“Not at all,” said Fleet, with a glance at Nicky.
Ms. Andrews led them along the corridor. The smell of the place was disconcertingly familiar to Fleet, as though whatever had been used to clean the floors over the years had seeped into the parquet, and the same food as had been served twenty years ago would shortly be on offer for the pupils’ lunch. The pupils themselves were currently between lessons, and they eyed Fleet and Nicky warily as the head teacher escorted them through the building, but parted as Ms. Andrews forged a path. The children wore a version of the uniform Fleet had once worn himself, the gray jumpers and striped ties complemented now by a deep maroon blazer. The kids looked smarter than they had in Fleet’s day, there was no denying it. He tried to decide if they also appeared older, shrewder—or whether he was simply projecting what he’d come to believe after the time he’d spent in the company of Sadie’s friends.
“After you,” said Ms. Andrews as they reached the door to her office. She held it open, and gestured Fleet and Nicky inside.
Lara Sweeney was sitting demurely in a plastic chair, one of four that had been positioned on the visitors’ side of the head teacher’s desk. Beside her sat a man who couldn’t have been anything but the teenager’s father. From Lara’s perspective, the resemblance was unfortunate: they had the same beady eyes—too small and close together for the shape of their faces—as well as the same upturned nose. The man’s hair was darker than Lara’s, but only because the teenager’s had obviously been bleached.
“Detective Inspector Fleet?” said Ms. Andrews, making the introductions. “This is Lara. And this is her father, Trevor Sweeney.”
The man hadn’t risen when Fleet and Nicky had walked in. And when Fleet offered out his hand, he could tell Sweeney gave half a moment’s thought to not shaking it.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sweeney,” Fleet said, endeavoring not to show his distaste as Sweeney took his hand with just his fingers. “You too, Lara. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Collins. Nicky, in fact. And you can call me Rob.”
The head teacher signaled Fleet and Nicky into the two empty chairs, and then quietly took her own on the window side of the desk. Beyond the fence that enclosed the playground, it was just possible from where Fleet was sitting to see the edge of the woods—and, snaking its way toward the harbor, the depthless gray of the river.
“What’s this about?” said Sweeney, getting straight to the point. “What do you want with my little girl?”
Fleet couldn’t help but be distracted for a moment by his surroundings. The last time he’d been in this office, he would have been fifteen years old. Him and Thomas Murphy, his best mate at the time, who’d died five years later from a heroin overdose. So Fleet had heard, anyway. Fleet himself had been long gone by then. But him and Tom, standing with downcast eyes before the headmaster’s desk, nodding along to Mr. Sternway’s lecture about the dangers of failing to adhere to their teacher’s instructions when it came to mixing chemicals in the science lab, and trying—and failing—not to laugh. Sternway himself had retired the same year Fleet had left town, and though Fleet had never heard tell of the reason why, he’d often wondered if there hadn’t been a connection. Not with Fleet’s leaving per se, but with the reason he left. Perhaps Sternway blamed himself as much as Fleet did. Or perhaps he’d had as much as he could take. Of children. Of watching their innocence die.
“It’s just routine, Mr. Sweeney,” said Fleet in response to the man’s question. “We’re hoping your daughter can help us with a few queries, that’s all.”
“Is this to do with Sadie?” said Lara. Her eyebrows were arrowed and her forehead was creased. She reached and took her father’s hand. “It’s so awful, what’s happened to her. Just . . . so awful.”
“For the moment, all we know about Sadie is that she’s missing,” Fleet replied. “Nothing more than that.”
“No, I know, but . . . it’s upsetting. That’s all I meant.” Lara sniffed and lowered her head, and her father locked his eyes on Fleet’s.
Fleet turned to Nicky. They’d agreed beforehand that it might seem less confrontational if their questions came from her, particularly as they’d learned from the head teacher that the girl’s father would be present.
“Lara?” said Nicky. “I understand this is difficult for you.”
The girl nodded, eyes downcast.
“Were you and Sadie close, would you say?” Nicky asked her.
Lara raised her head then. She looked at Nicky, and clearly sensed the insinuation in the DS’s question.
“I knew her, obviously,” Lara answered. “Everybody knew Sadie.” She paused for a moment, then added, “She was like that, you see.”
“Like that?”
“Always keen to be the center of attention,” said Lara. She smiled, as though fondly.
Nicky showed half a smile back. “I see.” The DS had her notebook open on her lap, and she scribbled something on the page.
Lara waited. Her tie was neatly knotted and her blazer buttoned, with an exactness Fleet hadn’t spotted among any of the pupils out in the corridor. She’d dressed for the occasion, clearly.
“From what we understand,” said the DS, “you were one of the last people to see Sadie’s friends before they went looking for her in the woods. Is that right?”
Lara let out the lightest of exhalations, and turned toward her father.
“I’m sorry, Lara,” Nicky said. “Was there something you wanted to say?”
Lara’s father patted his daughter’s hand. “It’s OK, princess. You’re free to say whatever you want to. They can’t punish you for speaking your mind.”
“It’s funny, that’s all,” said Lara. “The idea that Sadie’s friends went looking for her.”
“You don’t think that’s what they were doing?”
“You’ll have to ask them,” Lara answered. “All I’m saying is, if they were out there looking for Sadie, that suggests they didn’t already know where she was.”
Nicky gazed back at her
