She said, ‘Life won’t seem the same when you have to go off on some other case and you’re not popping in every day.’ There was an unmistakeable warmth in her lavender eyes.

‘I’ll be around, Patsy. I’ll always want to know how you’re doing.’

When he’d gone, she sat over her drink, hugging herself. There wasn’t another woman! He’d promised he’d be around! Could she have a chance with that lovely bloke? She’d not care how hard he worked. She was used to the hours he kept, as she’d worked with him.…

Benson put the bag of fifties in a document-case. ‘Silly bitch,’ he growled. ‘Seven grand against staying alive. Right, I’ll get them examined and I’ll make out the receipt to Patsy.’

He spoke grudgingly, and Crane knew he was exasperated because he’d found something else a police search had missed. He sighed inwardly, what with him and Anderson.…

‘And you reckon Fletcher’s a no-no? We thought so too.’

‘Can’t be ruled out, I suppose. Blokes lost their tempers around Donna.’

‘Could have threatened to dump him. Said he wasn’t getting her anywhere. The national agencies have branches in Leeds, after all.’

‘My thinking too. And I’m positive he went on somewhere that night.’

‘We’ll keep up the pressure on him. Two or three days and we should be ready to think of a new start. Who’s it going to be, nailing the killer then, assuming anyone does,’ Benson said, giving a pained smile. ‘You or us?’

‘Don’t forget that smooth-talking bastard, Anderson. He’s not as clever as he likes to think he is, but by God he’s focused, and he doesn’t regard coming second as an option.’

Crane knew Benson had nothing to lose. Whoever pinned down the killer the police would calmly chalk it up as their own result. That was life.

Leaf and Petal covered two or three acres. There were the usual greenhouses and lines of saplings, together with collections of seasonal flowers, bags of compost, garden furniture and stone ornaments. The walkways were busy with couples pushing their purchases in shallow trollies. The leaves of plants and shrubs were beaded with the drops of a recent watering and glittered in sunlight. They entered the main building, a single-storey complex of linking rooms, filled with lawnmowers, seed packets in stands, displays of weedkiller and fertilizer, and racks of gleaming tools. A fragrant coffee smell drifted from a central snack bar.

‘Best not to have him paged,’ Anderson said. ‘We’ll just find him and give him a lovely surprise, yes?’

They found Hellewell in a room of intense humidity. Sun poured through skylights on to a dense and pungent collection of house plants. There was a low murmur of voices and Hellewell was courteously displaying his knowledge of the vagaries of indoor plants to a pair of elderly women who looked as if they were being given rather more information than they really needed. He glanced towards the men with a pleasant smile, which faded when he saw Anderson.

‘Well, I hope that answers your question, ladies,’ he said, in hasty conclusion. They drifted off, looking vaguely stunned. ‘And what do you want?’ he said, sighing heavily.

‘This is Frank Crane, Mr Hellewell,’ Anderson said, amicably polite as ever. ‘He’s a private investigator, working for Donna Jackson’s parents. We’re acting together.’

‘But … Mahon’s the man. I know they can’t pin—’

‘He’s been cleared, sir. The case needs a fresh start.’

He looked very uneasy. It had been a shrewd move of Anderson’s to leave them unannounced. He watched them in what seemed like a frightened silence. He was near six foot, fortyish, and in good physical shape, probably because of the outdoor work he did. His fair hair had a slightly bleached look with sunlight exposure. He was tanned, had well-shaped features and white, even teeth. Women could never be too good looking, but some men could. Hellewell, it seemed to Crane, was one of them.

‘Why … why aren’t the police here then? Why you two?’

‘The police are aiming to make a completely new start shortly.’

He watched them in another edgy silence. He wore a short-sleeved green shirt and jeans, and the sunlight flooding the room gleamed on the hairs of his muscular brown arms. Sweat looked to be gathering near his hairline.

‘I’ll wait till the police come then. I’ve nothing to add to what I said when the poor kid was found, and if you wouldn’t mind, this is my busiest time of the year.’

‘You’ll be doing me and Donna’s parents a big favour if we could just talk a little, Mr Hellewell,’ Crane said quietly. ‘They’re very distressed that someone’s not facing justice. To be honest, they haven’t much money to spend on employing people like me.’

To refuse would seem callous and he knew it. Hellewell sighed again in exasperation. They’d clearly handed him a nasty shock and it was giving Crane a lot more of a buzz than he’d had from Fletcher. There’d always been a puzzle about Hellewell. Was he the J who’d shown in Donna’s diary, even sometimes at weekends? If so, being a married man, how had he managed to get away with such a regular affair with an employee?

‘You’d better come this way,’ he said reluctantly.

They followed him between the crowded plant displays to a tiny corner office. A woman standing near it watched their progress, her eyes on Anderson. She had dark wavy hair and strongly defined looks: thick eyebrows, a straight sharp nose, a full firm mouth. She wore jeans and a white blouse piped in red and bearing the Leaf and Petal logo on the breast pocket.

‘Hello, Geoff,’ she said warmly. ‘What brings you here? Not to buy any exotics, I’m sure.’ She gave him a wide smile that held the sort of warmth Crane had seen in Carol’s.

‘It’s about Donna again,’ Hellewell said irritably. ‘It seems it’s not down to that piece of garbage, Mahon, after all.’

‘Oh … shall I sit in?’

‘I can’t spare you off the floor,’ he told her in a curt tone.

‘I shall be here if needed, Geoff,’ she said pointedly.

‘That was Mrs Hellewell,’ Anderson told Craned as they went in; it was clear Hellewell wasn’t going to bother explaining her. They sat on canvas chairs in the tiny partitioned room, their knees against a self-assembly desk. Hellewell faced them across it.

‘We’ll make it as brief as possible, sir,’ Crane said. ‘Just to get things clear in my own mind, would you mind telling us where you were yourself the night Donna went missing?’

‘I was with a man called Clement Hebden,’ he said shortly. ‘I’d finished late on the Saturday and gone to his place with a proposed layout for landscaping his garden. It’s a sideline. We got engrossed, had a few Scotches and then I realized I was over the limit. I was going to take a taxi and pick my own up later, but he said why didn’t we go on talking and I could sleep in one of the spares. Kirsty was away visiting her mother, so I accepted the offer.’

Crane nodded. Alibis didn’t come more bullet-proof than that. ‘Thank you, sir. I believe Donna was working here that day?’

‘She left at five.’

‘Did she form a strong friendship with any of the men she worked with, would you know?’

‘No chance.’

‘You seem very sure.’

‘I am sure. Catch Donna with—’ He broke off abruptly.

‘What I’m saying is that I need to be sure. Staff chat-up can lead to problems and I have to know what’s going on.’

But the slight sneer had been there, which had seemed to hint that Donna hadn’t wanted to waste her time on men who hadn’t got money to spend or favours to grant.

‘Just what were her duties, Mr Hellewell?’

He shrugged. ‘Same as the others. Took a turn on the checkouts, helped in the café, advised customers about plants and trees.’

‘She had a good grasp of nursery work?’ Anderson chipped in.

He began to look faintly sheepish. Crane recalled Patsy saying she’d barely known one plant from another. ‘Well, she was in learning mode.’