Marianne Voss was thirty-eight, divorced, with no children. She worked as an accountant for an international shipping company.
Her employer had reported her missing.
The Metropolitan Police found no evidence of violence. Her passport was at home, along with most of her clothes. Her car was discovered at Ashford International, but they had not established whether she had boarded a train.
Eleanor read the report in Relf's office.
"The company has offices in Hong Kong?"
"Yes."
She went back to the statements.
One friend said Marianne had seemed frightened during the preceding week. Another thought she had been excited. A colleague remembered her shredding papers, but could not say what they were.
Two days before she disappeared, Marianne withdrew nine thousand pounds in cash. There had been no activity on her accounts since.
"That suggests she was preparing to leave," Eleanor said.
"It could."
"But she left her passport."
"She might have expected another one."
"Package two?"
"We don't know what that includes."
"Has Wycliffe told you anything?"
"He says he only knows about four."
"Do you believe that?"
"I think he knows more than he's telling us."
Eleanor set the report beside Bull's decoded message.
FRI 0040 / 2 / LAMB
They had a woman who had withdrawn cash before vanishing, and a message arranging something at a waterside location that same night. Neither proved she had been there.
"What did Bull know about her?" she asked.
A folder on Bull's computer contained a photograph of a woman leaving a café in Lisbon.
He had saved it after Marianne's disappearance, enlarged it and added a note:
M.V.?
Relf arranged a comparison with her passport photograph. The result was cautious. The visible features were consistent, but the image was not clear enough for a firm identification.
Eleanor studied the enlarged copy.
"Bull thought he'd found her."
"He thought it was worth keeping."
"If it is Marianne, she got out of Britain and was living in Portugal."
"Yes."
"Had he contacted her?"
"We haven't found anything."
She looked at the question mark beneath the image.
"He wasn't just tracing old smuggling routes."
"No."
"He was checking whether people had used them."
Relf drew the photograph towards him.
"And somebody may have noticed."
The next useful detail came from the footwear examination.
The impressions beside the tenor rope were consistent with a size eleven boot.
Hatherley wore a nine.
Eleanor read the measurements.
"Could he have worn someone else's boots?"
"He could. But we'd need a reason to think he had."
"The injury still fits."
"So does the history. That doesn't make the feet fit."
She put down the report.
"We kept coming back to him."
"Yes."
"Because we had a name."
Relf nodded.
They still had to account for his lies. They no longer had good reason to assume he had made the marks in the tower.
At Hatherley's house, Relf told him enough about the footwear to explain why their questions had changed.
"You're no longer the person we're concentrating on."
"I didn't realise I was."
Relf waited.
Hatherley lowered his eyes.
"All right. I did."
"Then I'd like you to stop giving us answers you know are false."
He placed the Hong Kong photograph on the table.
"Who is Ben H?"
Hatherley looked at Eleanor.
"And if you tell me he's my uncle," she said, "I'll want something more than your word."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"His name wasn't Harcourt."
Eleanor felt her face grow hot.
"You made that up."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I wanted you to withdraw."
"From the investigation?"
"Yes. I thought if it reached into your family —"
"You thought you could frighten me off."
Hatherley did not answer.
Relf kept his notebook open.
"What is his name?"
"Benjamin Hale."
He wrote it down.
"What did he do?"
"He was in the Army originally."
"Which regiment?"
"I don't know. Later he worked in private security. Shipping companies, ports."
"In Hong Kong?"
"Yes."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
"Is he alive?"
"I think so."
"How old would he be?"
"Seventy-one."
"Did he have an injury to his right leg?"
Hatherley frowned.
"Not that I knew of."
"Did he walk with a limp?"
"No."
Eleanor looked at the photograph. They had been treating Ben and the man seen with Bull as though they must be the same person. Hatherley's account gave them no reason to do that.
"When did you last see Hale?" Relf asked.
"1998."
"At Dungeness?"
"Yes. That part was true."
"What about the question concerning a man returning under his own identity?"
"That was true too."
"Why were you frightened when we first showed you this picture?"
Hatherley rested both hands on the arms of his chair.
"The last time I saw him, he told me never to mention his name in connection with the organisation."
"What did he threaten?"
"He said I would regret it."
"And you believed him."
"Yes."
Relf waited, but Hatherley offered nothing more.
"Why did he want to meet you at Dungeness?"
"To find out what Adrian knew."
Eleanor leaned forward.
"You said Bull's research changed about three years ago."
"That was when he became absorbed in it. He'd asked questions before."
"As far back as 1998?"
"Yes."
"About the cipher?"
"No. Disappearances."
"Whose?" Relf asked.
Hatherley looked directly at him.
"Peter Wycliffe's."
Relf's pen stopped.
"You knew he was alive?"
"I suspected it."
"For twenty-eight years?"
"I knew someone had helped him leave."
"Who?"
Hatherley glanced at the photograph.
"Ben."
"And you said nothing to the police."
"I had no evidence."
"You had a name."
"I had Ben Hale's name."
Relf laid his pen down.
"You could have given us that."
Hatherley's voice dropped.
"I didn't think you could protect me."