‘But gays tend not to do violence,’ Anderson said.

‘Joe Orton wouldn’t have thought so.’

‘When do you aim to see Ollie again?’ The reporter spoke tentatively.

Crane also forced tact. ‘Tomorrow evening. We could both go, now he trusts me. You can be a colleague. He’ll take to a bloke with your looks.’

‘Bugger! I’m tied up. Can’t get out of it either. It’s an Asian girl being forced into a marriage against her will. She’s on the run and she’s made very complex arrangements to see me and talk about it. You couldn’t make it the evening after?’

‘Sorry. I’ve promised Ollie and it’s too hot a lead. I’ll make sure it all goes on your flip chart.’

That wasn’t the point, but Anderson smiled in cheerful resignation. ‘I’ve got to go now, but keep up the good work, Frank, and do keep me in touch, said he with a mirthless grin.’

‘That Geoff,’ Patsy said, shaking her head as the door closed on him. She gave Crane a conspiratorial smile. ‘Do you want my news now?’

He watched in silence as she opened a handbag and took out a small black diary. It was stamped in gold with the initials DJ.

‘No!’

‘I made another search of her room. I felt all round the edge of the carpet, but there were no loose bits anywhere. So I looked at the drawers in the base of her bed again. I knew the police had had everything out, but something made me feel underneath. The diary was in an envelope and she’d fastened that to the underside of one of the drawers, right at the back, with Scotch tape. She’d have been worried any of us might lay hands on it.’

‘Well done, Patsy! I don’t think even the police would think she was going to keep a diary so well hidden. Bloody well done!’

‘You’ll soon see why she kept it so well hidden,’ she sad sadly. ‘And it might not help much.’

Crane quickly saw why. His elation ebbed. It wasn’t a record of where she’d been and who with. She’d written down initials and figures only, the figures entered neatly beside the initials, in brackets. £75 seemed to be the going rate. It could be less and it could be a lot more, especially on Saturdays. Sometimes the letter B would show up with the letter F at the side, also in brackets. A figure would be entered each Sunday that checked out as the week’s takings, which was rarely fewer than three amounts. He turned to the little accounting section at the back. He found that this had been kept just as meticulously, weekly totals brought forward and added into monthlies. There was a regular figure included in the weekly amounts of £170, which he took to be Donna’s net pay from Leaf and Petal. Detailed expenses were also accounted for: motor, HP, clothes, hair, make-up, house and so on. There was always a healthy bottom line.

They looked at each other. ‘Couldn’t do sums to save her life when she was at school,’ she said flatly. ‘Seemed to have learnt fast.’

‘Money’s a fast teacher. There seems to be a lot of money left over, according to this. Six grand at least. Know if she had a cheque account?’

‘She always swore she didn’t have enough to make it worthwhile. Told Mam and Dad she found it impossible to save. She only gave them a tiny bit towards her board.’

‘So what happened to the money, Patsy?’

‘Could have had it with her. Could have been killed for it.’

‘It’s a good idea, but can you see anyone as careful as she was carrying thousands of pounds around in a handbag?’

‘You’re right. She was so careful with everything.’

‘But if all this money’s gone it gives the case an extra angle.’

‘I could have another scout round in her bedroom.’

‘Might be worth it. The police weren’t looking for money, they’d assume she had none, like most teenagers.’

She nodded ruefully at the little book. ‘It can only mean one thing, can’t it?’

‘It’s got to be sex for cash. Apart from B. I’d guess B stood for Bobby and he seemed to qualify for a freebie. It looked as if she made Bobby pay by winding him up rotten.’

She gazed despondently out over the unkempt strip of lawn and the peeling garages. He guessed she found it very hard to equate the near call girl Donna looked to have become with the little sister she’d helped to bathe and dress, and played with in the wendy house.

Crane looked back at the diary. The letter C appeared regularly. ‘Could C stand for Clive Fletcher, do you think?’

‘He was trying to get her into modelling,’ she said doubtfully. ‘They say he always expects it to come free from the girls he’s looking after.’

‘Well, he’s paid here and that could have been something that bugged him. And A crops up in the months before she died. Could that be Adrian? There’s also a J that figures a lot. Often at the weekend, with amounts of a hundred or more, but other times showing no figure at all. Interesting. Could mean she stayed the night somewhere. Was she away much at weekends?’

‘When wasn’t she? She’d go to the garden centre on Saturdays and take her going out clothes with her. She was always with her friend Pam if anyone wanted to know.’

‘Pam covered for her?’

‘The police talked to her, but she had no more idea where Donna got to than I did.’

‘Surely she’d not be as secretive as that with her best mate.’

‘Pam kept her neb out, just thought herself lucky Donna was her best mate. She was nothing like as pretty as Donna, no one was, but being around her meant she got to get Donna’s leavings.’ It was a symbiosis as old as time, the plain one and the pretty one, and she spoke with a resigned bitterness.

Crane gave the diary a final glance. There were other initials scattered through the pages, but the ones that appeared regularly were B, C, A and J. ‘I’ll tell Ted Benson you’ve found this, they’ll need it when they make a fresh start.’ But he knew the police would be as disappointed as he was that it hadn’t been a regular diary, with full names and an account of her movements.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have brought that bag of booze.’ She looked at him gratefully. It was clear no one else had ever brought her a bag of booze, let alone flowers or scent.

He shrugged. ‘You can’t afford to keep giving out free drinks. Why didn’t you dig out the diary when Geoff was here?’

‘I … wanted you to see it first,’ she said, reddening again. ‘So you could decide what to do before he starts trying to take over, like he always does.’

She was a bright kid. She’d picked up on the tension both men tried to conceal behind a jokey manner. ‘It doesn’t seem fair,’ she said, ‘you’re finding out these new things and I have a feeling he wants to take the credit for them if you get anywhere. He’s a good looking bloke and you can’t help liking him, but good lookers can be very self-centred.’

Crane thought that she’d know if anyone did, having had a sister like Donna. He took her lightly by the shoulders. ‘He’s pushy and he’s driven, Patsy, but all that really matters is finding your sister’s killer.’ He could have added that the worst vibes he got from Anderson were that he’d damage the case by his impetuosity, his lack of tact, and his gnawing ambition to get down to Fleet Street, or Wapping, or wherever the big papers hung out these days.

‘You keep an eye on him, Frank.’

He took his hands away, sensing that she’d have liked him to keep them there. She smiled uncertainly and went off for the drinks. Crane was pushed for time but felt he had to spend another ten or fifteen minutes with her. It gave her such a boost to have them there, him and Anderson, that was obvious. They made her feel useful and needed in those flip chart sessions and it had been like transferring a wilting plant into the right kind of soil. Poor kid, plain maybe yet comely and intelligent. But simply neglected in a house where her glamorous little sister had hoovered up all the attention.

When she came back with the drinks, they sat on the sofa. She was still in a state of animation and it was beginning to be hard to remember her as the drab and apathetic woman he’d first seen.