“That’s the other bit. Like the cliffs. The beaches.”

“This is rubbish. This is worse than Bevham.”

“Funny. It changes everything. No one in Lafferton can ever look at the Hill in the same way again c won’t, for generations. I can’t think of the coast c that stretch of cliff. The sea. It’s some of the best coastline in the country c and it’s blighted. It’s stained. Nothing will shift it.”

“Do you reckon it’s your cave where she took them?”

Simon shrugged.

“Forensics will go in.”

“Forensics. It’s all we’ve got, Nathan. The house. The car. And the cave. If they don’t find anything, we’re empty-handed.”

“They’ve got to.” Nathan smacked his balled fist into the other palm.

“She won’t talk.”

“Like an iron door, ent she? Gives nothing. Not a flicker. Only c”

“What?”

“Only she did it. She did them all.”

“Oh yes.”

“How long will she go down for as it is, do you reckon? Ten? More?”

“Ten minimum.”

“If we can get forensics c”

“Yup. Then it’s fine.”

“If we don’t c”

“I can’t stand it. Loose ends. We know. She knows we know. But there’ll be nothing She could have buried them in the sand. Thrown them into the sea.”

“Can a shrink get her to open up?”

“Doubt it. They don’t win them all either. Only pretend to.”

“I get a smell off of her, you know, guv? That smell.”

“Guilt.”

“Badness. It smells.”

They reached a junction. The road went on for miles, shining and sticky in the sun.

“Come on.”

“We having another go?”

Simon was silent. Were they? They could leave it until the next day. Or press on, hope to grind her down, wear her out. It wouldn’t work of course. She wasn’t the sort to wear out. Ever. Yet he couldn’t leave it, go back to Lafferton. Loose ends.

“I’ll go in there without you this time. Take one of their team to sit in.”

“Guv.”

“No reflection on you, Nathan.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t fancy looking at her any more today. I’m going to ring Em.”

“How is she?”

“Bloomin’, thanks. Suits her. All, like, rosy with it, you know?”

Simon laughed. He remembered his sister, pregnant with her last. “Rosy.”

It occurred to him that he would never know what it was like to have a wife, “rosy” with his own children. He knew it instinctively in the same way that he knew Ed Sleightholme was guilty. You didn’t ignore feelings like that, even if you were powerless over them.

“Be glad to get away from here, be glad to get home.”

A patrol car swerved, screaming, out of the station forecourt. Another.

“Where’s the difference?” Simon said.

Twenty-one

They were to see Ed Sleightholme at ten. At half past nine, Serrailler sat in Jim Chapman’s room with a plastic cup of sludge-grey coffee and DC Marion Coopey Simon had asked for her. He wanted her take on Ed.

“You won’t crack her,” she said now. “She just stared me out and it’s what she’ll go on doing with you. How’s your forensics team doing?”

“They’ve done the caves—the beaches, the cliff paths—nothing. They’re in the house now. They’ve got the car and another lot are pulling that apart. We might be lucky. But I wanther confession. I needher to talk.”

“She’s got to you!”

“Well, of course she’s got to me. Hasn’t she got to you?”

The DC shrugged. She was wearing a cream T-shirt and short linen skirt. She looked cool. “Not really. I try not to let them.”

“If I didn’t get like this from time to time I wouldn’t think the job was worth doing.”

“Shows you care?”

He swigged his coffee and ignored her. “Do you think she’s a psychopath?” he asked after a moment.

“Probably. On the other hand, she wants gratification. But that’s the usual. It’s like an itch c in the end, you have to scratch it. The urge is too great, and the satisfaction is great c for a bit. Until you start to itch again.”

“Why children? What makes a womanwant to abduct children?”

“Why stress ‘woman’? What makes anyone want to abduct children?”

“It’s a male crime, overwhelmingly. You know that.”

“I still don’t see why the motives need to be different.”

He thought about it. “Maybe c maybe they’re not. But either the desire to abduct children and probably kill them is rare in women, or women suppress it more readily c something censors it very strongly.”

“So the censor is absent in this case?”

“Has to be. She has not only done it, she’s done it again and again. Boys and girls. No conscience, no brakes c seize the moment. Gratify. Why?”

“It’s sexual. Surely it always is.”

“In men.”

“Why not in women?” She was aggressive with him. She had him on the spot and knew it. “Look, if you believe women have a tender side in relation to children, because they mother them, whereas men, who father them, don’t—that’s crap. And why shouldn’t women’s sexual feelings be as strong as men’s?”

“No reason, if you’re talking about normal sexual feelings, but these are not normal, are they?”

“Why does that signify?”

“There’s a reason, somewhere c Why does she want to do this? Why does anyone need to commit this particular crime?”

“I know what the usual explanation is.”

“Emotional deprivation in childhood c abuse c possibly in care c lack of close and trusting relationships when growing up c”

“Blah de blah, de blah.”

“You don’t buy it?”

“Dunno. It’s trotted out as an explanation for most crimes. Makes me look for more.”

“I want Ed Sleightholme to tellus more.”

“She’s not going to. You might as well get back down south.”

“Come on. Back in there.” He held the door open for her. DC Coopey went through with a contemptuous look.

Ed Sleightholme gave him no sort of look at all.

“Did you talk to the children?” Serailler asked. She was staring at the table and did not glance up but he thought he noticed a reaction, some sort of start or hesitation, some twitch in her body. She had registered. She had had to stop herself from responding to him.

“Or did you gag them? Knock them out? Or were they killed pretty soon after you got them into the car?”

Silence. Marion Coopey leaned back in her chair, one leg up over the other.

Simon plugged on. “Are your parents alive, Edwina?”

“Ed.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you so bothered about it? I rather like the name Edwina.”

“Well, I hate it.”

“Why?”

No answer.

“Did your mother call you Ed?”

“No.”

“Edwina?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m interested. Was it your father then? Who called you Ed?”

Silence.

“You love your parents, don’t you?”

“What gave you that idea?”

“So you don’t?”

“Don’t know them. Never known them.”

“What, neither of them?”

She looked up straight at him. “Fuck off.”

“Not yet. Were you adopted? In care?”

“None of your business.”

“Tell me about Kyra.”

That was it. He’d got it. Nothing else worked. She held back, or blocked him out, she was silent, or defiant. But with Kyra, he had got there. Twice now. Her eyes flashed and brightened, her skin took on the faintest flush. She leaned towards him.

“You shut up about Kyra, you hear me?”

“You’re her friend, aren’t you? She goes round to your house and spends time with you.”

She looked at him. He thought she was going to say something but, at the last minute, she did not.

“What did you do?”

“Made biscuits. Made toffee. Cut things out and stuck them in the scrapbooks. Coloured in. Did soap-and-water bubbles.”

“Fun.”

“Yeah. We had fun. She likes doing fun things.”

“Were they the sort of things you did when you were a kid?”

A flicker. What? A shadow across her face. Gone.

“When I was that age, we made peppermints on wet Saturday afternoons. With my mother. That was fun.”