‘He always seemed such a decent bloke. Everyone liked him at the nick. Especially the women.’

‘That was his trouble, the women had been there for him all his life. It wasn’t just his looks, he was clever, funny, bags of charm. And then the only woman he can’t get off his mind can take him or leave him. He might be good looking but he’s never going to be a millionaire, and funny and clever were never going to replace money in Donna’s mind. The very worst thing he could have done was to think he could educate her. He knew the glamour just wasn’t going to be enough. But all she wanted was a London address. He could stick the culture. I bet inside a fortnight she’d have been wondering if it was worth the hassle. She had a short fuse and she was masterclass at sticking the knife where it would do the most damage, and danger excited her. I reckon Anderson couldn’t believe it was happening to him, some chit of a girl telling him he had a crap future and wasn’t up to much under the duvet.’

‘All right,’ Benson growled, ‘he got carried away. It happens. Christ, we know if anyone does. But how did this clean cut college boy go on living with himself?’

‘The way most killers do these days, now that guilt and blame and remorse are out of fashion. I don’t think he regarded himself as being all that guilty, or that his future was worth ruining for a call girl. I think he’d virtually convinced himself that with the men she ran around with, and that mouth of hers, she was going to get herself topped one day anyway; it was his bad luck he happened to be first in line. And then, writing about her so much I think it almost objectified her in his mind. I think she’d begun to transmute into the sweet innocent kid who’d been murdered, and the killer could have been anyone. Anyone but him, anyway.’

‘What about Ollie and Joe Hellewell? He’s going to objectify them too, is he?’

‘Give him time. Maybe it gets easier after you’ve done it once.’

‘Well, he’s going to have plenty of time to mull it all over, that’s for sure.’

‘The sad thing, the really sad thing is that he’d convinced himself he’d be rescuing Donna from her background. He could make her happy, give her a decent life. But she wasn’t unhappy. She was having a ball. She liked screwing around and making a few bob. And she had her life mapped out for when she got to London. She’d sleep with some big name photographer and she’d be up and running as a model all the magazines wanted. Inside six months she’d have nailed a stock exchange trader. She was a total realist. I reckon dream girls usually are. It was the blokes who were doing the real dreaming about those dazzling futures they had in mind for her. She was making meticulous plans for a future that would be exactly right for the type of woman she was. And why not, poor bitch?’

Benson nodded, finished his drink, got up to go. ‘Well, I’ll be off. We’ll keep you in the picture. See you.’ He’d begun to walk away, when he slowly turned back. ‘Well done, Frank, it’s saved us a hell of a lot of extra work.’

Crane nodded, knowing the effort it had cost him to say those words, after the months of effort he and the others had put in on the case, which Crane appeared to have sorted out in a couple of weeks. But Crane knew he’d had luck apart from skill. And he couldn’t forget that harmless old Ollie had been dreadfully injured, and Hellewell almost certainly disposed of, before he could deliver a killer to the police. As anything to do with murder nearly always was, it had been a Phyrric victory.

They sat motionless in their tiny cluttered living room. Malc’s hand shook on his glass of whisky, and tears slid once again down Connie’s face.

‘He spent the whole evening with us,’ Malc said, in a low raw voice. ‘Making notes for what he’d put in the paper. About her life and when she was growing up. He couldn’t have been more sympathetic. Mam and me, we couldn’t stop filling up, and he’d comfort us. He’d comfort us, Frank! And it was him. Dear God …’

‘It couldn’t have come as a bigger shock, Malc,’ Crane told him.

‘And then, when I heard you were working together, I said, “We’ve got two grand lads on the case, Mam, two grand lads.” Weren’t those my very words, Mam?’

‘And he’d been going out with her,’ Connie said, in a voice little more than a whisper. ‘A nice, well spoken boy like that from a good home. I can’t weigh it up, Frank, I can’t weigh it up at all.’

‘If he’d just confessed!’ Malc cried. ‘It wouldn’t have made it no better, but to carry on as if it weren’t nothing to do with him.’

‘He’ll go inside for a very long time, Malc. He’s going to plead not guilty and that’ll mean a long expensive trial. The judge won’t overlook it when it comes to sentencing him.’

‘Well … we know the truth now,’ Connie said, dabbing her eyes. ‘We can’t thank you enough. You put yourself in such a lot of danger. He could have killed you too.’

‘We couldn’t bear not knowing, Frank. You’ve done wonders,’ Malc said, his own eyes now wet with tears. He reached out blindly to grasp his daughter’s hand. ‘And we’ve got our Patsy. I don’t know how we’d have got on without our Patsy, bless her.’

Patsy reddened slightly. Crane felt that at least some kind of closure was in sight. They’d never forget their golden girl, but she could finally be laid to rest. Maybe now it would be Patsy’s turn to receive some of the love and attention she’d always anyway deserved so much more than her calculating, beautiful tramp of a sister.

‘How much do we owe you, Frank?’ Connie said in a more collected tone. ‘We got the insurance cheque through the other day.’

‘Don’t you worry about that now, Connie,’ he said gently. ‘My lady at the office will sort it out presently.’ He got up. ‘Need a lift, Patsy?’

‘I’ll stay with Mam and Dad tonight, Frank.’

He kissed Connie’s pale cheek, took Malc’s trembling hand in both his own. At the door, Patsy said, ‘I’ll be back at the flat tomorrow night. Will you come for a drink?’

The others sat together, but she sat in a corner, alone. The Glass-house seemed to have a subdued atmosphere without Anderson laughing and joking from the chair that had always been reserved for him at the head of one of the central communal tables, not very long ago.

He sat down with her. She gave him a pale-featured smile. The contrast couldn’t have been sharper with the rosy cheeks and the impish grins he’d known before. ‘Thanks for coming, Frank.’

‘My pleasure, Carol. Drink?’

‘No thanks, this one will do me.’ She passed a hand through her curly black hair, her green eyes meeting his with a clouded look.

‘I’m very, very sorry about Geoff, Carol.’

She nodded, giving an impression of fatigue, as if she’d not slept much recently. ‘I need your advice, Frank.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘It wasn’t Geoff. You must know that as well as I do. This is madness! You have police contacts, haven’t you? I need to speak to someone. It’s very urgent.’

He watched her in silence for a few seconds. ‘I only wish it wasn’t Geoff. I liked him. That’s the problem when someone you like does something dreadful. But the evidence—’

‘But it’s all circumstantial! Every bit of it.’

‘Maybe about Donna’s actual killing, yes, but when all the other things come out in court.’

‘Where was he supposed to be the night she disappeared?’

‘These are police matters now, Carol. I can’t say too much as I’ll be a prosecution witness. You know how it is.’

‘He was at the Raven, wasn’t he? I bet they’re making out he was with her. Well, he wasn’t! He was with me!’

He sighed, gave her a wry glance. ‘The waitress identified—’

‘It was me, Frank. I wrote it in my last year’s diary.’

‘When? Last night?’

‘Don’t be such a shit.’

‘Look, Carol, I don’t want to upset you more than you already are, but you must have known he was seeing someone else around the time she died. Women always know. And you know he’s never been the same with you since. And that’s because he’s never got her off his mind.’ He put a hand on hers. ‘I know what you’re going through. And it won’t be any consolation, but you were exactly right for him: in the business, well educated, outgoing. And you’ve always been there for him, hoping he’d be back one day as the Geoff you used to know. Well, you’re going to need that level head of yours, and the way you feel about him, because in the end he’s going to need you like he’s never needed anyone in his life. If you’re prepared to wait.’