Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid

out of her words. ‘As Paula says, Sam, what’s it all about?’
    Sam plonked the CPU down on a table and patted it. ‘This little baby is the machine that Nigel Barnes swore didn’t exist.’ He pointed a finger at Stacey. ‘And this is your chance to put him away for his wife’s murder.’ He folded his arms across his broad chest and grinned.
    ‘I still have no idea what this is about,’ Carol said, knowing this was what she was meant to say and already halfway to forgiving Sam for his late arrival. She knew Sam’s tendency to go out on a limb was dangerous and bad for solidarity, but she found uncomplicated anger hard to sustain. Too many of his divisive characteristics were precisely the ones that had driven Carol so hard at the start of her own career. She just wished he’d get past the naked ambition stage and realise you didn’t always travel fastest when you were alone.
    Sam tossed his jacket over a chair and perched on the table beside the computer. ‘Cold case, guv. Danuta Barnes and her five-month-old daughter went missing in 1995. Disappeared without a single validated sighting. The feeling at the time was that her husband Nigel had done away with them.’
    ‘I remember it first time around,’ Kevin said. ‘Her family were adamant that he’d killed her and the baby.’
    ‘Spot on, Kevin. He didn’t want the kid, they’d been fighting constantly about money. CID searched the house top to bottom, but they didn’t turn up a single bloodstain. No bodies. And enough gaps in the wardrobe to back up his story that she’d just done a runner with the baby.’ Sam shrugged. ‘Can’t blame them, they covered all the bases.’
    ‘Not quite all of them, by the looks of it,’ Carol said, a wry twist to her lips. ‘Come on, Sam, you know you’re dying to tell us.’
    ‘It came across my desk six months ago, just a routine review. I went round to see Nigel Barnes, but it turned out the file wasn’t up to date. He sold the house just over a year ago. So I asked the new owners if they’d come across anything unusual when they’d been doing the place up.’
    ‘Did you know what you were looking for?’ Kevin asked.
    Sam tipped his head to him. ‘I did, as it happens. Back in ‘97, some eagle-eyed SOCO noticed that the computer monitor and keyboard didn’t match the CPU. Different make, different colour. Nigel Barnes swore blind that’s how he’d bought it, but the Stacey wannabe knew he was lying because the monitor and keyboard came from a mail-order brand that only sold complete packages. So at some point, there had to have been another CPU. I wondered whether the hard drive was still knocking around somewhere. But the new owners said no, the house had been stripped bare. Tight bastard even took the lightbulbs and the batteries out of the smoke alarms.’ He pulled a clown’s face of sadness. ‘So I thought that was that.’
    ‘Until your phone rang this morning,’ Paula chipped in. By now, they all knew how and when to prompt each other through their war stories.
    ‘Correct. Turns out the new owners decided to tank the cellar, which meant ripping off all the old plasterwork. And guess what was hiding behind the plasterboard?’
    ‘Not the old computer!’ Paula threw up her hands in mock amazement.
    ‘The old computer.’ Sam caught Stacey’s eye and winked. ‘And if it’s got any secrets to reveal, we all know who’s the woman to find them.’
    ‘I can’t believe he didn’t destroy it,’ Kevin said, his carrot-red curls catching the light as he shook his head.
    ‘He probably thought he’d wiped the hard disk clean,’ Stacey said. ‘Back then, people didn’t understand how much data gets left behind when you reformat the drive.’
    ‘Even so, you’d think he would take it with him. Or dump it in a skip. Or give it to one of those charities that recycles old computers to Africa.’
    ‘Laziness or arrogance. Take your pick. Thank God for them both, they’re our best