Weller gave a short laugh when Relf told him about Hale.
"He came back?"
"You didn't know?"
"No."
"Hale says you were Eight."
"He would."
"Were you?"
"No."
"Who was?"
"I never knew."
Relf watched him.
"You expect me to believe you helped run the network without knowing who authorised its movements?"
"I knew how the instructions reached me. That isn't the same thing."
Relf placed a photograph of the sally and its luggage label on the table.
Weller leaned forward. His smile disappeared.
"Where did you get that?"
"Hale left it."
"The label too?"
"Yes."
Weller sat back.
"What does it mean?" Relf asked.
"That Eight has called the remaining members."
"Called them where?"
"For a close."
"Explain."
"The route shuts down. Records go. Accounts are emptied. Papers removed."
"And the people?"
Weller looked towards his solicitor.
Relf waited.
"Some leave," Weller said.
"What happens to the others?"
Another silence.
"Tom."
"Loose ends have to be dealt with."
Eleanor watched the interview through the glass.
Weller had not admitted killing anyone as part of a closure. He had not named Eight. Yet the words gave them a possible connection between the seven deaths Hale had described.
People who knew the routes. People who might retain papers or recognise names after everyone else had moved on.
Michael had photographed something newly fixed beneath an inscription. Bull had followed the system far enough to recognise Hart.
She wrote closure beside their names, then added a question mark.
Shortly before midnight, Martin telephoned.
"I think I've decoded the postcard."
Eleanor called Relf in from the adjoining room and put the telephone on speaker.
"Which key?" Relf asked.
"The Hong Kong inscription. The church in the photograph."
"We tried that," Eleanor said.
"In the ordinary order."
"What did you change?"
"The photograph is reversed."
She picked up the postcard.
Martin described the features he had checked against another image of the cathedral. Once he pointed them out, she could see the discrepancy.
"So you reversed the order of the references?"
"Yes. That gave me something readable."
"Tell us," Relf said.
Martin read it slowly.
SUN 2340 / 8 / LAMB
Eleanor wrote the groups on a clean sheet.
"Sunday, eleven forty," she said.
"And Eight," Relf added.
"If Hale told us the truth about the numbers."
"We'll test that too."
Relf looked at the last word.
"We identified Lamb before."
"A waterside location," Eleanor said. "For the message linked to Marianne Voss."
"We need to establish exactly where this one directs us."
Martin was still on the line.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"Writing on the picture itself. Very small. I enlarged it while checking the orientation."
Eleanor brought the card closer to the lamp.
"I can't read it."
"I'll send you the enlargement."
The image arrived while they were speaking.
Beneath the printed detail, faint words became visible.
BRING THE DOCTOR.
Relf read them without speaking.
Eleanor put down the postcard.
"They mean me."
"That's how it appears."
"Whoever sent it knew I was working with you."
"Yes."
She looked at the decoded line again.
"An appointment with Eight?"
"Or someone who wants us to think it is."
"And wants me there."
Relf asked Martin to preserve his working notes and send the full decoding. When the call ended, he gathered the postcard and the copied message.
"Where are you going?" Eleanor asked.
"To arrange the checks on Lamb."
She reached for her coat.
He stopped beside the door.
"That message doesn't oblige you to go."
"I know."
"We don't know why they want you."
"Then let's find out before Sunday."
Relf watched her for a moment.
"What about going home?"
"I'll speak to work in the morning."
He nodded and opened the door.
Eleanor followed him, leaving her packed suitcase upstairs.