'There was a job wanting finishing, we were way behind. It's called having a sense of responsibility, maybe you've heard of it?'

'Big on responsibility, are you?'

'I like to think so, yes.'

'Taking responsibility.'

'Yes.'

'Then why don't you take responsibility for this?' Karen had picked up the knife again and was holding it in front of Kennet's face.

'I tell you what,' Kennet said. 'You show me some proof that says conclusively that knife is mine, I'll take responsibility for it? Fair enough?'

Without taking her eyes from him, Karen leaned back against her chair.

Nearing four in the afternoon, not so far off dark, Elder had two brief telephone conversations with Katherine, both interrupted, neither satisfactory. Except that she was okay. Rob Summers was okay. He was still with the police, talking, sorting things out. She didn't know what was happening to Bland and his mate, except that she hoped they'd be put away for a very long time.

'I'll come up and see you,' Elder said at the end of the second call.

'When?'

'I don't know. As soon as I can.'

How many times had he said that when she was growing up? Not now, Katherine. Not now, okay. But soon.

Framlingham had been in and out of a string of meetings, in some of which Elder had also been involved, while during others he had been left to kick his heels. There had been sightings of Mallory, unconfirmed, on the ferry from Folkestone to Calais, boarding a flight at Heathrow bound for Miami, buying a Frappuccino in Starbucks on the Avenue de l'Opera in Paris.

'Go home, Frank,' Framlingham said eventually. 'Go home and get some rest. We've done all we can for today.'

56

It was a grey end-of-January day: one of those days that promises nothing save that, sooner or later, it will be over. Elder had lain awake since five, thinking, trying not to think. By six-thirty he was showered, dressed, had drunk orange juice and two cups of coffee, walked down the street to buy a paper and bought three; he read slightly differing versions of Repton's murder, more wishful thinking than factual statement, the few known certainties spun together with fantasies involving gangland executions and Turkish drug barons exacting revenge. Only one report, as an aside, mentioned that Repton had been one of the officers involved in the police operation, three months before, in which a high-profile criminal, James William Grant, had been shot and killed. Enough to leave a taint of retribution hanging in the breeze.

Head and heart, Elder thought, as he shrugged on his coat.

Head and heart.

He was at Framlingham's office well before eight and Framlingham was there before him, silver thermos on his desk. Elder suspected he had been there all night.

'Take a look at this, Frank,' he said, handing Elder a fax.

The blurred image of two girls stared back up at him: school uniform, white blouses, striped ties not quite tight to the neck, faked smiles.

'Jill and Judy Tremlett. Disappeared from home, May seventeenth, '96. Last seen at a nightclub in Colchester, friend's eighteenth birthday. Some reports have them leaving with an older woman, never been identified. According to others, one of the girls, Judy, complained of feeling sick and went outside for some fresh air. Jill went after her. When their father arrived to pick them up, just before midnight as arranged, they were nowhere to be seen.

'Usual procedure followed. Everyone at the club was questioned, the route home searched in case they'd started walking, thumbing a lift; drivers checked. It seems as if for a time the father was in the frame, but it came to nothing. No personal belongings were ever found, no shoes, no clothing, nothing. No sight or sign. They were seventeen.'

Elder was seeing again the grainy video images, remembering Lynette Drury's words. Boys and girls, all hand-picked, paid for. And George, he was in the thick of it, wasn't he? Lapping it up. Girls, especially; he liked girls, did George. Two or three at a time. Young girls. An older woman, Framlingham had said, never been identified.

'There are better pictures,' Framlingham said, nodding towards the fax. 'I'm having them biked across. In case you're not sure.'

Elder shook his head. 'I'm sure. It's them.'

Framlingham sighed. 'Slater's old place out at Manningtree. I've spoken to the secretary of the Foundation. Seems they use the place for courses mainly. Alternative medicine, holistic therapy, that kind of thing.' He looked at his watch. 'Should have a search warrant within the hour.'

'You think that's where they are?' Elder said.

'It's a start, Frank. It's a start.'

Karen Shields had spoken to her boss, urged, pulled strings; the technology was there but not everyone had the same access, not every case was given the same priority, justified the same expense.

'She was one of ours,' Karen kept saying. 'Remember that. One of ours.'

By mid-morning what she needed was up on the computer: a three-dimensional reconstruction of Maddy Birch's body, in outline, showing the extent and depth of the stab wounds to both arms and torso. Sheridan, operating, introduced, its dimensions exact, the shape of the knife found in the roof. Zoom in on one of the wounds, the deepest first, and then move the image of the knife across and down. Some contraction of the skin around the exit point, no more than you would expect, but otherwise as perfect a fit as you could wish. In and out. Clean.

Karen swallowed and the sound seemed unnaturally loud.

She watched as Sheridan repeated the process with a second wound, lower in the torso, left-hand side. Another match. This knife, or one identical in every aspect, had almost certainly been the cause of Maddy Birch's death. Almost. Karen could see the defence barrister arguing the odds in court. Computers are like statistics, you can manoeuvre them to prove anything you need.

'Mike,' she called across the room. 'Anything back from Forensics yet?'

Ramsden shook his head.

'Get them for me on the phone.'

The officer at the other end never stood a chance. 'What do you mean,' Karen said, her face tight with anger, 'you're still processing my fucking request? And don't tell me to watch my fucking language, just do your fucking job. And fast.'

When she put the phone down, the office gave her a small round of applause.

Two minutes later, she rang back. 'Look, I'm sorry about just now. I had no right to talk to you that way and… Yes, yes, yes, that'd be great. Fine. Just as soon as you can. Yes. No. I do understand. Of course. And thanks again.'

Ramsden looked at her enquiringly.

'Patience,' Karen said with a grin. 'Patience. All in good time.'

Out here closer to the coast, the wind was keener, the sky the grey of blue-grey slate. Magwitch, Elder thought. Great Expectations. The Essex marshes. He wondered if Jill and Judy Tremlett had been given the book at school. What expectations they'd had themselves. Seventeen. The same age as Katherine.

A pair of magpies hopped down from the branches of a nearby tree and played desultory chase across the grass. The place looked as if it had been given a face-lift since it had been sold on, the exterior painted blue and gold.

Framlingham was walking round the perimeter of the grounds with the chair of the trustees. Framlingham in greenish tweed, the chairwoman wearing a pale suit with a full shirt, hair pulled back from her face, nodding as she listened, interposing the occasional question, then nodding again.