“Like sneaking out at night?”

“Or alcohol in the rooms, that sort of thing. But we had no proof of anything more-”

“Wait a minute.” The pieces had begun to fall into place, all too clearly. Motive, means, opportunity – and the fact that when Kath Warren said we she wasn’t using the royal first person. He stood, leaning over the desk. “Kath, where’s Jason?”

“Oh.” Kath looked round, as if expecting Jason to pop up. “He left early. A family emergency, a sick auntie in Kent. He had to drive down on Saturday as well.”

“Really? That’s very interesting.”

“Why? What are you talking about?” Kath sounded baffled, but she’d shrunk back from him.

Kincaid thought of the subtle relationship cues he had seen between the two of them, and changed tack. “Tell me what happened on Thursday night, Kath. What was Jason doing here?”

“He wasn’t here,” she protested, more firmly than he’d expected.

“How can you be so sure?”

She looked at him, then at Cullen and Bell, who had moved up quietly to flank him on either side, and seemed to come to a decision. “Because I was. And he never came.”

“Was he supposed to?” asked Maura, with surprising sympathy.

Kath swallowed and looked down at her hands, as if avoiding their eyes made her shame easier to bear. “He was supposed to meet me here at half-past ten. I’d told Shawna she could take a couple of hours off to see her boyfriend. But I waited and waited, and Jason never came. So if you’re thinking he had something to do with Laura’s death, you’re wrong.”

Kincaid thought of Laura, making a list of women and checking off names as she discovered what had happened to them; of Laura, dropping Harriet at the sitter’s before ten o’clock, making up a story for Harriet and the sitter, because she meant to investigate something that was not appropriate to discuss with a child, and she didn’t know how long it would take. She had meant to go home that night, after she’d had a look round the shelter office on her own – that’s why she’d left the washing up in the kitchen sink – and she’d meant to go to work the next morning. But she never got to do either.

“Kath,” Kincaid said, “what time did you actually get here on Thursday night?”

“A few minutes after half-past ten. I got held up at home, with the kids.”

Kincaid thought of Jason coming in early, quietly, seeing Laura Novak digging through the files. Perhaps she’d been asking questions already that had made him suspect she knew something, so he moved back into the shadows, watching, and when she left, he had followed her. Or had he gone ahead and waited, knowing she would pass by him on her way home?

What had happened then? Had he ducked into the shelter of the warehouse door, and discovering it unlocked, pulled Laura in when she walked past? Or had he confronted her in the street? Perhaps as they began to argue, he had pushed her against the door, and it had swung open, and a terrible opportunity had presented itself.

You, of all people, should have known, Laura had shouted in the darkness of the warehouse. Jason had known all too well what would happen to women trying to make new lives, if their abusers found them.

Kincaid thought of Jason’s designer clothes, no doubt bought with money earned from others’ misery, and he remembered the way Beverly Brown had flinched away from him when he passed. Kincaid had assumed it was dislike, but perhaps it had been fear. Poor little Mouse, up that night with a fretfully ill child – what else had she seen from her window? And how had Jason lured her to a rendezvous in a deserted graveyard?

He thought of Jason’s easy tears when they’d told him of Beverly’s death, of his casting suspicion on Beverly’s husband by his willing assumption of guilt, and fury coursed through him.

Jason had choked Beverly Brown, as he’d choked Laura, but in Laura’s case he must have hoped he could prevent any connection being made between the shelter and the victim. Why he had set the fire after taking so much trouble to disguise Laura’s identity, Kincaid still hadn’t worked out, but he knew enough.

“We’re going to need Jason’s address, Kath, then we’ll take you straight to the station so that you can make your statement. After all” – his smile held no humor- “we wouldn’t want you making any urgent phone calls.”

Gemma and Fanny listened intently as Winnie spoke to Roberta from her mobile phone. Winnie had given a brief synopsis of what had happened and then had described Elaine. “Yes,” she said now. “Elaine Holland, that’s right.”

Winnie’s body slumped as she listened to the reply, her face growing glummer by the minute. “Right, Roberta, thanks. I’ll ring you la-” she’d begun when Gemma grabbed her arm.

“Winnie, wait. Tell her to hold on. Look, there’s no point in giving her Elaine’s name. I doubt that’s any more real than anything else she’s said about herself. Does Roberta have a fax?”

“There’s one in the vicarage office.”

“I’ve a copy of Elaine’s photo. Tell Roberta to expect a fax. We can go to the police station-”

“No. I’ve a fax in the church office. We can send it from there,” offered Winnie, her eyes beginning to sparkle again. She passed this on to Roberta, adding that they would soon call her back.

As they walked from the pub back to the church, their progress slowed by Fanny’s chair, Gemma’s impatience was tempered by dread. She feared they were wrong, and she feared that if they were right, they were too late.

When they reached the church office, Fanny suddenly put a hand on the chair’s wheel and brought it to a jerking halt. She twisted around so that she could look at Winnie.

“Winnie.” Her face had lost its animation, and she looked small and frightened. “I’m not sure I want to know. Maybe it would be better if I could just go on thinking of her as she was. As Elaine.”

Winnie seemed to consider this. “Do you think so?” she asked. “I can take you home, if you want.” She held Fanny’s gaze, her face gentle with understanding, and after a moment, Fanny sighed.

“I can’t, can I? I know too much to go back, and it was never real. None of it was real.” She wheeled the chair forward of her own accord, and Winnie and Gemma followed.

The tiny office was cramped with Fanny’s chair and warm from the heat that had built up during the afternoon. As Winnie fed the photo into the fax machine, Fanny looked away until Gemma had tucked it back into her bag.

“There’s a speakerphone,” said Winnie. “Shall I-”

Gemma nodded. Winnie dialed, and after a moment Roberta’s voice filled the room, rich and warm, with the huskiness of the chronic asthmatic.

“It’s just coming through now, Winnie. Let me-” Roberta fell silent.

“Roberta,” said Winnie, “are you still on the line?”

“Dear God,” whispered Roberta.

“What-”

“I’m sorry, love.” Her voice came through more strongly. “It’s just – I’d never have thought.”

“Do you know her?”

Gemma could hardly breathe.

“It’s Elizabeth Castleman,” said Roberta. “Her parents were parishioners of mine. They were elderly – Elizabeth was a child of their dotage, I suppose. They died, both of them, several years ago, after extended illnesses. Elizabeth looked after them.”

“Roberta, what is it?” prompted Winnie, hearing the hesitation in her friend’s voice.

“They were churchgoing people. You know it’s not our place to judge, Winnie, but their ideas were… harsh. And their house, it was a terrible place. Old, dirty, and neglected. I paid pastoral visits the last year or two, and I always dreaded them. I remember Mrs. Castleman telling me they cared nothing for material things, that it was the spirit that mattered, but there was no love in that house.”

“And Elizabeth?” Winnie asked quietly.

“She must have been past her midtwenties by the time they died. Like a moth trapped under glass, I always thought her. Pale and futile. Then Mr. Castleman died in his sleep, and a few weeks later Mrs. Castleman fell down the stairs. It often happens that way with elderly couples, even those bound more by habit than fondness. But… I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable speculating even now.”