‘Next steps?’ she asked.
‘Sharp’s got us going through the financials for Matthew Whittaker’s business again, to see if that sheds any light.’ Barnes sighed. ‘Although why a bloke would kill his daughter, just because his business is going down the shitter is anyone’s guess. We’re going around in circles, Kay.’
‘Hmm. You’ve got that right. You know, considering she was taking a purity pledge, Sophie didn’t seem the most chaste of teenagers, did she?’
‘You think she was stringing someone else along?’
‘Apart from Peter Evans and Josh Hamilton?’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Gavin and Carys spent two days at the school interviewing her classmates – they didn’t even know about Peter so I’m guessing if there was anyone else, she wasn’t telling anyone.’
‘What made Eva Shepparton so different, then?’ said Barnes. ‘Why tell her?’
‘Desperation? Eva told Carys that Sophie had only found out she was pregnant the day before the party – maybe Sophie blurted it out, when she didn’t mean to.’
‘And her killer overheard her and acted on impulse?’
Kay rubbed at her eye. ‘We’re going to have to go through all the statements from the guests at the party again, aren’t we?’
‘I’ll get the coffee.’
‘Thanks.’ Kay glanced as Gavin approached her desk. ‘What’s up?’
The probationary detective constable held up a printout from the HOLMES2 database. ‘I was going through the list of items the crime scene investigators compiled from this search of the Whitaker’s house. There was a small key found in the bedside table in Sophie’s bedroom.’
Kay frowned and took the pages from him. ‘Any idea what it’s for?’
‘No. I think everybody’s been so busy with other aspects of this case, it hasn’t been properly looked into yet.’
‘Right, send out descriptions and photographs to all the local banks, check with the school to see if it’s a match for her locker there, and phone the local post offices, too. Might be for a post office box or something like that.’
‘I hope so. We could really use a breakthrough.’
‘Duncan? What are you doing here?’
Courtney Hamilton held on to the front door, blinking in the bright sunlight.
‘Is Blake here?’
He tried to peer around the door, but she remained standing in the way. ‘What do you want?’
‘I need to speak to Blake. It’s urgent.’
‘He’s only just got home,’ she said. ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No.’
‘Who is it?’
She glanced over her shoulder, and then the door opened fully. ‘Duncan.’
Blake stood at the bottom of the staircase, his hair dishevelled, and his shirt untucked from his trousers.
‘We’re not due to meet again until next week, are we?’ The American frowned and ran his hand through his hair, tried to flatten a tuft that stuck out from behind his ear, and then gave up. ‘I’ve got this, honey – go and make yourself busy in the kitchen.’
‘Are you sure? I—’
‘Go.’
Duncan waited until she’d disappeared from view, and then turned back to Blake. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘The police took me and Josh in for questioning.’
‘Questioning? Why?’
‘They found something. Here. They thought it was the murder weapon.’
‘Did – did you—’
‘Of course not.’ Blake studied a fingernail. ‘It simply took a while to convince them of that.’ His eyes met Duncan’s as he dropped his hand. ‘What’re you doing here, anyway?’
‘I need to speak to you.’
‘About?’
In reply, Duncan withdrew the white envelope from his shirt pocket and held it up to the other man.
Blake ignored it, refusing to take it from him, and so Duncan opened the envelope and withdrew the single page it held, waving it in front of the other man’s eyes.
‘It didn’t stop. You killed her, and it hasn’t stopped!’
‘I didn’t kill her,’ Blake hissed. He checked over his shoulder, and then pushed Duncan into the room he used as an office at the front of the house.
Sunlight bathed the space, the vertical window blinds creating a striped silhouette across the opposite wall, which was home to a large collection of certificates and awards, interspersed with photographs of Blake smiling at the camera while shaking hands with various dignitaries, politicians, and the occasional B-list celebrity.
Duncan ignored all of it. ‘Who else knew about the letters, Blake?’
The American shook his head. ‘No-one. Only you and I, and whoever this is.’
‘You said it was Sophie Whittaker.’
‘No, I said I thought it might be Sophie Whittaker.’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘Jesus Christ, you didn’t kill her, did you?’
Duncan shot him a pained expression. ‘Blake, please – don’t take His name in vain. Of course it wasn’t me! How could you even ask that?’
‘Well, you sure as hell have motive.’
Duncan swallowed. Hamilton didn’t know the half of it, and he certainly wasn’t going to provide enlightenment. ‘That’s not true.’
‘Oh, come on, Duncan – you’d think the same if you were in my shoes.’
‘You know, if you changed your mind and wanted your money back, you could’ve asked. You didn’t have to do this.’
‘It’s not me.’ Blake shrugged. ‘I’d written that money off, anyway. I know it didn’t turn out the way we planned, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. Water under the bridge.’
‘I wish it had never happened.’
‘It’s a bit late for that.’
‘It could damage my career if this gets out!’
‘It can’t be about us. Otherwise, why haven’t I been targeted this time?’
Duncan pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to concentrate, fighting down the sense of panic that was threatening to overcome common sense. ‘Maybe whoever it is doesn’t know about you.’
Blake moved to the desk at the far end of the room, and trailed his fingers over the polished surface. ‘Then, how did they find out about you?’
Duncan sank into one of the armchairs that faced the desk and ran his eyes over the single slice of tree trunk that Blake had ordered especially from a Canadian lumber yard, the whorls and gaping eyes of the natural surface left in
