17

Shaded green, the narrow swathe of designated parkland stretched west to east across page 29 in the London A-Z, Highgate towards Stroud Green and beyond. The best approach to the particular section he wanted was unclear from the map and Elder drove into a crescent off the main road and parked between a crowded skip and a long-abandoned Nissan with its windows smashed and the engine half-removed. From there, following a sign, he walked along a narrow alley between houses, bypassing both a discarded fridge and a dismembered supermarket trolley, before finding himself on a track leading to a two-storey wooden building he assumed to be the community centre.

Broadening out, the path led towards a children's ' nursery on the right, a five-a-side pitch and play centre further along; a fence, broken down in several places, separated it from the slope, tangled and overgrown, that angled steeply towards the muddy track below.

Elder stood quite still, tuning out, as best he could, the faint morning discord from the nearby flats, the traffic sounds from either side. Some twenty metres off, a female blackbird scuffled through dry leaves, before flying shrilly away into the far trees. The sky was a watery blue, shaded over, here and there, with grey. Elder could see his breath, off-white, on the air.

She had walked here, Maddy; stopped for a moment, alerted by a sound.

Or, jogging, had she paused and bent forward, hands on hips, catching her breath?

Elder turned through a slow circle: how close, even at night, could someone get without being heard or seen?

In his imagination, he saw a shadow stepping silently out of the dark.

Why didn't Maddy run? And if she did, why, fit and strong as she was, did she not get away?

Because she knew him, surely.

Close. Her breath upon his face. Laughing, as they stumbled out from the doorway on to the cobbled street. Did she take his hand or slip her arm through his?

Carefully, Elder made his way down towards the old railway track, while above him, whistling cheerfully, a man pushed a buggy containing a well-wrapped toddler towards the nursery. Walking briskly, a woman appeared with her dog and then, as quickly, disappeared. From the reports he had read, the diagrams, Maddy had been attacked above and then been pushed or fallen, the last, fatal blows most likely delivered close by where he now stood.

In all probability, her assailant had continued to stab her after she was dead. No weapon found. Remembering the severity and extent of the wounds, Elder saw him wiping the excess of blood off upon the grass, the ground.

How long had it taken?

How long?

Longer, possibly, to have cleared away all telltale traces than to have committed the crime itself.

How long had it been before someone else had come along, stopped perhaps, thinking they had heard something, and looked down, but, seeing nothing, continued on their way?

And the murderer, which way had he gone?

To the east, the track ran on below Crouch Hill and all the way, almost, to Finsbury Park, a myriad of small side roads with easy access leading off on either side; westwards, it opened out on to Shepherd's Hill, adjacent to the main road leading north towards the motorway. A car conveniently parked. Light traffic flow. Maddy's killer could have been tucked up by midnight, leaving her body to the elements, the foxes and the rodents, small insects, crows.

Elder saw again the post-mortem photographs of her face, the wounds, open, not quite scabbed over, to her torso and along the insides of her arms.

Climbing back up, Elder raised the collar of his coat against the freshness of the wind; mud clung to the cuffs of his trousers, the soles of his shoes.

Back in the street where he had parked, a pair of thirteen-year-olds was considering the possibility of liberating the Astra's radio; seeing Elder approaching, they spat thoughtfully at the ground and strolled, hands in pockets, nonchalantly away.

Off duty, Vanessa was wearing a denim skirt and black woollen tights, calf-length reddish leather boots, a denim jacket over a high-necked purple sweater that seemed to have shrunk in the wash. Her dark hair was curly and closely framed her face; her lipstick, newly applied, was a vivid shade of red.

The cafe where she had suggested meeting was close to the police station in Holmes Road. Most of the tables were taken and the buzz of conversation and occasional hiss of the coffee machine were underscored by music, Middle Eastern, Elder thought, coming from a radio-cassette player on the counter.

Elder made his way to where Vanessa was sitting and introduced himself.

'Managed to pick me out okay, then?' she said with a grin.

Most of the other customers either had small children clamouring round them or were well above pensionable age.

The waiter appeared at Elder's elbow almost as soon as he'd sat down, and he asked for an espresso and a glass of water. Vanessa was tucking into a wedge of sticky straw-coloured pastry and drinking what looked like Coke.

'So what do I call you?' Vanessa asked.

'Frank?'

'No rank or anything?'

'Not any more.'

Vanessa looked at him appraisingly. 'And they've dragged you out of retirement to give a hand?'

'Something like that.'

'Long as the bastard gets caught.'

'Yes.'

'Well, whatever I can do.' Pastry not quite finished, with an air of martyrdom she pushed her plate aside.

'I knew Maddy a little back in Lincoln,' Elder said. 'But that was a long time ago. You can probably give me a better picture of what she was like than anyone.'

'Where do you want me to start?'

'Wherever you like.'

For the next fifteen minutes or so, Vanessa talked and Elder listened, prompting her occasionally, but in the main content to sit and take occasional sips from his espresso.

'Tell me a bit more about this Kennet,' Elder said, when she'd finished. 'Maddy seems to have gone out with him for quite a while.'

'I don't know if there's a lot more to say. I met him a few times, seemed nice enough. Good-looking bloke, I'll give him that. Bit cocky, maybe.' She smiled. 'Not as bad as some.'

'She liked him, though?'

'I suppose so, yes. She'd never have gone with him otherwise.' Vanessa reached over and speared a piece of previously rejected pastry with her fork. 'To be honest, I think it was the sex as much as anything. I don't mean it was so great, not according to Maddy, anyway; nothing earth-shattering, not like Meg Ryan in that film, but, well, she'd not been with anyone in ages and I suppose…' Vanessa laughed. 'Well, I suppose it made a bit of a change. Made her feel good about herself, you know?'

Elder thought he might.

'And, from what you say, it just petered out?'

'In a manner of speaking.' There was a broad grin on Vanessa's face.

'You know how Kennet felt about that?'

'He was fine about it, far as I know. No big scene or anything.' She shrugged. 'I don't think it was such a deal for either of them, not really. Not true love, exactly, you know what I mean?'

Elder signalled the waiter for another espresso. 'These fears of Maddy's, that she was being watched. Spied on. You think they were real?'

Vanessa smiled. 'Or was she just paranoid like the rest of us?'

'If you like.'

'No, I don't think so. Not Maddy. I mean, it might have got a bit exaggerated inside her head, but no, there was something behind it, I'm sure.'

'According to what you said, it all started round about the time of the Grant business.'

'More or less, yes. I suppose it did.'

'This officer who was killed, Draper…'

'Paul, yes.'

'Maddy was there when he was shot, in the same room…'