‘Really?'

‘There was no possibility of tracing anyone who could remember him. He could have been anywhere at that time.'

‘But he can't be placed at the scene either.'

‘The DCI thinks he's worth pursuing. And that one is no Harry Dickinson, either. Mr Tailby will have been running rings round him back at Division.’

Cooper was silent for a moment, lying quite still to ease the pain in his chest.

Andrew Milner isn't in the frame,' he said.

‘But you just said it fits!'

‘Of course it does. It fits the facts, anyway. But he can't have killed Laura Vernon.'

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. 'He just can't, that's all.'

‘You're nuts, do you know that? You're a sandwich short of a picnic.’

They didn't speak to each other for a few minutes. They lay listening to the noises in the woods. A small flock of jackdaws appeared and circled the face of a neighbouring crag. Their harsh, metallic cries drownedout all other noises coming up from the valley until the birds gradually settled on to their roost.

The minutes passed without incident. The three old men were still gathered around the white pick-up in front of the house. In another half-hour the light would have gone completely. Fry passed the binoculars back to Cooper. Then she eased over on to her side and dug a hand into the pocket of her jacket. She pulled out a bag of coloured sweets.

‘I read somewhere you should have something with you when you're on the hills. For the energy.' Cooper took a sweet and sucked it thoughtfully. He looked at her with a faintly puzzled expression. She seemed to feel his eyes on her and turned away, pretending to study something in the woods. Beyond the valley, a jet airliner was leaving a faint trace across the sky towards Manchester.

‘Diane —' he said tentatively.

‘Yeah?'

‘What happened to your family?’

Fry remained staring straight ahead. A tendon twitched in her neck as her jaw tightened. She showed no other sign that she had heard him.

He studied her profile, trying to tune in to what she was thinking, to get a glimpse of how she was feeling. But her face was stony and expressionless, her eyes fixed on something that might have been deep in the wood, or even beyond it.

A blackbird scratching in the old leaves beneath the trees whistled and chattered to itself. A partridge wound up its rusty spring somewhere down the hillside. They followed the sound of a car travelling up out of Moorhay towards Edendale.

‘You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,' he said gently.

She turned her head then. Her lips had narrowed to a hard line, but her eyes had returned from their invisible horizon to seek out his own.

‘I just can't believe you sometimes, Ben.'

‘I'm that amazing, eh?'

‘What sort of time is this to decide you want to discuss my private life?'

‘I thought you might like to talk while we wait.'

‘Would it surprise you to learn that all I'd like to do at this particular moment is punch you on the nose?’

‘Oh, I shouldn't do that. My screaming would give our position away.'

‘Right.’

They stayed unmoving for five minutes more. The blackbird chattered amongst the old leaves on the woodland floor. A squirrel rustled the branches as it leaped from one tree to the next. A large, pale moth appeared, fluttering in front of Fry's nose until she waved it away. A tawny owl hooted from the slopes of the Baulk. Finally, she gave a deep sigh.

‘I was taken into care by Social Services when I was nine. They said my parents had been abusing my sister, who was eleven. They said it was both my parents. We were fostered after that, but we kept moving on to different places. So many different places that I can't remember them. It was years before I realized that we didn't stay anywhere long because of my sister. She wasbig trouble wherever we went. Nobody could keep her under control. But I worshipped her, and I refused to be split up from her.'

‘What about you?'

‘What about me? Do you mean was I abused too? I can't remember.'

‘Was it —?'

‘I can't remember.’

The blackbird flapped away through the undergrowth, cackling its alarm call. The squirrel froze on an oak branch, its body upright, its head alert for danger. Cooper and Fry automatically ducked their heads and hugged the ground more closely. Gradually, the normal sounds of the hillside returned. The squirrel relaxed and moved on.

‘So what happened to your parents?'

‘For God's sake. I've no idea. And I don't want to know. All right?'

‘And your sister?’

Fry hesitated. When she spoke, her voice had lost its hard edge. Her eyes had drifted away, back to the images floating somewhere in a darkness that only she could see. 'I haven't seen her since she was sixteen. She disappeared from our foster home and never came back.’

Her voice died, and Cooper thought she had told him all she was ever going to say. But then came a whisper, full of anger and unresolved pain.

‘Of course, she was already using heroin by then.’

*

A skein of geese passed slowly overhead in a straggly 'v' shape. They honked hoarsely to each other, communicating their presence, binding themselves together as a living unit that moved as a single creature. A combine harvester was working late lower down the valley. Its headlights were on, and the clatter of its blades was clear and sharp on the air as it flattened a field of barley. A cloud of dust marked the combine's position, golden specks glittering in the fading light.

Fry tried to persuade her memories to fly away with the geese, to fall into shreds beneath the combine's blade, to disappear in a cloud of dust. But in the dark valley of her mind, the nightmares roosted permanently; the harvest never came.

‘Diane —'

‘What now?'

‘I guess you must have taken me home last night.’

‘Who else?'

‘Well . . . thanks.'

‘Think nothing of it. But don't expect the same favour too often. It wasn't exactly the most fun I've ever had in one night.'

‘Right.’

He sucked the last of his sweet and polished the lenses of the binoculars on his sleeve.

‘There's just one other thing, Diane. Most of last night is a complete blur. But there is something I can sort of remember. Something I wanted to ask you about. I can't get it out of my mind.’

Fry went completely rigid, her arm and leg muscles locked tight as if she had multiple cramp. Her stomach tied itself into a painful knot, and she turned her face away, praying that he couldn't see her blush. How could she have hoped that he wouldn't remember that excruciatingly embarrassing moment? She had no idea what she was going to say to him. Her mind was a total blank.

‘Diane —?’

She barely managed a grunt of acknowledgement, but it was enough to encourage him to continue.

‘I remember some music you were playing in the car on the way back to your flat. I guess it sort of stuck in my mind while I was drunk, and I can't get rid of it again. I just wondered what it was, that's all.’

Fry laughed out loud with relief. 'That's ridiculous!’

‘Some woman singer. I'm more into the Waterboys and the Levellers. But that tape sounded all right.’

‘It was Tanita Tikaram. It's called "Ancient Heart."‘

‘Thanks.'

‘I'll lend you the cassette, if you like. You can make a copy of it.'

‘That's great —’

A bleeping sound came from Fry's jacket pocket. 'Oh shit.'

‘What have you brought that thing for?’

Fry pulled out her pager and switched off the sound as she read the phone number. 'It's somebody I've been trying to get hold of all day,' she said. 'He's just tried to ring me back at last.'

‘Important?'

‘The bird-watcher — Gary Edwards.’

Ah. You remembered.'

‘Do you still think it's important? Should I go back to the car and phone him, then?’