Descending the penultimate flight of steps, Jenny heard voices in the lobby below. She turned the corner to see Alison standing on the doorstep of the caretaker's flat talking to Mrs Aldis. Sonia was already outside the building, phone pressed to her ear as, with much gesticulating, she explained the situation to an incredulous official at the Health Protection Agency.
Leaning on her crutch, Mrs Aldis nodded gruffly towards the lift. Jenny heard her say, 'Tall fella, slim.'
'Colour?'
'White. Fiftyish, I'd say. Baseball cap on. Shoved straight past me. No sorry or nothing.'
Alison said, 'Did you tell the police this?'
'I wasn't here, was I? I was on my way to hospital to have my knee seen to.'
'At what time?'
'Must've been about one-ish, maybe a few minutes after.' Mrs Aldis noticed Jenny. 'You remembered to lock up, love? There's no way my husband's going up there today. Lazy sod. It'd take a bomb to get him off that sofa when the football's on.'
Jenny said, 'You might be in luck.'
They sat for a while in Alison's car, a few moments of peace before the air would be split by the scream of sirens. Jenny resisted any temptation to discuss her officer's decision to step away from her friend and fellow churchgoer, DI Pironi. She was simply grateful that she had. She hated to admit it, but it was a childlike gratitude: there was something of the mother substitute in her relationship with Alison. What did that say about her? She heard McAvoy's voice: there's someone who's had the confidence knocked out of her.
'I'll take a statement later,' Alison said quietly. 'The man who came out of the lift sounded rather like the one Dani James saw in the student halls all those years ago.'
'White ... I don't know why, I was expecting her to say he was Asian.'
'We don't know he was connected with Mrs Jamal. He could have been anyone,' Alison said, but with no conviction.
After a moment of silence, Jenny said, 'Anna Rose Crosby worked at Maybury power station. Our missing Jane Doe had a thyroid tumour . . .'
'You can't start building castles in the air, Mrs Cooper. Best start with what we know.'
Then came the first one. A squad car screamed up behind them and screeched to a halt outside the block. Sonia Cane rushed to meet the two constables who scrambled out.
Alison said, 'She may never get another one like this. We'll leave her to enjoy the limelight, shall we?'
'Why not?' Jenny said. 'And talking of which, I think Monday might be a little soon to start taking evidence again, don't you?'
'Whatever you think's best, Mrs Cooper.'
The day had taken on a dreamlike quality, its moods shifting as swiftly as the restless sky. She used the last of her phone's battery dialling Ross's number, only to reach him for a few short seconds in which he announced he was staying at his father's for the rest of the weekend, and could she drop his things off on her way to work on Monday?
Deflated and dejected, Jenny drove home. The roads were eerily quiet as the sun sank towards the hilltops, briefly casting the Wye valley in a light of almost angelic clarity. For a brief moment the whole of life seemed to stop and be held in stark relief. She was a mere onlooker to the series of baffling tableaux which made up her present existence: a son disillusioned by her weakness; a disturbing and erratic man to whom she felt a visceral attraction; a case that, as much as she tried to ignore the fact, touched her darkest fears; and the latest bizarre composition in the city that lay a mere river's span behind her - a trail of radiation that led to the naked corpse of a woman whose final call for help she had ignored. She should have felt guilty, horrified that she'd taken McAvoy's call in preference to Mrs Jamal's, but in this moment of stillness she felt almost a selfish sense of relief. It was as if everything that had been ominous and unseen had briefly surfaced and shown itself. Mrs Jamal's killer - Jenny had convinced herself that was who the spectre in the baseball cap had been - was one and the same demon who had visited on the night of Nazim and Rafi's vanishing. Eight years ago he had left only scratch marks on the door frames; this time he'd left a smear of hell itself.
Evil now had a form if not a face.
There was no time to reflect or elaborate on her theories; the phone calls came relentlessly for the rest of the afternoon. Andy Kerr, the undertakers, various functionaries from the Health Protection Agency, DI Pironi and even Gillian Golder managed to obtain her supposedly ex-directory number. All wanted information she didn't have and none of them believed her when she claimed ignorance. Both Pironi and Golder sounded close to desperate for any lead to the source of the radiation; both seemed convinced she was keeping critical evidence to herself. She told them about Mrs Aldis and the man in the baseball cap, rationalizing that in doing so she had fulfilled her duty, but made no mention of either Madog or Tathum. They belonged to the past and that, she told herself, was still her exclusive territory.
Between calls Jenny sat at her desk, trying to work out her next moves. She had already gone far beyond the accepted bounds of coronial practice by behaving like a detective, but her gut told her there were questions that would never be answered merely by examining witnesses in court. The stolen Jane Doe had an early-stage thyroid tumour possibly caused by exposure to low-level radiation; the missing Anna Rose worked in the nuclear industry; Nazim Jamal had been a physicist. It was more than just wishful thinking, there had to be a connection.
The phone interrupted her thoughts for what felt like the fiftieth time. Jenny answered with a weary hello.
Steve said, 'That good, hey? Busy?'
Jenny's mood lifted. 'What did you have in mind?'
Steve said, 'I'd like to talk.'
The Apple Tree was quiet for a Saturday. Steve was a lone figure sitting next to the iron brazier on the flagstone patio. The snap of the fire and the rush of the nearby stream making its final descent to the Wye were the only sounds in the damp, chilly night.
'Can you stand it out here?' Steve said as she climbed the uneven steps.
'I like it,' Jenny said and took a seat next to him on one of the three rustic benches arranged around the fire. It was throwing out a good heat, but she was glad of her thick wool sweater and the waxed jacket which made her look like a farmer's wife.
Steve touched his roll-up cigarette to a lick of flame and took a draw. 'Got you a Virgin Mary.' He handed her a glass.
'Thanks.' She took an alcohol-free sip. 'God, it's boring being virtuous.' She reached for his tobacco tin. 'Am I allowed one sin?'
'As many as you like.' He gazed into the flames.
Clumsily rolling a cigarette she said, 'I'd tell you what kind of week I've had, but I'm not sure I'd believe it myself.'
'Ross told me some of it,' he said, as if from a far distance.
'You've been talking to him a lot. . .' Jenny replied, fishing.
'Here and there.' He blew out a thin trail of smoke. 'He worries about you.'
She licked the paper and performed the final roll. Not bad. She poked it though the iron slats of the brazier to catch a light.
'He really does,' Steve said.
'What can I say? I do my best ... Is this what you wanted to talk about?'
'No. You mostly.'
'What about me?'
He held his cigarette hesitantly in front of his lips.
'What?' she insisted.
'The other night when we were in bed ... it was as if you weren't there. And it's not the first time.' He turned and held her gaze. 'You don't feel the same way any more.'
'That's not true.'
'You hardly call me.'