‘Can I see it? You’ve not handed it over to Benson and Co?’

‘Not yet. We’ll have to, soon. Patsy’s still got it here.’

She handed it to him and the reporter, hands still trembling, flicked rapidly through the weeks leading up to her death, studying the items intently, just as Crane had done. It soon became clear he’d reached the same conclusion.

‘What became of the loot?’

‘You tell us.’

‘She really was putting it about, wasn’t she?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it. I’d say she was pacing herself. She was charging top dollar too, top dollar in Bradford terms anyway, and she was accounting for the money very carefully. It was as if she had a long-term plan.’

Anderson flicked ruefully through the pages one last time. Donna’s background and way of life had been his obsession. He’d known she mixed with unsavoury types. But Donna’s obsession had been secrecy and Crane didn’t think the reporter had even begun to guess at the highly organized call girl she’d made of herself. Crane guessed that he now saw that big concluding feature shredding before his eyes, of a Donna he’d just about been able to pass off as an ingenuous teenager corrupted by the men she’d come up against, her fate sealed by the accident of being born on the Willows. If anyone ever was brought to trial for her murder, the defence wouldn’t hesitate to imply that she’d been partly to blame for her own death by the company she’d chosen to keep. Crane couldn’t forget Patsy’s words as she’d sat in his car the first night they’d met. ‘She asked for it, Frank.’

‘Well, where do we go from here?’ Anderson said heavily.

‘My feeling is we talk to Fletcher and Hellewell. She spent a lot of time with both of them. We could ask if she mentioned an Adrian. We could also test out their own alibis. Let’s start with Fletcher. You know him, you’ve talked to him. When would be a good time to catch him?’

‘Early evening, at home. Definitely at home.’ He began to find his old cocky grin. ‘That bugs him. He’s frightened about his wife finding out about the porno stuff. I reckon she’s an important part of his back-up: humping gear for the weddings, chatting people up and selling the service, all that. Comes from a respectable county family. Fletcher answers the door himself and rushes you upstairs. He has an office up there, plus a studio and darkroom. She’ll know about the routine modelling for the catalogues but I’m certain she’s in the dark about the basement he rents and what goes on down there.’

‘This basement—’

‘Spent hours checking it out. Warehouse building in the Old Quarter. I’ve seen young girls and blokes go down there. I’ve shadowed one or two of the kids, tried chatting them up in the Glass-house, no chance. The money’s good and he backs it up with threats, and they know he means what he says. The police know what he’s up to but they have no proof, and anyway it comes so far behind the city’s drugs problem as to be out of sight.’

Crane gave a respectful nod. He’d certainly done his leg work. ‘Do you think he could have used Donna in a porn video?’

‘No. He’s nobody’s fool. He was certain he could agent her to the fashion industry. If she didn’t make it legit the blue movies would have been a fall-back.’

Crane glanced at Patsy, who gave a resigned shrug. Again, it was more or less what she too had said on the first night. ‘What say we drop in on him tomorrow evening, around seven, if you’re free?’

‘I’ll be in the Glass-house after six. I’ll ring you if I can’t make it.’

When he’d gone Patsy made Crane another drink and they sat on the sofa. ‘I do hope you find someone, Frank.’

‘Me too. And Mr Pushy deserves a break, he’s never stopped working on it. I know he’s only thinking in terms of his career, but I suppose that’s what ambitious journalists are like. And it’s Geoff’s ambition that might very well get us there in the end.’

Though Crane was determined that he was going to get there first, aware that he was up against someone with investigative skills almost as sharp as his own, and who took any mistakes as badly as he did. But then he had to remind himself that he and Anderson weren’t opponents, they were supposed to be on the same side.

‘How are things going at work, Patsy?’

She coloured slightly, in the familiar way. ‘Nancy, one of the supervisors, asked me to sit with her during my lunch break. She began telling me what my duties would be if I got promoted.’

‘That means you will be.’

‘She said she was sure I’d do well, because I know all the girls and get on with them.’

‘She’ll know.’

‘Trouble is, the girls have sussed what’s going on. They’re not the same. I mean they’re still friendly, but they seem to be watching what they’re saying, know what I mean?’

‘You’ll never really be one of them again, not if you’re going to be over them. But you’ll make new friends, on the next rung.’

She nodded dejectedly. It was the first time her newfound  enthusiasm for getting on seemed to have deserted her. Crane was glad to turn away for a time from the mind-numbing problems surrounding her sister’s death, to help someone with problems of her own.

Carol was sitting in the Glass-house with several of her colleagues. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Touching base with the cave man?’

Crane sat next to her. ‘You know that cliché “the usual suspects”? Well, we’re aiming to talk to them all over again.’

‘That’s more like it,’ she said, grinning, ‘we get such a petted lip when you will keep doing things without him.’

‘So I’m finding out.’

‘Trouble is, he’s always seen it as his story and he gets very agitated about anyone trying to share it. We all tend to get a bit proprietorial in this business. He probably thinks you might want to write a book about it.’

‘He’s the writer, not me. And anyway, he deserves whatever he can make out of the Donna Jackson story. No one could have worked harder on it than him.’

‘Don’t I know it. He’s spent so much time on it I was beginning to wonder if there was a bit on the side involved. These people you keep talking to, I don’t suppose one of them’s female, gorgeous-looking and giving him googoo eyes?’ She giggled to imply she was only joking, but he could tell she was speaking in code and making a serious request. He shook his head.

‘Women didn’t seem to figure much in Donna’s life. So far, it’s been blokes all the way.’

She looked relieved, but Crane knew she was always going to have worries about Anderson and other women, because wherever he was the eyes of other women followed him.

‘What I’ll do when he runs off to London I can’t imagine,’ she said. ‘I’ll be up against girls who have double firsts and work in television and earn a million a year. But will they be able to cook, I ask myself, or change a duvet cover, or programme a DVD-recorder?’ She was giggling again, and Crane felt that what she was saying now was that she could turn a blind eye to Anderson having the occasional affair as long as he always came back to her. He knew from experience that some women could live with this state of affairs around men of looks and charm who showed every sign of having a glowing future.

Then her green eyes softened and he knew Anderson stood behind him before he felt his hand on his shoulder. ‘You need to watch this one, Carol,’ Anderson said breezily. ‘These quiet types with their sympathetic smiles can be inside your knickers while you’re still telling them how you felt when the dog died.’

‘I did try to warn him how insanely jealous you get. Anyway, who said I had any knickers on?’

He squeezed in at the table, giving her the sort of smile that went with a private joke. ‘One drink and then off, Frank?’

‘I’ll get them. Carol?’

‘Can we go in your car? It’s best if we don’t seem to roll up mob-handed. Not with Fletcher.’

‘I’ll drive yours to the flat, Geoff, if you like,’ Carol said. ‘It’ll save Frank having to come back into town. I can leave mine at the office.’