Next chapter should be up Wednesday or Thursday. Thanks again for all your messages and reviews, they always make me smile.

*waves happily at Julie_O* It's great to see you!

Chapter 7

Wake Up Call

Eight-thirty in the morning was too early for most of the students. Today, it was too early for Fran Belding as well. Yesterday, she had been in the Chief's office on the dot at seven, and then she'd been here at the student halls asking questions until it was dark, then been writing up her notes at home until late in the evening.

Now, on another classic Californian morning, she stood in front of the student accommodation once again, feeling more tired than enthusiastic.

Behind her, there were workmen on site at the Kingston Building, a few bored-looking police officers from Traffic keeping an eye on the cordon, but otherwise it felt like business as usual. Already people had grown used to seeing the place in this state, and only a few passers-by gave it a second look.

It was unlikely any of the students were awake yet. She glanced at her notes. Most of the people she'd spoken to yesterday had given her the same story: that Katie Marshall had a rebellious streak, and liked stirring up trouble for people in authority. She hadn't been keeping up with the workload, she had begun to skip classes as well. When Fran had hinted at drugs, they'd all had denied any knowledge, which wasn't unexpected.

Fran had intended to talk to Tim again this morning, then Katie's roommate, Poppy Preston, but now she realised she was too early. Dragging them out of bed to answer more questions was not the way to get people to cooperate. A better idea would be to talk to people who were already awake, like the staff at the Kingston Building. Katie's tutor, Dr Julia Wright was top of her list.

No one was allowed into the Kingston Building at the moment, even though the stone structure had been given a thorough check yesterday, it was still cordoned off and out of bounds. Dr Wright's office was on the first floor of that building, Fran had found that out yesterday, so she would likely be somewhere else this morning, as all the staff had been assigned temporary offices elsewhere. Looking around thoughtfully, her glance came to rest on the administration building, tucked away at the back. That would be as good a place to start as any.

As it turned out, Fran was in luck. The building was open, and the helpful secretary at the front desk directed her to a room on the ground floor, which Dr Wright was using as her office.

The door was slightly ajar when Fran arrived, and she could hear someone rustling about. She gave a polite knock.

'What?' said a female voice.

Fran pushed open the door. Dr Wright was sitting at a desk, her back to the window. Papers were everywhere in what looked like an untidy mess.

'Who are you?' Dr Wright asked bluntly. 'I'm busy, so you'd better have a very good reason for being here.'

Fran showed her badge, watching the other woman carefully. Dr Wright was pretty in a stern, uncompromising kind of way, a narrow unsmiling face, with high cheekbones and pale skin. Her brown hair tied back in a tight bun and she wore only the barest amount of make-up.

The woman looked more annoyed than surprised by the interruption. She flicked her hand impatiently at the empty seat by the far wall, and Fran sat down, feeling like she was outside the Commissioner's office, waiting for a suspension.

'Didn't we go through all of this yesterday?' Dr Wright demanded. 'I've lost count of the number of times I've spoken to different police officers. Some of us have real work to do.'

'There are still a few loose ends to tie up,' Fran replied in as non-committal way as she could, not wanting to annoy the woman before she had even asked any questions.

'I'm sure there are,' Dr Wright said. 'But why do you all have to come bothering me? I've told you all I can about my work at Kingston. None of my current experiments involve anything that could have been explosive. All my work is properly documented. All my work is properly supervised. I'm not the only experimental chemist who worked in that building, so why don't you go and pester someone else. Maybe someone else who hasn't had all their files randomly dumped in a room, so they can't find any of the work they need before the deadline runs out for their funding!'

Fran blinked in surprise at the outburst. She hadn't expected such antagonism.

'I'm looking into something else,' Fran said.

'Oh, that's wonderful,' came the sarcastic reply. 'Something else I'll have to answer stupid and idiotic questions about. Maybe you should read a chemistry primer before coming to talk to me.'

'It about a student,' Fran managed to say, just before the doctor launched into a longer diatribe.

'Oh. A student?'

Fran nodded, relieved that the complaining had stopped for the moment. Dr Wright suddenly frowned.

'Which student?'

Fran almost asked her which one she thought it was, but decided that was more likely to get the other woman back to complaining.

'Katie Marshall,' she said. Was it her imagination, or was that name not a surprise? There were a few moments of silence as Dr Wright leaned back in her chair, fixing Fran with a cool stare.

'Why are you asking?' she said. 'What do you want with Miss Marshall?'

One of the first things drummed into Fran at the police department was how to trust your instinct. Instinct was a cops best weapon in the search for the truth. The Chief had laboured the point on numerous occasions, reminding her that instincts were there for a reason, and that she should always acknowledge them and use them to the best of her ability. As soon as Dr Wright had finished that sentence Fran could sense something was off. Had the Chief asked her to explain it or to justify it, she would have been at a loss. But it was there, and it made Fran pause for thought before answering.

'There are a few questions I'd like to ask her,' Fran said carefully.

'Questions? Just questions? Is that all?'

'Yes.'

'Why don't you try her rooms?' Dr Wright replied, sarcasm dripping out of her tone. 'She must still be in bed. She is a student. I imagine they all are still tucked up in their comfortable little beds this morning, now that the labs are shut and they don't have any classes.'

There was no reason not to be on the level with the doctor, but Fran didn't want to be in the position of explaining exactly why they needed to find Katie Marshall. Somehow she had lost control of the conversation already. She mentally shook her head, admonishing herself, telling herself to be more careful with what she said, and how she said it. This wasn't how the Chief would handle it.

'What can you tell me about Katie? As a student, I mean.'

Doctor Wright looked thoughtful, before giving a long sigh.

'There is no nice way of saying this, I suppose. Miss Marshall was failing, every subject and not just the courses I teach. She was bright, but not diligent, smart but not focused. She followed whatever new cause caught her eye, and never applied herself enough to finish what she started.'

Fran could sense the strong disapproval from the other woman, but there was something else as well. Dr Wright was angry. So instead of asking another question, Fran copied the trick she'd seen the Chief use, forcing herself to keep quiet and looking expectantly at the doctor, waiting for her to speak.

'I was very disappointed with her,' Dr Wright said, filling the awkward silence. 'She had so much potential, she could have been so much more. I had hoped she would do a doctorate here, but instead she went off with that group and it ruined her future.'

'Group?' prompted Fran, hoping to get more answers, and thinking about what Tim Montgomery had said yesterday.

Dr Wright pursed her lips, and didn't reply for a few moments.

'There were a few incidents after the Kingston opened,' she said at last, in a grudging tone. 'I suspected the students were prying into things that were private and confidential. There was a group of them in particular that I thought were behind the sabotage.'

'Sabotage?' That was a much stronger way of putting it than Curtis Kingston had done. He had been almost dismissive of their actions. Dr Wright was clearly furious.

'Yes, sabotage. They ruined a few of my experiments. Stole results from my records. I would call that sabotage.'

'Didn't you report them?'

'Yes,' the woman sighed again. 'But I couldn't prove it. Curtis thought they were just being high-spirited. It was alright for him, he wasn't the one who had their work ruined by short-sighted young idiots who…' She stopped herself suddenly. 'I was very annoyed.'

Fran nodded, hoping that by agreeing she would encourage the doctor to say more.

'You have to understand,' Doctor Wright continued. 'My work is delicate, it requires time and effort, yes, but also money. The reactants are expensive, some of them very expensive and so is the equipment. And there is only a finite amount of money from my funding and if I have to keep on repeating experiments because other people keep messing them up, then very soon I am going to be out of funds, and out of a job.'

'And you thought Katie Marshall was part of this group.'

'Yes,' the word was hissed out rather than said. 'There were a number of them that hung out together, I would always see them coming and going in a group. Not all of them took my classes, but they were always the same faces lurking about at the end of the day.'

'And you took no action?'

That question made Dr Wright snort.

'As I said, there was no proof.'

Again, Fran waited patiently, hoping the other woman would say more.

'However, I did hear a rumour,' Dr Wright said after a few moments. 'And it is only a rumour.'

'Which was?'

'They would meet up in secret,' Wright said scornfully. 'One of the halls, in the basement.' She gave a huff of annoyance. 'A ridiculous place for a meeting.'

Fran gave a short nod, but she didn't agree. A basement meeting place would be just perfect if you didn't want other people accidentally barging in and interrupting.

'Do you know any of the other students involved? Their names?' asked Fran hopefully.

'I think Poppy Preston was probably involved. And Timothy Montgomery.'

Fran had already met both of those people. Poppy Preston was Katie's roommate, and of course Tim was Katie's boyfriend. She hadn't been able to speak to either of them again yesterday as they had both been elsewhere when she'd knocked. No one knew where they were.

'And…?' she asked.

Dr Wright shook her head.

'I don't know the names of the others, they take different classes. But they all hung around in a group, so it shouldn't be too difficult for the police to find out.'

Dr Wright gave Fran a curious look.

'One of the other officers was in the records room yesterday, looking for someone,' she said suddenly. 'Maybe you know him, the sergeant who was incompetent enough to almost get himself blown up. Brown, I think his name was.'

Under other circumstances, Fran might have been the first to agree with her. But after everything, she wasn't going to sit back and let the other woman bad-mouth one of her colleagues, no matter how much she might have agreed with the sentiment.

'Sergeant Brown was just doing his job, and being thorough,' Fran said stiffly.

'Maybe if he'd told me at the time he was looking for information on Miss Marshall, I could have saved him a lot of time, and saved you the effort of being here this morning, interrupting me from my work.'

'He was doing his job,' Fran repeated, not wanting to confirm exactly what Brown had been working on.

Dr Wright gave her an unpleasant, twisted smile, the expression one of contempt.

Once again, Fran's instinct made her wary. A nasty thought occurred to her, that perhaps Dr Wright was fishing for information, or maybe was trying to stir up trouble for those kids. She had been curiously cooperative and knowledgeable about this group, even though she claimed to have no proof. But what would Dr Wright have to gain from telling the police about them, other than making trouble? Was there more to it than she was letting on? How was she going to find out? Another thought struck her: why did she mention Ed Brown?

Fran stood and made as if to leave, thanking Dr Wright for her time.

'I hope I won't be interrupted again,' the doctor said.

'I hope so too,' replied Fran, praying that she was right, or if she was wrong, then someone else would be doing the interrupting. Of all the interviews she'd done in her career so far, this was one that left the worst taste in her mouth. Doctor Wright looked back down at the work in front of her, not bothering to say goodbye as Fran left.

As she walked back to the main doors and the fresh air, Fran thought about what the doctor had said, and her own reaction, what her intuition was telling her.

I wonder what the Chief would have made of her, she thought, then smiled. The Chief would have cut her down to size, and probably made chili out of her! He wouldn't be coming out of the interview feeling like she felt, feeling that somehow she had been used.

Yes, that was it. Dr Wright had wanted to tell her about those students, even though she'd tried to disguise it. She had wanted to direct attention towards them. Wright couldn't have known that Tim had already spoken to the Chief, so she couldn't have known they already knew about a group that liked to cause trouble at the Kingston Building.

Of the two, Fran was inclined to trust Tim's statement more than Dr Wright's, although she couldn't quite put her finger on why. Maybe it was just that Tim had come across as more genuine, even though he was probably still hiding something. And Tim quite obviously cared about Katie Marshall. Could the same be said for Dr Wright?

And then there was that snide little dig at Ed Brown at the end. That made Fran feel uncomfortable, not just because she had felt obliged to defend someone she didn't like very much. Of all the things you could say about Brown, incompetent was not one of them. Annoying? Yes. Self-absorbed? Yes. Unprofessional…? Well, he had been yesterday. But incompetent? You had to be joking! His case files and work list were impeccable, always. She'd never met another officer who was so thorough, it was exhausting trying to keep up. The man lived and breathed police work, so much so it could almost be called an obsession.

Outside the building, Fran paused, thinking about her next move. She hadn't been able to track Tim down, or Poppy, the two people Dr Wright had specifically named. She should start with those two.

For the next few hours Fran tried her best to get more answers out of the students, but nothing worked. For a start, most of them were still in bed, even after nine, and the two people she wanted to talk to weren't in their rooms. The few who knew them hadn't seen either of them, and she ended up going from building to building getting nowhere, and slowly feeling more frustrated.

At last, she stopped where she had been a few hours earlier, outside the Kingston Building, feeling as if she had failed. All she had done was go round in circles all morning, she'd not learnt anything new. She glanced at her watch. The Chief would probably have been waiting for her to get in touch and tell him what was going on, and what progress she had made.

She didn't want to tell him that, after a good start yesterday afternoon, all she had done this morning was spin her wheels and waste time. She mentally shook her head in anger. She should have known better.

There wasn't much point in delaying it any longer, she needed to talk to the Chief. With a soft sigh, she walked back into the administration building, to ask to borrow their phone.

Even a short sleep had helped Ironside's mood. A good breakfast had also helped, and now he and Mark were going over what had happened yesterday.

The remaining statements had been read, and together he and Mark had worked through them methodically. The gaps in the details were slowly being filled, but there had been no more insight into what might have caused the explosion, or about what anyone had been doing in the building beforehand.

'There are still events missing from this timeline,' he said to Mark, for maybe the fourth time that morning. 'Setting the explosives. Katie Marshall getting inside. Someone calling the police to report a robbery. Ed Brown narrowly avoiding getting blown up.'

'So just the important parts,' said Mark with a smile.

Ironside did not smile back, even though he knew Mark was only trying to lighten his mood. He didn't want his mood lightened just then. In front of him was one of the lists that Curtis Kingston had sent over earlier, the "list" of names of the students he thought were in that group. It only had a single name, a name that kept on being mentioned: Katie Marshall.

Mark noticed the direction of the Chief's attention.

'Not much of a list,' he said. 'More like someone's out to pin the blame on this girl.'

Ironside nodded. That was unsettling, but his mind kept coming back to the order and timing of the events of yesterday morning. Somehow, he felt was missing something. But what?

'I didn't mention her name yesterday,' he said. 'We were looking for her because of Ed's statement.'

'What if Ed hadn't seen her, or not remembered?' Mark asked.

'If Ed hadn't seen her, we would have wanted her in for questioning by now, on suspicion of causing the explosion.'

'Doesn't Ed seeing her at the scene make it more likely she was involved in the blast?'

Ironside thought carefully about his answer.

'Maybe,' he said slowly. 'But remember what Ed told us. She looked scared, confused even.'

'He used the word terrified at one point,' Mark added.

'Does that sound to you like someone planning an explosion?'

'Not really.'

'And if you are going to cause an explosion do you stay around at the scene?'

'No!'

'Exactly,' said the Chief. 'It sounds more like someone who has been set up to take the blame for causing an explosion. Remember, Ed being there was only by chance.'

Mark leaned forward, rummaging around on the desk for a report.

'The call from the Kingston Building about a robbery came in about three thirty,' he said. 'The call went over the wire just after. But the black and whites weren't there until over half an hour later. That was after the front came off.'

Ironside nodded, pleased that Mark had noticed. The timing was the problem.

'Ed told us when the call came over the wire, he was there in a few minutes. The blast was just before four.'

Mark frowned at what the Chief was implying.

'Then there is about twenty minutes from when Ed arrived until the blast? Twenty minutes he can't remember?'

'Exactly.'

'And…?' Mark asked.

That was his new problem. There were twenty minutes missing from Ed's original statement, the one Fran had written down yesterday when Ed had first appeared in his office. In fact, other than when Ed had responded to the alert, the time of which they had from the notes from base, he couldn't be sure of anything until Ed had called in again, after the blast. In his current state of confusion, Ed could have muddled the sequence up, as well as forgotten things.

'About the only thing Ed was sure about was that girl,' Mark said. 'And we know he was in the building when it blew.'

In Ironside's mind he could see the man-sized patch on the floor of the hall, that was mostly free of dust, and the words of Frank from yesterday came back to him. "Two feet closer to the entrance and you would have been in the market for a new Sergeant." For the second time in six months, Ed had dodged death. Ironside suppressed a shiver.

He picked up the other list, of the staff who ran labs at the Kingston Building. Five names: Dr E. Smithson, Dr J. Wright, Dr J. Jordan, Professor I. Masrani and Professor R. Bishop. These were the next people Ironside wanted to speak to. They should all be on campus, somewhere.

'We have done all we can here,' the Chief said, still looking at the list. Maybe one of these people would throw a little light on why the front of a building had vanished. And he wanted to find Frank again, and ask him if there had been any progress.

He looked up at the clock, it was afternoon already. He wondered where Fran was and, as if summoned by his thought, the phone rang. He answered it.

'Hi Chief,' it was Fran, and she sounded in a good mood.

'What do you have for me?' Ironside asked. 'Good news or bad?'

'I think it depends,' Fran replied. 'I've been going in circles for the past few hours.'

'We are just one our way over,' he said.

'Good, I was hoping you would say that.'

The Chief let a small smile onto his face, feeling happier now he had spoken to at least one of his staff members, and that she had been making some progress.

'We'll be there soon,' he said and hung up.

'Fran? What does she have?' asked Mark.

'News, of some sort,' Ironside said. He paused. 'We need Ed along too,' he added.

Earlier, the Chief might have been worried that Ed hadn't shown up yet, but he was reasonably certain that Brown would have shown up here at the office first, before doing anything else. He was concerned about the girl, he wanted to get on with the job. He wouldn't go rushing off to the Kingston Building on his own, not after the unpleasantness yesterday. Besides, the man had been close to collapsing from exhaustion. Hopefully, he'd had a decent rest and would be feeling better today.

Mark looked surprised for a moment, then nodded.

Ironside picked up the phone again and dialled.

His nightmare is different this time. There is a pretty girl looking at him. Ed is waiting at the bottom of the stairs, and she is standing near the end of dark corridor, beside what looks like a large barrel with pipes and values coming out of it at strange, ugly angles. She turns to stare at him and he can sense her fear and her terror.

She starts to shake her head, move and twist. There is no noise, but it looks like she is shouting at him, shouting and screaming in fury at him. She's so scared but he's not doing his job and helping her. Why isn't he doing his job properly?

It's hot, almost unbearably so. He tries to wipe the sweat from his eyes, but his arms feel heavy. Each breath he takes fills his lungs with thick syrupy air, making it hard to breathe. The smell of it is almost overwhelming and he fights the urge to be sick, the stench of blood and vinegar and oil burning his nose. The girl is still screaming silently at him, terrified and desperate. He stands and does nothing.

Abruptly, she's gone. He leans against the wall, overcome with exhaustion, unable to keep moving forward. The dark corridor is suddenly bright, as if all the lights have been switched on at once. The dazzling white brilliance makes the back of his already sore eyes hurt even more. But he doesn't try to shield his eyes, he can't move.

He feels a weight crushing down on his chest and he looks down. As he does, his vision tilts, and he feels cold stone under his side.

Through the blurring haze of heat, he sees the girl once more. She says nothing, not moving, as if he's seeing her captured in a photograph, a pretty girl with long, wavy, brown hair and a happy, fun-loving smile. Blood streams from long slices on her hands and arms, dropping in thick, red spatters on the ground beside her.

Ed fights to move, even though he's pinned to the floor. He knows he has only this one chance to help her, but no matter how he tries, he's fixed fast in that position. The smell increases in strength. The burning sensation in his nose spreads down his throat and into his lungs. He struggles for air, each breath feels more empty and painful than the last. He wants to gulp down fresh air but there is nothing there. He is drowning in dead air, desperate for oxygen. The scene in front of him is growing grey around the edges as his vision fades to a narrow circle. He can't move. He can't do anything to help. He's fixed to the floor, unable to move. The pressure on his chest grows to a crescendo, a stabbing, slicing pain that is as close to unbearable as anything else he's experienced. He's caught, trapped, barely even able to breathe.

There's no way out. There's no one coming to help him.

With no warning, a puff of billowing dust erupts from his left sweeping everything in front of him away and, somewhere far off, there is the dull blare of an alarm.

Ed woke with a start, taking huge gulps of air. He was drenched in sweat, his heart pounding as if he had just sprinted the full length of a football field.

His telephone was ringing.

For a few more seconds he couldn't move, fixed to his bed with confusion, the smell still in the back of his throat and nausea threatening to overwhelm him. He hurt everywhere, the muscles aching even without him moving. The phone kept on ringing, and ringing, making his already pounding headache all the more uncomfortable. Only one man would have persisted like that so slowly and carefully, Ed levered himself over onto his side and made a grab for the telephone.

'Brown,' he slurred, aware of the unsteady sound of his breathing. The clock by his bed showed it was just after six in the morning and Ed felt a shiver of concern pass through him. Why was the Chief calling so early? What had happened? 'What's wrong?'

'Ed!' Of course it was the Chief, and he sounded anxious.

'What's wrong?' repeated Ed, a spike of panic in his chest adding to his discomfort and disorientation. The Chief wouldn't call this early unless there was something bad. The panic grew more intense, accompanied by an indistinct feeling of dread. What had gone wrong? Why had he been sleeping instead of working? Didn't this always happen when he let his guard down? What had gone wrong now?

'I just wondered if you were alright,' the Chief said.

'You woke me at six just to ask that?' snapped Ed, sounding a lot more angry than he'd meant to.

'Six? No! Ed, it's half past noon.'

'Wh-?' Ed looked back to his clock, this time seeing the hands the correct way around. He stared at it for a few moments, before slowly leaning forward and resting his aching head on his free hand. He'd been asleep for almost twenty hours. No wonder the Chief was annoyed, he'd messed up again. Today of all days, he had needed to be at his best, and instead of being up and ready for a day's work, he'd overslept.

'Chief, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I'm just on my way over.'

'Take it easy, Sergeant,' Ironside started to say.

'No, I'm on my way.'

'Sergeant Brown!' Ironside said sharply. 'There is no need to rush. Mark will be there to pick you up in about an hour.'

Ed was silent for a few moments. Arguing with the Chief was never easy, and though Ed rarely backed out of a confrontation, he didn't feel able to try and change Ironside's mind this morning. This afternoon, he reminded himself.

'And you have no car,' Ironside said firmly. For a moment, Ed pictured his Galaxie sitting forlornly in the parking lot, crushed and bashed. Another one. He winced. Yes, he had no car. He didn't have much of a choice.

'Thanks,' he managed to say, without sounding too churlish.

'He'll be over in an hour,' Ironside reminded him. The phone clicked.

Ed replaced the receiver and rolled slowly back on his bed to stare up at the ceiling, feeling his heart still racing. In truth, the very last thing he wanted to do at the moment was go anywhere and do anything.

The memory of his nightmare was still fresh and as vivid as it had been while he was sleeping. At least it was a different nightmare this time, he thought with a sigh. At least something had managed to oust his recurring dream of hanging like a slab of meat from a hook as men with knives instead of hands cut and sliced him in an endless night. Wasn't that a good thing? He shook his head. Things must be bad if a dream about watching a girl die was better than usual.

He didn't want to think about it, but she was just the latest in a long line of women who had needed his help and he'd failed them. He was a cop, he was supposed to be there to protect people. This time he'd missed something, he knew he had. Something in that building was wrong, he had sensed that at the time, and now he had no idea what it was. Somehow it had still all gone wrong and now this young woman had vanished. How had he messed up so badly? It was his job to know the signs, he had to know to keep himself alive on the streets of the city and in all the dirty work Ironside always got. How could he had made such a big mistake?

There were obvious excuses. He was tired, dead tired. He usually didn't need much sleep, a definite bonus when you worked for a man like the Chief, but these days he struggled to sleep for longer than a few hours. It was bound to catch up with him at some point.

The pills and the bottle of scotch were sitting beside the bed, but he made no move to pick them up, just looking at them made him anxious. He still ached, he'd been beaten up any number of times over the past few years, and there were days in the marines when he'd pushed himself past his physical limit just to stay alive. But there was nothing to compare to the fainting ringing his whole body felt, as if all the nerve endings had been crushed and bruised. The muscles in his arms and shoulders hurt, and his spine and ribs felt as if he'd been hit hard across his back by something heavy. His neck ached, and round the base of his skull there was an unpleasant thumping sensation. It hurt to lie still and barely breathe, let alone stand up and move.

Eventually, he forced himself to struggle out of bed, surprised he was still wearing yesterday's clothes. He stripped off as gently as he could, dumping the dusty, crumpled clothes in the laundry, noticing for the first time the grime and dirt on his once sharp white shirt. Then he showered, and he stood staring at the tiles on the wall, the hot water running over him, feeling the drum of the drops on his skin.

What had happened yesterday morning? Why did it always remain so infuriatingly out of reach? How had he survived?

That was the question that bothered him the most. He had a fuzzy recollection of coming round, lying curled up on the floor against the wall, feeling confused and afraid. It had taken a few minutes for him to realise how uncomfortable he was, lying like that on his side.

But then, he'd stood up and just walked out, a little slowly and unsteadily it was true, but still he had stood up and walked out. He could remember stumbling over to his crushed car, brushing the dust from his sleeve. Everything else behind him had been virtually vaporised and scattered over the parking lot. How? It was the question everyone had spoken yesterday and one he had no answer to. He'd seen the damage explosions could do to the human body while he was in the army. There were men from ordnance that had missing arms, there had been corpses missing almost everything else. He hadn't thought about it much at the time when he came round, and then not much when he was in hospital or on the way back with that traffic cop, Erikson. But when they were at the Kingston building, and he'd seen the place where he'd come round, the place where he'd been at the moment of explosion, something had scared him. It was so annoying that he couldn't remember.

Time passed in fits and starts and then Ed suddenly realised he'd been standing there for much longer than he'd meant to and the water was going cold.

In the shower, he didn't notice the blood streaming out of his nose, but as he dried off, the towel stained red. Ed swore. The nose bleed didn't last long, but it was just one more thing he could do without today. They had warned him about this at the hospital. Hadn't they? He wasn't so sure anymore, but he remembered something about nose bleeds, or was it a joke about a drug habit? It was all so infuriatingly blurry. He was finding it hard to remember much at all about yesterday, except the looks and the unanswerable questions. He shrugged. What did he expect when he'd had nothing for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and scotch with a double side of morphine as an early dinner?

Forcing himself to focus, he was dried, shaved and dressed in about fifteen minutes. Food was the last thing he wanted, but he downed two large glasses of cold water instead, hoping that would help ease the headache. Finally, he fixed his gun to his belt, then put his wallet and badge in his inner jacket pocket. For a few seconds he looked at himself in the mirror on the wall, smoothing down his hair and straightening his tie. He had to look smart, he had to make sure there was no sign of any weakness, no sign that anything might be wrong.

He was ready to go, and get on with his job.

A cold chill passed through him, a shiver that he'd rarely felt before. He had always wanted to be a cop, he'd made up his mind for sure by the time he was discharged from the marines. He never thought he'd be lucky enough, or good enough, to work for the San Francisco Police Department's Chief of detectives, Robert T. Ironside. And for the most part he'd done a good job.

A fresh wave of guilt swept over him. Somewhere, out in the world, Katie Marshall's parents could be waiting for a call from their little girl. They might be waiting, wondering where she was. He could imagine her father pacing the floor by the telephone, her mother sitting on the settee close by, twisting her hands with worry. How often had he seen this with anxious, terrified families waiting for news of the people they loved? And how many times had it been good news?

Maybe their little girl was never going to call again. Instead, hours, days, or even weeks later, the police were going to knock at their door and tell them she was dead and that he'd failed yet again to do his job and help her.

Letting women down, wasn't that what he did best? No wonder Fran despised him…

There was a sharp knock at the door and Ed started, looking round at the clock. It was well over an hour since the Chief had called. Where had all the time gone?

He moved swiftly to open it and Mark was standing there, his hands in his pockets, a laconic smile on his face. The sight of his friend made Ed feel a little better. He and Mark didn't agree about everything, but he was grateful that the other man was there, just as calm and cool as always.

'Hey, man' he said. 'The Chief sent me to pick you up, I dropped him off before coming to collect you.'

'Okay, I'm almost ready.'

'Are you cool?' asked Mark as he stepped through the door. 'Cause you don't look cool.'

Ed scowled for a moment, almost about to snap back, but Mark grinned and Ed found himself smiling back. It was hard to be angry at his honest concern.

'Thanks!' he said. 'That's just what I needed to hear.'

'Any time, man,' he said. 'Any time.'

Ed ducked back into his bedroom, and impulsively popped open the painkillers, taking two out, putting them in his mouth. Having nothing else on hand he poured a splash of scotch into the glass and gulped down the lot. He knew it wasn't the breakfast or lunch he should have had, but now he was late, the Chief was waiting and they had work to do. He'd have to find food later.

He hesitated for a moment, then picked up the pills and shoved them in his pocket, thinking that he might need them.

'Good to go?' asked Mark. Ed was about to say that he had never felt less good to go in his life.

'It depends on where we are going,' he replied.

'Kingston Building,' Mark replied. 'Fran and the Chief are already there.'

His heart sank.

Great! Ed thought bitterly. That's just the place I want to go.