“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Annie said.

“No one’s sorrier than I am,” said Whitaker.

“Except Janet Taylor.”

“Then she shouldn’t have killed Terence Payne.”

“What the hell do you know? You weren’t there, in that cellar, with your partner bleeding to death on the floor, a dead girl staked out on a mattress. You didn’t have just seconds to react to a man coming at you with a machete. This is a bloody farce! It’s politics, is all it is.”

“Calm down, Annie,” said Whitaker.

Annie stood up and paced, arms folded. “Why should I? I don’t feel calm. This woman has been going through hell. I provoked her into changing her statement because I thought it would go better for her in the long run than saying she couldn’t remember. How does this make me look?”

“Is that all you’re concerned about? How it makes you look?”

“Of course it’s not.” Annie lowered herself slowly back into the chair. She still felt flushed and angry, her breath coming in sharp gasps. “But it makes me look like a liar. It makes it look as if I tricked her. I don’t like that.”

“You were only doing your job.”

“Only doing my job. Only obeying orders. Right. Thanks. That makes me feel a whole lot better.”

“Look, we might be able to get a bit of leeway here, Annie, but there’ll have to be a trial. It’ll all have to be a matter of public record. Aboveboard. There’ll be no sweeping it under the table.”

“That’s not what I had in mind, anyway. What leeway?”

“I don’t suppose Janet Taylor would plead guilty to murder.”

“Damn right she wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t advise her to.”

“It’s not exactly a matter of advising. Besides, that’s not your job. What do you think she would plead guilty to?”

“Excusable homicide.”

“It wasn’t self-defense. Not when she crossed the line and delivered those final blows after Payne was rendered incapable of defending himself or of attacking her further.”

“What, then?”

“Voluntary manslaughter.”

“How long would she have to serve?”

“Between eighteen months and three years.”

“That’s still a long time, especially for a copper in jail.”

“Not as long as John Hadleigh.”

“Hadleigh shot a kid in the back with a shotgun.”

“Janet Taylor beat a defenseless man about the head with a police baton, causing his death.”

“He was a serial killer.”

“She didn’t know that at the time.”

“But he came at her with a machete!”

“And after she’d disarmed him, she used more force than necessary to subdue him, causing his death. Annie, it doesn’t matter that he was a serial killer. It wouldn’t matter if he’d been Jack the bloody Ripper.”

“He’d cut her partner. She was upset.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad to hear she wasn’t calm, cool and collected when she did it.”

“You know what I mean. There’s no need for sarcasm.”

“Sorry. I’m sure the judge and jury will take the whole picture into account, her state of mind.”

Annie sighed. She felt sick. As soon as this farce was over she was getting the hell out of Complaints and Discipline, back to real police work, catching the villains.

“All right,” she said. “What next?”

“You know what next, Annie. Find Janet Taylor. Arrest her, take her to the police station and charge her with voluntary manslaughter.”

“Someone asking to see you, sir.”

Why was the fresh-faced PC who popped his head around the door of Banks’s temporary office at Millgarth smirking? Banks wondered. “Who is it?” he asked.

“You’d better see for yourself, sir.”

“Can’t someone else deal with it?”

“She specifically asked to see someone in charge of the missing girls case, sir. Area Commander Hartnell’s in Wakefield with the ACC, and DCI Blackstone’s out. That leaves you, sir.”

Banks sighed. “All right. Show her in.”

The PC smirked again and disappeared, leaving a distinct sense of smirk still in the air, rather like the Cheshire cat’s smile. A few moments later, Banks saw why.

She tapped very softly on his door and pushed it open so slowly that it creaked on its hinges, then she appeared before him. All five feet nothing of her. She was anorexically thin, and the harsh red of her lipstick and nail polish contrasted with the almost translucent paleness of her skin; her delicate features looked as if they were made out of porcelain carefully glued or painted on her moon-shaped face. Clutching a gold-lamé handbag, she was wearing a bright green crop top, which stopped abruptly just below her breasts – no more than goose pimples despite the push-up bra – and showed a stretch of pale, bare midriff and a belly-button ring, below which came a black PVS micro-skirt. She wore no tights, and her pale thin legs stretched bare down to the knee-highs and chunky platform heels that made her walk as if she were on stilts. Her expression showed fear and nervousness as her astonishingly lovely cobalt-blue eyes roved restlessly about the stark office.

Banks would have put her down for a heroin-addicted prostitute, but he could see no needle tracks on her arms. That didn’t mean she wasn’t addicted to something, and it certainly didn’t mean that she wasn’t a prostitute. There are more ways of getting drugs into your system than through a needle. Something about her reminded him of Chief Constable Riddle’s daughter, Emily, but it quickly passed. She bore more resemblance to the famous heroin-chic models of a few years ago.

“Are you the one?” she asked.

“What one?”

“The one in charge. I asked for the one in charge.”

“That’s me. For my sins,” said Banks.

“What?”

“Never mind. Sit down.” She sat, slowly and suspiciously, eyes still flicking restlessly around the office, as if she were afraid someone was going to appear and strap her into her chair. It had obviously taken her a lot of courage to come this far. “Can I get you some tea or coffee?” Banks asked.

She looked surprised at the offer. “Er… yes. Please. Coffee would be nice.”

“How do you take it?”

“What?”

“The coffee? How do you want it?”

“Milk and plenty of sugar,” she said, as if unaware that it came any other way.

Banks phoned for two coffees – black for him – and turned back to her. “What’s your name?”

“Candy.”

“Really?”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. Nothing, Candy. Ever been in a police station before?”

Fear flashed across Candy’s delicate features. “Why?”

“Just asking. You seem ill at ease.”

She managed a weak smile. “Well, yes… Maybe I am. A little bit.”

“Relax. I won’t eat you.”

Wrong choice of words, Banks realized, when he saw the lascivious, knowing look in her eye. “I mean I won’t harm you,” he corrected himself.

The coffee arrived, carried in by the same, still-smirking PC. Banks was abrupt with him, resenting the kind of smug arrogance that the smirk implied.

“Okay, Candy,” said Banks after the first sip. “Care to tell me what it’s all about?”

“Can I smoke?” She opened her handbag.

“Sorry,” said Banks. “No smoking anywhere in the station; otherwise I’d have one with you.”

“Maybe we could go outside?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Banks said. “Let’s just get on with it.”

“It’s just that I really like a ciggie with my coffee. I always have a smoke with my coffee.”

“Not this time. Why have you come to see me, Candy?”

She fidgeted awhile longer, a sulky expression on her face, then shut the handbag and crossed her legs, clipping the underside of the desk with her platform and rattling it so much that Banks’s coffee spilled over the rim of his mug and made a gathering stain on the pile of papers before him.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s nothing.” Banks took out his handkerchief and wiped it up. “You were going to tell me why you’re here.”