'Whatever you did, I'm sure it was for love of my father.' Nightingale forced a smile although she felt an emotion close to hatred inside.

'Oh it was, it was. Trust me. And of course, it was better for you too, my dear. Just promise me you won't be angry. It was all done for the best.'

Nightingale's mind had become ruthlessly sharp despite the feebleness of her physical reaction. She had always been logical and this was something she could cling to as the foundations of her world crumbled. Why did her true mother give her up? How could she have borne to part with her own baby? And why on earth had her father's wife accepted his lover's child? She shrugged and the other woman seemed to take it for acceptance.

Amelia settled into the chair and continued her story.

'Diane died suddenly. Your father put her in her cot at eight o'clock in the evening, next to Simon. Mary had kept to her bed after the birth although it was an easy one. She was exhausted and tearful. Nowadays they'd call it postnatal depression but we just thought that she had a fit of the blues and that it would pa.s.s.

'At ten o'clock Simon started crying for his next feed and your father took him through to the kitchen. They were both on bottles. I don't know why your mother couldn't or wouldn't breast feed. Anyway, your father fed and changed Simon then went back for Diane. He thought she was fast asleep so he carried her downstairs...he was still carrying her in her little sleep suit when he arrived at my door. He'd run through the woods in his nightclothes...hadn't even stopped to put on a coat.' Amelia paused to take another drink.

'Lulu had gone to bed hours before but I was still up. He was almost hysterical by the time he arrived. I took him into the kitchen and he put the baby on the table. I unwrapped the blanket from around her and could tell at once that she was dead. I felt for a pulse to please him but it was clear she'd gone.

'We drank some whisky and he cried in my arms for a long time. He didn't know what to do. Mary was so depressed already and he thought this would push her over the edge. He fantasised that perhaps she hadn't realised she'd had twins but I put him straight on that, of course a mother would know.

'In the end, he left the dead baby with me and went back to the farm. He was going to tell Mary when she woke in the morning, not before.'

'And I was born that night.' It was a statement, not a question. Amelia nodded and blinked tears away from her eyes. 'Did you persuade my mother to give me up?'

She was amazed at the coolness of her voice when she was having to breathe deeply to prevent nausea from overwhelming her. Amelia shook her head.

'That's not quite what happened.'

When Amelia looked up into her shadowed face she flinched and turned away.

'You must tell me. Father would expect it.'

'I know.' Amelia nodded. 'You have to understand, your father was distraught, not just with grief but with fear for your mother's, sorry, Mary's state of mind. And Lulu, well she was a lovely girl in a superficial sort of way, but flighty and high-spirited. She was an artist. Who knows what sort of mother she'd have made. She led a bohemian life, never staying with a man for long.'

Nightingale pressed her lips together to prevent an outburst that would only alienate this woman but inside she was burning with indignation for her mother impregnated then left by her father to fend for herself and to be maligned by his friends.

'Lulu went into labour about two in the morning, after your father had left. It all happened incredibly quickly. I'd been a nurse not a trained midwife, but I had no chance to call a doctor. Her waters broke and within an hour she was in the final stages.

'When you were born you didn't cry straight away and I thought you might be dead too. I wrapped you in a hand towel and I brought you downstairs. Something, perhaps the change of temperature, made you hiccough and your eyes opened but you still didn't cry, you just made a little mewing sound.'

Amelia had to stop. Tears soaked her cheeks and she sobbed for some time. Nightingale said nothing. She had guessed what happened next but it was part of Amelia's penance to admit it. The older woman blew her nose and sniffed loudly.

'I found another towel, a clean one, and swapped it for the one you'd been wrapped in. Then I put you in a blanket. Lulu was crying out to me. I didn't even think. It was as if some voice outside me was giving me instructions. I undressed the dead baby girl. My hands and ap.r.o.n were still covered with dried blood. I damped her tufts of hair down and wrapped her in the b.l.o.o.d.y towel. She was only a day old and still looked almost newborn. I wetted my hands and put some of the blood on her face. Then I took her back upstairs and stood in the doorway.

'I just stood there and Lulu looked at me with this awful fear in her eyes. I didn't say anything, neither did she. She just stared at the b.l.o.o.d.y bundle in my arms, then she let out a terrible wail. It was awful, like an animal howling. I handed her the baby and she held her to her chest. All the time these terrible sobs just kept coming. She was rocking to and fro. I've never, to this day, seen someone abandon themselves to so much grief.

'But I kept quiet even then. I was certain that I was doing things for the best, you see. I tried to take the baby away from her. It was already starting to stiffen and I didn't want her to notice but she just clung on to it. So I had to sort out the afterbirth, tidy her up, do all the necessaries to the sound of that terrible caterwauling.'

Nightingale couldn't keep quiet anymore.

'She was grieving for her child! Don't you think she was ent.i.tled to cry?'

It was so apparent to Nightingale that Amelia had hated Lulu, even when she'd pretended to befriend her. Amelia's jealousy, fuelled by her father's affection for Lulu, had twisted her thinking until she was able to camouflage the most hateful and spiteful of acts beneath a layer of self-appointed do-gooding. By switching the babies she had exacted a brilliant revenge on all those whom she most resented: Lulu was deprived of her love child and Mary was duped into taking an imposter into her home. Nightingale's anger kept her own grief at bay but only her determination to hear out the final chapter in Amelia's story kept her from screaming.

'As soon as Lulu fell asleep, still clutching the baby, I wrapped you in the blanket your father had used to bring Diane to the house and set off for Mill Farm. I had to reach there before breakfast so that you could be washed, reclothed and laid next to Simon. You were so quiet and docile it was if you were colluding with me...'

Amelia ignored Nightingale's sharp intake of breath and carried on talking.

'...I'd expected your father to be awake given his terrible experience only hours before but I had to knock loudly to wake him. When he saw the baby he was furious, thinking I'd brought Diane back, but then you cried for the first time and he nearly collapsed.

'I explained what had happened, about what I'd done. At first he thought it was an impossible idea. He said that his wife would be bound to spot the difference, but you kept on crying and he looked at you properly for the first time. I knew then that he would never let you go. The love on his face... I could tell at once that I was right.'

Nightingale swallowed the stone in her throat and blinked back tears. She was not about to break down in front of this monster who had played G.o.d with so many people's lives whilst masquerading as their friend.

'He fed, bathed and dressed you whilst I watched. I'd never felt closer to him and I could tell he felt the same. We formed an eternal bond.'

Nightingale snorted and Amelia bristled.

'He never forgot what I'd done for him, how much I'd risked for his sake!'

'And my real mother, what about her? Did she ever find out?'

'No, of course not. Who was going to tell her? Very few people even knew that she'd been pregnant your father, aunt, me, one or two friends so there was never any curiosity.'

'What happened to her?'

'When I got back to the house she was awake and crying again. She wanted to tell your father about his dead child but I persuaded her that I would make the call. I had to watch her constantly that day. She would have been quite capable of trying to reach the farm on her own, even in the state she was, and there would have been a risk of scandal if someone from the village saw her.

'In the end, your father came down in the afternoon to see her. He looked terrible of course. When he saw Lulu and the baby he broke down completely. For a moment I thought he was going to tell her the truth but he saw me shaking my head and he said nothing. I left them alone. When he came out almost an hour later he kissed my cheek and left without a word.

'Somehow he managed to persuade Lulu not to have the baby buried in the churchyard. She was into some sort of Buddhist hippie cult or other, so it was probably an easy thing to do. The birth was never registered and neither was Diane's death, that way he was able to keep the whole affair secret.

'He and Lulu went out together later with the baby's body and they buried her somewhere. I have no idea where and I never wanted to know. Lulu went back to London and saw a personal friend who was a doctor. Mary and your father returned home days later with their babies and that was that.'

'That was that.' The anger in Nightingale's voice made Amelia's eyes open wide. 'A tricky little problem solved, and in a way that made sure that my father was bound to you forever by the secret you shared. Whilst you had neatly revenged yourself on the two women who had stolen him from you in the first place, his wife and mistress!'

'That's not how it was at all.' Amelia stood up abruptly, knocking her chair so that it fell with a clatter on the flags. 'I acted in the very best interests of all concerned. Really Louise, try to understand. It was in your interests too. I admit that I resented Lulu but I'm not being unfair. She would have made a terrible mother.'

'She never had a chance to try, you took it away from her! Don't you realise that what you did was twisted and destructive? You almost destroyed my life. G.o.d knows what you did to my mother's. And you dare to presume to dress it up as well intended! What about my mother's right to her child and mine to a true mother who would have loved me?'

'Loved you! What sort of life do you think you'd have had with that woman? She got over her grief quickly enough to be engaged within six months! You have to listen. I knew then that she wouldn't have kept you, and I still believe so now. You would have been given up for adoption and at least this way you grew up with your natural father and half-brother. And I saved your mother the grief over Diane.'

'I didn't replace poor dead Diane. My father didn't want me to be her, and I fought against the shadow of that lie my whole life without ever being conscious of what I was doing. I'm Louise Nightingale and I know, without you even having to tell me, that that was my real mother's chosen name for me, the one that my father whispered over my cot, then my bed when he thought I was asleep.

'And you failed, don't you realise? As I grew up, looking more like my true mother every day, I was a constant reminder to my father of the woman he had loved and then betrayed. Far from destroying her hold over him, you placed a constant memory in his home. Take that thought to your cold, empty bed each night! Now go, please, before I do something I might regret.'

Amelia turned without another word and stumbled out into the storm, her head bent low, perhaps against the wind. When the car disappeared beneath the trees Nightingale turned inside and closed the heavy oak door. There were no bolts left to ram home so she wedged the upturned chair beneath its handle then did the same with the back door.

She made herself a strong cup of tea. Despite the revelations of the past half-hour she felt remarkably calm and in control, as if she had fought her way through an exhausting battle and had emerged triumphant. She was filled with new respect for Mary, who must have known but who said nothing to her, even when taunted. More importantly, for the first time in her life she knew who she really was. With that knowledge came renewed confidence and a sense of responsibility.

There were decisions to be taken but she would make them carefully and with consideration for others. Should she tell Simon and his wife? Should she try and find her real mother? To do so might achieve personal closure but what would it do to her? By now Lulu would have finished grieving for her daughter and have rebuilt her life.

Her poor 'mother' Mary. At what stage had she started to suspect the truth about the troublesome daughter she found so difficult to love? When had she finally looked at her and seen that she had a cuckoo in the nest, an interloper who had grown daily more like the woman her husband had taken as a lover right up to and beyond their wedding day? It was a terrible thought.

But there was one decision that was easily made. She was going to find her half-sister's grave and ensure that it was consecrated after all these years. It was the least she could do and she wasn't going to leave Mill Farm with her new responsibility unfulfilled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

Only eight o'clock but London was hot already, exhaust fumes coated commuter throats with an invisible greasy film. Fenwick carried his jacket. There'd been no calls from Robyn or Knotty overnight and he wasn't looking forward to his meeting with MacIntyre at nine. He bought an iced coffee and found a bench in the shade of a tree where he could sit while he called them. Knotty answered quickly.

'I was just about to phone. I spoke to the Smith family doctor last night. He was at home and he'd had a drink or two before I arrived so I think he was a bit more open than if I'd seen him at the surgery.'

'Good thinking. What did he say?'

'Physically they were fit as fleas but the father suffered from depression that became worse as he grew older. The wife had anxiety attacks.'

'And the son?'

A woman with a baby in a pushchair came and sat on the other end of the bench. Fenwick cursed under his breath and angled away from her.

'He was a bit less specific there but I got the impression that the illness that kept him away from school for so long wasn't a physical one. The doctor gave me the name of a Sanatorium nearby. They specialise in helping adolescents with problems: drug addiction, anti-social behaviour, phobias, you name it. And he also said that David Smith junior went there voluntarily.'

'You're going there today?'

'I'm on my way now. Then I've an appointment with the drama teacher at ten. I should just make it.'

'Any trace of Wendy?'

'Not yet. Have a heart, I'm on my own up here.'

'Yes, right, good. I mean well done. Call me as soon as you have anything. Oh, and the box from the loft, have forensics found any prints?'

The girl with the baby was staring at him now.

'They've been sent; should be waiting for you, sir.'

'OK, I'll speak to you later.'

He arrived at the Met early. It wasn't what he'd wanted to do in case MacIntyre saw him before he'd had a chance to call Robyn. His fears proved justified. When he walked in MacIntyre was leaving him a message on his desk.

'Andrew, good. We can start right away. I have to brief the Commander at nine-fifteen. The Home Office has been on again. Lucinda's father is complaining about our lack of progress. Come along. We'll use my office.'

'Any developments whilst I've been away?'

'Nothing since the breakthrough with the print on the knife...and before you ask, no I haven't had them tested against those from the prison letters or the flat break-in, it's been b.l.o.o.d.y intense here. Unlike Telford, I imagine. What's your news?'

Fenwick experienced an all too familiar sinking feeling.

'At the moment, little more than I told you on the phone yesterday. We found out where Griffiths was fostered but there's no trace of the Smith family. I still think there's a strong possibility that David Smith junior is Killer B but at the moment that's just an hypothesis.'

'Smart words for pure conjecture.' MacIntyre's tone was sharp. 'Not my comment, your ACC's.'

'Harper-Brown has spoken to you?'

'He called yesterday, curious to know how you were getting on.'

Fenwick's heart sank even further. The ACC never missed an opportunity to put the knife in.

'I see.' They were non-committal words but they didn't fool MacIntyre.

'I'm sorry, Andrew but I just told him straight. I didn't make a value judgement but he drew his own conclusions.' Fenwick said nothing as he sat down in MacIntyre's office. 'I'm not going to repeat what I said on the phone. You know my opinion of your visit north.'

'Yes. You made it very clear. If it all comes to nothing I can't say anything that will make you feel differently but...'

'And I've had a call this morning from a Chief Inspector Cave.' He waited expectantly for Fenwick to say something.

'Ah,' was all he could think of.

'I told you not to go in heavy-handed.'

'I didn't. I was diplomacy itself. It's just that I'm really concerned about this poor girl, Ginny.'

'It's not your case though is it? And there's no proven link to Killer B though I've sent the bite marks off for comparison anyway. You weren't on your patch. For heaven's sake, grow up.'

Fenwick didn't try to excuse himself. If Robyn and Knotty couldn't make a clearer link between Smith and the murders, the whole visit would have been a career-damaging waste of time.

'I'll let you have my report later this morning. Good luck with the Commander.'

He refused to become depressed. He'd taken a calculated risk in going to Telford. If nothing more came of it than confirming where Griffiths lived as a teenager then so be it but there were leads still to be checked out and he hadn't given up hope.

The fingerprints from the box and its contents were waiting for him as Knotty had promised. He sent them off for a.n.a.lysis with those from the prison and flat, abusing MacIntyre's name to secure priority treatment. Robyn called him as he was finishing his report at ten.

'Sir, I think I've found something.' He could hear the excitement in her voice. 'There are hundreds of cases, so I thought of what you said about looking for patterns. I chose two years when Smith and Griffiths were at school together then looked for crimes committed during lunch break or in the two hours after school broke up, and within walking distance of the school.

'I found thirty two similar crimes that took place during term time, never in school holidays.'

'What sort?'

'I'll come to that in a minute.' Her directness reminded him of Nightingale and he smiled despite his mood. 'I went back over the other years that they were both at school to when Griffiths would have been thirteen. There's a definite pattern.

'At first, it was minor acts of vandalism or theft, a brick through a window, plants pulled up in a back garden, clothing stolen from the line, always women's clothing. But then the incidents became more serious. There were twelve complaints about a peeping tom or prowler, sixteen reports of indecent a.s.sault and one for attempted rape. There was a full investigation of the a.s.saults and attempted rape and I haven't had a chance to go through all the files but the attackers are described as teenagers in every case. The attempted rape was reported on July 3rd, the year the boys left school.'

'That's fantastic! Write it up and send your report here as quick as you can. This matches the profilers' descriptions of A and B. You've got a copy of the photograph from Smith senior's desk, and I'll send you an e-fit, show them to the victims. There's an officer there who might be able to help you, Siobahn...'

'Yes, sir, I know.' There was a smile in her voice. 'I work here remember. The report's almost finished and I have the addresses of the women ready.'