'Positive.'
'Well, she knows you.'
'She's lying.'
'I don't think so.'
'That foreign tart, you believe her rather than me?' Daines made a scoffing sound in his throat. 'She's probably been lying about Zoukas as well. About seeing him stab the girl.'
'Why would she do that?'
'Who knows?' A smile slipped across his face and disappeared. 'A word of advice. One professional to another.' Reaching out quickly, he took hold of her arm. 'Don't make me your enemy.'
'Is that a threat?'
'If need be.'
Shaking him off, she stepped away and as she did so, the pub door was pushed open and Resnick stepped outside. Daines nodded curtly in his direction, gave Lynn one final look, and walked briskly away.
'What was all that about?' Resnick asked.
She gave him the gist of the conversation as they were walking home, north from the city centre and then cutting right on to the Woodborough Road.
Resnick said, after listening, 'You have to wonder what it is he has to hide.'
'Something personal? You think that's what it is?'
'I don't know. This operation, it's pretty big. International. If he can help pull it off, his career'll be made. Maybe he thinks anything that makes that possible is justified. And the last thing he'll want is for things to come out in the open before he's good and ready.'
'I don't like it,' Lynn said.
'You don't like him.'
'They're not the same.'
'I know.'
They walked on, past the mosque and up towards Gorseyclose Gardens and Alexandra Park.
'You could always report it,' Resnick said. 'Take it to the ACC if necessary.'
Lynn shook her head. 'He'd just deny every word.'
One of the cats ran along the pavement to greet them, the others were waiting on the mat beside the door. Resnick turned first one key in the lock and then the other. It struck cold when they stepped inside, the heating turned off too soon. Even so, it was good to be home.
It was a quarter to three on the following afternoon, Tuesday, before Dan Schofield confessed to killing both Christine and Susan Foley, admitting through his solicitor to manslaughter while the balance of his mind was disturbed.
'Guts enough to stab a woman to death with a bloody kitchen knife and smother a little kiddie while she slept,' as the SIO put it, 'but not man enough to own up to what he's done without hiding behind the skirts of some bloody shrink.'
It had still to be seen if that ploy would succeed.
Lynn was barely back at her desk when the phone rang. It was Alexander Bucur calling from London, his voice quick and nervous, words skidding together: two men had come to the flat on the previous evening looking for Andreea. He had told them she wasn't there, but they had forced their way in nevertheless and searched. When they asked him where she was, he had told them she was working but that he didn't know where. They would be back, they told him. They would be back.
'And Andreea?'
'When I told her, she panicked. It was all I could do to stop her grabbing her things and running there and then. She's terrified.'
'I'll come down,' Lynn said impulsively. 'Talk to her.'
'You're sure?'
'Yes, of course.'
She looked at her watch. If she hurried, she could catch the 15:38 London train. Just time enough to poke her head round Resnick's office door before legging it to the station.
'Charlie, I'm off down to London. Something's come up.'
'What d'you mean, come up?'
'Alexander Bucur-the guy Andreea's been living with. In Leyton. He just called me. Someone's been round looking for Andreea. Sounds like the same guy who threatened her before. She's frightened out of her wits.'
'I don't see-'
'Charlie. I've got to run. Be back this evening, okay?'
Resnick raised his hand. 'Ring me.'
'I'll call you from the train.'
A moment, and she was gone.
Bucur met her at the front door. A black eye, in the process of turning from mauve to yellow, marred his otherwise-perfect face.
'What happened?' Lynn asked.
'This? Last night. When I told them I didn't know where Andreea was working, I don't think they believed me.' It made him wince to smile. 'Come in.'
She followed him upstairs and into the flat. The look on his face told her before he said the words. 'She's gone!'
'Where?'
'I don't know. Cornwall, perhaps. I don't know.'
'Tell me what happened.'
'I went out not long after I phoned you. Just to buy milk and a few other things, that was all. She seemed to have calmed down. When I got back, she'd gone. Her rucksack, too. I tried her mobile, but it was switched off.' He sighed. 'I'm sorry.'
'It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself.'
Bucur cleared a bundle of papers from one of the chairs and set them on the table amongst all the books and other paraphernalia.
'Please. Sit. I'll make some tea.'
While she waited, Lynn cast her eye over the formidable piles of books. The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch. Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier. Aldo Rossi. Jane Jacobs. Mies van der Rohe.
'Architecture,' Lynn said, when he came back into the room. 'That's what you're studying?'
'Yes. Architecture. Urban design.'
'Sounds interesting.'
'Interesting, yes. But studying as I am, many years.'
The tea was hot and strong.
'I hope you don't think I am wasting your time, worrying for nothing.'
'Not at all.'
'The first time I phoned you, you were engaged, so I called the man who was here with you.'
'Daines.'
'Yes, his number was in the room where Andreea had been sleeping. A card. But he was not there, either. So I made a call to you again, and you answered. I hope it is all right.'
Lynn assured him that it was. 'When you came back and Andreea wasn't here, were there any signs of a struggle? Anything to suggest she'd been taken against her will?'
'No. It was just like this. The bedroom-a few things here and there, but really, nothing.'
'She left of her own accord, then?'
'It's what I want to believe. But I am not sure.'
'And Cornwall, if she did go off on her own, you think that's where she went?'
'Yes, perhaps. She had spoken of going there later in the year, perhaps to work.'
'Which part of Cornwall? Do you know that?'
'Yes, I think… Sennen-Sennen something.'
