She breathed in the smell of MSG and marijuana and scanned the crowd. It was between sets, and when she glanced up at the stage across the sea of people she could see Owen and Dempsey changing over the equipment to prepare for the Venusians. Festival-goers strolled around, sat on the ground, lolled in the sun, drank beer, laughed and ate and smoked.

Mostly, they were everywhere, in crowds that blocked her view of everything except for the square metre directly in front of her, or the far-off stage. Blocked her view of her stalker.

The Chinese food stall wasn’t a good vantage point. She began to thread her way through the clumps of people, wishing she’d paid more attention to photographs of crowds when she’d researched the festival. She had the timetable of the day by heart, she had the plans of the entire site memorised, she knew the best quick escape routes from every point, she knew the isolated places where a killer would be likely to drag a potential victim.

But she hadn’t noticed what people would be wearing. For example, hats: there were more silly hats here than she’d ever seen in one place in her life. Viking hats, cowboy hats, tall stripy Cat-in-the-Hat hats. Although so many people seemed concerned to protect their heads against the sun, that didn’t extend to the rest of their bodies: bare-chested men and bikini-topped women sweated and glowed bright red.

Sophie brushed past a man (she thought) dressed as Spongebob Squarepants. Her supposedly inconspicuous outfit of jeans and a white vest top must stick out like a sore thumb. All her stalker would have to do would be to paint himself blue or something and she’d never notice him.

A familiar explosion of drums and guitar on stage told her that the Venusians’ set had begun. Her back was exposed but she couldn’t help glancing up to the stage. Her eyes went straight to Dominick, standing off to the right looking at his bass guitar as he played, seeming not to hear the cheers of the sunburnt crowd.

She knew that intensity he brought to music, because he brought it to her, too.

Now, however, was not the time to think about that. Now was the time to concentrate on the hunt and the chase, which was a good thing because even with all her faults as a detective, she was much better at investigation than relationships. She scanned the crowd again, again failing to spot any villains. She did see somebody peeing into a plastic cider bottle.