winds had stripped dead leaves and detritus from Eel Pie Island, further upriver, to wash down and swirl in the dirty, brown water. Melanie looked at it, her lip curling. Bloody thing was like an open sewer. It was a metaphor for London she thought, she couldn't wait to put the stinking city behind her. The phone call earlier though, if it was genuine, was a career-making opportunity and could have her in America sooner than you could say world exclusive. That had been her ambition ever since she had done a presenting course at Bournemouth University a few years ago. She was born for Fox News. As a teenager she had wanted to be a model, but she was too curvy as an adult, too womanly. Her legs were long for a woman but too short for a supermodel. She'd taken Ulrika Jonsson as her inspiration. So she had started off as a weather girl before being talent-spotted by a Sky News journo at a fund-raiser for victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami. She'd rogered him senseless that night on a king-size waterbed and as a consequence he had made the right calls for her and just like that she was in with Rupert Murdoch. Not that she'd ever met the man, but maybe all that would change, and soon. The phone buzzed in her hand and she almost dropped it, her palms suddenly moist with perspiration. She already had the title of her book in mind.
She took a deep breath and pushed the answer button, her voice like gunpowder soaked in honey.
'Melanie Jones. Talk to me.'
Caroline Akunin was standing at her window drinking a cup of white tea when Kate walked into her office. She found herself standing a lot more often these days, the baby was definitely making its presence felt. Sitting behind the sturdy police desk for any long periods of time was just not possible any more. She ran a thoughtful hand across her stomach and smiled sympathetically at Kate as she came in through the open door.
'I hope I haven't kept you waiting?' Kate asked.
'Of course not.' The police surgeon's perfect teeth flashed in a dazzling smile.
'I had a briefing to attend first. It went on longer than I thought.'
Caroline Akunin gestured to the chair in front of her desk as Kate shut the door behind her. 'Why don't you sit down, Kate?'
Kate sat in the chair and gestured at the woman's prominent belly. 'How's it going? The pregnancy.' It seemed to her an inane thing to say but suddenly she wanted to talk about anything other than the reason she had come. Now she was sitting in the police surgeon's office she didn't want to hear anything that would confirm her worst fears. If you don't name the bogeyman he can't get you, after all. That's what her mother had always told her. But, as in a lot of things, she had lied.
Caroline smiled again; Kate could easily see why her Russian husband had fallen in love with her. 'You know how it is. The first nine months are the worst.'
Kate forced herself to return the smile. The truth was she had no idea how it was. Motherhood was not high on Kate's agenda. Just thinking about the modern world, the pollution, the global warming, the disaffected hopelessness and the violence of youth, the gun deaths and knifings, the rape, assault and mutilation of women throughout the country, the fear, as essential and as constant a part of London life now as the Victorian smog used to be, and she didn't think it ever would be. Who would want to bring a child into this world? But as she looked at her friend Caroline's beatific face, a living sculpture in maternal happiness, she knew she could never convey the darkness of her thoughts to her, so she changed the subject back to what she feared the most.
'What can you tell me about what happened last night?'
Caroline Akunin sighed and pulled another chair across closer to her friend. 'I can tell you what our tests have shown so far.'
'Go on.'
'There are no physical signs of rape. No bruising, no abrasion.'
