The Third Twin by Ken Follett Page A

then check items on the menu based on Lisa’s comments: hair short, eyes light, nose straight.
    Lisa went on: “Kind of a square chin, no beard or mustache … How am I doing?”
    Mish clicked again and an entire face came on the main screen. It showed a white man in his thirties with regular features, and it might have been any one of a thousand guys. Mish turned the computer around so that Lisa could see the screen. “Now, we’re going to change the face bit by bit. First, I’ll show you this face with a whole series of different foreheads and hairlines. Just say yes, no, or maybe. Ready?”
    “Sure.”
    Mish clicked the mouse. The face on the screen changed, and suddenly the forehead had a receding hairline. “No,” Lisa said.
    She clicked again. This time the face had a straight fringe like an old-fashioned Beatle haircut. “No.”
    The next haircut was wavy, and Lisa said: “That’s more like it. But I think he had a part.”
    The next was curly. “Better still,” Lisa said. “This is better than the last one. But the hair is too dark.”
    Mish said: “After we’ve looked at them all, we’ll come back to the ones you liked and pick the best. When we have the whole face we can carry on improving it using the retouch feature: making the hair darker or lighter, moving the part, making the whole face older or younger.”
    Jeannie was fascinated, but this was going to take an hour or more, and she had work to do. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Are you okay, Lisa?”
    “I’m fine,” Lisa said, and Jeannie could tell it was the truth. Maybe it would be better for Lisa to get involved in hunting the man down. She caught Mish’s eye and saw a flash of triumph in her expression. Was I wrong, Jeannie wondered, to be hostile to Mish and defensive of Lisa? Mish was certainly sympa. She had all the right words. Just the same, her priority was not to help Lisa, but to catch the rapist. Lisa still needed a true friend, someone whose main concern was for her.
    “I’ll call you,” Jeannie said to her.
    Lisa hugged Jeannie. “I can’t thank you enough for staying with me,” she said.
    Mish held out her hand and said: “Good to meet you.”
    Jeannie shook hands. “Good luck,” she said. “I hope you catch him.”
    “So do I,” said Mish.

6
    S TEVE PARKED IN THE LARGE STUDENT PARKING LOT IN THE southwest corner of the hundred-acre Jones Falls campus. It was a few minutes before ten o’clock, and the campus was thronged with students in light summer clothes on their way to the first lecture of the day. As he walked across the campus he looked out for the tennis player. The chances of seeing her were slender, he knew, but he could not help staring at every tall dark-haired woman to see if she had a nose ring.
    The Ruth W. Acorn Psychology Building was a modern four-story structure in the same red brick as the older, more traditional college buildings. He gave his name in the lobby and was directed to the laboratory.
    In the next three hours he underwent more tests than he could have imagined possible. He was weighed, measured, and fingerprinted. Scientists, technicians, and students photographed his ears, tested the strength of his grip, and assessed his startle reflex by showing him pictures of burn victims and mutilated bodies. He answered questions about his leisure-time interests, his religious beliefs, his girlfriends, and his job aspirations. He had to state if he could repair a doorbell, whether he considered himself well groomed, would he spank his children, and did certain music make him think of pictures or changing color patterns. But no one fold him why he had been selected for the study.
    He was not the only subject. Also around the lab were two little girls and a middle-aged man wearing cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a western shirt. At midday they all gathered in a lounge with couches and a TV, and had pizza and Cokes for lunch. It was then Steve realized there were in fact two