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There was no way he was going to wait a few days, or even hours. From what he knew of Roy, under normal circumstances if he had buggered off somewhere and not bothered to ring back, Banks would have assumed he was sunning himself in California or the Caribbean with a shapely young woman by his side. That would be typical of him and his me-first attitude. As far as Roy was concerned, there was nothing in life you couldn’t get through with a smile and a wad of cash. But this was different. This time Banks had heard the fear in his brother’s voice.
    He deleted the message from his answering service, threw a few clothes along with his toothbrush and razor into anovernight bag, checked that the lights were out, unplugged all the electrical items and locked the flat behind him. He knew he wouldn’t get any rest until he got to the bottom of Roy’s odd silence, so he might as well drive down to London and find out what was happening himself.

    Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe called the meeting in the boardroom of Western Area Headquarters after lunch, and DI Annie Cabbot, DS Hatchley, Crime Scene Co-ordinator DS Stefan Nowak, along with DCs Winsome Jackman, Kev Templeton and Gavin Rickerd sat in the high, stiff-backed chairs under the gaze of ancient wool barons with roast-beef complexions and tight collars. Their notes and files were set in neat piles on the dark polished table beside Styrofoam cups of tea or coffee. Pinned to corkboards on the wall by the door were Peter Darby’s Polaroids of the scene. It was already hot and stuffy in the room and the small fan Gristhorpe had turned on didn’t do much good.
    Soon, when the investigation got seriously underway, more manpower would be allocated, but these seven would remain the core team: Gristhorpe as senior investigative officer and Annie, who would do most of the fieldwork, as his deputy and administrative officer. Rickerd would be office manager, responsible for setting up and staffing the murder room; Hatchley would act as receiver, there to weigh the value of every piece of information and pass it on for computer entry; Winsome and Templeton would be the foot soldiers, tracking down information and conducting interviews. Others would be appointed later – statement readers, action allocators, researchers and the rest – but for now it was of prime importance to get the system into place and into action. It was nolonger merely a suspicious death. Jennifer Clewes – if that was really the name of the victim – had been murdered.
    Gristhorpe cleared his throat, shuffled his papers and began by asking Annie for a summary of the facts, which she gave as succinctly as possible. Then he turned to DS Stefan Nowak.
    “Any forensics yet?”
    “It’s still early days,” said Stefan, “so I’m afraid all I can give you at the moment is what we don’t have.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, the road surface was dry and there are no discernible tire tracks from any other vehicle. Also, we haven’t turned up any physical evidence – discarded cigarette ends, spent matches, that sort of thing. There are plenty of prints on the outside of the car, so that will take Vic Manson a while to sort out, but they could be anyone’s.”
    “What about inside the car?” Gristhorpe asked.
    “It’s in the police garage right now, sir. We should know something later today. There is one thing.”
    “Yes?”
    “It looks as if she was definitely forced off the road. The left wing hit the drystone wall.”
    “But there was no damage to the right wing, at least not that I could see,” Annie said.
    “That’s right,” Stefan agreed. “The car that forced her over didn’t make physical contact. Pity. We might have got some nice paint samples.”
    “Keep looking,” said Gristhorpe.
    “Anyway,” Stefan went on, “whoever it was must have got in front of her and veered to the left rather than come at her directly from the side.”
    “Well,” said Gristhorpe, “what do you do if