The thin white body of the woman floated face down in the dark water. Her hands drifted weightlessly against the algae-slick brick side of the canal as though feeling for a door on which to knock, a door that was not there. The short crop of bleach-blonde hair was muddied by aquatic weeds, a braid of green snaking down her bare spine and into the discoloured cotton underwear that lay translucent against her skin. On either side of her torso, just visible from above as the water ruffled softly...