'You were working in that building?'
'You know I was.'
'At the time of Maddy Birch's murder.'
'No.'
'Think again.'
'No, I told you. I was on holiday.'
'You came home early. We've already established that.'
'That doesn't mean I went back to work. I was still on holiday.'
'But you did go back, didn't you? On the Thursday morning. The morning after Maddy was killed.'
'Did I? Who says I did?'
'The man you work with.'
'He could be mistaken.'
'I think not. I think you went to work that morning at eight o'clock sharp. Scarcely gave anyone the time of day. Straight up the scaffolding and into the roof, taking your tool bag with you.'
'I'd hardly leave it behind.'
'Then you were there?'
'Sometime, yes. If you say so, yes.'
'Thursday, twenty-seventh of November.'
'I don't know.'
Karen leaned closer. She could smell the sweat seeping through his pores. 'Come on, Steve, you've had a bust-up with your girlfriend, you're back early from Spain, no need to go into work, you could sit at home with your feet up, watch TV, wander down the bookies, out a few quid on the three-thirty, but instead there you go, first chance you get.'
'There was a job wanting finishing, we were way behind. It's called having a sense of responsibility, maybe you've heard of it?'
'Big on responsibility, are you?'
'I like to think so, yes.'
'Taking responsibility.'
'Yes.'
'Then why don't you take responsibility for this?' Karen had picked up the knife again and was holding it in front of Kennet's face.
'I tell you what,' Kennet said. 'You show me some proof that says conclusively that knife is mine, I'll take responsibility for it? Fair enough?'
Without taking her eyes from him, Karen leaned back against her chair.
Nearing four in the afternoon, not so far off dark, Elder had two brief telephone conversations with Katherine, both interrupted, neither satisfactory. Except that she was okay. Rob Summers was okay. He was still with the police, talking, sorting things out. She didn't know what was happening to Bland and his mate, except that she hoped they'd be put away for a very long time.
'I'll come up and see you,' Elder said at the end of the second call.
'When?'
'I don't know. As soon as I can.'
How many times had he said that when she was growing up? Not now, Katherine. Not now, okay. But soon.
Framlingham had been in and out of a string of meetings, in some of which Elder had also been involved, while during others he had been left to kick his heels. There had been sightings of Mallory, unconfirmed, on the ferry from Folkestone to Calais, boarding a flight at Heathrow bound for Miami, buying a Frappuccino in Starbucks on the Avenue de l'Opera in Paris.
'Go home, Frank,' Framlingham said eventually. 'Go home and get some rest. We've done all we can for today.'
56
It was a grey end-of-January day: one of those days that promises nothing save that, sooner or later, it will be over. Elder had lain awake since five, thinking, trying not to think. By six-thirty he was showered, dressed, had drunk orange juice and two cups of coffee, walked down the street to buy a paper and bought three; he read slightly differing versions of Repton's murder, more wishful thinking than factual statement, the few known certainties spun together with fantasies involving gangland executions and Turkish drug barons exacting revenge. Only one report, as an aside, mentioned that Repton had been one of the officers involved in the police operation, three months before, in which a high-profile criminal, James William Grant, had been shot and killed. Enough to leave a taint of retribution hanging in the breeze.
Head and heart, Elder thought, as he shrugged on his coat.
Head and heart.
He was at Framlingham's office well before eight and Framlingham was there before him, silver thermos on his desk. Elder suspected he had been there all night.
'Take a look at this, Frank,' he said, handing Elder a fax.
The blurred image of two girls stared back up at him: school uniform, white blouses, striped ties not quite tight to the neck, faked smiles.
'Jill and Judy Tremlett. Disappeared from home, May seventeenth, '96. Last seen at a nightclub in Colchester, friend's eighteenth birthday. Some reports have them leaving with an older woman, never been identified. According to others, one of the girls, Judy, complained of feeling sick and went outside for some fresh air. Jill went after her. When their father arrived to pick them up, just before midnight as arranged, they were nowhere to be seen.
'Usual procedure followed. Everyone at the club was questioned, the route home searched in case they'd started walking, thumbing a lift; drivers checked. It seems as if for a time the father was in the frame, but it came to nothing. No personal belongings were ever found, no shoes, no clothing, nothing. No sight or sign. They were seventeen.'
Elder was seeing again the grainy video images, remembering Lynette Drury's words. Boys and girls, all hand-picked, paid for. And George, he was in the thick of it, wasn't he? Lapping it up. Girls, especially; he liked girls, did George. Two or three at a time. Young girls. An older woman, Framlingham had said, never been identified.
'There are better pictures,' Framlingham said, nodding towards the fax. 'I'm having them biked across. In case you're not sure.'
Elder shook his head. 'I'm sure. It's them.'
Framlingham sighed. 'Slater's old place out at Manningtree. I've spoken to the secretary of the Foundation. Seems they use the place for courses mainly. Alternative medicine, holistic therapy, that kind of thing.' He looked at his watch. 'Should have a search warrant within the hour.'
'You think that's where they are?' Elder said.
'It's a start, Frank. It's a start.'
Karen Shields had spoken to her boss, urged, pulled strings; the technology was there but not everyone had the same access, not every case was given the same priority, justified the same expense.
'She was one of ours,' Karen kept saying. 'Remember that. One of ours.'
By mid-morning what she needed was up on the computer: a three-dimensional reconstruction of Maddy
