Lady Helen surveyed the lab, seeing it for once not as the centre of St James' professional life, but as the refuge which it had become. It was a large room scented faintly by formaldehyde; walled by anatomy charts and graphs and shelves; floored by old, creaking hardwood; ceilinged by a skylight through which milky sun provided an impersonal warmth. Scarred tables furnished it, as did tall stools, microscopes, computers, and a variety of equipment for studying everything from blood to bullets. To one side, a door led into Deborah Cotter's darkroom. But that door had been closed for all the years of her absence. Lady Helen wondered what St James would do if she opened it now, flinging it back like an unavoidable invasion into the reaches of his heart.

'Deborah's coming home tonight, Simon? Why didn't you tell me?'

St James removed one slide from the microscope and replaced it with another, adjusting the dials for a higher degree of magnification. After a moment of studying this new specimen, he jotted down a few notes.

Lady Helen leaned across the work-table and clicked off the microscope's light. 'She's coming home,' she said. 'You've not said a word about it all day. Why, Simon? Tell me.'

Instead of answering, St James looked past her shoulder. 'What is it, Cotter?'

Lady Helen swung around. Cotter was standing in the doorway, frowning, wiping his brow with a white linen handkerchief. 'You've no need to fetch Deb from the airport tonight, Mr St James,' he said in a rush. 'Lord Asherton's to do it. I'm to go as well. He rang me not an hour ago. It's all arranged.'

The ticking of the wall clock made the only immediate response to Cotter's announcement until somewhere outside a child's frantic weeping – rife with outrage – rose on the air.

St James stirred to say, 'Good. That's just as well. I've a mountain of work to get through here.'