LITMIR.BIZ

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are there to protect you in cases like this. How are you going to survive the first time you see the body of a dead child? You can’t react personally; you have to learn to walk away and move on. In the meantime Interpol have given us a promising lead on her, so I am ordering you to leave the girl alone. Just file your report and walk away.’

      ‘And that’s it? I’m supposed to just –’

      ‘No, you are not supposed to, you have been ordered to. End of story. If you’re not going to take time off, you’ve work to be getting on with. There’s been a fatal traffic accident in Byres Road, woman driver killed, and daughter, a Helen – no, Helena – Farrell, she’s at the Western Infirmary. Go and sort it out. And don’t – just don’t – start anything.’

      McAlpine climbed the stairs at the Western two at a time and turned left, going quickly along the corridor, fuming, arguing with himself. How dare he? How dare he? It was just police talk; he was a human being and she needed him. She needed him.

      Or did he need her?

      He stopped at the sign for the Intensive Care Unit. The red-headed nurse went past, ignoring him. A uniform he didn’t know was sitting in his seat, watching Anna’s room. He was reading the Sun, his legs crossed, his foot bobbing up and down as he hummed to some secret melody. McAlpine paused as the uniform glanced up and down the empty corridor before going back to Page Three. A door clicked, and another uniform cop appeared with two cups of tea, settling into the seat opposite his mate. Two of them? There was no way McAlpine could get in there without being seen. He had somewhere else to go, somebody’s daughter to sort out. He turned and kept walking.

      ‘Helena Farrell?’ At first he had thought it was a workman in the visitors’ room, a tall figure in dungarees. Then she turned towards him, caught in the act of pulling a velvet scarf from her hair, leaving a smear of purple paint on her face as auburn curls cascaded down her shoulders. She flicked her head, freeing them, before restraining them once more in their velvet knot.

      ‘When they said daughter, I imagined...’ McAlpine held his hand out flat, indicating the height of a child.

      ‘No,’ she said. She pulled the handkerchief from her eyes, sniffing, and started to dab at the paint stains on her fingertips. He could smell turpentine from her. ‘I was working when they called,’ she said by way of explanation.

      ‘I’m PC McAlpine, Partickhill Station. Have they told you what happened?’

      ‘As much as I want to know,’ she sighed. ‘Seems Mum had a heart attack at the wheel and crashed the car on to the pavement.’ She shrugged, and the auburn curls bounced slightly against their velvet restraint and resettled.

      ‘Much to the distress of the pedestrians using it at the time. How are you feeling?’

      The girl bit the corner of her mouth, almost managing to stop a lone tear in its tracks. ‘We weren’t close,’ she said. Her eyes didn’t leave his. She was looking down at him, being a few inches taller, and he wasn’t sure he liked that. ‘I’m surprised I feel so shocked. I just feel numb, really.’

      ‘If that’s the way you feel, that’s the way you feel. There’re no rules.’ He paused. ‘Is there anybody I can phone for you? Better that you’re not on your own right now.’

      Helena stood resolutely, then lifted her hands to her face, open palms covering her eyes. He took two steps forward, allowing her to drop her head on his shoulder before she started to sob. He had no option but to put his arm round her.

      DCI Graham and DI Forsythe stood at the door of the DCI’s office, listening as McAlpine’s slow footfall came up the stairs towards them. Graham looked at his watch. ‘Two weeks she was lying there, and we had no idea who she was. Now that we do know, I wish we hadn’t bothered.’

      ‘Best of luck with it.’ Forsythe stood on the landing, looking down over the banister. ‘He’s a good copper, McAlpine. I worked with his dad for years. Had a passion for the job, he did.’

      ‘Not always a good thing.’

      McAlpine was climbing the stairs very reluctantly. On the landing, he stopped and remained silent, his eyes passing like a condemned man’s from Graham to Forsythe.

      Graham gently guided him into his office, saying nothing as he handed McAlpine a photograph and sat down.

      She was sitting on a desolate beach, the dark mass of the sea to one side, dunes and reeds to the other, the sand spreading out behind her as far as the camera could see. The bleakness of the setting only emphasized the vitality of the subject. She sat half crouched, her dark sweater pulled down over her knees, arms wrapped in front of her shins. she held her chin up, exposing her throat, and blonde hair caught by the wind framed her perfect face in brightness. Her grey eyes were full of humour, almost challenging, their stare intense, eyebrows elegantly arched. The lips twisted in a slight smile, the smile of a seductress. He didn’t think he had ever seen such a beautiful face. And at the bottom of the photograph her little toes curled into the sand, the little scar bending into a crescent moon.

      She was in love with whoever was behind the camera.

      He was jealous.

      Graham reached out to take the photograph. He pinned it to the board on the wall. Just a picture to him, McAlpine thought, just a cheap black-and-white photo of some blonde with nice legs. Yet there was a subtle change of expression in her sideways glance, catching him in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t quite read it.

      The closest he could get was Don’t leave me.

      Graham’s voice cut in, unpleasantly real.

      ‘I’m glad you’re sitting down, Alan. There’s something we’ve found out, and you’ll have to know. We think we know who she is. Interpol have been looking for a blonde female, twenty-four years old, grey eyes, Dutch, slim build, 1.76 metres tall. What’s that – five foot six, seven?’ He flicked the page over. ‘Fingerprints have been lifted from the bedsit but none to compare . . . obviously. And they’re sending dental records, but the medics won’t let us X-ray her.’

      ‘If she had an interest in art and an operation scar on the big toe of her right foot, I don’t think you need look any further.’

      Graham turned over another page on the file and sighed. ‘Yip, degree in fine art and a ballet injury when she was twelve. Broke her big toe.’

      The DCI took a deep breath and pressed on. ‘This is going to be hard. Do you recognize any of these people?’ He passed over another photograph. A young man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Steve McQueen had his arms round a dark-haired man and a beautiful blonde woman who was leaning lovingly towards him, obscuring the name of the yacht moored behind them. All three were laughing and smiling, the joke of the minute caught for eternity. McAlpine’s eyes rested on her; there she was, her hand in the pocket of her shorts, long brown legs, barefoot on the wooden deck, her blonde hair catching in the sea breeze.

      McAlpine pointed at Steve McQueen. ‘Is that the baby’s father? There were drawings of him at the bedsit. Drawn by her, I think...’

      Graham took the photograph and put it face down on his desk. ‘He’s Pieter van der Kerkhof. A thief, an intelligent non-violent one, but still a thief. Two years ago he went to the theatre in Paris one night and met a blonde heiress who was studying at the Sorbonne.’ Graham turned his gaze to the photograph of Anna on the beach; he knocked the sand with his knuckle. ‘She was studying fine art, interested in jewellery design; her family are diamond merchants. Blonde, beautiful, with a brain – he was in love right from the off. Her name was Agnes Geertruijde de Zwaan.’ Self-consciously, Graham pronounced the name correctly. ‘Her friends called her Aggi.’

      McAlpine smiled to himself. She would always be Anna to him.

      ‘The other chap is interesting to us. Jan Michels. He was found dead at Schiphol Airport. He’d been tortured before being shot. There was a theft of uncut diamonds from a high-security warehouse in Brussels in March, and Interpol have been on the lookout

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