She went back out front. Hutchins was standing on the lawn now, looking faintly amused. “See… the difference between us beat cops and you dicks is we’re led by our feet and you’re led by your nose. We just keep walking, you know, to see what’s what, but you ‘know’ there’s something at the end of the trail because you’re sure you smelled smoke.”

“I’m not sure I get you,” said Hazel.

“If I see smoke, I know I’m not imagining it,” he said. “But my taste for the here-and-now is what makes me what I am, right?”

“Does that mean you don’t look for what you can’t see, Officer?”

“It means we beat cops have enough on our hands with what’s right in front of us.”

“Well, that’s the difference, isn’t it?” she said, ignoring the little voice reminding her she’d gone into the backyard on a hunch. “We need both of us if we’re going to get the job done, though, don’t we?”

“Sure,” he said, and he sounded friendly, but she knew there were those police out there who saw the art of investigation as only one step above voodoo and she thought Hutchins was probably one of them.

“Anyway, speaking of the here-and-now, I better call in, see what’s going on back home.” She turned away from the other officers and made contact with the station house. Her nerves had been jangling ever since Childress had made the suggestion that she was here in Toronto in order not to be there, in Port Dundas. She got Wingate on the line. “Tell me it’s business as usual, James.”

“More or less.”

“Meaning?”

“The video changed again.”

“Shit.” Childress shot her a look. “What is it now?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s basically black. There’s a sound though.”

“A sound?”

“A scratching sound.”

“So you can hear now?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean by ‘basically black’?”

“It’s black, but there’s a small green triangle in the bottom left corner of the screen now. Like a ‘play’ button on a VCR.”

She wondered what that might mean and couldn’t come up with anything that calmed her guts. “Mute the mic, James.”

“Already done.”

“Now, what about Anonymice?”

“They’re in Grand Cayman.”

“Great.”

“I’ve made contact with the Royal Cayman Police Force. I’m waiting for a call-back.”

“You make sure they understand this isn’t about money laundering. We’ve got a crime in progress. A man’s life depends on their assistance.”

“Got it,” he said.

Childress was looking at her watch. “Detective Inspector, I can get in touch with the housing office on campus this afternoon. See if there’s a list of past tenants. Maybe something will crop up.”

“I’d appreciate that,” said Hazel. There was a strange hesitation, and then Hazel realized that Childress was waiting for her to pass her her card. She hoped she had one on her, but she didn’t. “Uh,” she said. “I’ll just tell you my number.”

“Okay,” said Childress, and she flipped her notebook open. “Shoot.” She wrote down the number and closed her pad. “Well… if we find anything…”

“Thanks,” said Hazel, and with that, another signal passed between the two cops, and they headed down the stairs. She and Andrew watched them drive off.

“I can’t tell if that guy was high-hatting me or just passing the time of day,” she said to Andrew.

“What do you care what he thinks?” he replied. “You’re in the right place and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“You’re just nervous because you’re off your turf, Hazel. But that doesn’t make them any less clueless.”

“I feel like I should try to get back in there. Look around without those beat cops’ eyes on me.”

“If there is a reason for you to snoop around again here, don’t you want to have the right paperwork? I get the feeling they could have given you trouble on a technicality if they wanted to, Hazel.”

“Fine. Then what do I do with this feeling?”

“Feed it sushi,” he said.

They sat at one of the tables in the back of the green-and-black restaurant on Bloor Street. The whole interior looked like the lacquered boxes they served the food in. Hazel had never been partial to Japanese food: she didn’t like its prettiness, its attention to the little detail. She preferred her food to take up the whole plate. Still, she had to admit it tasted good and they said it was good for you. She couldn’t think if she’d ever seen a fat Japanese person. It was just past one and the place was full of young people expertly wielding their little wooden sticks over plates full of bright squares of food.

The last time she’d shared a meal with Andrew, just the two of them, she’d been reduced more or less to begging. Here, too, he’d come to her aid, but at least it wasn’t as personal as before. She tried to think of the last time she’d ever done anything for him. That was something to store away.

“Five Japanese restaurants on a single stretch of road and the whole of Westmuir County can’t manage even one,” he said. He was holding a piece of salmon sashimi in the air on the end of a fork. In all his years of proclaiming himself a sushi aficionado, he’d never learned how to use chopsticks. It was this shameless confidence in himself that had long ago attracted her to him. He popped it into his mouth. “Fire was the worst thing that ever happened to fish,” he said.

She toyed with her avocado maki. “Maybe we call Martha and take her out for a coffee?”

“And let her call me Watson all afternoon? No thanks. Plus, I told Glynnis I’d be back in time to marinate some flank steak.” It was the first time her name had come up all day. Four hours and counting, Hazel thought. Progress, if she were foolish enough to think of it that way.

“I was expecting you to say you didn’t want to give her false hope. Seeing us together.”

His fork stilled, mid-air. “Is that how you see this, Hazel? A relationship-building exercise? I came because you asked me to help. Don’t make me think you had ulterior motives.”

“Moi?” she said, splaying a hand against her chest. “Never.”

He eyed her carefully, admitting the ghost of a smile. “I thought you did very well today.”

“Nothing happened.”

“I mean with your back. You drove almost two hours this morning and it’s going to be two hours back and you’re in tiptop shape. That’s an excellent sign.”

“You mean I’ll be moving out soon.”

“There’s that as well.”

“Maybe I’ll stub a toe and try to prolong my visit.”

He forked up a mound of white rice and dropped it into his mouth. “You are always welcome to stop by, Hazel.”

She felt the withdrawal symptoms still nibbling away at the edges: a faint sizzle behind the eyes, of worry, or dread. And then she realized it wasn’t the lack of Percs she was feeling: it was grief. And she permitted herself, at last, the thought in full that she’d only let flit on the periphery: that she wished the last three years had never happened. And not just because she missed him and still loved him, but because they were not done; they had not finished telling the great story of their lives. It was true that it had not always been great, but it was their story, and it was going to be the only story they had. Well, the only story she had. Of who she was with him, of who they’d been together and what they’d done. What she had of him and he of her made it impossible that anyone else could know them as they’d once been. Letting herself think this, a too-big space opened in her chest and she realized how much grief she had over losing this most important friendship of her life. And at the same time, she realized that he was happy and that there was nothing she could do, or should do, to change things between them.

“Hazel?”

“You have rice on your chin,” she said.

“Well, you don’t have to cry about it.”

“Wasabi,” she said. “It’s two o’clock. We should get ourselves home.”