"Would have been a waste of time. Physically Im fine."

"Carry on," Waterhouse says. It feels like an intrusion, though the three of us are supposedly taking part in the same conversation.

"When youre ready, Gaby." Charlie gives him a look that makes me wonder if shes tired of being his antidote.

Like me and Tim? No. I push the thought away.

"Theres no rush."

"Thanks, but Id rather get it over with." Why do people always want you to linger over the bad stuff? Take your time recounting the details of the worst experience of your life at a rate of one word per day, make the story last for three years instead of an hour. No, thanks. "He said hed come to teach me a lesson. I asked what it was, but he wouldnt tell me straightaway-that would have been too quick and easy. I had to suffer first, so that the lesson would make an impression on me. He undid my belt and my trousers, pulled them down to my knees, pulled my underwear down. At that point I thought he was going to rape me and kill me, but he didnt. Instead he asked me all kinds of sick questions: what was the worst thing he could do to me? Whats the most frightened Ive ever been? Was I more frightened or more humiliated by what he was doing to me? That sort of thing."

"Twisted f.u.c.k," Charlie mutters.

Did Lauren hear my answers? I cant go anywhere near the possibility in my mind: the idea that there was an audience. I block it out.

"His plan was to scare me, then spare me," I say. "Fill my mind with the worst that could happen, then release me, give me a chance to be good and follow his orders: to stay away from Lauren, say nothing to anyone about what hed done to me. Or else next time would be worse. He didnt say that, but it was clear what he meant." And here I am telling the police. My vision rocks; I have to close my eyes. Am I trying to prove to myself that Im not scared of next time? It wont work. Im petrified; every cell in my body knows it.

"What happened then, after he warned you?" Charlie asks.

"Once he was satisfied Id learned the lesson he wanted me to learn, he cut my wrists free and walked away."

"Im so sorry, Gaby."

"Thanks." Is that the appropriate response? Ive always hated the linguistic fusing of apology and sympathy. Theres something messy about it. Id have preferred her to say, "Thats the most horrendous thing Ive ever heard." Except it isnt; sh.e.l.l have heard far worse stories than mine, the sort that generate shocking headlines: "Raped and Abandoned to Die," "Raped, Tortured and Left to Starve." Whod bother to read "Not Raped and Not Even Injured"?

"Im going to show you another picture," says Waterhouse. Six seconds later, he reaches into his folder. I wait for his hand to reappear but it doesnt, not straightaway. "Are you ready?" he asks.

I wish hed just show me instead of trailing it. If I need to be warned, that must mean theres something to dread.

He holds up the photograph in front of me. "Thats Jason Cookson," I say, as repelled as I was on Friday by the coiffed-p.u.b.es beard and the kink in the shoulder-length hair. Maybe its not from being worn in a ponytail; maybe thats just how it grows.

"For clarity, can you tell us if and when youve met this man before?" Waterhouse says.

"I told Charlie yesterday. I met Jason on Friday at the Dower House. The gates opened as I arrived, and he drove out."

"Did he identify himself to you as Jason Cookson?"

"No. He didnt need to. I knew it was him."

"How?"

"The tattoo on his arm: 'Ironman. Lauren told me in Germany that Jason had done the Ironman challenge. Three times," I add unnecessarily.

"Aside from the tattoo, did you have any other reason for believing the man in the car was Jason Cookson?" Waterhouse asks.

"Yes. The way he talked about Lauren and warned me off going anywhere near her. It was . . . proprietorial, protective. Why? What does it matter how I knew?"

"You didnt know. You cant know something that isnt true."

He looks at Charlie. I cant make sense of his words, but I can read his eyes, and hers: theyre having a silent argument about which of them should tell me. Tell me what?

"The man in this picture isnt Jason Cookson," Waterhouse says eventually. "Hes Wayne Cuffley, Lauren Cooksons father."

The room tips. I close my eyes until the feeling pa.s.ses, until Im ready to put things back in the right order. Could I have been wrong? I cant think. I need to be scientific about it: measure my certainty before I speak. First I need to track it down.

"But . . . hes too young. Hes about forty, isnt he?" I know this proves nothing. I hear Laurens voice in my head: In twenty years time, Ill be forty-three. No forty-three-year-olds have great-grandkids.

Some forty-year-olds have twenty-three-year-old daughters, though.

"Wayne Cuffley is forty-two," Waterhouse says. "Hes only six months older than Jason Cookson."

"Yesterday you said Jason might as well have had 'Thug tattooed on his forehead to add to his collection," says Charlie. "It didnt sink in until this morning. I realized you must have meant his collection of tattoos, and I knew he didnt have any. There are no tattoos anywhere on Jasons body."

How can she know? Has she seen every part of his body? The idea makes me want to throw up.

All I have to work with is a strong desire to tell her she must be mistaken, her and Waterhouse. I want the man I met at the gates of the Dower House to have been Jason because I hate being wrong. Its not enough. I can think of no reason why Laurens dad shouldnt have completed the Ironman challenge at least once. And I know hes a fan of tattoos; Lauren had "FATHER" tattooed on her arm at his request-her spare arm, the one that hadnt already been appropriated by Jasons name. I wonder if Wayne Cuffley has a "DAUGHTER" tattoo that I didnt spot on Friday. Jason didnt reciprocate; maybe Wayne didnt either. Do all the men in Laurens life treat her as their own personal graffiti wall?

"All right," I say eventually. "I drew a stupid conclusion."

"The other picture, the first one . . ." Charlie leaves the sentence hanging.

"I tore up the other picture. It doesnt exist anymore. Thug X. I dont want to know. I dont want to hear it."

"The man in the photograph you tore up was Jason Cookson," says Waterhouse.

"I knew youd say that. I knew it."

"Im saying it because its true."

It should make no difference. I walked in here knowing Jason Cookson was responsible for what happened to me; why do I feel as if hes used Waterhouse as a conduit to attack me all over again, as if evil has crept one step closer?

"Gaby, theres something I need to tell you that might come as a shock," says Charlie.

Can you be shocked when youre already in shock? In an ideal world, the second shock would cancel out the first. Jason Cookson would cancel out Wayne Cuffley; neither of them would exist.

"Gaby?"

"What?"

"Jason Cooksons dead. His death wasnt natural or accidental."

Good. Good to both statements.

"Gaby? Did you hear what I said? Jasons been killed."

"I heard," I tell her. "Im glad."

20.

13/3/2011.

"Jason Cookson and Francine Breary." Proust stood in front of the whiteboard where their enlarged photographs were displayed. "What do they have in common? Come on. No answer too obvious."

"Both murdered," said Sellers.

"Except that one, Detective. Try harder."

Sam had nothing to offer, obvious or otherwise. The two gla.s.ses of wine hed poured down his throat when he got home last night had taken the edge off the image of Jason Cooksons dead body in his memory, but he was paying for it this morning. I must be getting old, he thought. Since when were two gla.s.ses of wine enough to give him a fuzzy head the next day?

"Two people you wouldnt want to be in a relationship with," Gibbs said. "Both abusive to their partners in different ways."

"Evidence?" said Proust.

"Kerry Joses description of Tim and Francine Brearys marriage, and a catalog of horrors from Cooksons ex-girlfriend."

"Hearsay," said Proust. "Still, I dont think we doubt any of it, do we? So, now that were all but certain it was Cookson who terrorized Gaby Struthers, itll be interesting to hear what she has to say about what happened on Friday, a.s.suming Waterhouse and Sergeant Zailer manage to get anything out of her. If she wont talk, its probably because shes too embarra.s.sed to go into the kind of detail weve had this morning from Cooksons ex Becky Grafham: forced to stand naked on a chair in the middle of the room with a noose round her neck attached to a light fitting, stripped and penetrated with a tube of lipstick for going out with too much makeup on. Et cetera. Put that together with what Kerry Jose told Sergeant Zailer about the suffering inflicted on Tim Breary by Francine, and we might conclude . . . what? Oh, come on, its not hard! Is the world any worse off without these two in it?" Proust hit the whiteboard with the back of his hand.

"So were on the killers side?" Gibbs asked.

"Were on the laws side. That said, were probably not looking for the usual self-seeking pond sc.u.m, but for an altruist with a strong sense of justice. Anyone fitting that description spring to mind?"

"Lauren Cookson," said Gibbs.

Sellers chuckled.

"Im being serious. When Gaby Struthers came in on Friday, I suggested to her that Lauren might have killed Francine Breary. Gaby said no, Lauren would think it was unfair to murder someone."

"She might have made an exception for Jason, a.s.suming he subjected her to the same kind of torture he put Becky Grafham through," Sellers pointed out.

"Shes got an alibi," said Sam. "Jason was killed between midnight and four a.m. on Friday night, provisionally. Lauren was-"

"Its not possible to kill someone provisionally, Sergeant."

"The timings provisional, I meant. The postmortem will confirm it."

"And when it does, Lauren Cooksons alibi will still be worthless and an insult to every serving police officer and every victim of violent crime in the Culver Valley, because the same liars providing that alibi, Dan and Kerry Jose, also said that Jason Cookson was at home on Friday from four-thirty p.m. onward. Perhaps he was, but if so, he was also being murdered during that period, which no one mentioned. Id call that a significant omission-wouldnt you, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. I tried to ring the Joses and Lauren first thing this morning. I drove round there too. No ones answering any phones or doors."

"Good," said Proust.

"Good?"

"Whats the point in talking to them?" the Snowman barked. "Whats the point in listening to them? They do nothing but lie. Lets discount everything theyve told us and use our brains instead. Lauren Cookson doesnt have an alibi for Jasons murder-not one thats worth anything."

Sam nodded, embarra.s.sed. He wouldnt have needed to be reminded of this if he hadnt been hungover.

"The Dower House disobligers didnt report Jason Cookson missing on Friday night," said Proust. "This tells us what?"

"They knew why he wasnt at home," said Gibbs. "They knew he was busy being killed somewhere else, and they knew who was killing him. It could have been one of them, or someone known to them: Gaby Struthers, maybe. Either way, they knew."

"Wouldnt it have made sense for them to report him missing, in that case?" Proust asked. "Thats what theyd have done if they were innocent and had no idea where Cookson was."

"Its possible they needed time to cover their tracks," said Sam. "They wouldnt want anyone looking for Jason while they did that, so they pretended he wasnt missing. Though obviously that contradicts what happened next."

"So, what, they changed their minds?" Proust frowned. "Decided to roll Cooksons body across our car park in the direction of your feet instead?"

"The decision to dump the body at the nick could have been a deviation from the original plan," said Gibbs.

"It was certainly a deviation from Cooksons plan to help his friend renovate a house on Sat.u.r.day," Proust said. For a few seconds, the hint of a smile hovered around his lips. "All right, lets search everywhere Cooksons likely to have been killed: break into the Dower House if you have to. Sean Hamers home, Gaby Struthers hotel room . . ."

"Gabys work?" Sellers suggested. "Laurens parents places?"

"All of the above," said Proust.

"And . . ." He stopped and leaned to his right, looking past Sam. "PC Meakin, that door ought to be closed. Since it isnt, I suggest you put yourself on the other side of where it would be if it were. And a.s.sume the bearing of a man whos happy to be ignored until the end of a case briefing, keeping in mind that no one cares if youre happy or not."

"Sir, theres a man downstairs asking about Francine Brearys murder. I thought I should nip up and tell you. He wants to talk to a detective."

Proust inhaled ominously: the breathing equivalent of pulling back the bow in antic.i.p.ation of firing the arrow. "There are four men upstairs asking about Francine Brearys murder, Meakin. Youve just interrupted them."

"He also wants to confess to a murder, sir. Nothing to do with Francine Breary, he says."

"I see. One of those. He wants to stand in reception and say 'murder as often as he can?"

"He could be a crank, sir, but he reckons he killed someone on Friday night-a man called Jason Cookson. What?" Meakin took a step back as Sam, Sellers and Proust all moved toward him at the same time.

21.

SUNDAY, 13 MARCH 2011.

Jason Cookson, dead. Laurens husband. The man who attacked me.