Laura exchanged glances with Carson and Joe. ‘Who is he?’ she asked.

‘Someone called Rupert Barker. He seems nervous.’

Carson looked at Laura. ‘Sounds like he needs your gentle touch.’

‘Or maybe any touch but yours,’ she said, and then stood to follow the civilian worker back through the police station.

Laura walked out of the Incident Room and towards the doors that separated the waiting room from the main body of the station. As she looked through the doors, Laura could see one of the local solicitors, a wannabe glamour-puss, sitting next to her client and preening in the glass, and there was someone in a tracksuit, but he didn’t look much like a Rupert.

There was a room behind the glass kiosks, where the counter staff went when they had to make some enquiries they were trying to keep secret from the customer. Laura put her head round the door. ‘Where did he go?’

The counter assistant looked up from the note she was writing and then back out through the glass.

‘He was here a minute ago.’

Laura looked through the glass in the door again. ‘He’s not here now,’ she muttered under her breath, and then gave the door a push and went into the foyer. She was met with a couple of blank glances, apart from the solicitor, who was still flicking at her long hair and smiling at her reflection.

Laura went towards the exit doors and then out into the sunshine. She looked along the line of parked vehicles just outside the front doors and saw a car starting to pull away. She tried to make out a number plate, but he was too far away. A departing police van then blocked her view.

Laura pointed at the camera in the corner of the foyer as she rushed through. ‘How can I view what has just been recorded?’

The woman behind the counter shrugged and then pointed upwards. ‘In the CCTV room, I expect.’

Laura walked quickly through the station and headed for the stairs, avoiding the lift, a confined space. Laura got nervous whenever she felt closed in. She hadn’t always been that way, but a bad experience a year earlier, when a case had ended up with her being trapped in a small space, had made her this way. If there was a way to avoid them, she would take it.

She headed for the top floor as quickly as she could, her legs aching from her efforts the night before. She was out of breath when she burst into a small room that was dominated by a bank of television screens. There were images from around Blackley, the town centre and Saturday night flash points, along with some of the major traffic routes out of town. The CCTV operator looked up, his eyes taking a second to re-adjust from focussing on the screens.

‘Do you have the foyer downstairs monitored?’ she asked.

He shrugged and nodded, then pressed a couple of keys. An image of the entrance downstairs was displayed on one of the centre screens.

‘Can you wind it back ten minutes?’ she asked.

His tut was barely audible, but Laura heard it, although she focussed on the screen instead as the footage was rewound.

‘There!’ she said quickly, as a figure seemed to walk backwards out of the station. When the operator pressed the play button, Laura watched as the figure walked in.

He seemed old and small, his head bald, his features pointed. He seemed uncomfortable, nervous, as if he wanted to say something but would be quite pleased if he never got the chance. As he sat down, Laura watched as he shifted in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs, biting his lip, his hand running over his scalp as if he was brushing hair that had long since lost the battle with time, glancing up as two police officers strode through on their way out of the station. When it was his turn to go to the counter, he seemed to hold back, and although he held his nerve long enough to speak to the lady at the counter, he stepped away quickly after that and looked at the floor. He sat down for a short period and then he left, as if he was no longer uncertain, more determined to get away than he had been to enter.

‘Have you got any external footage?’

He tutted and pressed a couple of keys, and then a view of the car park appeared on one of the screens. Laura watched as the man walked quickly to a car. As he climbed in and reversed, there was a good shot of the number plate. She jotted it down and said, ‘Save that footage,’ and then ran out of the room. The CCTV operator barely acknowledged her demand.

She went into the room next door and found a spare computer terminal. Once she had logged in, she did a check on the number plate. Rupert Barker. The same name as given by the man who came in.

Laura headed for the stairs again. She knew where she was heading next: to see Rupert Barker.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Some kids looked at Jack’s car as he drove onto the Whitcroft estate. They had the usual hoods and loose fits, with more menace than the black hair and pale faces of teenagers seen in the better parts of town, where rebellion was just a phase. Jack knew that they were trying to work out how to spoil someone’s day, and their eyes had settled on Jack’s relic from the seventies, the Calypso Red paint blistering on the front wings and the windscreen covered in dust and squashed flies.

Jack hadn’t stayed long at the court. There wasn’t much going on, and he wasn’t in the mood to write up any of Hoyle’s speeches. Instead, Jack decided to return to the estate, to find out more for the feature Dolby had pencilled in for the weekend edition.

He was sorting out his voice recorder, deleting old interviews to clear some space, when the security van drove up to the front of his car, stopping inches short. Another car pulled up close behind.

Jack put down his dictaphone and watched as the two security guards got out of the van, their arms hanging away from their body. It wasn’t a friendly visit. They walked towards his car, and then stopped and folded their arms. Then Jack’s passenger door flew open and someone jumped into the seat. Don Roberts.

Jack was shocked. He looked back to the security guards, who were both grinning at him now. DR Security. Don Roberts. He should have guessed.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ Don said, turning towards him.

‘There is no this,’ Jack said, trying to hide the nerves in his voice.

‘Have you reconsidered?’ Don said.

‘About writing an appeal for information?’ Jack said, and then shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t.’ He tapped his finger nervously on the steering wheel.

‘Why won’t you help me find Jane’s killer?’

‘Because of what you will do when you catch him.’

‘Which is what?’

Jack looked at Don. He saw the clenched fists, the scar that ran from one corner of his mouth. But then he saw something else. It was confusion. In Don’s eyes, Jack could see that he didn’t know why his daughter had died, why something so awful had visited him. There was pain and grief and anger, and the determination to avenge his daughter’s death in the only way he knew how: through violence.

‘You would do exactly what any father would want to do,’ Jack said. ‘Kill the bastard who murdered your daughter. But I’m sorry, I can’t help you do that.’

Don looked down, and Jack wanted to look away when he saw the tremble to Don’s lip.

‘Would that be so wrong?’

‘Yes, in my world.’

Don clenched his jaw but didn’t respond.

‘Go to the police,’ Jack said.

Don shook his head.

‘You don’t want the police poking around your life,’ Jack said. ‘That’s your choice. But as bad as it sounds, you need to get the sympathy of the public to get the information you want, and so stand with the police, as a grieving parent.’

Don put his hands on his knees and clenched his fingers around the kneecaps, his knuckles turning white. Jack became aware of the silence. He could hear the gentle crackle of the branches on a silver birch. The soft creak of springs as Don moved in his seat. The rhythm of leather heels as an old man in a grey suit walked towards the shops.