Steven knew, about the police, I mean – but he just stopped. Following me. Coming round. I didn't see him again. Not after that. Not once.' Her eyes lowered. 'I assume he'd met someone else.'
'I'm sorry,' Karen said, 'to make you go through all this.'
'It's all right,' Estelle said. And then: 'Steven, has he… has he done something?'
'We don't know,' Karen said.
'He has, hasn't he? He's done this to someone else.'
'We really don't know.'
Estelle looked towards the window; before long it would be dark outside. 'The children will be home soon.'
Karen got to her feet, Elder following suit.
'I'm sorry for bringing all that back,' Karen said at the door. 'I really am.'
Estelle smiled the best smile she could. 'I hope it's done some good.'
'I'm sure it has. Thank you again.'
She stood there, watching them go. Jake and Amber would soon be chasing each other to the door. Biscuits and a warm drink to keep out the cold. How was school today and then probably a video before tea.
Karen stopped alongside her car, keys in her hand. Her face had lost its glow. 'I need a drink and I don't want to sit in a pub on my own. Maybe we could stop and pick up a bottle of Scotch?'
'How about Irish?' Elder said. 'I've got some back at the flat.'
'Okay, I'll follow you.'
They drove along Whetstone High Road towards North Finchley, the traffic congealing around them, Elder wondering why Estelle's story had affected Karen as much as he thought it had.
25
'Jesus!' Karen said. 'Don't you have any heating in here?'
Elder smiled. 'It's that underfloor thing. Comes on automatically, as far as I can tell.'
'No thermostat? Override?'
'What looks like a thermostat in the bedroom. Doesn't seem to work.'
Karen looked at him, eyebrow raised. 'How about the living room? Is it any warmer in there?'
'I doubt it, but I'm not sure. I seem to spend most of my time in here.'
In the kitchen were a dining table and two chairs and little else. Karen wandered off to check the living room, while Elder rinsed two glasses and wiped them dry. Still wearing her coat, Karen returned and looked idly along the kitchen shelves.
'This is how it works, then? They set you up in one of these places, what, rent free?'
Elder nodded.
'Plus salary?'
'Some kind of daily rate.'
'Overtime?'
'We didn't discuss it.'
'Maybe I should apply for early retirement now.'
'What? Before you make superintendent?'
'Yeah. And hell freezes over.'
Elder was holding the bottle of Jameson's over Karen's glass. 'Say when.'
'Say it for me.'
He poured them both a good shot, considered, then poured a little more.
'Cheers.'
They clinked glasses and stepped back.
'You want to sit?'
'Why not?'
The chairs were made from some kind of moulded plastic, less uncomfortable than they looked, though it was a close thing.
'It really got to you, didn't it?' Elder said. 'This afternoon.'
Karen shrugged. 'Kind of thing you hear all the time.'
Elder thought there was more to it than that, but he let it ride.
'How come you drink this?' Karen said. 'And not Scotch?'
'Habit, I suppose.'
Karen tried a little more. 'If you had to drink it blindfold, you think you could tell the difference?'
'I doubt it.'
'Kennet,' she said a few moments later, 'what do you reckon? You reckon he's our man?'
Elder made a face. 'We've got no forensics, nothing that places him at the scene.'
Karen nodded. 'Plus the little matter that he was still in Spain when Maddy was killed.'
'You said that had been checked?'
'We saw a print-out from the airline – electronic ticketing, isn't that what it's called? But did we go rifling through flight manifests and so on? No, I don't think so.' She sighed and shook her head and drank some more whiskey. 'We fucked up, right?'
'We don't know that.'
'No,' laughing despite herself. 'Not yet. But chances are looking pretty good.'
'Like I say, we don't know it was Kennet at all.'
'We know what he does when someone tries to walk away.'
'That was different, they were living together.'
'I'll kill you, that's what he said.'
'Situations like that, stakes are raised, people say that all the time. Doesn't mean they're going to follow through.'
Karen looked at him. 'Have you?'
'Ever said, I'll kill you?'
'To someone you were involved with, yes.'
'No. No, I honestly don't think I have.' But he'd thought it, more than once. Joanne. Martyn Miles. When first he'd learned the truth.
'Kennet didn't just say it,' Karen said. 'He beat her up. Put her in hospital.'
'That doesn't mean he killed Maddy.'
'You're backing away from this now?'
'No. Not at all. I just think we shouldn't get too -'
'What? Too excited?'
'Yes.'
'Chance would be a fine thing.' She drained her glass and slid it across the table towards him. 'Tunnel vision, that's what you're supposed to guard against, isn't it? When you're leading an investigation. I've been to bloody lectures on it, for God's sake.'
'It isn't easy,' Elder said. 'Everything starts to point one way, you get dragged along.'
'Frank,' pointing her finger, 'don't you fucking patronise me.'
'I'm sorry, I wasn't. I didn't mean to.'
Karen held his gaze.
'I held on to an idea for a dozen years once,' Elder said. 'Case I'd been working on. Girl who'd disappeared. Sixteen. So certain I was right about who'd murdered her I almost got my own daughter killed in the process. And I was wrong. Couldn't have been more so.'
Karen didn't speak straight away. 'Whoever it was, killed the girl, you found them in the end?'
'She's wasn't dead. She was alive. The other side of the world.'
'And your daughter? How's she now?'
