Chapter 19 Ninth day, Wednesday

The Evening Standard is London's only evening paper, with distribution throughout London and most of the South East.Skinner was lucky.There wasn't much news that night, so the Evening Standard put a sketchy portrait of the staring man on its front page. "Do you know who this person is?" asks the caption above the image, followed by a note directing readers to read the details elsewhere. The report roughly described the man's age, height, build, hair and eye color, clothing worn at the time of the attack, and presumed that the man had previously visited a local cemetery and placed a bouquet at Mavis Hall's grave, and then on his way back to the bus station when he was attacked.Most telling are the thighs that were comminuted fractured some twenty years ago, and the characteristic limping when walking.

Burns and Skinner waited hopefully all day, but no one called.Neither did the second day, and still nothing on the third day.Hope gradually dashed. The Coroner's Court was formally opened and adjourned shortly thereafter.The coroner rejected the city's request for a burial in an unmarked grave, fearing that relatives of the deceased could claim it. "It's a strange and tragic phenomenon," Skinner told Burns on the way back to the police station. "You can live in a big, nasty city like London, surrounded by millions of people, but if If you don't socialize with people, no one will know you exist, and the cripple must be that way."

"Somebody's going to know," Burns said, "some co-worker, some neighbor. Maybe out. August, nasty August."