"What are you suggesting?"

The young man shrugged. "Nothing really… just wondering why the long silence." He pointed at an item dated the end of November. "According to this, I wrote to her a month ago with the annual reminder to review her house and contents insurance. She hasn't replied."

"Does she usually?"

Mark nodded. "She does, as a matter of fact, particularly when it's a cost that you've agreed to shoulder. The premium doesn't have to be paid until the end of next month, but I'd have expected to hear from her by now. I always threaten her with a visit if she doesn't provide me with an up-to-date valuation. The house and contents are nominally your property still, so it's a way of stopping her flogging them off." He clicked through to his diary. "I've given myself a reminder to chase her up at the end of next week."

James pondered for a moment. "Didn't Mrs. Weldon say Mrs. Bartlett had seen her?"

"Mm, and I'm wondering how she got hold of her. I can't imagine Elizabeth returning a call from Pokeweed." He was busy bringing up his email address book.

"Then perhaps we should be talking to Mrs. Bartlett?"

Mark looked at Becky's contact numbers on the screen and wondered if he'd left them there on purpose. He'd torn up everything else that would give him access to her-deliberately cleared his memory of the mobile number that had once been as familiar as his own-but perhaps a part of him couldn't bear to erase her entirely from his life. "Let me try this person first," he said, retrieving his mobile. "It's a long shot-she probably won't answer either-but it's worth a try."

"Who is it?"

"An ex-girlfriend of Leo's," he said. "I think she'll talk to me. We were pretty close for a while."

"How do you know her?"

Mark tapped in Becky's number. "We were due to get married in June," he said in a deadpan voice. "On March seventh she gave Leo an alibi for the night Ailsa died, and by the time I got home she was gone. They'd been having an affair for three months." He flicked James an apologetic smile as he raised the phone to his ear. "It's why I've always accepted that Leo wasn't in Shenstead that night. I should have told you… I'm sorry I didn't. Pride's a terrible thing. If I could put the clock back and do it differently, I would."

The old man sighed. "So would we all, my boy… so would we all."

Becky couldn't stop talking. Every sentence ended with "darling." Was it really him? How was he? Had he been thinking of her? She just knew he'd phone eventually. Where was he? Could she come home? She loved him so much. It was all a terrible mistake. Darling… darling… darling…

"It's a term of endearment that means very little… if someone said it to me, I'd stick my fingers down my throat…"

Mark caught his grim reflection in the windscreen and abruptly killed the overhead light to blot it out. He questioned why he had ever allowed Becky's departure to upset him. He might have been listening to a stranger for all the emotion she stirred in him. "I'm sitting in my car in the middle of Dorset with Colonel Lockyer-Fox," he broke in, choosing to answer the question of where he was. "I'm calling on my mobile and the battery's likely to go at any minute. We need to get hold of Elizabeth as a matter of urgency but she's not answering her phone. I was wondering if you knew where she was."

There was a short silence. "Is the Colonel listening?"

"Yes."

"Does he know about-?"

"I've just told him."

"Oh, God, I'm sorry, darling. I never meant to embarrass you. Believe me if I could-"

Mark cut in again. "About Elizabeth, Rebecca. Have you seen her recently?"

He never called her Rebecca, and there was another silence. "You're angry."

If James hadn't been listening, he would have said he was bored. Give him a woman with intelligence, he thought, who knew when to walk away without asking questions. "We can talk when I get back to the flat," he said by way of an inducement. "For the moment, tell me about Elizabeth. When did you last see her?"

Her voice warmed again. "July. She came to Leo's flat about a week before I left. The pair of them went out… and I haven't seen her since."

"What did she want?"

"I don't know. She kept saying she needed to speak to Leo in private. She was paralytic so I didn't bother to ask why. You know what she's like."

"Did Leo talk about it afterward?"

"Not really. He just said her mind was going and he'd taken her home." She paused. "It happened once before. The police phoned to say they had a woman in their waiting room… it was all a bit weird… they said she couldn't remember where she lived but was able to give them Leo's number." Another pause. "I expect the time in July was something similar. She was always haunting the flat."

There were too many hesitations, and he wondered how truthful she was being. "What was wrong with her?"

Her tone grew spiteful. "Drink. I doubt she's got any brain cells left. I told Leo she needed treatment, but he wouldn't do anything about it. It flattered his pathetic little ego to have his plaything around him."

"What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means? They didn't have the sort of relationship you have with your sisters, you know. Haven't you ever wondered why Elizabeth's brain-dead and Leo's never married?"

It was Mark's turn to be silent.

"Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Well, for Christ's sake, watch what you say in front of the Colonel. No one'll get any money if his father-" She broke off abruptly. "Look, forget I said that. Leo scares the shit out of me. He's a really sick bastard, Mark. He's got this thing about his dad… something to do with the Colonel being tortured during the war. Don't ask me why because I don't understand it… but Leo really hates him for it. I know it sounds crazy-oh, God, he is crazy-but all he ever thinks about is how to bring the old man to his knees. It's a kind of crusade with him."

Mark ran through his very limited psychological vocabulary, acquired through briefing barristers on defendants' psychiatric report. Transference… compensation… displacement… depersonalization… He took it a step at a time. "Okay, let's start with this relationship you mentioned-are we talking fact or guesswork?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Becky said angrily. "I told you to watch what you say. You're so damn thoughtless, Mark. As long as you're all right, you couldn't give a shit about anybody else."

That sounded more like the Becky he knew. "You're doing all the talking… darling," he said coolly. "Anything I say is purely incidental. Fact or guesswork?"

"Guesswork," she admitted. "She was always sitting on his lap. I never actually saw anything but I'm sure it happened. I was at work all day, don't forget, earning the bloody mon-" She checked herself again. "They could have been doing anything. Elizabeth definitely wanted it. She used to trail after Leo as if he were God."

Mark glanced at James and saw that his eyes were closed. But he knew he was listening. "Leo's an attractive man," he murmured. "A lot of people gravitate toward him. You thought he was God for a while… or have you forgotten?"

"Oh, please don't do that," she begged. "What will the Colonel think?"

"More or less what he thinks now, I should imagine. Why does it matter? You're never likely to meet him."

She didn't say anything.

"You were the one with illusions," he went on, wondering if she still had hopes of Leo. "For everyone else the charm had run a bit thin."

"Yes, and I found that out the hard way," she said harshly. "I've been trying to tell you for ages, but you wouldn't listen. It's just an act. He uses people then throws them aside."

Mark decided it would be counterproductive to say: I told you so. "How did he use you?"