`We're going to do a brain scan,' the doctor was telling Redpath. `Have you contacted her family?’

`I don't have a name.’

`Her effects are inside.’

The doctor slid open the door again and walked in. There was clothing folded on a chair, a bag beneath it. As the doctor pulled out the bag, Rebus saw something. A flat white cardboard box.

A white cardboard pizza box. Clothes: black denims, black bra, red satin shirt. A black duffel-coat.

`John?’

And black shoes with two-inch heels, square-toed, new-looking except for the scuff marks, like they'd been dragged along the road.

He was in the room now. They had a mask over her face, feeding her oxygen. Her forehead was cut and bruised, the hair pushed away from it. Her fingers were blistered, the palms scraped raw. The bed she lay on wasn't really a bed but a wide steel trolley.

`Excuse me, sir, you shouldn't be in here.’

`What's wrong?’

`It's this gentleman -' `John? John, what is it?’

Her earrings had been removed. Three tiny pin-pricks, one of them redder than its neighbours. The face above the sheet: puffy blackened eyes, a broken nose, abrasions on both cheeks. Split lip, a graze on the chin, eyelids which didn't even flutter. He saw a hit and run victim. And beneath it all, he saw his daughter.

And he screamed.

Clarke and Redpath had to drag him out, helped by Claverhouse who'd heard the noise.

`Leave the door open! I'll kill you if you close that door!' They tried to sit him down. Redpath rescued his book from the chair. Rebus tore it from him and threw it down the hall.

`How could you read a fucking book?’ he spat. `That's Sammy in there! And you're out here reading a book!' Clarke's cup of coffee had been kicked over, the floor slippy, Redpath going down as Rebus pushed at him.