11

Whoever had named Sea View Terrace was either possessed of an ironic sense of humour or a very tall ladder. It wasn't even a terrace any more, but a street of seventies semi-detacheds, each with its own garage, right or left. The pebble-dash frontage of number 15, once white, was now a sour, yellowing cream. Wooden planks and sundry pieces of scaffolding littered the front yard. The garage door was partly open.

Karen drove slowly past in the hire car she'd picked up at the airport, reversed into a three-point turn and stopped several doors down. Mike Ramsden's Ford Sierra, showing every sign of having battered along a succession of minor roads in heavy rain, was parked further along on the opposite side, Ramsden catnapping behind the wheel.

Karen got out of the car, wearing a sort of faded green today, almost certainly a mistake, popped a mint into her mouth and turned up the collar of her coat; the rain had dwindled to a steady drizzle, grey out of a grey sky.

She rapped the keys against the Sierra's window and Ramsden was instantly awake. Several lidded coffee cups and an empty Burger King box were on the passenger seat alongside him, an orange juice carton on the floor.

'I thought you said eight?' he said, winding down the window. 'Eight thirty?'

'I did.'

Ramsden looked at his watch and grunted. It was coming round to twenty past the hour.

'What time did you get here?' Karen asked.

''Round seven.'

Karen nodded in the direction of the house. 'Anything happening?'

'Patrick's been in and out the garage a couple of times, fiddling with stuff in his van. Had on his white overalls second time, off to work soon I don't doubt.'

'Anyone else around?'

'Face at the window. Wife, girlfriend, someone.'

'Well,' Karen said, 'let's go and introduce ourselves.'

The woman who came to the door was plumpish, shortish, a smoker's mouth and mid-length straw-coloured hair, breasts that, underneath a pale cotton top, seemed to have a life of their own.

'Mrs Patrick…?'

Her glance moved from one face to the other and back again. 'Sorry, I'm afraid I don't have time…'

But Karen was holding up her warrant card. 'We're police officers,' she said.

The woman looked past them to the empty street outside. 'Terry,' she called over her shoulder. Then, stepping back into the hallway, 'You'd best come in.'

The central heating was turned up high. A radio was playing in another room, the cajoling voice of some near-desperate DJ. Terry Patrick appeared at the end of the hall. His fair, almost sandy hair was in need of a comb, dried patches of plaster and specks of old paint clung to his overalls and the work boots on his feet. Fifty, Karen thought, if he was a day. Around the same height as herself. One of those men who become more wiry with age, rather than gaining weight.

'What's all this then?'

But from his eyes he already knew.

'It's about Maddy, isn't it?'

'Just a few things,' Karen said. 'Routine, really.'

'Come on through,' he said. And then, 'Tina, get kettle on, will you?'

The sigh was practised, automatic. 'Tea?'

'If there's any chance of coffee?' Karen said.

'It'll be instant.'

'That's fine,' Karen said.

'That'll be for the both of you, then?'

Ramsden nodded.

'Suit yourselves.'

The living room was overburdened by furniture and dark. Wherever the radio was playing it wasn't here. The kitchen, probably. Karen could just recognise the Delfonics' 'Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time?' Going back.

'Sit yourselves down,' Patrick said.

Karen sat at one end of a settee that had seen better days, Ramsden on a high-backed chair near the window. Patrick settled himself into what was obviously his chair, creased leather opposite a large-screen TV.

'It must have come as a shock,' Karen said, 'what happened.'

'Course it bloody did. All over the news, like. Couldn't believe it at first.' He made a small derisive sound, somewhere between a snort and a laugh. 'What they say, isn't it? When something happens. Couldn't believe it. But it's true. Someone gets, you know, killed – accident, whatever – you never expect it to be someone you know.'

Leaning back, he lifted his feet on to a low wooden table that seemed to have been put there for the purpose. Keeping his boots off the shag carpet.

'Poor silly cow,' he said. 'Out jogging, that's what they said.' He shook his head. 'London. Late at night, some park or other. You'd've thought she'd have known better.'

Coffee and tea were carried in on a metal tray, sugar still in its packet, a solitary spoon.

'Thanks, Tina, love.'

Patrick's hands, Karen thought, watching him stir two sugars into his tea, were broad across the knuckles, lightly etched with paint.

'Maddy,' Karen said. 'When did you last see her?'

Patrick smiled a quick, lopsided smile and, for the first time, Karen caught a sense of how he might have been an attractive man, fifteen or more years before.

'Been thinking about that, haven't I? Tina asked me same thing. Eighty-six, it must have been. The divorce. Year after it all, you know, went pear-shaped.' He picked a small circle of paint from the leg of his overalls and flicked it towards the empty fireplace. 'Seventeen years.'

His wife was still standing in the doorway, watching him, her face impossible to read.

'You've not seen her in all that time?' Karen said.

'Not the once.'

'But you'd kept in touch?'

'Not really, no. Her folks, they were always pretty decent, sent a card at Christmas, that kind of thing. Leastways, till her father died. Four or five years back now, that'd be. Maybe more.'

'And you didn't see Maddy, no communication, nothing?'

'I said, didn't I?'

'Mr Patrick, you're sure?'

'Tell them, Terry,' his wife said. 'For Christ's sake, tell them.' Stepping back into the hall, she closed the door slowly but firmly behind her.

Patrick picked up his mug, held it in both hands for a moment without drinking, then set it back down.

'Seven or eight years back…'

'Which?'

'Seven, seven. Me and Tina, we were going through a bad patch. It happens. Things get out of hand, slip gear.' He looked quickly across at Ramsden, as if for affirmation. 'I moved out for a while, bunked up with a pal. After a bit, I got in touch with Maddy. Tried to. I don't know, I suppose I had this daft idea we might get back together. Got her address and that from her mum. Phoned and it was like talking to the speaking bloody clock. Just didn't want to know, did she? I wrote a few times after that, asking, you know, couldn't we meet? Stupid, really. Plain bloody stupid. She never replied, of course, not a bloody word.' He lifted his head and gave a sour little smile. 'Tina and I, we got things sorted.' He shrugged. 'Maybe it's not perfect, but then you tell me, what is?'

The radio, already indistinct, was lost to the sound of a vacuum cleaner, as it banged against the skirting board in the hall.

'This was all seven years ago,' Karen said.

Patrick nodded.

'And there was no contact between you after that?'

A shake of the head.

'Nothing. You'd not spoken, set eyes on her?'

'No, I said.'

'How about October?'

'Sorry?'

'October of this year.'

Patrick leaned forward, leaned back, looked towards the door. The vacuuming stopped, then started up again. Karen watched as, fingers spread, his hands pushed hard along the tops of his thighs. His voice when he spoke was choked, deliberately low.

'It was an accident, right? No. Coincidence. That's it, coincidence. I'd been down there on a job, London. Well, the money's good, better than you can expect up here and you can always doss down a couple of nights in the van. Anyway, this night, after working, right, we go out for a few beers, just the three of us, me and these two other blokes, one pub and then another and all of a sudden there she is, her and this other bird, up on stage singing some bloody song.' Patrick wiped the back of his hand across his mouth before carrying on. 'Couldn't believe it. Just stood and fucking stared. "What's up?" one of these blokes said. "Fancy it, do you?" I wanted to thump him, didn't I? Bury my fist in his fucking face. Just turned round and left instead. Couldn't wait to get out of there. Walked for fucking miles, must have done. Fucking miles. Don't ask me why.' Another glance towards the door. 'I don't want her to know.'