Grant sighed heavily. “Do you think she might have been put in?”

Miller shook his head. “Not a chance. There isn’t a mark on her.”

“Then it doesn’t make sense,” Grant said. “Suicide’s an irrational act at the best of times. Are you asking me to accept that this girl was so cold-blooded about it that she took time off to try to conceal her identity?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Then what about the chain? Why didn’t she get rid of that, too?”

“When you habitually wear a thing like that you tend to forget about it,” Miller said. “Or maybe it meant a lot to her — especially as she was a Catholic.”

“That’s another thing — a Catholic committing suicide.”

“It’s been known.”

“But not very often. There are times when such things as statistical returns and probability tables have their uses in this work — or didn’t they teach you that at the staff college? What have Missing Persons got to offer?”

“Nothing yet,” Miller said. “There’s time of course. She looks old enough to have been out all night. Someone could conceivably wait for a day or two before reporting her missing.”

“But you don’t think so?”

“Do you?”

Grant looked at the form again and shook his head. “No, I’d say anything we’re going to find out about this one, we’ll have to dig up for ourselves.”

“Can I have it?”

Grant nodded. “Autopsy isn’t mandatory in these cases but I think I’ll ask the County Coroner to authorise one. You never know what might turn up.”

He reached for the ’phone and Miller went back into the main C.I.D. room and sat down at his desk. There was an hour to fill before his brief court appearance — a good opportunity to get rid of some of the paperwork in his In-tray.

For some reason he found it impossible to concentrate. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes, and her face rose out of the darkness to meet him, still that faint look of surprise in the eyes, the lips slightly parted. It was as if she was about to speak, to tell him something but that was impossible.