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once there was a delivery truck ahead of me, and Mr Lomax came out of his booth and made quite a performance of checking the driver’s ID.’
    â€˜Did he come out of his booth this morning?’
    â€˜No, he didn’t. The van only stopped for a second, and then he waved it through.’
    â€˜So what do you conclude from that?’
    â€˜I don’t know. You’re the detective. He must have known the driver by sight.’
    â€˜That’s a reasonable conclusion, yes.’
    The sun was gradually sinking, and it shone into Lieutenant Chessman’s eyes. Frank went over to the patio window and angled the blinds. Outside in the yard Danny’s swing set was casting a long-legged shadow across the grass, as gaunt as a scaffold.
    Lieutenant Chessman came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re sure you’re OK with this?’
    Frank said, ‘Yes, sure. Yes. Let’s get it over with.’ He didn’t want any sympathy. He felt as if somebody was squeezing his throat and if Lieutenant Chessman gave him any sympathy he wouldn’t be able to speak at all.
    â€˜Did you see any kind of flash when the bomb went off?’ Detective Booker asked him.
    â€˜A flash? Yes.’
    â€˜How bright was that flash?’
    â€˜Not particularly bright. Not much brighter than a camera-flash. But there was a whole lot of smoke.’
    â€˜Would you say that was black smoke or gray smoke or brown smoke?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Dark gray, I guess. What difference does it make?’
    â€˜You’d be surprised. Different explosives produce different amounts of smoke. IMI demolition blocks produce a whole lot of black smoke, because they’re almost one hundred percent TNT, while your RDX, for example, produces considerably less. Once we’ve identified the type of explosive, we can start to source it, find out where it was acquired, and who acquired it.’
    â€˜Well, there was a lot of smoke. Dark gray smoke, almost black. For a time it was like midnight. I couldn’t see the school building at all.’
    â€˜The officer who spoke to you at the scene . . . he made a note that you mentioned another witness, a young woman.’
    â€˜That’s right. She came up to me right after the blast. One of her shoes was blown off but otherwise she seemed OK.’
    â€˜You said your son seemed OK, too.’
    Frank stared at him. ‘Excuse me? What exactly are you trying to imply?’
    â€˜I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I was simply trying to suggest that this young woman could have been more seriously injured than she first appeared.’
    â€˜She was walking and she was talking and she was articulate, OK?’
    â€˜Did you know her?’
    â€˜No. No, I didn’t.’
    â€˜She wasn’t a parent at The Cedars or a member of the faculty or anything like that?’
    â€˜I have no idea who she was, none at all. She asked me if I was OK, and then she asked me if I had lost anybody in the blast. I said . . .’ He pursed his lips, and then he looked away, toward the window.
    â€˜I understand,’ said Lieutenant Chessman. ‘At that time you didn’t know that Danny had been hurt.’
    â€˜We’re just trying to find as many eye witnesses as possible,’ put in Detective Booker. ‘Like, if you saw this young woman again, do you think you would recognize her?’
    Frank pictured the young woman’s dusty, short-cropped hair, and her bleached-out blue eyes. She had been almost beautiful in a rather Slavic way. Not the kind of looks that usually attracted him – he had always preferred Audrey Hepburn types like Margot, small and dark and vivacious. But now he came to think about the young woman again, he thought yes, there had been something about her, something both assertive and wounded. Something that would catch you like fish hooks, and cause