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you? As under-dressed as that, she must have been noticeable. Or there may be a coat or jacket somewhere. If she was down there for sex, paid for or not, she may have taken a coat off in the heat of the moment.’
    ‘Odd things people do,’ Mower said. He glanced away, as if thinking of something else. Thackeray hesitated for a second himself, before ploughing on.
    ‘The other thing you need to know is that the inquiry team looking into the Christie deaths is expected up here next week for preliminary interviews. I expect they’ll want to talk to you.’
    ‘I’m sure they will,’ Mower said. He leant back in his chair and took in Thackeray’s sunken cheeks and pale complexion.
    ‘I saw Val Ridley the other night,’ he said quietly, making sure none of their colleagues could hear what they were saying. ‘She’s all geared up to give evidence and I don’t think the Super’s going to like what she has to say. She’s still furious that someone got to the little girl.’
    Thackeray nodded. Val Ridley had resigned while he had been fighting for his life in hospital after a child she had become attached to had been killed. It was not something shewould either forget or forgive, and he was not sure how far and wide she would apportion blame when she was asked. The very fact that she had resigned probably meant that she wanted to escape the pressure she would be under to close ranks in the face of an inquiry. The canteen culture of officers covering each other’s backs still ran deep and although he did not condone it, he understood it. Val was a wild card, he thought, who certainly threatened the Superintendent, and possibly himself as well.
    ‘They won’t confine themselves to serving officers,’ he said. ‘I fully expect they’ll want to talk to Laura. And then there’ll be the inquests. A lot of things will be said there that we could do without. I guess the Chief Constable wants this inquiry finished before the trial and then the Coroner opening full hearings. That way he’ll reckon he can put the best gloss possible on what happened – and maybe say he’s sacked the people responsible for any mistakes as well. I wouldn’t be surprised.’
    ‘It’s a bloody shame we lost Val,’ Mower said explosively. ‘I did try to get her to change her mind while you were in hospital, you know.’
    ‘I know,’ Thackeray said. ‘But it’s water under the bridge now. Is she still planning to be a social worker?’
    ‘So she says.’
    ‘She’ll be good at it,’ Thackeray said.
    ‘She was a good copper.’ Mower was not bothering to hide his anger.
    ‘Yes,’ Thackeray agreed. ‘But in the end she couldn’t hack it. She got too involved. And I’m sure that when she’s asked she won’t hesitate to tell the inquiry who she thinks is toblame.’
    ‘It could be a year or more before the case comes to trial,’ Mower said. ‘This thing will run and run.’
    ‘And mud sticks,’ Thackeray said, tiredly. ‘Anyway, put all that on the back burner for now. We’ve more urgent things to think about, like a dead pregnant girl. I’ll see everyone at two, and we’ll see where we’re at. Two lives were lost in the canal, the girl and her baby, and they both deserve our attention. Don’t let’s get distracted.’

    Across town at the
Gazette
, Laura Ackroyd stared contemplatively at her computer screen as she tried to compose a final paragraph for her profile of Jenna Heywood for the next day’s paper. She could see an anxious-looking Tony Holloway watching her from the other side of the newsroom, where his and the other sports reporters’ desks were clustered together in a defensive hollow square. Ever since she had returned to the office from her long lunch with Jenna, Tony had been eagerly offering snippets of information and advice and, in return, she knew that he was hoping for first view of what she had written. First view, she thought, and quite probably a pre-emptive input to her article if it in any