“So what did the CPS say?” Nicky asked.
“That there was enough evidence to start proceedings against Mason,” Fleet told her.
Nicky showed her puzzlement at his tone. “Which is good news,” she said. “Right?”
Not for Mason, Fleet found himself thinking. He glanced toward the corridor containing the interview rooms.
“Is everybody here?” he asked.
Nicky gave an almost nod. “Cora and Abi arrived just before you did. Fareed is in room one. No sign yet of Mason.”
Fleet checked his watch. Already it was almost ten o’clock, another reason the superintendent’s little breakfast gathering had caused him such irritation—Fleet had lost time he could profitably have spent doing exactly what his superior had asked him to: hunting for the truth about what had happened to Sadie.
“Give him another half an hour, then send a taxi,” said Fleet, half wanting to be there to see Mason’s reaction when a squad car pulled up outside his house.
“The kid gloves are coming off then, I take it?” said Nicky.
“They are for Mason,” said Fleet. “In the meantime, until he gets here, let’s make a start with the others.”
Nicky rose from her desk. “Before we do, boss, there are a couple of things you’ll probably want to see.”
Fleet raised his eyebrows.
“Sadie’s financials, for one thing,” said Nicky, handing him a clutch of papers. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took another look at these myself when I realized something was bothering you.”
“What did you make of them?” said Fleet, scanning the figures himself.
“Not a lot, to be honest,” said Nicky. “Other than to feel slightly depressed at the thought a sixteen-year-old girl had more in her bank account than I do.”
“She was saving for university,” said Fleet. “That’s what her parents said. Sadie paid in almost every penny of the money she got each week for working at the local Harvester. Except . . .” Fleet turned to Sadie’s wage slips. “Here. Look. She was working extra shifts over the summer. But almost from the first day of the holidays, the deposits into her savings account stopped.”
“So that leaves . . . what?” said Nicky. “About four hundred quid unaccounted for?”
“Literally,” said Fleet. “Because it wasn’t in her bedroom and it wasn’t in her purse.”
“She could have spent it. It was the summer holidays, after all.”
“Spent it on what, though? Ice cream and candy floss?”
“Cider and cigarettes, more likely,” said Nicky.
“Except that’s an awful lot of cider. And Sadie didn’t really smoke. Only socially, from what her friends have said. And she didn’t have any fancy new clothes. No new trainers or anything like that.”
“Not that she would have needed to pay for that stuff herself, anyway,” said Nicky. “All the things she wanted, her parents bought. She was Daddy’s little princess, after all.”
“Quite,” said Fleet. He tapped the paperwork against his leg.
Nicky allowed him a moment to ponder before she moved on.
“We made a start on the social media stuff, as well,” she said. “Trying to trace the source of the rumors about Sadie? I say we, but really . . . Well. Maybe you should speak to him yourself.”
Nicky led Fleet deeper into the open-plan office. It was as busy as it would be all day, with every one of the dozen or so desks occupied. Soon enough, people would be heading out to follow up on their particular assignments—some to the woods, others to the Overlook and the river—but for the time being they were working the phones, frowning at their computers or wading through hours of almost certainly useless CCTV footage.
“You remember DC Dalton,” Nicky said, stopping at the workstation of a detective who, in his baggy suit and spectacles, looked barely any older than Sadie’s friends.
Fleet nodded a greeting. Dalton made to stand, but Fleet gestured him back down.
“You look like you’ve had about as much sleep as I have,” Fleet said to him, which he hoped the young man would take as the intended compliment.
Dalton cracked a lopsided grin. “I managed to snatch an hour or two, sir.”
Fleet leaned closer to the DC’s computer screen, which was tiled with browser windows showing various social media websites.
“So, what have we got?”
Dalton glanced at Nicky over Fleet’s shoulder. Fleet sensed, rather than saw, Nicky nod her head.
“Well,” said Dalton, flicking between windows at such a rate that Fleet had to blink to keep focused. “This.”
On-screen, the DC had maximized a window showing a page with an Instagram header, and a message announcing, Sorry, this page isn’t available.
“OK . . .” said Fleet, waiting for Dalton to explain.
“You see, what I thought was,” the DC said, “if we were going to try to work out where the rumors about Sadie sleeping around originated, simply by following the posts, it would be like trying to untangle Christmas lights. Like, when they get all knotted? And you can’t tell the beginning from the end? And that made me think of bulbs.”
“Bulbs?” said Fleet.
“Bulbs,” agreed Dalton. “On the Christmas lights.” He nudged his glasses farther up his nose and shifted in his seat, his tiredness evidently forgotten as he excitedly continued to explain. “You know, when one of them blows. And even though the lights are probably fine, the only way to get them working again is to check each bulb individually. My dad used to make me do it every year. It was like a tradition, as much a part of Christmas as putting up the tree. I remember, this one time, years ago now this was, I—”
Nicky coughed meaningfully.
“Right,” said Dalton, nudging his glasses again.
