“Who’s this?” Stott asked.

Owen shrugged. “Just a model.”

“What’s her name?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

“She looks very young.”

“She was twenty-two when those were taken.”

“Hmm, was she now?” muttered Stott, handing the photos back to Hatchley. “Must be artistic license. Notice any resemblance, Sergeant?” he asked Hatchley.

“Aye, sir, I do.”

“Resemblance to who?”

“Mind if we take these, too?” Stott asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do. They’re the only prints I’ve got, and I’ve lost the negatives.”

“I understand, sir. You want to hang onto them for sentimental reasons. We’ll take good care of them. Wait a minute, though…didn’t you say she was just a model?”

“I did. And I didn’t say I wanted to keep them for sentimental reasons. They’re part of my portfolio. For exhibitions and such like.”

“Ah, I see. Might we just take one of them, perhaps, then?”

“Oh, all right. If you must.”

Hatchley leafed through some more art books on a shelf over the filing cabinet. One of them dealt with Japanese erotic art, and he opened it at a charcoal sketch of two young girls entwined together on a bed. They had either shaved off their pubic hair, or they were too young to have grown any. It was difficult to tell. He shoved it under Stott’s nose.

“A bit like those books in the other room, sir,” he said.

Stott turned up his nose.

“And some of them novels he reads have been on trial,” Hatchley went on. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Naked Lunch, Ulysses, Delta of Venus, a bit of De Sade…”

“For Christ’s sake!” Owen cut in. “I can’t believe this. I’m an English teacher, you fucking moron. That’s what I do for a living.”

“Now, you look here, mate,” said Hatchley, squaring up to him. “The last bloke used that kind of language with me had a nasty accident on his way down the police station steps.”

“Are you threatening me?”

Hatchley thrust his chin out. “Take it any way you want.”

“Stop it, Sergeant!” Stott cut in. “I’ll not have you talking to a member of the public this way. Apologize to Mr. Pierce at once.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hatchley. He looked at Pierce and said, “Sorry, sir.”

“If you ask me,” Owen said, “you’re the ones who are sick. Like witch-hunters, seeing the devil’s work everywhere.”

“Maybe it is everywhere,” Stott said calmly. “Have you ever thought about that?”

“It’s just hard to believe there’s someone who still thinks Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Ulysses are dirty books, that’s all.”

They sat down in the living-room again. “Now why don’t you tell me all about what you did in St. Mary’s yesterday evening,” Stott said. “Sergeant Hatchley will take notes. No hurry. Take your time.”

Owen told them about his walk, the drinks at the Nag’s Head, the meal at the Peking Moon and the walk home. As he spoke, Stott looked directly at him. The stern, triangular face showed no expression; and the eyes behind the lenses seemed cool. The man’s ears almost made Owen want to laugh out loud, but he restrained himself. The big one, Hatchley, scribbled away in a spiral-bound notebook. Owen was surprised he could even write.

“Are you in the habit of talking to yourself, Mr. Pierce?” asked Stott when he had finished.

Owen reddened. “I wouldn’t say talking to myself exactly. Sometimes I get lost in thought and I forget there are people around. Don’t you ever do that?”

“No,” said Stott, “I don’t.”

Finally, after they had asked him to go over one or two random points again, Hatchley closed his notebook and Stott got to his feet. “That’ll be all for now,” he said.

“For now?”

“We might want to talk to you again. Don’t know. We have to check up on a few points first. Would you mind if we had a look in your hall cupboard on the way out?”

“Why?”

“Routine.”

“Go ahead. I don’t suppose I can stop you.”

Stott and Hatchley searched through the row of coats and jackets and pulled out Owen’s new orange anorak. “Is this what you were wearing last night?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. But-”

“What about these shoes?”

“Yes, those too. Look-”

“Mind if we take them with us, sir?”

“But why?”

“Purposes of elimination.”

“You mean it might help clear this business up?”

Stott smiled. “Yes. It might. We’ll let you have them back as soon as we can. Do you think you could get me a plastic bag while the sergeant here writes out a receipt?”

Owen fetched a bin-liner from the kitchen and watched Stott put the shoes and anorak inside it while Hatchley wrote out the receipt. Then he accepted the slip of paper and signed a release identifying the items as his.

Stott turned to Hatchley. “I think we’d better be off, then, Sergeant,” he said. “We’ve already taken up enough of Mr. Pierce’s valuable time.”

Hatchley took the plastic bag while Stott slipped the photograph into his briefcase, then they walked towards the door.

“Aren’t you going to tell me what it’s all about?” Owen asked again as he opened the front door for them. It was still raining.

Stott turned and frowned. “That’s the funny thing about it, Owen,” he said. “That you don’t know.” Then he shook his head slowly. “Anybody would think you don’t read the papers. Which is odd, for an educated man like yourself.”

Tracy Banks’s bedroom, lit by a shaded table lamp, was a typical teenager’s room, just like Deborah Harrison’s, with pop-star posters on the wall, a portable cassette player, a narrow bed, usually unmade, and clothes all over the floor.

Tracy also had a desk against one wall and perhaps more books on her shelves than many girls her age. They ran the gamut from The Wind in the Willows to the Pelican History of the World. A row of dolls and teddy bears sat on the bookcase’s lowest shelf; they always reminded Banks that his daughter wasn’t that far away from childhood things yet. One day, they would disappear, as had most of his own toys: the fort with its soldiers, the Hornby train set, the Meccano. He had no idea where they had gone. Along with his childhood innocence.

Tracy herself sprawled on the bed in black leggings and a sloppy sweatshirt. She looked as if she had been crying. When Banks had got the message from his wife, Sandra, at his office, saying that Tracy was upset and wanted to talk to him, he had hurried straight home.

Now Banks sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his daughter’s hair, which was tied back in a ponytail. “What is it, love?” he asked.

“You didn’t tell me,” Tracy said. “Last night.”

“Are you talking about the murder?”

“Yes. Oh, it’s all right. I know why you didn’t tell me.” She sniffled. “You wanted to spare my feelings. I don’t blame you. I’m not mad at you or anything. I wish you had told me, though. It wouldn’t have been such a shock when all the girls at school started talking about it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Banks. “I knew you’d find out eventually and it would upset you. I suppose I was just trying to give you one more night of peace before you had to deal with it. Maybe it was selfish of me.”

“No. Really. It’s all right.”

“So what is wrong?”

Tracy was silent a moment. Banks heard laughter and music from downstairs. “I knew her,” she said finally.

“Knew who?”

“Deborah Harrison. I knew her.”

Apart from both being attractive blonde teenagers, Tracy and Deborah Harrison were about as far apart as you get in background and class. Deborah went to the expensive, élite St. Mary’s School, where she was carefully groomed for Oxford or Cambridge, and Tracy went to Eastvale Comprehensive, where she had to fight her way through overcrowded classes, massive apathy and incompetent teaching to get decent enough A-levels to get into a redbrick university. Now here was Tracy saying she knew Deborah.

“How?” he asked.