“She and Laing had a baby, didn’t they?” he asked, remembering its feeble whimpering from beside its bloodstained, dehydrated mother. “The kid must be, what, ten by now?”

“He d-died,” she whispered, tears dripping off the end of her chin. “C-cot death. He was always sickly, the bairn. It happened two d-days after they put D-Donnie away. And h-he—Donnie—he telephoned her out of the jail and told her he knew she’d killed—killed—the baby—and that he’d kill her when he got out—”

Strike laid a large hand briefly on the sobbing woman’s shoulder, then hoisted himself to his feet and approached the young barmaid who was watching them with her mouth open. Brandy seemed too strong for the sparrow-like creature behind him. Strike’s Aunt Joan, who was only a little older than Mrs. Bunyan, always regarded port as medicinal. He ordered a glass and took it back to her.

“Here. Drink this.”

His reward was a recrudescence of tears, but after much more dabbing with the sodden handkerchief she said shakily, “You’re very kind,” sipped it, gave a little gasping sigh and blinked at him, her fair-lashed eyes pink like a piglet’s.

“Have you got any idea where Laing went after turning up at Rhona’s?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Ben put out feelers through work, through the probation office. Apparently he went to Gateshead, but I don’t know whether he’s still there.”

Gateshead. Strike remembered the Donald Laing he had found online. Had he moved from Gateshead to Corby? Or were they different men?

“Anyway,” said Mrs. Bunyan, “he’s never bothered Rhona and Ben again.”

“I’ll bet he hasn’t,” said Strike, picking up his knife and fork. “A copper and German Shepherds, eh? He’s not stupid.”

She seemed to take courage and comfort from his words, and with a timid, tearful smile began to pick at her macaroni cheese.

“They married young,” commented Strike, who was keen to hear anything he could about Laing, anything that might give a lead on his associations or habits.

She nodded, swallowed and said:

“Far too young. She started seeing him when she was only fifteen and we didn’t like it. We’d heard things about Donnie Laing. There was a young girl who said he’d forced himself on her at the Young Farmers’ disco. It never came to anything: the police said there wasn’t enough evidence. We tried to warn Rhona he was trouble,” she sighed, “but that made her more determined. She was always headstrong, our Rhona.”

“He’d already been accused of rape?” asked Strike. His fish and chips were excellent. The pub was filling up, for which he was grateful: the barmaid’s attention was diverted from them.

“Oh yes. They’re a rough family,” said Mrs. Bunyan, with the sort of prim small-town snobbery that Strike knew well from his own upbringing. “All those brothers, they were always fighting, in trouble with the police, but he was the worst of them. His own brothers didn’t like him. I don’t think his mother liked him much, tae tell the truth. There was a rumor,” she said in a burst of confidence, “that he wasnae the father’s. The parents were always fighting and they separated round about the time she got pregnant with Donnie. They say she had a run-around with one of the local policemen, as a matter of fact. I don’t know whether it’s true. The policeman moved on and Mr. Laing moved back in, but Mr. Laing never liked Donnie, I know that. Never liked him at all. People said it was because he knew Donnie wasn’t his.