Part 12 (2/2)

He was silent for a moment. Then he unwrapped his hand and inspected the wound. Licked his finger and rubbed at the blood.

She lowered her chin and squinted at him. 'Steve?'

'What?'

'You did say no. Didn't you?'

'Of course I did.' He didn't meet her eyes. 'What else do you think I'd have said?'

30.

Zoe strode down the corridor from the incident room to find five teenagers standing moodily outside her office. The three boys had spiked hair and wore their school trousers belted under their skinny b.u.t.tocks. The girls were straight out of St Trinian's, with school skirts rolled up at the waist to show their legs and s.h.i.+rts tied at the waist like Daisy Duke.

'Auntie Zoe?' said the smaller of the two girls. 'I'm sorry to bother you.'

That stopped Zoe in her tracks. She leaned a little closer, peering at the girl. 'Millie? Jesus. I didn't recognize you.' Jesus. I didn't recognize you.'

'What's wrong with me?' Millie put both hands on her hair, as if to check it was still there. 'What?'

'Nothing. I just ...' She'd only ever seen Millie in photos Mum and Dad had sent, and twice in the flesh, in the street, just in pa.s.sing. But she was pretty really pretty. It took a moment for Zoe to gather her wits. 'What do you want? Aren't you supposed to be in school?'

'The headmaster let us come here. We've been waiting to speak to you. Can we do it in private?'

'Yes. Of course. Come in, come in.' She unlocked her office and kicked the door open, scanned the room quickly for anything the kids shouldn't see post-mortem photos or notes on Lorne's case. 'There aren't any chairs. Sorry about that.'

''S OK,' said the tallest boy. 'We won't be staying.'

Zoe closed the door. Then she sat on the desk and regarded them all carefully. She had to stop herself staring directly at Millie, though she monitored her out of the corner of her eye. Was it her imagination or did Millie look more like her, Zoe, and less like Sally? 'What can I do for you all?'

'We need some help,' said the tall boy. He was blond and good-looking. You could tell from the body language of the rest of the group that he was the alpha male. That he threw his weight around and generally got what he wanted. 'It's about Lorne Wood.'

'Right.' Zoe glanced cautiously from face to face. 'OK. And I take it from the way we're all standing here, the way that you approached me, that you want, for the time being, to have a private chat?'

'For the time being.'

'That's fair enough. But before we start I'd like to get your names. I give you my word it won't go any further. Here.' She pulled out a spiral-bound jotter and handed the bigger boy a pen. He studied it for a moment, unsure. Zoe nodded. 'You have my word,' she repeated. 'You really do.'

Reluctantly he took it, bent over the desk and wrote Peter Cyrus Peter Cyrus. He handed the pen to Millie, who glanced at Zoe, looked about to say something, but instead bent over and wrote Millie Benedict Millie Benedict. Benedict, Zoe noticed, not Ca.s.sidy. So it was true what she'd heard: Sally really had divorced Julian. And here was Millie using Sally's name instead of her father's. What did that say about the separation?

The other teenagers lined up and took turns to write on the pad.

Nial Sweetman, Sophie Sweetman, Ralph Hernandez.

Ralph Hernandez.

Zoe stared at the name, moving her jaw from side to side. She put on a calm smile and raised her head to him. She hadn't taken much notice of him until now. He was slight, medium height, with wiry dark hair and olive skin. Apart from his tie, which was knotted the way they all seemed to these days, puffed up and wide, like some seventies TV cop's, he was dressed more conventionally than the others, in that at least his trousers appeared to almost fit him and the spikes in his hair weren't totally outlandish. His fierce brown eyes were bloodshot.

'So.' She forced her voice to sound casual. 'What can I do for you all?'

There was a moment's silence. Then the one called Nial nudged the one called Peter. Sophie and Millie kept still, their eyes on the floor. Ralph rubbed the back of his sleeve nervously across his forehead.

'It's like this,' said Peter. 'Ralph's scared.'

'Concerned,' Ralph corrected. 'A little concerned. That's all.'

'I see. And why are you concerned?'

'I was ...' He scratched his arms. 'I was ...'

'He was with Lorne,' Peter said, 'the night she was killed.'

Zoe cupped her chin with her fingers. Gave the teenagers a ruminative look. In her chest her heart was knocking like a tomtom. Here was Debbie and Ben's 'killer'. All five foot ten of him. And meanwhile, if she was right about that message on Lorne, the real killer was out there somewhere. Maybe thinking about number two. 'OK,' she said calmly. 'And obviously there was a reason you didn't mention this before.'

'I've never told my parents I'd got a girlfriend. And Lorne never told anyone about me either. It was supposed to be a secret.'

'His parents are Catholic. They find that sort of thing a bit you know.'

'Can you help him?' Nial asked. 'He doesn't know what to do.'

'Help? I'm not sure about help. This is serious. I know you know that you're not stupid. But we'll take this slowly. Ralph, Lorne was your girlfriend. How long had you been seeing her?'

'Only a couple of weeks. But I loved her. I mean that. She was the one for me.' There was something tight in his voice that said he wasn't lying. 'Please,' he said, and for a moment he sounded like a little kid. A kid left out in the rain and begging to come inside. 'Please, I just don't know what to do.' He straightened against the wall and put his head back against the plaster, shaking it. 'Honestly, I think I'd be better off dead.'

'Come on,' she said, leaning forward, 'let's take a deep breath, shall we?' Technically she should be thinking about calling in the child-protection units, with a minor saying things about wanting to die, but she'd never get the story out of him if she did that. 'OK? You OK?'

After a moment or two he licked his lips and muttered, 'Yeah.'

'And calmly now, Ralph, just calmly, knowing how awful you feel about all of this, and knowing how much you want to help us catch whoever did this to Lorne, take me through what happened that night.'

The room fell quiet. All the other teenagers had their attention on him. He lowered his eyes to his hands, which he held in tight fists. 'She told her mum she was shopping, but actually she was meeting me. Up near Beckford's Tower. Where we always met.'

Beckford's. The great Victorian monument that drunken farmers were supposed to have used to find their way home at night, with its neocla.s.sical belvedere, its gilded lantern. It stood in a cemetery at the top of Lansdown and could be seen from all across the city. It was also on one of the bus routes that came through the stop near the ca.n.a.l. Zoe sighed. Lorne must have been on the bus because she'd been up at Beckford's with Ralph. 'So, what time was that?'

'About five thirty, I think.'

'How long were you there?'

'I'm really not sure. It could have been an hour. It could have been an hour and a half.'

'You don't know?'

'I didn't check my watch. I just didn't. Otherwise I'd tell you.'

So, up to ninety minutes maximum. Add to that the ten minutes or so bus ride to the centre of town and there was still the outside chance Lorne had gone somewhere after leaving Ralph before going to the ca.n.a.l.

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