28

Donovan parked the Golf a few houses along from Tartaglia’s flat and switched off the engine. It was just before seven in the morning.

‘You’d better climb in the back,’ she said, nudging Chang, who was in the passenger seat beside her, listening to an iPod with his eyes half closed. ‘I’ll go and ring the bell.’

She was about to get out when she saw Tartaglia’s front door open and a young woman appeared on the threshold. Sinking back in her seat, Donovan caught her breath and watched. Tartaglia had said that his upstairs neighbour was away, so she must have come from his flat. Pausing briefly to put on a pair of huge sunglasses, the woman stepped out into the sunshine and started walking towards them. She was small and skinny, with a mass of long, dark hair. She was wearing what looked like a simple white petticoat made of some sort of satiny fabric that clung to her in all the right places and was practically transparent in the light. The only other thing she appeared to have on was a pair of black, over-the-knee boots.

‘Bloody hell,’ Chang said, as he slid into the back and slammed the door. ‘Who’s that? Isn’t that Mark’s house?’

‘Shut up,’ Donovan said. ‘Not a word about this to anyone.’

‘Of course not. It’s nobody’s business and I don’t gossip.’

Donovan said nothing. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Her hands were trembling and she let go of the door handle. She wrapped her arms tightly across her chest. She was jealous – so jealous she could barely breathe. The force of the feeling took her by surprise. Did she really care that much? She wished Chang were a million miles away. She took a series of slow, deep breaths, trying to calm herself.

The woman came towards them. As she got close, Donovan could hear her humming something to herself. What with the hair and the glasses it was difficult to see much of her face, but she looked very pretty. From the easy sway of her hips and the way she held her head, she knew it, too. She pulled a phone from her bag, checked the screen and smiled. Still looking down at the phone, she passed their car, busy tapping out a text or email as she carried on along the street.

‘Do you want me to go and get him?’ Chang asked, once she was out of sight.

‘No. I’ll do it.’

Wondering if Chang had guessed how she felt or if he was just trying to be helpful, Donovan wrenched open the car door, strode across the street and up the path. The front door wasn’t properly closed and she walked straight into the small, communal hall. Pausing briefly outside the door to Tartaglia’s flat to wipe her eyes, she knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again, louder this time. She was about to go back outside and ring the bell when the door opened and Tartaglia peered out at her, frowning. He looked dazed. He was barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of old jeans that he must have pulled on in a hurry; he hadn’t even done the zip up properly.

‘You told me to pick you up at seven,’ she said. ‘It’s five to now.’

‘Jesus, is it really?’ He rubbed the thick stubble on his chin thoughtfully. ‘I’m sorry, I must have overslept. I’ll get dressed as quick as I can. Why don’t you come in and make us some coffee while I take a shower.’

‘No thanks, I’ll wait in the car. I’ve got Justin with me.’

‘I’m sure he can manage on his own. I could do with something good and strong to wake me up.’

‘You certainly look like you need it. If you’re desperate, you can get a coffee on the motorway. I’ll be outside.’ She couldn’t keep the sharpness out of her voice, but she was past caring what he thought.

‘Sam?’

She was already halfway down the path and didn’t turn around. Her pulse was racing, every muscle tense. She had no desire to make small talk with Chang either and she sat down on the low wall of the next-door garden to wait, closing her eyes and letting the sun warm her face. Times like this, she wished she hadn’t given up smoking. She felt sick and angry. Angry with herself, as much as him. She remembered the first day he was back in the office after his holiday, being struck by how fit he looked, the deep colour of his skin accentuated by the white of his shirt. He had never looked more handsome, she had thought. He had been diving off the coast of Sicily with his cousin Alessandro. There had been no mention of anyone else. Alessandro lived in Milan where he worked as a stockbroker. She had met him a few times, and although he was attractive and good fun, she had marked him down as a bit of a playboy. Although Tartaglia wasn’t like that, she could picture the two of them on holiday together and it wasn’t a comfortable thought. She had studied Tartaglia carefully on his return. As far as she could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary about him, no air of inner excitement or something held back, no unusual texts or phone calls or other telltale signs. As far as she knew, there had been nobody important for a long while. So who was the woman? Maybe she was a friend of Nicoletta’s and he had lied to her. Whoever she was, she hated herself for wanting to know.

There were times when she thought he looked at her a little differently, almost thought that something might happen between them. Occasionally, he even seemed a little jealous when someone else paid her attention. Then again, it could be her imagination, or wishful thinking. Why don’t you tell him how you feel, Claire had said to her on more than one occasion. But what was the point? If he didn’t see it, let alone feel the same way, there was nothing to be done. Saying something would only make things more awkward between them, particularly as they worked so closely together, and she couldn’t bear the likely humiliation. It was best he had no idea. She inhaled a deep draught of the sweet morning air. She couldn’t simply turn her feelings off like a tap, but nor could she carry on torturing herself every time he took a woman to bed. Friendship was no longer enough of a substitute. For a while she had been thinking that maybe she needed to put some distance between them. She needed something to give her a push and maybe that something had now come.

She heard the clunk of a car door and opened her eyes. Chang was strolling towards her, hands in pockets, whistling a tune that sounded familiar, although she couldn’t place it.

‘Lovely morning,’ he said. ‘Mind if I join you? It’s too nice to stay in the car.’

She shrugged. ‘He’ll be out in a minute.’

He sat down next to her. ‘Gum?’ He held out a pack of Juicy Fruit.

‘No thanks. What were you whistling?’

He unwrapped a stick and put it in his mouth. ‘Mozart. Marriage of Figaro. I’ve been listening to it on my iPod.’

‘It sounded nice. Cheerful.’

‘In a way. It’s about love.’

She stared steadfastly ahead, glad of her dark glasses. Was it an innocent remark or was she completely transparent?

‘You look tired,’ he said, glancing over at her after a moment. ‘Were you up late last night?’

‘No. I went to bed relatively early for a change, but I still feel worn out. I think it’s this weather. It’s difficult to sleep.’

‘I know what you mean. I can share the driving with you, if you fancy a kip.’

‘Thanks. I’ll let you know.’

‘What’s the plan?’

‘We drop Mark off at the hotel where the lake is,’ she said, in what she hoped was a normal tone. ‘He’s meeting the DI from Avon and Somerset there. Then you and I go to Bristol and start checking with MisPer. Fingers crossed the girl was reported locally.’

‘Sounds good.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘I feel knackered too, but I only have myself to blame. I didn’t go to bed until two.’ He laced his fingers together and clicked his knuckles in a satisfied manner.

She said nothing. She had no idea what he did in his personal life and had no intention of asking.

‘You know, I could really use a cigarette,’ he said after a moment.

‘You smoke?’

‘Used to. I stopped when they brought in the ban. There didn’t seem much point in carrying on when they made it all so difficult, but I still get the occasional craving.’

She looked at him, surprised. He always seemed so disciplined, so squeaky clean. He didn’t seem the type to have vices. ‘It’s funny. I gave up last autumn, but I was just thinking a few minutes ago how I’d really like a smoke. Maybe it’s the sunshine, or sitting here on the wall with time to kill.’

He nodded. ‘There’s definitely such a thing as a cigarette moment.’

‘Only a smoker, or former smoker, would understand.’

‘It’s why I chew gum. I find it helps, stops me thinking about it. You should try it some time.’

‘I don’t think it would be the same.’

‘You’re probably right. Ah, here’s Mark,’ he said, getting to his feet as Tartaglia came out of his front door. ‘We’d better be going.’ As they started across the road towards the car, he glanced over at her and smiled. ‘Shame, really. Nice moment, even without a cigarette.’ He was still smiling as he slid into the back seat, leaving her wondering if she had heard correctly.

There was little traffic on the roads at that hour on a Sunday morning and they made it to Ashleigh Grange in just under two hours. Tartaglia sat in the passenger seat beside Donovan, with Chang asleep in the back for most of the time, headphones plugged in. Donovan seemed unusually silent, insisting on listening to Heart FM instead of talking, which suited him fine, the way he was feeling. Leaning his head against the window, he had dozed for most of the journey. In his more wakeful moments he thought back to the night before, images of Anna replaying in his mind. His last vague memory was of her getting out of his bed earlier that morning and moving around in the dark, no doubt looking for some of her things. He had glimpsed her momentarily silhouetted in the doorway as she went out into the hall. He remembered vaguely wishing that she would come back to bed again and that he could put off going to Bristol until later. Then he must have fallen asleep. Not long after that, or so it seemed, the sound of someone hammering on his door woke him. Wondering if it was Anna, he had struggled out of bed. The only traces of her were her article, still lying folded up on the coffee table where he had left it, and the wine glasses and the lipstick-marked cigarette butt in the ashtray.

He had found Donovan in the hall, looking tense for some reason. She had been in a strange mood all morning. Something was still eating her, although he had no idea what it was. He wondered if it was anything to do with a man, more specifically a DI called Simon Turner who had worked for one of the other teams. As he pictured Turner’s big, bony face and arrogant, ice blue stare, he felt the bile rise. As far as he was aware, he and Donovan were no longer in touch, but whatever was at the root of it, whether it was Turner or someone else, it would have to wait for another time. He had dressed quickly, made some instant black coffee for the sake of speed, and taken a cocktail of painkillers. Even so, he felt the dull throb of a headache that would only get worse over the course of the day, but the hangover was the least of it. Lack of sleep was doing his head in; his memory was fogged, his thought processes running in slow motion. Underneath it all, he had the uneasy feeling that he had done something seriously unwise.

When they reached junction 18 of the M4, he called Graham Roberts to let him know they would soon be arriving. They found Ashleigh Grange easily and Donovan dropped him in the main car park where Roberts was waiting as arranged, sitting in the driver’s seat of a navy blue Saab with the door wide open and reading the Mail on Sunday. Catching sight of Tartaglia, he put the paper away and got out of the car. He was a type of policeman that Tartaglia knew well: medium height, stocky build, with thinning, very short greying brown hair, and a tidy brush of a moustache. He must be near retirement age, but he looked trim and fit, dressed in a polo shirt, navy Nike tracksuit bottoms and trainers. He reminded Tartaglia of a Glaswegian rugby coach who had trained him at school.

They shook hands. ‘Still no sign of anything, I’m afraid,’ Roberts said in a London accent, which had surprised Tartaglia over the phone. He had been expecting some sort of a West Country burr. ‘Do you want to go straight down to the lake now? The new search team has only just got started.’

‘Please.’

‘OK. We’ll go via reception. It’s probably easiest.’ Roberts locked the Saab and they wove their way through the ranks of expensive-looking cars and started down the drive towards the house. It was bordered on either side by a high hedge of laurel and rhododendron and it was difficult to see much beyond it. ‘I’d hoped for a quicker result,’ Roberts said, ‘but there’s all kinds of rubbish in the water which is slowing down the search. It seems the lake was used as an unofficial tip by the locals until the hotel chain took it over. I’m surprised they didn’t bother to clear it out, but I suppose it costs too much money and, as nobody really uses the lake anymore, what the eye doesn’t see . . .’ Tartaglia was silent, happy to let Roberts do the talking if he felt like it. ‘The last time it was dragged,’ Roberts continued, ‘was back in the Sixties. A young boy went missing from one of the cottages on the estate and they had everyone in the area out looking for him. The boy eventually turned up safe and sound at a friend’s house, but in the meantime they found a vintage Rolls Royce in the lake. Back in the Twenties or thereabouts, someone – drunk no doubt – had just driven it into the water and left it there. It must have been worth a packet, even after all those years covered in mud. Sadly, we haven’t found anything interesting like that.’

Tartaglia yawned. ‘Looks like the hotel’s doing good business, if the car park’s anything to go by.’

‘Yes. Being so close to Bath, what with weddings and tourists and the like, it’s packed most weekends until the autumn. We’ve cordoned off the grounds and the woods around the lake but we’ve had a job keeping the guests out of our hair. We’ve given them the run of the golf course to keep them quiet, and the spa, but that’s all they’re allowed for the moment. As you can imagine, there’ve been no end of complaints and they’re all dying to know what’s going on. After all the stuff on the telly, everyone fancies themselves an amateur detective these days.’

‘If we find the body, how are you going to get it out of here discreetly?’

‘Already thought of that. There’s a private access road that goes right through the woods to the lake. I’ve had it sealed it off, for our use alone.’

‘Which way are the stables?’

‘Back the way we came, but it’s a spa now. They turned the old stable yard into an indoor pool. They haven’t done a bad job, I have to say.’

‘You know this place quite well,’ Tartaglia said, thinking that it was much bigger than he had imagined. To make any sense of what Wade and Fleming had said, he would have to try and familiarise himself with it, piece things together the way they had been eighteen years before.

Roberts nodded. ‘I’ve lived here a long time.’

‘But you don’t sound as though you come from around here?’

‘I’m originally from the Elephant and Castle. But we moved down here when I was fourteen, when my dad died and my mum remarried. By then, the damage was done.’

‘I imagine this place has changed a lot in the last twenty years.’

‘It certainly has. I know it like the back of my hand. My mum still lives in one of the nearby villages. I’m ashamed to say I used to come here with my stepdad to pot the odd rabbit or pheasant. That was before it was all redeveloped, of course. The Colonel had died and his wife was living here on her own by then. She must have been in her eighties, blind as a bat and rattling around in the house like a dried pea in a tin can. When she died, the family sold it fast as they could.’

‘When was this?’

‘Must have been the mid-Eighties. It was a right wreck by then and they hadn’t the cash to keep it going, let alone do all the necessary repairs. It changed hands several times after that.’

‘Do you remember it in the early Nineties?’

Roberts shook his head. ‘Sorry. I was working in Bristol by then, with a young family to keep me busy. All I know is Avondale Properties bought it about ten years ago and they’ve sunk an absolute fortune into it. I’ve played golf here a few times with friends and it’s a good course, although personally I couldn’t stretch to the membership. But the wife and I come here sometimes for a meal on special occasions. We were here for her fiftieth only last month. I also bought her a day at the spa as a special treat.’

‘How far is it from the spa to the lake, or to the main house? I just want to get my bearings.’

‘About a mile each way, I’d say, maybe a little more. It’s a triangle.’

‘Is there a map anywhere?’

‘I’m sure we can pick one up at reception, if you want.’

‘That would be useful.’

Roberts stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking thoughtful. ‘Perhaps you can enlighten me. All I know is that there’s a body in the lake and it’s a young girl.’

Tartaglia nodded. He’d been wondering when Roberts would ask. ‘We think she died during a party in the summer of 1991.

There were some students living here at the time.’

‘What happened?’

‘We’re not sure exactly, but one of them found her, then he and his friends decided to cover it up so as not to get into trouble. It’s only come to light now.’

Roberts glanced over at him. ‘Sounds fishy to me. You think the girl was murdered?’

‘It’s not clear. It may have been an accident. That’s why we need to get her out of there if we can.’

‘If it’s just an accident, why are you here? I mean, you work for an MIT, right?’

Tartaglia nodded, picking up the suspicious, resentful edge in his voice. He had come across the attitude before. The Met was the only police force in the country to operate dedicated murder investigation teams. Outside the capital, the volume of murders was much lower and there was no need for specialisation. Roberts worked in CID where he handled a whole range of serious crimes. He was a bigger fish in a much smaller pond, but somehow that wasn’t enough. His expression said it all: ‘Here’s this flash, know-it-all Met Murder Squad DI, with his sharp suit and fancy foreign name, coming down from the smoke, muscling in on my turf.’ Tartaglia had heard it before. It didn’t help that he was a good fifteen years younger than Roberts. But life was tough and Roberts would have to learn to live with it.

‘We’ve been told to pull out all the stops,’ Roberts said, clearly not satisfied. ‘I can’t tell you the job I had getting the search team organised last night. Why the urgency, if she’s been down there that long and you’re not even sure if she was topped?’ He looked at Tartaglia questioningly. He must resent being called out on a Sunday, particularly when he knew he was being given only part of the story, but it wasn’t Tartaglia’s job to enlighten him. Roberts would have read about the Logan and Khan murders in the papers but the cases were still not officially linked. Also, they were leaking badly enough as it was and there was no reason for Roberts to know more than the bare bones.

‘What happened here might possibly be linked to an ongoing murder investigation,’ Tartaglia said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say any more at the moment.’

Roberts pursed his lips. ‘I see. Can you tell me this much; if the girl was murdered, do you have a suspect?’

Tartaglia hesitated. He felt like telling Roberts to mind his own business. His head felt thick and he didn’t like being cross-examined, but there was little to be gained from antagonising him. If the girl had been murdered, Fleming was the most likely candidate, but short of a confession there was no real evidence to nail him with. Nor, for the moment, was it clear who would handle the investigation. His only interest in the girl was in relation to the Logan and Khan cases and it would be logical for the inquiry to be handled locally. But it wasn’t his call and there was no point stirring things up with Roberts until they knew exactly what had happened. He chose his words carefully.

‘We have a statement from the man who originally found her in the lake, which is corroborated by others who were here at the time. There’s no point in making assumptions or thinking about likely suspects until we have more information. As I said before, the first step is to get her out of the lake.’ He hoped he had been emphatic enough and that Roberts would leave it there.

‘I see,’ Roberts said again.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, accompanied only by the rhythmic beat of their strides on the gravel. Eventually, the drive opened up into a wide turning circle in front of the main house. Although the honeyed colour of the stone was different, it reminded him of Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott’s house in the Borders, all pepper-pot towers, pointed gables and gothic windows. If it had once been run-down, it didn’t show. Everything was pristine and in good order, paint new, windows sparkling, lawns and flowerbeds as tidy as a municipal garden.

‘Do you want to take a look around the house?’ Roberts asked.

‘Maybe later. All I need for now is the map, then let’s go to the lake and see how they’re getting on.’

The reception desk was in a small vestibule, just inside the front door. Tartaglia picked up a map and a glossy leaflet about the hotel and followed Roberts into an enormous, vaulted baronial-style banqueting hall. It was lit by two tall stained glass windows, which cast a rainbow of colours onto the stone floor. He could smell fresh coffee and bacon. The buzz of voices and clink of china and cutlery were coming from a room off the hall, where breakfast was still in progress. It was only nine-thirty, but he realised how hungry he was. He had picked up a couple of croissants and a Red Bull at a service station on the M4 but they had barely touched the sides and he had passed on the coffee from the vending machine, which looked undrinkable.

‘Just need the gents,’ Roberts said. ‘Won’t be a sec.’

As he disappeared back in the direction of reception, Tartaglia sat down in a comfortable armchair by the vast stone hearth. He still felt groggy and his head was beginning to ache with renewed vigour. He would give anything for a decent coffee but he didn’t want to delay getting down to the lake. Shielding his eyes from the sun, which was streaming in through the windows, he took out the hotel leaflet from his pocket and started to read, hoping that he might learn something interesting about the place and that it might keep him awake. It gave a potted history of the house, which dated from the early 1800s. The land had originally been bought and eventually developed by Jeremiah Wilson, the son of a wealthy merchant from Bristol who had made a fortune importing tobacco and sugar in the late eighteenth century. Bristol had been a thriving port at the time and he wondered if slave trade money had been involved too, although there was no mention of it. As Roberts had said, the Wilson family had continued to live in the house until the late 1980s. It had been turned into a hotel ten years later, well after Fleming and his friends had left. There was no mention of what had happened to it in the intervening period.

Roberts reappeared moments later and led the way out through a small door to one side of the huge, carved wood staircase. They walked down through a series of lawns and terraced gardens and came to a high yew hedge with a gate in the middle, which was manned by a uniformed officer. Beyond was an area of open parkland and woods. Roberts took a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. ‘The lake’s just through the trees.’

They showed their IDs and once they had been signed in, they followed a path that had been recently cut through the long grass of the meadow. They had just entered the cool shade of the wood when Roberts’s phone started to ring. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said, stopping to answer it. ‘I’ll catch you up. Just follow the path.’

The sky overhead was bright blue, and the air was filled with the buzzing of insects and birds, calling high up in the trees. A pair of young male pheasants were rooting among the dead leaves below, paying Tartaglia no notice. The path wound downhill through a dense mixture of deciduous trees and tall rhododendron. Within a minute he saw the lake in front of him. He stopped in the shade of a large beech tree and gazed down at the water. It stretched out smooth and dark, like a huge teardrop. He heard the muted sound of running water somewhere beneath him where, he assumed, the lake was fed by an underground stream. The leaflet had said it was man-made, excavated at the time the house was built, although it looked completely natural in its setting, as though it had been there for a thousand years. The trees came right down the slope almost to the water’s edge, some reaching far over, their branches scraping the surface.

He followed the path down to the water’s edge to get a better view. Wondering how much longer Roberts would be, he lit a cigarette, enjoying the stillness. There was barely a ripple on the surface of the water, which shimmered in the morning sunshine. A small island lay just offshore, close to where he was standing. It was connected to the mainland by a narrow footbridge. A church stood in the middle, encircled by tombstones. On the far side of the lake, an impressive-looking building with pillars and gates opening onto the water nestled amongst the trees. He assumed it must be the boathouse. Several cars and a pickup truck and trailer were parked in a clearing nearby and a man in green tracksuit bottoms was leaning on the bonnet of one of the cars, with what looked like a mobile phone clamped to his ear. Next to him were two uniformed police. The search team’s RIB was moored beside what looked like a diving platform in the middle of the lake. One of the team sat in the boat keeping watch, in contact with the divers via a headset. They would be working in pairs, deep in the muddy water, the orange surface marker buoys the only indication of where they were.

The house was further away from the lake than he had imagined from Fleming’s description and it must have been quite a hike at night, even under the light of a full moon. He tried to picture it all – Fleming kneeling down in the water under the trees, finding the girl’s body. He wished now that he had asked Fleming to draw him a map to show exactly where he had been. But standing there, looking at the scene, Fleming’s story sounded a little more plausible than it had done in the interview room, although he was still sure something important was missing from it.

He heard the cracking of branches in the undergrowth behind him and turned to see Roberts emerge at the top of the bank.

‘Not much going on,’ he said, as Roberts slid down and joined him.

‘It’s a bit like watching paint dry. That was my sergeant on the phone. You can just see him over there on the far bank. He’s the one in the green tracksuit. He thought I was still in the car park waiting for you and he was just ringing to say there was no news.’

‘Shall we go over there?’

‘Not much point at the moment, unless you just want to stand around staring at the water. I don’t know how they’ll find anything in there. It’s as thick as soup. You’re sure she’s somewhere in the middle?’

‘That’s what we were told.’

Roberts shrugged. ‘Well, they started right over there by that pontoon, or whatever it is. Apparently, they’ve been working their way outwards in some sort of formation, but I’m not holding my breath. At this rate, we’ll be here all day. Do you want to go and grab a coffee and a snack back at the hotel? Maybe you can tell me a bit more about the case you’re working on. They’ll call me as soon as they find anything.’

He had no intention of giving Roberts anything further on the case, but the suggestion of coffee and a snack was something he couldn’t turn down. ‘Sounds a good idea. But before we head back, I’d like to take a look at that little church over there, and maybe also the boathouse.’

Roberts looked at him as though he were mad. ‘Suit yourself. I’ll just go around and have a word with the lads and tell them what we’re doing. Let me know when you’re ready.’

They parted company and Tartaglia started to walk towards the church. Sunlight shone through the trees onto the goldencoloured walls. Panes of glass were missing from some of the mullioned windows and a couple of sparrows flew out as he crossed the little bridge that linked the shore to the island. Surprisingly, the church door wasn’t locked and he pushed it open. Light flooded in through the windows onto a bare interior that had been stripped of any furnishings. The stone floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, but he could still see where the handful of pews had once stood. A few memorial plaques were dotted around the walls, dedicated to members of the Wilson family, and a large, reclining statue of a young man in uniform lay on a plinth to one side of the altar. Briefly reading the inscription, it sounded as though he had been the only son, killed in battle during the First World War. Behind it, he found a low wooden door, which he assumed led down to the crypt. It, too, wasn’t locked, and he carefully picked his way down the narrow stairs, using the little Maglite on his key ring to shed some light. The whole place reeked of damp. When he reached the bottom, which was flooded with an inch or so of murky water, he decided he had seen enough. The heavy metal gates in front of him, with their coat of arms, the decaying coffins on their shelves beyond; it all matched almost exactly the description in the email sent to Joe Logan. Whoever had written it, had to have stood there at some point. Was it one of the five, or someone else who had visited Ashleigh Grange?

Back outside in the sunshine, he breathed in the warm air and followed the narrow path that skirted the lake until he came to the boathouse. It too was built of stone, with gates and a landing stage on the water, and an upper storey above. A balcony spanned the width at the front, with two large windows and a door. The stone facing looked in a poor state of repair. As with the church, panes of glass were broken or missing and the large wooden gates sagged on their hinges, green with mould and rotting where they touched the water. A newish-looking sign had been fixed to one side of the stairs with the words ‘DANGER KEEP OUT’, no doubt put there by the hotel management, worried about public liability. He was surprised that they hadn’t bothered to restore the building. He had never been keen on messing about in boats, even as a child, but it seemed such a shame to let everything decay away. However, tastes had changed. The slow, quiet pleasure of taking a boat or a punt out on a lake on a summer’s day was something rarely appreciated any longer. With the golf course and the spa to keep them occupied, the guests probably never bothered to venture this far from the hotel. Careful where he put his feet, he climbed the wooden stairs to the first floor. The small terrace was sheltered by the overhanging roof. It stood several metres above the water and commanded a clear view of the entire lake, as well as the chimneys and gables of the main house in the distance. It would have been easy to hide from view behind one of the pillars and he wondered if somebody had been there early on that long-ago morning. Fleming had said he had the impression someone was watching as the five men stood around the girl’s body deciding what to do. Had they also seen Wade and Logan row out into the middle of the lake and dump the girl’s body?

The door was ajar and he pushed it open and went inside. The floor was covered in a thick carpet of dead leaves. An old-fashioned punt and a rowing boat lay under one of the windows, together with a jumble of wooden paddles, all beyond use. A few oars hung on the back wall, the blades inscribed with the names of school and university eights printed in faded gold lettering on the blades. All the inscriptions dated back to before the First World War and he felt for a moment as though he was in a time warp, as though nothing of consequence had happened to the house since. Perhaps all hope had died with the death of the only son.

Whoever had written the email to Paul Khan had stood right there too. He glanced out of the window across the lake and wondered how many people had known about the crypt and the boathouse. Given the sort of life Fleming and his friends had led, the field was an open one. He thought of the girl’s clothing lying in a neat pile somewhere in the middle of the floor here. Why neat? Surely most teenagers didn’t bother with tidiness, particularly not in that sort of situation. What had she been doing in the boathouse and why had she left her things there when everybody else had undressed beside the lake? Maybe she had been there for some reason before the party, but if so, why had nobody recognised her?

He heard a shout and looked out of the window. Roberts was jogging towards him, waving. Two of the divers had surfaced in the middle of the lake and were talking to the man in the RIB.

‘We’ll have to get that coffee later,’ Roberts called out, as he came out onto the terrace. ‘Looks like they’ve found something.’