Ashort pause, then Angie said, "Because it would feel like the worst betrayal. Those guys had been friends since the first day at school. Mick becoming a scab would have broken Andy's heart. And I think he saw it coming."

"What makes you say that?"

"The last time I saw him, he knew there was something going on with Mick."

Sunday, 2nd December 1984; Wemyss Woods

A visit home was never complete for Angie without time spent with her brother. She tried to get back at least once a term, but although the bus ride from Edinburgh was only an hour, it sometimes seemed too big an undertaking. She knew the problem was the different kind of distance that was growing between her and her parents as she moved more freely through a world that was alien to theirs: lectures, student societies, parties where drugs were as common as drink, and a conversational range that outstripped anything she'd ever encountered back in Fife. Not that there weren't opportunities for broadening one's intellectual horizons there. But the reading rooms and WEA courses and Burns Clubs were for the men. Women had never had the access or the time. The men did their shifts underground, then their time was their own. But the women's work truly was never done, especially for those whose landlords were the old coal companies or the nationalized coal board. Angie's own grandmother hadn't had running hot water or a bath in her home until she'd been in her sixties. So the men didn't easily take to women with an education.

Andy was one of the exceptions. His move from the coal face to working for the union had exposed him to the wider equality policies pursued by the trade union movement. There might not be women working in the pits, but contact with other unions had persuaded Andy that the world would not end if you treated women as fellow members of the human race. And so brother and sister had grown closer, replacing their childhood squabbling with genuine debate. Now Angie looked forward to Sunday afternoons spent with her brother, tramping through the woods or nursing mugs of hot chocolate by the fire.

That afternoon, Andy had met her off the bus at the end of the track that led deep into the woods to his cottage. They'd planned to skirt the woods and walk down to the shore, but the sky threatened rain so they opted to head back for the cottage. "I've got the fire on for you coming," Andy had said as they set off. "I feel guilty about having the money for the coal, so I don't usually bother. I just put another sweater on."

"That's daft. Nobody blames you for still getting a wage."

Andy shook his head. "That's where you're wrong. There's plenty think we should be kicking back our wages into the union pot."

"And who does that help? You're doing a job. You're supporting the men on strike. You deserve to be paid." She linked her arm with his, understanding how embattled he felt.

"Aye, and a lot of the strikers think they should be getting something from the union too. I've heard a few of them down the Welfare saying that if the union had been paying strike pay, they wouldn't be having to work so hard to keep the funds out of the hands of the sequestrators. They wonder what the union funds are for, if not to support the members when there's a strike on." He sighed, head down as if he was walking into a high wind. "And they've got a point, you know?"

"I suppose so. But if you've willingly handed over the decision-making to your leaders, which they've done by agreeing to strike without a national ballot, then you can't really start to complain when they make decisions you're not so keen on." Angie looked closely at her brother, seeing how the lines of strain round his eyes had deepened since she'd last seen him. His skin looked waxy and unhealthy, like that of a man who has spent too long indoors without vitamin supplements. "And it doesn't help anybody if you let them wind you up about it."

"I don't feel like I'm much help to anybody right now," he said, so quietly it was almost lost in the scuffle of dead leaves beneath their feet.

"That's just silly," Angie protested, knowing it wasn't enough but not knowing what else to say.

"No, it's the truth. The men I represent, their lives are falling apart. They're losing their homes because they can't pay the mortgage. Their wives have sold their wedding rings. Their kids go to school hungry. They've got holes in their shoes. It's like a bloody Third World country here, only we don't have charities raising money to help us with our disaster. And I can't do anything about it. How do you think that makes me feel?"

"Pretty shitty," Angie said, hugging his arm tighter to her. There was no resistance; it was like embracing the stuffed draught excluder their mother used to keep the living room as stifling as she could manage. "But you can only do the best you can. Nobody expects you to solve all the problems of the strike."

"I know." He sighed. "But I used to feel part of this community. I've belonged here all my life. These days, it feels like the guys on strike are on one side of the fence and everybody else is on the other side. Union officials, pit deputies, managers, fucking Tory government-we're all the enemy."

"Now you're really talking rubbish. There's no way you're on the same side as the Tories. Everybody knows that." They walked on in silence, quickening their pace as the promise of rain became a reality. It sheeted down in cold hard drops. The bare branches above their heads offered little protection against the penetrating downpour. Angie let go his arm and began to run. "Come on, I'll race you," she said, exhilarated somehow by the drenching cold. She didn't check to see whether he was following her. She just hurtled pell-mell through the trees, jinking and swerving to stay with the winding path. As always, emerging into the clearing where the cottage hunkered down seemed impossibly sudden. It sat there like something out of the Brothers Grimm, a low squat building with no charm except its isolation. The slate roof, grey harling, black door and window frames would easily have qualified it as the home of the wicked witch in the eyes of any passing child. A wooden lean-to sheltered a coal box, a wood pile, and Andy's motorbike and sidecar.

Angie ran to the porch and turned round, panting. There was no sign of Andy. A couple of minutes passed before he trudged out of the trees, light brown hair plastered dark to his head. Angie felt deflated at the failure of her attempt to lighten his spirits. He said nothing as he led the way into the cottage, as neat and spartan as a barracks. The only decoration was a series of wildlife posters that had been given away free with one of the Scottish Sunday papers. One set of shelves was crammed with books on natural history and politics; another with LPs. It couldn't have been less like the rooms she frequented in Edinburgh, but Angie liked it better than any of them. She shook her head like a dog to shed the raindrops from her dark blond hair, tossed her coat over a chair, and curled up in one of the secondhand armchairs that flanked the fire. Andy went straight through to the scullery to make the hot chocolate.

As she waited for him to come through, Angie fretted over how she might lift his mood. Usually she made him laugh with tales of her fellow students and their antics, but she sensed that wasn't going to work today. It would feel too much like insensitive tales of the over-privileged. Maybe the answer was to remind him of the people who still believed in him.

He came back with two steaming mugs on a tray. Usually they had cookies, but clearly anything that smacked of luxury was off the menu today. "I've been giving most of my wages to the hardship fund," he said, noticing her noticing. "Just keeping enough for the rent and the basics."

They sat facing each other, nursing their hot drinks to let the warmth seep back into their cold hands. Angie spoke first. "You shouldn't pay attention to them. The people who really know you don't think you're one of the enemy. You should listen to people like Mick who know who you are. What you are."

"You think?" His mouth twisted in a bitter expression. "How can the likes of Mick know who I am when I don't know who they are any more?"

"What do you mean, you don't know who Mick is any more? The two of you have been best pals for twenty-odd years. I don't believe the strike has changed either of you that much."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Andy stared into the fire, his eyes dull and his shoulders sagging. "Men round here, we're not supposed to talk about our feelings. We live in this atmosphere of comradeship and loyalty and mutual dependence, but we never talk about what's going on inside us. But me and Mick, we weren't like that. We used to tell each other everything. There was nothing we couldn't talk about." He pushed his damp hair back from his high narrow forehead. "But lately something's changed. I feel like he's holding back. Like there's something really important that he can't bring himself to talk about."

"But that could be anything," Angie said. "Something between him and Jenny, maybe. Something it wouldn't be right to talk to you about."

Andy snorted. "You think he doesn't talk about Jenny? I know all about that marriage, trust me. I could draw you a map of the fault lines between that pair. No, it's not Jenny. The only thing I can think is that he agrees with the rest of them. That I'm neither use nor ornament to them right now."

"You sure you're not imagining things? It doesn't sound like Mick."

"I wish I was. But I'm not. Even my best pal thinks I'm not fit to be trusted any more. I just don't know how long I can go on doing my work, feeling like this."

Now Angie was starting to feel genuinely worried. Andy's despair was clearly far beyond anything she knew how to deal with. "Andy, don't take me wrong, but you need to go and see the doctor."

He made a noise like a laugh strangled at birth. "What? Aspirin and Disprin, the painkilling twins? You think I'm losing my marbles? You think that pair would know what to do about it if I was? You think I need temazepam like half the bloody women round here? Happy pills to make it not matter?"

"I want to help you, Andy. And I don't have the skills. You need to talk to somebody that knows what they're doing, and the doctor's a good place to start. Even Aspirin and Disprin know more than I do about depression. I think you're depressed, Andy. Like, clinically depressed, not just miserable."

He looked as if he was going to cry. "You know the worst thing about what you just said? I think you might be right."

Thursday, 28th June 2007; Kirkcaldy

It sounded plausible. Andy Kerr had sensed Mick Prentice was keeping something from him. When it appeared Mick had joined the scabs and gone to Nottingham, it might have been enough to push someone in a fragile state over the edge. But it looked as if Mick Prentice hadn't gone to Nottingham at all. The question, Karen thought, was whether Andy Kerr knew what had really happened to his best friend. And whether he was involved in his disappearance. "And you never spoke to Andy after that Sunday?" she asked.

"No. I tried to ring him a couple of times, but I just got the answering machine. And I didn't have a phone where I was living so he couldn't call me back. Mum told me the doctor had signed him off his work with depression, but that was all I knew."

"Do you think it's possible he and Mick went off somewhere together? "

"What? You mean, just turned their back on everybody and waltzed off into the sunset like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?"

Karen winced. "Not that, exactly. More like they'd both had enough and couldn't see any other way out. No question that Andy was having his problems. And you suggested Mick and Jenny weren't getting along too well. Maybe they just decided on a clean break?"

She could hear Angie breathing on the other side of the world. "Andy wouldn't do that to us. He would never have hurt us like that."

"Could Mick have talked him into it? You said they'd been pals since school. Who was the leader? Who was the follower? There's always one who leads and one who follows. You know that, Angie. Was Mick the leader?" No one pushed more gently but firmly than Karen on a roll.

"I suppose so. Mick was the extrovert, Andy was much quieter. But they were a team. They were always in trouble, but not in a bad way. Not with the police. Just always in trouble at school. They'd booby-trap chemistry experiments with fireworks. Glue teachers' desks shut. Andy was good with words and Mick was artistic, so they'd print up posters with fake school announcements. Or Mick would forge notes from teachers letting the pair of them off classes they didn't like. Or they'd mess about in the library, swapping the dust jackets on the books. I'd have had a breakdown if I'd ever had pupils like them. But they grew out of it. By the time of the strike, they'd both settled down into their lives." There was more than a hint of regret in her voice. "So yes, theoretically Mick might have talked Andy into doing a runner. But it wouldn't have lasted. They'd have come back. They couldn't stay away. Their roots were too deep."

"You tore yours up," Karen observed.

"I fell in love with a New Zealander, and all my family were dead," Angie said flatly. "I wasn't leaving anybody behind to grieve."

"Fair enough. Can we go back to Mick? You said Andy had implied there were problems in his marriage?"

"She trapped him into that marriage, you know. Andy always thought she got pregnant on purpose. She was supposed to be on the pill, but amazingly it didn't work and the next thing was Misha was on the way. She knew Mick came from a decent family, the kind of people who don't run away from their responsibilities. So of course he married her." There was a bitter edge in her tone that made Karen wonder whether Angie had carried a torch for Mick Prentice before her New Zealander came along.

"Not the best of starts, then."

"They seemed happy enough to begin with." Angie's grudging admission came out slowly. "Mick treated her like a little princess and she lapped it up. But she didn't like it one little bit when the hard times hit. I thought at the time that she'd pushed him into scabbing because she'd had enough of being skint."

"But she really suffered after he went," Karen said. "It was a terrible stigma, being the wife of a scab. She wouldn't have let him leave her behind to face that on her own."

Angie made a dismissive noise in the back of her throat. "She had no idea what it would be like until it hit her. She didn't get it. She wasn't one of us, you know. People talk about the working class as if it's just one big lump, but the demarcation lines are just as well defined as they are among any other class. She was born and bred in East Wemyss, but she wasn't one of us. Her dad didn't get his hands dirty. He worked in the Co-operative. He served behind the counter in the store. He wore a collar and tie to his work. I bet he never voted Labour in his life. So I'm not sure how clearly she understood what would happen to her if Mick went on the black."

It made sense. Karen understood viscerally what Angie was saying. She knew people like that from her own community. People who didn't fit anywhere, who had a deep groove across their backsides from a lifetime of sitting on the fence. It lent weight to the idea that Mick Prentice might have gone scabbing. Except that he hadn't. "The thing is, Angie, it looks like Mick didn't go scabbing that night. Our preliminary inquiries indicate that he didn't join the five men who went to Nottingham."

A shocked silence. Then Angie said, "He could have gone somewhere else on his own."

"He had no money. No means of transport. He didn't take anything with him when he went out that morning except his painting gear. Whatever happened to him, I don't think he went scabbing."

"So what did happen to him?"

"I don't know that yet," Karen said. "But I plan to find out. And here's the question I have to start asking. Let's assume Mick didn't go scabbing. Who might have had a reason for wanting him out of the way?"

Friday, 29th June 2007; Nottingham

Femi Otitoju entered the fourth address into Google Earth and studied the result. "Come on, Fem," Mark Hall muttered. "The DCI's got his eye on us. He's wondering what the hell you're doing, playing around on the computer after he's given us an assignment."

"I'm working out the most efficient order to do the interviews in, so we don't waste half the day backtracking." She looked at the four names and addresses supplied by some DC in Fife and numbered them according to her logic. "And I've told you. Don't call me Fem." She printed the list and folded it neatly into her unscuffed handbag. "My name is Femi."

Mark rolled his eyes and followed her out of the Cold Case Review office, flashing a nervous smile at DCI Mottram as they went. He'd been gagging for his temporary transfer to CID, but if he'd been warned that it would mean working with Femi Otitoju, he might have had second thoughts. The word round the station when they were both still in uniform was that, in Otitoju's case, PC stood for Personal Computer. Her uniform had always been immaculate, her shoes polished to a military sheen. Her plain clothes followed the same pattern. Neatly pressed anonymous grey suit, blinding white shirt, impeccable hair. And shoes still polished like mirrors. Everything she did was by the book; everything was precise. Not that Mark had anything against doing things properly. But he'd always believed there was a place for spontaneity, especially in an interview. If the person you were talking to veered off at a tangent, it didn't hurt to follow for a while. Sometimes it was among the tangents that the truth was hiding. "So these four were all miners from Fife who broke the strike to go down the pits here?" he said.

"That's right. There were originally five of them, but one of them, Stuart McAdam, died two years ago of lung cancer."

How did she remember that stuff? And why did she bother? "And who are we going to see first?"

"William John Fraser. Known as Billy. Fifty-three years old, married with two grown-up children, one at Leeds University, the other at Loughborough. He's a self-employed electrician now." She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder. "I'll drive, I know where we're going."

They emerged in the windy parking lot behind the station and headed for an unmarked CID pool car. It would, Mark knew, be full of someone else's rubbish. CID and cars were like dogs and lampposts, he'd discovered. "Won't he be at work now?" He opened the passenger door to find the footwell held plastic sandwich containers, empty Coke cans, and five Snickers bar wrappers. Something white snapped at the corner of his peripheral vision. Otitoju was waving an empty carrier bag at him. "There you go," she said. "Stick the rubbish in there and I'll take it to the bin."

Mark reminded himself that she did have her uses after all. They hit the main ring road, still busy even after the worst of the morning rush, and headed west. The road was flanked with dirty red-brick houses and the sort of businesses that managed to hang on by a fingernail in the teeth of classier opposition elsewhere. Convenience stores, nail studios, hardware shops, launderettes, fast-food outlets, and hairdressers. It was depressing driving past it. Mark was grateful for his city-centre flat in a converted lace mill. It might be small, but he didn't have to deal with this crap in his personal life. And there was a great Chinese just round the corner that delivered.

Fifteen minutes round the ring road and they turned off into a pleasant enclave of semi-detached brick cottages. They looked as if they'd been built in the 1930s; solid, unpretentious, and nicely proportioned. Billy Fraser's house was on a corner plot, with a substantial, well-established garden. "I've lived in this city all my life and I didn't even know this place existed," Mark said.

He followed Otitoju up the path. The door was answered by a woman who couldn't have been much over five feet. She had the look of someone just past her best; silver strands in her light brown bob, jawline starting to soften, a few more pounds than was comfortable. Mark thought she was in pretty good nick for her age. He dived straight in before Otitoju could scare her. "Mrs. Fraser? "

The woman nodded, looking anxious. "Yes, that's me." Local accent, Mark noted. So he hadn't brought a wife from Fife. "And you are... ?"

"I'm Mark Hall and this is my colleague Femi Otitoju. We're police officers and we need to have a word with Billy. It's nothing to worry about," he added hastily, seeing the look of panic on Mrs. Fraser's face. "Someone he used to know back in Fife has been reported missing and we need to ask Billy a few questions."

The woman shook her head. "You'll be wasting your time, duck. Billy's not kept in touch with anyone from Fife except the lads he came down here with. And that was more than twenty years ago."

"The man we're interested in went missing more than twenty years ago," Otitoju said bluntly. "So we do need to speak to your husband. Is he at home?" Mark felt like kicking her as he watched Mrs. Fraser's face close down on them. Otitoju had definitely been behind the door when sisterhood got handed out.

"He's at work."

"Can you tell us where he's working, flower?" Mark said, trying to get back on a conversational keel.

He could practically see the mental debate on the woman's face. "Wait a minute," she said at last. She returned with a large-format diary open at that day's date. She turned it to face him. "There."

Otitoju was already scribbling the address down on her precious sheet of paper. Mrs. Fraser caught sight of the names. "You're in luck," she said. "Johnny Ferguson's working with him today. You'll be able to kill two birds with one stone." From the expression on her face, she wasn't convinced that was a metaphor.

The two ex-miners were working a scant five-minute drive away, refitting a shop on the main drag. "From kebab shop to picture framing in one easy move," Mark said, reading the clues. Fraser and Ferguson were hard at work, Fraser chiselling out a channel for cables, Ferguson demolishing the bench seat running along one wall for the takeaway's customers. They both stopped what they were doing when the two police officers entered, eyeing them warily. It was funny, Mark thought, how some people always recognized a cop instantly, while others seemed oblivious to whatever signals he and his kind gave off. It was nothing to do with guilt or innocence, as he'd na.vely thought at first. Just an instinct for the hunter.

Otitoju introduced them and explained why they were there. Fraser and Ferguson both looked bemused. "Why would anybody think he'd have come with us?" Ferguson said.

"More to the point, why would anybody think we'd have taken him?" Billy Fraser wiped the back of his hand across his mouth in a gesture of disgust. "Mick Prentice thought the likes of us were beneath him. Even before we went scabbing, he looked down on other folk. Thought he was better than us."

"Why would he think that?" Mark asked.

Fraser pulled a packet of Bensons out of his overalls. Before he could get the cigarette out of the packet, Otitoju had placed her smooth hand over the rough one. "That's against the law now, Mr. Fraser. This is a place of work. You can't smoke in here."

"Aw, for fuck's sake," Fraser complained, turning away as he shoved his smokes back in his pocket.

"Why would Mick Prentice think he was better than you?" Mark said again.

Ferguson took up the challenge. "Some men went on strike because the union told them to. And some went on strike because they were convinced they were right and they knew what was best for the rest of us. Mick Prentice was one of the ones who thought they knew best."

"Aye," Fraser said bitterly. "And he had his pals in the union taking care of him." He rubbed fingers and thumb together in the universal representation of money.

"I don't understand," Mark said. "I'm sorry, mate, I'm too young to remember the strike. But I thought one of the big problems was that you didn't get strike pay?"

"You're right, son," Fraser said. "But for a while, the lads that went on the flying pickets got cash in hand. So when there was any picketing duty available, it was always the same ones that got the nod. And if your face didn't fit, there was nothing for you. But Mick's face fit better than most. His best pal was an NUM official, see?"

"It was harder for some of us than others," Ferguson added. "I expect Prentice's pal slipped him the odd fiver or bag of food when the picketing money ran out. Most of us weren't that lucky. So no, Mick Prentice didn't come with us. And Billy's right. We wouldn't have had him if he'd asked."

Otitoju was prowling round the room, scrutinizing their work as if she were a building inspector. "The day you left. Did you see Mick Prentice at all?"

The two men exchanged a look that seemed furtive to Mark. Ferguson quickly shook his head. "Not really," he said.

"How can you 'not really' see somebody?" Otitoju demanded, turning back towards them.

Friday, 14th December 1984; Newton of Wemyss

Johnny Ferguson stood in the dark at the bedroom window where he could see the main road through the village. The room wasn't cold, but he was shivering slightly, the hand cupping his rollie trembling, interrupting the smooth rise of the smoke. "Come on, Stuart," he muttered under his breath. He took another drag off his cigarette and looked again at the cheap watch on his wrist. Ten minutes late. His right foot began tapping involuntarily.

Nothing was stirring. It was barely nine o'clock, but there was hardly a light showing. People couldn't afford the electricity. They went down the Welfare for a bit of light and heat or they went to bed, hoping they might sleep long enough for the nightmare to be over when they woke. For once, though, the quiet of the streets didn't bother Ferguson. The fewer people the better to witness what was happening tonight. He knew exactly what he was about to do and it scared the living shit out of him.

Suddenly, a pair of headlights swung into sight round the corner of Main Street. Against the dim street lights, Ferguson could make out the shape of a transit van. The old shape, not the new one that the police used as troop carriers in their operations against the miners. As the van drew closer, he could see it was dark in colour. Finally, Stuart was here.

Ferguson pinched out his cigarette. He took a last look round the bedroom where he'd slept for the last three years, ever since he'd taken the tenancy on the tiny house. It was too gloomy to see much, but then there wasn't much to be seen. What couldn't be sold had been broken up for firewood. Now there was just the mattress on the floor with an ashtray and a tattered Sven Hassel paperback beside it. Nothing left to regret. Helen was long gone, so he might as well turn his back on the fucking lot of them.

He clattered downstairs and opened the door just as Stuart was about to knock. "Ready?" Stuart said.

A deep breath. "As ready as I'll ever be." He pushed a hold-all towards Stuart with a foot and grabbed another holdall and a black trash bag. Ten fucking years at the coal face, and that was all he had to show for it.

They took two steps of the four that would bring them to the van and suddenly they weren't alone. A figure came hustling round the corner like a man on a mission. A couple of yards closer and the shape resolved itself into Mick Prentice. Ferguson felt a cold hand clutch his chest. Christ, that was all they needed. Prentice ripping into them, shouting the odds and doors opening all the way down the street.

Stuart threw his holdall into the back of the van, where Billy Fraser was already settled on a pile of bags. He turned to face Prentice, ready to make something of it if he had to.

But the rage they expected wasn't raining down on them. Instead, Prentice just stood there, looking like he was going to burst into tears. He looked at them and shook his head. "No, lads. No. Dinnae do it," he said. He kept on saying it. Ferguson could hardly believe this was the same man who'd chivvied them and rallied them and goaded them into staying loyal to the union. It was, he thought, a measure of how this strike had broken them.

Ferguson pushed past Prentice, stowed his bags, and climbed in beside Fraser, who pulled the doors closed behind him. "Fucking amazing," Fraser said.

"He looked like he just took a punch to the gut," Ferguson said. "The guy's lost it."

"Just be grateful," Fraser said. "Last thing we needed was him going off like a fucking rocket, bringing the place down about us." He raised his voice as the engine roared into life. "Let's go, Stu. The new life starts here."

Friday, 29th June 2007

"Were there any witnesses to this encounter?" Otitoju said.

"Stuart's dead now, so I'm the only witness left," Fraser said. "I was in the van. The back door was open and I saw the whole thing. Johnny's right. Prentice looked gutted. Like it was a personal affront, what we were doing."

"It might have been a different story if it had been Iain in the van and not you," Ferguson said.

"Why might that have made a difference?" Mark said.

"Iain and him were pals. Prentice might have felt the need to try and talk him out of it. But Iain was the last pick-up, so I guess we were off the hook. And that was the last time we saw Prentice," Ferguson said. "I've still got family up there. I heard he'd taken off, but I just assumed he'd gone off with that pal of his, the union guy. I can't remember his name-"

"Andy something," Fraser said. "Aye, when you told me they were both on the missing list, I thought they'd decided to bugger off and make a fresh start somewhere else. You have to understand, people's lives were falling apart by then. Men did things you'd never have thought they were capable of." He turned away and walked to the door, stepping outside and taking out his cigarettes.

"He's right," Ferguson said. "And mostly we didn't want to think too much about it. Come to that, we still don't want to. So unless there's anything else, we'll say good day to you." He picked up his crowbar and returned to his task.

Unable to think of anything else to ask, Mark started for the door. Otitoju hesitated briefly before following him to the car. They sat in silence for a moment, then Mark said, "It must have been bloody awful."

"It doesn't excuse their lawlessness," Otitoju said. "The miners' strike drove a wedge between us and the people we serve. They made us look brutal even though we were provoked. They say even the Queen was shocked by the battle of Orgreave, but what did people expect? We're supposed to keep her peace. If people don't consent to be policed, what else can we do?"

Mark stared at her. "You scare me," he said.

She looked surprised. "I sometimes wonder if you're in the right job," she said.

Mark looked away. "You and me both, flower."

Rotheswell Castle

In spite of her determination to deal with Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant on precisely the same terms as she would anyone else, Karen had to admit her stomach was off message. Anxiety always affected her digestive tract, putting her off her food and precipitating urgent dashes to the toilet. "If I had more interviews like this, I wouldn't need to think about going on a diet," she said as she and Phil set off for Rotheswell Castle.

"Ach, dieting's overrated," said Phil from the comfortable vantage point of a man whose weight hadn't wavered since he'd turned eighteen, no matter what he ate or drank. "You're fine just the way you are."

Karen wanted to believe him, but she couldn't. Nobody could find her chunky figure appealing, not unless they were a lot more hard up for female company than Phil need be. "Aye, right." She opened her briefcase and ran through the key points of the case file for Phil's benefit. She'd barely reached the end of her summary when they turned into the gateway of Rotheswell. They could see the castle in the distance beyond the bare branches of a stand of trees, but before they could approach their identities had to be verified. They both had to get out of the car and hold their warrant cards up to the CCTV camera. Eventually, the solid wooden gates swung open, allowing the car access to a sort of security airlock. Phil drove forward, Karen walking beside the car. The wooden gates swung shut behind them, leaving them contained as if in a giant cattle pen. Two security men emerged from a guardhouse and inspected the exterior and interior of the car, Karen's briefcase, and the pockets of Phil's duffel coat.

"He's got better security than the prime minister," Karen said as they finally drove up the drive.

"Easier to get a new prime minister than a new Brodie Grant," Phil said.

"I bet that's what he thinks, anyway."

As they approached the house, an elderly man in a waterproof jacket and a tweed cap rounded the nearest turret and waved them towards the far side of the gravel apron in front of the house. By the time they'd parked, he'd vanished, leaving them no option but to approach the massive studded wooden doors in the middle of the frontage. "Where's Mel Gibson when you need him?" Karen muttered, raising a hefty iron door knocker and letting it fall with a satisfying bang. "It's like a very bad film."

"And we still don't know why we're here." Phil looked glum. "Hard to see what could live up to this build-up."