26

“ANYONE HERE PLAY ANY SPORT, please raise your hand.”

Laughton looks up to see almost every hand in the lecture theater lift up.

There are around forty people in the room, arranged on a steep bank of curved seating that could have been specifically designed to be intimidating. The first time Laughton had lectured here she’d almost had a panic attack; now she feels more comfortable here than pretty much anywhere.

“OK, now keep your hand up if you play something other than football.”

A low murmur rumbles through the room and two-thirds of the hands drop down. Laughton surveys the remaining dozen or so, an even spread of men and women, mostly in their early twenties but with a few older students in the mix.

“Akim.” Laughton points at a young man in the second row who’s so tall he looks like he’s standing up. “Basketball, right?”

Akim smiles and his face lights up. “By the time I was twelve I was already six three,” he says. “My games teacher didn’t give me no choice.”

Laughter murmurs through the auditorium, and a number of the female students, and some of the men, lean forward to get a better look at him.

“But you could have played football too, I’m guessing?” Laughton asks. “Your height would be just as useful in goal or in defense. So why basketball?”

Akim shrugs. “You get to score more points. It’s indoors, so you don’t get muddy and cold.”

Another ripple of laughter.

“Smaller team too, right?” Laughton says. “More chance to shine. So who’s the superstar in your team, who scores the most points?”

Akim smiles and looks away, like the question has embarrassed him. “Me, probably.”

“All right, Akim!” Laughton starts clapping. “Let’s hear it for the superstar.”

Others join in and Akim continues to smile bashfully, staring down at the floor, half enjoying the attention and half hating it.

Laughton looks up as the door at the back of the lecture hall opens and a man steps in and takes a seat. The applause dies away and she returns her attention to the class.

“All right, let’s not blow Akim’s head up too much. The truth is, it’s easy to spot the stars in basketball because it’s obvious who’s scoring the most points and the rest of the team leans toward that player. Now could all you football players stick your hands back up.”

Laughton looks around the lecture theater, her attention lingering for a moment on the newcomer at the back. “Stella,” she says, pointing to a young woman sitting a few rows in front of him. “Who’s the superstar in your team?”

Stella thinks for a moment. “Depends on the game and who we’re playing. Last week we played a really good side and our goalie played a blinder and kept us in it. Week before that we played a bunch of donkeys and she barely had to do anything. Our midfielder is pretty steady, but there are no real superstars. The team is the star.”

Laughton smiles. “The team is the star, interesting. Thank you, Stella.”

She turns to the display board, pushes a button on the remote in her hand, and a caption flashes up:

WHAT TEAM SPORTS CAN TEACH US ABOUT CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS

The lecture theater fills with the rustle and tap of the words being copied into paper and digital notebooks.

“So, unlike basketball, where a superstar player can control the ball and win games more or less on their own, football is all about the team, which means you’re actually only as good as your weakest link. Stella, who’s the best football player in the world right now?”

“Lionel Messi, probably, or Cristiano Ronaldo.”

“And Lionel Messi plays international football for . . . ?”

“Argentina.”

“And where did Argentina finish in the last World Cup? First, second, third?”

“Nowhere. They didn’t even make it out of the group stages.”

“OK, what about Portugal? Ronaldo plays for Portugal, right?”

“Yep.”

“And how did they do?”

“They got knocked out right after the group stages. Didn’t even make the quarterfinals.”

“OK, so we have the two best players in the world, but neither of their teams made it to the last sixteen of the World Cup. Why is that?”

Stella shrugs. “Their teams sucked.”

“Exactly. Their teams were weak, so it didn’t matter how good their best player was, they crashed out early and went home. That’s because football, unlike basketball, is a weak-link sport. One superstar does not make a difference at the higher levels.”

She presses the button and two new titles pop up on the display screen:

STRONG-LINK TEAM

WEAK-LINK TEAM

“David Sally, a former baseball pitcher turned behavioral economist, and Chris Anderson, a former goalkeeper turned football statistics guru and professor at Cornell, wrote a book called The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football Is Wrong. In this book they did a statistical analysis of the best teams in Europe and discovered that they would win more games and score more goals if they upgraded their poorest players instead of blowing the budget on a superstar. Their findings revealed that every goal generally came after a series of eight or nine passes ending with the superstar doing something sublime. The problem was that if any one of those passes reached the worst player in the team who then messed up and gave the ball away, the superstar might as well not even be on the pitch.

“Now, if we transpose this idea to a criminal investigation, where the goal is to get a successful conviction, then we can view those various passes as the different steps in the chain of evidence. Like football, a criminal investigation is a weak-link game, and when you think of it in those terms you can start to see how each individual part is crucial to the successful outcome of the whole.”

Tannahill sits at the back of the lecture theater.

Unlike the students, he doesn’t need to take notes, so he just sits back and enjoys the show. The lecture he’d attended on the same subject when studying for his sergeant’s exam had been nothing like this. No one here is stifling yawns or fidgeting on the hard seats. Every single student hangs on every word, their collective attention fixed on the small, energetic woman at the front of the lecture hall who has somehow managed to turn this driest of subjects into something compelling and clear. He remembers how she had pulled a similar trick at the other lecture of hers he’d attended, when she’d held another roomful of people spellbound for almost an hour on the singularly unsexy subject of long-range familial DNA and its impact on the solve rate of cold cases.

It’s even more remarkable in light of the life he knows she has led. He can still see traces of the wide-eyed, traumatized fifteen-year-old girl in the impressive woman now holding court.

He settles deeper into his seat, enjoying this unexpected moment of peace in the middle of his turbulent day. He could happily sit here for hours, listening to her speak, watching her command the subject and this roomful of people, but the lecture is over way too quickly, and he sits up in his seat as the room starts to empty, feeling slightly nervous that he now has to go and talk to the star of the show.

He stands and weaves his way through the crowd of departing students, making his way down to the front of the lecture hall, where Professor Laughton Rees is chatting to one of her more eager students. He stands to the side and slightly back, keeping to the shadow of the auditorium, not wishing to overhear what might be a private conversation. He is surprised by how Laughton looks even younger up close. He can still see no family resemblance with her father.

Laughton forces herself to focus on the student in front of her, though she is keenly aware of the man in the gray jacket standing close by. The student asks for the name of any other books she should read on the subject and Laughton reels off a list, which the student slowly scribbles into a notebook. Laughton shoots an apologetic look at the waiting man. He has the unmistakable air of police about him, though she doesn’t remember teaching him. Finally the student stuffs her notebook and laptop into her “Books Are My Bag” tote, then hurries away.

“Great lecture,” the stranger says, stepping forward into the light. “Almost makes me want to go back to school again.”

Laughton smiles, momentarily distracted by his eyes. When he was in the shadows she had thought he looked Asian or possibly Mediterranean, but his eyes are so blue they seem almost Aryan. “Thank you,” she says. “DS? DI?”

He smiles. “That obvious, huh? It’s DCI, actually. Tannahill Khan.”

“Wow, you must be on the super fast track, you barely look old enough to be out of uniform.”

“Well, you don’t look old enough to be a professor either.”

He fixes her with ice-blue eyes that seem oddly warm, and there’s a moment of silence that should be awkward but isn’t.

Tannahill Khan, she thinks. Pakistani or maybe Bangladeshi Irish? Interesting heritage.

“I’m working with your dad,” he adds, utterly ruining the moment.

“Good for you,” she says, turning away and ducking down behind the lectern to retrieve her memory stick.

“That’s not the reason I’m here, though. I caught a case this morning, a homicide, and I thought you might—”

“I never work live cases.”

“I know that. I thought you might want to look at this one, though, because—”

“Because a book I wrote was left at the scene?” Laughton enjoys the look of surprise that appears on Tannahill’s face. “A journalist called me about it before my lecture.”

“Slade!” he says, like he’s tasting something bitter.

“He wanted a comment and I told him the same thing I’m telling you, I don’t work live cases.”

She pushes past him and heads for the exit.

Tannahill follows her out into the corridor. “His article is already online,” he says, keeping pace. “I was hoping to talk to you before he published, but I was at the crime scene up until about an hour ago, then I had this press briefing and. . . . anyway, I came here as soon as the article went live.” Laughton reaches the lift, jabs the button to summon it. “It mentions you and your book, so you should probably brace yourself for more press attention.”

Laughton leans against the wall, feeling like the floor is falling away from under her. She has spent her entire adulthood building walls between her work and her private life to keep herself and her daughter safe. Now it feels like those walls have crumbled and the world outside is about to crowd in, along with all the dangers that brings.

“This is why I never get involved in live cases,” she murmurs. “Journalists don’t ring up and hassle you when you start looking into a twenty-year-old murder. This is just . . . it’s . . .”

She jabs the button again, but the light refuses to stay on, so she twists away and heads for the stairs, craving the quiet security of her office.

“Listen,” Tannahill says. “I know you don’t normally get involved with live cases, and I totally understand why, but I thought as you’re already part of this one you might reconsider. Because of who you are and who your dad is they’re not going to leave this one alone until it’s solved. So why not try and help us solve it?”

Laughton bursts into the stairwell and starts heading up to the third floor. She feels sick, like the darkest chapter of her life is reemerging from the place she buried it. Death and danger are being brought to her door and, yet again, her father is the cause of it. She’d hoped that by cutting him out of her life she might insulate herself and her daughter from all of this. She had been wrong.

“The sooner the case is solved the sooner it’ll all go away,” Tannahill says, his voice echoing in the concrete stairwell. “I need to talk to you anyway and investigate any possible reason why your book in particular was left at the crime scene.”

Laughton spins round to face him. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? To embarrass him. It’s not about me, it’s about him. It’s always about him. I’m just . . . collateral damage.”

“Maybe, but you wrote in your book that you must never be distracted by the obvious.”

“Oh, please,” Laughton says, turning away and heading up the stairs again. “Don’t start quoting me at me.”

“Your book was also not the only thing left behind at the scene. There were four other objects, I can show you them.” He pulls his phone from his pocket. “The pictures are online. Just take a look and tell me what you think. Five minutes, then I’ll leave you alone.”

She stops at the top of the stairs and turns to look down at him frowning at his phone as it struggles with the notoriously weak Wi-Fi signal. Somewhere outside a siren starts wailing. It reminds Laughton of the one from that morning and her mental note to find out what it was all about in case it might be useful. Well, here is her chance.

Tannahill looks up at her with those oddly blue eyes, like scraps of summer sky in the gloom of the stairwell. Below them a door bangs open and voices echo up the stairwell as a knot of students start heading up.

“Five minutes,” Laughton says. “We can use the computer in my office.”

Then she turns and barges through the door to the third-floor corridor, before she has a chance to change her mind.