Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley #1)(29)

‘I know, and I agree with you. The odds are vanishingly small. In fact, there’s only one way that would make sense and that’s if someone was already watching the family and saw their opportunity when Sharon went out. Possibly someone Daisy knew, and would have let into the house. And that may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Everett – can you share what you got from Daisy’s friends?’

Verity Everett stands up. ‘I just got back from speaking to Nanxi Chen and Portia Dawson. They both confirmed that Daisy had met someone recently and that it was a big secret. Neither could tell me who it was, but both said Daisy was angry afterwards and wouldn’t speak to them about it.’

‘And you’re sure,’ says Baxter, ‘that they meant angry, not upset?’

Everett stands firm. ‘Definitely angry. And there’s something else. The kids in Daisy’s class wrote fairy stories this term, and Daisy’s has gone missing. The teacher’s going to have another look for it. And yes, it could just be a complete coincidence, but we’ll need to check that no one’s been in that classroom who wasn’t supposed to be there. Because it’s just possible there’s something in that story that could identify the person she’d been meeting. Something that person doesn’t want anyone to see.’

‘So,’ I say, looking around the room, ‘we urgently need to find out who that person was. And given Daisy Mason seems to have been pretty closely monitored most of the time, my guess is the only place she could have met anyone without her parents knowing is at the school. So I need someone to go through the CCTV at Bishop Christopher’s for the last six weeks. Every break-time, every lunchtime. Extra brownie points for volunteering or else I just pick a victim.’

I scan their faces. ‘OK, if there’s no takers it’s your turn to get the short straw, Baxter.’

‘He won’t mind,’ quips Gislingham. ‘He’s an Aston Villa fan. He’s used to watching a screen for hours and nothing happening.’

‘What about the boy?’ says someone else at the back, over the ensuing laughter. ‘Leo – what’s his story? Surely he would have heard if someone got into the house?’

I wait for the noise to die down. ‘Good question. Bloody good question, in fact. When we first questioned Leo he said that Daisy got distracted by a butterfly on the walk home and he went on without her. Which didn’t tally with what Sharon said about Daisy getting home first. So we pushed him a bit more and got a different story entirely. What he says now is that some of the older boys have been bullying him at school, and they caught up with him and Daisy on the way home on Tuesday and started to have a go. Pushing him about, making fun of his name. They call him “Nuka the puker”, apparently. Nuka’s a character in The Lion King. For those of you who haven’t seen it. The mangy one.’

‘Christ,’ says Baxter. ‘It’s all a bit bloody poncey, isn’t it? It was Zit-face and Fat-bum when I was at school.’

More laughter. Baxter, for the record, is rather on the chunky side, but at least the zits are long gone.

‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ says Everett drily. ‘The sort of kids you get at that school – that’s definitely the sort of smart-arse thing they’d come out with.’

‘The point is,’ I say, raising my voice, ‘Leo says Daisy ran away when the bullies caught up with them, and that’s why she got back before he did. Sharon Mason claims to know nothing about any of this, incidentally. According to this latest version of events, Leo went straight to his room when he got back and shut the door, so in theory he may not have heard anyone come into the house. He says he was annoyed with Daisy because she ran off and left him on his own, and he kept out of her way at the party for the same reason, which is why he didn’t realize the girl in the daisy outfit wasn’t her. I’m not sure I buy that, but he wouldn’t budge on it, however much I pushed him. What does ring true is that Daisy and Leo had some sort of row on the way home.’

‘Could it actually have been him?’ says Baxter. ‘If they had a row on the way home, could he have attacked her? Kids that age can be pretty volatile – she might have fallen over, hit her head – ’

‘In theory, yes, but if he did, where’s the body? There’s no way a child of ten could hide a body so well we haven’t found it. Even if he had plenty of time, which he didn’t.’

‘OK,’ says Baxter, though I can tell he’s not completely convinced. ‘But even if we discount him as a suspect, how much of this new story of his can we really believe? Some kids that age don’t even know the difference between truth and lies.’

Boys that age, I think. Boys Jake’s age.

‘I don’t think he’s lying.’ It’s Gislingham, loudly, into the silence. ‘Not about the bullying, anyway. Leo’s form teacher, Melanie Harris, says she thinks it’s been going on most of this term – his clothes were torn a couple of times and he had grazes on his hands, but they could never catch the kids responsible and Leo kept insisting he had just fallen over or something. Without an official complaint there wasn’t much they could do. But he’s definitely been acting up.’

Quinn considers. ‘Didn’t Sharon say he’d been moody?’

But Gislingham is shaking his head. They’ve been doing this low-level needling for weeks – ever since Quinn got bumped up to DS. ‘I think this is more than just moody. He’s had temper tantrums, been disruptive in class. A couple of weeks ago he went for another kid’s eye with a pencil – the head teacher suspected it was one of the boys who’ve been bullying him. Leo didn’t do the kid any actual damage, which is probably the only reason he got away with it. They got Sharon Mason into the school about it but she refused to take any of it seriously. Kept saying “boys will be boys”, apparently, and “children are so mollycoddled these days” and stuff like that.’