The following morning blazed hot and still, the heat unusually oppressive for late June. When Lewis returned to the office at a quarter to eight, Hathaway was already there, jacket off and sleeves rolled up. Before they had a chance to say more than two words to each other, a soft knock sounded. Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent stood in the doorway, concern crossing her face.

"Lewis, by when will you need me to extend his detention?"

"They brought him in just after ten yesterday, Ma'am. I doubt we'll get anything out of him in the next two hours."

"I'll get it ready, then. And I'll need a press release, Lewis."

He rolled his eyes. "'We're continuing our investigation,' what else can we say?"

The strategy was "Good Cop, Bad Cop," with Hathaway going first as "Bad Cop." Lewis watched from behind the one-way glass while his sergeant started the tape recorder and then proceeded to shout at and implicitly threaten their suspect. Zelinsky sat unresponsive, his left eye twitching every now and then. After more than an hour and a half of this, Lewis entered the interview room with a show of angry haste, as though he had only now become aware of what was going on.

"Sergeant? A word? Now." Both men left the room.

As soon as the door closed, Lewis put his hand on Hathaway's arm. "You alright? I think he's starting to wear down. Good job."

Hathaway waved him off. "I need a smoke. Let me know when you're ready."

Lewis knocked on Innocent's door and entered at her bidding. She handed him the signed extension form without a word. Before he made it out the door, though, she called him back.

"Lewis?"

"Ma'am?"

"Is Hathaway alright? He doesn't appear to have gotten much sleep last night."

"I haven't asked him. I think he may have stayed here all night. His car was parked in the same place as yesterday. He did well this morning, though. We may be starting to make some progress."

"You'd better be. You don't have much more time, even assuming you get the court to approve another extension. If you have to let him go without charging him, the press will run you out of town so fast you'll be back in Newcastle by the time the door slams shut. Do you have anything on him?"

"Nothing admissible. Nothing concrete, even. Just me own certainty."

"Why ever did you bring him in if you don't have enough evidence to charge him?"

"He was targeting another girl to be his second victim, Ma'am. But we don't know whom. This was the only thing we could do to protect her. The press would go spare if he made a second attack while we fiddled about, doing nothing."

"Do you have proof of a second target, or is this just your 'own certainty,' too?" Lewis's mouth tightened, and he didn't answer. "This is no way to run a high-profile investigation, Inspector." Her exasperation was unmistakable. "If this turns into a disaster, I'm going to have to bring you up for abuse of office."

Lewis was stunned. "Discipline? Why? I've said I had to bring him in."

"The public will want blood, Lewis, as you are well aware. It may not seem fair to you but I'm not sacrificing the reputation of the entire force merely to avoid offending the honor of one officer."

But his honor was already offended. "I thought you assigned us to this case because of our competence. Turns out it's only because we're expendable. Well, that makes us proud."

He stormed out of her office without waiting to be dismissed, this time ignoring her when she called after him.

By the time he collected Hathaway from his favorite smoke-break post, Lewis had managed to get his temper under wraps.

"Ready?"

Hathaway ground out the end of his cigarette on the hot pavement and followed without a word.

"Sleep okay last night, Sergeant? It took me a while to settle down, I know. This heat isn't helping."

Hathaway looked as though Lewis had spoken in a foreign tongue. "I'll sleep when we find her."

Lewis sighed. And if we don't?

They parted at the last moment, Hathaway letting himself into the observation room and Lewis entering the interview room.

The inspector sat down opposite the other man.

"I'm, uh, sorry about me sergeant getting a bit out of control. We'll get started as soon as he gets back. He should be calmer now that I've spoken to him."

Zelinsky eyed Lewis with interest.

"He has a pretty little step-sister about that age, so I imagine he feels a brotherly concern about all this," Lewis lied.

Zelinsky said nothing.

The inspector shook his head a bit sadly. "Me, I don't understand that age, females especially. They're not women yet but they're not really girls anymore, either. If that makes any sense." The last he said more to himself than to the man across the table. Then Lewis addressed him directly.

"Y'know, I simply cannot talk to girls that age. Wish I could. No matter what I say or how I treat them, they look at me like I'm a prat." He huffed a bit at his own incompetence.

"You have to treat them as though you're a fellow sufferer, enduring common indignities." It was the first substantive thing Zelinsky had said since they brought him in. "But you can't say that, you have to let them reach that conclusion on their own."

Lewis looked at him gratefully. "Yeah? I'll have to try that. Sometimes we need the cooperation of a girl that age and I'm at sixes and sevens trying to get it. And failing, usually." A self-deprecating smile.

"Oh, well, getting their cooperation is different from getting their trust." Zelinsky smiled shrewdly.

"Oh, yeah? How's that?"

"First, you gain their trust. Then you use it to . . . shall we say, convince them to cooperate."

Lewis seemed confused. "I'm not sure I understand. You were able to get Anna to cooperate that way?" He sounded admiring.

The other man was clearly pleased with himself. "Exactly. I met her in an online chat room, you know. Empathized with her about her overly-controlling parents, disloyal friends, judgmental people in general. Talked her into sending me a photograph of her with her top off. Hands strategically placed, nothing showing, of course. She was so perfect." He bent lower over the table, focusing on it. "Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect little buds where her breasts would be."

Lewis sounded appreciative, a touch of lust in his voice. "I can imagine. That must have been something."

Zelinsky leered. "I told her she was beautiful and asked her to take more explicit photographs and send them to me. And she did. It's surprising how trusting girls are at that age. So when she balked at sending me a photograph showing everything, with her fingering herself, all I had to do was threaten to tell her parents about the things she'd already done. And then with that photograph secured, the next step followed naturally."

"Getting her to agree to meet with you." A knowing, lecherous smile.

"Exactly."

Watching from the observation room, Hathaway started when the door to the room opened. The Chief Superintendent entered and stood next to him, sizing up the situation in the interview room. She gave Hathaway an inquisitive look.

"Is he getting anywhere?"

"Yeah, he is, in fact. Nothing major yet, but I think we have enough to charge him with something fairly trivial, corruption of a minor, maybe, or an Internet crime. If we do that now, though, Zelinsky will never say another word."

"Mmm. At least he's gotten something."

Hathaway peered through the window. "Ma'am, see his hands under the table? What does that look like to you?"

She squinted at the suspect. "Oh, God, his trousers are open, aren't they? And he's . . ." Her face twisted in disgust as she recognized the slight, rhythmic movement of his right hand.

"He's certainly enjoying this line of questioning." Hathaway finished for her.

But Lewis had hit a dead end and Zelinsky shared nothing further about his success with Anna Gordon. Hathaway excused himself to Innocent and left to rejoin Lewis in the interview room. Time for Bad Cop to make another appearance.

As Lewis had pledged, Hathaway's demeanor was less aggressive. But his performance hinted at his being only just under control. His questions were accusatory and insulting.

Twenty minutes later, there came a quiet knock on the door and a WPC stuck her head into the room. "Inspector? I'm sorry to interrupt."

Lewis rose and consulted with her out in the corridor a moment. Then he apologized to his sergeant and explained he was needed elsewhere.

"Five minutes more, Sergeant? Then he's due for a break."

Hathaway railed at their captive for a full twenty minutes before pounding the table violently and flying from the room in anger.

As soon as he reached the corridor, Lewis popped out of the observation room and joined him, saying nothing but putting a hand on his shoulder. Hathaway gave no acknowledgment whatsoever.

Lewis turned to him at last. "I've got to go over to the court and get an extension. We'll have until Thursday morning at the most." He saw the defeat in the younger man's eyes. "Hey? It's not over, y'know. We got somewhere with him today, and we still have the better part of the night."

"You got somewhere, you mean. And Anna will be spending another night alone in hell, I expect."

Lewis checked him from turning away. "James. I only made progress because you set him up for it. Don't demean your skills, you're doing a cracking job." He didn't add, would never add, his skepticism that Anna Gordon was still alive. "It's a team success here, man. Besides, after what we got today, we don't need his actual statement about where she is. If he gives us enough to piece it together ourselves, all we need is her."

Lewis put on his jacket and headed to the courthouse to see about getting the detention extended. They would either have to charge Zelinsky or let him go at this point unless Lewis could convince the magistrate that they had good reasons to detain him longer. And even then, the most they could get was four days from when they had first brought him in. For Zelinsky, that outer limit was ten o'clock Thursday morning.

The Magistrate issued the extension with few questions after Lewis described what they had so far. But as she signed the order, she looked sharply at Lewis.

"Inspector?"

"M'lady?"

"You better get this bastard."