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vaguely. She had shoulders that were made for crying on, plump and cushioned. I realised she was looking at me expectantly, and I hadn’t replied. All of a sudden, I didn’t feel inclined to talk to her any more – I was too cold, underdressed, dirty and upset. I busied myself by taking the elastic off my ponytail and shaking my hair free. ‘Do you mind if I don’t talk about it now?’
    ‘Not at all,’ she said warmly, after a beat. That was probably her training kicking in: never show your frustration with a witness. Bond with them . She laid a hand on my arm. ‘You really want to get home, don’t you? But it shouldn’t be much longer.’ Her eyes slid over my shoulder and she brightened. ‘Here they are now.’
    DCI Vickers came straight over to us, his chest heaving from the climb up the bank. ‘Sorry for keeping you hanging around, Miss …’
    ‘Finch,’ Valerie supplied.
    Up close, the bags under the chief inspector’s eyes spoke of too many late nights, as did the vertical trenches carved in his cheeks. His eyes were red-rimmed and threaded with veins, but the irises were a clear blue and I felt they missed nothing. He had a slightly hangdog air, the opposite of charisma, and I liked him immediately.
    ‘Miss Finch,’ he said, and shook my hand. ‘I think DS Blake and I should have a chat with you before we do anything else.’ His eyes swept over the blanket I was clutching around me, up to my face where I was trying to hide the fact that my teeth were chattering. ‘Let’s go somewhere warmer, though. I think we’d be better off at the station, if you don’t mind coming back there with us.’
    ‘Not at all,’ I said, mesmerised by the chief inspector’s gentle manner.
    ‘Do you want me to drive, guv?’ DS Blake asked and I turned my attention to him, noting that he was very good-looking, with a lean face and a sensitive mouth. I could tell that his offer was all about getting a head start on finding out more about Jenny. Valerie Wade crashed in desperately with: ‘No point in you wasting your time doing taxi duty, Andy. I can drive her.’
    ‘Good idea,’ Vickers said, slightly absent-mindedly. ‘I’m going to have a team conference at the station, so stick with me, Andy. I’d like to talk things over with you on the way.’ He turned back to Valerie. ‘Get Miss Finch settled in my office, and get her a cup of tea, won’t you.’
    Valerie herded me through the woods and into the front seat of her car in short order. I found it slightly surreal to be in a strange car – a police car, no less – driving through the familiar streets of my home town. The radio burped incomprehensibly every few seconds, and although Valerie didn’t miss a beat in her attempts at small talk, I knew that she was really focused on the static-filled chatter that I couldn’t interpret. The streetlights had come on and I watched the play of light and dark over the car’s bonnet as Valerie drove, adhering to the rules of the road as rigorously as if I had been a driving examiner. I was in a bit of a daze by the time she pulled up outside the police station. She led me through the public area with the reception desk and, with a flourish, punched a code into a keypad to unlock a heavy door. It was painted a dull shade of green and had three or four really handsome dents in it, as if someone very frustrated had tried to kick it in.
    I followed Valerie down a narrow corridor into an overheated and untidy office and sat in the chair she told me to use, beside a desk that was covered in files. The chair was a utilitarian number with rough orange fabric on the seat. It had a greyish tinge from years of use, and at some stage someone had picked a hole in the seat cover. Little crumbs of yellow foam spilled out through the frayed fabric and attached themselves to my running shorts. I brushed at them half-heartedly, then gave up.
    As ordered, Valerie produced a cup of tea, strong and dark, in a mug with Fun Run ’03