here was a long silence. Shaz let it stretch, even though her nerves were stretching to breaking point with it. Finally, Chris caved in. "If I don't, you'll just go somewhere else, won't you?"

"I have to, Chris. If I'm right, somebody's killing kids. I can't ignore that."

"It's if you're wrong I'm worried about, doll. You want me to come with you, give you a bit of back-up, make it look more official?"

It was tempting. "I don't think so," Shaz said slowly. "If I end up going down in flames, I don't want to take you with me. But there is something you could do."

Chris groaned. "Not if it involves a library."

"You could cover my back. I'll probably need to give a ring-back number. People like him, they don't take anything on trust. Only, we can't take phone calls on the course because we're always in lectures or group sessions or whatever. If I could use your office number, at least he's going to be getting a police phone if he calls back to check me out."

"You got it," Chris sighed. "Give me five minutes."

Shaz endured the wait stoically. There were times when she envied smokers, though not enough to start. She stared at the second hand of her watch, tightening her lips as it swept into the sixth minute. When the phone rang, she grabbed it before the end of the first peal.

"Got a pen?" Chris said.

"Yeah."

"Here you go, then." She recited the supposedly secret unlisted

number she'd wheedled out of the desk officer at Notting Hill police station. "You didn't get it from me."

"Thanks, Chris. I owe you."

"More than you'll ever pay, unfortunately," Chris said ruefully. "Hang loose, doll. Talk to you soon."

"I'll keep you posted. Bye." Shaz contemplated the piece of paper with a quiet smile of triumph. Here I come, ready or not, she thought, reaching for the phone again. Half past eight wasn't too early to call.

The number rang out a couple of times, then an automated voice told Shaz, "Your call is being diverted." A series of clicks, a hollow sound, then the distinctive warble of a mobile phone ringing. "Hello?"

The answering voice was instantly recognizable. Shaz found it disconcerting to have what normally came from the TV issuing from her phone, especially since it wasn't the voice she expected.

"Ms. Morgan?" she asked tentatively.

"Speaking. Who is this?"

"I'm Detective Constable Sharon Bowman of the Metropolitan Police. I'm sorry to trouble you, but I need to speak to your husband."

"I'm afraid he's not at home just now. Nor am I. You've actually come through on the wrong line. This is my personal line. His is a different number."

Shaz felt a blush creeping up her neck. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

"No problem. Is it something I can help you with, officer?"

"I don't think so, Ms. Morgan. Unless you could possibly give me a number where I can reach him?"

Micky hesitated. "I'd rather not, if you don't mind. I could pass a message on, if that would do?"

It would have to, Shaz thought grimly. The rich really did do things differently. Just as well she'd already made the arrangement with Chris. "I think he might have some background information relating to an inquiry we're pursuing. I realize he's a very busy man, but I can meet him any time tomorrow, wherever and whenever suits him. Now, I'm going to be out of the office for the rest of the day, so if he could ring this number ... " she dictated Chris's direct line. "And ask to speak to Sergeant Devine. He can make the arrangements with her."

Micky read the number back to her. "That right? Tomorrow?

Fine, DC Bowman, I'll pass the message on to him."

"Sorry to have intruded," Shaz said gruffly.

The familiar chuckle came down the line. "Think nothing of it. I'm always delighted to help the police. But you'll know that, if you ever see the programme."

It was so obviously an opening that Shaz couldn't resist. "It's a terrific show. I watch you whenever I can."

"Flattery will always get your messages delivered," Micky said, her voice as seductive as it always managed to be at noon.

"I look forward to hearing from Mr. Vance," Shaz said. She'd never meant anything more in her life.

Pauline Doyle stared at the empty frame on top of the television. The officers who had visited her the night of Donna's disappearance had taken the photograph to have some copies made. They'd seemed concerned about Donna, asking a lot of questions about her friends and her school, whether she had a boyfriend, what she liked to do on a weekend. When they'd eventually left with the photo and a description of Donna, she felt they'd helped her keep hysteria at bay. All her instincts were to run through the midnight streets crying her daughter's name, but the composed responses of the two uniformed officers who had filled her kitchen had soothed her, made her understand this was not the time to act on irrational impulses. "Best stop here," the older man had said.

"If she tries to phone home, you don't want her missing you. Leave it to us to look for her. We're the experts, we know what we're about."

The woman who'd come the following morning had undermined those reassurances. She'd persuaded Pauline to do a detailed audit of Donna's possessions. When they'd established the absence of Donna's favourite dance outfit a short black Lycra skirt, a body-hugging black-and-white striped T-shirt with a scoop neck and black patent leather Doc Marten's the detective had visibly relaxed. Pauline understood why. In the eyes of the police, the missing clothes meant just another teenage runaway.

They could relax now, stop worrying about their earlier assumption that they might well be looking for a body.

How could she explain in a way that they'd understand? How could she make them see that Donna had neither need nor reason to run away? She hadn't fallen out with Pauline. Quite the opposite. They were close, closer than most women managed to stay to their teenage daughters.

Bernard's death had driven them to each other for comfort and they'd continued to share their confidences. Pauline clenched her eyes shut and sent a fierce supplication to the Virgin she'd lost faith in years before. The police wouldn't listen; what harm could it do to pray?

The dawn came up on her left-hand side to road noise and the sound of her own voice. All the way down the M1, Shaz practised the interview.

She'd always envied lawyers the comfort of only asking questions to which they knew the answers. To face a professional without role-playing and exploring every possible response would have been madness, so she drove on automatic pilot, rehearsing her questions and the imagined replies. By the time she arrived in West London, she was as ready as she'd ever be. Either he'd let something slip, which she doubted he'd be amateur enough to do, or else she'd panic him into some subsequent action that would confirm everything she'd worked out for herself. Or she might be wrong and the others right and he might simply point her in the direction of a fanatical devotee that he'd spotted with the putative victims. It would be an anti-climax, but one she could live with if it saved lives and put a killer behind bars.

That she might be putting herself at risk never seriously occurred to her in spite of Chris Devine's warnings. At twenty-four, Shaz had no intimations of mortality. Even three years in the police, with the occasional assaults and regular dangers, hadn't dented her sense of invincibility. Besides, people who lived in Holland Park mansions didn't attack police officers. Especially not when it was their wife who'd made the appointment.

Early as usual, Shaz ignored the instructions to park on their drive that had been passed on to her. Instead, she found a meter in Netting Hill and walked down into Holland Park, strolling down the street where they lived. Carefully counting the numbers, Shaz identified the house belonging to Jacko and Micky. It was hard to believe that somewhere so huge in the heart of Central London was still dedicated to only one household, but Shaz knew from her background reading that this was no mansion split into flats. It was all for Jacko and Micky, the only live-in staff, Micky's long-standing personal assistant Betsy Thorne.

Gobsmacking, Shaz thought as she passed the wedding cake white house with its flawless facade. She couldn't see much of the garden, shielded from the world by tall, clipped variegated laurel hedges, but the section beyond the electronic gates appeared to be as immaculate as an exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show. Shaz felt a momentary doubt in the pit of her stomach. How could she suspect the tenant of such a jewel of the hideous crimes her imagination had constructed? People like this didn't do things like that, did they?

Biting her lip in anger at her lack of self-belief, Shaz turned on her heel and marched back to her car, determination building with the very rhythm of her stride. He was a criminal and when she'd finished with him, the whole world would know it. It took her less than five minutes to drive back to the house and turn into the gateway. She wound down her window and pressed the speaker box. "DC Bowman to see Mr. Vance," she said firmly.

The gates swung open with a low electric hum and Shaz advanced into what she couldn't help thinking of as enemy territory. Not sure where to leave her car, she opted to avoid blocking the double garage and followed the drive round to the other side of the house, past a Range Rover parked by the front steps, and stopped alongside a silver Mercedes convertible. She turned off the engine and sat for a moment, gathering her energies and focusing on her objective. "Just do it," she finally said, her voice low and tough.

She ran up the steps to the front door and pushed the bell. Almost instantaneously, the door swung open and Micky Morgan's face smiled down at her, familiar as family. "Detective Constable Bowman," she said, stepping back and waving Shaz inside. "Come in. I was just leaving."

Micky extended an arm to one side, indicating a middle-aged woman with grey-streaked hair pulled loosely back in a heavy plait. "This is Betsy Thorne, my PA. We're off to catch Le Shuttle."

"An overnight break in Le Touquet," Betsy amplified.

"Lots of seafood and a flutter in the casino," Micky added, reaching over to take a leather holdall from Betsy. "Jacko's expecting you. He's just finishing a phone call. If you take that first door on the left, he'll be with you in a minute."

Shaz finally managed to get a word in. "Thanks," she said. Micky and Betsy hovered on the doorstep, till Shaz realized they weren't going to close the door until they were certain she was in the correct place.

With an awkward smile, Shaz nodded and walked through the open door Micky had indicated. Only when she'd disappeared from sight did she hear the front door closing. Moving to the window, she saw the women climb into the Range Rover.

"DC Bowman?"

Shaz whirled around. She hadn't heard anyone enter. Across the room, smaller in life than he appeared on TV, Jacko Vance smiled. Fuelled by her imagination, Shaz saw the grin of the panther just before its prey becomes a carcass. She wondered if she was face to face with her first serial killer. If so, she hoped he didn't realize he was seeing Nemesis.

Her eyes were extraordinary. From behind, she'd looked so average.

Brown hair brushing the collar of a tailored dark navy blazer over blue jeans and tan deck shoes. Nothing you'd glance at twice in a crowded bar. But when he startled her into turning round, the blaze of her blue eyes converted her into an entirely different creature. Vance felt a tingle of apprehension coupled with a strange sense of satisfaction.

Whatever she was after, this woman wasn't a nobody. She was an adversary. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he said, his voice the familiar TV caress.

"I was early," she said neutrally.

Vance walked towards her, stopping when there was about six feet between them. "Have a seat, officer," he said, indicating the sofa behind her.

"Thanks," Shaz said, ignoring his instruction and moving instead to the very armchair he'd planned to occupy. He'd chosen it because the seat was higher and the light was behind it. He'd intended to place her at a disadvantage, but she'd turned the tables. Irritation stung him like an insect bite and rather than sitting down himself, he moved over to the fireplace and leaned against the ornately carved over mantel He stared across at her, his silence demanding that she open the bidding.

"I appreciate you making the time to see me," she said after a long moment. "I realize how busy you are."

"You didn't leave me much option. Besides, I'm always happy to be of assistance to the police. Your Deputy Commissioner could fill you in on the details of the number of times I've helped police charities." The smile never left his voice but didn't make it to his eyes.

The blue stare didn't blink. "I'm sure he could, sir."

"Which reminds me. Your warrant card?" Vance didn't move, forcing Shaz to get up and cross the room once she'd taken out the wallet that contained her police credentials. "I can't believe we'd be so careless," Vance said conversationally as she approached. "Letting a stranger across the door without checking she was who she claimed to be." He gave her Metropolitan Police warrant card a perfunctory glance.

"There's another one, isn't there?"

"I'm sorry? This is the only card Metropolitan Police officers are issued with. It's our ID," Shaz said, face giving nothing away of the alarm bells ringing in her head, telling her he knew too much and she should clear out while the going was good.

Vance's lips seemed to shrink as his smile became more vulpine. Time to show her who held the cards, he decided. "But you're not with the Met any longer, are you, DC Bowman? You see, you're not the only one who's done their homework. You have done your homework?"

"I am still an officer of the Metropolitan Police," Shaz said firmly.

"Anyone who has told you different is mistaken, sir."

He pounced. "But you're not based in the Met's area, are you? You're on attachment to a special unit. Why don't you show me your current ID so that I know you are who you say you are and we can get down to business?" Careful, he told himself, don't get carried away just because you're so much smarter than her. You don't know yet what she's doing here. He shrugged winningly, his eyebrows lifting. "I don't mean to be difficult, but a man in my position can't be too careful."

Shaz looked him up and down, her face a mask. "That's very true," she said, producing her National Profiling Task Force ID, complete with photograph. He reached out for it, but she moved it out of his grasp.

"I've not seen one of those before," he said chattily, hiding his frustration at not being able to glimpse more than a logo and the word 'profiling', which had leapt out like a burning brand. "The profiling task force we've all read so much about, eh? Once you're actually up and running, you should get one of your experienced officers to go on my wife's programme, tell the people what's being done to protect them."

Now she'd know he knew she was an absolute beginner.

"That wouldn't be my decision, sir." Shaz deliberately turned her back on him and walked back to the chair. "Now, if we could get down to business?"

"Of course." He spread his left arm in an expansive gesture without making a move towards a chair. "I'm at your disposal, DC Bowman.

Perhaps we could start with you telling me exactly what this is all about."

"We've reopened the cases of a group of missing teenage girls," Shaz said, opening the folder she was carrying. "Initially, we have identified seven cases with strong similarities. The cases cover a period of six years, and we will be expanding our inquiries to see whether there are other cases with common features that we haven't pinpointed yet."

"I don't quite see what I ... " Vance frowned convincingly. "Teenage girls?"

"Fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds," Shaz said firmly. "I can't go into the precise details that have linked these cases, but we have grounds for believing they may be connected."

"You mean, they're not just run-of-the-mill runaways?" he asked, sounding perplexed.

"We have reason to believe their disappearances were planned by a third party," Shaz said cautiously, never shifting her eyes from his face. The intensity of her gaze made him uncomfortable. He wanted to edge away from her stare, to fidget his way out of her eye line But he forced himself to keep his pose casual.

"Kidnapped, is that what you're saying?"

Her eyebrows and a slight movement of her head indicated a shrug. "I'm not in a position to release any more information," she said with a sudden smile.

"Fine, but you're still not making much sense. What has a bunch of missing teenagers got to do with me?" He made his voice sound a little edgy. It wasn't hard to do; there was plenty of nervous tension buzzing in his veins to draw on.

Shaz flipped open her folder and drew out a sheaf of photocopied photographs. "In every case, a couple of days before the girls disappeared, you'd made a public appearance or taken part in a charity event in the towns where they lived. We have reason to believe that each of the girls attended the occasion."

He could feel the red tide rising up his neck. He was powerless to stop the flush of anger as it climbed into his face. It was an effort to keep himself calm and his voice level. "Hundreds of people come to my events," he said evenly, his voice a fraction husky to his ears.

"Statistically, some of them must go missing. All the time."

Shaz cocked her head, as if she'd also picked up on a change in his tone. She looked like a hunting dog who's just had the faintest whiff of what might possibly be a rabbit. "I know. I'm sorry we have to bother you with this. It's just that my boss thinks there's an outside possibility that either someone in your entourage or possibly someone who's got an unhealthy interest in you might conceivably be involved in the disappearance of those girls."

"You mean, you think I've got a stalker who's capturing my fans?" This time, he found it wasn't hard to sound incredulous. As a cover story, it was ridiculous. An imbecile could see that the person she was really interested in wasn't some crazy, nor a member of his entourage. It was him. He could tell by her eyes, obsessively fixed on him, recording his every move, noticing the faint sheen of sweat he could feel on his forehead. And her talk of a boss was just as evidently a bluff. She was a lone wolf, like him. He could smell it on her.

Shaz nodded. "It could be. Transference, the psychologists call it.

Like John Hinckley. Remember him? The guy who shot Ronald Reagan because he wanted Jodie Foster to take notice of him?" Her voice was pleasant, friendly, carefully pitched so he wouldn't feel threatened. He hated her for thinking so simple a technique would slip past him unnoticed.

"This is bizarre," he said, pushing off from the mantelpiece and striding to and fro on the hearth rug, a hand-knotted silk Bokhara that he'd chosen himself. Staring down at the grey and cream intricacies under his feet calmed him until he was able to meet the woman's intense eyes again. "It's absurd. If it wasn't so appalling a suggestion, it would be funny. And I still don't see what it has to do with me."

"It's simple, sir," Shaz said soothingly.

Feeling patronized, Vance stopped in his tracks and scowled. "What?" he demanded, charm disintegrating by the second.

"All I want you to do is to look at some photographs and tell me if you noticed the girls for any reason. Maybe they were particularly pushy with you, and someone wanted to punish them. Maybe you noticed one of your staff chatting them up. Or maybe you never spotted any of them.

Just a couple of minutes of your time, then

I'm out of here," Shaz coaxed. She leaned forward and spread the photocopies over a kilim-covered footstool the size of a coffee table.

He moved towards her, transfixed by the photographs that she'd arranged to face him. Only a fraction of his work, that was all she'd captured.

But every single smiling stare was one he'd destroyed.

Vance forced a laugh. "Seven faces out of thousands? Sorry, DC Bowman, you've been wasting your time. I've never seen any of them before."

"Look again," she said. "Are you absolutely certain?" There was an edge in her voice that hadn't been there before, sharp and excited. He dragged his eyes away from the pale reflections of the living flesh he'd punished and met Shaz Bowman's implacable eyes. She knew. She might not have the proof yet, but he knew she knew now. He also knew she wouldn't stop until she had destroyed him. It had come down to dog eat dog, and she had no chance. Not handicapped by the law.

He shook his head, a sorrowful smile on his lips. "I'm positive. I've never clapped eyes on any of them before."

Without even looking, Shaz pushed the middle picture closer to him. "You made an appeal in a national tabloid for Tiffany Thompson to call her parents," she said without inflexion.

"My God," he exclaimed, forcing his features into an expression of happy astonishment. "Do you know, I'd completely forgotten about that? You're right, of course, I see it now."

Her attention was all on his face as he spoke. In a swift movement, he swung his prosthesis round in a short arc and smashed it violently into the side of her head. Her eyes showed a momentary shock, then panic. As she fell out of the chair, her forehead smacked into the footstool. By the time she crashed to the floor, she was unconscious.

Vance wasted no time. He raced down to the cellar where he grabbed a reel of hi-fi speaker wire and a pack of latex gloves. Within minutes, Shaz was trussed like a hog-tied steer on the polished parquet. Then he ran up to the top floor and opened his wardrobe, scrabbling around on the floor until he found what he was looking for. Back downstairs, he covered Shaz's head with the soft flannel bag that his new leather briefcase had come in. Then he wrapped a few lengths of wire round her neck, tight enough to be uncomfortable but not so that it would constrict her breathing. He wanted her dead, but not yet. Not here, and not accidentally.

As soon as he was sure that she wasn't going to be able to break free, he picked up her shoulder bag and sat down with it on the sofa, gathering the photocopies and the file they'd come from on the way.

Meticulously, he began to go through everything, starting with the file.

The abstracts of the police reports he skimmed over, knowing he would have the opportunity to look at them in more detail later. When he came to the analysis Shaz had presented to her colleagues, he took his time, weighing and calculating how dangerous to him it might prove. Not very, he decided. The photocopies of the newspaper clippings about his visits to the places in question were meaningless; for every one connected to a disappearance, he could produce twenty that weren't. Putting that aside, he picked up the organized offender checklist. Reading her conclusion so angered him that he jumped to his feet and gave the unconscious detective a couple of savage kicks in the stomach. "Fuck do you know, bitch?" he shouted angrily. He wished he could see her eyes now. They wouldn't be judging him, they'd be begging him for mercy.

Furious, he stuffed the papers back in the file along with the photocopies. He'd have to study them more carefully, but there wasn't time now. He'd been right to nip this in the bud before anyone else paid attention to this bitch's allegations. He turned to her roomy shoulder bag and pulled out a spiral-bound notebook. A quick flick through the pages revealed nothing of interest except Micky's phone number and their address. Since he wasn't going to be able to deny she'd been here, that had better stay. But he tore out a handful of pages after the last entry, making it look as if someone had ripped out details pertaining to a subsequent appointment, then replaced it in the bag.

Next out was the microcassette recorder, the tape still turning. He stopped the machine and removed the tape, placing it with the blank sheets of paper on one side. He ignored the lan Rankin paperback and pulled out a filofax. Under that day's date, the only entry read, "JV 9.30'. He considered adding another cryptic entry and settled for the single letter T' underneath her appointment with him. Let them think about that. Inside the front cover, he found what he was looking for.

"If found, return to S. Bowman, Flat 1,17 Hyde Park Hill, Headingley, Leeds. REWARD ." His fingers groped around the bottom of the bag. No keys.

Vance stuffed everything back into the shoulder bag, picked up the file and crossed to Shaz. He patted her down until he found a bunch of keys in her trouser pocket. Smiling, he went upstairs to his office and found a padded envelope big enough for the file. He addressed it to his Northumberland retreat, stamped it and sealed Shaz's research inside.

A quick glance at his watch told him it was barely half past ten. He went through to his bedroom and changed into jeans, one of the few short-sleeved T-shirts he possessed, and a denim jacket. He picked up a holdall from the back of the fitted wardrobes that ran deep under the eaves. He took out a Nike baseball cap that was attached to a professional quality wig of collar-length salt-and-pepper hair and put it on. The effect was remarkable. When he added a pair of aviator glasses with clear lenses and a pair of foam pads to fill out his hollow cheeks, the transformation was complete. The only giveaway was his prosthetic arm. And Jacko had the perfect answer to that.

He let himself out of the house, careful to lock up behind himself, and opened Shaz's car. He took a careful note of the seat position, then climbed in and adjusted it to suit his longer legs. He spent a few minutes familiarizing himself with the controls, making sure he was going to be able to manage the stick shift and steer at the same time.

Then he set off, stopping only to drop the padded envelope in a pillar box in Ladbroke Grove. As he hit the approach ramp to the M1 shortly after eleven o'clock, he allowed himself a small, private smile. Shaz Bowman was going to be very sorry she'd ever crossed him. But not for long.

The first pain was a scream of cramp in her left leg, penetrating her muzzy unconsciousness like a serrated knife across a knuckle. The instinctive attempt at stretching and flexing the muscle triggered a slash of agony around her wrists. It made no sense to a disorientated mind that had started to throb like a thumb hit with a hammer. Shaz forced her eyes open, but the blackness didn't go away. Then she registered the damp material against her face. It was some sort of hood, made of thick fabric with a soft nap. It covered her whole head, fastening tightly round her throat, making it hard to swallow.

Gradually, she made sense of her position. She was lying on her side on a hard surface, her hands fastened behind her back with some sort of ligature that bit cruelly into the flesh of her wrists. Her feet were also fastened at the ankle, and both sets of bonds were linked to allow minimal movement. Anything adventurous like stretching her legs or trying to shift her spot cost too much in pain. She had no idea how small or how large her area of confinement was, nor any desire to explore once she had experienced the torment of attempting to turn over.

She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious. The last thing she could remember was Jacko Vance's laughing face looming over her, as if he didn't have a care in the world, secure in the certainty that no one would ever take this pipsqueak detective seriously. No, that wasn't quite right. Something else tugged at her memory. Shaz tried the deep breathing of relaxation techniques and tried to picture what she'd seen.

The memory stirred and took shape. Out on the edge of her peripheral vision, his right arm rising, then swinging down savagely like a club.

That was the last thing she could remember.

With the memory came terror, sharper than any of her physical afflictions. Nobody knew where she was except Chris, who wasn't expecting to hear from her anyway. She hadn't told anyone else, not even Simon. She hadn't been able to face their mockery, however friendly. Now the fear of being laughed at was going to cost her her life. Shaz was under no illusion about that. She'd asked Jacko Vance questions that made him realize she knew he was a serial killer and he hadn't panicked as she'd believed he would. Instead, he'd worked out for himself that she was a maverick. That although her deductions were a threat to him, he could win himself a stay of execution by getting rid of her, the renegade cop in hot pursuit of a solo hunch. Removing Shaz would, at worst, buy him time to cover his tracks or even leave the country.

Shaz felt a wave of sweat drench her skin. There was no question about it. She was going to die. The only question was how.

She'd been right. And being right was going to kill her.

Pauline Doyle was desperate. The police refused to regard Donna's disappearance as anything other than a typical teenage runaway. "She'll have gone to London, probably. There's no point in us looking for her round here," one of the uniformed officers she'd mithered at the counter of the police station had said in exasperation one night.

Pauline might shout from the rooftops that someone had stolen her daughter, but the evidence of the missing outfit was more than enough to convince overworked cops that Donna Doyle was just another teenager bored with home and convinced the streets somewhere were paved with gold. You only had to look at her photograph, that knowing smile, to understand she was nothing like as innocent as her poor misguided mother wanted to believe.

With the police showing no interest beyond a routine posting of Donna on the missing list, Pauline was stymied. Not for her the passionate television appeals for the missing daughter, not with the absence of official backing. Even the local paper wasn't interested, though the women's editor toyed with the idea of running a feature on teenage runaways. But like the police, when she saw Donna's photograph, she thought again. There was something about Donna that defied any attempt to portray her as an innocent abroad, seduced by chaste dreams.

Something about the line of her mouth, the tilt of her chin said that she had crossed the line. The women's editor reckoned Donna Doyle was the sort of Lolita that would make most women want to put blinkers on their husbands.

Her frustration spilling over into nightly storms of tears, Pauline decided the time had come to take matters into her own hands. Her job in the estate agency wasn't particularly well paid. It was enough to feed and clothe her and Donna and to keep a roof over their heads, but not much more than that. There was still a couple of thousand left over from Bernard's insurance. Pauline had been saving that for when Donna went off to university, knowing how tight things would be then.

But if Donna didn't come back, there would be no point in saving it for university, Pauline reasoned. Better then to spend the money to try and get her home and let higher education fend for itself. So Pauline took Donna's photograph to the local print shop and had them make up thousands of flyers with her daughter's image occupying the whole of one side. The text on the reverse read, "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? Donna Doyle went missing on Thursday tenth October. She was last seen at quarter past eight in the morning, on her way to Glossop Girls Grammar.

She was wearing school uniform of maroon skirt, maroon cardigan, white open-necked blouse. Her shoes were black Kickers, and she had a black anorak. She was carrying a black Nike backpack. If you saw her at any time after that, please contact her mother, Pauline Doyle." It gave the address in Corunna Street, and telephone numbers at home and the agency.

Pauline took a week off work and stuffed the leaflets through letter boxes from dawn till dusk. She started in the town centre, thrusting the reproductions of Donna's face at anyone who would take them, and gradually worked her way out into suburban streets, not noticing the steepness of the hills she climbed or the blisters that swelled inside her shoes.

No one phoned.

While Shaz Bowman was lying on his hard floor in London, conscious only of fear and pain, Jacko Vance was exploring her domain. He'd made good time to Leeds, stopping only to fill up with petrol and visit the disabled toilet at the motorway services. He'd wanted to use its sanitary disposal unit to get rid of the tape he'd unravelled from Shaz's microcassette. In the car park, he'd crushed the casing underfoot, leaving the fragments to scatter in the blustery wind that swept across the Midlands.

Finding Shaz's home had been made even easier by her recently purchased A to Z, which conveniently had the street circled in blue biro. He parked the car round the corner and forced himself to combat his twitching nerves by strolling slowly down the street, empty except for a couple of small boys playing cricket on the opposite pavement. He turned in at the gate of number 17 and tried one of the two Yale keys in the heavy Victorian front door. That he got it right first time convinced him that the gods really were on his side.

He found himself in a gloomy hallway, lit only by two thin lancet windows on either side of the door. Peering into the murk, he saw a wide and graceful staircase rising ahead of him. There seemed to be one ground-floor flat on either side. He chose the left-hand side, and was proved right again. Breathing more easily now, convinced everything was going his way, Vance let himself into the flat. He wasn't planning on staying long, just enough to scout out the lie of the land, so he moved swiftly through the rooms. As soon as he saw the living room, he realized that Shaz could not possibly have chosen a flat better suited to his purpose. The French windows led out on to a garden surrounded by high walls, shaded by tall fruit trees. At the end, he could discern the outlines of a wooden door in the brick wall.

Only one thing remained to be done. He slipped off his jacket and unfastened his prosthesis. From the holdall, he took an object he'd persuaded the props department to make for him a couple of years back, supposedly as a practical joke. Using the fittings from one of his previous artificial arms, an earlier model now discarded, they'd built a plaster cast with disturbingly realistic fingertips protruding from the end. Once it was fitted, especially with a jacket over it and a sling holding it in place, it looked exactly like a broken arm. When he was satisfied he'd arranged it correctly, Vance re-packed the holdall, took a deep breath and decided it was time to go.

He let himself out of the French windows, pushing them to behind him, then strode confidently down the gravel path to the gate. He could feel the hair on his neck prickling under the wig, wondering if there were eyes behind any of the windows at his back, eyes that would remember what they'd seen once his handiwork was over and exposed to the public gaze. In a bid for reassurance, he reminded himself that any description they could come up with would sound nothing like Jacko Vance.

He unbolted the back gate, convinced that no one would fasten it again before he returned. He found himself in a narrow lane that ran between two sets of walled back gardens and led out on to one of the main roads that ran down towards the city centre. Walking to the station took the best part of an hour, but he had barely ten minutes to wait for a London train. He was back in Holland Park and restored to Jacko Vance by half past seven.

Before he made his final preparations, he slammed a twelve-inch pizza into the oven. It wasn't his usual idea of Saturday night dinner, but the carbohydrate should stop his stomach turning somersaults. Tension always hit him in the gut. Whenever the fever of anticipation had him in its grasp, he'd have to endure cramps and clenches, knots and nausea.

He'd learned early on in his days as a live sports commentator that the only way to stop the churning and grumbling was to stodge out in advance. What worked for TV worked just as well for murder, he'd soon discovered. Now, he always ate before he picked up his targets. And-of course, he always ate with them before the act itself.

While the pizza was cooking, he loaded his Mercedes. Exertion was easier on an empty stomach. Now everything was ready for Shaz Bowman's final performance. All he had to do was get her on stage.

Donna Doyle was also alone. But, deranged by agony, she lacked the luxury of introspection. The first time she'd woken from broken sleep, she'd felt strong enough to explore her prison. Her fear was still overwhelming, but it was no longer paralysing. Wherever she was, it was dark as a grave and had the dank smell of the tiny coal cellar at home.

She used her good arm to help her gain a sense of where she was and what was around her. She was, she realized, lying on a plastic-covered mattress. Her fingers explored the edges and felt cold tiles. Not as smooth as the ceramic ones in the bathroom at home, more like the glazed terra cotta on Sarah Dyson's mum's conservatory steps.

The wall behind her was rough stone. She struggled to her feet, realizing properly for the first time that her legs were shackled. She bent and let her fingers trace the outline of an iron cuff round each ankle. They were attached to a heavy chain. One-handed, it was impossible to gauge how long it was. Four hesitant steps along one wall brought her to a corner. She turned through ninety degrees and moved on. Two steps and her shin crashed painfully against something solid.

It didn't take long both by touch and smell to identify it as a chemical toilet. Pathetically grateful, Donna subsided on to it and emptied her bladder.

That only reminded her of how thirsty she was. Hunger she wasn't too sure about, but thirst was definitely a problem. She stood up and carried on along the wall for another few feet before the chain round her ankles brought her up short. The jerk sent a spasm of pain shooting from her arm into her neck and head, and she gasped. Slowly, bent like an old woman, she retraced her steps and moved past the other end of the mattress, her hand brushing the wall.

Within a few feet, the questions of food and drink were answered. A stiff metal tap produced a surge of icy water which she drank thirstily, falling to her knees to get her head right underneath the flow. As she did, she knocked something over beyond her. Her thirst slaked, she groped blindly for whatever she'd bumped into. Probing fingers found four boxes, all large and light. She shook them and heard the familiar rustle of cornflakes.

An hour of investigation later and she was forced to realize that was it. Four boxes of cornflakes she'd tested each one and as much freezing water as she could drink. She'd tried running the water over her shattered arm, but the pain had made her head reel. This was it. The bastard had left her chained up like a dog. Left her to die?

She sat back on her heels and keened like a bereft mother.

But that had been a couple of endless days ago. Now, delirious with pain, she moaned and gibbered, occasionally passing out, occasionally drifting exhausted into tormented sleep. If she'd been able to comprehend the state she was in, Donna wouldn't have wanted to live.