Good, she thought, when they gave up and left her alone. Good girl. She smacked her fist into the opposite palm. Good. It stopped the worms writhing in her gut. For a bit.

She wished she hadn’t kicked the water over. She got thirsty. It was dry here, dry air, stale.

She began to kick her legs against the bench hard. It brought an image to her mind of the football one. He’d kicked. She’d had a bruise on her thigh for a week, purple and sulphurous where he’d kicked out. She’d even wondered for a moment if he was going to be the one who got the better of her, but he hadn’t. She knew, really. None of them ever could. In the end, she was always stronger.

“Strong, Ed,” Dad had said, “that’s the girl. Go on, strong. Try and hurt me.”

She never had. He’d taught her. Before he was gone.

That was all she could remember.

“Strong, Ed. Go on, get on with it. That’s the girl.”

It was enough. She went on kicking until they came, the grille banging open, the keys.

The woman, this time.

“Stop that, Sleightholme, pack it in. What do you want?”

“Water.”

“You should have thought of that, shouldn’t you?”

But the water came. They daren’t leave her without water.

She drank half of it and threw the rest in the woman’s face.

An hour later the door opened again and she had to go out, down the narrow passage, through swing doors, into another corridor. Into a room.

She knew these rooms now. No windows. No decoration. Table. Chair on one side, two on the other. Electricals for the tape machine. That was it. Bloody torture chambers.

She swung in behind them, eyes on the floor. They pushed her towards the chair and into it.

“All right, all right.”

They went. All but one. He stood by the door, behind her.

She turned round. Looked into his face.

Him. She had a moment of terror, flashing back to the ledge, and then she thought she was going to fall again, her head spun, her ears buzzed, shewas falling, not him. Not like in her dream.

Him.

He had another with him, face like a mushed-up turnip.

She stared at him. Then at Blondie.

“DCI Simon Serrailler, DS Nathan Coates. Interview with Edwina Sleightholme, time c”

The rigmarole. She had to be careful. She straightened herself up. She’d not had any time to prepare. Be careful.

She stared at him. But it was turnip face who spoke.

“What was your job, Edwina?”

“Ed.” NO. Don’t say anything. Only she couldn’t take it. Wina, she’d called herself when she was a kid. Couldn’t say it, Wina. Mother called her bloody Weeny. Christ. But then she had decided. It was Ed and stayed Ed.

“Tell us what you did.”

She stared at him.

“You travelled.” He looked down at his paper. “Fruit machines. You did something with fruit machines c one-armed bandits, that sort of stuff.”

She bit her tongue.

“Was it or wasn’t it?”

She nodded.

“What?”

Nothing. Zip it.

“Did the Mondeo go with the job then? Company car, like?”

She smiled. Couldn’t help it. Company car.

“Got you about the country, OK, didn’t it? Not a bad car. Quite fast. Big boot.”

Silence.

She looked up at the ceiling. There was an odd stain. No cobwebs.

“How long did it take you to drive from here to Lafferton, Ed?” Blondie now. He had a nice voice.

“Where’s Lafferton?”

“Lafferton’s where you saw David Angus, waiting by his gate for the lift that would take him to school.”

She stared at the table. Her heart was thudding. They might look at the pulse in her neck, so she bent her head right forward. She had him in her mind’s eye as clear as clear. The cap. School bag. The pillars on the gate. Felt the car slowing as she pulled into the kerb. A hand was squeezing her heart, like squeezing out a mop.

“What’s the matter?”

Stare at the table. Stare at it. Don’t look up.

“What did you say to him to make him get in? Or didn’t you? Did you pull him in? Did he try and get away from you?”

No, he’d just come with her. Believed her. Got in. Not like the others. She saw his face clearly. Heard his voice. He’d talked a lot. All the bloody way, he’d talked, asked her stuff, whinged. She hated a whinger. Never whinge. She’d learned that damn quick. Zip it.

“Did you hit him? Did you gag him? Where did you take him, Ed?”

They were both asking now, playing ping-pong with her, one after the other. She wanted to laugh at them. It was easy, now that she realised they hadn’t a clue. Easy. She was clever and you had to be, no use pretending they weren’t clever too, that’s where people went wrong. These people weren’t stupid. Just that she was cleverer.

“Did you take David to the cave, Ed? Is that where you hid his body?”

Jesus. She felt the blood behind her eyes, pulsing. They’d got her, for a second; she hadn’t thought they’d put two and two together and come out with it, bang, like that. It wasn’t fair. They weren’t playing fair.

“I want a solicitor.”

He smiled. Turnip head. She wanted to smash her hand into his ugly face.

“Why?” Blondie asked. “Why now, all of a sudden?”

“Yeah, what brought that on, Ed? The cave, was it?”

She slumped down in her chair and shoved it back slightly, so that she could look at her own feet. Not see them. Not look into their faces. Their eyes.

She heard the cave in her head, the echoes, and the sound of the sea outside. She walked round it. She walked right to the back of it. She smelled the seaweed smell. Cold seaweed. Damp sand. She had loved the cave. All those caves. Years ago, it had started. She’d slept in one. She’d dared herself. She’d found them and they were hers. She was afraid of the sea but she’d worked out how the tide went. She’d slept in one.

A different one.

“Don’t you think you should tell us where their bodies are, Ed? Think about their parents. Those boys. And others. Are there any others? How many did you take to the cave? David Angus c Scott Merriman c”

She could see Blondie’s hands out of the corner of her eye. He was ticking the names off on his fingers. He said them again.

“David c Scott c you were taking Amy there too.

How many others are there?”

How many?

She knew. They were in her head. You didn’t forget. She was very, very careful. The thing was, now, that it was the end and yet it wasn’t finished, the thread hung loose. The girl. It wasn’t finished.

She smelled the green-sea smell of the cold cave.

They were lucky. No one would understand that but her. The cave was beautiful. She’d hidden there. She wouldn’t mind ending there. What could be nicer? Quieter? Peaceful. They had each other. They were safe for ever there.

She felt very, very tired. She could hardly stop herself from putting her head down on the table in front of her.

“What about Kyra?” Blondie.

She sat up, angry, banged her hand down.

“What, Ed?”

“Kyra’s c leave Kyra alone.”

“Kyra’s what?”

Shut up, shut up, shut up, stupid. Only they wouldn’t understand in a million years about Kyra and how they were going on holiday, her and Kyra, in a caravan, and how Kyra was different. Would always be different. How she loved Kyra.

“Take her back.”

He sounded disgusted. He looked into her eyes. Yes. Disgusted. He’d no time for her. She hated him for that.

“Get up.”

She thought afterwards, in her room, that she should have spat in his face. She should have done that.

The DCI beckoned Nathan away from the CID corridor. They went down the concrete stairs and out into the yard at the front of the police HQ.

“Let’s walk,” Serrailler said. Not that he knew anywhere decent to walk to. Just the straight main road, dusty now and smelling of tar from the heat of the day.

“I thought Ooop North was supposed to be great,” Nathan said, taking two steps to Serrailler’s one stride, to keep up. “Dales and that.”