Claxby's smile was a tired parting of the lips. "I could say a great many things, Simon, but that wouldn't get us very far, would it? I want to hear what you have to say. Did you quarrel?"

"Yes."

"What about?"

Simon gritted his teeth. No way was he going to tell this man what they'd quarrelled about. He said he couldn't remember. "We'd both been drinking." Well, she had been boozed up. He hadn't been. He didn't think he could have done 'it' if he had been. Though perhaps he could have, he didn't know.

"So you were under the influence of alcohol?" Claxby observed.

"Not exactly. Just a bit ... sozzled ... sort of."

"Did she allow you to take advantage of her when she was a ... bit sozzled?"

That anyone could take advantage of Sally, sozzled or sober, was hard for Simon to imagine.

"I didn't take advantage of her. We agreed."

"So you had coitus?"

The last time Simon had heard the word had been in a biology lecture and was linked to the word 'interruptus'. It hadn't been interrupted. He didn't think he would have been capable of interrupting it - or that Sally would have let him. She'd had him clasped firmly to her and was making moaning, happy sounds. Oh G.o.d, what if she'd got pregnant?

Claxby noticed his look of alarm. If violence had occurred, it must have occurred then.

"Tell me about the blood," he invited pleasantly. "What blood?" Simon re-focused his thoughts to a different part of his anatomy. "Oh, that blood. We'd cut our feet. I expect Chief Inspector Maybridge told you." Claxby admitted that he had. "Forgive me, but I need to hear it from you, too." Simon told him.

Claxby decided to accept the explanation - for the time being. It sounded silly enough to be true.

"Was there an element of jealousy when you quarrelled? Another boyfriend, for instance?"

Simon shook his head. "If she had anyone else, she didn't say. But I did notice when we went to the Avon Arms that she ... well ..." He broke off.

"She what!"

"Seemed rather interested in ... well, wanted to talk to ..."

"Talk to? Talk to whom?"

"Well, actually, he had a girlfriend with him, and I don't think he ... I mean it was Sally who ..."

Claxby poised his pen over his notepad. "Name him," he ordered brusquely. "Doctor Cormack."

Claxby replaced his pen unused. He wasn't a swearing man. 'Good heavens' was his strongest expletive. He refrained from using it. This lad's father had created emotional mayhem, and was perhaps linked to that other woman whose disappearance they had just started to investigate in liaison with the Metropolitan Police and her Bristol lawyers. Now Cormack, who had digs in the village, had entered the scene - and another woman had gone missing. What was wrong with the air of Macklestone that it should pollute the morals of forensic pathologists? It was difficult to believe that Cormack might be involved - but by finding it difficult he was falling into what he thought of as the village trap - the trap that Maybridge might fall into. City crime was anonymous. Usually. Village crime was like that poisonous plant that opened wide its petals and engulfed everyone, innocent or guilty. Perjury and protection, dissimulation and - what had the lad said - dismay? - coloured the scene. Villagers tended to clan up. Form a mafia. Had Hixon been a villager, not a member of a hard-nosed city community, he would probably still be roaming free, self-righteously murdering the 'fallen'. It was rea.s.suring to know that Miss Loreto wouldn't walk into him.

Claxby asked Simon to fill in her background for him. "Tell me about her parents."

He couldn't. She had never spoken of them. "But she knew my mother."

"Ah," Claxby said, politely non-committal. "And your father?"

"No. She'd never met him."

"Did she ever speak of anyone - friend or relative - that she might have gone to?"

"No one I can remember."

"Was she happy in her employment at The Mount?"

"She didn't say she wasn't."

It was a line of questioning that Maybridge would pursue with the medical superintendent but sometimes an outsider's viewpoint was useful. In this case, apparently not.

"How would you describe Miss Loreto's personality? Happy? Sad? Well-balanced? Moody?" This was the medical superintendent's territory too, but he wanted the boy's response.

Simon said she was jolly. He couldn't think of any other way of describing her. Most of the time she had been. Most of the time she had been all right. He had always felt he should be grateful to her. and couldn't quite manage to be, though he had tried to laugh at her jokes. Had she been different in some indefinable way, he might even have learnt to be fond of her. That he couldn't feel any tenderness towards her made him feel an absolute heel. When they'd had s.e.x she'd been a mindless body beneath him. He'd closed his eyes. Had she spoken, he couldn't have done it. Moaning was the kind of noise anyone might make. Even Rhoda.

Claxby pondered over the word jolly. If this lad had killed the girl, jolly would be the last word to come into his mind. She wouldn't have died laughing, heaven help her.

So give him the benefit of the doubt. He explained about the house to house search procedure. "We're not singling you out. It's routine. I want you to write a brief statement of what you've told me. It's fresh in your mind now. Later, if she's not found, we may have to go into it again - unless someone saw her after she'd been with you."

Writing a brief statement was extremely difficult. Simon hadn't the remotest idea how to do it. After several attempts, during which Superintendent Claxby absented himself, Simon wrote in what he hoped was Claxby's style:

Miss Loreto and I ate a meal at the Avon Arms, leaving the premises at approximately nine o'clock. We returned to my home where we watched television. Later Miss Loreto dropped a jar of paint in the studio. We had coitus and inadvertently walked on gla.s.s. The blood on the quilt was from our feet. The blood on Miss Loreto's shoes was from her feet. I believe she borrowed my trainers to walk to The Mount. I didn't see her go. I was in the garden. She didn't say goodbye.

Claxby, returning, read it through and wasn't pleased. He told Simon to do it again. "And put in the dates. Friday was the twenty-third, in case you've forgotten. She may have left you in the early hours of the twenty-fourth. If you're not sure, then say so. Today's date is the twenty-sixth. Put it in, then sign it." He wondered if it was a deliberate parody, but decided the boy hadn't the wit for it. He was as odd as his mother, but she was reputed to be highly intelligent when normal. Admittedly, when your girlfriend is missing you're not normal.

He told Simon that Sergeant Radwell would drive him back. Then asked him a final question. "Where do you think the search should begin ... if she doesn't return?"

Simon looked at him blankly. What was he supposed to say? Craxley Copse, where Rapunzel Number Five had been found? In the grounds of The Mount? In Millington's farm? In Paul Creggan's tepee? He said stiffly that he had no idea. It sounded off-hand, as if he didn't care.

Sally's father certainly didn't care. He wasn't in the least alarmed, he told the local police officer when he was eventually traced to a new address in the Birmingham suburbs. His daughter had a habit of going away and not getting in touch. He hadn't had a penny piece from her since she had walked out of the house when she was seventeen, all of five years ago. He could have been dead and buried for all she cared. She wasn't dead and buried, was she? Just gone. So what was all the fuss about? She'd spend all her life going - here - there - anywhere. But not coming back. Oh, no. Never coming back. Not to him.

The old man had become suspicious then. What had she done? Why were the police after her? If there was bad blood in her she didn't get it from him. He was as straight as a die - always had been.

a.s.sured that she wasn't on the run, he lost interest. Some made their beds, he said, and lay on them. Others picked them up and walked. And kept on walking. Like Felix, the cat. Her mother had walked off, too. And there was no use the police thinking Sally might be with her. She'd emigrated. Yes, emigrated. No, he didn't know where. Somewhere far off. She'd gone with a coloured bloke. A waiter. Could be in North Africa. Could be dead, of course. Smoked fifty f.a.gs a day. Or used to.

Some families, the police officer commented over the phone to Maybridge, deserve to be left. Her father was a miserable old whinge-bag.

Not a very professional remark, but heart-felt.

Maybridge told Donaldson they'd drawn a blank and that a full-scale search would be put into operation immediately.

"And I want to have another look at her room. Is there a woman member of staff who might know her well enough to notice if any of her clothes are missing?" Donaldson had accompanied him the first time and had let him into the bedroom with the staff key - he had locked the room that morning - but he hadn't been of much use. Maybridge had noticed the suitcase on the wardrobe and a pink plastic mug holding a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste on the shelf over the washbasin. Most civilised people departed with their toothbrushes, he believed, even if they left everything else behind.

Though Sally had been liked well enough by the staff, Donaldson said, she hadn't developed a close friendship with any of them. Her working relationship with Mrs Mackay had been affable despite, or perhaps because of, the older woman's maternalism. "She tends to be concerned about her moral welfare, as her own mother should have been when Sally was considerably younger. She's almost obsessive about this. It was at her request that I stopped Sally taking Paul Creggan his morning tea."

A deliberate aspersion? Maybridge wondered. Was Creggan more libidinous than the other male patients? A necessary question, perhaps. He asked it.

Donaldson shrugged. "As far as I know, he's never stepped out of line."

As far as Donaldson knew might not be far enough. "I need to speak to him."

Creggan had left the premises on Sat.u.r.day morning. "He's gone on one of his business trips and might be away some while. His attendance for therapy at The Mount usually covers three or four weeks at a time, but follows no definite pattern. He comes when he feels the need."

Maybridge said that he would return - and p.r.o.nto - for questioning, whether he felt the need or not. "And in the meantime I want to speak to your cook. Up in Sally's room. When I've finished talking to her I'll come down to your office for details of Creggan's background - all relevant information - home address - type of business he's involved in - business address and so on. And I want a list of all the patients - with comments - type of illness - behavioural problems - and don't start talking about ethics, they'll be interviewed in your presence, but I and my colleagues might need some guidance from you as regards credibility - approach - and so on. And the professional staff will be interviewed, too - and I want them listed as well - but the psychological aspect won't pertain and you won't sit in on the interviews."

Maybridge noticed with a touch of amus.e.m.e.nt that Donaldson looked startled. All right, so he was revving up. Into the job now, not your friendly neighbourhood cop any more. Just as well they'd never been on Christian name terms. Not his fault though. He hadn't started questioning Donaldson yet. Not at any depth. Claxby might want to do it. Claxby's fear of personal bias was understandable. He hoped he hadn't been too fierce with Simon this morning.

Mrs Mackay was preparing orange sauce for the roast duck which was on the dinner menu when Donaldson told her to leave it and accompany the Detective Chief Superintendent to Sally's room. The command gave her a bit of a turn. Her common sense had told her that the police would be involved at some stage but, now that they were, she hoped she could cope. She could be accused of harbouring the girl. And asked why. Or Sally could be accused of filling the suitcase in her bedroom with stolen property. If she had. Which would make her an accessory. She had placed the black and gold bag on the bedside table. An unspoken accusation, and Sally had looked at it and yawned. She was yawning a lot - when she wasn't being difficult.

Mrs Mackay's obvious reluctance to accompany Maybridge was attributable, Donaldson thought, to having to delegate the sauce-making to her a.s.sistant who rarely achieved her culinary brilliance. Maybridge, who had only seen her at a distance before, attributed it to the natural lethargy of an ageing woman. She reminded him of an anaconda. Her cheeks were plump and dewlapped and her eyes, which were of a pale watery blue, were hooded. He apologised for the inconvenience.

Up in the bedroom she noticed that the suitcase was still on the wardrobe and relaxed a little. She relaxed more when Maybridge explained what he wanted of her. It was easy to supply. If a girl intended going away she wouldn't leave her clothes behind - and her washing gear. She risked mentioning the suitcase - "And that." He nodded. Gaining confidence, she found a nylon weekend bag which she had seen earlier on a peg in the wardrobe and pointed that out, too. "Take my word for it," she said truthfully, "the poor girl never came back."

Maybridge asked about her family. "Did she ever mention her mother?"

"Sally had no family, Chief Inspector. The poor girl was a waif. No one cared."

A waif? What was she getting at? She hadn't been brought up in an orphanage. On a desert island. In total isolation. Her father might be a totally unsatisfactory parent, but he existed. She had lived with him for seventeen years. Maybridge asked her what she meant.

Mrs Mackay was looking past him at a poster picture of a pop group contorting themselves in unseemly s.e.xual att.i.tudes. She had thought it disgusting last time she had been here and had been tempted to take it down.

"She never had any love - or guidance. She was a waif of the spirit, a target of lascivious men."

Maybridge was startled into silence. What was she trying to tell him - that Sally was a tart? Lascivious. What an odd word to trip off her tongue. Or rather, fall off it with a clang.

"Oh," he said, and then after a moment or two, "can you enlarge on that?"

If she could, she wouldn't. She shook her head sadly.

Maybridge moved in briskly from a different angle. "I believe you provide the Avon Arms with pizzas on a Friday?"

She winced. "Flans," she corrected him.

"I beg your pardon, flans. As you probably know, along with everyone else in the village, Sally was in the Avon Arms on Friday evening with Simon Bradshaw. Did you see her that evening - on her own - or with anyone else?"

"I don't attend public houses."

"You haven't answered my question. You could have seen her anywhere."

She was becoming tense again. "If I had seen her, do you suppose I could have persuaded her not to embroil herself with him?"

Embroil. Lascivious. What an extraordinary vocabulary this woman had.

"Simon Bradshaw is a perfectly ordinary young man, Mrs Mackay. Why should her a.s.sociation with him be, harmful?"

"If it was harmless why didn't she return to The Mount? Why is everyone looking for her?"

A natural response, of course. A great many would ask it, including his police colleagues. Simon was in one h.e.l.l of a mess. He tried to take the focus off him. "I appreciate your concern for her, but she'll be found more quickly if we don't hypothesise, so let's concentrate on what we know. She has been missing since some time on Friday night or Sat.u.r.day morning. It was a.s.sumed that she walked back to The Mount in the dark, but didn't arrive. To get here she could either go along the main road or take the short cut past your cottage. You might have seen her - not necessarily in Simon's company but on other daylight occasions, perhaps, with someone else?"

"She jogged with him."

"With who?" It was a faint hope that she might come up with the name of another lad.

She didn't. "The one we're talking about. He's of bad stock. Of bad blood. She tried to be kind to him. More fool she. He's his father's son. And his mother was mentally afflicted. He should have left the village after the funeral. She would have been safe."

Maybridge came across prejudice from time to time, but it rarely bordered on hatred. This did and was difficult to understand.

"Have you ever met the lad?"

"No."

"Then don't you think you're being rather unfair to pre-judge him?"

She didn't answer. This policeman hadn't seen Sally's wounds.

Maybridge had been aware for some years that though the villagers as a whole admired and, in most cases, liked Bradshaw, there was a small coterie who disapproved of him. For one thing, he lacked discretion. He womanised too openly. His relationship with the au-pair, Trudy something or other, during Lisa's absence a few years ago, had been blatant. The rumble of criticism had grown apace at the time of the Hixon trial. He had called Hixon a Bible freak and used similar language that offended the susceptibilities of the religious and quasi-religious. Hixon's murdering hands had ranked second in villainy to Bradshaw's sardonic tongue in the view of the less well balanced in the community. Claxby's idea of a village mafia was true only insofar as a mafia is loyal to its own, but it didn't encompa.s.s all the local population. Hixon had his followers here who believed an innocent man might have been convicted on flawed forensic evidence - especially in the case of Susan Martin. They had never dared whisper this to Maybridge, but you don't need words to tell you the way the odd breeze is blowing. You smell it. Feel it. It ruffles you up the wrong way. It makes you mildly angry.

Maybridge was mildly angry now that the prejudice of this woman should be extended to Peter's son. He hoped she would keep her mouth shut. Prejudice is a lingering malaise, the virus airborne by gossip, but he doubted he could talk her out of it and didn't try. He thanked her rather curtly for her help. "And if you can think of anything that might give us a lead to wherever Sally is, then get in touch."

She nodded and watched in silence as he locked the bedroom door. As from now she would have a truthful excuse not to bring Sally the clothes she had been demanding. As from now she would buy her garments that were suitable - or make them. The clothes she had arrived in had been destroyed in the washing machine, she had told her, and were beyond repair.

An investigation into the whereabouts of a missing person is carried out quickly and thoroughly when there is disturbing evidence pointing to murder. Holes dug by Creggan's dog that had been filled in and re-planted were dug again by squads of police officers looking for Sally's body. Barns and outhouses were searched. House to house enquiries were made and a few entered for a cursory look around. Simon's house was ransacked and the bloodied nightdress held aloft like a flag of doom. Simon, standing at the bedroom door, looked at it, appalled. If she'd had to bleed on anything why did she bleed on that? He had wondered what had happened to it. He hadn't realised that her nose had bled that much - and he was frightfully sorry he had caused it to bleed - but the scruffy-looking plain clothes detective constable didn't seem to want to hear what he had to say, just looked contemptuously at him before putting it into a plastic bag. Maybridge had taken possession of the shoes in a civilised manner, and the quilt had been quietly removed, but the nightdress had been flaunted. Exhibit number one: Rhoda's nightdress, but Sally's blood.

Simon went downstairs to the living-room and sat upright on the sofa opposite the window. Some of the squad were poking around outside but he was barely aware of them or of the room he was sitting in. His mind was busy trying to understand what was happening. And why. Horror builds up slowly. In the morning he had been shocked that Sally had gone and he had been treated with some concern. And the interview with Claxby hadn't been too difficult to cope with. The superintendent had been calm and polite. But this locust visit that invaded his home was something else. It stripped him to his nerve endings so that he physically ached.

He was still sitting, dazed, when the squad took their leave an hour later. They had tidied the place up and explained that they were taking the nightdress, the bedding and some items from the studio floor, and that he would be contacted again in due course. Not by them, he hoped. He wished Maybridge would come. He needed someone here beside him. Someone like his father.

When Meg Maybridge rang his bell shortly before nine o'clock she was breaking every unwritten rule in the book. A police officer's wife shouldn't succour a suspect: Thou shalt not give him bed or board or sym pathy. But when the storm breaks around the head of a boy you've known most of his life, and you knew his mum and dad, and you can't believe he'd hurt anybody, then you don't stand back and do nothing. "Come on home with me," she ordered him briskly. "I've made David's bed up for you - at least for tonight. Tom's at headquarters and won't be back until late. There's no point your staying here on your own and worrying."

The discussion at headquarters had been going on for some while and with a degree of intensity. Rendcome, the Chief Constable, had called it. Rendcome had known Claxby long enough to interpret the nuances of the word 'sir'. When it sounded like chipped ice it registered disapproval not quite bordering on insubordination. Maybridge, on the other hand, just sat and looked miserable. Three items with blood on them were enough evidence for Simon to be brought in tonight, Claxby kept repeating. That the nightdress had been hidden under the mattress was a sure sign of guilt. His statement about the blood on the shoes and the quilt had been a c.o.c.k and bull yarn, pastiche Chandler - well, the last sentence had been. Claxby quoted from the statement which he had on his desk: "She didn't say goodbye'. Obviously not, she wouldn't be capable of it."

That the superintendent had been human enough at one time to read Chandler's Farewell my Lovely and The Long Goodbye was surprising, but that he should make a comment like that and remain bitterly serious was in character. Claxby was an upholder of the law, as they all were, but to him it was engraved on tablets of stone. Had Claxby been on Mount Sinai he would have struggled down the mountain in record rime with the commandments strapped to his back. And got on with the job of implementing them. Fast.

Simon Bradshaw should be brought in again for questioning - now - and detained overnight and for as long as the law allowed before being charged, he insisted. "The girl disappears after leaving blood all over the place. He admits the blood is hers. How much more evidence do we need, sir? Her severed head?"

Rendcome turned to Maybridge. "You know the lad better than I do. What's your opinion?"