She scanned the room one last time for any hint of a clue. There was nothing. No notebooks, no scraps of paper, no rubbish in the bin. Virtually no trace of Anna Rose except her textbooks and a number of paperbacks lined up on the shelf beneath them. Jenny glanced at the titles: all light, slightly risque fiction aimed at young women and a couple of trashy celebrity biographies. Anna Rose might be intelligent, but she couldn't be called cultured. It seemed odd to Jenny that a bright young woman would have no intellectual curiosity beyond her narrow subject, yet the syndrome felt somehow familiar. She turned her attention to a framed poster - the only object approaching a piece of art in the flat. She had barely noticed it before: from a distance it looked like a crude cartoon rendering of the Mona Lisa. Up close it was a collage of hundreds of photos of a younger, barely clad Britney Spears striking provocative poses. It was clever, Jenny thought, and imagined it appealing both to the scientist and the party girl in Anna Rose: sexy and serious at the same time. She was reminded of her visit to Sarah Levin's home: the young academic who spent her days with her head in particle theory but came home at night to MTV and glossy magazines. They struck an attitude, these young women: took a whole lot of things for granted Jenny's generation never had, but felt strangely shallow and unformed for it. What did they believe in? What then did they have to fall back on in times of crisis?
She checked the dosimeter one last time and locked the apartment door behind her. The radiation trail had gone cold, but she left the building certain of her next move.
There was no reply to the doorbell at Sarah Levin's apartment. Jenny waited outside in her car for over an hour and tried to order the theories invading her mind into a series of credible possibilities. Given that each one had to begin with the theft of radioactive material, it wasn't easy.
It had started to rain and she was feeling both tired and in need of a pill when a powder blue Fiat 500 pulled into a space across the street. Sarah Levin jumped out carrying several upmarket carrier bags and headed for her front door. Jenny beat her to it, intercepting her on the pavement.
'Dr Levin - I need to ask you some more questions.'
The young woman was surprised and affronted.
'Now? Are you joking? I'm only calling home for five minutes and then I'm on my way out again.'
She made for the front door. Jenny pursued her.
'It's about Anna Rose Crosby. I understand you knew her well.'
Sarah Levin stopped and turned, irritated.
'I've got friends who are lawyers - they couldn't believe that you came to my house. What do you think you're doing?'
'She's missing.'
'I heard.'
'Do you know why that might be?'
'Why would I know? I was her tutor, not her friend. I really have to get on.' She fished her keys from her pocket.
Jenny said, 'Her family were very surprised she got on the graduate scheme at Maybury. They said you might have pulled strings for her.'
Sarah Levin sighed theatrically and flicked back her long blonde hair. 'I write references for all my students. I have no idea what any of this is about, and as you don't seem inclined to tell me, we'll leave it there, shall we?'
Jenny was about to hit her with the whole story - Mrs Jamal, the caesium 137, all of it - but an instinct told her to hold fire. There was panic in Sarah Levin's defiant expression, and anger. Jenny had her denial and if need be she could use it against her later.
Calmly, Jenny said, 'You seemed rather alarmed when I mentioned her name.'
'That wouldn't have anything to do with me being door- stepped?'
'You have no idea what might have caused her to disappear?'
'This is ridiculous. None at all.'
'When were you last in contact?'
'I don't know. Last summer.'
'You'd say that on oath?'
'I'm sorry, Mrs whoever-you-are, I've had enough of this. You can ask me for a written statement, but you can't interrogate me out in the street. I'm not stupid.'
She went through the door and pushed it hard shut behind her. Her scent hung briefly in the air. If Anna Rose was pretty, Sarah Levin was beautiful. It wasn't simply her looks, it was chemical. Not a man or a woman would pass her without glancing back either in lust or envy. From the photographs she had seen of him, Jenny assumed that Nazim had had something of that quality, too. He was certainly better looking that Sarah Levin's current partner. She could imagine Nazim falling hopelessly in love with her, no matter what religious principles might have stood in his way. And for a girl who could have had anyone, he must have been one of the more interesting propositions.
Jenny hurried back to the car and pulled out her phone.
'Alison, it's me.'
'I know, Mrs Cooper. I can tell from the ring,'
'There was no radiation at Anna Rose's flat.'
'Oh. Is that surprising?'
Jenny disregarded the sarcastic tone. 'I've just spoken to Sarah Levin again. I've had a thought - can you get hold of her medical records?'
'What, without her consent?'
'Yes.'
Somewhere in the background Alison's husband called out for her over the sound of a yapping dog. She shouted at him 10 hold on, then returned impatiently to the conversation.
'Isn't that a bit irregular, Mrs Cooper? Aren't you meant to ask the witness?'
'Sod the protocol, just get them.'
Jenny had driven across the city and was staring out through a streaky windscreen at a foggy dual carriageway when it occurred to her that there was one other person who linked both Anna Rose and Nazim Jamal: the gawky Professor Rhydian Brightman. She knew little about how universities worked, but thought it safe to assume that in a closed institution professional relationships would be intense and not much would go unnoticed by colleagues. Brightman must have discussed the inquest with Sarah Levin, if only out of concern for the reputation of his department. He must have heard about Anna Rose, and if strings had been pulled on her behalf, it was more than likely he had done some of the tugging.
She pulled into a filling station just short of the M4 motorway and made some more calls. Eventually she tracked down a porter in one of the halls of residence, who relished telling her it was more than his job was worth to give out the private number of a member of staff. Jenny lost patience and told him that unless he called back with it in five minutes he could expect a visit from the police.
It was Brightman himself who returned her call and asked tentatively how he could help. Jenny apologized for disturbing his weekend and asked if they could meet.
'What is it you want to know, Mrs Cooper? I really have no light to shed on what happened to those two young men.'
Jenny said, 'Nazim Jamal's mother was found dead on Thursday.'
'Oh. Poor woman.'
Jenny paused, weighing her next move. What the hell, why not hit him with it? He'd hear it sooner or later. 'It seems she may have had a visitor shortly before her death. And there were traces of caesium 137 on her body. The block of flats where she lived has been evacuated.'
He was silent for a moment. 'Well, I really don't know what to say . . .'
Jenny said, 'I've only a few questions. It won't take long.'
'Maybe it's best if you come to my office.'
Professor Brightman was waiting for her on the steps outside the physics department dressed in a scruffy
