“What is it?” Breton asked the question reluctantly, not wishing to show too much interest, but aware that this was something new to the writing sessions. Miriam sat up uncertainly as he spoke, and Gordon Palfrey put an arm around her shoulders.

“I don’t know,” Kate said, rotating the sheet in her long-fingered hands. “This is… it’s a poem.

“Well, let’s hear it.” Breton spoke with a tolerant joviality, annoyed at letting himself be sucked in, yet impressed by the sheer manual dexterity Miriam had shown.

Kate cleared her throat and read:

“I have wished for you a thousand nights, While the green-glow hour-hand slowly veers. I could weep for the very need of you, But you wouldn’t taste my tears.”

Breton found the lines vaguely disturbing, for no reason he could name. He went back to the cocktail cabinet and, while the others examined the fragment of poetry, stood frowning down into the mirrored array of bottles and glasses. Sipping the tingling ice-warmth of his drink, he stared back at his own eyes in the crystal microcosm; then — quite suddenly — his mind plumbed the possible significance of the phase “almost exactly nine years.” That was the real kicker in the call he had received, if he guessed right; it was a psychological depth charge, perfectly aimed, fused to sink deep.

It had been nine years earlier, to the month, that a police cruiser had found Kate wandering in the darkness of 50th Avenue, with flecks of human brain tissue spattered across her face…

Breton stiffened with shock as the phone shrilled in the hall. He set his glass down with a sharp double click, left the room and picked up the phone.

“Breton here,” he snapped. “Who’s that?”

“Hello, John. What’s the matter?” This time the voice was immediately identifiable as that of Carl Tougher.