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seemed to be several steps ahead of them. And while things were going wrong at work, at home things went into a nose dive…’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ said Dalziel, determined not to drift back towards the dead child. ‘So the powers that be started wondering how the hell this Macavity always knew what was going on.’
    ‘I suppose so. Why the rat pack — sorry, that’s what Mick Purdy calls Internal Investigations — why they focused on Alex, I don’t know. But they did.’
    ‘Did they suspend him?’ said Dalziel.
    ‘Didn’t need to. This all blew up at the same time as… the rest, and he was on compassionate leave, so he wasn’t going into work anyway.’
    ‘So he’s at home, on compassionate leave, he’s in a state, the rat pack’s sniffing around, and eventually you leave him. Then… what? He takes off?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘And you looked for him?’
    ‘Of course I looked for him!’ she exclaimed. ‘I got in touch with his friends, his relations. I talked to the neighbours. I checked out everywhere I thought he was likely to have gone, places we’d been on holiday, that sort of thing. I rang round hospitals. I did everything I could.’
    ‘Including telling the police, I suppose?’
    ‘Obviously,’ she snapped. ‘They were just about the first people I contacted. Why wouldn’t I?’
    ‘Well,’ said the Fat Man, ‘for a start, they’re investigating him, right? It must have crossed your mind maybe they’re the ones he’s running from. Not sure, in your shoes, they’re the first buggers I’d tell.’
    She said tightly, ‘I knew Alex. I believed in him. He was confused, desperate maybe. But he certainly wasn’t corrupt. All I could think was he was out there somewhere, alone. So I called Mick Purdy. They were friends, so naturally I called Mick.’
    He’d anticipated this was probably Purdy’s connection. How had he reacted to the news? he wondered. Like a friend or like a cop?
    ‘And what did good old Mick say?’
    ‘He said to leave it with him, he’d make sure everything that could be done to trace Alex was done. Look, Mr Dalziel, I’m not sure how relevant all this is. We’re talking seven years ago. It’s here and now that I need help.’
    ‘Aye, seven years. And there’s been no sign of your husband all that time?’
    ‘Not a whisper. Nothing from his bank account, no use of credit cards. Nothing.’
    ‘Did he take his car?’
    ‘No, it was still in the garage. In fact, he took nothing, so far as I could see. No spare clothes, not even his toothbrush. Nothing.’
    ‘And the police? They turned up nothing?’
    ‘The police, the Salvation Army, every organization I could think of, none of them found any trace.’
    ‘So, apart from being kidnapped by aliens, what did that leave you thinking happened to him?’
    He watched her reaction carefully and let her see he was watching.
    She met his gaze straight on and said, ‘You mean it seems obvious to you he was probably dead, right?’
    He shrugged but didn’t speak.
    She said, ‘That’s what Mick thought too, but I couldn’t get my head round the idea. Even when I’d finally accepted he was never going to come back, I found it hard to contemplate applying for a legal presumption of death. That seemed… I don’t know, disloyal almost, even though I really needed it.’
    ‘Oh aye. Why was that?’
    She said, ‘Lots of reasons, mainly financial. The house we lived in is Alex’s family house. It’s in his name, so I can’t sell it. There are various insurances that I can’t access without proof of death. Even his police pension is being paid into a bank account in his sole name, so it piles up and I can’t touch a penny of it.’
    ‘So they’re still paying his pension?’
    ‘Why wouldn’t they? Nothing was ever proved against him, no charges were brought,’ she said indignantly.
    Dalziel glanced at his watch. The organ was still burping out bits of tunes that chased each other round and round without ever