Yvonne sensed that now was the time, while he was distracted. She went through it quickly in her head first, visualizing herself do it. She would have to be fast, and that would be the hardest part. She was still disoriented because of the hash he had drugged her with. She would have only one chance. Get to the door. Get outside fast. How did it open? Yale lock. In or out? In. So twist to the left, pull and run. There would be people out there, in the street, in the park. It was still light outside. She could make it. Twist to the left, pull and run.

When McGarrity was at the far end of the room, by the window, his back turned to her, Yvonne summoned up all her energy and made a dash for the door. She didn’t know if he was after her or not. She bounced off the walls down the hallway, reached the door, twisted the Yale and pulled. It opened. Daylight flooded her like warm honey. She stumbled a bit on the top step but ran down the garden path and out of the gate as fast as she could. She didn’t look round, didn’t even listen for his footsteps following her. She didn’t know where she was running. All she knew was that she had to run, run, run for her life.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Detective Superintendent Gervaise had called another progress meeting in the incident room, as the boardroom had now become known, for early Wednesday morning. The team lounged around the polished table sipping coffee from styrofoam cups and chatting about last night’s television, or Boro’s prospects for the weekend’s football. The corkboards had acquired more crime scene photographs, and the names and details of various people connected with the victim were scrawled across the whiteboard.

Annie Cabbot sat next to Winsome and DC Galway, on loan from Harrogate CID, and tried to digest what Banks had told her over an early breakfast in the Golden Grill. The presence in the area of two people connected with the Mad Hatters, the band on whom Nick Barber had been writing a major feature, seemed too much of a coincidence for her, too. She knew far less about the group and its history than Banks did, but even she could see there were a few skeletons in those closets worth shaking up a bit.

Detective Superintendent Gervaise clicked in on her shiny black heels, smoothed her navy pinstripe skirt and sat down at the head of the table, gracing everyone with a warm smile. A chorus of “Good morning, ma’am” rose up from the assembled officers.

She turned first to Stefan Nowak and asked if there was anything more from forensics.

“Not really,” said Stefan. “Naturally, there are numerous fibers and hairs remaining to be analyzed. The place was supposed to be thoroughly cleaned after each set of guests, but nobody’s that thorough. We’ve got a list of the last ten renters from the owner, so we’ll check against their samples first. It was a busy summer. Some of them live as far afield as Germany and Norway. It could take a long time.”

“Prints?”

“The poker was wiped clean, and there are nothing but blurs around the door and conservatory entrance. Naturally, we’ve found almost as many fingerprints as we have other trace evidence, and it’ll all have to be sifted, compared to existing records. As I said, it will take time.”

“What about DNA?”

“Well, we did find traces of semen on the bedsheets, but the DNA matches that of the victim. We’re trying to separate out any traces of female secretion, but no luck so far. Apparently, he used condoms and flushed them down the toilet.” He glanced toward Annie for confirmation. She nodded.

“We know who this… companion… was, don’t we, DI Cabbot?”

“Yes,” said Annie. “Unless there was someone else, which I’d say he hardly had time for, Kelly Soames admits to sleeping with the victim on two occasions: Wednesday evening, which was her night off, and Friday afternoon, between the hours of two and four, when she rearranged a dental appointment so she could visit his cottage.”

“Resourceful girl,” Superintendent Gervaise reflected. “And Dr. Glendenning estimates time of death between six and eight on Friday?”

“He says he can’t be any more precise than that,” replied Stefan.

“Not earlier?”

“No, ma’am.”

“All right,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “Let’s move on. Anything from the house-to-house?”

“Nothing positive, ma’am,” said Winsome. “It was a miserable night even before the blackout, and most people shut their curtains tight and stayed in.”

“Except the killer.”

“Yes, ma’am. In addition to the couple in the Cross Keys and the New Zealander in the youth hostel who thought she saw a light-colored car heading up the hill, away from Moorview Cottage, between seven-thirty and seven-forty-five, we have one sighting of a dark-colored four-by-four going up the same lane at about six-twenty, before the power cut, and a white van at about eight o’clock, while the electricity was off. According to our witnesses, though, neither of these stopped by the cottage.”

“Not very promising, is it?” said Gervaise.

“Well, one of them could have stopped further up the lane and walked back. There are plenty of passing places.”

“I suppose so,” Superintendent Gervaise conceded, but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it.

“Oh,” Winsome added, “someone says he saw a figure running across a field just after dark, before the lights went out.”

“Any description?”

“No, ma’am. He was closing his curtains, and he thought he saw this dark figure. He assumed it was someone jogging and ignored it.”

“Fat, thin, tall, short, child, man, woman?”

“Sorry, ma’am. Just a dark figure.”

“Which direction was the figure running?” Banks asked.

Winsome turned to face him. “The shortcut from Fordham to Lynd-garth, sir, across the fields and by the river. It’s a popular jogging route.”

“Yes, but probably not after dark. Not in that sort of weather.”

“You’d be surprised, DCI Banks,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “Some people take their exercise very seriously indeed. Do you know how many calories there are in a pint of beer?”

Everyone laughed. Banks wasn’t convinced. Vic Greaves didn’t drive, so Adams had said, but it wasn’t very far from his cottage to Fordham, and that would have been the best route to take. It cut the journey almost in half. He made a note to get Winsome to talk to this witness again, or to do it himself.

“What about this Jack Tanner character?” Gervaise asked. “He sounded like a possible.”

“His alibi holds water,” said Templeton. “We’ve talked to six members of his darts team and every one of them swears he was in the King’s Head playing darts from about six o’clock until ten.”

“And I don’t suppose he was drinking Britvic Orange, either,” said Gervaise. “Maybe we ought to get Traffic to keep an eye on Mr. Tanner.”

Everyone laughed.

“So do we have any promising lines of inquiry yet?” Gervaise asked.

“Chris Adams suggested that Nick Barber had a cocaine problem,” Banks said. “I’m not convinced, but I’ve put in a request for the Met drugs squad to look into it. But there’s something else.” He told her about Vic Greaves’s breakdown and the drowning death of Robin Merchant at Swainsview Lodge thirty-five years ago, and the feature Nick Barber had been writing for MOJO.

“It’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t?” said Gervaise, when he had finished. “I’ve always been a bit suspicious of events from so far in the past reaching forward into the present. Sounds like the stuff of television. I’m more inclined toward the most obvious solution – someone closer to hand, a jilted lover, cheated business partner, whatever. In this case, perhaps some disgruntled drug dealer. Besides, I take it this Merchant business was settled at the time?”

“After a fashion,” said Banks.

“What are you suggesting?”