‘So it was the fall that killed her.’ Maggie took a deep breath. ‘Will the CPS carry forward a prosecution on a murder charge? Or will the men plead guilty to manslaughter? I’m sorry, that’s a lawyer speaking again.’

‘Unfortunately,’ said Tailby slowly, ‘we believe the fall didn’t kill her outright. Your daughter didn’t die straight away. The pathologist thinks she was still alive for a while as she lay on that ledge. She had dragged herself a foot or two. The debris under her fingernails included gritstone sand from where she had been lying.’

Maggie’s face went white, and the confidence in her eyes died. ‘She was still alive, then. And I left her.’

‘You weren’t to know that,’ said Cooper.

‘I left her there to die.’

The DCI looked at Cooper sharply. But Cooper felt he understood Maggie at last. He knew there was nothing to stop you being consumed by guilt when you failed to protect someone who relied on you.

‘There was nothing you could have done,’ he said.

‘I abandoned her again,’ said Maggie. ‘And this time she’ll never come back, will she?’

They allowed Maggie a rest period. They had plenty of time to keep her in custody before she had to appear in court. More evidence was needed yet, before they could decide how many murder charges she would face.

‘Why did you associate yourself with the animal rights group?’ Tailby asked her later.

‘I wanted to find out where Ros had gone, why she hadn’t got in touch. I couldn’t remember clearly enough, and I thought the details had become distorted, as they do in a nightmare. Most of all, I couldn’t believe that she was dead. I thought she had dropped me because I was no use to her any more. And with Jenny Weston dead, those other women were the only connection to Ros I had left. I’m afraid I pestered them until they let me join in their activities.’

‘How did they react to you?’

‘They felt sorry for me, I think. That made me angry. But I needed them – I needed the information I thought they had about Ros. On the other hand, some of them had heard that I was attacked near Ringham Edge Farm. They wondered whether I had been attacked by the dog-fighters. None of them ever dared to ask me outright, but I think it was that which earned me acceptance.’

‘But they didn’t know what had happened to Ros?’

‘No. And if they knew what Ros had planned to do, they wouldn’t have told anybody about it. They have their own loyalty, you see.’

‘Perhaps they just thought she had moved on again somewhere else, to undertake some other mission. She seems to have seen herself as some kind of animal rights commando,’ said Cooper.