“My dear Jane, what an extraordinary thing. Ten minutes ago I took a call asking for your whereabouts and I was just wondering if we had a current address when I looked up and there you were. I couldn’t believe my eyes!”

“Who on earth would telephone me here?”

“A Dr Deerbon from Lafferton. Do ring from the office, my dear.”

Thirty-one

“What the hell c?” Serrailler looked out of his office window to see a crowd of television vans in the station car park. The area was taken over by trailing cables, people with cameras and other people talking into them, vehicles with open doors revealing engineers and equipment.

“Get the press officer up here.”

“Sir.”

As the door closed the phone rang.

“Simon, what’s going on? I’ve got press coming out of my ears, I’ve had the chairman of the Police Committee in my office, I turn on the radio and I hear someone talking about an uncontrolled shooting spree in Lafferton. Talk to me.”

“Well, ma’am, the car park here is stuffed with television vans.”

“Sort it. We have four dead women, three separate shooting incidents, and not the faintest idea who’s responsible. Am I right?”

“Pretty much.”

Elaine Dimitriou was new, charming and, Simon thought, under powered when her job as press officer became, as now, more than local routine.

“I’m really sorry, they just arrived and started setting up. It’s the baby, sir. They all want to run stories about the baby. I’ve issued a press release but they’re being quite aggressive.”

“Have you got what you gave them?”

Simon scanned it. “This tells them what they know and it more or less says we haven’t a clue. Come on, Elaine, this isn’t going to satisfy them. Call a conference for four o’clock. I’ll talk to them and I’ll take questions. Public confidence is draining away and I’m not having that. Get on with it.”

Elaine fled.

“Sir? I’ve got something.”

DS Graham Whiteside looked smug. He’d had that smug look ever since he’d rescued Jamie Doyle from his cot.

“Yes?”

“Someone reported a man on a bicycle. Yester day.”

“Go on.”

“He was cycling past Bethan Doyle’s door and wobbling because he was going slowly and peering at the house. The duty PC noticed him as well. Apparently he almost fell off into the road he was that busy looking.”

“Plenty of people doing that. Cars slow down. People walk their dogs past the crime scenes. People hang about. Voyeurs. Gives them a kick.”

“Got a description.”

“Go on.”

“Fits Craig Drew. Medium build, brown hair, thirties, pale. They remarked on the paleness.”

“Fits Craig Drew, fits half the male population of Lafferton.”

“Not on bikes in Millingham Road. Craig Drew’s got a bike.”

“A lot of people have got bikes.”

“I think I’ll go and talk to him again.”

Simon pushed his hair back from his forehead a couple of times, thinking.

Craig Drew. There was a perfectly likely reason for him to be cycling past another house in which a young woman had been shot dead. He had probably cycled past the Seven Acesclub and his own house too, a dozen times. It was what people did when they were in shock and a state of disbelief.

“We haven’t got anything else, sir.”

“Not a good enough reason for pulling in Craig Drew. Might as well bring in anybody.”

“I think you’re wrong. Sir. I think we should look at Drew. Hard.”

“You made that plain the first time we went to see him.”

“I didn’t believe anything he said.”

“What? Nothing?”

Simon pushed his hair back again. Fact: he disliked Graham Whiteside, and had been angry at his tactics in the first Drew interview. Fact: if there was the faintest chance that Drew had shot Bethan Doyle, in front of her eighteen-month-old son, the angry press pack would sniff it out. Fact: the public was alarmed and baying for blood.

“All right, but don’t go wading in.”

The DS half nodded.

Simon went into the CID room.

“Vicky here?”

DC Hollywell was staring at her computer screen with a far-off expression and jumped when the boss walked over to her desk.

“Found any relatives for Bethan Doyle?”

“Not yet, sir. I was just looking again, actually. The ex-partner is the only name we’ve got and he’s working in a bar in Ibiza—police there have tracked him down, they’re talking to him.”

“The little boy c”

“Jamie. He’s in care.”

“I can’t believe he has absolutely no living relatives apart from an absentee father.”

“We’re trying, sir.”

“I know. Bethan seemed a solitary girl without family and without friends, did her job, came home, picked him up from nursery and stayed home alone with him. Was that it?”

“It appears so.”

Simon shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Get on to neighbours, go to her work, go to the boy’s nursery c everyone. There has to be someone.”

“There was.”

“What?”

“Well, there was someone who killed her. Or was it random like the others?”

“Were they random?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Nor do I, Vicky, and it’s driving me nuts.” He turned round. “Listen up please. I’m doing a press conference this afternoon. I’ve got to give the buggers out there something. I want to defuse this. We need them onside and at the moment they’re not. Meanwhile, as you go in and out don’t say anything. Be polite and carry on. I want everyone in the conference room at four. Show of solidarity.”

His mobile rang. Cat’s number. He went into his room and closed the door.

“Where are you?”

“Office. What’s happened?”

“Chris has gone into BG. They’re operating this afternoon. They think it’s a grade-three glioma.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? I mean them operating.”

“It’s to relieve the pressure. He went blind in one eye and the headaches are awful. They’ll try and take some of it out, but it’s in a difficult place.”

“Oh, love.”

“He’ll have radiotherapy. One course, it’s just palliative.”

Cat sounded cold and mechanical, removing herself from her emotions, setting aside the fact that she was talking about Chris.

“I’ll try and come over tonight. It should be OK after the press conference.”

“It’s all right, Dad and Judith are coming over so I can go and see Chris.”

“Oh? You don’t need me then.”

“Christ. Of course I need you. I need everyone. Simon, don’t have tantrums, I can’t cope.”

Someone knocked.

“Have you talked to the children?”

“Tried. I never realised how hard it was just to explain, just to get them to understand even a little. Sam can. In a way. But he doesn’t want to. He put his fingers in his ears.”

His door opened. Elaine.

“I have to go. Hold on in there. I’ll come later.”

He looked up.

“Sorry, sir, but the Chief’s here. She went into the CID room but I thought you’d want a heads-up.”

“Thanks.”

Another head round the door. Vicky.

“The Spanish police came through. Foster Munday, Bethan Doyle’s partner c left his bar job five weeks ago. Left his apartment as well.”

“And?”

“Took a flight to Birmingham.”

“When?”

“Two days before Melanie Drew was shot.”

“Right, we want photographs, full description, get on to the airport, taxis, railway, car hire. I want him in here yesterday.”

Vicky turned and crashed into the Chief Constable. Simon caught a glimpse of their faces, Vicky scarlet and horrified, Paula Devenish thunderous.

“Ma’am. I’ll get someone to go for tea.”

“I don’t need tea. I need some small scrap of evidence that you have moved forward in this investigation.”

Thirty-two

DS Whiteside pounded the front door of the cottage with hammer blows. Inside, dogs barked.