“Fanny, I don’t want to distress you,” she went on, “but I want to talk about Elaine. I’ve just realized how many different stories she told about her background, and I thought if we could put them all together, we might find something in common.”

“I don’t mind, really.” Absently, Fanny rotated her glass in the center of the beer mat. She wore a pearl-buttoned cardigan fastened to the throat, and her cheeks looked faintly pink from the warmth or the excitement of the outing. “I feel – I don’t know. Once I knew she wasn’t coming back… It’s as if I was carrying a weight, but I never realized it until it was lifted.” Her face fell. “But Elaine – wherever she is – I don’t like to think of Elaine with a child.”

Nor did Gemma. “Elaine told Tony Novak that she was married to a commercial traveler, and that she worked at an estate agent’s here in the Borough.

“She told her coworkers at Guy’s that she grew up in Gloucestershire and only came to London when her parents died, but the girl I spoke with swore that Elaine’s accent was native to the Borough.”

“And she told me that her parents had emigrated from Canada,” said Fanny, “that her mother committed suicide when she was a child, and that she took care of her ill father until he died.”

Gemma realized suddenly that the music had stopped and the piano player was gone. She had never seen his face. For a moment she wondered if she had imagined him, as Elaine had imagined entire lives. Aloud, she mused, “We know the first story was a complete fabrication. Could one of the others have been the truth?”

“What I wonder,” said Winnie slowly, “is whether she told Tony Novak her parents were dead?”

“You think that’s the common thread, her parents’ deaths?”

“There’s something else.” Winnie fingered the silver cross she wore beneath her collar. “Fanny, before Roberta left, did Elaine ever stay when Roberta brought you communion on Sundays? Because I remember that when I first came, I never saw her, but after a few weeks she began to hover in the doorway, and then after another week or two she would come into the room, a bit like a stray animal gaining confidence. I assumed it was the church she disliked, but what if it was the priest? What if she was afraid of the priest?”

Gemma frowned. “I’m not following you.”

“Maybe Elaine was afraid of Roberta.”

“Elaine was never home when Roberta came during the week,” said Fanny. “And now that I think of it, the few times Roberta dropped by unannounced on a weekend, Elaine went straight up to her room without meeting her. And then on Sundays, of course, she was always out of the house.”

“That settles it, then.” Winnie’s pleasant face glowed with missionary zeal. “We’ll ring Roberta straightaway.”

Winnie had drawn her mobile from her belt and flipped it open when Gemma felt hers vibrate. Gemma pulled her phone from its clip, murmuring, “Sorry, sorry,” and feeling absurdly like a dueling gunslinger in an old western.

It was Kincaid. She found her throat suddenly tight and had to swallow before she answered. “Hey,” she said lightly. “I’m sorry about-”

“Gemma, hang on a second.” She caught the muffled slur of his voice as he spoke to someone else, then he came back on the line. He hadn’t heard her, she realized. He hadn’t heard her at all.

“Gemma, listen,” he said without preamble. “I need your help. Do you still have the list of names you and Doug found in Laura Novak’s house?”

SHE HADN’T THOUGHT of what she would do with the child. She hadn’t thought past wanting to hurt him, to punish him for discarding her without even a thought of apology, as if she had never been more than a convenience.

Nor had she meant to come back to this house ever again. She’d locked it up after her mother’s funeral, set up an account out of her parents’ estate to pay the taxes, so that there’d be no connection with the new name she’d taken, and walked away. Why she hadn’t sold the place, she’d never quite been able to fathom. When she tried to think about it, her mind slithered sideways and the memories crowded, clamoring, at the gates she’d refused to breach.

But then Tony had betrayed her; she had taken his daughter – oh, so easily – and there had been nowhere else to go. And the house had settled back around her, the smells and sounds fastening into her flesh like little claws, making it more and more difficult to separate the past from the present.

The room drew her – but no, there was another child in the room now, a different little girl who had been bad. Or had she? The confusion made her feel ill. She hadn’t slept, despite the pills she’d taken from Fanny, nor had she eaten much. The bits of food she’d found in the pantry stuck in her throat, dry as the dust of the years gone by.

When she tried to close her eyes, she saw the stairwell spinning, the bottom rushing towards her like a vortex. What had she done? No, she hadn’t meant the girl to fall, hadn’t pushed her, no, not this time.

Or had she?

All she knew for certain was that she had to get out, out of this house, before it devoured her. But where could she go? Not back to Fanny’s, not back to her job at the hospital – all that was finished, a life that seemed as distant as another universe. But… she had created a new life before; she could do it again. A new name, a new place, a new story – any story but this.

But what of the child? She climbed the stairs and stood outside the door. There was no sound from within. What would she find if she looked inside?

She should open the door, she knew, but the fear swept through her, leaving her trembling and sick. What child would she let out, if she opened the door? Would she ever be free of the little girl who had lived in that room?

At last she turned and retraced her way down the stairs, and as she went out of the house, she locked the door behind her.

Rose wiped her hands against the legs of her jeans for perhaps the hundredth time. Her fingertips had begun to crack from the hours of contact with the dry and dusty paper, and her throat felt parched as sandpaper. She had shifted position from table to floor and back to the table, but her back ached as if she’d been carrying hose all day.

“Want some coffee?” Bill Farrell asked as he set another stack of folders beside her. The initial reserve she’d felt with him had evaporated over the long day, and by now she’d almost forgotten to think of him as a senior officer.

“No, thanks,” she said, looking at the cups littering the room. “If I get any more buzzed I’ll have to run laps round the room while I read these bloody things.” She stared in dismay at the number of boxes yet to examine and tried not to rub the dirt on her fingers into her eyes.

At least the photo brought by Superintendent Kincaid had allowed them to organize their search more efficiently. Farrell had begun by winnowing out only applicants who were male and Caucasian for Rose’s perusal – with the help of the photo he was able to narrow his selection to those applicants whose photos bore at least some resemblance to the man caught by the security cam.

But in the end, it was Rose, rummaging through a fresh box on her own while Farrell had gone for more coffee, who found the file.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, looking from the application photo to the print, then staring back at the file in stunned astonishment.

When Farrell came back into the room, she was standing, waving the folder at him. “You’re not going to believe this. His name is Jimmy Braidwood.”