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violent?’
    ‘Not that I’m aware of.’
    ‘Did you talk to him after it ended?’
    ‘Once or twice.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘He may have seen me as a way of getting to Frieda.’
    ‘What was his demeanour?’
    ‘Demeanour?’ McGill smiled. ‘That’s a word only policemen and lawyers use. We’ve all been there. It’s the most hopeless thing in the world, trying to persuade someone to love you again.’
    Bryant pulled a photocopy from his file and pushed it across the table. ‘What do you make of that?’
    McGill stared at the sheet of paper that showed the column of dates and times that Sandy had written down under the initials ‘WH’. ‘Nothing.’
    ‘It’s a reasonable assumption that “WH” means the Warehouse.’ McGill didn’t respond. ‘If so, can you think of what these dates and times refer to?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘For instance, they wouldn’t be the dates and times that Dr Klein works here?’
    ‘I’ll have to check that.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Bryant.
    ‘It would be easier if you simply asked Frieda.’
    ‘We’ll do that as well.’ He glanced down at his notebook, reminding himself. ‘One more thing. Does the name Miles Thornton mean anything to you?’
    ‘Yes.’ McGill was visibly wary. ‘He is a patient here. Or was.’
    ‘He’s been reported missing.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because he hasn’t turned up for his usual sessions.’
    ‘His sessions with Dr Klein?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why is that particularly worrying? Presumably lots of patients miss their sessions.’
    ‘What has this got to do with Sandy’s death?’
    Bryant, who didn’t know the answer to that, waited impassively.
    ‘Miles Thornton is a particularly troubled young man. Perhaps we should never have taken him here – a hospital might have been more appropriate. He was in a psychiatric ward of a hospital for a bit and when he was released he felt we – Frieda in particular – had betrayed him. He could be violent, even psychotic at times. So when he disappeared …’ he gave another of his shrugs‘… well, it was obviously worrying. It was our duty to report him missing.’
    ‘I see.’ Bryant stood up. ‘Let me know about that list, will you? I’ll leave it with you. Is there anyone else here I can talk to?’
    ‘You’ve met Paz. And there’s Jack Dargan, who was Frieda’s trainee. He works here now. But they’ll just say the same as me.’
    Now it was Bryant’s turn to look disapproving. ‘We’ll be the judge of that.’
    Jack Dargan was a brightly dressed young man. Bryant liked to be invisible: on or off duty, he wore clothes that were dark, muted and interchangeable. But the man who came into the room wore a thinly woven yellow cardigan over a royal blue T-shirt and baggy trousers that looked like pyjamas. Perhaps this was what therapists put on to see their patients. His hair was colourful as well, a tawny orange with a kind of wave running through it that he emphasized by pushing his hand into it whenever he was asked a question. There was a perpetual restlessness about him that made it hard for Bryant to concentrate fully on what he was saying – but it was clear that he was saying
no.
No, he didn’t know any details about Frieda Klein’s break-up with Alexander Holland; no, he had not met him after Frieda had ended things, except for a couple of brief glimpses (here, his eyes slid away from Bryant’s); and no, he had nothing to add to Reuben McGill’s statement about Miles Thornton.
    ‘Did Alexander Holland come to the Warehouse much?’
    Jack put his knuckles into his mouth and squinted. ‘No.’
    ‘You never saw him behaving angrily or violently?’
    ‘Violently? No, I never saw anything like that.’
    ‘Or angrily?’
    ‘I can’t believe this has happened,’ Jack said.
    ‘Was he angry?’
    ‘I don’t know. He was disappointed, the way people are when relationships go wrong. We’ve all been there.’
    ‘How disappointed?’
    ‘He’d lost Frieda.’
    ‘There’s