‘Detective Inspector Fleet!’ Boxall pressed, resisting Nicky’s attempts to move him. ‘How do you respond to accusations that the police are responsible for the death of a minor? That the course of the investigation before the superintendent’s intervention led directly to events out here in the woods?’
Fleet noticed Nicky glance towards him, and he heard the photographer capture the expression that fell like a shadow across his face. It was … It was a fucking ambush. Burton had set the whole thing up. He’d done exactly what Fleet had accused him of wanting to do the day they’d spoken at the Overlook. He was walking away, opting to protect his precious budget rather than waste any more money searching for the truth. And he was using a tabloid hack to convey the threat he’d implied before: either Fleet made an arrest that justified their focus on Sadie’s friends, and in doing so spared the force its blushes, or he’d be hung out to dry himself.
Dimly, Fleet heard Nicky’s voice filtering through the rain. ‘You heard the superintendent,’ she was saying. ‘You got what you came for. Now, seeing as we’re out here in the woods, let’s make like a tree, shall we? That means leave in case there’s any confusion.’
The superintendent was walking away in the opposite direction, towards the barns. Fleet hurried after him. He caught up with Burton halfway across the clearing.
‘Sir. Sir.’ Fleet failed to keep the anger from his tone, and Burton turned to him sharply. The superintendent was in full uniform beneath his yellow waterproof jacket, and the rain trickled from the peak of his cap. In contrast, the water was running straight from Fleet’s hair into his eyes.
‘I know what you’re going to ask, Detective Inspector, and the answer is no.’
‘But we have evidence, sir. The kids – Sadie’s friends – found a phone that places Sadie in the woods not fifteen miles from where we’re –’
‘I know all about the phone,’ said Burton. Then, taking in Fleet’s reaction, ‘Don’t look so surprised, Detective Inspector. Forensics notified me the moment your DS asked them to shift their priorities. As I instructed them to. And from what I understand, all you have is a mobile without an owner. There is nothing to specifically connect the phone to –’
‘There’s a photograph, one only Sadie and her friends were likely to –’
‘Don’t interrupt me, Detective Inspector,’ said Burton, cutting in himself.
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. But if you’ll just hear me out …’
‘I don’t need to hear you out,’ said Burton. ‘You want me to authorise yet another search of the forest. An area, need I remind you, that spans more than thirty thousand acres, and after we have already committed over a hundred officers over the course of the past eight days. Officers, need I remind you, who are badly needed elsewhere. Although even if I had two hundred officers out here – a thousand – we would barely be able to scratch the surface. As recent results show.’
‘But the phone …’
‘The phone proves nothing. All the evidence we have – the evidence you gathered, I might add – points to Sadie being somewhere in that river. We have her bag. We have her coat, which you may recall is covered in blood. You were standing right next to me when the divers pulled it from the water.’
‘Fuck the coat,’ Fleet said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said, fuck the coat. And fuck the river, too. Sadie was never in the river.’
Burton drew himself to his full height. ‘And you know this how, Detective Inspector?’
‘Because, for one thing, we would have found her by now. In spite of the currents, in spite of the tides. Because of them, in fact. In case you’re forgetting, sir, I have experience here. I happen to know what I’m talking about.’
Burton did everything but sneer. ‘Make up your mind, Rob. Your history in this town is either relevant or it’s not. It’s not a card you get to play as and when it suits you.’
Fleet bit down, hard. ‘The other thing to bear in mind,’ he said, doing all he could to keep his voice steady, ‘is that the evidence has moved on. At first it made sense to focus on the river, to focus on Mason, too, but now, in light of the phone –’
‘To coin a phrase,’ said Burton, ‘fuck the phone. If the phone is all you have, you’re wasting both your breath and my time.’
‘It’s not just the phone,’ said Fleet, tightly. ‘It’s the search party, too. It’s what happened twenty feet away from where we’re standing.’
‘The search party? How does the search party change anything? A bunch of kids thought it would be a good idea to go wandering in the woods, for reasons known only to themselves, and an argument turned into a tragic accident, leaving one of them dead. We’ve always known what happened out here, Detective Inspector. The only question is who the public decides to blame.’
‘I’m not disputing what happened, Superintendent. The part I’m questioning is why.’
‘We know why! I’ve just told you why! Because a bunch of misfit teenagers –’
‘I agree that’s how it looks, sir, but the truth is, I don’t think even the kids themselves understand what was really going on out here. And that’s what I’m trying to get to the bottom of. And I think, if we can figure that out, we’ll also find out what happened to Sadie.’
Superintendent Burton’s face was as thunderous as the sky above him. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to interrupt me, Detective Inspector?’
This time Fleet didn’t apologise. He returned the superintendent’s stare.
‘You sent me here to find a missing girl,’ Fleet said, blinking away the rain in his eyes, ‘because finding people is what I do.
