John Harvey - Ash & Bone

'Second Royal Fusiliers.' Red queen on black king.

'What's all this got to do with Kennet?' Furness said.

'Who?'

'Kennet.' Tapping the picture. 'Him.'

'Oh, right. He came in, didn't he? Next day. Later than usual. Eight thirty, nine? Asked me about the photograph, I remember that. Still up, you see. Started to pour him his Guinness, but no, whisky he said. Doubles, two of them. Standing there, where you are now. Quite chatty he was, more than usual. Bit hyper I thought. Just back from Spain, he said, holiday.'

'He didn't say anything about meeting someone? Later?'

'Not to me, no. Not as I recall.'

'How about where he was going? After this, I mean.'

The barman shrugged. 'Home, I suppose.'

'Thanks for your help,' Furness said.

'Drink before you go? On the house.'

Furness gave Denison a glance. 'Yes, why not? Small Scotch, maybe.'

'Lee,' Denison said.

'What?'

'Better not.'

Furness shook his head and stood away from the bar. 'Another time,' he said.

'Suit yourself,' said the barman and opened his book.

'Blessed are the pure at heart,' Furness said, as he followed Denison through the door. 'Blessed and thirsty, too.'

'What the flying fuck,' Mallory said, 'is going on?'

'Not here,' Repton said.

'Not here? Not fucking here? Farmer fucking Framlingham and that deadbeat Elder come waltzing in without so much as a by-your-leave, and next thing you're going off with them in Framlingham's fucking four-by-four. Nice little drive, Maurice? Giving the motor a spin? Got the picnic basket out later? Spot of lunch? Hamper in the fucking trunk?'

'Not here,' Repton said again.

Mallory's face was puce, fingernails digging deep into his palms.

'Then you'd better say where, Maurice, and soon.'

Karen's call tracked Elder down at his flat, late afternoon.

'We've placed Kennet near the scene of the murder, the day after he came back from Spain. Had a drink in a pub on Hornsey Rise, close to the time. Right between his flat and the place Maddy was killed. He could have walked from there to the community centre in five minutes, ten tops.'

'Good work,' Elder said. 'I mean it. Really good work.' And then excused himself to go across to the entryphone. There was a parcel downstairs waiting for collection.

By the time he had arrived downstairs, whoever had delivered the package was nowhere in sight. A padded envelope the size of a hardback book, with his name printed on the front. Elder shook it, prodded it, carried it back upstairs. Inside the envelope the contents were swathed in bubble wrap, a video tape with a title handwritten on the edge. Singin' in the Rain. Just that and a date.

Who, Elder wondered, was sending him home-taped movies and why?

Not certain when he'd last eaten, Elder thought he'd do it right; phoned out for a pizza and some garlic bread and, when they arrived, opened a bottle of Becks from the fridge.

A mouthful of pizza, and he slotted the tape into place; pressed 'play' and leaned back. For a copy, the picture quality wasn't too bad. Fine, in fact, until the scene, maybe a quarter of the way through, when Debbie Reynolds, in her pink cap and little pleated skirt, pops up out of the cake. Then abruptly the image twisted, caught and jarred, and changed to black and white. An interior, blurred and poorly lit. Some kind of party scene. Men in dinner jackets, black tie; others with jackets discarded, white shirts, braces. Women in low-cut dresses. Champagne. And, as if on cue, a face Elder knew. Like watching a veteran actress in her heyday, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, wearing a pale dress that reached to the floor, Lynette Drury crossed the room and, for one moment, looked directly at the camera, as if she were the only person present who knew that it was there.

Elder pressed 'pause' and searched the screen for someone else he recognised, but no. When he moved on, the picture changed: the same room later. Kneeling at the low table in the centre of the room, a young woman, naked save for a bracelet in the shape of a snake on her upper arm, snorted cocaine through a rolled-up banknote, while a man, trousers round his knees, fucked her from behind.

A starburst of static and what had to be another camera, six people sitting round another table in another room, a poker game. And amongst them faces Elder knew: Mallory, Slater, Grant, and standing just behind Mallory, at his shoulder, Maurice Repton. Younger, all of them. A decade ago, Elder guessed. Possibly more.

The image broke again and reformed.

A bedroom, sparsely lit. Elder adjusted the brightness with the remote control but to little effect. Shapes moved naked across the bed, arms, legs. Three bodies, intertwined; two women and a man. One of the women detached herself and stood beside the bed. Not a woman at all. A girl, slim-hipped, no breasts to speak of, long fair hair. The man reached out for her and she evaded his hand, turning away. Surfacing from the bed, he seized her arm and pulled her back. As his arm tightened around her neck, the other hand pulled at her hair. Silently, head swivelling towards him, she shouted or screamed.

Elder could see her mouth, opening wide, but heard nothing.

He moved closer and peered at the screen.

The man had the girl in his grasp, increasing pressure, and now the other girl, similar but with shorter, darker hair, started hitting him, pummelling his back and shoulders, trying to get him to stop, but to no avail.

Suddenly, without warning, the man released the first girl and swung round towards the other, smashing his forearm into her face with such force that her head was jolted back and round and she tumbled over the edge of the bed towards the floor.

Imagining that he heard the impact, the clash of bone against brittle bone, Elder held his breath.

Now the man caught hold of the girl's ankles and dragged her back on to the bed, legs spread, and lifted himself above her.

The fair-haired girl gouged her nails down his back and, spinning, his elbow struck her full in the face so that blood shot from her nose. Grabbing her, he forced her down. His hands at her neck, squeezing, as he leaned down with all his weight.

Elder stopped the tape, rewound and watched again, looking for the moment when the fair-haired girl's body went limp, and Mallory pushed her to the floor and she lay, lifeless, as no unbroken body could have lain.

Mallory.

If there'd been doubt in his mind before, it was no longer there.

The dark-haired girl was just visible in the far corner of the room, mouth slightly open, silent, staring, one arm tight across her breasts. And for a second, possibly two, a shadow fell across her, followed by the partial figure of a man, fully dressed, walking into the room, the frame. Then nothing.

Fade to white.

To black.

To nothing.

Treasure trove.

Elder went into the kitchen on less-than-steady feet and poured a shot of whiskey, the neck of the bottle rattling against the glass.

His call to Framlingham found him in Hampstead, a terraced cottage in the Vale of Health, a hop, skip and a jump from the Heath itself. The woman who let Elder in was in her late forties, tall, wearing a generous green needlecord dress. Dark hair turning gracefully grey. Imposing was the word that came to mind.

She made no attempt to introduce herself and neither did Framlingham when he appeared, stooped, in the doorway, carpet slippers on his feet.

They sat in the small living room, not much more than an arm's length from the screen, sipping twelve-year-old Macallan and watching as the girl fell, again and again, to the floor.

'This is what Mallory was afraid of? What Grant had threatened him with?'