When Molly left the hospital, she went to White Heath. The name had recurred throughout the investigation. Roger Pym taught games at White Heath Comprehensive School. Jane Pym worked from an office there. Louis Rosco had stayed with friends on the White Heath Estate when he was first released from prison and reported to a probation officer based there under the terms of his parole. More recently, with Claire Bingham’s help, Molly had traced the woman who had been in charge of the bail hostel to White Heath. It seemed that she had been promoted and the year before had been appointed senior to the team of probation officers. Molly thought that the place was worth a visit. It was a sign of Claire Bingham’s new attitude to the case that she allowed the older woman to go alone.

The bus Molly caught was almost empty. The smart shops in the city centre would have little to offer the residents of White Heath. There were a few listless youths who had been in town to sign on the dole. They stared out of the window and had little to say even to each other. The bus dropped her at the edge of the estate by a primary school that looked like a prison. There were half a dozen tower blocks surrounded by a crescent of low level terraces. As she stepped out into the street, she felt suddenly chill, although the day was still fine. The weather was already starting to change. There were feathers of cloud which occasionally blocked the sun and a westerly breeze which blew litter across the streets and around the flats.

Molly found the probation office in the centre of the estate, in a concrete arcade of shops which had been the planners’ only concession to providing for the residents. Most of the shops had been boarded up or were encased behind bars and grilles. The probation office was reached through a door defaced by graffiti, up some malodorous concrete steps. It was over a fish-and-chips shop. The waiting room was empty except for one fat old lady who drank cider from a dirty brown bottle, and who was dressed despite the sun in layers of clothing. Three middle-aged typists sat on the other side of a strengthened glass window and talked about their holidays.