Detective Chief Inspector John McLeish gazed doubtfully at the plate before him.
Having thought he was hungry, he now realized that actually he needed anything rather than the overflowing plate of cholesterol the canteen at New Scotland Yard had provided with such admirable promptness.
Sleep would perhaps make more sense after thirty-six hours straight on duty, much of it spent with a sullen Jamaican who had killed his landlady and her three children in the crowded kitchen of a house behind the Westway.
He took an experimental mouthful of fried egg and waited to see if it was going to suit him, then progressed to the baked beans, cautiously.
He finished the egg, all the baked beans and one of the sausages, but decided the fried bread was tempting fate and pushed the plate aside, reaching for his cup of tea, resting both elbows on the table.
He lifted a hand off his cup in weary salute to one of his sergeants. a very dark Scot in a crumpled grey suit who was walking over from the counter, and the man altered course to sit opposite him.
' How goes it, Bruce? '
Bruce Davidson had accompanied McLeish from his last posting to C1, that division of New Scotland Yard concerned exclusively with murder, and they had now worked together for four years in the CID.
' Got that Tottenham case weighed off, nae bother.
I hear you've finished the Westway job.
Ye need to get your head down, John, you're looking rough. '
McLeish nodded.
He had glanced in the washroom mirror and it had not been a reassuring sight.
A big man, six foot four inches in his socks and a good fourteen stone, he always looked mildly untidy, and this morning, having worn the same clothes for a day and a half he looked like a football supporter after a night in the cells.
At thirty-two, he was young enough not to look completely haggard, even after thirty-six hours with only the odd hour's sleep, but his dark hair was plastered to his head and the brown eyes were sunk back in his head and reddened with smoke and exhaustion.
' I 'm going off.
You too? '
' I 'm waiting for Catherine  Sergeant Crane. '
Even falling asleep as he was, McLeish was amused at Bruce Davidson's hopeful, proprietorial air.
Catherine Crane had joined the division three months ago, creating a major upheaval.
She was a slight young woman of twenty-seven, whose dazzling, delicate, blond looks concealed a ferocious intelligence and attack.
Every man in her vicinity had found himself putting his best foot forward, and she had done wonders for the sartorial standards of the notoriously uncaring C1 division.
McLeish himself, though admiring, had been unaffected; he had been in love for over a year with a young woman only a little older, and even cleverer, than Sergeant Crane.
His Francesca was a rising star in the Department of Trade and Industry, and they planned to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a skiing holiday, due to start in two weeks' time.
He smiled on Davidson, cheered immeasurably by the thought of getting on a plane with Francesca.
After chatting to Davidson for a few minutes longer, he went back to his office.
looking for his secretary, a plumpish, infinitely competent, middle-aged mother of three.
She was on the phone and he stood silently, filling the doorway, raising an eyebrow at her.
She motioned him to stay.
' It's Francesca, John. '
' Thanks, Jenny.
I 'll take it back there, ' he said, brightening, and she watched, with a little jealousy.
as he hurried back to his desk.
' Darling.
I've got a horrendous problem.
Can you possibly duck out and have coffee in the caff in ten minutes? '
The voice at the other end was slightly husky but very clear.
' It's Tristram.
He's been arrested in New York.
Better not talk on the phone, had we? '
' Oh, Christ.
No.
I 'll meet you. '
He put down the phone, rattled.
With his much-loved Francesca came her four younger brothers for whom, as the eldest child of a widow, she had always considered herself responsible.
All four were talented musicians and difficult people, in varying degrees; Tristram.
one of the twenty-four-year-old twins, had proved the most difficult, perhaps because he was not the most talented.
McLeish gritted his teeth, and, trying not to consider the implications of what he had been told.
made one quick phone call, then took the lift down and walked across the road from New Scotland Yard to the little caf which was, as usual, full of workmen engaged in rebuilding the offices in the area.
Stopping to buy a paper, he caught sight of Francesca through the window, perched on one of the bar stools, totally unconscious of the table full of men next to her all eyeing her long legs.
He stood and watched her, putting off the moment when.
as he half knew, he would be asked to acquiesce in some lunatic scheme for pulling Tristram out of trouble, and saw her for a moment from a position of detachment: a tall young woman looking younger than her twenty-nine years.
dark, with a long straight nose and arched eyebrows.
She was looking particularly uncompromising today, tired and pale, her dark, short hair spiking up at the back.
She had been crying, McLeish observed resignedly, as he pushed through the door.
' All right, tell me, ' he said, as he sat down heavily beside her, and got a careful, measuring.
sidelong look.
' I have to go to New York in a hurry and bail Tristram out.
He was arrested last night, with one of the backing group and three of the band.
They're all in the nick.
charged with possession.
Cocaine, as I understand it. '
' Jesus. '
' I know, I know, just when he was beginning to be a success like Perry.
It simply went to his head  you know what he was like when he left. '
' Thought he could walk on water, ' McLeish said, in irritated memory.
' Frannie, why do you have to go?
He has a manager and a studio, doesn't he?
What can you do that they can't? '
She sighed so heavily that her whole ribcage moved.
' I am to some extent on home ground there, ' she said, reluctantly and not looking at him.
' Mike  Michael O'Brien  will help, but I need to be on the spot. '
McLeish held on to his temper, reminding himself that he was very tired.
Francesca's much publicized affair with Senator Michael O'Brien was the reason that she had been sent home rather early from a tour of duty in the Embassy in Washington, over a year previously, just before he had met her in London.
As one of Francesca's DTI colleagues had maliciously observed, it had been felt that fraternization with the American colleagues could be carried too far.
Francesca herself had characteristically taken the line that the Foreign Office ought to have been glad that someone on the staff was that closely involved with the American political Establishment.
' What are you going to do with O'Brien? '
' Well, I 'm hardly going to get back into bed with him after more than a whole year.
There 'll certainly be another incumbent by now.
But he is the senior Senator.
we were close when I was in Washington, and whichever way you slice it he won't want my brother being buggered or beaten up in a New York jail. '
Her classically good diction always became even clearer under stress, so that this statement emerged with the slightly metallic clarity of a dubbed film, and the clientle of the small caf was obviously appreciating every moment.
McLeish decided that since she was unaware of her audience it did not become him to be selfconscious, and asked what she expected even a Senator to achieve in these circumstances?
' Oh.
darling.
The American legal system is so odd that I've been told I could get Tristram deported in my custody.
It's a disaster, of course it ' s a disaster, he 'll be banned from the US for ever presumably; but at least he won't be being interfered with in some unspeakable foreign nick. '
' I thought he was off drugs? '
' Well we all hoped, didn't we?
But evidently he isn't, and I must get him back. '
McLeish found himself on the verge of suggesting that a thoroughly unpleasant time in a New York jail might succeed in curing Tristram where all other methods, including exhortation, loving family support and a spell in a comfortable private hospital in Devon, had failed.
He looked at his love's shuttered, miserable face and realized he would get nowhere along those lines.
' Why can't your Mum or one of the boys go? '
' Mum is in bed with bronchitis, as you would know if you had managed to get out of that place since last Friday. '
Francesca, a true eldest child, knew how to score her points.
' Charlie's baby is due tomorrow, Perry is in Japan on tour, just like all the papers say.
Jeremy is coming with me but he is too young to do this alone, and in any case I 'm the only one who can deploy O'Brien. '
' How is the DTI receiving all this?
You've got four rescue cases. '
Francesca sighed.
' They are as fed up with me as you are, but they won't stop me taking leave. '
She stopped sharply, and blushed scarlet.
' Wait a minute. '
John McLeish felt his blood-pressure going up.
' What about skiing, if you're using leave? '
She looked at him, wretchedly.
' I have to go.
I really expect to get back in three or four days and I will try and hang on to the holiday.
I know we need it, it seems ages since we went to bed. '
McLeish scowled round the fascinated audience, returning the customers to their egg and chips.
' Anyway, it's been you who have been too busy for months. '
McLeish was too honest not to acknowledge the point.
' The more important, then, for us to have a holiday together. '
' I know.
Darling, I am sorry, I really expect to be back inside the week, and I wouldn't go if anyone else could.
I am trying  I mean I know I let the boys lean too much. '
He looked at her, defeated, and she saw that she had carried the point, but at a heavy cost.
' Do you still love me? ' she asked anxiously.
' Not at the moment. '
An indrawn breath from the spectators unsettled both of them for a moment.
Francesca nearly laughed, but McLeish's expression sobered her.
' Let's get out of here. '
She slid obediently off the bar stool, bidding a civil good-morning to the caf owner who looked, McLeish observed, as if he would willingly have swept her into his plump Italian embrace, and they walked together to the gates of New Scotland Yard.
' I 'll ring you when I get to New York. '
She looked, worried, at his profile.
' You're furious with me.
I 'm sorry.
I love you. '
' I don't think we can go on like this. '
McLeish surprised himself as well as her.
' John. '
It was an appeal and he was not proof against it.
He bent and kissed her.
' I am furious, and I want you back quickly.
But good luck with it  ring me if you need help. '
The look she flicked him reminded him that this was one area where she would not appeal for his help; she had been more than careful to protect him from any involvement with a drug-taking brother.
It was one of her many advantages that as a professional civil servant herself she understood the constraints of his career.
She turned to go, head down.
McLeish saw that she was crying again, but decided coldly there was nothing he was going to do and trudged wearily back to the lift, the morning's cheerfulness totally evaporated.
' I 'm so sorry, Miss Morgan isn't in today.
Would you like to speak to her assistant? '
The receptionist, like everything else in the glass-walled hall, was immaculately clean, glossy, highly fashionable and faintly reminiscent of an Italian restaurant.
The young woman in the plain suit was not intimidated by it, nor by the hand-carved plate that proclaimed her to be in the offices of Yeo, Davis and Partners.
' But I 'm having lunch with her, ' she said.
' It was arranged some time ago. '
' If you 'll just wait a minute, I 'll ask someone to come and talk to you. '
The immaculate receptionist's manner was fraying a little, discomfort with the situation showing like the edge of a petticoat.
She looked across the hall and visibly relaxed as she saw a man moving swiftly down the staircase.
' Peter! '
The man altered course impatiently to deal with the interruption; just under six foot, he looked smaller because of the width of the powerful sloping shoulders which even good tailoring could do little to minimize.
He looked sharply at the receptionist in enquiry, suppressed energy in his every movement.
' This is Miss Huntley who was supposed to be having lunch with Angela today. '
The tall young woman blinked as the man turned the full power of his attention on her.
' Have you talked to Angela this week? '
She stared at him.
' Well, no, ' she said, ' but there was no need  I mean we had fixed up lunch last week.
Is she not here? '
' No.
No she isn't, I 'm afraid.
I 'm very sorry she didn't let you know. '
He was clearly preoccupied but Miss Huntley was not willing to let him go.
' You're her boss? '
' I 'm the senior partner, yes.
Peter Yeo. '
She had his attention back, and noticed how good-looking he was with those bright blue eyes and brown skin against the black hair.
Rather heavy in the neck, but an attractive man.
He looked back thoughtfully at her, taking in the brown eyes, the long, none-too-clean hair, and the patchy make-up through which broken veins in the cheeks were showing.
Late twenties perhaps, but didn't make much of an effort.
' So how do I get hold of her? ' the woman enquired, fretfully, voice rising out of control.
' Perhaps we should talk somewhere less public? ' he suggested, and showed her hastily into his office.
' What has happened to Angela, then? '
Miss Huntley asked anxiously, and he decided to make the best of a bad job.
' She hasn't been in at all this week. '
' And it is now Thursday.
But she's very high up here, isn't she? '
He blinked.
' She's a partner, yes. '
' You must have talked to her family? '
' Well, I waited a couple of days.
Then I talked to everyone.
Her fianc has now reported her as a missing person, I believe. '
' Giles Hawick?
The Minister? '
' Yes.
Sorry... but were you... are you close to her? '
' My uncle used to employ her.
William Coombes.
I do know her quite well. '
She sounded indignant and resentful, and he slowed up deliberately.
' Ah.
I have heard her speak of him. '
' Yes.
He died two years ago. '
' I had remembered. '
He was pouring coffee and she watched his thick, well-manicured hands.
' I need to see her. '
Both of them were taken aback by the force with which she said it and she blushed red.
' I don't know where she is! ' he admitted, reluctantly.
' I was disappointed when I found you didn't either.
Oh, darling, hello, do come in. '
Since he now sounded flustered, Penelope Huntley looked with interest at the intruder: a good-looking, slightly overweight woman probably in her early forties, carefully dressed but uncertain.
' Darling, this is Miss Huntley, who was expecting to lunch with Angela today.
Miss Huntley, my wife, Claudia Yeo.
I've just been explaining that Angela seems to have gone missing. '
' I think everyone is probably making far too much fuss, and Angela has just taken off for a few days' holiday. '
Peter Yeo looked momentarily furiously exasperated.
' Giles Hawick is taking it seriously enough to have reported her as a missing person, ' he said tightly.
His wife gave him a long level look with no liking in it at all, and Penelope Huntley watched, fascinated.
' Are we lunching, Peter? '
Peter Yeo jerked into action.
' Of course.
Look, Miss Huntley, I 'm afraid we are rather preoccupied.
If you ring us tomorrow we may know more.
I 'm so sorry she isn't here. '
Penelope Huntley, who would very much have liked to have gone on with the discussion, found herself swept out of the office, and walked slowly down the road, flushed with a mixture of disappointment and excitement.
In New Scotland Yard John McLeish was trying, increasingly irritably, to clear his desk so he could go home.
Bruce Davidson was making a meal of explaining a straightforward case essentially because he was trying to impress Catherine Crane.
Not that he was succeeding; Sergeant Crane was sitting, legs crossed, only just not fidgeting, as Bruce Davidson wore on through a lot of unnecessary detail.
It was unprecedented for any woman to have that effect on Davidson, whose success in this field was legendary.
She was, of course, very desirable, McLeish conceded: reddish-blond hair above blue eyes, and a perfect, pale skin, lightly freckled.
Her apple-green light wool suit reminded them all that spring would one day come.
Indeed, she was a true beauty: straight, fine features, a long neck, a gently curved, slim figure.
He found himself smiling gently as he sat and watched her, and pulled himself up sharply, realizing that the girl was annoyed by what was obviously a familiar reaction.
He had looked at her papers three months ago, when the posting had been announced, and had noted how well educated she was.
She had joined the Met with three A levels and a huge number of O levels as an eighteen-year-old, then worked her way over into the CID, and was now a Detective Sergeant and ready to move up, having passed the exams for Inspector.
His phone rang and he picked it up, reluctantly.
' John, sorry to interrupt.
Commander Stevenson wants you, now. '
I 'll come.
Excuse me, both of you. '
Catherine and Davidson were left in his office to carry on the conversation, and while Davidson was finding her some more coffee, Catherine turned the photograph on John McLeish's desk to look at it.
' Is she his wife? '
' No, no, that's Francesca.
They're not married. '
' His fiance? '
' No.
No, I don't think you could say they were engaged.
They've been together, oh, for over a year. '
Davidson reviewed this explanation.
' They don't live together  I mean not in the same place, ' he added conscientiously.
' She was married before. '
' What about him?
McLeish? '
' No, he's not been married. '
He gazed at her, earnestly.
' Fancy some lunch? '
Catherine Crane smiled back.
' Bit early for me. '
Davidson, taken aback, glanced at his watch.
Twenty past eleven.
' Bit early for me too, sorry. '
He stopped, uncharacteristically gravelled, got a quick entirely comradely look of amusement, and laughed.
' Come on, let's get out of John's office, he 'll likely be a while yet. '
John McLeish, seated at the other side of a table from Commander Stevenson, would have agreed with this judgement.
Despite the urgency of the summons, he had been kept waiting in Stevenson's outer office long enough to read the early edition of the Evening Standard.
On page four, as he had feared, was a bad picture of Tristram under the headline ' Singing star on US Drugs Charge '.
He skimmed the accompanying text, which added little to what Francesca had already told him, filling up the two columns with a recital of Tristram's career beginning with his legendary recording of ' Panis Angelicus' as a thirteen-year-old treble at St Joe 's.
As usual, much was made of the fact that he was younger brother to the wildly successful Peregrine, now in Japan on tour with his group.
Indeed McLeish reflected, that encapsulated the trouble with Tristram  everything that he could do, Perry, two years his senior, could apparently do just that bit better.
' Come in John.
Sit down. '
Stevenson, a quick-moving, stocky northerner with a distinguished record in every possible branch of the Met, was rumoured to be going up to Assistant Commissioner just as soon as the present incumbent retired.
' I take it that's one of your connections in bother, ' he observed, seeing the paper in McLeish's hand.
' I 'm afraid so.
Francesca is on her way to New York. '
' Why? '
' That's what I asked her. '
McLeish hoped he was not sounding as defeated as he felt.
' You 'll need to be very careful, personally, in dealing with an addict. '
McLeish sighed.
' They know that.
Francesca wouldn't have him in the house when she knew he was on something.
They hoped they'd got him detoxed.
She's got him booked in again at Cocaine Hall when she gets him back. '
' Will she manage to get him out of the USA? '
Stevenson sounded startled and McLeish said, wearily, that Francesca had good contacts.
Everywhere, he added sourly, thinking about it.
Stevenson considered him thoughtfully but decided there was little profit in going on.
' Not why I called you in.
We've got another one to look at.
Not necessarily for us yet, but we've been asked by Special Branch to take it on board.
Missing Person. '
McLeish gazed at his superior.
Most missing person reports do not end in a murder.
Typically they are husbands or wives walking out to live somewhere else, or teenagers leaving home.
He kept what he hoped was a bright and intelligent expression on his face and waited for enlightenment.
' That's how I felt, ' Stevenson agreed.
' The problem is that the missing person was going to marry a junior Treasury Minister. '
' It's a girl, then. '
McLeish blinked and looked apologetically at his superior.
' How long have you been on duty, John? '
' Thirty-six hours, sir.
Sorry, I 'll wake up. '
Stevenson considered him.
' You 'll have to, you're all I've got at your rank.
Go home, get a couple of hours' sleep, clean up and get back here.
You're seeing Mr Hawick  who is Financial Secretary to the Treasury and has reported his fiance, a Miss Angela Morgan, as missing.
You're due at four-thirty at his office at the House of Commons after Treasury Questions, whatever they are.
I 'll send a driver for you. '
' Sir. '
McLeish knew what Treasury Questions were, thanks to Francesca.
Every afternoon in the House of Commons MPs could raise questions with Ministers about their Departments.
These had to be answered, and answered well  or at least the first ten or so did  because the original questioner and other MPs were allowed to ask supplementary questions.
Once you got down to Question 11, the questioner would get a deeply unhelpful written response which would, if the civil servants knew their business, leave no one any the wiser.
Endearingly, Francesca herself was not good at drafting that sort of answer and usually had to enlist a more senior colleague to achieve the correct polished hand-off.
And he knew that the Financial Secretary was the junior of three Treasury Ministers and did not sit in the Cabinet.
' Do you want me to talk to Special Branch, sir? '
' I've done that.
Take a sergeant with you, assuming there is such a thing left in the building. '
' Yes, we got a replacement for Jameson... what?... three months ago.
I've not yet worked with her personally, sir. '
' Ms Crane?
I've seen her. '
Stevenson's clean-shaven, tight-mouthed face relaxed in a ferocious grin.
' Wouldn't mind working with her personally, myself.
Yes, take her  I 'll check with Hawick's office that it's all right if you come mob-handed, but I've a feeling in my water about this one.
I'd like to have a proper team together right from the start. '
' I ' ll tell her, sir. '
' Then get home for a couple of hours.
Best suit to go and see Mr Hawick. '
John McLeish rose to go but was recalled as he reached the door.
' Anything we can do to help with young Wilson?
I could ring up a colleague in New York. '
' She'd rather fix it herself if she can, sir, I do know that.
But thank you. '
' Better for us to be involved than you personally, John. '
' I know that, sir.
Thank you. '
He walked into the corridor, tiredness suddenly overcoming him with the prospect of a few hours off, and very nearly knocked Catherine Crane over in his preoccupation.
He caught her elbow to steady her.
' Sorry, not looking where I 'm going.
I 'm off home for the morning, but you're wanted to come with me to see a VIP about a missing person.
Walk along and I 'll tell you about it. '
He told her everything he knew, and made sure she understood where to be and at what time, talking with the speed of true exhaustion and repeating himself.
He stopped, realizing what he was doing, and looked at her carefully to see if she had taken it in.
She looked back at him and smiled gently, and he saw that she had been writing in a workman-like leather-bound notebook.
' Yes, sir.
Got it. '
' Don ' t call me sir, ' he said sharply.
' Everyone calls me John, ' he added mendaciously.
Her smile widened, and she nodded, pleased but unsurprised.
He rested his eyes on her, very conscious of the smooth skin and her flowery perfume.
Gathering himself, he dismissed her and went down to the waiting car.
Four miles away, Francesca had already reached her own small Victorian house and was moving clothes from the dryer straight into a battered suitcase.
' Six pairs of knickers must be enough, mustn't it, Charlie? ' she enquired of a tall dark-blond young man, unmistakably her brother, who was piling plates into a dishwasher and making two cups of coffee.
' Heap good laundries in New York, darling.
How was John? '
' Oh God.
Furious.
And miserable.
I felt awful. '
Charlie emerged from the kitchen and handed her a cup.
' I really am sorry.
I would go instead of you but I can't, can I, with Mum sick and the baby due any day? '
' No, Charlie, of course you can ' t, we've been through that.
And Jeremy can't manage on his own, he's just too young.
It does have to be me. '
Her brother watched her, with love and anxiety, as she checked the contents of her handbag.
' Weren't you and John going skiing soon? '
' We were.
We are.
We have to get a week together.
He's been so busy catching murderers we've hardly seen each other for three weeks.
He never stops working. '
' You need to marry him.
He loves you, he's a good bloke, you've been together for over a year.
He's going up the ladder like a rocket, isn't he?
He doesn't have time for all this. '
Charlie watched Francesca's vivid face go wooden as she counted currency.
' He does still want to marry you, I take it? '
' Oh yes. '
She spoke with dismissive confidence.
' It's always been me who said no. '
Her brother, closing her suitcase for her, regarded her with exasperation.
' You're nearly thirty.
It ' s time you settled down and had children. '
' You've been reading Jane's magazines again. '
Francesca silenced him, as she had meant to; his wife Jane, unlike his academically gifted sister, had done the domestic science course at her school.
He jerked her case upright, tight-lipped, and put it by the door for her, but relaxed in exasperated pity as he watched her start to check her handbag for the third time.
' I suppose we are right to send you and Jeremy out to get Tristram rather than leave him to take the full consequences? ' he said reflectively, as he loaded her and her possessions into his car and took the wheel.
' I couldn't possibly not go, ' Francesca said, pushing a cassette-tape into the car recorder.
' It's Tris's demo-tape, ' she said in explanation, and both listened, cut off in concentration, as a pure high tenor, singing ' Plaisirs d'Amour ' filled the car.
' Listen to that top A. Better range than Perry, you know, ' Francesca said, softly.
' Doesn't project like Perry does. '
Charlie started quietly to sing with the tape, and his sister joined him, both stretching for the top notes.
They looked at each other and laughed as they went for the top A and each found that no noise came out at all.
' I always think it's very nice of you not to mind being a baritone rather than a tenor, Charlie.
I would give my eyeteeth to be a soprano, and to be able to get that high. '
' Or even higher.
Tris has a reliable top C, which is more than Perry does. '
They fell silent, listening as the tape finished.
' He spits his final consonants out as if he were still at St Joe 's, ' Francesca observed with love and Charlie sighed.
' All right.
You go and get Tristram out of durance vile, helped or handicapped by Jeremy  for the sake of his talent, if nothing else.
And let's just hope your life is where you left it when you come back. '
McLeish and Catherine Crane were expected and escorted quickly to the Minister's Private Office.
McLeish knew roughly what it would be like from Francesca's description of her own Department, but he was still interested in the controlled bustle in the big untidy room.
The Private Secretary, a dark, stocky man a couple of years McLeish's junior, greeted him, observing cautiously that they had surely met at Francesca Wilson's house?
He then did a double-take at the sight of Catherine Crane, who had been the object of the most careful attention from everyone else in the room from the minute she had arrived.
' The Minister is just finishing a phone call, then I must tell him one thing before he sees you, ' he said, briskly, glancing at the miniature switchboard beside him which sat incongruously in the draughty, high-ceilinged, dingy room.
A light flicked off, and he knocked and disappeared into his master's office, leaving McLeish and Catherine by his desk.
A dazzled junior seized the opportunity to press tea on them both, his eyes never leaving Catherine, and McLeish, amused, accepted a cup.
' The Treasury exists to stand in front of the safe, shouting ' Go away! ' and making threatening gestures at any Department who comes near it or them, ' he remembered Francesca's clear, amused voice explaining the system.
' But in the end they get pushed over; they just manage to delay the bigger-spending Departments a bit, And they pop up again, good as new, the next time, like a row of skittles. '
The Private Secretary  Michael Marsden, he remembered with an effort  signalled them from the door and McLeish moved forward, keen to see what the kingpin of this row of skittles looked like.
His first thought, as he shook the hand of the distinctive dark man almost as tall as himself, was that Francesca must have got it wrong this time.
Giles Hawick was not the sort of man you could flatten easily, and if you managed it, he would not pop up, bright, smiling and bearing no grudge, to face you the next ti me.
If you injured this one, it would be as well to kill him before he killed you.
McLeish stepped back, surprised at the force of his reaction, and introduced Catherine Crane, watching Giles Hawick carefully.
The high, arched eyebrows in the long bony face rose slightly in surprise, but no more.
The immediate impression of directed dominance did not come from the man's physique, impressive though that was, McLeish decided as he accepted the offered chair and placed Catherine at the side of the room.
Giles Hawick was a beautifully put together man, something over six foot without a spare ounce of flesh anywhere, the long lines in the face being particularly strong.
Nor were the very deep-set dark brown eyes particularly hypnotic, as journalists occasionally suggested.
It was the controlled, economical force that emanated from the man that was impressive, and the speed with which he absorbed information.
In about two minutes he had established precisely which members of C1 he was dealing with and why.
John McLeish, himself a forceful character, felt as if he had been put through a wringer.
He waited, out of long experience with dominant characters, until a natural break occurred and used it to ask for some background, starting with how long the Minister had known Miss Morgan.
Giles Hawick, looking surprised, sat more easily in his chair and started to marshal his thoughts.
' I've known her a couple of years.
We met when she came with the chairman of one of the big contractors to lobby me about increasing the road-building programme, when I was a spokesman for Transport.
She was working for Yeo Davis, where she is a partner now.
A case of gamekeeper turned poacher, given that she had been a fast-stream entrant to the Treasury, much of whose function it is to resist that sort of demand. '
Francesca might have it right after all, McLeish thought, enjoying the turn of phrase.
' I liked the look of Angela, and organized an introduction through a mutual acquaintance. '
Not being prepared to be beholden to those who were lobbying you, McLeish observed, considering the formidable professional across the table.
' My first wife died some years ago, as you may know.
At the time I met her, Angela told me that she was involved with someone else.
Women make their own minds up about what they want to do, I find, so I left it; but about a year ago she invited me to a party and indicated that whoever it had been was no longer around.
I was very pleased, and we, well, we wasted no time.
We intend to marry in April, immediately after the House rises. '
He stopped and stared out of the window, across Horse Guards', looking suddenly weary.
' Have you talked to her family? '
' Not yet, sir. '
' They are very distressed.
There are only two children, both daughters.
Angela is the younger. '
' Is there much difference in age? '
' Four years.
Jennifer has not married yet.
She's a very attractive girl.
In fact I took her out a couple of times myself when I found that Angela was occupied with someone else.
I get on well with them all, actually.
I think Francis Morgan feels I 'm a bit old for Angela  I 'm forty-three and she is twenty-nine  but he's never brought himself to say so.
And Sarah Morgan likes the idea of Angela marrying someone in the government. '
McLeish considered this cold and rational assessment.
' When did you last see her?
Miss Angela Morgan, I mean. '
' Early on Saturday morning  about eight-thirty.
I didn't expect to see her again until late on Monday  I went off to do some walking for the weekend and was taking an extra day.
I rang her on Monday night and got no answer, but that didn't worry me.
I was having lunch with her on Tuesday.
She didn't turn up, so of course I then telephoned her office and found she hadn't been there that week.
I rang her parents yesterday  Wednesday.
I hadn't wanted to worry them before.
Today I felt I could leave things no longer, so I had a word with a colleague in the Home Office.
Perhaps I should have done it before, but I suppose one's always afraid of making a fool of oneself. '
McLeish decided it was unlikely that that sort of consideration very much exercised this cool customer.
' You had no idea where she might be? '
' I would not have called you in if I had, would I?
Sorry, but I can not imagine what has happened.
What has usually happened when people vanish? '
McLeish took a minute to formulate his reply, and Giles Hawick got it at once.
' They've gone off with someone. '
' They've mostly gone voluntarily, yes, sir. '
' That's what your boss was trying to indicate. '
Giles Hawick looked down at his blotter, lips tight with tension.
' Angela is a very attractive woman and also very forthright.
If she'd wanted to go off with someone else, she would just have said so.
Please, Chief Inspector, put that out of your mind.
I want the police to look for her, not humour me.
Where do you start? '
' With the hospitals and any reports of unidentified persons found dead. '
McLeish decided there was no point tempering the wind to this competent and well-clad lamb.
' We 'll also circulate her description, and if you have a good, recent photograph that would be very helpful. '
' We'd just had some done for our engagement.
My Private Secretary will find them. '
Giles Hawick suddenly looked tired and McLeish felt for him, as he promised to keep him in touch with their investigations.
Not much danger of his Commander letting him slip up on that, he thought drily.
They rose to go, Giles Hawick with the politician's automatic competence escorting them to the lift and warmly asking Catherine Crane where she had trained and how she liked her job.
He showed them into the lift, shaking hands with them both, and as Catherine turned away from him to press the lift button, he suddenly raised his eyebrows at McLeish in amusement at his own response to her.
' In what circumstances would an attractive woman of twenty-nine walk out on a fianc without telling him or anyone else where she was going? '
McLeish asked Catherine as they walked back through St James's Park.
' If she was frightened of him? '
She sounded doubtful, but McLeish decided it would be possible to be frightened of Giles Hawick.
He had the look of a man with a nasty temper if you got on his wrong side.
' But presumably the Commander doesn't think she ran away?
I mean Special Branch has asked us to come in.
They all think something's happened to her, don't they? '
She might sound diffident, McLeish thought, amused, but she wasn't, just more careful than his blunt Francesca about how she made her points.
' I agree.
I don't like the sound of it at all.
The best we could hope for is that she's had a brainstorm, and I don't know how often that happens outside of books.
Anyway, we need to get back and get the procedures into place. '
All that took some five hours for very little result.
By ten p.m.
McLeish was reasonably satisfied that Angela Morgan was not lying unidentified in any morgue, nor in any hospital, unconscious or suffering from loss of memory.
Tomorrow he would have to talk to her family and last known associates.
Remembering that he had sent Catherine Crane to see Angela Morgan's employers, he decided to find out how she had got on; late as it was he did not think she would have gone off duty without reporting to him.
He got half-way down the corridor and realized in irritation that he had no idea where she had been given an office.
That small problem solved itself readily: one door stood open with Bruce Davidson leaning on the side in a careful presentation of a man who had just happened to be passing.
He stood aside for McLeish, then took himself off, observing unnecessarily that he just had a wee bit paperwork to finish up.
Catherine Crane, installed behind her desk, gave him a slightly weary smile.
She looked, McLeish observed, as immaculate as she had in the morning, but she was pale and her eyes looked huge.
' I've got some useful stuff from Yeo Davis  that's Miss Morgan's employers, sir, I mean, John.
Her diary for last week and the week before.
She had a lot of appointments, particularly at lunch.
I've listed them. '
He peered at the long list.
' What does she do? '
' Yeo Davis advise on government and parliamentary affairs. '
' What does that mean they do? '
' Mr Yeo did explain it, but I 'm not quite sure I see it, even so.
He says they help companies to influence government decisions and legislation. '
McLeish decided he didn't understand it either but he wasn't about to discourage Sergeant Crane.
' OK, let's have a look at the list.
Last Monday, appointment at the Ministry of Defence, lunch with Hugo Brett MP, afternoon date with Charles Council, drinks at the Reform.
Tuesday, more of the same, except she seems to have met Mr Hawick at the House of Commons after work.
Wednesday, she sees a chap who is one of the PM's advisers, or that's what it says  and what does she do for lunch?
Blow me, I don't believe it! '
' What? '
' That Wednesday she had lunch with one F. Wilson, DTI.
That's one person I know where to find. '
' Who is it? '
' A girl called Francesca Wilson, who is doing work that involves rescuing dud companies which employ a lot of people in difficult areas. '
He hesitated, not sure why he was being cautious.
' In fact, she's my girlfriend. '
Catherine Crane smiled at him gently.
' Well, that is easy enough for you, isn't it?
Are you seeing her tonight? '
McLeish scowled, reminded.
' No, she's in New York. '
He glanced sideways at Catherine Crane's unchanged expression which showed merely courteous interest, and decided to sit down and talk.
' Francesca's got four brothers, see, two of them professional singers, two of them by the grace of God ordinary working stiffs in respectable offices. '
He paused, trying to decide how to go on, noticing how dirty the walls of the small, dark office looked against Catherine Crane's neat, pale suit and bright blond hair.
' Is one of them Perry Wilson? ' she enquired, visibly impressed.
' Yes.
He's OK.
Well, he's not, but he's not causing any difficulty just at the moment.
There are twins at the bottom of the family and it's Tristram who's in trouble.
Done for possession of Class A drugs in New York. '
' That is difficult. '
' And Francesca's there to try and get him out on bail. '
' Doesn't he have a lawyer? '
' Good question.
Fran's gone to make sure no one lays a finger on a brother, that's what it is.
They're like that. '
He brooded for a moment, sighed, and reached for the list again.
' I 'll be able to talk to her sooner or later, and it sounds as if she might actually be useful.
She 'll at least be able to explain Yeo Davis to us.
Anything else on Miss Morgan? '
Catherine Crane moved one tidy package of paper, neatly tabulated, in search of an equally tidy pile, and McLeish watched with pleasure.
Keeping the paperwork straight might not be glamorous but it was eighty per cent of the battle as he well knew, and he made certain his staff did too.
It didn't look as if that particular conversation was going to be necessary in this case.
' Sorry, here we are.
Mr Yeo sent us her CV  the one they send out to prospective clients.
Only the basic facts, but useful.
And some spare copies of the photographs that came out from the DTI this afternoon  we ran off dozens to send out to the regional forces, but I snaffled six. '
McLeish took the photographs and considered them.
A lively, arrogant face, rather square, eyes wide-set, and a full, curving mouth.
Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and slightly sallow skin which the photographer had not bothered to disguise or retouch, having understood that this was part of her charm.
Not a true beauty, but the girl beckoned you off the paper; confident, sexy, that face invited you to join in if you could stand the pace.
A handful, McLeish thought, but a lot of fun.
He reached for the CV while Catherine Crane busied herself systematically with her papers.
Same age as Francesca, and had attended the same good North London all-girls' grammar school, for entry to which aspiring parents would have been prepared to pay blood-money had there been anyone in the austere intellectual governing body and teaching staff who would have taken it.
They must have been the same year, for their birthdays were only two months apart.
Even among perhaps a hundred girls in their year, they must have known each other quite well.
Their ways had diverged at university  Angela Morgan had gone on to Oxford to read English, the fatherless Francesca, under more pressure to make a living, had gone to Cambridge to read law.
A clever girl, though, Miss Morgan, an Exhibitioner like Francesca and a respectable second-class degree.
He considered the arrogant, attractive, knowing face again and put the photo down, shifting his attention to Catherine's pale, classic beauty.
He was about to divide up responsibility for checking Angela Morgan's last recorded movements when Bruce Davidson knocked and put his head in.
' John.
It's Francesca, on the phone from New York, says will you hurry. '
McLeish jogged down the passage, overcoming irritation.
Of course he had the sense to hurry when she was hanging on a line from New York.
' Talk more slowly, ' he said, in exasperation, after the first few seconds.
She was sounding strained, and as always when she was over-extended she was being unnecessarily bossy.
Her sigh of exasperation reached him from 3,000 miles away.
' Sorry, but I've been at it all day. '
' Well, calm down.
I need to talk to you, too. '
' What about? '
Francesca sounded rattled and hostile, and McLeish gazed at the wall, wondering if he had really been in love with her for over a year.
' About someone called Angela Morgan whom you or another F. Wilson at the DTI had lunch with a couple of weeks ago.
She's been reported missing and we're checking her movements for the two weeks before she vanished. '
A dead silence ensued and he shook the phone.
' Francesca? '
' Sorry, yes.
It was me.
But why are you doing this, John?
Do you think she's dead? '
Well, at least Francesca's mind appeared to be functioning on a subject unconnected with her damned brothers, McLeish thought grimly.
' Not necessarily.
She was reported missing by her fianc. '
' Giles Hawick.
Does he think she's dead? '
' He hopes she is lying in hospital somewhere, having lost her memory. '
' And she isn't? '
' Not as of an hour ago, no. '
' She's gone off with another bloke, bet you anything. '
McLeish grinned at the telephone.
' I didn't think she was one of your mates.
But you were at school with her? '
' Yes I was, but we were never that close.
Different subjects for a start. '
There was a pause while she gathered her thoughts and McLeish waited patiently.
' What do you know about her, John? '
' Bugger all, at the moment.
I've got a photograph. '
' Then you know quite a lot, if it is a good one.
Of all the women I know, she is by far the most successful with men, even though she isn't the best-looking.
She is the original man-trap. '
John McLeish blinked at the telephone.
Francesca's judgement was typically over-judicial and conscientiously unemotional, but this had real force behind it.
He had never heard Francesca giving vent to feminine jealousy and on the whole he found the experience refreshing.
' You'd better explain to me what it is she does as a job.
Hang on  I 'll ring you back, the Yard can pay this bill. '
' That's all right, I 'm in a mate's office. '
' Well, I hope the Senator can afford it. '
' I 'm sure he can. '
A real advantage of his girl, McLeish thought grimly, was that she never lied if asked directly.
She might not volunteer the truth all the time, but ask her and you got a straight answer.
' Angela is a lobbyist. '
Francesca made it sound like someone who came to clean the telephone.
' That's not what Yeo Davis call themselves  I think they use some phrase like ' government and parliamentary relations'.
They help clients to push the right buttons in government in the UK  and increasingly, of course, in the EEC.
It's a perfectly respectable trade, ' she added conscientiously.
' I don't mind lobbyists, I'd just rather they called themselves by their proper name as they do in Washington, rather than wittering on for hours about relationships with opinion-formers.
Angela got up my nose as usual on this point over lunch, banging on about the importance of seeing that Ministers were properly informed and by the right people.
As if the Civil Service spent all its time obfuscating issues and introducing Ministers to the wrong people. '
McLeish decided that it was probably not the moment to suggest to her that the real reason any civil servant disliked lobbyists must be that the chaps were paid to make sure Ministers got a view other than the Departmental one.
' Can you give me an example of what they do?
I mean, why was Miss Morgan having lunch with you, or was that just for old time's sake? '
' No, no, I now rank as an important contact, a senior opinion-former, or so she flatteringly told me.
It was quite a good example of lobbying, in fact.
It's widely known  because the unions have publicized it  that the Department is looking at bailing out Huerter Textiles.
Henry and I are doing it, as the resident textile rescue-squad.
You just haven't heard about it because you've been too busy. '
Trust Francesca to get her points in while she could, McLeish thought irritably.
' And her firm is working for Huerter? '
' No, no, quite the contrary.
Her firm, Yeo Davis, is working for Barton Mills, which is the other really big surviving textile company in the north-west.
Their chief executive, Andy Barton, feels, with some reason one would have to say, that it isn't right that the government should bail out a competitor.
The point is, darling, that in order to make sure Huerter has a future, we would have to put a lot of money in to restore a bombed-out balance sheet.
Barton has heavy borrowings too, and to put it crudely, if they're paying interest and Huerter isn't, Huerter ought to be able to undercut them in the market. '
' So Miss Morgan was making sure you'd understood all that?
I see where it annoyed you. '
Francesca was not amused.
' Yes, well, it is an offensively elementary consideration and one to which Ministers' attention had been drawn.
Yeo Davis seem to have felt, nonetheless, that it was worth a lunch. '
She paused.
' I'd have to say that given the change of government they ought to have a very good chance of preventing us assisting Huerter.
I mean, this lot did come in, only six months ago, announcing that everyone would have to stand on their own feet and not be rescued, and face up to competition, and all that.
But whatever they said, as you know they haven't actually done any of it yet  they did rescue Fryers and Towyn Metals, using tax-payers' money, just like they said they wouldn't.
Yeo Davis could have credibly warned Barton that, whatever the public statements, there was a real risk that Huerter would be bailed out. '
McLeish considered this, ' Are lobbyists well paid? '
' Yes.
Not that Angela needed the money. '
' Rich girl, is she? '
' Very.
She didn't earn it in any conventional sense: her last employer left one third of his substantial fortune to her outright, and another third for life.
His family  a sister and niece as I remember  was awfully cross.
This was about two years ago. '
McLeish told Francesca to hang on while he got this down as a note, and stared at the result.
It made a good reason for those excluded to dislike Miss Morgan, but it had been true any time these past two years.
' When you had lunch, how was she?
I mean, it didn't sound as if she had plans to go off with someone else. '
In the silence at the other end of the line he heard Francesca think.
' No, she didn't come over like that, not at all.
In fact, she was excited in an innocent way about the wedding plans.
Reception at the House, all very grand and smart.
And awfully good for her business, too. '
McLeish smiled to himself at the swift fall from grace in the postscript.
Prodding gently, he got Francesca to run through the substance of the lunch-time conversation.
It was clear that Miss Morgan's brain had been fully engaged on what she was doing, which was pushing a client's interest, and that such attention as she could spare from that had been centred on her forthcoming marriage.
Nothing at all there, five days before her disappearance, to suggest she was planning to vanish.
Francesca's attention would have been undivided as well, as that lunch had taken place before Tristram had managed to get himself so comprehensively into trouble.
McLeish remembered abruptly Francesca's chief preoccupation.
' How are you getting on over there? ' he asked, cautiously.
' Much fixing is going on.
I 'm basically just biting my fingernails and holding Tristram together.
He has been bailed on several sureties and appears in court tomorrow. '
She was sounding terse and McLeish decided not to ask her any more details over the transatlantic phone.
' I've told them here I don't need the week after next off, ' he said, as levelly as he could.
' Oh, John. '
She sounded appalled.
' I'd managed to hang on to it.
Why ever did you do that? '
' How was I supposed to know? ' he said, instantly aware that he had acted too hastily because he had been so angry with her.
' Well, I said I'd call you.
I ought to be home in three days and I've made a deal with Henry.
That was just plain bloody-minded of you. '
' Coming from you, that's ridiculous! '
A combination of justified annoyance, guilt and weeks of overwork blew John McLeish's temper to shreds instantly, and Francesca, seriously over-stressed and not one to duck a quarrel at the best of times, responded in kind.
She banged the phone down a second before he did, leaving him raging.
Ten minutes later he had calmed down sufficiently to make himself a cup of coffee and write himself a note to check Angela Morgan's financial status.
He bethought himself guiltily of Sergeant Crane, who might be assumed to be waiting to continue the conversation that Francesca's call had interrupted, and padded down the corridor.
Her office was now marked by a frieze of officers, two lounging half in and half out of her door, a third a little behind, the attention of all three directed entirely towards her desk.
Two of the three moved off as he arrived, with unconvincing references to waiting papers, but Bruce Davidson stood his ground, enquiring heartily how Francesca was and had she been helpful?
McLeish considered him with something between amusement and irritation.
Bruce was pale with the deep pallor that overworked CID tend to acquire in London in the dead of winter, seriously overtired and overweight.
But he was alert and sparkling, his motor well and truly turned on by the presence of Catherine Crane, and he probably wasn't going to go home till he, or Catherine, dropped in their tracks.
' She was fine, and yes she was, ' he said, dealing with Bruce's formal question.
' And it 'll all wait till the morning.
Go home, Bruce, or back to whatever your case is, and I 'll have a word with Sergeant Crane. '
He nodded decisively, and equally firmly walked into her office and closed the door on Davidson's hopeful face.
' Sorry, but that phone call was useful. '
He ran, as dispassionately as he could, through Francesca's account of her lunch with Angela Morgan.
' So she probably didn't vanish voluntarily, ' Catherine Crane said, in summary.
' It doesn't sound like it. '
He looked unseeingly at the beautiful face across the table, hearing the echo of his quarrel with Francesca, feeling his mind still chuntering on in justification of the anger that had led him to cut off all possibility of their holiday next week.
Well, he had been fed up, and why shouldn't he be?
He was fed up with the whole situation, and all Francesca's family.
' Sir  John, is there anything more tonight? '
He came back smartly to the office and the desk on which he was leaning.
' No, sorry.
Have you eaten since lunch? '
' A sandwich and lots of coffee which Sergeant Davidson brought.
I 'm fine. '
' I 'm not.
I 'm going to get something at the pub on my way home.
Come with me? '
' Thank you, I'd like to. '
She smiled at him and he smiled back, cheered by the thought of a drink and something to eat in her company.
He collected her as soon as they had both tidied their offices, McLeish maliciously enjoying Davidson's obvious chagrin as they said good-night to him on the way out.
' A good man, that, ' he said, guiltily, to Catherine as they went down in the lift.
' One of the best.
I want to get him up to Inspector as soon as possible. '
' He has been very helpful. '
McLeish repressed a grin and bustled into the big noisy pub on the corner, receiving an instant acknowledgement from one of the bartenders, who all knew any member of the C1 hierarchy.
McLeish carried over a loaded tray, and ate ravenously, noting with interest that Catherine Crane had an equally good appetite, though it was not obvious where she was putting it on that slim frame.
She caught his eye and laughed.
' I have to eat about five times a day, or I just stop in my tracks. '
She licked her fingers and applied herself to her beer.
Like Francesca, McLeish thought, and irritably suppressed the reflection.
' Tell me about you.
Did you do all your time in the Met, or did you start up north? '
' No, I came straight to the Met from school at eighteen. '
Left home as soon as she could, McLeish observed, instead of starting where she could work from home.
' Do you still have family in wherever it is  Stoke on Trent? '
' Yes, they're still there. '
She was looking wooden, and McLeish decided to move off this point, but she forestalled him.
' It's my stepfather and mother and four half-brothers and sisters.
My dad was killed at work when I was three. '
Doesn't get on with stepfather, McLeish noted mentally, listening to the colour in her voice.
' Where are you living now? '
' I've just bought a flat. '
McLeish asked whereabouts and discovered it was three roads away from his own flat, so they complained enjoyably to each other about the local council.
' You were a graduate entry, weren't you? ' she asked as this conversation ran out, ' and in the Flying Squad? '
McLeish, warmed by the fact that she had taken the trouble to find out a bit about him, confirmed he had been at Reading University and had worked as a young sergeant in the Flying Squad.
' I always heard graduates weren't welcome there? '
' That's right.
The guv'nor there, when he was offered me, wanted quite seriously to know what use I would be.
It's changing now.
But they took me in then because one of my mates in the London Scottish was in the Squad.
They gave me a bad time  they'd all been in since they were seventeen and they were hard men.
But I got by on brute force and ignorance till I learnt a bit. '
She gave him a quick amused glance, her head leaning back against the faded red of the alcove seat.
' The man who brought you in to the Squad must have been Alan Jones.
He was my guv'nor in Tottenham and he said you were all right. '
McLeish beamed at her, more than pleased with this recommendation.
' How is old Alan? '
She settled down to tell him how old Alan was while he leant forward, listening with pleasure to the slightly nasal accent of Stoke on Trent.
Her judgement of Alan Jones was both admiring and shrewd, and he asked about her own education, becoming aware that at least four other men were listening with great interest and that Catherine Crane was so used to this that she was unconscious of it.
' I came in with three A levels, ' she said, matter of factly.
' I was at Queen Eleanor's and they urged me to go to university, but I wanted to be independent, so I came into the Met. '
McLeish nodded, his impression of family difficulty confirmed.
' What were your grades? '
' Three As.
English, history and economics. '
' Better grades than mine, ' McLeish said, impressed.
' Do the lads get at you, too? '
' Yes, a bit. '
She laughed at him, the pretty mouth opening to reveal small, even teeth.
' But I don't have a posh set of in-laws like you do. '
McLeish, more sharply than he had meant, pointed out that he had a girlfriend but not a wife.
' This is a good pub, ' she said, hastily, obviously aware of having trespassed, her gaze passing over the heavy plush seating and lighting on one of the barmen who was openly resting his eyes on her as he polished glasses.
' We use it a lot. '
He followed her gaze and the barman lifted his right hand in a drink-pouring gesture, nodding at the same time towards the clock which showed five minutes to eleven.
McLeish indicated equally economically that no more drinks would be required.
' I've got my car in.
Would you like a ride home? ' he asked.
' If it's not out of your way, ' she said, serenely, knowing that it wasn't, and McLeish got to his feet, savouring self-consciously the sensation of being whole-heartedly envied by the surrounding male drinkers.
He drove her sedately home.
Getting out to open the passenger door for her, he noticed that, in contrast to Francesca, she expected this and accepted the courtesy gratefully.
' I 'll wait while you let yourself in, ' he said, in an attempt at sounding policeman-like, and she smiled at him.
' Thanks.
And thanks for the ride. '
She had her key ready and he looked down at her for a minute.
She looked back, her eyes wide, and he found himself holding his breath.
' Good-night, John, ' she said, demurely, and walked up her front steps, turning to wave to him from inside the house.
The boy and the dog skirted round opposite sides of the puddle, the boy, a light, tall fourteen-year-old, labouring in wellington boots too large for him, and the dog, a three-year-old Labrador bitch, picking her way reluctantly, with frequent pauses, as if her paws hurt.
The boy, unlike the dog, knew that the mud did not go on for ever; beyond the bridge, the disused railway embankment along which they were walking became built up, so that water ran off it.
He pulled the dog close to him to let a mixed string of horses and Ponies go past, waving shyly to the lead rider, a pretty, capable girl an unbridgeable two years older than him.
He watched her as she went past at a walk, the black Labrador and he both gazing wistfully, their breath steaming in the cold February morning.
He waited till the horses were well away and looked round the wide, flat landscape carefully before unclipping the lead.
' Way you go, Patty, ' he said softly, and the dog was off, hurling herself along the embankment, all paws and flying ears, after a rabbit who had been sitting in a patch of sun but disappeared with contemptuous ease as she came close.
The boy had been told unequivocally not to let her off the lead  the riding-school only used the land by grace of its owner and it was a shooting estate  but he hated keeping the dog straining at the lead and knew that she would always come to his call.
He stood for a moment laughing at her as she cast furiously for the vanished rabbit, and walked on, to catch her up, along the raised embankment.
The trees had grown up beside it in the twenty-five years since the railway had closed, and the boy stopped every now and then to watch small birds hopping around the top branches.
He particularly liked this stretch; nothing but the odd tractor and the horses ever came down this embankment, and the birds were unworried by his presence.
After half a mile he decided to turn off the embankment and walk up the side of the next field and along the path at the top of it, following the horses whom he could still see in the distance.
He called Patty to him.
She didn't come, which was surprising; she was a docile creature and particularly devoted to him because he always took her for a walk when he was at the stables.
He could hear her barking and looked down over the steep side of the embankment to the bottom of the trees.
He called her again and again, but she would not stop barking at something he could not see.
Probably a squirrel, he decided, and slithered down the side of the embankment to join her, scolding as he went.
Straightening up beside the dog, he looked where she was looking, and blinked.
He saw a leg, uncomfortably wedged between sapling trees, swollen grotesquely, and gazed at it, stupidly, wondering if it was plastic.
As his eyes focused he realized he was looking at a hideously swollen human body, and just then, as the light breeze shifted, he caught the stomach-turning odour of decay.
He was a sensible and capable boy, an eldest child, so he moved closer, trying not to breathe, and stood steadfastly looking until he was confident of what he had seen: a body, must be a girl because it was wearing a skirt, lying face down, head towards the bottom of the embankment as if she had dived off the top.
He clipped the lead on to the dog with cold hands which would hardly function, and let her pull him up the slope as fast as he could make his legs move.
He stopped on the embankment, shaking with cold and shock, to note the spot, then fled along the tractor paths, the dog running with him, to the stables where the ten o'clock children's ride was in its closing stages.
' Miss Williams! '
' Jamie, I 'm teaching. '
The thin, capable woman who was taking the riding-class looked at him in amazement as he leaned panting on the gate to the ring, the dog whining beside him.
' I 'm sorry.
Please, I've found something, I must tell you.
She had known him since he was a very small five-year-old, perched like a mosquito on one of the placid beginners' ponies, so she told the class to carry on walking their ponies while she came to him.
' There's someone dead.
Below the railway embankment. '
' Are you sure? '
The boy looked at her and uncontrollable tears suddenly filled his eyes.
He was very nearly as tall as her, but she put an arm under his shoulders and supported him to the untidy room which served as the stable office, calling to one of the stable girls to take over the class.
' Patty found her.
She's just lying there, but she is dead. '
He scrubbed at his face with the handkerchief she offered and gulped for air.
' I 'll ring the police. '
She did so, casting an experienced eye over him.
' Sit down here, Jamie, and I 'll make some tea.
Mummy will come back in a few minutes, won't she, for Susie? '
' Not Mummy.
Aunt Margaret is coming at ten. '
The boy thought longingly of his mother, but managed to help Miss Williams describe the location of the body to a startled local station sergeant and to drink a cup of sweet milky tea without being sick.
By the time his aunt arrived Jamie was so far recovered as to be able to refuse to go home and to point out, severely, that he would be needed, either to assist the police or to be lead rider in the eleven-thirty class, or possibly both.
He watched his aunt and Miss Williams wordlessly consult each other, but knew his aunt would do as she was told; successful solicitor though she was, she was ten years younger than Miss Williams and, as she complained, totally intimidated by her as she had not been by anyone since her late headmistress.
He was unsurprised to find her packed off firmly to take his sister home, leaving him as a person of major importance in what he instantly assumed to be a real murder.
Miss Williams took him to meet the police Land Rover at the stable gate, a bone-thin, wiry woman in her late fifties, her expression sufficiently forbidding to prevent the parents, edging cars through the gate to collect children from the ten o'clock ride, from asking any questions.
Jamie, through a renewed queasiness, just observed that the police driver was instantly reduced to half his age by Miss Williams's greeting.
' He was one of my boys, ' she said in explanation to the CID sergeant who was leading the party as they bumped over the rough road, through the thick mud and on to the dry embankment.
' Like Jamie here. '
' Did you recognize the person you found, young man? ' the sergeant asked, carefully.
' No. '
Tears started into Jamie's eyes.
' She was all swollen. '
The sergeant's eyes widened, and he slid out of the Land Rover and stood back to let Jamie out.
' Very competent boy.
Almost a professional singer, handles himself very well. '
Miss Williams's natural pitch, well suited to reaching across a hunting-field, was discreetly reduced.
The CID sergeant thanked her gravely and went to stand beside Jamie who was peering down the embankment, looking pinched.
' We 'll go down together, lad. '
' There isn't room.
I 'll lead. '
He took a deep breath and headed down, the sergeant, two constables and Miss Williams in his wake.
Soon they all stood side by side, one of the younger policemen coughing involuntarily.
' Oh dear, oh dear, ' Miss Williams said on an indrawn breath.
' Sorry.
Come along, Jamie, let's get you back. '
She took out a handkerchief and mopped her eyes.
The police driver shot Jamie a look of enquiry which he missed, occupied as he was with guiding Miss Williams back up the hill.
He had seen her weep before but only for a sick horse, and he was awe-struck.
' Jamie, did you let Patty off the lead? '
The boy blushed to his ears and owned to it.
' You must not do it, Jamie, we 'll be in trouble with Colonel James, I've told all you boys a thousand times. '
' He 'll perhaps not do it again, ' the sergeant murmured, and received the look that Miss Williams habitually bent on a child who was riding carelessly.
' How long had she been there? '
Jamie asked, anxiously.
' A few days, ' the sergeant said, grimly.
' How many? '
' Doctor 'll tell us. '
He considered the boy thoughtfully, and decided to take him back quickly.
These teenagers were in his experience a lot less tough than they looked.
' Any idea who it could be? ' he asked Miss Williams casually.
' No.
But only a local would know to put a body there.
If Jamie hadn't let the dog off the lead she could have been there much longer. '
The sergeant nodded, deciding it could do no harm to concede a point he had already taken.
' No one could tell who she was, surely? '
Miss Williams said quietly to him, sounding shaky.
' She didn't even look human. '
The sergeant confirmed that that happened with bodies after a few days.
' We 'll identify her, though, ' he said, reassuringly.
' Somebody will likely have reported her missing. '
He stopped, abruptly, as he remembered a conversation earlier that week, and lit a cigarette, thinking furiously.
This could be the girl whom the Yard were looking for, and he had better do everything very quickly indeed, including finding his Chief, who would then want to find his Chief Constable and notify Scotland Yard.
Presumably it would be the Yard who investigated this one, rather than the regional crime squad.
He chewed his thumbnail as he walked, out of long experience keeping in mind the highest priorities: Ensure Body Not Moved and Ensure Next of Kin Notified before the Press got the story.
He posted the detective constable he had with him back down the path to join his colleague, armed with instructions to repel all attempts by anyone, however senior or armed with whatever authority, to go anywhere near the body unless he, Sergeant Black, personally accompanied them.
Then he climbed into the Land Rover beside his two passengers and drove off fast, with the aim of abandoning Jamie to the custody of his aunt as quickly as possible.
He could see with half an eye that the kid's aunt was going to be one of the confident, bossy, well-connected women with whom that part of Cambridgeshire was substantially over-provided.
John McLeish was in his office, Saturday or no Saturday, telling himself he needed to catch up on the paperwork.
The phone rang and he picked it up, frowning.
One of the pleasures of Saturday working was that the phone did not ring all the time.
The voice at the other end was plainly over-excited and it took him a minute to disentangle what he was being told.
' Oh congratulations, Charlie.
Sorry, what did you say it was again? '
' A little girl.
Actually a very big girl as these things go, nine pounds.
It's fantastic, John, there she is, a new person, lying on her face, sound asleep.
I've just left them and I 'm going back. '
McLeish repressed the malicious thought that this event might put Francesca's nose just a little bit out of joint.
She had been utterly secure in her position as the only girl in the Wilson family and now there was another one.
' I've got another bit of good news.
Frannie's going to be able to bring Tristram home pretty soon, apparently. '
McLeish expressed qualified enthusiasm and Charlie assured him he felt exactly the same about his younger brother.
' The difficulty is that Perry does everything that bit better than Tristram.
Not that this is any excuse, John, I do know. '
He paused, reminding McLeish irresistibly of a Labrador wondering how best to approach an acquaintance.
' I wanted to say, you see, that I know you thought Frannie shouldn't have gone, and that it's ruined your holiday plans, and, on behalf of us all, I 'm sorry.
I know the little boys lean on her too much and I would have gone if I could. '
He coughed, embarrassed and a little pompous, very much conscious of his new status as a father, while McLeish remembered that he was a scant four years older than the delinquent Tristram.
' Anyway she should be back soon, ' Charlie concluded.
McLeish thanked him gravely, feeling, as he often did with the Wilsons, that he was being enveloped in a large feather eiderdown, and, made restless by the call, went down the corridor to where he knew Catherine Crane was also in, getting her office in order.
He stopped at the door and smiled at her.
Wearing jeans and a blue shirt, she was tugging at a filing cabinet which was too large for her to embrace and which was threatening to over-balance on her.
She looked about sixteen and beautiful.
She let go of the cabinet, coughing in the dust of ages that appeared to be lurking behind it, and smiled back at him as the February sun shone through the small window behind her, throwing into sharp relief the patches on the wall where her predecessor had hung posters, and the ingrained dirt on the flaking paintwork round the mean, narrow, metal window.
' Where do you want that put? '
McLeish advanced on the cabinet and shifted it authoritatively, ignoring the clip on the ankle dealt him by an unsecured bottom drawer apparently full of bricks.
' I should have unloaded it first, ' Catherine Crane said, apologetically, ' but I just couldn't move in any direction with it where it was. '
' I 'm here, just tell me if you want anything else shifted. '
He hesitated.
' I 'm going to do another hour, then have some lunch, if you want to come? '
He was aware that he was not managing to sound exactly like a senior officer making a recent arrival feel at home, but decided not to add any further riders to his invitation.
' That would be very nice.
Are we going to the canteen? '
' Not if I can help it.
What about the pub?
' If I 'm allowed to buy my own. '
McLeish considered.
' That's fine on the food  I 'll buy the drinks, I 'm too old to get used to women buying my drinks. '
She laughed at him and said gravely that she would be happy to indulge him, and he went away, grinning.
Peter Yeo was also in his office, having told his wife he was lunching with a client.
It was, he felt, just too difficult to be at home at all, with Claudia in a permanently bitchy mood and both his teenage children taking their cue from her and behaving intolerably.
He wandered restlessly about, and decided that the lie might as well become the truth.
Without Angela Morgan, at least two major clients were in danger of not getting the assiduous service they were paying for, and it would be well worth trying to see if one of them, whom he knew to be a fellow refugee from family life at the weekends, could be found.
He was in luck, and fixed to meet Andy Barton at Brazzo's where Yeo Davis had a table permanently booked.
He had to admit that this particular client hardly added to the general decorative smartness of the place.
Andy Barton, founder and chief executive of Barton Textiles, was almost as broad as he was long, virtually neckless, with incongruously long brown hair curling over his collar.
His enormous hands dwarfed the elegant menu which he was studying in apparent disbelief, and Peter Yeo noticed again, as Barton without rising extended one massive paw, that though the fingers were an ordinary length it was the width of the palms that made the hands so large.
' I never see how they get the sales per square foot in these places, ' Barton observed, without further greeting.
' I mean, they're not open twelve hours like my shops, and they aren't using the space. '
His small bright blue eyes swept disparagingly over the minimalized black and white flooring, stainless steel chairs and black wooden bar.
' They make a huge margin on a smaller turnover, Andy, out of punters like us. '
Peter Yeo was amused by, and respectful of, a man with an obsession.
' Angela not working today? '
Barton worked a sixteen-hour day, which began with careful, detailed consideration of the trading figures and key ratios for every one of his forty-three major shops and the output of both factories, and continued, usually by helicopter, with a detailed aerial survey of a particular area as the quick way of identifying new sites, interspersed with unheralded descents on the manager of any shop he took a fancy to visit.
Peter Yeo, who had known this particular juggernaut since he had his first small factory and two stores and dirt under his fingernails from shifting packing-cases personally, was not fazed by the question.
' Angela's taking a few days off  she hasn't been well, ' he said, easily.
' I know she's been working very hard for you.
I 'm up to speed with Huerter, of course, but is your planning application in Leicester all right? '
Barton assured him warmly that Angela had done a great job and he was now confident of getting planning permission on the vast site he had wanted.
Peter Yeo, who knew him in this over-candid, over-emphatic mood, decided to prod gently.
' Angela said the council wanted it for housing? '
' Yeah, some of them did.
Silly buggers, it's jobs they want there first.
Plenty of housing if those stupid farts at the council got round to repairing it and stopped their tenants tearing apart what they have got.
My Mum brought up five of us in a flat far worse than what these immigrants complain about. '
Peter Yeo, who had personally persuaded Barton of the presentational disadvantage of using words like ' darkies', ' niggers' or ' wogs', decided that ' immigrants' even though used in the manner of one invoking a curse, was as good as he was going to get with this particular client.
' She's doing a good job on sorting this Huerter thing, too.
Bloody ridiculous them blokes at the DTI pushing assistance for Huerter.
I voted for this government because they said they weren't going to go in for that sort of rubbish.
No one ever gave me anything and my business works.
Still, Angie can fix the Treasury on this one, given her boyfriend, can't she?
That's the reason I wanted you on this. '
Peter Yeo winced inwardly, but he was not going to tell Andy Barton that Angela was missing, or express any of his reservations about how much influence Angela could bring to bear.
He smoothly changed the subject to the looks of the blond model, three tables away, and Barton agreed he wouldn't mind a bit of that; on the thin side, mind you, but tasty.
The rest of lunch passed in similar diversion, interspersed with details of last week's turnover which were never far from Barton's mind, whatever other distractions offered.
Mrs Huntley was having lunch with her daughter.
She ate placidly, acknowledging to herself with her customary good sense that at the moment, as at any time since her brother William had died, she and Penelope were getting no pleasure at all from each other's company.
Penelope was looking particularly discontented and disaffected, picking at her food.
Her red suit was smart, but too bright a colour for her pale English pink and white skin, her brown hair could have done with a wash and her nails were ragged and bitten.
She was frowning, deep lines appearing between her eyebrows, mouth drawn down at the edges so that instead of a classically good-looking slim English Rose in her late twenties, she looked faded, years older than her real age, and shrewish.
Mrs Huntley sighed; her brother whom she had loved, but knew to be self-indulgent to a fault, had done his niece real harm by leaving so much of his money away from the girl who had confidently believed herself to be his favourite thing on earth.
Penelope, however, it had to be acknowledged, had made no attempt to rise above the blow she had been dealt by finding a dazzling girl of her own age favoured over herself in her uncle's will.
At least, Mrs Huntley thought hopefully, she had stopped wondering, unbecomingly and stridently, how her uncle could have been fooled by Angela Morgan.
It was Grizel Huntley's own view that her brother had not been fooled at all but had been charmed and diverted by a dashing girl thirty years his junior, and had seen no reason at all why she should not have a share of his considerable estate when that left a very decent down-setting for his niece as well.
Indeed, she had respected Angela Morgan for the straightforwardness with which she had tackled the issue when they had met at the lawyer's office.
' I 'm sorry you're disappointed, ' she had said to Penelope, ' but after all there's a lot of money, quite enough for both of us. '
So there was, Grizel Huntley acknowledged, and it would be a great deal better if Penny could manage to think a bit more positively.
' If she has vanished, I 'm going to see that solicitor about whether I can get her presumed dead. '
Penny, sounding childishly, sullenly determined, broke into her mother's thoughts.
Grizel Huntley looked across at her, shocked.
' I would wait a little if I were you. '
Penelope glared at her, turning an ungraceful scarlet, but Mrs Huntley held her ground.
' You are being silly about this, Penny.
You are letting this disappointment  and that's all it is, you're still a very well-off young woman  get in the way of everything. '
Penelope choked on her pudding and started to cry, angry, uncontrollable tears.
Grizel Huntley reached out to comfort her but she forced back her chair and fled, clutching her handbag and napkin, leaving her mother with the ruins of lunch.
Fifty miles north, Sarah Morgan had just finished serving a lunch that no one had done more than pick at.
Her husband Francis had made a slightly better showing than her daughter Jennifer, who was looking particularly ragged.
Mother and daughter were very like each other, tall, dark, slim, pleasant-looking women with mid-brown curly hair and slightly snub noses.
Francis Morgan, by contrast, was dark, almost black-haired, sallow-skinned, with bright brown eyes.
Of medium height and packed with energy, even distressed as he was, he was bursting round the kitchen, hair still damp at the back from his swim.
' Let's go to the flicks.
No point at all sitting round looking at each other.
Come on Jennifer  or are you going out with Michael? '
' He's gone back to Australia, Dad.
Last week. '
Jennifer sounded defeated, and he looked at her sideways with familiar love and exasperation.
She just didn't seem to be able to hang on to men, he thought impatiently, not like his Angie, wherever she was.
' Giles rang up, ' his daughter volunteered, and he was uncomfortably reminded by something in her voice that Giles Hawick was one of the men Jennifer hadn't been able to hang on to  or not once he had seen Angela.
' How was he? ' his wife Sarah asked, rather too quickly.
' Well, very worried.
He said the police were talking to everyone Angie had seen in the two weeks before she... well... vanished, and so far had come up with nothing.
I mean no one noticed anything unusual about her and she seemed to be full of plans for the wedding. '
' Well, I told them that, ' Francis Morgan said irritably and his wife and daughter caught each other's eye in silent agreement that he hadn't told them that Angela was refusing point-black to be married from home and was insisting on the full London set-out, reception at the House of Commons, replying unanswerably when he had objected on grounds of expense that she could well afford to pay for it herself.
A row of epic proportions had ensued, which he and Angela had evidently enjoyed but which had left Sarah and Jennifer sick with distress.
' I don't want to go out, Frank.
Someone might ring. '
Sarah Morgan was sounding diffident but resolute, and as Morgan opened his mouth to protest in exasperation the doorbell rang.
Both women looked at him in joint appeal and he marched to the door, pulling it open with unnecessary force.
He stood, door in hand, checked by something in the way his visitors, a man and a woman, were standing.
The man, a stocky, greying fifty-year-old in a navy raincoat over a suit, his hair cut short, was attended by a uniformed policewoman, hair smartly set under the cap, her eyes watchful in the wide, flat, placid face, and both of them were standing square and stolid.
Francis Morgan stood and stared at them, and even before the man stepped forward steadily, hand extended, mouth opening to speak, he understood who they were and what they had come to tell him.
' Catherine. '
John McLeish, looking even bigger than usual, appeared in her office.
' The Cambridgeshire police think they have found Angela Morgan.
They've got a body of about the right description and they've gone to see Miss Morgan's parents.
We need to hurry but it 'll take an hour or so and I don't want the papers on to it before the next of kin know.
You got your kit? '
Catherine Crane wordlessly pointed to the back of the door of her office on which hung a neat suit.
He looked round, and realized she had cleaned the whole office in the hour and a half since he had seen her.
' Looks a lot better.
And only just in time.
Meet you in ten minutes.
I've got to change, then we're on our way.
Sorry about lunch, we 'll get a sandwich. '
' I 'm sorry, Mr Morgan, but we can't move the body yet.
There is a senior officer from Scotland Yard on his way, and our people, photographers and so on. '
' If it's my daughter I want to see her now, I don't want to wait. '
' I 'm sorry, sir. '
Francis Morgan subsided abruptly on one of the uncomfortable chesterfields in the sunny, cramped, living-room and Detective Inspector Teversham shifted uncomfortably, wishing the phone call would come.
The phone rang.
He sprang to it, and collected instructions in a room silent except for the sound of Mrs Morgan weeping drearily into her handkerchief.
With one part of his mind he logged the fact that Mum had understood the worst immediately and must in some way have been expecting it.
The deceased had been Daddy's girl, then  although it was usually the dads, where a daughter was in question, who fought against the realization of the truth.
His WPC was looking at him anxiously for guidance, but he shook his head at her slightly and waited, standing squarely on both feet as he had done in many trying circumstances before.
' I 'll come with you.
Sarah and Jennifer, you stay here. '
Mrs Morgan made a movement of protest but Francis Morgan looked to Teversham for support.
' I think that would be better, yes, sir, ' he agreed.
' I must see her. '
Sarah Morgan emerged from her handkerchief.
' Don't be silly Sarah, it might not be Angela, ' Francis Morgan said, desperately.
' Sergeant Jennings here will make some tea, then she 'll stay with you while Mr Morgan and I go over to the stables.
We 'll be back inside the hour.
Perhaps we could have a cup now? '
He watched, stolidly, as Mrs Morgan disappeared to the kitchen to show the sergeant what was what and considered, without watching her, the other Miss Morgan.
She wasn't crying her eyes out.
She was pale, but not as shocked as she might have been.
Well, that was all right  she could look after Mum in the hour that was to follow while the identity of the body was established, and in all the grim hours after that, if the body was her sister.
He gently insisted that Francis Morgan got a cup of tea, with sugar, down him before he escorted him out to the waiting car.
He sat in the back with him, for company, and chatted soothingly of nothing as the driver did the eight miles or so to Kirton, and swept into the riding-school yard.
Evidently a class had just finished and the place was boiling with ponies, small children, pink-faced with exertion in oversized helmets covered with bright silks, parents urging them to hurry up and get in cars, and teenage girls bulging out of light jodhpurs organizing the whole.
A still point in this maelstrom was Sergeant Black, who had tucked himself between two of the sheltering twelve-foot evergreens planted to cut off the east wind from the ring.
The man moved efficiently past a child who had succeeded in entangling her pony's reins with her feet and who was being blasted for it by a girl who couldn't have been more than sixteen, but was sounding like a woman three times her age.
Precisely who it was she was using for a role model became clear as a middle-aged lady, admirably slim in well-cut jodhpurs, erupted from some inner fortress to enquire, in tones that carried effortlessly across the yard, precisely why Caroline had failed to run up her stirrups, how long had she been riding?
The tone was uncompromising but somehow neutral, and the child addressed hastened to make the adjustment, rebuked but not embarrassed or crushed.
Teversham stopped where he was, saw Miss Williams notice him, and waited patiently while she dispatched four of the assorted teenagers to a distant meadow with eight ponies, and while the yard cleared of small children and their parents.
' Miss Williams?
Detective Inspector Teversham.
Mr Morgan is in my car over there. '
' I 'll just have a word with him, Chief Inspector.
I used to know him well. '
She was white-faced but determined and the policemen stood back as she walked over towards the car.
' Decent of her, ' Teversham observed, without moving his lips.
' Hang on a minute, who's this? '
A grey car, immaculately clean, was just pulling up at the gate and a big man in a plain grey suit was getting out to open it.
' Must be the Yard, ' his sergeant observed.
' The bloke might be.
But who is the popsy with him? '
Teversham's terms for pretty women had been taken wholesale from his father who had been a young airman in World War II.
The car drew up alongside them, McLeish having known them as policemen by the same process as they had recognized him.
' Chief Inspector John McLeish. '
He flapped his warrant card in automatic greeting and waved a hand at Catherine who had also got out of the car.
' Detective Sergeant Crane. '
He watched amused as both the Cambridge detectives shook hands gingerly, obviously taken aback.
' Father of the missing girl over there, talking to the good lady who runs this establishment and who has already seen the body.
There's a man of mine on the spot.
We think it's probably your girl  the ring on the finger fits the description and her parents are local. '
John McLeish considered this admirably succinct report and decided the competent bloke was bound to resent Scotland Yard intrusion.
' If this turns out to be the lady we're looking for, she was engaged to a Treasury Minister, who called in my guv'nor. '
' Oh, rather you than me, if that's who she is.
And much better you have it from the start.
My Super's already got his knickers in a twist. '
The reply was prompt and ungrudging and McLeish breathed easier.
It was no fun at all working with an uncooperative and resentful local force.
' I've got a scene-of-crime squad coming, if that's all right.
I've worked with them before, you see, ' he added, in explanation and Teversham had just time to assure him he well understood and wouldn't himself like to work with anyone else's squad, before Miss Williams, tears in her eyes, and Francis Morgan, white with distress, bore down on them.
John McLeish introduced himself and Catherine in suitably subdued tones.
Even through his distress, Francis Morgan was obviously struck by Catherine Crane's looks and as the party distributed itself into the big Land Rover he managed to sit next to her.
McLeish, sitting on the other side of her, huddled on the uncomfortable bench-seating, could smell the faint perfume she wore and thought, with what detachment he could bring to bear, that one of the minor complications of this case was going to be the reactions of every man involved as suspect, colleague or witness, to this beauty he had managed to import on to his staff.
The Land Rover bumped along the track to where the young detective constable, looking chilled and ti red, was waiting for them.
As they decanted themselves McLeish managed to agree quickly with Teversham that, assuming the identification was confirmed, he would take Francis Morgan and Miss Williams back, leaving Catherine and himself at the site.
He waited tactfully with Catherine and the young constable on the embankment, liking the sweep of the country as it spread out in the raw, cold day.
' Must be the only hill between here and Russia, ' he observed to Catherine who pointed out it wasn't much of a hill, more a fifty-foot ridge, it just looked high in this dead flat plain.
' You must know Cambridge, though, John.
Your girlfriend studied here, didn't she? '
' I didn't know her then, ' he said, repressively, uneasily conscious that he had given Francesca no thought at all that day and didn't much want to think about her now.
Catherine Crane fell silent, and he fished out the one-page note Teversham had handed him and read it, scowling.
' Good God, ' he said, involuntarily, and Catherine looked at him enquiringly.
' I know the boy who found the body  I mean it must be him.
He lives round here.
Jamie Brett-Smith.
He's a child star  a singer.
Did the theme song for that TV thing. '
' It's a hymn tune.
My Mum has it  I don't think she's ever bought a cassette before.
How do you know him? '
McLeish hesitated, then said stiffly that he was Francesca's godson, and also something like her third cousin, or his mother was.
He glanced down the slope and realized the party was returning.
Francis Morgan white-faced and dazed, Miss Williams supporting his elbow, equally white and trying not to cry.
Teversham, at Morgan's other side, nodded to McLeish in confirmation, pro forma.
The small group struggled up the last piece of the embankment, Teversham necessarily in the rear and Francis Morgan stumbled almost on to McLeish's feet.
McLeish reached out to steady him and the man looked up at him, unseeingly.
' Christ.
Thirty years, and it's all gone.
That's my Angie.
It's her ring and I bought her that scarf. '
' I 'm very sorry. '
Francis Morgan looked at him wildly as Teversham came up at his elbow, solid as a rock.
' It's your job now, is it? ' he asked, earnestly.
' You 'll catch the bastard who did it. '
' We 'll try, sir. '
Francis Morgan looked from him to Catherine Crane, obviously hardly knowing what he was doing, in an agony of loss.
' How old are you, Sergeant? ' he asked, abruptly.
' Twenty-seven, sir. '
' Almost the same age as her  Angie, I mean. '
The bright brown eyes rested on her and you could see written all over his face the jealousy that this girl, daughter to some man, was still alive while his child was gone.
Teversham and his sergeant closed round Morgan, shepherding him to the waiting Land Rover with meaningless gentle instructions to watch the step, up you go now.
McLeish glanced up the track to see, in the distance, another Land Rover swaying over the rough bits, and touched Teversham's elbow.
' That's my lot, I think. '
Teversham nodded in acknowledgement.
' Miss Williams, we 'll find the road again if we go straight and turn left by the hedge, won't we? '
' Don't do that, ' McLeish said urgently.
' Sorry, but if there was a vehicle involved it probably came from there.
No tracks on this side, except ours. '
' Damn. '
Teversham was unnerved by the nearness of the following Land Rover and irritated with himself for missing an elementary point.
In the end it took ten minutes to get the Cambridgeshire police Land Rover turned past McLeish's squad and their vans, and away back up to the stable.
Teversham had agreed to call the AC at the yard and report that the identification had been confirmed, so that he could go and see Giles Hawick.
Francis Morgan would no doubt ring him too, but he was naturally so shaken that McLeish thought that small piece of insurance worthwhile.
He watched them out of sight, then turned to his squad.
' Right, down we go.
The corpse is at the bottom of the slope.
Young woman, aged twenty-nine, dead about a week the local bloke reckons. '
He glanced down the slope wishing he had brought boots; his shoes were already letting in mud.
He looked at Catherine Crane's feet and saw she was in a similar situation.
The sergeant from the scene of crime squad pushed past him, and advanced on Catherine Crane, holding out a pair of battered wellingtons with the air of the prince hopefully extending a glass slipper.
' They 'll be too big, Sergeant, but maybe better than your shoes?
We have some spare socks, too. '
McLeish watched her melting smile, as did every man in the group.
' Got anything there to fit me? ' he asked pointedly, and a young constable reluctantly transferred his attention.
Kitted up some five minutes later with a pair a good size too small and with a hole in the right toe, McLeish led his troops into action.
The smell hit them as they slithered to the bottom of the slope and McLeish resolutely took a breath before walking over to where the swollen body lay.
It was, as usual, not the person who lay dead but the shell in which the person had lived.
The girl that was Angela Morgan had looked out of the photograph, whereas what lay on the ground, arms outstretched, could have been any young woman with dark hair.
The well-defined features of the photograph had vanished, the face had swollen in death as had the exposed arms.
Thank God it wasn't high summer, McLeish thought, stepping back almost on to Catherine's toes and reaching for his handkerchief; the cold, particularly at night, would have retarded decay.
The girl had been missing for what  a week?  and off-hand he agreed with the local man's judgement that she had been here for most of it.
The sapling trees had grown tall in the twenty-five years since the Beeching axe had fallen on the single railway track, and, even leafless as they were, they effectively screened the view from the top.
A thick hedge shielded her from the field which swept down towards the foot of the embankment.
Whoever had brought her here must have known the place; you couldn't have picked it out in a hurry.
The country is not as deserted as all that, as McLeish, brought up in a village in Leicestershire, well knew.
There are always people about, in tractors, walking or riding; there is always an inquisitive dog.
He stopped at this thought, wondering if dogs came along here frequently.
' Careful round the body, ' he said unnecessarily to the sergeant in charge of the squad, who was matter-of-factly distributing heavy-duty surgical masks.
He looked round for Catherine and found she had vanished.
' Back that way, sir, ' one of the squad volunteered, barely intelligible through his mask, and McLeish saw her, twenty yards away, walking back slowly towards them, head bowed.
' All right? ' he asked as she came up beside him and she replied that she was, thank you.
She was very white, the freckles standing out brown on her skin, and she was blowing her nose.
' We 'll go up and see if we can see how she got here.
Carry on, Sergeant. '
He plunged up the embankment, taking a grateful breath of fresh air, then turned and extended a large imperative hand to Catherine Crane and pulled her up beside him.
' Were you sick? '
' Yes, sorry. '
' Come on, let's get you up top. '
She stood on the embankment breathing in gulps of air as he stood awkwardly by her, then fumbled for a handkerchief and he saw that she was crying.
' Sorry, ' she said, feeling him watching her and he fought back a violent physical impulse to give her a cuddle and take her away from all this.
' Happens, ' he said gruffly, patting her gingerly on the shoulder, and striding down the track ahead of her.
Behind them he saw a pair of horses, obviously having been warned off, turning to ride through a field, the colours of the riders' helmets very bright against the pale, cold, February sky.
He tried to remember what the weather had been like in the last week and realized he had no idea; like many city-dwellers he had moved from flat to car to office without registering any variation.
' It's obviously rained a lot, ' Catherine Crane volunteered, edging cautiously down the side of the track.
' That's a tractor, isn't it?
I suppose they could have come that way. '
McLeish was walking the track, also keeping well to one edge, watching carefully.
' Still the same tractor.
Hang on... here's car tracks.
Faint, but there. '
McLeish squatted unselfconsciously in the mud.
' No point me being clever. '
He walked back along the side of the track and edged down to join the scene-of-crime squad.
' I want the whole track photographed and samples taken.
Some car tracks, lots of tractor tracks, very deep. '
' Sticky stuff, this clay.
Likely any car would have traces of it for a long time.
Dyes clothes yellow, too, ' the sergeant in charge volunteered.
' Is it murder, then, sir? '
' Well, have you noticed the head?
It's out of shape.
She's been missing for a week, was going to marry a rising Minister, successful career, everything coming up roses.
Doesn't look like an accident.
I 'll get the doc to think on, when he arrives. '
' That's the Land Rover back now.
I can hear it.
Likely that 'll be him. '
It was and McLeish greeted him with relief.
This was a senior man whom he had worked with before, a fellow Scot, grey-haired now, slight, quick-moving and thorough.
He went back down the embankment with him, telling Catherine to stay where she was and help with photographing the track.
Dr Scott, from long experience, did no more than wrinkle his nose at the odour of decay, and spent twenty minutes there, mostly occupied with a careful consideration of the head.
' How long do you think she's been dead? '
' Rigor completely gone. '
Scott lifted gently one bloodless arm, which fell limply.
' Subcutaneous swelling, decay.
Six or seven days, I would say  I 'll not be able to be more precise until the autopsy. '
' What was it, Doc? '
' Very nasty bang on the head for one thing.
You noticed the skull is bulging  there, look.
Done with something sharp-edged, and a lot of force. '
' That killed her? '
John McLeish asked.
' Probably.
I 'll start as soon as you can get the body back.
I 'll ring you tomorrow or later tonight. '
McLeish thanked him, scrambled up the embankment, drawing in deep breaths, and walked carefully down the side of the track in the sizeable footsteps of his squad, explaining to them that they were looking for a sharp-edged weapon.
He found Catherine Crane competently and tactfully assisting with operations, and as he came to stand beside her realized she was so cold that she was almost shuddering.
He bustled her back to the Land Rover and raided the squad's provision box which he knew from experience would contain thick sandwiches and hot nourishing drinks.
He pressed both on her.
' I 'm sorry, ' she said, when the shuddering had become only a shiver.
' I didn't realize I'd got so cold. '
' Well, you lost your breakfast and you never got lunch.
We 'll get a square meal, then we 'll see the family.
I don't want to spend too long  there's a lot else to do in London and I'd rather have the autopsy before I ask too many questions.
Come on, we 'll walk back to the car. '
Even in the twenty minutes it had taken to get some nourishment, the light had faded and the dull day was darkening into a cold night; the beginnings of a frost crackled under their feet as they walked briskly along the embankment.
The long ridge to their left looked particularly bleak and lifeless, the heavy clay sitting solidly in the ridges where the plough had left it months before, no trace of last year's crop, nothing to indicate that this was good cereal country.
The tops of the sapling trees, waist-high at the edge of the embankment, were leafless and still.
A bad, cold night to lie out in.
McLeish had to remind himself that the dead girl behind them would have felt none of this dank chill.
It was almost totally dark when they arrived in the stable yard and Catherine jumped involuntarily as something moved and rattled against the boards.
' The hunters will be in  only the rough ponies will be turned out, ' McLeish observed out of childhood knowledge as he led her towards his car, looking very forlorn in the big parking area.
As he unlocked it, a light came on almost above his head.
' Who is it? '
It was a clear, carrying command with no anxiety in it at all, and McLeish identified himself promptly.
' Ah.
Will you come in for a cup of tea?
I have James Brett-Smith, who found Angela this morning.
He says he knows you and came back in case you wanted to see him. '
McLeish sighed inwardly.
' Of course, Miss Williams.
Sergeant Crane and I would be glad of tea.
Hello, sunshine. '
This last was addressed to Jamie, who was peering round Miss Williams and was openly pleased to see him.
Not every day you saw that poised, competent kid distressed, McLeish thought, resting a hand on his shoulder.
It took a lot to faze a talented one like that, who had been a successful soloist for two years, managing with having a sick father and about one tenth of his mother's attention.
He realized the boy had grown in the two months since he had last seen him and looked at him carefully, noticing the way his wrists poked out of the shirt and the slight roughness of the clear skin.
' Is Francesca still in New York? ' the brat was asking anxiously, and McLeish, who had not wanted to discuss her in this company, found he had to reassure Jamie about her whereabouts and probable date of return.
' She's chaperoning for me on Monday next week, ' the boy explained.
' I'd forgotten, but she won't have...
Come and tell me about this morning, ' He looked round for Catherine to discover that with admirable good sense she had asked for the facilities of the house, and was being issued with soap and hand-towels by Miss Williams.
He took Jamie quickly through his story, finding him healthily excited by his part in it, but with an obvious undercurrent of anxiety.
' John, ' Jamie asked when he had told his story, ' you won't leave her there, will you? '
' No, no, Jamie, that's the ambulance I can hear now, come to pick her up. '
The boy's colour came back and he looked shame-faced at McLeish.
' I know it's silly, I mean she's dead, but it's so cold and I couldn't bear the idea of her just lying there. '
Curious how the same thought had struck him, McLeish reflected, as he looked properly round the warm, untidy comfort of Miss Williams' s sitting-room, which smelled cheerfully of woodsmoke and wet dog.
A big black Labrador, catching his eye, thumped her tail and rolled on her side, looking up at him hopefully.
She closed her eyes in ecstasy as Jamie flung himself on her, accusing her of being a flirt.
McLeish looked past the boy to see Catherine Crane, colour returned, seated on an upright chair, drinking tea.
He grinned at her.
' We'd best get on, Miss Williams, but could I use a cloakroom too?
Is Jamie being collected, or does he want a ride home? '
' No, no, his aunt is coming for him.
He's just polishing some tack for me. '
So he was, McLeish observed, the devil plainly being given no opportunity to find work for idle hands.
He extracted Catherine a short while later and turned the car back on the darkened road which would lead them towards the A1.
' There were three dog leads and a packet of dog biscuits in the cloakroom, ' he told her, grinning in the darkness.
' The hairbrush in Miss Williams's bathroom had Labrador hairs in it.
Or it was the Labrador's hairbrush, ' Catherine Crane offered demurely, and McLeish burst out laughing, glancing admiringly sideways at her.
He felt extremely comfortable with her already, he thought happily.
They followed Miss Williams's directions to the Morgan family, and knocked on the door, being let in promptly by the stocky WPC who had stayed in the house with the women of the Morgan family.
Jennifer Morgan came into the hall; she had been crying and was looking white, but had herself in hand.
' Dad is lying down.
He wanted to be called when you arrived.
I don't know if you would like to talk to Mum and me first? '
' I 'm sorry to trouble you now, but if you can bear it it would help us to get some more information from you all.
I had spoken to your father before on the telephone, when your sister was first reported missing, but we didn't cover all that much ground. '
' Oh, I'd rather talk about it now, ' Jennifer Morgan said drearily.
' You've talked to Giles, of course? '
' When he reported your sister missing ' ' McLeish confirmed, leaping at the opening.
' I understand that you have known him longest of all the family? '
' Yes. '
' Do you know him well? '
She gave him a level look, understanding that he must be working, as they say, on information received.
Quick, as her dead sister must have been.
' We did go out together a few times, yes, Chief Inspector.
I liked him, but he and Angela are  were  better suited to each other. '
It must have been painful to have a man you liked appropriated by a younger sister, McLeish thought, but this self-contained creature was not going to tell him  or possibly anyone else  how it had felt.
He considered her, as he went through the routine questions about when she had last seen her sister.
' We didn't meet very often in London unless it was a party.
I work in the British Museum, and my flat is quite close to it.
I ' m an Assistant Curator in the Middle Eastern section. '
McLeish blinked involuntarily, and she smiled faintly.
' I read Middle Eastern Languages, and spent a year in Turkey after Oxford, then came back to the Museum.
I specialize in fourteenth-century ceramics. '
It was a less lively face than her sister's because it was more turned in, more contemplative, less concerned with the things of this world.
Well, fourteenth-century Turkey must be pretty safely removed from the things of this world.
He considered her good but unremarkable clothes, and wondered what she did for laughs.
Or was fourteenth-century Turkey laughs enough, what did he know?
He fell back on routine and asked Jennifer to confirm exactly when she had last seen Angela.
' I last saw her here, the weekend before she disappeared.
She came up here for a night to see Mummy, to sort out some details about the wedding. '
' That must be a lot of work for your mother, ' McLeish said, hopefully, and got another level, distantly amused look.
' You would have to ask her that.
My impression was that since it was to be held in London, Angela was doing the work, with a good deal of help from colleagues at Yeo Davis.
They have a lot of experience of large parties. '
Ouch, McLeish thought, not such a gentle, distant academic, are you?
A very sardonic eye there indeed.
' We talked to Mr Yeo when your sister was reported missing.
He obviously considered your sister a very valuable colleague. '
' She is  was  extremely competent, as well as very good at getting on with people, which is of course critical to jobs like that.
I imagine she will be very much missed. '
She looked sharply out of the window and produced a handkerchief which she held clenched in her hand but did not use.
' Miss Morgan, would you like to stop for a minute?
Can we get you some more coffee? '
McLeish glanced at Catherine who was already on her feet, and Jennifer Morgan nodded in acquiescence.
' I 'm sorry.
I 'll just go and tidy up. '
She got up stiffly and went upstairs, holding blindly on to the banisters.
McLeish joined Catherine in the comfortable modern kitchen where they foraged companionably for coffee and milk, waiting until they heard Jennifer Morgan come down again.
' I 'm sorry, ' she said, wearily.
' Where were we?
My mother is coming in a minute. '
' We were asking about your sister's position at Yeo Davis.
I think you had made it clear that Mr Yeo very much valued her.
Would she have wanted to continue working there after she was married? '
Jennifer Morgan looked at him quickly and he realized he must have stumbled on something.
But she knew her hesitation had given him a lead.
' She would have wanted to continue, yes.
There might have been some difficulty there because of Giles' s position, because of the conflict of interest.
Yeo Davis exists to lobby government and Giles is a Minister. '
She sounded like Francesca when she talked about Yeo Davis, McLeish reflected.
' Did he want her to give it up? '
' Yes, he did.
He found it awkward, but Angela was  naturally  reluctant. '
Some colour had come back into Jennifer's face.
So he talked to you about it, McLeish thought, and saw Catherine register the same point.
He decided to leave this one for the moment but logged the fact that Jennifer Morgan had still been interested in, and comfortable with, the man who had become her sister's fianc.
A tap on the door made them all start.
Catherine Crane went across to open it and held a murmured conversation with someone.
Sarah Morgan came in to the room like a ghost, and McLeish drew breath as he saw her.
She was deathly pale, the mid-brown hair flattened to her head, the lined skin without make-up except for a brave but mistaken line of smudged lipstick.
She looked at him dumbly, and even McLeish's hardened investigator's nerve failed him.
He glanced involuntarily at Jennifer Morgan who said she would make tea, which was what her mother preferred, and bore her off to the kitchen.
They returned with the tea accompanied by a bottle of pills  Valium, McLeish noticed automatically  and with Mrs Morgan looking more gathered.
The buttons of her cardigan were correctly done up and the collar flattened neatly, the zip of the skirt was in its proper place at the side and her tattered bedroom slippers had been replaced with a tidy pair of court shoes, the wrong colour for the skirt.
It was better, but not a lot, and McLeish who knew her to be in her late fifties decided any casual observer would put her at nearer seventy.
Jennifer Morgan looked at him doubtfully, but he shook his head to her implied question; he preferred to conduct his interviews without members of the family present.
' Won't be long, ' he said, reassuringly, just managing not to pat Jennifer Morgan on her beige cashmere shoulder.
He was extremely gentle with Sarah Morgan, as he had implicitly promised her daughter, but it was a desperately painful experience, and, he began to fear, not a useful one.
She had not seen Angela since the weekend before the one on which she had disappeared, but had spoken to her twice on the telephone.
Well yes, Angie had been very busy and preoccupied with the wedding preparations, naturally, but she had been happy.
And no, they had not been expecting to see her that weekend, though with Giles away she had said she might come on the Sunday.
But she would have telephoned first.
She seemed to be eased by talking of her daughter, and by the time she stopped, apologetically, and drank some tea poured for her by Catherine, she looked exhausted but less like a wraith.
She pushed the Valium aside, observing that she did prefer not to take drugs, a reaction so typical of her age and class that McLeish decided he might after all be able to conduct a useful interview.
' I understand it was your older daughter who met Mr Hawick first? '
' Yes, she did, and I think she hoped something would come of it  well, so did I. But when he met Angela he was just bowled over by her.
I was sorry for Jennifer but they had only been going out for a month or so, and not terribly seriously.
And in any case, you can't do anything about these attractions, can you? '
McLeish agreed with her promptly and she raised half a smile for him.
He waited, remembering Jennifer Morgan's obvious pain and wondering what her mother's views about it were.
He watched her thoughtfully as she ate a biscuit.
' Angela must have been a very attractive girl, ' he suggested, cautiously.
' Oh, she was, ' Sarah Morgan agreed.
' But I used to wonder whether she was ever going to get married.
She never seemed to fall for anyone her own age, they were always older. '
She was talking with the ease of total emotional exhaustion.
' Was there anyone else who was important to her  I mean before she met Mr Hawick, of course? ' he asked, vaguely.
Mrs Morgan took another biscuit and accepted another cup of tea.
' I did think that there was something between her and Peter Yeo  her partner  but nothing came of it.
He has a wife and children and most men don't usually leave their wives, do they? '
The question was rhetorical and McLeish waited.
' Anyway, Giles was perfect for her; fourteen years older and with his own very distinguished career.
I was sure she was going to be happily settled. '
She stopped, staring out of the window, her hands clenched together.
' And then this terrible thing happens.
Who could have wanted to kill her? '
Francis Morgan did not bother with knocking at the door but walked in without apology.
He was deathly pale and obviously still in the first shock of grief but it had taken him differently.
He was wound up like a spring, furiously angry, unable to keep still or to prevent himself from fidgeting.
' Where's Sarah? ' he demanded, and took in the scene in front of him.
' Why didn't you wake me? '
' I understand the doctor wanted you to have a sleep if you could, Mr Morgan ' ' Catherine Crane said briskly.
' Would you like some tea?
We have only just started talking with Mrs Morgan. '
She looked very young and pretty as she held up the teapot and Francis Morgan hesitated, then sat down, heavily, and seized two biscuits.
' Sorry, ' he said, awkwardly, through a mouthful of Rich Tea.
' I can't stop thinking about her and wondering what happened. '
He slapped both hands palms down on the table, slopping his tea and making them all jump, totally unselfconscious in his misery.
What, McLeish wondered acerbically, did he imagine his wife and surviving daughter were thinking about  or did he assume they had taken the death of a daughter and a sister in their stride?
From under his eyelashes he could see Mrs Morgan was watching her husband with a sort of furious compassion, and was careful not to catch her eye.
The man was quite literally distracted, unable to concentrate at all.
McLeish looked thoughtfully at Jennifer Morgan who had come in and was considering her father with what he was startled to recognize as dislike.
This was evidently a family that was not going to be brought closer by grief.
She nodded to McLeish and started gently to bustle her mother away.
He settled Francis Morgan down as best he could and took him again through the events of the week before his daughter vanished.
No, he hadn't seen her for a week before that weekend; he had missed her  this with a baleful glance towards the door  and had indeed got as far as ringing her up on the Saturday morning, hoping she would come up for Sunday, but had got no answer from her flat.
' It wasn't worth going down on the off-chance, or so I thought.
But perhaps if I had... '
' You were close to your daughter, then? '
McLeish asked hopefully.
' Yes.
We were like each other; she knew what she wanted and she didn't mess around.
I can't bear people who don't know what they want and dither. '
' So you were pleased that she was marrying? '
' Not particularly. '
McLeish did not manage to conceal surprise and Francis Morgan looked at him wretchedly, the restless brown eyes wide-set, like the dead girl 's, and very bright.
' He's all right, I suppose, Giles  for a politician.
But he thinks he's the centre of the world and he was going to make it difficult for Angie to do what she wanted if it would affect his career.
He likes all that, the cars and people calling him Minister, but he wanted her to be the good politician's wife, doing his entertaining.
He didn't say so, mind, but I told Angie she would have to watch it after she married him.
And he wanted her money, of course.
These chaps don't have security of tenure. '
McLeish reflected that Giles Hawick was the classic example of someone who knew what they wanted and didn't mess around, and that that was what had attracted Francis Morgan's daughter.
Perhaps he had not said to himself that in a marriage between two like this, someone was going to have to know a little less clearly what they had wanted.
' Was there someone else around you would rather she had married? ' he asked bluntly, deciding it was that sort of conversation.
' No one in particular, but I thought she'd have been better off with a chap of her own age who would have wanted her to carry on where she was.
Someone who would have known she was exceptional and have encouraged her. '
And been less of a direct rival to her Dad, and all, McLeish thought, and stuck to his line.
' And there was no one like that in her life? '
Francis Morgan, calmer now, visibly bent his mind to the question.
' She had dozens of boyfriends, ' he said, wistfully.
' I probably met them all.
But they didn't seem to last very long.
She didn't want to settle down, you see, and they all wanted her to. '
McLeish decided he was not going to get much more out of this and went on to check, gently, what Francis Morgan had done with the weekend.
He appeared to have spent it blamelessly playing golf, dining with neighbours and at home doing some work.
He would check it, if he needed to, but he could not at the moment see why Morgan would have wanted to kill the daughter to whom he had plainly been so devoted.
He managed to have another few words with Mrs Morgan also, who was looking much stronger.
She apologized obliquely for her husband, and McLeish murmured that Mr Morgan had obviously been very much attached to Angela.
' So was I, Chief Inspector, ' Sarah Morgan said evenly.
' And I was glad she was marrying an older man like Giles Hawick. '
The emphasis on the ' I ' was faint but definite and McLeish carried the echo away in his head.
' I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I 'm starving, ' Catherine said, as they reached the gate.
' Can you wait till London?
There's a good place in Ealing  well it's a chipper really, but he has good steaks at any time you want them.
Have a sleep if you want. '
She slept deeply while they were on the motorway, but woke as he came into London and had to stop and start in the heavy evening traffic.
' Better, ' she said, smiling at him.
' Dinner ' s not far. '
Restored by a large steak, he explained to her as they ate that he liked to work very quickly on a murder case, pushing everyone to get an answer.
' I expect that means you do more cases than most? '
' I've been a bit lucky, ' he said, modestly.
' I've ended up most of them with a full confession, once we'd worked it out.
That way you know you've got it right. '
' Unless you're in Henley, ' she observed with privileged acerbity and he laughed, embarrassed as every policeman had been by the revelations just made of Thames Valley's modus operandi.
' Eight cases withdrawn so far, isn't it? '
Catherine asked.
' And more to come. '
He smiled at her, thinking what a treat it was to talk shop with someone as beautiful and intelligent as this.
She insisted quietly on halving the bill and he let her have her way, not wanting to jeopardize his chance of eating with her in the future.
He glanced up as they completed this transaction to find the attention of the nearest two tables, both exclusively male, fixed disbelievingly on them.
As three men slowly looked away McLeish received the uncompromising message that if any of them had been so lucky as to have dinner with Catherine Crane, none of them would have let her pay for herself.
Indeed he had a strong feeling that only his six foot four inches prevented one of them from saying so.
He glanced at Catherine but she had obviously noticed nothing out of the way.
Outside the restaurant McLeish hesitated, not wanting the evening to end.
' A drink? ' he suggested, hopefully, but Catherine shook her head.
' My flat is in almost as much of a mess as the office.
I was in a chain, and I only managed to complete last week.
I'd better go and get it straight.
I haven't even got the curtains hung, or unpacked the kitchen stuff. '
' Let me come and help? '
McLeish offered, cheerfully.
' It is the fault of C1 that you don't have today or tomorrow to get straight.
I 'll come and put in a couple of hours, so you can get a bit more comfortable. '
She hesitated, then said that she would like that rather than a drink, if he really wouldn't mind.
The flat was indeed in some disarray: immaculately clean, evidently she had done that first, but with most of its furnishings disposed in boxes on the floor.
McLeish, naturally efficient and brought up by a mother with firm views on men's participation in the drearier household chores, took just over an hour to sort her kitchen to her satisfaction while she got the living-room straight, with all the books unpacked.
' That's marvellous.
Thank you very much.
Can I give you a coffee? '
' I'd like that.
Then I 'll be off so you can catch up with yourself. '
They fell comfortably into gossip about various parts of their experience until McLeish noticed she was looking tired.
' I 'm off, ' he said, briskly.
' I 'll be going into the Yard first thing to work out what's to do.
I 'll not need anyone till about lunch-time so you have your sleep in, but I may ring you up after that.
I find if you get the case started off quickly it all goes easily. '
She thanked him demurely, and he realized she was laughing at him.
He looked down at her, about to kiss her good-night as if she were one of Francesca's friends, and pulled himself up.
This was a colleague, a fellow detective.
As well take to kissing Bruce Davidson good-night, he told himself, and got himself out of the door on this thought.
The telephone was ringing as McLeish walked into his own flat, and he picked it up to find his Commander on the other end of the line.
' So I've arranged you 'll take a statement from Hawick tomorrow afternoon, then. '
' We haven't got the autopsy, sir, so I've no idea when the girl died, yet.
I 'll have to see him again when I do know.
Wouldn't he rather wait twenty-four hours? '
' He's a busy man.
Also he wants to talk to someone, he wants to make sure we're doing our job.
Don't give me a hard time, McLeish, just bloody do it. '
' Sir. '
' Don't be like that.
Take that gorgeous sergeant of yours, give Hawick something to look at. '
' She's been with me in Cambridge all day  I told her she could have Sunday off. '
' Then tell her different.
She with you? '
' No, sir.
I left her at her flat. '
' Your girl's due back when? '
McLeish raised his eyebrows, taken aback by the transparency of his superior's line of thought, and primly gave him Francesca's projected timetable.
' Glad to hear it.
Good luck with the Minister, and give me a ring afterwards.
I like to know where the bullets are coming from.
G'night. '
McLeish, shaking his head, rang Catherine and broke it to her apologetically that she would be required for the afternoon.
' Doesn't matter.
We  you  would have had to see him soon anyway.
Is the autopsy going to give us much idea when Angela Morgan died  I mean within a day or so? '
' Probably not, ' McLeish conceded.
He went to bed to dream uneasily, and woke early as he always did in the early stages of a case before he had got the machine working properly.
At tea-ti me the next day he picked up Catherine at her flat, noticing that she was looking rested and pretty even if he was feeling jaded and disaffected.
They were received in the Minister's private flat in one of the narrow streets close to the House of Commons.
McLeish remembered that this man's constituency was in Derbyshire.
They took a tiny, cramped lift to the top floor of the building and were admitted by Hawick, who was wearing an expensive blue-green sweater, and slacks, the clothes sitting easily on his long, slim frame, the dark hair beautifully cut, a little too long, flopping on his forehead.
Despite the elegance, it was a completely masculine presence, and he dominated the room as easily as he had his own office.
He was grim-faced and looked as if he had not slept, but he offered them freshly made coffee and raised a smile for Catherine.
He saw her comfortably established at a table  ' I know you 'll want to take notes'  and offered McLeish his choice of three big armchairs.
' I 'm not sure some of the upright ones will hold you, Chief Inspector, I sit on them very gingerly myself. '
Hawick chose a big chair by the fireplace in which a simulated coal fire burned merrily, emitting real warmth thanks to the gas which powered it.
' I'd prefer a proper fire, of course, but we made them illegal in this part of London some years ago. '
' We ', McLeish remembered from Francesca, did not necessarily mean this administration but must mean one of the same political persuasion.
Measures passed by those of a different political hue were described as the work of a ' previous government '.
A good room to be in, McLeish thought, with its high ceiling and the Sunday quiet of London, and what was obviously a copy of every Sunday paper published lying tidily on a side table.
' It comes with the job, ' Giles Hawick explained, following his eye.
' We read them all.
There is nothing yet about Angela in any of them. '
' No, sir.
We did not have a definite identification until late yesterday afternoon, in any case. '
' Poor Francis.
He rang me last night, very kindly, principally I think to assure me that there could be no doubt.
That it was Angela, I mean. '
' I 'm very sorry. '
' Were you there too?
Did you see Francis  Mr Morgan? '
' Yes, we were, although it was a Cambridge officer who broke the news because I didn't want any delay in case the Press got it.
We were actually with him when he made the identification, though. '
' I've been to that riding-stable  Angela's sister Jennifer and I went hacking one day when I stayed the weekend there.
It's an excellent stable  they produced a very good hunter for me once Jennifer had assured them I was safe.
I can't remember it all, but I think we rode along the old railway line. '
He bit his lip and looked into the remorseless, even flames.
' I was just following Jennifer's lead. '
' You only went once? '
' Twice.
Angela didn't ride, though she had done as a child.
I told you, I think, that I had met Jennifer first, some time ago. '
' Indeed. '
Well, it was interesting, McLeish thought gravely, making an unnecessary note, that Giles Hawick had admitted unprompted to the local knowledge necessary for disposing of Angela Morgan's body in that particular place.
But it had been the older sister he had gone there with, and had apparently abandoned in favour of the younger, more exciting girl.
He decided he wasn't going to get anywhere along those lines, or not yet, and went over again the details of when Hawick had last seen his fiance.
He found his account, as he would have expected, consistent, and considered the man carefully as he did so.
For all his ambition, Hawick was obviously a man of strong passions and, for McLeish's money, well capable of murder.
There was, however, no apparent motive, McLeish reminded himself, and he must not let his own uneasy conviction that Angela Morgan would have been more than capable of stirring up strong and complex emotions in those around her cloud his judgement.
Time to ask the obvious question.
' We're at a very early stage in all this, Minister, but can you think of anyone who would have wanted to harm Miss Morgan? '
' Yes. '
McLeish blinked at him, startled.
' Yes, I can think of one or two people who might have wanted to harm her, as you suggest.
None who might have carried that wish to the length of killing her.
I take it her death can not have been accidental? '
' Probably not, ' McLeish agreed, thinking of the misshapen skull.
' Who had reason to wish her ill, then? '
' She was left a large legacy by an ex-employer.
His niece, who is a little unbalanced, took this very badly, despite the fact she herself was a substantial legatee.
She certainly made threats against Angela and has bothered her recently.
This is a woman called Penelope Huntley.
I've never spoken to her myself but I know Angela had found it necessary to get her solicitor to write. '
McLeish made a note.
' We haven't been able yet to speak to Miss Morgan's solicitor, ' he observed.
' Do you know if she left a will? '
' Indeed she did.
We both made new wills last week, in expectation of marriage.
We each left the bulk of our estates to the other, with a couple of minor legacies  my old college and a couple of godchildren on my side, and her sister on hers. '
' Do you know what Miss Morgan's previous will provided? '
' No, I don't.
But that will, of course, is the only one that's valid.
We never married. '
The wide mouth twisted.
' So the wills we made last week are irrelevant. '
He looked suddenly tired and old, the deep lines in his face intensified.
' There were probably professional jealousies in Angela's life, too, ' he said, wearily, rubbing the patch between his eyebrows in a gesture McLeish recognized from his television appearances.
' You mean she could have run into trouble as a result of her professional activities? ' he asked, cautiously.
' I hope not.
I must say I was not totally happy about her going on at Yeo Davis, with me in the government.
But she was very reluctant to give it up and there is a precedent.
One of my Ministerial colleagues is married to a partner in a firm specializing in financial public relations where there are similar possibilities for conflict of interest. '
But maybe your Ministerial colleague isn't going right for the very top, McLeish thought with unreasonable conviction, and you were going to stop her working at Yeo Davis when you could.
He glanced up and found the cool blue eyes on him.
' That being said, anyone will tell you that a Minister of the Crown needs a wife capable of supporting him.
It's one of those jobs where the pay doesn't actually cover the cost of the lifestyle, and you can be out on you one day and the next.
But I think we would have tried to find her a job rather more removed from mine, over time. '
A very fair admission, McLeish thought admiringly, and made his standard speech about the need, if he might, to come back on various points as they occurred to him.
' Of course you must.
Just so long as you are not intending to ask me not to leave London.
I 'm in Newcastle tomorrow and the day after, and next week I have several days in Washington.
I have told you where I was already. '
He hesitated.
' I 'm assuming she was killed on the Saturday, of course, when she first went missing, as we now know.
I hope so.
I mean it would be worse if she had been  hurt  first. '
McLeish instantly understood the man's nightmare but realized he could give only qualified reassurance.
' She was probably killed by a blow on the head, Minister.
We have not had the autopsy result. '
' Can you let me know? '
' Certainly. '
He and Catherine took their leave and crammed themselves again into the rickety lift.
It was another windy, sunny day, the brilliant February sun which has no strength in it but still gives the reassurance that summer will come and a sun will shine with real warmth again.
Discarded papers blew in the narrow street as they walked back to the car.
' John, excuse me.
Are we allowed to tell people involved in the case what the autopsy result is? '
' If that one's a murderer he knows what happened.
If he isn't, it doesn't matter what he knows and he can go over my head any day he likes and make the Assistant Commissioner read him the whole report if he wants to.
No point me being difficult. '
He got a respectful sideways look, which he appreciated, and smiled down at her.
' Did you think he was a murderer, Catherine? '
' Well capable of it, if crossed, ' she said, promptly.
' But I can't see the motive. '
' What about if Angela Morgan was involved with another bloke and he found out? '
' Yes, then.
But not if he had time to think what it would do to his career. '
McLeish grinned.
' He's too ambitious.
He's one of these blokes where he comes number 1, 2 and 3, and anyone else comes nowhere. '
There was real feeling in this judgement, McLeish decided, and tried to imagine what kind of man had decided to relegate Catherine Crane to fourth place in his scheme of things.
In a windy, cold field in Cambridgeshire, green with winter wheat, half a mile away from where Angela Morgan's body had been found, a small man with a narrow, turned-down mouth sat smoking his twentieth cigarette of the day at the wheel of a Land Rover.
He arrived at a decision, threw the cigarette away, and turned towards a small depressing row of agricultural cottages.
He emerged two minutes later with a bulky small man, and the Land Rover turned on to the Cambridge road, making for the headquarters of the regional crime squad.
An hour later the phone rang in New Scotland Yard where John McLeish was sitting reading the scene-of-crime report.
' A what?
Yes, sorry, of course I've heard of ploughs.
My mind wasn't with you.
Standing there, was it?
Yes, I've got the scene-of-crime report, hang on  yes, deep tracks, evidently belonging to a tractor, plus other deep tracks, query agricultural machinery.
Well, you can't blame them, Sergeant, they're like me, not used to the country, real townees.
It was a plough, was it? '
He listened as the Cambridgeshire sergeant explained that the keeper on the shooting estate had realized he had seen the old plough there last week and had fetched the farmer in to explain where it had gone.
' He says he never saw a body when he moved it.
He was very unhappy at having to come out at all, but I think he ' s just pig-ignorant rather than involved.
Do you want me to send someone to look at the plough? '
' Have you seen it? '
' No.
I 'll go if I must, but we haven't got any forensic people here, it being Sunday.
I can get them out, of course. '
' No, I 'll send a couple of my blokes, as soon as I can.
Could you do us a real favour?
Make sure the vehicle is under cover so if there is anything on it, prints, whatever, that haven ' t already gone, we get them.
I mean, don't let the farmer clean it, or anything dead stupid. '
The sergeant at the other end said grimly that the bloke was quite thick enough to do just that, so due precautions would be taken.
' I 'll go myself in fact.
No, it's no bother, it's on my way home.
Give your blokes this number so they can arrange a visit, but I 'll have a quick look while I 'm there. '
John McLeish was feeling justifiably pleased with himself as he walked into his office at eight o'clock on Monday morning.
He had devoted Sunday evening to making a plan of action and knew exactly what he and everyone else he could press into service was going to be doing this morning.
His schedule for the day was organized, thanks to some brisk telephoning the night before, and he would have Catherine Crane at his side all day, and all the days until this case finished.
He arrived at his desk, squinted at the offering tucked into his blotter and sat down to read it properly: a short, sanctimonious newspaper piece on the temptation and pressures on the successful young, Tristram Wilson being mentioned, with many a crocodile tear, as one of the recent casualties.
It was presumably Bruce Davidson, who admired and was annoyed by Francesca in about equal measure, and therefore took an unremitting interest in all her activities, who had favoured him with this.
McLeish threw it away and methodically sorted his notes; he was not going near a top firm of solicitors without a very careful list of questions, and his first port of call that morning was to be Huttons, who had been Angela Morgan's solicitors.
He and Catherine were ushered into the presence of Mr Timothy Hutton, who was housed in outwardly featureless modern offices in one of the little streets off Ludgate Hill.
The view from the window featured a building site and a large collection of assorted earth-moving machinery and cranes, all displayed simultaneously.
Even through double glazing there was a dull, continuous background noise, and the huge modern windows were dusty in the February sun.
The furniture and fittings were ruthlessly modern, several steps beyond the conventional Scandinavian.
Mr Hutton's desk was a shaped piece of black wood with a single file on it, and the heavily bound books that covered one wall appeared to be held there by the power of faith, no shelves being visible.
The owner was also uncompromisingly twentieth-century, a man of much the same height and age as McLeish but built like a string bean, with brown, short-cut hair and fashionable heavy horn-rimmed spectacles.
He greeted them briskly and folded himself into a chair.
McLeish noted enviously that Mr Hutton was a vision of elegance in one of this year's broadly striped blue and white shirts: he had tried one on himself recently, and had been forced reluctantly to the conclusion that he looked like a bouncer for an East End club.
' Dreadful thing about Miss Morgan, ' Timothy Hutton said earnestly.
' We were all very shocked  I told my partners at prayers this morning.
Sorry, that's what we call the Monday morning meeting where we discuss what's going on.
How can I help you? '
' You can tell us, please, what Miss Morgan's property was and how her will distributes it.
I understand that you are her executor. '
' I am, yes.
With her father.
I've just looked it up.
I didn't, of course, expect to have to  not quite so soon. '
He opened the file and considered it, unhurriedly and unselfconsciously, and McLeish had a sudden vision of an older Mr Hutton in a tail-coat and wing collar behind this modern fa?ade.
' We have two wills on file, ' Timothy Hutton said, reaching the end of whatever internal debate he had been having, ' but the second, which was made in anticipation of her marriage to Mr Hawick, can not of course be submitted for Probate since that marriage did not take place.
So it's the first will she made  what?  eighteen months ago, which is valid. '
McLeish said promptly that he would need to know the contents of both wills as well as details of Miss Morgan's estate, and Timothy Hutton considered him carefully.
' Yes, I see you do, ' he agreed, ' and I 'm not here to make difficulties.
Look, I need to explain a bit of background.
Angela was very comfortably off.
Just over two years ago she benefited very considerably from the will of a chap called William Coombes, who was senior partner in one of the second-rank stockbrokers.
They do all right, those chaps, even after taxes.
She got about two hundred thousand and a life interest in another two hundred thou.
The family wanted to dispute the will, and that's when Angela  Miss Morgan  came to us for advice.
Well, Coombes was only sixty-two when he died  it was a heart attack, there was nothing wrong with his brains.
The family didn't have a leg to stand on and so I advised.
They caved in; I mean it was only a sister and a niece, and they'd both been provided for during his lifetime and the niece got a couple of hundred thou in his will.
But the niece was very bitter about it  I had to write a letter to her solicitors a year or so later because she'd been bothering Angela long after the estate was settled. '
McLeish thought his way through this one, drawing a diagram on the edge of his notes.
' Miss Morgan got some of it just for life?
Who gets it now, then? '
' The niece, the one I've been telling you about.
Penelope Huntley.
I can give you the address of her solicitors  Kenwards, two-partner firm in Kensington.
I 'll look for it.
Go on asking me things. '
' How old is Miss Huntley? '
' Same age as Angela.
I agree, she would not normally have expected the remainder to fall in and be useful to her, but of course if she had had children, it would have been valuable to them. '
' But if you were Penelope Huntley you might not have been consoled by the thought that your children would inherit after Miss Morgan's death. '
' No, I wouldn't.
Nor was she. '
' Sorry? '
' That's what she kept writing to Angela about.
Her lawyer had advised her that she could, by agreement with Angela, break the trust.
They're both  were both  well over twenty-one, and they could have made a deal which essentially bought out Angela's life interest for a capital sum and then Miss Huntley would have got the rest. '
McLeish thought that it seemed a reasonably sensible plan.
' Is that very difficult to do? ' he asked, cautiously.
' No.
It's a routine valuation exercise based on actuarial tables.
I don't think it would have done Miss Huntley a lot of good financially though, given that Angela was only twenty-nine and actuarially good for another forty years. '
McLeish considered him with pleasure.
His last interview with a solicitor had been conducted in a language barely recognizable as English and it had taken over three hours and a reference to the Chief Constable to elicit the fact that the deceased had made a previous will in which the respective positions of his wife and his mistress had been exactly reversed.
As McLeish had observed to a colleague at the ti me, he'd have understood the whole performance if the solicitor in question had been going to marry either of them, but there had been no question of that, it was just obfuscation for its own sake.
He decided, to make sure he had this clear.
' So Miss Morgan would have got the lion's share of the other two hundred thousand even if she had agreed to break up the trust?
Yes?
Then why did she not agree to it?
Or was she going to? '
Timothy Hutton stopped hunting in the file.
He spread both hands on the table in an aid to thought and McLeish noticed how long the fingers were.
' Sorry.
She wouldn't do it at the time, because she felt the whole issue ought to be allowed to settle down.
It was very difficult, you know  Miss Huntley was bitter and there was an extremely unpleasant scene in Kenwards's offices.
The partner there was terribly embarrassed, rang me up and apologized for hours afterwards, couldn't get him off the phone.
So Angela didn't want to get involved  she didn't need the capital, after all  and she said to me she might do it in a year or so when Miss Huntley had calmed down. '
He gazed at his hands, and visibly played this back to himself, then looked across at McLeish, and put his glasses on.
' Look, I 'm not saying Angela actually refused.
Sorry, I can hear how it sounds.
She said  or rather I did, to her solicitors  that she would consider it again in a year or so when everyone was calmer. '
McLeish flipped back through his notes.
Catherine was so quiet that she might as well not have been in the room and it occurred to him that he must train her to make some unobtrusive signal to him when she thought he was missing something.
' You said, Mr Hutton, that a letter had been written. '
Her cool voice, with the slight nasal edge of Stoke on Trent, came from behind him, and Timothy Hutton looked up sharply.
' Did I?
Well, yes, there was one.
Not to me, to Angela, but she showed it to me. '
His glance towards the file told them precisely where that letter was and McLeish asked for it promptly.
Hutton extracted it with every evidence of reluctance.
' Bit hysterical, ' he said, apologetically.
Yes, indeed, McLeish thought, working his way through the letter.
' Is this a copy? '
' No, no, it's the original.
That's how it came.
Penelope Huntley must have thought about it.
Not exactly guaranteed to encourage my client to do anything. '
' What did you do? '
' Wrote a snotty letter to the poor chap at Kenwards  I rang him up first, of course, he was embarrassed all over again  asking him to ask his client to leave mine alone.
I 'll get you a copy. '
He reached his hand for a bell, but Catherine's voice checked him.
' So, as matters stand, that 200,000 passes to Miss Huntley?
It doesn't matter what Miss Morgan's will says. '
' Yes, that's right.
It is part of William Coombes's estate and passes under his will. '
He looked at her carefully to see he had made himself clear, then resumed his search through the file.
' You wanted to know what was in Angela's will  the one we're going to prove, that is.
I 'll get you a copy, but it's absolutely straightforward.
It's left to her sister, after decent legacies for both parents and small ones to charity, and to her sister's children if the sister predeceases.
Sorry, irrelevant now, of course.
It's the sort of will young women without husbands or children do make.
The second one  the one she made a couple of weeks ago  i-s a bit more complicated, but not much.
Giles Hawick would have got 100,000 outright, her sister and various charities got small legacies, and the rest was to be in trust for children. '
' What if there weren't any? '
' Her sister Jennifer would have got it. '
' Let me see I have it right, ' McLeish said, after a pause.
' If she had married before she died, the sister would only have got a small legacy.
But Miss Huntley would still inherit 200,000 on Miss Morgan's death, whenever that happened. '
Timothy Hutton nodded and took his glasses off, and McLeish realized that he didn't actually need them.
' You haven't asked me what's in the estate, and I've got a list of assets here. '
He passed it over the table, and courteously got up to give Catherine a second copy.
The problem item appeared right at the bottom of the page, in what McLeish decided was characteristic legal style  you didn't hide it, you just put it last, after the long respectable list of 20,000
ICI loan stock, and 7,000 25p shares in Sainsbury.
' This is a loan of 100,000 to Yeo Davis?
Her employers? '
' Well, it's the amount she was asked to put up when she became a partner last year. '
' Is that usual? '
' Difficult to say. '
Timothy Hutton was looking uncomfortable and McLeish said that it just seemed a lot to him.
' I mean, I imagine a lot of people might have difficulty raising that much? '
' Yes and no.
She drew something like 30,000 from the partnership last year.
People can borrow on that.
But I did think it was a lot, and I tell you why: I can't really see what a group of professionals charging fees like that needs cash for.
When we started here we only put in about 100,000 between four of us, to keep us going till the fees came in, and that was more than enough.
And Yeo Davis charge a good deal more than we do, I can tell you.
In some sense Angela may have been paying for the assets  they had assets valued at 600,000 then, most of it in the lease on the building.
But you usually deal with that by giving new partners uneven shares.
Say the profits come out at 500,000, then senior partner gets 200,000, second partner 100,000 and so on.
It's not usual to make new partners put up a lot of cash. '
McLeish contemplated this and decided he would have to find out more about Yeo Davis's financial affairs.
' What happens to that loan now? '
It was Catherine again and McLeish was mildly irritated by the way she seemed to be ahead of him.
' I 'm looking at the partnership agreement now... trm, trm, trm, here we are  death in partnership  well, it dissolves the partnership, course it does, but what happens to the money?
Ah yes, the partnership has a year to give it back.
I remember saying this was a bit leisurely, wasn't it, but there was some apparently reasonable explanation, like no one gave any notice that they were going to die and the partnership could be a bit pushed to produce the cash if it was the wrong time of year.
And of course none of us were particularly exercised about death as a real possibility.
As executor, I 'll ask for it back formally, but I won't hold my breath.
It's interest-free, so I'd expect to get it in eleven months and twenty-nine days from giving notice. '
The phone rang and Hutton picked it up, glancing at his watch.
' Yes, yes I know.
I 'll be along as soon as I can... what, five minutes? '
He looked enquiringly at McLeish.
' Fine. '
He banged the phone down briskly and sat, clearly working out what else he could offer to get them to go.
Amused, McLeish said that he would be happy to wait in an outer office for copies of the various documents, or to have them sent on.
' What would happen if anyone just wanted to get out of the partnership  I mean, without a death being involved? '
McLeish asked, as they stood up.
' Six months' notice, both ways, and any loans repaid within that period.
Pretty much a standard period.
Lots of provisions against stealing clients subsequently, of course. '
As Timothy Hutton's attention was openly on whatever his next problem was, McLeish decided to leave, and to extract anything else he needed from the documents.
He did now at least know roughly what was in them.
In the event, they went back to Scotland Yard so that McLeish could get to a phone and check with his secretary, and with Bruce Davidson, who was co-ordinating the evidence as it came in.
' Forensic rang, ' Bruce reported dourly.
' The autopsy report is on its way, so they say, usual rubbish about typing difficulties.
He wanted to speak to you but I said you had a string of interviews, so he coughed up to me, nae bother.
Killed by a bang on the head from behind, massive bleeding inside the brain.
Small contusion on the right cheek as well.
He went on a while about the various tests but where he came out was that she'd been dead for at least five days, and seven was perfectly possible.
Nae bloody use at all. '
McLeish silently agreed with that judgement.
That left at least forty-eight hours from Angela Morgan's disappearance when, as far as the forensic evidence went, she could have been alive.
It was in his experience difficult for most people to prove conclusively exactly where they had been for any forty-eight-hour period, members of the Metropolitan police force always excepted, and this was going to make his life very difficult.
' You find anything useful from the scene-of-crime report?
I never got beyond page two this morning. '
' Not a thing.
No weapon, no footprints, no fingerprints, all the bits of fibre caught on bushes came from the deceased's clothes. '
' A clever one.
Car tracks? '
' Yes. '
' What do you mean, yes? '
' Lots of them.
Traces of at least a dozen different cars up that wee track that leads back to the road, and of two or three heavy vehicles, all very deeply indented.
The lads tell me it's a shooting estate  likely that's where people leave their cars. '
' Oh Christ. '
' Well, someone knew that, didn't they, John? '
' Yes.
Yes, of course they did.
We have got a clever one here.
I 'll be in later, after six.
Hang on. '
He picked up his phone to find the Cambridgeshire sergeant to whom he had spoken the day before on the line.
' I only didn't ring last night because I couldn't find you, sir.
Your blokes are on their way, but there are definitely bits of blood and hair on one of the metal parts of this thing  the truss, the bloke here says.
Could she have fallen on it? '
' Jesus Christ.
Well done, Sergeant, thank you very much.
You haven't touched it  no, sorry, course you haven't.
I take it it's not something a murderer could pick up?
No, I thought not. '
The voice at the other end warmed.
' I was surprised too, sir, you know.
I only looked for the sake of form.
I took a picture last night and put a plastic bag on and told the farmer we weren't going to put him in jail here and now.
He can account for his movements, as it happens.
He was in Northumberland with the wife's mother for ten days, only got back three days ago.
Well, she's been dead longer than that, hasn't she? '
' He still around? '
' Yes, that's the point.
He's a bit upset, and he doesn't need to be.
I 'll tell him  I think that's your blokes now, I 'll get them to ring you. '
McLeish put down the phone, heavily.
' She fell back on it, assuming it's her blood. '
' Accident? '
Bruce Davidson said, and McLeish gave it thought.
' No.
How did she get there?
There must have been someone else around.
Unless she crawled to the edge of the embankment  I suppose it's possible, but she can't have walked to the spot in the first place. '
He gazed at his subordinate.
' This is silly.
We 'll wait for the lads up there to tell us about the blood and we 'll read the autopsy report.
What else can we do while we ' re waiting? '
' One of the appointments we found in Miss Morgan's diary was with a Miss Huntley.
She was due to have lunch with Miss Morgan last week apparently  she is on the phone, I looked.
Didn't want to talk to me, so I told her she'd have to wait. '
Miss Huntley?
McLeish thought.
Ah yes, the hysterical Penelope, niece of the late William Coombes.
' Now, her I do want to see.
Fix a date for tomorrow, Bruce.
Anything else? '
' Aye, a wee message from one of Francesca's young men at the Department.
She's been delayed  she doesn't think she 'll get back to London until Thursday, now.
Sorry to bring you more bad news. '
McLeish grunted, feeling meanly triumphant that he had turned out to be right in his view that Francesca would not be able to sweep Tristram out of the hands of the New York police in quite the Napoleonic way she had assumed.
And he had been perfectly justified, he assured himself smugly, in cancelling their holiday plans at once  she had never been going to get back on time.
Feeling vindicated and far-seeing, he strode off to collect Catherine and finish his coffee.
Over at the Department of Trade and Industry the news that Francesca would not be back before Thursday morning was being received with open dismay.
Bill Westland CB, MC, the fifty-five-year-old Deputy Secretary responsible for both personnel matters and regional policy, cursed heartily.
He summoned his junior, Rajiv Sengupta, a rising star of thirty-six who had the job of co-ordinating financial assistance to industry in the regions, to worry with him.
He derived some comfort from Rajiv's habitual elegance; wearing a suit, shirt and tie that must have cost two months of his salary as an Assistant Under-Secretary of State, he was sitting at the other side of the large, uncompromising desk that the Department provides for its most senior officials, not a hair out of place and his black eyes alive with amusement.
' What are we going to do with Professor Thornton tomorrow? '
Bill Westland appealed, hopelessly.
' You and I and Henry will be with the Minister at the Select Committee all afternoon, and we 'll have to be on call to brief all morning.
I was depending on Francesca to look after Thornton, and give him lunch and introduce him around, since she 'll be working with him. '
' Why is Francesca delayed? '
Rajiv asked.
' Some problem with the New York legal system.
Or she's staying to thank O'Brien personally  I really don't know. '
' You don't seem to have much control of your god-daughter. '
' None whatsoever, as well you know, Rajiv.
You're no use either, and you taught her for three years at Cambridge.
Never mind that: at ten o'clock tomorrow we have Professor Thornton, distinguished economist, Oxford don and friend of the Prime Minister, here for five weeks to do a study on how effective regional assistance is, and we have no one to meet him.
Now what do we do? '
' Send him to a regional office? '
Rajiv offered.
' Without someone from here to look after him?
Heaven forbid. '
' Give him to the Chief Statistician? '
' To Gerhard?
Even if we get him to comb his hair, it 'll be too much of a shock for Professor Thornton. '
' Oh come now, Bill, Oxford senior common rooms are full of people quite as untidy and generally as odd as Gerhard.
Last ti me I dined at Balliol I sat next to the Regius Professor of Chemistry, aged around 193, who told me about his visit to Egypt before the war, probably the Boer War.
His teeth didn't fit awfully well, so I couldn't be sure.
Gerhard is at least intelligible. '
Bill Westland, grinned, sidetracked.
' You know the story about Gerhard, looking as he usually does, standing on the steps of Horseguards after a Cabinet Committee, when a kindly person sidled up to him and gave him a quid to buy himself breakfast? '
' I have always assumed it to be apocryphal. '
' Not at all, dear boy, I was there.
Gerhard thought it a charming example of English eccentricity and placed the quid tenderly in the mince-stained pocket of whatever Oxfam-reject he was wearing.
I suppose it's not a bad idea to get him to entertain Thornton. '
He seized the telephone, and, ruthlessly disrupting Sir Gerhard's morning, imposed a guest on him for lunch.
' In the afternoon the good Professor Thornton can come and watch us and the Minister defending the assistance given to Willis Engineering, ' Rajiv pointed out, eyes bright with malice, and Bill Westland winced.
' It is, of course, precisely what he ought to be seeing, ' he agreed, reluctantly.
' As an expos of the soft underbelly of our policy on regional assistance, Willis Engineering has no equal.
I suppose so, Rajiv, I suppose so, but he is not to come to the briefing.
Then what? '
' Well, by Wednesday I 'm clear of the Committee, and I could take him to a Regional Office.
If I must. '
' Yes, you must, but not Birmingham.
After last week's announcement that its development-area status is being removed, the staff are all cowering under their desks while the population throw bricks through the windows.
What about Manchester  virtually everyone there has applied for selective financial assistance?
Can you keep him there overnight?
Good, then Francesca can do the honours from Thursday and work for him thereafter.
She's got the troops and it's right up her street, she can get on with anyone. '
' What age of man is he? '
' Mm, hang on.
Fifty-two, married to an American, four children but three are steps, girls; his own boy is only eight.
Fellow of Balliol, went to Harvard in his late thirties, came back five years ago.
Lots and lots of long, distinguished, incomprehensible books on econometrics. '
' Frannie's maths was never any good, ' Rajiv warned.
' This may be beyond her. '
' She 'll find a way, ' her godfather said, with perfect confidence.
' I just wish she was here now.
I've got enough to worry about without Professor Thornton. '
Interesting that the offices of Yeo Davis should be very much less at the leading edge of modern design than the solicitors' which they had just seen, McLeish thought, and murmured as much to Catherine Crane, who laughed.
' It's like all the Italian restaurants used to be, isn't it?
Lots of black and white tiles and plants and arches. '
McLeish was considering the possible relationship between design and organizational style when Peter Yeo himself came down to fetch them.
' Nice to meet you, Chief Inspector, ' he said with automatic politeness, then considered what he had just said, decided it was beyond explanation and led them upstairs to his office.
This echoed the prevailing Italian-restaurant theme, except for the large comfortable mahogany desk which featured reassuring and recognizable objects like drawers and blotters.
Peter Yeo himself was an old-fashioned and recognizable object, McLeish thought, seeing him against the rapidly fading light from the window.
It had been Bruce Davidson who had interviewed Yeo before, when Angela Morgan had still been officially only a Missing Person and Peter Yeo, as her employer, one of the obvious people to talk to about where she might be.
He considered him as he caused coffee to be produced and established them at the big table at the other end of his room.
Given a choice, you would have taken him rather than Timothy Hutton for a solicitor.
With his conventional double-breasted suit, carefully cut to disguise a distinctly stocky figure, and his watchful courtesy he was in sharp contrast to Hutton's hard-edged efficiency.
The difference was partly generational; this man must be ten years older than Hutton.
The real distinction however, McLeish thought in a flash of revelation, lay in their clients' expectations.
Yeo Davis's business was concerned with representing people who did not know the ropes, or even that there were any ropes; Hutton's predominantly with fellow professionals in other fields who just wanted the best and swiftest way through.
So Peter Yeo had to look reassuring and solid and a bit older, while Timothy Hutton could probably have come to work in striped organza without losing a single client.
He abandoned this line of observation and looked carefully at the man inside the suit.
The impression of suppressed energy which he had received as he arrived was intensified; Peter Yeo could barely sit still and was discharging tension by moving papers on his desk, then fiddling with the Venetian blinds to prevent the sun from shining in Catherine's eyes.
The bright blue eyes looked a bit bloodshot, and there was a flush of colour across the cheekbones.
Yeo rubbed the back of his neck irritably, and reached for his coffee, downing two cups while McLeish and Catherine Crane were still passing each other milk and sugar.
A thick weekend, McLeish decided, trying to think how best to establish what Yeo's relationship had been with the dead girl.
He started, as he had intended, from where the last interview had left off and went quickly over the ground again.
' Last Friday, yes, ten days ago, was the last time I saw her, ' Yeo confirmed.
' Around five o'clock  she left early because she was meeting Giles.
Giles Hawick, yes.
She was spending the night with him before he went off for a walking weekend in Derbyshire.
She didn't want to go with him because she had too much to do, what with the wedding.
As I told you, I didn't particularly take in her plans for the weekend, you know how one doesn't, one just asks to be civil and doesn't listen properly to the answer. '
He met McLeish's eye and blinked.
' That must sound remarkably silly to a policeman.
Sorry, I 'm afraid I 'm still baffled by all this.
What on earth can have happened?
I understand she was found not all that far from her parents' house?
But she wasn't planning to go to her parents  I know because I rang them on Tuesday when she still hadn't turned up. '
' I wondered if she might have come into the office on the Saturday? '
' Not while I was here.
I was in... oh, from about ten o'clock to well after lunch, and I wouldn't have thought she would come in late in the afternoon.
I mean, it's not a bad idea, Chief Inspector.
She often was in on Saturday.
We own the building and all the partners have keys, so unless someone else was here she could have been in and out without anyone noticing. '
' I see.
You left at what time? '
' Well, about three.
I was going to have lunch with a client but it got cancelled, so I just stayed here.
There's a kitchen here, we have a girl who comes in and cooks lunch during the week and there's always cheese and things around.
I killed a rather good bottle of Fleurie, as I remember it.
I went to the flicks  I wanted to see Some Like It Hot for about the tenth time and it was being revived at Baker Street.
I knew my wife didn't want to see it at all.
Then I came back here to change, before I joined my wife at a dinner party.
Angie wasn't here then, either. '
' What about Sunday?
Did you go to the office? '
' No, I didn't.
We spent the day with friends. '
That left a large space of time on Saturday where there was little possibility of establishing that Peter Yeo had been where he said he was.
But the man himself seemed to be unconcerned about this.
' One or other of my partners is usually in the office on a Saturday.
It happened that none of them were, last week.
In fact it's so regular that Fiona  that's the girl who does our weekday lunches  is under instructions to leave something we can eat for Saturday lunch. '
' Do you tell her how many are likely to be here? '
Catherine had decided to ask a question.
Yeo thought about it.
' Depends  I mean, if I knew I had a team coming of course I'd tell her.
But otherwise I just reckon there will be something around  or if the locusts have been at the fridge, well, I can always go out. '
' Can you remember what you ate? '
Peter Yeo considered her, as the reason for her question sank in.
' Actually I can.
I had an enormous slice of quiche that was left over from Friday.
I felt afterwards it would have been better not to make such an effort to finish it all.
Fiona will probably remember. '
He sounded mildly offended but not in the slightest bit rattled.
' I think Some Like It Hot started around three-thirty but I can't quite remember.
I walked down  it's not far, and I was feeling rather full of quiche. '
That will check, McLeish thought, of course it will, someone just has to do it all.
That means at some stage we may have to see Mrs Yeo.
In fact, he decided, he would be interested to see a wife who accepted with such apparent equanimity her husband's absence on a Saturday.
Presumably, however, the senior partner in Yeo Davis was hardly needed to do the odd household chore.
Which brought him to consider the Yeo Davis partnership; how did it work?
How important to it had Angela Morgan been?
He decided to start as softly as possible.
' Groups like yours are a bit outside my experience, ' he confided, ' and I need to understand a bit about what Miss Morgan did for a living.
Could you tell me, perhaps with an example? '
He observed from the way peter Yeo gathered himself and sat up straight that he was on familiar territory, and understood further that the general patter was well rehearsed.
It was, for obvious reasons, a great deal less incisive than Francesca's summary, but the same skeleton was recognizable under the attractive padding placed round it by Peter Yeo.
Much emphasis was put on the importance of identifying the key decision-takers and making sure that they had the right information  much was made of the necessity of their getting a balanced picture on which to take their decisions.
' Ours is not unlike the job of a good barrister, ' Peter Yeo observed, reaching a peroration.
' We try to make sure the judge has all the facts before arriving at a decision.
Mostly we do this by ensuring that our client gets to talk to the decision-takers.
There is no point at all in my talking to those people, except on a preliminary basis; they're not that interested in my views.
I do the background briefing but the clients have to do most of the work, and so I always tell them. '
McLeish decided this was good stuff from which, but for Francesca, he would have gained no clear idea of what a firm like Yeo's was really for.
' So you would, for instance, have lunch with people in government departments to talk to them about particular policies. '
' Yes, often that is the best way to start.
We've got a lot of friends whom we can talk to about a policy generally, and where we can put a word in.
Let me try and think of an example that isn't confidential.
Yes.
One of our clients is Andy Barton, who runs the biggest textile group in the north-west.
Well, the DTI is at this moment considering giving money to keep Huerter, one of his main rivals, going.
A Conservative government, if you believe their manifesto, ought not even to be considering putting money into dying private-sector firms, but Huerter employ a lot of people, many of whom voted for this government.
One of the last things Angela did was to have lunch with an old schoolfriend in the DTI who is responsible for the Huerter case, to make sure the DTI understood the impact of such assistance on Barton's operations. '
' And did it? '
McLeish asked.
' Oh yes, but Angela was clear that the civil servants were going nonetheless to recommend assisting Huerter.
They've been rescuing companies for so long they do it automatically now, I expect.
So that told us that we had better get a full-scale defence working immediately. '
McLeish, who had understood from Francesca's report of her lunch that she and her seniors were indeed going to push for assistance, was amused to hear that she had not succeeded in disguising her intentions from Miss Morgan.
' Can you tell me what you are going to advise your client now?
I mean, what is a full-scale defence? '
' Ah, well it varies.
I've got Andy Barton in to see the Minister responsible at the DTI.
I 'm keeping the Secretary of State  that's the top man  in reserve.
And, of course, we are arranging to brief Treasury people, who will automatically be opposed to giving away public money; and we are working with the company on a memorandum on what assistance to Huerter would do to Barton, with a two-page bullet-point summary.
Politicians don't have time to read screeds, so you have to give them short, pithy things to look at, We were doing all this anyway, of course, but the chaps at Barton, including Andy, are working on it much more effectively since we were able to say definitely that the DTI civil servants were agin them.
These chaps, good blokes who've spent all their lives running businesses, believed the government manifesto and thought that if they shouted loud enough in the local paper, Whitehall would crumble and right would prevail.
It's a bit more difficult than that. '
That lunch had, in fact, given a considerable spur to a campaign being waged against the policy Francesca and her colleagues wanted, McLeish observed.
The point of Yeo Davis was now clear: they were there to inform, inspire, and orchestrate a client's efforts to get what he wanted, as efficiently as possible.
' I've read about people giving MPs expensive lunches, ' he said, with interest.
' Waste of time, ' Peter Yeo said briskly.
' The good ones don't have time for long drunken lunches, and you get better results by getting them to give you and the client a sandwich in a bar at six p.m.
The ones you can get for lunch  there are plenty  will likely forget every word you tell them, and they certainly don't feel obliged to help. '
He caught McLeish's eye.
' Sorry, but the fact is the average backbench MP doesn't know anything, unlike the average civil servant who really does know about his or her particular area.
It's only worth using MPs to have a go at the government, and then you spoon-feed it to them. '
The man had come to life very considerably in discussing his job and a formidable personality was emerging.
McLeish decided he would have to abandon any prejudice taken from Francesca about this trade; Peter Yeo knew his business and was obviously effective.
And it was a good thing Yeo Davis existed; McLeish himself had often been quietly riled by the intellectual scorn which Francesca and her colleagues would bring to bear on criticism of some of their more sweeping policies.
It might well have been necessary to invent Yeo Davis if they hadn't already existed.
He reminded himself that he was talking to the inventor of the firm and decided to prod a bit further.
' How long have you been in this field? '
' I've spent all my life in general PR, but it was about eight years ago I decided that there was room for a specialist agency, not really a PR firm, which was concerned entirely with government relations.
Government in the widest sense, including our masters in Brussels.
I have   had  four partners, and we have another twenty people working for us. '
McLeish glanced at the clock on Yeo's desk and saw that he was running behind ti me, as tended to happen at this stage in an investigation when you needed to be in six places at once.
He considered his notes; what he needed from this interview was to confirm that Angela Morgan had not been in the office on Saturday, and a statement of Peter Yeo's movements over the period within which Angela Morgan had probably been killed.
He also did need to understand the financial side.
' Was Miss Morgan about the same age as the rest of your partners? '
' No, no, she was the youngest by a good five years.
She is  was  outstandingly able, that's why I asked her to join us. '
McLeish noted the absence of reference to the other partners.
Yeo Davis, evidently, c'est moi as far as Peter Yeo was concerned.
' I'd like to confirm what the financial arrangements were.
I mean how much did she get paid, and how much capital was she asked to put up, that sort of thing. '
' Yes, I suppose you do.
Well, you understand about partnerships, do you?
None of the partners here is actually entitled to a salary; in theory we split the profits in accordance with a formula that we fix annually and that takes account of age, and experience and what people are contributing in terms of work or clients.
As a matter of practice, and because we've all got to live, we all draw about two-thirds of what we would have got last year as we go along, then share out the rest at the end of the year. '
McLeish contemplated this system and its possible application to the Metropolitan police force and felt imagination boggle.
He himself would have been desperately pushed if he had had to manage on two-thirds of his salary until Christmas every year.
A moment's thought told him that this system worked only because two-thirds of the expected total of a Yeo Davis partnership came out at an amount well in excess of his salary, or that of any public servant of his age.
He asked what Angela Morgan had been drawing on every month and found his belief confirmed.
Christmas must be worth having at Yeo Davis.
' What about tax? ' he asked, still considering the mechanics of the system.
' All partners are technically self-employed but in order to prevent them from getting into a frightful mess we deduct a percentage from their drawings, so there is something put aside for tax.
I'd have to say it's a great deal lower percentage than most employed people pay because there are all sorts of expenses a partnership can claim.
If we seem to have got it wrong, we sort it out when we divvy up the profit. '
McLeish made a conscientious note, feeling that he had got himself sidetracked off the more interesting question of Angela Morgan's capital investment in Yeo Davis.
Finding no way other than the direct question, he put it, and watched Yeo, unruffled, confirm that she had indeed put up 100,000.
' The rest of us had put up much the same, given that we had done it earlier, ' he assured McLeish.
' It seems a lot, but we have employees, I can tell you, below partner level, who would be prepared to mortgage their children to get a partnership here.
And Angela didn't need to borrow  I imagine you've talked to her solicitors?
Well then, you know that she was pretty well placed. '
' I didn't know that a business like this needed much working capital? '
McLeish said, in faithful imitation of Timothy Hutton.
' Oh, you'd be surprised.
We live off fees, of course, but they can be slow coming in.
And this is a short lease here  we have to provide for buying something or paying a hell of a lot more rent.
No, that sort of money is needed, believe me. '
McLeish, who had a built-in prejudice, well supported by experience, against statements incorporating an appeal to belief, noted dourly that he might at some later stage need to get closer to Yeo Davis's accounts.
That could wait, and he would possibly talk to Timothy Hutton again first.
He wound up the interview and was rising to say goodbye when Catherine, sounding shy, asked Peter Yeo if she could possibly use their ladies' room.
' Of course, of course. '
Peter Yeo was obviously delighted to do any service, however modest, for her and bustled her away, returning belatedly to ask McLeish if he would like a similar facility, which he accepted, obedient to the unwritten CID rule that you looked after your physical needs at any moment that opportunity offered, because you never knew when you were going to get stuck for hours without help.
He waited what seemed to him rather an excessive ti me for Catherine, but decided, charitably, that you couldn't look as she did without pretty regular attention to the overall effect.
They were in the car, preparing to drive off, before she spoke.
' There's a nice little flatlet on the second floor.
Bathroom, bedroom with double bed, kitchen off.
I thought there might be. '
He looked at her sideways; she sounded both smug and irritated.
' You think it's misused regularly? '
' I'd put money on it. '
The response was so swift and unhesitating that McLeish was taken aback, and drove much too close to the car in front.
' Sorry.
You thought he was that kind of bloke? '
She was silent, and pink across the cheekbones  and McLeish, who like all good policemen depended heavily on intuition, understood suddenly that experience was speaking here.
She laughed shortly, obviously annoyed with herself but determined to make her point.
' Well, let's say that I've heard of married blokes who always had to go to the office on Saturdays, and it usually wasn't office work they were doing.
It sounds all right, and if the wife gets suspicious and rings up, well he's there, isn't he? '
' Not so good if the wife decides to drop in, ' McLeish offered, with interest.
' Well, you have to keep the office door locked on a Saturday, don't you?
So you've got warning, ' she said dismissively, and McLeish let himself, briefly, wonder who the bloke had been who had introduced Catherine to this experience.
He abandoned speculation firmly and concentrated on the implications for the present case, since he was plainly being offered expert testimony.
' Could be that any of the other partners used it? ' he suggested.
' The place isn't run like that.
Mr Yeo is the boss, isn't he? '
So she too had observed Yeo's imperial command of the partnership.
' No, I agree.
So he was maybe with a girl on that Saturday? '
' Maybe.
I was wondering about him and Miss Morgan.
I mean, he likes women, and she operated by sleeping with the boss. '
McLeish found himself shocked by this piece of feminine sharpness and must have registered something because his sergeant blushed.
' I don't mean that like it sounds  she didn't do it to get on, or not like that. '
Her hands moved, in frustration as she tried to explain.
' I think she might have done it as a quick way of finding out how the business worked.
Because she was obviously both clever and ambitious. '
' Mm. '
McLeish found himself receiving this with reluctance and wondered why, since it made sense.
He glanced at her, being taken aback to find her looking strained and as near plain as anyone with her looks was going to.
Her profile was very sharp against the gathering darkness.
' What is it, love? ' he asked, anxiously, falling into a term of his childhood, and she jumped.
' Sorry, I'd drifted off.
I was wondering about Peter Yeo.
Suppose they had been having an affair, and she'd dropped him? '
McLeish considered this.
' When she met Giles Hawick? '
' Well, that's possible, isn't it?
If you remember, Hawick said  and he's not silly  that there was someone else on the scene when he first asked her out.
Perhaps it was Mr Yeo?
And she decided Hawick was the better bet, particularly since he wasn't married. '
McLeish pondered this, eyes narrowed, driving fast but carefully.
' Perhaps there isn't all that much fun in going around with a married bloke, after all? '
' She could still have wanted him but got tired of waiting  decided he wasn't going to leave his wife. '
Catherine was sounding tough and rational, but something in her voice made him feel this whole discussion was uncomfortable for her.
He sneaked a look at her, and found he had an excellent view of the back of her head; she was staring out of the passenger window at the darkening vista of St James's Park.
He looked again, cautiously, and saw that she was blindly extracting a crumpled paper handkerchief from her neat navy bag.
He waited thirty seconds before glancing sideways again, and found her dabbing at her face, trying hard not to sniff.
He flicked up the left-hand indicator and stopped the car.
' I need some tea and I've got a thermos here, ' he announced, getting out of the car without looking at her and opening the back door on his side to find the thermos which he had filled before starting off.
He got the top off and a cup poured before lowering himself gingerly back into the driving seat and passing it over to Catherine.
Then he glanced quickly at her.
It was nearly dark outside but the dashboard lights cast a faint greenish glow.
She was still sitting with her head partly averted, so her face was hidden.
He poured himself a cup of tea and drank it, selfconsciously, very aware of her sitting tensely beside him.
' Thank you, John.
That was nice. '
Catherine sounded suddenly exhausted, and as she gave him back the cup she turned towards him, letting him see that she had been crying, but without looking him in the face.
Looking down at the curve of her cheekbone, still wet with tears, he suddenly wanted her, quite overwhelmingly.
He sat frozen in his seat by surprise, so blocked by his own consideration of duty, honour and the right way to behave to junior staff that in the end it was she who moved towards him, and touched his cheek.
He slid his cheek against hers and, moving with delicious deliberate slowness, he kissed her on the lips.
The sheer pleasure of it swept him up and it was a full minute before he pulled back and looked at her, amazed at how happy he felt.
' Jesus, Catherine.
Another minute and I 'll be inviting you into the back of the car. '
He watched her smile, happy and comfortable with him, secure in the pleasure they shared.
' If you like, or we could go back to my flat? '
For McLeish the rest of the journey had the quality of a dream.
With one part of his mind he knew he was getting the benefit of the backlash from an experience in Catherine's past, but with another part he didn't care about any of that, there was no reality beyond her.
The feeling of dream-like ease persisted when they arrived at Catherine's flat.
He opened the car door for her, hugged her as she got out, and they went up to her flat, his arm round her shoulders.
He took off her clothes for her, while she undid as many of his buttons as she could, and after that it was pure, undiluted, uncomplicated pleasure until they fell asleep in each other's arms.
Either Bruce Davidson always sounded like a Speak Your Weight machine when he was delivering a prepared statement, or the answer-phone stripped all character from People's voices.
McLeish had rung his own flat to collect messages; he could see Catherine just waking, and waved to her to indicate that he was on the phone.
He realized that he was getting cold, clad as he was exclusively in a rather small towel, but decided to stick it out and pick up all of Davidson's message.
There were two key pieces.
The first was the news from Cambridge: the samples of blood and hair collected by his long-suffering team were confirmed as a match to the dead girl 's.
The indentation in her skull also matched.
She had either fallen or been pushed on to a spike on the plough; the level of her blood alcohol gave some credence to the idea that she had fallen.
The doctor who had done the autopsy, however, had scouted, promptly, any suggestion that she could have moved thereafter.
She had died instantaneously, or pretty nearly so, without first getting up and crawling down the embankment, or for that matter getting up and riding a bicycle.
Someone had thus moved the body, and it had to be assumed that it was the same person who had pushed her on to the plough.
' Doc says the best bet, given the mark on her cheek is that someone slapped her one and she fell back.
He 'll put it in writing tomorrow, ' Davidson summarized succinctly.
The second key piece of information was that Angela Morgan's car had been found in North Kensington, not far from her flat, and was now cordoned off and being crawled over inch by inch by a forensic team hastily dispatched by Davidson.
Did McLeish want to come and see it, in situ, because they would have to move it when Forensic had finished?
A detailed inventory of Bruce's day followed, and McLeish understood that having Catherine Crane working on this case had rattled Bruce in several ways.
Right at the end, as McLeish's teeth were starting to chatter, Davidson confirmed that Penelope Huntley would meet him at eight next morning and he hoped that that wasn't too early, sorry, but the lass had been difficult to tie down to a time.
McLeish glanced again at his watch  eleven-thirty p.m.
Just as well someone had rung Catherine half an hour ago, or they'd both still have been asleep, and he would have had difficult questions to answer in the morning about why he had been, uncharacteristically, out of touch with everyone since leaving Yeo Davis at six.
He rang Davidson to confirm that he could make the eight a. m. appointment.
' We have a date at eight o'clock, ' he said redundantly to Catherine.
' I heard.
I've put the heating on.
Why don't you have a bath, you're cold? '
' I ' d like that.
They've found her car, too  I 'll have to go and look at it before they take it away. '
' I 'll come with you. '
He hesitated.
' Nothing I'd like better.
But they're all going to wonder why I dragged you along at this time of night.
I mean, what have we been doing? '
Catherine looked downcast, and McLeish felt uneasy.
' Sweet, it's you I 'm trying to protect. '
' And yourself. '
McLeish acknowledged the point promptly.
' Both of us need protecting.
Old Stevenson would go spare if he knew, and I 'm not certain whether he'd try and get me moved as a danger to junior staff, or you moved as a wicked woman.
But he'd shift one of us.
His staff do not have private lives and certainly not with each other. '
She looked at him carefully; wrapped in a sheet, with her blond curly hair ruffled, she looked like an advertisement for almost anything.
' Sorry, you're right, ' she said.
' It would be me he'd try and shift, too.
He's not got much of a reputation as a feminist. '
' The Met's a bit short of those, ' McLeish agreed.
' Look, you get some sleep.
I 'll go and see the car and get back to my flat, and I 'll pick you up at seven-thirty tomorrow.
All right? '
' You'd like to get home? '
She was perfectly secure in her own attractions and amused, and McLeish was disconcerted.
' No, I mean... no.
I just thought you wouldn't want to be woken up again. '
' I don't mind being woken up. '
He found himself avoiding the street in which Francesca lived as he drove for North Kensington, calling ahead on his car phone to make sure that the forensic team was still there.
He arrived to find them just finishing and asked hopefully if any prints had been found.
' No prints on the steering-wheel or any of the doors.
Somebody's been over it with a duster.
They probably wore gloves, too.
We've got some smudges but that's not a lot of use. '
McLeish left them to it and walked away to consider exactly where he was.
It was a cul-de-sac off Ladbroke Grove, with two restaurants and two large pubs at the top of it.
The pub was orthodoxly darkened and shuttered, but a few diners were still left in the restaurants.
It was a road on the way up, this Malplaquet Terrace, as McLeish, a Londoner by adoption, observed.
The two large pubs, the little Indian grocer, and the shabby peeling premises which offered dry-cleaning were relics of an earlier era, but both restaurants, on the other hand, were new and forbiddingly smart.
One was Italian, one French; both were separated from the street by extensive terraces and were distinctly expensive.
He peered at the menu displayed with accompanying admiring press comment outside the Trattoria San Giorgio, and decided you'd be lucky to get out of there under 20 a head.
La Bretagne looked even pricier.
Next to these was a small antique shop, window lights on even at this hour, displaying elegant white china dogs and small pieces of Victorian furniture, and next to that an estate agent.
It would only be a matter of ti me before the pubs, the little grocer and the dry-cleaner's were replaced by some establishment selling something on which an enormous mark-up could be obtained.
As he walked back down the cul-de-sac McLeish found a demarcation line, so precise it might have been achieved by running a tape across the road, where the commercial element stopped and flat-fronted, early Victorian terraced houses, took over.
Further down yet, the terracing ceased and became pairs of large semi-detached houses set well back from the road with the front gardens mostly paved and dedicated to parking space.
It was possible to see the same sort of divide as at the commercial end: every second house had been restored and repainted, with extensions sprouting in the gaps between them.
Most of the others seemed to be in the process of renovation.
McLeish counted, out of interest, ten separate sets of scaffolding.
People would still be living here who had been in residence since before the war and were holding on to controlled tenancies until dislodged by offers of cash or other accommodation, but they would not be there much longer.
He had arrived back beside Angela Morgan's car, and stopped to contemplate it.
A blue BMW, neat but not gaudy, not souped-up, but a fast, useful car.
On her money she could well have afforded something grander, like a Porsche, but evidently she had decided against ostentation.
It was the sort of car that a successful young man bought for himself, not a woman's car in the generally used sense of the phrase, nor a car that a man would choose for a woman.
It was neither the sensible shopping-basket that men bought for their wives, nor the flashy jobs rich men bought for their mistresses.
He looked at the number plate and realized that he had found the sole piece of ostentation Miss Morgan had allowed herself; she had been Angela Jane Morgan and the car was AJM 563.
She must have had to pay a bit for that.
The car was parked neatly between two patches of off-street parking, in one of the very few parts of the street that was neither metered nor dedicated to residents' parking.
Not put here by chance then; someone had known this street.
Assuming the car had gone missing at the same ti me as Angela Morgan, it might have been there for over a week; it had only been found that evening by a uniformed constable who was keeping his eyes open.
Evidently, people in this street were used to strange cars being parked and nobody had thought it worth while to ring the police, despite the fact that the doors bristled with Neighbourhood Watch signs.
Perhaps the car had not actually been there since Angela Morgan disappeared, but that seemed unlikely.
He asked the forensic team leader for his views and the man shook his head.
' I would think it's been here for several days, sir.
It's covered with dust and the road's dry underneath, although we've had a lot of rain. '
' Anything useful? '
' We've got some tiny samples from the tyres.
It's been in the mud somewhere.
We 'll compare it with what we took up at the site. '
' Could be the murderer used this car? '
' He cleaned it first, then, before dumping it, sir.
Nothing on it, just a few smudges.
Probably put it through a car-wash.
The inside has been vacuumed recently, too.
We're not getting much here, apart from the samples off the tyres, We 'll take it apart when we get it away from here, of course. '
Both men stood aside to let a big dark-green Jaguar edge carefully round them on to the forecourt of the house immediately to the left of where the BMW was parked.
A small bouncy couple in their fifties got out, staring at the lights and the screens round Angela Morgan's car, and came over to them with all the confidence of the middle-class member of a Neighbourhood Watch scheme.
' Can I help?
That car's been parked there over a week, and I was just beginning to wonder about ringing the police.
Lots of people from the restaurants park down here in the evening, but I only just realized, talking to my wife, that it had actually been there all day as well.
Stolen car, is it? '
McLeish, tired as he was, fell promptly on this witness and accepted an invitation to coffee.
The Masters had been out to dinner and were well mellowed, wide awake and disposed to chat, but sitting in their quarry-tiled kitchen-diner, with thousands of pounds' worth of elegant cabinet work and expensive machinery around him, McLeish managed to extract a coherent story.
Mr Masters was quite clear that he had first seen the blue BMW late on the Saturday evening, ten days before, pointing out that, while you couldn't exactly complain, it had made access to his own forecourt space a little difficult, or at least when there was already another car on the forecourt, which there mostly was, that being Mrs Masters's runabout.
He was sure it had been there every night since, and Mrs Masters turned out to be equally confident that it had also been there during the day.
They had looked at each other, disconcerted at this apparent lack of liaison, but McLeish had been reassuring: very natural that they hadn't compared notes, extremely useful that he now knew how long the car had been there.
' Was it stolen, Chief Inspector?
I mean, do chief inspectors look at stolen cars?
We've never seen much above a detective sergeant in the road before? '
Mr Masters, mellow or not, had gathered his wits.
He was a small bright-eyed, balding, active man, interested in everything around him.
' Not necessarily.
We've been looking for this car as part of a murder investigation.
It belonged to a Miss Angela Morgan, and you may have seen the death reported. '
' What's the matter with me? '
Mr Masters enquired, smiting himself on the forehead.
' I saw it in the papers, I even noticed that the car was missing, and it was a BMW.
I just didn't put it together. '
' You would have, sooner or later, ' McLeish said, liking the man.
' That's what happens, something ticks away in your mind and you suddenly realize there's a connection.
We 'll have to send people round all the houses in the street, see if anyone saw the person who left the car here. '
' Could have been the girl herself? '
' Yes, possibly. '
McLeish decided not to expand, and rose to go, conscious that it was one-thirty a.m.
And that he had an interview at eight in the morning.
He found at the edge of his consciousness the wish that he was just going to his own flat to crash out rather than back to share Catherine's warm bed.
At eight a.m. it was pouring with rain, and very cold, as the partners of Yeo Davis straggled in through the neat entrance, their footsteps echoing on the tiles.
It was far too early for the immaculate and highly paid receptionist to be in; in fact, no one below the level of partner was present.
Peter Yeo, accustomed to leading from the front, had arrived at seven-thirty and personally made the coffee and brought in croissants, so that the reassuring presence of food greeted the other three partners.
' Sorry to get you here so early, ' he said, ' but Angela's death means we have to reorganize the entire workload, and I wanted a longer meeting today.
There's a lot going on.
Tim, I'd like you to report on administrative matters first, to get that out of the way. '
Tim Reagan, a gaunt forty-year-old, who was a genius with trade unions as well as being an accountant and Peter Yeo's right hand, moved swiftly through the secretarial problem, which was one of shortage of same, and seemed, as Peter Yeo observed pleasantly, to have been exactly the same difficulty any time in the last two years, to a discussion of building security, in which no one was much interested either.
' The next problem is fees, ' Tim said, noticing sardonically that his partners' level of attention rose sharply.
' As you all know, we billed 400,000 for our success fee to Regina Securities a good eleven months ago  they were one of Richard's clients. '
He paused and the meeting observed a thirty-second silence in honour of Richard Fairley who had left the partnership a year previously for considerably more than a handful of silver, taking with him Regina Securities' main reason for being interested in paying Yeo Davis's bills.
' I've written, Peter's written, the solicitors have written.
Absolutely nothing has happened.
We need to decide whether to put in a writ or what. '
' Have we tried lunch? ' the next most senior partner enquired hopefully, invoking what all felt to be the partnership's most powerful weapon.
' Oh God, yes. '
Peter Yeo roused himself.
' Brady and I lunched, and we've talked several times.
He's been all sweetness and light, promised nothing and done ditto. '
' Do we have to sue? ' the questioner pressed, unhappily, and Tim Reagan considered him wearily.
' Mike, that 400,000 sits in our last year's accounts as an asset  a debt someone owes us.
It's in this year's draft accounts too, but we have people called auditors who are going to recognize this bill, and ask all sorts of boring questions like why it has not been paid, whether it is likely to be paid, and if so when.
And if we can't produce some pretty credible answers then they won't allow that 400,000 to sit in the accounts at the full value.
Either we 'll have to take a very heavy discount on it, or we 'll get our accounts qualified.
The other even more pressing reason is that we need the cash; we're running an overdraft and that's not funny with these interest rates. '
Peter Yeo, who had been watching his partners, realized that he and Tim were not carrying the other two and decided to make another effort.
' The reason the auditors will give us trouble, Mike, is that they have to certify that our accounts give a true and fair account of the financial state of the business.
And if we have 400,000 in there which isn't really 400,000, then the accounts don't tell you what's going on. '
He watched grimly as Mike Laister, easily the best man with any drinks company, grasped the point.
' The business isn't worth what we thought it was, that's what you're saying? '
' Right. '
Tim Reagan was obviously relieved.
' Or it may not be, but we won't know till we sue them. '
' It 'll take a long time in the courts, won't it, though? '
Mike Laister was still clinging to his point of view.
' What we hope is that a writ will make them settle, Mike, at some level. '
Peter Yeo sounded soothing.
' It'd better, ' Tim Reagan said.
' The administrators of Angela's estate are going to ask for her 100,000 back.
They're not going to get it till the end of the notice period, which is twelve months, but we need the cash.
And we are behind with tax. '
' We've got more than enough time to worry about that, Tim, and I 'm sure the bank will cover us. '
Peter Yeo spoke hastily.
' But do we now all agree that we should issue a writ against Regina?
I honestly don't believe there is any alternative. '
His partners, brought to the sticking point, agreed, somewhat reproachfully, and passed on firmly to the question of who was going to take over which of Angela's clients.
' I will of course remain responsible for Barton, since I know Andy well, ' Peter Yeo said, firmly.
' But I 'll need some support if I am to give him the service he wants.
Angela was doing a very good job there, taking him round the MPs he had to talk to. '
Tim Reagan stirred.
' I did say to her that the man Andy should see was Giles Hawick himself.
It will in the end be a Treasury concern, and if the DTI is really going to be allowed to spend millions propping up Huerter, now that it's a different government, it's very much in Hawick's area.
Maybe she felt it was too awkward?
Or maybe she felt she could do the briefing personally, as it were?
Did she do anything about that? '
He observed with interest that his partner Peter Yeo was looking extremely uncomfortable.
' She would have, of course, but I don't know if she did. '
He considered, scratching the side of his jaw.
' It's a good point, though, Tim, thank you.
I 'll see what I can do with it.
There's a lot of work to do on that case  can I have Susy Harvey to assist? '
Two of his partners protested promptly that the said Susy was fully deployed on their cases, and Peter Yeo settled down to reorganize the workload, emerging after ten minutes' hard negotiation with more or less the conclusion he had wanted.
' I can't do that thing on Saturday ' ' he said apologetically to Tim Reagan, who, having sacrificed one of his staff in the arrangement, was mildly suggesting a reciprocal deal.
' I've promised to take Claudia away for the weekend, and she's not going to let me off it even though we're so shorthanded.
Can't blame her, really; there's never any time. '
Tim Reagan, who would not have dared to give his French wife as little time as Claudia Yeo got, murmured that this was of course important and good luck to them, indeed.
' Something else I wanted to mention, Peter, ' he went on.
' If it turns out that 400,000 really isn't there, then perhaps we charged Angela too much for her partnership share?
We were acting in good faith, of course, and I can't imagine that anyone is going to be difficult now she is gone.
Just thought I'd mention it  the auditors may say something like it. '
' Let them, ' Peter Yeo said, angrily.
' Angie had nothing to complain about  anyone would have been glad to put up 100,000 to get in here.
That Regina fee is just a blip  we're on to a 500,000 success fee from Barton, and we 'll get that. '
Tim Reagan raised his hands in mock submission, surprised by his partner's vehemence, and followed him out of the door.
In the hall sat Claudia Yeo herself, evidently waiting for her husband, and Tim stopped to say hello to her.
She looked as if she needed that weekend away.
She was overweight, overtired, distinctly anxious, her hair was untidy, and both her suit and her shoes were in need of a clean.
Not what one expected of the wife of the senior partner, Tim observed, thinking smugly of his own immaculately turned-out Patrice, who would refuse to eat if she put on even an extra pound and who would as soon leave the house naked as without make-up.
' Oh, Peter, there you are. '
His senior partner was not at all ravished by this incursion into his working day, Tim observed maliciously, as he faded tactfully away.
Peter Yeo bustled his wife into his office calling automatically for coffee.
' Claudia, I've got a meeting in ten minutes, then I 'm booked solid through the day.
What is it?
Can it not wait till tonight? '
' What do you mean, tonight?
Eleven-thirty or later, as usual?
Perhaps I ought to ring Dawn and make an appointment if I want to talk to you?
You never see the children either. '
They glared at each other across the table, two people in early middle age who had had the same quarrel in the same words many times.
By mutual consent they desisted, and Peter Yeo took a deep breath.
' Sorry, ' he said, grimly.
' What is the problem? '
' I've had the police round, asking about Angela. '
Peter Yeo breathed deep in exasperation.
' Type of police?
Bobby in a helmet with a notebook, was it? '
Claudia considered him with open dislike and lit a cigarette deliberately.
' No, dear, a CID sergeant from Scotland Yard.
A Scot.
I asked to see his identification.
And his assistant 's. '
' I 'll find you an ashtray.
Don't put it in the saucer, Claudia, for God's sake. '
Peter Yeo felt a headache starting, and felt the familiar pressure just above the right eye worsen with the realization that in precisely five minutes he would be needed in a meeting.
' What did he want to know? '
She didn't answer immediately but looked down at the table, then up at him.
' When I come to think about it afterwards, I don't know quite what he was after. '
Peter Yeo controlled the impulse to shout at her, realizing that his wife was badly rattled.
She might exasperate him, but she was fully as intelligent as he was and it would be as well to get to the bottom of this.
' Did he say why he had come to see you? '
' He had a perfectly good reason.
They had checked Angela's diary for the two weeks before she had gone missing and were talking to everyone in it. '
' Including the clients? ' peter Yeo sat bolt upright, appalled.
' Oh God.
Well, I suppose so. '
They stared at each other, momentarily united in recognition of the difficulties.
' I 'll call them all, personally. '
Yeo jabbed a finger on a button on his phone.
' Dawn, please get Angela's diary for the two weeks before she went missing  and last week  and list every date she had.
Now, please, in the next ten minutes.
Sorry, but this is a crisis. '
He returned his attention to his wife.
' I didn't realize you had seen Angie quite recently. '
' We had a drink together. '
Peter Yeo rose abruptly and went to straighten a picture on the wall opposite him, his wife watching him warily.
' Why? ' he asked over his shoulder.
' I didn't think you were all that friendly. '
Claudia Yeo closed her eyes and forced herself to speak to the empty space behind the desk.
' I suppose I wanted to make sure she was going to marry Giles Hawick. '
She dragged on her cigarette, listening for any movement from her husband behind her, and jumped as he walked round to stare out of a window.
' And she said she was? ' he asked, into the silence.
' Yes, she did.
But she also said Hawick wanted her to give up her partnership here and she didn't think she could bear to. '
' She'd have talked him round, surely? '
Peter Yeo was still looking out of the window, and Claudia glanced at his familiar back, too short and too broad despite the most expensive tailoring, with real anxiety, ' You don't honestly think that, do you, Peter?
People like Giles Hawick don't get talked round. '
He turned, and they regarded each other steadily across the room.
' She was definitely going to marry him.
And I suppose we might have lost her in the long run, but not just yet. '
Claudia Yeo nerved herself for a final effort.
' And you'd really accepted that they would marry? '
He hesitated, then became angry.
' Of course I had, Claudia, what do you mean? '
' I know you two were very close, as the papers say. '
Claudia Yeo was feeling sick, but knew she was on secure ground.
' I hoped that she had really decided to go for Giles Hawick instead. '
Peter Yeo opened his mouth to speak, and found nothing useful to say.
' I didn't tell the police any of this, of course, ' she said.
' I just said that I was having a drink with her to ask her what she would really like as a wedding present from the firm, because men are no good at that sort of thing. '
She paused and looked at him sidelong.
' I thought that was rather clever. '
Peter Yeo's mouth quirked involuntarily.
He reached for Claudia's hand and held it, looking steadily into her face.
' She was a good mate and a very able, ambitious girl.
I 'm not sure Hawick was right for her and I'd have been sorry to lose her, but that's beside the point.
She was going to marry him. '
She tightened her hand on his, and they sat holding hands for half a minute before Peter Yeo caught sight of his watch.
' Darling, I must get on.
We are in chaos here until we get all Angela's work redistributed, we're all of us doing five things at once.
Thank you for coming to talk to me, and why don't you come with me to this thing this evening?
It's not a riot of pleasure, but we'd be there together. '
She returned his kiss, but declined firmly to join him at the Allied Steelmakers' annual dinner (carriages eleven-thirty), saying she would actually rather go to the cinema with a girlfriend, and tripped out of the office looking considerably less harassed than when she had arrived.
At New Scotland Yard, John McLeish was spitting feathers, as one of his staff graphically put it.
He had arrived, pale and markedly short of sleep, at seven-fifty and at eight-thirty had rung Penelope Huntley's flat to find her barely awake, bad-tempered, vague and professing not to have made an appointment at all.
Furious but civil, he had offered to go round to her flat to see her, an offer which she had declined with the first sign of decisiveness she had been heard to display.
She had offered to be at New Scotland Yard by nine-thirty and it was now nine forty-five.
' She's playing hard to get, isn't she, John? '
Bruce Davidson suggested.
' She agreed eight o'clock when I spoke to her yesterday, after I'd offered her every other hour of the day.
She's a nutter, maybe; there's always one in a case. '
' Mm. '
McLeish decided to get some work in.
' Tell me about Mrs Yeo.
Was her husband playing around? '
' I'd say so.
She's a good-looking woman, but she's jumpy and she does'na have the confidence.
Let herself go a bit  ye get that with women whose men are giving them a hard time, and who hav'na found a way of getting their retaliation in first. '
McLeish considered his local expert on women narrowly.
' It's not evidence. '
' You didna ask me for evidence, John, you sought my best judgement, and you have it.
I'd have been glad to give a wee helping hand there myself, and I 'm sure one was needed. '
Some of it was instinct with Davidson, of course, but most of it was solid experience, starting, as Davidson had once told him, with his being seduced by the school-dinner lady at the age of thirteen in his native Ayrshire.
' Och well, John, there's not a lot else to do up there in winter, ' he had observed, radically changing McLeish's views of the activities available to schoolchildren in country districts.
McLeish reflected uncomfortably that he would have to be very circumspect in his dealings with Catherine, with this beady-eyed observer around the place.
On this thought, Catherine put her head in, politely excusing herself to Bruce Davidson, and said that Miss Huntley had finally got here.
' She can damn well wait for a minute, ' McLeish decided.
' Bruce, why did the good Mrs Yeo want to have a drink with her rival?
All girls together, did you think?
No hard feelings, darling, so nice you're getting married? '
Bruce Davidson considered his notes.
' She said to me that the partners in the firm couldna decide what to give the lass for her wedding and had asked her, as wife of the senior partner, to have a wee word.
It's possible, John. '
' Yes, it is, ' McLeish conceded.
He sighed.
' We 'll have to see her again, Bruce  if Yeo was having it off with Angela Morgan, both he and his missis have to be in the frame.
And you think that's likely? '
' I told you that I formed the impression that Mrs Yeo was not secure in her husband's affections, ' Davidson said, primly.
McLeish grinned at him and told Catherine to organize Penelope Huntley, hoping he had struck the right brisk note.
He was not reassured by hearing Bruce Davidson in the passage cheerily observing to Catherine that she was looking a bittie pale; was it just the London air, or had she been burning the candle at both ends?
He let a dignified minute pass before going out himself, collecting Catherine, and dispatching Bruce to supervise the house-to-house interviews in Malplaquet Terrace, to see if anyone could be found who had seen the blue BMW arrive or caught sight of its driver.
McLeish stopped at the door of the interview room and looked in through the spy-hole, wanting to get some feel for the evidently hostile and, by all accounts, neurotic Penelope Huntley.
His first sight of her was reassuringly normal: a tall, dark girl dressed in a good grey suit of the type favoured by Francesca, which acted effectively as a uniform without doing much for her.
An expensive handbag lay on the table, and she was reading the morning paper in a perfectly ordinary way.
But as she lifted her head to greet them, McLeish decided the first impression had been false.
Her hair was lank, her skin blotchy and spotty.
She was evidently a heavy smoker for the first two fingers of her right hand were stained with nicotine, and, now that he looked, the nails were bitten and the cuticles chewed raw.
She looked as if she had just got out of bed, and McLeish had a sudden vision of a dark basement flat with greasy mugs on every surface.
She looked both wary and defiant; well, people often did, faced with the police, but it was an unusual combination to find in a girl from the confident middle class.
' Is it not warm enough in here? ' he enquired by way of greeting, seeing her clasping her jacket round her.
Penelope Huntley let go of it anxiously and said no, that it was perfectly fine, she'd just been cold outside.
McLeish took her briskly through the course, making the now familiar speech about Angela Morgan's death being treated as a case of murder, which meant taking statements from everyone who had been associated with her and might be helpful.
Penelope Huntley sat silent through this speech, chain-smoking, her eyes downcast.
In the end he stopped talking and watched her till she looked at him, sideways and warily.
' In the course of this process we have talked to Miss Morgan's solicitor, who told us that she was the life tenant of a substantial estate, and that you are what they call the remainder-man. '
' That is the correct term, yes.
It was my Uncle Bill's money. '
Well, that woke her up, McLeish thought, watching the  restless fingers.
The sight of a young woman alternately smoking her head off and chewing her cuticles left a lot to be desired.
' I understand that a substantial part of his estate was left to Miss Morgan? ' he enquired, with a strong feeling of throwing petrol on to a fire.
' Yes, it was.
We both got legacies, and she got the bulk of the estate for her lifetime.
She was his mistress, of course, although she was over thirty years younger than him. '
She ground a half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray, and McLeish was left with the feeling that she would willingly have done the same to the live flesh of Angela Morgan, if available.
' How do you feel about that? '
Her head came up and she looked him in the eye.
' Well, it was his money, wasn't it, and I was only his niece.
I was disappointed of course, but I got over it. '
A good prepared speech, McLeish thought, with not a word of truth in it.
In fact, he realized, she had simply adopted the words other people must have said to her over and over again.
He wondered whether she had always been quite so uncaring of her appearance or whether it had been grief and rage at Uncle Bill's defection that had started this off.
Not a very easy question to ask.
' Were you close to your uncle? '
' Till she came along, ' The answer was like a rifle shot, full of pent-up rage, and McLeish sat back.
' You felt she displaced you  with him, I mean? '
' Well, she had all the advantages, didn't she? '
Penelope Huntley was destroying the remaining cuticles on her left hand, a finger pushed savagely against her teeth.
' I mean, she could go to bed with him.
He wanted her, and he was getting old and silly. '
' I understand that he was sixty-two when he died, ' McLeish said, drily.
' It's not all that old. '
' He was idiotic about her.
Completely OTT.
She didn't really care about him at all, she just wanted his money. '
McLeish decided it would be a waste of time to suggest that it would have hardly been reasonable for Angela Morgan to expect to inherit a quick fortune from a man of sixty-two.
' They had no plans to marry, then? '
' Of course not.
Or she didn't.
She was just stringing him along. '
' Even though she would have been a rich woman had she married him? '
Penelope Huntley looked momentarily disoriented, but any recognition that a valid point had been made disappeared and she went back to chewing her cuticles.
' You now, of course, come into possession of a substantial sum, following Miss Morgan's death, ' McLeish observed, sounding as accusing as he could, and she stopped chewing and gave him her full attention.
' Yes, I do.
Not anything like it would have been if Uncle Bill had left it to me in the first place, because it will pay duty twice. '
' But more than you would have got if Miss Morgan had agreed to your suggestion of splitting the fund up between you.
' How did you know about that?
Solicitors, I suppose  if it was mine I 'll find new ones. '
She glared at McLeish, who looked deadpan.
' Yes, I wouldn't have got all that much, but she wouldn't even agree to that, greedy cow. '
The sudden descent into abuse took McLeish by surprise and he realized he must have shown it, because the girl literally got a grip on herself, folding her arms and hunching over the table.
' Well, you've got it now, ' he said crudely, and watched with fascination as the corners of her mouth tucked in smugly.
' I'd like to go over your movements with you for last Saturday, Sunday and Monday week, please, ' he went on crisply.
Penelope Huntley looked at him in amazement, with dawning understanding.
More human than she'd looked all morning, he thought, realizing he had taken against his witness at least partly because she was alive and the amusing, lively, feminine creature that had been Angela Morgan was not.
Uncle Bill had been a wise man to leave the money to Angela, who had enjoyed it, rather than to this grudging, bitter, scruffy young woman.
' I didn't kill her, if that's what you mean.
I thought of it at one ti me, but I knew I'd make a mess of it. '
She bit  savagely at her cuticles again, and McLeish had to fight back the urge to yell at her to stop, for God's sake.
' Could you tell us where you were and what you were doing on those three days, please? ' he said, instead, levelly and she gave him another sideways, calculating look.
' Including, please, names and addresses of anyone you spent time with, ' he added pleasantly and saw her understand that he was serious and she had better get her act together.
It seemed to take an unreasonably long time and much bad temper, evasion and deliberate obfuscation, together with consultation of a diary that appeared to be alternately blank and covered with scribbled hieroglyphics.
And the narrative extracted with such difficulty was not helpful.
Miss Huntley claimed to have spent the Saturday by herself in and around her flat, doing a bit of shopping and cleaning before meeting a few friends  only one of whom appeared to have an address  and going on to a party around ten o'clock at night.
A large party, in and out of which people had evidently flowed like water circulating in a swimming pool.
Sunday was not much better; Miss Huntley had not risen from her bed until one p.m. and had not left the flat until five, then only to go to the cinema.
On Monday she had gone to her job  improbably she appeared to be a supervisor for a market research firm  as usual, and could be vouched for by colleagues there.
Well, two colleagues anyway.
No, she did not own a car  could not afford to  but she did have a driving licence.
Uncle Bill had run a car for her on his company while he was alive but of course that had all stopped when he died.
McLeish, who remembered that she had been left 200,000 outright, received this as further evidence that the young woman had gone into a massive sulk after her uncle's unexpected death.
It was difficult to tell, of course, whether she had always possessed an unattractive, aggressive, sullen personality, or whether rejection by her uncle in favour of Angela Morgan had tipped her over into this behaviour.
Perhaps she would brighten up now that she had another substantial amount of cash to spend.
He asked her to come back as suited her to sign her statement, and she made all kinds of difficulties about when this would be possible.
He finally dealt with that by saying briskly that one of his staff would come to her place of business.
She opened her mouth to argue further, being plainly in the mood to announce she was leaving her job rather than allow any arrangement to succeed, but something about McLeish's expression checked her and she agreed meekly.
McLeish saw her off and returned to confer with Catherine.
' You get all that?
It 'll all have to be checked  you've got Donalds and Ridley to do that. '
He gazed at her bent head as she read through her notes, and she looked up and smiled faintly at him.
' Shall I do it now? '
' Not yet.
What did you think of Miss Huntley?
What a bitch, eh? '
Catherine considered him thoughtfully.
' I was sorry for her.
Her dad died, then her uncle went off with someone else.
And left his money away from her. '
' I hadn't quite seen it like that, ' McLeish acknowledged humbly, remembering that the beautiful woman in front of him, whom you could not suppose ever to have encountered rejection in any form, had lost a father when young, and had been so little attached to her stepfather that she had left home at the earliest opportunity.
' She is in the frame, though? ' he suggested.
' Oh yes.
What was it she would get on Angela Morgan's death  about 120,000 after taxes?
And I suppose she feels she's won.
I mean she's alive, isn't she? '
McLeish observed soberly that 120,000 and the death of a hated rival seemed a prize well worth playing for.
' She's got a nasty enough temper  I just don't myself see her as clever or organized enough to cover her tracks.
Well, perhaps you 'll find she hasn't  it's not much of an alibi, is it? '
' No.
Gaps all over Saturday and Sunday  you reckon Angela was killed then, rather than Monday? '
' I reckon Saturday.
We've got no sighting of her after first thing Saturday morning. '
Catherine Crane looked at  him carefully, and he grinned at her.
' Come on, I know that look now.
What am I missing? '
She blushed.
' It's just that the only person who saw her on Saturday was the Minister  Mr Hawick. '
' Why would he be lying? '
' Only if he was the murderer and had actually killed her earlier. '
McLeish sighed.
' I'd not forgotten him, but I just couldn't see why he'd want to kill her.
He didn't get any of her money if she died before they were married. '
' It could have been jealousy.
Mrs Morgan did think there was, or had been, something with her boss.
And Mr Hawick didn't seem to me the kind of chap who'd put up with that. '
McLeish nodded, not entirely convinced, but unwilling for a variety of reasons to discourage Catherine.
' We need to check what he was doing those days, anyway  I didn't try too hard when we were last there, because I hoped the autopsy might give us something.
As it did.
I 'll get Jenny to fix it. '
She nodded, and he sat looking at her until she looked back at him.
He glanced up at the spy-hole and grinned.
' Let's get some lunch.
I can't face the canteen but there's a trattoria round the corner.
I never see anyone from this place there. '
They ate in the small crowded Italian restaurant which was, as he had promised, free of their New Scotland Yard colleagues.
It was also free of DTI civil servants as he had quietly ascertained while they waited for their lunch to arrive.
They walked out into a cold, bright day, into one of the labyrinthine streets by the side of Westminster Abbey, straight into a column of knickerbockered children chattering hard and sweeping all before them.
As they stood patiently in a doorway waiting for the column to pass, Catherine turned to say something to McLeish and he looked down at her for a long moment.
' Better get back. '
Smiling to himself, he looked idly across the road and saw Francesca, who should not have been back till Thursday.
She was not looking in their direction, her head was turned to say something to whomever she was with, her short hair blown straight up by the wind as they went into the little newsagent 's, leaving McLeish a clear run to get Catherine back to the Yard.
He walked heavily beside her, trying to convince himself that Francesca had not seen them.
But she had, of course she had; that was why she had fled.
He got back to his own desk and sat, looking at his hands, unable to decide whether to ring her up, or what to say.
