She couldn't remember when her interest in him, in his mysteriousness, his silences, his power, had grown into fascination, but she knew the precise … - P. D. James

It had been the good-looking young detective and the woman officer who had interviewed her, and she had sensed that they were quietly sympathetic. But that of course had been deliberate. They had set out to get her confidence and they had succeeded. She was amazed now how much she had confided to them.

But of course she knew it. Chambers was a hotbed of gossip. People spoke in front of her. Gossip permeated the very air as if by a mysterious process of osmosis.

Was there a place for him in this modern world, where systems mattered more than people?