In some way, it all came together with Mick Slack, fifth-form bully, two years older and six inches taller than Banks. One day, in the schoolyard, for no reason, Slack started pushing and shoving a kid called Graham Marshall. Marshall was in Banks’s class and was always a bright, quiet, shy kid, the sort the others taunted by calling him a puff and a pansy, but mostly left alone. When Banks stepped in, Slack pushed him instead, and a skirmish followed. More by speed and stealth, Banks managed to wind Slack and knock him to the Tarmac before the teacher came out and stopped it. Slack swore vengeance, but he never got the chance. He was killed two days later on his way to play for the school rugby team, when his motorbike ran smack into a brick wall.

The strangest thing was, though, that about six months later, Graham Marshall disappeared and was never seen again. Police detectives came and questioned everyone in his class, asking if they had seen any strangers hanging around the school, or if Graham had told them about anyone suspicious, anyone who was bothering him. Nobody had. Banks felt especially impotent at being so useless to the police, and he remembered that feeling years later when he was on the other side of the interview table watching witnesses flounder as they tried to remember details.

The theory was that Graham had been abducted by a child molester and his body buried in some forest miles away. That made three deaths Banks had been exposed to as an adolescent, including Phil Simpkins, who had swung onto the sharp iron railings, but it was the ultimate mystery of Graham Marshall’s disappearance that haunted him most of all, until Jem’s death some years later, and in a way it was his curiosity and unaccountable feelings of guilt over it that were behind his decision to join the police years later.

All the petty duties and details of a policeman’s job aside, Banks’s obsession was with bringing down as many bullies as possible. When the victims were dead, of course, he couldn’t defend them, but he could damn well find out what had happened to them and bring the bullies to justice. It wasn’t foolproof; it didn’t always work; but it was all he had. That was what he had to get back to, or he might as well pack it all in and join Group 7 or some other private security outfit.

He went back to his desk and sat down. As he looked at Gloria’s pose again – beautiful, erotic, sensual, playful, but also challenging, mocking, as if she knew some sort of secret about the artist, or shared one with him – he felt that in this case he was needed as much as ever. He was convinced that Gloria Shackleton was the victim they had found buried at Hobb’s End, and he wanted to know what she was like, what had happened to her and why no one had reported her missing. Did people just think she had vanished into space, been abducted by aliens or something? The bully who had killed her might well be dead, but that didn’t matter a damn to Banks. He needed to know.

Dr. Glendenning’s call cut into his thoughts.

“Ah, Banks,” he said. “Glad I caught you in. You’re very lucky I happened to be in Leeds, you know. Otherwise you could have whistled for your postmortem. There are plenty of fresh cadavers craving my expert attention.”

“I’m sure there are. My apologies. I promise to do better in the future.”

“I should hope so.”

“What have you got?”

“Nothing much to add to what Dr. Williams told you, I’m afraid.”

“She was stabbed, then?”

“Oh, yes. And viciously, too.”

“How many times?”

“Fourteen or fifteen, as far as I can tell. I wouldn’t swear to that, of course, given the condition of the skeleton and the time that has elapsed since death.”

“Is that what killed her?”

“What do you think I am, laddie? A miracle worker? It’s not possible to say what killed her, though the knife wounds would have done the trick. Judging from the angles and positions of the nicks, the blade would almost certainly have pierced several vital organs.”

“Did you find evidence of any other injury?”

“Patience, laddie. That’s what I’m getting to, if you’ll slow down and give me the chance. It’s all that caffeine, you know. Too much coffee. Try a nice herbal tea, for a change.”

“I’ll do that. Tomorrow. But tell me now.”

“I found possible, and I stress possible, signs of manual strangulation.”

“Strangulation?”

“That’s what I said. And stop echoing me. If I needed a bloody parrot I’d buy one. I’m going by the hyoid bones in the throat. Now, these are very fragile bones, almost always broken during manual strangulation, but I say it’s only possible because the damage could have occurred over time, due to other causes. The weight of all that earth and water, for example. I must say, though, the skeleton was in remarkable condition considering where it’s been for so long.”

“Would that make it more probable than possible?”

“What’s the difference?”

“‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

Glendenning sighed theatrically. “And to think that fellow was a doctor. All right, shall we say it’s certainly not impossible, and even quite likely that the poor woman was strangled. Is that clear enough for you?”

“Before she was stabbed.”

“How would I know that? Honestly, Banks, you either have an overinflated opinion of the medical profession or you’re being just plain bloody-minded. Knowing you, I’d bet on the latter. But let us, just for once, be reasonable about this, shall we, and apply a little logic?”

“By all means. My, my, you’re grumpy this morning, aren’t you, Doc?”

“Aye. It’s what happens when my own doctor tells me to lay off the coffee. And I’ve told you before not to call me Doc. It’s disrespectful. Now, listen. The way this poor woman was stabbed stopped just short of chopping her into little pieces. It would seem very unlikely to me – not impossible, but very improbable, if you like – that her killer felt any need to strangle her after he had done this. The degree of rage involved would probably have left him quite exhausted, for a start, not to mention the anger vented, the almost postcoital relaxation some killers feel after perpetrating extremely violent acts. So I’d say the strangulation came first and then, for whatever reason, the stabbing. That kind of thing is statistically more common, too.”

“So why the stabbing? To make sure she was dead?”

“I doubt it. Though it’s true she may have still been alive after the strangulation, may just have lost consciousness. As I said, we’re dealing with anger, with rage, here. That’s the only explanation. In the vernacular, whoever did it got carried away with killing. Literally saw red. Either that or he knew exactly what he was doing and he enjoyed himself.”

“He?”

“Again, statistically more likely. Though I wouldn’t rule out a strong woman. But you know as well as I do, Banks, that these sorts of things are usually lust-related. Either that or they stem from very strong passions, such as jealousy, revenge, obsession, greed and the like. I suppose it could have been a wronged wife or a woman spurned, a lesbian relationship gone wrong. But statistically speaking, it’s men who do these things. I hesitate to do your job for you, but I don’t think you’re dealing with a run-of-the-mill sort of crime. It doesn’t look like a murder committed during a robbery, or to cover up a secret. Of course, murderers can be damnably clever sometimes and disguise one sort of crime to look like another. Fault of all these detective novels, if you ask me.”

“Right,” said Banks, scrawling away on the pad he’d pulled in front of him. That was the trouble with computers; it was bloody awkward to write on them when you were speaking on the telephone. “What about the parturition marks?”