Jenny shook her head. "I don't think so. Not to an old woman. Doesn't fit at all. Offhand, I'd say you're looking for a bald, short-sighted, middle-aged man wearing a plastic raincoat, bicycle-clips and galoshes."

"If only."

"Stereotypes do exist, you know."

"Oh, I know. Believe me, I do."

"What do you mean?"

"Dorothy Wycombe."

"Ah," Jenny said. "Had a visit, have you?"

"This morning."

"Ah, yes. Dorothy's quite a formidable opponent, don't you think? I find her a bit hard to take, myself."

"I thought you two were friends."

"Acquaintances. We've worked together on one or two projects, that's all. We don't really have a lot in common, but Dorothy is energetic and very good at her job."

"WEEF?"

"Yes, WEEF. Pretty pathetic, isn't it?"

Banks nodded.

"Anyway," Jenny went on, "Dorothy is an intelligent woman, but she lets her dogma get in the way of her thinking. What was it all about, if it's not private?"

"It is a bit delicate," Banks told her, then gave an abbreviated account, not mentioning any names, and they both had another laugh.

"The poor man," Jenny sympathized. "He was just trying to chat her up."

"Not so much of the 'poor man,' if you please. He should have known better."

"But why did she report him to Dorothy?"

"She didn't. I popped around to see her on my way here, and she was very annoyed by what had happened. Apparently Ms. Wycombe had been visiting the victims-rather like some Victorian lady visiting the poor, I should imagine-and trying to gather some ammunition against us. The woman chatted in quite a friendly way to Ms. Wycombe and joked about my man's visit. She'd actually been quite flattered as she'd had her eye on him for a while and wondered when, if ever, he was going to make his move. Anyway, Dorothy Wycombe twisted the information to suit her purposes and marched in demanding blood."

"What a job you do."

"I know. It's a dirty job-"

"-but somebody's got to do it. Talking of dirty jobs," Jenny went on, "I've dug out a couple of case histories for you."

"I'm listening."

"Ever heard of Charles Floyd or Patrick Byrne?"

Banks shook his head. "I'm afraid my history of crime's not what it should be, Tell me."

"Patrick Byrne murdered a girl in the Birmingham YWCA in 1959. He was a laborer on a building site near the hostel, and one afternoon he got sent back to the yard by his foreman for returning to work drunk after lunch. He'd often peeped on the girls undressing in the hostel, but this time he went in and strangled a girl. After that, he undressed her, raped her, then cut off her head with a table knife. He also made an attempt to eat one of her breasts with sugar."

"That's not a very encouraging tale, is it?"

"No. Apparently Byrne had had sadistic fantasies, including cutting women in half with a circular saw, since he was about seventeen. He said he wanted to get his own back on women for causing him nervous tension through sex. Before that, he'd been content with simply watching girls undress, but because he was drunk and upset by being told off by his foreman, he went beyond everything he'd ever done before. He also left a note that read, 'This was what I thought would never happen.'"

"Is the other case just as heartening?"

"Yes. About the only consolation is that it happened in Texas in the forties. Charles Floyd started by watching women get undressed. Then he waited till they went to sleep, killed them and raped them, in that order. There was one woman who never closed her curtains, and he watched her for several nights before he finally climbed in after she fell asleep. He battered her to death, then wrapped her head in a sheet and raped her. After that, he spent the rest of the night in bed with her. He killed other women, too, and when he got caught he admitted he'd been a Peeping Tom who turned to murder and rape when the sexual excitement got too much for him."

"The woman didn't close her curtains?" Banks commented. "Surely that was asking for it in a way?"

Jenny shot him a cold glance. "We've already been through that."

"And I did say that women should be careful not to appear to be inviting men to sex."

"And I said that we should be able to dress how we like and go where we damn well please."

"So we agree to differ."

"It looks like it. But please understand, I'm not condoning the woman leaving her curtains open. It was probably a very stupid thing to do. All I'm saying is that what Floyd did was an act of violence more than of sex, and that such things will happen anyway, whatever we do, until more men start to see women as people, not as sex objects."

"I don't believe the solution is as simple as that, admirable as it sounds," Banks said. "Yes, they are acts of violence, but it's violence that is highly sexual in nature. I think it's true that at least one of the reasons for the rise in sex crimes is the increase in stimulation- and that includes fashions, pornography, advertising, films, TV, the lot."

"And who determines women's fashions?"

"Mostly men, I should imagine."

"That's right. You dress us the way you want us, you create us in the image you desire, and then you have the gall to accuse us of asking for it!"

"Okay, calm down," Banks said, concerned at seeing Jenny so hurt and angry. He put his hand on her shoulder and she didn't brush it off. "I understand what you're saying. It's a very complex subject and it's hard to portion out blame. I'm willing to take my share. How about you?"

Jenny nodded and they shook hands.

"What conclusions have you drawn from those cases?" Banks asked.

"None, really. Only the most obvious ones."

"I must be thick, nothing's obvious to me."

"Until we know our man's motivation, we can't know whether some kind of trigger might exist for him, or how close he is to reaching it."

"Look." Banks said, glancing at his watch, "it's almost ten o'clock. Can I get you another drink?"

"Yes, please."

"Right you are. And while I'm at the bar, think about this. Is there any indication at all, from what little we know already, that our man might cross the same borders as Floyd and Byrne did?"

II

The area around the lock splintered easily when Mick pushed on the crowbar, and the two of them broke into the dark, silent house in no time. The light from their small flashlights crisscrossed the kitchen, picking out the gleaming appliances: fridge, washing machine, microwave, dishwasher, oven. Quickly, they moved on; only the poor kept their money in jamjars in the kitchen.

Down a short hallway was the split-level living room, and Mick cursed as he tripped over the divide. It was a big room, sparsely furnished as far as they could make out. Their flashlights picked out a three-piece suite, TV and video on a stand, and a music center. By the door stood a tall cabinet full of china and crystal glasses. Mick opened the lower doors and found it full of booze- scotch, gin, vodka, brandy, rum, everything under the sun-and he grabbed a bottle of Remy Martin by the neck. He slugged it back greedily and began to cough and splutter. Trevor told him to keep quiet.

Trevor was awed just to be in the place. Already he'd forgotten what they came for and was trembling with the excitement of violation. This was someone's home, someone's "castle," and he wasn't supposed to be in it. It felt like a vast cave full of possibilities, one of those boat rides through dark tunnels he used to take as a child at Blackpool Pleasure Beach-a ghost train, even, because he did feel fear, and each tiny detail his light picked out was a surprise: a wall-lamp curving upwards like a bent arm holding a torch; an ornate standard lamp with carved snakes winding around its column; an antique pipe on the mantelpiece. And his light caught occasional images from the big framed paintings on the walls: a giant bird terrorizing a man; some naked tart standing on a seashell. He could hear his heartbeat, his breathing, and every movement he made was a further violation of somebody else's silence.