Gervaise turned to Nowak again. "Have we missed something?"

"I don't think so," said Nowak. "The SOCOs went over that place as thoroughly as any scene they've ever handled. One other thing we found was traces of the girl's urine on the ground outside the storage room, which is consistent with her friend's statement that she went down Taylor's Yard to relieve herself. We also found traces of vomit, which we matched to her stomach contents, so it looks very much as if she was sick, too. The team also went through the neighbouring buildings. Most of them are empty or used for storage of some kind. Nothing there."

"So are we dealing with a particularly clever killer?" Templeton asked.

"Not necessarily," said Nowak. "You've got to wonder how smart a killer is when he cleans up a body but misses a drop of semen. Maybe he's just lucky. But let's be honest, anyone who sets out to commit a crime today has seen The Bill, probably Silent Witness and CSI, too. The general public knows way too much about forensics, no matter how much of it on the telly is fabricated. People know to be careful, and what to be careful about. In some cases, they even know how to go about it."

"What I'm getting at, ma'am," Templeton said to Gervaise, "is that we might be dealing with the first in a series. The more well prepared our killer went out, the more he cleaned up after himself, the more it suggests forward planning, surely?"

"It doesn't mean that he had any victim in mind beyond Hayley Daniels," argued Banks, "or that it wasn't someone who knew her. If Stefan is right and there are two distinct people involved, perhaps her killer wasn't her rapist. Has anyone traced Hayley's biological mother, by the way?"

"She went off to South Africa with her boyfriend," said Winsome. "Hasn't been back."

Banks turned to Templeton. "I think we all take your point, Kev," he said. "Jim, did your search turn up any similar crimes anywhere in the country over the past eighteen months?"

"There are plenty of teenaged girls gone missing," said Hatchley, "but most of them have turned up, and the ones who haven't didn't disappear in circumstances like Hayley Daniels."

"Thanks, Jim. Keep searching." Banks turned back to Templeton. "What I'm saying, Kev, is that we'll only know for sure we're dealing with a serial killer if there's a second and a third. It could have been a spontaneous crime, a rape gone wrong, not necessarily a serial killer in the making."

"But we can at least put some men in the Maze on weekends, can't we?"

Banks looked to Catherine Gervaise. "I'm not sure we can justify that expense, DS Templeton," she said. "We just don't have the manpower. We're already over budget on the forensics."

"It had to be a spontaneous attack to some extent," added Winsome. "Nobody knew Hayley was going to go into the Maze until she left the Fountain with her friends at twelve seventeen."

"But they all knew?" Gervaise asked.

"Yes. She told them outside the pub. It's on CCTV."

"Who else knew?"

"Nobody, as far as we know."

"Then it's one of her friends," said Gervaise. "Or the Lyndgarth yobs, the ones who gave the bartender in the Fountain such a hard time."

"No, ma'am," said Templeton. "I've just finished checking on them. Seems that after they were kicked out of the pub they nicked a car and went for a joyride. They crashed it outside York. Nothing serious, just cuts and bruises, but they were tied up at the hospital and with the York police most of the night."

"Well that's one we can cross off our list," said Gervaise.

"There is one small point," Winsome said. "Just now, when I spoke to Jill Sutherland, she told me that she often walks through the Maze when she's been working at the Fountain. It's a shortcut to the car park."

"So you think the killer was waiting for Jill and got Hayley instead?" Gervaise said.

"No, not necessarily, ma'am," Winsome answered. "Just that he might have known he had a good chance of finding a victim there if he knew about that."

"What I was saying," Templeton went on, "is that the killer was already waiting in there, inside the Maze. Winsome's right. It's the location that counts, not the specific victim. Maybe he'd been there on previous occasions, staking the place out, but nothing happened, and he was waiting. He knew it would happen sometime, that some unfortunate girl would walk in there aloneJill Sutherland, for exampleand he could strike. These people have infinite amounts of patience. This time he got lucky."

"I think DS Templeton has a point," said Dr. Wallace. She was in her casual civilian clothes today and Banks had hardly recognized her at first, a slight figure, with her hair drawn back from her forehead and pinned up tight, black turtleneck top and jeans, Nike trainers. He got the impression that she could be quite attractive if she wanted to be, but that it didn't interest her. "In my experience," she went on, "times before I've seen such cases, or even read case histories involving such injuries as I found on Hayley Daniels's body, they were almost always part of a series. I've looked at the crime scene photos," she went on, "and there was a definite 'posed' quality about the body. She wouldn't have been left in that position naturally after he'd finished with her. She would have been exposed, open, abandoned like a used doll. But she wasn't. He carefully turned her on her side, hid the damage he'd done, the trauma he had caused, so she just looked as if she were sleeping. He even cleaned her body. One-off killers don't usually go to such trouble."

"I understand what you're saying," said Banks, "but I've seen examples where someone has killed someone close to them and covered up the injuries in that way out of shame, or even covered the body with a jacket or a sheet. No killer except the habitual one knows what he's going to feel like after he's finished, and that sort of reaction, horror at the results of the crime, is common enough."

"Well," said Dr. Wallace, "I bow to your expert knowledge, of course, but I repeat: This could be only the beginning. There are indications the killer will strike again. And the Maze is a perfect location."

"All right," said Gervaise. "Point taken, DS Templeton and Dr. Wallace. But as I said before, at this stage we can hardly afford the manpower to saturate the Maze with police officers on Fridays and Saturdays. Besides," she went on, "don't you think that if you're right, and this is a potential serial killer, then he'll have the good sense to choose another location next time?"

"Not necessarily," said Dr. Wallace. "I'm not a psychologist, but I do know something about criminal behaviour, and people do become attached to certain places. The Maze is certainly big and complicated enough to be attractive to that sort of personality. He might find that it mirrors his inner state, for example, his inner turmoil. Lots of shadows and nooks and crannies to disappear into and appear from."

"And lots of ways in and out without being caught on camera," said Templeton. "The doc's right," he went on, getting a frown from Dr. Wallace, which he didn't notice. "He's lurking in an area at times when there are likely to be a lot of drunken young girls nearby not exercising a great degree of common sense. There are probably other similar dark and isolated areas close to the town centre, like the Castle Gardens and the Green, and they should be covered, too, but they're all more open. The Maze is perfect for him. Remember, Jack the Ripper only operated in Whitechapel."

"Even so, that was a much larger area," said Gervaise. "Anyway, I'm sorry but the best we can do at this point is increase the number of regular patrols in the area and put up warnings in the pubs advising people to avoid the Maze if they're alone, especially females," said Gervaise. "Also to stay in groups, not to wander off alone. That ought to be enough for now. Besides, the place is still a crime scene and will be for a while yet. It's taped off."

"Only the part of it near Taylor's Yard," argued Templeton, "and if you're bent on murder you're hardly likely to worry about a small infringement like"

"That's enough, DS Templeton," said Gervaise. "The subject's closed."

"Yes, ma'am," said Templeton, tight-lipped.

Everyone was silent for a few moments, then Gervaise asked Banks what was next.

"We have a list of possibles," said Banks. "Joseph Randall, Stuart Kinsey, Zack Lane, Jamie Murdoch and Malcolm Austin. And the serial killer angle," he added, looking at Templeton. "I think the next thing we need to do is have another go at all our suspects a bit harder than we have before and see if we can't find a chink in someone's armour."

Someone knocked at the door, and one of Stefan Nowak's colleagues delivered an envelope to him. There was silence while he opened it. When he had finished, he glanced over at Banks. "That might not be necessary," he said. "Remember I said our killer might not be as smart as you think? Well, according to the lab, the DNA found in the semen sample on Hayley Daniels's thigh is the same as the saliva sample freely given by Joseph Randall. It looks very much as if we've got a positive match."

9.

"Thanks for taking the trouble to come down and see me," said Les Ferris, the researcher who said he had information, when Annie appeared in his office late that afternoon. "It's almost knocking-off time, and I don't get out much," he went on, picking up his rumpled tweed jacket from the back of his chair, "so why not let me treat you to a pint? Or a cup of tea, if that's your poison?"

Annie thought for a moment. She'd fallen off the wagon last night with disastrous consequences, but she was feeling better now, and one pint wouldn't do her any harm. Besides, the office was a mess and smelled of overripe banana skins. "Okay," she said, "you're on. A pint it is."

Les Ferris smiled, showing stained and crooked teeth. He was a bald, roly-poly sort of man with a red face, white whiskers and sad eyes.

It was a beautiful evening in Scarborough, the sort you didn't often get before the holiday seasonor even during it, for that matterand the locals were taking full advantage. Couples walked hand in hand on the prom, and families with young children, or pushing prams, lingered at the edge of the sea, kids throwing pebbles at the waves. One brave man even rolled up his trouser legs and tested the water, but he didn't last more than a few seconds. Annie could smell salt and seaweed and hear the gulls screeching overhead. For a second, they made her think of Lucy Payne's body, and she shivered.

"Cold?" asked Ferris.

Annie smiled. "No," she said. "Someone just walked over my grave."

Ahead, where the high promontory of Scarborough Castle bulged out and brooded over the bay, Annie could see the waves smashing against the sea wall, the salt-spray flying high. Ferris picked a cozy pub on a corner near Marine Drive. It looked over the harbour. The tide was out and a few white, red or green fishing boats rested on the wet sand. One man in a blue jersey was painting his hull. The pub was a Jennings house with guest beers, and Annie chose a pint of Cock-a-Hoop. Ferris reached for his cigarettes after he set the drinks down on the scratched table. "Do you mind?" he asked.

"Not at all," said Annie. The place already reeked of smoke and several people at nearby tables were smoking. "Make the best of it while you can."

"I've tried to stop about twenty times," said Ferris, "but somehow I just can't seem to manage it. I'm about to turn sixty-five next month, so at this point I think I'd better just resign myself to my fate, don't you?"

That wasn't what Annie had meant. She had been referring to the smoking ban coming into effect in July. But it didn't matter. "Sixty-five isn't old," she said. "You might just as easily live to be ninety. If you stop." She raised her glass. "Cheers. To ninety."

"Cheers. I'll drink to that." After he drank, Ferris inhaled deeply on his cigarette.

"You said you had something to tell me," Annie said.

"Yes. I'm not really sure if any of it's relevant, but when I heard about the identity of your victim it rang a bell."

"I'm hardly surprised," said Annie. "Lucy Payne was quite notorious in her day."

"No, it's not that. Not Lucy Payne."

"Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning?"

"Yes," said Ferris. "Yes, perhaps I had. I haven't always been a humble researcher, you know," he went on. "I've put in my time on East Yorkshire CID, as it was then. I might be past it now, but I was quite the dashing young detective at one time." His eyes twinkled as he spoke.

"I'll bet you were," said Annie, hoping a bit of flattery might help him get a move on. She had no particular plans for the evening, but she was looking forward to a quiet night in her room watching TV.

"Not that we ever got many murders along this stretch of coast," he went on, "which is probably why I thought of it. People say I've got a bee in my bonnet. For some reason, though, it's always haunted me. Perhaps because it all ended up as mysterious as it began."

"What?" said Annie. "You've got me intrigued."

"A case I worked on back in 1989. A mere callow youth of forty-seven, I was then. I'd just made DS. None of your accelerated promotion rubbish in those days. Back then, you earned your stripes."

"So I've heard," Annie said.

"Aye, well, not that there aren't plenty of good men around these days. A few women, too," he added hastily.

"This 1989 case," Annie said, lest he put his foot even further in his mouth. "What exactly brought it to your mind when you heard about Lucy Payne?"

"I was just getting to that." Ferris drained his pint. "Another?"

"Not for me. I'm driving," said Annie. "But let me get you one."

"Aye, all right," Ferris said. "Women's lib and all that. I'll have another pint of Sneck Lifter, please."

"Sneck Lifter?"

"Aye. I know it's strong, but I don't have far to go. Not driving, like you."

Annie went to the bar and asked for a pint of Sneck Lifter. The barmaid smiled and pulled it for her. She jerked her head over at Ferris. "It'll take more than this to lift his sneck," she said.

Annie laughed. "Luckily," she said, "I won't be around to find out."

The barmaid laughed with her, handed Annie her change and said, "Cheers, love."

Back at the table, Ferris thanked her for the pint and stared out of the window towards the sea. "Aye," he said. "September 1989. Nasty business it was. I was working out of Whitby then, way you are now. Mostly quiet apart from a few pickpockets in high season, the occasional pub brawl, break-in or domestic incident."

"What happened?" Annie asked him.

"Well, that's just it," Ferris said, scratching his chin. "We never rightly did find out. It was all nobbut speculation and conjecture. Based on what few facts we had, of course. We did our best. Anyroad, it's stayed with me all these years."

Annie sipped some beer. Might as well relax and let him tell it in his own time, she thought as she noticed the shadows lengthening outside. "I'm sure you did," she said. "But what makes you think it's linked to Lucy Payne's murder?"

"I never said that it was. It's just a funny coincidence, that's all, and if you're as good a copper as you're supposed to be, you won't trust coincidence any more than I do."

"I don't," said Annie. "Go on."

"First off, as I said, we don't get many murders in these parts, and you tend to remember all of them. We got even fewer back then. It started when a local bloke, a cabinetmaker called Jack Grimley, disappeared one night after leaving a pub called the Lucky Fisherman. A couple of days later his body washed up on the beach over Sandsend way."

"Murdered?"

"Hard to say for certain," said Ferris. "Could have been a head wound, the doc said, a smooth, rounded object, but he'd been in the water a couple of days, been bashed about on the rocks." He paused. "And the fish had been at him."

"Water in the lungs?"

"No. That's the thing."

That meant he hadn't drowned. "So he hit the rocks first as he fell in?"

"That was one theory."

"What was the coroner's verdict?"

"Death by misadventure. But DI Cromer, that's Paddy Cromer, who was in charge of the investigation, were never satisfied. He's dead now, or I'd suggest you have a word with him yourself. He had as much of a bee in his bonnet about it as I did, right up to the end. I was his DS."

Annie had no idea why Ferris was telling her this, or how it was relevant to the Lucy Payne murder, but she had some beer left in her glass and was content enough to spin it out for another few minutes while the sun went down. Pity they were facing east, she thought, or it would be a spectacular view. As it was, the delicate shade of blue reminded her of the blue in a piece of sculpted glass she had seen on the Venetian island of Murano once, many years ago, when she was a student. "Why wasn't DI Cromer convinced?" she asked.

Ferris touched the side of his red veined nose. "Instinct," he said. "Like women's intuition, only more reliable. Copper's instinct."

"So he had a hunch," Annie said. "I still don't get it."

Ferris gave her a dirty look, and for a moment she thought she'd ruined whatever rapport she had with him, but then he grinned. "No flies on you, are there? Anyway, whatever it was, Paddy wasn't happy. Me, neither. I mean, Jack Grimley could have fallen off the cliff. It's happened before. But according to his mates he hadn't had much to drink, and he lived in the other direction. There was no reason for him to be walking on the cliff edge. Besides, there's a beach at the bottom, not rocks. And that was when we first heard of the mysterious woman."

Annie pricked up her ears. "What mysterious woman?"

"Patience, lass, patience. A witness thought he saw Jack talking to a woman up near the Cook statue. It was dark, though, and he admitted he could have been mistaken. Still, it was all we had at the time, the only piece of information that placed him near the cliffs. And he was with someone."

"Had he said anything earlier about meeting a woman?" Annie asked.

Ferris shook his head. "Not to his mates he hadn't."

"Not like a man," said Annie. "Still, I suppose there could be any number of reasons for that. If it was a woman he was meeting, maybe she was married? Maybe even to one of his mates?"

"We thought of that. Thing is, no one ever came forward. We dug around, too, turned up nothing. Anyway," he hurried on, "if that was all that had happened, I wouldn't have dragged you all the way down here. Not that it isn't always a pleasure to have a drink with a pretty young girl."

Annie rolled her eyes and laughed. "How very gallant of you."

"I meant it," said Ferris. "You are a pretty lass."