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have walked out on her?
    The terrible thing was, she wasn’t absolutely sure that she wouldn’t. But if she hadn’t, where was she? Marnie started to feel sick again.

    Superintendent Jakie McNally was under pressure this afternoon. The chief constable, no less, was making waves and McNally was old school. What the CC wanted the CC got and what he wanted was the Marnie Bruce business wrapped up before too many people started asking questions, so he could do without one of the most junior of the PCs doing just that. She was sitting in front of him now, her bright-eyed eagerness both a threat and a reproach.
    ‘PC Fleming, you know the background as well as I do. You were sworn to complete confidentiality when you took over monitoring from MacNee.’
    ‘Yes, sir, but I—’
    He talked across her. ‘You know that there is absolutely no sign of an intruder or a struggle, and no evidence that there was anyone in the house that evening apart from Marnie and her mother. You know they’ve combed the woods and there’s nothing. You know the missing car was found in the station car park in Dumfries and they’ve checked it out – nothing.’
    ‘Yes, but—’
    Fixing her with a look, he went on, ‘You and I both know why the outcome isn’t surprising, surely?’
    ‘Of course I do, sir.’ Fleming had taken a deep breath to be ready to power through. ‘I know it’s a possibility, but I think it’s only fair to the child—’
    That was as far as she got. ‘It was, mercifully, just a knock on the head and she’s well on the way to a full recovery. We’ll be looking for the woman quietly, of course, but if we go public on this, perhaps you could explain to me in what way this would be “fair” to the child?’
    Silenced, Fleming bit her lip.
    McNally relaxed. ‘You see, Marjory – it is Marjory, isn’t it? – policing isn’t only about exposing the brutal truth. Sometimes it’s about tempering justice with mercy.
    ‘All right? That’s a good girl. Run along, sweetheart.’

    Seething with anger, PC Marjory Fleming went back down the stairs from the inspector’s office, wishing she’d had the courage to say that in her view, what justice was being tempered with was not mercy but expediency.

CHAPTER TWO
    Marnie Bruce walked slowly up Oxford Street in the autumn dark, late October starting to tip towards bleak November. The air was damp and heavy with the hint of fog splintering the light from the street lamps and cars and buses into brilliant shards. The shops were closed but the shop window displays cast bright patches of light on the pavement, slicked with damp.
    Waves of people swept past her so that she felt almost buffeted in their wake, people who had homes to go to or friends to see or plans for theatres or restaurants or parties, people who weren’t walking huddled round the misery inside which felt like a great sharp stone, weighing you down and cutting into you at the same time.
    She wasn’t sure why she’d come here, just that it was somewhere to go, and she glanced aimlessly into the windows of the shops she passed: clothes she couldn’t afford, gadgets she didn’t want, souvenirs of a London that bore no relation to the city she lived in. And skull masks, plastic skeletons, witches’ hats, bats on nylon strings, swooping across under green and orange light.
    Halloween next week. October 31st, All Hallows’ Eve. Her mother would never let her celebrate it, and after what happened the one time Marnie had, she didn’t like it either: the Day of the Dead, when restless souls stirred from their sleep, awakening heedless mortals to their duty of memory.
    Marnie needed no reminder. She never forgot anything. That was the problem.
    ‘You’re freaking me out!’ he cries suddenly. He’s putting his hands up to cover his face, groaning. ‘I can’t take this any more. It’s doing my head in.’
    She is still high on the satisfaction of being right, sitting across from him in the tiny rented