‘If only it wasn’t so long ago. Whoever did it could be hundreds of miles away by now.’

‘Killers often stick around, Patsy, for one reason or another. Their jobs or their families. Take your friendly, neighbourhood Yorkshire Ripper …’

It was dark now and the Willows looked slightly more attractive in the glow of lighted windows. The closely parked cars didn’t look quite as decrepit when you couldn’t see the scuffs and dints and balding tyres. But bands of cat-calling youths roamed the narrow roads or hung about on corners.

‘God,’ Patsy said, ‘I wish we could have been brought up in a nice house on a private estate. Maybe Donna wouldn’t …’

Crane put a hand briefly over hers. He didn’t believe it would have made a scrap of difference where Donna had been brought up. She was a one-off.

‘Only me, Mam,’ Patsy said, as she and Crane stood at the door of the tiny living room of number 27. ‘Frank’s with me.’

They both looked up in anxious expectancy. Crane’s presence usually involved some kind of drama. ‘Frank just wants to have a shufti at Donna’s room,’ Patsy told them. ‘Thinks there just might be something the police missed.’

‘There’s … no news then?’ Malc asked nervously.

‘Not so far, Malc. But we’re talking again to the people who spent time with Donna. Me and Geoff Anderson, that is. He’s being a great help, he knows so much of the background. And he’s very dedicated.’ Because of the story, he thought grimly, that rather cosy word the press employed even for the starkest of human tragedies.

‘He’s a good lad,’ Connie said, lamplight etching the hollows in her gaunt face? ‘He was very kind to us.’

‘We’ll just pop upstairs, then,’ Patsy said. ‘Shan’t be long.’

‘You’re looking very posh again, love,’ Malc said. ‘Going out later?’

She reddened, shook her head. They both looked puzzled. It seemed to be a Patsy they couldn’t fully adjust to, having been used to one who’d slopped around in old clothes, hair everywhere, looking depressed. She wore a crisply ironed, embroidered shell top and pale blue trousers, and the soft fall of her hair shone from the care she was taking of it. Crane’s guilt about using her had finally lifted, as it hadn’t been a one-way street. The problem now was that though he’d got to like her a lot as a friend, she was showing the unmistakeable signs of a woman who was clearly hoping it was going to be a lot more than that.

‘Well, you look very nice, love,’ Connie said. Crane wished they could have paid her more compliments in the days when any she might have had was constantly bleached out by Donna’s incredible radiance.

Donna’s bedroom was papered in lemon, with floral tieback curtains. The overhead globe had a pleated uplighter and there was a silk-shaded lamp on the bedside cupboard, a radio and a slender vase that held a single artificial amaryllis. The carpet was gold coloured with a white fleecy rug at the bedside. The built-in wardrobe combined a tiny dressing table and there was a small armchair in a corner. The room was spotlessly clean and gave off a delicate apple scent.

Patsy gave a crooked grin. ‘Her room got most of the attention.’ She ran a hand over a crisp duvet cover. ‘She nattered for things, wheedled with those big eyes. They always gave in, gave her whatever she wanted. Mam was never done paying off the catalogue.’

‘When it looks as if she could have bought herself anything she wanted. She’s got to have done something with the money.’

‘I’ve searched and better searched.’

Crane looked in the wardrobe. It was crammed: tops, skirts, trousers, jackets, dresses, a raincoat, a winter coat, a parka. The police, and Patsy, would have checked all the pockets. ‘This parka looks almost new,’ he said in a musing tone.

‘She hated coats. Even in winter she’d rush out in a thin jacket. Mam bought the coats, she was so worried she’d catch her death, but would madam wear them? Never saw her in the parka once, even when it was sub-zero.’

He drew out the parka. It seemed slightly heavier than he might have expected. He felt the hem. It seemed thicker than normal but could have been the way the padding was arranged. He pulled out the material of the inside pocket. The stitching was intact and seemed tamper free. ‘Was Donna good with a needle and thread?’

‘Very. Blouses, dresses, T-shirts, nothing was ever quite right for her. She’d spend hours unpicking and resewing. I think it was her only real hobby. Well,’ she said wryly, ‘that and screwing.’

‘Mind if I cut open the inside pocket?’

‘Mam’ll never know.’

He snipped it carefully open with his folding scissors, then slipped a hand down between coat and lining to touch thin, compact bundles of what felt like banknotes, resting along the hem. Patsy gasped as he eased one out. New fifties, secured with elastic bands. He counted the first bundle gingerly, trying to touch the surfaces as little as possible. There were twenty. The other bundles looked to be the same. ‘A bit up on the diary total,’ he told her. ‘Seven grand.’

‘Seven grand! And giving Mam a tenner a week for her keep!’

Crane took out a large plastic bag, put in the notes, sealed it. ‘The police will need to run them past their forensic people, there could be something that might help. Your folks should be told. The money will be theirs, and yours, when it’s returned.’

‘They’d not be able to handle it, Frank, not if it came from screwing. They’d never use it. I’d not be surprised if Dad didn’t set fire to it.’

He looked at her. ‘All right. I’ll hand it to Benson and get a receipt in your name. We’ll keep Connie and Malc out of it.’

He gave a final glance round the room. He wasn’t looking for anything else, but he drew out the drawers of Donna’s dressing table. Good quality underwear, neatly ironed, a section for jewellery: earrings, chains, necklaces, not expensive, not tat, a stack of Hello! magazines in the bottom drawer, and two paperback novels by Jeffrey Archer.

‘She wasn’t much of a reader,’ Patsy said sadly. ‘It was either the telly or her sewing.’ She glanced round the sweet-smelling room. ‘We’d often sit in here together. We did get on, you know, a lot of the time. She was good company. And so funny, especially about the blokes. And with looking such an innocent, such a good girl … well, you know. And she’d do things for you, she’d see to my clothes as well as her own, that sort of thing. As long as it didn’t involve money. Always swore she’d not got a two pence coin to scratch her arse with.’

He riffled through the pages of the Archer books. It was some time later before he knew they meant more to the case than the money ever did.

‘I wish it would last and last,’ she said, ‘the case. Even though it’s about poor Donna.’

They were back at Conway House, where Crane was writing up the details of the money they’d found, for Anderson to get tense and frustrated about all over a again because he’d not been involved. Crane put down his felt tip, shrugged and said, ‘I’m anxious to get it over as soon as possible, to save your people the expense, but I know what you mean. We’ve had some good evenings, haven’t we, round the flip chart, pooling idea?’

‘I’ve never known anything like it. Seeing you guys in action, the way your minds work. I shan’t ever forget it.’

He could believe it. Nothing like this had ever happened to her, something so intriguing and involving, where she’d felt both useful and needed. It was as if she’d come fully to life. There was an impression of assurance in her plain features now, due to the care she was taking of her looks and her clothes. Genuine self-confidence would come later, when she began to progress at work, as he was certain she now would.

‘Are you married, Frank? Partner?’

He smiled, shook his head. ‘People like me and Anderson find it hard to live a normal life.’