"Where are his clinical files?"

"We can't get access to them."

"Who is his psychiatrist?"

"Dr. Victoria Naparstek."

The penny drops. I met Dr. Naparstek eighteen months ago at a mental health tribunal hearing that involved one of her patients. She called me an arrogant, condescending, misogynistic p.r.i.c.k because I bullied her patient into showing his true personality. I got him to admit that he fantasized about following Dr. Naparstek home and raping her.

Did I bully him? Yes. Did I overstep the boundaries? Absolutely, but the good doctor should have thanked me. Instead, she threatened to report me to the British Psychological Society and have me disciplined.

Why would she recommend me for this case? Something doesn't make sense.

Drury is waiting for my decision. I glance at Charlie, wishing she were home.

"OK, I'll talk to your suspect, but first I want to see the crime scene."

"Why?"

"Context."

3.

The Land Rover skids and fishtails through the slush, following a farm track towards a copse of skeletal trees that are guarding the ridge. The plowed fields are bathed in a strange yellow glow, as though the snow has soaked up the weak sunshine like a fluorescent watch-face before reflecting it back again as an eerie twilight.

The eighteenth-century farmhouse seems to lean against the ridge, protected from the wind. Soot blackens the paintwork above the upstairs windows, like mascara on a teenage Goth.

Released from the claustrophobic heat of the car, I feel the wind tug at my trouser cuffs and collar. Drury leads me across the lawn. He signs a clipboard and hands me a pair of surgical gloves.

"The victims are Patricia Heyman, aged forty-two, and William Heyman, forty-five. Married. One child. Flora. She's studying at one of the colleges in Oxford. Mrs. Heyman writes children's books and the husband is a freelance editor. They bought the house three years ago. Both work from home."

"Any sign of forced entry?"

"The front door was kicked in. Nothing was taken. We found four hundred pounds in a drawer beside the bed and William Heyman had his wallet in his pocket. That's the problem with amateurs."

"Pardon?"

"They panic and do stupid things. A professional thief wouldn't leave a mess like this."

The DCI unlocks a padlock and pulls aside a sheet of plywood. Snow tumbles from the eaves. The inner hallway looks largely undisturbed. Glancing through double doors, I notice a sitting room with an inglenook fireplace and exposed oak beams. The dining room has a vaulted ceiling and another fireplace. Cast-iron. Fat-bellied. There is a faint smell in the air, a mixture of smoke, butane and bleach.

Almost without thinking I'm collecting the details: signs of normal, everyday life; cups draining next to the sink; scourers, rubber gloves, sc.r.a.ps of vegetables in a compost bin; a tin of drinking chocolate on the kitchen counter. Open. The Aga stove is cold.

Drury is still talking. "This is where we found the husband. Face down. Two blows to the back of the head. Something heavy, blunt-a hammer maybe or an axe. He dragged himself across the floor, trying to get away."

The blood trail has dried into a dark smear.

"What about his wife?"

"She was upstairs tied to the bed. She was still alive when the a.s.sailant doused her with an accelerant, possibly lighter fluid."

"The fire didn't spread?"

"Damaged the room, but didn't get into the ceiling."

The smell of bleach is stronger here. A side door near the dishwasher leads to the laundry. Wellington boots are lined up-three pairs for mother, father and daughter. A soiled dress is soaking in the tub.

In the living room there are two mugs on a side table. Hot chocolate. Half-finished. A third mug lies in pieces in the fireplace. A bottle of Scotch rests on the mantelpiece. Opened. Single malt. Twenty years. A drop for special occasions.

Propped against a drying rack, a thin pair of leather shoes. Ballet flats. Charlie wears them.

The DCI continues. "It happened on Thursday night, during the blizzard. Half the county was blacked out. Roads closed. Phone lines down. Someone made a 999 call from William Heyman's mobile at the height of the storm, but the emergency switchboard was swamped and they were put on hold."

"How long?"

"Four, maybe five minutes. By the time the operator answered, the caller had gone."

Drury gives me a baleful stare. "It was a h.e.l.l of a night: dozens of accidents, people stranded in their cars; the M40 was like a car park."

He leads me upstairs. Crossing duckboards on the floor, I reach the main bedroom and recognize the sickly sweet odor of burning flesh, human fat turned to liquid.

Snow swirls through the shattered window before gathering in a corner of the bedroom. Almost every other surface is covered in a fine layer of black soot. The blaze began on the mattress. Layers of bedding are peeled back to reveal the cross-like outline of undamaged fabric. The outline of a body-two arms, two legs, a torso; Patricia Heyman's body had protected the mattress from the flames.

"Her hands were tied above her head," says Drury.

"Was she clothed?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Pajamas and a dressing gown."

There is an en suite bathroom. The frosted gla.s.s window is broken, but not from the heat. Someone tried to force it open, cracking the paint that covers the hinges. Cold water fills the bath, coated in soap sc.u.m. Matching towels are folded side by side on the heated rail. A third towel-not from the same set-is resting on a wicker laundry basket.

Further along the corridor is Flora Heyman's bedroom. Her wardrobe door is open. Clothes lie discarded on the bed. Someone has searched through them. I check the sizes.

"Does the daughter live at home?"

"She has digs in Oxford," says Drury. "Comes home most weekends."

"Tell me about the suspect."

"Augie Shaw. Twenty-five. Local lad. Been in trouble before. He does odd jobs around the place-mowing lawns, cutting firewood, fixing fences, that sort of thing. He's worked for the Heymans since they moved into the place, but he was fired two weeks ago."

"Why?"

"Flora says her old man found Shaw inside the house going through her personal things."

"Personal things?"

"Her underwear."

"Who reported the fire?"

"A search and rescue volunteer was driving past the farmhouse and noticed the smoke. He called it in. We found Augie Shaw's car in a snowdrift at the bottom of the hill.

"About an hour later his mother showed up at Abingdon Police Station and said Augie had something to tell us. He had burns on his hands."

"What was he doing at the house?"

"He says he was collecting his wages. Termination pay."

"In the middle of a blizzard?"

"Exactly. According to Shaw, the fire was already burning when he arrived. He went inside and tried to save Mrs. Heyman."

"Why didn't he raise the alarm?"

"He went for help but the roads were so icy he put his car into a ditch. He walked the rest of the way to Abingdon and went straight home. Went to bed. Forgot to tell us."

"He forgot?"

"It gets better. He says his brother told him not to go to the police."

"Where is the brother?"

"He doesn't have one. Like I said, he's not playing with the full deck. Either that or faking it."

Retreating downstairs, I follow a side path to a rear terrace garden, where rose bushes, heavily pruned, push through the snow. My gaze sweeps from the gate to the barn and then the orchard, unsure of what I'm looking for.

Several times I walk to the fence and back again. How soon did a person become lost in the trees? How easy is it to watch a house like this and not be seen?

A psychologist views a crime scene differently from a detective. Police search for physical clues and witnesses. I look at the overall picture and the salience of certain landmarks and features. Some roads, for example, act as psychological barriers. People living on one side may almost never cross over to the other. The same applies to railway lines and rivers. Boundaries alter behavior.

Grievous joins me in the yard, knocking snow off his shoes.

"Some places are just unlucky," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"This is where Tash McBain lived."

"Who?"

"You remember her," he says. "She was one of the Bingham Girls."

I feel myself reaching for a memory and coming back with half a story, a headline and a photograph of two teenage girls.

"Her family was renting this place," explains Grievous. "But after she went missing, they split up. Divorced. Couldn't handle not knowing."

"The girls didn't turn up."

"Never. It's one of those mysteries that locals still talk about. I remember when it happened. This place was crawling with reporters and TV crews."

"You worked the case?"

"I was still in uniform-a probationary constable."

"What do you think happened to them?"

He shrugs. "Five thousand people are reported missing every year in Thames Valley. More than half are kids, twelve to eighteen, runaways most of them. They turn up eventually... or they don't."

Drury emerges from the house and tells Grievous to bring the Land Rover.

"What about the dog?" I ask.

"Pardon?"

"The family had a dog."

"How do you know?"

"There was a water bowl in the laundry and an empty dog-food tin in the rubbish bin. Something short-haired; black and white, maybe a Jack Russell."

He shakes his head, but I see a question mark ghost across his eyes. He dismisses it and pulls on his gloves.

"It's time you met Augie Shaw."

Until we went missing the worst thing that had ever happened in Bingham was when a German bomber overshot London by eighty miles and dropped its payload on a community hall where people were sheltering. The death toll was never made public-the government wanted to protect morale-but local historians said twenty-one people died.

The next worst thing was the night that Aiden Foster ran down Callum Loach and crushed both his legs, which had to be amputated above his knees. Now he has these stumps, but mostly he wears prosthetic legs made of skin-colored plastic.

Tash giggled at the term prosthetic. She thought it sounded like prophylactic, which is a fancy name for a condom. That reminded me of when our PE teacher (Miss Trunchbull) put a condom on a banana in s.e.x-ed cla.s.s. Tash raised her hand and said, "Why do we need protection from bananas, Miss?"

I laughed so hard I almost wet myself. Tash got sent to see Mrs. Jacobson, the headmistress (otherwise known as Lady Adolf). Tash had been to see her so often she should have had a frequent offender's card.

Going missing made Tash and me popular. Sack loads of mail arrived at our houses: letters, cards, poems and pictures from mums, dads, children, churches and schools. The Prime Minister wrote. So did the Prince of Wales.

When school started there were TV cameras outside the gates of St. Catherine's. Most of our friends were interviewed: everyone except for Emily, who was kept away from the cameras. She was the other member of our gang. Emily Martinez. She's six months older, slightly overweight and she says "Wow!" a lot. I didn't like her at first because she had this Little Miss Perfect thing going. Then I felt sorry for her because her parents were getting a divorce and fighting over her.