Chapters (78)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
- Also by Nicci French
- About the Publisher
“Not in the way you mean. But we do have a window: it was after five in the afternoon and at least two hours before ten-thirty in the evening, when his body was found; in other words, eight-thirty.”
Jude was thinking frantically. After five meant that it couldn’t have been when Danny was expected to be on her way to her skating lesson. But it could have been after, when on other days she would be on her way home across the dark marshes.
“Are you going to tell me why you are asking?” said the detective.
“He was killed on the path leading from the skating rink toward the Walthamstow Marshes.”
“Yes? And?”
“On a Saturday evening. Which is when Danny always goes skating with her sister.” There was a silence. Jude pressed on. “Danny would have been right there. Right on the very spot.”
There was another silence.
“Don’t you see?”
“Jude,” said Leila Fox, sounding angry now. “How stupid do you think we are?”
“What?”
“Do you think that you, Jude Winter, are coming up with things we haven’t considered? Seriously? Do you think we haven’t investigated the movements of Danny Kelner on the day of Liam Birch’s murder, and the rest of the household for that matter?”
“So where was she?”
“She wasn’t anywhere near the place.”
“But she goes skating every Saturday.”
“Not that day.”
“Why? Where was she?”
“Take my word for it, Jude. She didn’t murder Liam Birch. Or actually, don’t take my word for it. Look it up on YouTube.”
“YouTube?”
“I need to get back to work.”
Fifty-One
A search for Danny Kelner first produced a short film about tattooing. Danny was talking while drawing a swan on the back of a young blond woman. It wasn’t what she was looking for, but Jude couldn’t stop herself watching a few minutes of it. She had always felt that she didn’t really have any creative skills. She couldn’t draw, she couldn’t play the piano. Danny was creating art, but this was art on human skin and there was no room for error. She couldn’t rub a line out and do it again. And all the time she was talking to the woman, explaining what she was doing, and also talking to someone behind the camera. She explained the significance of swans as an image of purity and she talked about her use of color.
She was good at this, Jude thought. Also, she was so striking, so charismatic. No wonder she and Liam had been drawn to each other.
Jude looked down at the clothes she was wearing. She raised her arm and sniffed her sleeve. It reeked of smoke and alcohol and whatever the smell is that comes from clothes that had been worn at a party, that had been taken off in the middle of the night and then put back on again in the morning.