Satchell said, ‘So you know exactly when Mr Poole arrived at the Howarth Estate on the fifth of September?’

  Petrie’s face took on a crafty expression. ‘I know when Poole should have been on the estate. He should have been there at half past twelve. But I don’t know if he actually was. I’ve had trouble with that young man before. Wouldn’t put it past him if he was getting into the knickers of some tart on my time.’

  ‘What – Confessions of an Ice Cream Seller type of thing?’

  Petrie lowered his voice and said contemptuously, ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’

  Satchell glanced at his watch. ‘Is he working today?’

  ‘Poole? Yes – due on at twelve, as usual.’

  ‘Would you ask him to come down to the station when he knocks off? I just want to take him through his statement again.’

  Now Satchell was back in the Incident Room cross-checking through the door-to-door inquiries for references to the visit of the ice cream van. A call came through from the front desk.

  ‘Got a Kenneth Poole here for you, Dave.’

  Poole was early – it was only half one.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Be right down.’

  *

  ‘I was scared, you know? Thought I’d lose my job because he’s a right bastard and I’d had one warning anyway . . .’

  Poole was gabbling through nervousness. And from his breath, Satchell could tell he’d been in the pub for a few stiffeners.

  ‘I mean, I never thought it would matter – half an hour, like.’

  ‘What did you think wouldn’t matter, Mr Poole? Just spell it out, easy like.’

  Poole swallowed. ‘I didn’t get to the Howarth Estate until gone one on the day the little girl was murdered.’

  He was rubbing his hand through his hair.

  ‘Oh, shit! I knew it’d all come out.’

  ‘What? What would come out?’

  ‘I was shagging Petrie’s wife, see? She’d give me a few quid, you know, to cover for the ices I might have sold and . . . well, he knows now because I told him. I got the boot – said he suspected I was with a tart, so I told him exactly who the tart was!’

  Dave Satchell’s mouth was open. This was absolutely bloody choice. He couldn’t wait till he told the lads. Leaning meaningfully forward, he tried to keep a straight face.

  ‘Well, this is potentially serious—’

  ‘Serious? You’re not joking. I lost my job!’

  ‘I mean we could have you for making a false statement. You know that?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. Look, I’m sorry. Me and Michelle, well, we stopped meeting in working time after that. We thought of another time.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, Mr Poole, but let’s not get sidetracked. Now, I want you to make out a new statement about your true movements on the fifth of September, OK?’

  *

  Half an hour later, DS Satchell was standing inside the door of the church where the funeral of Julie Ann Harris was just beginning. If you’d paid him, he couldn’t have waited with this news.

  ‘He who dies and believes in me shall live,’ intoned the vicar. ‘And he who lives and believes in me shall never die . . .’

  Satchell spotted Walker, North and Richards sitting near the back so he slid into the pew immediately behind and leaned into Walker’s ear.

  ‘Guv, the ice cream seller lied about the times. He didn’t get to the Howarth Estate till gone one.’

  Walker looked round. ‘Did you—?’

  ‘Yeah, I just took a new statement. This puts Peter James in the clear, right?’

  Walker couldn’t suppress a smile. He hammered once with his fist on his right knee. If he’d had a Marlboro between his fingers he’d have snapped off the filter.

  He whispered to Pat North. ‘Hear that? Griffith can’t pull the case now – can he?’

  ‘And,’ whispered Dave, ‘Michael Dunn still has no alibi.’

  Pat kept her face to the front, but she too was smiling faintly. They were back on track. Meanwhile the vicar’s voice echoed over their heads.

  ‘. . . and in the midst of life, we are in death.’

  *

  Belinda knew it was the funeral today and had even considered attending but dismissed the idea, remembering her violent reception at the Harrises’ front door. So she’d come to work instead.

  Working on a Sunday was nothing new to Belinda. The offices of Clarence Clough usually had a few lawyers in over the weekend and security there was round the clock. Not that she thought much of the security presence – a bunch of dozy old men.

  She had been rereading the forensic reports on Julie Harris’s clothes when one of the security men confirmed her worst opinions. He rang her from the front desk.

  ‘Er, Miss Sinclair? Man’s just come in for you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A man.’

  ‘And this man’s name?’

  ‘Oh, I see. Sorry, miss. There’s only me on the desk, see? I must’ve forgot to ask him.’

  ‘Well, ask him now.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him yourself, miss. I’ve sent him up.’

  ‘Did he say what it was about?’

  ‘No, miss. Just that it’s important.’

  ‘Well, really! I’ve already had threats against me working on this case. And now you’ve let some strange man walk straight past you and up the stairs.’

  ‘Well, like I say, miss, there’s only me on the desk, it being Sunday.’

  She hung up and called out to see if there was anyone in the next office. ‘Stephen! Jeremy!’

  There was no one and, as she heard the tread on the stair outside, she realised she was on her own.

  *

  In the church they were singing one of those funeral hymns that make you feel like crying even if you didn’t know the deceased. At the front of the church, Helen was weeping copiously, but silently. Anita was bent forward in her pew, trembling and heaving as she breathed. Peter grasped her hand, his face taut with strain. Jason sat in the pew behind, the only impassive figure in the church. He was sitting next to his dad.

  Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

  Look upon a little child;

  Pity my simplicity,

  Suffer me to come to Thee.

  *

  Thomas Harris, in his dress uniform, sat rigidly to attention, his eyes brimming with tears that he just managed not to shed. And, at the very back of the church, in newly pressed uniform, was Colin Barridge. He stood, equally to attention, but for him there was no will to suppress the grief. Fat, frank teardrops coursed down his cheeks while rivers of dilute mucus poured from his nostrils. And when at last it was time to leave the church for the graveside, Barridge found himself stumbling around blindly among the cohorts of press and camera crews. He couldn’t see his colleagues, until Meg Richards came up and gently walked him over to the rest of the funeral group.

  *

  The man was burly with a boxer’s face. He was wearing a well-worn leather overcoat, blue jeans and red neck scarf and Belinda was considerably taken aback by the way he looked around at the comfortable furniture and fittings of the office. He did this with undisguised contempt.

  ‘Huh,’ said the man in a marked Cardiff accent. ‘Lawyers! Fat felines. Pampered pussycats.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ she squeaked, ‘would you please state your business?’

  She felt somehow that a show of extreme formality might protect her and certainly the man’s manner did change. He had a rolled-up newspaper, somewhat battered and torn, in his hand and he pointed it at her in the same way, it occurred to Belinda, that you aim a gun.

  ‘You Belinda Sinclair?’

  ‘Yes, I am. What do you want?’

  Then he changed suddenly, became businesslike, unrolling the paper, which he opened and spread out on the desk between them. His movements were quick and precise but his breathing was laboured, with an intermittent smoker’s crackle. The clothes smelled musty but somewhere there was an underlying scent of soap.

  He said, ‘It’s just that I understand you’re looking for me.’

  She glanced down at the paper and up at him. She had recognised the title but anxiety made her slow-witted and she didn’t see the clear connection. He stabbed one of the small ads with a nicotine-stained finger.

  ‘It says in here that you want to see me. My name’s Terry Smith.’

  *

  Her coffin was white and so small that Thomas Harris had picked it up and carried it by himself, across his arms like an offering, to the graveside. Now the vicar was reciting the ancient formula about ashes and dust.

  Helen did not hear it. She was attending to Anita, because something bad was happening even worse than this terrible grief that she felt, Thomas felt, and which, she knew, was tearing at Anita’s guts.

  Anita had pulled free of Peter’s hand. She was clinging on to her mother’s arm, bending and swaying as she stood there, her breath coming in gasps.

  ‘Mum,’ she whispered, ‘promise me you won’t leave Peter alone with the kids.’

  ‘What do you mean? What is it, love?’

  Anita looked up at her mother, her face white and pleading. And then it clenched, every muscle seizing up as a blaze of pain raked through her. Anita dropped her hand from her mum’s arm and bent over her swollen belly. Her hands were braced now against her thighs and she was making sharp hiccuping sounds. Then Helen understood.

  ‘Oh, my God, no! Anita, no!’

  The vicar was still praying when Peter set off, hurdling across the graveyard as he yelled desperately for a car. They got Anita inside it but by this time she was bleeding. The press were running after them, clustering around the car, their questions muffled and distant but the flash of their cameras harsh and piercing, like the pain itself.

  *

  ‘So, Mr Smith, how can you be so sure of what you are saying?’

  Belinda had made a pot of tea and she poured for them both.

  ‘I mean, you did a lot of drinking that day, and—’

  ‘I did a lot of drinking every day, miss. I’m an alcoholic, I admit that. But it doesn’t mean I’m completely ga-ga. And anyway, now I’m off the booze completely – one day at a time, of course – my head’s clear as crystal.’

  He sipped from his mug and mildly smacked his lips. ‘I didn’t know which was more important to me, drink or politics. But, now I’ve got my head straightened out, I know.’

  ‘So which is it?’

  ‘Politics, miss. The Revolution – that’s my only stimulant now. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees – a great Mexican revolutionary said that.’

  Belinda nodded wisely, wondering how she was going to get Smith back on track. But she needn’t have worried.

  ‘Anyway, I can remember it all. We got together in the Scrubbery – you know, that little park place near the benefit office – after the office opened, about eleven o’clock. We started off there, then went to the chippie, then back to the park—’

  He was interrupted by the door swinging open and the entrance of the senior partner in Sunday mufti, beige cardigan and Hush Puppies. He looked at Smith in surprise.

  ‘Ah, Derek,’ said Belinda. ‘Do come in, join us.’

  Feeling a sudden rush of triumph over Waugh, she didn’t bother with introductions but carried straight on talking to the witness.

  ‘So, Mr Smith’ – she shot a quick glance at Waugh to clock his astonishment – ‘you read our advertisement in the Big Issue and you remember spending the whole day with Michael Dunn – right?’

  Smith nodded.

  ‘But how can you be certain it was that particular Thursday, fifth September?’

  Smith snapped his fingers. ‘Easy. The Berringham by-election, fifth of September. Bloody Spartacist knocked our fellow out.’

  Belinda scribbled a note. The by-election certainly rang a bell, and the date was easy enough to check.

  ‘Good,’ she said, ‘very, very good.’

  After Smith had left Waugh paid her a gruff compliment.

  ‘Well done, Belinda. Fellow seems a good witness, though a bit of a Trot which we shall have to watch. That surprised me, actually. I thought Terry Smith was supposed to be a wino.’

  ‘He was,’ said Belinda. ‘He’s reformed. So you see, Derek, there’s hope for us all.’

  She was enjoying herself enormously. She would enjoy even more telling her client that his alibi had been confirmed.

  CHAPTER 21

  FRIDAY 15 NOVEMBER

  THE MOOD of elation among Michael Dunn’s defence team could not be too publicly celebrated. There was a need for secrecy. As Waugh told Belinda – and for once he was right – there was no requirement for the defence immediately to tell the CPS that Terry Smith had been found. In the interests of their client – of his more effective defence – they would keep their alibi witness under wraps until just before the off.

  So it was that, only four days before Dunn was due to appear at the Crown court to answer the charge of murder against him, Belinda Sinclair picked Terry Smith up from the hostel where he was living and brought him east to Southampton Street to make a sworn statement.

  The scenes in the Incident Room were of consternation.

  ‘Why the bloody hell couldn’t we find him?’ stormed Satchell. ‘Bunch of incompetents are we, or what? Bunch of dozy bastards fit for nothing but touchline duty at Leyton Orient? Christ!’

  ‘How did they find him, then?’ asked Phelps. ‘I can’t believe their luck!’

  ‘They advertised, didn’t they?’ said Satchell. ‘Bloody advertised! Well, of course, that’s the difference, isn’t it? We got no bastard advertising budget.’

  ‘He was living in a hostel, drying out,’ put in Henshaw. ‘Apparently he’s obsessed with Lenin.’

  ‘What – the Beatles?’ asked Marik.

  ‘Pillock!’ said Henshaw, swiping Marik round the head with his copy of the Daily Mail. ‘Len-in. He’s political. A leftie.’

  ‘Didn’t know there was any of those no more,’ retorted Marik. ‘Could be good for us, though. Expose him as a Trot, a trouble-maker. Discredited witness.’

  Pat North heard this as she came in.

  ‘I’m sorry, Marik, but it’s more likely to harm us. Lefty’s not much of a bogeyman any more. My guess is he’d come over as bright and serious, and a little bit of a romantic, you know? One of a dying breed.’

  ‘Yes, but he might start mouthing off in court, have a go at the judge or the legal system,’ said PC Brown hopefully. ‘That would be good, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think, somehow, Rylands is going to allow that to happen,’ said Satchell. ‘But if he does, we’ll know he’s losing his grip big time. Is Smith here now, guv?’

  Pat North was removing papers from a filing cabinet.

  ‘Yes. Mike and I are about to take his sworn statement. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just make him disappear instead?’

  She smiled all round and swung smartly out of the room to meet the man who might just extract Michael Dunn from a life sentence.

  *

  Walker smoked his amputated Marlboros more or less continuously during the interview and he let Terry Smith have free access to the packet as well. It wasn’t generosity. Walker was so angry he was having a hard time concentrating so he just didn’t notice the witness helping himself. Sitting beside Smith, Belinda, though she hated the smoke, saw it as a fair sign of how rattled the police were.

  Walker had Smith’s printed-out statement in front of him. He’d been over the statement again and again, but there was nothing he could prise from it, nothing of any use to his side. All that was left was for Smith to sign it.

  ‘So, Mr Smith, you and Michael Dunn started talking about politics at eleven o’clock on that Thursday did you? Until when?’

  ‘All day, like it says,’ said Smith.

  ‘What on earth was there to talk about all day?’ said Walker incredulously.

  There was a tap on the door and Satchell put his head in to beckon to Pat North. She left the room while Smith expanded.

  ‘We were talking about whether the desire for property is natural to mankind. You see the Russian peasants before the revolution used to have little plots of land . . .’

  Walker flicked a glance at Belinda who was clearly having to suppress a smile. He scowled but Smith was just getting into his stride.

  ‘These guys were called kulaks, you see, and when it came to dealing with them, Lenin formulated a plan about which there has been considerable controversy over the years—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. I get the gist,’ said Walker. ‘This isn’t the Evening Institute. And you say this all-day drinking session didn’t affect your memory to any material extent?’

  Terry Smith smiled. Everything about him was so open and honest it made Walker cringe.

  ‘No, I had a tolerance for it, you see. I’m telling you, I’ll stand up in court and say it: Michael Dunn was with me all day on September the fifth. All day long, until six, seven at night.’

  ‘He didn’t leave at any time?’

  ‘No. He didn’t leave.’

  Again Walker looked hopelessly at the statement, his eyes going this way and that over it as if casting about for comfort and finding none. His expression was bleak. He slid the statement on to the table, face up in front of the witness.

  ‘Right, Mr Smith, I thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Would you like to read and sign the statement?’

  Pat North returned to the room and stood near the door while Smith read rapidly through the text and, taking a pen from Belinda, scribbled his signature at the bottom. He handed the paper back to Walker like a bailiff serving a writ.

  Belinda said, sweetly, ‘There you are, Superintendent. All right if we go now?’

  Walker couldn’t bring himself to speak. He nodded.

  After they’d left, he almost spat. ‘Like the cat who got the cream, isn’t she? What did Dave want?’