poet. Her stuff looks like dross to me, but what do I know? She was American, too. An American woman poet—’