"Not really. I think it must have been under the hat."

"What kind of hat?"

"I don't know. A hat. With a brim."

"What colour?"

"Black."

"Any idea what age she was?"

"Hard to say. I didn't get a real look at her face. Old, though. From the way she moved and her general appearance, I'd say maybe late thirties or forty."

Annie let that go by. "Anything distinguishing about her?"

"Just ordinary, really."

"Okay. Did you see her car? She couldn't have walked here."

"No," said Mel. "I mean, I was inside all the time. Someone might have seen it in one of the parking spots."

"Do you have CCTV in the car park?"

"No. We don't have it at all here. I mean, it's not as if the patients are under guard or they're going to do...you know, run away or anything."

"How did Karen react to the idea of a walk with Mary?"

Mel fiddled with her ring and reddened. "She didn't. I mean, sh-she couldn't, could she? Karen was a quadriplegic. Plus, she couldn't communicate."

"Did she have any particular friends here?" Annie asked. "Anyone she spent a lot of time with?"

"It's difficult when a person can't communicate," Mel said. "You tend to be confined to a pretty solitary existence. Of course, the staff here make sure she has all she needs. They talk to her, tell her what's going on. They're all truly wonderful people. And she has her television, of course. But...well, it all goes in, but nothing comes out." Mel shrugged.

"So you had no way of knowing whether she recognized Mary? Or, indeed, wanted to go with her?"

"No. But why would this Mary...I mean..."Mel started crying. Grace passed her a handkerchief from her pocket and touched her shoulder again. "Why would anybody want to take Karen out if they didn't know her?" Mel went on. "What would be the point?"

"Well, I think we know the answer to that," Annie said. "Someone wanted to get her alone in an isolated spot and kill her. The puzzle that remains is why. Was Karen wealthy?"

"I believe she had some money from the sale of her house," Grace said, "but that would all have been put towards her care. I wouldn't say she was wealthy, no."

"How did she end up here, by the way?" Annie asked.

"Drink driver," said Grace. "Broke her back. Awkward area. Spinal cord damage. It happens far more often than you would imagine. Tragic case."

"There'd be insurance, then?"

"Whatever there was, it would have also gone towards her care."

"How long had she been here?"

"About three months."

"Where did she come here from?"

"A hospital called Grey Oaks, just outside Nottingham. Specializes in spinal injuries."

"How did she end up here? What's the process?"

"It varies," said Grace. "Sometimes it's people's families who've heard of us. Sometimes it comes through social services. Karen's stay in the hospital was upthere was nothing more they could do for her there, and they need all the beds they can getso social services helped and came up with us. We had a room available, and the details were worked out."

"Do you know the name of the social worker involved?"

"It should be in the file."

"Does Karen have any relatives?"

"None that I know of," said Grace. "I'd have to check the files for the information you want."

"I'd like to take those files."

Grace paused, then said, "Of course. Look, do you seriously think the motive was money?"

"I don't know what it was," said Annie. "I'm just covering all the possibilities. We need to know a lot more about Karen Drew and the life she lived before she ended up here if we hope to get any further. As nobody seems to be able to help us very much on that score, perhaps we'd better concentrate our efforts elsewhere."

"We've told you all we can," said Grace. "You should find more information in her files."

"Maybe." Annie looked at Mel, who seemed to have pulled herself together and was nibbling on a digestive biscuit. "We'll need a description of this Mary as soon as possible. Someone might have seen her locally. Mel, do you think you could work with a police artist on this? I don't know how quickly we can get someone here at such short notice, but we'll do our best."

"I think so," said Mel. "I mean, I've never done it before, but I'll have a try. But like I said, I never got a good look at her face."

Annie gave her a reassuring smile. "The artist's very good," she said. "Just do your best. He'll help steer you in the right direction." Annie stood up and said to Grace, "We'll be sending some officers over to take statements from as many staff members and patients as possible. DS Naylor will be picking up the files before we leave. I hope you'll be cooperative."

"Of course," said Grace.

Annie remained in the conference room and ate a potted-meat sandwich, washed down with a glass of water, until Tommy Naylor came in with the files, then they left together. "What do you think?" she asked Naylor when they got outside.

"I think we've got our work cut out," he said, waving a file folder about half an inch thick. "I've had a quick glance, and there's not a lot here except medical mumbo-jumbo, and we don't even have a next of kin to go on."

Annie sighed. "These things are sent to try us. See if you can get the artist organized, not that it'll do much good, by the sound of things, and I'll find out if DS McCullough and the SOCOs have anything for us."

3.

Winsome wondered if she was doing the right thing as she parked outside the Faversham Hotel that afternoon. She had told Donna McCarthy that Geoff was at a meeting and unavailable over the telephone. Rather than try to reach him later, leave a message, or wait for him to come back to Swainshead, she said she would go to find him and break the news herself. Donna had been grateful and relieved that someone else was going to tell Geoff about his daughter. Winsome had tried his mobile and the hotel switchboard a couple more times on her way to Skipton, but with no luck.

The hotel lay just outside the town, not far from where the wild millstone grit of the Bront moorland metamorphosed into the limestone hills and valleys of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Winsome knew the area reasonably well, as she had been pot-holing with the club in the Malham area on several occasions, but she didn't know the Faversham. It resembled a big old manor house with a few additions tacked on. A stream ran by the back, and Winsome could hear it burbling over the rocks as she went in the front door. Very rustic and romantic, she thought.

She showed her warrant card at the front desk and explained that she needed to talk to Mr. Daniels. The receptionist rang the room but got no answer. "He must be out," she said.

"What's his room number?"

"I can't"

"This is police business," Winsome said. "He forgot to bring his medicine, and without it he could die. Bad heart." It was a quick improvisation, but the word die did the trick. You didn't have to see Fawlty Towers to know what problems a dead body in a hotel room could cause.

"Oh, my God," said the receptionist. "He hasn't been answering his phone all morning." She called someone in from the back room to take over for her, then asked Winsome to follow her. They made their way in silence on the lift to the second floor and along the corridor where trays of empty plates and cups sat outside doors.

Outside number 212 was a tray with an empty bottle of champagne in a coolerVeuve Clicquot, Winsome noticed, the ice long melted to waterand a couple of plates bearing the discarded translucent pink shells of several prawns. A DO NOT DISTURB sign hung on the door handle.

Winsome was immediately transported back to the time when she worked at the Holiday Inn outside Montego Bay, cleaning up after the American and European tourists. She had hardly been able to believe the state of some of the rooms, the things people left there, shamelessly, for a young impressionable girl, who went to church in her best frock and hat every Sunday, to clean up or throw away. Winsome remembered how Beryl had laughed the first time she held up a used condom and asked what it was. Winsome was only twelve. How could she be expected to know? And sometimes people had been in the rooms, doing things, though they hadn't posted a sign. Two men once, one black and one white. Winsome shuddered at the memory. She had nothing against gays, but back then she had been young and ignorant and hadn't even known that such things happened.

Winsome looked at the receptionist, who held the pass card, and nodded. Reluctantly, the receptionist stuck the card in the door, and when the light turned green, she pushed it open.

At first Winsome found it hard to make out what was what. The curtains were drawn, even though it was past midday; the air was stale and filled with the kind of smells only a long night's intimacy imparts to an enclosed space. The receptionist took a step back in the doorway and Winsome turned on the light.

A man lay spread-eagled on the bed, tied to the frame by his ankles and hands with black silk scarves, wearing a thick gold chain around his neck, and nothing else. A woman in the throes of ecstasy squatted on his mid parts, wearing a garter belt and black stockings. When the light came on, she screamed and wrapped a blanket around herself.

"What the fuck's going on?" the man yelled. "Who the fuck are you?"

The receptionist headed off down the corridor muttering, "I'll leave this to you then, shall I?"

"Police." Winsome showed her warrant card. She didn't think of herself as a prude, but the scene shocked her so much that she didn't even want to look at Daniels lying there with his drooping manhood exposed. It also made her angry. Maybe Geoff Daniels couldn't have known that his daughter was going to die a terrible death while he was playing sex games with his mistress, but she was damn well going to make him feel the guilt of it. She asked the woman her name.

"Martina," she said. "Martina Redfern." She was a thin, pouty redhead who looked about the same age as Hayley Daniels but was probably closer to Donna McCarthy's age.

"Okay, Martina," Winsome said. "Sit down. Let's have a little chat."

"What about me?" said Daniels from the bed. "Will someone fucking untie me and let me go?"

Martina looked towards him anxiously, but Winsome ignored him and took her aside. She knew she should break the bad news to Daniels, but how do you tell a naked man tied to a bed by his mistress that his daughter has been murdered? She needed time to take in the situation, and it wouldn't do any harm to put a few dents in his dignity along the way. "Care to tell me about your evening?" she said to Martina.

"Why?" Martina asked. "What is it?"

"Tell me about your evening first."

Martina sat in the armchair by the window. "We had dinner at the Swan, near Settle, then we went to a club in Keighley. After that we came back to the hotel, and we've been here ever since."

"What club?"

"The Governor's."

"Would they remember you? We can check, you know."

"Probably the barman would," she said. "Then there's the taxi driver who brought us back here. And they'd remember us at the Swan, too. They weren't very busy. But what are we supposed to have done?"

Winsome was more interested in the time after midnight, but any sort of an alibi for last night would be a help for Martina and Daniels. It would take at least an hour to drive from Skipton to Eastvale. "What time did you get back here?" she asked.

"About three o'clock."

"No wonder you needed a lie-in," said Winsome. "Long past bedtime. And you were together all that time?"

Daniels cursed and thrashed around on the bed. "That was the whole point of the exercise," he said. "And this is police brutality. Untie me right now, you fucking black bitch."

Winsome felt herself flush with anger and shame as she always did when someone insulted her that way. Then she calmed herself down, the way her mother had taught her.

"Can I get dressed now?" Martina asked, gesturing towards the bathroom.

Winsome nodded and looked at the naked man on the bed, the man who had just called her a black bitch. His daughter had been raped and murdered last night, and she had to tell him now. She couldn't just leave him there and keep putting it off, much as she would like to.

Courses taught you only so much about dealing with unusual situations, and simulations even less. When it came right down to it, Winsome thought, there was no book to go by, only instinct. She wanted to hurt him, but she didn't want to hurt him in the way she knew she was going to do. The image of Hayley Daniels lying there on the pile of leather like a fallen runner caused her breath to catch in her throat. Winsome took a deep breath. "I'm very sorry I have to tell you this, Mr. Daniels," she said, "but I'm afraid it's about your daughter."

Daniels stopped struggling. "Hayley? What about her? What's happened to her? Has there been an accident?"

"Sort of," said Winsome. "I'm afraid she's dead. It looks very much as if she was murdered." There, it was said, the dreaded word that would change everything, and its weight filled the room and seemed to suck out all the air.

"Murdered?" Daniels shook his head. "But...she can't be. It must be someone else."

"I'm sorry, sir. There's no mistake. She was carrying her driver's licence and an address book with her name in it."

"Was she...? I mean, did he...?"

"I'd rather not say anything else until we get back to Eastvale," Winsome said. "Your wife's waiting for you there."

Martina came out of the bathroom in time to hear this. She looked at Winsome. "Can I untie him now?" she asked.

Winsome nodded. Since she had told Daniels the news about Hayley, she had forgotten that he was still naked and tied to the bed. He seemed to have forgotten it, too. And humiliating Daniels didn't matter any more. She wasn't a cruel person; she had simply wanted to quash his arrogance and hear an alibi from Martina before the two of them had time or reason to make anything up. In both these matters, she thought she had succeeded, but now she felt a little ashamed of herself.

Martina got to work on the scarves as Daniels just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Finally freed, he sat up and wrapped the bedsheet around him and cried. Martina sat beside him, glum and flushed. She tried to touch him, but he flinched. He had curly dark hair, a Kirk Douglas cleft in his chin and sideburns reaching the line of his jaw. Perhaps he was the kind of man some white women liked to mother, Winsome thought, but he did less than nothing for her. He looked up at her through his tears. "I'm sorry," he said. "That remark I made earlier...it was uncalled for. I"

"I'm sorry, too," said Winsome, "but untying you wasn't my first priority. I needed to know why you were lying to your wife and where you were last night." She pulled up a chair and sat down. "I've been trying to reach you all morning."

Daniels got to his feet and pulled on his underpants and trousers. Then he put on a shirt and started tossing socks and underwear from the drawers into an overnight bag. "I must go," he said. "I must get back to Donna."

"Donna?" said Martina. "What about me? You told me you were going to leave her and get a divorce. We were going to get married."

"Don't be stupid. Didn't you hear? I've got to get back to her."

"But, Geoff...What about us?"

"I'll ring you," Daniels said. "Go home. I'll ring you."

"When?"