"Answer my question, Mr. Martinez."

"I don't have to listen to you."

"But you do have to sit down."

The scientist retakes his seat. Shocked. Angry.

This man is either telling the truth or he's an expert liar, practiced to the point of being pathologically good. Drury has done everything right-pushing for details, looking for the minutiae that so often trip up a suspect because lying is harder to sustain than the truth. But Phillip Martinez is even more remarkable. His answers sound so credible. He doesn't embellish or avoid eye contact. There are no gaps or clumsy repet.i.tions. He is genuinely concerned about Emily-asking about her constantly, accusing his ex-wife of orchestrating her disappearance.

On the night of the Bingham festival he had a phone call from a doctor saying that his ex-wife had been admitted to Littlemore Hospital in Oxford suffering from auditory hallucinations. He called Emily and met her at the house and that's where he spent the night. He didn't see Piper arrive. He didn't know Emily was planning to run away.

It's the same story when he's questioned about the blizzard. He and Emily ate dinner and watched TV until the power went out. Then they played a game of Scrabble by candlelight before going to bed.

It's a bravura performance of a wronged man. Misunderstood. Angry. Frustrated. p.r.i.c.kly.

Drury takes a break after two hours. Regulations must be followed. I meet him in the corridor.

"Have you been listening?" he asks, taking deep swallows from a bottle of water.

"Yes."

"It's like he knows the questions are coming."

"He's had three years to prepare."

Drury's chest expands as though plates of muscle are moving beneath his shirt. "How do I break him down?"

"Maybe you can't. The very best liars are those people who are good at lying to themselves."

"He's delusional?"

"Not at all. Deception and self-deception require the same skills. Haven't you ever wondered why people cheat at solitaire or peek at the answers to a crossword puzzle? It's not a compet.i.tion and there's no prize, yet they still do it."

"They want to feel good about themselves."

"By cheating?"

Drury shrugs. "So why do they do it?"

"It's an evolutionary process. Forty years ago a biologist called Robert Trivers argued that our flair for self-deception dated back to prehistoric times when we first formed into tribes. Communities have always punished cheats and liars but as highly intelligent primates we became aware of the risks of being ostracized and fed to the hyenas if we were caught. It didn't stop us lying. We just got better at it. We learned to get away with more."

"So you're saying we evolved into liars?"

"I'm saying it's a theory. It's why Mark Twain wrote: 'When a person cannot deceive himself, how is he going to deceive other people?' "

Drury looks at his watch.

"My kids are going wake up in a few hours. Their presents are under the tree. I'd like to be there."

"Let me talk to Martinez."

"Can't do that-against the rules."

"Sign me in as a visitor. No cameras. No recording."

"It won't be admissible in any court."

"Finding Piper is more important."

The DCI pulls his head from side to side, sucking saliva through his teeth. "Martinez would have to agree."

"Ask him."

"Why would he say yes?"

"He's a showman. He wants an audience."

47.

Phillip Martinez looks up as the door opens, eyes on mine, caught between hope and trepidation.

"Have they found my Emily?"

"Not yet."

He closes his eyes, shows his long lashes, a picture of misery; a man marooned on a desert island, waiting for rescue. As the air shifts, I catch a whiff of his sweat dried in his clothes.

"Do you remember me?" I ask, sitting opposite him.

"Of course." He watches me cautiously. "Should I call you Professor or Doctor?"

"I'm not a doctor."

"You trained for a while. Three years of medicine."

"How did you know that?"

Martinez allows himself to smile. "You have talked to my daughter three times. In your wildest dreams did you imagine that I wouldn't check up on you?"

"That's very diligent."

"I am always diligent, Professor. I am the senior scientist at one of the biggest research inst.i.tutes in Europe. I have a staff of twenty and a budget of thirteen million pounds. Don't mistake me for a stupid man."

"I would never do that."

He leans back, satisfied with his first salvo.

"We got off to a bad start," I say. "I won't lie to you if you don't lie to me."

"I haven't yet," he says.

"You lied about why you came back from America. You were accused of falsifying data on treatments for cancer and were publicly rebuked by your peer reviewers."

Martinez barely moves a muscle. His glossy avid eyes remind me of a ventriloquist's dummy.

I keep pushing. "Two journal articles were published under your name. You took research funds under false pretences. You had to pay the money back."

His jaw flexes and his eyes glaze over.

"In your wildest dreams, Mr. Martinez, did you imagine that I wouldn't check up on you?"

There it is-his breaking point. He rocks forward in his chair, his lips peeled back, canine teeth bared.

"How dare you," he spits. "How dare you insult me and question my ethics. Look at you! You're diseased! You're only functioning because of the drugs that people like me have discovered and tested. Your condition is getting worse-eating away at your nerves, robbing you of balance, movement, speech and eventually your mind. One day, not so many years from now, you'll be a jerking, s.h.i.tting, quivering sack of bones, unable to walk or talk or feed yourself. Instead of insulting my reputation, you should be praying I find a cure. You should be begging for my help, you pompous, self-righteous schmuck. You need people like me."

Watching spit fly from his mouth, I recognize a cla.s.sic narcissist, a perfectionist governed by his own ego and sense of worth, someone who cannot accept anyone who questions the carefully crafted, flawless image he has manufactured of himself. He will destroy the messenger, rather than hear the message.

He leans back, fire still burning inside him. He wants me to apologize. Expects it.

I give him that much. "I'm sorry, Mr. Martinez. I didn't mean to question your professional integrity."

He waves his hand dismissively.

"Can I ask you some questions?"

He nods.

"Does the name George mean anything to you?"

"Why?"

"It's a simple enough question."

"It's a nickname. When we first married my wife called me Gorgeous George. She thought I looked like some wrestler who was big in the fifties. We both had curly hair."

"How did you get the bruise on your face?"

He touches the side of his head. "I told the police. Emily threw a plate at me because I wouldn't give in to her blackmail."

"Why would she blackmail you?"

"She wanted to spend Christmas with her mother. I told her no. She threatened to accuse me of molesting her unless I gave in."

"She doesn't like living with you."

"We disagree on certain things."

"Such as?"

"I don't believe in coddling children, Professor. I will not become a slave like other parents. I am not a servant, chauffeur and secretary to my daughter. Other parents pamper and create monsters. Driving them everywhere, fulfilling their every wish-birthday parties, ballet, football practice, piano, violin, tennis; Ritalin if they're hyperactive, Prozac if they're depressed, antibiotics if they sniffle. Not me. I am a parent, not a best friend or confidant... and certainly not a slave."

"Congratulations. You're father of the year."

He doesn't react.

"Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

"I drove to London."

"What time did you arrive?"

"I don't know. It was quite late, nine, maybe ten o'clock. You can ask the landlady at the hostel. She wouldn't let me see my wife."

The drive to London takes less than two hours. He had ample time to s.n.a.t.c.h Piper, clean up the bas.e.m.e.nt and hide her somewhere before driving to the capital.

"How do you explain your stationmaster turning up at the scene?"

He hesitates. "Isn't it obvious? Somebody planted it there. They're trying to frame me."

"Who would do that?"

He shrugs. "It's happened before. That business with the falsified test results-somebody sabotaged my experiments. I was set up."

"Why?"

"To discredit me, of course." He makes it sound so obvious. "Medical research is full of venal people: rivals jealous of my success, trying to steal my funding, scared they might be beaten to a breakthrough that could be worth billions of dollars."

"You don't really believe a rival would try to frame you for kidnapping and murder."

He shrugs dismissively. "This is a waste of time. I had nothing to do with the Bingham Girls. Never met them. I wasn't living in Abingdon when they went missing."

"Don't you think it's odd, you finding a letter from Piper among Emily's things?"

"I was searching her room."

"Why?"

"I was looking for drugs."

"You think she's using?"