Mercy
David Kessler

For Mai, Shir and Romi

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Authors Note

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Dorothys Poem

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Author’s Note

The times stated at the beginning of each chapter (usually in Pacific Daylight Time) refer to the time at the start of the events in that chapter. Thus chapters may overlap chronologically with subsequent chapters. This should be borne in mind in the reader’s understanding of events.

09:30 Pacific Daylight Time (August 14, 2007)

It’s hard to sit still when your client is scheduled to die in fifteen hours.

Alex Sedaka felt gripped by that all-too-familiar urge to stand and pace up and down like a caged lion. But he knew he couldn’t do so. It would be undignified—and hardly befitting the governor’s office. So instead, he sat there tensely in the brown leather upholstered mahogany armchair, as his client’s life hung in the balance.

‘I know he had a fair trial, sir. That’s why I can’t get the courts to reconsider the case. But justice isn’t a game. It’s a search for the truth—at least it should be.’

Alex felt the gaze of suspicious eyes upon him, his shoulders hunched against the strain of the task that awaited him. Since hitting fifty, he had become somewhat self-conscious about his appearance, despite the fact that tennis and rock climbing had kept him lean and fit, as well as tanned.

But it was not the ravages of time that had aged him: it was his work. Three decades of professional cynicism, defending scum and lowlifes, had worn away the youthful charm from the face that Melody had fallen in love with —or given it character, as she liked to say. Only this very morning, he had stared at his wedding picture with a mixture of joy and pain and had been surprised at how much he had changed.

But right now he was self-conscious, not about his looks, but rather about what he was going to say next. He had held the freedom of other men in his hands on numerous occasions. But this was the first time he had been entrusted with another man’s life.

As if on cue, the governor’s voice came back at him with quiet cynicism.

‘It’s not my duty to second-guess the courts now, is it?’

At the back of Alex’s mind, a question was nagging away at him. Do I plead for justice or mercy? Do I place the emphasis on the lingering doubts or argue about the ethics of ‘a life for a life’? And he had to think on his feet.

‘No, sir, of course it’s not your duty to second-guess the courts. But sometimes an unusual case can slip through the system. And you have the power to make a difference.’

He monitored the governor’s face for a reaction to the obsequious flattery. The face remained neutral. Alex took it as the green light to continue.

‘The courts are bound by a rigid code of rules. But sometimes the rulebook goes out the window. Every case is different and this case is a classic example. The whole trial took place in an atmosphere of anger and vengeance. All those comparisons with Carrie—’

‘Carrie?’

‘The book by Stephen King…about the girl with psychic powers who was bullied in high school.’

‘Oh, right,’ the governor replied suppressing a smile. ‘I saw the movie.’

Alex squirmed.

‘Well anyway…The press kept making comparisons. They just didn’t let up.’

The governor scratched his head, looking puzzled. He had rejected Alex’s written request for clemency a few days ago, but agreed to this eleventh-hour, face-to-face meeting at his San Francisco office, the location chosen by mutual agreement over LA, San Diego, Fresno and Riverside because of its proximity to San Quentin.

‘I don’t mean to sound like I’m making fun of you—’cause I ain’t—but you’re contradicting yourself now. You said before that Burrow got a fair trial.’

‘Yes, sir, in the courtroom. But what about the media circus beforehand? It poisoned the atmosphere. By the time the trial opened, people had already made up their minds. Folks were baying for blood. But vengeance isn’t the same as justice.’

He had used the term ‘folks’ deliberately, hoping that it would click with the governor’s populist vocabulary. But the governor was one step ahead of him.

‘Are we talking justice for the murderer here or justice for the victim?’

Over the past few days, back at the office, Alex had practiced pitching various arguments, with Juanita and Nat at the plate, striking the kind of counter-arguments that he would inevitably face. But the more he had practised, the more banal it had all sounded. There was nothing more to add to the fossilized debate. All he could offer was a mind-numbing replay.

However, he had a few things going for him. Perhaps the strongest of these was that the incumbent governor—Charles Dusenbury—was himself an opponent of the death penalty. Not many politicians would stick their necks out by going on record with such a politically unpopular sentiment. ‘Chuck’ Dusenbury was one of the few. Even with public opinion divided on capital punishment, supporters of the death penalty were more likely to be one-issue voters on the subject.

But this didn’t matter to Dusenbury. He was a lame duck, serving out his final term of office. His public position was that he had no plans to extend his political career at either the state or federal level and wanted to retire to a lakeside log cabin and spend his golden years playing golf and catching fish. This might have been good ol’ hometown politicking. Some people—‘the media cynics,’ Dusenbury called them—suspected that he still harbored aspirations to catch bigger fish than you can find in a lake. You could never tell with Dusenbury.

Alex took a deep breath and tried a different line of attack.

‘Okay, there’s something else that I’d urge you to consider: there’s still reasonable doubt.’

‘You mean the fact that they never found the body?’

‘Exactly.’

‘So why didn’t you argue lack of corpus delicti before the courts?’

The governor was teasing him—his smile said it all.

‘Corpus delicti means the “body of the crime,” sir, not the “body of the victim.” You know that.’

‘Of course I know it,’ the governor snapped. ‘So why are you feeding me this line of bullshit?’

Alex recoiled from the anger. But he gathered his wits and recovered his nerve quickly.

‘Because even if there’s corpus delicti in the formal sense, it’s still possible that the alleged victim is alive. Can you send a man to the death chamber with these lingering doubts still hovering over the case?’

‘Well let’s see now. They found breast tissue from the victim in a plastic bag at the back of the freezer at Clayton Burrow’s home. They found the victim’s blood-stained, semen-stained panties, hidden beneath the floorboards in Clayton Burrow’s bedroom. They also found a blood-stained knife with a perfect set of Clayton Burrow’s fingerprints in the same place. They used DNA to establish that the blood belonged to Dorothy Olsen and the semen came from Clayton Burrow. I don’t know what you call that, but I call it corpus delicti!’

‘Don’t you think it was just a little bit too convenient? The cops finding all that under his bed after an anonymous tip-off?’

‘You think they planted it? How would they get such evidence in the first place?’

‘I don’t know. From the body?’

‘Which they never found!’

‘But why would he keep all that stuff?’

‘’Cause he’s a sex killer and he wanted to keep a trophy—that’s why! Like countless sex killers before and since!’

‘But would he be stupid enough to keep it under the floorboards of his own room?’

‘Sure he would! He’s a peanut-brained redneck!’

Alex shifted uncomfortably. He was flogging a dead horse. Time for another shift in his arguments.

‘Well what about her trust fund? Eighty-six thousand dollars that she just liquidated a few days before she vanished?’

‘The defense already tried that smokescreen at the trial. It was her money. She’d just turned eighteen and she wanted to get her hands on it.’

‘And what about all that jewelry she bought with it?’

‘What of it?’

‘Well why would she suddenly do something crazy like that?’

‘How the heck would I know? Maybe she wanted to make an impression at the prom!’

‘Then how come they never found the jewelry afterward?’

‘Maybe Burrow stole it! After he killed her!’

‘Then why didn’t they find any of it on him? Or in his house?’

‘Maybe he sold it. He had seventeen months between when she disappeared and when they arrested him.’

‘So where’s the money? He didn’t exactly lead a lavish lifestyle.’

‘How the heck should I know? Maybe he lost the jewels! The point is, they found incriminating evidence on him and he had no explanation for it. It was an open and shut case.’

Alex Sedaka let the air out of his lungs. This was going nowhere.

He had only recently learned these details. He had not in fact had anything to do with the original trial. Burrow had been represented by an overworked Public Defender. After the guilty verdict, Burrow’s cause had been taken up by a liberal-leaning law firm, which had tried to base its appeal mainly on allegations of incompetent representation by the defense counsel. When these efforts failed—and with the execution date looming ever nearer—they hinted to Burrow, in no uncertain terms, that he might like to consider hiring new counsel. They had no desire to be associated with a failed attempt to save a murderer from execution, hence their eleventh-hour retreat from the battlefield.

The upshot of all this was that Alex had been called in six weeks ago to try and save Clayton Burrow from death by lethal injection.

‘He’ll see you now.’ A hard-edged female voice cut through Alex’s imaginings.

Alex had been so wrapped up in his mental dress rehearsal of his pleadings, that he hadn’t even heard her enter the room. He looked up to see the same lean, prim and spinsterly woman who had politely told him to wait here a few minutes ago. He hoped to God that he hadn’t been talking out loud while alone in the room.

She led him down the corridor, turning back to give him a disapproving stare through her horn-rimmed spectacles when he stopped for a moment before a perspex-fronted painting to pat down into place his gray-tinged, black hair. Alex sensed that she was the kind of woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly.

When they arrived at the meeting room, the woman opened the door, holding it for him to enter. He looked at her expectantly, but she made it clear with her body language that she had no intention of entering the room herself. As he stepped into the plush, mahogany-panelled room, the governor—a smiling, hulking figure in a check shirt and extra large jeans, part fat, part muscle—rose from the conference table to greet him.

It was at that moment that Alex was struck by an unexpected sight. On another chair on the far side of the conference table sat a lean, short, frail, middle-aged woman with gray hair.

‘Alex Sedaka,’ Chuck Dusenbury’s voice boomed out. It was a politician’s tone—that sort of ‘I’m a man of the people’ twang that Alex associated more with the Midwest or Rocky Mountains. Dusenbury followed through with a firm handshake. Alex was grateful that it wasn’t a bear-like hug.

But instead of meeting the governor’s eyes as their hands gripped, Alex looked past the big man at the frail, familiar-looking woman beyond. She looked about sixty, but Alex sensed that she was somewhat younger, as if tragedy or illness had added years to her appearance.

Alex was mystified by her presence here right now. It wasn’t merely the fact that this was supposed to be a private meeting between himself and the governor that left him so surprised to see her. It was the fact that he knew only too well who she was.

This sad-eyed lady was the mother of the very girl that his client had been found guilty of murdering.

09:38 PDT

Inside the blue Lincoln, the small man was sitting tensely. He knew that waiting was an inherently tense activity. Inactivity breeds a kind of stress that the most vigorous of purposeful action can never match. But there was nothing he could do about it. Waiting was part of the job.

The car was parked and the engine was off. But the key remained in the ignition, as if inactivity might give way to dynamism at any moment.

He touched the Bluetooth earpiece in his right ear, nervously. There was nothing particularly conspicuous about him. No one would pay attention to a twenty-seven-year-old, blue-eyed, brown-haired man in a dark blue suit nursing a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the Midway Café a few yards ahead. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t wearing a suit: his jacket was off, his blue tie loosened and the collar button of the white shirt opened.

From his attire and demeanor, he could almost have been an off-duty G-man. But his modest height and slight build detracted from that, giving him an innocuous aura. If he had been a Washington spook, he would have been a pen-pushing bean-counter, not a field agent. There was no way anyone could have felt threatened or intimidated by him, even though his close-cropped hair hinted—misleadingly—at a military background.

Poised well above the horizon, the sun’s warm glow was filtered by a thin veil of cloud. To the man in the car it had all the appearance of a giant wound in the sky, with blood still oozing through the bandage—not a new wound, more like an old one that refuses to heal.

He lifted his coffee cup out of the holder and took a single sip. Then he put the cup back down and looked round. Golden Gate Avenue looked normal, neither calm nor exceptionally busy. There was no sense of anything important going on twenty yards from where he sat.

He stared at the lacquered, grainy wood of the dashboard, admiring its elegance. It was a trivial thought—but it helped to stave off the boredom…for a couple of minutes at least.

The day was warm—not hot, just warm—hence his decision to take the jacket off. He tended to sweat in any sort of cumbersome clothing.

Finally the Bluetooth earpiece crackled to life.

‘You know Mrs Olsen, I presume.’

‘We’ve seen each other briefly,’ Alex’s embarrassed voice came through the earpiece. ‘But we’ve never actually been introduced.’

09:40 PDT

Alex walked over awkwardly to the chair where Mrs Olsen was sitting. He held his hand out toward her, not expecting her to rise. She took it limply and he made sure that his own handshake was suitably gentle.

But when he opened his mouth, a polite ‘How do you do?’ was all the lawyer could muster.

What did you say in a situation like this? Do you belatedly express condolences for her bereavement? Apologize for the fact that you’re representing the man convicted of murdering her daughter? Or keep your own counsel and remain silent?

For a few seconds he hovered, unsure of what to do next. The normal procedure was for the lawyer for the condemned man to meet the governor either alone or, more usually, with one of the governor’s staff present. But the sight of Mrs Olsen in this room had thrown his entire game plan out the window.

‘Well sit down, sit down,’ said the governor amiably, pointing to a chair.

Alex shuffled awkwardly toward the vacant chair. He sat down and looked straight at the governor—anything to avoid meeting Mrs Olsen’s unforgiving eyes. Dusenbury spoke again.

‘I’ve been following the Burrow case closely. I was most impressed by your work.’

‘Most of the work was already done. I only came in on it six weeks ago.’

Dusenbury, Alex remembered, was a lawyer by training, and by all accounts a wily old bastard.

‘Well all I can say is that you’ve been pretty busy in those six weeks,’ said Dusenbury. ‘If the press reports are anything to go by.’

‘Mr Governor—’

‘Chuck,’ the governor interrupted. ‘Everybody calls me Chuck.’

‘Sir…’ He couldn’t bring himself to address this man as Chuck. ‘I know this is going to sound rather rude, but I was expecting this to be a meeting in which I could plead the case for clemency for my client. This isn’t usually the way it’s done.’

Alex gave Mrs Olsen a quick glance to make sure that she hadn’t taken offense at his remark. Her eyes remained neutral, but there was the merest hint of a nervous smile, as if she were reaching out to him in a way that he couldn’t understand.

‘I know, son, I know,’ the governor responded. ‘But this is an unusual case, ain’t it?’

Alex couldn’t argue with that.

‘I’ll put it to you real simple,’ said the governor. ‘The reason Mrs Olsen is here is because she’s asked me to offer your client clemency.’

09:43 PDT

There are things I have done in my life that I’m not proud of. There were things I shouldn’t have done. I was a product of my upbringing. I wasn’t always taught right from wrong. And I was taught to hate people for things they had no control over or for things that I thought were bad because that’s the way I was brought up.

But whatever wrongs I am guilty of, murder is not one of them. I may have been a bully in my youth, but I was never a murderer. Dorothy Olsen suffered at the hands of many people, myself included. But I did not kill her.

Clayton Burrow stopped writing and put the pen down, his hand aching. He opened and closed the hand several times to alleviate the cramp. But it was nothing compared to the pain inside: pain…fear…guilt? He didn’t really know. He just had this constant urge to cry. He wouldn’t do so of course—at least not now. Crying was unmanly and, with a prison guard stationed outside his cell twenty-four hours a day, he wasn’t going to let the bastards see him broken. But at night, when the lights were dimmed (they never switched them off altogether on death row) he would bury his face in his pillow and give in to the weakness that he managed to hide from others in the light of day.

He looked down at the letter and scanned the words. At the time of writing, it had felt like the right thing to say and the right time to say it. But re-reading his words now, all he could think was how pathetic it all sounded. This was to be his final letter, to be read out before his execution. Or was it? Maybe it was to be his final plea for clemency to the state governor. Maybe it was to be his letter to Mrs Olsen if his request for clemency was granted. He wasn’t really sure.

Was it meant to be a letter of appeasement or a letter of defiance…an apology or a denial? What did he want to write? He didn’t even know that. All he knew was that he was feeling bitter and angry…and afraid…and…

Alone.

That was the worst part. In all his twenty-seven—nearly twenty-eight—years on this earth, he had always been one to surround himself with friends. Or perhaps ‘cronies’ was a better word. He liked to surround himself with people who cheered him on and told him he was an okay guy. Never a great athlete, he was nonetheless a good one, with a muscular build, defined rather than developed. He was also blessed with a smooth, ‘golden boy’ handsome face that belied his rather spiteful nature. And he had enough puerile wit and energetic sporting prowess to be popular with the girls and the guys alike. He was always on the right side in the high school clique, always with the majority in any lynch-mob situation, always in with the in-crowd rather than the geek or freak on the butt end of the bullying—be it verbal or physical.

He was very rarely alone. And that meant a lot to him. It meant more than he ever realized, because he was actually quite afraid of being alone. But he never knew this until he found himself in a situation in which he was unable to avoid it. Throughout his happy, time-wasting, fun-loving years at high school, he had never even had to think about it. Because he was never alone, he never knew how badly it would affect him when he was.

Looking back on it now, he probably had an inbuilt defense mechanism against solitude. Whenever he was alone he would rush to find human company. He was always the first to stride up to a friend or a group and stick his face into the conversation. He was always the one to approach the new kid in the class and size them up as friend or foe: friend to be used as a sounding board, foe to be bullied, or at least harassed.

Even in his own home he avoided solitude. He was an only child, but he always had friends over for sleepovers. More often than that, he slept over at friends’ places. He preferred that because he was embarrassed by his mother. He didn’t know who his father was—neither did his mother.

Now, he had to dwell in solitude for the first time in his life, he had to confront his fears. And this was a young man who had never known fear before.

But his fear of solitude—the fear that had always been there but that he had concealed from himself for so long—was now confronting him like an inner demon who would let him have no peace.

His mother didn’t visit. She had written him out of her life. And his old school friends—the ones whose lives he had brightened up with his antics—seemed to have no desire to share a moment’s company with their fallen idol.

But it wasn’t solitude as such that he feared. Solitude merely opened the door to his own personal Room 101—that secret, terrifying inner chamber where one’s worst fears become a reality. It forced him to engage in introspection. And it was introspection that he feared the most. Human company had merely been a way to stave off the need to look inside himself at the miserable squalor of his own soul. But stripped of that shield, introspection was all he had. Now at last, in the deafening silence of solitude and living under the shadow of death, he had to take a look at himself for what he really was.

And he didn’t like what he saw.

He saw a man who had wasted every opportunity that had presented itself. He saw a man who had been needlessly cruel toward the weak. He saw a man who had achieved popularity with the mob at the expense of the frail and the vulnerable.

But most of all he saw a man who had no chance to redeem himself.

He knew that Dorothy Olsen must also have had inner demons, probably far worse than his. But he had just trampled all over her. And for what? For some cheap puerile thrills that meant nothing to him now.

He wished he could have his life over again. He wished he could have those moments back so that he could make wiser—and kinder—decisions. But God grants no second chances…if there even was a God.

He looked down at the letter and realized how little it really said—how little of what he really wanted to say.

Seized by anger, he picked up the letter and ripped it to shreds.

Through the bars, the cell guard watched with an implacably neutral look on his face.

09:45 PDT

Alex sat there in stunned silence. Whatever he had expected, it had not been this. Clemency? Before he had even put his well-rehearsed arguments? And the mother of the victim had specifically requested it.

Then reality kicked in.

‘She’s asked me to offer your client clemency.’

The words had been chosen very carefully.

‘When you say “asked you,”’ Alex said cautiously, ‘does that mean you haven’t decided yet?’

‘You know my views on the death penalty.’

‘Yes, sir, I do. And I’ve always respected your courage in taking that position.’

He regretted saying this as soon as the words were out of his mouth. It sounded sycophantic, and the governor was too shrewd a politician not to see right through it.

‘And you also know that I’m pretty much my own man, especially now that I’m quitting politics.’

Alex nodded. Like many others, he wasn’t quite sure if he believed this, but now was hardly the time to give voice to his skepticism.

‘Nevertheless, it would be inappropriate for me to set myself up against the will of the legislature and the courts.’

Alex panicked at the thought of this opportunity already slipping away.

‘But you said—’

‘Unless…there was some compelling reason. You see, son, even though I have the luxury of being able to ignore public opinion, I believe that I have a duty at least to respect it. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson: “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them.” The people who elected me may not agree with my decision. But I owe it to them at least to explain it to them. History will judge me harshly if I fail in my duty to put my reasons on record—and those reasons had better be good.’

Alex took a deep breath and regained his composure, trying to read the governor. He wasn’t sure if the governor was really thinking about his place in history. But now was not the time to get diverted down a blind alley of speculation over his motives. Dusenbury was throwing him a lifeline—or at least waving it in his face. That was all that mattered.

‘So you need reasons,’ Alex edged forward hesitantly, ‘and as yet you haven’t got them.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you want me to supply them.’

‘No, I want your client to supply them.’

Alex was beginning to understand.

‘Is that why you said “offer” my client clemency…rather than “give”?’

Dusenbury smiled.

‘You picked up on that real quick. That’s just what it is, son: an offer.’

‘So presumably,’ Alex pressed on, ‘there’s a quid pro quo?’

09:48 PDT (17:48 British Summer Time)

The clinic was quiet as the late afternoon melted into early evening. But the spacious TV room, with its well-scrubbed pale blue walls and clean gray leather furniture, was sufficiently sound-proofed and isolated from the wards to have the TV on. They had it on all day and all night. The nurses on night duty especially liked to take short coffee breaks there, flopping down on the armchairs and watching late-night TV. They preferred the all-night news stations—British or American—to the late-night quizzes, which were little more than premium line rip-offs.

Susan White, a middle-aged nurse of the ‘old’ school, flopped down in front of the TV with a cup of coffee and started skimming through the channels, trying to catch up on the news. While surfing, she caught the tail end of a report about a clinic in America being picketed by hordes of anti-abortionists, or ‘pro-lifers’ as they liked to call themselves, and realized how lucky she was to be here in Britain.

She liked her coffee strong but milky and the machine never quite got it right. She also liked it sugary, and that the machine usually did get right. It was often hard for her to get a coffee break, even though she was entitled to three per shift, because the other nurses frequently came to her with their problems, both personal and professional. So she made sure to get her caffeine fix before her shift started.

Using the remote, she turned the sound down, mindful of the fact that at this time most of the in-patients were sleeping. On the screen, a well-groomed, thirty-something woman, with somewhat underplayed oriental looks, was talking to the camera. She was wearing a smart blue suit, with a mid-length skirt and slightly tight jacket, designed to emphasize her firm, athletic figure, without over-emphasizing it.

But then a face came on that caught Susan’s attention. A photograph of a young woman, almost like a mugshot. Susan felt an uneasy stirring as her eyes focussed on the screen.

She picked up the remote and turned up the volume. The voiceover of an American female reporter could be heard. It was one of those generic, female anchorwoman voices, the kind that all sound alike, the trained confident voice that always carries a trace of sarcasm or bitchiness, but only the merest hint. Or maybe it was just the hard edge that was required to make it in what once had been a man’s world.

‘Dorothy Olsen never had a happy life. She was bullied at school, her parents broke up when she was in her teens and she never had any real friends. Just over nine years ago, on May 23, 1998—the day of her high school prom—Dorothy Olsen disappeared, never to be seen again.’

The picture changed to that of a man whom the nurse didn’t recognize. This one was definitely a mugshot.

‘Clayton Burrow is the man convicted of murdering Dorothy Olsen. At the time she first disappeared, she was classified as a missing person. It was widely assumed that the harsh treatment she received at the hands of her classmates, which drew comparisons with Stephen King’s famous novel Carrie, prompted her to run away. There was speculation that she had committed suicide, although no body was ever found.’

Susan White raised the Styrofoam coffee cup to her lips with a growing sense of unease. The picture of Burrow disappeared, to be replaced by the reporter.

‘Foxy news’ was how one of the young male nurses had described it, whenever he saw her. The joke was wearing thin now.

In the background the grim, bland entrance to San Quentin State Prison was visible.

‘However,’ the reporter continued, ‘all that changed just under eight years ago, on October 19, 1999, when the police, acting on an anonymous call, found parts of Dorothy Olsen’s body in Clayton Burrow’s freezer. They also found other incriminating evidence hidden under the floorboards, which Burrow was unable to explain, such as a blood-stained knife with Burrow’s fingerprints and blood-stained panties with semen traces. DNA matched the semen to Clayton Burrow and the blood to Dorothy Olsen. There was also evidence that Dorothy Olsen had bought some expensive jewelry with money from her trust fund shortly before she disappeared. But none of it has ever been found.’

Nurse White felt something wet and hot on her wrist and fingers. She realized that her hand was shaking and she had spilt the coffee. She put the cup down and wiped the front of her uniform. But she didn’t take her eyes off the screen.

‘Despite his protests of innocence, Burrow was unable to explain away the evidence against him and, on February 20, 2001, he was found guilty of murder with special circumstances. Just over a week later he was sentenced to death. Now he is scheduled to die in just over fourteen hours. Martine Yin, Eyewitness News, San Quentin.’

Nurse White gripped the arms of the chair tensely, her heartbeat picking up speed.

9:50 PDT

‘As you say, Alex, a quid pro quo.’ Dusenbury turned to Mrs Olsen. ‘Esther, maybe you’d like to explain.’

Esther Olsen sat up slowly. It was a struggle, but she forced herself. Alex sensed her difficulty as he watched her painful movements. He adjusted his chair to face her, moving slightly to make it easier for her to look at him.

‘Mr Sedaka,’—her voice was shaky—‘I do not know you, but you are a good man. At least, I have been told that you are a good man.’

Alex nodded. There was not much he could say really. To agree would be arrogant; to disagree, ungracious. In any case that was clearly just the preamble to what she wanted to say.

‘I know that you only came in on this case recently and I know that you have a duty to help your client.’

Again he nodded, trying to make it reassuring. Whatever she was about to say, he knew that it must be painful. It must have cost her a helluva lot to reach the decision to ask the governor to grant clemency to the man who had murdered her daughter.

‘Mr Sedaka, in Hebrew your name means both “charity” and “righteousness” and I hope those are ideals that you live up to.’

Like Esther Olsen, Alex was Jewish and, although he had long ceased to practice the religion of his childhood, he still remembered much of what he had learned about it in the first fourteen years of his life. He knew about the meaning of his name, or rather the Hebrew word ‘tsedaka,’ from which the family name Sedaka was derived.

‘I am dying, Mr Sedaka. I have cancer of the pancreas and the doctors have told me that I have at most a few months left to live. I was estranged from my daughter, for reasons too complicated to go into. One of my biggest regrets is that we never got the chance to make it up.’

‘Was this disagreement shortly before she died?’

Alex didn’t know why he had asked it. But he knew that it was more than just idle curiosity.

‘No, this was several years before she died. I always thought—I always hoped—that the passage of time would heal the wounds. But it was not to be. We were never reconciled.’

She took a deep breath, struggling to speak.

‘To outlive one’s own child is a terrible thing, Mr Sedaka. But if there is one thing worse than to outlive one’s child, it is to part from those we love on bad terms. And that is the pain that I will carry with me to my grave.’

Her eyes were welling up with tears now and Alex felt a lump in his own throat.

‘It is too late for me now to be reconciled with my daughter and I do not know if we will be at peace with each other in the next life, because I do not know if there is a next life. But there is one thing that I want to do in this life and that is to give her a proper burial…or…at least to know where she is buried.’

Now, at last, it was all falling into place.

Alex turned to Mrs Olsen.

‘So let me see if I’ve understood this correctly. You want me to get my client to reveal where he has dispo—where he has buried the body. And in return for this, you have asked for Burrow to get clemency and to serve a sentence of…what?’ He turned to the governor. ‘Life without parole?’

Dusenbury nodded. Obviously the governor wasn’t going to give Burrow a complete amnesty. Alex looked to Esther Olsen.

‘That is all I ask, Mr Sedaka. That is a mother’s dying wish.’

Alex lowered his eyes, overwhelmed by his own emotions. How, he asked himself, could my client have been so evil as to do what he did? How could he be so cruel as to put a mother through this?

But he quickly cut off the thought. It was not for him to judge his client. It was not even for him to believe that his client was guilty as long as Burrow maintained his innocence. Of course he had a duty to put the offer to his client. Maybe now at last Burrow would come clean. Alex had never really believed that Burrow was anything other than guilty. Of course as a lawyer, Alex had a professional duty to act on his client’s instructions and to argue that his client was innocent as long as that was what the client maintained. But there was no authority on earth that could issue a formal ruling that is binding on human nature, much less on human thought.

Alex had assumed that Burrow was guilty before he had even taken on the case, if only from the news coverage when the original trial took place and through the long and tortuous appeals process. By the time he was asked to take the case, he was pre-disposed toward the idea of Burrow’s guilt. But he was persuaded to take the case by the pleading of his ambitious legal intern and by the formal personal request of Burrow himself, for reasons which Alex had never quite understood.

Although Alex had speedread the trial transcript, working in an intense pressure-cooker atmosphere as the execution date loomed up ahead, nothing he had read had in any way changed his mind. Although the case was too complicated to be described as ‘open and shut’ it was certainly sufficiently overwhelming. There was no doubt in Alex’s mind: Clayton Burrow had murdered Dorothy Olsen.

The only question was, would he now come clean, now that he had a chance to save his miserable life in exchange for something so small? There was no chance of him being re-tried and acquitted, no chance of him being released from prison, so it would cost him nothing to tell the truth. And if there was a God, it might even save his soul.

Alex knew better than to approach the matter with anything so presumptuous as expectation. He would approach it, instead, with cautious hope.

But first he had to be sure that he had understood the terms of the deal correctly. He turned toward the governor.

‘So let me get this straight. The deal is, if Clayton Burrow reveals where the body is buried, he gets clemency and will serve a sentence of life without parole.’

‘That’s right,’ Dusenbury responded with a nod of his patrician head.

Alex considered for a moment asking to have the terms set in writing. But from the look on Esther Olsen’s face he knew that this would be needlessly cruel. And, from the governor’s firm handshake, it was also unnecessary.

10:03 PDT

‘Life without parole,’ Alex had said. The man in the car couldn’t believe it.

There was no doubt. The offer was on the table.

The man’s mind was reeling. When the governor had invited Alex to come early for the meeting, he had wondered about what was going down. He had known that it was likely to be something unusual. But he hadn’t expected that.

He kept running over the conversation in his mind.

Nathaniel Anderson was not a G-man. Neither was he a cop, nor a journalist, nor a hired assassin. He had recently graduated from law school and was working as a legal intern while preparing for his bar exams. He had done a lot of Public Defender work in his final year of law school, helping indigent clients plea bargain down their sentences in the proverbial meat-grinder that was the criminal law system.

It had taken time to win their respect. They saw him as a stuck-up white boy, like most lawyers. But he had worked like a dog and won them over through his sheer tenacity and hard work. And because he worked for the Public Defender he had also built up a powerful list of contacts in the criminal community. It was a list that had come in very useful.

So the governor was offering Burrow clemency in return for revealing where the body was located. He wondered how the public would react to that—not that the governor or Alex would reveal it until it was a done deal.

Nathaniel looked round at the traffic on Golden Gate Avenue. Parked a few cars down the road was a limousine. He looked up. The sun was higher now: the day was wearing on. Just under fourteen hours till Burrow was due for the lethal injection—unless Alex could save him.

He looked back at the limousine and wondered if it was the vehicle that had brought Mrs Olsen here. Her proximity left him feeling uneasy. But that was all right. He knew that they would both be gone in a minute.

Keeping his eyes on the rearview mirror, he waited while the next couple of minutes went by. Finally there was activity from the entrance to the building and several people emerged at the same time: Mrs Olsen, the limo driver and Alex Sedaka. Alex watched while the limo driver led Mrs Olsen back to the car, opened the door to let her in, closed it behind her and went to the driver’s seat. He continued watching while the limo drove off past him, heading east toward Larkin Street.

As Alex turned away, Nathaniel strained to see the look on his face in the rearview mirror.

As Alex approached, Nathaniel pulled out the earpiece and put it away in the glove compartment. He reached forward for the ignition key as Alex opened the front passenger door and got in.

‘I assume you got all that, Nat?’ said Alex, pointing to Nat’s cell phone.

‘Every word. So what’s it to be? The office?’

‘No, I think we’ll pay a little visit to San Quentin first.’

10:05 PDT

A shrine.

That was the only way you could describe it: a shrine that radiated outward from the mantelpiece above the mock fireplace.

The picture sat there in the center of the mantelpiece—a teenage girl smiling at the camera, or at least trying to smile. With Dorothy you could never tell if the smile was real, because she had learned from an early age to wear her face as a mask. Was it a smile of joy? Or the painted greasepaint smile of the clown who had to go on and perform even when she was grieving on the inside?

The picture was flanked by a pair of candles and the surrounding area of the wall was adorned by her tennis certificates and poems. Round the room trophies were liberally distributed across several coffee tables and glass-fronted cabinets.

Apart from the memorabilia, the only furniture in the room was an armchair and a small TV set.

The young man stood before the picture, staring into Dorothy’s eyes, trying to decipher the enigma. Were they happy? Had she ever been happy? Had she ever had the chance to be?

She had always treated him with love and kindness, however badly she was treated herself. He felt the tears in his eyes. Why couldn’t they have loved her as she loved him?

He felt himself choking and he switched on the TV to distract himself. There was bound to be rolling news about the impending execution of Clayton Burrow. He looked at his watch. It would all be over in less than fourteen hours.

10:08 PDT

‘Do you think he’ll bite?’ asked Nat, keeping his eyes on the road. He had just taken the first left at Larkin Street and was about to take another at Turk.

‘I don’t see why not. He wants to live…I think.’

‘Even if it’s behind bars? For the rest of his life?’

‘He’s a narcissist,’ Alex explained. ‘He likes to be the center of attention and to be told what a great guy he is. He wants to be The Fonz.’

‘The Fonz?’

‘Fonzie…from Happy Days.’

‘Happy Days?’ echoed Nat, betraying his youth, as they hung a right at Van Ness.

Nat was half-pretending. In truth, he enjoyed watching the re-runs of it and he knew perfectly well who ‘The Fonz’ was. But he still didn’t see what it had to do with his question about Burrow taking the deal.

‘The Fonz was the local school drop-out who didn’t care about anything except being cool. That was his trademark phrase. The thing was, everybody liked him, the guys and the dolls.’

‘And this is relevant because…?’

‘Because that’s what Clayton Burrow always wanted to be. Cool. A hit with the clique. Numero Uno. Mister Popularity. In with the in-crowd. Like I said—a classic narcissist.’

‘I know that type. But I still don’t see what that’s got to do with taking the deal.’

Alex smiled. Nat may have got top grades in law school, but he had a lot to learn about the real world.

‘The thing is, Nat, that what a narcissist wants most is attention. But the next best thing is to live. He wants to live—even if it is behind bars. He’ll still be the center of attention for a while, with the press…and the public…until the novelty wears off.’

Nat thought about this for a moment.

‘He’s never admitted it…killing the Olsen girl, I mean.’

‘I know. But until now he’s never had a reason to. In fact he had every reason not to.’

They were taking a left into Lombard Street now and a tense silence settled over them. Strangely, Alex found himself thinking not about Burrow, but about Nat. The truth was that he hadn’t originally planned on hiring a legal intern, his law practice was just too tiny to warrant one. But Nat had badgered his way into Alex’s professional life with an enviable dedication and tenacity. He had started off the campaign while still a student, with an impressive résumé and a series of letters praising Alex’s work. At the time, Nat was doing a pre-graduation internship with the Public Defender’s office.

But the coup de grâce was an impromptu visit to Alex’s office. When Alex had politely offered a referral to another firm, Nat replied that he didn’t want to work for the ‘whores and heathens’ of the legal profession. He wanted to work only for a true believer in justice. Alex wasn’t sure if the student was a genuine meshigena or just a younger incarnation of himself, with the ideals still intact. But the clincher came when Nat silenced Alex’s attempted rebuff by saying that he wanted to play St Peter to Alex’s Jesus. It was the kind of killer line that a lawyer would give his Rolex—if not his Rolodex—to come up with. And it caught Alex from left field.

Nat’s arrival at the firm had been most opportune in terms of the caseload. Alex had been getting a lot more business in the wake of a major success in the appeal of a drug baron’s girlfriend on accessory charges. And this heavy workload had culminated in Alex’s biggest case of all when the California v. Burrow file landed on his desk. There had been so much material to read through, so much ground to cover. Alex still wasn’t sure that he had truly come to grips with the facts of the case.

But the execution date had been set and the court had refused to give him any more time.

‘You want me to copy the recording?’

Nat’s voice punctured Alex’s cogitation. They were on Doyle Drive, heading north toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

‘Oh, er…yes. Upload a copy on the mail server and lodge a CD copy with the bank. Get Juanita to do a transcript. We’ll compare it to the official transcript when we get it.’

Throughout Alex’s meeting with the governor, they had maintained an open cell phone connection, with Alex’s brand new iPhone on silent and Nat listening in and recording the conversation.

Originally the plan had been for Alex and Nat to go in together. But Nat had suggested that Alex might be more effective alone. Two on one would seem like bullying and might serve only to harden the governor’s attitude. One on one and it would come over more like a genuine plea for mercy. Alex would be like a stand-in for Burrow, making a straightforward appeal from the heart.

Alex liked the way Nat thought. He had the knack for bringing a fresh perspective to the situation.

10:17 PDT (18:17 BST)

‘Are you all right, Sue?’

Susan White had been daydreaming. She was barely into the first hour of her shift and her mind was a million miles away. She became aware of a young nurse looking at her.

‘Oh yes. I’m fine. I was just thinking about something.’

The young nurse was dark-haired and pretty, with a smile that reminded Susan of some young British actress who had made it big in Hollywood after several appearances in British movies. She couldn’t remember the name of the actress. It was all she could do to remember the name of the nurse.

Danielle. Yes, that was it. Danielle Michaels.

‘You sure?’

Susan White could sense Danielle was genuinely concerned.

‘Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Really I am.’

Danielle smiled again and walked off, glancing back over her shoulder briefly, with a look of concern. But right now, the thing that was uppermost on Susan’s mind was that news report about the man who was about to be executed.

Were the cases connected? She didn’t know. But she had to be sure.

The first thing she did was head for the records room. The room was unlocked but the cabinets were not. It was out of hours and the records manager wasn’t there. Then she realized that she didn’t actually need the whole file, just the index. The hard copy files were filed by consecutive number and physically stored by date. But every file had a matching card in the card index and these were arranged alphabetically. The index card would have the date.

She found it in less than a minute and a chill went up her spine. The file had been opened on May 25, 1998. Nine years ago, just like the TV reporter had said.

There was no getting round it: the dates matched.

10:36 PDT

When they arrived at San Quentin, Alex again went in alone, while Nat waited in the car. He had been in many prisons before, but never in death row—not even the relatively calm North Segregation block.

‘It’s just too depressing,’ was all he had offered by way of explanation.

‘What are you talking about?’ Alex had responded. ‘It’s just like the rest of the prison.’

‘No, it isn’t. Not to me. It has…I can’t explain it. It’s like the place has the smell of death about it.’

Alex had found this attitude incomprehensible.

‘How do you expect to work as a lawyer on cases of your own if you’re afraid that you can’t compartmentalize your emotions?’

Nat had just shaken his head and turned away, as if struggling to contain those emotions.

‘I can’t do it,’ Nat had almost cried. ‘Not yet.’

Alex remained mystified but realized that he had to accept it. Whatever psychological baggage Nat was carrying, he couldn’t shake it off and wasn’t ready to share it with anyone else.

So on this case at least, Nat was functioning as little more than a driver. It was hardly a way to get ahead in his chosen profession. But in fairness to Nat, he had done a lot of background research. You couldn’t fault him for effort or enthusiasm. If Nat needed to keep Burrow at a distance to maintain that enthusiasm, then so be it.

It took a few minutes to process Alex through security. But it seemed to be getting quicker. They knew Alex now and he knew the drill, so less had to be explained to him about what he could and couldn’t bring in. Also, as the execution date drew near, they realized the urgency of these meetings and there was an element of sympathy for even the basest and most evil of murderers. Years on death row humbled and mellowed a man and even those prison guards who believed most strongly in capital punishment were ready to admit that by the time the condemned man is about to meet his maker, he is a very different man to the one who was sentenced to that fate.

Whatever they said about capital punishment being the ultimate individual deterrent, it was a punishment that eliminated the need for itself. It was living in the shadow of death that reformed a man’s character, not death itself. But for collective deterrence, the death penalty served no purpose, Alex felt. But there were others who were all too ready to argue the point.

When Alex was finally in the cell with Clayton Burrow, the condemned man appeared to be struggling to read the lawyer’s face.

‘What did he say?’ asked Burrow, a tremor of fear creeping into his voice.

‘It’s kind of complicated,’ Alex replied hesitantly.

‘What do you mean?’

Burrow’s breathing was heavy, as if not daring to hope.

‘He’s offering you clemency—but it’s conditional.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means he’s ready to commute your sentence to life if you ’fess up.’

‘That’s it?’ said Burrow, letting the air out of his lungs.

‘No, there’s one more thing. You’ve got to reveal where you buried the body.’

The smile vanished from the condemned man’s face.

‘Fuck it!’ yelled Burrow, pounding his left palm with his right fist. ‘Goddamn fuck it!’

Alex looked at his client, puzzled.

‘Why, what’s the matter?’

‘I can’t do it! I can’t fuckin’ do it!’

10:39 PDT

It had been most kind of Chuck to lay on a limo, Esther Olsen thought.

The overpass drifted away behind them. But Esther was past the stage of admiring the view. On the way there it had been a distraction from her worries. She didn’t drive and illness had left her pretty nearly housebound. So any journey like this was an escape, both mental and physical. But the novelty soon wore off.

The same was true of the limousine. The luxury of its leather upholstery and lacquered wooden paneling raised her pleasure level by a microscopic degree. But such petty pleasures were short-lived when ranged against the quantum of suffering that had borne down upon her in recent years. First a murderer’s unbridled malice had claimed her daughter. Then the ravages of disease had selected her at random and struck her down with a death sentence of her own.

She had had her fair share of life and although it hadn’t always been a smooth ride, it was at least a fair crack of the whip. She could accept being singled out by the Grim Reaper. But it was the loss of her daughter that had been unforgivable: for that was the work of human agency. And she blamed not only Burrow but also her husband.

Yet it was precisely from this anger that she wanted to escape. That was why she had approached Dusenbury and persuaded him to offer clemency to Burrow. As her own fate loomed up ahead, she needed closure more than revenge. And that was also why, as she closed her eyes, she now felt herself drifting back to a happier time.

She couldn’t understand why, but of all the memories that flashed through her mind, the one that lodged itself and lingered at the forefront was the one-night stand.

They were both students: he celebrating the end of his tentative first year at law school; she celebrating completion of her finals for her bachelor’s degree in literature. It was one of those drunken frat parties where everyone knows someone but no one knows everyone. Even now she didn’t remember how they had ended up in the sack together. Yes, the drinks had been flowing freely. Yes, he was handsome. Yes, they had both been sitting in the corner, trying to withdraw from the rowdy celebrating and wild carousing that had long since lost its appeal for both of them. She wasn’t cerebral like him, more the free-spirited romantic type. But she was the quiet type. That much they had in common.

She was also engaged, to a decent if somewhat boring—not to say cold—man whose family was ‘well to do’ and who had ‘prospects’ according to her pushy mother. Was it an attempt to escape from an engagement that she never really wanted? Or a final celebration before she lost her freedom forever?

Whatever the reason, the memory of that night of passion reminded her of a phrase from the end of Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge about happiness being an occasional incident in a general drama of pain. It was a line that Dorothy had talked to her about for many hours, after reading the book in happier days when mother and daughter could still talk to one another. Esther had thought that Dorothy was too young to read such a book. But Dorothy had lapped it up with her unquenchable thirst for literature that she had inherited from her mother.

But the line lingered with Esther now. Had there been any truly happy moments in her life after that? Her marriage to Edgar certainly hadn’t been happy. She wondered if the blame had been hers…if the marriage had been tainted by that one fleeting indiscretion before they had even solemnized their union.

And yet she felt no guilt, not even when her thoughts rolled on through the years and settled on that image forever frozen in her mind—the image of her husband lying there with a bullet hole in his head.

10:43 PDT

‘We’re talking about your life!’ Alex practically shrieked. ‘When I went in to meet the governor, I thought you were a dead dog. And now he’s throwing us a lifeline—against all the fuckin’ odds! Are you just gonna fling it back in his face?’

‘You don’t understand!’ Burrow replied, sobbing into his hands. ‘I can’t tell you where she is because I don’t know where she is!’

‘What do you mean “don’t know”?’ asked Alex, looking round to make sure that the guard outside was out of earshot. ‘Are you gonna carry on with this innocent act even now, when you have a chance to save your neck?’

‘It’s not an act! Look, I’m telling you I never touched…I mean, I didn’t…’

He broke off, seeing the look of disbelief in the lawyer’s eyes. For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. Alex tried again.

‘Okay, so what do you think happened? You think someone else killed her? You think she just walked off the edge of the earth?’

‘She set me up!’

‘What?’

‘She framed me!’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Why do you think her body was never found?’

Alex realized that this was no time for pussyfooting round—not if he wanted to save his miserable client’s neck.

‘Because you buried her?’

‘Because there was no body! She’s not dead, I’m telling you. She’s sitting in a room somewhere, watching the TV, laughing her head off at this whole cornball sideshow!’

‘You think so?’ Alex practically sneered.

‘Goddamn right, I think so!’

‘And have you got anything by way of…evidence?’

Burrow looked at the lawyer like he wanted to hit him.

‘If I had evidence d’you think I’d be in this shit hole?’

Alex was breathing heavily, trying to restore calm.

‘Okay, I’m sorry, that was a stupid question. But just tell me one thing…why would she frame you?’

‘What?’

‘Motive? What’s her fucking motive?’

Burrow’s face showed how hard he felt the full force of his lawyer’s skepticism.

‘You think I’m bullshitting, don’t you?’

Alex sighed.

‘I think you’re clutching at straws.’

But he knew that this didn’t make sense either. Why would Burrow be clutching at the straw of a crackpot theory, when the governor had just thrown him a rope?

‘I think she did it because I…’

He trailed off. But Alex could see in his eyes that he wanted to say more. He tried an encouraging tone.

‘You…what?’

But Burrow’s mood had changed.

‘Look, forget it, okay? Let’s just forget it. You’ve done your best for me. I can’t say you haven’t gone the extra mile. Now let me just prepare for the inevitable.’

Alex was looking at Burrow with an uneasy thought going through his mind: this was not the response of a guilty man.

10:52 PDT

Martine Yin was checking her makeup in the trailer outside San Quentin prison preparing for her next report. It was a hot day, and she decided to swap her blue jacket for a man’s waistcoat—the one that she wore as a semiprofessional snooker player.

Her mind was focussed on the matter in hand. She had spotted Burrow’s lawyer going into San Quentin and had been hoping to get an interview with him when he came out, but she found herself caught in a media scrimmage and was unable to get anywhere near his car before it broke through the line and receded into the distance. She knew that the lawyer had been scheduled to meet the governor that morning, but that was just a formality. Besides, if anything had come out of that meeting, it would have been announced by the governor’s office.

Nevertheless, she did want to talk to Sedaka, if only to get the low-down on how his client took the inevitable bad news. But she had missed the opportunity. Aside from that, she assumed that Alex didn’t want to talk about it. In fact he probably couldn’t talk about it. But still, it would be nice to get an exclusive.

The problem was how to contact him. All she had was the number of Sedaka’s office. The secretary had been polite, but consistently refused to give out Sedaka’s cell phone number.

So now Martine just had to sit tight outside the penitentiary awaiting further developments. The report this morning had gone well. Of course as the execution time approached, things would hot up. The closer to midnight they got, the bigger this story would become. There was no chance of the governor granting clemency—notwithstanding his own unpopular views on capital punishment. Indeed the only thing that could upstage the execution itself would be if Dorothy Olsen walked in off the street and said: ‘Surprise, surprise! I’m alive!’

Martine smiled at the thought. It reminded her of all the urban legends and conspiracy theories about the Lindbergh baby, complete with several people claiming to be the dead tyke—including one who was black and female!

There were a few doubts about the case against Hauptmann, who had been executed for the murder of the baby. Some said his trial was unfair—not least the atmosphere of vengeance amid which it had taken place. But it was a strong case nevertheless. Likewise the case against Clayton Burrow.

The cell phone cut into her thoughts.

‘Martine Yin.’

‘Hi, Marti, it’s Paul.’ Paul was an eager kid who worked at the station. ‘We’ve just had a tip-off about what’s going down in the Burrow case. You’re not gonna believe this.’

In response to what he said next, her jaw dropped.

11:04 PDT

‘And he didn’t say why?’

‘No. He just claimed she framed him and then pretty much clammed up.’

Back in the car, Alex hadn’t even bothered to tell Nat about Burrow’s response at first, and Nat hadn’t asked. Alex realized that the look on his face must have said it all. Only when they hit the road and found themselves back on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, did Nat ask.

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘Not got a fucking clue.’

‘Why would she frame him?’

‘That’s what we’ve got to find out.’

‘And how are we going to do that? With our client refusing to play ball?’

‘We’ve spent the last few weeks arguing the law. Maybe it’s time for us to take another look at the facts.’

‘You believe him?’

‘Not really. The most likely explanation is that he can’t remember where he hid the body. It was nine years ago, don’t forget. He probably just buried it somewhere in the hills. He wouldn’t necessarily have any reason to remember the exact location. Now it’s probably just a faded memory.’

‘He could tell you that. He could admit the killing and say he doesn’t remember where the body is after all this time.’

‘He could have done that ages ago. But maybe he doesn’t want to come clean in case I lose motivation.’

Nat shook his head.

‘He obviously doesn’t understand lawyers.’

‘He understands jackshit!’

‘So how is looking at the facts going to help us now? We need to come up with a point of law.’

‘We need both. A new fact to convince them there’s a strong chance he’s innocent and a point of law to give them the leeway to act on it.’

‘And what are we supposed to be looking for?’

‘I said I think he killed her. But I’m not sure. What if I’m wrong? What if we’re all wrong?’

While Nat was thinking of an answer to this conundrum, Alex put in a call on his iPhone to the office. Juanita answered.

‘Hi, Alex,’ she said, as his number popped up on the display. ‘How did it go?’

‘Not good, Juanita.’

He had phoned her on the way to San Quentin and told her about Dusenbury’s offer.

‘He refused?’ she asked incredulously.

‘He said he didn’t know.’

‘But how—?’

‘Listen, I haven’t got time. I’ll fill you in when I get back to the office. In the meantime, I need you to do a couple of things.’

‘That’s what you pay me for.’

‘I want you to go online and find out everything you can about the feud between Clayton Burrow and Dorothy Olsen.’

‘We already looked into that, boss.’

‘I know, but all we found out was that she was the butt of his jokes. What we need to find out is if there’s anything behind it.’

‘What’s to find out? He was a bullying jock and she was the smart, geeky girl with glasses. What else is there?’

‘Okay, I know it’s a long shot, but I got the impression that Burrow was holding out on me.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well it’s just that none of it makes sense. If he’s guilty, why the hell did he reject the deal?’

‘So now you think he’s innocent?’ Juanita asked incredulously.

‘Until today I never even considered it. But innocent or guilty, I think there’s something he’s not telling me.’

‘And you think it’s something to do with this high school feud?’

‘It’s a good place to start—the relationship between the victim and the accused.’

‘Are we looking for anything in particular?’

‘Let’s start off with motive.’

‘I thought the feud was the motive?’

‘No, I mean the cause of the feud. Was it just a culture clash between the male jock and the female geek? Or was it a case of hell hath no fury? Maybe some of the other students know something.’

‘It’s gonna be hard to track down the phone numbers. And I can’t leave the office, can I?’

‘Use the internet. Maybe there’s discussion about it online. We also need to know who her friends were. And if she had any enemies—other than Burrow, that is.’

‘It’s going to be hard. You know how it works on the web. You do a search and it throws up a million irrelevant items.’

‘Do your best, Juanita. I’ll be back in fifteen.’

Nat smiled. Twenty-five was more realistic. He’d have to floor it.

Alex put in another call, this time to Information. He asked for Esther Olsen’s number, adding that she lived in Sunnyvale. Fortunately the number was listed. He followed up by putting in a call to her.

‘Yes?’ The voice was weak…nervous.

‘Mrs Olsen? It’s Alex Sedaka here.’

Her mood seemed to brighten.

‘Oh, hallo, Mr Sedaka.’

Alex was embarrassed. He didn’t know how to continue.

‘Listen, I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

‘He…he wouldn’t tell you?’

She sounded sad, but not angry or bitter as he’d feared.

‘He said he didn’t know. He still maintains he’s innocent.’

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Esther Olsen’s voice was croaky now.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think he’s guilty?’

This was a question that Alex couldn’t answer. Not that his own private thoughts were privileged. But a lawyer’s view of his client’s innocence or guilt is partly based on what his client tells him, and this could be a slippery slope.

‘I don’t know, Mrs Olsen.’

This was the diplomatic response if not an altogether truthful one. Alex pressed on.

‘But can I ask you a question?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you know anything about the relationship between them? I mean, I know they hated each other, but do you know why?’

There was a moment of hesitation.

‘I don’t know. She never really confided in me. Like I told you, I was estranged from her before she…’

‘Did she confide in anyone? A friend? A relative?’

‘Not really. I mean, she got on well with Jonathan, but—’

‘That’s her brother, yes?’

‘Yes. But he was younger—five years younger. She probably didn’t talk to him about it because he wouldn’t have understood—and also, she wouldn’t have wanted to put the burden of her problems on him.’

‘So you’re saying she kept her problems bottled up?’

‘That’s right.’

Alex’s mind was racing ahead. A girl with problems and no one to talk to? That was a perfect recipe for suicide. But there was no body. And how did all that incriminating evidence end up in the apartment where Burrow and his mother lived?

‘Could I ask you another thing, Mrs Olsen? About Dorothy liquidating her trust fund and buying that expensive jewelry. Do you have any idea why she might have done that?’

‘No.’

Esther Olsen sounded tired, as if she had been through all this many times before—which she probably had.

‘Was she the sort of girl who was interested in jewelry?’

‘No, not really.’

‘And you don’t have a clue where the jewelry is?’

‘I…I thought that maybe Burrow stole it…when he killed her.’

‘But now?’

He was prompting her, picking up on her hesitance.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you think she may have been planning to run away?’

‘She…might have been.’

‘Could she have been planning to run away with Clayton Burrow?’

‘Certainly not! She hated him! And he hated her!’

‘Are you sure it wasn’t just an act?’

‘No, Mr Sedaka, it definitely wasn’t an act!’

Alex had been speculating that maybe Burrow had tricked her into thinking he was going to run away with her and persuaded her to liquidate her trust fund and then killed her and stolen the jewelry. But Esther Olsen’s reaction had pretty much quashed that theory. She may have been estranged from her daughter, but a mother’s perceptions counted for something. And if Esther Olsen said that Dorothy wasn’t planning on running away with Clayton Burrow, then Dorothy Olsen was not planning on running away with Clayton Burrow.

‘Can you think of anyone at all that she might have spoken to? A friend that she might have confided in?’

He waited a while for an answer.

‘There was one thing,’ Esther Olsen’s voice came out of the silence.

‘Yes?’

‘She had a computer that she was always working at—an old laptop. She used to spend hours in front of it, either online or just writing.’

‘Writing what?’

‘I don’t know, but she treated it like an old friend.’

‘You think she might have confided in her computer?’

‘I don’t know. She never let me see it.’

‘Do you still have it?’

‘Yes. But why do you think this will help?’

‘I just think that if I can unravel what was going on between Clayton—my client and your daughter, I might be able to make some progress.’

He didn’t add that he was also still mindful of the possibility that his client might actually be telling the truth, despite the long odds.

‘I still have the computer. I haven’t switched it on since the day she vanished. I don’t even know if it works. But I still have it.’

‘Look, Mrs Olsen, I know this might sound like real chutzpah, but would it be possible for me to borrow the laptop? To take a look at what she’s got on it? Just in case I can find anything that might help.’

‘We haven’t got much time.’

‘I know. I’ll send a courier round right now…if it’s all right with you?’

There was a short pause and the sound of a sigh.

‘It’s all right, Mr Sedaka. You can send a courier as soon as possible. Just please…bring my daughter home for me.’

11:09 PDT

‘Slow down a bit! My fingers keep missing the goddamn keys!’

‘You told me to make it fast.’

The TV van was winding its way through the midmorning traffic, following the same route that Nat and Alex were taking. Martine was sitting at the front with the driver. The cameraman and soundman sat in the middle row of seats, while the spark and boom operator sat in the back, holding on to the equipment every time the van swerved.

But Martine was trying to make a call on her cell phone at the same time, and the constant swerving wasn’t helping.

‘Governor’s office,’ the friendly female voice came through her Bluetooth earpiece when she finally keyed in the right number.

‘Hi, my name is Martine Yin from Eyewitness News. I’d like to interview the governor regarding the Clayton Burrow execution.’

‘I’m sorry. Governor Dusenbury won’t be making any comments on this matter.’

The friendly, sunny voice had become somewhat clipped.

‘Okay, well, can you just tell me, is there any truth in the rumor that the governor has offered Clayton Burrow clemency in return for Burrow revealing where he buried the body of Dorothy Olsen?’

‘Just a minute please.’

She was put on hold and noted with wry amusement that the music they were playing was ‘California, Here I Come.’ After what seemed like well over a minute, the clipped voice came back on the line.

‘I’m sorry, but the governor is unable to comment on such rumors.’

‘So you’re not denying it?’ persisted Martine.

‘The governor is neither admitting nor denying it. As I have said, we do not comment on rumors. If and when there is anything to announce it will be announced in the usual way, Miss…’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Martine. She pressed the red button and smiled.

‘No go, huh?’ said the driver.

‘He doesn’t want to talk about it.’

‘If it’s true, he’ll have to talk sooner or later. Maybe he’s waiting for Burrow’s answer.’

‘He must have an answer by now. We saw Sedaka driving into the pen.’ Her voice became irritable. ‘I just wish we’d followed the shyster when he left the building!’

‘You weren’t to know,’ the driver replied. ‘All the signs said the action was at the pen.’

‘Yeah, well it looks like it’s still that way.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well Sedaka didn’t make any statements to the press.’

‘Maybe he has to report back to the governor first. I mean, they’re going to have to check out whatever his client tells them. If he told them where the body is, they’re still going to have to dig it up and test it to make sure.’

Martine’s eyes lit up.

‘And wouldn’t it be nice to be there when they do?’

11:17 PDT (19:17 BST)

Susan White had been agonizing over the report on Eyewitness News. It was all too much. It couldn’t just be a coincidence. She thought that the face looked familiar. But it was the name that made it impossible to ignore.

Dorothy Olsen.

Dorothy had been a sensitive girl but not too talkative. She had never made it clear why she came to England for a procedure that could be done just as easily in America. It wasn’t as if she was a health shopper, seeking free medical treatment under Britain’s National Health Service. This was a private clinic and she had paid a lot for the procedure.

Susan had asked her about it once, but she had just clammed up. It wasn’t that she was shy or secretive, it was just that she had made it clear that she found it too painful to talk. Of course she may have told the doctors, but Susan doubted that she told them more than she had had to.

The nurse speculated that it might have something to do with opposition from within her own family. And also, Nurse White reflected, there might be some very complicated background to the whole case.

But none of this was what was troubling her now. It was the timing. The news report hadn’t specified the exact date but the reporter had said nine years. That was about right. Could it be the same person? The reporter had also said something about Dorothy disappearing on the night of her ‘high school prom.’ According to the records, Dorothy had first approached them in May.Was that when high school proms took place? Susan White didn’t know.

Maybe it’s someone else with the same name…or maybe someone deliberately took her name.

The trouble was, there were just too many things in common: the name, the face, the date. It was too much to dismiss as a coincidence.

Her mind was racing into unfamiliar territory. Maybe there was another explanation. Like what? Twins? An identical twin using her sister’s name? Not very plausible. There was nothing in the Eyewitness News report about a twin sister—something they would surely have mentioned if it had been the case, if only for the human interest angle.

There was no getting away from it. Susan knew that she had to act. Time was of the essence. She found a set of master keys and used them to open one of the offices. She wanted to use the phone without anyone else overhearing. The person she called was Stuart Lloyd, the Chief Administrator who had gone home for the day.

‘Hallo.’ She recognized the voice of Elizabeth, Stuart’s wife.

‘Oh hallo, Mrs Lloyd. It’s Susan White from the clinic. Is Stuart—Mr Lloyd—there?’

‘He’s eating dinner.’

‘Oh I’m sorry.’ Susan didn’t know how to play it. ‘Look, I know this…I mean…would it be possible to have a quick word with him?’

There was a tense silence.

‘Can he call you back?’ The voice was sharp, showing the irritation even while trying to hide it.

Susan White knew that this might mean in five minutes, two hours—or never. And she couldn’t take a chance on that.

‘It’s rather urgent.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Elizabeth Lloyd, even more stiffly.

In the silence that followed, the nurse strained to hear the voices in the background. But she didn’t need to strain for long. Through part of the brief exchange at least, the voices were somewhat raised. When silence returned, the nurse tensed up, anticipating a possible storm.

‘Yes, Nurse?’

It was her boss.

‘Stuart, listen, I’m sorry to bother you at home like this. But I’ve just seen a report on one of the American news channels. It was about a murder over there.’

‘What on earth has that got to do with us?’

‘The victim’s name was Dorothy Olsen.’

‘Good God!’ Lloyd muttered under his breath.

‘We have to do something. We can’t just ignore it.’

Stuart was silent for a few seconds.

‘We have to be careful. We’re not just talking civil negligence or malpractice here, don’t forget. There’s also that small matter of fiddling the dates.’

11:28 PDT

‘We’re bringing you this special report from outside the building that houses the state governor’s San Francisco office for a special, exclusive report about the latest developments in the Clayton Burrow case.’

Martine Yin was delivering her usual smooth, polished performance. Not a strand of the glossy, jet-black hair out of place, the skin smoothed and softened by foundation, the eyelashes defined by just the right amount of mascara, the man’s waistcoat that made her look professional yet sexy—the whole picture perfectly crafted to tell the story and sell the story-teller.

‘This station has learned that Governor Dusenbury has offered clemency to Clayton Burrow on the condition that he reveals where he buried the body of eighteen-year-old Dorothy Olsen, whom Burrow murdered some nine years ago. The governor made the offer in a private meeting earlier today with Alex Sedaka, Clayton Burrow’s lawyer.

‘However, this station is now in a position to reveal that this meeting was not quite as private as it was supposed to be, because also present at the meeting was Dorothy Olsen’s mother, Esther. But the most surprising aspect of this whole new development is that it was Esther Olsen who convinced Governor Dusenbury to make this extraordinary offer. It is not entirely clear what motivated Mrs Olsen to make such a generous request on behalf of the man who murdered her daughter. But there appears to be evidence that Mrs Olsen is suffering from a serious, potentially life-threatening illness and she wants to be able to give her daughter a proper burial while there is still time.’

Martine stopped and held the nation in her gaze.

‘What is also not clear is how Burrow responded to the offer. His lawyer visited him in San Quentin this morning immediately after his meeting with the governor. But Mr Sedaka was tight-lipped when he left the penitentiary after relaying the offer to his client. Since then, neither Mr Sedaka nor the governor’s office has been ready to answer questions.

‘Martine Yin, Eyewitness News, the state governor’s office, San Francisco.’

11:33 PDT

‘How the fuck did she find out!’

Alex had barely got through the front door of the office when Juanita told him about Martine’s broadcast. In the face of Alex’s explosive response, she didn’t so much as bat an eyelid, let alone flinch.

Juanita was a dark-haired, super-fit Latina beauty, with penetrating eyes that would have made her a good interrogator. She had only known Alex Sedaka for a few months, but that was long enough for her to realize that on the rare occasions when he showed anger, it was not directed at her—even if it might seem that way to an outside observer.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied coolly. ‘I called Eyewitness, but they weren’t saying…something about “protecting their sources.” The usual press freedom bullshit.’

Alex took a deep breath. He hadn’t meant to yell. When he could trust his voice to hold at an acceptable level of calm, Alex spoke again.

‘They probably don’t even know themselves.’ Nat looked at him blankly. ‘Anonymous tip-off,’ Alex added.

‘You look like you could use a cup of coffee, boss.’

Juanita was already striding energetically to the kitchen, followed by Alex’s eyes, by the time he replied: ‘Thanks, Juanita.’

Nat was looking awkward.

‘What next?’

‘Conference time. We need to work out a strategy.’

Alex followed Juanita into the kitchen, leading Nat the same way. Juanita was putting fresh coffee beans into the DeLonghi Prima Donna, and pressing the button.

‘So what happened?’ she asked over the rumble of the machine.

Alex quickly filled Juanita in on the events at the penitentiary while the grinding in the background stopped and gave way to an orchestration of burping and frothing.

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘Well as long as Burrow insists he’s innocent there’s nothing much we can do regarding Dusenbury’s offer.’

Juanita frowned.

‘You just had me spend a lot of time online and now you’re just going to give up?’

‘Did you find anything?’

‘Not yet.’

She sounded frustrated.

‘The thing is, as I was saying to Nat, we’ve all been assuming that he was guilty. But maybe we’ve been overlooking something.’

‘Like what?’ asked Juanita.

‘Well maybe he’s protecting someone,’ Alex ventured.

Juanita screwed her nose up.

‘That doesn’t make sense. If he was trying to protect someone then why not just confess to the murder and say that he doesn’t remember where he buried the body?’

‘Or maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he was framed.’

This time it was Nat who made a dismissive gesture.

‘Ah, come on. You’re not buying that, are you?’ He put on a redneck hillbilly tone, gesticulating at the same time. ‘“She faked her own death and framed me.” That’s just a crock of shit straight out of a comic book.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t Dorothy who framed him. Maybe someone else killed Dorothy and framed Clayton.’

‘How did they put his fingerprints on the knife?’ Nat wasn’t letting up.

‘He slept with a knife under his pillow,’ said Alex. ‘Why shouldn’t it have his dabs?’

‘With her blood on the blade?’

‘Maybe she got some of her own blood and wiped the knife on it—using gloves and being careful not to leave any fingerprints of her own.’

‘So we’re back to blaming Dorothy,’ Juanita chimed in, handing them their coffee mugs.

Alex realized that his theory didn’t stand up. As they made their way to Juanita’s office, he shifted back to his earlier line.

‘Well maybe it was her. Maybe Dorothy set him up for some kind of revenge.’

‘And presumably she also planted the blood-stained panties?’

Nat chuckled when Juanita said this. But Alex wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

‘She could have done.’

‘And Burrow’s semen?’ asked Juanita.

‘Maybe they slept together.’

Juanita was trying very hard not to roll her eyes.

‘So let’s see,’ she said. ‘Dorothy Olsen sleeps with Burrow, gets his semen, stains her panties with blood and his semen, plants them under the floorboards in his apartment, takes the knife from under his pillow, wipes her blood on it and plants that too, then calls the police using a voice changer device and tips them off.’

‘That’s the theory,’ said Alex, realizing how absurd it all sounded.

‘Now all we need is motive,’ Juanita suggested, echoing Alex’s own comment at his meeting with Burrow at San Quentin.

‘There’s also the small matter of breast tissue in Burrow’s freezer,’ Nat chipped in.

‘Technically it was his mother’s freezer,’ Juanita shot back.

‘Whatever,’ Nat replied.

Alex was shaking his head.

‘What sort of DNA comparison did they do at the time?’ he asked.

‘How do you mean?’ Nat replied.

‘There are different types of DNA test. Short Tandem Repeat? Low Copy Number?’

Nat and Juanita looked at each other blankly.

‘I’ll get the file,’ said Juanita, getting up and heading for the broom closet that doubled as the file and records room.

File wasn’t exactly the word. It was several boxes full of files and ring binders. But Juanita’s filing system was so efficient and well-organized that she knew exactly where to look for it. It was the forensic evidence file, with the lab reports. There were several of these, but she found the right one almost immediately and brought it back to the office.

They huddled round it as she flicked through the file.

‘Okay, here it is,’ she said with delight. ‘They did a standard nucleic DNA test on the breast tissue.’

‘Remind me who they compared it to,’ said Alex.

Juanita’s eyes skimmed the page.

‘They compared it to…ah, yes, here it is: both to Mrs Olsen and Jonathan.’

‘That would be Dorothy’s younger brother,’ Alex said.

Juanita was reading the summary of conclusions at the end of the report.

‘Yes. Now there’s a note here that says that the test concluded that the breast tissue came from a half-sibling of Jonathan Olsen.’

‘Wait a minute,’Alex perked up,‘what does that mean?’

Juanita flipped over a few pages and carried on looking.

‘It means that they share only one common parent? They decided to make sure by doing a separate test using mitochondrial DNA. That’s DNA that’s not from the cell nucleus, but rather from non-nucleic material in the mother’s ovum. And in that test, all three of them matched exactly.’

‘But I thought mitochondrial DNA was only passed on to girls,’ said Alex.

‘No, it’s passed on to boys too,’ Juanita corrected, ‘but they can’t pass it on any further. That’s because it’s contained in the somatic cells and female germ cells, but not in the nucleus of either. Sons have their mother’s mitochondrial DNA in their somatic cells, but not in their sperm. So they can’t pass it on to the next generation.’

‘So if Jonathan, Dorothy and Esther all had the same mitochondrial DNA,’ said Alex, ‘it means that Dorothy and Jonathan are blood siblings and that Esther Olsen was their mother.’

‘That’s right,’ Juanita confirmed. ‘But the differences between Jonathan and Dorothy with the test using nucleic DNA imply that they had different fathers.’

11:39 PDT (19:39 BST)

Stuart Lloyd was still frozen with indecision. He had told Susan White that he would look into the matter and get back to her. She had accepted it reluctantly and put the receiver down. But he was still unsure of where to go from here.

It could just be a coincidence. The name was uncommon, but in a country of three hundred million people more than one person could have it. But Susan had said more than that. She had said that the picture they had shown on TV had looked like Dorothy. She hadn’t been sure, she admitted. It was, after all, nine years ago. But the similarity of the face plus the name? And the fact that this girl in America disappeared nine years ago.

It was too strong a coincidence to dismiss.

‘Is anything wrong, dear?’ his wife asked, entering the room.

‘Nothing,’ he replied. But he knew that his tone was unconvincing.

Elizabeth sidled up to him and put a comforting arm round him.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked gently.

He couldn’t tell her—not yet at any rate. Maybe when he was sure. But not yet.

‘Just a bit of trouble at the clinic.’

‘Complications?’

She meant medical complications. The worst thing that could happen to any private clinic was medical complications leading to death or serious damage. Even if it was covered by the insurance, a successful claim could massively push up the insurance premiums, as well as damaging the reputation of the clinic and decimating its future client base.

‘Not that sort. Just a bit of personnel wrangling.’

It was an intentional red herring but he regretted having said it. Firstly, he regretted lying to his wife on principle. Secondly, he could imagine her now having visions of a cat fight between the nurses.

He went back to the kitchen to finish his coq au vin, warming it up in the microwave. But he ate quickly, not savoring it as he had before. And as soon as he had finished, he went to the living room—a quasi space-age environment of white leather, glass and chrome. Flopping down on the couch, he switched on the 50-inch LCD TV using the remote and flipped through several news channels. At first he clicked on CNN, but then remembered that Susan White had named another channel.

His wife wasn’t a great one for TV and was quite happy to read a book while he surfed the digital channels. But his odd behavior could hardly be expected to pass without comment.

‘Why the sudden interest in American news?’ she asked.

Stuart kept his eyes glued to the screen.

‘I just need to check up on something.’

Then he sat there watching a report about basketball. This was rolling news. If what Nurse White had said was correct, it would come round again.

He had to see for himself.

11:55 PDT

‘No, Mr Governor, I swear I didn’t leak anything to the press…I don’t know…No, sir, I’m sure it wasn’t anyone in my office…There was a guard outside the cell, but he couldn’t have heard anyth…Well yes, I suppose he might have told the guard…Okay, I’ll check it out…Yes, sir, I will.’

After hearing of Martine’s report, Alex had expected the governor to give him hell. But even he hadn’t realized just how forceful Dusenbury could be. Crucially, though, the governor had not withdrawn the clemency offer.

Alex wondered who the source of the leak was. It could have been anyone. The governor was right. A careless word from Burrow to the cell guard. A bit of gossip through the prison grapevine…and then someone decided to put in a call to the TV station.

Alex tried to put it aside. He had to focus. Nat was in his office going through the school yearbooks and checking up online to see if he could find out any more about the conflict between Dorothy and Clayton Burrow. Alex had remained with Juanita to discuss the DNA evidence further. All the while, a thought had been nagging away at him.

‘Juanita, there was something you said earlier…’

‘Yes?’

‘About the freezer where they found the breast tissue.’

‘What about it?’

‘You said “technically it was his mother’s freezer.”’

‘Well he still lived with his mother.’

‘Were his parents divorced?’

‘No, they were never married. I don’t think they even lived together.’

‘So it couldn’t have been his father who killed Dorothy?’

‘Not unless he suddenly came back into their lives, just long enough to murder a girl that his son clashed with at school.’

She was smiling to soften the blow. But he could see how silly she thought his idea and realized himself that it was he, rather than his client, who was clutching at straws.

‘What about his mother?’

‘What you mean—like, “how dare you be nasty to my son!” kind of thing?’

‘Okay, you’ve made your point,’ Alex replied, embarrassed.

‘No, I’m not saying you should drop it altogether. It might be worth checking her out. Just let’s not put too much hope in a long shot.’

Before Alex could reply, the intercom buzzer sounded.

‘Yes?’ Juanita answered.

‘UPS. We have a special delivery from Sunnyvale.’

Juanita looked up.

‘Dorothy’s laptop,’ she said. Alex nodded. ‘Bring it up,’ she said into the intercom, pressing the buzzer to open the door.

Five minutes later Juanita was looking through the folders and files on the laptop, while Alex was in the other room with Nat.

‘Listen, I was talking to Juanita about Clayton’s mother. I think we should check her out. Clayton lived in the apartment with her and she had access to everything that he had access to.’

‘Like what?’ asked Nat.

‘The knife he kept under his pillow, the floorboards, the freezer.’

‘Yes, but she wouldn’t have had access to Dorothy. She’d’ve had to find her and either kill her and dispose of the body, or force her to some location and then kill her.’

‘Well maybe she did. I mean, we don’t know when or where Dorothy was killed. Or how.’

‘Not to mention the small matter of motive.’

Alex felt like he was facing a wall of resistance on all fronts.

‘The point is, we don’t know enough to rule his mother out a hundred percent! And right now it’s all we’ve got!’

Nat backed off from Alex’s display of frustration.

‘Okay, so how do you want to play it?’

‘I want you to go over there and talk to her.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘San Pablo. The Circle S Mobile Home Park.’

‘The one they’re closing down?’

‘Right.’

‘You sure she hasn’t moved on already?’

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

‘I’ll get right on it.’

Nat grabbed his keys and jacket and was out the door within five seconds. Alex returned to the reception area to find Juanita pounding at the laptop with an unusual amount of aggression, while peering at the screen with a look of intensity that he didn’t often see in her.

‘Has that computer disrespected your family?’ he asked, putting on his croakiest Brando/Don Corleone accent.

She looked round, her expression a mixture of confusion and anger, to see a puerile grin on his face.

‘Ha fuckin’ ha.’

Alex walked up to see what was going on.

‘There’s something strange about this computer.’

‘Strange?’ he echoed.

‘The hard disk has been wiped.’

Alex looked at the screen. Juanita was using Norton Utilities to inspect the disk content at a raw-data and deleted-file level.

‘So how come it’s still working?’

‘I don’t mean they reformatted it. I mean that all the deleted files have been overwritten. Normally the deleted files remain on the hard drive until the space is needed. It just deletes the directory entry and tells the directory that the space is available. But there are programs that overwrite the deleted files completely—sometimes making several passes with the erase head just to make sure.’

‘And why would anyone do that?’

‘What kind of a chicken-shit question is that?’ She sounded cute when she was angry. ‘To delete any trace of the files and stop them from being recovered!’

‘That implies there was something in them worth deleting.’

‘No shit, Sherlock.’

Alex leaned forward, peering at the screen with growing excitement.

‘Making it all the more important that we recover their contents.’

‘Which would be very nice, except there’s no way we can do that.’

‘Maybe there is.’ The phone was already in his hand by the time he said it. ‘Let’s call David.’

‘David?’

‘My son.’

‘The one at Berkeley?’

‘I only have one son.’

‘How do you know?’ she asked with a cheeky grin. Alex sensed that there was more to Juanita’s displays of impertinence than mere mockery. Melody had been just like that. It was her way of flirting with him. He wondered if it was the same with Juanita. She had certainly given him a few hints. He wondered how much of it was real and how much was just his imagination.

The lawyer in him knew that office romance was a dangerous game at the best of times—especially with a subordinate. If he did decide to go down that road, he’d have to tread carefully. But in any case it was a bit too early: the pain of losing Melody was still too raw…and today was hardly a day to be thinking about that sort of thing.

Juanita pressed the speed dial button and then handed Alex the phone.

‘Hi, Dave…Yes, I am, but I need your help…We have a computer with a hard disk that’s been wiped…No, I don’t mean reformatted, just the deleted files have been overwritten…How many passes?’

Alex looked inquiringly at Juanita. She shook her head.

‘We don’t know. But what I want to know is…it is? Scanning tunneling…’

Juanita mouthed the word ‘microscope’ to show that she understood.

‘You mean only if she just wiped it once? Oh I see. Okay, I’m sure you know what you’re doing. I’ll courier it over.’

And with that he put the phone down.

‘He can recover the data,’ said Juanita.

‘How d’you know?’

‘When I hear one side of a phone conversation, I can usually figure out the other. Read Godel, Escher, Bach.’ She started walking away.

‘I tried. I couldn’t get beyond the dialogue between Achilles and the Turtle.’

‘Besides—you’re smiling.’

12:20 PDT

‘Mrs Burrow?’ Nat called out nervously through the closed door of the mobile home. No answer. ‘Anyone home?’ Still no answer.

Nat opened the door, tentatively, and gingerly stepped inside. Technically it was trespassing, but the door was unlocked and time was of the essence. He looked round nervously. The living room was a mess. Surveying the ashtrays and half-empty plates with three-day-old, dried-out food encrusted on them, the words ‘trailer trash’ came to mind.

He was about to start looking round when he was shocked to hear the sound of a flushing cistern—and he realized that he was not alone after all. For a few seconds, he waited with some degree of trepidation, looking in the direction of the bathroom and wondering if he was going to be confronted by a Stanley Kowalski type in a wifebeater.

To his relief, the figure that emerged was female, albeit the female equivalent of Stanley Kowalski. Sour-faced and borderline angry, she was closer to her mid-century than her youth. Under her eyes, the bags were noticeable, and although she wasn’t currently smoking, she looked as if she ought to have a cheap cigarette dangling from her lips.

‘Who are you?’ she sneered.

‘My name is Nathaniel Anderson.’

He held out his business card. Her eyes dropped to his outstretched hand, but she made no effort to take the proffered card, or even gave any indication that she was interested in looking at it. He put it away in his breast pocket.

‘Are you Sally Burrow?’

‘Who wants to know?’

He realized that she was just being melodramatic, but a little clarification was called for.

‘I work for a lawyer called Alex Sedaka.’

‘I don’t like lawyers,’ she snarled.

‘Neither do I,’ he replied, trying to sound chummy. ‘But a man’s got to earn a living.’

Her face remained as sour as ever. He debated making a second attempt to break the ice but rejected the idea on the grounds that the humor would probably go over her head.

‘So, are you Sally Burrow?’

‘Last time I checked,’ she said.

‘Mr Sedaka—the man I work for—is representing your son.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Sedaka…Alex Sedaka.’

‘No, I mean, who d’you say he’s representing?’

‘Your son.’

‘I don’t have no son.’

‘Clayton. Your son Clayton.’

‘He ain’t no son of mine!’ she shouted, flopping into a chair. ‘Not anymore.’

Nat looked at her, trying to assess the situation, unsure of how to proceed. He decided to sit down too, taking the fact that she was seated as tacit permission to do likewise.

‘I presume you disowned him after he murd—after he killed Dorothy Olsen.’

‘You can call it murder if you like,’ she said, finally taking out and lighting the cigarette that ought to have been in her mouth all along. ‘I believe in calling a spade a spade.’

Nat realized that Sally Burrow was a lot more astute than he had given her credit for. The fact that she had picked up on his reluctance to use the word ‘murder’ proved that. He realized that he would have to tread carefully and not underestimate her intelligence, or at least her cunning.

‘And that was when you disowned him?’

‘Not immediately.’

‘But that was why you disowned him.’

‘Right.’

‘When did you decide he was guilty?’

‘I don’t really remember. I guess it happened…kind of gradually.’

‘Well what did you think when he was arrested?’

‘I didn’t know what to think.’

‘Did you stand by him during the trial?’

‘I didn’t go to the trial.’

‘So you already thought he was guilty by then.’

‘What else was I supposed to think? With her panties under the floorboards in his bedroom and her blood on them? And his jizz!’

‘You don’t think it could’ve been planted?’

‘Gimme a break!’

‘Okay, so let’s say he’s guilty. That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t stand by him.’

‘Why the fuck should I?’

‘I mean…he is your son.’

‘I already told you. I ain’t got no son.’

‘Did you have one before the murder?’

Sally Burrow’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I was wondering if maybe you saw the signs of the way your son was going before he killed Dorothy Olsen.’

‘Are you tryin’ to make out that I…knew what he was gonna do? Like I’m some kind of a…accessory to what he done?’

‘No, I’m not suggesting that you knew he was going to kill Dorothy. I was just wondering if there were any early signs of Clayton turning into the sort of person that he eventually turned into…if you see what I mean.’

‘We didn’t talk much. He had his life and I had mine.’

Nat seemed to be having trouble digesting this.

‘Didn’t talk?’ he echoed.

‘Didn’t talk,’ she confirmed, drawing on her cigarette.

What he said next surprised even him.

‘Has it occurred to you that if you’d given him more attention and affection he might not have become the violent person that he became?’

He didn’t know afterward what had possessed him to say it. But in some strange, indefinable way, he was glad that he had.

Sally Burrow looked as if she’d just been poleaxed. Her lower jaw dropped open and the cigarette fell to the floor.

‘You’ve got a fuckin’ nerve comin’ into my home and talking to me like that!’

‘All I meant was—’

‘I don’t need you preachin’ to me! Get the fuck out of here!’

She was on her feet now, lurching toward him, and he noticed that she was not a small woman by any stretch of the imagination. He twisted sideways like a corkscrew as he rose from the seat to avoid her menacing onslaught and sprinted the few steps to the doorway.

She was still chasing him out in the yard when he had opened up a distance of twenty yards between them. Puffing through her smoker’s lungs, to be sure, but still chasing.

He was just glad she didn’t have a gun.

12:31 PDT

The young man sat cross-legged on the floor before the shrine in his apartment in Daly City, his eyes closed. He was trying to remember Dorothy, remembering her kindness toward him even when he was at his lowest ebb. He remembered one time when she had faced particular brutality. He had watched from a safe distance but had been too frightened to say a word. Afterward he had run into her arms crying and it had been she who had comforted him. There were tears in his eyes now as he opened them.

He looked at the clock on the wall. It wouldn’t be long now. Soon he would have closure. In his pocket he had a piece of paper that was most precious to him. It was a spectator’s pass that allowed him to go to San Quentin and witness the execution.

The TV was on in the background. But the sound was turned down. He wanted to be left alone with his thoughts until it was time to go to the penitentiary. But at the same time, he wanted to stay in touch, to hear about further developments on the case.

Clayton Burrow had a very savvy and tenacious lawyer, he had heard. And a smart and savvy lawyer wasn’t going to give in until the fat lady sang.

He wondered how Burrow was feeling as he awaited execution. What was going through his mind? Was he afraid? Terrified? Or maybe he was just resigned to it. Maybe he just didn’t care. Just like he didn’t care about others or how much pain he had caused them.

Stop it! he ordered himself.

But he couldn’t stop it. It had been in the news so much these last few days that it was hard to think about anything else.

On the rolling TV news, Dorothy’s face appeared for the umpteenth time. It gave way a few seconds later to that of Martine Yin, with the governor’s San Francisco office as her backdrop. Jonathan would have ignored it, but the words ‘breaking news follow-up’ flashed up, causing him to grab for the remote control. In haste he pressed the button to turn the sound up.

‘So far the governor’s office refuses to confirm even that there is an offer on the table. But we can confirm that Burrow’s lawyer Alex Sedaka visited Burrow in prison right after his meeting with the governor and left the prison less than half an hour later. At this time we have no information on whether Burrow has accepted the offer.’

The young man’s face was dissolving into confusion as he struggled to understand what Martine Yin was saying.

Offer? What offer?

‘Similarly, we have been waiting outside the governor’s office for any word of the outcome from this quarter. One thing we do know is that even if Clayton Burrow were to reveal where he buried the body, they would still have to dig it up and confirm that it was the body of Dorothy Olsen before granting him clemency, but—’

‘No!’ the sound echoed from the young man’s mouth, partly the plaintive whine of a frustrated child, partly the angry roar of a wounded lion. Blinded by rage, he picked up the nearest object and hurled it across the room. The telephone landed against the wall with a smashing sound, and bits of plastic flew off in all directions.

The picture changed to that of the steps of the Federal Supreme Court with a legion of reporters milling about trying to interview a man who looked like he didn’t really want to talk.

‘These latest developments follow on from the valiant efforts of Burrow’s lawyer Alex Sedaka to secure a stay of execution and a re-trial for his client.’

It was recent footage of Alex emerging from the Supreme Court, despondent after his failed attempt to get the original trial verdict overturned.

‘Only a few days ago, Mr Sedaka was in Washington DC, arguing before the Supreme Court that his client didn’t have a fair trial because of differences in two obscure court rulings.’

The lawyer was flanked on one side by his assistant who was holding Alex’s briefcase and looking down in a somewhat bashful, self-effacing manner. Alex was speaking silently, answering the questions as they were thrown at him. But the sound of his voice was absent. Only Martine Yin’s voiceover could be heard.

‘Once these arguments were rejected, Sedaka had no choice but to throw himself upon the mercy of Governor Dusenbury. And Dusenbury’s mercy appears to be carrying a price tag. The question remains: is Clayton Burrow—who has always maintained his innocence—able and willing to meet that price?’

The young man smiled now as an idea flashed into his head.

He walked across the room to the phone and picked it up. No dial tone. The impact with the wall had damaged it. He would just have to find another handset.

12:40 PDT

David Sedaka had to pull strings to leapfrog the queue for the scanning tunneling microscope at the Berkeley lab. But he was an old hand at university politics and he knew which strings to pull. There had been a bit of grumbling about this. One aggrieved PhD student pointed out that Sedaka was a theoretical physicist not an experimental one. Theoretical and experimental physicists regarded each other with mutual disdain: the thinkers and the stinkers was the way the former group liked to describe it.

David was a member of the Joint Particle Theory Group at Berkeley, where he was developing exotic theories on anti-matter and gravity. He had recently published a paper called ‘Unilateral anti-matter decay in an accelerated expansion universe,’ in which he had advanced the revolutionary prediction that anti-matter possessed neither gravity nor anti-gravity but was subject to the gravity of matter and could decay into photons on its own without needing to collide with matter.

In appearance, he was the epitome of a nerd: slightly short, wearing glasses—even though he could afford laser surgery—and with dark hair so curly that it was rumored that he used hot rollers and foil to keep it that way.

He had removed the hard disk from the computer and had carefully separated the platters, removing them from the spindle. Then he had placed the first platter in the chamber under the head of the scanning tunneling microscope.

There was an old and ongoing debate in the computer industry as to whether it was possible to recover overwritten data from a computer hard disk with a scanning tunneling microscope. One of the more common scaremongering rumors was that the data was never deleted completely because the magnetization that overwrote it ‘was not in exactly the same place on the disk as the original bit’ or because the ‘magnetization levels varied.’

There were even rumors that the National Security Agency was routinely recovering erased data in this way. In fact, a number of computer companies had made an awful lot of money, at the expense of gullible and paranoid computer users, by selling them products that promised to overwrite their deleted data with ‘multiple passes’ and offering them ‘military level’ security.

The reality was that it was practically impossible to recover overwritten data from the newer computers, or data that had been overwritten with more than one pass. With older computers, where each ‘bit’ was spread out more than on modern computers, you might be able to recover data that was overwritten with a single pass. But that was about it.

The good news for David Sedaka was that this computer was about ten years old and the hard disk was only five gigabytes and so the bits were spread out over a larger area. The other piece of good news was that the data had been wiped with only one pass, as far as David could determine. That meant that he could recover it—in theory.

The trouble was, there was so much of it. Where to begin? The reality was that data recovery was as much an art as a science. You could start off by looking at the directory and the tables that allocate file space, but they too may have been changed or overwritten. And also, a file that was created and then changed a few times, might be ‘fragmented.’ In other words, different parts of it might be stored on different parts of the disk.

In practice, what this meant was that even if part of the task of recovering data could be automated, a lot of it was a hunt-and-find exercise. And that had to be done painstakingly, using subjective judgement.

David knew that it was going to be a long day.

But as he looked at some of the data he had recovered, he felt as if he might have found something interesting already. He decided to tell his father. The trouble was, he’d had to leave his cell phone outside the lab in case it interfered with the sensitive electronic apparatus. Now he went to get it—and he was walking briskly.

12:46 PDT

While Alex and Juanita waited for Nat to return and David to report back, they sat on opposite sides of her desk looking through the old high school yearbooks. Juanita had already been online, looking at legal records of name changes. And Alex, in desperation, had taken it a stage further by looking at a website describing the meanings of names, in a futile effort to try and work out what Dorothy might have changed her name to. He hadn’t come up with anything plausible—and he knew it was an outlandish idea to begin with—but he was desperate for anything that might help.

Right now, they were looking for anyone who could tell them anything about what was going on when Dorothy disappeared. The trouble was, most of the phone numbers were old and out of date. Of course Alex and Juanita could look up the numbers elsewhere, but some of the numbers were unlisted. In other cases, they were able to find a landline number, but it was daytime, so most of the people were out at work. All they could do was leave messages and hope that the people would call them back while there was still time.

As Alex pored over one of the yearbooks, he realized that he had spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the class photographs, as if hoping to find some clue in the faces of Dorothy or Clayton. Dorothy looked sad, her doleful eyes staring out at the camera, as if her sad life were written into them. In some ways she reminded him of his daughter Debbie. They would have been practically the same age in fact.

Not that Debbie’s life had been sad. Perhaps that was why the eyes stood out as a point of difference. But Alex tried not to think about Debbie’s eyes. They were Melody’s eyes too, and to look into them was to see his late wife resurrected before him. That was why it was so much easier with Debbie living across the other side of the country. The memory of his late wife twisted like a knife inside his gut. But he had to put it out of his mind for now. Today was not the day to dwell on his own misery.

It was then that he noticed something strange.

‘Juanita?’

‘Yes, boss?’ She spoke irritably.

‘Will you stop calling me that?’

‘What do you want me to call you? “Master”?’

‘You don’t have to call me anything.’

‘Are you ever going to tell me what you wanted to say a second ago or are we going to spend the rest of our lives discussing what I should call you?’

He sighed with irritation. The truth of the matter was that they were both in over their heads and feeling the pressure.

‘Take a look at these pictures.’

He slid the two yearbooks across the desk to her. They were both open on the double page spreads of the relevant class photographs, one Dorothy’s junior year, the other her senior.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’

‘First, take a look at the junior year in the 1997 yearbook.’

‘Okay.’

‘Right, now what do you see?’

‘A bunch of teenagers looking pleased with themselves.’

‘Do you see Dorothy Olsen?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Clayton Burrow?’

‘Sure.’

‘Okay, now look at the senior year pictures in the 1998 yearbook.’

‘Okay,’ she said, by now sounding really bored.

‘Do you see Dorothy?’

‘And Toto,’ she said, snorting through her nose.

Alex ignored her.

‘Do you see Clayton Burrow?’

‘Ye—’ She broke off and surveyed the spread of pictures more carefully. ‘Er, no, actually I don’t. Unless he had a temporary face transplant.’

‘So what does that tell you?’

‘That he was away on yearbook day?’

‘He’d’ve had a second chance on “make-up” day.’

‘Maybe he was away then too.’

‘Then they’d’ve listed him and put “No photo available,” wouldn’t they?’

‘I guess.’

‘So what does that tell us?’

She looked at him puzzled.

‘I don’t know.’

‘It tells us that he wasn’t there.’

‘But like you said, they would have listed him and put “no photo av—”’

‘Wasn’t there at the school!’

‘But you just said—’

‘Wasn’t there at all. Not just on those days.’

Juanita turned to face Alex, as the mist began to clear.

‘You mean like…he dropped out of school before that?’

‘It’s a possibility.’

She was still trying to take it in.

‘And what does that mean?’

‘It means…did he fall…or was he pushed?’

Before Juanita could reply, or even think of anything suitably smart to say, the phone rang. She reached for the receiver. But Alex was so keyed up, his hand got there first.

‘Alex Sedaka.’

‘Hi Mr Sedaka?’ said an unfamiliar male voice.

‘Yes.’

‘I’d like to talk to you about the Dorothy Olsen case.’

‘Okay.’ Alex was disappointed. He had been hoping that it was the prison calling to tell him that Burrow had changed his mind.

‘I mean, I need to see you.’

A second phone line rang. Juanita went to another room to get it.

‘Can you tell me what this is about?’ asked Alex.

‘I’d prefer to tell you in person.’

Alex was wary of such offers. Ordinarily he would be inclined to play ball, if only out of curiosity. But right now his time was at a premium.

‘Can you at least tell me who this is?’

Ten miles away, in Daly City, the young man on the other end of the line was looking at a photograph on a mantelpiece.

‘My name is Jonathan Olsen.’

12:49 PDT

‘Alex Sedaka’s office,’ said Juanita, answering the phone in Nat’s office.

‘Oh hi, it’s David here.’

‘Hi, David. What can I do for you?’

‘I was wondering if I could speak to my father.’

‘He’s on the other line at the moment. Can I take a message?’

‘Yes, tell him I’ve found something.’

‘Can you tell me what it is? I can pass it on to him.’

‘I’d rather tell him direct.’

‘Trust me, David, it is probably better if I explain it to him.’

She could almost see him smiling at the picture of the computer-savvy secretary explaining it to the boss. ‘Okay, well basically I’ve recovered the most recent virtual memory file.’

‘Do you want to send that to us to take a look at?’

‘Well actually I’ve already taken a look at it.’

‘And?’

‘I understand that Dorothy Olsen went missing right after her high school prom in May 1998.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well I’ve found a fragment of an EasySabre receipt dated just four days before she disappeared.’

‘EasySabre?’

‘An online subsidiary of American Airlines Sabre booking system. They offered it through Compuserve.’

This took Juanita by surprise.

‘But I thought they checked all the airlines when she vanished. And they certainly must have checked them after they arrested Burrow.’

‘Yes, but EasySabre wasn’t only used by American Airlines. It wasn’t even only used for flights to and from the US. Pretty much all the airlines used it—including this one.’

‘Which one?’

‘Quetzalcoatl Airways.’

‘Wait a minute, weren’t they that Mexican outfit that went bust a few years ago?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘But surely they would have checked it out at the time? I mean, didn’t they check all the airlines that flew from the US?’

‘Yes but Quetzalcoatl didn’t fly from the US. And I think they went bust before Burrow was arrested. Remember that when Dorothy vanished initially there was no evidence of a crime? It was just a missing persons case and she wasn’t a juvenile. They filed a report and pretty much left it at that. It was her mother who checked the airlines initially and she only had civil powers of inquiry. By the time Burrow was arrested, that airline didn’t even exist.’

‘But you said this EasySabre wasn’t only used for flights to and from US airports. So there would still have been a record of it.’

‘Yes, but the cops probably only checked for flights from the US. Don’t forget, by the time Burrow was arrested, they had so much physical evidence, they thought it was an open and shut case. They probably didn’t think it was worth checking flights that originated from outside the US. And you know the old rule: if you don’t look, you don’t find.’

‘But wouldn’t the defense have pressed for discovery?’

Juanita waited in silence. But the truth of the matter was they both knew the answer.

‘An overworked public defender? A crap defense? You know the story, Juanita. They do regular re-runs at the Hall of Justice every day of the week. He got a bum deal.’

Strangely, this didn’t upset or bother Juanita. The fact of the matter was that whatever the reason for this monumental oversight, the current news was heartening. At least it meant that there was a way forward. Juanita could barely contain her excitement.

‘So where did she fly to?’

David hesitated again.

‘Unfortunately I don’t have that information. I don’t even know where the flight was from.’

‘I don’t understand. How can you know that she bought a ticket but not where it was to?’

‘It’s to do with the way the computer stores information. It was on the disk swap area.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You know how computers use disk swapping if they haven’t got enough RAM for what they’re trying to do? They use part of the disk as virtual RAM. Well in this case, part of the receipt got copied onto the virtual disk area.’

‘But why only part of the receipt?’

‘The receipt as a whole probably spanned a cluster or sector boundary. So the part of the receipt it didn’t have room for got written onto the disk swap area. The other part probably only ever existed in RAM. If it wasn’t for the cluster spanning and the remnant in the swap area, I wouldn’t have been able to recover it at all.’

‘So you’ve got the date and the airline, but no idea where the ticket was from or to?’

‘It was probably from Mexico. It couldn’t have been from the US because they’d’ve caught it when they checked EasySabre for outgoing flights.’

Juanita thought for a moment.

‘She could have driven down to Mexico and then caught the flight.’

‘Easily. But I guess that doesn’t help us unless we can find out where she went to from there.’

‘And can you?’

Juanita was praying that David would come back with an affirmative reply.

‘I don’t expect to find the other half of the receipt. I’ve pretty much covered the disk swap area. It was the first thing I checked, after the file allocation table and directories.’

‘Wouldn’t she have downloaded the receipt?’

‘Maybe yes, maybe no. But if she reformatted the whole disk that suggests that she was being secretive. So the answer is probably no.’

‘And there’s nothing you can do?’

Again there was a brief hesitation in David’s response.

‘Nothing on the computer itself.’

Juanita smiled to herself.

‘Why do I hear that sound in your voice?’ she asked.

‘What sound?’

‘Like the vocal equivalent of a gleam in your eye?’

‘Well…let’s just say that I have an idea of one way I might be able to get it.’

‘How “might” is “might”?’

In the time it took him to take a breath, her heart skipped a beat.

‘I won’t bullshit you. It’s a long shot.’

12:53 PDT

‘How long are we going to hang round here?’ asked the driver.

Martine looked at her watch. He was right: they’d been here a long time and nothing was happening. It wasn’t just that nothing was happening, it was also that there was no sign that anything was going to happen. Worse still, some of the other news crews were starting to appear. They were parked further up the street and trying to make it look like they weren’t interested. But it was obvious that they were.

They were actually parked more strategically than Martine’s crew. If anyone left the governor’s office building, they’d have to follow the one-way system toward Larkin Street. That meant that CNN just up the road had a better chance of staying on their tail.

‘So what do you think we should do?’ asked Martine. ‘Go back to San Quentin?’

They’d have a full crew there later on in the day as the execution time loomed nearer. But the question was, should they sit it out there now or stay here in the hope that something broke from the governor’s office?

Martine knew that she could call in another team to cover the governor’s office and get back to the penitentiary. But this was her story and she wanted to be in the right place at the right time when the story broke. Her gut told her that she was closer to the story here outside the governor’s office than treading water back in Marin County.

But nagging away at Martine was the thought that the real story was with Burrow’s lawyer Alex Sedaka.

He was the one who had to carry the message of the governor’s conditional offer of clemency to Burrow. If Burrow was reluctant, he was the one who would have to persuade him. If Burrow accepted the offer then he would be the one who had to convey that acceptance to the governor, along with any details of where the body was buried. Before the day was done, many people would know one way or the other. But Alex Sedaka would be the first to know.

And Martine intended to be the second.

‘Change of plan. We’re going to pay Alex Sedaka a little visit.’

13:11 PDT

Nat was driving back to the office from the mobile home park in San Pablo, wondering how he was going to summarize his meeting with Sally Burrow. He decided not to tell Alex about the leading question that had led to the premature termination of the interview. But the question was, what would he tell him?

Sally Burrow’s attitude—if it was sincere—suggested that she would not have done anything to help her son, least of all kill for him. She sounded convincing when she said that they had led separate lives and she hadn’t noticed what her son was turning into.

This strengthened, all the more, Nat’s conviction that it was Sally Burrow’s hands-off approach to both love and discipline that had led Burrow down that slippery road to become the bully that he was.

But a bully was one thing—a murderer was another thing entirely.

Nat knew that he had to concentrate on how he summed this up for Alex. The boss was in a very tense mood at the moment, and Nat felt that he was likely to snap at any moment. He had shouted at Juanita over something that wasn’t her fault. How would he react to Nat coming home empty handed from his visit to Clayton’s mother at the trailer park?

But then again, it had always been a long shot. Alex knew that. All Nat could do was report back on what Sally Burrow had said.

He was getting near the building when he noticed activity. It looked like some news people staked out by the building, one with a shoulder-mounted camera. The annoying thing was their van was parked in his reserved parking space! He drove past, glaring at them angrily. Then he noticed someone entering the building—and he recognized the face.

He decided not to go in just yet.

13:19 PDT

‘So why exactly did you want to see me?’ asked Alex.

He had led Jonathan into the meeting room and got Juanita to make coffee for both of them. But Jonathan Olsen didn’t seem too anxious to talk. He seemed more concerned with looking round, almost as if he was admiring the décor.

‘I saw on the TV about the governor’s offer to Clayton Burrow.’

‘Yes,’ said Alex matter-of-factly, ‘I think everyone in the state has heard about that offer by now.’

‘The thing that surprised me is that it was my mother who persuaded him.’

‘She didn’t tell you beforehand?’

‘I’m not in contact with my mother.’

Alex remembered that Esther Olsen had told him that she was estranged from her daughter. He didn’t know that this estrangement extended to her son.

‘Is that by…?’

‘By my choice, yes. We kind of fell out with Mom—both Dorothy and myself.’

Alex felt a pang of sympathy for Esther Olsen. It seemed as if the world was collapsing on top of her head.

‘For the same reason?’

‘More or less.’

Alex knew he had to tread delicately here. But then again, Jonathan had come to him.

‘Is it something you’d like to share?’

‘Let’s just say that Dorothy got a raw deal.’

The words ‘raw deal’ suggested something financial. But this was unlikely—if it was purely financial it could have been easily remedied.

‘From your mother?’

Jonathan shrugged.

‘Let’s just say that there are sins of commission and sins of omission.’

Alex nodded. He knew that he wasn’t going to make any more headway if he cross-examined. But he sensed that Jonathan wanted to talk.

‘Why did you want to see me, Jonathan?’

‘I was wondering if Burrow has accepted Dusenbury’s offer.’

‘You know that anything a client says to his lawyer is privileged.’

Jonathan squirmed uncomfortably.

‘But I’d’ve thought that they’d have to make it public at some point. I mean, at least if he accepted the offer.’

‘At some point maybe. But at this stage I can’t even confirm or deny that there was an offer.’

Jonathan seemed uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t sure himself why he was even there. He appeared to be looking round nervously, almost as if he was expecting something to happen.

‘Can I ask you a question, Mr Sedaka?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why did you take this case?’

‘Well that’s kind of an open-ended question, isn’t it? Why did I take on this case?’ Alex was buying time as he thought about it. ‘I guess, because I’m a lawyer. Because Burrow asked me to. Because one of my staff persuaded me that it was a noble cause.’

Jonathan looked like he was trying to hide the fact that he was smiling when he heard these words. But he said nothing.

‘You think I’m a total cynic, don’t you?’ Alex continued, trying to break the ice with a confessional tone and an amicable smile on his face.

‘You said it yourself, you’re a lawyer.’

‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude, Jonathan, especially in light of what you’ve been through. But is that the only thing you came here to ask?’

He wasn’t trying to hasten Jonathan on his way; he was trying to break down the barrier of reticence that was holding him back.

‘When I asked why you took on this case, what I meant was: do you think he’s innocent?’

‘I can’t say what I know or what he told me because that’s privileged communication. But I guess I can tell you, in a general sort of way, that a lawyer doesn’t have to believe in his client’s innocence to take on a case.’

‘No, but I also know that lawyers are human—some lawyers.’

He smiled when he added the last bit. Alex returned the smile.

‘And you want to know if I was motivated by idealism or if I’m just another slave to the almighty dollar.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, you know, when it comes to representing a penniless defendant, there are no almighty dollars on the table. We call it pro bono work.’

‘I know all about pro bono work, Mr Sedaka. But there’s more than one road to Rome, isn’t there?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Really?’ asked Jonathan, with raised eyebrows. ‘There’s professional kudos and prestige. There’s book deals and Hollywood, there’s—’

‘Now hold on a minute! I’m not planning on turning your sister’s death into a book deal or a Hollywood movie if that’s what you’re thinking…Or should I say, your half sister?’

He was monitoring Jonathan for a reaction. There was no sign of panic or anger or any other emotion on Jonathan’s face. He held his head back, but it was more like he was trying to remember something or just to concentrate.

‘You know about that?’

‘We have the DNA report. I was wondering if it affected your relationship with her…one way or the other.’

‘I don’t think it really did. I mean, we were loyal to each other. We couldn’t have been any more loyal if we were full siblings. So I guess you could say it didn’t affect us.’

‘But you did know about it?’

‘It came out in the heat of a domestic argument. But after that it was never talked about—at least not by me or Dorothy.’

‘You didn’t want to know more?’

‘We knew all we needed to know.’

‘So which of you…was…?’

Jonathan was shaking his head.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

A tense silence settled between them for a few seconds. Alex knew that he would make no more progress on this point. Not with Jonathan at any rate.

‘You know,’ Jonathan said, ‘he used to bully her in high school.’

Alex surveyed Jonathan’s face for signs of emotion. There was none.

‘Verbally or physically?’

‘Mostly verbally. Like, he used to make fun of her name.’

‘Dorothy?’

‘Our name. He used to call her “Al Jolson”—like that was funny.’

‘I knew there was some animosity between them,’ Alex acknowledged. ‘I kind of figured that bullying might have something to do with it. Either that or unrequited love.’

‘Unrequited love?’ Jonathan scowled and his tone was a sneer. ‘On whose part?’

‘Either. It was just speculation.’

‘Well you can take my word for it, there wasn’t.’

‘I take your word for it. But tell me this. If he bullied her, that wouldn’t necessarily lead to him killing her, would it? I mean, making fun of someone’s name isn’t exactly heavy-duty bullying. And murder is quite extreme for a high school bully.’

‘True.’

‘On the other hand, all that bullying might have given her a motive to want to see him suffer.’

Jonathan scowled again.

‘What are you saying? That she faked her own death and framed him?’

Alex hesitated. He chose his next words carefully.

‘You’re the second person who’s raised that possibility today.’

Jonathan got up and reached for his jacket.

‘Well before you get carried away with the idea, let me tell you that he had a motive to hate her too.’

‘And what’s that?’

Jonathan was putting on his jacket as he replied.

‘She got him canned over the bullying.’

‘That doesn’t sound like much of a motive for a jock who was probably just coasting in class in the first place.’

‘Oh it was enough of a motive for a sleazeball like Burrow. He liked to win, don’t forget. And getting kicked out of the school made him a loser. It gave Dorothy the last laugh. You can imagine how someone like Clayton Burrow would have taken that.’

And with these words, Jonathan angrily left Sedaka’s office.

Alex wasn’t surprised by what Jonathan had told him just now. But it had huge implications for the case. One of the things that had given Alex doubt over Burrow’s guilt was the absence of specific motive. Not that you needed motive to find a man guilty. But a weak motive or no motive is a point in favor of the defense. And it was the weakness of the motive that had given Alex a sense of hope until now.

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