“Mind if we have a little look around?” Annie asked.

“What? Why? I’ve told you. I’ll give you everything you want.” She got up and went over to the tapes, picking out three. “These for a start. The writings are in—”

“Why are you so jumpy, Liz?”

“I’m not jumpy.”

“Yes, you are. I think we should have a look around the place.”

“You can’t do that. You need a search warrant.”

Banks sighed. Again. “Are you certain you want that?” he asked. “Because we can get one.”

“Go do it then. Get one.”

Banks looked at Annie. “DI Cabbot, will you please go—”

Liz looked from one to the other, puzzled. “Not just her. Both of you go.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Banks. “One of us has to stay here to make sure you don’t interfere with anything. We’d hardly be doing our jobs if we disappeared and let drug dealers flush their stuff down the toilet, would we?”

“I’m not a drug dealer.”

“I’m sure you’re not. But there’s something you don’t want us to find. I’ll stay here while DI Cabbot gets the warrant, then she’ll come back with four or five constables and we’ll tear the place apart.”

Liz turned so pale Banks worried she might faint. He could tell she was sensitive, and he didn’t like bullying her, but he didn’t like what had happened to Luke, either. “What’s it to be, Liz? Will you give us consent to look around now, or do we do it the hard way?”

Liz looked up at him, big eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“There’s always a choice.”

“You’d find it anyway. I told Ryan he was stupid to keep it.”

“Find what, Liz?”

“It’s in the cupboard by the door, under the sleeping bag.”

Banks and Annie opened the cupboard by the door and moved aside the sleeping bag. Underneath it was a battered leather shoulder bag, exactly the kind that Luke Armitage had been carrying when the bullies taunted him in the market square.

“I think you and Ryan have got quite a bit of explaining to do, don’t you?” said Banks.

Chapter 15

The Bridge Fair came every March. As a young boy, Banks would go with his parents. He remembered sitting on his father’s knee in the Dodgem car, clinging on for dear life, remembered the feel of the rough nap and the raw-wool smell of his dad’s jacket, the sparks flashing off the high poles. He remembered strolling around holding his mother’s hand, eating candy floss or toffee apples while she nibbled at brandy snap and his father ate a hot dog smothered in fried onions. He would hear his father curse as he tried to throw biased darts at playing cards and his mother laugh as she tried to toss Ping-Pong balls into goldfish bowls.

But when Banks was fourteen, he wouldn’t be seen dead at the fair with his parents; he went with his mates, and Saturday night was the big night.