'No, this is strictly off the record. Even if she was prepared to authorise it, and there's no real reason yet, you know how long it takes to go through the proper channels. We could be waiting weeks, if not months.'

She smiled. He could talk himself into anything if he wanted. 'You don't have to justify it to me, you know. Steele's the one you should worry about, if she finds out you've gone behind her back.'

He spread his hands. 'Look, Harper lives around the corner from Trevor and she's prepared to talk to me right away. We're meeting at his house. It's the weekend, after all. In her own private time and mine.' He spoke hurriedly, trying to downplay what he was doing.

She shook her head. There was no persuading Mark, particularly when he had Trevor Clarke behind him. 'What about Simon? You are going to tell him, aren't you?'

Tartgalia gave her a blank look. 'He's not here to tell, is he? Anyway, as you say, I can't risk word getting back to Steele. There's no point in pissing her off unnecessarily and I don't entirely trust Simon to look after my best interests.'

19.

At that time of night the roads were clear and it took Donovan little more than five minutes to drive the short distance from Tartaglia's flat in Shepherd's Bush to where she lived in Hammersmith with her sister Claire. The house was in the middle of a low-built, late-Victorian terrace, the narrow street running down to the Thames, just along from Hammersmith Bridge. Wedged between the river and the busy A4, which carved a thick groove through Hammersmith from east to west, it was a small, characterful pocket of town, with a tidy strip of park along the embankment and a couple of great pubs, offering views of the water and bridge. The only downside was the pollution and permanent drone of traffic from the A4. But it was one of the reasons Claire had originally been able to afford to buy the house and, after living there for nearly five years, Donovan barely noticed the noise any longer.

She walked up the path and let herself in through the front door. The TV blared out from the small front sitting room, where Claire was curled up on the sofa in her pyjamas and a new pink patterned dressing gown, watching the Steven Seagal film, which was still running.

'How's it going?' Claire asked, without looking up, vigorously scraping the bottom of a tub of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and putting the last spoonful into her mouth.

'Still no breakthrough, or even a glimmer of one. How about you?' Donovan took off her coat and dumped it down on a chair with her bag.

'Oh, just the usual. Although a new case came in today which might be quite interesting for a change. We've got a Russian mail order bride charged with murdering her husband, although nobody can pro-duce the body. From what I can see, the CPS are really chancing it.'

Claire worked in a large criminal law firm, defending a whole host of clients charged with anything from parking and speeding fines to the occasional murder.

Loud screams and shouts burst from the TV and her eyes flicked for a moment back to the screen. A group of oriental-looking men were flying through the air performing incredible spin-kicks while Seagal stood in the centre, fending them off single-handedly and barely breaking sweat. He looked as though he had put on a lot of years and weight since Donovan had last seen one of his films, but the ponytail was still the same. She could watch Kill Bill I and II over and over again, but Seagal left her cold.

After Seagal had made easy mincemeat of everyone on screen, the film cut to the commercials and Claire swung her long, pale legs off the sofa and stood up.

'You look knackered,' she said, sliding her feet into some fluffy pink slippers and stooping to give Donovan a peck on the cheek. She smelled of some sort of sweet floral soap or bath oil. Even in her bare feet, Claire was nearly a foot taller than Sam, with shoulder-length dark, curly hair, which was clipped up on top of her head, the wispy ends around her neck still damp from the bath. Two years older than Donovan, she took after their father in her colouring and physique, while Donovan looked more like their mother's side of the family. Although, as their mother was just over five feet seven, nobody knew why Donovan had stopped growing so soon. Many an annoying bad joke had been made about it, as well as about the lack of any resemblance between the two girls.

'I was just going to make a cup of tea,' Claire said. 'Do you want one?'

'Why not? Though actually, I could do with something stronger.' Donovan followed Claire down the narrow hall into the kitchen at the back. 'Is there any wine? I couldn't find any yesterday evening.'

Claire shook her head. 'I'll get some tomorrow. I've got to do a big shop and it's my turn to cook tomorrow night, if you're in. Are you working?'

'Yes. But I should be home in time for dinner. It's not as though we've got any suspects on the horizon.'

Apart from a glass of wine, she wasn't sure what she fancied. She went over to the cupboard in the corner and, after rummaging around in the back, eventually pulled out a half-empty tin of drinking chocolate. 'Maybe I'll have this.'

'Not unless you want it with water,' Claire said, filling the kettle and turning it on. 'Afraid there's only a drop of milk left.'

'Damn. Suppose it'll have to be tea.' Donovan shoved the tin back in the cupboard and shut the door with a bang. 'You know, you and I need someone like Mark Tartaglia to keep house for us. I'll bet he never runs out of wine or milk or anything important.'

'You mean he has some poor woman to do it for him.'

'No. He's just like that. You should see his cupboards. He has at least three sorts of vinegar and at least as many different types of olive oil.'

'Well, I wish he lived here,' Claire said, pulling out a couple of boxes of teabags from another cupboard and examining the contents.

'He'd have a heart attack.'

'Herbal or English Breakfast? Although there's only one bag of the Breakfast and you'll have to have camomile if you want herbal.'

'I suppose you want the Breakfast. I'll have camomile, then, if there's really nothing else.'

'Thanks. I can't stand camomile. I think you must have bought it.'

'I think the cooking thing is because of his family,' Donovan said, sure that she hadn't brought the camomile into the house. 'His mother's even published an Italian cookbook.'

'They have some sort of Italian deli up in Edinburgh, I sort of remember.'

'Yes. Although calling it a deli is a bit like calling the Ritz a motel.'

'Well, that probably explains why he didn't seem to like the spaghetti carbonara I cooked when you brought him round last time.' The kettle pinged. Claire selected a couple of mugs from the collection on the draining rack and made the tea. 'He was far too polite to say so,' she said, passing Donovan her mug, 'but I noticed he left all the bacon bits tucked under his knife and fork.'

'I'm surprised he ate that much. I remember it was like glue.'

Claire shrugged. 'Well, I'm playing safe tomorrow. You're getting Tesco's finest. I haven't got time to be creative.'

'Thank goodness for that.' Donovan removed her teabag and dropped it into the bin.

'I've got a whole load of errands to do tomorrow morning, then I'm having lunch with a girlfriend, so I'll probably get to Tesco's some time late afternoon. Let me know if you want me to get you anything.'

Donovan smiled. 'Errands' usually meant clothes shopping. 'Don't forget the wine.'

'Oh, yes.' Claire took a piece of paper from a pad by the fridge and added it to the already lengthy list. 'If you think of anything else, put it down here. And if you want to ask Mark or anyone else over for supper, give me a call.'

'Jake not around?' Jake was Claire's boyfriend. He was a criminal barrister and they had been together for about six months, although they rarely saw much of each other, both working long hours and often at weekends. Sometimes Donovan wondered what the point was, although her own job was no different in terms of the demands it made on her personal life.

'He's off seeing his parents this weekend, so it's just us.' Claire headed back to the sitting room with her mug of tea. As she opened the door, the strains of the Seagal film blasted down the corridor.

Donovan decided to finish her tea in the kitchen before going upstairs to run a bath. The small scrubbed pine kitchen table was covered with Claire's files and papers from the case she was working on and Donovan had to move them carefully aside in order to put down her mug. As she picked up Claire's yellow legal pad and pen, about to put it on top of the pile, something tugged at her memory. She sat down and took a sip of the strong, hot tea. It was then that she remembered what it was.

She retrieved her phone from her handbag in the hall and dialled Tartaglia's number.

'I've just thought of something,' she said, when he answered. 'There were some files or books or something on the floor by the window in Catherine Watson's flat.'

'I don't remember.'

'Can you put the disc in again? Tab to the sitting room. In the corner, by the window, next to one of the large cushions. I'm sure there were some papers or something.'

'OK. Give me a minute.'

She listened as he carried the phone into the other room and she heard the Seagal film in stereo, until the DVD player kicked in.

'Here we are,' he said, after a moment. 'You're right. It looks as though she was doing some work sitting in the window. I can see a pen, some papers and a couple of books on the floor beside them, although I can't read what they are. We'll have to get it blown up tomorrow.'

'Can you look in the exhibits file and see what's listed?'

'OK.'

He came back to the phone after a moment. 'Here it is: two books...ten sheets of A4 paper. That's all. Clearly nobody was very interested.' She heard the ringing of another phone in the background. 'Hang on a sec,' he said. 'It's Simon. I'll ask him if he remembers what they were.'

She couldn't hear what was said over the noise from the television, but it wasn't long before Tartaglia returned.

'He's pissed,' he said, disgustedly. 'And there's more. It's a bloody good thing he's not here in this room with me now.'

'Why?' she asked, surprised at the force of his tone. 'What did he say?'

'He didn't remember the books at all, just the papers. He said they weren't at all important and he told me we were wasting our time. When I told him we'd be the bloody judge of that and that we wanted to know what they were, this is what that gormless idiot said: "Well, it was just something she was working on," he mimicked Turner's lazy drawl. "Nothing, really. Something about a girl called Dolores."'

20.

'I can't believe this meant nothing to you, that you didn't make the link.' Donovan stared at Turner incredulously, waving the sheets of paper in front of his nose, although she felt like shoving them in his face. They were photocopies of the originals recovered from Catherine Watson's flat. The ten pages of typed, double spaced A4 formed part of a chapter Watson had been writing on Swinburne and she quoted freely from the poem 'Dolores' as well as discussing its meaning.

As a normal part of the processing of a crime scene, Watson's flat had been more or less stripped and its contents taken away and listed. Those items thought worthy of the expense of forensic analysis had gone off to the lab, eventually ending up in the secure storage facility there for reference if the case ever came to trial. The rest of the items, including the papers, had been sent to store elsewhere, in case they were needed at some later point. It had taken Karen Feeney and Dave Wightman all morning to locate them.

Turner grimaced and shook his head slowly, as though he couldn't believe his stupidity. 'Sam, for Christ's sake, it was over a year ago. As far as we were concerned, they were just a pile of papers Catherine Watson was working on. Why would I make the connection with your poem? Anyway, I thought you told me it was called Lady of Pain.'

'No I didn't,' she said angrily, looking him in the eye. She hoped he wasn't going to try and blame her for his mistake.

It was early afternoon on Saturday and the first time Turner had shown his face in the office that day. He stood beside her desk, leaning back against the wall, his large hands stuffed awkwardly in the pockets of his trousers. Everything seemed to wash over him as though his thoughts and priorities were elsewhere. He had bothered to shave for a change and was wearing a clean pale blue shirt, which picked up the colour of his eyes. If she hadn't been feeling so cross with him, she would have told him how nice he looked. Still clutching the pages, she stared at him without speaking, wondering if the stress he was under had dulled his faculties or if he was usually this vague. She couldn't imagine Tartaglia ever forgetting one single detail of a case, however old. But not everyone was like him.

Turner leaned forwards towards her and spread his hands. 'You know, hindsight's a brilliant thing,Sam. But you've got to understand: the papers meant nothing at all in terms of the case at the time. Nothing at all. They belonged to Watson, some stuff she was working on. They had nothing to do with her killer.'

She put the papers down on the desk. Grudgingly, she had to admit that he had a point, although she wasn't sure that Tartaglia would see it that way. There was no reason for Turner or Gifford to have given the papers and books on Watson's floor a second thought. It wouldn't matter to either of them that Catherine Watson's area of speciality was nineteenth-century English literature, nor would the verses from the poem have seemed at all significant.

Turner leaned over and picked up the sheets. 'So, what have we got here?' He started to go slowly through them, wetting the tip of his thumb to help separate the pages. 'Some sort of an essay, right?'

'No. It's chapter six of what looks to me like an academic paper or book. The title "The Decadents: A Reappraisal" is the header.'

'You sure this isn't someone's essay?'

'It's far too well written, plus it's far too long. Assuming the notes and corrections are in her writing, I'd say it's her own work she was editing.'

'We can easily match the handwriting,' he said, still leafing through. 'Looks like she didn't finish what she was doing. The corrections stop halfway through.'

'Perhaps she was interrupted or just put it down for some reason and didn't have time to go back to it.'

He rested the papers lightly on his thigh and looked at her. 'Maybe she gets a phone call, or maybe she was even doing it when the killer arrived.'

'I can't imagine sitting down to do this sort of thing if I was waiting for a hot date.'

He smiled. 'I suppose you'd be making yourself pretty?'

'Or doing the cooking,' she said sternly, annoyed that he was trying to make light of things. 'I certainly wouldn't be editing my book.'

'Well, you're not an English teacher. And Catherine Watson wasn't as pretty as you.'

'Lecturer,' she corrected him, refusing to look him in the eye. She wasn't usually pedantic but she didn't want him to think he could win her over that easily.

'Whatever. To be honest, we don't know who she was expecting that night. The candles and all the stuff she bought made us think she had a date, but we might have been wrong. Maybe she just had a mate dropping by.'

'It doesn't matter. The point is, the papers were there in the room when she was murdered and the killer must have seen them.'

He nodded slowly. 'You know two pages are missing in the middle, don't you?'

'What? Let me see.'

He passed her the papers and she flicked through them.

'Pages sixty-three and sixty-four, you'll find.'

'You're right,' she said, annoyed at not having spotted it. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to picture the scene. 'There were two piles of paper on the floor, I seem to remember. Maybe she put the stuff down in separate piles when she was interrupted so she could pick up later where she left off. I'll have to get some close-up stills done from the crime scene tape.'

Turner shrugged as if it didn't matter. 'You're sending them all off for analysis?'

'Yes. It's being rushed through.'

'That'll cost a pretty penny. What do you expect to find?'

'A fingerprint or DNA, if we're lucky.'

'You really think the killer touched them?'

'How else would he have seen the poem? It's a few pages in from the beginning of the chapter.'

He nodded. 'Good point. Guess that's the advantage of having a fresh pair of eyes.'

And a clear, sober mind, she wanted to say, but stopped herself. 'So, what have you been doing today, other than having a lie-in?'

Her tone came out more sharply than she had intended but he gave her a forgiving smile.