Ash & Bone

How he could drink his coffee that hot, she didn't know. 'Mike and I checked out the last couple of possibles from the Sex Offenders Register.'

'Anything?'

Karen shook her head. 'Could have saved ourselves the trouble. Elderly rapist with diabetes and a dodgy hip, and a twice-convicted sexual predator incapacitated by the onset of Aids.'

'Oh, well. Tick 'em off and move on.'

'Where to?'

Elder set his cup on the edge of the desk. 'Vanessa Taylor?'

'What about her?'

He gave Karen the gist of what Vanessa had told him on Saturday evening.

Karen gave it a few moments' thought. 'Mallory and Repton, what do you think? They were just winding her up for the sake of it? Playing games?'

'It's possible. But, no, I think there's more to it than that.'

'And it goes back to Grant?'

'So it would seem.'

'Grant and Maddy.'

'Yes. Somehow.'

'Which is why you want to talk to Ashley.'

'Correct.'

'A little more than just a casual chat, then?'

Elder smiled. There was a sudden flurry of telephones in the middle distance. Raised voices. Someone urgently, repeatedly swearing.

'What about this other thing she mentioned?' Karen said. 'This ginger Lothario from Firearms?'

'Tracing him shouldn't be too hard.'

'You don't think it's clutching at straws?'

'I think right now we clutch at anything we can.'

Karen knew he was right. 'I'll get Mike and Lee on to it.' When she tried her coffee again, it was just okay to drink. 'By the way, Maddy's missing watch, I had the inventory double-checked in case there'd been some kind of clerical error. But no, no sign.'

'I asked her mother about it at the funeral,' Elder said. 'Apparently her father gave her the watch years ago. A Lorus. Nothing fancy. Water-resistant. Stainless steel. Maddy's name engraved on the back. And the date: fifteenth of the seventh, 1981.'

'Her twenty-first,' Karen said, doing the sums in her head.

'Yes.'

A brief image of Katherine flickered behind Elder's eyes.

'Vanessa confirmed,' he said, 'that was the watch Maddy still wore.'

'In which case,' Karen said, 'where is it now?'

They both turned towards the map on the wall, the area around the old railway line where Maddy's body had been found. Thick scrub, bushes, trees.

'It's been searched once,' Karen said.

'It could be searched again.'

'You think it's that important?'

'If it isn't there, there's a possibility whoever killed Maddy took it with him.'

'A souvenir?'

'Maybe.'

For several moments no one spoke. If that were so, it told them something about the killer, something a profiler could usefully work with.

Karen leaned across and dropped the polystyrene cup and what remained of its contents into the waste bin. 'Getting enough bodies out there's going to be a problem. We may have to rely on volunteers. But I'll make the case as strongly as I can.'

'Good.' Elder was on his feet. 'Just one other thing.'

'Go on.'

'Kennet. That alibi of his. I assume it all checked out?'

Karen shot him a look. 'I thought you didn't fancy him for this?'

'I know. It's just hard to get away from the idea that whoever did this, Maddy knew him, maybe knew him well.'

'I wouldn't exactly say Kennet knew her well, would you?'

'They'd had a relationship.'

'If you can call it that.'

'They'd slept together.'

'Half a dozen times in what? Three months?'

'That isn't a relationship?'

'You tell me.'

Elder held her gaze. 'I'd like to get Sherry to make a few more checks into his background. If you've no objection.'

Karen thought it would be pretty much a waste of time.

'Go ahead,' she said. 'Thanks.'

***

Graeme Loftus adjusted his position, feet apart, arm extended, sighted along the barrel of his pistol and fired into the centre of the stencilled figure that was menacing him from the target by the far wall. Eighteen rounds clustered around the heart.

By the time he'd signed out and left the building, the rain that had been threatening off and on again had set in with a vengeance. Mike Ramsden intercepted him on his way across the car park.

'Graeme Loftus?'

'Who wants to know?'

'DS Ramsden, Homicide.'

'What's this about?'

'Few minutes of your time, won't take long.'

'I'm getting soaked standing here.'

'That's my Sierra over there. Let's get in out the rain.'

Lee Furness was in the back seat and, with Ramsden holding the door open, Loftus grudgingly slid in alongside him.

'Bloody weather, eh?' Furness said with a grin.

Loftus said nothing. His reddish hair was darkened by the rain.

'Maddy Birch,' Ramsden said.

Loftus blinked. 'Who?'

'Maddy Birch.'

Loftus shook his head.

Furness took a photograph from his pocket and held it up between them.

'Oh, yes.' Loftus blinked again and wiped something, real or imaginary, from his moustache.

'You remember her now,' Ramsden said.

'Of course I bloody do.'

'Knew her well, then?'

'No.'

'You're sure.'

'Course I'm sure.'

'Not for want of trying.'

'Look, what -'

Ramsden smiled. 'All over her, what I've heard. Like a rutting bloody stag.'

'That's bollocks.'

'Pig at the fuckin' trough.'

Alongside Loftus, Furness laughed. Outside, the rain showed no sign of easing.

'Listen,' Loftus said, man to man. 'I gave her a bit of chat, offered to buy her a drink, you know how it is.'

Ramsden grinned encouragingly. 'Sure. Good-looking woman, out on her own. Few pints down. You were on the pull.'

'If you like, yeah.'

'Leg over at the end of the evening, only natural, right? Where's the harm?'

'Yeah.'

'Except she didn't want to know. Maddy.'

'Yeah, well… Can't score every time, you know?'

'And when she told you no deal?'

Loftus shrugged. 'That was that. End of story.'

'You walked away.'

'Yes.'

'And then?'

'Then nothing.'

'Had to smart a bit, though, getting the big no in front of everyone. Slinkin' away with your dick between your legs. Not so good for the old ego.'

Loftus shook his head. 'Happens, doesn't it?'

'Often? To you, I mean?'

Loftus bridled. 'No, not often.'

Ramsden glanced across at Furness and winked. 'Lover man. Cock of the walk. Just see him, Lee, can't you? Strutting his stuff. Rutting around.'

'All right,' Loftus said, colouring, 'that's enough.'

'Temper, too. Quick to rouse. Redheads, of course, what you expect. True to type.' Ramsden's fingers executed a little paradiddle along the back of the seat. 'Didn't take your temper out on Maddy, I hope? When you saw her again? You did see her again, didn't you?'

Loftus pushed open the car door. 'All right, we're through. Anything else you want to say to me, make it official. Federation solicitor, the whole bit. Otherwise, stay out of my way.'

Leaving the door wide open, he strode off into the rain.

'Touchy, isn't he?' Ramsden said.

23

The drive north to Hertford was slow and rendered slower by a broken-down lorry and two sets of competing roadworks, cable companies digging for gold. Close to where the A10 met the M25 near Waltham Cross, the rain started to fall for the second day running. Light at first, by the time Elder had turned off towards the centre of the town, it was swingeing down with such force he had the windscreen wipers working double time. The only space into which he could shoehorn the Astra was at the extreme edge of the car park, about as far from the entrance as it was possible to be. Running, collar up, he was nonetheless soaked by the time he pushed his way inside and reported at the enquiry desk.