"When? When I've buried my bloody daughter! Now bugger off, won't you, you stupid cow. I don't think I can stand the sight of you any more."

Sobbing, Martina picked up her bag, not bothering to get her toiletries from the bathroom, or anything she may have put in the wardrobe, and headed for the door. Winsome cut her off. "I need your name, address and phone number," she said.

Martina glared over at Daniels. "Ask him, why don't you?" She edged forward.

Winsome stood her ground. "I want you to tell me."

Martina paused, then gave Winsome the information. Next she opened the wardrobe and took out a three-quarter-length suede jacket. "Mustn't forget my birthday present," she said to Daniels, then she was out the door and down the corridor.

Daniels stood with his grip in his hand. "All right," he said. "What are we waiting for? Let's go."

Winsome looked at him, shook her head slowly and led the way out.

Karen Drew's body had been removed according to the coroner's instructions, but the SOCOs were still clustered around the wheelchair at the cliff edge when Annie and Tommy Naylor got back after their visit to Mapston Hall.

The wind had died down a little, leaving a light tepid drizzle. The SOCOs had tented the area to protect it from the elements while they worked, collecting samples and bagging them for evidence. The surrounding area had been thoroughly searched in a grid pattern, yielding nothing of immediate interest, and no weapon had been found at the bottom of the cliff or anywhere else. It could have drifted out to sea, or Mary, if she was the killer, could have taken it away with her.

Somehow or other, Annie thought, the mysterious Mary had slipped away into the morning and disappeared. She could be anywhere by now: anonymous in the London crowds, on a train to Edinburgh or Bristol. Had the murder been premeditated? If so, the odds were that she had worked out an escape route. If not, then she was working off her wits. But a stranger doesn't just walk into a care home, ask to take out a specific patient and then slit her throat. She had said she was a friend, and whether that was true, there had to be some connection between this Mary and Karen Drew. To have any hope of finding Mary, they first had to discover as much as they could about Karen and the people she had known before her accident. It was best not to assume too much yet. While there were no signs of a struggle, it was also possible that Mary wasn't the killer but had been another victim. What if Karen had been killed and Mary abducted, or killed and dumped in the sea, or somewhere else?

Annie cursed the lax security at the care home, but to be realistic about it, Grace Chaplin had been right. What, or whom, did their patients need protecting from? They were harmless, incapable of moving and, some of them, of even speaking. Why on earth would anyone want to kill one of them? That was what Annie and her team had to find out.

Annie noticed DS Liam McCullough, the crime scene coordinator, detach himself from the group of white-suited figures, and she called him over. They had met on several occasions before they started working together, as Liam was a close friend of the Western Area coordinator, Stefan Nowak, which made for a less strained relationship, Annie found. SOCOs could be annoyingly possessive of their crime scenes and tight-arsed about any information they gave out, but with Liam in charge, Annie's job was just that little bit easier.

"Nearly finished," McCullough said, walking over to her, that lopsided grin on his face showing a mouthful of ill-fitting teeth.

"Find anything useful?"

"We won't know what's useful until later," McCullough said.

"We think the killer might be a woman," Annie told him. "At least it was a woman who took the victim out of Mapston Hall, so that's the theory we're working on at the moment."

"Thanks for letting me know. It doesn't make much difference now, but it's good to bear in mind."

"I don't suppose you found any footprints?"

"In this grass?"

"Thought not. Fingerprints?"

"Plenty on the wheelchair. Don't worry, we'll be every bit as thorough as Western Area."

"I have no doubt," Annie said. "Any traces of a car parked in the vicinity?"

"None that we could find."

"Okay," said Annie. "I didn't expect anything. We'll have to send out a house-to-house team." She looked around the bleak, windswept stretch of coast. "Not that there's really anywhere for them to go."

"We did find several hairs on the victim's blanket," McCullough said. "No doubt some belong to the staff at the care home, and perhaps some to other patients, but you never know, the killer's might be among them."

"The person who dealt with our suspect at Mapston said her hair was hidden under a hat."

McCullough smiled. "Haven't you ever noticed how hair gets just everywhere?"

"I suppose you're right," said Annie, who had noticed a short black hair on her sleeve on her way there, as if she needed reminding about last night. "What about the marks on her ears and neck?"

"Seagulls," McCullough said. "Post-mortem, thank God. That's why there's no blood."

"I suppose that she was killed here, in the wheelchair?"

"Yes. I consulted with the doc on that. Lividity is as you'd expect if that were the case, and there's enough blood on the grass around the chair to bear it out. She was killed where she sat. We haven't finished blood spatter analysis yetthe grass makes it difficultbut we've photographed and videoed every square inch."

"Okay. Well, carry on, Liam. And thanks for the update."

McCullough doffed his imaginary cap. "No problem. I trust you're in charge of this inquiry?"

"Detective Superintendent Brough's the official SIO."

"So we send everything to you?" McCullough smiled.

Annie smiled back. "Might as well. But do it discreetly."

"My middle name, discretion. Bye, ma'am."

"See you," said Annie. She shivered as a gust of wind blew in from the sea and a seagull glided over her. She walked to the edge of the cliff and stood as close as she dared on the treacherous, slippery grass, looking down. The tide was well up now, the crashing waves dizzying and magnetic. She could understand how people had been drawn to jump into moving water, hypnotized and seduced by its sinuous, swirling motion. Feeling a twinge of vertigo, she glanced at the empty wheelchair. It would have been so easy just to push it that extra foot or so, onto the rocks. No fuss. No blood. Why go to the trouble and mess of slitting Karen Drew's throat?

Unless, Annie thought with a sinking feeling, it was done to make some kind of statement. In her experience, killers who wanted to make statements were like bores at a party: a bugger to shut up until they'd finished what they had to say.

While Joseph Randall waited in an interview room, Banks sat in his office enjoying his first few moments of peace and quiet since Templeton's phone call that morning. He had remembered to phone his mother, who thanked him for the card, and he was pleased to hear that all was well in the Banks household. His parents were going on a Mediterranean cruise in June, she had told himtheir first time abroad, except for the time his father was in the army towards the end of the war. They were leaving from Southampton so they didn't have to fly.

Now Banks was sipping a cup of tea, eating a KitKat and listening to Anna Netrebko's Russian Album as he jotted down a list of actions and TIEsTrace, Interview and Eliminatehe thought should be carried out as quickly as possible in the Hayley Daniels murder investigation.

Winsome had questioned the father, Geoff Daniels, and the hotel staff at the Faversham confirmed his alibi. No one had seen him leave his room since he arrived with his girlfriend, Martina, rather the worse for wear around three o'clock in the morning. The barman and doorman at the club in Keighley also remembered the couple, who had been there the whole time between about midnight and half past two. They had had more than enough to drink, he said, and at one point they were practically doing it right there on the dance floor. The bouncer even had to step in and ask them to cool it. There was no way either, or both, of them could have driven to Eastvale and killed Hayley. Winsome hadn't tracked down the taxi driver yet, but it was just a matter of time.

Also, mostly for form's sake, Winsome had checked Donna McCarthy's alibi with her friend and neighbour, Caroline Dexter. They had indeed spent the evening together eating pizza and watching Casino Royale, until well after midnight.

Officers were already reviewing as much CCTV footage as they had been able to gather, and forensics experts were still busy in Taylor's Yard, while most of the samples the SOCOs had collected were being prepared for analysis. Nothing would happen until Monday, of course, and results wouldn't start coming until Tuesday, or even later in the week, depending on the tests and workloads of the labs involved. If only DNA results came as quickly as they seemed to do on television, Banks thought, his job would be a lot easier. Sometimes waiting was the worst part.

Banks put the writing pad aside. He'd enter it all into the computer later. He glanced out the window and was surprised to see snowflakes blowing horizontally in the wind, obscuring the market square. He watched for a few moments, hardly believing what he saw, then it stopped and the sun came out. Strange weather, indeed.

He glanced at the map of the Maze he had had enlarged and pinned to his cork board. There were far more ways in and out than he had realized, and it covered a greater area. Next to the map hung his Dalesman calendar. The month of March lay in neat columns below a photograph of Settle marketplace on a busy day. He had check-up appointments with both his dentist and his GP, having thought at the time it was best to get both unpleasant duties out of the way simultaneously. Now, he was beginning to wonder. Perhaps he should postpone the dentist until next month. Or the doctor.

His only upcoming social engagement was a dinner party at Harriet Weaver's, his old next-door neighbour in Eastvale, the following Saturday. Informal, Harriet had said, about ten or twelve people, bring a bottle, he would enjoy himself. Her niece Sophia was up from London and might drop by. Every man fell in love with Sophia, Harriet said. Banks thought it would be a very foolish thing to do, in that case, and determined not to. It was all very well for middle-aged writers, artists or rock stars to go around falling in love with younger women, but most irresponsible for a police detective with as much baggage as he was carrying.

Banks hated dinner parties anyway, and he was only going because he felt guilty about not having kept in touch with Harriet and her husband since he had split up with Sandra. And she had had the good grace to invite him. Well, he'd go, then he'd leave as quickly as he decently could. It shouldn't be too hard to get Winsome or someone to call his mobile on some pretext or other. It would save him from having to explain the latest crime statistics, or why so many obvious rapists and murderers got off, the usual sort of stuff you get at parties when people know you're a policeman. One woman had even had the nerve to ask Banks to put a tail on her husband, whom she suspected of having an affair with a local estate agent. After Banks explained that he wasn't Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, the woman lost all interest in him and started making eyes at the host.

Banks got up. It was time to have a chat with Joseph Randall, who didn't seem too happy at being dragged down to Western Area Headquarters that afternoon and left to stew in an interview room accompanied only by a taciturn constable who wouldn't tell him why he was there. There was no reason for the delay other than to make Randall nervous and angry. In that state, he might make a slip. He had his Ativan with him if he needed it, and the constable had been warned to watch out for any signs of a panic attack, so Banks hadn't been worried on that score.

The interview room was cramped, with one high, barred window, a bare bulb covered by a rusty grille, metal table bolted to the floor, three foldup chairs and the recording equipment. The interview would be videotaped, and as Banks set it up, DC Doug Wilson sat facing a disgruntled Randall, who began by asking for his solicitor.

"You're not under arrest, Mr. Randall, and you haven't been charged with anything," Banks explained, sitting down. "You're simply here to help us with our inquiries."

"Then I don't have to talk to you?"

Banks leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. "Mr. Randall," he said. "We're both reasonable men, I hope. Now this is a serious case. A young girl has been raped and murdered. On your property. I'd think you'd be as interested as I am in getting to the bottom of it, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I am," said Randall. "I just don't understand why you're picking on me."

"We're not picking on you." Banks turned to DC Wilson. Might as well give the new kid a chance. "Detective Constable Wilson, why don't you tell Mr. Randall here what you found out from the barmaid at the Duck and Drake?"

Wilson shuffled his papers nervously, played with his glasses and licked his lips. Banks thought he looked rather like a frightened schoolboy about to translate a Latin unseen for the class. The blazer he wore only enhanced the image. "Were you in the Duck and Drake around seven o'clock yesterday evening?" Wilson asked.

"I had a couple of drinks there after I closed the shop, yes," said Randall. "As far I was aware that's not against the law."

"Not at all, sir," said Wilson. "It's just that the victim, Hayley Daniels, was also seen in the pub around the same time."

"I wouldn't have recognized her. How could I? I didn't know her."

"But you'd remember her now, sir, wouldn't you?" Wilson went on. "Since you saw her in the storeroom. You'd remember how she looked, what she was wearing, wouldn't you?"

Randall scratched his forehead. "I can't say I do, as a matter of fact. There are always a lot of young people in the Duck and Drake at that time on a Saturday. I was reading the paper. And in the room it was all such a blur."

"Is it your local, then, the Duck and Drake?"

"No. I don't have a local, really. I just go where it strikes my fancy if I want a drink after shutting up. It's not very often I do. Usually I just go home. The drinks are cheaper."

"Where were you between the hours of midnight and two this morning?" Wilson asked.

"At home."

"Can anybody corroborate that?"

"I live alone."

"What time did you go to bed?"

"About a quarter to one, shortly after I'd put the cat out."

"Anybody see you?"

"I don't know. The street was quiet. I didn't see anybody."

"What were you doing before that?"

"After I left the pub, about eight, I picked up some fish and chips on my way home and watched television."

"Where did you get the fish and chips?"

"Chippy on the corner. Now, look, this is"

"Let's go back to the Duck and Drake, shall we?" Wilson persisted.

Randall crossed his arms and sat in a rigid position, lips set in a hard line.

"Now you've had a chance to think back, sir," Wilson went on, "do you remember seeing Hayley Daniels in the pub?"

"I suppose I might have."

"Did you or didn't you?"

"If she was there, I suppose I must have seen her. I just don't remember her in particular. I wasn't really interested."

"Oh, come off it," said Banks. "A beautiful girl like her. A lonely old pervert like you. You were giving her the eye. Why don't you admit it? You want us to think you'd never seen her before because you set your sights on her right from the start. I'm right, aren't I?"

Randall glared at him and turned back to DC Wilson, his ally. Sometimes, Banks thought, good cop, bad cop was that easy. They hadn't even decided to play it this way; it just worked out as the interview went on. For all the courses he'd done and all the books he'd read on interview techniques over the years, Banks found that a spontaneous approach often worked best. Go in with a general, vague outline and play it by ear. The most revealing questions were often the ones that just came to you as you sat there, not the ones you had worked out in advance. And when there were two of you doing the interviewing, a whole new dynamic sprung up. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. Then you ended up with egg on your face. But young Wilson didn't seem to need telling what his role was, and that was good.

"She was with a group of people about her own age, and they were laughing and talking and drinking at the bar. Is that right?" Wilson went on.

"Yes."

"Did you see anybody touch her? If she had a special boyfriend, he might touch her on the shoulder, let his hand linger, hold hands, sneak a quick kiss, that sort of thing."

"I didn't see anything like that." Randall glared over at Banks. "But as I've been trying to explain, I wasn't paying much attention."

"Who left first?"

"They did. One minute they were there, noisy and full of themselves, the next minute they were gone and it was nice and quiet."

"Full of themselves? What do you mean by that?"

Randall shifted in his chair. "You know what I mean. Preening, showing off for one another, laughing at their own jokes, that sort of thing."

"Don't you like young people?"

"I don't like ruffians."

"And you think they were ruffians?"

"Well, I wouldn't have wanted to get on the wrong side of them. I know how things get around here on a weekend when they all go binge drinking. It's got so a decent person can't go out for a drink in town on a Saturday night. Sometimes I wonder what you police are here for. I've seen the vomit and the rubbish outside my shop the morning after."

"But this morning it was something different, wasn't it?" Banks said.

"The thing is, sir," Wilson cut in, so gently Banks admired him for it, "that the barmaid in the Duck and Drake distinctly remembers you ogling Hayley Daniels."

She hadn't actually used the word ogling, Banks knew, but it showed inventiveness on the new kid's part. It had so much more impact than "looking at" or even "eyeing up."

"I was doing no such thing," Randall replied. "As I told you, I was sitting there quietly with my drink, reading the paper."

"And you didn't even notice Hayley Daniels?"