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‘Don’t think you can mess with me, Sheldon.’

Sheldon laughed, but it was filled with bitterness. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, it must be a sign of my sickness. If you remember, you put me on sick leave that I hadn’t requested, for the sake of my mental health. So what I will do is leave you alone, but trust me when I say that I will keep on looking for the reason. You noted yourself that I have a tendency towards, shall we say, obsessive behaviour.’

He stood up as if to leave. Just before he turned away, he noticed that some photographs had been taken from the wall, as all there was left was a picture hook.

Sheldon took one last look at her. She was staring at her desk, and she looked frightened.

Once the door had closed, Sheldon paused for a moment. He looked at his hands. They were shaking. He had done the right thing though, he was sure of that. He marched off down the corridor, and when he got outside the station, he ran to his car. It was time to find out more about John Abbott.

Chapter Forty-Five

Jake sat down on the chair opposite Ted, facing each other over the dining room table. From the pictures Charlie had seen of Alice, he could see the family resemblance, although there was a sadness to him that he had never seen in photographs of Alice.

Jake sat hunched up with his knees turned inwards, his shoulders bony through his black T-shirt.

‘So what do you know?’ Charlie said.

Jake shrugged, and then said, ‘They used to talk to us when we were hanging out in town. They were into being free, so they said. I don’t know why they spoke to us. Maybe it was because of how we were dressed, as if they thought we wanted to join some kind of Goth gang. They were friendly at first, but the second time they found us, they started to talk about leaving society and having no rules, and how we had to be there on the big day.’

‘Big day?’ Charlie said.

‘The uprising, that’s what they called it.’ Jake shook his head. ‘It was rubbish, all of it.’

Charlie knew it was the same group he had seen outside his office. He thought of Christina, how she had been placed into Billy’s home and felt angry about Donia, about how she had set him up. It was obvious now that she was a plant, put into his firm just so they could find out what Billy had told Amelia. Was that why they had been outside the office, waiting for Donia to take whatever they needed to them?

‘Did they go round all the young people in the town?’ Charlie said.

‘I don’t know, because I don’t hang out with other kids. Anyway, it wasn’t really us they were speaking to.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It was the girls, not the rest of us. They were just trying it on. They realised soon enough that we weren’t interested and so left us alone. We get enough shit from the local kids, all the hoodies picking on us, without the political freaks joining in.’

As Charlie thought back on how the group had watched him, Jake said, ‘A couple of them were pretty scary. Like Billy said on the video, one was a huge guy. Solid, over six feet, with a beard that was kind of twisted, with beads in it. And the smaller guy, Henry, he had long hair, and with a really intense look to him. All the girls were in awe of him, I could tell.’

‘When was this?’ Charlie said.

‘Not long before Alice died.’

Ted’s mouth opened in shock. ‘So you’ve always suspected them?’ Jake responded with another shrug. ‘How did you know?’

Jake ground his teeth and looked down.

Charlie moved closer to him. ‘Jake?’

He looked away.

Charlie banged his hand on the table. Jake jumped and stared, scared now.

‘Jake, if you know something, say it.’ Charlie was breathing heavily, his temper rising. ‘The time for silence is gone.’

‘Jake?’ Ted said, confused.

When Jake looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’ Ted said.

‘For not saying anything.’

‘Tell me now.’

Jake took a deep breath and wiped at his eyes. ‘One of Alice’s friends had become involved with them. Alice had gone away to university, but do you remember Marie, her friend from school? She failed her exams and she drifted, but Alice would hook up with her when she came home, except that Marie was hanging around with this group. Marie was with them when they were speaking to my mates and me. She was talking about going wild at Billy’s house, and that we should go up too, that we’d enjoy it.’

‘And so you thought that this group might have had something to do with Alice’s death?’ Ted said, his voice rising.

Jake looked at his hands for a few seconds, and then said, ‘Maybe.’

‘And you didn’t say anything?’

Jake shook his head.

‘Why not?’

Jake swallowed. He looked at his father, and then at Charlie, before he sighed and said, ‘We don’t know everything about Alice. She was all grown up, not a little girl anymore. She will have had secrets from us. It’s natural. When I was talking to Marie, she told me they were having a great time. She was smoking a spliff, and the nods and the winks hinted that it was like a group thing, you know, orgies. What does everyone think about Alice? That she was sweet and lovely and respectable – and she was, but if she had got involved with them, got out of her depth or something, well, it would all change, and I didn’t want that, because then she would be the girl who died in some drug-fuelled party. No, I preferred it how it was reported, that she was innocent, that she wasn’t part of their crowd. So I kept quiet.’

Ted took some deep breaths, and Charlie could see some anger in his eyes, that his own son knew some of the answers but had kept them from him. But Ted’s furrowed brow showed he was wrestling with his feelings, because he understood why Jake had kept quiet, because he had tried to protect Alice’s memory.

‘Who’s the girl?’ Ted said. ‘Marie?’

‘Marie Cuffy,’ Jake said. ‘She was a friend of Alice’s from the sixth form, but Marie had changed. I suppose Alice had, but all of Alice’s other friends had gone away too, and so Marie was someone to hang round with when she was home.’

‘Find me a picture.’

Jake left the room, and Charlie listened as he rummaged in what he guessed was Alice’s room. When Jake came downstairs again, he was holding a photograph. ‘That’s her,’ he said, pointing to a picture.

As Charlie looked, he saw an attractive young woman, her eyes flirty, smiling with Alice, each holding beer bottles in their hand.

‘When was the last time you saw her?’ Charlie said.

‘I haven’t seen her since Alice died.’

‘We need to find her,’ Ted said, tapping the photograph. ‘She knows something about Alice. Jake, do you know where she lives?’

Jake nodded and gave an address. ‘That’s where her parents live.’

Charlie’s thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of his phone in his pocket. He checked the number. It was Donia’s.

‘Hello?’ Charlie said, expecting to hear her voice, ready for the next stage of deceit.