Trick of the Dark

1

Charlie stared at Corinna, incredulous. 'You're sitting there and telling me you honestly think Jay Macallan Stewart is a murderer? Internet multimillionaire and misery memoir author Jay Macallan Stewart? Your family friend Jay Macallan Stewart?'

Corinna looked affronted. 'She's no friend of this family.'

'According to the newspapers she is. I know Magda's said nothing to the press, but I did see one photograph taken in the street where she was with' — Charlie made a quotation marks sign in the air — '"family friend" Jay Macallan Stewart.' She cocked her head to one side. 'I did wonder about that.'

'No way is she a friend. She's not welcome in this house. Hasn't been for fifteen years or more. Damn it, Charlie. Damned media and their lies.'

'But Jay? Why the holy fuck do you think Jay killed Philip?'

Corinna winced. Blasphemy or obscenity offended her, a prudery that had always amused Charlie. 'Because she's done it before. At least once, and almost certainly more.'

Until that point, Charlie had been willing to give Corinna the benefit of the doubt. But this was too much. 'Is this some kind of elaborate Oxford joke, Corinna? Some wind-up at my expense?'

'It's the truth, Charlie.' At least this intensity was familiar to Charlie from her professional life. It often accompanied the most sincerely held delusions.

Charlie held her hands up, palms outward. 'OK, let's just take this step by step. For now, let's leave to one side the suggestion that Jay Stewart is a serial killer and look at the case in point. Corinna, why on earth would Jay want Philip dead? What's the connective tissue here?'

She'd seen Corinna disappointed by her pronouncements before but Charlie would have said she was past being affected by it. To her surprise, she felt nettled when Corinna said, 'Can't you work it out, Charlie? You're the one who brought up the newspaper photo.'

'Magda? You're seriously suggesting that Jay killed Philip because she wanted Magda? Corinna, do you have any idea how bonkers that sounds? Even from the most besotted of mothers, that would sound mad.'

'Be that as it may, Charlie. But they're together. Jay is my daughter's lover. My beautiful, clever daughter. Magda hasn't had the nerve to tell me in so many words, but I know my daughter and I know what's going on. I've no idea how they met again, but I'm convinced that Magda's version of events is a lie. She says they ran into each other at the house of a colleague a couple of months after Philip died. But I think they were already seeing each other by then.'

Charlie frowned. 'But why on earth would Magda marry Philip if she was already having a relationship with Jay?'

Corinna shrugged in frustration. 'I don't think they were lovers then. Magda's too honest, too honourable. I can't imagine her cheating on Philip, no matter how attracted she was to Jay. And Jay's no fool. She must have realised that the only way she'd have a chance with Magda was to get rid of Philip.'

'That's a hell of a stretch. Killing the bridegroom on the wedding day in the hope you can move in on the bride? In my professional life, that's what I'd call grandiose thinking.'

Corinna refilled their mugs and started the stirring ritual again. 'Oh, come on, Charlie. You're a psychiatrist. You know how vulnerable people are to emotional predators when they've been bereaved. Jay would never have a better chance. She's a manipulator. You must remember that, surely?'

'I didn't know her that well. I was two years ahead of her, remember. That's a big gap in student terms. But Corinna, it's a huge jump from "I fancy her" to "I'm going to kill for her".'

'Not so big if you've killed before.'

Charlie held her hand up in a 'stop' signal. 'We'll come back to that, I promise. Just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that Jay had set her sights on Magda and she didn't care what she had to do to get her. But that's just supposition. It is — forgive me, Corinna, but it is — just a fantasy. You've got to have something that vaguely qualifies as evidence before you can go around making accusations like that.'

'You think I don't realise that? I do have some more to go on. The wedding wasn't the only event in college that day. There was also a weekend seminar on setting up online businesses. And guess who the keynote speaker was?'

'Jay?'

'That's right. She was there, on the spot, when Philip was killed.'

'So were a lot of other people. At least two of them with a confirmed motive, as opposed to a possible motive you've just dreamed up.'

Corinna pursed her lips in disapproval. 'And speaking of motive… do you know how the police came up with the evidence against Barker and Sanderson?'

'According to what I read, there was a letter on Philip's computer to the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Services Authority indicating how the pair of them had come by their confidential information and how they'd used it in an insider trading scheme to make themselves very rich. Is that not how it was?'

Corinna looked pleased with herself, as if she'd finally, incontrovertibly got one over on Charlie. 'That's nearly right. Except it wasn't on Philip's computer. Not on his desktop at the office, not on his desktop at home and not on his laptop. It was on a back-up hard drive that he'd left in Magda's old room here. He slept there the night before the wedding, so supposedly he'd tucked it away in her underwear drawer for safekeeping.' Corinna's voice dripped scepticism. 'And Magda just happened to find it when the police were starting to get frustrated about ever nailing anyone for the murder.'

Puzzled, Charlie said, 'I don't understand what that has to do with Jay.'

'This letter is very detailed. It doesn't appear anywhere else in Philip's records. But apparently most of the information in it does. According to a very helpful detective I spoke to a while back, it could have been compiled by someone with accounting skills and computer skills and access to the office systems where Barker and Sanderson left their own digital trail. With the best will in the world, that is not a description of my daughter. But it does sound a lot like the skills Jay Stewart must have to have reached the pinnacle of business that she's achieved. Wouldn't you say?'

'Jay Stewart and a shedload of other people,' Charlie said. 'And it's not like somebody made this stuff up. They just made it easily accessible when it became clear the police weren't getting a handle on it.'

'Quite. But Magda made a mistake. The weekend before the trial, she drove up for Sunday lunch. Obviously, we were talking about the case, and Patrick said it had been a stroke of luck, Magda finding the back-up drive that gave the police their crucial leverage. And Magda said, quite casually, that it had been Jay who suggested there might be a back-up somewhere and that Magda should retrace his steps on the days before the wedding to see if she could track it down.'

'And why was that a mistake?'

'Because the discovery of the hard drive precedes the occasion when Magda supposedly met Jay again by a couple of weeks.' Corinna kept her eyes on Charlie, a measured stare with absolutely no madness in it.

'It's suggestive,' Charlie said. 'But not necessarily suggestive of collusion to fit up Paul Barker and Joanna Sanderson. And presumably the police checked the internal information on the back-up drive to see when the file was created and saved.'

Corinna threw her hands up in the air. 'I don't know about stuff like that. But I've read about people fiddling with the dates on files. And Jay's whole professional life has been devoted to internet businesses. If anybody's got access to the kind of geeks who know how to alter digital information, it's her.'

'That's still not evidence. Corinna, there's nothing to attack here, in terms of a miscarriage of justice. Even if I got alongside Jay and became convinced, professionally speaking, that she was capable of doing what you suggest, there's still nothing you could call evidence.'

Corinna folded her arms tightly across her chest. 'I was afraid that's what you'd say. And however much I wish it was otherwise, I do understand there's little prospect of calling Jay to account for Philip's death. But she's got to be stopped, Charlie. This is my daughter we're talking about. Jay might want to pull down the moon and stars for her now, but what happens when that changes? What happens if she falls out of love with Magda and Magda doesn't want to let go? Or what if Magda comes to her senses and wants to leave her? Can you imagine what it feels like to know your daughter is spending her nights with a killer?'

'No, I can't. And I can see how concern for a child might make you build castles in the air.'

'This is not castles in the air.' For the first time, Corinna had raised her voice. 'There is a trail of bodies in her wake. Magda thinks I banned Jay from this house all those years ago because I discovered she was a lesbian. Now, you know me well enough to know that couldn't be the case. I never tried to keep you away from my kids even though I knew pretty much from the get-go that you were a lesbian. The reason, the real reason I froze Jay out of our lives was because I was convinced she killed Jess Edwards.'

Charlie was stunned into silence, the words echoing in her ears. She gave a tiny shake of the head. 'That was an accident,' she said at last, blinking hard to shift an image of Jess from her mind's eye.

'I didn't think so at the time, and I don't think so now,' Corinna said.

'What possible grounds could you have for saying that?' Charlie felt close to tears. Jess the bright and beautiful, the one with the glorious golden future she never got to live. Even though she'd only been a fresher in Charlie's final year, she'd made an impact. Charlie had not long left Schollie's when Jess had died, but it was a death that reverberated inside her, a denial of possibility that could reach out and touch any of them.

'The morning Jess died…' Corinna stared through the basement window, eyes level with the muddy winter grass. She sighed. 'Back then, I used to go into college really early. I'd get a couple of hours' work in, then run home and make sure the kids were clean and fed and dressed for school. That morning, I came in by the meadow gate around six. And I swear I saw Jay Stewart coming across the meadow from the direction of the boathouse.'

A moment of stunned silence, then Charlie said, 'Wasn't it dark that early?'

'It was dark. And kind of misty too. But I know what I saw. I knew Jay pretty well. Well enough to be certain it was her.'

'And you never said anything?' Charlie was trained to interview the most vicious of killers without letting judgement creep into her tone. But it was taking all of her professional skill not to scream at Corinna right then. 'You kept this to yourself?'

Corinna took off her glasses and polished them on her sweater. 'I told myself there must have been an innocent explanation. Maybe Jay was meeting Jess to try and take some of the sting out of the election campaign.' She glanced up at Charlie. Without her glasses, her face looked small and naked. Charlie wondered how calculated the move was. 'I had no reason then to imagine Jay was a killer. I thought I knew her. And think about it, Charlie. If I had told the police what I'd seen' — she spread her hands wide — 'it would have proved nothing. It would just have created a storm of rumour and suspicion that would have tainted the college. I didn't want Schollie's splashed over the tabloid press. And besides, there wasn't the slightest suggestion then or any time later that Jess's death was anything other than a terrible accident. Talking about what I'd seen would have achieved nothing. I didn't make the decision alone, either. I talked it over with Dr Winter and she agreed with me.'

Helena Winter, chatelaine of the legend of Schollie's, Charlie thought. She would have agreed to anything so long as the college remained untarnished. Charlie willed herself to sit still, not to show how agitated Corinna's words had left her. 'Well, that's one suspicious death. What about the rest?'

Corinna replaced her glasses and glanced at her watch. 'We've not got much time. There's two others that I think should be investigated. Her business partner in doitnow.com, Kathy Lipson.'

'I remember that. It was a climbing accident.'

'Jay cut the rope.'

'And the verdict absolved her of any blame.' Now Charlie's voice was rising in pitch to match Corinna.

'That doesn't make her blameless. And the terms of their partnership meant Jay inherited Kathy's share of the business. Just weeks before she sold the company for millions.'

'This is crazy, Corinna. There's nowhere to go with this. There's nothing remotely approaching evidence.'

'Then there was a guy called Ulf Ingemarsson. I found out about him on Google. After I discovered Jay had been in college on the night Philip died, I started to wonder what other skeletons might be hanging around in her closet. And I found him. Ingemarsson was murdered. He was on holiday in Spain. He'd rented a villa up in the mountains above Barcelona. Very remote. And here's the thing, Charlie. He had the original idea for 24/7. He had the project in development. But Jay stole his work. He was about to sue her. He'd gone to Spain to get some peace and quiet to prepare the case. He was stabbed to death. He'd been dead for at least a week when they found him. The Spanish police said it had been a burglary gone wrong. But his girlfriend didn't think so. His laptop was gone and so were the papers she said he'd taken with him to work on. They'd mean nothing to a burglar. But they'd mean everything to Jay Stewart.'

Charlie closed her eyes and sighed. 'And is there a shred of evidence to link Jay to this?'

'I don't know,' Corinna said. 'But it was an amazing coincidence, don't you think? Every time somebody stands between Jay Stewart and what she wants, they die. This goes way beyond coincidence, Charlie.'

Charlie felt very tired. She couldn't summon the energy to argue with Corinna any more. 'Maybe,' she said wearily. 'But I'm not a detective. And neither are you. You're going to have to let this go, Corinna. Otherwise it's going to eat you up and make you crazy.'

She shook her head vigorously. 'I can't let it go, Charlie. It's my daughter's life that could be at stake here. If you can't help me — if the law can't help me — I'm going to have to take this into my own hands. I'm not afraid of the consequences. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in jail and know that Magda was safe.'

Charlie had thought she knew Corinna. Now she realised how wrong she'd been. It didn't matter how intellectually able Corinna was, nor how capable of philosophical investigation. When it came to her children, the primeval took over. There was no doubt in Charlie's mind that Corinna meant exactly what she had said. She would kill Jay to save Magda. And she'd calculated her mark perfectly. She understood Charlie's need to atone. Even though she'd done nothing wrong, people had died because of her. Now Corinna was offering her the chance to save a life that possibly didn't deserve saving. With her head, Charlie knew there was no such thing as a redemptive trade-off, but her heart felt differently.

'I will kill her,' Corinna said. 'If that's what it takes.'

That was how stark the choice was. Unless Charlie could bring Jay to some kind of justice or demonstrate her innocence Corinna would at least make a serious attempt on her life. The trouble was Charlie had no conviction she could manage either goal. But at least if she agreed to help, she might buy enough time to talk Corinna down from this madness. 'I understand that,' she said quietly. 'And I can't let you do that.' She ran a hand through her hair, feeling more like ripping it out in frustration. 'I'll help.'

Corinna's smile was frail, her eyes mistrustful. 'I knew I could count on you, Charlie.' She reached out and patted Charlie's hand in a rare moment of physical contact.

Before Charlie could answer, she heard the front door opening. Footsteps clattering, then voices calling. 'Mum, where are you?'

'Hi, Mum, we're home.'

Corinna stood up. 'Thanks, Charlie. We'll talk again.' Then she swung round to face the stairs. 'We're down here, darlings. '

Oh Christ, Charlie thought. This is going to be some lunch.

2

Magda leaned across and opened the passenger door for Catherine, who jumped off the wall she'd been sitting on and hurried to the car. Magda turned down the Isobel Camp-bell and Mark Lanegan CD as Catherine climbed in. 'You're freezing,' Magda said, kissing her sister's icy cheek.

Catherine screwed up her face. 'You know I don't feel the cold.'

It was hard to argue with that, given Catherine had chosen to dress on a cold spring morning in black leggings, a cotton dress and a thin leather jerkin. 'You should have waited indoors, Wheelie.' It was the affectionate scolding of an older sister used to taking responsibility for the younger ones.

'I was ready. And it's always a nightmare trying to get parked round here on a Saturday morning, you know that. So I thought I'd be helpful and wait outside. Honestly, Magda.' Catherine rolled her eyes and ran a frustrated hand through her tousled hair.

Magda, the perfectly groomed big sister, pulled away and threaded her way through the maze of streets below Shepherd's Bush Green. 'OK, OK. Have you had breakfast?'

'Of course I had breakfast, it's nearly eleven o'clock. And I'm twenty-two years old. God, Magda, I'd have thought taking up with Jay would have occupied all your mother hen instincts.'

Magda grinned. 'Hardly. Jay is more than capable of taking care of herself.'

Catherine groaned. 'Oh yes, how could I have forgotten? You only want to mother your siblings. When it comes to lovers, you always prefer someone who takes care of you. You bat those beautiful eyelashes and do that Grace Kelly smile and they're putty in your hands.'

'Thanks, Wheelie. You make me sound like a complete twat.'

Catherine giggled. 'Hey, did I say it was a bad thing? If I could find a bloke that ran after me like Philip did with you, I wouldn't be saying no, believe me.'

Magda's hands tightened momentarily on the wheel. 'If you ever find someone half as nice as Philip, you'll be doing just fine.'

Catherine twisted in her seat and studied her sister so pointedly that Magda glanced away from the road. 'What?' Magda said as she turned back to the traffic.

'You really did care about him, didn't you?'

Magda made an exasperated tutting noise. 'For fuck's sake. Of course I cared about him. I married him, remember?'

'Yeah, but…' Catherine's voice tailed off.

'There's no but, Wheelie. I loved him.' Abruptly Magda turned the music up.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, then the irrepressible Catherine picked up her thread again. 'See, you probably don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to ask you anyway because I want to know and you're the only person who can tell me.'

Magda groaned. She recognised the familiar overture to one of her sister's tenacious inquiries. 'You're right, Wheelie. Whatever it is, I probably don't want to talk about it.'

'I totally get that you loved Philip. Right up till you told me about Jay, it never crossed my mind that you didn't. But now you love Jay. And I mean, it's obvious to me that you love her and that loving her makes you happy. But that's what I thought about Philip too. Each of those things makes sense on its own. But together? I can't make sense of it.' Catherine hunkered down in the seat, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms round her shins.

Magda tried to concentrate on driving. But Catherine's words drilled down too deep to be ignored. And if she couldn't deal with Catherine, who was on her side, how on earth was she going to deal with her parents? 'It's complicated,' she said.

'Well, duh. I got that much. What I'm trying to get at… is it that you're a lesbian and you've always been a lesbian only you were in denial, or is it just Jay?'

Magda felt like there was a stone in her stomach. Why couldn't she just get on with living her life? Why did she have to explain herself to anybody? Even as she had the thought, she knew the answer. Because she was the eldest. Because her life had never been her own. Because she'd grown up with three younger siblings who always wanted to know the why of everything. She'd grown accustomed to answering and they'd grown accustomed to being answered and now it felt like a divine right. 'I think I've always been a lesbian,' she said slowly. 'But I didn't want to admit it. Least of all to myself.'

'Why not? This is the twenty-first century, Mag. You can even get married now.'

'It took a long time to dawn on me, Wheelie. You know what it's like when you're a teenager, everybody has crushes on teachers, on other girls, on actresses, whatever. So there's nothing odd about being in love with your best friend except that the unwritten rule is that you don't talk about it. You have sleepovers and you snuggle and you talk till dawn but you never talk about any feelings you have for each other. And then you all start going out with boys, and it's what you do. You go with the flow. And you still feel the same about your best friend, only now it's clear you absolutely don't talk about it.' Magda ran into the sand, uncertain where to go next.

'Well, yeah. OK. Except the bit about still feeling the same. I stopped feeling like that when I started kissing boys.'

Magda gave a wry smile that twisted her beauty into something darker. 'Now, I get that. Back then, I didn't. I thought that was just how it was. And I was lucky. The boys I went out with were decent blokes.'

'Probably because you're beautiful so you got the pick of them,' Catherine butted in, pulling a sad clown face.

'Whatever. All I knew was they didn't make my chest hurt like girls did. They didn't make me breathe faster or count the hours till I would see them again. But they treated me well enough and I didn't dislike their company. It was easier just to go with the flow, Wheelie.' She pushed a stray strand of hair away from her face and checked her mirrors before moving over a lane.

'Why did you care so much about going with the flow?'

'Oh God… All sorts of reasons. I wanted to be a doctor working with children. I was too wrapped up in my work to be arsed with anything emotionally complicated. I didn't want to rock the boat at home. Things have been so grisly between Mum and Dad for so long, I couldn't bear the thought of throwing them another bone to fight over. And I was always supposed to be the one who was the good example. I didn't want to turn into the outcast, Wheelie.' She sighed. 'It all sounds really stupid now, but it was important at the time.'

'So you married Philip to keep everything sweet?' Catherine sounded incredulous. Magda couldn't blame her.

'It wasn't that cold-blooded,' she protested. 'I thought I loved him. I was genuinely fond of him, Wheelie. We had fun together. I liked being with him.'

'What about the sex? Didn't you notice you didn't fancy him? More to the point, didn't he notice?'

Magda winced. 'Straight for the jugular as usual. Look, the sex was fine. I'm not going into details, because it's none of your business. I got married to Philip with my eyes open. I knew I could make it work between us. It really didn't matter to me that it wasn't some earth-shattering grand passion. Frankly, I thought that kind of thing was overrated, judging by the mess most of my friends have made of it.'

Catherine let out a low whistle. 'And then you met Jay.' She laughed in delight. 'And she's turned you inside out and upside down. The gods are having their fun with you now, Mag. You've got your grand passion in spades.'

'Fuck you, Wheelie,' Magda said without rancour. 'Now it's my turn to ask you a question.'

Catherine raised her eyebrows. 'Fire away, sis.'

'Given you have no boundaries at all when it comes to other people's privacy, how come it's taken you so long to ask me the question?'

3

Jay smiled to herself. She'd learned from her first memoir that the closer she stuck to the structure of a novel, the more her readers would be drawn in. Cliffhanging chapter endings and hints of what was to come, that was what kept the reader glued to the book. She'd been reluctant to revisit some parts of her past, but now she was getting into her stride, she was finding it surprisingly satisfying to see it take shape. And with the trial over, she found her focus was much stronger. Clearly, she'd been more stressed by what had been happening in court than she liked to admit to herself.

Acknowledging that made her wonder whether she'd had any understanding of her stress levels when Jess had died. At the time, she'd just kept her head down and done what she had to do. Thinking about it now, it must have had more of an impact than she'd realised. It was worth bearing that in mind as she wrote the next section. It wouldn't hurt to show a little vulnerability, a hint of grappling with grief.

I was eating breakfast alone in the dining hall when I heard the news. In spite of Jess's cruel barb, Louise and I had made a point of never coming in to breakfast together, though generally one would join the other as she was finishing her toast and coffee. But that morning, Louise hadn't appeared yet. I was sitting with a view of the entrance; after her threats of the previous morning, the last thing I wanted was Jess creeping up on me.

The news started as a murmur and gasp at the far end of the room, generated by the arrival of a handful of dishevelled rowers. They were normally among the first in to breakfast, desperate for calories to replace those they'd just used up in their early-morning exertions on the river. But today, they were late. And Jess was not among them.

The report snaked up and down the refectory tables, knots of people forming in the aisles. 'Jess Edwards is dead,' I eventually heard someone say in shocked and amazed tones a couple of seats from me. I dropped my fork with a clatter.

'Jess?' I exclaimed. 'Jess Edwards?'

'Yeah,' the woman who had just sat down diagonally opposite me confirmed. `I just heard, at the serving hatch.' She jerked her head towards the rowers, now sitting hunched over cups of coffee, their shoulders angled to make themselves a self-contained group. 'They found her.'

'That's awful! What happened?' someone else demanded before I could ask the same thing.

'Nobody knows yet,' our informant said. 'They found her in the river. Face down. At the end of the meadow, by the boathouse. She was caught up in one of the willows. They were just launching the boat this morning when one of them saw her legs.'

'Oh my God. That must have been horrendous. I can't believe it,' I said, almost to myself. A complicated mix of emotions was swirling through me. I was appalled by the death of one of my contemporaries. No matter how difficult things had been between us, Jess was someone at the same point in her life as I was, and I was alive to the terrible tragedy of her death. But I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit to a sense of relief. Jess was dead but I was safe. Even if Jess's cohorts knew about the plan for the smear campaign, her death would thrust them into far too much disarray to capitalise on it.

I pushed my chair back with a screech of wood on wood and stood up. 'I just can't take it in,' I said, walking out of the dining hall like a woman in a dream.

Inevitably, my feet took me out of the Sackville Building and into the misty gardens. I scrambled down the rockery steps to the river bank and walked slowly towards the meadow. I didn't have to go far before I could see an area taped off and the dark shapes of police officers standing around by the boathouse. It was real. Jess was dead. She had been one of the golden girls of my generation, and now it was all over for her.

An event like that can be a defining moment for the group touched by it. I won't pretend we were friends, but the memory of Jess Edwards rises up before me several times a year. Every University Boat Race, I think of her leading the college boat to victory. Whenever I watch young athletes, I remember the strength and beauty of her body. I regret the loss of promise, and I wonder what she would have made of her life. I look at the lives of the other golden girls and remind myself that most of them haven't done anything spectacular, as if that were some sort of consolation. It isn't, of course.

Was that the right note? The trick was to appear candid without actually indulging in candour. Jay knew that absolute honesty was a complete non-starter, not just for her but for anyone engaging in an enterprise like this. The truth was she'd been bloody glad when Jess Edwards had died. It had suited her at the time and even now she didn't think the world was any the poorer for the absence of another over-privileged Tory bitch with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

And that was an impossible thing to say. Maybe the structures of fiction were working so well for her because that was what she was really writing.

By dinner, the word was all over college. It looked as if Jess had gone down to the boathouse earlier than usual. According to one of her fellow oarswomen, she'd been complaining that her seat wasn't sliding freely enough, so the supposition was that she'd gone down to do something technical to it. It had been damp and misty, the ground underfoot slippery and muddy. Jess appeared to have lost her footing on the landing stage, hit her head on the edge of the jetty and tumbled unconscious into the water, where she'd drowned. A tragic accident, the consensus said, a verdict echoed in due course by the coroner. For my part, I promised my first task as JCR President would be to insist the college laid a non-slip surface on the landing stage. It was too little, too late, but it was the best thing I could do to honour her memory.

Because there was nothing to stop me becoming JCR President now.There were a couple of other candidates, but in truth, it had been a two-horse race between me and Jess. The election three days later was a walkover.There had been some murmurings about postponing it until after Jess's funeral, but tradition has always been a powerful argument in an Oxford college. And besides, the incumbent was determined to give up office at the end of term so she could concentrate on working for her finals. Her reminder that Jess cared about St Scholastika's and that she wouldn't have wanted her death to interfere with the proper running of the Junior Common Room was enough to make sure everything ran to the appropriate timetable.

So it was as President-Elect of the JCR that I contributed to Jess's funeral. I spoke about the importance of difference, the need for opposition so that ideas could be tested. I recalled Jess's wholehearted commitment to everything she did and how much we would miss her. And it came from the heart, even surprising me a little with its power. People who were in St Mary the Virgin that day remembered my address for years, or so they told me when they bumped into me at college celebrations or in real life.

Jay stood up and walked away from the computer. The next section would have to be perfectly poised and she wanted to think it through before she tried to put pen to paper. Once, she would have gone to a climbing wall and let her subconscious mind do the work while she was intent on putting together a sequence of hand-and footholds that would take her to the top of the wall with a degree of panache. These days, that was beyond her. The injuries she'd sustained in the incident that had claimed the life of her business partner, Kathy Lipson, hadn't seemed too bad at the time. Just torn ligaments in one knee, stiffness from the cold, a painful twist in the lower back. No big deal. But as the years had slipped away, it had become clear that the damage had plugged into genetic neurological predispositions. Her fingers lacked the strength to grip, her knees no longer wanted to crab across rock faces, her toes cramped in cracks. She was a liability on a mountain, bereft of the one physical activity she'd ever found any point in.

Now, she walked. There was no challenge in it, but there was rhythm and rhythm made her mind work. She loved to walk by the Thames, the river on one side and the traffic on the other. It was where she constructed business plans, resolved problems and built strategies for dealing with people. It was also where she practised her writing, figuring out how to tell the story that was in her memory in such a way that it made sense. Shaping and reshaping, organising her material in different arrangements, transforming the untidy into a pleasing form.

The next section she would write was about Corinna and it couldn't be dodged. There was no way to write this part of the story with full weight and resonance without including what had happened between her and Magda's mother. Of course it would be easier in some ways to ignore it altogether. Whatever Jay wrote, it was going to provoke unease between the two of them. She had to negotiate a way through the truth that they could all live with. And that wasn't going to be easy.

Jay made her way through the warren of tight little streets that brought her on to the Chelsea Physic Garden. Sometimes she walked from the Chelsea Embankment to Blackfriars and beyond if she was in the grip of a particular problem. But since Magda had arrived to fill so much of her life, writing time had become even more precious. She didn't want to spend any more time away from the keyboard than she needed to.

She walked briskly along the paths, paying no real attention to what she was seeing. As she walked, she munched Cox's Orange Pippins, her jaw grinding in counterpoint to her footsteps. There had to be a way of doing this that told enough truth so that nobody would quibble while at the same time disguising the darker side of Jay's real reactions and responses.

Rehearsing it as she walked, Jay eventually came up with what she hoped would keep everybody more or less happy. Her stride lengthened and her eyes sparkled as she retraced her steps at a brisker pace, eager to get back and try it out.

Not everything went as smoothly as my accession to the presidency, however. Inevitably, the ugly gossip that Jess had started did not die with her. People had begun to talk. There were times when I wondered if the feminist revolution had ever happened.

Some of you reading this will wonder whether I was paranoid. I know it's hard to believe I'm talking about 1993, not 1973. In the outside world, there were openly lesbian tennis players, actors and writers. Not many, admittedly, but some. Yet the world I inhabited was still fiercely homophobic even if it pretended otherwise. Oxford graduates tended to gravitate towards the kind of careers where gender equality was regarded with polite incredulity — never mind gay liberation. So nobody wanted to be branded as a lesbian, not even by association.

And yet, part of me wanted to believe I could dare to be different. Once I was safely ensconced as JCR President I refused to worry. Indeed, I even considered coming out and making a principled stand of it, but Louise had issued a panicked veto as soon as I broached the subject. If I came out, Louise had argued, then she would be forced into the open also. And unlike me, she was still firmly attached to her family and her home, where staunch adherence to the moral principles of the Catholic Church still held sway. To be lesbian in Louise's family would be to acknowledge that you were living in mortal sin, and she was not ready for that.

'It's all right for you,' she murmured in my arms in the early hours. 'You're gay. You know you're a lesbian. I don't. I know I love you, but that doesn't mean I have to be like you.'

So I held back. I reasoned that, if I ignored the rumour, it would fizzle and die when something more interesting came along. I was naive; I didn't understand the damage that might flow from those poisonous words.

It had started seemingly innocently. The day of the election, I left a note in Corinna's message pigeonhole confirming I'd meet her that evening as usual for a drink. I was eager to celebrate and in spite of my relationship with Louise, Corinna was still someone I wanted to share my moment of glory with. On my way out to our rendezvous, I checked my own pigeonhole and found a note from Corinna. 'Dear Jay, I'm going to have to take a rain check on tonight. Henry's mother is about to descend upon us, so I'm stuck at home. Apologies. Corinna.'

I was disappointed, but not unduly distressed. It wasn't the first time one or other of us had had to duck out of an arrangement. There would be plenty of opportunities to catch up, or so I thought.

I was wrong. The following day, another message from Corinna arrived. 'Dear Jay, with Henry's mother in residence, I won't need you to babysit Friday night. No doubt you won't be short of things to do! Corinna.' I felt mildly cross, having grown accustomed to the useful and regular supplement to my grant that babysitting for Corinna had become. But I knew relations between Corinna and her mother-in-law had always been awkward and that Dorothy would be insulted if I had turned up to take care of the children when she was in the house.

I waited for a note from Corinna to arrange our next evening out; she wasn't teaching me that term, so unless we bumped into each other around college, we communicated by notes. I waited in vain. Two weeks had passed since that initial cancellation, though I barely noticed the days slip by. There was the routine weight of academic work. There were the new responsibilities of office, where I had to bring myself up to speed with the current state of play and then develop my strategies for the changes I planned to institute. And of course, there was my relationship with Louise, still fresh, still exciting but also demanding.

Then, one afternoon, I was at an intercollegiate meeting of JCR Presidents in St John's. For once, the meeting finished earlier than I anticipated, and since I was less than five minutes by bike from Corinna's, I decided to drop in for tea. Corinna's car was in the drive, and I could see through the lit windows of the basement that the kids were home. I walked round to the side door and leaned my bike against the wall. As usual, I rang the bell and turned the door handle to walk in. To my surprise, it was locked. In all the time I'd been coming to the house, I'd never known Corinna lock the door in daylight hours.

I frowned and stepped back, feeling strangely rebuffed. I could hear footsteps on the stairs leading up from the basement, and moments later, the door swung open. Corinna stood there, looking faintly worried. Behind her, I could just see Patrick rounding the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. 'Oh. Jay,' Corinna said abruptly. 'You picked a really bad moment. We're just about to go out.'

'No we're not,' Patrick said. 'You just put a pie in the oven.'

Corinna flushed, half-turning to shoot a look at Patrick that sent him scuttling downstairs. 'That's for Henry,' she said crossly, clearly flustered. She took a deep breath and arranged her features in an expression I had never seen before. It was the smile of someone who'd taken a course in facial expressions but had failed the practical. Her eyes stayed anxious, while her mouth curved unconvincingly upwards. 'Sorry,' she said. 'Some other time, huh?'

And the door closed in my face. It was as painful and as humiliating as if Corinna had actually slapped me. I felt weak in the knees, tears smarting my eyes. I was utterly bewildered by so uncompromising a rejection. For over a year, Corinna and her kids had been my family, my home. Corinna had trusted me with her children, with her complaints, with her dreams, and I had reciprocated. And now, with no warning, no explanation, no obvious breach, I was outcast.

Somehow, I turned my bike around and staggered down the drive on nearly steady legs. At the gate, I turned back for one swift glance. Patrick was standing on the window seat in the basement bay window, face blank, staring at me. When I caught his eye, Patrick half-raised one hand. He knew something had changed; it was a valediction, not a wave.

I have never been able to remember anything about the ride back to college except the blinding tears. I could think of only one reason for Corinna's defection. She'd heard the rumours and her affection wasn't enough to overcome her prejudice. Or, more likely, she'd told Henry about the rumours and he'd insisted that I wasn't to be allowed within molesting distance of his precious children.

If such a thing were to happen to Jay Macallan Stewart, entrepreneur and author, anger would sweep through her like a cauterising lance. But back then, I lacked the self-assurance for rage. However hard I'd tried, I hadn't managed to embrace gay pride yet, and part of me felt I deserved the scourge of Corinna's treatment, so guilt added to my devastation. I almost sympathised with Corinna, self-loathing piling one pain on another.

The final blow came a couple of days later, again via pigeonhole. I snatched my post greedily, seeing the familiar dashing scrawl on the college envelope. I ripped it open, staking my happiness on the forlorn hope that it was some sort of reconciliation. 'Dear Jay,' Corinna still dared begin. 'As you will recall, you had requested that I be your tutor next term for your moral philosophy option. Unfortunately, I now realise my teaching load will not accommodate this, so I have arranged for you to be taught by Dr Bliss at St Hilda's instead. She'll get in touch directly to make arrangements for you to meet. Yours, Corinna Newsam.'

I stood numb in the middle of the porter's lodge, desperately struggling to keep my composure. Corinna's denial of me felt like a physical wound deep inside. On either side, women jostled me accidentally as they went to check their own post. I saw none of them. All I could see was Patrick at the window, his bleak little face a pale shadow of my own sorrow.

4

Seeing someone else in the kitchen besides her mother, Magda felt cheated. She'd been screwing her courage to the sticking place all morning, readying herself for confrontation, only half-listening to Catherine's tales of student life, and now the moment would have to be postponed. Almost as soon as she'd had that resentful thought, it dawned on her that the woman rising from the kitchen table seemed too familiar to be a stranger. As her mother pulled her into a hug, Magda kept her eyes on the other woman.

'Darling, I'm so glad to see you,' Corinna exclaimed, drawing her so close Magda felt smothered. 'What a week for you.'

Magda patted her on the back, pulling away to let her sister greet their mother. 'Hello,' she said with the formal smile of a woman who has been properly brought up in the kind of circles where outsiders at the lunch table were taken in one's stride. She eyed up the not-quite-stranger, taking in black hair stranded with silver and an overall impression of comfortable plumpness inside jeans and a nicely cut baggy blue shirt. A pleasant face with an air of mischief. But it was the eyes that tugged at her memory — calm, watchful, a startling pale blue with a darker rim. Like a husky, Magda thought.

The woman leaned one hip against the table, looking entirely at home. She nodded at Magda and Catherine. 'You don't remember me, do you?'

Catherine, freed from her mother's embrace, looked her up and down, frowning. She'd always had a much stronger visual memory than her sister. 'You're one of the minders, aren't you? I don't remember which one, but you're one of them.'

'The minders?' the woman said, sounding amused.

'What we called our babysitters,' Magda said. 'Mum's undergraduates. You were always temporary, therefore generic.' She shrugged an apology. 'No criticism implied. It's the nature of the thing. You were only ever in Oxford long enough to do a degree. None of you was ever in our lives for long.'

'So which one are you?' Catherine demanded, irrepressibly blunt as always.

Corinna groaned. 'What can I say? I did my best. Somehow, the whole manners thing didn't take with Catherine.'

The woman laughed. 'I'm Charlie. Charlie Flint. I used to read you Winnie the Pooh, Wheelie. You always liked Eeyore best.'

Catherine gave a little snort. 'Still do. Only sensible one of the lot of them.' She stuck a hand out. 'Good to meet you again, Charlie Flint.'

Charlie shook hands. 'And you.' She cocked her head to one side, studying both Newsam girls. 'I wouldn't have recognised you, Wheelie. But I think I'd have been able to pick Magda out of a line-up.'

Magda acknowledged her comment with a raise of the eyebrows then turned back to Corinna. 'Where's Dad?'

Corinna crossed to the range and opened one of the doors, releasing a cloud of steam and the dense aroma of chicken, ham and pastry. 'He's got an Open Day at school. He's got to be there to show prospective parents round.' Magda's expression tightened but she said nothing. 'He'll be back around three, he said.' Corinna checked the pie, replaced it in the oven, then set a pan of potatoes to boil on the range top.

'Never mind,' Catherine said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. She grinned cheerily at Charlie. 'Mum, does Charlie know we have something to celebrate or are we going to have to go through the whole gruesome explanation?'

'Catherine, for heaven's sake,' Corinna said sharply.

'If you mean the court verdict, yes, I know about it,' Charlie said. 'And maybe I should leave you to it. I don't want to intrude.'

Magda caught the quick flash of annoyance on her mother's face, so she was surprised when Corinna said, 'Of course not, Charlie. You're not intruding.'

'Hardly,' Magda said. 'I feel like my whole life has become public property lately.'

Charlie smiled. 'It's never pleasant to be the focus of media attention.'

Catherine's eyes widened and her expression turned to astonishment. 'That's where I know you from,' she said with an air of satisfaction. 'Not just from being a minder. You're the one that was in the news.' She turned to her sister. 'You remember? The guy that got off with murder then went and killed those other women.' Then back to Charlie. 'You're the one that got him off.'

Charlie's expression didn't change from one of pleasant interest. 'That's not how I would describe what happened but yes, some elements of the media have chosen to express it in those terms.'

'Catherine' — Corinna dumped a bottle of red wine heavily in front of her younger daughter — 'Charlie is a guest in our home. We generally don't insult our guests.'

'Not until they've had a drink, at least,' Magda said, shrugging out of her jacket and bringing four glasses to the table. 'I apologise for my sister. I think I should just have cards printed so I can hand them out as I follow her through life. "Magda Newsam is very sorry about her sister's lack of tact."'

'Or we could institute the Catherine Newsam award for tact and diplomacy,' Catherine said. 'I'm sorry, Charlie. When I'm interested in someone or something, I tend to open my mouth without considering the consequences.'

'Keep working on the charm, then,' Charlie said. 'That'll probably save you from getting slapped too often.'

Catherine looked shocked for a millisecond, then she burst out laughing. 'Harsh,' she said, approving. 'So if that's not the way you'd describe what happened, what is?'

'Charlie might not feel like discussing it,' Corinna said, her tone repressive.

'Please, Charlie,' Catherine said. 'We've all been so wound up about the horrible trial, it'd be a welcome distraction.'

'Nothing like other people's problems to take your mind off your own,' Charlie said drily. 'It's really not that interesting.'

Magda had been following the conversation without taking her eyes off Charlie, wondering whether her newly discovered sexuality meant she'd be going through life seeing dykes everywhere or if it would wear off with time. Now she said, 'Wheelie's right. It would be so nice not to be constantly circling my own obsessions.'

Charlie puffed her cheeks up then let out a long noisy breath. 'All right. But I need that drink.' As Magda poured the wine, Charlie composed herself. 'I'm a psychiatrist. I have a particular interest in treating and studying psychopathic personalities. '

'What does that actually mean?' Catherine asked. 'It's one of those things you read in the papers but you're never quite sure what it actually consists of.'

'Psychopaths are individuals who don't have the capacity for empathy or remorse. How their actions affect other people is a matter of complete indifference to them. They lie, they try to control the world so it runs their way. The smart ones are glib and manipulative and learn how to fit in.'

Catherine groaned. 'Sounds like most of the men I know.'

'You've been unlucky, then. We reckon they only make up about one per cent of the population. Mostly I work with people who have been convicted of serious criminal offences, but sometimes I deal with people who have other mental health issues. Their psychopathy is a side issue when I see them, but there is always a certain amount of concern that if they're released into society at large their mental state will lead to them committing serious violent crime. As a result of my professional experience, I ended up as a criminal profiler and an expert witness.' Charlie made a wry face. 'I was doing well. Just like Schollie's alumnae are supposed to.'

'And so you should,' Corinna said. 'You were one of my better students.'

Charlie laughed. 'I find that hard to believe, given how much time I sneaked off doing other things.'

'You're not here just to work.'

'You never said that at the time,' Charlie said. 'Anyway… I was called in by the Crown Prosecution Service on a murder case down near Leicester. They had a suspect awaiting trial and they wanted my expert testimony in support of their case. It was pretty much routine for me. I arranged to interview the suspect, a man called Bill Hopton. I ended up speaking to him on four occasions and by the end of our sessions I had some serious concerns. I asked for a meeting with the CPS lawyer.' She sighed and drank some wine.

'I told him that my professional opinion was that Bill Hopton was a psychopathic personality who was capable of sadistic sexual violence. That chances were he would go on to commit violent sexual assaults or rapes that would likely end in murder. But I was equally convinced that he hadn't committed this particular murder. It just didn't fit with the picture I had built of his personality type.'

'I bet that made you popular,' Catherine said.

'Just a bit. The lawyer tried to get me to change my mind, but I wasn't prepared to alter my professional opinion to fit their theory of the crime. So I was bumped off the case. Which would have been the end of it if the defence hadn't got wind of what had gone on. They came to me and asked me to be a defence expert witness. I said no, I can't, it's a conflict of interest, I only have the information I have because I was hired by the CPS, so technically it belongs to them. So they went away and I thought I was done with Bill Hopton. Which was fine by me, because he was a particularly unpleasant and scheming individual.

'Months went by and I forgot all about the Leicester murder. Then one morning I walked into the lecture theatre at the university where I teach and a process server slapped a subpoena on me. Whether I liked it or not, I was going into the box for Bill Hopton. And I was very uncomfortable about it, because I knew how circumstantial the prosecution case was. People think it's all like CSI these days, but it's not always that straightforward. This victim had been stripped naked and dumped in a pond, so the forensics were negligible.

'Bill Hopton had been seen hanging around outside the victim's workplace. There was plenty of CCTV footage putting him there. The defence argued that he liked sitting in that particular square because he could piggyback free Wi-Fi from one of the cafes without actually having to spend any money.' Charlie checked the point off on her finger. 'The murder weapon was a wheel brace from a Vauxhall of the same sort of vintage as the one Hopton drove, and his car was missing the wheel brace. The defence claimed there had been no wheel brace when Hopton bought the car, and they produced the woman who'd sold it to him, who said she didn't think there had been one.' A second finger joined the first. 'Hopton had given an alibi that turned out to be a lie. But the defence said he'd lied because he didn't want to admit being with a prostitute. They produced the hooker, who was a pretty pathetic witness, but she stuck to her guns.' A third finger. 'And then there was me.' Charlie ticked off the fourth finger then folded her hand into a fist. 'I couldn't lie. And the jury, quite rightly, found Bill Hopton not guilty.'

'I bet the prosecutors were fit to be tied,' Corinna said.

'They were furious and they let me know it,' Charlie said. 'I reckoned my days of being an expert witness for the prosecution were over. So I went back to the rest of my life. Interviewing psychopaths, lecturing in Manchester and hanging out with my entirely normal wife Maria.'

Magda tried to keep the startled look from her face. It wasn't that they'd been inculcated with homophobia; it had always been a case of hating the sin but loving the sinner. Nevertheless, she couldn't remember anyone ever being so casual about homosexuality in this house. Visitors who knew the Newsams knew better than to tread on their doctrinal toes. So nobody blasphemed in front of Corinna and nobody talked about being gay or having an abortion when she or Henry was around. Yet here was Charlie, openly referring to her lesbian partner as a 'wife' without being thrown out in disgrace as Jay had been all those years before. Maybe her parents were mellowing. Maybe her own revelation might pass off with less drama than she'd feared.

She realised she'd missed some of Charlie's narrative and forced her attention back to their visitor.

'… at least two years later. But this time there was no doubt about it. It was exactly the kind of frenzied, careless attack I would have predicted. There was forensic evidence galore and digital evidence on Bill Hopton's computer. But because he was moving around, it took them a few weeks to track him down. And by that time, he'd killed three other women.' Charlie's voice dropped and she looked suddenly older, lines appearing round her eyes as they narrowed. 'I felt like shit, I'll be honest. I knew I'd done the right thing, but I still felt as if I should have been able to prevent what had happened.'

'Surely there was nothing you could have done,' Corinna said.

'I did recommend that Hopton should be sent to a secure mental hospital, but his lawyer screamed human rights abuse — his client had been found not guilty by a jury, he was an innocent man, the authorities were just trying to get off the hook. Nobody wants to get caught in the middle of that kind of aggravation,' Charlie said. 'So he walked free to kill four women.'

'And the media love a scapegoat,' Magda said. 'Is that why they ended up going over the top on you?'

'Partly. But it really kicked off when the family of one of the victims wanted somebody to pay for their loss. Literally. They decided to sue me for failing in my duty of care. Other relatives of the dead women got on the bandwagon and then one of them had the bright idea of complaining about me to the General Medical Council.'

'But all you did was testify in support of an innocent man,' Catherine said.

'Well, that's not how they see it.' Charlie drained her glass and reached for the bottle. 'Nobody else was ever charged with the Leicestershire murder, and the police are still happy to go off the record with journalists and tell them they're satisfied that they had the right man on trial. And that my testimony was the key to him getting off. And that's why I've been all over the papers.'

'So what happens now?' Corinna asked.

'I have to wait for the case to come to court. And for the GMC to hold a disciplinary hearing. Meanwhile, I can't practise. The university has suspended me on full pay. I'm picking up bits and pieces of teaching and stuff just to get myself out of the house. Poor Maria, she's the world's most down-to-earth person, and she's having to deal with me in all my anxiety and paranoia.'

'Is that what you're doing in Oxford? Teaching?' Catherine again, curiosity overcoming sensitivity.

'I wish. No, I came to visit a colleague. And since I was staying just round the corner, I thought I'd drop in on Corinna.' Charlie tipped her glass to her hostess. Then she turned to Magda. 'I didn't realise I'd be butting in at such an awkward time. I'll be honest. I'd seen the coverage of the trial in the papers, but I didn't make the connection with you.' She spread her hands in a gesture of apology. 'They didn't use your maiden name and I guess in my head I still think of you as Maggot.'

Magda felt the rising tide of a blush in her throat. 'It's funny,' she said. 'Nobody called me Maggot for years. But you're the second person recently who's used my old nickname. '

'Really?' Charlie looked relieved that her shifting of the subject had worked. 'Some kid you used to know? Or another one of your minders?'

Magda looked at her mother, her chin rising and her shoulders squaring. 'Someone who used to be one of our minders until my mother threw her out of the house.'

Corinna rolled her eyes. 'Now who's going over the top? I presume you're talking about Jay Stewart. For the record, Magda, I did not throw Jay out of the house.'

'You told her she wasn't welcome any more. Because you didn't want a lesbian around your kids.' Suddenly the temper of the room had changed. All the emotion that Magda had been holding in check for months was bursting from its confines.

'I said no such thing.' All the warmth had drained out of Corinna's voice.

'Well, why else would you tell her to go? The only thing that had changed in her life was that she'd been outed on the college grapevine. What? Was it coincidence that that was the week you decided you didn't want her in the house any more?' Mother and daughter glared at each other, but Corinna said nothing.

Catherine turned to Charlie, shaking her head, and said, 'And they say I'm the one who puts her foot in it. I bet you're really glad you came.'

Magda seemed oblivious to the interjection. 'I'm waiting, Mum. If it wasn't because she's a lesbian, why did you cut Jay out of our lives?'

'Whatever you might think, Magda, I'm not homophobic. I've always known Charlie's gay and it never got in the way of our friendship. I was always happy to have Charlie take care of you kids.'

'So why?' Magda's voice was almost a howl. This wasn't how she'd planned today, but she couldn't figure out how to back down now she'd come this far.

Corinna glanced at Charlie as if she might have an answer. Charlie simply shrugged. 'I had good reason,' Corinna finally said. 'And it was nothing to do with who Jay chose to sleep with. I'm sorry, Magda, but I'm not going to tell you why.'

'You're going to have to do better than that, Mum.'

'No, Magda, I'm not. I'm entitled to my privacy. I don't have to tell you everything.'

Magda looked as if she couldn't decide whether to burst into tears or throw something. 'Well, whatever your stupid reason, you're going to have to lift the fatwa. Because if Jay's not allowed in this house, I won't be here either. I've been trying to find the right time to tell you this, but it's obvious there's never going to be a good moment. Jay and me, we're together. She's my lover.' She didn't wait for a response from Corinna, but turned to Charlie. 'I'm glad you're here. Maybe you can explain to my mother that this isn't the end of the world.'

'Oh, for goodness' sake, Magda. Of course I don't think it's the end of the world,' Corinna snapped.

Magda's expression changed as something dawned on her. She rounded on Charlie, face scarlet with anger. 'That's why you're here. You're here because my mother realised Jay and I are more than friends. You're the token lesbian, the one she can use as a shield against the accusation of being a raging bigot. She had to dig back into ancient history, but finally she came up with one. You should be ashamed, letting yourself be used like that.'

'You're making yourself ridiculous, Magda.' Corinna had the implacable chill of an iceberg on collision course. 'Charlie, I'm so sorry.'

Charlie got to her feet, sighing. 'I think it's better if I leave. Magda, I'm really not here to give your mother some identity-politics Brownie points. For what it's worth, your mother has never had any apparent issue with my sexuality. I always reckoned she'd totally got that bit in the New Testament that says you can hate the sin but you have to love the sinner.' She picked up her coat and backpack and headed for the door. 'I'll see myself out.' She gave them a sketchy wave and a lopsided smile. 'I do know the way, after all.'

'I'll be in touch,' Corinna called after her. As Charlie disappeared round the corner of the stair, she turned to her daughters and said, 'How gracious my children turned out to be. How dare you drive my friends out of my kitchen.'

'Same way you would cheerfully drive my lover out of my life,' Magda said.

'How can you be so certain about anything you've said today, Magda? We've never talked about any of these things. This is the first time you've even admitted Jay is your lover.' Corinna's voice had the edge of a steel blade.

'See? The very words you use are loaded: "admitted". Like I was pleading guilty to a crime. This is precisely why I've said nothing up till now. Because I knew it was going to be a nightmare and, frankly, the trial was enough for me to contend with.' Magda picked up her coat. 'I don't know. I had this crazy notion that the world had moved on. That when it came to their own flesh and blood, even my parents could step away from their bigotry and accept that love was more important than dogma.' She struggled to get her arms into her sleeves, violently yanking at her coat. She was close to tears now, but determined not to give way. 'I genuinely hoped you would say something like, "Forget about the past, anyone you love has a place in this family." Well, that just shows how bloody stupid I am.' She turned on her heel and half-ran for the stairs.

'Magda, wait,' Corinna said.

From the third step, Magda looked back. 'I don't belong in this family any more.'

5

Charlie had made a bet with herself. Five minutes before Magda emerged. She'd give it ten to be on the safe side, but she didn't think she would be on the losing end. She hoped not; it might technically be spring but it was still bloody cold. She settled down on the knee-high brick wall that separated the Newsams' garden from the pavement. It was a typical North Oxford street. Big redbrick Victorian houses that had been built for an era when everyone had servants. Set back from the street, mostly protected by dense shrubberies. Four storeys, with small rooms in the attics for maids and children, and kitchens in the basement. When Charlie had first been a regular visitor to the Newsam house, most of them had still been family homes and on summer evenings the gardens had resonated with the cries of playing children. Now, only a few remained as single units. The economics of property prices in the area had led to most of them being transformed into flats and bedsits, recognisable by their banks of doorbells and intercoms. She wondered what sounds travelled now on the evening breezes.

She'd been sitting on the wall for a little over three minutes when the door slammed and Magda strode furiously down the drive. Her eyes were heavy with tears, but she still had a grip on herself. Even in this state, Charlie thought, she had the kind of beauty that provoked a sharp intake of breath. When she saw Charlie, she stopped short. 'What the hell are you doing just sitting there?'

'Waiting for you.' Charlie stayed where she was. 'I'm going down to Schollie's to see Dr Winter. Do you want to walk with me? Or we could go for a drink, if you'd rather.'

Magda looked taken aback. 'You'd keep Dr Winter waiting just to buy me a drink? You must have forgotten what she's like.'

Charlie grinned and stood up. 'I don't have a firm appointment. I thought I'd just take a chance on finding her at home.'

Magda gave a little snort of laughter. 'Where else would she be? It's not like she's got any friends to hang out with.'

'I always thought your mum got on pretty well with her.'

'She's got more stroppy in her old age. Mum, that is. And Dr Winter really can't be doing with anything other than craven submission. So it's not as comfortable a relationship as it used to be.'

'You sound like you should be in my line of work,' Charlie said. 'So, what's it to be? A walk to college or a drink?'

'A walk, I think,' Magda said cautiously.

Good choice for someone who wanted to be sure of her get-away, Charlie thought. She turned on to the street and Magda fell into step beside her. 'Why did you wait for me?' Magda said at once.

'I thought you might appreciate someone in your corner to sound off to.'

'And you're in my corner?'

'I've been out since I was twenty. People talk about coming out as if it was a discrete moment. One minute you're in the closet, the next you're out. Only it's not like that. It's a whole succession of moments. You come out to your friends. To your family. To your colleagues. To the faceless person on the end of a phone from the car insurance firm. To the mortgage broker. To the new neighbours. To the pub quiz team. These days it's mostly OK because even the raging homophobes know better than to show off their prejudices in public.' Charlie gave a deep sigh. 'But every single gay person I know has been on the receiving end of a vile and hurtful reaction at least once in their life. I suspect it's similar for black people, except they don't have a choice about confronting it. So yes, I'm in your corner. I know how hard this is. Especially since you've been rendered so very publicly straight by the terrible thing that happened to Philip.'

'I just want them to be pleased that I'm happy,' Magda said plaintively. 'I've had such a shit time since Philip died, you'd think they could maybe manage that.'

'It doesn't work like that. It actually makes them more protective. Corinna's desperate for you not to be any more hurt than you are already. She thinks that what you're doing is a recipe for getting hurt.'

'Why would Jay hurt me? She loves me.'

Where to begin, thought Charlie. Like so many doctors she'd encountered, Magda seemed to be an uneasy mixture of maturity and naivete. Charlie put it down to an unnaturally prolonged time as a student combined with exposure to emotionally shattering moments. 'Our parents always want us to have the easiest, happiest life. Looking at it from the outside, being a lesbian doesn't promise that. Add to that the fact that, for whatever reason, Corinna and Jay fell out a long time ago. She's scared for you. That's what's at the bottom of this.'

'There's nothing to be scared of. I'm happier than I've ever been. I thought I loved Philip, but this is like watching a colour film after you've only ever seen black and white.' They turned a corner into another street which looked just like the one they'd left except that its different orientation meant the tree buds were further advanced.

Charlie grinned. 'Believe me, I know that feeling.'

'How long have you and Maria been together?'

It was, Charlie thought, the invariable question from the newly minted. 'Seven years. We did the civil partnership three years ago.'

'What does she do?'

'She's a dentist. She specialises in implants. Frankly, it would drive me completely nuts in about three hours, but she's fascinated by it.'

'How did you meet?'

The other inevitable question. 'At a wedding. One of her colleagues was marrying one of mine. We were both invited to the reception. Her gaydar twitched first and she chatted me up over the dessert buffet. I thought she was very cute. Tell you the truth, I thought she might be a bit of a bimbo.' Charlie laughed, still rueful at her mistake. 'I could not have been more wrong. What about you and Jay? How did you meet?' She glanced quickly at Magda, who had her chin tucked down and her eyes on the pavement.

'Well, obviously, we met when Jay was still considered a fit and proper person to take care of us kids.'

'Of course. But I don't imagine you kept in touch all these years. How did you run into each other again?'

'There's a short cut here,' Magda said, indicating an alley fenced with high wooden palings that ran between the houses. 'It brings you out by the meadow gate.'

'I remember.' Charlie followed her, forced from her side by the narrowness of the path. 'So where did you guys meet up?'

Magda sighed. 'I know you're a friend of my mum's but, if I tell you, will you promise not to tell her?'

Charlie forced a chuckle. This was getting interesting and she didn't want to lose Magda now. 'Don't tell me it was somewhere disreputable.'

'No, nothing like that. But I just don't want her to get the wrong idea. Promise?'

'OK, I promise.' Charlie sidestepped a puddle, felt wet grass switch against her trouser leg.

'It's the most unromantic thing,' Magda said. 'We bumped into each other in the ladies' loo in Magnusson Hall. At my wedding. I came out of one of the cubicles and she was washing her hands at the basin. Our eyes met in the mirror, and we recognised each other straight away. It was amazing. Electric. But of course, nothing came of it. I mean, how could it? I'd just got married, it didn't make any sense to me.'

Liar, Charlie thought. Magda's insistence felt fake. Like a politician who finds five different ways to not tell the truth, she was responding to what had not been asked. 'But it was a connection.'

'Yes. A connection. Then, when Philip died, she got in touch. Asked if there was anything she could do. To be honest, the thought of spending some time with someone who hadn't known Philip was a relief. Can you understand that?'

The path broadened out and Charlie moved back to Magda's side. 'Completely. The death of someone close can assume an overwhelming presence in our lives. There's no hiding place from the dead. So yes, I totally get why that would appeal.'

Magda nodded. 'That's right.' She smiled and her whole face lit up for the first time. 'So I said yes, she could take me out for a pizza.'

It was a very different story from the version Corinna believed. And it would only serve to fuel Corinna's bizarre conviction that Jay was a multiple murderer whose latest victim had been her son-in-law. The trouble was, it unsettled Charlie. It made her instincts twitch. The encounter felt predatory and calculated and that made her wonder whether Corinna was quite as deluded as she'd thought. 'Nice story,' she said, giving no hint of her disquiet.

'Charlie?'

'Yes?'

'Do you know why Jay and my mum fell out? Was it really not just bigotry and prejudice?'

Charlie considered her options and decided she didn't actually have any. 'I don't know. All I can say is, your mum might not approve of homosexuality, but she's not a bigot. As far as I am aware, she's always been able to separate the general from the particular. I was in my second year when I started coming out to people and she was one of the first I told. And it changed nothing between us as far as I could tell. She certainly didn't stop using me as a babysitter. So whatever the reason for Jay being banished, I don't think it was because Corinna thought she'd be a bad influence.' Charlie gave Magda a gentle punch on the arm. 'Though, as things have turned out, it seems I might have been.'

Magda's smile was vague. 'That's a weird thought. But it doesn't make any sense. Jay says she can't think of any other reason why Corinna acted like she did.'

'It's a long time ago. Maybe they've both forgotten what was behind it. People do sometimes, you know.'

They reached a T-junction in the path and Magda pointed to the left. 'The gate's down there, just round the bend. It brings you into Schollie's meadow. I'm going back to the house.' She turned to face Charlie. 'I came to tell both of my parents about me and Jay. I'm not looking forward to telling my dad. He'll totally lose his mind. But I'm not leaving it up to Mum to break it to him.'

'You will be OK,' Charlie said. 'It's all survivable. You've got your woman to go home to. They can't take that from you.'

Magda suddenly threw her arms round Charlie. 'Thank you. It's been really helpful, talking to you.'

Startled, Charlie returned the hug. 'Any time.' She stepped back, fishing a card out of her backpack. 'Here. Any time you want to get in touch. It would be good to hear from you.'

Charlie wasn't sure if the flush on Magda's cheeks was from the fresh air or the impulsive embrace. Either way, it emphasised her youth, reminding Charlie of the child she'd first known all those years ago. Magda took the card and tucked it into her pocket. 'It's weird. My minders coming back to take care of me.'

'I guess Corinna had good taste in babysitters.'

Magda groaned as she backed away. 'That's so not funny. Listen, I hope you catch up with Dr Winter.'

Charlie watched her swing round and run back up the alley to the street. It had been an interesting encounter. She turned round and started walking towards the meadow gate, hoping she could persuade Helena Winter into similar indiscretion, but doubting it.

As she opened the wrought-iron gate, her phone rang. Expecting it to be Maria, she was in no hurry to answer. But when she glanced at the screen, her heart leapt. She fumbled with the controls, almost cutting the caller off in her eagerness. 'Lisa,' she said, trying to sound relaxed.

'Hi, Charlie. How's your day so far?'

Charlie couldn't resist a dry little laugh. 'Interesting,' she said. 'In the Chinese sense.'

'Good. We all need the stimulus of interesting days. You can tell me all about it.' Lisa's tone was intimate, her voice seductive as ever. 'I am so sorry I missed you last night. I hated having to let you down.' She sighed, as if she'd been genuinely distressed. 'You know how it is. It's hard to say no when you think you might be able to help. It feels really selfish to walk away for the sake of my own pleasure. I'd rather have been with you, believe me.'

Charlie truly didn't care if Lisa was spinning her a line. It sounded convincing to her and as long as there was still a possibility that things could work out the way she dreamed of, she would go along with whatever Lisa said. 'I understand,' she said. 'Your time's not your own.'

'Exactly,' Lisa said. 'But I have managed to find some space today, if you're still around. I've cleared an hour, and if you could come over to my place, I wouldn't have to waste time going off to meet you then getting back here. Then we could make the most of what little time we've got. How would that be?'

Fabulous? A dream come true? Charlie cleared her throat. 'Which hour did you have in mind?' She shifted the phone to her other hand so she could look at her watch. It was just after one. Why was she even bothering? It didn't matter what time it was, she knew she was at Lisa's beck and call.

'Can you be here for half past three?'

Play it cool, Charlie, play it cool. 'That shouldn't be a problem. I'm on my way to see someone at St Scholastika's right now, but I'll make sure I'm free in plenty of time.'

'That's wonderful,' Lisa said. 'I can't wait to see you. I'm really looking forward to hearing all about your mysterious adventures.'

And that was that. Dead air. No endearments, no small talk. Just Lisa making her arrangements then moving on to the next thing. Charlie didn't care. She punched the air like an adolescent, grinning and doing a surprisingly graceful little pirouette on the tips of her boots. In the space of a couple of minutes, the world had shifted on its axis. Things were going her way. It didn't matter that she'd spent her entire undergraduate career in fear and awe of Dr Helena Winter. Today the tables would be turned.

Today, she would slay the dragon.

6

Walking into Helena Winter's den was like stepping through a wormhole in time. Nothing had apparently changed in the nineteen years since Charlie had sat down on the dark red sofa for her first tutorial on Aristotle. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books — and a quick glance suggested to Charlie that most of them were the same books, in the same slots — apart from the chimney breast, which was occupied by a large Victorian watercolour of Zeno holding forth to a rapt audience in a painted portico. The furnishings were Spartan: a sofa and an armchair, a plain pine table and chair by the window. The gas fire hissed and popped as it had all those years before, and Helena Winter herself seemed unaltered by the passage of time.

She had opened the door in response to Charlie's knock, looking as slim and straight-backed as ever. Dr Helena Winter, the Prescott Fellow in Philosophy, immaculate in tailored skirt and cashmere twin-set, a single strand of pearls at her neck, her white hair in the same perfect chignon. A bluestocking version of Audrey Hepburn, Charlie thought. There had been a fleeting moment of uncertainty in her dark blue eyes, then relief as she recognised her visitor. 'Miss Flint,' she said. 'Or is it still doctor?'

Straight for the jugular, as ever. 'It's still doctor. But I prefer Charlie.'

Helena inclined her head. 'Come in, Charlie. This is a surprise. ' She held the door wide for Charlie to enter. 'Have a seat.'

For a moment, Charlie diced with the wicked thought of taking the armchair, but either her courage failed or her good manners prevailed and she made for the sofa.

'We don't see you in college very often,' Helena said, settling into her armchair and helping herself to one of the strong untipped cigarettes she used to smoke in tutorials, but only after six in the evening. She caught Charlie's raised eyebrows and said, 'I'm not permitted any longer to smoke in the company of undergraduates. So I take my pleasures when I may. Tell me, to what do I owe this visit, Charlie? Have you decided that a purely academic career is, after all, what you crave?'

She's playing with me. She knows about the Hopton case and she's enjoying herself. Charlie smiled. 'Too late for that, I think.'

'Such a pity. If only you'd believed in your abilities and stuck to philosophy, you could have taken a First, and all of this could have been yours.' Helena gestured magnanimously with both hands, indicating that the room, the college, Oxford itself had all been within her gift and Charlie's grasp.

'I wasn't that good a philosopher.'

'On the contrary, my dear. You had a very fine grasp of the complexities of moral philosophy. You could have made a lasting contribution. It was always my regret that you chose so ephemeral a field in which to work.'

Charlie had been determined not to let Helena get under her defences, but she could feel the niggles and barbs cutting into her. 'Helping people deal with their psychoses isn't exactly ephemeral. And I could never have achieved the enthusiasm for Greek philosophers that you bring to Zeno and Aristotle.' There was truth in what she said; Helena was a passionate teacher, with the articulacy and energy to pass her enthusiasm on to her pupils. But Charlie had come to Oxford for more than academic credentials and she wasn't about to be deflected by any steel-eyed bluestocking who wanted her for a scholar far more than Jesus had ever wanted her for a sunbeam. It dawned on Charlie that at least part of the reason for Helena's attitude was that Charlie had demonstrated the independence of mind to plough her own furrow, turning her back on what had been mapped out for her. 'You look remarkably well, by the way. I heard you'd been ill.'

Helena's wide mouth curved into a thin sickle smile, the deep lines in her fine skin spreading out like concentric ripples on a pond. 'I had a lump removed from my groin,' she said bluntly. 'Doubtless some of my colleagues will have recalled the comment made by Evelyn Waugh of Randolph Churchill when he had a similar experience.'

Charlie raised a questioning eyebrow. Helena had always enjoyed her little triumphs; even though Charlie knew the quotation, it cost nothing to pretend ignorance.

'"How extraordinarily talented of the surgeon to find the one part of Randolph that was not malignant and to remove it,"' Helena said with a grim smile.

'I'm glad it was nothing serious.'

She acknowledged the reply with another gracious nod. 'And you? I hear you're being tested in a quite different manner.'

Charlie turned away from the twin scalpels of her eyes and stared out over the river. 'It's not been easy. But I will get through it.'

'You will. You're tough, and you're talented. So why are you here, Charlie? I don't imagine you think the answers to your problems lie in the tenets of Antisthenes.'

Charlie smiled. 'I'll leave the Cynicism to you. The reason I'm here is that I need you to confirm something I've been told.'

'That sounds intriguing. I can't imagine the intersection of what I know and what you need to know.'

Charlie knew she had to proceed carefully. Helena Winter had always been as generous to an unsupported statement as a fox to a wounded chicken. 'Seventeen years ago, Corinna Newsam came to you with a moral dilemma. I need you to confirm what she told you that morning.'

Charlie had never seen Helena genuinely taken aback. It was a beautiful moment. 'I have no idea to what you're referring, ' she said. It was a good attempt at her best hauteur, but it fell short.

'Let me jog your memory. I know how it is when we get older and things don't surface as readily as they once did.' Charlie enjoyed the brief tightening of the muscles round Helena's mouth. 'It was a memorable day here. The day Jess Edwards died.' Helena did not look away; she held Charlie's steady gaze, a trickle of smoke rising unwavering from her hand. 'Corinna tells me she came to see you.'

'Suppose for a moment that the circumstance you describe took place. Why on earth should I disclose it to you? You have no standing here. We haven't spoken for years. I know nothing of your motives.' She raised her hand and inhaled deeply. 'But that is idle speculation. I have no recollection of any such event.'

Charlie shook her head. 'Call Corinna and ask her if you can trust me.' She dug into her pocket and produced her mobile. 'Here. Save yourself the bother of getting up. Use my phone.'

Helena ignored the offer, reaching instead for her own landline handset. She stubbed out her cigarette then keyed in a number from memory and waited. 'Corinna? It's Helena. I…' Obviously cut off by Corinna, her lips tightened in displeasure. 'She is indeed,' she said, then fell silent again. 'Very well. Come and see me tomorrow at quarter to nine.' She ended the call and gave Charlie a long, considering look. 'Whatever information I have is impotent. Nothing can come of it. Where there is no proof, there can be no purpose in dissemination. Do you understand me?'

'I'm not about to run off to the tabloids.' Charlie let her disapproval leak into her voice. 'If I was that sort of person, do you think for a moment that Corinna would have entrusted me with this?'

'Whatever "this" is,' Helena said tartly. 'I have no idea why Corinna feels the need to revisit this episode.'

'That's her business. What did she tell you?'

At last, Helena looked away, studying the hand that had held the cigarette. 'It was towards the end of the morning. The news of Jess's death had shaken everyone. It's always the same when an undergraduate dies. There's a profound sense of shock, but also an anger that so much promise will never be fulfilled. That's even stronger when it's someone like Jess who has obvious gifts over and above their intellectual ability. The details fly round the place like wildfire, so by mid-morning everyone knew that Jess had somehow fallen, hit her head and drowned. We also knew that this must have happened very early in the morning, since she was already dead when the rest of the rowers arrived for their morning practice. According to the other rowers, Jess had complained that her seat wasn't moving smoothly and she planned to go down to the boathouse ahead of practice to see if she could sort out the problem.'

'Was that common knowledge before the accident?' Charlie asked. Opening the subject out was often the best way to draw information from a reluctant witness.

'I couldn't say. I seem to remember the girls saying that Jess talked about it over dinner the previous evening. In theory, I suppose anyone could have overheard.' Helena reached for another cigarette but didn't light it straight away, preferring to roll it between her fingers. Her hands, roped with veins and marked with liver spots, revealed the passage of the years far more than her face or posture. With a sudden shock, Charlie realised Helena had become an old woman.

'Why did Corinna need to see you?' she asked.

Helena took her time lighting the cigarette. 'She needed advice. She had seen something — or rather, someone — in the meadow that morning. Very early in the morning. And she was in a quandary as to what she should do about it.'

'Why was she in a quandary? She'd seen someone at the scene of a violent death. Surely the obvious thing to do would be to talk to the police?' Charlie kept any accusation out of her voice, making her question sound like a casual query.

'But it wasn't that simple. It was late November. When Corinna had entered the meadow by the side gate, it had still been dark. She was certain of her identification because she knew the person in question very well, but she was well aware that in a coroner's court or a criminal court, she could soon be made to look unreliable on the question of identification at a distance in poor lighting. Furthermore, the presence of an individual did not, in and of itself, point to any kind of involvement in Jess's death. Even if the person in question had met Jess at the boathouse, there was no reason to suppose anything sinister in that.'

'Even if the person in question benefited from Jess's death? And it's OK to use her name, Helena. We both know we're talking about Jay Stewart. That's who Corinna saw, and that's whose ambition was being thwarted by Jess Edwards' popularity. And, according to Corinna, victim of a dirty tricks campaign led by Jess.'

Helena gave Charlie a pained smile. 'Much as I love this college, it's hard for me to believe that someone would murder in order to become JCR President.'

'I'm with you on that. But I've spent time with a lot of killers, and you'd be depressed beyond measure by the apparent triviality of most of their motives.'

'You may be right. But I did point out to Corinna that what she thought she had seen was open to several interpretations. And that as soon as she voiced any suspicion to the police, both the college and the person in question would become media fodder in the most unpleasant of ways. At a time when the college was desperately trying to raise endowment, it would have been a disaster. And a pointless one at that.'

It was, Charlie thought, breathtaking. Stifle any possibility of suspicion attaching to what might well have been a murder just to protect the reputation of a college, and its fund-raising programme. Only in Oxford. Well, maybe in Cambridge too. 'You don't think that if the police had been alerted to the possibility of foul play they might have found evidence?'

'My dear Charlie, our intention was not to suppress evidence. As I said to Corinna at the time, had there been the slightest suggestion of anything untoward about Jess's death, it would have been her duty to report what she had seen. But it was never suggested that Jess's death was anything other than an accident.'

'So far as you know,' Charlie said.

'I believe the police did keep the college fully informed of their thinking.'

Charlie shook her head wearily. That might be a comfortable thought for Helena to cling to, but she knew there was little chance of the police having shared vague suspicions with anyone outside their closed circle. 'In my experience, the police only tell what they want you to know,' she said. 'Corinna's information might have transformed the nature of their inquiry.'

Helena tilted her head back and savoured the smoke. 'I think it far more likely that it would merely have served to tarnish the name of the college and of the person involved.'

'You still haven't said her name,' Charlie said.

'And I have every intention of continuing my discretion on that point. Corinna may trust you, but I do not have her certainty. For all I know, you may be recording this on some clever electronic gadget. I have no desire to expose myself to a slander suit.'

'You are something else, Dr Winter.'

'I'll take that as a compliment, Dr Flint.'

Charlie made a small derisive sound. 'I wouldn't. Is there anything else that Corinna said that might be of interest to someone who was taking a fresh look at Jess Edwards' death?'

Helena gave Charlie a contemplative look, as if she were weighing her in some internal balance. 'To be perfectly frank, I was surprised that Corinna shared what she had seen with anyone.'

'Because a secret can be kept by two people providing one of them be dead?'

Helena's smile was wry. 'In a way. But more specifically, because at that time, the undergraduate in question was Corinna's protegee. Much as you had been a couple of years before. Corinna always spoke highly of her and defended her against any criticism. That she was prepared to say anything that was in any way potentially critical of her favourite seemed to me to be highly surprising. That it was something that rendered the girl so potentially vulnerable was staggering. It was an indication to me of how seriously troubled Corinna was by what she'd seen.'

'Did you put that point to her?'

Helena gave Charlie a hard stare, her manner condescending. 'That would not have been appropriate.'

'Appropriate. Of course.' Charlie shook her head as she sat up, gathering herself together to rise and leave. 'One small thing. Why was Corinna coming into college so early in the morning?'

There was nothing kind in Helena's smile. 'She had ambition. She desperately wanted a fellowship. She refused to accept she was too much of an outsider, that there was too much stacked against her — marriage, motherhood, being Canadian, being Catholic. So she would come into college around six in the morning and do a couple of hours' work before rushing home to see her children off to school. She thought hard work would be enough to overcome her drawbacks. '

'Apparently it was,' Charlie said, getting to her feet. 'I mean, she is a fellow now.'

'We have men who are fellows now,' Helena said, using the word 'men' as if it were comparable to 'cats' or 'monkeys'.

'Thank you for talking to me,' Charlie said, moving towards the door. 'You know, I always thought you were a brilliant philosopher. I had so much respect for the quality of your mind.' This time Helena's smile was sincere, if surprised. 'We all make mistakes, I guess.' Charlie went on. 'You and Corinna, with your desperate desire to protect the college — it looks like you might have let a killer walk free to take more lives.' One hand on the door handle, Charlie realised that somewhere in the past half hour she'd crossed a line. She'd decided Jay Stewart had a case to answer, and she was going to do her best to make her answer it. 'You should have stopped her then, if you really cared about the college.'

7

Finding the perfect ending for her previous chapter left Jay feeling stranded. Writing about her exploits as JCR President, the final terms at Oxford, the process of coming out once she had a glamorous London journalist girlfriend, the friendships and the contacts that would pave the way for her future seemed flat and uninteresting after the high adrenaline flush of love and death. The drama of her enforced separation from Louise, followed by her lover's suicide attempt, would make good copy, she knew. And she relished the chance finally to take her revenge on Louise's family of narrow-minded bigots. But that posed its own problems. And it wasn't what she wanted to think about now.

She'd heard some writers describe their process of memoir writing as starting at the beginning and continuing steadily to the end. But that hadn't been a formula that worked for her. She remembered how it had been with Unrepentant. She'd written the high points first — the powerful memories, the dramatic set pieces that had changed the course of her early life. Then she'd gone back and sketched in the gaps. Finally, she'd filled in the background, like a graphic artist colouring in their drawings and giving Superman his scarlet cape. When she'd described it to her agent, he'd frowned. 'But don't you get fed up when you've cherry-picked the best bits? Isn't it boring to go back and fill in the gaps?'

Jay had thought about it, then said, 'I think it's more like what a jeweller does. You start with the stone. It's been cut and polished to make the most of what's there. Then the jeweller has to make a setting that shows it off to the best advantage. That's a real challenge, to make something sparkle even more than it would on its own.'

Jasper had laughed in delight. 'How very lyrical. Darling, you're wasted on memoir. I really must get you to write a romance.'

They'd both known how absurd a notion that was. Jay checked out the time on the computer screen. Almost four. How long did it take to have lunch and argue with your parents? She knew Magda would call before she set off from Oxford, so she had at least an hour to continue writing.

Given the theme that seemed to be gripping her today, the next section was obvious. No need to write much about Kathy — by the time the reader had reached this point, they'd know all they needed to know about her business partner. The geeky one, the practical mind behind doitnow.com. The crazy climber, the one who was safety first at work but put all her risks in the single basket of rock faces and perilous pitches. They'd been working together for three years at that point, climbing together for almost as long. They'd been planning the Skye trip for months. Winter climbing on the Black Cuillin, the most challenging and dramatic experience you could have on a mountain in the UK.

There's plenty of time to back out of the Inaccessible Pinnacle. Like most of the climbing in Skye, it's a long walk to get to where the view is secondary to the effort. The Black Cuillin ridge in the west of Skye is the only place in the country where the raw jaggedness of the rock comes close to standing shoulder to shoulder with the Alps and the Rockies. And the Inaccessible Pinnacle — the In Pinn to those in the in crowd who have climbed it — is the most serious summit of all.

Even the man who gave his name to the list of Scottish mountains over 3000ft, Sir Hugh Munro, never managed the In Pinn on Sgurr Dearg. Everybody agrees Sgurr Dearg is the hardest Munro to bag, because it's the only one that requires rock-climbing skills. You can't scramble your way up the In Pinn. You need to know what you're doing. And we did. We weren't novices or idiots.

We'd waited weeks for the right conditions, ready to abandon the office and our work commitments the minute we heard the ice conditions were right for winter climbing. Our rucksacks had been sitting in the office, packed, checked and double-checked. When we got the call from our contact in Glen Brittle, we headed for the airport. When you run a travel company called doitnow.com, you're well placed to pick up those last-minute flights! A quick hop to Glasgow, then a nail-biting seven hours on icy roads to Skye itself.

We'd decided to do the In Pinn on our second climbing day of the holiday. The first day was a warm-up, getting us accustomed to the effect of the snow and ice on the black basalt and gabbro that combine to make the Cuillin such a fantastic surface for rock climbing. We did a couple of slab faces and some chimneys, enough to limber us up for the main attraction. As usual, we climbed well together. Kathy and I never had to talk much when we were on the hill; we had an instinctive understanding of each other's needs. It always surprised me, how well we got on when we were climbing. In any other circumstances we didn't have much to say to each other unless it was to do with work.

We went to bed early that first night so we'd be at our best for the climb. Not for us the camaraderie and carousing of some of the others who were planning assaults on the ridge and Sgurr Alasdair in the morning.The weather forecast wasn't great so we wanted to be up and gone early. We'd already decided to set off while it was still dark.That's the trouble with winter climbing in the north — your days are so short and the best climbs often involve a long walk in and out again.

We parked beside the Glen Brittle mountain rescue post. We were excited about the day ahead of us; it never occurred to me that we might end up needing the services of that very mountain rescue team. We had headlamps on, and even under the thin crust of snow there was no possibility of missing the start of the footpath, a wide depression running along the side of sheep pens. We could hear the rushing water of the Allt Coire na Banachdich, and before long we reached the wooden bridge that crosses the stream, which was a black-and-white torrent in the dawn light.

I wished we'd been able to leave later, because it was still too dark to appreciate the grandeur of the Eas Mor waterfalls tumbling down into the gorge. I remembered the guidebook I'd bought the first time I visited Skye. 'On Skye,' it announced, 'it rains 323 days out of 365. Never mind. Think how lovely it makes the waterfalls.' Kathy wasn't impressed, not least because the occasional flurry of sleet was buffeting us in the face as we carried on up the rough path, past impressive buttresses and gullies that looked as challenging as anything I'd ever climbed. By the time it was fully light, we were surrounded by astonishing views — great crags, sensational shapes and contours, a jagged skyline, all streaked white with snow and glittering with ice.

When we first caught sight of the In Pinn it was a bit of a let-down. From that distance, it looks insignificant, a canine tooth a bit longer than the incisors and premolars around it. But as we scrambled and traversed, crossing bealachs — the Gaelic word for mountain pass — and scree slopes, the scale of what we were going to attempt gradually dawned on us. And it was daunting.

The pinnacle itself is an obelisk of gabbro, an imposing fin of rock that stretches 50 metres upwards from a small plateau just below the main summit of Sgurr Dearg. It doesn't sound much, but once you start the climb, there's a 1000-metre plummet to the valley floor on one side. If you can look at that without feeling vertigo, you've got a stronger stomach than most climbers.

Before we climbed, we ate a bar of chocolate and took long drinks from our water bottles. There's no water once you get up on to the Cuillin Ridge so you have to carry what you need with you. Taking a big drink before you start means you've got less weight to carry on your back. Kathy's face was alight with anticipation and excitement. I imagine I would have looked much the same.

I don't know how to explain the exhilaration of climbing to someone who has never done it. Nothing else in my life has ever felt quite the same. I was once in an Alpine climbing hut with a Scottish poet who said he thought it was similar to the excitement you feel when you've clicked with somebody you know is special and you realise tonight's the night you're going to sleep together for the first time. I didn't agree then and I don't agree now. Here's the difference. You don't enter into a partnership with a mountain. A climb is a challenge and it's about victory. I don't feel like that about love, or even sex.

Jay smiled to herself. Another little white lie to keep Magda happy. Of course love was a challenge. The moment she'd seen Magda as a woman rather than a child, she'd been determined to find a way to have her. So yes, it was like a climb. You assessed the obstacles, you figured out how to surmount or go round them, you planned your route and then you got on with it.

But the feeling of facing a climb — that was different from waging a campaign of conquest against a woman. Maybe it was something to do with the absolute focus that climbing required. The blend of mind and body, both operating at their limits to make sure you ended up where you wanted to be. Maybe it was also something to do with the danger. Love had its dangers, but they were seldom fatal. Whereas a climb always contained the seeds of disaster. Jay remembered the words of the legendary Joe Simpson, the man who had crawled down a South American mountain with a broken leg and frostbite after being left for dead at the bottom of a crevasse: 'Everything is safe until it goes wrong.'

8

Walking back to her parents' house, Magda felt slightly bemused. She wasn't in the habit of opening up to virtual strangers. But there was something about Charlie Flint that invited confidences. Maybe that was why she was so good at her job. Or maybe it was a skill she had acquired because of her job. Chicken, or egg? Then it dawned slowly on Magda that since she'd fallen in love with Jay, Charlie was the first lesbian she'd spent any time with who wasn't already a friend of her lover's. And she'd seized that chance to talk about what was real, not the confection she'd created for public consumption. Although she didn't recognise it at that moment, Magda had just passed the milestone that marked the end of the first phase of being in love — the unfolding of the need for confidantes other than her lover.

As she approached the house, her spirits sank. Her father's bike had joined the others chained up in the lean-to by the back door. Henry was home. However awkward things had been with her mother, they were about to get a whole lot worse.

When Magda walked into the kitchen, Henry looked up from the plate of food he was eating and smiled. 'I wondered where you'd got to. Your mother said you'd gone for a walk, which seemed…' He searched for the word. Magda had heard the faint slur in his voice and knew he'd already had a couple of gins. 'Unlike you,' he said.

Both Corinna and Catherine looked wary. Magda crossed to her father and kissed his bald patch. 'I've been stuck in stuffy courtrooms all week,' she said. 'I just needed some fresh air.' She shrugged off her coat and sat down opposite him. Henry drained the glass of red wine in front of him and waved the empty glass at his wife. She pushed the bottle towards him and he helped himself to a brimming refill. As if she was seeing him for the first time after a long absence, Magda noticed with a shock how much he had aged. Her mother seemed timeless, but the years were trampling all over Henry. His lank gingery hair had greyed to the colour of scuffed ashes in an early-morning fireplace. The flesh of his face seemed to have melted away, leaving his cheeks hollow and his watery blue eyes more prominent. He'd always looked pink and scrubbed like one of the schoolboys he taught, but lately his cheeks had grown purplish red. He was only fifty-eight, but he looked like a wrecked old man. She didn't need medical training to know this was what drink had done to him. Once she had despised him for his lack of self-control; now she pitied him.

'At least the jury came up with the right verdict,' Henry said. 'Mind you, I suppose they'll be out on the streets again in no time. Bloody murderers, half of them get shorter sentences than bank robbers. The punishment should fit the crime.' Another swig of wine, a couple of mouthfuls of food, then he pushed his half-full plate away from him. 'You always give me too much.' Corinna said nothing, merely taking his plate and noisily scraping the remains into the bin.

'How was your Open Day?' Magda said, expecting a series of complaints.

She wasn't disappointed. Standards, apparently, were dropping like a stone. The quality of prospective pupils, the social class of prospective parents and the laziness of his colleagues all came under fire. 'Thank heavens I'll be retiring in a few years,' Henry concluded. He'd been counting the years to his retirement for as long as Magda could remember. Once, in her teens, she'd asked him why he stayed if he hated it so much. He'd looked at her, bleary with drink, and said, 'The pension, you stupid girl. The pension.' She'd understood enough to realise it was one of the most depressing things she'd ever heard.

'Will you retire at the same time as Dad?' Catherine asked Corinna. 'I bet you're making plans already.'

Corinna looked startled. 'I've a few years yet, Wheelie. I can't say I'd given it any thought. Of course, I can stay on past minimum retirement if I want. And unlike your father I still love the teaching. So I don't know.'

'Bloody college. It's always been more important than your family,' Henry muttered.

Well done, Wheelie. The last thing Magda wanted right now was a retread of the familiar parental row that had echoed through her life. 'Dad,' she said quickly, 'I've got something to tell you. I wanted to wait till after the trial. Time for a fresh start, you know?'

Henry leaned back in his chair and beamed at her, his irritation with Corinna vanquished by the prospect of good news from his favourite child. 'That sounds promising. Fresh start. So, what is it? You've met someone? Some chap taken your mind off all the sadness? About time, my girl, You can't mourn for ever.'

Magda closed her eyes momentarily and prayed for courage. Catherine reached out under the table and patted her thigh. 'I have met someone, yes. But it's not a man.'

Henry squinted at her, as if he couldn't quite make sense of what she was saying. 'I don't understand. Not a man? What? Someone's offered you a job or something?'

'No, Dad. Not a job. I'm in love with someone. But it's not a man, it's a woman. I'm having a relationship with a woman.'

Henry looked confused, then appalled. 'You're a lesbian?' It was hard to imagine how he could have packed more disgust into three words.

'Yes,' Magda said.

He pushed his chair back and stood up, reeling away from the table, his head in his hands. 'How can that be? You were married to Philip. You've always had boyfriends. This is madness. ' He whirled round and glowered at the three women. 'Someone has corrupted you. Taken advantage of your grief. Weaselled their way in when you were down.' His voice dropped, dark with anger. 'Who has done this to you? Who's seduced my daughter? Tell me, Magda.'

Magda jumped up, determined not to be faced down. 'I'm a grown woman, Dad. I'm not a child who can be sweet-talked into something she doesn't want to do. I'm in love and I'm not ashamed of it. And if you're interested in who my lover is, I'll tell you. It's Jay Macallan Stewart. You probably remember her as plain Jay Stewart.'

Henry stopped in his tracks, mouthing the name without any sound coming out. Then he turned to Corinna. 'Jay Stewart. Isn't that… didn't she… wasn't she one of your retinue? The silly hero-worshippers you lined up to babysit the kids?'

Corinna sighed. 'Jay was one of my students, yes. And yes, she did babysit the kids.'

Henry clutched at the lower half of his face. 'You left my children with a pervert.' Now his hands were like claws, waving in front of him as if he was looking for a target to rip apart. 'Now look what's happened.' He pointed at Corinna. 'This is all your fault.' Henry enunciated each word carefully and softly, his disdain obvious.

'Dad, calm down.' Catherine walked up to her father and put a calming hand on his shoulder. 'Jay's not a pervert, not like you make it sound. She was great with us when we were kids. She never did or even said anything remotely inappropriate. ' Henry shrugged off her hand and stepped forward, pushing her aside. He was only feet away from Corinna, his hands balling into fists. Corinna stood her ground, and Magda understood that her mother was safe from physical attack. Henry was too much of a coward to risk hitting a woman as tough as his wife.

'Jay's a lesbian, not a paedophile,' Magda said, her jaw tight with anger. 'Just like me, actually. Get it straight, Dad. She's not a Catholic priest, she doesn't prey on children. And even if this was about blame, which it isn't, it wouldn't be Mum's fault.'

'This is disgusting,' Henry said, his voice cracking. 'You disgust me. We brought you up with standards, with beliefs. And now this… this vile, vile thing.'

Catherine tried again to inject some calm into the moment. 'Dad, you're getting this all wrong. How can two people loving each other be vile?'

This time, Henry turned on her. 'How can you be so naive, you stupid girl? If love was enough, then incest or paedophilia would be acceptable in the eyes of the world, and the church. Some things are just wrong. They're sins. They go against nature.' He spun back round and glared at Magda. 'That your sister can even ask that question… you've corrupted her as well.' He shrugged off Catherine's hand and slumped back in his chair, head in hands. 'I can't bear this.' He looked up at her blearily, his eyes bloodshot and damp. 'My beautiful girl. Tainted now.'

'Can we all stop being so melodramatic?' Catherine said plaintively. 'Let's just sit down and talk about this like adults.'

'Be quiet, Catherine,' Henry said savagely, his voice low and hard. 'Magda, I can't bear to look at you. I want you out of this house, now. And don't even think about coming back till you've repented of your evil. Get out, Magda.'

'This is wrong, Dad,' Catherine said. 'This is so wrong. We're family. You can't treat Magda like this.'

'I can and I will, because right is on my side,' Henry said, his face tight and mean with conviction.

'You make me sick, Henry,' Corinna said.

'You brought the sickness in,' he replied. 'Believe me, I know who to blame for this. Think yourself lucky I'm not throwing you out along with your sick daughter.'

'I've heard enough of this,' Magda said. 'If there's anybody sick in here, it's you. You're a drunk and a bigot and you'd love to be a bully if you only had the guts. Well, you won't bully me out of happiness.' She grabbed her coat and ran for the stairs.

Catherine moved to face her father. 'And I'm saying goodbye too. What Magda's doing, it's life-affirming. It's about love. I don't think you know what that means any more. You need help, Dad.' Without waiting for the abuse she knew would come, she followed her sister.

She caught up with Magda as she reached the car. She flung her arms round her sister and held her tight. Magda gave a shaky laugh, tears in her eyes. 'So how do you think it went, Wheelie?'

Catherine rubbed her back. 'Could have been worse, Maggot. Hard to see how, but I'm sure it could have been worse.'

9

It was amazing how vivid her memories were of that morning on Sgurr Dearg. Jay didn't even have to close her eyes to see the monochrome landscape of cloud and rock and snow and ice. Kathy's red jacket and fleece hat were a splash of outrageous colour in the landscape. What should have been a breathtaking panorama over peaks to the sea lochs to east and west was pared to the bone by the low cloud and the scattered bouts of sleety rain. But the view had never been the point of the trip.

We were quiet as we put on our harnesses and roped up in preparation for the climb. The rope is the symbol of the bond between climbing partners. Its practical purpose is to minimise the risk from dangers that the individual climber would struggle to handle alone. No matter how high your levels of skill, experience and physical ability, it's always psychologically easier to be attached to somebody else when you're struggling for the next handhold on a sheer slippery slab of rock.

The east route up the In Pinn was described by the Victorian climbers who first conquered it as a ridge less than a foot wide, 'with an overhanging and infinite drop on one side, and steeper and further on the other'.They weren't exaggerating. Technically, it's only a 'Moderate' climb in terms of the skills you need to be able to accomplish the ascent. But a glance to either side at any time during the ascent can make your bowels turn to water and your stomach flip. And in terms of the consequences if you get it wrong, it's totally unforgiving. Nobody knows that better than me.

When we set off, the clouds were heavy and the air was freezing, but the sleet had stopped and we felt confident we could manage the climb. And to begin with, that's exactly what we did. We set off up a short, steep but easy pitch, the perfect confidence builder for what was to come. And so we began the next pitch, a section of rock that rewarded slow and steady progress. We'd built up a rhythm with hands and feet, moving with confidence, trusting the rock and trusting each other. At the halfway point, we stopped briefly on a ledge. But there was no shelter from the biting wind so we set off again almost immediately. The first few moves were tricky and I had to get my ice axes out, but then the route appeared as obvious as a flight of stairs.

But what a flight of stairs! Imagine crawling up a fifty-foot set of uneven steps with a sheer drop on either side. Now think about doing it on ice. Now think about doing it on ice with someone throwing handfuls of stinging snow in your face. For by now, our worst fear had come to pass. It was snowing. Not just the odd flake, but a full-on fall. Great flakes that covered my eyes and filled my mouth and nose, hurled at me by the harsh wind. Kathy had taken over the lead at the midway point, and the snow that had come out of nowhere was like a curtain between us. She was only a few feet ahead of me yet I could barely see her.

At moments like this, there's not a climber in the world who doesn't know the fear. You try to force it from the front of your mind by concentrating on every move, making sure your hold is solid before you trust your weight to it. But the fear can't be denied. It hums through your veins alongside the adrenaline that keeps you going. That day, as I carried on towards the summit, all I could think was that I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, and as the wet and cold ate into me I was gradually becoming less capable of feeling my hands and feet. In no time at all, I felt like an automaton struggling to keep with the programme.

When the change came, it came without warning. The rope jerked so suddenly and so hard it nearly pulled me straight off the mountain. If I hadn't been wearing spiked crampons on my boots, I'd have been ripped straight off the icy surface to the valley below. As it was, I was yanked sideways so that the top half of my body was twisted across the ridge. The pain was instant and excruciating. My instinct was to grab the rope, to try to shift some of the weight that was pulling me on to the edge of the ridge so hard I could scarcely breathe. It took an agonisingly long time, but at last I managed to straighten myself enough to be able to catch my breath and try to work out what had happened.

The one thing that was clear as soon as I started thinking rather than reacting was that Kathy had come off the mountain. What I desperately needed to find out was what kind of state she was in. If she was conscious and relatively unhurt, it shouldn't be a problem. We both carried the equipment to make what's called a Prusik loop which can be used to help a climber get back up a rope. If I could hold on, she could get back up little by little.

If she wasn't able to climb, things would get more difficult. Using the same piece of equipment, the Prusik loop, the climber who's left on the mountain can attach the rope to a solid piece of rock and let that take the strain. If I could get out of the rope like that, I could try to hoist Kathy back on to the ridge. Or in the worst case, I could secure the rope and go for help.

I prayed the vertigo wouldn't get me and moved my head so I could look down the side of the In Pinn ridge. I needn't have worried.The snow was so thick by then that I could barely see the scarlet of Kathy's jacket. As far as I could make out, she was swinging in the wind, arms and legs dangling. 'Kathy!' I yelled at the top of my voice. 'Kathy!'

I was sure I heard a response, a low moan rising from my partner. My spirits rose like the sudden jagged peak on a hospital bedside monitor. She was conscious. We could get out of this. We were going to be all right. I called out again. And again.

Nothing.

Desperate, I shouted one more time, but there was no response except for the sound of the wind. It dawned on me that what I had heard was the weather, not Kathy. The realisation was like a blow. It looked as if Plan A was a non-starter. All I could think was that she must have hit her head in the fall. These days, I wouldn't dream of climbing without a helmet, but back then, like most of the young climbers I knew, I was convinced I was immortal. Neither of us had worn a helmet that day. Just one of many things I would go back and change if I could.

Plan B was dependent on there being an anchor point for the Prusik loop. If I was going to escape the terrible pressure of the rope, there had to be something else sturdy enough to take the strain. I knew the basalt and gabbro were strong enough. All I needed was a sturdy knob of rock or a little pinnacle that I could get a sling around. I lifted my head and studied the area around me.

Nothing.

I looked again. But there wasn't anything that remotely resembled the kind of promontory I needed. We'd passed plenty of suitable bits of rock on the way up, but it was our bad luck that this part of the climb consisted of the kind of planes and angles that didn't provide anything suitable to tie off the rope.

There was one last possibility. Climbing technology has provided us with an amazing range of gadgets and gizmos. Given the smallest crack or crevice, we can create an anchor using one of the nuts or hexes or cams that we all routinely carry. But all I had in easy reach were my ice axes. I didn't trust their grip with Kathy's weight. Somehow I was going to have to get at my backpack.

That wasn't as easy as it sounds. My first attempt nearly ended in disaster. Even so slight a shift in my weight was enough to destabilise my position. I felt my balance alter and for one terrible moment I thought I was going to plummet down the mountain, taking Kathy with me. I realised I was going to have to do this infinitely slowly.

That would have been fine if we'd been climbing on a warm summer day with hours of daylight ahead of us. But we were in a blizzard on a February day in the Cuillin, and now that I wasn't moving, my body was starting to seize up. My fingers were chilled, and the cold was slowing my brain and my reactions. But I had to keep going. Time and light were slipping away now we were past noon and heading for darkness.

As I eased my backpack off my shoulders with agonising slowness, I remembered there might be another hope of rescue. There was a mobile phone in my backpack. Not any old mobile, which would of course have had no signal back in those days in the remote heart of Skye.Thanks to Kathy's love of gadgetry, we both had satellite phones. I had grumbled about the extra weight in my pack, but she had insisted. Now, if the gods smiled on me and I could get a signal, I could simply call the mountain rescue to come and pluck us off this hateful chunk of rock.

Trying to free the backpack meant I was crushed against the rock, taking Kathy's full weight with my upper body strength. I was starting to feel drained as well as frozen. And still the snow fell, coating my eyelashes and making ledges on my eyebrows, catching in every breath I dragged into my chest. At last I got one arm out of the pack and lifted my shoulder so it would slide towards my other arm, then into my waiting hand.

I'd reckoned without the paralysing cold. I curled my hand round to reach for the strap as my pack slid down my arm. But somehow, my fingers didn't close on the strap and it carried on sliding, its weight adding momentum. I heard my own voice echo inside my head screaming, 'No,' as my pack hurtled into the void, tumbling through the snow and out of sight.

I sobbed for the first time then. Hope was vanishing with the light. Yes, we'd left a climb plan with the hotel reception, but they wouldn't sound the alert until we didn't show up for dinner. By then, I would have been lying on the spine of the In Pinn for six hours in a blizzard, supporting the weight of my climbing partner. I didn't fancy my chances. But I didn't feel I had any choice.The wind, already strong, began to pick up. It felt like a gale up there on the icy rock. And then a bad situation got worse.

The wind shifted its quarter from due north to north east. Kathy's body, which had been sheltered by the mass of Sgurr Dearg, was now in the path of the wind. It began to swing, but not predictably like a pendulum. That I could have predicted and made adjustments for. This movement was unpredictable and jerky. I braced myself, trying to dig my crampons further into the ice. It was useless. After I'd been wrenched sideways a couple of times, it became very clear to me that we were both going to die. I couldn't hold position on the rock, not against the erratic tugging on the rope that the wind was creating. If I came off, there was nothing between us and the valley floor. Our bodies would smash to pulp on the rock below.

The wind whistled round us again and this time the effort of staying put twisted my leg under me. I could feel a tearing, then a searing pain in my left knee. My foot sprang free from the ice. I rammed it back again, almost passing out with the pain. I knew enough about my body to realise I'd torn the ligaments in my knee. I knew then I couldn't hold my position for long. I was done for.

Then I remembered I had a mini multi-tool in the inside pocket of my jacket.Tiny pliers, a nail file, a screwdriver and a two-inch penknife blade. Even as I thought the unthinkable, my heart recoiled in horror. Cutting the rope would condemn Kathy to death. But not cutting it would condemn both of us to death. No other climbers would be coming up here now, not this late in the day.There was no salvation. No rescue. Not any time soon.

I pulled my glove off with my teeth and pushed my frozen hand inside my jacket. My fingers tingled and burned as the residual heat from my body warmed them a little. I closed my hand round the knife and pulled it out. Holding it between my gloved hand and the rock, I managed to get the blade open. But still I dithered. I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Then another gust yanked me hard against the rock, smashing my face and chest against the icy gabbro. I had no choice. Any more of this and I would be over the edge too.

I cut the rope.

Right on cue, the phone rang. Jay reached for it automatically. It was halfway to her ear before she realised she was crying.

10

Charlie could feel her heart beat, a fast steady thud beneath her ribs. Excitement vibrated through her like a low-level electrical charge. She remembered nothing of the drive from North Oxford across town to Iffley village. She'd always loved coming here as an undergraduate, walking up the tow-path from Folly Bridge to the lock. The river was never empty; there were always boats: college eights putting their back into it; intrepid punters prepared to brave the big river; motor cruisers and day boats pottering back and forth. By contrast, the path was often quiet, leading to the incongruity of Iffley itself, a village within a city. Prosperous, quiet and self-contained, it seemed to have resisted the infection of university life. Although the houses were different in style, it reminded Charlie of the Lincolnshire village where her grandparents had lived. So whenever she'd needed an anchor during those sometimes tempestuous Oxford years, this was where she'd walked to.

Lisa's house stood in a quiet lane of substantial cottages a couple of streets away from the river. Charlie imagined it would be chilly and damp on one of Oxford's many foggy winter days, but as this afternoon petered out, some late shafts of sunlight had escaped the clouds and made everything charming. She drove slowly, checking the numbers till she found the right house. She recognised Lisa's sleek silver Audi sports car, but not the Toyota estate squeezed next to it in the tight driveway. It was another fifty yards before Charlie found somewhere to leave her own car without obstructing anyone else's access. She checked her watch. Twenty-five past three. She sat behind the wheel for another three minutes then walked back to the cottage, wondering what she would find there.

As she approached, she couldn't help admiring the house. She must have passed it a dozen times when she was an exploring undergraduate, but she had no recollection of it. There was nothing fancy about it — weathered red brick, tiled roof, white-painted woodwork — but its symmetry and proportions were pleasing to the eye. Above the neat pillared porch was a circular window, the rich colours of its stained glass apparent even in the sunshine. The cars were parked on a driveway of herringbone brick, and the small area in front of the house featured a miniature knot garden of clipped box. Everything was picture perfect. Charlie felt she was making the place look untidy simply by walking up to the front door.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her agitation. She was as excited as a teenager at the prospect of seeing Lisa on her home turf. Charlie rang the bell and took a half-step back. Almost immediately, she heard footsteps approach and the door opened wide. Lisa grinned, Charlie's heart bounded and she stepped into open arms. 'It's great to see you,' she said.

Lisa's lips grazed her cheek and her warm breath tickled her ear as she said, 'Perfect timing. There's still a couple of people here but they're about to leave.' Then she let Charlie go and stepped back, inviting her in.

Even in this emotional state, Charlie's professional training took over. She couldn't help noting surroundings, letting them inform her judgement. The hallway was simply decorated. White walls and ceiling, parquet floor with the patina of age, four small abstract seascapes in heavy oils. Light from the stained-glass window splashed random colour, giving warmth. And at the heart of it, Lisa herself. Slim hips, wide shoulders, sleeveless top chosen to show the warm gold of her skin and the beautiful curves of clearly defined muscles, and a sassy gait that reminded Charlie of the catwalk. Lisa walked the walk that would attract people's gaze and talked the talk that would hold that attention on her.

Charlie followed her into a sitting room furnished with a trio of sofas in cream chintz, a scatter of low tables and an elaborate Art Nouveau fireplace. A William Morris fire screen sat in front of it. French windows gave on to a long grassy expanse that ended in a wall of shrubbery. A man and a woman occupied two of the sofas, papers spread around them. Their eyes were already fixed on the door, waiting for Lisa.

'Charlie, these are two of my colleagues. Tom and Linda. This is my friend Charlie,' Lisa said briskly. Everyone exchanged smiles and nods. 'So, that's it for today. When you've had a chance to let the new material sink in, email me with your comments. Otherwise, I'll see you in Swindon on Tuesday.'

Tom and Linda gathered their papers together quickly and stood to leave. It was clear Lisa ran a tight operation. She waved Charlie to the vacant sofa as they were packing their things away. 'Coffee, tea? Juice? Water?' she said.

If she truly only had an hour of Lisa's time, Charlie wasn't going to waste a minute of it on the boiling of kettles. 'I'm fine, thanks.'

'I'll be right back.' Lisa was gently but firmly moving Tom and Linda out of the room, even though he was still trying to zip up his laptop bag.

When she returned almost immediately, Lisa settled on the sofa at right angles to Charlie, tucking her legs under her and leaning on its arm so she appeared to be completely absorbed by her visitor. To Charlie, so accustomed to reading the body language of others, it was a welcome moment. 'So,' Lisa said, turning it into three distinct syllables. 'An interesting day.' There was the trace of a tease in her voice, the undercurrent of something that went beyond social pleasantries.

Charlie smiled. She wanted to point out it was getting better all the time, but she was wary of sounding cheesy. Or predatory. 'Interesting company, too.'

'So tell me all about it.' Lisa propped her chin on her arm and gave Charlie the full headlight stare. 'I love listening to you.'

Charlie took Lisa through her encounter with the Newsams, keeping her narrative tight and to the point. She finished with a brief account of her meeting with Dr Winter, then leaned back. 'It all turned out to be much more dramatic than I expected,' she said.

'No kidding. What an extraordinary tale,' Lisa said, her voice a low drawl. 'Your old tutor thinks Jay Macallan Stewart is a multiple murderer? I don't think I've heard anything that bizarre since Edwina Currie confessed to her affair with John Major.'

'I thought so too, at first. But then it turned out Jay was in Schollie's on the day of the murder. And Helena Winter confirmed what Corinna had told her about the morning Jess Edwards died. And it started to sound… I don't know. Almost plausible.'

Lisa laughed. 'That's a very big almost. What does Maria think about it?'

The mention of Maria was a jarring moment. Charlie had managed to put her partner to the back of her mind ever since she'd arranged to meet Lisa. It was uncomfortable to hear her name from Lisa. 'I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet.'

Lisa looked gratified. 'I'm flattered that you told me about it first,' she said. 'So what will you do now? Gently ease yourself out of the picture? I know you're an expert at working out what goes on in people's heads, but it sounds as if what Corinna Newsam needs is a proper detective.'

'I know. But I thought I might take a look at it, actually,' Charlie said, a little tentatively. 'It's kind of interesting. And if there is something there and I can pin it down…'

'I understand that it's tempting, Charlie. But even if you do uncover a miscarriage of justice, it's not going to redeem you in the eyes of the GMC,' Lisa said gently, her expression concerned. 'Or the readership of the Daily Mail.' It was a shrewd comment, demonstrating how clearly she understood Charlie's motives.

'Maybe not. But it might make me feel better about myself.'

'You're sure it's not just an excuse to revisit your own history? To time-warp back to a place and time when you were happy? When you had untainted possibilities in front of you?'

Charlie pondered the idea for a moment. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'I don't dwell on the past. Besides, I still feel like I have possibilities of happiness. Sitting here with you, for example. That's a pretty good place and time for me.'

Lisa ran the tip of her tongue along the inside of her top lip. 'For me too. Even though we haven't known each other long, I do feel a connection between us.'

Charlie's heart leapt. There was no other way to describe that lurch in the chest. How could a few words provoke such a strong physical reaction? 'Some things you just can't ignore,' she said, clearing her throat when she heard how husky her voice had become. 'I really want to explore what's happening between us.'

'But there's no rush, Charlie. We're going to be friends for a long, long time. I'm convinced of it. I think our vulnerabilities and our strengths mesh so well.'

Charlie's mouth was dry. She wished she'd asked for a drink after all. 'You're right. Sometimes you just know. Right from the start.' She shifted so she was leaning on the arm of her sofa, her face closer to Lisa.

'But if you're busy chasing shadows for Corinna Newsam, you're not going to have much time for anything else,' Lisa drawled, her voice filled with regret.

Charlie wasn't dismayed. 'I'll make time.'

Lisa gave her a long, considering look. 'I think you'll be wasting your time.'

After the flirting, it felt like a slap on the face. Charlie's head jerked back. 'What?'

'Trying to prove Jay Stewart is a killer, I mean.' Lisa laughed. 'What did you think I meant, Charlie?'

Charlie didn't know what to say. Her emotions were ramping up then spiralling downwards. 'Why do you say I'll be wasting my time?'

Lisa shrugged. 'It just doesn't seem very likely.'

'Do you know her?' Charlie's professional wariness, hogtied thus far by her hormones, suddenly fought its way to the surface. Was it possible Lisa had another agenda here?

'Not really,' Lisa said. 'We were up at the same time. But of course I was at Univ, so we didn't really cross paths very often. I knew her in that vague way where you bump into people at the same parties from time to time. She was a bit notorious — the dyke who'd made it to JCR President — so she attracted more attention.'

'People knew she was a dyke? I thought she was closeted back then?'

Lisa chuckled. 'She might have thought nobody knew. But you know how it is, Charlie. The rumour mill in Oxford grinds very small. Nothing gets past it. I was still only going out with men back then, but I knew Jay Stewart was a lesbian.'

Charlie's heart bounded in her chest. Never mind what Lisa had said about Jay Stewart, 'I was still only going out with men back then,' she'd said. There was only one way to read that, and it refreshed Charlie's fantasies like spring water after a drought. The blood was beating in her temples, her mouth dry again. 'Sounds like your gaydar was well developed for someone who was only going out with men.'

Lisa leaned back on the sofa and stretched her arms above her head, fingers locked. Charlie was very conscious of how beautiful her arms and her breasts were. Lisa gave a mischievous smile. 'I guess I didn't realise it at the time, but even then I was good at spotting vulnerability.'

11

Monday

Her morning shower had left Charlie still dazed with lack of proper sleep. Maybe the breakfast coffee would help. She'd had two nights of restless shifting about under the covers, trying not to disturb Maria. There was too much turmoil in heart and head and the hardest part, ironically, was not being able to share it with Maria. Charlie had grown so accustomed to seven years of Maria taking the weight of her dilemmas and decisions, it was strange to be keeping something from her.

But at least she'd been able to talk to her about Corinna's bizarre request. She'd got home late on Saturday evening, still dazed from her encounter with Lisa. Her comment about vulnerability had marked the end of their conversation. Their hour was up, and Lisa's client's finger was on the doorbell. Charlie had swallowed her disappointment that this encounter hadn't moved their relationship further forward.

She'd been too quick off the mark on that score. As she followed her host into the hallway, Lisa had turned to face her, moving backwards towards the door. She'd stopped then and reached for Charlie's hand, pulling her into an embrace. Charlie felt an explosion of light and heat inside her. This wasn't a friendly farewell kiss. This was the sort of urgent clinch that was a precursor to something hot and sweaty. It had come from nowhere, and even as she surrendered to it, Charlie realised it couldn't go anywhere. Even as lips and tongues and hands explored, the clock was ticking.

The second ring on the doorbell startled them apart. Charlie was flushed and panting. Lisa, two spots of colour on her cheeks, gave her a twisted, flirtatious smile. 'To be continued,' she said.

And opened the door.

Charlie's departure had been a blur. She barely noticed the man who had arrived. She registered Lisa's casual farewell, wondering at so abrupt a shift from one state to another. Then she'd stumbled back to her car, not entirely convinced she was fit to drive. She'd sat for a while, trying to process what had just happened, attempting to divorce her emotional response from a dispassionate analysis of Lisa's behaviour. That turned out to be a waste of time too; her thoughts simply chased their own tails.

She wasn't quite sure where the time had gone between leaving Lisa's and arriving back home in Manchester close to midnight. Seven hours for a three-and-a-half-hour drive. She had a vague recollection of sitting in a coffee shop at a motorway services, but the rest was a blur. Telling Maria about the Newsams had been a welcome distraction when she'd finally fallen into bed.

Maria had been more interested in Corinna's story than Charlie had expected. 'It's fascinating,' she'd said, snuggling into Charlie's back. 'The way that "mother lioness protecting her cubs" thing clicks into place. Corinna clearly wasn't that bothered about Jay Stewart's murderous ways when it was other women's kids in the frame. But put her daughter anywhere near harm's way, and she's calling in the heavy artillery. What are you going to do?'

'I'm not entirely sure,' Charlie had prevaricated. 'One minute I think it's Corinna's paranoia, then I go about-face and think there's too much lurking in Jay's past to be coincidence. It's hard to get my head round the idea that this charismatic, successful businesswoman could be a serial killer.'

'You're going to do it, though. Aren't you?' There was a note of resignation in Maria's voice.

'You think I should?'

'I was thinking about it while you were gone. And while there's part of me wants you to steer clear of other people's battles, I've got to be honest with myself. I know you, Charlie. You need something to keep your mind from eating itself like a rat in a trap.' Maria put her arm on Charlie's thigh. It was a movement of consolation, not eroticism. 'We'll talk about it tomorrow.'

And they had talked about it. On and off, they'd talked about it most of the day, teasing every last drop of possibility from what Charlie knew. Because Maria was familiar with none of the players, Charlie had confidence in her judgement. Maria wasn't swayed by her history with Corinna, her sympathy for Magda, or her inclination to believe Lisa's estimation of Jay Stewart.

'The trouble is, you don't do well when you haven't got something to worry at like a dog with a bone,' Maria had said finally and firmly after dinner. Neither of them was paying much attention to the Sunday-night BBC costume drama; it had reached a quotient of silliness that neither could easily bear. The drama on the fringe of their own life was much more interesting.

'I've still got some teaching.'

'That's not what I mean. Your job's all about getting to the heart of the really difficult stuff. Challenge is what you thrive on. When that's not there, you don't know what to do with yourself. It's hard for someone who loves you, watching how difficult it is for you not to have a problem to wrestle with.'

Charlie snorted. 'I've had plenty of problems, thanks to Bill Hopton.'

'I don't mean that kind of problem. I know you've been trying to put together a defence for the GMC, but that's not the sort of challenge that keeps you on top form. It's more like you need a puzzle. A conundrum. Something to stretch your imagination. You've always needed that. That's why you did so well, working with the police on the profiling. That was high-stakes problem solving. You haven't had anything like that since you had to hand over your caseload. And it's bad for you, Charlie.'

'And you think raking around in the ashes of Jay Stewart's past is what I need to get my mind working properly?'

'I can't answer that for you. But I suppose the question is, why not?'

'For starters, I'm not a detective. I'm a psychiatrist. I don't know how to gather evidence and build a case.'

'Don't be silly. It's exactly what you do all the time. You spend your life gathering evidence on people's mental states then putting together conclusions based on what you've figured out.'

'It's not the same,' Charlie protested. 'I'm not a cop. I don't have access.'

Maria poked her in the ribs. 'You've been watching the cops for years. You've sat in on enough interviews. And nobody is better at blagging their way in where they're not supposed to be than you. Who always manages to get us into the executive lounge at the airport?'

Charlie giggled. 'Not always. Remember that intractable cow at Charles de Gaulle? I thought she was going to get us arrested.'

'Don't try and change the subject, Charlie. If Corinna's even vaguely on the money, then the stakes are certainly high enough. You're looking at righting a miscarriage of justice and putting a stop to someone who might see murder as the most efficient way of getting what she wants. And if she is right, and you prove it, then you get to set up camp on the moral high ground. It would make it hard for the GMC to come down against you if you're the hero of the hour.'

It was interesting, Charlie thought, that Maria's view on the publicly redemptive power of such a success was almost the exact opposite of Lisa's. It was hard to know whose judgement was more likely to be on the money. Charlie leaned her head on Maria's shoulder. 'This wouldn't be a get-out-of-jail-free card for Bill Hopton, sweetheart. That's not going to go away, however the thing with Jay turns out. I still can't escape knowing that if I'd pushed harder for him to be sectioned, four women would still be alive.'

Maria tutted. 'You know that's not true. You said yourself there was no basis for locking him up as the law stands. You'd have had to lie to have him committed. And you'd have had to persuade another doctor to lie too. And even if you'd been successful, he'd have been released in the long run. You know that. And then it would just have been four different women. So stop beating yourself up and focus on something where you can do some good. Either find evidence against Jay, or exonerate her.'

Stretching out on the sofa, Charlie laid her head in Maria's lap. 'You make a strong argument. But there is one other thing that makes me hesitate.'

'What's that?' Maria started fiddling with Charlie's hair, running her fingers through it, twisting locks into corkscrews and watching them spring straight again. It was a familiar routine that always relaxed Charlie.

She wriggled herself more comfortable. 'Lesbian solidarity. Am I being an Uncle Tom? Am I letting myself be used in what's essentially a homophobic witch hunt? Would Corinna have called on me if Jay had been a bloke?'

'Maybe. Well, probably not, if I'm honest. But if Jay had been a bloke, Corinna wouldn't have known anything about his past. So the question would never have arisen.'

Charlie smiled. Trust Maria — down-to-earth, practical Maria — to resolve at least one of the questions that had been torturing Charlie with a piece of logic that she should have had the sense to come up with herself.

'Besides,' Maria added, 'you're not obliged to share your conclusions with Corinna. You're not a private eye. She hasn't hired you. You can do whatever you think best with whatever you uncover. Tell Corinna or not. Tell Magda or not. Tell Jay or not, even.'

So Charlie had settled her argument with herself and decided to do what Corinna had asked. In spite of Lisa's conviction that Jay was no killer, Charlie would chase down whatever evidence might still be found and weigh it in the balance.

It had seemed a straightforward choice at bedtime, but by morning it had become a thorny problem again. Charlie stared into her coffee, frowning. It was all very well, setting herself up to investigate Jay. But where could she begin? What was she even looking for?

Maria flapped a hand in front of her. 'Hello? Anybody home?'

Charlie gave a weak smile. 'I don't know where to start,' she said.

Maria shrugged. 'I've always believed in starting at the beginning.'

'And in this case, the beginning would be…?'

'The first instance we know about. The rowing captain's death.'

'And where do I look?'

Maria spread her toast, frowning. 'Oxford, obviously. This happened back before everything was online. You'll need to go and look at the newspaper archives. There must have been an inquest. Surely there'll be a record of that somewhere? And there must have been a police investigation. Maybe there's some old retired cop ready to spill the beans like you get in the best detective novels.'

Charlie laughed. 'I think you're more into this than I am.'

'You've got to admit, it's a hell of a tale. I expect full reports at every stage.'

Charlie felt a twinge of guilt. There would be some aspects of her activities that she wouldn't be reporting to Maria. Maybe chasing Jay's history would turn out to be an antidote to her feelings for Lisa. She'd tried to convince herself that her illicit emotions had simply expanded to fill the space available, but it wasn't working. 'I'll keep you posted,' she said. 'I've not got any teaching till Wednesday, so I can go back to Oxford today.'

'That makes sense,' Maria said. 'Will Corinna put you up?'

Charlie shook her head. 'I don't think that's a good idea. If Magda came out to Henry yesterday like she was planning to, he's not going to welcome another lesbian under his roof. I'll get Corinna to book me into a college guest room. Back to the Spartan cell of the undergraduate.'

Maria grinned. 'Nothing to distract you from the task in hand.'

Charlie had the grace to feel ashamed. 'Not in Schollie's, no,' she said.

Maria finished the last mouthful of toast and stood up. 'Take care,' she said, rounding the corner of the table and hugging Charlie. 'There might just be a killer out there.'

That wasn't the only risk, Charlie thought, her smile wan. Not by a long chalk.

12

The numbers on the clock morphed from 4:16 to 4:17. Jay shifted carefully, anxious to avoid waking Magda. They tended to sleep with legs intertwined, their upper bodies apart. It had quickly evolved as a position they were both comfortable with. There was comfort in the contact, but it wasn't easy to extricate herself when she woke in the early hours, knowing there was no prospect of further sleep. That was the pattern of her life, had been since Kathy's death and the nightmares that came with it. Night after night, Jay woke sweating, body clenched. The dream was always the same: the swirling snow, the freezing cold, the monochrome mountain. Then the imagined scream, a scream there had never been in life, a scream that severed Jay from sleep every night.

The nightmare had gone on for months before she'd finally accepted that she would be stuck with it until she sought help. There was one obvious persona therapist she'd known since they were students. Jay had been amazed at her susceptibility to hypnosis. She'd always imagined strong-willed characters like her would find it hard to let go. But she slipped easily into the altered state and had little recollection of what had happened while she'd been under. That didn't matter. What mattered was that the bad dreams stopped. She could go to bed secure in the knowledge that whatever she dreamed wouldn't rise up and destroy her sleep.

But the period of nightmare nights had changed one thing for ever. Jay discovered that, like Margaret Thatcher, she could function perfectly well on less sleep than most people needed. Now, four or five hours was all it took to refresh her and set her up for another day. It was, she believed, one reason for her business success. While other people were still sleeping, she was already at her computer surfing the web, dealing with emails, making connections and playing with new ideas. Or writing.

She'd wondered whether revisiting that terrible day on Sgurr Dearg would bring the bad dreams roaring back. Wondered, not in an anxious, frightened way, but more in a clinical, 'How does this work?' kind of way. But nothing had surfaced in spite of her emotional reaction to writing about that moment when she'd cut the rope.

She'd been outwardly composed by the time Magda had returned from Oxford upset and angry. At Jay's suggestion, Catherine had joined them for dinner, a DVD and a bottle of wine. By the time her sister had left, Magda had calmed down and they'd gone to bed with all possible conflict dispelled. They'd made love with all the urgency of reaffirmation, then Jay had slept as if a switch had been thrown in her brain.

Sunday had been a perfect day. Jay had gone out while Magda was still asleep and bought fresh pastries and newspapers. They'd lazed in bed reading and talking, eating and drinking coffee, Craig Armstrong's piano music in the background. When they'd finally dragged themselves out of bed, they'd walked along the river, ending up having an early dinner in an intimate little Italian restaurant near St James's Park. 'During the week it's packed with politicians and journalists, ' Jay told Magda. 'But on Sundays, it's got a completely different atmosphere.' She sensed her inside knowledge of London was one of the things Magda found seductive about their time together. It seemed that Philip, for all his money and his generosity, had moved in quite limited tram tracks.

After dinner, they'd walked on through the evening streets to Magda's flat. They didn't often spend the night there, but tomorrow she would have to return to work, and Jay had suggested it would be less complicated if she set off from her own home. Exhausted by fresh air and exercise, Jay had fallen asleep more readily than she generally did in beds that were not her own.

But now she was wide awake, two and a half hours before Magda's alarm clock would sound. Inch by careful inch she withdrew the leg that was trapped between Magda's thighs. Magda groaned in her sleep and shifted on to her side, allowing Jay to slide free. She padded across the room, grabbing Magda's dressing gown from the back of the door and heading for the little room Philip had used as a study. There was, she knew, a computer there she could use, and a memory stick in her trouser pocket to transfer whatever she wrote back to her home machine.

While the machine booted up, Jay cast her mind back to where she had finished on Saturday, before the phone had rung and derailed her concentration. Sometimes, any excuse would do.

I have very little memory of how I got off the In Pinn. All I know is that it took a long time. The pain in my knee took my breath away every time I had to put any weight on my left leg. More than once, I thought I was about to join Kathy on the valley floor. It wasn't just because of the dead weight of my leg. And it wasn't because of the weather; ironically, that had eased a little, certainly enough for most serious climbers to feel confident of getting off the hill in perfect safety. No, it was because I was emotionally shattered. I had sent my business partner and closest ally to her death. It didn't matter that I had only done it so that one of the two of us would survive. I was distraught. Probably borderline hypothermic. And almost certainly in shock.

The whole thing had taken so long that the mountain rescue team had been alerted. Later, I found out that I'd been a couple of hundred feet below the summit of Sgurr Dearg when they'd come across me, dragging myself down the mountain with agonising slowness. They wrapped me in thermal blankets and in stumbling sentences I managed to tell them what had happened. One of the few things I remember is the look that two of them exchanged when I told them I'd had to cut the rope. The pity and sadness in their faces haunts me still. I knew that, in the outside world, I was going to be condemned and reviled. But these men who understood the cruelty of the mountains had no anger in their hearts for me.

They formed a phalanx of support around me and got me off the mountain. If you ever have a chunk of money you feel like donating to charity but you're not sure who to give it to, please send it to the Glen Brittle Mountain Rescue. Those guys are amazing. To turn out without hesitation in the dark in a blizzard to help a stranger is a demonstration of the kind of courage we don't often see in the modern world. If not for them, I could have died that day.

At the time, though, it felt like a mixed blessing to be alive. Kathy's death was a terrible blow. The loss of her friendship, her business acumen, her company — all of that was hard to bear. But I had no peace to grieve. What had happened to us on the In Pinn was an instant media sensation. As the owners of one of Britain's leading dotcom companies, Kathy and I were accustomed to finding our names on the financial pages. We quite liked it — we were proud of what we'd achieved.

This was very different. Any climbing accident where someone perished because of a cut rope would have made a page lead in most of the papers for a day. But because of who we were and because of when it happened, this was a story that was all set for a long run. So I had to contend with the perpetual attentions of hungry journalists who couldn't quite decide if I was a tragic heroine or an evil villain.

As if that wasn't enough, I was in the thick of a major business deal. Really, Kathy and I shouldn't have sneaked away to the Cuillin when we did, because we were in the middle of the most crucial period of our entire professional life up to that point. What nobody except the parties to the deal had known when we went to Skye was that Kathy and I were in the midst of selling doitnow.com. I'd been having secret meetings with Joshua Pitt, the CEO of AMTAGEN, for weeks and the deal was on the point of completion when the weather had offered Kathy and me the perfect opportunity for the climb we'd always dreamed of. Now, with Kathy gone, for the sake of everyone who worked for us, I had to find a way to make the deal go forward.The problem was that Kathy owned half of doitnow.com, and though we both had wills leaving our halves of the company to each other, it takes time to process inheritances. The company lawyers had to persuade the executors of Kathy's will that selling her share of doitnow.com was in the best interests of the person she'd left her shares to. Even though that was the same person as the one who was trying to persuade them to sell the shares… There were times when I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland. I've never come under more pressure in my life.

What was worse than the pressure was not having time to grieve. I wanted to rage at the loss, to weep at the waste, to curse the moment's inattention that had cost Kathy her life. But I had to be civil to the press, to the lawyers and to the people who were trying to buy my company.

I sometimes feel I never got the chance to mourn Kathy properly.

Instead, I concentrated on preserving the jobs of all the people who worked for us. I truly believed that I would be giving them the chance to scale new heights as part of a much bigger corporation, a company that had real ambition for the digital future.

We completed the sale on 9 March 2000, three weeks after Kathy's death. And on 10 March the dotcom bubble burst.

A month after I had sold doitnow.com, AMTAGEN had lost 90 per cent of its value.

Jay ran a hand through her spiky bed hair. She was on thin ice here. She'd lost a business partner but at least she'd managed to hang on to her assets. Anyone who was interested enough to do a little research would soon find out she'd made PS237 million from the sale of doitnow.com. There was no need to turn her readers off by rubbing their noses in it. Time, instead, for a little judicious tweaking of the truth.

By pure chance, Kathy and I had set up the sale of doitnow.com at the perfect moment. Thanks in part to her understanding of the dotcom world, I was a very rich woman.

I'd have given it all to have Kathy back.

'As if,' Jay said out loud, saving the file and transferring it to her memory stick before erasing it from Magda's machine. She pushed back from the desk and stretched luxuriously. If she woke Magda now, there would be time to make love before she left for the cancer ward. Jay smiled. Nothing like some early-morning work to waken those appetites.

13

Charlie had spent more hours than she cared to count inside libraries in Oxford. But she'd never crossed the threshold of the city library. Incongruously set down in the heart of the Westgate shopping centre, its seventies concrete and glass and steel were still more modern than most of the buildings where she'd studied. She didn't think the readers here suffered from tourists clambering up to take photographs through the windows, as happened regularly to students in the Radcliffe Camera. She didn't imagine she'd have to swear an oath before she could consult their stocks, either. Charlie still remembered being charmed by having to promise never to bring fire or flame into the Bodleian Library before they would give her a reader's ticket.

Within fifteen minutes, Charlie was set up with a microfiche reader and the relevant films from the local paper. She already knew the date of Jess Edwards' death and some preliminary research online had pinpointed the date of the inquest. She began the tedious business of scrolling through the pages, trying to ignore the man at the next reader who alternated between sniffing loudly and scratching various parts of his body. His languid turning of the knob on his machine convinced Charlie he was only there to pass the time in a warm place. But when she found the first story about Jess's death, she soon forgot any distraction. There it was in black and white. STAR STUDENT IN TRAGIC DROWNING read the headline.

A student was found dead in the River Cherwell at St Scholastika's College early this morning.

Jess Edwards, a keen rower, was discovered in the water by the college boathouse by her fellow team members when they arrived for early-morning practice. Paramedics were unable to revive her at the scene and she was declared dead on arrival at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

According to one of the students who found her, she appeared to have sustained a head injury. Police said her death had all the hallmarks of a tragic accident.

Jess, 20, was a second-year geography student at St Scholastika's. She was captain of the college rowing eight and had already won a university Blue for the sport. She was a member of the Junior Common Room committee and was in the running to become student president of the college.

A friend said, 'The whole college is in mourning. Everybody loved Jess. It's a terrible shock.'

Charlie's mouth curled in a derisive sneer. That quote was such an obvious fabrication. If the reporter had spoken to any undergraduate from Schollie's, Charlie would dance naked down Westgate. What was even more annoying than the journalistic laziness was that the article told her nothing she didn't already know.

She scanned the next few days but there were no follow-up stories. St Scholastika's would have been buzzing with Jess's death, but the accidental death of a student wasn't that big a deal for the non-academic citizens of Oxford. In that respect, Charlie thought, the university was as solipsistic as a small child — the centre of its own universe, bemused that the rest of the world didn't see things in its terms.

Charlie removed the reel and loaded the one that covered the period of the inquest into Jess's death. When she found it, she was surprised to read STUDENT DEATH AVOIDABLE as the headline.

The drowning of a promising student could have been avoided by a simple safety measure, the Oxford coroner told an inquest yesterday.

Jess Edwards died in the River Cherwell after hitting her head on the edge of the boathouse jetty at St Scholastika's College last November. But if the college had installed a non-slip surface, the tragic accident might not have taken place.

Delivering a verdict of accidental death, Coroner David Stanton said, 'We cannot be certain what happened at the boathouse that morning but, based on the forensic evidence, it seems clear that Miss Edwards slipped and hit her head on the edge of the jetty as she fell into the water. We have heard evidence that this blow would almost certainly have rendered her unconscious, which in turn led to her drowning.

'While I attach no blame to St Scholastika's College, it seems clear that, had a non-slip surface been installed, this accident might never have occurred. I urge all colleges and rowing clubs to review the conditions of their jetties as a matter of urgency.'

After the inquest, Terry Franks, solicitor for the Edwards family, read out a statement on their behalf. 'We are satisfied with the verdict of the inquest. While we applaud the coroner's remarks, we do not blame anyone for what was a genuine accident.'

When asked to comment on the coroner's remarks, Wanda Henderson, the principal of St Scholastika's, said, 'Jess Edwards' death has been a blow for this college. We have already undertaken a full review of the safety of the boathouse area and have made significant improvements, including the application of non-slip materials to all external areas. We would like to extend our deepest sympathy to Jess's family.'

And that was that. Charlie was surprised by the reaction of the family. The natural impulse after the accidental death of a child is to want to find someone to blame. A lot of families in the Edwardses' position would be shouting about negligence and litigation, not quietly accepting that Schollie's wasn't responsible for their daughter's death. It indicated a remarkable maturity on the part of her parents. Or perhaps her mother was a Schollie's graduate herself, possessed of a powerful loyalty to the college that had nurtured her. Either way, it was no help to Charlie. Bitter resentment might have given her some leverage, even after all this time. Calm acceptance was the sane route, but for once, Charlie would have preferred the unbalanced response.

With a sigh, she turned off the reader and returned the films to the librarian. Charlie walked back through the pedestrian precinct towards Carfax, its medieval tower a reproach to the disposable shopfronts surrounding it. She'd hit a dead end already. What she needed to see was the inquest report, but a call to the coroner's office had made it plain that wasn't going to happen without authorisation from Jess Edwards' family. Having no official standing had introduced Charlie to a level of frustration that was entirely new to her.

She walked down Cornmarket and on up the Banbury Road towards Schollie's. She'd parked her car in a nearby side street, one of the first roads where city-centre parking restrictions didn't apply. As she walked, Charlie considered her limited options. She didn't want to admit she was already defeated, but she couldn't see how to make progress on Jess Edwards' death. Maybe she should just accept that this wasn't the death where she was going to implicate Jay. And if that was the case, there was little point in hanging around in Oxford. She'd hoped to find something that would keep her here long enough to see Lisa again. But she couldn't justify sticking around with no leads to follow.

Still, it wouldn't hurt just to drive past her house, to drop in on the off chance. It was almost lunchtime, after all. Even Lisa had to stop for food sometime.

Skirting the city centre, it didn't take too long to get to Iffley village. Cruising past Lisa's, Charlie was disappointed to see another car in the drive beside Lisa's Audi. Still, they might not be staying for long. Charlie found a parking spot that provided a view of Lisa's front door and her drive and settled down to wait.

While she waited, she considered her next course of action. Kathy Lipson's death on Skye was the obvious next place to look. There was plenty about that online, but she needed to get past the headlines and talk to someone who understood what had really happened. That probably meant a trip to Skye. This was starting to get expensive. Charlie wondered whether Corinna had considered that aspect of what she had asked Charlie to do.

On the other hand, taking money from Corinna, even if it was only expenses, would place her under an obligation. If Corinna was paying for the investigation, she was entitled to its product. And Charlie didn't want to lose control of whatever she uncovered. She didn't want to find herself in a position where she was blocked from sharing information with someone else because Corinna didn't want that. However much she had once admired Corinna, it didn't mean she completely trusted her now. On balance, Charlie decided she'd fund her redemption from her own pocket. Now she just had to figure out how to get her hands on the information that would allow her to redeem herself.

However hard she tried to develop a strategy for the next phase, Charlie kept coming back to Jess Edwards. The idea that Jay might have committed the perfect murder affronted Charlie. That she could do nothing about it affronted her still more.

The ringing of her phone startled her out of her reverie. Maria, the screen read. Feeling uncomfortable at taking a call from her partner while she was staking out the house of the woman she wanted for her lover, Charlie spoke. 'Hi,' she said, sounding as flat as she felt.

'Just finished my morning list and thought I'd give you a call. How's it going?' Maria, cheerful, upbeat. The one who had always kept her going.

'Dead-end street,' Charlie said. 'The newspaper reports don't say anything I didn't know already. The inquest report's been transferred to the county archives and I can't get to it unless I'm an interested party. Like, Jess's family.'

'Poor you,' Maria said. 'What about the police?'

'I haven't even bothered trying to talk to them. Nobody's going to remember who was in charge of an accidental death seventeen years ago. There was never anything suspicious about it officially, so it would barely have made an impact on anyone in CID.'

'No, no, that's not what I meant.'

'What, then?'

'Wouldn't the police be able to access an inquest report?'

'I suppose so. But that doesn't help me. I'm not the police.'

'God, Charlie.' Maria's tone was the verbal equivalent of eye-rolling. 'You may not be the police, but you know plenty.'

Charlie gave a little bark of laughter. 'Most of whom want to forget they ever heard my name right now.'

'I'm not thinking of the ones you've worked with, necessarily. What about Nick? He thinks the sun shines out of your backside. You know he does. He sent you a card when you got suspended, remember?'

Charlie groaned. 'You're right. Why didn't I think of Nick? Oh yes. Could it be because he's an ambitious young cop who's not going to take chances with his career just because I've turned into Don Quixote?'

'You don't know till you ask. Call him. He's just down the road. You could take him out to dinner and ask him.'

'Just down the road,' Charlie muttered. 'He's in London.'

'That's what I mean. It's just down the road. Or you could catch a train. It's better than coming home with your tail between your legs,' Maria said. 'What have you got to lose? If he says no, you're no worse off than you are now.'

She was right, and Charlie knew it. 'All right,' she sighed. 'I'll give him a call. How was your morning?' she added, suddenly remembering that Maria also had a professional life.

Maria chuckled. 'Nothing I need to share with you. But I have to go now and scrub up for my first afternoon appointment. I've got to hammer two titanium screws into a footballer's jaw. I think he must have spent his entire adolescence sucking sweets, the state of his teeth. I love you. Talk to me later, OK?'

'Will do.' Charlie ended the call just in time to notice Lisa's front door opening. She recognised the man who emerged carrying a laptop bag. Tom, the colleague who had been there when she'd arrived on Saturday. Lisa followed him on to the doorstep. She was wearing what looked like a Westernised version of the shalwar kameez — oversized collarless shirt and baggy pants gathered at the ankle, both in vivid turquoise. Her feet were bare, but she seemed not to notice the cold. Tom turned to Lisa and put his free arm round her shoulder. Lisa put her hands on his chest and leaned into him.

The kiss went far beyond what Charlie expected between a boss and her subordinate. True, it fell short of what she and Lisa had shared on the other side of the door, but it didn't look like something that had taken either of them by surprise. This looked like habit; it looked like a fragment of something more.

Charlie fought a sudden wave of nausea. The last thing she wanted right now was to be caught throwing up on the grass verge in plain sight of Lisa's house. The misery she felt was bad enough without adding a dose of humiliation. A small voice at the back of her head kept saying, 'You've had a lucky escape.' The trouble was, Charlie still didn't quite believe it.

This was not over.

14

Detective Sergeant Nick Nicolaides swapped the National guitar for his Martin D16 and checked the tuning. This was the first day off that hadn't been hijacked by the job for over two weeks and he was determined to lay down the backing guitar tracks for the new tune that had been teasing at the corner of his mind for days. He knew his colleagues were wary of him because he wasn't interested in football or fishing or boxing or pumping iron or any of the other pursuits that marked you out as a real man. It was OK to like music, provided that didn't go beyond having the right sounds in your car or on your MP3 player. But wanting to spend your spare time making music on your own or with a bunch of civilians — that was definitely on the weird side.

What they didn't know was that the music was what kept Nick sane, what locked him into a sense of himself. The music was the only remnant of the life he'd had before the life he had now. It was his bridge across a distance most of his colleagues would not believe.

It was a miracle that he had made it through his teens without a substantial police record. Someone less smart, less quick on their feet, less able to cover their tracks would have ended their adolescence in custody rather than in university.

But that was a secret history. And he planned to keep it that way. Nick had been fast-tracked ever since he'd joined the police. To begin with it had been because of his first class degree in psychology, but his aptitude had been demonstrated both at the National Police Academy and at the sharp end. He was a young man who was going places. And he never forgot that the reason it had all become possible was Dr Charlie Flint.

Nick had scraped into the psychology course at Manchester, his exam results the bottom of the barrel for a course in such high demand. The main reason for choosing to go to university at all had been to extend the range of his drug dealing and to postpone having to consider any kind of career that would interfere with making music, taking drugs and shagging girls who didn't have the brains to snag him. Within a few weeks, in spite of himself, he'd found he was actually interested in some aspects of the course he'd signed up for. The main reason for that had been Dr Charlie Flint.

She was the only member of the department he came across who was a psychiatrist rather than a psychologist. What she did was underpinned by medical training; almost as interesting as what she had to say was the fact that she could prescribe legal drugs. And she was young enough in the job that he reckoned she wouldn't know how to stand up to him. Halfway through the first term he'd gone to her with an offer he'd thought she couldn't refuse. She would write prescriptions for him for stuff he could sell on. In exchange, he would pay her. More importantly, he would not make her life a misery. When she'd asked him what he meant, he'd said, 'I'm not a man who's short on imagination. Trust me, you don't want to go there.'

'Try me,' she'd said, leaning back in her office chair, hands locked behind her head, the picture of insouciance.

'Well, for a start there's sexual harassment,' Nick had said. 'A woman of your age, it's not pretty to be accused of throwing yourself at a young student.' She laughed out loud. He was affronted. 'Don't think I won't do it.'

'Be my guest,' Charlie said. 'But before you do, let me say just one thing. Your choice of attack suggests to me that you need this course far more than you know.'

'What do you mean?' People usually caved in to whatever Nick demanded. He was a mixture of good looks and danger, a walking carrot-and-stick.

'You can't work it out? Well, you'll just have to go ahead and make a complete arse of yourself.' Charlie sat up straight, hands flat on the desk. 'And I expect you'll be doing it from the inside of a police cell. What you don't know about me, Nick, is that I work with the police. I have friends who will take great pleasure in dogging your every step and nicking you for everything from dropping litter upwards. And I will grass you up. Make no mistake about that. I had an idea you were trying to extend your little empire of fucked-upness to my students but I wasn't sure. Now I am. And I will not have it.'

'You're threatening me?' He was amused, but outraged too. Who the fuck did this chubby cow think she was? More to the point, how the fuck did she not get who he was, what he was?

Charlie shrugged. 'It's not a threat. It's a wake-up call. You are a very bright young man. The essay you gave me last week was clearly dashed off at the last minute. Probably fuelled by cocaine. You clearly hadn't done most of the reading. But it was still one of the best pieces of work I've ever seen from a student in his first term. The way I see it, you've got two options.' She held her hands apart as though she were literally weighing up his options. 'You can carry on the way you are. Build a criminal empire. Never sleep at night for fear of betrayal and jail, or worse. Or you can actually harness your potential. Do some work. Demonstrate how good you really are. Sleep at night.'

In some respects, it had been a pretty trite Damascene moment. What Charlie couldn't have known was how much pressure Nick had been under. From his family, from the dealers further up the chain, from the cops cracking down on dealing to kids too young to be out clubbing. So far, he'd kept his nose clean. But he understood what she was saying. That wouldn't continue. Eventually, he'd be fingered and there wouldn't be two options. 'And be like you?' was the only counter he could manage then. He knew even as he said it how weak it was.

'I will help you,' Charlie said. And she had. In three years, he'd turned his life around. By the time he did his final exams, he wasn't even using any more. He was studying and making music. There wasn't time for anything else.

He'd also worked out why Charlie had been so amused that he'd threatened her with an accusation of sexual harassment. Now, he blushed to think of the fuckwit he'd been back then.

So when the phone screen flashed her name in the middle of his first run-through of the new piece, he stopped finger-picking and grabbed the phone. 'Charlie,' he said.

'Hi, Nick. Is this a good time? Can you talk?'

'Day off,' he said. 'I was beginning to wonder what that felt like.'

'I'm sorry. I'll call you tomorrow if that's better?'

'No, Charlie. I'm always happy to talk to you. How are you coping? How's tricks?'

'Well, it's a bit complicated.'

'It's not Maria, is it? She's OK, right?'

'Yes, she's fine. It's just that… Well, I'm in the thick of something and I could use a bit of help. But I don't want to get into it on the phone. Can I buy you dinner?'

Nick checked the time. It was barely two o'clock. 'I can't do dinner,' he said. 'One of my mates has a studio booked, I promised I'd do some backing tracks for him. Are you in London now?'

'No. I'm in Oxford.'

'Look, I'm only ten minutes' walk from Paddington. Are you busy this afternoon? Can you jump on a train? You could be here by four. I don't have to go out till six. Would that work for you?'

Charlie thought the new flats in Paddington Basin covered both extremes. You either got a great view across London rooftops or you got an unrivalled view of the Westway on stilts and its endless stream of traffic. As she waited for the lift, she made a bet with herself. A couple of minutes later, she congratulated herself on getting it right. Nick had not settled for a flash address at the expense of a lousy view. The vista from the wall of glass that occupied one side of his living room was breathtaking. The room itself was devoted to music. Guitars hung along one wall, a keyboard sat on a long desk beside a bank of computer peripherals, an array of mics and music stands occupied one corner. A squidgy leather sofa faced the view, the only concession to standard living-room furniture. 'It's very you,' Charlie said, looking around.

'You wouldn't have to be a psychologist to work out that music's very important to me,' Nick said, a sardonic twist to his mouth. 'I'll get the wine.'

Charlie watched him disappear into a narrow galley kitchen. He was looking good, she thought. When she'd first met him, he'd resembled the king of the alley cats — skinny, feral, vibrant and good-looking in the piratical style. He'd filled out a bit, built some muscle round his basic wiriness, learned how not to frighten the horses. His jeans were slung low on his narrow hips, his shirt unpressed, his hair shaggier than the last time they'd met. He did not look like an off-duty cop. That was one of his professional strengths. He returned with a bottle of chewy red wine and a couple of tumblers, giving her that familiar twinkling smile, brown eyes crinkling at the corners. 'You look well,' she said.

'It's an illusion. I need a holiday. I'm tired all the time.' He perched on the edge of a high wooden stool and poured wine, passing a glass to Charlie. 'Cheers.' He leaned forward to clink glasses and she got a whiff of his smell-a faint animal muskiness overlaying the citrus sharpness of shampoo.

'Too much work or too much play?'

He chuckled. 'Too much playing.' He jerked a thumb towards the guitars. 'The more shit I see in the job, the more I want to lose myself in the music. But never mind me.' He shook his head. 'Are they out of their minds, or what? Axing the best profiler and analyst in the game? I cannot believe what's happening to you.'

'You should. You've been in the game long enough.'

'So what can I do to help? That's why you're here, right? For my help?'

His eagerness made her feel cherished in a way that little had since Bill Hopton's second trial. 'I wish my professional problems were straightforward enough that you could help,' she said. 'But the reason I'm here is totally different.'

Nick's eyes turned wary. 'You came for the cop, not the friend?'

'I like to think they're both on my side,' Charlie said. 'Let me tell you what I've got myself into.' She outlined the task she'd accepted from Corinna succinctly, leaving nothing out except her discussion with Lisa Kent. The last thing she wanted was to introduce the subject of Lisa with someone as acute as Nick. 'Maria wants me to take this on,' she finished up. 'She thinks I need something challenging to keep me from going mad. But I don't have the skills or the access for this.'

Nick gave her a sceptical look. 'You've got the skills,' he said. 'No question of that. I've never seen a better interviewer. But you're right, access is a problem.'

'Right. If I'm going to make any progress with Jess Edwards, I need that inquest report. I've got no authority to get sight of it. But you have.'

Nick shook his head and Charlie felt suddenly numb. She'd thought she could rely on Nick, but it seemed she'd been mistaken. It was a harsh blow. But when he spoke, it wasn't what she expected. 'You don't need the inquest report.'

'How else do I make progress?'

'If anything of any substance had come out in court, it would have made it into the paper. My guess is that this was written up as an accident from the get-go, that it barely rippled the surface of CID. There's not going to be anything in the police evidence and there's not going to be a copper walking around with this case engraved on his memory. The one person who might have something to say — and it's a big "might" — is the pathologist. Sometimes they notice things that don't end up in their final report because they're too insignificant. Or they're details that are unnecessary for the legal resolution of a case. The only thing you need from the inquest report is the name of the pathologist who did the PM.'

'So how do I get that?'

Nick smirked. 'You don't. I do. I'll call the county archives and blag it out of them.'

'You don't mind?'

'It'll make a nice change.' He looked away. 'I'm working on trafficking kids in the sex industry right now. Anything that isn't that feels like a holiday. I'll do it first thing tomorrow. I need to make the call from work so they can call back and check my bona fides, otherwise I'd do it now. Will you still be in Oxford?'

Charlie's spirits sank. Oxford with no prospect of whiling away the hours with Lisa. Because she couldn't let that be an option now, however much it hurt to turn her back, not given what she'd seen earlier. She sighed. 'Yeah, I'll still be there.'

'OK. I'll call you as soon as I have what you need.' He leaned over and topped up her glass. 'You want to hear what I've been working on?'

Charlie couldn't help smiling, admiring his bounceback skills. 'Why not?' she said. It had to be better than listening to the arguments inside her head.

15

Tuesday

Others might fail her, but Nick hadn't let Charlie down. Just after ten, he texted her with all she needed to know. Dr Vikram(Vik) Patel. Still @ John Radcliffe Hosp. At least Dr Patel was local. She could try to talk to him today then get out of Oxford before the depression that was nibbling at her really took hold.

Listening to Nick's multitextured guitar compositions had been the last enjoyable element in her day. The train had been overheated and overcrowded, the Chinese takeaway she'd picked up on her way back to her cheerless guest room at Schollie's had been greasy and bland, and Maria had been out at the cinema with a colleague so she couldn't even whinge to her. By the time they'd been able to talk, Charlie had been too tired to be bothered. The one thing she could point to with pride was that she hadn't gone near Lisa. Hadn't phoned her, texted her, emailed her or even checked her Facebook page.

In spite of her exhaustion, she'd slept fitfully. She'd almost fallen out of the narrow bed at one point, waking just before her body reached the tipping point. 'I can't even manage to lie in bed now,' she said aloud. 'Is it just me or is everything shit?' By any objective measure, she had to concede it was just her. Sometimes she wished she could acquire a taste for drugs. At least that would keep the world at a distance.

Breakfast had been an ordeal. Faces from her student days kept drifting past her or stopping to say hello. From kitchen staff to college fellows, it seemed she'd made more of an impact than she knew. Or maybe it was just that they all read the Daily Mail and it was notoriety jogging their memory rather than affection. Of course, they were all curious to know why she was there. Luckily Oxford's personnel and libraries always provided the easy answer of 'doing some research'. Even the disgraced could hide behind that excuse.

As she'd been leaving the dining hall, Corinna had walked out of the Senior Common Room opposite. A furtive glance to see how close any observers might be, then Corinna hurried across to her. 'How are you getting on?' she said. Her face looked strained, her eyes tired. Charlie imagined things had not been particularly pleasant in the Newsam household since Magda's Saturday revelations.

'It's not easy,' Charlie said. 'You'd have been better off hiring a private investigator.'

Corinna gave her a shrewd look. 'They wouldn't understand the way you do. And they wouldn't have anything at stake. I've got confidence in you, Charlie. I know you will do whatever you can to protect my daughter. Just keep me posted, eh? A quick phone call every day, that should do it, right?'

'I'm sorry, Corinna, but that's not going to happen,' Charlie said firmly. 'I don't do my best work when I feel like somebody's looking over my shoulder. Leave me to get on with things in my own way, and I'll talk to you when I have something to say.' The door of the SCR opened and two other fellows emerged. It signalled the end of their conversation and spared Charlie from getting into an argument.

'We'll talk soon,' Corinna said, frustration drawing her brows down.

'When I'm ready.' Charlie walked away, wondering again how she'd let herself be sucked into this.

By the time Nick's text arrived, she was prowling round the remains of the boathouse, checking out the scene of the alleged crime for herself. It had changed dramatically since Jess's death, replaced now by a more modern facility on the Isis. The wood was grey with untended age, the dilapidation far advanced. Charlie was surprised the college hadn't demolished it on the notorious grounds of health and safety. But enough remained for her to conjure up its image. The main change, apart from the state of disrepair, was that famous non-slip surface. It covered all the exposed wood of the decking, its bright green faded now to a dull mud colour, its edges nibbled at by the passage of time. Evidentially, this was a meaningless visit. But it made more vivid the hazy images of memory. Charlie could envisage the scene much more clearly now.

And then the text had arrived that gave her no more excuse to hang around Schollie's. Charlie took the Marston Ferry Road towards the John Radcliffe Hospital, trying out various strategies in her head as she drove. She had confidence in none of them. Only if Vik Patel had been living on Mars for the past year did she have any chance of getting him to talk to her.

Like most hospitals, the John Radcliffe did not advertise the location of its mortuary on the maps conveniently provided for patients and visitors. Charlie headed for the information desk and mustered her best smile. 'I'm looking for Dr Vikram Patel, the pathologist. I wonder if you could direct me to the autopsy suite?' By one of fortune's lucky oversights, nobody had asked her to surrender the Home Office ID card she had been given to allow her entry to police premises. She slid it in front of the woman on the information counter, who gave it a cursory glance. She pulled a map towards her and scribbled on it, then passed it to Charlie. 'You're here. You need to be here.' She pointed. 'There's the entrance, the lifts are down the hall.'

Charlie couldn't quite believe her luck. She'd expected a knock-back; at the very least, a call to Dr Patel to check whether she was expected. Perhaps it was because she'd taken the trouble to look like a medical professional, with her best suit and laptop bag slung over her shoulder. It almost made her feel she was on a roll.

The building that housed the mortuary was either pretty new or had recently been refurbished. It didn't have that slightly scuffed, entirely unloved feeling that Charlie associated with NHS premises. The walls were clean, the doors fit properly and the signs on the doors were all in the same font. She followed the directions and ended up in a tiny reception area with two chairs facing a desk that barely had room for the monitor and keyboard that formed a barrier between the public and the receptionist, a scrawny man in his early twenties dressed in pale blue surgical scrubs. Not for the first time, Charlie thought she had never encountered anyone whose appearance was improved by scrubs. Real life was never like ER in that respect.

The receptionist didn't look up when Charlie entered. His eyes were focused on the monitor, his freckled fingers flying over the keys. It took her a moment to realise that under the thatch of springy ginger hair, he had ear buds that were presumably pumping dictation directly into his brain. She moved closer and waved a hand at him.

He started and pushed back from the desk as if she'd physically hit him. 'Jeez,' he said, yanking the ear phones clear. 'You nearly gave me a heart attack.'

'Sorry,' Charlie said. 'I'm looking for Dr Patel. Vik Patel.'

The young man frowned. 'Is he expecting you? Only, he's doing an autopsy right now.'

Charlie made a rueful face. 'I know I should have phoned ahead. But I found myself in the area and I thought I'd take the chance.' She smiled. 'Any idea how much longer he's going to be?'

The young man looked surprised, as if nobody had ever asked such a question before. 'Can I ask who you are?' Charlie produced the ID again. This time, it was carefully scrutinised. Blank-faced, he said, 'What is it that you want to see Dr Patel about, Dr Flint?'

'I want to talk to Dr Patel about an old case,' she said. 'I won't take up much of his time.'

'I need to go and see what's possible,' he said. He glanced at her, frowning again, and closed down his computer before he left by a door in the back of the room. Charlie sat down on one of the visitor chairs, crossed her legs, and waited.

It took almost ten minutes for the young man to return. 'If you can hang on for quarter of an hour, Dr Patel will meet you.' He stared at her, as if committing her face to memory in case he needed to take part in an identity parade at some point down the line.

Charlie smiled. All this pleasantness was starting to hurt her face. 'Thank you. That'll be fine.'

In the end, it took almost twenty-five minutes for the door at the back of the room to open again. A short, squat Asian man in green scrubs appeared in the doorway and stared at Charlie. He ran a hand over thick black hair brushed straight back from his forehead in an impressive quiff and his mouth twitched. 'You're Dr Flint?' he said.

Charlie stood up. 'That's right. Dr Patel?'

'Call me Vik,' he said. 'Come through. We'll need to make this quick. I've got another autopsy before lunch.'

Charlie followed him into another unspoiled corridor. Halfway down, he wheeled left into a cubicle office. One internal wall was a long window that looked on to a pathology suite. A technician in a white overall and rubber boots was methodically cleaning surfaces. Patel tutted and pulled the blinds down. 'Have a seat,' he said, gesturing to a folding chair squeezed into a corner at the end of his desk. Neat piles of paper flanked a flashy laptop. A stainless steel Thermos and a phone sat beside the computer. Charlie couldn't imagine a life that involved being constantly up to your elbows in human remains, but she did envy Vik Patel his obvious capacity for neatness.

He pushed black-rimmed glasses up his nose and gave Charlie a puzzled stare. Closer up, she could see a few strands of silver in his hair and fine lines in his tea-coloured skin. He was older than she'd thought at first. 'I'm bemused,' he said. 'You're a psychiatrist, right?'

That detail wasn't on her ID. They'd either recognised her name or quickly Googled her. But still Patel had decided to see her. That was probably a point in her favour. 'That's right,' Charlie said, on her guard nevertheless.

'By definition, you deal with the living. Me, I'm a pathologist. By definition, I deal with the dead. I'll be honest with you, Dr Flint. I'm struggling to find some common ground here.'

His accent wasn't local. He was a northerner, like her. Leeds or Bradford, she thought and wondered if she could use that as a bridge between them. Instead, she said, 'Call me Charlie.' Another of the charm-offensive smiles. 'I'm looking for some information, Vik. About an old case of yours.'

'How is an old case of mine a concern of yours?'

He wasn't making this easy. But then, why should he? 'In my line of work, people have a tendency to make confessions or allegations that aren't always truthful. But sometimes they are true and they force us to take another look at cases that may have been closed years before. I've got a situation where someone is making an allegation about a death that was written up as an accident. If they're right, then we could be looking at a murder investigation.'

Patel nodded impatiently. 'I get that, Charlie. I assumed it was something like that. What I'm not getting is why it's you sitting here, not a police officer. In my experience, they're the ones that hunt down murderers.' Again the hand smoothed his hair. It seemed to be a mechanism for reassuring himself, she thought. His hair was under control, so was the situation.

'There's no point in wasting police time until I know whether there's anything worth investigating, is there?' She'd worked this answer out over breakfast and hoped it would hold up under pressure.

'We don't want to waste police time, do we? And time's what you've got a lot of right now, isn't it, Charlie?' He wanted to be pleased with himself, so Charlie let herself look more dismayed than she felt.

'I wondered if you'd recognised my name,' she said. 'It's true that I'm not as busy as usual. It's given me the chance to look more closely at some of the files I'd had to put to one side.' She spread her hands, palms upward. A gesture of openness and trust. 'You know how it is. There's only so much time, and certain cases carry more weight.' A dart aimed straight for common ground.

Patel returned her smile. 'Tell me about it.' He glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. 'I've got ten more minutes. I'm interested in what it is that is worth taking you away from building your defence against the GMC.'

Charlie gave a dry laugh. 'It's no big deal. I've been working with someone who claims she witnessed a murder. I get this kind of thing all the time, but when I checked out what she told me, I discovered there had been an unexpected death at the precise time and place she'd given me. That's more unusual than you'd think.'

'And this unexpected death was one I dealt with? Is that why you're here?'

'That's it in a nutshell, Vik. The inquest wrote it up as accidental death. The police said all the evidence was congruent with accidental death. But I wanted to ask you if there was anything at all ambiguous in what you saw on the table. Anything that gave you pause but wasn't enough to make the police change their tack.' Charlie shrugged. 'To be honest, Vik, I fully expect to walk out of here empty-handed.' It was a line calculated to make him want to prove her wrong.

'Thames Valley Police take me seriously,' he said, the hand running over the hair again. 'They don't ignore my concerns.'

'I'm sure they don't. But like you said, we've all got to prioritise. ' He hadn't said that; she had. But she didn't think he'd argue with her.

'When was this case?'

'November 1993.'

Patel's eyes widened. 'And you expect me to remember the details of a case from seventeen years ago?' His voice rose in incredulity. 'Do you have any idea how many autopsies I perform every week?'

'You don't perform many on twenty-year-old women in peak physical condition,' Charlie said. 'Her name was Jess Edwards and she drowned in the Cherwell by the St Scholastika's boathouse.'

Watching the light dawn behind Patel's eyes was a beautiful thing. 'I do remember,' he said slowly. 'No detail, mind you. But I do remember the case.' He made tutting noises behind his teeth. 'November 1993. We were using computers by then. This should be on the server…' He picked up his phone, turning away from Charlie. 'Matthew? I need you to pull down a report for me from November 1993… Jess Edwards… How soon?' He nodded. 'Thank you.'

He woke up the laptop. His calendar for the day filled the screen. He ran his finger down the list of appointments then turned back to Charlie. 'Can you come back this afternoon? Three thirty? Would that work for you?'

'That would be perfect.' Charlie stood up. 'I appreciate your time.'

Patel nodded. 'She was the same age as my daughter,' he said. 'Sometimes we have to go the extra mile.'

16

Waiting patiently had never been one of Charlie's skills. She had friends and colleagues who seized downtime like a gift from the gods but she'd always suffered a compulsion to fill those inevitable gaps in the action with something productive. So she left Vik Patel's office with great plans for going back to Schollie's to continue her online researches. But when she logged on to her laptop, the first thing on her screen was an email from Lisa.

If she tried to work online now, the message would taunt her till she opened it. And she didn't want to read anything Lisa had to say. Charlie knew herself well enough to understand that Lisa still had power over her. And she didn't want to be seduced by her words again. So she closed the laptop and stretched out on the bed to consider her options.

When she woke up, it was after two o'clock. Charlie couldn't believe she'd slept for almost three hours. She didn't do naps, and the way she felt now reminded her why. Groggy and thick-headed, she stripped and showered, desperately trying to get her brain back in gear. Vik Patel was no pushover; she couldn't afford to have a head full of cotton wool for this encounter.

Hair still damp, she hurried to her car, checking her phone for messages as she went. A text from Lisa. 'For Christ's sake,' Charlie muttered. When she'd been desperate for a crumb from Lisa's life, next to nothing had been forthcoming. Now she wanted to be left alone, Lisa seemed to be in pursuit. 'I'm going to ignore you,' she said as she got into the car. 'I don't need this.'

She made it to the hospital mortuary with five minutes to spare. But this time, the receptionist hustled her straight through to his boss's office. Patel jumped up when she walked in, a troubled look on his face. 'This is very disturbing,' he said, cutting straight to the point.

'You found something?' Charlie said, not bothering to hide her eagerness.

Patel sucked in a sharp breath. 'Oh yes,' he said. 'As soon as I looked at the file, I remembered. An anomaly. A very definite anomaly.' He waved Charlie to the corner seat and pointed to his desk. To her bewilderment, the space where his laptop had been was occupied by a chunky Lego model sitting on a sheet of paper. He sat down and patted a blocky rectangle sitting on the green base. 'Think of this as the boathouse and jetty at St Scholastika's College,' he said. 'And this sheet of paper is the river.'

Charlie nodded. It was a loose interpretation of the scene she'd visited that morning, but she could do imagination. 'OK.'

He produced a Lego figure that looked suspiciously like Princess Leia. 'This is Jess. She comes out of the boathouse…' He moved the stunted figure from the building towards the edge of the platform. 'She slips…' The feet go from under Princess Leia and her head hits the sharp edge. She falls on to the paper, face down. 'She's unconscious when she hits the water. She drowns. And there you have it. A perfect narrative of death.'

'What's the anomaly?' Charlie asked, excitement buzzing inside. 'What's the problem with this perfect narrative?'

'Imagine the skull hitting the edge of the jetty on a downward trajectory. The wound is wedge-shaped. So when I examined Jess Edwards' skull, I expected to see a wedge-shaped wound. And that's what I did see. Except that the wedge was upside down.' He picked up Princess Leia again. He walked her backwards from the boathouse to the edge of the jetty and pulled her feet out from under her again. This time, the back of her head hit the edge of the jetty but her body remained on the decking. 'For the wound to exhibit the shape I saw, she would have had to fall backwards on to the edge. So her body would have stayed on the jetty. And she wouldn't have drowned.'

Charlie thought about what he'd said, looking for the wriggle room. 'What if she'd still been conscious? Rolling about in pain? Could she not have gone over the edge then?' It wasn't that Charlie doubted Patel. She wanted to believe him, wanted to be convinced that Corinna hadn't sent her on a wild-goose chase. But she was trained to mistrust, to call into question, to test.

'Exactly what the policeman said. And I will tell you what I said to him. It is my professional opinion that she could not have been conscious after that blow to the head. But here's the thing. It's notoriously difficult to be definitive about the effect of head wounds. There are recorded cases of people being shot in the head and walking round perfectly coherent afterwards. So in theory, what you suggest is right out there on the outside edge of what might be possible.'

Charlie released the breath she'd been holding. 'What did the policeman say?'

'He said there was no evidence to indicate this was anything other than a tragic accident. Nothing. No circumstantial, no forensics, no witnesses. If there was an explanation that covered it, he would take it. If an anomaly was the only way to explain it, he'd live with the anomaly.'

'You didn't say anything about this at the inquest,' Charlie said.

'No. Because anomalies do happen. And apart from that, there was nothing that raised the slightest question in anybody's mind. In those circumstances, you have to think of the impact on the family. There was no evidence to support a murder inquiry, and if I'd raised a doubt in their minds…' Patel ran a hand over his hair. 'All I would have done was to deny them closure. For ever. Because there could be no closure.'

'What if she was murdered?'

'You mean, what if your patient is telling the truth about witnessing a murder?'

'Yes.'

Patel looked troubled. 'Then there's a lot of pain coming up for a lot of people.'

'You included?'

He gave a sad smile. 'I won't be joining your club, Charlie. I'm not the one rocking the boat.' He stood up. 'Good luck getting anyone to take your crazy person seriously.'

Charlie was feeling pretty pleased with herself. Halfway round the barely moving car park that was the motorway encircling Birmingham, and she still hadn't opened Lisa's text or email. Just as she was congratulating herself on her strength of will, her phone rang. 'Blocked,' the screen read. Could be anyone from her lawyer to her mother, who liked to call from work when her boss was out of the office. Charlie decided to go for it. 'Hello?' she said cautiously, aiming for an accent not quite her own.

'Charlie?' From the sound of it, she'd succeeded in confusing Nick. 'Is that you?'

'Hi, Nick.'

'I just thought I'd give you a ring to see how it went with Dr Patel.'

Charlie told him. At the end, he gave a low whistle. 'An anomaly, eh? We like anomalies, don't we, Charlie?'

'What's this "we", Nick?'

A moment's silence, then he said, 'You're not fit to be let out on your own on this, Charlie. You need somebody that knows which way is up.'

'And that would be you?'

'It would.'

Charlie was touched, but she was also wary on Nick's account. Heaven forbid he should get dragged into her particular professional hell. 'You've got a job of your own already. Don't be greedy,' she said sternly, braking as the van in front juddered to a halt.

'This is like a stress-buster for me,' he said. 'I want to help, Charlie. You've never let me do anything for you, and that's not good. Friendship's supposed to be a two-way street. So let me help you with this.'

Charlie felt tears constrict her throat. She wasn't accustomed to people seeing her vulnerability, never mind acting on it. 'Whatever,' she said gruffly. 'I can't very well stop you, can I?'

'Good. Now, the way I see it, we're not going to get much further with the Jess Edwards case. Its main evidential value is that it establishes an MO — this is how she killed Jess Edwards, almost identical to the way Philip Carling was killed. And the two people banged up for his murder very definitely didn't kill Jess Edwards. So what you need to do now-'

'Nick?' Charlie interrupted. 'Is this some meaning of the word "help" that I'm unfamiliar with? The one where you just take over?' There was a laugh in her voice, but she hoped he picked up on her underlying seriousness.

'Sorry, Charlie. Just getting carried away in my own area of expertise. What were you thinking of doing next?'

'I want to find out as much as I can about Kathy Lipson's death. Apparently, in Scotland they have a thing called a Fatal Accident Inquiry instead of an inquest, and the reports are in the public domain. Online, even. How advanced is that?'

'Very impressive. Are you going to go to Skye and talk to the mountain rescue people?'

'Funnily enough, I thought I might do just that.' The traffic started inching forward again and Charlie put the car in gear.

'Don't forget to ask about the phone,' he said.

'What about the phone?'

'If it was retrieved with Jay's backpack.'

'I don't even know that the backpack was retrieved,' Charlie pointed out.

'Something else to ask about, then.'

'Nick, with it being a satellite phone, would there be a record of the calls made to and from it?'

'Back in 2000? I suppose so, in theory.'

'Do you think there's any way you could get hold of it?'

'Probably not without a warrant. Even if I knew which company it was.'

'There can't have been many sat-phone companies around in 2000.'

'Yeah, and the chances of any still being around now in the same form are pretty low.' Nick sounded glum.

'They were so expensive back then, it would be really interesting to see who she thought it was worth spending money talking to.'

'You'll get no argument from me on that. I just think the chances of getting hold of that info are near to vanishing point.'

Seeing a space opening up, Charlie moved over to the outside lane. 'You're probably right. Thank God it's not the only shot in our locker. I also want to touch base with Magda, ideally when Jay's not around. She opened up to me so readily on Saturday, I think it would be useful to capitalise on that. Find out what she might know that she doesn't know she knows, if you see what I mean.'

'Totally. Good idea.'

'So, what was it you thought I should do next?'

Nick chuckled. 'I think you should talk to Paul Barker or Joanna Sanderson. If Corinna's right and they've been framed, they might have something to say worth listening to. You know how it is — the lawyers decide on a line of defence and anything that doesn't sit right with that gets put to one side.'

Charlie sighed. 'You're probably right. But they're in jail now and I've got no standing to get in to see them.'

'You could talk to the lawyer. Offer to help with the appeal. They'd jump at a free psychological assessment from you, Charlie.'

Charlie snorted incredulously. 'I'm in disgrace, Nick. I'm persona non grata. Nobody's going to want an assessment from me, free or otherwise.'

'Ah, bollocks to that, Charlie. You're going to be back in the driver's seat in no time. We both know they're going to find you're guilty of nothing more than honesty. You'll be queen of the castle again before you know it.'

She wished she could believe him. But the Bill Hopton case wasn't going to disappear from memories or headlines any time soon. And for as long as it lived in people's minds, she would have no role as an expert witness. 'Yeah, sure,' she said, subdued now.

'Talk to the lawyer, Charlie. Make the call when you get home. If you're accredited by the lawyer, you can get in to see them at short notice. What have you got to lose? Promise me you'll make the call.'

'All right, Nick. I'll make the call. And since you're so desperate to help, you can talk to your opposite numbers in Spain and find out what you can about Ulf Ingemarsson.'

It was Nick's turn to sigh. 'He's the one whose work on 24/7 she allegedly stole, right? How do I spell that?'

Charlie obliged. 'He died in Spain in 2004. If you can talk to the cops, that would be great. What I really want is a contact for Ingemarsson's girlfriend. She apparently knew all about his work. I'd be interested to hear what she has to say about Jay.'

'OK, boss. I'll get on to Spain, you get on to one of the defence solicitors. We'll talk again.'

And he was gone. So too was the traffic jam, dissolved as if by magic. Charlie put her foot down, feeling more uncomplicated delight than she had for a long time. Until Nick had weighed in on her side, she hadn't allowed herself to realise how isolated she'd been. Or how negative an impact that had been having on her. Now she had someone to bounce her ideas off and, more importantly, she had someone to take on the things she couldn't do.

By the time she got home, Charlie was more upbeat than she'd been in a while. It was far too late to get hold of lawyers; she would deal with that first thing in the morning. She had two hours' teaching in the morning at a sixth-form college, but the rest of her day was free to chase solicitors.

She pulled into the drive, glad to be done with the journey. The M6 was always hideous. Clotted with traffic, clogged with lorries and plagued with roadworks. Charlie, an inveterate driver, hated to admit it, but now they had free Wi-Fi and power points, she was definitely starting to prefer trains. She got out and stretched, then realised Maria's car wasn't already parked up by the garage. She checked her watch. It was after eight. When she'd called earlier to say she'd be back, Maria hadn't said anything about going out.

The house was dark and chilly. The heating had obviously been off since Maria had left in the morning. Charlie snapped the lights on as she went, ending up in the kitchen where there was no note on the table. Odd, she thought, pulling out her phone to call Maria. She noticed a text had come in earlier, presumably when she'd been talking to Nick. Going to early movie with girls from work. Home by nine. Xxx, Charlie read. It was unreasonable of her, but she felt pissed off. She'd wanted Maria to be home.

She knew even as she pressed the keys that what she was about to do was petulant and childish. But she didn't care. The text message from Lisa filled the screen. Stomach suddenly hurting, Charlie read it. Sent u email, gues u didnt get. Hope ur OK. Want 2 c u b4 u go bk. Any time aftr 3. Pse? Hope ur gd. Xxx. For Lisa, it was effusive. It was, Charlie thought, the first time Lisa had been the one doing the asking. The second anomaly of the day, and even more welcome than the first.

And it made the email impossible to resist any longer. Charlie ran upstairs to the box room over the garage that had become her home office. She woke the computer and went straight to her email program. There, nestled among the twenty-seven emails that had arrived since Monday afternoon, was the message from Lisa.

Hi

Hope you are going well and not too cluttered by the burden Corinna has tried to place on your shoulders. I wish we'd had longer to spend together on Saturday. I feel neither of us really got the chance to say the things we wanted to. But still, I suspect it was more pleasant for both of us than the other calls on our time. I've been dealing with poor Tom, who is struggling with his wife's terminal cancer. He's very emotional, understandably. He's confusing me with a mother figure which is not his wisest move.

Are you back in Oxford? I thought I saw you in the car. Come and see me if you are. On the one hand, I want you not to waste your time on this crazy chimera Corinna has set breathing flame. On the other, I quite like the thought of you having a reason to come to Oxford. It's hard on both of us when we get so few chances to talk properly.

Thinking of you.

Lisa

Charlie leapt on the mention of Tom and his grief. Immediately she replayed the scene in her head. Could she have been mistaken? Had her mind created what she feared in what had been an emotional but sexually innocent embrace? It wasn't impossible. Charlie herself had been in a disturbed frame of mind, her incontinent emotions already churned up. And here was the innocuous explanation, offered before it had even been sought. She almost laughed aloud, cursing herself for a fool who'd been ready to believe the worst instead of keeping an open mind. Years of professional training tossed aside just because she was suffering the adolescent torments of longing for someone she thought was out of her reach. 'You're a fuckwit, Charlie Flint,' she said, hitting the 'reply' button with a flourish. 'But it's never too late to make amends.'

17

Magda ran through the rain, ducking into the scaled-down Sainsbury's round the corner from her flat. She'd come home ready to fix herself dinner and been shocked by how low her supplies had fallen. She'd been spending so much time at Jay's, she hadn't noticed how she'd been eating into her kitchen cupboard staples whenever she was in the flat. Tonight, Jay was in Bologna, probably eating a sensational meal in an intimate family-run trattoria, and she didn't even have a bag of dried pasta and a jar of sauce to pour over it.

With only half her mind on shopping, Magda filled her basket and stood in line. Here was yet another difference between her past life and her present one. When she'd been living with Philip, she'd savoured his occasional absences on business. They'd been an opportunity to do the things she never seemed to manage when he was around: a long candle-lit soak in the bath with a gin and tonic; late-night book shopping on the Charing Cross Road; renting a DVD to watch with a couple of the oncology nurses whose company always cheered her up; or just taking a good novel to bed with a bottle of San Pellegrino and a packet of chocolate digestives.

But when Jay left town there was never any cause for rejoicing. The flat seemed empty in a way it never had before. Magda felt restless, unable to settle to anything. Maybe it was because she never felt guilty indulging in whatever took her fancy when Jay was around. Either Jay would join her, or she'd do her own thing without the faintest flicker of reproach. So there was nothing she could do when Jay was gone that she couldn't do when she was around.

Except miss her, of course.

By the time she'd paid for her basket of food, the rain had eased. Even so, she was glad to reach the shelter of her lobby. She shook her hair like a wet dog as she headed for the lifts. Before she could put down one of her carrier bags to press the bell, a man appeared at her side, poking a finger at the button.

He was a stranger, which wasn't particularly unusual. The block was large enough and her hours sufficiently irregular for Magda to be unfamiliar with most of her neighbours. The man followed her in and as she turned to face the doors, she gave him a covert glance. Yes, definitely nobody she'd seen before. Only a few centimetres taller than her, a bristle of light brown stubble surrounding his bald patch, soft features and eyes the colour of boiled gooseberries. He was wearing one of those overcoats she always thought of as the preserve of public school men — camel-coloured with a brown velveteen collar, slightly nipped in at the waist — and carrying an umbrella and briefcase. He didn't look much older than her, but he was dressed at least a generation older.

'It's Magda, isn't it?' he said as soon as the doors closed and they were alone in the small metal compartment. His voice matched his overcoat — plummy, posh and very smooth.

Startled, Magda half-turned and stepped back simultaneously. 'I'm sorry? Do I know you?'

'I was on my way to call on you when you appeared just now.' It was as if she hadn't spoken to him in her best 'keep your distance' tone. 'I have something for you. I was a friend of Phil, you see.'

Not if you called him Phil, Magda thought. Philip had hated being called by anything other than his given name.

As if reading her mind, the man gave a little self-deprecating shrug. 'Well, not so much a friend. More a business associate.' He thrust a hand inside his overcoat and rummaged in an inside pocket. For a mad moment she thought he was reaching for a gun. Too many late nights watching film noir, she told herself as he produced an innocuous business card. 'This is me.' He seemed not to notice that Magda didn't have a free hand to accept it with.

The doors opened and Magda wasted no time leaving the lift and heading for her front door. She put down the bags of shopping and turned to face the man. He was a few feet from her, holding his card out. She took it and read, Nigel Fisher Boyd. Fisher Boyd Investments. A mobile number and a URL but no physical address. 'I've never heard of you,' she said.

'I appreciate that,' Fisher Boyd said. 'But as I said, I do have something for you. And I'd rather not conduct business out here in the hallway.'

'And I don't invite strangers into my flat.'

'Very sensible. Why don't you put your shopping inside and meet me downstairs? I noticed an agreeable little wine bar just down the street. We might go there for a drink?'

Magda looked at his proposition from all sides and couldn't see anything wrong with it. 'Fine,' she said at last. 'I'll see you downstairs.' They both stood for a moment staring at each other. Then he got it.

He wagged a finger at her. 'Very sensible.' He backed away, then wheeled round and marched back to the lift. Magda watched him disappear behind the brushed steel doors before she let herself in.

The strange encounter had unsettled her. Of course she wanted to know what Nigel Fisher Boyd had for her that couldn't be handed over on her own doorstep. But she was aware that her recent notoriety made her interesting to the sort of criminals who saw crime victims as potential prey. And he had called her late husband 'Phil'. She wished for Jay's presence; not because she couldn't handle this alone but because it was always nice to have back-up.

Magda left her bags on the kitchen counter next to Fisher Boyd's card. If anything did happen to her, at least she'd left a clue behind.

Ten minutes later, she was sitting at a corner table in a wine bar she'd never visited before in spite of its proximity to her home. She'd never been tempted inside; it always appeared rather dim and sad, its occupants an odd assortment who looked as if they didn't fit in anywhere else so they'd fetched up there like driftwood. Fisher Boyd returned to the table with a bottle of Sancerre and a dubious look on his face. 'Not sure this is quite chilled enough,' he said, pouring two glasses and sipping it. He swilled it round his mouth, puffing out his cheeks, pursing his lips then swallowing ostentatiously. 'It'll do, I suppose.'

Magda tasted the wine. It seemed fine to her. 'How did you know my husband?' she said.

Fisher Boyd took off his overcoat and folded it carefully over the back of a chair. Magda hated those sharp chalk-stripe suits with the double vents and slanted pockets that she only ever saw on the backs of the kind of men that Philip described as 'necessary evils' in the world he moved in. Because of his company's specialised role as confidential printers, he had to work with a wide range of people involved in making and taking money. 'From borderline spivs to the grandees of private banking,' he'd once said, adding, 'And sometimes the extremes are closer than you might think.' She was pretty sure which end of the spectrum Nigel Fisher Boyd tended towards.

'Some of my clients need very high-quality confidential printing. Share certificates, bonds, that sort of thing. That's how we met.'

It was plausible. But nothing that couldn't be cobbled together from reading the trial reports. 'So if you've got something for me, why has it taken you this long to bring it to me?'

Fisher Boyd gave her a pitying look. 'It seemed sensible to wait until after the trial. So there could be no possibility of you perjuring yourself.'

'Perjuring myself?' Outrage battled bewilderment and won. 'How dare you suggest I would lie in the witness box!'

He flashed a quick, sharp-toothed smile. 'Precisely as I feared. You're much too honest a person not to have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in court. And that would have been awkward for all of us.'

'I don't like the sound of this. What's all this about?' Magda gripped the stem of her glass tightly, feeling out of her depth.

Fisher Boyd snapped open his briefcase and took out a slim leather folder the size of a hardback novel. He pushed it across to her. 'Go on, open it,' he said when she just sat there looking at it with foreboding.

Magda opened the flap and looked inside. There were a few sheets of heavy linen paper but she couldn't see what was written on them. She pulled them clear and stared at the fine engraving, uncomprehending. The figure of 200,000 jumped out at her. There were four of them, each with the same amount embossed on them. 'I don't understand,' she said.

'They're bearer bonds,' he said. 'Whoever holds them owns them. They're not registered in anyone's name. It's like having the money in your hand without the inconvenience of walking round with a suitcase full of fifty-pound notes.'

'Why are you showing these to me? Where have they come from?'

'Didn't Phil tell you about them?' He looked faintly amused.

'No. I have no idea where this money has come from. His estate's been settled. Everything's accounted for. There's no missing eight hundred thousand euros.' She slipped the bonds back in the wallet and closed the flap as if that would somehow make it all go away.

Fisher Boyd shook his head, his mouth a tight, twisted line. 'Just as well I'm not a thief, then. I could have pocketed the lot and you'd have been none the wiser. Luckily for you, I don't believe in cheating my clients.'

'Look, you're going to have to explain this to me,' Magda said. 'I don't understand any of this.'

'It's quite simple. The motive that Paul Barker and Joanna Sanderson had for killing Phil was insider trading, right?'

'Yes. He was going to report them to the police and the FSA. They were finished. They'd go to jail.'

Fisher Boyd flashed his scary smile again. 'Well done, my dear. And how do you suppose Phil worked out what they were up to?'

'He found out they were spending far too much money and he discovered they were insider trading.'

'And how did he know what to look for?'

Magda frowned. 'I don't know. He just knew how the financial world worked, I suppose.'

Fisher Boyd's expression was pitying. 'He knew because he was doing it himself. This' — he tapped the wallet — 'is the laundered proceeds.' He raised his glass in a toast to the wallet, draining it and refilling it from the sweating bottle.

Magda felt her chest constrict with shock. What this man was saying was so at odds with her view of Philip that she couldn't make sense of it. 'Philip wouldn't do that,' she said.

'My dear, he not only would, he did. Why else would I be handing you a small fortune in bearer bonds?'

'But why would he inform on Paul and Joanna if he was doing the same thing?'

He shrugged. 'I wondered that too. My only conclusion was that they were doing it so badly that he was afraid they'd be unmasked and his own little house of cards would be pulled down with them. At least this way he was in control of things. He was prepared for the investigation.' He patted the wallet. 'And the proof of the pudding is in here. The investigators didn't find a trace of what he'd been up to.'

'I can't take this in,' Magda said.

'I know. It's a lot of money to fall into your lap,' he said, misunderstanding.

'I can't believe Philip did this.'

'He was trying to take care of you. As a good husband should.'

It was as if they were speaking different languages. Magda had never wanted Jay by her side more than she did right then. Jay was solid ground. And Magda needed something in her life to be solid ground. Her parents had failed her, and now it seemed her husband had done the same. 'I don't know what to do with this,' she said.

Still at cross-purposes, Fisher Boyd responded briskly. 'You'll need to deal with a private bank. Much easier than trying to get someone at your local branch to understand what this is, never mind what to do with it. I'll give you some covering documentation about it being a life insurance payout to keep you straight with the taxman. Perfect way to clean it up.'

'That doesn't seem very honest. I thought you said you weren't a crook? That sounds pretty crooked to me.'

A flicker of annoyance crossed Fisher Boyd's face. 'I said I wasn't a thief. I provide a service. I don't ask why my clients need this service, and I don't cheat them. Frankly, that's more than one can say for an awful lot of people in this business.'

'I can't make sense of any of this,' Magda said.

'Just think of it as a nice little nest egg,' Fisher Boyd said. He drank some more wine, smacking his lips at its dryness. 'You're a very lucky lady.' He reached for his coat and stood up. 'I'll send you that bogus insurance stuff in the post. You've nothing to worry about, I've done this sort of thing before and nobody's ever batted an eyelid.' He slipped into his coat with a flash of scarlet lining then picked up his umbrella and briefcase. 'Should you ever need my services, don't hesitate to call.' He tipped an imaginary hat to her. 'A pleasure to meet you.'

Dazed, Magda barely noticed him leave. She sat for a long time staring at the leather wallet. Part of her wanted to tear the bonds into small pieces and flush them down the toilet. But that wouldn't erase the memory of their existence. That wouldn't diminish the betrayal. Destroying them couldn't restore the image she'd always held of Philip as an honest, decent man.

And then there were the precepts dinned into her as a child. 'Waste not, want not.' 'There are poor children who would be grateful for what you take for granted.' She could hear her mother's voice in the back of her mind saying, 'Just think of the good you could do with it, honey.'

Magda picked up the wallet and thrust it into her handbag. For now, at least, she would hang on to it. She pushed her wine glass away and got up to leave. She was halfway to the door before the barmaid called her back. 'You need to settle up,' the woman said. 'A bottle of Sancerre.' Somehow, Magda wasn't entirely surprised.

With a wry smile, she paid for the wine. It was good to be reminded there was no such thing as a free lunch.

18

Wednesday

Unlike most cops, Nick Nicolaides never minded days when he was due to give evidence in court. Most of his colleagues liked activity. Sitting around for hours waiting to be called to the witness stand drove them mad with boredom. Nick had never had any problem with occupying his mind. Music in his ears, a book in his hand, and he was happy. The iPhone had been a glorious addition to his life. He could compose music, he could surf the web, he could read, he could play games. If he felt like it, he could even download files from the office and catch up on his report reading.

Or, like today, he could pursue his own investigations without anybody looking over his shoulder and wondering why in God's name he was Googling Swedish newspapers when he was supposed to be smashing an international child-trafficking ring. Because here, today, all he was supposed to do was wait till he was called into court and then respond to questions he already knew the answers to.

After he'd spoken to Charlie, Nick had put Jay Macallan Stewart to the back of his mind and concentrated on the operation his team were working on. But when he fell into bed, exhausted by a day of comparing CCTV images against their databank of known traffickers and pimps, his mind had drifted back to their earlier conversation. He'd gone to sleep thinking about what Charlie had told him and what information they needed to gather. And in the morning, staring at his reflection in the mirror as he shaved, he'd realised he was looking at the Ulf Ingemarsson case from the wrong end of the telescope.

'Alibi,' he muttered. That was the place to start. The only problem was how to nail down what Jay Macallan Stewart was doing during a particular week in 2004. Nobody could be expected to remember what they were doing six years ago.

'But their staff might.' He rinsed his face in the basin and gave himself a confident wink. Now all he had to do was figure out an approach.

Meanwhile, he could use the waiting time to see what he could find out about Ulf Ingemarsson. The translate function Google offered sometimes provoked more hilarity than clarity, but it was good enough to cope with press articles. The initial news stories — 'Swedish man murdered in Spain' — gave the usual spin of outrage. Bloodthirsty foreign brigands, incompetent foreign police, the risks of Abroad to decent Swedes. Behind the headlines, a story of a man holidaying in an isolated mountain villa, confronting burglars. A scuffle, a knife. A corpse lying on the floor for days, until the next visit from the cleaning company.

Then the counter-attack. Ingemarsson's girlfriend, a primary school teacher called Liv Aronsson, claimed this had been no ordinary burglary. As well as the obvious valuables, the thieves had stolen Ingemarsson's papers, which she insisted were meaningless and worthless to anyone other than a handful of web developers. She talked about his plans for an individually tailored travel guide system and revealed that he had been in talks with a British software developer, but the discussions had broken down over the issue of how the profits should be split. Her story was covered briefly in a couple of newspapers and one news magazine wrote a longer feature. Then the story died for a while.

When Jay Macallan Stewart launched 24/7, Liv Aronsson's story surfaced again on a couple of Swedish internet sites. Nothing was said to link Ingemarsson directly with 24/7, but it was there between the lines for anyone savvy enough. Again, the Spanish police were criticised for their refusal to consider this was more than a simple burglary, and Aronsson hinted that she believed her partner might have been killed for his idea.

Definitely worth talking to, Nick thought. He emailed the journalist who had written the article, asking for contact details for Aronsson. It's possible there may be a connection between Ulf Ingemarsson's death and a cold case I am investigating, he wrote. It seems that Liv Aronsson may have some helpful information. Either it would work or it wouldn't. In the UK, journalists didn't generally want to hand information over to the police. Maybe it would be easier in Sweden.

Now he'd read the Swedish coverage, Nick was even less keen to call the Spanish police. He didn't suppose there was much difference between them and his own colleagues when it came to being slagged off in the press, especially the foreign press. Lazy journalism was a great shield to hide behind when you knew you hadn't covered yourselves in glory. He'd have been very surprised if the Spanish cops were too dim to understand the significance of the stolen papers. And they would have been under pressure from their foreign ministry to solve the murder of a Swede. Bad for business, apart from anything else. If the cops had failed, he reckoned it wouldn't have been for lack of trying. And they wouldn't be thrilled by some Brit sticking his nose in and suggesting they weren't up to the job.

The option was taken from him by the arrival of the court usher, calling him to the witness box. To his surprise, Nick's testimony was over and done with by the time the court rose for lunch. Nobody would be expecting him back at base till late afternoon. If Jay was out of her office, he could make some useful progress without anyone noticing. He felt no guilt about sneaking off; in any given week, he did hours of unpaid overtime. Doing a little work on his own account was hardly stealing time from his employer.

Nick pulled up Twitter on his phone and typed 'Jay Macallan Stewart' into the search box. And there, posted two hours before, was a tweet from the woman herself: @ prosciutto tasting, Bologna. Will post best on 24/7 site l8r. If she'd been in Bologna two hours ago, she wasn't going to be in her office off the Brompton Road in the time it would take him to get there. As the thought struck him, he fired off a text passing on the information to Charlie. She'd wanted to talk to Magda without Jay being around. This could be her perfect opportunity.

The 24/7 offices occupied the upper floors of a double-fronted brick building. The entrance was a discreet doorway next to the designer handbag shop on the ground floor. Nick had read somewhere that the average woman spends PS4000 in her lifetime on handbags. Looking in the shop window as he waited for someone to answer the intercom, it was easy to see how.

His photo ID held up to the security camera was enough to have him buzzed in. The stairwell was clean and fresh, the carpet recently vacuumed and the walls bright with glamorous photographs of European cities. The reception office was just as smart — decent furniture, a proper coffee machine and plenty of space. Nick was impressed. He'd been behind the scenes of too many businesses that didn't seem to care about the working environment of their staff. The Metropolitan Police could learn something from Jay Stewart, he thought.

The woman behind the desk fit the room. She was beautifully groomed without fussiness. Nick put her at a good-looking thirty-something. Her immaculate white shirt amazed him. He could never manage to look that perfect, not even when he sent his shirts to the ironing service. He gave her his best smile, holding his ID up beside his face. 'Detective Sergeant Nick Nicolaides,' he said.

She smiled, but Nick could see she was anxious. That didn't mean anything. Most innocent people were unnerved by the presence of a policeman they hadn't actually summoned. 'Hi,' she said. 'I'm Lauren Archer. Is there a problem? How can I help you?'

Conscious that he was looming over her, Nick perched on the edge of a table set against the wall. 'It's OK, I've not come to arrest anyone, I promise you. This is a bit of a long shot,' he said, giving her a wry smile that invited complicity. 'We're investigating a cold case.'

Lauren nodded, still looking uncertain. 'Yes?'

'It goes back to 2004 but we've got fresh evidence analysis that has pointed us to a new suspect,' Nick lied fluently. 'The problem is, the guy we're looking at is claiming he has an alibi.'

Lauren frowned. 'How can that have anything to do with us? 24/7 wasn't even up and running then.'

'No, but as I understand it, the business was in the development stages. We understand that Ms Macallan Stewart wasn't working alone?'

Lauren smiled. 'That's right. Anne, her PA, has been with her since doitnow.com.' She frowned again. 'But what's that got to do with your case?'

Nick sighed. 'It's all a little bit complicated. We can't be precise about when the crime occurred. It could have taken place any time in the course of a particular week. And the man in question claims he spent that week doing work experience with Ms Macallan Stewart's company. That he was actually shadowing her for most of the time.'

Lauren's eyebrows shot up. 'That doesn't sound like Jay,' she said. 'She hates people looking over her shoulder.'

'You see? Already you're being helpful. I wonder — do you think Anne would have a record of what Jay was actually doing on the week in question? An old diary or something?'

'Hang on a minute, I'll get her to come through.' Lauren picked up the phone. 'Anne? I've got a police officer here, he's got a query relating to Jay's schedule… No, not this week. A while back. Can you come through?' She replaced the phone. This time her smile was wholehearted, the look of a woman who has passed the baton to the next person in the team.

A door behind Nick opened and a deep voice said, 'I'm Anne Perkins. And you are?'

Nick stood up straight and introduced himself again, submitting his ID for scrutiny. Anne Perkins could have been any age between forty and sixty. Her thick salt and pepper hair was cut and styled in fashionable disarray, her glasses were on the cutting edge of chic and she wore a tight-fitting capsleeved T-shirt and cropped cargo pants that revealed tanned limbs and toned muscles. She looked like someone who cycled to work, Nick thought. And without getting out of breath. 'Thank you, Sergeant,' she said, handing back his ID. 'How can I help you?'

Nick repeated his story. Anne Perkins listened carefully, her head cocked to one side, a line of concentration between her brows. 'Your man's a liar,' she said. 'We have given people internships and work experience opportunities in the past, but never at the level of shadowing our chief executive. We'd never take that degree of risk in terms of corporate confidentiality. ' She half-turned, as if her saying her piece should mark the end of the matter.

'Thank you,' Nick said. 'Please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't just accept the uncorroborated word of one person on a matter like this.' He gave an apologetic shrug. 'Rules of evidence, and all that. I'm sure you appreciate my problem.'

She looked shocked. Nick imagined she wasn't accustomed to her position being contradicted. He hoped he hadn't overplayed his hand. 'I thought our legal system thrived on the word of one person against another?' she said coolly.

'We prefer it when we don't have to trust to the intelligence of a jury,' he said, playing to her sense of superiority. 'Maybe if I could confirm that with Jay herself?'

Anne shook her head. 'She's not in today.'

'Could I call her?'

'That would be tricky. She's got a very full programme.'

Interestingly defensive of the boss, Nick noted. He nodded sympathetically. 'She's obviously a very busy lady. What about if you've got a diary for 2004 that I could look at? Problem solved. And I'm out of here, never to be seen again.'

Anne Perkins raised one eyebrow. '2004? Give me a minute. Lauren, show the nice policeman how the coffee machine works.'

Lauren gave him an anguished smile as they were left alone. 'Would you like a coffee?'

'That would be too much of a commitment. I'm not planning on being here that long.' He perched on the edge of the desk again. 'Have you worked here for long?'

'Five years now,' Lauren said. 'Since 24/7 launched.'

'Must be a good place to work if you've stayed here that long.'

Lauren grinned. 'We get great travel perks. And I love to travel. Plus Jay's a good boss. She demands a lot from her staff, but she gives a lot in return. Have you been a policeman for long?'

Nick pulled a face. 'Too long. We don't get travel perks. So what's she like, Jay? I imagine she must be pretty ruthless, being such a success in business.'

'She knows what she wants and she's very good at getting it.' Lauren stopped abruptly, as if realising she was giving too much away to the nice policeman. 'But if you really want to know what she's like, you should read her memoir, Unrepentant. She had a pretty difficult childhood. Getting over that and making such a success of her life, that's inspiring, you know?'

Before Nick could respond, Anne Perkins returned carrying a slim notebook computer. 'I think this is what you need,' she said, putting the machine on the side table and flipping it open. Her fingers flashed over the keys and an application opened up on the screen. Nick came closer and saw it was a calendar for 2004. 'What were the dates you were interested in?'

'May ninth to May sixteenth,' he said.

She stopped abruptly, fingers poised over the keys. She turned her head to look directly at him. 'I've looked up those dates before,' she said. 'It was a long time ago, but I remember it well. It's not often you get asked about the same dates for two different reasons by two different police forces.'

Startled, Nick managed to maintain his composure. 'We do work closely with our colleagues in Europe,' he said.

'So this is about that Swedish software developer who got killed? What was his name? Ulf something or other?' Anne had moved from defensive to wary now. 'Surely they haven't finally got someone?'

Nick shrugged. 'I can't comment. I just need to be sure whether this man was shadowing Jay that week.'

'Really?' She sounded sceptical. 'I'll tell you what I told the Spaniards. No way was it possible for Jay to have been in northern Spain that week.'

'I never said-'

'Of course you didn't. You're just a foot soldier investigating an unnamed suspect in an unidentified crime.' She turned back to the computer and navigated to the relevant dates. This was obviously the real thing, not something faked up at the last minute to keep him happy. Seconds later he was looking at seven rectangular boxes. At the top was the day and date; down the side, 'JMS', 'AP' and 'VF'. Each day, including the weekends, was filled with details of appointments.

'Who's VF?' Nick asked as he tried to take in Jay's movements.

'Vinny Fitzgerald,' Anne said. 'He's our systems guy. Very talented man. He's in charge of making the site work. Jay discovered him when she was setting up doitnow.com. And he wasn't anywhere near Spain that week either.' She tapped the screen, which revealed VF had been running a training course in Bracknell. Then she pointed to Jay's schedule. 'As you can see, nothing here about a work experience person. And obviously nobody was shadowing Jay that week. Sunday and Monday she was in Brussels, Tuesday and Wednesday in Marseilles, Thursday and Friday in Biarritz. Lots of appointments with potential contributors. And a schedule of things to visit and places to eat and drink. Jay doesn't like company when she's travelling for work. There's no way your suspect was shadowing her that week.'

'I can see that,' Nick said. 'Any chance you could give me a print-out, make it easier for me to convince my boss?'

Anne chewed her lip for a moment. 'I don't see why not. There's nothing commercially sensitive about it. No privacy issues that I can see.' She straightened up, clearly having come to a decision. 'Yes, I can do that. You're sure you can't give me a name for your suspect?'

It was an odd way to phrase it and for a moment Nick wondered if he'd been rumbled. 'Why do you ask?' he said.

'I just wondered why on earth he chose us for his alibi.' She picked up the notebook and tapped in the print commands. 'There must be hundreds of big companies where he could pretend he'd just slipped through the bureaucratic net without a record. It occurred to me that he might have a connection to 24/7 or to Jay.'

Nick gave her an anguished look. 'I'm not supposed to reveal that,' he said. 'People are entitled to their privacy until they're arrested. I'm afraid it'll just have to remain a mystery.'

Anne chuckled. 'Just as well Jay's not here, then. There's nothing she hates more than a mystery.'

Nick smiled. 'Me and her both,' he said. 'Me and her both.' Then he turned his most feral smile on her. 'One interesting thing, though. You've got a lot of time that week that isn't blocked out. I don't suppose you were in Spain?'

She looked as if he'd slapped her. 'I think it's time you left, Sergeant.' She crossed to the printer and handed him the printed page from the diary.

Nick gave her a long, considering look. 'You've been very helpful. Maybe we'll talk again.'

'I doubt that very much.' Her voice was ice, her eyes watchful. 'I can't imagine why there would be any need for that.'

Right then, neither could Nick. But there was some undercurrent in Anne Perkins' reaction to his casual comment that made him wonder.

19

When it came to the psychology of individual difference, Charlie thought the group of A-level students she was teaching were bloody lucky to have her. Instead of a dry academic discussion about gathering empirical evidence on mental and behavioural disturbance and deviance, they were getting despatches from the front line of psychiatry. And, thank heavens, they were smart enough to appreciate it. Her two hours of teaching had turned out to be less of a chore than she'd feared. All the same, she was glad to escape the clamour of teenage girls and recover the peace of her car.

When she turned her phone back on, she picked up the text from Nick, offering her the chance to talk to Magda without Jay eavesdropping. No point in calling now, though. Magda would be at work, her mind on her patients. Charlie made a mental note to remember to contact Magda later.

Meanwhile, she had other work to do. None of the media reports of the trial had mentioned the names of the defence solicitors, only the barristers who had represented Barker and Sanderson in court. The barristers would be on to their next cases, their disappointed clients forgotten; the solicitors were still involved and only they could get her into prison to interview Philip Carling's supposed killers. She drove home, planning her strategy.

Charlie settled down at the computer with the phone and a mug of coffee. She had the names of the barristers but not the chambers where they worked. Google gave her the information she needed in a matter of moments; all she had to decide now was which one to go for. Sanderson was probably the junior partner in whatever had gone on, so she might be more willing to spill the beans. But Barker might respond better to a woman. 'Eeny meeny miny mo,' she said. 'So much for the scientific method.'

A young male voice answered the phone at the first chambers she called. 'Friary Court Chambers,' he said, brisk and businesslike.

Charlie tried to match him on both counts. 'Hi, I wonder if you can help me? I'm trying to track down the solicitor for Joanne Sanderson. Your Mr Cordier represented her last week at the Bailey? I'm trying to find out who the instructing solicitor was.'

'Who am I speaking to, please?'

Just what she didn't want to get into. 'This is Dr Flint. I'm a psychiatrist. I'm supposed to set up an interview with Sanderson, but for some reason I don't have the solicitor's name. I don't have to tell you how it goes sometimes.' She sighed.

'Tell me about it,' he said. 'Bear with me a minute.'

She could hear keys being clattered at the other end. 'No problem.'

'OK. It was Miss Pilger from Pennant Taylor who gave us the Sanderson brief.'

'Perfect.' Charlie held it together long enough to thank him and put the phone down. Then she jumped to her feet and did a little dance round the room, swivelling hips and yipping with delight. Finally, something had broken her way. Pauline Pilger was one of the first solicitors who had hired Charlie as an expert witness and over the years, the women had worked together a dozen times or more. There were a handful of lawyers Charlie knew she could count on right now and Pauline was pretty close to the top of the list. More than that, she was a passionate fighter for her clients, refusing to give up even in the teeth of absurdly overwhelming odds.

She pulled up Pauline's direct line and called it. She answered almost immediately. 'Charlie?' Pauline sounded surprised, but in a good way.

'That's right. How are things?'

'Good. I'm not going to ask you the same, I don't expect you're having a ball right now.'

'I've been worse. Listen, is this a good time to talk?'

'Let me call you back in ten minutes. I need to get this bit of dictation finished, then I can concentrate properly. OK?'

Ten minutes had never gone so slowly. When the phone finally rang, Charlie was drumming her fingers on the desk like a freeform jazz pianist. 'Pauline? Thanks for getting back to me.'

'Charlie, it's always a pleasure. I hate the way they're trying to make you a tabloid scapegoat. You did your job, you did the right thing.'

Charlie sighed. 'I know, Pauline. But those dead women weigh on my heart, you know?'

A long pause. Charlie knew Pauline carried her own weights. Impossible not to as a criminal defence lawyer. 'I know,' Pauline said at last. 'I take it this isn't just a social call?'

'I'm afraid not. I'm warning you now that this is going to sound bizarre. But bear with me, please.'

'Fire away. I could use a little bizarre. Right now things are very bland round here. I tell you, Charlie, the Human Rights Act is a two-edged sword. We've made it work for us, but every bloody client I see these days starts off with a rant about how their human rights have been violated. I'm getting tired of explaining that the police's refusal to let you smoke in the back of a police car does not come under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment. So hit me with bizarrerie.'

'It's about your client, Joanna Sanderson.'

'Currently banged up in Holloway awaiting sentence for murder. I'm guessing life with a recommended tariff of ten. What about her?'

'Magda Newsam's mother is my former tutor. And strange though it may seem, she's convinced your client is not guilty. Neither Joanna nor Paul Barker. She thinks they've been fitted up.'

'Wait… let me get this straight. The widow's mother thinks my client's innocent?'

'Of murder, anyway. She knows nothing about the insider trading. But she believes the wrong people ended up in court and she's asked me to take a look at the case to see if there's any way of unpicking what's happened.'

'You think I didn't do my job?' Pauline said. 'Hell, I agree with the Newsam mother, I think my client is innocent of murder. But the circumstantial was against her, especially since she and the boyfriend had the kind of motive that juries who watch bloody Midsomer Murders understand.'

'I don't think for a minute you dropped the ball.' Charlie was conciliatory, but she was also convinced. 'I just want to talk to Joanna so I can go back to Corinna Newsam and say, Sorry, there's no loose threads to pull at here.'

'Jo won't tell you anything you don't already know,' Pauline insisted. 'But I may as well tell you there was one line of defence we didn't run because we thought it would alienate the jury. As it turns out, we might as well have gone all out.'

Charlie liked the sound of that. In her experience, when lawyers tried to act like psychologists, mistakes got made. It wouldn't be the first time that game-playing in court ended up as the first brick in the wall of an appeal. 'What was that?' she said.

'How much do you know about the case?'

'I've read all the media coverage.'

'OK. So you know all this started when a back-up hard drive turned up with copies of letters that didn't appear anywhere else on any of Philip Carling's computers?'

'Yes. Magda found it in her parents' house, where they'd been staying the night before the wedding.'

'Well, my client and her partner are adamant that Philip Carling would never have written those letters shopping them for the very good reason that he was the one who instigated the whole insider trading scam.'

'You're kidding. The bridegroom, Mr Pure-as-the-driven-snow? He was at it?' This was the most surprising thing Charlie had heard so far. It turned the evidence of the letters on their head.

'So my client claims. He'd been doing it for a while when Joanna noticed he seemed to be spending a lot more money than he was earning. Her first thought was that he was ripping them off. Taking more out of the company than he was entitled to. So her and Paul fronted him up. He realised the only way out of a very difficult situation was to come clean about what he was really up to. And he showed them how to set up systems to get away with it.'

'Jesus,' Charlie said. 'That blows the motive out of the water, doesn't it?'

'Just a bit.'

'I don't get why you didn't want to run with it.'

'Juries don't like it when you blame the dead without any evidence. There were two major problems. Philip Carling was good. There's no trace of dodgy money in his accounts. There's the odd irregularity — selling a painting for thirty thousand that he allegedly picked up for a hundred quid in a junk shop, that sort of thing. And he claimed to be a high-stakes poker player. He must have been a helluva good one to rake in the kind of winnings he was declaring and banking. But nothing you could point to and say, That's his insider trading profits.'

'That does make it harder. But still…' Charlie tailed off, trying not to sound too reproachful.

'Then there was the nail in the coffin. Who supposedly discovered the letters? The grieving widow. Have you seen her? Drop-dead gorgeous, Charlie. Every man in the court was drooling, believe me. Plus she's a doctor who treats kids with cancer. Robbed of her husband on her wedding night. It's hard to imagine someone with more appeal to a jury than Magdalene Newsam. So if we try to suggest the letters were planted to frame our client, it follows that we're suggesting the Virgin Magda has a finger in the pie. And that was a nobrainer. '

'I can see your problem. Not to mention that your clients weren't covering their tracks as well as Carling had been. I mean, there's no suggestion that they were fitted up over the insider trading, is there?'

'No, even I can't get that one to fly. But I don't think they killed Philip Carling. Barker might have, with his back up against the wall. But they alibi each other. Unshakeable. I did point out to Joanna that she wasn't doing herself any favours if she was lying about being with Barker while he was off killing Carling, but she was adamant. They were together, and they didn't kill Carling. Of course, the other problem is there are no other obvious suspects. He didn't live the sort of life where you make enemies who kill you on your wedding day. So if my girl and her bloke didn't do it, who did? The other wedding guests are all covered — overlapping alibis, nobody walking around in wet clothes. Does your old tutor have any bright ideas about who really killed him?'

'She has an idea,' Charlie said. 'I wouldn't call it bright and there's nothing you'd call evidence to back it up. But it's suggestive. '

'You want to share it with me?'

Charlie laughed. 'You'd send round the men with the nice white coat that buttons up the back. No, I don't want to share it at this stage. It's too off the wall, even for you.'

'That's so unfair. I showed you mine and you won't show me yours.'

'I promise you, as soon as I have anything concrete, I will share. But for now, it's best if I keep it to myself. So, can I see your client? I could do you a nice psychiatric report for the appeal.'

'That's something I will bear in mind. But I'm going to have to knock you back, Charlie. Joanna's not doing well. Not well enough to expose her to a fishing expedition. She'd say anything right now if she thought there was even the faintest chance of it getting her out of there. She'd pick the Pope out of a line-up.'

'Probably with some justification.' Charlie tried not to show her disappointment. She was torn between the desire to interview a genuine witness and her understanding of the state that Pauline was describing. She knew she would only cause Joanna more grief if she appeared to offer any kind of hope. And while there were times when she didn't mind lying in a good cause, damaging someone who was already vulnerable wasn't one of them. 'It's OK, Pauline. What you've given me already, it's probably all she's got. I still can't get over the idea that Carling was the one who set the whole racket up. That's wild.'

'Maybe he double-crossed somebody. You get into those murky waters, who knows what sort of pond life you'll stir up. Listen, you keep me posted on this, you hear? My girl shouldn't be behind bars.'

'I hear you,' Charlie said. They spent a few more minutes catching up on their personal lives, but Charlie's heart wasn't in it and she was glad to end the call. 'That changes everything, ' she said. She couldn't quite see what the new picture was, but the kaleidoscope had definitely turned.

20

The Marconi business lounge at Bologna Airport was pretty basic as executive lounges went. Beer, soft drinks or coffee and a limited range of prepackaged snacks; it was an insult to the palate after the glorious food and drink Jay had enjoyed on her two-day visit to the city. But she wasn't here to eat or drink. She was stuck here because her flight had a three-hour delay. That was the downside of her insistence on still doing some of the frontline work that was mostly done by stringers and reliable local informants, but it was a small price to pay for keeping in touch with the reality of travel as it was for most people. Well, the reality gilded with little luxuries like executive lounges. Because there was always some work to be getting on with. Jay had never believed in wasting the serendipitous parcels of time that professional travel regularly dropped into her lap.

She'd used the first hour to make notes of the high points of her trip — restaurants, bars, shops, museums, galleries, but also the oddities and unusual possibilities that made 24/7's offering unique. Jay read through her summary and checked against her calendar to make sure she'd missed nothing. Then she took advantage of the business lounge's Wi-Fi to upload her top five prosciutto recommendations to the 24/7 website. Most of the site visitors would never have the chance to taste them, never mind buy them, but now they could sit around dinner tables and hold forth as if they were experts. This was the side of 24/7 that Jay didn't feel proud of. The information and experiences she'd made available had been responsible for a measurable increase in pretentiousness round a certain class of dinner table. She hoped she could get through life without being punished for it. God help her if her just desserts ever came to call.

With work out of the way, she still had the best part of two hours before they would be boarding her flight. She hoped Magda checked the live arrivals website before she left for the airport. She'd told her not to bother coming out to Gatwick to meet her, but Magda had been particularly insistent. It would wear off, Jay knew, but for now this devotion warmed her.

To take her mind off home, she decided to knock out some more of the book. Jasper had called her on Monday to tell her he'd squeezed another twenty grand out of her publisher on condition she could offer an early delivery date. The money was no big deal, but the eagerness it represented was a positive indication of how much they wanted her book. For that vote of confidence, she didn't mind dragging herself back into the past and reshaping it into the sort of narrative that would fly off the supermarket shelves.

She'd have to write about the time she'd spent travelling after she'd sold doitnow.com. Throw in a generous dollop of grief and regret over Kathy, but make it read like forward movement towards the idea that became 24/7. But not tonight. It was too dispiriting to write about travel in an airport. Airports were, in Jay's view, the antithesis of travelling. They were the necessary evil of transit.

The trouble with travel is that, no matter how far you go, you wake up with yourself. The time I spent moving around, getting as far from the beaten track as I could, was the incubation period for my next business, but it was also a futile attempt to escape from the pain of losing Kathy. Only when I realised I was going to have to confront that and then move past it was I able to escape my restlessness and start thinking positively about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

Everyone dreams of getting rich. Coming from my background, I never thought it would be more than a dream. We all think that if we had enough money, we could give up work and have a wonderful life of swimming pools and beautiful meals washed down with vintage wines on terraces overlooking spectacular views. I can remember once when I was a student thinking that being truly rich meant not having to finish the bottle of wine. Because there would always be more.

Maybe some people manage contentment like that. I'm not sure, though. I've read enough stories about people who have won the lottery and ended up with messed-up, miserable lives to think I'm right when I say we all need purpose in our lives beyond the empty pursuit of pleasure. Some rich people find that purpose in philanthropy — setting up charitable foundations and working with them to make other people's lives better. And that has its place. I've given away enough of my money to know there's genuine fulfilment in that.

But for me, the true fulfilment comes from work. From creating something where nothing existed. From generating jobs, contributing to the economy and helping other people to make their own lives better. I suppose it's not surprising, when you consider my childhood. I saw at first hand and close range the results of fecklessness and idleness. The waste of talent and spirit, when the most stimulating thought is where the next spliff or fix is coming from. I'd nearly been sucked into that world myself. I could have squandered my abilities in the hazy New Age dreaminess I saw all around me.

It's true that I might have reacted against it in my own time and become the diametric opposite. But I was catapulted into that diametric opposite whether I liked it or not. The new set of lessons I learned were duty before pleasure, sacrifice before love, self-righteousness before compassion. All of these drastically different values were thrust upon me.

So I made a double rejection. I went for a pick-and-mix philosophy that let me choose the best elements of both sets of values. Work that created possibilities. Duty that embraced delight. And, at the heart of all I did, love.

I'd never been happier than when we'd been getting doitnow.com off the ground, making a success story out of my crazy late-night idea. The buzz of making the business work, figuring out the finances and talking people into seeing the world my way — all of that had inspired me. Once we were successful, I still took a lot of pleasure from the business. I enjoyed basking in the glory, I won't deny it. But I wasn't sorry when the time came to sell. I was ready for a fresh challenge. I had the bare bones of an idea I thought we could make into something people would like as much as doitnow.com.

Kathy's death changed all that. My idea had been something we were going to do together, the way we had with doitnow.com. Without her, my heart wasn't in it. In all the miles I travelled, among all the people I talked, ate, drank, slept and played with, I didn't meet a single person who inspired me to share my next project. I slowly came to realise that, this time, my challenge was to do it alone.

One of the things I had realised during my travels is that most travel guides are 'one size fits all'. Your only real choice is deciding whether you're a Lonely Planet type of person, or a Rough Guide, or a Frommer's. It's a cookie-cutter way of arranging travel, and it's one that's hopelessly out of date now we have the ability to deliver what people need directly to their email in-box. It's also no way to cater to a market where the needs of travellers are so varied. I wanted to create something that helped people make the most of their trips, whether they were experienced, seasoned travellers or newbies making their first tentative forays out into the wider world.Their needs are different, but I thought one company could serve them all.

And so 24/7 was conceived.

Just like babies, businesses take a while from conception to birth. And just like babies, a lot of them miscarry on the way. And some are stillborn.The internet age has opened up amazing new horizons for many people. But it's also given false hope to a lot of people. Ideas are ten a penny. Good ideas are more rare than that. But finding someone who can turn a good idea into a profitable reality is more like a one-in-a-million shot.

I'd done it once, so I was confident I could do it again. I returned to London and settled into the house I'd bought two years before and hardly lived in. I enlisted Vinny Fitzgerald, who had worked on the IT end of doitnow.com alongside Kathy, and Anne Perkins, my devoted former PA, to help me put 24/7 together.

While Vinny began work on constructing the software package that would allow us to tailor the guides as individually as I wanted, I started researching how we would actually assemble the body of knowledge that would make our guides so special and how we would generate subscribers. I soon became aware that I wasn't the only person with a similar idea. When the word went out that I was looking at travel guides, those people flocked to me because I had a proven track record in online business.

Mostly they came with half-baked, half-formed notions with nothing solid to back them up. It always amazes me that so many people think it's enough just to have an idea, without doing any work to underpin it. I was appalled and astonished at the number of people who turned up with nothing more concrete than a sense of entitlement. Just because they'd had an idea. It's the difference between being a good pub raconteur and a bestselling novelist.That difference is hard work.

Of course, some of the people who beat a path to our door were very far from a waste of time. We ended up buying the work of an Italian entrepreneur who had been working on a similar idea. He had some great marketing ideas, but no software expertise. Without someone like us, he'd never have got his project off the ground and he knew it. He was happy to turn his work into hard cash, and we were happy we'd ended up with something that would save us a lot of time in the long run.

We were also in talks with a Swedish software developer who had been working on a package that would cover similar ground to the software suite Vinny was engineering for us.

Careful now, Jay told herself. Ulf Ingemarsson's death was still an unsolved murder. Caution should be her watchword. Liv Aronsson was a mad bitch who would fall on the slightest ambiguity like a terrier on a rat. She was still hawking her case round lawyers in Stockholm and London, trying to find one who thought there was any point in bringing a case against Jay. She'd failed so far because she always insisted that they pursue a claim against Jay for unlawful killing as well as theft. But one of these days, some slick bastard in a fancy suit might persuade her to solo on the theft accusation. And then it could get messy.

Vinny had warned her that a forensic software architect might be able to isolate elements of code that had come from Ingemarsson's work. Luckily, lawyers didn't have Vinny's insight into the intricacies of programming code. But even so, if Aronsson did manage to demonstrate that some of their code had been written by Ingemarsson, she couldn't prove they'd stolen it. Because of course, they hadn't. They had a paper trail of payments made to various programmers, any one of whom could have introduced that code into the finished program. 24/7 was vulnerable only to the accusation that they'd been conned, the innocent victims of someone else's theft.

And besides, after all the unsuccessful lawsuits over the Harry Potter books and The Da Vinci Code, the public were deeply sceptical about the idea of plagiarism in any field of creative activity. They got excited for about five minutes, then they sat back sipping their Pinot Grigio and talking vaguely about Zeitgeist and ideas floating around in the ether. Still, there was no point in making it easier for Aronsson.

To our horror, he was murdered in a burglary at his holiday villa in Spain before we could reach an agreement on how we could work together. So his work died with him. The tragic waste of another life reawakened the pain I had felt when Kathy died, and for a few weeks I found it hard to concentrate on work. I wanted to run away again, but this time I had responsibilities to other people. So I stayed.

Jay read what she'd written. Nothing there that Aronsson could use, she thought. And a good place to end a chapter. She reckoned she'd given them enough grief and pain on Kathy's account. Nobody could accuse her of being heartless, not on the basis of this. And of course, with the up-to-the-minute ending, where Jay could wax lyrical about her new life and new love with Magda, she'd be demonstrating even more of her warm and emotional side. She'd never really written much about her personal life, nor talked about it in interviews. So this was the best possible climax to a book that was all about overcoming adversity. See, readers? Work hard, do the right thing and you too will end up rich and beloved.

If only it had been that easy.

21

When she got home from work, Magda almost expected there would be no leather wallet sitting on the dining table. That it would all have been a dream, like a bad soap opera. But it was still exactly where she'd left it. She hung up her coat then sat down at the table. Opened the wallet and there were the four bearer bonds. More money than she'd ever dreamed of holding in her hands. It should have been exciting but instead it was puzzling and frightening.

More than anything, she wanted to talk to Jay about it. But that prospect was even further away now. Magda planned to drive down to Gatwick to pick Jay up, but before she'd left work, she'd checked the airport website and discovered the Bologna flight had been hit by a three-hour delay. No point in heading straight there, so she'd come home to grab a sandwich and a coffee first. Now at least she could take the bonds with her to Jay's tonight, to prove to her lover she wasn't dreaming.

She went through to the kitchen and started assembling a sandwich with the remains of a roast chicken, some black olives and half a Little Gem lettuce. But her mind wasn't on food. All day, she'd found herself drifting off in the middle of conversations with patients and parents, her mind worrying at the notion of Philip as a crook. It wasn't how she wanted to remember him. Knowing this about him undermined everything she believed about the man she had been happy to marry. She'd thought he had integrity. She'd believed he'd worked to earn what he'd achieved. But she'd been wrong. He was a cheat and a liar. Worse, he was willing to betray his friends to protect himself. If she'd been so wrong about Philip, how could she trust her judgement again? She shivered, the knife sliding off the chicken and catching the side of her finger.

Blood oozed from the fine cut and Magda swore, reaching for the kitchen roll and pressing a sheet tight against the wound. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the table, feeling sick and pathetic. After Saturday, she couldn't even pour her heart out to her mother. It was all too hard and too horrible.

As if on cue, the phone rang. Expecting Jay, Magda jerked into full awareness and grabbed it. 'Hello?' Even to her own ears, her voice sounded desperate.

'Magda? It's Charlie Flint.'

'Charlie?' For a moment, Magda was nonplussed. Then everything fell into place. 'Of course, how lovely to hear from you.'

Charlie chuckled. 'You don't sound like it's lovely. Is this a bad time?'

'No, it is lovely,' she insisted. 'I just cut my finger, right before the phone rang. I was a bit discombobulated. How are you?'

'I'm good. More to the point, how are you? I just wanted to touch base. I know you were apprehensive about telling your dad about you and Jay. I thought I'd give you a ring, check you were OK.'

Magda felt herself choke up at Charlie's consideration. What was that thing they said about the kindness of strangers? Well, Charlie wasn't exactly a stranger, but she wasn't exactly a friend either. She was simply someone who was easy to talk to. 'Thanks,' Magda said. 'It was pretty grisly. Dad and I had a terrible row. He was so hostile, so cold. It ended up with me walking out and Wheelie coming with me.' She forced out a wry laugh. 'It was pretty harsh. A real "never darken these doors" moment. I think his only regret was that it wasn't snowing.'

'I'm sorry it was so shit.'

'It's not like I was expecting anything else.' Magda sniffed. 'He's just an unreconstructed old bigot.' She tucked the phone into her neck and opened the drawer beneath the cutlery, her version of what her mother called 'the all drawer'. She raked through, looking for an Elastoplast while she listened to Charlie.

'Well, you've got it out of the way now. That's one less person you're going to have to come out to. And most people are not like him.'

Magda sighed. 'At least he's honest about his feelings, Charlie. I don't know what's worse — facing that kind of abuse directly, or dealing with the sneaky, behind-your-back stuff that you can't fight because you never see it head on. Just catch it out of the corner of your eye, if you get my drift.'

'I'm not quite sure I do.'

She found the tin with the plasters and yanked the top off. 'We used to have a pretty busy social life, me and Philip.' She sighed again. 'Maybe it was my way of not having to spend too much time alone with him. I don't know. Everything is cast in a different light now I've finally got to grips with my sexuality. Anyway, we had lots of friends. Couples mostly, but some singles. And some of the women I thought had become proper friends. We did stuff together — shopping, cinema outings, meals. You know?'

'I know,' Charlie said. 'Nothing special, just the fabric of friendships that develop over the years.'

'Exactly. And they were really kind to me after Philip died. At least one of them spoke to me every day on the phone, they came round with flowers and wine. They were totally there for me. Anyway, once Jay and I became an item, obviously I told them. I didn't want to lie to them. They were my friends. And they were all apparently cool with it. Only one of them said anything remotely negative, and she was just concerned that I'd jumped into something too soon after Philip's death.' Magda stripped the backing paper off the plaster and wrapped it round the cut, which had stopped bleeding. Uncertain how to express the tenuousness of what had happened, she ground to a halt.

But Charlie understood very well. 'And then they drifted away, am I right? They stopped calling or texting or commenting on your status on Facebook.'

'Bang on. And when I left a message, they just never got back to me. At first, I thought they were maybe being tactful. You know? Giving us the chance to spend time together without people butting in every five minutes. Then I realised it was because they didn't know how to connect with me.' She paused again, trying to figure out how to say what she meant. And appreciated the way Charlie didn't feel the need to fill every silence. 'I'm not saying they're homophobic. I don't think they hate people because they're gay. It's more that they think we don't have anything to say to each other any more. Like I suddenly stopped being interested in going to the movies or shopping for a new pair of jeans.' Another sigh. 'And it's been hard, because you can't actually confront a blank. So that's what I mean about it almost being easier to deal with the way Dad was.'

'Makes perfect sense to me,' Charlie said. 'You've had a complicated year. And right at the heart of it is losing Philip. And that's a massive loss.'

'Yeah. And that's sort of got lost in everything else.' Magda walked through to the living room and stretched out on the sofa. 'People think because I'm with Jay now that I've somehow forgotten Philip. And that's rubbish.'

'Of course it is. I don't want to intrude-I don't know what your rationale was for marrying Philip — but I imagine you really cared for him.'

Magda smiled, a sad reminiscent look in her eyes. 'I loved him. The same way I love Patrick and Andrew. He reminded me of my brothers in so many ways. He was very kind, and the sex thing, that was OK. You know? Nothing sensational, but not repulsive or anything. I've thought a lot about this and I'm not proud of myself. The bottom line is I married him because he asked me, Charlie. Because he asked me and I knew it was the easy option. Easy for me, and also what everyone wanted me to do. That's pathetic, isn't it?'

'It's not pathetic. I've known a lot of people who have married for much worse reasons. I didn't imagine for a moment that you'd done it lightly. Or that you had any intention other than to make it work. Bad luck for you that you hadn't worked out why you liked the girls so much.'

Magda could hear the sympathetic laughter in Charlie's voice. In spite of herself, she was laughing too. 'No, really,' she said. 'I kept telling myself it was just a sign of how immature I was, that I was still having teenage crushes.'

'At least you finally picked up the clue phone. But that doesn't mean you stopped grieving for the person you lost.'

Magda didn't know what to say. Yesterday that would have been true, unequivocally. But today, nothing to do with Philip was quite that simple. 'I was grieving for the person I thought he was,' she said at last. 'The trouble is, I'm still learning things about him. And they're not all likeable.'

'I'm sorry,' Charlie said. 'That doesn't sound good. I can see how it would be confusing, on top of everything else you've been going through.'

'To tell you the truth, I'm still trying to make sense of something I just found out. Something… It's hard to say this without sounding like a drama queen, but it's true. Something that's changed my whole picture of him.'

A pause, then Charlie spoke gently. 'That sounds pretty shocking. I mean, it's been a while now since Philip died. I'd have thought anything that was going to come to light would have already.'

'You'd think so,' Magda said heavily. She so wanted to tell someone, but she still wasn't sure that Charlie was the person. 'And you'd think I'd have known the real character of the man I chose to marry. Apparently not, though.'

'It's no reflection on you,' Charlie said. 'We all want to think the best of people we care about. Nobody ever wants to believe their friend or their partner or their kid is capable of the really shameful stuff. When we love people, we can tie ourselves in all sorts of knots to find an explanation for their behaviour.'

It was hard to resist the warmth of Charlie's voice as well as the sense of what she said. Magda knew she was accustomed professionally to holding people's secrets. And she hadn't turned a hair when Magda had told her the truth about when she'd met Jay. Almost without realising she'd made the decision, Magda decided to talk. 'He was a cheat and a liar and a traitor to his friends. And I don't understand why.'

She could hear Charlie's intake of breath. But the hard words didn't shock Charlie into silence. 'Those are big words, Magda.'

'Believe me, Charlie, this is a big thing. What would you say if a complete stranger handed you an envelope with eight hundred thousand euros? Then told you it came from the proceeds of illegal insider trading?'

'Eight hundred thousand euros? In cash? Someone gave you eight hundred thousand euros in cash?'

'Not actual cash. Bearer bonds, they're called. Apparently they're the equivalent of cash. Untraceable, anonymous. But yes. This total spiv was waiting for me when I got home last night and he handed them over to me. I was shaken to the core. I mean, what would you have done, Charlie?'

'I suppose the first thing I'd want to know was what it had to do with me. To make sure the guy had the right person.'

'Oh, he had the right person all right. It's my money. It's mine because it belonged to my dead husband. Unattributable, it's true. But freshly laundered. And mine.'

'It sounds like something out of a movie. How come you're only hearing about this now?'

'The spivvy guy — Nigel Fisher Boyd, his name is — said he'd hung on to it till now because he didn't want to put me in an awkward position at the trial. Because here's what really gets me, Charlie. Philip made all this money — all this and more — doing exactly what he was planning to shop Joanna and Paul for. That's what makes no sense to me.'

'I'm still trying to get my head round the idea of having that much money put in your hands when you're not expecting it.'

Magda jumped to her feet again and began to pace in agitation. 'Tell me about it. It completely freaked me out, and Jay's away on a trip so I couldn't even talk to her about it.'

'Poor you. It's no fun, having to deal with something like that by yourself.'

'Why would Philip expose himself to a police investigation by shopping Joanna and Paul? Why take the chance?'

Charlie made a wordless sound that seemed to indicate puzzled agreement. 'On the face of it, it's taking a hell of a risk. He must have been very confident of having covered his own tracks to set the cops on his business partners.'

'Maybe he thought the authorities wouldn't look too closely at him if he was the supposedly shocked whistleblower,' Magda said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.

'There must have been some pressing reason. Something that made the risk worth taking. What if they were being a bit careless, throwing the money around, leaving a paper trail? And Philip thought he needed to close them down to protect himself. And you too, I suppose. Maybe he'd even decided to clean up his act since you were getting married. What if that's what it was about? Get everything above board, ready for a fresh start?'

Magda considered the idea for a moment then dismissed it. 'Nice thought, but it doesn't make me feel any better about what he planned to do to Joanna and Paul. They were supposed to be his best pals. I could never do that to my friends. Could you?'

'I'd like to think not. But none of us knows what we're capable of till we're confronted by it. Don't judge him too harshly, Magda. You can't ask him what he did and why he did it. There's no point in torturing yourself imagining what was going on when you can never know.'

Magda sighed. She could see the sense in what Charlie was saying, but she was a long way from accepting it. 'I don't know where I'm going to end up with this, Charlie. And then there's the money. What am I going to do about that?'

'It's your money. Philip wanted you to have it.'

'But it's dirty money. It's tainted. I don't want it.'

'Give it away, then. Do something good with it. Take your time and think about it. Choose a charity that does work you believe in. And make the gift in Philip's name, if that feels right. I know you're shocked, you despise what he did. But don't let that destroy your good memories. Hold on to the things you know were good about him. He was that man too, you know.'

Magda felt tears pricking her eyes and sniffed hard. 'You're right,' she croaked.

'It's always best to take your time. Don't make any decisions in a hurry.'

Magda managed a cracked laugh through the tears. 'I let myself fall for Jay pretty quickly. And that's turned out OK.'

For a moment, there was silence and she wondered if they'd been cut off. But at last, Charlie said, 'And she'll help you come to terms with this, I'm sure.'

'Thanks for listening, Charlie. It's really helped to get it off my chest before Jay gets back from Bologna. Sometimes it feels like all I've done is bring her problem after problem.'

'That's what partners are for.'

Magda smiled. 'That's what she says. But she's much better at handling her own shit rather than bringing it all home to me. I feel guilty sometimes.'

'Well, any time you want another set of ears, you can give me a call.'

'Thanks. I appreciate you listening. And what you had to say. I'd better go, though. I've got to pick Jay up at Gatwick.'

Magda returned to the kitchen, in spite of the tears more cheered than she'd thought possible half an hour before. Hooking up with Charlie Flint had been an unexpected bonus. She remembered something Charlie had said the other day and realised how right she'd been. Her mother had indeed had great taste in babysitters.

22

Thursday

One of the reasons Charlie had fallen in love with science in her teens was her need to find answers. It wasn't enough for her to learn textbooks by rote; she wanted the why and the wherefore. So she was never going to be satisfied by a text from Nick saying he'd drawn a blank on Jay Stewart's sat-phone. 'There's got to be a way,' Charlie muttered to herself. She stared at the computer screen, frowning at 24/7's home page.

Then it dawned on her. Ranged around the main content of the page were sponsored links to 24/7's partner sites. Bargain flight companies. Hotel booking sites. Car rental. And cheap international phone calls. She clicked through to doitnow.com and found similar links to their associate companies. 'They would have had a deal,' Charlie said. 'Of course they would.'

But that was only the first part of the answer. Knowing who 24/7's phone partner was in 2010 wasn't much help when it came to finding out who the preferred satellite phone company of doitnow.com had been ten years earlier. She could try calling doitnow.com, but she didn't rate her chances of finding anyone who'd been out of school at the turn of the millennium, never mind working for the company and paying attention to details like sat-phone deals.

She was pretty sure that what she needed didn't exist. When you wanted to know what the Daily Mirror looked like in 1900, never mind 2000, you could go and look at an archive copy. But all those early websites with their mad colour contrasts and ugly fonts had disappeared without trace. Hadn't they? Expecting nothing, Charlie Googled 'website archive' and was amazed to discover a site dedicated to preserving the digital equivalent of back numbers. Admittedly, it only went back as far as 2004, but it was impressive.

What was even more impressive was that they had doitnow.com's home page from August 2004. There was a link to a regular mobile phone company. And to her astonishment and delight, right down at the bottom left-hand corner of the page was a tiny sponsored ad. 'Going where they don't even have railway signals? You need a sat-phone. We supply the world's news organisations. Rent a holiday sat-phone from us.' Of course, when she tried to click on the site, she discovered it was deactivated. But at least this was a starting point.

She called Nick, forgetting he'd be at work. His phone went to voicemail. 'Nick, it's Charlie. Doitnow.com had a sat-phone partnership with Stratosphone back in 2004. Maybe they gave the boss a freebie? Worth checking, don't you think?' Donkey work, it was true, but he had offered to help. He couldn't start complaining now.

Next on Charlie's list was sorting out a trip to Skye. She'd been amazed to discover you couldn't fly to the island. It seemed counter-intuitive. You could fly to any Greek island that had enough level ground to squeeze a runway on, but you couldn't fly to one of the UK's tourist magnets. It was a five-hour drive or more from Glasgow, itself three and a half hours from Manchester. And she had a teaching session on Monday that she couldn't afford to miss. Getting back on Sunday would take most of the day, so it made sense to leave at the crack of dawn on Friday. To her surprise, Maria had announced over breakfast that she wanted to come along. 'I've always wanted to go to Skye,' she'd said. 'And I expect there really aren't very many midges around so early in the season. What do you say? You're not going to be sleuthing all the time, are you? We'll be able to see a bit of the place?'

'I expect so. And you can always go off on your own if I find a hot scent to sniff at. But what about your patients?'

Maria spread her toast and gave Charlie a wicked little smile. 'I'm always so bloody dutiful,' she said. 'Just for once, I feel like playing truant. Besides, I only ever book morning appointments on a Friday. It won't be the end of the world if I miss an afternoon's admin. I'll get Sharla to call my patients this morning. It won't kill them to rebook. There's nothing urgent, as far as I recall. What do you say? Shall I come? Shall we have a bit of fun?'

It had been hard to resist Maria's enthusiasm, even though a tiny corner of Charlie's mind had been playing with the dangerous notion of inviting Lisa to come to Skye with her. Much more sensible to go with Maria, she told herself. With a wry smile, she logged on to doitnow.com and set about arranging a short break on the Isle of Skye at even shorter notice.

That done, there was nothing to distract her from communicating with Lisa. She'd sent a quick text yesterday, just to say she'd had to go back to Manchester and had been too busy to see Lisa before she left. Charlie didn't know what was worse — going cold turkey on communication with Lisa or diving in at the deep end. For now, she was giving up giving up and getting back into the groove of weighing every word.

Hi, Lisa

Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday. The day just ran away from me. I don't have to tell you how that goes.

I wish there had been the opportunity for us to spend more time together when I was in Oxford. As it turned out, there were more calls on my time than I anticipated. But I hope I'll have good reason for coming back to Oxford very soon. It's clear there are things we have to discuss, and I can't wait to see you again. I'm sorry I have brought complication to your life, but I can't help thinking that the complication carries the seed of something very positive.

In the meantime, I am off to the Isle of Skye, where Kathy Lipson died in the notorious 'cutting the rope' incident back in 2000. Maria's coming too, apparently she's always had a hankering to visit. We're staying at the same hotel where Jay and Kathy were based. Not that any of the staff will still be there. I expect there will be a Lithuanian receptionist, Polish barman and a Romanian breakfast waitress, like everywhere rural these days. The locals escape as soon as they can to cities with anonymous nightlife and better wages. Thank heavens for the Eastern Europeans or our leisure culture would collapse. I expect the mountain rescue team will still have most of the same guys, though.

Let me know if there are any days that are better for you next week. I can do any day except Wednesday.

Love,

Charlie

She read it through twice, changed a couple of words, then sent it, knowing she would be checking her in-box every twenty minutes for the rest of the day. But to her surprise, when she came back from the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee, the new mail icon was flashing on her desktop. One click brought her mail box up, but the fresh message wasn't from Lisa. She couldn't help the pang of disappointment, only slightly tempered by the realisation it was from Nick.

With a sigh, Charlie opened it.

Charlie: Swedes are amazing. I got a number for Ulf Ingemarsson's gf, Liv Aronsson, from a journalist! Can you believe it? No warrant or threats necessary, he just handed it over. School's out 3.30 local time, so 2.30 here. This is a mobile, so any time after that I guess. I think she might talk more to you than to a cop.

Not so disappointing after all. Charlie glanced at the clock. Three hours to kill. It was strange. When she'd had a job, she'd always craved time to herself to read, to catch up with Radio 4 podcasts, to go swimming or just to lie on the sofa listening to music. Now she had the time, it hung heavy on her hands. She struggled to keep her mind occupied, and when her mind was at a loose end, either Lisa crept out of the corners and invaded her space or else she brooded endlessly and fruitlessly about her upcoming trials and tribulations. It was a toss-up which activity was the more pointless. Sometimes it seemed all she could think of was Lisa — her eyes, her smile, her playful humour, her emotional intelligence. There was something irresistible about her, some attraction so powerful it bled the brightness from Charlie's image of Maria. This wasn't what she wanted, but it was growing no easier to resist.

'Get over yourself, Charlie,' she said, abruptly switching to Google. She wanted to see whether she could track down the record of the Fatal Accident Inquiry relating to Kathy Lipson's death. The more she could uncover before she went to Skye, the easier it would be.

The FAI report made riveting reading. There was a list of witnesses, a precis of all their evidence, a description of the background and circumstances of the incident as well as the cause of death — injuries to the head and internal organs as a result of a fall from Sgurr Dearg mountain on the Isle of Skye. The only critical note sounded in the Sheriff's conclusion was the suggestion that climbers should make sure their routes were within their capabilities and experience. By the time she'd finished reading and making notes about what she might ask the mountain rescue witnesses, it was almost three o'clock. Liv Aronsson should be free of small children by now, she reckoned.

Charlie plugged the phone into her digital recorder then dialled the number, still without a clear idea of how she was going to play it. She'd let Ms Aronsson take the lead and see where that got them. The phone rang out several times before a breathless voice answered. 'Tja?'

'Is that Liv Aronsson?' Charlie said.

A short pause, then the voice said, 'This is Liv. Who are you?'

'My name is Charlie Flint. Dr Charlie Flint. I wondered if I might speak to you about Ulf Ingemarsson.' Charlie was conscious of speaking distinctly and more slowly than usual while trying not to sound condescending.

'Are you a journalist?' Her English was clear, her accent imposing a sing-song rhythm.

'No. I'm a psychiatrist.' She checked that the recorder was working, then wondered if she should be recording herself in what was, at the very least, a deceptive role.

'A shrink?'

Charlie winced at the Americanism she hated. 'Kind of.'

'Why does a shrink want to talk about Ulf?'

'Your English is very good.'

'Ulf and I lived in California for a year when he was doing his masters degree. I am a little rusty, but I think I do OK. So, I ask you again. Why does a shrink want to talk about Ulf?'

'It's a bit complicated,' Charlie said. 'Is this a good time to talk?'

'Where are you calling from? Are you here in Stockholm?'

'No, I'm in England. I can phone you later if that's better for you.'

A long moment, then Liv said, 'This is good for me. But I don't understand why a shrink is interested in my dead boyfriend after all this time.'

'As well as being a therapist, I work with the police,' Charlie said, trying to come up with an explanation that was clear and didn't contain too many lies.

'The police in Spain? That seems strange to me.'

'No, not in Spain. Here in England.'

Liv Aronsson sniffed. 'So. I understand even less. Why are the police in England interested in a murder in Spain?'

'The starting point for this inquiry was not the murder but the theft that took place at the same time,' Charlie said. 'In the course of another investigation, the police were told that Ulf Ingemarsson's work had ended up in the hands of a British company. If this is true and we can find out how it came to be, then we might be able to help the Spanish police to solve the murder of your partner.'

'Well, of course it's true,' Liv snapped. 'I have said this from the beginning. This was not a Spanish burglar stealing from a holiday villa. This was an organised crime, for the benefit of his rival.'

'When you say "his rival" do you have anyone specific in mind?'

'Of course I do. The woman who has made herself rich on Ulf's work. Jay Macallan Stewart.'

It was what she'd hoped for, but hearing the words was the moment she always worked for in her patient interviews. It was never enough to assume that what you thought you were going to hear was what had been said. 'What makes you so definite about this?'

'Ulf had this idea about three years before he died. He thought it should be possible to make guides that fitted with what people were interested in. He was a geek, he had the skills to write the software that would make this idea work. But what he didn't have was the knowledge of how to sell it. And how to get the information to put on the site. And I knew nothing about this also. I am an elementary school teacher, I know seven-year-old children, that's all.'

'Not the most transferable skill when it comes to an online business.'

Liv gave a dry laugh. 'No, not at all. So, he knew he was going to have to find a partner who knew the other end of the business. He did some research and he found Jay Macallan Stewart. She had been away from commerce since she sold her first web business for a lot of money. But he thought she understood the travel business. More important, he thought she understood people's dreams and desires.'

Charlie thought that had been a very shrewd judgement for a geek. The more she found out about Jay, the more convinced she became that she had never met anyone with a clearer vision of her dreams and desires. Being able to translate that outwards empathetically was a rare talent. And one that was never in the armoury of a psychopathic killer. However, it wouldn't be the first time that such a person had been able to mask their reality. Ted Bundy was the classic example. But there had been others. 'He made contact with her, then?'

'He sent her an email. And she responded within a day or two.'

'Did he make contact with any other potential business partners?'

'No. I said he should speak to various people. To see who gave him the best offer. But he said he didn't want to get caught up in all that. Stressful shit, he called it. He wanted to find someone he could work with, that he trusted. That was the most important thing to him.' Liv sighed. 'He trusted the wrong one, as it turns out.'

'So what happened next?'

'They exchanged a few emails. It seemed like they might have a fit. So she came over here to Stockholm to meet Ulf. She was here for three or four days. She brought a software guy with her, somebody she had worked with before, I don't remember his name. We had dinner with them. I didn't like her, I'll be honest. Sometimes with little kids, they've not learned to cover what's really going on inside them and you get a glimpse of something a bit wild. A bit feral, is that the word?'

'That's the word, yes.'

'I thought she was like that. At one point Ulf started to sound a little cool about the whole idea, saying he wanted time to think his way through it. And there was this flash in her eyes, just a moment then gone. And I thought, I would not want to be your enemy.'

Charlie contemplated this dramatic statement and wondered how much it had been shaped by hindsight. 'What happened after that?' she asked, her tone mild.

'After she went back to the UK, she sent a proposal to Ulf. But he didn't think it was a fair agreement. They spoke on the phone a couple of times, and in the end he said he didn't think they would be working together.'

'I guess that was a disappointment for him.'

'More for her, I think. To get where Ulf was would have taken her years of software development and testing. But he could more easily find a partner who knew about online business. Anyway, he decided he would go away for a couple of weeks. We'd been there before and he knew he would have no distraction, so he could refine the program. The next thing, he was dead.'

'I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you,' Charlie said. 'Had you spoken to him while he was in Spain?'

'Just when he arrived, to let me know he was safe. But I told you, he didn't want any distraction, so he was planning to have his phone turned off. When he was in the middle of something, he was totally into it. But she knew where he was going. I heard him telling her on the phone before he left. She was interested in places off the beaten track, he said. Always looking for new places to send people.' Her voice was bitter. Charlie heard the unmistakable sound of a cigarette being lit. 'It's hard, talking about all this again.'

'I know. And I appreciate you being so frank with me. Did you tell the Spanish police about Jay Stewart?'

'Of course I did. I'm not stupid and I'm not afraid of her. As soon as they said there were no papers and no laptop, I knew this wasn't an ordinary burglar. Why would a burglar take notebooks and papers? The only person interested in that stuff is someone in the software business.'

'What did the police say?'

'They stuck to it being a simple burglary gone wrong. They weren't interested in anything more than that. And of course they didn't catch any burglar among their usual suspects. They thought I was a stupid hysterical girl. That's what the lawyer said. And I had no kind of evidence, so in the end I came home and tried to tell the police here what had happened. But they didn't want to get caught in the middle so they just played hide and seek with me. The trouble is, nobody in the police understands the process. When 24/7 launched less than a year after Ulf was killed I knew they must have his codes. They couldn't have developed this sophisticated software so much like Ulf's in less than a year.'

It was suggestive, Charlie thought. But hardly conclusive. 'Unless Jay Stewart was already working on a similar idea with her software guy.'

'If they were that far down the line, why would they need Ulf in the first place?' Liv said triumphantly.

'Maybe they wanted to buy him out because they didn't want the competition,' Charlie suggested.

'That's not how it was. He told me the software guy was really impressed with his work. No, what happened here is that Jay Stewart stole Ulf's work. I'm not accusing her of murder.' A harsh bark of laughter. 'I'm not so stupid. But I think she ordered the theft. And it all went wrong. So she is responsible, even if she didn't mean it to happen. I want her to pay for that.'

'But you've not been able to sue her?'

A long silence broken by a heavy exhale. 'My problem is I have no hard evidence. I have a little bit of Ulf's early work on the project on his old laptop. But nothing of the later work. If I had complete code, we could maybe force her to let some independent experts compare. But that's not possible. So, do you think the English police can prove anything?' It seemed finally to have sunk in that Charlie was offering a lifeline.

'I don't know. It's my job to assess the credibility of the witness. '

'You mean to figure out if he's lying? You're like a human lie detector?'

Charlie chuckled. 'In a way.'

'Then the person you need to speak to is Jay Macallan Stewart. Ask her to her face if she is responsible for my man's death. And you'll see it in her eyes. The feral person behind her smooth outside.'

'Unfortunately, they don't let me do that. Tell me, Liv. Did you ever try to establish whether Jay Stewart had been in the area when Ulf was killed?'

This time, when she spoke Charlie could hear grief instead of the earlier anger. 'I printed some photos of her from the web. I took them round hotels and bars and restaurants and car-rental agencies. But it's a tourist area. Nobody looks twice at their customers. They just run their credit cards and pretend to look at their passports. Also, I don't bet that she did it herself. '

'So the only evidence is the program?'

'It's not much, is it? But it's about Ulf and his work. It's about him getting credit for leaving his mark on how we live.'

That struck Charlie as the most telling thing Liv Aronsson had said. It restored the human dimension to what had happened to Ulf Ingemarsson. 'I'll do what I can,' she said.

'I am not going to hold my breath,' Liv said, not unkindly. 'But if you can find something you can punish Jay Macallan Stewart for, be sure you send me a ticket.'

23

Magda's intention to tell Jay about her encounter with Nigel Fisher Boyd had been thwarted by her lover's inability to stay awake. She'd looked tired in spite of her obvious pleasure at seeing Magda and they'd barely cleared the precincts of the airport when Jay's eyelids had fluttered and she'd slumped in her seat. Their relationship was new enough for Magda to find this endearing. 'She trusts me enough to sleep while I drive,' she told herself. It didn't cross her mind that nobody could survive the amount or the type of travel Jay had done over the past few years without learning to sleep when you were tired, no matter where you were.

When Magda pulled into the underground garage, Jay unwound, stretching and yawning as cats do. 'Nice driving,' she said in a sleepy drawl. 'Sorry I wasn't company for you. But I did tell you not to bother.'

'It wasn't a bother. I wanted to see you. Being in the car with you asleep is better than being home alone.' Magda leaned over and kissed Jay. 'Besides, now you've had a nap, you'll be restored and refreshed.'

Jay laughed. 'Ah, the insatiable appetites of the young.' She grabbed her bag from the back of the car and followed Magda upstairs. 'I hope you don't have to be up too early in the morning.'

After that, there hadn't been a suitable moment to bring up her strange encounter in the wine bar. And in the morning, Jay had already been at the computer when Magda got up. She'd stopped work for long enough to share a pot of coffee and some toast, but it was clear her mind was still on work.

By the time Magda returned from the hospital, the bearer bonds were burning a hole in her mind, never mind her bag. She hung up her coat and went in search of Jay, who was sweating in the sauna she'd had installed in the basement garage. There was nothing for it but to strip off and join her. Jay looked pleased to see her, rolling on to her stomach on the higher bench the better to watch her settle lower down where the heat wasn't quite so fierce. 'You're like a salamander,' Magda said. 'I can't take the heat like you can.'

'It's just a matter of getting used to it. Give it time, you'll be fighting me for space up here. Have you had a good day?'

'The usual sort of thing.' Magda sighed. 'I had to tell a woman her seven-year-old isn't going to make it to another Christmas. That took the gloss off my day.'

Jay ruffled Magda's hair, already damp with sweat. 'That's just one of the reasons why I prefer doing what I do. The worst news I have to deal with is that the best brasserie in Deauville has closed down.'

'Yeah, but you don't get those magic moments where you tell someone that their treatment has worked. That's a kick that money can't buy.' Magda arched her back, stretching her spine, feeling some of the day's tensions leach away. She shifted her position so she was at right angles to Jay, able to see her face. Studying her lover's face still captivated her. She wanted to memorise every line and angle, every expression, every detail. 'I missed you when you were away. I always do, it's like there's a space in my day where you should be.'

Jay chuckled. 'That'll wear off soon enough. You'll be counting the days till my next trip and your next chance to do whatever it is you're not doing now we're together.'

'I don't think it will. I always felt entirely self-sufficient. I never bothered when Philip was away. Or any of my other boyfriends. But with you, it's an active absence. Something happens, I want to tell you. I hear some stupid story on the news and I want to rant to you about it.'

'That's very sweet,' Jay said, her voice husky. 'I don't think anyone's ever said anything like that to me before. My lovers in the past have tended to confess that they quite enjoyed having their space when I was out of town. I must admit though, when I was gone this time, there were moments I really wanted to share with you too. And that's not like me. I've always believed that line about travelling fastest when you travel alone.'

'Travelling fast, you can miss a lot.'

'That was always a chance I was willing to take,' Jay said with a rueful half-smile. 'Throw some water on the coals, would you?'

Magda reached for the wooden ladle in the water bucket and scattered some drops of water on the coals. The steam that clouded up from the brazier took her breath away, making it hard to breathe for a moment. You take my breath away. When she could get some air back into her lungs, she said, 'I had a strange encounter on Tuesday evening.'

'Don't tell me your father came up to London to horsewhip me.'

Magda groaned. 'Don't. You can be very sick and scary sometimes.'

'OK, so it wasn't Henry on the warpath. What else could it have been? Another dyke came on to you?'

Magda reached up and shoved Jay's shoulder. 'As if. No, it was a man. And before you get all outraged, there was nothing remotely sexual in the encounter.'

'I'm glad to hear it. But before you go on, let me say that just because you are with me, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy it when someone flirts with you. I don't have a problem with other people wanting what I have.'

'Oh.' Magda dragged it over four disappointed syllables. 'Aren't you going to be jealous and badly behaved?' She tutted. 'Honestly, you're just so well adjusted.'

'I'll be cool about it. Until they step over the line. And then I'll remove their spleen. Through the nose. With a crochet hook.' Jay looked momentarily stern, then the giggles tripped in. 'Sorry,' she spluttered. 'Tell me about your strange encounter.'

'I popped out to Sainsbury's and when I got back, this bloke I'd never seen before was waiting for me. Nigel Fisher Boyd.'

Jay made a face indicating she'd never heard the name.

'He's something to do with financial services. He didn't go into detail and I didn't ask. He seemed a bit creepy to me, a bit spivvy, you know? He claimed he was a friend of Philip's but I knew he was lying because he called him Phil and he hated that.'

'What did he want? Was he trying to get you to invest in some scheme?'

Magda laughed. 'You sound like a bulldog. No, he wasn't trying to get me to part with my money. Quite the opposite. He was there because he had something belonging to Philip that he wanted to pass on to me.'

Jay pushed herself up on her elbows. Magda couldn't help admiring the line of her shoulders, the fullness of her breasts. Trickles of sweat ran salt down her body and she longed to lick them. 'Sounds intriguing.' She frowned. 'If a little overdue.'

Magda sighed. 'Well, it turns out there was a good reason for that. He gave me eight hundred thousand euros in bearer bonds, Jay.'

'What?' Jay's face froze in an expression of absolute incredulity. Magda had never seen her look so shocked.

'I know. I was completely freaked out too. I've never even seen a bearer bond. The only reason I'd ever heard of them was Patrick went through a phase of watching Die Hard every night and that's what Alan Rickman's crew are supposed to be stealing. But that's what these are, supposedly.'

'But why?'

Just thinking about this aspect of her story made Magda feel tearful. 'This Nigel Fisher Boyd said it was Philip's profits from insider trading.'

Jay's eyes widened further. 'Insider trading? Philip was insider trading?'

'According to Fisher Boyd, yes. It's incredible. I thought I knew Philip. But the Philip I knew wasn't a crook. And I wondered for a moment if it was some kind of twisted practical joke. But eight hundred thousand euros isn't the kind of money you use to fuck with somebody's head. And then I thought of what you did and I started to freak out.'

Jay sat up and lowered herself on to the bench beside Magda. 'Christ Almighty,' she said. 'We could have totally fucked ourselves. I went through all Philip's stuff, business and personal, with a fine tooth comb and I didn't see a trace of anything dodgy. It wasn't hard to figure out the paper trail with Joanna and Paul once I had an idea what I was looking for. But I thought Philip was clean. I'd never have written those letters if I'd thought…' She covered her face with her hands. 'God, we've had a lucky escape,' she said, letting out a long breath.

'We're in the clear now, though, aren't we? It's not like you made up the fact that Joanna and Paul were insider trading. All you did was bring it to the attention of the authorities.'

'But it's only a motive if Philip was clean,' Jay protested. 'If he was as bad as them, why on earth would he shop them?' Jay smacked the side of her fist down on the bench. 'Fuck.'

Magda thought back to her conversation with Charlie. Some instinct told her this wasn't the time to tell Jay she'd confided in someone else. 'You could argue that maybe they were being careless and threatening to bring the whole edifice tumbling down. And Philip was trying to shut them down on his terms.'

'It's a line we could use if it ever comes to it,' Jay said. 'But we were so sure that Joanna and Paul had killed him. You remember? That's the only reason I went trawling through all the financial stuff in the first place. I was looking for a reason why they would want rid of him. I went hunting for motive, and when I saw what they'd been doing, it seemed so obvious. Without that, I'd never have taken the risk of faking the letters to make the motive obvious to the police.' Jay shook her head. 'But if he was doing it too, there's no way he would have been threatening their activities. So their motive disappears. Why would they have wanted to kill him?'

Magda was perplexed, not least because she hadn't worked that out for herself. She was supposed to be smart. Was this what love did to you? Turned your brain to incompetent mush? 'I don't know. Maybe they wanted his share of the business.'

'Then they should have killed him before the wedding, because afterwards, there's no question of his share going anywhere else except to you.' Jay ran her hands through her hair in agitation. 'Christ, Magda. This is a nightmare.'

'I don't see how it changes anything. They killed him, Jay. That's the bottom line. They did slip away from the party at the crucial time. I saw them, just yards away from where Philip died.'

'But that's not what you told the court, is it? You didn't tell the exact truth about where you saw them because you had to lie about where you were. You were with me, not in your mother's office.'

'But nobody knows that. The defence never tried to cast any doubt on my story. It's history now, Jay.'

Jay looked a million miles from convinced. 'It's not over. There's sentencing, there's appeal. If what Philip was up to comes out, they're not the ones with the motive any more, Magda. That would be you and me.'

Magda was taken aback by Jay's agitation. If she'd thought about it in advance, she'd have expected it to freak her out. Instead, her bedside manner kicked in and she reacted as if she was dealing with a parent faced with a terrible diagnosis. Magda put her arm round Jay's shoulders, shocked by the tension she could feel in her muscles. 'But we're OK. I'm your alibi.'

'Which makes me your alibi.' Jay gave a bleak laugh. 'And you don't think some people might wonder about that? We end up together after a secret tryst at your wedding?'

'It wasn't like that,' Magda protested. 'And you know it.'

'We know that, but the world might not see it like that. We have a secret meeting, your husband is murdered, leaving you a very rich widow. And I step in and sweep you off your feet.'

'That's crazy. It's not like you need the money, for God's sake. You're worth millions more than me.'

Jay wiped her face with the back of her hand. 'For some people there's no such word as "enough". Trust me, Magda, it wouldn't be hard to make us look very bad indeed if this ever came out.'

'Well, it's not going to come out, is it? Even if — and it's a huge if — anybody finds out what Philip was up to, they're not going to find out you forged the letters.'

Jay leaned into her lover. 'I suppose not,' she said wearily. 'But there is one thing you've not taken into consideration.'

'What's that?'

'Without a motive, it's hard to picture Joanna and Paul killing Philip. And if they didn't kill him… who did, Magda? Who did?'