“We’ll need to talk to everyone he worked with,” Thackeray said.

“And how long’s that going to be carrying on?”

“Just as long as it takes,” Thackeray snapped back. “He doesn’t sound the most popular man on your payroll and he may have made enemies you don’t know about.” Or friends, he thought, wondering whether any of Foreman’s other staff shared Wilson’s interest in pornography.

“Right,” Foreman said with evident lack of enthusiasm. “But they work shifts, you know. You’ll have to catch them when you can.”

“So do we, Mr. Foreman,” Val Ridley said. “If you give me a list of when your lads come in and clock off I’m sure we can match it.”

Thackeray got to his feet slowly as Foreman relayed the police’s requirements to someone in an outer office. He glanced up at the DCI.

“Is that all?”

“For now,” Thackeray said. “Except I was still wondering if you ever heard anything more from Karen. Those babies of yours must be getting quite big now. Don’t you feel the need to keep in touch?”

“If I thought they were mine I might,” Foreman said. “As for Karen? Turned out a slag, didn’t she? They’re all the same.” For a second Thackeray thought he saw real rage behind Foreman’s usual bland expression but it vanished before he could be sure and was replaced by a smile which came across as more of a grimace.

“Still with that red-headed lass from the Gazette yourself, are you?” he asked. Val Ridley hesitated by the door and stood very still though Thackeray did not reply and the silence lengthened.

“I met her, remember, when we had that bit of trouble wi′Karen’s brother?”

Thackeray nodded carefully, his heart thumping, knowing that there must be a reason for Foreman’s questions and frantically trying to work out what it might be.

“Laura,” he said at last.

“Aye, that’s her. Laura. I saw her the other day up at Wuthering. She was with that sergeant of yours, the dark, good-looking lad, the one who came over all heroic with the little scrote with the shotgun that time. Pretty lass. Make a nice couple, those two. So I just wondered if she’s buggered off and left you, an’all. A moment of fellow feeling, as you might say. Tarts!”

Thackeray did not reply. He spun on his heel and Val Ridley followed him out of Foreman’s office aware only that the DCI’s face appeared to have turned to stone.

Laura got home late, hair flying, carrier-bag full of food for the evening meal threatening to spill all over the floor as she struggled to close the front door of the flat behind her with one foot. She found Thackeray sitting in front of the television with an expression so frozen that even in her haste she could not fail but notice that he did not respond in any way to the scrambled kiss she offered the back of his neck. She dumped the shopping in the kitchen and slipped out of her jacket, flinging it onto the back of a chair.

“What?” she asked. “What is it?” Her mind skipped through the sorts of bad news which could have led to this reaction and her breath caught in her throat as panic threatened to overwhelm her. Her mind flew to her grandmother.

“Is it Joyce?”

Thackeray shrugged and turned the volume down with the remote control.

“Not Joyce,” he said quickly.

“Then what? There was a murder today I heard about it in the office …?”

“Not that,” he said. He gazed at the flickering images on the screen for a moment as if unable to speak.

“It’s you, I suppose,” he said at last, not looking at her directly. She slid onto the sofa beside him, trying to control a wobble of relief and trepidation in her voice.

“And just what have I done this time?” she asked, as lightly as she dared. “Or is it the Gazette that’s annoyed you again? I refuse to take the blame for the sins of Bob Baker.”

“It’s nothing to do with that.”

“Then what, for God’s sake? You sit here looking like a thunderstorm and won’t tell me. What sort of a welcome is that when I come in after a hard day at the office.”

“Was it, Laura? Was it really?” Thackeray snapped back.

“Was it what?”

“Was it a hard day at the office? Or did you find time to go and chat up Kevin Mower up at Wuthering? They make a nice couple, I was told. What’s that all about? And why didn’t you tell me you’d seen Kevin? That he was back in Bradfield? As far as I knew he was still in Eckersley trying to sort himself out at a clinic.”

“Ah,” Laura said more soberly. “That’s what the fuss is all about, is it?”

“So it’s true? You have been seeing him?”

“Michael Thackeray, I do believe you’re jealous,” Laura said wonderingly, a flicker of amusement in her green eyes.

“No,” Thackeray said fiercely. “I didn’t think I had anything to be jealous about. Until I discovered you’d been deceiving me.”

“Deceiving! That’s a bit strong, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Thackeray said. “People tell me he’s an attractive lad, our Kevin. I think even you told me that once. And we both know he’s not exactly restrained where women are concerned. So what am I to think when you apparently forget to tell me you’ve been meeting my sergeant behind my back.”

“I knew it wasn’t a good idea not to tell you,” Laura groaned. “But he asked me not to.”

“And of course you always do exactly what Kevin Mower asks?”

“Yes, I mean no, of course not,” Laura said. “He had his reasons.”

“And did you have your reasons too?”

“Oh, Michael, this is crazy. Yes, it’s true, I have been seeing Kevin, as it goes, but not in the sense you mean. I bumped into him quite by chance when I went up to the Project that Joyce is working at on the Heights. He’s helping out there too, working with the kids …”

“He’s supposed to be in rehab,” Thackeray objected.

“Well, I think it is a sort of rehab for Kevin,” Laura said. “He says he’s off the booze, but I’m not sure he’s convinced he wants to stay in the Force, which is hardly surprising after everything he’s been through. That’s why he asked me not to tell you what he was doing. He’s trying to get his head together before he decides what to do next. And there - you’ve made me break all sorts of confidences now.”

“And I suppose he’s been egging you on to investigate what’s going on up there too. You know how dangerous that is.”

“Not really,” Laura said. “No more than Joyce and Donna Maitland, anyway. They’re all distraught about what’s happening to the kids on the Heights. You know that.”

Laura reached out to take Thackeray’s hand but he shrugged her off and got up to stand by the window, gazing out at the shadowy garden where the bare branches made a faint tracery against the slate grey sky. Laura followed him and put an arm round his waist.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You know I wouldn’t deceive you about anything important.”

“To hear that from a bastard like Foreman …” Thackeray said quietly.

“Foreman,” Laura said. “Of course, he was up there today, as if he owned the place.”

“ …it was like being kicked in the balls.” Thackeray continued as if he had not heard her.

“He’s a seriously unpleasant man.”

“You don’t begin to understand just how seriously unpleasant I think that man is. And I’m not even beginning to be able to prove it.”

Thackeray leaned his head for a moment against the cold window-pane. Laura felt him shudder and tightened her grip.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You must know there’s nothing going on between me and Kevin. He’s found himself some female company up there anyway. You know what he’s like. But he’s as keen as I am to help sort the kids up there. It’s getting completely out of hand.”

“Leave it alone, Laura,” Thackeray said turning and taking her in his arms. “It’s too dangerous for anyone but the drug squad to be asking questions up there. Please, please leave it alone.”

But Laura stiffened in his embrace.

“I have my job to do too,” she said, her face obstinate. “It’s not as if I’m chasing after dealers or anything stupid like that. I’m just describing the effects, what’s happening to innocent people like Donna Maitland and the kids who’ve died. Someone has to do that, and if it’s not the Gazette, who will?”