and nose.
‘I’d really rather go back to work,’ she said, ‘only the doctor said give it a week. I don’t know. What do you think?’
‘Why don’t you give her a ring and say you feel ready. You’re looking more yourself.’
‘Yes. I’ve been getting out a bit, to the shops and that.’
She led Kathy into the sitting room and they sat down. There were perhaps a dozen cards of condolence standing on the shelf beside the TV, including one large one with many signatures inside it.
‘From Kerri’s class,’ Alison said, following Kathy’s eyes. There was also a large bunch of red roses in a vase on the table.
‘Has Bruno been in touch today?’
‘Not today, no. Why?’
‘He’s admitted to us that he’d been planning with Kerri to help her go to her father for Christmas.’
‘Oh.’
Nothing much seemed to register on Alison Vlasich’s face, neither surprise nor anger.
‘You don’t look surprised, Alison.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I suppose I’m not.’
‘You suspected this?’
‘Not so that I could put it into words… but now you say it, yes, I think I knew, really.’
‘Aren’t you angry?’
She shook her head slowly, avoiding Kathy’s eyes. ‘No. He was trying to do the right thing, for Kerri, and for me.’
‘For you?’
‘He was worried about the way Kerri was behaving, the way she was talking to me. He felt it might be better for both of us if we had a break for a while, and if Kerri got away from some of the friends she was in with.’
‘What, Naomi and Lisa?’
‘No, the other ones, wild kids. He thought, if Kerri got away for a while it might change her attitude.’
There was something in this that Kathy felt she was missing. Something about the air of guilt with which Alison Vlasich told it, and the careful and protective way she and her brother-in-law gave out each piece of information about each other. And suddenly Kathy wondered if it was possible that there was something more to the relationship between them. Was this what had made Kerri so rebellious and difficult, and led her uncle, and perhaps in the end her mother, to want to let her go?
‘So you think Mr Verdi was really trying to help?’ Kathy asked, and saw Alison glance at the bunch of roses, then away quickly, with a touch of a smile in her tired eyes. ‘Oh yes. He was just trying to do the right thing, as an uncle.’
‘He seems very devoted to his wife.’
The smile vanished.‘Yes, very.’
Kathy said, ‘There are one or two loose ends we’re trying to tie up, Alison.’ She took the plastic bag with the hair ribbon from her bag and handed it to the other woman. ‘Do you recognise this at all?’
Little creases of worry formed around her eyes as Alison Vlasich took it and examined it carefully. ‘It’s the type that Kerri wore.’
‘Could it have belonged to her?’
‘I don’t think it could be hers, no. It’s blue, you see, and Kerri liked to wear red, and green especially, because she had green eyes.’ This memory had a sudden paralysing effect. She sat, immobile, as she tried to come to terms with it, and eventually Kathy reached forward and gently took the bag from her fingers.
‘I’m sorry, Alison,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to make a cup of tea or something?’
‘Oh… I didn’t think.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll do it.’
They went together into the little kitchen, where Alison put on the kettle.
‘Do you remember Kerri ever mentioning a man called Orr? Or the Professor, something like that? An elderly man who’s a bit of a regular at Silvermeadow.’
‘No, never.’
‘What about a younger man called Testor, Eddie Testor, who works in the leisure centre?’
‘Sorry, no. Are they suspects?’
‘They’re just part of a long list of names we’re trying to sort out, Alison. It doesn’t matter. Would you mind if I had another look in Kerri’s bedroom?’
Alison shrugged and turned away, setting out teacups on a flower-patterned plastic tray.
Kathy went through to the girl’s room, unchanged since their first visit. Kerri herself was beginning to become a cipher in all this, she thought, the victim, an increasingly remote figure, and the room, with its commonplace postcards and posters and small possessions, was a sobering reminder that she had been real, and ordinary. There was the table at which she would have sat, daydreaming over unopened homework books perhaps, and written letters to her father. On the table was a small hand-painted box, containing mementoes, trinkets and foreign coins. She opened the box and tipped the contents out onto the desktop. There were Italian lire, Belgian and French francs, Spanish pesetas, German pfennigs. There was one coin unlike the rest, very old, black and misshapen, its faces so worn smooth that it was impossible to make out any lettering. She lifted it up to the light as Alison came in to the room.
Kathy handed it to her. ‘Any idea what this is?’
‘No. Is it important?’
‘Probably not. Can I hang onto it for a day or two?’
‘You can have it as far as I’m concerned.’
They returned to the sitting room and sipped at their tea in silence for a while. Then Kathy said, ‘You have friends at work, Alison?’
‘Yes, well, work-mates, you know. I like the hospital. There’s always lots of things happening, lots of people around. You can’t feel too sorry for yourself there.’
‘PC Sangster mentioned to me that when this all started, you told her a story about an old woman in the hospital who thought she’d lost her daughter at Silvermeadow, do you remember?’
‘Yes. I feel embarrassed about that now. I think I got it mixed up. She explained that you hear lots of funny stories like that, that mean nothing.’
‘Yes, but all the same, we could check it again, just to be sure. Can you remember who the nurse was who heard her talking about it?’
‘No. It was one of those friend-of-a-friend stories.’
‘Could you ask around for me, do you think?’
She looked doubtful. ‘I could try, I suppose.’
Kathy could see that the idea of raising such a thing with the people at work troubled her, and said, ‘Just a name. Someone I could follow it up with.’
*
Robbie Orr was mortally outraged by Brock’s suggestion that the pornographic video tape belonged to him. They had found him and Harriet Rutter at Silvermeadow in Plaza Mexico again, this time watching an unveiling of next year’s new Ford among the haciendas and cacti, and she had insisted on accompanying him to Hornchurch Street. They had sat her in a waiting area, no more than a row of seats in the corridor near a temperamental coffee machine, looking out of place and out of sorts, while Orr was taken to an interview room.
‘How dare you insinuate, sir,’ he bellowed, eyes blazing, ‘that I am the owner of such trash!’
‘It’s not a criminal offence,’ Brock said calmly, thinking that Orr’s outrage seemed rather excessive, unless he understood the context of the find, and the construction that might be put upon it. ‘It’s just that we’d like to establish whose it is. It was found in the site hut, in your filing cabinet, among your reports and papers.’
‘Nonsense!’ Orr roared. ‘Impossible!’
‘It’s true.’
‘Well, someone else has put it there.’
‘Who?’
‘One of your people perhaps! I’ve read about this- police fabricating evidence when they run out of ideas. Well, let me assure you that you’ve taken on the wrong man this time, sir. I have a reputation for probity, you will
