Carswell, a statistician from another department assigned to the matter, begins noting a range of bizarre and seemingly irrelevant links between many of the kidnap victims. A break suddenly appears when Housemartin, one of Jay's high-ranking operatives, is arrested in Shoreditch for impersonating a police officer, but the protagonist and Murray, another operative assigned to the case, arrive at the police station only to discover he has been murdered in his cell. Information from the arrest enables WOOC(P) and the police to storm one of Jay's safe-houses, but it has been abandoned. To help with the administration of the department, the protagonist is assigned an assistant, Jean, a beautiful young woman towards whom he begins to develop romantic feelings. Dalby re-emerges, and reveals intelligence suggesting that Jay's operations will interfere with an American neutron bomb test in the Pacific.