‘Good point,’ said Marmion.

‘Or the remark could simply have meant that it was the last time all six of them would be together,’ said Harte. ‘That’s why Florrie was going to overindulge. It was because there’d never be an occasion like that again.’

‘Why not, sir?’

‘She was going to leave the factory soon.’

‘Nobody told us about that.’

‘Jean was the only person she confided in and it rocked my daughter. She hated the thought of losing her. I can’t think why Florrie would even consider leaving. She was part and parcel of the factory.’

‘I wonder if her parents knew about her plans,’ said Marmion.

‘It’s unlikely. They weren’t on the best of terms with Florrie.’

‘So we gather.’

‘She went out of her way to shock them sometimes.’

Marmion smiled. ‘I can imagine that they’d be easily shocked.’

‘I don’t flatter myself that I’ve been a good father,’ said Harte, soulfully, ‘but I’ve made a far better fist of it than Brian Ingles. Although we had differences, Jean and I were always able to talk, whereas he more or less drove his daughter away from that big house of theirs. Ingles is not so high and mighty as he appears,’ he said with a sly grin. ‘I learnt something about him today that I didn’t know.’

‘What was that, sir?’

‘A colleague of mine from the bank called to offer his condolences and see how I was.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’m telling you this in strictest confidence, mark you.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Marmion.

‘We won’t breathe a word,’ added Keedy.

‘It will show Ingles in a very different light,’ said Harte. ‘In spite of the lordly way he behaves, he’s in no better position than we ordinary mortals. He loves to give the impression of being well off but, according to my colleague, he took out a huge loan at the bank and is having trouble paying it back.’

Maureen Quinn found herself alone that evening. Her father had gone out to the pub and her mother had taken Lily to visit the children’s aged grandmother. Not wishing to leave the house, Maureen remained in her room, reflecting on what Father Cleary had said to her and reading passages from the Bible that he’d recommended. Though the exercise gave her a measure of solace, it could not assuage the feeling of guilt. The inquest and the funerals would be separate ordeals but there was also her return to the factory to contemplate. Maureen would be stared at as a freak, the sole survivor of a grisly event that would lodge in the collective mind. In the wake of the explosion, she’d had a weird urge to go back to work but she wondered now if she’d ever do so. It would never be the same again. Every time she went through the factory gates, she’d think of her five missing friends. No amount of prayer could obliterate frightening memories.

A banging noise from the garden caught her attention. She looked through the window but could see nothing in the dark. Going downstairs, she picked up the little torch in the kitchen then inched the back door open. She scanned the tiny garden but the beam was too weak to be of any real use. Yet she was sure that someone or some animal was there. When she heard a second noise, she realised that it came from the ramshackle shed. Moving the beam of the torch onto it, she saw that the door had swung partly open. The last time that the latch had slipped, a cat had climbed over the fence and got into the shed, knocking over some flowerpots. Assuming that the same thing had happened again, she went out and opened the shed door wide.

‘Shoo!’ she cried out.

It was the only sound she was allowed to make because a figure was instantly conjured out of the darkness. Before she knew what was happening, Maureen was grabbed firmly and a hand was clapped over her mouth.

Back at the police station in Hayes once more, Marmion and Keedy reviewed the situation. It was mid-evening but they were loath to call it a day and return home. New developments had set their minds working and given them fresh energy. While both of them were annoyed about the impostor who’d lured them on a pointless journey to Rochester, the incident had proved one thing. The plea for information about the whereabouts of Herbert Wylie had been widely circulated and prompted a response. The impostor was only one of a number of people who’d contacted the police. According to Claude Chatfield, more people had come forward throughout the day to claim sightings of the missing man. When he’d rung the superintendent to tell him about their setback in Rochester, Keedy had heard about information that had come in from places as far apart as Torquay, Bradford and Perth. The claims were being investigated by local police. Only when the evidence was compelling would the detectives be dispatched again from their base in Middlesex. With the whole nation on the alert, their suspect could not elude them for ever.

Herbert Wylie was at the top of their list. Marmion had put Niall Quinn in second place but had now dropped him down to third position. After their visit to Reuben Harte, both he and Keedy felt sure that Florrie Duncan had been involved in a romance at one point and that the man concerned was almost certainly employed at the munitions factory. She would not have been the first single woman there who’d become pregnant. Hasty wartime marriages would have been arranged in some cases but that was not an option available to Florrie — or so it appeared. The man in question might well have wished to get rid of the unwanted problem completely.

‘Why did she decide to leave the factory?’ asked Marmion.

‘The answer is that she had to go before the baby became too obvious,’ said Keedy. ‘Although they were very close, she didn’t confide that in Jean Harte. It was Agnes Collier who noticed the signs. She was the only mother in the group.’

‘There is another explanation, Joe.’

‘I don’t see it.’

‘Well, if the man worked at the factory, Florrie might have been embarrassed to go on seeing him every day. A blighted romance can leave you feeling sensitive.’

Keedy chuckled. ‘Do you speak from experience, Harv?’

‘No,’ said the other, pointedly, ‘I don’t. As men, we tend to have it easy. We not only have a monopoly on making the first move, we usually set the pace. If things don’t happen the way certain men want, they back away. Look at Alan Suggs, for instance. He picks women up and casts them aside all the time.’

‘I don’t think Florrie Duncan would fall for someone like that.’

‘Maybe not, but the factory could still hold unpleasant memories for her. She’d want to leave in order to put them behind her.’

Keedy was sceptical. ‘That doesn’t ring true, Harv,’ he said. ‘Remember what everyone told us about Florrie. She was a fighter. If it was only a case of a blighted romance, then she’d be more likely to drive the man concerned out of the factory than quit her own job. Then, of course, there was that remark about drinking herself into oblivion.’

‘Yes, that could be significant.’

‘It reminded me of a woman I arrested when I was on the beat. She was roaring drunk and swearing at passers-by. I had to manhandle her to get her back to the station,’ recalled Keedy. ‘She was barely seventeen, far too young for strong drink. I had to feel sorry for her. When she’d recovered, she told me her story.’

‘Was she pregnant, by any chance?’

‘It was worse than that, Harv. She’d got hold of the idea that if she drank enough, she could actually get rid of the baby. Instead of that, she ended up with a terrible headache and a charge of being drunk and disorderly.’

‘And she was still carrying the child.’

‘Yes.’

‘That can’t have been the reason that Florrie Duncan reached for the bottle,’ said Marmion. ‘She was a married woman. She’d know that you can’t secure an abortion that way.’