'I know, I know, I'm ranting, but that man, this government, they get my bloody goat.'

Elder smiled and waited for Ashley to calm down. The rain continued to lash against the windows outside.

'You think there might be some kind of connection?' the detective superintendent said. 'Between the Grant shooting and Birch's murder?'

'I'm not sure. I think it's possible, without really seeing how. Just casting around, I suppose.'

'I'll tell you what I can.'

'You interviewed her yourself, you and DCI Mills?'

'That's right.'

'How did she strike you?'

Ashley gave it a few moments' thought. 'A little on edge, maybe. But no more than most in that situation. Wary of being criticised. Found in the wrong.'

'And was she?'

'Not as far as I can see.'

'And her version of events, the shooting…?'

'Basically the same as everyone else's. Detective Superintendent Mallory shot and killed an armed man in the line of duty; the circumstances didn't leave him any alternative.'

'Mallory's version of events, though, the business with the second gun, it depends to a large extent on Maddy Birch's testimony.'

'Not really. Even without it, there's no real alternative. No reason for Mallory to open fire without due cause.'

'You didn't ever consider bringing her in again?'

'We thought about it, yes, at one time. DCI Mills was pretty keen. But then… Well, you know what happened then. We'd lost our chance.'

Ashley pushed an uncapped pen across the papers on his desk. 'I can't see it would have changed anything.'

Elder thanked him for his time and not so many minutes later he was back in his car, the one o'clock news just starting on the radio, the sky lightening to the south where the rain was easing.

Karen had always thought going after Loftus would lead nowhere and from what Mike Ramsden had said there was little to make her change her mind. In some instances, the haste to employ a lawyer might be seen as an admission of guilt, but with Loftus it seemed to be short temper and little else. Earlier that day, she'd had a word with his immediate superior in SO19 and all the indications were that, aside from being a little prickly, he was a good officer with a near-exemplary record. Another blind alley, Karen thought. But maybe worth exploring a touch longer, just to be sure. She would get young Denison to poke around a little, see what, if anything, he could find.

More, maybe, than the half-dozen officers and twenty volunteers who'd been searching the woods along the railway line for any sign of Maddy's watch, and had so far come up empty-handed.

Whether Elder was still up in Hertford or not, she wasn't sure. Possibly back at his flat by now, she thought, smiling, taking an afternoon nap. In retirement that's probably what you got used to.

It was some way short of three when Sheridan came bustling towards her, tie akimbo, excitement palpable on his face.

'Sherry, what's up?'

Karen listened, not quite believing. 'How come we didn't know this before?'

'Never made it on to the computer.'

'Fuck!'

Grabbing her coat from the back of the chair, she brushed Sheridan aside. 'Tell me about it on the way down. Everything you've got.'

She called Elder from the car. 'Kennet, eleven years ago his then girlfriend applied for a restraining order against him.'

'And we've only just found this out?'

'This afternoon. When she didn't follow through with the application, any record was wiped clean. Sherry found out by chance, asking around, tracking back.'

'The girlfriend, any idea where she is now?'

Karen allowed herself a smile. 'Write down this address. I'll meet you there, thirty minutes' time.'

24

Karen drove fast: roundabouts were a test of nerve, traffic lights a starting grid. After weeks of dead ends and disappointment, she was pumped up. Friern Barnet, Totteridge and Whetstone, Hadley Wood. The roads narrowed, then broadened, then narrowed again. All those questions, statements, searches leading nowhere. Trees, some recently pollarded, lined the pavements; houses, mostly detached, stood back from the road behind tall hedges, neat gardens; small blocks of flats sat on the edge of curving drives clustered with BMWs and Jaguars, SUVs. Slow down, she told herself, slow down.

In the event, Elder was there before her.

'The restraining order,' he said, 'just stalking or more?'

'More.' Karen's face, he noticed, had taken on a definite glow.

The house was brick-built, slate-roofed, the windows on the first floor a cross-hatch of small squares that would have made the window cleaner curse inwardly and add another fiver to the bill. A near-mint Mini Cooper, grey with silver trim, stood outside the double-width garage.

When she rang the bell, Karen half-expected it to be answered by a maid, not the cap-and-frilly-apron kind, but someone overqualified and underpaid from Croatia or Brazil. In fact it was Estelle Cooper herself, Estelle Robinson as she'd been when Kennet knew her; Mrs Cooper now, alone at home with the Mail and daytime TV until the school run, parents sensible round here and taking it in turns so as not to clog up the roads; Jake and Amber were being collected today by Tara's mum from number 35.

'Mrs Cooper? I'm Detective Chief Inspector Karen Shields. This is my colleague, Mr Elder.'

They followed her through a parquet-floored hallway into a long living room at the rear of the house, French windows leading out into a diamond-shaped conservatory, large tubs of geraniums brought inside to protect them from the frost. There were photographs of the children above the fireplace and on an oval table at the side of the room, mostly those school photos with pristine uniform and artificial lighting that had always seemed to Elder, where Katherine and her friends were concerned, to transform them into distant cousins of the kids they really were.

Estelle Cooper sat small in the centre of a wide high-backed settee, the print dress she wore in danger of getting lost amongst the busy flowers of the upholstery. She had a sharp face with a downturned mouth and faded eyes, like a doll that had been played with, discarded and left, most of the life and stuffing gone.

'Would you like some tea?' she asked. 'I wasn't sure…'

'It's fine, Mrs Cooper, thanks,' Karen said. 'We won't take any more of your time than's necessary.'

'Estelle,' she said, 'please call me Estelle.'

'Very well, then. Estelle. Estelle, you had a relationship with Steven Kennet…'

Elder thought she flinched at the sound of his name.

'That was a long time ago,' she said.

'I know. I wonder, can you tell us a little about that relationship? How it ended, for instance?'

'Ended?' She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. 'Badly. But then I suspect you know.'

'Please tell us in your own words.'

'All right.' Her eyes rested on Karen, then slid away till she was looking at the floor. 'I started going out with Steven in 1989. I was working in central London, Holborn, as a legal secretary. I hadn't gone to university… well, I had, at least I'd started, but somehow, I don't know, I just hadn't seemed to be able to get on. Anyway, I was working for this firm and I started seeing Steven. I met him through a friend, a mutual friend, and he was… well, it was wonderful at first. He was considerate, you know, and kind and – this sounds a terrible thing to say – but for someone who did what he did, building work, you know, working with his hands, he was, well, not intellectual exactly, but interested in things, cultural things. We'd go to the theatre occasionally, foreign films, galleries.'