“Manchester, clubbing with some mates. I went there on Thursday and came back this morning.”

“Drive?”

“Nah. Train.”

“When did you last see Mimosa?”

“The weekend before. Sunday, I think. Maybe Monday.”

“And you weren’t worried about her? I mean, she’d already been missing two days before you left for Manchester.”

“That wasn’t unusual. Not for our Mimsy. Besides, I’m not always at home myself.”

“What did you do last Tuesday night?” Annie asked.

“I stopped over at Paul’s. We’d had a bit to drink, like, watched some DVDs and crashed out.”

“What time was this?”

“Dunno. We met up in the pub earlier. Not this one. The Hope and Anchor, near his place. We left there about tennish, I suppose.”

“And went to Paul’s?”

“Yeah. That’s Paul Warner. He’s my best mate.”

“You stay there often?”

“Paul says I can crash whenever I want. He’s got one of those letdown couches. It’s pretty comfortable. And a power shower. Cool.”

“What about work, Albert? Don’t you have to go to work in the morning?”

“I’m unemployed. Paul lets me work with him sometimes. Odd jobs, like, you know, fetching and lifting.”

“What does this Paul do?”

“He’s got his own business. Painting and decorating. Odd jobs on the side. He’s good at fixing things. Tellies and computers and sinks and stuff.”

Annie heard the barman greet a regular. Albert sipped his lager and stared into the cold pale liquid.

“What was your relationship with your sister like?” she asked.

“Relationship?”

“Yes. How did you get along?”

“Do you have a big brother?” Albert asked.

“Me? No,” said Annie.

“I do,” said Gerry. “He’s five years older than me. He used to tease me like hell, but once when I was about ten he rescued me from a gang on my way home from school. They were shoving me around and getting rough with me.”

Albert glanced at her and nodded. “You understand, then,” he said. “The problem with Mimsy was that she never knew when to keep her gob shut.”

“Bit of a mouth on her, had she?” said Annie.

“You can say that again. Not always, mind. She could be sweet and gentle as anything. Quiet, even. But when the mood took her. She was no fool, wasn’t Mimsy, and she didn’t suffer fools gladly.”

“That can make for a hard life,” Annie said.

Albert looked at Gerry again. “So you’ll know what it was like,” he said. “Having a big brother and all. I love our Mimsy, and I’d have done anything for her, but she was a kid and she wasn’t part of my life in that way, so I probably treated her like crap some of the time. I mean, we didn’t have much in common, we didn’t hang out or anything.”

“You didn’t share any parts of your life?” Gerry asked.