‘If there was no record of it, how did she find it?’

‘Mallory, these two people had very intimate knowledge of one another. This was no great love story – but they shared a bed; there was conversation. If he lied to her, she may have caught it in the untechnological way the rest of us catch lies. When you tell the truth, it’s always the same truth. When you lie, you must have a superb memory, or it will be a different lie in every telling.’

And now his eyes took on some pain as he clearly understood their separate roles in this business: Mallory could crawl into the mind of a killer with disturbing ease. She had left the difficult job to him, the job of identifying with a frail human being who had no pathology or defenses in a brutal landscape peopled with those whom Mallory identified with best.

He wished he could wire Mallory into his delusion of Amanda and remove himself from the game. And a game it was to Mallory. Murder was the best game.

Now she was unloading a pack of tapes from the morning’s scavenging. ‘Something on television could have tipped her. The judge had a lot of air time in the past two weeks.’

Could it be that simple? A clue in Amanda’s last days? They were spent in the upheaval of the lie: lack of sleep, anxiety and guilt from the abortion.

He walked the length of the cork wall at the back of the office. This was not Louis Markowitz’s style. All the tiny little detailing was missing. Mallory’s quick brain could not stop for the minutiae which had been Louis’s obsession. He had to keep reminding himself that she was not obliged to be a copy of her father. Now he read the interview with the doorman.

‘What’s this about?’

‘It looks like that’s the day she finally snapped. The doorman said she was agitated. Then she went home, obsessed about it, and that same night she logged on to her computer. Maybe she was working late to get her mind off it. But the book was about him, wasn’t it? That’s when the YOU LIAR outburst occurred.’

She fed one tape to the VCR. ‘These are all the broadcast cuts from the past two weeks.’

The first tape was a press conference. Judge Heart’s stage presence was commanding, and he seemed to know it. He singled out women reporters for questions, and looked into the eyes of each one as though she might be the center of his universe.

Even more entertaining were the tapes on the Senate hearings for Judge Heart’s nomination to the highest court in the land. Mallory’s candidate for wife beating was rambling on and on about his concern over sexual harassment in the workplace. The senator from Maine was nodding in approval of each lie he fed her on his empathy for women and the need to protect them.

Charles was wondering what might draw Amanda to this man. Power had its attractions, he supposed, and fame. And Heart’s intelligence was undisputed.

‘The judge is always in the paper. Pretty dry stuff -coverage on the hearings, pictures of candidate and family. Did I mention that I think he killed his elderly mother?’

‘Slope ran that by me at the poker game. He’s not convinced. There’s no evidence. It’s pure speculation.’

‘Sometimes speculation is all you ever get to work with, Charles. And you did ask me to keep an open mind about the possibility that he had killed before. A mother killer. You think that might put a woman off having a baby, just on the off chance that matricide was genetic?’

‘Perhaps. By your description, Harry Kipling seems harmless enough.’

‘And he’s just the type to panic. All the testosterone in his marriage is Angel’s.’

They sat in silence throughout an hour of Mallory fastforwarding tapes and stopping the action to have a closer look. Over the two weeks of tape, he noted a growing tension in Heart.

‘Now watch the judge lie to this reporter.’

A young woman approached him, smiling brightly, and the judge beamed down on her with his most avuncular smile. He was the man every boy and girl wanted for a daddy.

‘I’m going to wrap this up on the twenty-sixth,’ said Mallory. ‘And this conversation is between us, not us and Coffey and Riker.’

‘How can you orchestrate the day? You don’t even know which one it is.’

‘Oh, not just the day. I can even plot the moment roughly.’

‘How?’

‘I was always in charge of him, Charles. When I get him on camera, I start pushing his buttons. I’ve got the usual buttons for Franz and Kipling. I’m going to get the judge in motion by telling him that I’m going to get the paperwork to dig up his mother.’

‘Slope won’t support – ’

‘I don’t need Slope’s permission to dig up a dead mother.’

Indeed, she didn’t seem to need anyone. ‘You have a favorite, don’t you?’

She ignored this.

‘I’m going to wrap him up for the DA on the day after Christmas.’

‘Is it me you’re wrapping up?’ asked a small voice behind them.

Justin Riccalo stood in the doorway. The boy was staring from one to the other. ‘Is it me?’

‘Does that worry you?’ asked Mallory. She didn’t wait on his answer, but turned her back on the boy. ‘Charles, when little kids can just walk into the building, I’d say we had a security problem.’

Charles looked down at the boy. ‘How did you get in, Justin? Why didn’t you use the intercom?’

‘I walked in with an old man on crutches. He dropped his package, so I carried it in for him. It seemed kind of silly to go back outdoors and use the intercom. It’s cold out there.’

‘Mugridge let you in?’ Mallory seemed skeptical – and with good reason. The elderly Mugridge was the most security conscious person in the building.

‘Yes, ma’am. I did knock on the office door. You probably didn’t hear me.’

‘There’s a buzzer on the door,’ said Mallory.

In an effort to ward off any further interrogation by Mallory, Charles ushered the boy into his own office and pulled the door shut.

‘Mallory hates me, doesn’t she, Mr Butler?’

‘She’s suspicious of everyone, even me. Don’t take it personally. What can I do for you, Justin?’

‘I wondered if we could go back to the cellar.’

‘I didn’t think you would want to. Not after – ’

‘Yes, I would. I think I do like magic after all.’

‘Your parents don’t mind you missing a morning of school?’

‘School’s out. It’s Christmas vacation.’

Of course. It was Christmas Eve. Where was his mind?

‘Well, I’ll just give them a call to let them know where you are.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that. I’m supposed to be at the Tanner School right now.’

‘But you just – ’

‘I am on Christmas vacation. The Tanner School is warehousing me for the day. It’s a holiday program for working parents. My parents are doing the cocktail circuit this afternoon. Every corporation in town is having their Christmas parties. So they think I’m at school.’

The boy sat on the edge of the straight-back chair, his wriggling feet not quite touching the carpet. His hands gripped either side of the wooden seat, as though unsure of the chair’s intention to remain stationary.

‘I see.’ How would Robert Riccalo react to his son’s truancy? Not well. ‘You know, I did want another chance to talk to you alone. I have an idea that your parents make you a little nervous.’

‘You have a gift for understatement, Mr Butler. They both drive me right up the wall. Your partner makes me nervous, too. She thinks I’m doing it. You don’t believe in this levitation crap, do you?’

‘Oh, I don’t believe anyone is levitating anything. Humanity has enough bizarre problems without dragging in the occult. Parapsychology is a non-science as far as I’m concerned. But I do think one of you is rather good at illusion.’ Or maybe not. Even if it was a slipshod job, who looks for the obvious thread when a sharp object is flying toward them?

‘I’m betting on my stepmother.’

‘But she seems to be the target.’

‘I think she’s using this to turn my father against me. He doesn’t even like me any more. He avoids looking at me. And she’s already gotten to your partner. One day, I saw Sally talking to her on the street. I know she turned Mallory against me.’