Free Ash & Bone by John Harvey Page A

here and asked to be put in touch.'
    Karen nodded. 'I'd like to record this conversation. I take it you've no objection?'
    'No, of course not.'
    Denison placed the pocket recorder on the desk between them and switched it on.
    'Very well, then, in your own time.'
    Vanessa told them about Maddy's growing fears that she had been watched and followed; her feeling that someone had been inside her flat.
    'She didn't report any of this?'
    'No.'
    'Do you know why?'
    Vanessa wriggled a little in her seat. 'It wasn't as if she had any proof. I think she was worried she might not be believed. That people might think she was, you know, imagining things.'
    'And you? What did you think?'
    'Did I believe her?'
    'Yes.'
    'Not at first. Not if I'm to be honest, no. Ever since the Grant business, that young officer getting killed, it had really shaken her up. You could tell. I thought maybe it was a reaction to that. Nervous, you know. But then, when she said someone had broken into her flat, I believed her then.'
    'And she didn't have any idea who this person - if it was one person - might have been?'
    'No, not really'
    'You don't seem sure.'
    Vanessa fidgeted with her hair. 'Well, there was this one time we were in the pub and Maddy thought she saw someone she knew. Her ex.'
    'Ex-husband, lover, what?'
    'Husband. Terry.'
    'And how did she react?'
    'She didn't say anything at first, not to me. But you could tell, yes, she was surprised. Thinking she'd seen him.'
    'They weren't in touch?'
    'No. Not at all. Quite a while, at least. He'd moved away. North Wales, I think she said.'
    'And when she saw him, her reaction, was it just surprise?'
    Vanessa took her time, wanting to be clear. 'No. I think it was more than that. More as if she was afraid, you know?'
    Mugs of tea sat on a metal tray, untouched. Paper squares of sugar and plastic spoons. Karen noticed the low background hum from the central heating for the first time. Mike Ramsden was up in Lincolnshire talking to Maddy's mother. Where was it? Louth? Surname Birch, she remembered. Maddy must have resumed her own name after the divorce.
    'When she told you about her flat being broken into, she didn't say she thought it might have been him? Terry?'
    'No. And by then she was saying it probably hadn't been him at all. Just someone who looked a bit like him, that's all.'
    'Enough like him to make her afraid.'
    'Yes. Yes, I suppose so.'
    Karen could feel her nerve ends tightening, a scenario beginning to play out in her mind, and had to will herself not to let it race too far ahead.
    'That night, after the pub, you didn't notice anyone hanging around, acting suspiciously at all? Anyone who might have been him?'
    'No. I've been thinking about it, but no.' Vanessa looked bereft, on the verge of tears.
    'Here.' Karen tore open two packets of sugar and emptied them into one of the mugs of tea. 'Drink some of that.'
    'Do I have to?' Vanessa smiling despite everything.
    'God, no.' Leaning forward, she switched off the tape. 'Where's the nearest pub?'
    'End of the street.'
    'How long will it take you to get out of that uniform?'
    Pocketing the recorder, Karen got to her feet. 'Paul, get through to the office, have somebody check on Maddy Birch's file. Her married name might be somewhere there and I missed it. And see if you can raise Mike, tell him to give me a call.'

    * * *

    Karen bought a vodka and orange for Vanessa, Coke with ice and lemon for herself, tonic water for Denison.
    'Paul here's not old enough to drink, anyway,' she said.
    Denison blushed.
    When Vanessa asked how the investigation was going, Karen shrugged and shook her head. 'Ask me in a couple of days.'
    The television over the bar seemed to be showing a rerun of some soccer game or other; at least it wasn't the news. At the far end of the room a number of gaudy machines were vying with one another for the most annoying electronic jingle. Most of the tables were taken by solitary drinkers, men nursing pints of whatever bitter was on