Case Histories

Jackson told Theo on the phone that he was going to send him a name, the name, the one he had been looking for for ten years, the name that Kim Strachan had given him. Of course, it might not be the name of the man who killed Laura (Innocent until proved guilty – did he believe that? No), and Jackson knew that, even if he suspected it for a moment, he should tell the police, but this was Theo's quest and it was up to Theo to decide where to take it from here.

He wrote the name and address on the back of a postcard that he picked up in a service station near the Angel of the North. The picture on the postcard was of one of the artificial-looking pink daisies that he'd passed over for Niamh's grave. Maybe it was a new kind of flower. He put a stamp on the postcard and Marlee ran to the postbox with it because she was still young enough to find posting a letter quite an exciting thing to do. When she came back in a year perhaps she would be blase about it. She wouldn't be the same Marlee in twelve months' time: she would have different skin and different hair, she would have outgrown the shoes and the clothes she was wearing, she would have new buzzwords (New Zealand words), and she might not like Harry Potter anymore. But she would still be Marlee. She just wouldn't be the same.

Jackson dropped Marlee off at David Lastingham's house. Josie looked him over dispassionately. "You look terrible, Jackson."

"Thanks."

He turned to leave but Marlee ran down the path and caught him at the gate. She threw her arms round him and hugged him. "Dasvedanya, Daddy," she whispered.

Jackson went back to what remained of his own house. The building smelled sour and sooty, as though the dormant spores of ancient diseases had been released into the air. He raked with his foot through the clinker and slag that now carpeted his living room. He wondered what had happened to Victor's ashes – there was no sign of his urn. Ashes to ashes. He found a broken shard of pottery, a piece of wishing well, the letters G… from scar still legible. He let it fall back into the debris. Just as he was turning to leave something caught his eye. He squatted on his haunches to get a better look. One blue arm, covered in ash, was sticking up in the air, like an earthquake survivor signaling for help. Jackson tugged at the arm and pulled Blue Mouse out of the ruins.

Superintendent Marian Foster had moved to Filey on her retirement from the force and was still doggedly unpacking cardboard boxes in her kitchen when Jackson and Marlee arrived on her doorstep. Jackson had phoned her from the car to tell her he was coming, and she seemed pleased to be interrupted, as if she already realized that burying herself in a small seaside town might not be the best way to spend her nonworking life. "I expect I'll find a committee or two that needs a firm hand." She laughed. "Finally do that OU degree, join an evening class." She sighed and added, "It's going to be fucking awful, isn't it, Inspector?"

"Oh, I don't know, ma'am," Jackson said. "I'm sure you'll get used to it." Try as he might, Jackson couldn't think of anything more positive to say. He could see his own future reflected only too clearly back at him.

Marian Foster could obviously recognize a sugar junkie when she saw one, and she sat Marlee down in front of the television with a can of Coke and a plate of chocolate biscuits. She made a mug of achingly strong tea for herself and Jackson. "Gone soft?" she said when she saw him flinch at the taste. "You're back in Yorkshire now, boy."

"Don't I know it."

"So," Marian Foster said, suddenly businesslike, "Olivia Land? What can I tell you? I was a lowly PC, and a woman to boot. I interviewed the Land girls, but I doubt whether there's anything I can add to what you know."

"I'm not so sure," Jackson said. "Feelings, impressions, instincts, anything. Tell me what you would have done differently if you'd been in charge."

"Knowing everything I know now about the world?" She sighed, a weighty sigh. "I would have looked at the father more closely. I would have suspected abuse."

"Really? Why?"

"There was something wrong with Sylvia, the eldest. There were things she was hiding, things she wasn't saying. She would start to disassociate if you questioned her too closely. And she was… I don't know – strange." Strange - the same word Binky Rain had used about Sylvia.

"And the father was a cold fish," Marian Foster continued. "Controlled and controlling. The rest of them were a mess – the mother, the other girls. I've forgotten their names."

"Amelia and Julia."

"Of course. Amelia and Julia. You want my honest opinion?"

"More than anything," Jackson said.

"I think the father did it. I think Victor Land killed Olivia."

Jackson removed the crucial evidence from his pocket and laid it down on Marian Foster's kitchen table. Tears welled in her eyes, and for a moment she couldn't speak. "Blue Mouse," she said finally. "After all this time. Where did you find him?"