We’ve tried Stowerton, sir,’ said Constable Gates. ‘No luck. But there’s a vicar with the Chief Inspector now. I could
contact the station and ’ ‘Do that,’ said Burden, and he walked across to the Mini.
The girl was crying, but not because of the accident. It was because of the photograph that she had seen two hours earlier, in the estate agent’s window. It was nearly three years since she’d last had the nightmare. Now those terrible dreams were going to begin again and she didn’t have to be asleep to have them.
It was a photograph of a house. The house. Not as it was now, dirty and run-down, but how it had been long ago. After seeing it, she had got into the Mini and driven to Flagford to drink away the memories.
But they would not go away.
The detective inspector was coming towards the car, his
eyes full of anger.
Wexford looked at Archery. ‘Do you really think that you’re going to find out anything new after all this time?’ he asked.
Archery thought about the question. Did he think these things could not happen to anyone he knew? Did he really know what a murderer’s child would be like, and that she could not be like Tess?
They were in his office. Wexford was sitting at his desk, with Archery opposite him.
‘I just want to go and see Alice Flower,’ said Archery. ‘And I’d like to talk to Roger Primero and the other grandchildren.’
Wexford sighed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Alice Flower is in an old people’s home in Stowerton.’
He got up from his chair and walked across to a wall maps,
‘Stowerton’s there,’ he said, pointing with his pen. ‘Victor’ 5 Piece is about here, between Stowerton and Kingsmarkham'