The Betrayal of Trust (44 page)

‘So you’ll arrest me.’

‘No.’

‘I saw it all. I should have rung the police then. I buried two bodies and I said nothing about any of it for sixteen years.’

‘There are no witnesses and it’s too long ago for there to be any forensic evidence.’

‘Olive knew Agneta’s name. She says her name.’

‘Olive can’t be questioned. The case wouldn’t even get to court. She doesn’t understand what any of this is about.’

‘Now what?’

‘Now?’ Simon got up. He looked at her and felt huge sadness, and pity, and regret. Lenny would go on living with the memory. Olive would not.

He touched her arm gently. ‘Don’t forget to lock up the hen house,’ he said. ‘I know what foxes can do.’

My thanks to Dr Jill Barling and Dr Giles Bointon, who have both given me the benefit of their medical expertise.

Barrister Anthony Lenaghan has been faithful and wise counsel on the changing legal aspects of assisted suicide, and kept me well briefed with up-to-date information and judgements.

Thanks also to the anonymous source who has kept me abreast of the likely effect
of cuts on the day-to-day running of police forces.

Barbara Machin, who, as creator and sustainer of the BBC TV series
Waking the Dead
, knows more than most about the investigation of cold cases, has been unfailingly helpful in sharing her knowledge and experience.

Antonia Fraser solved the small problem I put to her by giving me Rachel Wyatt, thereby putting both Simon Serrailler and me in
her debt.

I have been cheered on during writing by the encouragement, support, all-round kindness and jokes of my friends on Facebook, quick visits to which during the course of the working day are a solitary writer’s equivalent of brief chats around the office water-cooler. Thank you, therefore: Alex Massie, Amanda Craig, Andrew McKie, Anna Brooke, Bel Mooney, Carol Drinkwater, Caroline Sanderson,
Charles Cumming, Chris Ewan, Claire Rutter, Curzon Tussaud, Danuta Keane, Elizabeth Buchan, Emma Barnes, Emma Lee Potter, Eugenie Teaseley, Fiona Dunn, Gill Poole, Helen Hayes,
Helen
Nicholson, Jack Ruston, James, Malcolm Hugh, Richard, Ivo, Lydia and Berry Delingpole, Janette Jenkins, Jenny Colgan, Jess Ruston, Jo Crocker, Josie Charlotte Jackson, Kitty Hodges, Lesley Jackson, Liam Pearce, Linda
Grant, Liz Parmiter, Lynne Hatwell, Mark Billingham, Meg Sanders, Naomi Alderman, Nicholas Daniel, Nicholas J. Rogers, Nick Harkaway, Nicole Roberts Hernandez, Philip Hensher, Polly Samson, Ray Hensher, Rosa Monkton, Rosalie Claire Berne, Sam Leith, Stephen Gadd, Trisha Ashley, Val McDermid, Valerie Greeley, Veronica Henry, Will Wyatt and Zaved Mahmood.