‘After one o’clock,’ interrupted North.

  Walker nodded. ‘Fixing the sink, right? Had to change his clothes?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Pat, nodding at Anita Harris’s latest statement. ‘Word for word.’

  Walker shook his head. ‘She’s covering for him, isn’t she? Christ!’

  ‘There’s something else, guv. She seemed a different woman this morning, there was something about her – much more together. She was cleaning the place up. Doing the washing. And she seems more clear-headed.’

  Walker covered his ears with his hands. ‘Give me some good news, for God’s sake! Because if there isn’t a case against Michael bloody Dunn, where are we going to go?’

  *

  On the way back, Peter stopped at the post office to cash his benefit cheque, then decided to treat everyone to a kebab. When he reached home, the flat looked neater than it had for weeks. The windows were open and there was a smell of furniture polish.

  ‘Hi!’ he called. ‘Got you a shish kebab.’

  He went through to the lounge. On the sideboard, flowers and cards were arranged neatly, as round a shrine, in front of the framed photographs of Julie. Goodbye, sweet Julie. We missed you, darling . . .

  Anita was sitting on the sofa. Nearby, Tony rolled on the floor in a T-shirt and nappy but she was taking no notice. She looked pale and stunned.

  Peter crouched beside her. ‘You all right, girl?’

  Jason appeared. He was sniffing like a dog, smelling the kebabs.

  Anita said, weakly, ‘Jason – go to your room.’

  ‘Mum, I’m hungry.’

  ‘Go on – do as I tell you.’

  Peter looked at Jason, who seemed to flinch from the glance, but Peter handed Jason the takeaway bag.

  ‘Here, take it with you.’

  Jason grabbed the food and disappeared. Tony went on rolling and mumbling.

  Anita said, almost in a whisper, ‘I found the doll.’

  Peter froze. ‘You what?’

  She stood up. ‘I swapped their mattresses over, Jason’s with Julie’s. And I found her Barbie doll.’

  Peter said nothing for several seconds. He got up and walked to the window. ‘Did you give it to the police?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I—’

  ‘Where is it? Anita! I’m warning you; I’ve had all the hassle I’m prepared to take this morning.’

  He advanced on her, his fist raised. ‘Anita, if that bastard Dunn gets off, it’s me they’re going to charge, you know that, don’t you? They’re after me for it, I can tell. And I never touched a hair of her head.’

  Anita’s hands were clenched together, white with the tension. She had begun to weep.

  He grabbed her arms, shaking her, pushing her backwards. ‘Anita! I never touched her! I never touched her!’

  He let her go. She simply stood there, weeping, her arms raised from her sides. She made no attempt to defend herself.

  Peter was snarling. ‘I loved her, listen to me . . . I couldn’t have harmed her.’

  In his bedroom, Jason was sitting on the floor with the kebab bag spread open in front of him. Slowly he was eating the food, stuffing chips and chunks of meat into his mouth in continuous succession. And, as he chewed, he counted every slap of Peter’s hand against his mum’s face.

  CHAPTER 19

  SATURDAY 2 NOVEMBER. 10 A.M.

  AT CLARENCE Clough, Derek Waugh was sniffing around the Dunn case again, in spite of the complexities of Lady Preece’s will and the horrific breach of contract liabilities faced by his client, Alphastrom Management Systems.

  ‘Not found the alibi witness yet, I see,’ he said, waving Belinda’s report commissioned from a South Wales private investigator. ‘If you don’t track him down pretty soon, we’re looking at a blank on the alibi, Belinda.’

  He dropped the report back in her pending tray, where he’d found it.

  She kept her eyes on the computer screen, controlling an urge to snap. ‘There has been a possible sighting of Terry Smith at the Simon Community in Cardiff, Tiger Bay. And I’m just drafting an ad to put in the Big Issue in London.’

  Waugh snorted. ‘Last people who read that thing are the homeless. Now, I was thinking about something else. Aren’t you going to need independent forensic confirmation that the little girl frequented Dunn’s flat, so that those fibres could have been left there any time? All we’ve got at the moment is his word.’

  ‘Well, Dunn did mention that Jason Harris, the brother, was always—’

  ‘Keep away from the family, it’s a public relations hornets’ nest.’

  Waugh strode to the door but stopped as he gripped the handle, as if seized by a further thought. ‘Has Rylands been over any likely cross-examination yet with Dunn?’

  ‘No, we’re doing that today. We thought it would be better to get a bit of rapport going between them first.’

  The senior partner twisted the doorknob and stiff-armed the door open. From the corridor he called back, ‘Well, don’t feather-bed him. The Crown aren’t going to.’

  The door slammed and Belinda made a snarling face.

  *

  At the CPS, Walker and North were winding up a progress report to Griffith. It was basically a ‘no-progress’ report.

  ‘So,’ said Griffith, ‘there’s nothing more on the forensic front?’

  Walker frowned. He wished to God there was.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘And I think what we’ve got is all there is. Also, there’s a lot of pressure to release the body for burial and I think we should do that now.’

  ‘Agreed?’ Griffith looked from Fletcher to North. ‘Agreed,’ he confirmed when they both nodded.

  Walker continued, very subdued, ‘There’s really nothing to add to the scientific evidence and I’m afraid we didn’t get quite what we’d hoped from the Gillingham interviews.’

  Almost distastefully, Griffith flicked through the pages of the evidence bundle, now bulkier than ever. ‘I have a responsibility not to waste public money on a case which is going to fold up. And I have to tell you . . .’ He stared at the two police officers over his half-moon glasses. ‘I have to tell you, I am coming to the view that we should offer no evidence.’

  Willis Fletcher sat beside Griffith, his eyes fixed on an open page of his own copy of the file. The barrister’s face was grave but with a suggestion of humour somewhere in the corner of his eyes. Walker found some encouragement in that. At the other end of the table Jennifer Abantu’s face was as impassive as ever – Walker had no idea if her opinion counted for anything with Griffith, but then, he had no idea what her opinion was.

  ‘Dunn still hasn’t come up with his alibi witness,’ he said. ‘I think there’s a very good chance we’ll be able to show he’s served a false notice of alibi.’

  Fletcher stirred in his seat. ‘Well, that would be a help,’ he remarked.

  Griffith looked at him without appreciation and closed the file decisively. ‘I shall take that into consideration when making my decision.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Walker desperately. ‘There’s something else you should take into consideration. I’m sure the Director of Public Prosecutions doesn’t want any more sensitive, national cases dropped for lack of evidence, leaving more grieving families to drag their private prosecutions through the courts.’

  He was going out on a limb here, and he knew it. But he ground on. ‘Sometimes it’s important to try a case. Sometimes it should be seen to be tried.’

  Griffith stood up, capped his pen and clipped it into his breast pocket. ‘I execute policy,’ he said darkly, ‘I don’t play politics. I’ll let you know what I decide.’

  In the car, Walker pounded the dash with his fist, working out his pent-up aggression. ‘Fletcher wants to proceed – I can feel it. Griffith doesn’t, but surely he won’t have the balls to drop it?’

  ‘You’re going to need yours, I reckon.’

  Walker looked at her.

  She smiled, braking sharply. ‘That crack about the DPP,’ she went on, ‘it didn’t go down at all well.’

  Walker banged the dash again. ‘I still put money on Dunn.’

  ‘What about Peter James, though?’

  He shook his head as she put the car into gear. ‘No. I don’t like him, but I don’t think he’s a killer.’

  As they pulled away from the lights, Walker shook off the sense of despair. ‘Tell you what – get Satchell to have another go at the ice cream seller. Speak to his boss this time. If he’s lying . . .’

  North nodded. ‘Peter James would be in the clear – yes?’

  ‘He’d be laughing and so would we. If I’m reading Griffith right, the reason for why he doesn’t want to go on against Dunn is he’s afraid the real killer’s Peter James.’

  *

  Robert Rylands, the inveterate defence brief, had a favourite performance in prison conference rooms – acting the prosecutor. It was part of his job to play the game of putting a client through his witness box paces, to test him with the difficult questions the Crown would ask and gauge his readiness and credibility. And Rylands played the game hard, turning the small prison interview room into a court, circling the client like an attack helicopter, pouncing on his uncertainties and inconsistencies.

  At Wormwood Scrubs, with Michael Dunn in his sights, he wondered, not for the first time, why he found this task so satisfying. Perhaps, after all, he should have been a prosecutor himself. He’d have been a bloody good one.

  ‘Now you admit you let young children into your flat unchaperoned?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ asked Dunn. ‘Unwhat?’

  ‘Unsupervised. Without any adult with them.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘And you showed them videos. Why?’

  ‘Because they like them.’

  ‘But why did you want them to come to your place?’

  ‘Because . . . because . . . I enjoyed their company.’

  Dunn looked nervously at Belinda. He couldn’t understand the change that had come over Mr Rylands. He’d gone so hard. She nodded encouragement at him, gave him a smile.

  ‘And what sort of videos were these?’

  ‘Well, cartoons and—’

  ‘And some quite unsuitable material – am I right?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Child’s Play 3, The Terminator?’

  ‘Yes, I had them. But my video was nicked and I couldn’t show them films any more, see.’

  ‘But children came to your flat after the video disappeared, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When was the last time there were children at your flat?’

  Dunn shook his head, bewildered. ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Can you remember a specific day when Julie Harris was at your flat?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t.’

  Rylands rubbed his hands, a gesture which seemed to show he was pleased, though neither Dunn nor Belinda could see why.

  ‘All right, Michael, let’s turn to your alibi for the fifth of September. You know what an alibi is, don’t you?’

  ‘’Course I do.’

  Rylands paced to the window and swung around, leaning with his elbows on the sill. He pitched his voice a few semitones higher, his most sceptical courtroom voice.

  ‘You’ve named two men and a woman as alibi witnesses. Of the men, one won’t cooperate and the other can’t be found. The woman’s never heard of you. How did that happen, Mr Dunn?’

  ‘I don’t know, I was confused. I couldn’t remember exactly—’

  ‘Because if you were not with those people, then it is possible that it was you whom Mrs Marsh saw from her window, you who took a little girl by the hand and led her back to your flat. Isn’t it?’

  Dunn was shaking his head pathetically. ‘No, really. There was never any little girl in my flat that day.’

  Rylands thought for a moment, looking at the ceiling. ‘If you can’t recall any specific day or date that Julie was at your flat – how can you be so sure she wasn’t there on the fifth of September?’

  Dunn was frightened now. His eyes were wide with anxiety as he looked for support to Belinda, then back to Rylands. He said, ‘She used to come all the time. All the time! Just ask her brother. Ask Jason.’

  Rylands held his gaze for a moment, then relaxed, smiling, coming forward to the table. He began assembling his papers.

  ‘That’s all right, Michael. Just remember it’s in their interest to try to make you lose control of yourself. Just answer the questions and keep cool.’ He tapped a stack of papers against the table to straighten them. ‘We’ll leave it for today, OK? But I will see you again before trial.’

  On the way back to town, Rylands was whistling to himself.

  ‘You seem pleased,’ Belinda said.

  ‘Moderately, moderately. I wouldn’t put it higher than that. You?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s something Michael said that’s bugging me. Ask Jason, he said. Do you think we could?’

  Rylands shook his head. ‘Tricky. Young child witnesses? Very, very tricky . . .’

  *

  Two hours later Peter and Anita’s door opened and Helen let herself in. She carried a suitcase.

  ‘Didn’t know you had a set of keys,’ Peter told her when he met her in the hall. He glowered at her.

  ‘I’ve come for the funeral.’

  ‘Well, you’re not staying here.’

  Hearing voices, Anita came through. She gave her mother a hug. ‘I want you to stay, Mum.’

  Peter simply swore.

  CHAPTER 20

  SUNDAY 3 NOVEMBER. 11.30 A.M.

  KENNETH POOLE lay naked across a sturdy refectory-style kitchen table of Norwegian pine. A young woman was walking her fingernails up and down the length of his spine while he licked a few last vestiges of the strawberry yoghurt that he’d spooned into her navel a few minutes earlier. And then the telephone was ringing.

  Most of Poole’s Sunday mornings were like this. Around nine o’clock, after a look through the News of the World and a breakfast at his Bethnal Green flat of two fried eggs, a fried slice and grilled bacon, he’d catch a bus out to Romford. It was from there, at a quarter to ten sharp, that his boss would leave his comfortable home for the office and keep reliably busy all morning completing the previous week’s accounts. Poole found it intensely exciting to lurk in the bus shelter opposite the house, waiting for Frank Petrie’s exit.

  It was always the same pantomime, starting with Petrie’s jaunty appearance on the path, buttoning his camel coat. Kenneth watched as the electronic key beeped open the Merc’s doors, the door opened and closed with a soft cough and Petrie settled in the driver’s seat, lighting his first Cuban panatella of the day and stroking the engine into life. Then, at last, as the growl of the Merc’s radials died away, Poole nipped across the road, slipped through the side door of the house and slid into the willing arms of the young and lovely Mrs Petrie.

  Kenneth knew he would never have that expensive coat, that Merc – or even that panatella. But what he did have, by the gift of nature, was the equipment to make Michelle Petrie, from time to time, a very happy woman. So, between ten and midday, before he himself had to clock on at the depot to start his Sunday shift, he and Michelle would cavort around the house like a pair of bonobo chimps. They did it on the World of Leather four-seat sofa in the lounge. They did it on the hairy astrakhan rug in front of the inglenook fireplace (‘inglenookie’ as Michelle called it with a delicious giggle). They did it rolling around the smoked-oak parquet in the hall, on the Cumberland slate worktop in the kitchen, in the dusty intimacy of the broom cupboard, in the bubbling cauldron of the huge Jacuzzi bath. They even, if they felt lazy, did it in the emperor-size bed with its five-speed vibrating mattress.

  And so, for a couple of hours each week, Kenneth Poole thought he’d died and gone to heaven. It couldn’t last, of course.

  As the phone warbled, he paused in mid-lick but Michelle didn’t miss a finger-step. Nonchalantly she raised the portable handset that was never out of her reach.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Kenneth strained to listen. He recognised Petrie’s nasal twang coming fuzzily through the earpiece. Michelle was drumming her fingers on his shoulder blade.

  ‘What they want then?’ she asked.

  Judging by his tone of voice, Petrie seemed upset. It was even more squawkingly petulant than usual.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ his wife said at last. ‘See ya later, sugar.’

  Michelle laid the phone down and began to writhe her limbs, those limbs whose God-given shapeliness could make Kenneth break out in a sweat just thinking about them. She was evidently manoeuvring to force Poole’s mouth to make a lower contact on her body. But, for the moment, he declined the gambit.

  ‘What did he want?’

  Michelle went on wriggling. Then she brought one of her nicely shaped feet up to the tabletop to give herself purchase.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘What did Frank want?’

  ‘Just, the police are down at the depot, asking a lot of questions about some murder, so he’s going to be late.’

  ‘A murder?’

  Michelle sighed and lay still a moment. ‘Yeah, but it’s nothing to do with Frank, it’s nothing important. So come on, big boy, forget about it and just—’

  ‘Wait a minute, Michelle. I want to know. What murder?’

  ‘That little kid over docklands, it was in the news. A while ago. One of our vans was nearby when it happened or something.’

  ‘Holy buckets of shit!’ said Ken, rolling off the table and scrabbling for his jockey shorts. ‘I got to go.’

  *

  Satchell hated funerals. He sometimes had an inexplicable impulse to laugh, so he tried to stay away. Now, with the Guv and Pat North in attendance at the Harris burial, he felt it was OK to miss it.

  Checking on Poole’s story, he’d been down to the depot at eleven to interview Frank Petrie, the ice cream van king. According to Petrie the vans went out at twelve every day.

  ‘We got a roster of calls for every unit,’ Petrie told him as they stood in his office. He walked and knocked on a chart on the wall. ‘I got eight vans at the moment – goes up to a dozen in summer. And this chart plots every site visited by every van, how long they stay and so on. That way, nobody doubles up and we don’t get into no turf wars with the opposition. Used to be anarchy out there at one time.’