‘You see, she’s crafty as well. She worked with one of my DCIs, Malcolm Karlsson. He just fell under her spell and she made use of that.’

‘“Fell under her spell”? Was there some kind of relationship?’

Crawford pulled a face. ‘I’m not saying there was and I’m not saying there wasn’t. I don’t know anything about it and I wouldn’t like to speculate. All I’ll say is that Mal Karlsson lost his sense of perspective. But you’ll want to talk to him yourself. Be warned in advance, though, that he’s not entirely reliable where Frieda Klein is concerned.’

Hussein looked down at the file. ‘It’s possible that Frieda Klein doesn’t have anything to do with this.’

Crawford walked round the desk and helped Hussein out of the chair. ‘And it’s possible,’ he said, ‘that you can get into a shark pool and that the shark won’t eat you. But it’s better to be in a cage.’

Hussein smiled at the extravagance of the image. ‘She’s just a witness,’ she said.

‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ said Crawford. ‘And if she gives you any trouble, remember, I’m right behind you.’

5

‘What have we got?’ Hussein looked at the men and women grouped around her in the incident room.

What have we got? The words she always used during the first hours or days of a case, when they were assembling the corners and straight lines of the investigation, before starting on the jumble of pieces that built up the picture.

‘Shall I begin?’ Bryant said. ‘Our victim is Alexander Holland. He’s a –’ he glanced down at the printed sheet in front of him ‘– a professor of cognitive science at King George’s College, London.’

‘What’s that mean?’ asked Chris Fortune. He was new on the team; she noticed that he jiggled one knee continually and chewed gum with vigour. Probably trying to give up smoking.

‘That he’s cleverer than we are. Or was cleverer. The university term ended on June the sixth for the long summer vacation, which explains why no one there was concerned about his absence. Although the records show that a woman …’ he glanced down at his notebook ‘… a Dr Ellison apparently rang the police to say he seemed to have disappeared. It’s unclear why she was worried. It had only been a few days and what she meant was that he hadn’t been in touch with her.’

‘Dr Ellison?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s fairly new to the job. It was created specially for him. He came back from the States, where he had been working for a couple of years, eighteen months ago.’

‘Why?’ asked Hussein.

‘Why what?’

‘Why did he come back?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Go on.’

‘He was forty-two. Previously married to a Maria Lockhart but divorced eight years ago.’

‘Where’s she now?’

‘She lives in New Zealand with her new husband. And, no, she hasn’t paid a visit to London recently to kill her ex. He doesn’t have any children. Parents both dead. He has one sister. We’ve talked to her.’

Hussein thought of the distraught woman in her blue dress, wringing her hands together, shaking her head from side to side in bewilderment. ‘Is he in a relationship?’

‘Not that we know of.’

‘Sophie.’ Hussein nodded at the young woman, who sat up straighter, looking nervous. ‘Tell us what’s been found in his flat.’

She listened intently as Sophie talked. Alexander Holland had not been in his flat long, but something of the man emerged from where he had lived: he had liked cooking – the pots and pans were expensive and obviously used, and there were lots of ingredients neatly stored in the cupboards, as well as recipe books. He had also, it seemed, liked drinking. There was a large number of empty wine bottles in the recycling bin under the stairs and a healthy supply of full ones in the kitchen, as well as a couple of bottles of whisky. He had been sporty, judging from the tennis and squash rackets and the running clothes, and the several pairs of trainers. He was a bit of a dandy: expensive shirts and jackets hung in the wardrobe. He had liked art – or, at least, there were paintings on the walls, and also two drawings in his bedroom. He was sexually active. There were condoms in the drawer by the bed.

‘Probably sexually active,’ said Hussein.

There were two dressing gowns hanging from the hook, one for a man and a smaller one for a woman – and the woman’s had been worn by several different people. There was a supply of toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet, alongside paracetamol and mouthwash. He read a lot, mostly books to do with his work.

‘What’s noticeable,’ said Sophie Byrne, ‘is what’s not there. No passport. No wallet. No computer. No phone.’

‘Keys?’

‘One set of keys in a bowl near the front door. And then some keys which don’t belong to the flat.’

‘His sister’s, perhaps?’

‘We’re checking.’

‘Any correspondence?’

‘No – but it was probably on his computer, which is also gone.’

‘We should presumably be able to get it from his server. Or perhaps he has a computer in his office at the university. Get onto that, will you, Chris?’

‘Sure.’ Chris gave an extra vigorous chew on his gum.

‘There was a notebook on his desk,’ said Sophie Byrne. ‘But it was mostly lists of things to do, things to buy. There was also what looked like a schedule written down, dates and times with asterisks by them. It was headed “WH”.’

‘WH?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. What about phone calls, Glen? Any joy?’

‘Ah.’ Bryant looked pleased, cleared his throat, picked up a sheaf of printouts stapled together. ‘His mobile’s missing, as you know. But we’ve got a record of the calls that were made, going back six months to the beginning of the year.’

‘And?’

‘Over a third of all calls were made to the same number.’

‘And whose number was that?’ asked Hussein, already guessing the answer.

‘Frieda Klein’s.’

‘Are you going to call a press conference?’ Bryant asked Hussein, after the meeting.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Shall we bring her in?’

‘Dr Klein? Not yet. There’s a couple of people I think I need to talk to first.’

Then she remembered something else that had been like a small niggle in her brain.

‘When Frieda Klein’s name first came up on the system, it was because she had reported someone missing. Miles Thornton. Can you look into that?’

‘Come in, come in,’ he said, holding out his hand and grasping hers with a wrenching firmness.

Hal Bradshaw had bare feet and artfully unkempt hair, glasses whose frames were long, thin rectangles that made it hard to see the whole of his eyes. Perhaps that was the point. He led her through into his study, a bright, book-lined room with several framed certificates above the desk, a photograph of himself shaking the hand of a prominent politician and a long sofa to which he gestured. She took a seat at one end and he sat rather near to her. He smelt of sandalwood.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Dr Bradshaw. Especially on a Sunday.’

‘Professor, actually. Recent thing.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

She was slightly perplexed. ‘I know. I rang you to make the appointment.’

‘No, I mean as soon as I heard about her finding the body of her friend. Her ex-friend.’

‘Can I ask how you know about that?’

Bradshaw gave a modest shrug. ‘It’s part of the arrangement.’

‘With the police?’

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘They keep me in the loop. The commissioner himself called me on this one.’