The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

on form when he was under attack; might as well make the most of it. It was what his life was about: triumphing over persecution. Not hard to find low-level persecution being beamed your way if you looked hard enough.

Milward consulted her notes. ‘Aidan Seed. The picture-framer. ’

‘The Aidan Seed who killed Gemma Crowther. The only Aidan Seed I know, the one I’ve been talking about until I’m hoarse.’ Simon couldn’t resist adding, ‘If I knew of more than one Aidan Seed, I’d have mentioned it. To avoid confusion. Show me your photograph.’

‘I will,’ said Milward. ‘You were right about Seed’s car, incidentally. It’s parked outside Gemma Crowther’s house.’

‘It’ll stay there,’ Simon told her. ‘Seed won’t be back for it.’ He heard Charlie sigh. She hated it when he played prophet. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say he’s still in London: easiest place in the world to melt into a crowd and disappear. Plus, he’ll think it more likely you’ll look for him on his home turf or, at the other extreme, ports and airports, St Pancras-’

‘Enough,’ Milward cut him off. ‘Assuming you’re right and Seed’s our killer, why would he have left his car at the scene? One, he’d have needed it to get away, and two, why leave evidence of his presence when he could have taken the car and we might never have known he was there?’

Simon counted them off on his fingers. ‘One, he didn’t need the car if he was heading into town-no one drives into central London. We know Seed doesn’t-I saw proof of that on Monday night. Check CCTV footage between Ruskington Road and Highgate underground-he’ll have gone for the tube within half an hour of killing Gemma Crowther, or jumped on a bus on Muswell Hill Road.’

‘Simon,’ Charlie muttered, ‘you don’t know that.’

‘Two, I agree the car’s evidence of his presence at the scene, which could mean one of two things. Either he’s hoping you’ll have him down as missing, possibly also dead, as likely to be another of the killer’s victims as to be the killer himself…’

‘Bit of a stretch, isn’t it?’ Milward frowned.

‘I’m keener on the second possibility: he knew that as soon as Gemma Crowther turned up murdered, he’d be high up on the list of suspects whether you found his car or not.’

Dunning rubbed his nose. Milward looked perky again-a contented piglet.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ said Simon. ‘There’s a link between Aidan Seed and Gemma Crowther. Which you wouldn’t have found as quickly as you did if I hadn’t given you Seed’s name.’

Silence from the other side of the table.

‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome. How long are you going to wait before searching Seed’s car? Or have you impounded it already?’

‘Let’s not waste words,’ said Milward. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything. I’m interested to hear your thoughts, though.’

Simon had plenty. ‘If there’s a link between Seed and Crowther, is it one that supplies Seed with a motive for murder?’

Milward ran her tongue over her lower lip before saying carefully, ‘Let’s suppose, hypothetically, that it were.’

‘Crowther can’t have known,’ said Simon. ‘She knew him as Len Smith, she invited him back to her house. She didn’t know about whatever it was that linked them and gave him a reason to want her dead. Her boyfriend didn’t know either-only Seed knew.’

‘Cloud-cuckoo-land,’ said Dunning impatiently, turning the Vegas croupier eyes on Simon, eyes that had seen it all before: the worst humanity had to offer. ‘Either Gemma knew Aidan Seed or she didn’t. If she knew him, not much point in him changing his name to fool her. If she didn’t know him, why bother?’

‘You can do better than that,’ said Simon. ‘Or maybe you can’t. It’s possible to know a name but not the face that goes with it.’

‘We’ve no reason to think Gemma knew Aidan Seed’s name, and therefore no reason to suppose he would change it,’ said Dunning. ‘That’s my point one.’ He tapped his thumb in a parody of counting. ‘Point two: even if Aidan Seed and Len Smith are one and the same, and that’s a big if, how do you know Gemma Crowther and Stephen Elton, her boyfriend, weren’t in on the secret?’ The look he threw at Milward suggested he’d happily take an answer from her if Simon couldn’t provide one. ‘Point three: you saw Aidan Seed at Friends House on Monday night-that doesn’t mean he’s Len Smith. They could be two separate people-they might both have been there.’

‘You’ve found a link between Seed and your victim,’ Simon directed his reply to Milward. ‘Seed’s car was parked outside her house. Not Len Smith’s. Seed was pretending to be a Quaker to get close to Crowther in order to kill her.’

‘Unless you were the one he lied to,’ said Dunning. ‘You said when he told you he only believed in the material world, Ruth Bussey was listening.’

‘Yeah. So?’

‘Did you know Ruth Bussey’s parents are devout evangelical Christians?’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie.

‘And that she doesn’t speak to them or see them, hasn’t for several years?’

‘Yes.’

‘No,’ Simon said again. Making Dunning’s day, no doubt.

Why the fuck hadn’t Charlie told him? Probably she’d figured Ruth Bussey’s family background had nothing to do with anything. There had been too much to talk about last night and this morning, not least whether the two of them had fucked up their careers beyond all repair. It wasn’t much comfort that they hadn’t been officially suspended. Neither of them was wanted back at work for as long as they were ‘helping’ DC Dunning with his inquiries; anything more official would wait until the results of those inquiries were in.

‘If you had a girlfriend who’d turned her back on her religious background, mightn’t you lie to her if you wanted to hang out with Quakers?’ Dunning asked. ‘Even more so if you were one of them, or thinking of signing up?’

‘Signing up?’ said Milward. ‘It’s not the army, Neil.’

‘So you’re taking an interest in Ruth Bussey,’ said Simon. ‘I didn’t think you’d even registered the name. Do you know where she is? Far away from Seed: that’s where you want her to be. He’s dangerous, and he’s no Quaker. He was playing a part. Phoney name, phoney faith. And why Len Smith? Is there a Len Smith in Seed’s past? Have you looked?’

‘No, we haven’t,’ said Dunning tonelessly. When he spoke, Milward looked ill at ease, and vice versa. Was it a competitive thing?

‘Did anyone apart from Seed have a reason to want Crowther dead?’ Simon asked.

‘I can’t answer that,’ said Milward, tipping Simon an easily deniable nod. Had he imagined it?

‘The boyfriend, Stephen Elton-why didn’t he go home with Crowther after the Quaker Quest meeting? They lived together. If he stayed behind to clear up, wouldn’t Crowther and Len Smith have waited for him, so that they could all go back together? Were Seed and Crowther having an affair? Did Elton find out?’

Milward folded her arms, waiting for the questions to stop.

‘What was Stephen Elton doing between the end of Quaker Quest and midnight? It wouldn’t take him two hours to clear away some chairs and get back to Muswell Hill at that time of night.’

‘Wouldn’t it?’

‘You don’t know where he was all that time,’ said Simon. ‘You like him as a suspect-it’s usually domestic if it’s not drug- or gang-related. So he also had a motive to kill Crowther, did he?’

‘Excuse him,’ Charlie said to Dunning. ‘He gets carried away.’

‘I’m interested in hearing all you can tell me about Seed.’ Milward had started to behave as if she and Simon were alone in the room. ‘You’ve met him. We haven’t. Forget about his car being outside Gemma’s house, forget about his being at Quaker Quest and using a false name-what can you tell me about him as a person? Is he a killer?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Charlie. ‘Simon doesn’t know.’ Was there a note of satisfaction in her voice? ‘He told us both he’d killed a woman who’s still alive. His girlfriend seems intermittently scared of him, though she’s insisted several times that he wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else. We’ve told you all this…’

‘I believe Seed’s a killer,’ said Simon. ‘All right, I don’t know. But he described a