All right. So has the bird-watcher got his times wrong? Was it earlier than he thought when he saw Dickinson and his dog?'

‘It's possible. You can lose track of time when you're up on the hills. It can be very deceptive.'

‘We'll have to check with him.' Tailby shuffled a file of reports. 'Damn it, there's no mention of whether he had a watch on, or whether it was usually accurate. A bit of a sketchy interview altogether, in fact. Who did that?' He grimaced. 'Oh yes, DS Rennie.’

Unconsciously copying the DCI's gesture, Cooper raised a hand to push a lock of hair back from his forehead and found some of the strands stuck to his skin by sweat.

‘I can't reconcile the idea of all those people we're interested in being on the Baulk at the same time,' he said. 'Laura, Harry Dickinson, Graham Vernon. And a fourth person — the killer? It seems like too much of a coincidence.'

‘We can't let Dickinson get away with refusing to say why he wanted to talk to Graham Vernon,' said Tailby.

‘Can we show that his reasons are relevant to the enquiry?’

Tailby considered it. 'The whole question of Dickinson and Vernon being out on the Baulk at that time is very relevant.'

‘The bigger question is — what was Vernon doing?' said Cooper.

‘The Vernon family have got some more questions to answer, I'm afraid. There's clearly something not right about their account of events just before Laura vanished. Yet they were very convincing during the appeal this morning. Graham Vernon will come over very well on TV.’

Ben Cooper felt distinctly unimpressed by the thought of Vernon's television persona. In his own experience' anything that was said for the sake of the TV cameras was even less likely to approach the truth than the normal tangle of fabrications and evasions he had to deal with every working day. Lies told under a bright gloss of lights and cameras were lies just the same.

He watched Tailby fiddle with the knot of his tie like a man worried about his appearance' and he knew the DCI felt the same way.

‘What about Daniel Vernon?' asked Cooper.

‘Oh' there are several reliable witnesses to place him in Exeter at the critical times. Seems he's a member of some left-wing group with social consciences. I can't imagine where he got ideas like those from. A shame' that' too — I had a feeling about young Daniel. In the end, I let DC Weenink call round at the Mount to ask him about his transport arrangements. It emerges that his father had offered to pay for his rail fare or even to drive down to Devon and collect him when Laura turned up dead on Monday. But Daniel preferred to hitchhike' and it took him all night and half the next morning. We traced the driver of a cattle transporter who dropped him at Junction 28 on the M1 in the early hours.'

‘Interesting.'

‘People aren't so willing to pick up scruffy youths by the side of the road as they were in my day.'

‘I didn't mean —'

‘I know what you meant' Cooper. And I agree. But it can wait for a while.’

Cooper wondered whether this was the signal for him to leave. But the DCI seemed to be in an amenable mood' so he decided to press on.

‘How is Lee Sherratt shaping up, sir?'

‘He's denying everything. Says he had no relationship with Laura Vernon at all' that he hardly knew her, in fact. But the used condom shook him' all right. The DNA will pin him down on that. All we have to do is wait for the results.'

‘Suggesting he had been indulging in some outdoors sex? But it won't prove the sex was with Laura Vernon.'

‘It'll be enough to put him under pressure. But we have another alternative anyway. DS Morgan has traced the boyfriend.'

‘Ah.'

‘A lad by the name of Simeon Holmes. Aged seven teen. He lives on the Devonshire Estate in Edendale. Do you know it?’

Cooper knew it well. He had patrolled the beat there as a young bobby' watching out for stolen cars being raced round the streets or gathering information on local drug dealers who operated from the sprawl of prefabricated concrete houses mistakenly slung up in the 1960s.

The Devonshire Estate occupied low-lying land in the valley bottom which had once been wetlands and water meadows until they had been hastily drained for the housing scheme. For thirty-five years the damp had gradually been creeping back into the foundations of the houses' staining the walls with mould and rotting the doors and windows. Many of the houses had become virtually uninhabitable' with fungus growing through the floorboards and water pouring through the roofs. But there was almost nowhere else for the poor of Edendale to go. It was the closest thing the valley had to an inner-city area.

‘How does he come to be Laura Vernon's boyfriend? He sounds like entirely the wrong type.'

‘He's not someone her parents would approve of' don't suppose'' said Tailby. 'Rides a motorbike for a start. He says he met Laura here in town one lunchtime when they should both have been at school. In fact' he says she initiated the relationship' and had been skipping school ever since to meet him in various convenient spots.'

‘Bunking off.'

‘Is that what they call it these days? I thought it was bonking, not bunking.'

‘Missing school' sir' not the other thing.'

‘Oh. Well, by all accounts they were doing the other thing as well. Holmes says she told him she was sixteen.'

‘They always say that.'

‘It's bloody difficult' though' isn't it? I certainly couldn't tell you whether one of these girls out there was fifteen or sixteen. Sometimes they look every bit of eighteen and turn out to be twelve. The CPS wouldn't entertain a prosecution for statutory rape anyway. Not at seventeen.'

‘There are certainly plenty of leads' then' sir.’

Tailby sighed. 'Too many. A positive over-abundance of suspects. I'd much prefer to narrow it down to one at an early stage. But at least it avoids the talk of a link with the Edson case.'

‘Were there any reports of motorbikes in Moorhay from the house-to-house?' asked Cooper.

‘Several. They're being sifted out from the computer. Holmes is coming in shortly to be interviewed. Perhaps we ought to have a look at him ourselves' you and I. We could leave Harry Dickinson and the Vernons until later. This lad seems to be more than happy to talk. What do you say' Cooper?'

‘I'd like to do that' sir. Thank you.’

Then the phone rang' and Tailby took a call from downstairs. He nodded with the beginnings of a small smile.

‘Change of plan'' he said. 'DI Hitchens can tackle Holmes instead. If you pop downstairs, you'll find Mr Daniel Vernon waiting. Apparently he has a few things he wants to tell us.’

*

One of the twin tape decks had developed a faint' irritating squeak. Diane Fry thought it could almost have been designed to do that deliberately' to unnerve an interviewee. But today it was likely to unnerve the interviewers first.

‘We go to the arcades at lunchtime from school' see. Sometimes we stay all afternoon. Nobody bothers about us.’

Simeon Holmes was still dressed in the bottom half of his black biking leathers' but had taken off the jacket as a gesture towards the stifling atmosphere of the interview room. He was wearing a black Manic Street Preachers T-shirt that revealed smooth' well-developed arms and shoulders, and there were small blue tattoos at the base of his neck on either side. His hair was cropped close on top' but had been left to grow long at the back. He had a gold earring in one ear and a small birthmark near one eyebrow. Diane Fry remembered that DS Morgan had described Holmes as the sort of muscular lout that some girls liked. And he had a 500 cc motorbike as well.

‘But you're a pupil at Edendale Community School'' said Hitchens with barely concealed amazement.

‘That's right' mate.'

‘How can you take all afternoon off from school?’