The hesitation was almost imperceptible but it was there. ‘Oh … good idea, Carol. We’ll have a bite to eat when I get back.’

It confirmed what Crane had suspected. Anderson was getting bored with her. Maybe her instincts were sound and there was another woman on the go.

He lived on the old Keighley-Skipton road. The house was large, elegant and Edwardian and at the rear overlooked open country. Ornamental trees dotted a garden that was mainly lawn with well-kept borders. Fletcher was clearly doing well.

Shadows were lengthening in the evening sun as they walked up the drive. Anderson drew the handle of an old-fashioned bell pull. The door was opened very quickly. He gave Crane’s unknown face a wary glance before looking at Anderson. ‘Oh, you again,’ he said, in a low hard tone. ‘Well you can forget it. I’ve already told you everything I knew about her.’

‘There’s been a development, Mr Fletcher,’ Anderson said courteously, with his warm smile. ‘Could you possibly spare us a few minutes?’

‘No.’

‘I’m a private investigator, Mr Fletcher,’ Crane said. ‘Frank Crane, working for Donna’s parents. It would be a great help to me, and them, if we could spend a little time with you.’

‘Who is it, Clive?’ a woman’s voice called.

‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered. ‘You’d better come in.’

They moved into a large square hall. The woman looked from a half-open door and the hall smelt faintly of good cooking. ‘Two gentlemen wanting to arrange a portrait of their board of directors,’ he told her, with well-honed presence of mind. ‘I’ll take them up to the office.’

‘Right you are.’ She gave them a friendly smile. ‘I can hold dinner.’ She was fortyish, plumpish, and had rather coarse, tinted-blonde hair. A slight vagueness seemed to go with the pleasant manner. Crane felt it was a vagueness that would be of great help to Fletcher in living his double life under her nose.

They followed him up a wide staircase. It had dark oak balustrades that also ran along a lengthy landing. Two teenage girls hung over the landing rail and gazed lingeringly at Anderson before going back to their rooms. Anderson glanced at Crane with a small upward jerk of his head. It translated as two pretty young kids whose father made obscene movies of pretty young kids.

Fletcher led them over creaking floorboards and through a door at the end of the landing. This was his office. It had doors to left and right, which Crane guessed were studio and darkroom. It was comfortably furnished and had a large antique pedestal desk and a bow-back Windsor chair. Lavish examples of his highly-skilled work were displayed on the walls: wedding groups in dappled sunlight, winsome babies, family portraits, businessmen looking decisive.

‘Well, get on with it,’ he said tersely.

‘Things have changed, Mr Fletcher,’ Crane told him. ‘It was common knowledge that Bobby Mahon was the leading suspect in Donna’s murder. He’s now been cleared.’

Crane saw a flicker of unease in his eyes, but otherwise he gave little away. He was about five-ten and well-built, with strong features and a head of thick auburn hair. His eyes were dark blue and glinted when they caught the light, and seemed to hint at the faint, louche lassitude of a man overdrawing on sizeable energy levels. Crane guessed he overdid everything: work, play, drink, sex. He’d certainly have access to plenty of sex.

‘You’d better sit,’ he said, with an edginess he could only just control. ‘Christ, I never thought it could be anyone else but that shithead.’

‘These things happen, sir,’ Anderson said comfortingly.

‘It means the police have to make a fresh start,’ Crane told him.

‘Does that mean I’ll have to waste time with them too?’

‘If we can get a firm lead on Donna’s killer we should be able to spare you any further dealings with DS Benson.’

‘I spent a lot of time with that kid,’ he said harshly. ‘She had the most photogenic face I’ve ever pointed a lens at. I could have made her a big name. Apart from that I liked her, liked her a lot.’

Enough to shell out seventy-odd pounds a throw to sleep with her? Crane wondered if he really was the C in her diary. But then Fletcher suddenly had a haunted look about him, as if his unfocused eyes saw again the woman he’d photographed so often. He looked forlorn, as if he genuinely grieved.

‘Oh, well,’ Anderson said gently, ‘at least you’ve got plenty of other attractive young women to console yourself with.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he snapped, back in the present, eyes glinting, face hard.

‘Your glamour photography. Your remarkable ability to make young women look their sexy best. You very kindly lent us a picture of Donna to put in the paper when the poor kid’s body was found, remember?’

The other watched him. He couldn’t quite decide if he was being needled by this amiable young man, but Crane was quite certain he was. It was Mahon and pointing the bone all over again.

‘Just to get things straight in my own mind, sir,’ Crane said. ‘Would you mind telling me when you last saw Donna?’

‘Two days before she went missing,’ he said mechanically. ‘We’d had another long photo shoot. Pros, we need dozens of shots to get the right one.’

‘And they were all … routine modelling shots?’ Anderson asked, with subtly pointed emphasis.

‘Of course they bloody were!’ he said, stung. ‘That’s the only kind of glamour work I do.’

Crane and Anderson both knew the value of a dubious silence and they let it roll for a few seconds. Crane said, ‘Did Donna ever mention an Adrian, sir? It’s very important. No surname, I’m afraid.’

He seemed genuinely to be searching his memory. He finally shook his head. ‘Means nothing. She talked about Mahon now and then, and the guy who owns Leaf and Petal – Joe Hellewell – but that’s about it.’

Crane nodded. ‘I know the police have gone into all this, but would you mind telling me where you were the night Donna went missing?’

‘The Photographic Society dinner at the Norfolk Gardens.’

‘About what time did it end?’

‘Elevenish.’

‘And you came directly home?’

‘Yes. My wife can vouch …’ He’d said it all before.

‘In your own motor?’

He gave the slightest pause. ‘… Yes.’

‘Wasn’t that rather unusual?’

‘Why should it be? I’d only had a couple.’

‘Oh …’ Crane shrugged. ‘I suppose if I’d gone to a boozy do I’d have wanted to get a few down and join in the fun. I’d have taken a taxi.’

Crane heard Anderson’s soft intake of breath as a second flicker of anxiety showed in Fletcher’s glinting eyes. He wasn’t ready for this, it had caught him off his guard. It had to have been a question neither the police nor Anderson had thought to put.

‘Taxis, they’re … expensive from this distance,’ he said uneasily.

Crane glanced pointedly at his Rolex, his handmade cotton shirt and silk tie. Fletcher didn’t like it, that he’d looked to need to raid the petty cash tin.

‘Ten miles,’ Crane said musingly. ‘£25 return?’

‘I went in my own car, what’s the big deal?’

He was flushing with irritation, because though sharp he’d not seen this coming. Anderson had though. The big deal was that Crane couldn’t believe a wealthy man who liked a drink would spend four hours nursing two. Unless he needed to stay sober to drive on from the dinner to see a girlfriend. A girlfriend who’d possibly been eased into a reservoir.

‘Were your daughters at home that night, sir?’

‘His colour deepened slightly. ‘I … can’t remember. What’s that got to do with anything? Christ, it’s twelve months ago.’

In other words they’d been away. Crane wondered if he might be on to something, felt a familiar frisson. It meant his wife would be home alone. What if Fletcher had given her a doctored drink before he’d set off to his dinner, which had meant she’d slept so soundly she’d had no real idea when he’d crept under the duvet?