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Emma considered that, but shook her head. ‘Gut instinct: no. But I wouldn’t swear on that one
hundred per cent.’
‘You need to keep a very close eye on her. Detailed reports of what you observe, please.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ve got to go. I’m interviewing Dad now.’
‘Good luck.’ She turned to go.
‘Emma!’
‘What?’
‘You will do the best job you can, won’t you? This is a big one. We have to be extremely
sensitive.’
‘Of course I will.’
She didn’t look openly hurt, that wasn’t her style, but something in her expression made me regret
what I’d said immediately. She was one of the most emotionally intelligent people I knew, perfect for
the role, and it was wrong of me to display even the tiniest bit of doubt about her abilities. I was too
psyched up myself to be measured in what I said to her; I could have kicked myself.
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. That was out of order. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I’m just… this is
such a big one.’
‘It’s fine, and I’m absolutely on it, don’t worry about that.’
She cracked a big smile, making it OK, and her fingers made contact with mine again briefly.
‘Good luck with the dad,’ she added, and I watched her walk briskly away down the corridor before I
went to find Benedict Finch’s father.
John Finch was pacing around the small interview room that we’d placed him in. He looked gaunt,
and shocked like the mother, but there was also a sense of innate authority. I guessed that in his normal
life he was a man more used to being in charge of a room than being a victim.
‘DI Jim Clemo,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry about Ben.’
‘John Finch.’ His handshake was a quick firm clench with bony fingers.
There was a small table in the room, two chairs on either side of it. DC Woodley and I sat on one
side, Finch on the other.
I went through the same process as with Ben’s mother, starting him at the beginning with date of
birth, childhood, etc. What people don’t realise is that one of the first things we have to do is prove
that they are who they say they are, and that the crime they’ve reported really has happened. We’d
look pretty stupid if we investigated and it turned out that the people involved didn’t actually exist,
that they’d spun us a lie from the outset. And God knows the press and public can’t wait to make a
meal out of any instances of police stupidity.
Finch answered my questions in a muted, economical way.
‘I’m afraid we have to spend time on what might feel like irrelevant detail,’ I said to him.
I felt the need to apologise, to try to make the situation slightly easier for this man who was so
obviously sensitive and so obviously trying to hide it.
‘But please be assured that it’s essential for us to build up a picture not just of Ben but his family
too.’
‘I know the importance of a personal history,’ he said. ‘We rely on it heavily in medicine.’
John Finch’s backstory was quite straightforward. He was born in 1976 in Birmingham, an only
child. Dad was a local boy, a GP, and mum was a violinist. Her parents had escaped Nazi-occupied
Vienna while her mother was pregnant with her, and then settled in Birmingham. Finch was close to