“But Gillian left home at sixteen. If she is this Nell Graham, she would have been twenty-three when she was on this panel in Harrogate. Does it make sense that she would have stayed with Testament House for all those years?”

“If she had no one else, it makes perfect sense. If she wanted a family, they were her best bet. At any rate, there’s only one way we can know for sure-”

“Talk to her,” he finished promptly. He got to his feet. “Get your things together. We’ll leave in ten minutes.” He rooted through the file and took out the photograph of Russell Mowrey and his family. “Give this to Webberly when you get to London,” he said as he scribbled a message on the back.

“When I get to London?” Her heart sank. He was giving her the sack then. He’d as much as promised that after their encounter at the farm. It was, indeed, all she could expect.

Lynley looked up, all business. “You found her, Sergeant. You can bring her back to Keldale. I think Gillian’s the only way we’re going to get through to Roberta. Don’t you agree?”

“I…What about…” She stopped herself, afraid to believe the meaning behind his words. “You don’t want to phone Webberly? Have someone else…? Go there yourself?”

“I’ve too many things to see to here. You can see to Gillian. If Nell Graham is Gillian.

Hurry up. We’ve got to get to York so you can catch the train.”

“But…how should I? What approach should I use? Should I simply-”

He waved her off. “I trust your judgment, Sergeant. Just bring her back as quickly as you can.”

She unclenched her hands, aware of the numbing relief sweeping over her. “Yes, sir,” she heard her voice whisper.

He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and regarded the house cresting its smooth slope of lawn. By driving like the devil, he had managed to get Havers on the three o’clock train for London and now he sat in front of the Mowrey home, trying to decide how best to approach the woman inside. Wasn’t the truth, after all, better than the silence? Had he not at least learned that?

She met him at the door. The wary glance that she cast back over her shoulder told him he was far less welcome than when they had previously met. “My children are just home from school,” she said in explanation and stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind her. She drew her cardigan firmly round her slender body. It was like the body of a child. “Have you…Is there word about Russell?”

He reminded himself that he couldn’t have expected her to ask about her daughter. Tessa, of all people, had said goodbye to the past, had made a surgical cut and walked away cleanly. “You need to involve the police, Mrs. Mowrey.”

She paled. “He couldn’t. He didn’t.”

“You must telephone the police.”

“I can’t. I can’t,” she whispered fi ercely.

“He’s not with his relatives in London, is he?” She shook her head briefly, once, and kept her face averted. “Have they heard from him at all?” Again, the same response. “Then isn’t it best to find out where he is?” When she didn’t reply, he took her arm and led her gently towards the drive. “Why did William keep all those keys?”

“What keys?”

“There was a box of them on the shelf in his wardrobe. But there are no keys anywhere in the rest of the house. Do you know why?”

She bent her head, put a hand to her brow. “Those. I’d forgotten,” she murmured. “I…It was because of Gillian’s tantrum.”

“When was this?”

“She must have been seven. No, she was nearly eight. I remember because I was pregnant with Roberta. It was one of those situations that come up out of nowhere and are blown all out of proportion, the kind that families laugh about later when the children are grown. I remember William said at dinner, ‘Gilly, we’ll read from the Bible tonight.’ I was sitting there-daydreaming probably- and expected her to say, ‘Yes, Papa,’ as she always did. But she decided that she wouldn’t read the Bible that night, and William decided just as definitely that she would. She became absolutely hysterical about it, ran to her room and locked the door.”

“And then?”

“Gilly had never disobeyed her father before. Poor William simply sat there, astonished. He didn’t seem to know how to handle it.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing that helped particularly, as I recall. I went to Gilly’s room, but she wouldn’t let me in. She’d only scream that she wouldn’t read the Bible any longer and that no one could make her. Then she threw things at the door. I…I went back down to William.” She looked at Lynley with an expression that combined both perplexity and admiration as she went on. “You know, William never scolded her. That wasn’t his way. But he later took the keys from all the doors. He said if the house had burned down that night and he hadn’t been able to get to Gilly because she’d locked her door, he would never have forgiven himself.”

“Did they go back to reading the Bible after that?”

She shook her head. “He never asked Gilly to read the Bible after that.”

“Did he read it with you?”

“No. Just alone.”

A girl had come to the door as they spoke, a piece of bread in her hand and a thin line of jam traced across her upper lip. She was small like her mother but with her father’s dark hair and intelligent eyes. She watched them curiously.

“Mummy,” she called. Her voice was sweet and clear. “Is anything wrong? Is it Daddy?”

“No, darling,” Tessa called back hastily. “I’ll be in in a moment.” She turned to Lynley.

“How well did you know Richard Gibson?” he asked her.

“William’s nephew? As well as anyone could have known Richard, I suppose. He was a quiet boy but immensely likable, with a wonderful sense of humour, as I recall. Gilly quite adored him. Why do you ask?”

“Because William left the farm to him, not to Roberta.”

Her brow furrowed. “But why not to Gilly?”

“Gillian ran away from home when she was sixteen, Mrs. Mowrey. No one ever heard from her again.”

Tessa drew in a breath. It was sharp and quick, like the reaction to an unexpected blow. Her eyes fixed themselves on Lynley.

“No,” she said. It was not so much denial as disbelief.

He continued. “Richard had been gone for a time as well. To the fens. There’s a chance that Gillian followed him there and then perhaps went on to London.”

“But why? Whatever happened? What could have happened?”

He considered how much to tell her. “I’ve got the impression,” he said, spacing the words delicately, “that she was involved with Richard somehow.”

“And William found out? If that’s the case, he would have torn Richard limb from limb.”

“Suppose he did find out and Richard knew what his reaction would be. Would that be enough for Richard to leave the village?”

“I should think so. But it doesn’t explain why William left the farm to him and not to Roberta, does it?”

“It was apparently a bargain he’d struck with Gibson. Roberta would continue to live there for her lifetime with Richard and his family, but the land would go to the Gibsons.”

“But certainly Roberta would marry someday. It hardly seems fair. Surely William would have wanted the land to remain in the immediate family, to be passed on to his grandchildren, if not to Gilly’s children, then to Roberta’s.”

Even as she spoke, Lynley realised what a vast chasm the nineteen years of her absence had caused. She knew nothing of Roberta, nothing of the girl’s hidden storehouse of food, nothing of her vacant, rocking catatonia. Roberta was just a name to her mother, a name who would marry, have children, grow old. She was not at all real. She did not actually exist.

“Did you never think about them?” he asked her. She looked down at her feet, employing in the act an intensity that suggested all of her concentration was centered on the smooth, rusty suede of her shoes. When she didn’t reply, he persisted. “Did you never wonder how they were, Mrs. Mowrey? Did you never imagine what they looked like or how they’d grown up?”