“No comment,” said Warner. He was sitting nervously in the interview room beside his legal aid solicitor, who didn’t seem too happy at being woken up early on a Saturday morning. Warner had balked at Jessie Malton, perhaps because she was a woman and she was black, but he was quickly put in his place and told it wasn’t as easy as that to change legal aid representation, and you certainly couldn’t do it simply because you objected to the lawyer’s color and gender.

“I think your attitude might soon change,” said Annie, opening the thick folder in front of her. While Annie and Gerry had been enjoying themselves at the Riverside Inn, they had managed to persuade Jazz Singh to work a late shift and Vic Manson to stay on an extra hour. Vic was married, so all he had to do was phone and say he’d be home a bit late, but Jazz had had a hot date that she wasn’t too pleased about canceling. On the other hand, she knew what had been done to Mimsy Moffat, and she wanted to contribute her best efforts to putting her killer away, and if her girlfriend couldn’t understand that about her by now, she told Annie, there was no point going on with the relationship. Perhaps Annie and Gerry could have gone at him that evening, too, but they wouldn’t have had anywhere near as much ammunition as they had now—including Mimosa’s sketchbook and mobile—and he wouldn’t have had a night in the cell to probe his conscience, if he had one, or anticipate the worst, if he didn’t.

“First off, we managed to recover Mimosa’s belongings from the van she was in on the night she died,” Annie said, “and we found a couple of interesting things among them.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“There’s a little sketchbook, for a start. They were sketches of mostly people she knew—Albert, her mother, Jade, the other girls, Sunny and his pals. And you.”

“I’ve seen that. So what? She always had a pencil and a sketchbook in her hands, even when you wanted her to do a bit of work.”

“Then there was her mobile,” Annie went on. “Calls to and from Albert, Jade, Sunny, home. And again, you. Mostly from.”

“I told you she helped me and Albert out sometimes.”

“So these phone calls were all work connected?”

“What else would they be?”

“Most went unanswered. About fifteen over the past month. Couldn’t you get through to her?”

“Obviously not. No doubt she was busy with her Paki friends.”

“They weren’t friends, Paul. At least not towards the end. What was so important that you couldn’t pass on a message to her through Albert? You saw him often enough.”

“What do you mean?”