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at Monkmoor Police Station, about how you came to find yourself here, tonight, with the body of a child who is long-since dead. Can you tell me anything about it?’
    Alice looked at her. ‘No,’ she said politely. ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you anything.’
    ‘Is this because you don’t want to or because you can’t remember?’
    ‘I can’t remember.’ A pause. ‘It’s possible that I don’t know.’
    Interesting, Delyth Fontaine thought.
    ‘What do you remember?’
    Alice turned puzzled eyes on her. ‘Sorry?’ she said, still in the same flat but polite, social voice.
    ‘Well – you know your name and you know your address.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Do you remember how you got here tonight?’
    ‘I think – I don’t know. I’m not sure.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’
    Jane Miles was standing behind her looking sceptical. Like most doctors she thought that amnesia could be just a little too convenient for people who had not quite worked out what to say.
    Delyth Fontaine met her eyes, gave the slightest hint of a very cynical smile and continued. ‘Do you drive a car, Mrs Sedgewick?’
    Alice nodded. ‘But I sometimes use the bus.’
    Delyth Fontaine asked the next question deceptively casually. ‘You can’t remember which you did tonight?’
    ‘I think I would probably have driven.’
    It was almost an admission.
    In which case the car would be outside. Delyth looked up and met Paul Talith’s eyes. It wouldn’t take the police long to home in on the registration number and search the hospital car park.
    ‘Do you feel unwell at the moment?’
    A shake of the head.
    ‘Do you take any pills?’
    Alice’s eyes looked bright. ‘I take something for my blood pressure,’ she said, in a reassuringly normal voice. ‘It’s a little high –’ the words were accompanied by a small, tight smile – ‘so my doctor tells me.’
    ‘Who is your doctor?’
    ‘I belong to the group practice on the Ellesmere Road.’
    Delyth made a note of it.
    ‘Do you know where you are now?’
    Alice nodded. ‘I’m at the hospital, I think, in a room at the accident and emergency department.’
    It was all very precise and lucid – with significant bits missing.
    ‘Do you remember what you were doing earlier on this evening – before you came to the hospital?’
    ‘Decorating.’
    Which explained the paint spatters on her clothes.
    ‘Do you mind if I just check your pulse and blood pressure?’
    ‘Not at all.’
    Apart from a rapid pulse – 120 a minute – all the readings were normal as the police surgeon had anticipated. Except, of course, that no one in their right mind would call this a normal situation.
    ‘Mrs Sedgewick,’ she continued, ‘you seemed very upset earlier when the nurse looked at the baby you were carrying, wrapped up in a shawl.’
    Alice’s shoulders drooped.
    ‘Do you need something to calm you down?’
    Wearily she shook her head, bowing it in submission.
    ‘Do you have any objection to going down to the police station, Mrs Sedgewick?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘OK then.’ Delyth sighed and stood up, then left the room, followed by Roberts and Talith. ‘Fit to detain,’ she said. ‘I’ll ring Martha first thing Monday morning. You may as well take the infant straight to the hospital mortuary.’ Her eyes met those of both Roberts and Talith and she smiled. ‘It’ll at least free up the security guard.’
    She paused then turned to speak only to Paul Talith. ‘I don’t want to tell you how to do your job,’ she said in a low voice, ‘but if I was the investigating officer in this case one of the first questions I’d ask would be how long she’s lived at her current address.’ She paused. ‘Assuming, that is, that the corpse was found somewhere near there. It’s a snowy night. The blanket was dry. I doubt she’d have been wandering in the countryside somewhere and stumbled across it. From the condition of the body the baby