The Number Plate

Three figures, a grey saloon, five doors.

Clara thought about it all day on the Thursday, between two batch analyses, and ended up understanding that she was tackling the problem from the wrong end.

You do not identify a car from three digits. You identify it from everything else.

A car stopped at the entrance to a village, on a Tuesday evening, engine running: she could do nothing with that, and she spent the day getting annoyed with it the way you get annoyed with a word on the tip of your tongue.