there several times. Jack didn’t come.’
‘Did she never go to Silvermeadow?’ Kathy asked.
‘I don’t think that she ever did. Did she, love?’ She turned to Naomi, who shrugged indifferently. ‘Anyway, how can we help you?’
Kathy showed Naomi the photographs. She studied each one slowly before shaking her head.
‘What about the little girl?’ Kathy asked, pointing at the picture, but again the answer was no.
‘So what’s this in aid of then?’ Jack Tait said. ‘I thought you’d found the bastard who was responsible for Kerri. The papers said he topped himself.’
‘There are still some loose ends, Mr Tait.’ Brock spoke for the first time, very deliberately. ‘And we’re pretty sure that Naomi can help us sort them out.’ He looked at the girl, who slowly raised her eyes and met his.
‘Like what?’ her grandfather demanded.
‘The man you just referred to, he died from an overdose of a drug.’
Mr Tait snorted with disgust. ‘Figures.’
‘This drug is manufactured as an anaesthetic, for animals.’
Kathy sensed both grandparents stiffen as this sank in. But Naomi, still and attentive, her eyes fixed on Brock’s face, showed no reaction at all.
‘It’s known as Ketapet, and it’s used by vets. In fact it’s one of the drugs that Kimberley was accused of stealing from-’
‘Now just wait a minute!’ Jack Tait half rose out of his seat, face reddening with anger.
‘Jack!’ his wife interrupted sharply. ‘I’m sure they’re not suggesting there’s any connection with Kimberley.’
‘Well, yes, I’m afraid there is, Mrs Tait. We’ve established that it was exactly the same batch of that drug that Kimberley took. Isn’t that right, Naomi?’
‘Naomi?’ her grandmother cried, horrified. ‘What’s it got to do with Naomi?’
‘I’d like her to tell us,’ Brock insisted.
The girl continued staring at him for a moment, then lowered her eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’
Jack Tait immediately said, ‘There!’ His wife just stared at Naomi for a moment, then got up and went and sat by her side, putting an arm round her shoulders.
‘Naomi,’ Kathy said, ‘please tell us everything you know. It’s very important. You remember when I told you about the drug we’d found in Wiff ’s den? And you asked what the drug was? When I told you ketamine you were shocked and upset. You knew, didn’t you? Well, we found Wiff later that night, and Speedy. Both of them were dead, from overdoses of ketamine, the same stuff your sister had.’
Mrs Tait put a hand to her mouth, looking as if some familiar horror was revisiting her, but Naomi was as unmoved as before. ‘No,’ she said calmly. ‘I told you what I thought. I knew that Kerri had tried K, and I thought Wiff might have been killed by the same man as gave it to her.’
‘But how could it possibly be the same batch as your sister had?’
‘I dunno. I s’pose she must have sold it to someone, and they sold it to someone else. How would I know? You can give me a blood test if you like-I’ve never touched that stuff.’
‘But your gran just told us that Kimberley never went to Silvermeadow. Whereas you-’
‘You tricked me into saying that!’ Mrs Tait said indignantly. ‘I don’t know whether she went or not. She may have done, without telling me. But Naomi’s a good girl. She wouldn’t get mixed up-’
Her husband raised himself unsteadily to his feet, face furious. ‘I’ve ’ad enough of this.’ His voice choked with phlegm and he fought to continue, his good hand pointing at the door. ‘You get out, you hear? Get out!’
Brock got to his feet. ‘No need to get upset, Mr Tait. We’re going. We had to ask these questions, you understand. Last thing we want is to cause you more upset, especially at this time of year.’ He looked again at Naomi, giving her a kindly grin when she looked up. She made a sad little smile in return, and Mrs Tait, somewhat mollified, showed them to the door.
As they made their way along the deck, Brock muttered, ‘Yes, she knows.’ ‘You think?’
‘I’m sure of it. She had the same look that those two kids had when they showed me their handiwork with the tree. She knows exactly how her sister’s Ketapet got to Silvermeadow. But she’s thought her story through, and she’s very cool.’
He stopped at the stairs, resting his hands on the concrete wall as he thought about it. From below they could hear the footsteps of someone climbing up.
‘Her friend Lisa isn’t so tough,’ Kathy said.
‘That’s what I was thinking.’
The figure of a man emerged out of the gloom of the stairway. He glanced up and they recognised Gavin Lowry, looking even paler and more pinched than usual.
‘They told me you’d be over here,’ he said, slightly out of breath, vapour rising from his mouth. ‘Thought I’d see if I could help.’
‘Thanks,’ Brock replied. ‘How are things with you?’
Lowry shrugged. ‘Oh, you know, sir. Pretty shitty.’
‘Yes, I can imagine. Have you been talking to Connie?’
‘She won’t have it. Taken the kids to her parents. Told me to move out so she can come back.’
‘Maybe when the dust settles, Gavin,’ Brock said. ‘Sometimes it’s the secrecy that holds people together. Now it’s all out in the open she may have second thoughts.’
‘But is that what I want?’ he replied bitterly. ‘Way I feel right now, they’re welcome to each other. Anyway, I want to get stuck into some work, take my mind off things.’
‘Okay. You know Naomi, don’t you? She lives at the other end of this deck.’
Lowry nodded. ‘Yeah, I know her.’
‘We suspect she may have supplied Speedy with the ketamine, flogging him her sister’s drugs. We’ve just interviewed her, and she denies it, but we’re not convinced. You could keep an eye on the place for an hour or two, until we check a few things out, see she doesn’t try to dispose of any evidence.’
‘Sure. While I’m here I might catch the little toe-rags that tried to bomb me with the TV set.’
‘If you do, old son,’ Brock said, patting his shoulder, ‘just remember that they’re not Harry Jackson, okay?’
Lowry grinned and dug a pack of cigarettes out of a pocket. ‘Started again,’ he said ruefully.
*
Lisa’s mother groaned as she saw them standing there at her door, and asked them in reluctantly. ‘I’m on my way out,’ she said. ‘Sorry about that.’ She was wearing a short black leather skirt with matching jacket and boots, and enough make-up, Kathy noted, to light up Oxford Street.
‘This is very urgent. We need to speak to Lisa again.’
She sighed. ‘Well, if my friend comes you’ll just have to speak to her on your own.’
‘That’s not possible, I’m afraid. There has to be what we call a “responsible adult” present while we talk to her. If you prefer we can take her to the police station and get a social worker to sit with us.’
She wasn’t sure about that. She puckered her scarlet mouth and said, ‘Won’t take long, will it?’
‘That rather depends on Lisa,’ Kathy said, looking at the pale face watching them through the gap in a bedroom door which had just opened a few inches. ‘If she can tell us what we need to know, we won’t be long at all.’
‘Well, come on then. Lisa! Come out and answer their questions. Hurry up.’
They sat down, and Kathy said simply, ‘We’ve discovered where the ketamine came from that killed Wiff and Speedy… and Kerri,’ she added, watching the girl’s eyes grow large. ‘It’s time you told us what happened, Lisa.’
The girl’s lips set in a tight line, and for a moment it seemed that she would defy them as Naomi had done, but then the line curled down at the ends, tears appeared at her eyes, and her whole body began to shake.
Perhaps the secret of telling the difference between false and true confessions, Kathy thought, lay in the fact that the first were designed to prolong matters, whereas the second were made to bring things to an end-an end long avoided, long postponed and now desperately sought. And she had no doubt that Lisa’s confession, when it eventually came, was of the second kind. It came out with an almost physical force, making the girl’s face grimace
