“Blokes always say that, Merry. At the beginning.”

“No. Listen. She told me it was all she could do to talk him into living together, and before that it was all she could do to talk him into letting her spend the night with him, and before that it was all she could do to coax him into having sex. So to think he was mad to marry her…What would have changed him?”

“Living with her. Getting used to that. Seeing that there was no big fear to being with someone. Learning that-”

“What? Learning what? Truth is, Rob, if there was something to learn…something to discover…wouldn’t it likely be that he discovered that Jemima-”

“No.” He said it not because he believed it but because he wanted to believe it: that his sister had been to Gordon Jossie what she hadn’t been to her own brother. An open book. Wasn’t that what couples were meant to be to each other? he asked himself. But he had no answer. How bloody could he since being one half of a couple was for him the stuff of fantasy?

Meredith said, “I wish you hadn’t asked. I wish I hadn’t said. What does it matter really, now? I mean, at the end of the day she only wanted someone to love her, I think. I didn’t see that at the time, when we were girls. And when I finally did see it, when we were older, our paths were so different that when I tried to talk to her about it, it seemed like I had a problem, not Jemima.”

“It got her killed,” he said. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

“Surely not. Because if she’d changed as you said she’d changed, if she was faithful to Gordon…And she’d been with him longer than anyone else, hadn’t she? More than two years? Three?”

“She left in a rush. He kept ringing her.”

“You see? That means he wanted her back, which he wouldn’t have wanted if she’d been unfaithful. I think she’d grown out of all that, Rob. Really, I do.”

But Robbie could tell by the eagerness of Meredith’s tone that whatever she said from this moment onwards would be said to assuage his feelings. He felt turned every which way, and he was dizzy. Among all the new information he had gathered, there had to be an essential truth about his sister. There had to be a way to explain both her life and her death. And he had to find that truth, for he knew that its discovery would be the only way he could forgive himself for failing Jemima when she had needed him most.

BARBARA HAVERS AND Winston Nkata returned to the Operational Command Unit where they handed over the forged letters from Winchester Technical College II to the chief superintendent. Whiting read them. He was the sort of reader who formed the words with his lips as he went along. He took his time.

Barbara said, “We’ve spoken to these two blokes, sir. They didn’t write the letters. They don’t know Gordon Jossie.”

He looked up. “That,” he said, “is problematical.”

In a nutshell, Barbara thought, although he didn’t seem wildly interested in the matter. She said, “Last time we were here, you said two women had phoned up about him.”

“Did I.” Whiting seemed to be musing on the matter. “There were two calls, I believe. Two women suggesting that Jossie needed looking into.”

“And?” Barbara asked.

“And?” Whiting said.

Barbara exchanged a glance with Winston. He did the honours. “We got these letters now, see. We got a dead girl up in London connected with this bloke. He went up there on a search for her sometime back, which he doesn’t deny, and he stuck up cards with her picture on them, asking for phone calls should anyone see her. And you got two phone calls yourself drawing your ’tention to him.”

“Those calls didn’t mention a card in London,” Whiting said. “Nor did they mention your dead girl.”

“Point is the calls themselves and how things’re stacking up ’gainst Jossie.”

“Yes,” Whiting said. “That can make things look iffy. I do see that.”

Barbara decided indirection was clearly not the path to take with the chief superintendent. She said, “Sir, what do you know about Gordon Jossie that you’re not telling us?”

Whiting handed the letters back to her. “Not a bloody thing,” he said.

“Did you check him out based on those phone calls?”

“Sergeant…Is it Havers? And Nkata?” Whiting waited for their nods although Barbara could have sworn he knew their names very well despite the fact that he mispronounced both of them. “I’m not very likely to use manpower to investigate someone based on a phone call from a woman who might well be upset because a gentleman stood her up for a date.”

“You said two women,” Nkata pointed out.

“One woman, two women. The point is that they had no complaint, only suspicions, and their suspicions amounted to being suspicious, if you understand.”

“Meaning what?” Barbara asked.

“Meaning that they had nothing to be suspicious about. He wasn’t peeping in windows. He wasn’t hanging about primary schools. He wasn’t snatching handbags from old ladies. He wasn’t moving questionable bits of this or that into his house or out of it. He wasn’t inviting women on the street to step into his vehicle for a bit of you-know-what. As far as they could tell us-these phone callers who, by the way, wouldn’t leave their names-he was just a suspicious type. Those letters of yours”-he indicated the forgeries from the college-“don’t add anything to the mix. Seems to me the important bit is not that he forged them-”

“He didn’t,” Barbara said. “He can’t read or write.”

“All right. Someone else forged them. A mate of his. A girlfriend. Who knows. Have you ever considered that he wouldn’t have got himself hired as an apprentice at his age had he not had something to show he was a worthwhile risk? I daresay that’s all these letters show.”

“True enough,” Barbara said. “But the fact remains-”

“The fact remains that the important bit is whether he did his job well once he got it. And that’s what he did, yes? He served a fine apprenticeship up in Itchen Abbas. Then he began his own business. He’s built that business up and, as far as I know, he has kept his nose clean.”

“Sir-”

“I think that’s the end of the story, don’t you?”

As it happened, she didn’t, but Barbara said nothing. Nor did Nkata. And as she was careful not to look at Winston, so was he careful not to look at her. For there was something that the chief superintendent wasn’t dealing with: They’d said nothing at all to him about Gordon Jossie’s serving an apprenticeship to Ringo Heath or to anyone else, and the fact that Whiting knew about one suggested once again that there was more to Gordon Jossie and his life in the New Forest than met the eye. To Barbara there was no question about it: Chief Superintendent Zachary Whiting was fully apprised as to what the more was.

MEREDITH DECIDED FURTHER action was called for after the phone call from Rob Hastings. She could tell the poor man was equal parts crushed to the core and riddled by guilt, and since part of this was due to her mouth running on about matters best left unsaid, she took a step to rectify things. She had seen just enough cop shows on the telly to know what to do when she made the decision to go to Lyndhurst. She was fairly confident that Gina Dickens wouldn’t be in the lodgings that she claimed was hers above the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms since Gina had seemed fairly intent upon establishing her life with Gordon Jossie. Meredith reckoned that, in the pursuit of this end, she likely hadn’t darkened her own doorway in days. Should she actually be in, Meredith had her excuse ready: Came to say sorry for being such a pest. I’m just upset. That part was the truth, at least, although being upset was only the half of it.

She’d begged the rest of the day off. Splitting headache, the heat, and that time of the month. She’d work at home if they didn’t mind, where she could put a cold compress on her head. She nearly had most of the graphic done anyway. An hour more was all it would take to get it finished.