Snorting, Eve unlocked her office door. "We wrap this case up in good time, Peabody, I'll see if I can arrange it." She tossed the discs on her already disordered desk, then shrugged out of her jacket. "We still need someone from EDD. See who they can spare who knows his stuff. I don't want some second-grade tinkerer."

Peabody got out her communicator to make the request while Eve settled behind her desk, slipped the disc of Brennen's communications into her unit.

"Engage," she ordered after remembering her password. "Playback."

There was only one call, an outgoing on the day before Brennen was murdered. He'd called his wife, talked to his children. And the simple, intimate domestic chatter of a man and the family he was planning to join made Eve unbearably sad.

"I have to contact the wife," Eve murmured. "Hell of a way to start the day. Best get it done now before we have a media leak. Give me ten minutes here, Peabody."

"Yes, sir. EDD is sending over a Detective McNab."

"Fine." When her door shut and she was alone, Eve took a long breath. And made the call.

When Peabody came back ten minutes later, Eve was drinking coffee while she stood staring out her skinny window. "Eileen Brennen's coming back to New York, bringing her kids. She insists on seeing him. She didn't fall apart. Sometimes it's worse when they don't crumble, when they hang on. When you can see in their eyes they're sure somehow you've made a mistake."

She rolled her shoulders, as if shrugging off a weight, then turned. "Let's see the security disc. We could catch a break."

Peabody unsealed the disc herself and engaged it. Seconds later both she and Eve were staring at the computer screen.

"What the hell is that?" Eve demanded.

"It's – I don't know." Peabody frowned at the figures moving over the screen. The voices were raised but solemn and in a foreign tongue. At the center was a man in black, robe over robe, with two young boys in white beside him. He held a silver goblet in his hand as he stood before an altar draped with black cloth and white flowers and candles. "A ritual? Is it a play?"