Lara moved only her eyes. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Should I?’
‘They don’t belong to you?’ Nicky asked her.
‘If they did I probably would have recognised them,’ said Lara. She exhaled as though suddenly bored, and examined one of her fingernails.
Nicky kept her eyes locked on Lara. ‘Do you know who does own them?’
‘My daughter just said she doesn’t recognise them, Detective Sergeant. If she’s never seen them before, how is she supposed to know who owns them?’
Nicky ignored the interjection. ‘Lara? Please answer the question.’
‘No, I don’t know who owns them,’ said Lara. ‘Why? What does it matter?’
‘It matters because we believe that whoever owns these accounts was responsible for starting the rumours that were circulating about Sadie before she went missing. You are aware of those rumours, Lara?’
Lara’s expression, when she looked at Nicky, was a challenge. ‘You mean the rumours that she was sleeping around? That rather than the goody two shoes everyone thought she was, she was actually just a common slut?’
‘Lara!’ exclaimed Ms Andrews.
Lara looked at the head teacher evenly. ‘The detective sergeant asked me if I was aware of the rumours, Ms Andrews. I was only checking to see which rumours she meant.’
‘Yes, Lara,’ said Nicky. ‘Those rumours. You’re clearly aware of them. And as I say, they seemed to have originated from these accounts.’
Lara was looking at Nicky now with open contempt. ‘Seriously?’ she said. ‘Sweeney Todd? Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to set up an account that could so easily be linked back to me?’
It was a reasonable point, and obviously one Fleet had considered himself. On the other hand, Lara seemed exactly the type of person who would want everyone to know what she was saying, and the Instagram handles might well have been a way of conveying her identity while at the same time shielding her from potential repercussions.
Nicky leaned forwards in her chair. ‘Have you heard of the term “defamation”, Lara? Are you aware that it is a civil offence to spread lies about a person’s character that end up doing them harm?’
‘Now hold on!’ Lara’s father interrupted. ‘Lara just said she had nothing to do with those accounts. Talk about defamation!’
‘And anyway,’ said Lara, unperturbed, ‘it isn’t an offence if it’s true.’ She looked at Fleet. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Rob?’
Nicky frowned. ‘Are you saying you know why the rumours started?’
Lara rolled her eyes as she turned her head. ‘What I’m saying is, someone clearly knows.’
‘Who?’
‘Well, from what you’re saying, whoever owns those accounts.’
For the first time since the conversation had begun, Nicky showed her impatience. ‘So you don’t know what the rumours were based on? And you had nothing to do with spreading any stories about Sadie? Like this one, the post that started it all from what we can gather …’ Nicky flipped a page in her notebook and read aloud. ‘FACT: Sadie Saunders spreads her legs for strangers. Witnessed with my own eyes. #SadieSlut #PoorMason. And this …’ Nicky pulled out her phone and showed Lara the photo that was on the screen: a picture taken in the dark of someone who may or may not have been Sadie, with her eyes closed and her mouth open, and a blob that might have been the back of somebody’s head obscuring her shoulder. The second figure in particular was so blurred it might have been anyone, but the nature of the act they were supposedly engaged in was clear enough. It was an image that had spawned a dozen memes.
‘I might have shared a few posts,’ Lara said. ‘But it’s like I said, it’s not an offence if it’s true.’
‘But how can you make that judgement?’ Nicky pressed. ‘If you didn’t start the rumours, and you don’t know what they were based on, how do you know they weren’t lies?’
‘Because I saw her face.’
Nicky blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I saw her face,’ Lara repeated. ‘Sadie’s. When I showed her.’
‘When you showed her?’
Lara lifted a shoulder, then let it fall. ‘I just felt so bad for her, you know? When I saw the posts for the first time. And from the way Sadie was strutting around, acting the way she always did, it was obvious that she didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t seem to realise that everyone else was laughing behind her back. So I did what I figured was the decent thing.’
‘You showed her,’ said Nicky, and Lara nodded.
‘The posts, the memes, the replies. We were in the shopping centre, which is where everyone had been hanging out in the holidays. It was pretty busy, so unfortunately quite a few people saw. But I called out to her and suggested she come over, and when she did I showed her on my phone.’
Nicky stole a glance at Fleet. Lara noticed, and switched her attention to him.
‘And that’s how I know, you see,’ she said. ‘I could tell from her face. Because it wasn’t anger I saw in her expression, or outrage, or anything like that.’ Lara folded her arms, and came close to showing a smile. ‘What I saw, when I looked at her, was guilt.’
Mason
First off, I want to make clear, I had nothing to do with what we found.
You can ask any of them. They’ll tell you. It wasn’t even me who was leading the way, meaning I couldn’t have had anything to do with it.
Seriously. Ask them whether I was out in front. And then come back and tell me what they said.
Whatever, man. Ask them or don’t. It’s your investigation. But me personally? If I need to I can sit here all day.
Abi
I don’t know. I guess … Luke maybe? Because he was the one with Dylan’s compass. Unless that was later, after we got lost. Not lost exactly,
