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in the cheeks.
    “Indeed.” Ryder closed her eyes for a while and then opened them. “When do you think the relevant authorities will find out his identity?” she said, somewhat rhetorically. I had to think she didn’t need me to tell her, but I did anyway.
    “Hard to say,” I said. “If they haven’t done it our way, give it a few hours and they’ll get him by some means.”
    Ryder sat back in her chair with her hands on her thighs. They’re rather muscular, and it’s evident she does her fair share of exercise. She looked at me, adjusted her position and pulled her chair back under her desk, then flicked her left fringe parting aside. “No time to lose, then. We have work to do.”
    I stared at her for a while and then held out my arms bemusedly. “I’m sorry, what?”
    “I want you to phone Gillham and Mane and arrange interviews with the senior members of the board.”
    “That’s nice,” I said sarcastically. “The hell for? We have no client. Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft. Just because that ringer came here and it’s irritating you. You realize if you arrange those meetings and the right people get wind of it, it will confuse matters even more. And I doubt Lynch’s colleagues will be able to help solve your curiosity.”
    Ryder breathed in slowly and shook her head. “You misunderstand. I want you to arrange a meeting with those board members so as to procure a client.”
    It was wily, I’ll give her that. There was no way around it either. If I challenged it, she would simply say it was for the sake of the bank balance. Tackling her curiosity was just a bonus. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.
    “And if they don’t want in?” I said. I decided to taunt her. “I guess we’ll forever be in the dark, and that nameless fake Lynch will haunt you every night as you sleep.”
    “Nonsense, Ader.” She lifted a finger. “I know I employ you to provoke my senses, but you are flailing, because you think I am approaching a case for the wrong reasons. My curiosity? Don’t be so ridiculous.” She rose and walked over to the French doors, looking out toward the ocean. “I’m a detective who charges a fee, and Gillham and Mane have the means, unlike others affected by this serial killer. They will want closure for Mr Lynch. That is, they will want it known they sought closure. The recipe is there. Why wait for them to come to us?”
    I grinned. The reason was, of course, that they probably wouldn’t give a damn, until we provoked them into a sense of responsibility.
    “That’s it, then. You finally want to tackle the Cutter,” I said, purposefully omitting the ‘Cross.’
    She turned and gave a firm nod. “I—we’ve avoided it long enough.”
    “And what if they don’t want to hire you?”
    “They will.”
    “The BI and the FBI will have a fit.”
    “I would assume so.”
    She sat back down and gave me my instructions. The result we wanted was for Gillham and Mane to be our client by the end of the working day. So when I looked at my watch and saw it was 3.30PM, you can imagine my work was cut out. We had to wait for the police and company to make progress as well. If we went to Gillham and Mane and announced one of their executives was dead before they were aware of it, we’d never hear the end of it.
    There was no secret tactic here. We were just going to poke them into doing the right thing. Make a few suggestive comments, and dangle a few carrots. They could be the company that made the capture of the Cross Cutter possible.
    The clincher we had reserved was the fake Lynch. Or, should I say, the activities of the fake Lynch. No one else knew the Lynch who had been in Ryder’s office was an impostor, and the authorities were likely to mention the visit to everyone. As far as anyone knew, the dead Lynch had been in contact with us and feared for his life. We could use that. Although, I didn’t like it.
    “Are you sure it’s wise to keep the fake Lynch to