"And what should I deduce from this?" he said, unexpectedly moved by the damage done to her beautiful eyes.

"That you're not a writer because someone's left his handprints all over your face?" He frowned suddenly.

"It wasn't Olive, was it?"

She looked surprised.

"Of course not."

"Who was it, then?"

She dropped her gaze.

"No one. It's not important."

He waited for a moment.

"Is it someone you care about?"

"No." She da sped her hands loosely on the table top.

"Rather the reverse. It's someone I don't care about." She looked up with a half smile.

"Who beat you up, Sergeant? Someone you care about?"

He pulled open a fudge door and examined its contents.

"One of these days your pa.s.sion for poking your nose into other people's business is going to get you into trouble. What do you fancy?

Lamb?"

"I really came to see you for some more information," she told him over coffee.

Humour creased his eyes. He really was extraordinarily attractive, she thought, wistfully aware that the attraction was all one way. Lunch had been a friendly but distant meal, with a large sign between them saying: so far and no further.

"Go on, then."

"Do you know the O'Brien family? They live on the Barrow Estate."

"Everyone knows the O'Briens." He frowned at her.

"But if there's a connection between them and Olive I'll eat my hat."

"You're going to have galloping indigestion then," she said acidly.

"I've been told she was going out with one of the sons at the time of the murders. Probably Gary, the youngest. What's he like? Have you met him?"

He linked his hands behind his head.

"Someone's winding you up," he murmured.

"Gary is marginally brighter than the rest of them, but I'd guess his educational level is still about fourteen years old. They are the most useless, inadequate bunch I've ever come across. The only thing they know how to do is petty thieving and they don't even do that very well.

There's Ma O'Brien and about nine children, mostly boys, all grown up now, and, when they're not in prison, they play box and c.o.x in a three-bed roomed house on the estate."

"Aren't any of them married?"

"Not for long. Divorce is more prevalent in that family than marriage.

The wives usually make other arrangements while their men are inside."

He flexed his laced fingers.

"They produce a lot of babies, though, if the fact that a third generation of O'Briens has started appearing regularly in the juvenile courts is anything to go by." He shook his head.

"Someone's winding you up," he said again.

"For all her sins Olive wasn't stupid and she'd have to have been brain-dead to fall for a jerk like Gary O'Brien."

"Are they really as bad as that?" she asked him curiously.

"Or is this police animosity?"

He smiled.

"I'm not police, remember? But they're that bad," he a.s.sured her.

"Every patch has families like the O'Briens.

Sometimes, if you're really unlucky, you get an estateful of them, like the Barrow Estate, when the council decides to lump all its bad apples into one basket and then expects the wretched police to throw a cordon round it." He gave a humourless laugh.

"It's one of the reasons I left the Force. I got sick to death of being sent out to sweep up society's messes. It's not the police who create these ghettos, it's the councils and the governments, and ultimately society itself."

"Sounds reasonable to me," she said.

"In that case why do you despise the O'Briens so much? They sound as if they need help and support rather than condemnation."

He shrugged.

"I suppose it's because they've already had more help and support than you or I will ever be offered. They take everything society gives them and then demand more.

There's no quid pro quo with people like that. They put nothing in to compensate for what they've had out. Society owes them a living and, by G.o.d, they make sure society pays, usually in the shape of some poor old woman who has all her savings stolen."

His lips thinned.

"If you'd arrested those worthless s.h.i.ts as often as I have, you'd despise them, too. I don't deny they represent an underda.s.s of society's making, but I resent their unwillingness to try and rise above it." He saw her frown.

"You look very disapproving. Have I offended your liberal sensibilities?"

"No," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

"I was just thinking how like Mr. Hayes you sound. Remember him?

"What shall I say?" she mimicked the old man's soft burr *"They should all be strung up from the nearest lamppost and shot." She smiled when he laughed.

"My sympathies with the criminal cla.s.ses are a trifle frayed at the moment," he said after a moment.

"More accurately, my sympathies in general are frayed."

"Cla.s.sic symptoms of stress," she said lightly, watching him.

"Under pressure we always reserve our compa.s.sion for ourselves."

He didn't answer.

"You said the O'Briens are inadequate," Roz prompted.

"Perhaps they can't rise above their situation."

"I believed that once," he admitted, toying with his empty wine gla.s.s, *when I first joined the police force, but you have to be very naY ve to go on believing it. They're professional thieves who simply don't subscribe to the same values as the rest of us hold. It's not a case of can't, but more a case of won't. Different ball game entirely." He smiled at her.

"And if you're a policeman who wants to hold on to the few drops of human kindness that remain to you, you get out quick the minute you realise that. Otherwise you end up as unprincipled as the people you're arresting."

Curiouser and curiouser, thought Roz. So he had little sympathy left for the police either. He gave the impression of a man under siege, isolated and angry within the walls of his castle. But why should his friends in the police have abandoned him? Presumably he had had some.

"Have any of the O'Briens been charged with murder or GBH?"

"No. As I said, they're thieves. Shoplifting, pick-pocketing, house burglaries, cars, that sort of thing. Old Ma acts as a fence whenever she can get her hands on stolen property but they're not violent."

"I was told they're all h.e.l.l's Angels."

He gave her an amused look.

"You've been given some very duff information. Are you toying with the idea, perhaps, that Gary did the murders and Olive was so besotted with him that she took the rap on his behalf?"

"It doesn't sound very plausible, does it?"

"About as plausible as little green men on Mars. Apart from anything else, Gary is scared of his own shadow. He was challenged once during a burglary he didn't think anyone was in the house and he burst into tears. He could no more have cut Gwen's throat while she was struggling with him than you or I could. Or for that matter, than his brothers could. They're skinny little foxes, not ravening wolves. Who on earth have you been talking to? Someone with a sense of humour, obviously."

She shrugged, suddenly out of patience with him.

"It's not important. Offhand, do you know the O'Briens' address? It would save me having to look it up."

He grinned.

"You're not planning on going there?"

"Of course I am," she said, annoyed by his amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It's the most promising lead I've had. And now that I know they're not axe-wielding h.e.l.l's Angels, I'm not so worried about it. So what's their address?"

"I'll come with you."

"Think again, sunshine," she said roundly.

"I don't want you queering my pitch. Are you going to give me the address or must I look it up?"

"Number seven, Baytree Avenue. You can't miss it. It's the only house in that road with a satellite dish. Nicked for sure."

"Thank you." She reached for her handbag.

"Now, if we can just settle my bill, I'll leave you in peace."

He unfolded himself from his chair and walked round to draw hers back.

"On the house," he said.

She stood up and regarded him gravely.

"But I'd like to pay. I didn't come here at lunchtime just to scrounge off you and, anyway' she smiled *how else can I show my appreciation of your cooking? Money always speaks louder than words. I can say it was fabulous, like the last time, but I might just be being polite."

He raised a hand as if he was going to touch her, then dropped it abruptly.

"I'll see you out," was all he said.

TEN.

Roz drove past the house three times before she could pluck up enough courage to get out and try the door. n the end it was pride that led her up the path. Hal's amus.e.m.e.nt had goaded her. A tarpaulined motorbike was parked neatly on a patch of gra.s.s beside the fence.

The door was opened by a bony little woman with a sharp, scowling face, her thin lips drawn down in a permanently dissatisfied bow.

"Yes?" she snapped.

"Mrs. O'Brien?"

"Oo's asking?"

Roz produced a card.

"My name's Rosalind Leigh." The sound of a television blared out from an inner room.