Crane said, ‘What’s all this?’

‘If we’re brainstorming we might as well do this as methodically as possible.’

‘What’s wrong with using our memories, for Christ’s sake?’

‘If we write everything down here nothing gets overlooked. And Patsy’s memory won’t have had the training ours have had.’

‘You can say that again, Geoff,’ she said, but she was very pleased to be involved like this with two men who were so different from the sorts of men she was used to.

As usual, it went against all Crane’s instincts, which were to work alone and keep his cards close. Yet he’d done exactly this type of thing in the police force, when information was coming in by the shed load, the felt tips on the white boards, noting everything that seemed crucial. But then, they’d all been police together, working to a common goal. Anderson had his own agenda, and if everything went on the flipchart he’d almost certainly feel more in control, no detail lost for the big feature he’d set his ambitions on, with Crane unable to get too far ahead of him. Crane wondered what it mattered if it got them anywhere? Except that his professional pride was coming into it now and he wanted to get there ahead of Anderson.

‘Do you guys want a drink?’

They both nodded and Anderson said, ‘I like your new hairstyle, Patsy, by the way. You’ve changed it haven’t you since I used to visit your folks?’

‘Glad you like it,’ she said, going quickly off to the kitchen.

‘She’s different,’ he said. ‘Just used to sit there when I was talking to Connie and Malc. Hair a dog, make-up laid on with a trowel, tended to be sullen.’

‘She did a good job for me with Greenwood and I told her so. I’m also encouraging her to go for promotion. She’s not a bad kid, just lost her confidence with the spotlight always being on Donna.’

‘Donna was a taker and she had a lot to answer for.’ He turned back to the flip chart and wrote the word DONNA at the top of the first page in felt tip and underlined it. ‘Right,’ he said briskly. ‘Let;s jot down on this page everyone we know to have been in contact with her.’

‘Maybe we should start with the kid who found her.’

He shrugged. ‘If you like, but that’s all he did, find the body. I tried to get a little story out of him but he was having nightmares and it was his father who gave me the outline and then told me to sod off, they’d all had more than enough with the police.’ (But he wrote down LIAM PATTERSON.

‘Thanks, Patsy,’ he said, taking his drink from the offered tray. ‘Donna knew Clive Fletcher before Joe Hellewell, right?’

‘She was barely out of school before Fletcher got his beady eye on her. God knows how he does it.’ She gave a shudder. ‘Cre-epy.’

‘He trawls the clubs,’ he told her. ‘I’ve seen him around.’

‘The photographer,’ Crane said, ‘who may or may not have talked her into nude photography? You gave him a clean bill of health in your reports.’

‘I had to watch my step. The readers know him as a weddings and babies man. It was only the insiders who knew the truth and they didn’t talk.’ His grin was faintly conspiratorial. There was plenty a skilled journalist could imply about a man like Fletcher, but Crane guessed it was to be the big story again, with Donna cast as the innocent she’d looked. Anderson said, ‘I suggest we see the bloke as soon as we can.’ He wrote down CLIVE FLETCHER on the chart and below that he wrote JOE HELLEWELL.

‘He was a bit creepy too,’ Patsy said. ‘He was good looking and seemed all right, so I don’t really know why. Only met him the once.’

‘Agreed. Another arsehole and I couldn’t get a fix on him either. Attractive wife. Gave an impression she was making do. We’ll see him as well. Pity about the rock hard alibi.’

Crane knew this was going to be the problem. The case had been picked over in such detail he wondered if there could possibly be any area left he could shine his own little torch into that hadn’t already been floodlit. He picked up the felt tip and scribbled MARVIN JACKSON and EFFIE.

‘What’s all this?’ Anderson said. ‘Patsy’s brother?’

‘Donna was definitely putting the squeeze on Marvin for some hold she had over him,’ Crane said. He wasn’t going to spell it out, not in front of Patsy.

‘How do you know this?’

‘Patsy tipped me off and I went to see him.’

‘Now come on, you bugger, I thought we’d agreed to act together.’ He spoke lightly and with his usual disarming grin, but Crane could sense the underlying irritation. He was beginning to realize just how much of a control freak Anderson really was and how driven to try and take over. And this was the second time Crane had come up with an extra angle on a case he’d lived and breathed. The reporter gave Patsy a slight look of reproach. It was clear he felt it was him she should have tipped off.

She reddened. ‘I told no one at the time, Geoff. It wasn’t just because he was my brother, it was because I had a bloody good idea …’

She broke off, embarrassed. Crane said, ‘What Patsy’s saying is that Marvin probably had the best alibi of all. We think the police believe he was involved in an unrelated matter that night.’

Anderson didn’t like that either, even if you could barely tell, but Crane didn’t want him rushing into print about anything to do with antique guns until Benson was good and ready.

‘All right, you cagey sod,’ Anderson said, in the amused tone he’d perfected, ‘but I’ve got my own snouts at the station.’

‘Fair enough,’ Crane said. ‘Anyway Marvin’s live-in’s another matter. Effie. She detested Donna. Whether she detested her enough to kill her and had the nous is highly unlikely but not impossible. Let’s regard her as a long shot.’

Anderson turned back to the flip chart and began to write each name listed on the front sheet on to a separate sheet of its own. His edgy movements told Crane that behind the collected exterior he was still very annoyed. ‘Now,’ he said, can we think of anyone else she knew who might have a possible motive? Anyone at all. Patsy?’

‘That was the trouble, she knew so many people, mainly blokes. And she was so secretive. She got off on it. She’d only ever hint at things. “I’m going for a Chinese with this guy who has a look of Brad Pitt. If Bobby comes round tell him I’m at Auntie Linda’s.” All that stuff.’

‘OK. Now, on these separate sheets let’s think about motivation. Take Fletcher. Maybe Donna got to know too much about his operation but refused to get involved herself?’ He jotted down KNEW TOO MUCH?

Crane said, ‘Blackmail?’ Anderson wrote that down too.

‘He might have lost it with her because she’d not have sex with him,’ Patsy said. ‘She led blokes on, even when there was no way she was going to sleep with them.’

He scribbled down CRIME OF PASSION?

They did the same for the others, working through possible motives. Crane had to grudgingly admit that it did help focus their minds, especially Patsy’s, and time passed quickly.

‘Well, that makes a start, you guys,’ Anderson said, flicking his thick mop of wavy hair back and finishing his drink. ‘Every time we get back here we jot down everything  we’ve turned up. Oh, is it OK to use your pad, Patsy?’

She nodded quickly, touchingly eager to be of use.

‘I’ll be off then. But you will keep me on message, Frank?’

‘The problem’s solved, isn’t it,’ Crane said, with an ironic smile of his own, ‘now you’ve got the flip chart up and running?’

‘I’m a reporter and we do like to be where it’s at when anything’s actually happening.’

It was a fair point, Crane supposed, but it emphasized again the separate directions they were coming from, the newspaperman anxious for all the publicity and headlines he could grab, and the PI, keen to keep his work and himself as low profile as possible. He’d always sensed that taking the chance of working with him was going to be a two-edged sword.