Текст книги "The Blissfully Dead"

Автор книги: Louise Voss

Соавторы: Mark Edwards
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Chapter 52

Day 14 – Patrick

Patrick and Carmella had arranged to meet at her flat, which was close to Chloe’s address, and were now together in Patrick’s car. As usual, Carmella looked as fresh as a newly bathed baby; her red curls in individually spaced, smooth spirals; her skin dewy-clear. Patrick had no idea how she did it. His skin felt prickly and sticky; his lower back aching from sitting in the car; his tinnitus whistling feedback in his ears; and his throat sore from constantly puffing on his e-cig. I’m falling apart, he thought.

‘Have you managed to get through to Gareth about Hammond’s bodyguard?’ he asked.

‘Not yet. He wasn’t answering.’ She produced her phone. ‘You think he’s our man?’

‘I don’t know. Have we encountered him?’ Patrick felt the need to consult his Moleskine, but it was back at the office.

Carmella had her phone to her ear, waiting for Gareth to answer. ‘I think he was there when we went to Global Sounds Music, waiting in reception . . . Hello, Gareth? You all right? Listen, what’s Mervyn Hammond’s bodyguard called? . . . Kerry Mangan. What do you know about him?’

Patrick half-listened, while trying to puzzle everything out at the same time. Mervyn had insisted he’d been set up, that the ‘LUCKY’ knickers had been planted at his house. The DNA result wasn’t back yet, but that didn’t matter. If, God forbid, Chloe and Jade had been abducted, then obviously Mervyn, who had been in police company all day, couldn’t be responsible. There was a chance he was connected, was orchestrating everything, but after what Chloe’s mother had said, Lennon had discounted him pretty much entirely – though he was glad they were still holding him. Hammond had shifted from number one suspect to their most important witness.

Because if the underwear had been planted at Mervyn’s house, it must have been put there by somebody who’d been at the party. The same man who’d called the next morning and left the anonymous tip. They knew for certain that Mangan had been at the party, and had given Jade a lift home. Had he arranged to meet her again later?

Was he the killer?

Whoever it was, they now had a probable motive to explain why the killer had taken the girls’ clothes from the two crime scenes. He had been saving them to plant on some other poor sucker. That poor sucker being Mervyn.

Carmella ended the call. ‘Mangan was with Hammond when they visited the children’s home. And while Gareth was talking, I remembered something Roisin told me in Ireland. She said something about Mervyn’s bodyguard being there, giving her dirty looks while Mervyn was persuading her to keep quiet. I’m pretty sure he was there at the signing at Waterstones too. I have this memory of him looking over at me and Wendy when I was talking to her . . .’

‘We need to get a photo to Chelsea Fox,’ Patrick said.

Carmella nodded. ‘Gareth told me that Mangan is ex-army, but was discharged back in the nineties for reasons Winkler was unable to ascertain. Let me ring Gareth back, see if he can get a photo now.’

‘Get an address first. We’ll go to Mangan’s now, assuming we can get his address. Then tell Gareth to get round to Chelsea Fox’s, show her Mangan’s photo.’

Adrenalin surged beneath Patrick’s skin. But running alongside the excitement, the conviction that they were close, so close, was a deep, horrible fear. Jess had been missing for twenty-four hours before her body was found, suggesting that the killer liked to play with his victims like a cat with a mouse.

Jade could already be dead. Possibly Chloe Hedges too – he’d instructed Rebecca to ring him the second she turned up, and there had been no call.

The alternative, Patrick thought with a shudder, was even worse. Both girls could be suffering torture, right now, begging not for their lives but to die. For the pain to end.

Chapter 53

Day 14 – Patrick

Halfway to Kerry Mangan’s place, the address of which Gareth had sent them within minutes of talking to Carmella, Patrick noticed the petrol light flashing in his car, reminding him that he’d been meaning to fill up for the past two days. The dashboard informed him he had five miles left till the tank was empty. He banged the steering wheel with his fist. For fuck’s sake. Normally, this would have drawn a quip from Carmella, but she was as tense as he was; her knee bouncing up and down; swearing at the traffic; leaning out of the window at one point and aiming a stream of insults in her thickest Irish accent at a portly man who was blocking the road with his white van. She didn’t look quite so fresh anymore.

‘Which one of us will have a heart attack first, do you think?’ Patrick asked, as they turned into the street in Surbiton where Mangan lived.

Carmella didn’t reply. She was too busy gawping at the scene halfway down the street.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ she asked, unbuckling her seat belt as Patrick did something he’d never done before: bumper parking the car, shoving a tiny Fiat a foot forward so he could squeeze into a space.

A mixed-race teenager was hammering on the front door of a Victorian terraced house, before stepping back and yelling up at the first-floor window. ‘Jade! I know you’re in there with him, bae! Come out, you fucking slag, I love you.’

‘Police!’ Carmella shouted and the boy turned his stricken face towards them, his mouth dropping open. Tears streaked his spotty cheeks and his fists were red from where he’d been thumping the door.

Patrick ran towards the teenager and for a moment he thought the kid was going to do a runner, that they were going to have to chase him. But then he heard a window open above them and they all looked up.

A muscular man with cropped hair – Patrick remembered him from the reception area at Global Sounds – leaned out and called down, ‘Are you the police? You got here quick – I only just put the phone down.’

‘Are you Kerry Mangan?’ Patrick asked, but the man’s reply was drowned out by the boy screeching, ‘Where’s Jade? She’s in there with you, isn’t she? Jade! Come out! I love you!’

‘This little twat thinks I’ve got his bird in here.’ Mangan laughed.

We’ve got it wrong, Patrick thought with a lurch in his gut, peering up at the bodyguard, at the mixture of irritation and amusement on his face. Got it wrong again.

‘Shut up, you,’ he said to the boy, who was immediately cowed. He muttered something about Mangan being a ‘homewrecker’, then hung his head.

‘What’s your name?’ Patrick demanded. ‘And how do you know Jade?’

‘She’s my girlfriend,’ the boy said meekly.

‘And your name?’

‘Kai Topper.’

‘Is Jade Pilkington in there?’ Carmella asked, calling up to Mangan.

‘What, that OnTarget nut? You must be fucking kidding.’

‘He’s lying,’ Topper said.

‘Can you let us in?’ Patrick asked.

Mangan pointed at Kai Topper. ‘As long as you keep that dickhead away from me.’

Some bodyguard, Patrick thought. He turned to the teenager. ‘Kai, I think you need to cool down, all right? Let’s put you in the back of our car for a minute while we have a word with Mr Mangan.’

‘Are you arresting me? I ain’t done nothing!’

‘We just want you to cool down, OK? Come on . . .’

He escorted Topper along the road to the car, put him in the back seat and locked the doors so he couldn’t get out.

Kerry Mangan was waiting on his doorstep when Patrick got back to the house, talking to Carmella. Mangan was unshaven and wrapped in a navy towelling dressing gown, with bare feet. ‘I was in the bath when I suddenly heard someone banging on the door and yelling.’ He yawned. ‘Stupid prat. Why the hell does he think his bird would be here? Come in and see for yourself.’

They followed Mangan up a staircase and into his flat. He led them into the living room. It was all very tastefully decorated, if somewhat uninspired, framed prints from Ikea above furniture from the same store.

‘Mind if I take a look around?’ Patrick asked.

‘What, you really think she might be here?’

‘We just need to check.’

Mangan shrugged. ‘Fine. Whatever. But it’s a bit messy. Like I said, I just jumped out the bath. I’ve been asleep all day, had a late one last night.’

Patrick left Mangan with Carmella – he heard her start to make small talk about a framed photo of Mangan in Dublin – and went into the little kitchen first, then the bathroom. The bath was still filled with water and the choppy remains of bubbles. A plastic eye mask hung from the tap and a paperback novel lay face down on the toilet lid.

Next he checked the spare room, which was piled high with junk, before going into the bedroom. A double bed with a crumpled duvet, piles of clothes on the floor. He checked the wardrobes and under the bed, feeling foolish. As he was about to leave the room, he noticed a framed photo on the bedside table. Kerry Mangan and a good-looking tanned man, their cheeks pressed together, beaming at the camera.

‘Satisfied I’m not hiding any teenage girls?’ Mangan asked as Patrick re-entered the living room. The bodyguard was seated in an armchair, Carmella on the sofa opposite. Patrick took a seat beside her.

‘Jade Pilkington is missing,’ he said. ‘We’re extremely concerned about her well-being. Do you have any idea where she might be?’

‘Shit, you think . . . ? Like those other poor girls? Fuck.’ He pulled his dressing gown tightly around him. ‘I gave her a lift home from this party Mervyn had at his place last night. She said her boyfriend was doing her head in and asked me if I was heading back into town. I don’t normally give lifts to girls I don’t know, by the way. But the party got so wild towards the end, everyone was off their tits all of a sudden – not me, ’cos I was driving, obviously. I felt a bit worried about her, so I offered to drive her back. She’d already said she lived quite close to me.’

‘Did anything happen between you?’ Carmella asked.

Mangan laughed. ‘What, you mean, did I bring her back here and shag her? I don’t think my boyfriend would like that very much.’

‘Oh,’ said Carmella. Patrick couldn’t help but smile, and wished he’d had a chance to tell Carmella about the photo in the bedroom.

‘Is that why you were discharged from the army?’ Patrick asked.

Mangan’s expression darkened. ‘Yeah. They still did that in the nineties. I had to, like, hide it when I first joined up, but they found out, the fuckers. That’s one of the reasons Mervyn took me on . . . When I applied for the job at his company I told him the truth about why I was discharged and he was furious, said it was a disgrace.’

Something struck Patrick. Mervyn Hammond had never been married. He lived the life of a bachelor. ‘Is Mervyn gay too?’

‘Nah. I thought he was, at first. Thought he was in the closet, like a lot of blokes of his generation. But he doesn’t seem to be interested in men or women. He’s one of them asexuals. All he’s interested in is his business and his model railways.’

Patrick wanted to get back onto the subject of Jade, but there was something he needed to know first. ‘Kerry, why did you and Mervyn visit St Mary’s Children’s Home the other night?’

‘Hasn’t he told you? I guess he wouldn’t. He doesn’t like anyone to know about it. Very private, is Mervyn.’

Patrick nodded. This chimed with what Chloe Hedges’ mum had told them about his work helping kids with cancer.

‘He helps them with their fundraising. Plus he works with the kids, gives them inspirational talks about never letting themselves be handicapped by their background, their start in life. He tells them they can achieve anything if they put their minds to it. He’s great at that stuff. I’m always telling him he should go public, put his talents to wider use, but he won’t.’

‘Why does Mervyn need a bodyguard?’ Carmella asked.

Mangan grinned. ‘He doesn’t really. It’s all for show. Good for his image, you know, makes him look important. Plus I think he likes my company. He might act like he’s the king of the world half the time, but I reckon he’s lonely really. Christ, don’t tell him I told you that.’

‘We won’t.’ Patrick felt slightly ashamed. First, Rebecca Hedges had told them about Mervyn’s work with children, and now this. They had got him all wrong – although it was understandable with the image Hammond projected of himself. Patrick couldn’t decide if the public relations man was brilliant or terrible at doing his own personal PR, but it reminded him of a lesson this job had taught him over the years: never take anyone at face value. Everybody has secrets, and not all secrets are bad.

‘Let’s get back to Jade,’ Patrick said. ‘Where did you drop her? At home?’

‘Yeah. It was about three by the time we got there. I was knackered, but she kept me awake on the way home babbling on about someone who’d messaged her.’

Patrick leaned forwards. ‘Did she say who?’

Mangan twigged to the importance of what Patrick was asking. ‘Shit. I wasn’t really listening, to be honest. She was going on and on about how “someone amazing” had told her he’d seen her and wanted to meet her. It was like she wanted me to ask her who this amazing person was, but I wasn’t that interested. I just wanted to get home.’

‘Do you remember if she said when she’d got the message?’

‘I’m pretty sure it was at the party.’

‘And the person who sent the message was at the party too?’

‘I think so. God, I’m sorry, hang on.’ He propped his chin on his fist, thinking hard. ‘Yeah, I’m sure she did. She said something like, “Maybe he liked me in my waitress uniform,” and started giggling.’

‘But she definitely didn’t give you a name?’

‘No.’

‘Not Shawn Barrett?’

Mangan’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t think it’s him, do you? I thought you questioned him already.’

‘I think it’s someone pretending to be Shawn.’

Someone who was at the party. The same person who’d planted the evidence to frame Mervyn.

They thanked Mangan and headed back to the car. Patrick had almost forgotten that Kai Topper was on the back seat, looking like a dog who’d been locked in by a thoughtless owner. Patrick slid into the driver’s seat, Carmella climbing in next to him, and turned round to talk to Topper.

‘She’s not there,’ Patrick said.

‘Are you sure?’ His eyes were bloodshot and watery and Patrick was sure he’d been crying again. Did he realise how much danger his girlfriend was in?

‘We’re going to take you back to the station,’ he said. ‘We– For fuck’s sake!’

Topper had produced a knife from his inside pocket. Patrick immediately dived between the seats, grabbing the boy’s wrist and twisting his arm. Topper cried out and the knife fell onto the car seat. Patrick snatched it up. Carmella had already exited the car and yanked the door beside Topper open, handcuffs at the ready.

‘I wasn’t going to stab you!’ Topper blurted. ‘I just thought I’d better tell you I had it.’

‘Got any more concealed weapons?’

‘No. I swear.’

‘What were you doing, Kai? Planning to stab Kerry Mangan?’

Topper’s eyes fell. ‘I wouldn’t have actually done it. But he’s a hard man, a bodyguard. I thought he might attack me. I just . . . I just want to find Jade.’

As he spoke, Carmella searched him and cuffed his hands behind his back, just in case.

‘You’re going to tell us everything you know, Kai,’ Patrick said. ‘If you do, I’ll think about letting you off with a caution. Understand?’

The boy refused to meet his eye. ‘Yeah.’

‘Good. And in the meantime, you know what I want you to do?’

‘What?’ The boy’s voice was a squeak.

‘I want you to shut the fuck up.’

Chapter 54

Day 14 – Patrick

The incident room was packed full of bodies, every pair of eyes focused on Patrick as he paced up and down in front of the whiteboard. Photos of Chloe Hedges and Jade Pilkington had been pinned up beside the pictures of Jessica and Rose, plus the smaller one of Nancy Marr. Patrick stopped pacing and raised a hand, the whole room falling silent, including Winkler, who was skulking in the corner. Gareth was there too, refusing to meet Patrick’s eye, and Suzanne, standing upright by the door with her arms crossed, one foot tapping anxiously. It was 7.30 p.m. but nobody wanted to go home. Patrick knew this team would stay here all night if they were needed.

‘I’ll keep this brief,’ Patrick said. ‘But I want everybody up to speed with what’s going on. The first thing to say is that, contrary to rumour, we do not believe Mervyn Hammond is guilty of the murders – not least because he’s been here all day and, before that, DI Winkler was with him.’

Several heads turned towards Winkler, who pretended to be examining something beneath his fingernails. Fifteen minutes earlier, Winkler had called Sandwell, the journalist who accused Hammond of molesting a teenage girl years before. Hearing that Hammond was in custody, Sandwell had panicked at the thought of testifying in court and admitted to making the whole thing up, trying to settle old scores.

‘However, we are keeping Hammond at the station for the time being as we believe he holds important information and we don’t want to lose track of him. We also have Jade Pilkington’s boyfriend, Kai Topper, here for an interview.’

He turned to the whiteboard.

‘Here’s what we know at the moment: Jade Pilkington got a lift home from Hammond’s party last night and was dropped off just after 3 a.m. At noon, Topper went round to her house, but she wasn’t in. Luckily for us, Topper had an app linking his and Jade’s phones, so he could trace where she was.’

‘Creepy little fucker,’ said Winkler.

‘The phone signal told him Jade was at a place called Platt’s Eyot. He went there and looked round, but there was no sign of Jade or her phone, and the signal had gone, like the phone had been turned off. He then assumed she must have hooked up with Kerry Mangan after the party and headed round there, having looked up his address online.’ Patrick paused for a moment. Most people were shocked to discover how easy it was to find home addresses on the Web. ‘But Mangan hasn’t seen Jade since he dropped her home at 3 a.m. I’ve sent a couple of uniforms to this Platt’s Eyot place to look for the missing phone.

‘Chloe Hedges went out at around 4 p.m.,’ Patrick went on. ‘She told her mum that she was going to meet a friend and that they were planning to go shopping in Kingston later. We’ve contacted the friend, Pareesa, who tells us she had no plans to meet up with Chloe and, in fact, hasn’t heard from her for a few days. We called the Bentall Centre in Kingston who put out a tannoy announcement that got no response, and I’m going to ask one of you to go down there to review CCTV footage, though we don’t believe she ever went there. We are trying to pinpoint the location of Chloe’s phone, but it appears to be switched off.’

He paused and surveyed the room, ensuring that everyone was listening.

‘Here’s why we believe Chloe and Jade are in danger, why they may have been targeted and haven’t just gone off somewhere, either together or separately: we discovered that Rose and Jessica were the co-authors of a piece of fiction on a website called StoryPad.’

Martin Hale nodded as Patrick said this.

‘There were two other co-authors: Chloe and Jade. We don’t know what it is about this story that has made them the target of the killer – we’re going to talk to Kai Topper about this shortly.’

Winkler finally piped up. ‘You reckon someone killed them because of a story? What’s it about?’

Patrick counted to three under his breath before replying. Stay calm. Don’t let him rile you.

‘It’s about OnTarget. Carmella and I have read parts of it, but it doesn’t appear to contain any clues – certainly not clear ones. StoryPad have provided us with a huge number of comments that were made about the story by other users and we’ll need a couple of you to go through these. Though we’re hoping Topper will be able to save us the trouble. We’ve also spoken to Strong’s team who have confirmed that Wendy had been looking at StoryPad shortly before she left the station and headed to the Rotunda. My belief is that she discovered something that put her in danger – that she made contact with the killer.’

There was an audible puff of breath from half the officers in the room. Patrick thought he could feel a draught.

‘Finally, we all know that somebody called the station this morning informing us that we would find Rose’s underwear at Hammond’s house, which led to his arrest. We believe that this caller planted this evidence during the party last night and made contact with Jade at the same time. Given everything that has happened today, it’s likely that this was a diversionary tactic – intended to distract us today while they went after Chloe and Jade.’

He gestured at the photos of the two missing girls, drawing every pair of eyes in the room to the pictures.

‘I want you all to be aware that we don’t have much time. The man who murdered Rose and Jess did not keep them alive for long. And during the time he did have them, he tortured them. Chloe and Jade may already be dead. And if they’re not dead yet . . .’ He let his words hang in the air.

‘I’ve got a theory,’ said Winkler.

Patrick suppressed a groan. ‘Let’s have it, then.’

‘What if Chloe and Jade are the killers? They murdered the other two girls. Jade planted the knickers at Hammond’s gaff last night. All this stuff about her getting a mysterious message is bullshit. They’ve got scared and done a runner.’

Patrick had already thought of this. ‘Chloe has a solid alibi for the time of all of the murders. And Kai Topper says Jade was at her house with him, with her mum downstairs, when Rose and Wendy were murdered. We can’t get hold of Jade’s mother at the moment to corroborate this, but we believe him.’

‘And how does the old lady fit in?’ Winkler asked. ‘She writing stuff about OnTarget too?’ He laughed and looked round for others to join in. Nobody glanced at him.

‘We don’t know that yet. But we’re going to find out. And we’re going to find these girls.’

‘Dead or alive,’ said Winkler. Before Patrick could respond, he added, ‘Right, I’d better go and talk to Hammond, find out who else was at this party last night.’

‘No way.’

Patrick turned his head. It was Suzanne. She took a step towards Winkler, a fierce expression making the other detective visibly shrink away. ‘Everybody else can leave the room now. But don’t leave the station. You’d better call your partners and spouses: tell them not to wait up.’

The rest of the officers filed out, leaving Patrick, Suzanne, Winkler and Carmella, whose arm Suzanne had caught as she went to exit the room.

Suzanne addressed Winkler again. ‘I’ve already spoken to Mr Hammond and he’s willing to help us.’

‘Great.’ Winkler looked relieved.

‘But only if you apologise to him.’

‘What?’

‘He told me about your behaviour at his house. What you did to his personal property. I’ve persuaded him not to make a complaint against you by offering my own time. I’m going to talk to the children at St Mary’s and the other children’s homes where he volunteers, help Mervyn out by talking to them about a career in the police force. A good cause, and one I’m happy to help with. But he also wants a personal apology from you.’

‘But—’

She jabbed a finger at him. ‘Not just an apology, Adrian. He wants you to grovel. Now get out there and do it.’

As Winkler slunk from the room, Patrick was almost able to raise a smile.

‘Carmella, after Winkler’s begged for Mervyn’s forgiveness I want you to go in and get the details of who was at the party.’

‘And I’m going to talk to Kai Topper,’ Patrick said. He rolled his eyes. ‘Hopefully he’ll have stopped crying by now.’

Topper had indeed ceased his blubbing. He sat in interview room three, twisting a can of Coke in circles, fidgeting and chewing his grubby fingernails. As soon as Patrick entered the room he looked up hopefully. ‘Have you found her?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ Patrick took the seat opposite Kai.

He had already asked the boy if he had any idea where Jade might have gone, if there were places where his girlfriend hung out, friends she might be with. Topper had simply repeated that he was sure Jade had gone off with another bloke. ‘They’re probably doing it right now.’ He’d sniffed, but he sounded less sure.

‘Kai,’ Patrick said now, ‘I need to ask you some more questions about Jade, OK?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘Kai. It’s vitally important that you tell me the truth, that you don’t try to protect Jade or yourself. All we care about is finding Jade. If there’s anything she did that might have got her into trouble, we don’t care about that right now.’

Topper gawped at him. ‘What do you mean? You think she’s in trouble? What kind of trouble?’

Patrick knew there was only one way to ensure Topper told him any uncomfortable truths, assuming he genuinely cared for Jade and hadn’t been spilling crocodile tears. ‘We think Jade might be in danger, Kai.’

To guarantee the full impact of this he opened his Moleskine and wrote ‘DANGER’ in block capitals at the top of a fresh page, then underlined it twice, making sure Kai could see it.

‘Oh my days.’

‘But if you tell me everything you know, we can find her. Stop her coming to any harm. OK?’

The boy nodded eagerly.

‘Firstly, how come you two ended up working at Mervyn Hammond’s party? Do you know him or something?’

Kai shook his head. ‘Nah, man. Jade got us the jobs with some temp agency. It was the first time we’d worked for him.’

‘Bit of a coincidence, wasn’t it, that the first job you got was working at a party that Jade’s idols were at?’

‘Not really. She got told to apply, by someone on the forum, like, a tip-off that the band would be there. She wouldn’t have done it otherwise. She hates working.’

‘And how was it?’

Kai shrugged. ‘Boring. Shit money. The guests were horrible, dead rude to me—’ He stopped abruptly, slapping his forehead. ‘Shit!’

‘What?’

The boy swallowed hard. ‘I did something.’

‘What? What did you do?’

‘I think it’s my fault, if someone’s got Jade.’

‘How come?’ Patrick held his breath, trying to sound nonchalant.

‘Oh man.’

‘Tell us, Kai.’

He looked up at Patrick with eyes like a cowed puppy. ‘It wasn’t my gear, so you can’t nick me for dealing! I swear to God I, er, found it, under a railway bridge couple weeks ago, someone must’ve dropped it . . .’

‘Drugs? What’s that got to do with Jade? What sort of drugs?’

‘It was a bottle of liquid acid. In one of them ziplock bags. I don’t do acid, and I didn’t want to sell it ’cos I ain’t no dealer . . . I’d put it in me backpack and forgot about it . . . until that night.’

‘What did you do, Kai?’

In a tiny little voice, Kai said, ‘It was near the end of the party. I got fed up with them all being ungrateful twats. Jade was in a right strop with me, flirting like mad with that Kerry and all. So I thought it might be funny if they all got off their tits, specially him – but that didn’t work, did it, ’cos he was driving, so he didn’t drink the punch . . .’

‘You spiked the punch?’ Pat shook his head. Stupid idiot. ‘How much did you put in it?’

Kai shrugged. ‘It was a small bottle. Big bowl, though. Are you gonna nick me?’

Tears filled his eyes again and he held out his wrists, inviting Patrick to handcuff him.

‘Nick me. Go on, I deserve it. I reckon someone got so high that he followed Jade home and has done something to her. I thought it was that Mangan bloke, but it must have been someone else . . .’ He dissolved into sobs again.

Patrick feared the interview was getting out of control. He handed Kai a tissue and the boy scrubbed at his face.

‘Kai, I don’t think that’s the case. We know that Kerry drove her home. It’s hardly likely that someone else followed them, is it? If anyone was that high, there’s no way they’d have been capable of that. I’m not going to nick you, not right now. It was a dangerous and, frankly, moronic thing to do, but we need to concentrate on finding Jade. So – let’s go back a bit. Who was it on the forums who told Jade to apply for the job?’

Kai shrugged. ‘No idea.’

Patrick sighed. It would have been too good to be true, if Kai could have given him a name.

‘OK. Let’s talk about something else. What do you know about Jade and StoryPad? Specifically a story she wrote called Fresh Blood.’

Topper went pale, sitting back in his chair. His reaction was worse than when he’d confessed to spiking the punch and Patrick suddenly had a horrible feeling that he was going to have to ratchet up the ‘Jade’s in danger’ stuff.

‘What are you asking about that for?’

‘We know that Jade was one of four co-authors of that story. Two of them are dead, Kai. The fourth, Chloe Hedges, is also missing.’

‘Chloe? What, F-U-Cancer? I only saw her the other day. She had this UV nail thing of Jade’s and I went round to get it back. She’s a nice girl.’

‘A good friend of Jade’s?’

Kai tipped his head from side to side. ‘They fell out, didn’t they? After that . . . Fresh Blood thing.’

Patrick wanted to grab Kai and shake the story out of him, wished he could lift off the top of his skull and pluck the answers out of his brain, rather than having to drag them out of him like this.

‘Tell me from the beginning, Kai.’

‘All right. Like you said, there was four of them: Jade, Chloe, MissTargetHeart and YOLOSWAG.’

‘Rose and Jess.’

‘Yeah. Jade didn’t really know them in real life, not properly. She’d met them at some OnT gigs and sort of became mates with Chloe. We went to Rose’s vigil, but I don’t think Jade ever really knew her. She wasn’t that cut up when Rose got killed, anyway.’

‘So they were mainly online friends . . .’

‘Yeah. Jade’s on the OnT forum all the time. It does my head in, to be honest. But she met the others on there and I think they started chatting about StoryPad and all the OnT fan fiction on there. Jade had written a few things, same as the others had. But Jade thought most of the stuff on there was pretty shit and suggested that they team up to write something really, like, epic.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, that’s what they did. I barely saw her for a couple of weeks because she was spending all her time, when she wasn’t at school, writing. Jade’s really imaginative. She came up with most of the story, I think. But Chloe was better at writing it down. I don’t think the other two did that much. Just wrote the odd bit here and there. Jade was always moaning about how them two didn’t contribute enough, you know?’