If there were ever a more melancholy profession than that of a homicide detective, Detective Inspector Edgar Allan Bones of the Metropolitan Police Authority would be hard put to find one. His small office in the tall building on Victoria street would more properly be called a cubicle if it didn't have an actual door and, a sign of his success so far, a window. He had half shut the blinds on the window to reduce the sharp brightness of the summer sun, and the light fell on his desk in clear luminous stripes alternating with cooler shade.

The picture he was examining showed the face of a young woman in the act of blowing a kiss at the camera. A rather pretty young woman, caught in a permanent gesture of good-bye. One, which was altogether permanent since her boyfriend, a good-looking bloke from Islington with a penchant for robbery and for beating his girlfriends had killed her last Sunday. Edgar had arrested the boyfriend yesterday after a nasty interview with the boyfriend's new girlfriend. He had been much nastier than he liked, but it had taken awhile for the girl to get the message. If she kept lying and giving the boyfriend an alibi, she was likely to be the next one up for investigation--as the victim and not as the suspect. He reviewed his report on the arrest for errors and carefully organized the file so that each piece of evidence, each interview, each photograph told the story without flaw. A logical, ordered, careful report as precise as the Inspector himself.

Sunlight gleamed on the Inspector's pale blond hair and lit the framed diplomas on his wall. There was the degree from University of London in psychology and history. There was the degree, also from University of London in law. There was the certificate from the Inner Temple and the Courts of Chancery indicating he held the titles of Solicitor and Barrister. And there was the certificate of graduation from the Metropolitan Police Academy. At thrity-two, Edgar Bones was one of the younger Detective Inspectors in Homicide. He had spent only six months in uniform and thereafter had spent all the previous years as a Detective Sergeant assigned to the Juvenile Department. Only six months ago, he had been transferred to Homicide and was seen with both jealousy by the old-timers and interest by the Superintendent as a comer.

A knock on the door was immediately followed by the slinky, graceful entrance of Detective Sergeant Fay Kray. (It was Fay's misfortune to share the same name as the most infamous of London crime lords, the Kray brothers; a misfortune she was clever enough to turn, on occasion, into a goldmine of information.)

"We've got a new one," was her laconic statement.

"We've always got a new one," Edgar answered. "Where? What do we know?"

"This one's a bit different," Fay said. "It's out in some godforsaken place called Great Hangleton, and so far we know nothing except it's a juvie."

"How old?" Edgar asked.

"Fifteen, sixteen? They won't be sure until they've got i.d. Right now they've got nothing but one dead teenage girl."

"And why are we assigned to this? Is this even in the Met's jurisdiction?" Edgar asked.

"Not at all," Fay answered. Her almond shaped blue eyes were brilliant with interest and curiosity.

"It appears that this isn't the first. There are two others. One was in London, but was in the City of London's watch. The second was way the hell up north in York. They're creating a Special Task Force and you've gotten the nod to lead it on account of all your fancy degrees and your experience with juvies." Edgar looked at Fay. There were times he found her unabashed ambition truly annoying. But she was a methodical, meticulous investigator and absolutely fearless. They had been working together for six months now, and her early resentment at having an outsider brought in and promoted over her head had been buried, at leat for the moment, when she had realized that she would only look good herself by working with him.

The meeting with Superintendent Masters was unusually brief. He handed Edgar a fat file of information from the other two vicitms and gave him the directions for the new one.

"You'll be meeting with Superintendent Bob Hoskins at Great Hangleton. He's the one that spotted this for a possible serial killer. Either that, or there's some new elite drug on the market that we don't know about. One that's being marketed especially to teens. We want you in because you've the experience with the young ones." Edgar said,

"What makes anyone think these are connected? The odds are they're runaways and a proper tox check will show cocaine or heroin. You should probably have Narcotics in on this."

"That's the interesting thing, Bones," replied the Superintendent. "They can't find anything to show why these kids are dead. They weren't shot, they weren't stabbed, and the tox on the first two comes up negative. No heart disease, no suffocation. Not drowned. In fact, there's no cause of death we can see. They're just dead." Edgar felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Goosebumps were forming on his arms and his heart had begun to race. It couldn't be, could it? He swallowed the bile that threatened to come up and asked,

"And this one, have they done the tox report on her?"

"No," Masters replied. "She's still in situ. They're waiting for you to arrive. So get yourselves out there as fast as you can. You can read the reports on the first two on your way." He added, "I'm relying on you, Bones, you and Kray, to do the job. We don't want a panic on our hands if this gets out. And it will."

Edgar took the file and forced a look of calm on his face. The last thing he wanted was for Fay Kray to get a glimpse of his inner fears and demons. He walked briskly back to his office to retreive the Islington file. He could drop it off to Processing on the way out. Fay followed right behind.

"You want me to drive?" she asked. He looked at her. A chance to show off he thought cynically. But never mind.

"Yes," he said, "I'll be able to review these other files and get a picture of the other vicitms. See if they really do have a pattern of likenesses. Besides," He added, "the way you drive, I'll probably not even get to finish them." He dropped the Islington file off with a last look at the picture of the victim.

"Joy with her hands ever at her lips, bidding adieu," he said.

"What?" asked Fay.

"It's a line from Keats," he said. "Don't they teach you anything in school these days?"

"That's rich," Fay said. "Just because you're some fancy barrister doesn't mean you have to lord over all the rest of us."

"You're the one with the public school education, Fay," he responded, "so don't give me your imitation of the poor put upon working girl, it won't fly with me." Unexpectedly, she said,

"Ode to Melancholy, that's the one, isn't it?" She smiled at him. For once, the blue cat's eyes were perfectly friendly.

The sun was setting, pouring out a rosy glow, making the young girl sprawled on the banks of the river seem as though she were alive, merely sleeping, rather than dead. Her wheat colored hair was spread out behind her, and her legs were twisted under her in a fashion that no one alive would tolerate. Her blue jeans were old and had holes at the kees, but that was no indication of anything these days, when the grunge look was still in fashion in some places.

Edgar felt, as he always did, the rush of pity, the rush of rage, at the person who had done this. The murderer. For the others in this job, he thought, murder was a game of wits, a puzzle to be solved. He thought, there were few of them who knew what murder really was. Who had seen its face. Murder had a face, he knew. A face as white as a skull, with red pitless, inhuman eyes. Eyes that had slits for puils, like a cat, or a snake. He had been fleeing those eyes in his dreams at night for sixteen years, and catching the murderer in the day for living since joining the Met. It didn't matter to Edgar that the faces he caught were various. What mattered was the skull beneath the skin; they were all incarnations of the same one, the murderer. These ones he could catch. The first was forever beyond his reach.

The bright flash of the photographer's bulb blinded him momentarily. He blinked to clear his sight and noticed a tiny detail, a gold necklace with a scorpion charm hung on her neck. So the girl was one of those who messed around with astrology. He wondered what other interests she might have had.

"She's been dead probabaly six or seven hours," said the medical examiner. "No obvious wounds, but we'll have to check further in the autopsy," he added.

"You won't find anything," Superintendent Hoskins said. "I'd bet anything on it." Edgar found that comment very interesting.

"Be sure you do a full tox screening," he said. "I want to know what the girl might have been taking. Even if she's had an aspirin, or been drinking herbal tea. Anything." The doctor raised and eyebrow and said,

"You think this is a narcotics case? I thought you were a juvie specialist, not narcotics." Edgar replied,

"I was in Juvenile, yes. But we often had to cooperate with Narcotics. As more than half of Juvenile crime is drug related, it's not unlikely in this case. And every so often, they come up with new things to get themselves high. Stuff that's not your typical drug. Like the ones that figured out sniffing fancy paints from the home design department store was cool. So cool it got them dead. And those won't show up if you're looking for cocaine or heroin, will they?" The Superintendent from Greater Hangleton was shaking his head.

"What you say is true. But this one's different," he insisted. Edgar turned to look at the older man. He was tall and burly with iron grey hair.

"What makes you so sure this one's different, Superintendent?"

"Two things," the older officer replied. "First, I know the girl," he said. Edgar stared.

"I thought this one had no i.d.," he said.

"That was true, at first," Hoskins answered. "My DS, Johnston, had the first look and he was the one who suggested this connected with those other two odd ones. I read the reports from other districts, and those two looked odd to me from the first. Johnston picked up on it that this was another like those. This is the first look I've had at her, and I know her." He looked wearily at the dead girl.

"Nancy Bell. She goes to the local high school. Her dad owns the pub up on the High Street. He'll be real cut up over this. Real cut up." Fay asked,

"So why are you so sure she couldn't have taken anything, Superintendent?" Her blue eyes were taking everything in. No doubt she'd have a full analysis of the girl's personality just by having looked at her clothes and hairstyle.

"I know her, and her dad," Hoskins repeated. "I stop by their pub for lunch every other day. Nancy's the serious type. Worked at her dad's after school and taking extra tutoring to get good marks on her A Levels. She was wanting to go to University. She stayed away from the wild ones, you see." Edgar thought the Superindtendent should know better. Even the quiet ones sometimes had secret lives at this age. Fifteen, sixteen. How much more vulnerable could you get? Just old enough to be independent and start to think you're adult. And so terribly young and inexperienced most of them. Victims waiting to be victimized.

"And the second reason?" he asked.

"Ah, now that's the one that'll be taking a bit of time to tell," Hoskins answered. "Why don't you come up to the station and we can go over this in a more comfortable fashion. Except first, we'll have to go visit Bell's and get a formal I.D. from her dad." Edgar said,

"Did she have anything with her, though? A purse? Backpack?" There was a pause. The local Sergeant, Johnston, said,

"Nothing." Superintendent Hoskins said,

"And that's strange, too. Nancy Bell always had a backpack with her. One of those mail order ones. Bright blue canvas with lots of pockets. Always had books with her and a small CD player. She liked her music, Nancy did."

Great Hangleton's High Street was so perfectly average you could have plunked it down in any meduim sized town in England and it would have looked the same. There was the local pub, Bell's, situated in a half-timbered old building that probably dated back to the 16th century. There was a greegrocers, which managed to stay in business even though a new American style supermarket had opened up several blocks away. There were several old shops, now occupied by a hair stylist, an "antiques" shop, and a small old-fashioned bakery. Across the way, the police station took up half of the other side of the street. No wonder Hoskins was familiar with Bell's. A convenient stop for a Ploughmans lunch and a pint. The pub owner, Mr. Bell, was crying. Tears ran down his weathered cheeks.

"Not my Nancy," he said, like so many others, denying the hand of death could so easily seize a loved one and without warning. "She's a good girl, my Nancy," he said, "Going to University next year." Superintendent Hoskins said,

"Ah, now. I'm so sorry, but it's true. Can you close up for a bit and talk to us, and then we'll need you to come see her. Make it formal." Edgar said softly,

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. Bell. And I know the last thing you want to do is talk to anyone. But the sooner we know a few things, the sooner we can find out what happened." Bell looked at him.

"How can you know? How?" Anger and despair wrinkled his brow, new lines scoring deep into a face that had been carefree minutes before. Edgar said softer than ever,

"I know." He went on, "Please, can you tell me when you last saw her?" Bell wiped his face with the rag he had been using to wipe down the oak bar. As if the question had finally made it real, his face hardened and fixed on Edgar with dislike. That was usual, too. He was the bringer of sorrow, the augury of a future far bleaker than the past had been.

It transpired that Nancy Bell had had the afternoon off. Classes were over and the summer hols were just beginning. She had helped her father set up in the morning and left before the pub opened for a hike along the river bank. She had taken her bookbag, the bright blue one, and it had been filled with several books, her CD player, and a picnic lunch. Ham and cheese sandwich, apple and a can of coke. No she had no current boyfriends. No, no one was going with her, but so what? This wasn't London, you know. And no she didn't take drugs, she had no heart condition, she wasn't diabetic, she was perfectly healthy and she should have been back by now. Alive. They were just about finished when Edgar turned back for one more question.

"Was Nancy interested in astrology and the occult?" he asked. Bell's eyes widened.

"How'd you know that? She was a fair astrologer, Nancy was. She drew up these complicated charts. Even made some pocket money at it. Like her mum. They both had it, you know." Edgar felt a faint frisson run down his spine. Now they were getting to it. He always knew when something important was coming.

"Had what?" he asked.

"The Sight. She had flashes. She knew things sometimes. Her mum did, too. She should have known about this. How come she didn't know?" Next to him, Superintendent Hoskins shifted, as if the topic made him uneasy, and Fay narrowed her blue eyes and tightened her mouth. Edgar ignored them.

"She had...what, psychic flashes sometimes. Did she have any other unusual talents?" he asked. Fay was staring at him with astonishment. Her usually rational, pragmatic, logical partner, asking about psychic talent...Edgar knew he would pay for it later. But it was important. He was sure of it. And he knew, as they could not ever know, just how many strange and unusual talents people could have. But Bell shook his head.

Edgar took the dierctions for Bell's home address. They would need to stop there later, or tomorrow to search the girl's bedroom, look for address books, ask for names of her friends. Any small detail that could lead them to it. To an answer. They crossed the street to the police station and Edgar narrowly missed being run down by a red SUV being driven way too fast. Fay said,

"You'd better look sharp, Inspector. Who knows, the murderer might put a spell on you or something!" She was grinning at the joke. Her cat's eyes gleamed and her champagne colored hair was flying in the wind. Clearly, Fay Kray was not a believer in the psychic, in the occult, in anything she couldn't touch, or see, or feel or taste. Edgar gave a good imitation himself most of the time of being just such a rationalist.

"Very funny, Kray," he answered. "But you know that the victim's oddities, however peculiar, can be a key to a case. Just because you don't share them doesn't mean we don't have to investigate them." She nodded her head and looked at him thoughtfully, but said nothing in return. Hoskins, however, had something to say.

"You can laugh," he said, "but Nancy Bell and her mum were well known by some of us to have something. Nancy's mum even helped us locate a missing kid one time." Fay and Edgar exchanged glances. He was wondering just what this case was going to be. Just another ordinary drug overdose by a quiet kid who wasn't as quiet as everyone thought? Or something else entirely?

They walked through the outer office of the station, over the standard cracked linoleum floors, by the standard elderly furniture and out of date computers. Hoskins' office was a palace by comparison. The walls were still an institutional green, but the floor was carpeted and the walls were hung with photographs that would have done Ansel Adams justice. They sat down at Hoskins' gesture. He was their host and a superior in rank, after all. Edgar drank the hot coffee that was offered as well. It was just as awful as the institutional paint on the walls and tasted worse, but it was hot and had the single virtue of keeping him alert. He waited for the older officer to explain the second thing. The thing Edgar thought was likely to upset them all and start that panic his own Super wanted to avoid.

"The reason I called you all in, the reason I suggested this Task Force be set up, is this isn't the first death of this kind we've seen in these parts. Great Hangleton isn't exactly the most crime ridden place in the country. We have our share of small stuff, and every so often, we get the domestics, or the occasional blow up when thugs come out from London and try to muscle in on the local drug trade. But it's not much. And there's even less of it next door in Little Hangleton, which is under our purview because it's too small to have its own station." Fay was twitching her foot with carefully concealed impatience. It was, he noticed, a very attractive foot. He mentally kicked himself and turned his attention back to Hoskins. Edgar felt sure this was important. He looked sharply at the Superintendent and waited.

"Last year, well really more like two years ago now," the Superindtendent said, "we had a weird death out at Little Hangleton. A gardener by the name of Frank Bryce. Elderly chap. He was the caretaker for a big old house out there. At first we thought it must have been a heart attack. The locals in Little Hangleton said they'd seen lights in the old house he worked at. It's empty. Absentee owner, keeps it for tax breaks or some such thing. Anyway, Bryce was found outside the house, just sort dropped dead in the garden. Not a mark on him. And the autopsy showed he hadn't actually had a heart attack. He had arthritis, and a bad leg. War wound of some kind. But the autopsy showed no apparent cause of death at all. Same as this one." Fay jumped on that.

"How so? This one's a teenager. I thought the other two are also. The one in London and the one in York. Doesn't the fact that that was an old man make it different?" Hoskins eyed her coldly.

"It's not the age I'm looking at Sergeant Kray. It's the manner of death. And Nancy Bell is actually the fifth such death we've encountered in this district alone. If they are related, I think you'll find the total runs to seven or more." Edgar was counting mentally.

"That means you've had three others like this. Why wasn't there any question of a task force before now, if that's the case?"

"Because," Hoskins answered, "Three of them go back before my time, way back. Over fifty years back, and strangely enough, those involved Frank Bryce, too."

"Go on," Edgar said. Hoskins nodded. He paused a moment, to gather his thoughts, Edgar supposed, and said,

"Right. Well, about fifty years ago, more like fifty three, Frank Bryce was arrested for the murders of the owners of the house he worked at. His employers, in fact. The employer's name was Tom Riddle, and Riddle and his parents died in the same manner as Nancy Bell and Frank Bryce. Dropped dead. Autopsy reports showed no injuries, no heart attacks. Same drill as these others. Bryce was initially arrested for no good reason really. The deaths were weird, suspicious, and Bryce was known to be a bit odd, and as the gardener, suspicion fell on him. Obviously, he maintained he was innocent, and they had to release him after the autopsy came through. There were no witnesses and the only other oddity is that Bryce claimed to have seen a teenaged boy going to the house on the day of the Riddle's deaths. Nobody ever saw the kid but Bryce, and no one believed he actually saw anyone.

"Well, the deaths made their way into local history and would have been forgotten, except for Frank Bryce dying in the exact same way. When Johnston was investigating Bryce's death last year, he dug up the history and we both thought it was strange, except once again, there was no evidence and no suspects at all. Then these cases were mentioned in the Crime Bureau updates and we had to wonder." Hoskins looked sharply at them both.

"Now you see why we called you in, when Nancy Bell showed up today. I'd take any odds she's died the same way. No injuries, no health problems and no drugs. Unless it's some poison so rare and undetectable no one's ever heard of it."

Fay looked disbelieving at that last, but held her tongue. She was not likely to incur the wrath of a Superintendent by disagreeing with him twice in one day. Edgar, on the other hand, knew quite well that there were plenty of undetectable poisons, many of which had never been seen in the police forensics manual on toxins. Edgar stood up and offered Hoskins his hand.

"Superintendent. That's certainly a wild story and there's just a few too many coincidences in there for even the most rational person to swallow." He ignored Fay and continued.

"I intend to report as much to Superintendent Masters and we'll begin coordinating the set-up of the Task Force immediately. Sergeant Kray and I will find lodgings here overnight, and I'll want to examine all your records in the Bryce death as well as the others, the Riddles. We'll also want to interview Mr. Bell again, and any of Nancy's friends and acquaintances. Obviously, we'll have to rule out other kinds of mischief as carefully as possible." Hoskins looked approvingly at Edgar and said,

"Inspector Bones, it's a pleasure to meet an intelligent officer. You're more than welcome to borrow Sergeant Johnston for any legwork you need in this area, and we can set up an incident room for you in a vacant office upstairs. Also, did you want to sit in on the autopsy, either of you?" Edgar considered this. He shook his head.

"I'd like to, but I think may be needing to stop back in London tomorrow. How soon do you think the doctor can get the autopsy done?" Hoskins replied,

"I'm not sure. I'll let you know. I was hoping he could do it tonight."

It was well past nine o'clock when Edgar and Fay stepped out of the Great Hangleton police station. Edgar was starving. Half a block down, a small shop was lit up, and the sounds of voices floated out. He nodded to Fay, and started walking toward the shop. It was crammed full of teens eating burgers and fries and the noise was incredible. On a closer inspection, the shop turned out to be a small McDonalds. The Americanization of Britain, Edgar thought sourly. The food was sure to give him indigestion, but it might be worth it. Odds were, at least half the teens here might have known Nancy Bell. They took their meals to the only unoccupied table, a corner one in the back near the bathrooms. Edgar watched incredulously as Fay downed a huge Big Mac, large French Fries laden with grease and an enormous cola.

"How can you eat all of that?" he asked.

"It's great," Fay said, "the Americans know how to do food, I'll give them that." Edgar shuddered and looked around for a more pleasing prospect. At the table next to theirs, three girls were whispering.

"Can't believe it...Nancy dead...Said it might be drugs..." Edgar shoved aside his half-eaten burger and considered how to break into the conversation. Fay had no such qualms and went straight for the quarry.

"You knew Nancy Bell?" she asked. The girls stared at her suspiciously. Strangers in a town like this were sure to be marked. Three pairs of eyes considered Fay's casually artistically tousled hair, her elegant suit and the ten perfectly painted red fingernails with approval. The smallest girl, one Mary Burns, said,

"Yeah, we knew her." The girl's eyes were red, as if she'd been crying. A friend, Edgar thought hopefully.

"Who are you, anyway?" the second one asked. Fay said,

"Scotland Yard. We're investigating Nancy's death."

"Go on, you are not Scotland Yard. They don't send coppers from London to investigate out here," said the third girl.

"How do you know that?" asked Edgar.

"Cause my uncle is only Superintendent Hoskins of the police here. He'd be the one investigating, him or Johnston." All three girls giggled at that. Fay smiled her cat's smile and dove into her purse for her I.D.

"Your uncle's a clever copper," Fay said. "Clever enough to invite us in when he thinks something's too odd to be going on with." She flashed the Met I.D. and the girls oohed. They were far enough away from London, or these particular girls were nice enough that they were missing the usual reflex mistrust of the police. Hoskins' niece, a slender girl named Sally, said,

"So, it's true. Nance was murdered." Edgar said,

"We don't know that yet."

"So why're you here, then?" the first one asked.

"Superintendent Hoskins called us in because there are oddities about her death. We're looking into it," he replied. Fay said,

"I heard you mentioning drugs. Did Nancy ever do any that you know of?" Sally Hoskins answered,

"No way. And we'd have known, too. She was our friend." Edgar was thinking that even friends didn't know everything, but in this case, it seemed to confirm Mr. Bell's immediate reaction. He let Fay continue. The girls seemed to be relating to her, perhaps because she was a woman.

"Did Nancy have any special friends, boyfriends, any new people she'd been hanging around with?" Fay asked.

"No regular boyfriends," answered Mary.

"No, but she went out from time to time with Johnny Butler. He'd have liked to go more often, but Nancy was really stuck on getting into University. She's been studying for her A Levels ever since she got her results from the O's back. None of the rest of us have even started yet." Sally Hoskins shook her head. Edgar wondered whether it was over the dead girl's studiousness or over the suddenness of her death. Edgar cut in,

"Did Nancy ever do your horoscopes, or mention anything about it?" Fay looked mildly annoyed. He guessed she would have liked to ask more about the boyfriend, but Edgar had a hunch about this and wanted answers.

"How'd you know about that?" asked the second girl.

"Yeah," said the first one, Mary, "Cause she did all of ours. And they were right on, too. I never believed in all that stuff before. But when she did a chart, it was eerie, like she would get things right. Not like those stupid ones they have in the papers like the Sun, you know."

"Did she ever tell you if she did her own?" Edgar asked. All three looked surprised.

"No," said Hoskins' niece.

"She never said." The slender girl looked thoughtful, sad.

"Maybe if she had, she'd have stayed home today. Maybe she'd still be alive."

"What makes you say that," Fay asked. This seemed like a piece that could lead somewhere.

"I dunno," said the girl. "See, Nancy knew stuff sometimes. Even without the charts, she knew stuff. Like they show on those shows on the telly. E.S.P. or something. So I wonder why she didn't know something was wrong. How could she just...drop dead? I don't believe it." Edgar was fascinated. So the girl had had some kind of talent. Again, he felt that faint frisson of fear. There was something here that no one else was seeing. Some factor unaccounted for.

"Did Nancy belong to any occult societies, any clubs, or have other friends who also were interested in this stuff?"

"Occult stuff? Like Goths, or Satanic stuff?" the second girl asked. Edgar nodded. Fay narrowed her eyes. Some of their weirdest cases some times involved would be cultists. And those quite commonly involved drugs.

"No way," Sally Hoskins said. "Nancy didn't go in for that kind of thing. She said they were all charlatans, covers for druggies, weirdos. No, Nancy was the most normal, straight-laced girl you ever met. She just had this talent." The girl was looking angry. Edgar looked back at her thoughtfully.

"I believe you," he said. Fay tightened her lips on whatever disagreement she had. It wouldn't do to annoy their most likely source of information on the dead girl.

"Thank you, for your help," he said. "May we call on you again, if we need to?" The three girls all nodded and watched them as they went out the door.

"Why do you keep harping on that stuff?" Fay asked.

"Because, it's the only thing that sets her apart from anyone else. It's the one thing about her that we know that's out of the ordinary. Like her death," Edgar replied.

"We don't know that for sure yet," Fay answered. "The autopsy's not done and the tox screen'll take several days."

"You think this could be a drug case?" Edgar asked.

"Possibly," Fay said coolly. "Say the girl met someone, the boyfriend, or someone we don't know about yet when she went for this walk. A nice quiet spot that was, by the river. A picnic, a bit of snogging, a taste of...something, and the romantic date is a date with death."